GanzWorld Rewards Added to Webkinz Newz

After about five days of maintenance, Webkinz Newz has been redesigned for the fourth time and with the new layout comes the new currency, Moneyz.

You will need a GanzWorld account to start the collection of Moneyz. You get 1,500 Moneyz for creating an account, and the process is free and quick.
You need to provide the following information to create an account:
-A username and password for the account
-Your date of birth
-Your e-mail address
-Your postal code. This is required so, in the event you win a contest for a physical prize, they will know where to send the prize.

None of this information except for your username can be seen by anyone else.
After account creation, you can add an avatar. You can't upload your own picture; you must choose from a selection of Webkinz pets. Additionally, you can change your password.

Your GanzWorld account allows you to collect and redeem Moneyz, and you may comment on any website in the GanzWorld 'verse. These websites include:
Webkinz Newz
Webkinz Friends news
Amazing World Newz
Nakamas Newz
Tail Town Friends Newz
The Ganz Parent Club

You can also start collecting Moneyz from the Arcade, which has many non-Webkinz games made by Ganz. Don't worry if you'd rather stick with Webkinz; it has its own tab. The Webkinz games offered are:
Eager Beaver Adventure Park
Get Eleven Solitaire
Goober's Lab
Smoothie Moves

Good news for those who were annoyed at the exclusion of the first two games to Deluxe members only; in the GanzWorld arcade they can still be played by anyone. 

Yes, but how do you get Moneyz?

You'll know if you've earned some Moneyz when a little box appears on the lower right corner of your screen. It shows up for a few moments, declares "you've earned x Moneyz", then fades away. Different activities earn you different amounts of Moneyz; I find that simply clicking around the various GanzWorld sites gets you 1 Moneyz per page.

What is the point of Moneyz?

There is a bar on the left side of the screen that says Spend Your Moneyz! Click on that and you will be taken to a little shop menu that contains a selection of items for Tail Towns Friends, Amazing World, Webkinz World, and Webkinz Friends. You can sort through a drop-down menu to search for specific games to buy items for; through this menu we see that there is an option for Nakamas though it is completely empty. For those wondering, Tail Towns Friends is a Facebook game made by Ganz.

M=Moneyz
Amazing World has ten items for sale:
-Elf Jacket for 2,000 M
-Elf Hat for 1,000 M
-White Cowboy Hat for 1,000 M
-Cool Cowboy Shirt for 800 M
-Yellow Posey Shirt for 800 M
-Purple Jean Jacket for 600 M
-Red Oven Mitts for 600 M
-Blue Gloves for 400 M
-Red Jeans for 400 M
-Green Jean Skirt for 400 M

Tail Towns Friends offers 11 items:

• Crofter's Cottage (Straw) for 2,000 M
• Noel: Holiday Tree (Bauble) for 500 M
• Home Harvest Flatbed for 1,500 M
• Red Rover Shed for 800 M
• Red Rover Tractor for 1,000 M
• Arctic Lil' Snome for 400 M
• Arctic Papa Snome for 700 M
• Delicata Squash for 100 M
• Arctic Scotch Pine for 200 M
• Skating Gnome for 200 M
• Smiling Scarecrow for 600

Nakamas, despite having a menu, offers nothing as of this writing.

For Webkinz Friends, there are 9 items:

• Red & Green Townhouse for 2,000 M
• Hickory Clock for 1,400 M
• North Pole Lamp Post for 1,000 M
• Magnificent Menorah for 800 M
• School District Sign for 700 M
• Magic W Sign for 600
• Yellow Marigolds for 400 M
• Forget-Me-Nots for 300 M
• Kinzville Street Lamp for 800 M

And finally, Webkinz World is given a selection of 8 items:

• Hickory Clock for 3,000 M*
• Santakinz Dining Chair for 2,500 M*
• Enchanted Tiara for 1,500 M
• Magnolia Tree for 2,000 M (same as W-Shop Hibiscus Tree, only with blue flowers)
• Reindeer Slippers for 1,000 M**
• Letter to Santakinz for 1,000 M**
• Red Floppy Hat for 500 M***
• White Floppy Hat for 500 M***

*formerly offered in the W-Shop Christmas Theme
**formerly a prize in the Arthur Christmas promotion (the Letter also showed up in a Peek A Newz and later a Challenge)
***formerly a prize in the Smurfs Movie promotion

surely I'm not the only one who read "moneyz" and immediately thought of Invader Zim

Webkinz Friends Recieves an Update

For those of you who were noting that Webkinz Friends was too easy, well, now the difficulty has been increased! Which, needless to say, has left many a Webkinz fan very unhappy.

-Energy, formerly taking 3 minutes to regenerate, now takes 5 minutes.
-Certain resources now take longer to grow. (for example, Spaghetti Plant now takes 6 hours instead of 1)
-You can now see certain resources and items that you need to complete a quest to unlock
-For some bizarre reason, it now takes 81 hours to collect from the Curio Shop (the heck happened there?)
-A few of the quests are finally realizing that I've asked friends for things, which is most certainly a bonus. 
-One thing that they admittedly messed up pretty badly: the food-to-time ratio. Carrots still take 5 minutes for 5 units of food, but the rest turned out a little wrong.
Food-Units-Time to grow
Strawberry-9-10 minutes
Sushi-25-2 hours
Tomato-14-45 minutes
Ice Cream Tree-35-3 hours
Zucchini Plant-22-1 hour
Spaghetti Plant-42-6 hours
Cupcake Tree-60-7 hours

-Certain decorations now cost Facebook credits.
Pool=20 Credits
Lovebird Lake=35 Credits (but it gives 900+ town quality)
Hand Sculpted Statue=35 Credits

There's probably a lot more than what I've mentioned, so leave a comment to tell me if I've missed anything. 

I really don't see what everybody's so mad about! Is it so bad that a little handful of items aren't free anymore? And is it really so terrible to have to wait a few more minutes or hours? The nice thing about Webkinz Friends is that, since things run in real time, you don't have to have the page open or even have your computer running for things to grow and regenerate. So you could be spending that extra time doing something else! Ride your bike around the yard, go watch cartoons from the 90's, read that book you really should be reading, practice that song you really need to be practicing, draw something for Drawing Day which happens to be today...

More News About Webkinz Friends; 3 New States Added to Webkinz Road Trip

"What happened to the blog this week?"
Camping. Camping happened. And now I'm back, so let's get this show on the road!

Webkinz Insider has conducted and published a 10-question interview with the Creative Director of Webkinz World about Webkinz Friends.
Apparently, Webkinz World's Creative Director is also the Creative Director of Webkinz Friends. Cool. You can find the interview here.

Ganz has also announced that Webkinz Friends will soon be playable on the iPad! The iPad Webkinz Friends will be identical to the Facebook app in every way, except for updating slightly later than the Facebook app.

Also there are more places added to the Webkinz Road Trip Map I just now checked that

why don't they announce these things
It appears that Missouri, West Virginia, and Tennessee have been added to the map! There will be 1 stop in West Virginia, 3 stops in Missouri, and 1 stop in Tennessee.

West Virginia

June 18, 11 AM-1 PM
Huntington
Cabell Huntington Hospital 

Missouri

June 29, 2-4 PM
St. Louis
Schaefer's Hobby Shop
 
June 30
Washington
Altemueller Jewelery 

July 1
St. Louis
Sweet Be's

Tennessee

June 21
Memphis
St. Jude's Children Hospital

Ganz Introduces Two New Social Events...Part 2

Ganz has created a Facebook app.

As such, you cannot use this without a Facebook account. (yet?) You can find the app here. 
This new app is called Webkinz Friends. It is currently in beta, and is a Farmville-meets-Webkinz kind of world. It is a lot more complicated than Webkinz World, as would be expected of an app that only 13+ can use.
Here is the app description:

Webkinz Friends is a social game where you can make a big happy family in the Kinzville of your dreams, with the added benefit of sending prizes to anyone in Webkinz World!

 This is what it looks like...

This is a snippet of Sir Rhineholt's yard. What's supposed to be animated, is, and it's the perfect opportunity to decorate with eStore items when you normally couldn't.

About every 5 minutes, a little ditty that sounds like a cross between Mazin-Hamsters/Creatures Adventures music plays. Birds chirp the whole time.

Upon starting up, Ms. Birdy greets you, and asks you to choose a Webkinz with which to represent yourself in your Kinzville. You also get to name it. You may choose a Black and White Cat, Golden Retriever, Basset Hound, Pig, Cow, Hippo, Cocker Spaniel, or Lion. They don't get specified genders, though.

Then they just traipse around the roads.

The features of the game are as follows:
Pet Adoption--You can adopt Webkinz pets to create your family. You can use the codes from actual Webkinz plush pets (only works if the code is unused, or was used after May 2012), and you can collect Adoption Certificates from the Adoption Center, and trade them in for a pet (which can only be used in the app, of course). Plush pets adopted in Webkinz Friends come with their PSI.
You earn 1 Adoption Certificate a day. It takes 5 Certificates for your first pet, 10 for the second, 15 for the third, and so on--just multiply the number pet it is by 5. 
Upon adopting a new pet, you can choose if you want a new room in your house, OR 2,000 KinzCash.
I do not know exactly how this plush-adoption thing works. We know that Webkinz World first, then Webkinz Friends does not work, but does Webkinz Friends first, then Webkinz World work? I imagine it would only be fair for it to work as such, because I'm not going to buy a plushie just to have it wander around in my Facebook app.

Kinzville--Everyone's wondered what Kinzville looks like in-depth...and now we know--whatever you want it to look like! Yep, you can make little buildings and houses and make your own Kinzville. Sir Rhineholt, your first and default friend, has his own bustling Kinzville that looks like this:

Goals--As you play, you'll see goals--a little Cocker Spaniel in a box--on the left side of the screen. Completing these goals gets you KinzCash, items, goods, and prizes!

Experience--The more you have, the more levels you get. The more levels, the more items you can unlock in the KinzMart. The more items, the bigger your Kinzville can become!

Goods--On the top of your screen, there are Goods. There are four types: Materials, which you get from resources like the Mystery Mine. You can also get them from cutting down pine trees. Materials are used to make buildings. The second type is Food. They're used to stock restaurants. The third type is Items. They're used to stock places like the W-Shop. And lastly is the Clothes, which are used to stock places like clothing stores.

Kinzfolk (I've always wondered what you call citizens of Kinzville)--Kinzfolk are just Webkinz that run around your town, adding the cutest slice of life. A wider variety of Kinzfolk are made available by buying Pet Packs in the KinzMart, however, these packs cost real money in the form of Facebook credits.

Happiness--This is important, as the more happiness you have, the more bonuses you get from harvests from buildings and resources. To get more happiness, have a large family, and/or a high-quality town. 

Town Quality--Based on what's in your town, the Quality level helps determine your Happiness level. You can increase the Quality with a big Webkinz family and having lots of Kinzfolk.

Neighbors--These are your Facebook friends that you invite to Webkinz Friends. You can visit their towns, and help them by collecting from businesses and harvesting crops. This gives you Experience and KinzCash. You can only help out with 5 buildings daily, though.

Your House--Or just "My Room" in WW terms, your house allows you to make recipes. You can also decorate it, of course! You can also get a Happiness bonus from it--the more pets in your family, the more Happiness you earn.

Eager Beavers take care of the construction work. :D

...that Tomato Soup recipe up there is the most sensible one I've seen Webkinz World associated with. (also, I feel duped. I took a book, some gardening tools, and a pen and tossed them together in real life, and was not given a blank book. Just some confetti.)

Collections--Collections are groups of items that you can get from collecting from buildings and harvesting crops. They're awarded randomly, so you never know what you'll get, but the goal is to get ALL the pieces in the collection. For getting a complete collection, you can trade them in for KinzCash, goods, or a special item. Some Collection items can be used in recipes.

Whew! That's a long list.

Ms. Birdy shows up at the start of your Kinzville to guide you through a tutorial. The first building you build is your own house, and you can build other houses, too, from mobile homes to mansions.


You can adopt pets, but only a few varieties work--there's a list you can find here, along with a Q&A of Webkinz Friends. eStore pet codes don't work and due to the lack of a place to enter codes, Zumbuddies and Mazin' Hamsters wouldn't work, either.

If this sounds like something you'd like to check out, do note that the app requires the following of your Facebook account:

• Basic information (name, gender, list of friends, anything you've made public)
• Your birthday
• The ability to send you e-mail notifications
• Post on your behalf (make posts about stuff you've done in Webkinz Friends)
• Manage your [Webkinz Friends-related] notifications

For more information, check out the following:
-this video, made by the staff of Webkinz Insider

-the Webkinz Friends Customer Service
-the Webkinz Friends Facebook page, where they answer questions and clarify things.
-Webkinz Insider has created a sub-forum about Webkinz Friends. 

There is also a Webkinz Friends website, though there's not much point to it, as it just shows the WF title screen and gives a link to the Facebook app, the only place so far to play it.

The thing that I find the best about this new app so far is that the decorations you can place are real items from Webkinz World. Also, there's an option to make it fullscreen. It just makes it so much cooler.

The app runs surprisingly fast, and the little Webkinz running around are so cute! There's so freaking much to learn, though, and it's still in beta, so who knows what's still ahead.

You can send gifts to WW accounts, apparently, but I don't know how to do that yet.