Forget Second Life, Give YoVille a Try!

About a month ago, someone on my Facebook account wanted me to join their crew in YoVille. Normally I don't install applications on Facebook, as I have enough trouble just navigating the site without becoming utterly confused by it.

However, after taking a look at the application game, I decided to give it a try. Immediately I was hooked.

The game is simple, when you first install the application on Facebook, or MySpace, you are taken to a screen where you begin the process of building your YoVille avatar. Basically your avatar is your little person that you will direct, and have live in the YoVille community.

You choose your avatars name, give it eye color, a head shape, skin color, add clothes, shoes, makeup, etc.

Once you have built your person to your liking, you are then given your apartment. The apartment is a small ugly thing at first with a wood futon type couch, end table, lamp, and a chair.

You will have 2 more rooms located in your apartment that will take you to your kitchen and your bedroom. Nothing is flashy at first, but by playing daily you can earn YoCoins to spend it in numerous shopping stores located in YoVille.

You can pretty much upgrade your small apartment with new furniture, rugs, wallpaper, appliances, and more.

Earning YoCoins is a slow and drawn out process however. You can not earn all too many coins in one day at the Factory where you can send your person to work. You can only go to work once a day, and you will earn coins based off of how many other players are in your crew. The more crew you have, the more coins you can earn at work.

You can earn YoCoins also by playing games like tic tac toe, or rock paper scissors with other random players that you will come across in the game.

If you save up enough YoCoins you can purchase larger homes, with more rooms, a lawn, and so on.
Although I am not a big earner on the game, I enjoy being able to purchase a new piece of furniture for my apartment daily.

Graphics are nothing that will make your eyes glimmer or your jaws drop. Everything in YoVille is set up in a cartoon like atmosphere, but honestly it is what makes the game whimsical, cute, charming, and addicting.

I consider it a very low, low key game of Sims. Unfortunately furniture for the apartment is nothing but bragging rights, because even if you spend 1000 YoCoins on a new couch, your person cannot sit on it. I'm hoping in the near future the developers will allow 'sitting' and interactions with bought objects in the apartment.

After falling in love so quickly with this simplistic game, I decided to check out other similar social rpg such as YoVille, unfortunately everything I came across didn't charm me quite the way YoVille did.

I downloaded Second Life, and played around with the game for about 5 hours. During my 5 hour playtime, I came across only about 10 other players, all who were silent and did not speak with me. It made the game boring! I also have one of the best gaming rigs money can buy, and still the graphics sucked. Although my system did not suffer from any lag time, I still experienced episodes where my avatar would be flying around, and it would take a few moments for the environment to fully load itself on the screen.

I was unimpressed with the game I uninstalled it, and hit up YoVille again.

YoVille is a lot of fun, but at the same rate the application does suffer from some major issues that I have been patiently waiting to be fixed.

On MySpace the game refuses to even let me into my room. It kicks me out into the courtyard and I have no access to my apartment which is just annoying. A few days after the issue not being fixed, the game all together refused to even work. I don't even bother with YoVille on MySpace anymore; the game just seems way to glitched.

YoVille works perfectly on Facebook though!!! No freezing, no lag time, and no issues I have to report.
Scammers!!!!
 
The worst thing about YoVille though is not the glitches, it's the scammers, and believe me their is a huge abundance of them.

Scammers will try and steal your hard earned coins leaving you with nothing but feeling stupid, and of course poorer.

Scammers though are easy to spot, especially if you have a brain!!!

It's no rocket science to discover who is trying to scam you, and if you're smart they're easy to spot. For those of you though who are new... or just dumb scams to look out for include the following:

Scammers come in many forms. One very popular scam is the person who will offer to double your coins! Don't give this person a red cent. They will not double your coins, but they will take them leaving you with nothing.

Whenever I see someone offering such a service I first click on their avatar and hit the report player button, I then write why I am reporting them. I then shout out to everyone in the room that such and such a person is a scammer and not to give them a thing! It alerts other players, and usually the scammer is frozen and banned pretty quickly, or will run away as soon as they are discovered.

Another scam is one that I see being done nearly every time I log into the game. The Gift for Gift scam works on unsuspecting players because they think that the person they are playing with is honest.

How it works:
 
A person will shout non-stop gift for gift. If you're not wise you may fall for it, give this person a gift and wait for yours. Only your gift never arrives. The person then takes off, and has your item.

There are numerous scams going on as well. Quite a few scams often take place in YoVille player events. I pretty much avoid going to all events for this reason.

The best advice I could give for avoiding being scammed would be to not give anything to anyone you do not trust. If someone has something on sale, that is being sold in the YoVille stores for much more money, than likely it's a scam. Avoid it!!!
 
Other Tings To Watch For:
 
Everyday when I log in I see non-stop players asking for free gifts, that today is their birthday to give them a gift, or that they are poor and want things.
Screw that!

Like any other player these leeches have the opportunity to earn money the same way you did. Don't fall for the birthday scam, or the I'm poor give me things. I simply block these leeches, so I cannot see anything they type anymore. They take up space on my screen, and their non stop begging is just annoying.

You can block players by clicking on them, and hitting block player. They will show up now as ghosts, only you no longer have to see what they are typing.

The funniest thing I had ever seen was when a player was begging for money because she was poor. When I checked to visit her home to see how poor she was, it turned out she owned 3 other YoVille homes all fully furnished with nice expensive things.

This player was far from poor, and likely it was because many players felt sorry for her and gifted her things which she later sold for personal gain.

Leeches like this should be blocked, and called out immediately so other players can see how low they are. I usually call them beggars, they get offended, and they go away.

Another thing to watch for is your OWN behavior. I have seen people immediately frozen out and banned for stupid behavior in which was not scamming, but was very inappropriate.

Harassing other players, using foul language, or sexual terms could lead you to a ban, and if you're not careful with what you say, besides being banned from just YoVille, your social site may ban you as well, and in extreme cases you could even face legal action.

Besides the handful of bad apples (if you're not one of them), you will quickly find some really good ones, establishing new friendships, and having fun with the community. YoVille is just the place.