Tuesday, October 30, 2012

FarmVille Mystery Seedling Nursery: Everything you need to know


If you've good use of your Mystery Baby Nursery in FarmVille, which allows you to store your Mystery Babies and feed them without having them scattered all over your farms, you'll likely appreciate tonight's launch of the Mystery Seedling Nursery which comes with a similar function, but for trees instead of animals. This Mystery Seedling Nursery will be given to you for free the next time you login to your game, and you'll need to collect a series of building materials before putting it to use. We're here with a guide to completing this Nursery, thanks to Zynga, so let's get started!

The Mystery Seedling Nursery requires 45 items to finish: 15 each of Fertilizer Stakes, Seedling Trays and Mulch. All three of these items can be earned by asking your friends to send them to you via individual requests sent directly to your FarmVille neighbors. You can also purchase these items with Farm Cash. Finally, you can earn items by clicking on news feed posts shared by your friends as they complete their own Mystery Seedling Nurseries, but your luck with gathering ingredients through this method will vary.

The initial capacity of the Mystery Seedling Nursery is 20 trees, but it can be upgraded twice. For the first upgrade, you'll need 20 of each part and will have a Mystery Seedling Nursery that holds 30 Seedlings. The final upgrade boosts the capacity to 40 trees, but only after you've collected 25 of each building material from friends, which is unfortunately a pretty time consuming task.

Regardless of how long it takes you finish your Mystery Seedling Nursery, when it is complete, you'll be able to move Mystery Seedlings from your Gift Box into the Nursery where they can watered and grown into complete trees. These new trees will go into your Gift Box, allowing you to place them on any farm, and not just the farm you've grown them on. This is extremely exciting, as it will allow you to grow all trees in one place and then transfer themed trees to farms that you may not have the shipping licenses for. Additionally, you can harvest the Mystery Seedling Nursery itself for free water to help you grow more trees. Good luck growing a few Nurseries of your own!

Monday, October 29, 2012

FarmVille Fortune Teller: Everything you need to know


A brand new event has launched in FarmVille, giving players a chance to deal with the past, present and future by collecting Tarot Cards for their Fortune Teller booth. This feature is like a puzzle, as you'll need to collect dozens or even hundreds of Tarot Cards that fall into one of three categories. From there, players are required to determine the right combinations of those three types of cards in order to win 10 prizes. Let's take a look at this new feature, which is now available on our farms!

First things first, you can place the Fortune Teller booth for free, and it comes pre-built. You'll be given a starting allowance of Tarot Cards to get your bearings within the event, as you'll receive four Past Tarot Cards, two Present Tarot Cards and two Future Tarot Cards. This is the exact amount of cards you'll need to receive the first of 10 prizes in this event: the Old Telescope. This is also the smallest supply of each card that can be used to make a guess at earning the other nine prizes.

Unfortunately you might need to rely on a bit of trial and error as you try to combine different amounts of each card to earn prizes, but you can earn all three for free by asking your friends to send them to you. Past Tarot Cards are earned by sending out individual requests to your FarmVille neighbors, while Present and Future Tarot Cards can be earned by posting general news posts to your wall. You can ask for Present Cards once every four hours, but must wait eight hours in between requests for Future Cards. Of course, if you don't want to wait for any of these, you can also buy individual cards with Farm Cash.

Thankfully, other farmers have found some of the combinations for these items (there might be more than one combination for the same prize), and they're sharing help over on the game's official forums. Here's the lineup of prizes that are available to earn, and their combinations where available.

Floating Mirror - 8 Past, 7 Present, 2 Future
Gypsy Wagon - 8 Past, 5 Present, 2 Future
Abandoned Sundial - 10 Past, 10 Present, 4 Future
Paper Fire Tree - 15 Past, 31 Present, 5 Future
Baby Carnival Elephant - 25 Past, 25 Present, 5 Future
Celestial Horse - 30 Past, 20 Present, 10 Future
Purple Panther - 22 Past, 18 Present, 11 Future

Again, there might be more than one combination that will reward you with the a specific prize, and there are also prizes whose combinations are still unknown. We'll make sure to stay on top of things and will update this space as we confirm more combinations for additional prizes. Good luck winning them all!

FarmVille Sunflower Meadows: A new way to expand your FarmVille farm

FarmVille Sunflower Meadows

More land! More land! We need more land!
One of the most common requests from FarmVille players is for more land. More room on their farms to stretch out a little and enjoy the fruits of farm life. If you are cramped for space and still hoping to decorate your farm and display your favorite knick-knacks and collections of animals and trees, your farm can easily turn into an episode of Hoarders. Purchasing a FarmVille land expansion is an easy solution, but just how much are you willing to pay? That is the question this week as we take a look at FarmVille's new Sunflower Meadows farm expansion.
Sunflower Meadows is a new way to expand your FarmVille Home Farm unlike traditional land expansions. It is only available for your Home Farm. So what exactly is Sunflower Meadows? Instead of the usual expansion that can be purchased for any farm, think of Sunflower Meadows as a new and separate "mini-farm" that packs a punch. It's a clean slate, a new farm adjacent to your Home Farm. Sounds good right? The days of free land for the curious willing to explore are long over. Expanding your Home Farm to Sunflower Meadows costs 199 Farm Cash or a whopping 200 million Farm Coins. No, that's not a typo – it's 200,000,000 Farm Coins.

Still reading? Then I'll tell you about what 199 Farm Cash or 200 million Farm Coins entails. First, a note on the price. It's nice to have a Farm Coin option right from the start as we usually have to wait for such things, but the price tag seems ridiculous and far-fetched for many players, even the diehard FarmVille Freaks with the hefty Farm Coin bank accounts. Zynga didn't bother presenting obtaining Sunflower Meadows as a challenge for farmers to strive for, a goal to achieve, rather than just another provided option. If you are feeling discouraged by the expensive price tag, you are not alone. I know many of you find it unfair to expect players to pay that much Farm Coins when sadly it's often the "cheaters" who violate Zynga's terms of service that can afford it. It may seem unattainable if you are refusing to purchase it with Farm Cash. Remember, the Farm Coin option, as unsettling as it may be, is never set in stone. FarmVille frequently discounts land expansions, especially after the newness wears off. Cling to hope, start clicking on your crops and stockpiling coins.

Sunflower Meadow is actually a 12 x 12 farm. Yes, it is connected to your FarmVille Home Farm, but once you actually travel there you will see that is a completely new space that can be further expanded with its own land expansions. To expand Sunflower Meadows you will need to purchase additional specific Sunflower Meadow land expansions. Currently, the FarmVille Market has Sunflower Meadow expansions up to the 36x36 size land expansion and some are available with Farm Cash or Farm Coins
In addition to your new farming real estate, you will also receive a free Sunflower Horse, Barn, and free Shared Storage with your Home Farm.
Although not everyone is completely sold on the "new ways to expand your farm" or its price tag, the concept itself is not a terrible idea. I like the connectivity to Home Farm (visually and shared storage), but its ability to maintain a separate space spatially. It can provide you with an area to suit your own specific needs and wants. Perhaps a Sunflower Meadows filled entirely with Orchards and trees that have been easily transported from your Home Farm. Maybe a Sunflower Meadows filled with an always-growing herd of FarmVille animals and their offspring better suits you. There's never enough space or land in FarmVille and Zynga is exploring other avenues of resolving this issue. Three years of farming can create quite the clutter and that's just what it becomes when there is no room to properly display your proud collection of FarmVille Gnomes. More stuff continues to collect dust in our Storage Cellars as we make room for more construction projects and crop space. It's become common to shove all our animals into their respective animal pens, but shouldn't some of them roam free or at least in a more spacious corral? That's the way it was meant to be. I remember the days when I visited my neighbors' farms just to check it out and see how they decorated for the holidays. I could see what animals they were raising and their assortment of foals and calves.
I can imagine a whole collection of these mini-farms sprawling off other farms as an option for those willing to pay the price of precious green space. In fact, it's already planned. At the release of Sunflower Meadows, Zynga already teased us with the next new way to expand our Home Farms-- Lavender Meadows (still unreleased). I'm sure Rose Meadows, Carnation Meadows, and Poppy Meadows are not far behind.
Will you be expanding your FarmVille Home Farm to Sunflower Meadows?

FarmVille: Celebrate Halloween with a give one, get one event


In celebration of Halloween, Zynga has released another feature in FarmVille in a long line of "most helpful neighbors" releases. As with previous events, this one will give you a chance to spend 5 Farm Cash on a single FarmVille neighbor, sending them an exclusive item that they wouldn't be able to have otherwise. In doing so, you'll earn another exclusive item for yourself as a free gift. Here's a rundown of how this newest "FarmVille Friendship" event works.

First things first, you'll be able to find the FarmVille Friendship window by clicking on the small pumpkin on the right side menu of the FarmVille gameplay screen. If you're like us, you won't receive a pop-up or any sort of indication that this event is taking place, so you'll need to manually click on the pumpkin to take part. Once there, you'll be shown a list of six of your "most helpful" neighbors, but as we've learned from previous events, this really isn't true. If you don't want to send an item to any of those friends, simply close the window and reopen it to see a selection of six different friends. There's unfortunately no search box to allow you to see a specific neighbor out of all that you may have, so you may need to close and open this window quite a few times before finding the right neighbor.

Once you find the neighbor(s) you're looking for, you can spend 5 Farm Cash each to spend them a Spectral Horse as a way of saying thanks for all of the help they've given you. In exchange, you'll receive a free Witch Hat Tree for your own farm. Remember, if you want this Witch Hat Tree, you'll need to spend the 5 Farm Cash on another neighbor, but you can easily earn both items for the same price if you setup an exchange with a single neighbor before hand. If you both purchase each other a Spectral Pegasus, you'll both also receive a Witch Hat Tree, making both items only cost 2.5 Farm Cash each. I don't know about you, but that's a pretty great bargain. Remember, if you plan on taking advantage of this feature, you'll need to do so fast, as it will only be available for a limited time.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

FarmVille Prize Pigs Arrive: Problems & solutions for Prize Pig farming

FarmVille Prize Pigs
Perhaps you've gotten bored with breeding Dragons and Unicorns and want to try your luck in something more traditionally agricultural on your FarmVille farm. How about rearing piglets with high hopes of raising the talk of the town Prize Pig? Well, you're in luck because FarmVille recently introduced a new Prize Pig feature that is now widely available to all players.

May I remind you that this new feature is completely optional and it's your decision to participate or not. If you're up for the challenge, then simply place the Prize Pig Scale on your farm to get started. Note, you can only have one Prize Pig feature across all of your FarmVille farms. There's no need to collect materials or dread another construction project because this feature is ready to go as soon as it is placed on your farm. Here's a quick look at the Prize Pig basics.

Growing a Prize Pig

Regular FarmVille pigs do not apply and can't be used in this feature. No worries. Everyone will receive a free Prize piglet for starters. To summarize, the Prize Pig feature allows you to partner up with one of your FarmVille neighbors as you work on feeding special piglets with as much Pig Chow as you can in one week or until they've been fed one hundred Pig Chow. If you prefer to work alone that's fine too, but remember recruiting a friend to help can speed up the process of growing a Prize Pig because you will be able to collect more Pig Chow faster if working together.

Then, it's time for the weigh-in, the ultimate test of your labor of love. The faster you are able to fatten up your piglet, the bigger it will become or the more it will weigh. Fattening up your pig fast is an incentive for better rewards. The bigger your Prize Pig, the better the rewards. Rewards include consumables such as Turbo Charges, Unwithers, and new varieties of Prize Pigs. Remember, if you are able to collect one hundred Pig Chow before the seven days expire, you are eligible to weigh in instantly.

The Real Weigh-in

First off, the Prize Pig feature has potential to be great, but there are some pesky flaws that are haltering all the fun. So far, the new feature has been negatively received by the majority of players who are finding it more of a hindrance than good times and here's why.

FarmVille Prize Pigs guideToo much Chow

The amount of one hundred Pig Chow required to raise a single Prize Pig is excessive, even for players with active neighbors. The interval of time that you are allowed to request Pig Chow is also too long. Crafting Pig Chow for your piglet is a more daunting task as it involves crafting the Pig Chow recipe in your Craftshop, which takes even more time and yields a low return. Easy solution. Lower the amount of Pig Chow needed or at least make it giftable so that we can send and receive it via the FarmVille Gifting Page.

Partner Problems

The success of raising a hefty Prize Pig largely depends on the effort of your partner as well. This means that if your partner gives up or forgets about the commitment to raising your joint piglet, fattening it up for the weigh-in is now your sole responsibility. Not a fan of group projects where you're left doing most the work? Raising a Prize Pig alone is a not a good option either because it leaves the collecting of Pig Chow entirely up to one person which is all the more difficult.

This is a social feature meant to engage neighbor interaction and friend help, which can be a good thing but it's certainly unfair when your partner fails to do their part. One of the things that Zynga has done to help is by making sure that the Prize Pig partner requests aren't going to your FarmVille inbox. This prevents neighbors from unknowingly accepting partnerships that they have no intention of participating in. Good call here. What about the ability to add more Prize Pig partners instead of just one? It takes a village.

Annoying Notice

The Prize Pig feature probably has one of the most annoying in-game meters or notification signs that can be found hovering over any Prize Pig placed on your farm. It's a huge pink eyesore that you are unlikely to miss. Not only is it annoying, it actually interferes with its surrounding areas that may put a damper on any farming tasks located nearby. Easy fix- get rid of it and replace it with something smaller and less intrusive.

The initial feedback from players has been largely negative and players have been slow to take up ventures in raising a Prize Pig, adding to the difficulty of participating in this feature. Less people raising Prize Pigs, means less Pig Chow shared on the Facebook News Feed. This leaves those players attempting to raise Prize Pigs struggling and frustrated. Hey Zynga, why not improve this feature from the start and try to salvage a feature that could be much more enjoyable to existing Prize Pig farmers and more appealing to those unwilling to try it out?

FarmVille: Unlock more farmland in Sunflower Meadows

While one might think that FarmVille players already have plenty of farm land spread across their seven farms, apparently Zynga feels that we deserve more, as a brand new mini-expansion has been launched at the outskirts of our Home Farms this week. Sunflower Meadows isn't a true FarmVille expansion, as it doesn't come with any specific quests or special features. It's simply an extra plot of land that can be used to store items, or of course, for farming.

You can only access Sunflower Meadows by clicking on it via the top left corner of your farm. It's outside the current border of your farm, so thankfully you haven't lost any land in the process of this launch. The first time you click on Sunflower Meadows, you'll be given the opportunity to purchase this new farm with either coins or Farm Cash, meaning that it's technically free. However, only the most dedicated farmers will actually be able to afford the coin purchase price. You'll need--wait for it--200 million coins to purchase Sunflower Meadows. While that might be pocket change for some, I'd imagine that there are even more farmers that won't be able to afford this expansion for quite some time.
If you do decide to purchase access to Sunflower Meadows, you'll be given a new themed plot of land with a Yellow Barn that shares storage with your Home Farm. This means that you can swap items from your Home Farm to your Sunflower Meadows farm for display or storage. Otherwise, the farm works just as you'd expect. You can plow, harvest and plant crops, access your gift box, place animals and buildings, and even grow trees in Orchards.

Outside of shared storage, other incentives come in the form of a new tree and horse that match the yellow theme throughout this farm. If Sunflower Meadows still isn't enough land for you, stay tuned for Lavender Meadow, which is "coming soon." We'll bring you more news on it and other farm expansions as soon as we learn more.

FarmVille 2 Hen House: Everything you need to know

If you'e looking for a way to earn more eggs in FarmVille 2, you can now build the Hen House to earn bonus eggs, exotic eggs and even have a chance at winning a rare new chicken. This event comes with a six-part timed quest series, but the Hen House itself is a worthwhile investment even after this time limit has passed, as you won't have to worry about continuing to purchase new chickens for eggs after your current chickens have become prized. We're here with a guide on how to finish the Hen House, thanks to Zynga. Let's get started!

A Firm Foundation
  • Place the Hen House
  • Finish Building the Hen House
  • Feed 10 Chickens

The Hen House can be placed from the pop-up window that you'll receive upon logging into the game. From there, you'll need to collect eight Wood Planks, eight Hammers and eight Bird Nests to finish its construction. These items are earned by simply asking your friends to send them to you. You can also purchase them with Farm Bucks if you don't want to wait. After you've gathered these building materials, you'll also need to have four friends come and work as building staff to actually finish the Hen House once and for all.

In order to use the Hen House after it's been built, you'll need to have at least three adult chickens on your farm that aren't "prized." That is, they must still be at a level where they require regular Animal Feed drops. Once you've fulfilled that requirement, you can collect from the Hen House once every 24 hours.

Each time you harvest the Hen House, you'll have a chance to receive one of four types of eggs: Regular, Uncommon Exotic, Rare Exotic and Ultra Rare Exotic Eggs. The more adult chickens you have, the better your chances of receiving an Exotic Egg. For every adult chicken (again, that's not prized) you have on your farm, you'll also receive regular chicken eggs as a guarantee.

Thankfully, the first time you harvest your Hen House, you're guaranteed to receive an Exotic Egg. These eggs work to complete a collection in the game, requiring two uncommon, two rare and one ultra rare eggs to complete. Once you finish that collection, Walter will come back to your farm and will give you a free Polish Silver Laced Chicken as a reward.

Remember, there are five more quests to complete in this Hen House series, and you've only got a week from this writing to actually finish them all off. Good luck!

FarmVille: Boost your Haunted Hollow farm with Starter Packs and Unwither Rings


The FarmVille Haunted Hollow farm can easily suck up all of your free time this October, with tons of building projects and goals to complete, but Zynga has released some items to boost your productivity or at least give you a jump start in the expansion.

For one, you can now purchase an Unwither Ring specifically for your Haunted Hollow farm. This ring comes in a fun pumpkin shaped container, but it also comes with a high purchase price: 250 Farm Cash. If you purchased Farm Cash at its normal price, you'd pay around $45 US for the ring, but would of course never need to purchase an Unwither or ever worry about withered crops on that farm again.

In addition, some starter packs have been released with Haunted Hollow progress in mind. There are three starter packs to choose from, ranging from 30-70 Farm Cash each. Here's a rundown of what you can find in each if you make a purchase.

Bronze Pumpkin Pack - 30 Farm Cash
  • 100 Spook Points
  • 6 Haunted Mansion Parts
  • 6 Treasure Parts
  • 5 Blue Serums

This pack has a value of 37 Farm Cash, if you purchased items separately.

Silver Pumpkin Pack - 40 Farm Cash
  • 200 Spook Points
  • 12 Haunted Mansion Parts
  • 12 Treasure Parts
  • 5 Green Serums

This pack is valued at 59 Farm Cash.

Gold Pumpkin Pack - 70 Farm Cash
  • 400 Spook Points
  • 21 Haunted Mansion Parts
  • 20 Treasure Parts
  • 5 Orange Serums

This final pack is valued at 105 Farm Cash.

While these packs offer plenty of building materials to help you complete Haunted Hollow's major building projects or tasks, remember that these items (the Mansion Parts and Treasure Parts specifically) can be easily earned for free by simply asking for your friends to send them to you. If you don't have that many active players in Haunted Hollow, or simply don't wish to wait for their help, I suppose I can understand wanting to speed things up a bit, but just make sure you're willing to pay that much real money per pack for something you can ultimately earn for free.

FarmVille 2: Celebrate Halloween with new trees and recipes

Halloween has made its way into FarmVille 2, and while the selection of themed content might be slim right now, that doesn't mean more won't be released in the future. As it stands, players can purchase a new, limited edition tree and can then use the fruit of that tree to create a spooky new recipe in their Crafting Kitchen.

The new tree is the Persimmon, and it's available to purchase in the market for 4,500 coins. After you plant it, it will be ready to harvest eight hours, and will offer you Persimmons that sell for 165 coin each, if you don't wish to use them in crafting. You can also turn Persimmons into Animal Feed at a rate of seven Feed per one Persimmon.

If you're a crafter, you can also create fun new Scarycakes (a cupcake with a ghost decoration) by combining Ghoulist Ganache and Witchin' Batters. Of course, each of these require their own separate ingredients, and we're here with a rundown of each stage below.

Ghoulish Ganache
  • 2 Sugar
  • 8 Milk

Sugar is earned by asking your friends to send it to you, while Milk comes from barnyard animals like Goats. A single Ghoulish Ganache can be sold for 950 coins.

Witchin' Batter
  • 6 Persimmon
  • 2 Batter

Batter is another crafting project altogether, requiring Flour and Eggs to craft. Of course, you'll need to craft Flour as well using Wheat, so this is definitely a complex item to craft. You can sell a single Witchin' Batter for 2,190.

A single Scarycake requires two Ghoulish Ganache and one Witchin' Batter to create, and it sells for 4,240 coins. While that sounds like a lot, if you factor in the amount of crafting "Power" and ingredients that you have to spend in creating Witchin' Batters, it might be smarter for you to simply craft and sell multiple Ghoulish Ganaches, rather than going through the entire crafting process until the end. Sure, these items aren't as fun as a finished cake, but if profits are all that matters, that's definitely something to keep in mind.

We'll make sure to let you know as additional Halloween themed items are released in FarmVille 2, so stay tuned!