Pirates Ahoy Battle Arena: Everything you need to know

Ready your cannons! Hoist your sails! Man your battle stations! For today, the Battle Arena feature in Pirates Ahoy is here, and with it comes new opportunities for gold, booty, and combat. So how does it work? Well, in the most basic sense, Battle Arena plays like Rock-Paper-Scissors on the high seas.
Pirates Ahoy Battle Arena PvP icon
To get to the Battle Arena, there's now an icon on the right end of the menu bar called "PvP" (in gaming parlance, this is an abbreviation for "Player versus Player"). Click on that and you'll reach the Battle Arena roster. All of your friends who play the game will be featured here. Click on "Challenge" to start a fight, and you'll be taken to the Battle Arena screen (see image below).
Pirates Ahoy Battle Arena: Select your attacks
The actual combat portion involves filling 5 attack slots with different combos of 3 kinds of weapons -- Shot, Ram, and Shield. The rule you have to remember is that Shot beats Shield, Shield beats Ram, and Ram beats Shot. But since you'll never know what combos your opponent will use, the key to winning battles is being lucky and getting the more powerful weapons faster than the other guy can.

After you click "Send Challenge", you've got to wait for the other play to click "Respond". After they do that, you should see the "Result" button on your challenge roster. Clicking on that will immediately treat you to an animated battle sequence of your two ships!
Pirates Ahoy Battle Arena ships fighting
Everyone starts off with a Boulder, Nail Plank, Wooden Shield, and the Rank 1of "Landlubber" in the Arena. You get promoted through winning battles, and as you do, stronger weapons become available in the Equipment Shop. Victories will also earn skill points to increase the attack of the weapons that you already own. And the higher the rank of your opponent, the more points you'll earn when you manage to defeat them.
Pirates Ahoy Battle Arena Equipment Shop Cannon
In order to qualify for battles, you'll need a Battle Pass. Everyone gets 3 free Battle Passes per day, but you can get more when you win battles, dig for treasure on maps, or when your friends post their free winnings as Facebook wall posts. (NOTE: Only the first 3 people who click on the post will get a Pass. Tell your friends to leave a comment if they're going to take one, just so everyone else knows if there's any Passes left.)
Pirates Ahoy Rank Up rewards
You can also buy them from the game's store using Playfish Cash. One Battle Pass costs 2 PFC, five costs 9 PFC, and 10 costs 13 PFC.
Pirates Ahoy Battle Arena Battle Pass Shop prices

Pet Society: Buy Directly feature lets you shop in friends' rooms

Pet Society Buy directly from your friend's room!
Ever wonder how your friend got all that cool stuff in Pet Society? With the hundreds of items released every few weeks, and not all of them permanent, it can be hard to find out what's still around. Now this sounds like the job for the Buy Directly icon! This newest feature is an icon button that you'll only find when you're visiting your friends. You can toggle it on the left side of your game screen.

When you click the icon to turn it on, it does the following things:
1) Highlights all the items that are still for sale in the game, and grays out the ones that aren't.
2) Makes trees and plants clickable, so you can directly buy the seeds for them.
3) Tells you which Mystery Box or Treasure Map an item is from.
4) Makes fish clickable, so you can buy the right bait to catch the fish you want.
Pet Society Shopping Spree Buy Directly
Seeing that PetVille already introduced friendly shopping in April, it's nice to see Pet Society stepping up to make our shopping sprees easier.

Pet Society rewards fans with a cute Black Kitty Chair

pet society free black kitty chair     pet society free black kitty chair
Call the neighbors and wake the children, because for one day only, Pet Society fans can get their hands on an absolutely adorable Black Kitty Chair. Everyone loves free stuff, especially when it's a fun item. So make sure to tell all your Pet Society friends about the free kitty throne. Just imagine a kitty sitting on this kitty chair, could there be anything cuter?

All you need to do is make sure you've clicked 'Like' on the Pet Society Facebook fanpage, then click the link below:

Get your free Black Kitty Chair >
pet society free black kitty chair
If you're not yet a fan of Pet Society, just head to their Facebook fanpage by clicking here, and 'Like' the page. Then click the link above to get your free Black Kitty Chair in Pet Society.

Pet Society Stadium Turkey Challenge puts your pet to the turkeys' test

Ready...set... gobble? In Pet Society, turkeys will be taking over the Stadium tomorrow through Thanksgiving. It's your job to show this birds who truly is fleet of foot. Or would it be fleet of feather? Anyway, today will be the last day for a little while that you'll be able to race normal pets as tomorrow they'll all be replaced by posthaste poultry that are ready to win.

No special prizes were mentioned on the Pet Society Blog, so this just looks like a novelty feature. Though, some dark meat sounds great right about now.

It seems like the same racing rules will apply: click to run, click to jump, click when over speed boosts and click to remove bananas. In other words, just click your fingers off and you should be OK (though, it does require some finesse). Check out Pet Society tomorrow to give these otherwise delicious birds a run for their money.

Find the rest of our Thanksgiving coverage right here.

Playfish closing Pirates Ahoy!, Gangster City and Poker Rivals in June

Update: To lighten the blow, Playfish is giving 5 Monopoly Gold to all new Monopoly Millionaires players. Check behind the break for more information.

And down the blade comes. Playfish announced recently on its forums that three of its games, Pirates Ahoy!, Gangster City and Poker Rivals will all shut down this June 7th. Admittedly, it explains why some of these games have had next to zero activity (ahem, Pirates), but is a loss nonetheless. Playfish forum representative Bevypoo said, "Regretfully, those games are no longer performing at a level in which they can continue to be supported and therefore we had to make this difficult decision," to explain the reason behind the closures.

The representative was quick to publish a FAQ page for the unfortunate news, which explains that players' existing Playfish Cash balances will not be affected. You can also still spend your virtual dollars in the three doomed games, but, sadly, why bother. She went on to mention that while the forums for said game will still be live after the games go kaput, they won't be for longer than 30 days afterward.

Our best wishes go out to the teams involved in creating and maintaining these three games--it must be a bummer to see your work end like this. Well gamers, there are always Monopoly Millionaires and World Series Superstars to try out. If you're looking for a pirate fix, try Mighty Pirates by CrowdStar or Pirates Saga on for size.

[Image Credit: Florida Center for Instructional Technology]

Are you an unfortunate player of any of these games? Where will you go after the hammer officially comes down? Share with us in the comments. 2 Comments
Playfish Closure Announcement

Don't be fooled: CityVille, Pet Society and Cafe World are not available for iPad

Here's a bit of a PSA, Facebook players. If you search the iTunes store for your favorite Facebook games, you'll likely be surprised to find that there are supposedly three available to play: Cafe World, Pet Society and CityVille. How is this the case, when neither developer (Zynga and Playfish) has released these games officially? It's simple - Splashtop Inc. has created misleading apps on the iTunes App Store to try and lure you into purchasing their remote desktop application for iPad.

The Splashtop Remote Desktop application allows you to connect to your home computer remotely, by sharing the same Wi-Fi network. The app's price frequently (almost daily) fluctuates between $0.99 and $9.99 (part one of their questionable activities), and while the application does technically work to allow you to play Facebook games on your iPad, it is a slow, and definitely not ideal setup. That's how these Facebook apps would work on your own iPad.

Splashtop's Pet Society, Cafe World and CityVille apps are just extensions of this paid service (they even offer a FarmVille version, but that real, official app is free anyway!). The apps range in price from free to $1.99, depending on the day (rotating constantly to catch unsuspecting shoppers), and to make matters worse, you'll be limited to five minutes in each session. By the time you wait for your games to load over the agonizingly slow connection, you'll be left with no time to play the games at all. That leaves you to... guess what? Buy Splashtop's full Remote Desktop app. Please gamers, don't fall for this scheme!

Playfish and Zynga would be the first to announce when and if they were developing versions of these games for use on portable systems (in fact, EA has announced Pet Society Vacation for iPhone), and in the meantime you're better off sitting down at a real computer to play your games as normal. Sure, Splashtop isn't technically scamming anyone out of money, but their methods are questionable at best (each of these apps' reviews are clearly fake) and they shouldn't be rewarded for their efforts.

Internet safety expert accuses The Sims Social of promoting cybersex

I hope you packed some dry clothes, because we're about to lead you down one slippery slope. (Zing!) Charles Conway, self-proclaimed UK-based Internet safety expert and editor of Scam Detectives, alleges that EA and Playfish's enormously popular The Sims Social promotes cyber sex between children and adults (fat chance). And it's all thanks to The Sims Social's Woo-Hoo feature.

While playing the game, players can build asynchronous relationships with one another that can quickly grow into romantic relationships. Ultimately, those relationships will draw the players' avatars closer and can result in them having Woo-Hoo. And like any social activity in the game, players are rewarded Social Points for this that they can use to buy new items.

"Even if Facebook did verify the age of it's users (which it doesn't), at what age does it become acceptable for a child to engage in "virtual sex" for rewards," Conway asks. "Does it ever become acceptable? Isn't sex for rewards the very definition of prostitution? How is playing this game different to children having "cybersex" in a chatroom?"

The list of questions goes on. Sure, Woo-Hoo in The Sims Social is an allusion to having sex, but the "sexual" act displayed is arguably far from lewd--way less provocative than what children have access to on basic cable. More importantly, Woo-Hoo does not allow players to directly communicate within the game in real time like a chat room would.

"When 40% of kids admit that they have Facebook 'friends' that they don't know in 'real life,' there's a real risk of a predator using a game like this to build a relationship with a child that could lead to real world abuse," Conway writes. However, what is not pointed out is that all social relationships requested between The Sims Social players--including romantic ones--require the consent of the player from the start and at every stage of advancement.

If a player feels uncomfortable during any point of the "relationship," they can halt its progress. As for Playfish and EA restricting adult content (which suggestiveness is debatable), there are a number of Facebook games that arguably promote drug trafficking, serial murder and nearly genocidal manslaughter. Maybe it's time for Facebook to meet with the ESRB and PEGI.

Do you think that Woo-Hoo in The Sims Social promotes cybersex or prostitution? Would you agree with a rating system for Facebook games like one that exists for traditional games?

Quote of the Moment: 'A brand is never a replacement for a good game'

That's all well and good, but it's also not to say that brands aren't "extremely important" to Facebook games today. Playfish GM John Earner made the quip to GamesIndustry.biz during a recent interview. According to Earner, the Facebook game space is growing increasingly crowded. In other words, big time creators like Zynga, Playfish and wooga have a competitive advantage.

"So I think brands are now extremely important, and I think that you either are a big player in the space already and you have an installed base of users, or you have a... man, otherwise I think you're in big trouble," Earner said to GI.biz. "It has just become a much more mature platform, and I'm not saying somebody can't rise up from the bottom--sure they can--but the barriers to entry now have changed in a big way and it's become a lot harder. I see that trend continuing, but at the end of the day, though, a brand is never a replacement for a good game. If you have a great product and a great brand, you'll have a lot of success."

Branding in Facebook games has become almost a norm among the top developers and games. While Zynga has been a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to branded games, the company has employed the pull of major celebrities and companies for some time now. And soon, the company will have its very first branded game: Adventure World: An Indiana Jones Game.

We've been told before that the day of the indie game creator on Facebook is through. However, Earner may be right--just look at games like Weeds Social Club and Dexter Slice of Life. While the latter does add refreshing new gameplay, neither of which have exactly taken off, according to AppData. Sadly, it'll eventually be first instinct to see whether Feature Film A, TV Show B or Video Game C has a Facebook game. Check out the interview in full here to learn much more about The Sims Social.

Are you digging The Sims Social still? Are you excited or disappointed at the prospect of branding gaining popularity in social games?

Quote of the moment: Stop the snobby sneering

"I think that making incredibly expensive, hard-to-play games that require proprietary hardware and prior experience to enjoy is a dumb way of providing gaming entertainment to a global audience. It works for some. It doesn't work for all. Zynga (and Playfish and Playdom and 6Waves and Crowdstar) have found ways to make games that appeal to a broader cross-section of society than traditional approaches have ever done. They have done more to make games mass-market than anyone other than Nintendo. They are the true mass-market of gaming. ...
"Multi-million dollar development budget games have a place in the market. So do casual, accessible, browser games that appeal to a different demographic. The gamers are saying it: 233 million people are playing Zynga's games alone. The products are saying it: Facebook games get more users than any traditional games title. The revenues are saying it: Zynga is making perhaps as much as $500 million a year from social games.
"So when will gamers stop sneering, stop hiding behind their bleating "but Farmville isn't a game" and start realising that Zynga have done something that traditional games have never done. They have made gaming something for everyone. Isn't it time we applauded that?"