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Hey forum fans, Pogo’s now got forums of their own! They’ve just announced them, so there isn’t much activity YET, but we suspect things will pick up in a few days (or hours!).

Pogo forums

It’ll be interesting to see how these forums turn out, especially over time after the novelty wears off. Just a few weeks ago, we discussed the possibility of Pogo adding forums in our weekend open thread. Do you all still feel the same way?

What do you think of this? Chime in with your comments below.

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Last night’s update to the Pogo Facebook Connect feature has resolved the privacy issues we’d been discussing yesterday. For players who have both Pogo and Facebook accounts, this is how it all works. (Also it’s worth noting this is probably how it was intended to work.)

If you’ve previously used a Pogo Facebook app — such as the Pogo Games Fanatic app — your accounts are probably “connected”. One way to check if your account is connected is to visit your Profile Privacy Settings (Guestbook, Guestbook Settings, Profile Privacy bar) and look for the section about Facebook. For the purposes of this article, I’ve created a fake Facebook profile (first name Badge, last name Fairy) and am connecting it to a previously-established Pogo profile.

If your settings include the information in the screenshot above, your Facebook and Pogo accounts are connected. By default, the box to use your photo and name from Facebook is unchecked. (Yay privacy!) If you do not see the Facebook information in your Profile Privacy settings, your accounts are not connected.

As you can see, for a connected account, as long as the checkbox is not checked, your Facebook information (read: your name) will not be displayed on your profile when others view it. The drawback to this is that your Facebook friends will not be able to find you automatically and add you as a friend on Pogo. You can still always just tell them your username and have them add you the “old-fashioned way”.

Once your account is connected to Facebook, when you view your profile you will see this box:

Don’t panic! As long as that checkbox up there is unchecked, you are the only one who can see this information. If you were to check the box, anyone that has permission to see your profile (by default, everyone — but you can set those settings in the same place as the Facebook settings, see the screenshot above) will be able to see it too.

No matter if you’ve checked the checkbox or not, all connected accounts will display the Facebook ‘f’ icon next to their profiles in others’ friends lists:

Now, on to the fun stuff! If your accounts are connected (it doesn’t matter if your name and photo are being displayed on your Pogo profile or not), you can share badges you’ve earned on your Facebook profile. To do so, go to Badge Central and visit “My Collection”. Choose a badge you’d like to flaunt, and click the small Facebook ‘f’ icon next to it. You’ll be walked through the posting process and voila, your badge will show up on your Wall and on your friends’ home pages:

The option to publish a badge to Facebook is also available in the pop-up window when you earn a badge. You may want to be sparing with this feature, you have the ability to publish any number of badges you have ever earned or may earn in the future (the throttling is done by Facebook, but it’s not very strict). In writing this article, I spammed my Wall and friends list with 8 or 9 posts of the same badge, which would probably be pretty annoying to any Facebook friends you may have (good thing Badge Fairy has no friends)!

So, now that it’s working as intended (and your privacy is safe and secure once again), what do you think of these new features?

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The Facebook Connect feature mentioned in this article has been updated to address the privacy issues and concerns we’ve brought up. A new, updated article has been posted: Pogo Facebook Connect Privacy Resolved. This article will remain in our archives, but comments will be closed.

Today, Pogo rolled out even more integration with Facebook. There are a bunch of places the integration shows up and in some cases it’s completely automatic. If you have an account on Pogo and on Facebook, you may need to take some steps to protect your personal privacy.

So, why is any of this a problem (and why are some Pogo users totally outraged at this change)? As we’ll show you later, if you previously used a Pogo Facebook app, your account is already linked and as of today your real name will be shown on your Pogo profile, which is by default a public profile. In other words, if you did nothing more than check out a Facebook Pogo app, your privacy is probably at risk.

Click to read the rest of this article

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The wait is over: Pogo released Battleship this morning. You can get to the game by adding it to your favorites or visiting the game’s Play Now page. This game has 50 ranks, 5 rank badges, and 2 in-game achievement badges (also known as “secret badges”, though clearly it’s no secret how to earn them):

Rank 10 – Excellent Ensign Badge

Rank 20 – Loyal Lieutenant Badge

Rank 30 – Clever Commander Badge

Rank 40 – Capable Captain Badge

Rank 50 – Astounding Admiral Badge

Battleship Bomber Badge
Sink 2500 Battleships to earn this badge.

Terrifically Tenacious Badge
Miss 50000 times to earn this badge.

If you’d like to add your hints or tips for ranking up or if you’d like to discuss this new game, leave a comment below.

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Pogo has released a new course in Mini Golf Madness called “Creature Feature”. This is the October-themed course (it’s described as “Creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky, and all-together ooky!”) and is rated a Hard difficulty level.

If you need some help on this course, HomelessDog has submitted some hole-in-one screenshots!

FYI: The badge album doesn’t show the course badge for this one yet. Is it even available? Will it be? Only time will tell.

Update 10/20/09: The course badge for Creature Feature has been released. You can view this badge and all of the other badges available for this game at our Mini Golf Madness Ranks and Badges page.

Creature Feature Course Badge

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The 2009 Halloween Limited Edition badge has been released. This one will set you back 28 gems:

Spooky Slots – 2009 Halloween Limited Edition Badge
Win 500 tokens from the Free Spin Bonus in 3 days! (The Free Spin Bonus is triggered when the Ghost symbol stops on the reels) Win this badge plus 2,000 tokens.

Just FYI, the original requirements for this badge were “Spin the reels to get 3 Spiders 5 times in 1 day!” Thankfully Pogo decided to loosen up a little bit and make this based on the free spin bonus and not 3 spiders which probably would have been near impossible!

Don’t forget to check out our Upcoming Badges page for a preview of the Halloween weekend challenge coming up later this month!

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Earlier this week, Pogo launched the latest redesign of their free home page. (If you’re a Club Pogo member and want to check it out, just sign out for a little bit and browse around. It’s pretty spiffy.) They’ve also posted an overview to explain the basics of the new site and a detailed look at some of the new tabs and features.

This doesn’t affect most of you, as the majority of BadgeHungry readers are Club Pogo members, but there is something you should be aware of. From this week’s UK Letters to the Editor:

our new Free Pogo homepage is the first stage of an enormous project to give the free site – and, eventually, Club Pogo – a serious make-over. Club Pogo is probably the most important to get absolutely perfect, so comes in the latter stages of the project, which runs well into next year. The emphasis is really on making Pogo as user-friendly and visually pleasing as possible, so we’ve spent a lot of time collecting feedback and ideas from Pogo players.

Sometime next year Club Pogo will be getting a makeover too. Most likely it’ll coordinate and fall in line with the free Pogo homepage and accompanying pages. (Think: similar colors and layout, no ads, and more focus on badges.)

What do you think of the redesigned free homepage? Do you think Club Pogo will benefit from a similar organization scheme?
Whether or not you’re a free or Club Pogo member, feel free to chime in on these changes in a comment below.

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Today Pogo released the Out of this World Premium Badge Album. It costs $5.99 or 86 gems. (All of these challenges contain the number 51, as in Area 51.)

Click to view animated badges and challenges

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Jigsaw Detective Case #62: Old Debts has been released. You can track your rank progress in Jigsaw Detective and other games using our badge tracker.