Friends

Clicking on the tile will open up a new window, in which you can invite a player from within the game by entering their user name, or externally by entering their email address:

^{Enter your friend's zoo-name or email address to invite them to be friends.}

Note that you cannot right-click and paste names into the name field in the invite window; you can paste using keyboard commands, however (ctrl+p in windows).

If the friend cannot be invited for some reason — if their friend list is full, for example — you will get an error message explaining why. If it says Unknown User, double-check spelling and ensure the player is on the same server as you.

If the invite was successful, you'll get a confirmation screen and the Invite Friends tile will show who was invited and on what date, and the player you invited will receive a friendship request which they can accept or decline. If the player accepts your invite, or joins the game if invited via email, the Invite Friends tile will change again to show your new friend's name, level and favorite animal icon:

^{Tiles showing invite date on the left, and accepted invitation on the right.}

Clicking the red X below the Invited On tile or Friend tile will withdraw the friendship request or remove the friend from your friend list. After 24 hours the friend slot will be freed up and a new friend can be added. You will get a confirmation screen asking if you're sure you want to remove a friend or withdraw an offer of friendship before the action is completed.

Of course, other players can also invite you to be a friend. A pop-up window will appear in game when this happens, asking you want to accept or decline the friendship. If accepted, your new friend will appear in the main Friends window.

TIP

If you accidentally close a Friendship Request window before you saw the name of the person who sent it, you can find this information in your Game Log.

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Navigation

Once you've got a few friends the main Friends window will start to make more sense:

You can see on the left is where you write and receive messages to your friends (see Communication below). To the right is list of all your friends. The image above shows only one page; if that last open Invite Friend tile were filled with a friend or an invitation, a new page would be available, up to a total of 3 pages and 24 friends.

The envelope icon on the top of the Friends window shows you a list of blocked users, and allows you to enter a user name to be blocked. Blocking can also be done from within a message. See Blocking Players below.

Again, clicking on a red X below a friend will cancel the friendship.

The stars next to each friend icon and at the bottom of the screen are a significant part of what makes friends so beneficial in My Free Zoo. See the Friendship Tasks section below, which will also explain the Complete All Friendship Tasks bar in the bottom right.

Clicking on a friend will replace the Message section on the left with detailed information about that particular friend:

^{Click on a friend's tile to display more detailed information about them.}

In this window you can see what size your friend's zoo is, what organization they belong to, and how many animals are in their zoo. You can also save custom notes about this player that no one else can see. At the bottom of the section you can send them a message or visit their zoo, either to just look around or to complete daily Friendship Tasks (below).

The red X in the upper right corner of the infobox will close it and return you to the main message section.

Communication

Communicating with friends in My Free Zoo is done through messages. There is no way to chat with your friends unless they happen to belong to the same organization as you, in which case you can utilize the organization's chat room.

There are several ways to send messages through the Friends window:

• Click on Write New Message from the left side of the Friends window. Type the name of the person you'd like to send a message to in the Recipient field (the recipient doesn't have to be on your friend list).
• Click on the friend you'd like to send a message to from your friend list. When the infobox on the left opens, click Send Message. This will open a new message with the friend's name already filled out in the recipient field.
• Open a message that a friend has sent and click on Reply at the bottom.

Messages have a 500 character limit, including spaces.

From the main message screen on the left side of the Friends window, you can also view your Sent messages. Sent messages will appear as closed envelopes until the friend has opened it, at which time the envelope will appear opened. In other words, you can see if the message recipient has read your message.

Both sent and received messages can be deleted. You can either click Remove at the bottom of an opened message, or you can check the messages you'd like to delete from the main messages portion of the Friends window. The option to Delete Messages will appear as soon as a message is checked.

There is no way to retrieve messages once they have been deleted.

If you belong to an organization, organization members will also be available for inclusion in the Mass Message list.

A drawback of the Mass Message feature is that you cannot see if individual recipients have opened your message or not; in the Sent window it only shows a list of who it was sent to.

Blocking Players

Blocking a player will prevent them from sending you any messages, friendship requests, or organization invites.

Most blocking is done in response to annoying messages, so the game provides an easy way to block a particular sender. From an open message, simply click on the little white envelope with the red X over it in the upper right corner:

Clicking on the block icon will bring up a confirmation screen before the action is completed.

Another way to block players, as well as see who has been blocked, is to click on the Blocked Senders tab in the middle of the Friends window. This tab will show you which players are blocked and when you blocked them. You can also enter a player's name in the field at the bottom to block them.

If a player has been blocked, there will be an X near the player's name in the list of blocked senders. Clicking on the X will unblock them.

Interestingly you can still send messages to players you have blocked. If a player you have blocked tries to send you a message, however, they will receive an error message:

The blocked player will also receive an error message if trying to send you a friend request or organization invitation.

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Friendship Tasks

Friendship tasks are one of the two major benefits of having friends in My Free Zoo, as completing friendship tasks earns you bonus trading cards — which, unlike the daily bronze booster, scale with your level and often contain valuable and very relevant cards.

A friendship task involves completing 10 smaller tasks in friend's zoo. There is one friendship task per friend available each day. The gold stars next to each friend's tile indicate an available friendship task for that friend; this star will disappear once the task has been completed until friendship tasks reset again each day at midnight GMT.

Tip: Ever wanted to see a friend's zoo fullscreen? If they have an Amazon or enclosure house, you can! Go into it; click the fullscreen icon there; then X out of it again, and their main zoo will stay fullscreen.

To start a friendship task, open the Friends window, select a friend, and on the left below the friend's infobox click on Visit Zoo. This will take you to your friend's zoo, where there will be 10 tasks waiting for you to complete. These tasks are identified by various action bubbles like you see in your own zoo, and may consist of:

• Feeding, tending or entertaining animals
• Emptying containers
• Picking up trash
• Tending plants

You will never have a friendship task that involves collecting revenue from a shop, restroom or the front gate.

To complete the 10 tasks, simply locate the 10 action bubbles and click them. In small zoos this takes only a few seconds. In large zoos it can be quite a hassle, but luckily there's a solution for that; simply click the green bar in the lower right of the screen that says There are still X open tasks in this zoo:

^{Click this bar to jump to the next task.}

Clicking on the green bar will center the screen over the next available task. Using this method friendship tasks even in very large zoos can be completed quickly. Note that if you leave your friend's zoo before completing all 10 tasks, they will all be reset. Each of the 10 tasks you complete in a friend's zoo earn you 10 experience points (XP), for a total of 100 XP per friend.

Once all 10 tasks have been completed you'll get a confirmation screen:

As the confirmation screen notes, completing a friendship task earns you half a friendship star. Friendship stars are the primary benefit of friendship tasks, as every three completed stars earns you trading cards, up to 9 stars and 3 cards. Star progress can be seen in the bottom right of the Friends window:

^{Just a half star to go for the first trading card!}

You will also earn half a star for each friend that completes tasks in your zoo, which will also count towards trading cards. Some players don't do friendship tasks though, or at least not very consistently, so if you're determined to acquire the maximum possible 3 trading cards each day it is best to have at least 18 friends — enough to acquire enough all 9 stars on your own.

As soon as you complete 3, 6 or 9 stars, you'll get a pop-up presenting you with three mystery cards. You are allowed to click on one of these cards, at which time all three cards will be revealed. The card you selected will immediately be placed in your card inventory.

^{Cards from friendship tasks are much better than those from the daily booster.}

There are two options to speed up friendship task completion using Diamonds (D). The fastest way is to click the green Complete all friendship tasks bar in the bottom right of the Friends window, above the completed stars bar. This option will immediately complete all incomplete friendship tasks for 15 D, regardless of how many friendship tasks are incomplete; it costs 15 D to complete 2 friendship tasks or 24.

Alternatively, while visiting a friend's zoo there will be a bar in the lower left corner to Complete all tasks.

This option will cost 1 D to complete all tasks in that friend's zoo, be it all 10 or just 1. This is a much better deal if completing fewer than 15 friendship tasks, though given how quickly friendship tasks can be done most players would consider either of these options a rather frivolous waste of Diamonds.

Note that friendship tasks are not 'real'. They are generated when you visit a friend's zoo and do not actually have any effect on that zoo; for example, if you empty a garbage container at a friend's zoo, the container's filling level will not actually be changed from the friend's point of view.

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Trading

The other major benefit of friends has to do with trading. In addition to receiving trading cards by completing friendship tasks, your friends are your primary trading partners, along with organization members if you belong to an organization. When you open the Trade window, symbolized by a puzzle-piece, and click on the Offers tab, the offers displayed are those put up by your friends and fellow organization members only. While it is possible to trade with other players, doing so is not nearly as convenient as browsing the Offers tab. You can read more about trading in the Trading section of the My Free Zoo Wiki.

Note that friends and organization members are separate. If you belong to an organization with the maximum 32 members and you have the maximum 24 friends, you'll have a total of 56 trading partners. Of course, you can also be friends with organization members, and most players do have some crossover there.

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