Sunday, December 30, 2012

FarmVille 2 Fireworks Wagon: Everything you need to know


In honor of the upcoming New Year's Eve holiday, Zynga has released a new Fireworks Wagon in FarmVille 2. For a limited time, players will be able to build this Fireworks Wagon and collect fireworks by harvesting crops. As you collect fireworks, you'll unlock new prizes for your farm, but you'll need to build the Fireworks Wagon first.

You can find the base of the Fireworks Wagon in the store under the buildings tab. It's free, so simply place it somewhere on your farm to get started. You'll need to collect eight Wood Planks, eight Wagon Wheels and eight Springs to finish the first stage of the Wagon's construction, with all three of these items being earned by sending out individual requests to your neighbors. From there, you'll need to ask four friends to come be construction workers inside the Wagon to finish it completely.

As you harvest crops, you'll randomly find fireworks in the same way that you'd find a Prized Crop. You can also ask your friends to send you fireworks outright if your crops simply aren't producing enough for your liking. These fireworks can be used to earn up to five prizes within the Fireworks Wagon, starting with a "Roaring Maureen" firework and ending with an exclusive Goat for your farm. Here's the full breakdown:
"Roaring Maureen" Firework - 15 Fireworks
"The Professor" Firework - 30 Fireworks
New Year's Scarecrow - 60 Fireworks
New Year's Party Table - 145 Fireworks

If you can earn one of each of these four prizes, you'll receive the exclusive goat, but keep in mind that each prize requires its full amount of fireworks to earn. That is, once you reach the 30 firework mark, you won't be able to earn both the Roaring Maureen and the Professor, as earning the Professor would take 15 away from your running total. This means that you'll need to collect over 200 fireworks to win all of the prizes in this event, but you have 18 days to get it done. Good luck!

FarmVille 2 "New Farm Items": Everything you need to know


While most of the item themes released in FarmVille 2 have clever names, a new update has been launched in the store without a theme or clever name. Instead, we're told that a set of "New Farm Items" has been released in the store, with this set of items only being available for a limited time. We're here with a look at these new items, ranging from crops to animals and more. Let's get started!

Crops

Black-eyed Pea
  • Costs: 28 coins per square
  • Harvest Time: 2 hours
  • Sells for: 40 coins
  • Can be turned into: 4 Animal Feed

Trees

Avocado Tree - 12 Farm Bucks
Pomegranate Tree - 12 Farm Bucks

Animals

Chianina Cow - 43 Farm Bucks
Baby Chianina Cow - 30 Farm Bucks
Chinchilla Rabbit - 34 Farm Bucks
Baby Chinchilla Rabbit - 17 Farm Bucks

Interestingly, this theme doesn't come with any decorations, but it is lightly associated with the New Year's Eve quests that have also been released this week. You'll need to plant items like the Black Eyed Peas and craft some of this theme's crafting recipes to finish them off, and we'll have a complete guide to those crafting recipes as soon as we can. Stay tuned!

FarmVille 2 New Crafting Kitchen Recipes: Everything you need to know

While the new "random" item set in FarmVille 2 may not be overly impressive as it lacks an overall theme, those interested in collecting trees or crafting new recipes in the Crafting Kitchen now have three new matching recipes to choose from. These recipes will only be available for crafting for 23 days, and we're here with a guide to their requirements and stats. Let's get started!

The first recipe is Guacamole, and it can be crafted using one Tomato Paste and eight Avocados. The Tomato Paste is a crafting project in and of itself, as it requires eight Tomatoes to create. Meanwhile, the Avocados are earned from the Avocado Tree, which is available to purchase from the store for 12 Farm Bucks. This premium tree can be harvested every 12 hours, but you may need to harvest it more than once to earn the eight Avocados necessary for this recipe. A single batch of Guacamole can be sold for 1,560 coins, but we'll need to take into account the sale price of the Tomato Paste before going any further. The Tomato Paste is worth 120 coins, leaving the profits from the Guacamole to be 1,440 coins. That's fairly low, considering the fact that you'd have to pay so many Farm Bucks to purchase the tree in the first place, but I suppose if you're a tree collector anyway, it's worth making this Guacamole for the extra coins it does provide.
The second recipe is Pomegranate Punch, and it can be created using one Lemonade and eight Pomegranates. Lemonade itself requires Lemon Water and and Lemons to craft, while Lemon Water requires regular Water and Lemons. That makes a single Lemonade pretty valuable, as water itself is one of the most valuable commodities in the entire game. The Pomegranates, meanwhile, are earned by harvesting the new premium Pomegranate Tree. This tree costs 12 Farm Bucks in the store and can be harvested once every eight hours. As with the Avocados above, if you don't wish to spend Farm Bucks on these trees, you can tend your friends' trees (if you friends purchase them, that is) and hope to get lucky and receive some. However you come across the Pomegranates, you can sell a final Pomegranate Punch for 1,720 coins. Keep in mind that a single Lemonade sells for 350 coins. Again, you don't have to create these recipes if you'd rather save your ingredients (like your Water) for other things, but if you've already purchased the Pomegranate Tree for your collection anyway, it's worth looking into.

Finally, the third recipe in this trio is a batch of Spicy Black-eyed Peas. The Spicy Black-eyed Peas require three Black Pepper and 10 Black-eyed Peas to create. Black Pepper can be earned by sending out individual requests to your FarmVille 2 neighbors, while the Black-eyed Peas can be grown on your land using coins. To be specific, a single square of Black-eyed Peas costs 28 coins to plant and takes two hours to grow. You'll need to grow some of these Black-eyed Peas and even craft some Spicy Black-eyed Peas for the first quest in the FarmVille 2 New Year's Eve quest series, so make sure to keep planting Peas and asking friends for Pepper whenever you start to run low. If you ever decide to sell some Spicy Black-eyed Peas, you can do so for 1,300 coins a batch. We'd just suggest saving any that you craft until you're sure that the game's quests won't require them later. After all, there's no reason to waste resources and make more work for yourself if you don't have to.
Remember, these recipes will only be available for crafting for 23 days, so make the most of them while they're available!

Friday, December 28, 2012

FarmVille Friendship: Give a Magic Pegacorn, get a Winter Magic Tree


It looks like the FarmVille Friendship feature is going to become even more of a staple of gameplay than it already was, as we've seen multiple version of this feature roll out for the Christmas holiday alone. A brand new pair of items has just launched this week, offering players the chance to send a free Pegacorn to friends and receive an exclusive tree in return.

For a limited time, interested farmers can send a Magic Pegacorn to their "most helpful neighbors" at a price of 5 Farm Cash each. If you're looking to send a specific neighbor one of these Pegacorn, you'll need to find them by repeatedly closing and opening this FarmVille Friendship activity window via the icon in the top right corner of the gameplay screen. Each time you open the window, a selection of six friends will be shown, so it's all a matter of trial and error (and a bit of luck) to find the particular friend(s) you're looking for.

If you send even a single friend a Magic Pegacorn, you'll receive a Winter Magic Tree for yourself for free. As usual, if you want both of these items, the best way to earn them would be to partner with one neighbor. If you send each other Pegacorns, you'll both receive the Trees in exchange, leaving you both with two exclusive items for the low price of just 5 Farm Cash. Remember though, this particular set of items will only be available for a limited time, so send a Pegacorn now if you're at all interested.

FarmVille 2 'Third Week of Winter' Quests: Everything you need to know

If you're still busy working on the Holiday Tree in FarmVille 2, you'll be pleased to know that the "Third Week of Winter" quests are finally available for completion, giving you a real final goal to work towards (that being finishing the entire tree once and for all). There are four new quests to complete in this third section of quests within the Holiday Tree, and you can work on all of them at once. We're here with a complete guide to finishing this final four Holiday Tree quests, so let's get started!

The Marshmallow Mystery
  • Harvest 20 Marshmallows
  • Tend 10 Adult Sheep
  • Perform 30 Neighbor Actions

The Marshmallows are a limited edition crop that's available to plant for 50 coins per square. The crop takes just four hours to grow, and will be available for the next 13 days. As for the Adult Sheep, these can be tended once every eight hours. Finally, you can do anything you'd like at your friends' farms, so long as you complete 30 actions overall.

Fox Mulled
  • Feed 15 Adult Chickens
  • Craft 6 Mulled Apple Cider
  • Perform 5 Actions on Walter's Farm

If you head to Walter's farm while trying to finish the Marshmallow Mystery quest above, you'll earn five points of progress towards the neighbor action task, while also completing this Fox Mulled task at the same time. As for the Mulled Apple Cider, this is crafted using eight Apples and three Cloves. The Cloves are earned by asking your friends to send them to you directly.

Working the Workshop
  • Craft 8 Wool Bolts
  • Craft 2 Heavy Fur Throws
  • Sell 2 Heavy Fur Throws

The Wool Bolts can be crafted inside the Workshop using eight Wool each. Once you make the Wool, you can combine it with Fur from deer to form the Heavy Fur Throws. A single Heavy Fur Throw sells for 2,660 coins, so you'll earn 5,320 coins for selling these two, along with the 20 XP and 400 coins you've receive for completing this quest. 

Ornaments to Winter
  • Collect 8 Jars of Clay
  • Harvest 4 Wells
  • Craft 4 Blue Wool Bolts

The Jars of Clay can be earned by posting a general request to your news feed for help. The Blue Wool Bolts, meanwhile, are created in the Workshop using one Wool Bolt and one Blueberry Dye. The Blueberry Dye itself can be crafted in the Workshop using eight Blueberries and two Flasks each, with Flasks being earned by asking your friends to send them to you.

When you complete this "Third Week of Winter" quest set (remember, the quests can be completed in any order), you'll receive a stone fire ring for your farm. If you can finish all 12 quests across all three sections in this event, you'll also receive the Winter Clydesdale for your farm. Good luck!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

FarmVille Beat Hawaiian Paradise: Everything you need to know


Hawaiian Paradise may be one of the older expansions in FarmVille on Facebook, but players are just now being encouraged to "beat" the farm for a variety of prizes, including a free storage transfer license that will allow you to move items between your Hawaiian Paradise farm and others with ease (and for free). We're here with a complete look at the requirements to "beating" Hawaiian Paradise, so let's get started!

There are four requirements in all, each of which comes with its own prize. Here's a complete breakdown of those tasks and their prizes.

Complete Volcano Reef to Level 10
  • Reward: 10,000 Coconuts

Master All Hawaiian Paradise Crops to Level 3
  • Reward: 20,000 Coconuts

Have a 5-Star Tiki Bar
  • Reward: Insta-Grow Potion

Upgrade to 38x38 Infinite Island Expansion
  • Reward: 3 Turbo Chargers

Once you've completed all four of these tasks (they can be completed in any order), you'll receive a shiny gold trophy that shows to your friends that you've completed Hawaiian Paradise, and you'll also receive the Hawaiian Paradise Storage Transfer License (phew, that's a mouthful) which is currently only available for 75 Farm Cash otherwise.

It's also worth nothing that the crops task wants you to harvest all crops, both on water and on land, which makes that a particularly time-consuming goal, if you left Hawaiian Paradise shortly after arriving. We wish you the best of luck in beating Hawaiian Paradise!

FarmVille Pizza Shop: Everything you need to know

While crafting was already a huge part of our lives in FarmVille, that particular part of "farming" is set to become even more important as the new Pizza Shop starts its rollout to players across the entire game. The Pizza Shop can be found in the game's store, under "Buildings" and then "Crafting." It's free to place, and it's very similar to the Craftshop in both menu design and function.

You'll start with a single Crafting Station inside the Pizza Shop, and can expand that to six full counters by paying Farm Cash for each additional Station. A free method may roll out for expanding in the future, but for right now, it's best to just stick with your one free Station.

The Pizza Shop currently has four pages of items that you can create using Bushels, with many being ingredients that you must craft first before using them in a final dish. For instance, you'd need to craft five Flat Crusts before making a Mushroom Pizza, as seen below.
The requirements for most of these dishes are simply huge, with 30 and 40 of a single Bushel type being required before you can make a single Pizza or Pasta dish. You can either collect / craft these ingredients on your own, or you can purchase them with Farm Cash. Once you've finally been able to create a recipe, you'll need to wait varying amounts of time for them to complete. In our Mushroom Pizza example above, that particular dish takes 72 hours to craft. Once a dish is done, it can be sold for coins, XP and Mastery Points. In some cases, you can earn thousands of experience points with a single dish, so it might be worth creating these pizzas in the long run, if you have a ton of extra Bushel storage available to store these ingredients.

As a final note, many of these recipes require Bushels from the new "Minute" crops that have been released in the store. These crops, as the name suggests, take just a matter of minutes, rather than hours to grow. This gives you a chance to store Bushels faster, but it also requires a lot more time dedication to the game than some players might be prepared for. Whatever the case, make sure to check your store for the Pizza Shop, as you may have received it without even knowing it!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

FarmVille 2 Crafting Workshop: Everything You Need To Know

As FarmVille 2 continues to grow on Facebook and Zynga.com, many players might have grown restless with the same routine of planting crops and feeding animals. If that’s the case, those same players will be pretty excited with the release of the Crafting Workshop, an entirely new element to gameplay. We’re here with a guide to building and using this Crafting Workshop, thanks to Zynga.
The base of the Crafting Workshop can be placed the next time you log in. From there, this large structure requires eight Pressure Gauges, eight Drafting Papers, and eight Wood Planks in order to complete just the first portion of this Crafting Workshop. All three of these items are earned through individual requests sent directly to specific neighbours. After you’ve collected these, finish the overall Crafting Workshop by adding four friends as builders. These builders are also earned by sending requests to your friends for help.
Once the entire Crafting Workshop has been completed, players will find a variety of recipes available to them, depending on their level. Some recipes are level-locked, giving players something to shoot for as they continue to play the game, and the Workshop itself can take on two different looks, depending on the direction it faces on your farm. There are three different stations within the Crafting Workshop, each relating to the type of materials each recipe requires. For instance, the Workbench is used for Wood recipes, while the Loom handles Wool recipes. Finally, the Blacksmith’s area can handle Metal recipes.
Crafting items works in a similar fashion to cooking in the Crafting Kitchen, as you’ll need to collect or craft building materials that can be combined to form a final product. These items sell for coins, and are typically more valuable than the ingredients would be on their own. It’s also definitely worth noting that the Crafting Workshop also requires Power to function, just like the Crafting Kitchen.
Again, the items that you create in the Crafting Workshop can be sold for coins, but you can also use decorative items as decorations on your farm. There’s no doubt that new recipes and decorations will be revealed as Zynga continues to update the FarmVille 2 marketplace, so this Workshop is an investment piece for your future on the farm. When the spouse asks what you’re doing on the computer for hours a night, just tell them you’re investing.

FarmVille Quest Manager: Everything you need to know


With so many timed goals being released in FarmVille, it might be difficult to actually find the time to work on other things, but if you do ever find yourself without something to do, you can now complete six new un-timed goals in your game. These six goals are available via the new "Quest Manager," a book that has appeared on the left side of the FarmVille gameplay area.

These goals will be available in the game permanently, and can be completed for repeat rewards as many times as you'd like. The Quest Manager window itself also allows you to keep track of your progress in the timed goals in FarmVille as well. Each icon tells you how much time is left in that particular series, and clicking on an icon brings up the currently active quest in that line.
When this feature rolls out to your farm, the "Alpaca" goal will be started automatically, but you can end it just as easily if you'd rather not attempt to complete it just yet. You can actually start all of these permanent goals at the same time though, so make sure that you don't cancel one accidentally and lose your progress.

More goals will likely be added to this list in the future, but again, there's no need to rush through any of them, since there are no time limits for their completion. You can complete them if you want, or you can ignore them entirely and keep working on other goals or tasks instead - it's all up to you. We'll make sure to let you know if any noteworthy goals or rewards roll out via this feature in the future, so stay tuned!

FarmVille Holiday Party Style: Everything you need to know


As part of the ongoing Christmas celebration in FarmVille, players can now ask their friends for help in completing the Holiday Party Style feature. This feature is like so many other "this or that" events that have taken place over the past few months, like the Shopping Personality offering that ended recently.

This Holiday Party Style event comes with 12 stages and questions to complete, with each stage being given two potential prizes. Players will need to ask their friends for votes via general news posts, and when one of the two prizes earns four votes, that prize will become available for free. Depending on the way your friends answer these questions, the final building will take on a different appearance, but of course, you can manipulate this feature right from the beginning by simply asking your friends to vote one way or the other.

We're here with a complete breakdown of the 24 potential prizes in this event, thanks to Zynga.

Stage 1: Caroling Cow or Jack Frost Cow

Stage 2: Holiday Baker Gnome or Whoopie Cushion

Stage 3: Jolly Snowman or Laughing Snowman

Stage 4: Giving Horse or Wrapped Horse

Stage 5: Ugly Sweater Bear or Party Bear

Stage 6: Christmas Toy Shop or Trickster Toy Shop 
Stage 7: Tinsel Maple Tree or Coal Tree

Stage 8: Sugar Tree or Spice Tree

Stage 9: Quiet Toast Ducks or Countdown Crowd Critters

Stage 10: Candlelight Tree or Loud Noisemaker Tree

Stage 11: Bashful Bunny or Sly Rabbit

Stage 12: Host Pegacorn or Life of the Party Pegacorn

Each of these stages will unlock a few hours or days after the last, and while you can work on these stages at your own pace, you will need to complete them all shortly after Stage 12 unlocks, since the entire feature will end shortly thereafter. If you happen to finish all 12 stages and have time left over, you will be able to go back through and earn the other set of prizes, so keep that in mind as well. Good luck earning at least 12 of these items in FarmVille!

FarmVille 2 Snow Much Fun Crafting Recipes: Everything you need to know


As with any new item theme in FarmVille 2, this week's release of the Snow Much Fun theme also includes three new recipes that can be crafted inside your Crafting Kitchen. All three of these recipes deal with the crops and trees that are included in this Snow Much Fun event, even though one is a bit of a stretch. All three recipes will be available to craft for the next 25 days, and we're here with a guide to these recipes, letting you know if they're worth the investment in the long run.

The first recipe is the Hazelnut Roll Cake. A single Hazelnut Roll Cake requires three Flour and 12 Hazelnuts to craft, with Hazelnuts coming from the Hazel Tree in the store. This tree costs 12 Farm Bucks to purchase and produces Hazelnuts every 18 hours. If you don't wish to invest the real money on this tree, you can also visit your friends' farms in the hope that they purchased one instead. By tending these trees on your neighbors' farms, you have a slight chance of earning Hazelnuts for yourself, but that's definitely not guaranteed. As for the Flour, this item can be created using Wheat, and the three together are worth 270 coins. A single Hazelnut Roll Cake sells for 2,670 coins, so it's definitely worth making if you plan on buying a Hazel Tree either way. Is the recipe worth spending real money on this tree? That will be up to you.
The second recipe is much easier to make, as it requires you to simply plant the new free crop that's available in the store: Marshmallow. The Hot Chocolate recipe can be created using three Cocoa Powder and eight Marshmallows, with Marshmallows being ready to harvest after growing for four hours. Meanwhile, the Hot Cocoa can be earned by sending out requests directly to neighbors, so in the grand scheme of things, this ingredient is worthless. A single Hot Chocolate can be sold for 1,650 coins, so that's basically all profit, once you factor in how much it costs to plant Marshmallows in the first place (50 coins per square).

Finally, the third recipe is Frozen Apple Cider, which gives you a great use for all of those Apples you likely have in your inventory. A single glass requires six Snowflakes and 14 Apples to prepare. The Apples obviously come from Apple Trees, while the Snowflakes are earned from the Snowy Fir Tree that's also available to purchase for 12 Farm Bucks in the store. That makes this another "premium" recipe in the trio, that you might have difficulty crafting if you're not prepared to spend real money on the game. If you do ever come across enough Snowflakes to create this recipe, you can sell it for 1,810 coins.

Again, these recipes will only be available for the next 25 days, so if you do find yourself with an abundance of either Snowflakes or Hazelnuts, make sure to turn them into these recipes before they expire from the Crafting Kitchen and lessen your chance for virtual wealth. Stay tuned for more on FarmVille 2's massive Christmas event!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

FarmVille 2 Little Reindeer: Everything you need to know


During most of the major events in FarmVille 2, like Halloween or Thanksgiving, players have been able to adopt a limited edition animal for their farms by completing a series of equally limited edition tasks. For Christmas, that tradition continues, as players are being given the chance to adopt a little Brown Reindeer during the "Little Reindeer" event.

This event will activate when you login to your farm, and it will see your avatar trying to pet a shy Baby Reindeer that has appeared on the outside of your farm's land. From there, you'll need to complete a series of three tasks to make the Little Reindeer comfortable enough to stay on your farm.

Brown Reindeer
  • Place a Treat Bin
  • Finish the Reindeer Treat Bin
  • Collect 5 Sleigh Bells

The Treat Bin can be placed for free when starting this event. It has a very small footprint, so don't worry about it taking up a huge amount of space on your farm's land. You'll need to collect building materials to finish the first stage of the Treat Bin, as you'll need eight Holly, eight Lichen and eight Wood Planks to finish it off. All three of these items are earned by sending out individual requests to your neighbors for help. After that's done, you'll need to ask four of your friends to be staff within the Treat Bin to actually finish it off.

As for the Sleigh Bells, these are earned by simply posting a general news item to your feed so that all of your friends can help you at once. You have 19 days to finish this event, which is more than enough to actually complete all three tasks required to keep the Baby Brown Reindeer, and that's a good thing too, since you'll need to tend the Reindeer to finish one of the quests in the "Second Week of Winter" quest line (either that, or pay Farm Bucks to purchase premium Reindeer instead). Good luck claiming this little Baby Brown Reindeer on your own farm!

FarmVille 2 Prized Animal Improvements: Everything You Need to Know

While many FarmVille 2 players love collecting animals, there was always the dread of running out of useful adult animals when they become "Prized." At the beginning of the game's life cycle, Prized animals were arguably worthless, rewarding players with just a few coins and XP when tended. Finally, they've been completely overhauled to reward players with premium items each time they're fed.
To be especially clear, baby animals haven't been changed, and you'll still need to feed them Bottles in order to turn them into Adults. Also, Adult animals will continue to produce basic items like Milk Bottles or Eggs, depending on the animal. Once an animal becomes Prized, it will now require Feed to actually tend (this was not the case before), and you'll receive premium ingredients as a reward for keeping these Prized Animals around.
FarmVille 2 Prized Animal Improvements: Everything You Need to Know
You can check the materials the each animal will create by looking at their improved listings in the store. The White Chicken, for instance, its Adult item hasn't changed from the White Egg. But at the Prized level, a White Chicken will produce Brown Eggs instead. You can also see a detailed view of how many XP you'll receive when tending each kind of animal, along with hw long before they're ready again. (For the White Chicken, that's five minutes.) You can even see how many times you'll need to feed the animal before it becomes Prized, if you like to plan ahead.
As you might quickly notice, the timers on some animals has been changed, and some animals look to take much longer to become Prized than it did before. This all helps make Prized animals more valuable than before, and encourages players to keep them around after an animal is fully grown. Stay tuned for other game-changing updates to FarmVille 2

FarmVille Bloom Mastery Billboard: Everything you need to know


If you've fallen in love with Blooms in FarmVille, you've likely accumulated dozens of Bloom Mastery Signs that are cluttering up your farm, or filling up your Gift Box. If that's the case, you now have a new place to put those Mastery Signs, as the Bloom Mastery Billboard has finally arrived on our farms.

This Bloom Mastery Billboard works similarly to other Billboards, in that you'll need to collect building materials to build and upgrade it. The first stage of construction requires eight Green Tape, eight Yellow Paper and eight Purple Rollers to complete. Unfortunately, none of these are available in Special Delivery Boxes as of this writing, so you'll need to either purchase them with Farm Cash or wait for your friends to send them to you. In that case, all three items are earned by sending individual requests to your neighbors for help.
When this first stage is complete, you'll be able to store Bloom Master Signs within the billboard, and will be able to upgrade it to hold more over time. Each upgrade requires more building ingredients than the last, and they will change the overall look of the Bloom Mastery Billboard as you complete them. We'll make sure to update this space when we learn the specifics about each level of the Bloom Mastery Billboard, but for now, starting collecting these building materials with the help of friends today!

FarmVille Santa's Sleigh 2012: Everything you need to know


Last year, FarmVille players were given the chance to build and upgrade Santa's Sleigh on their farms in an effort to earn more presents for their Holiday Tree. Since the Holiday Tree has once again been released for 2012, so too has Santa's Sleigh, giving new players a chance to get in on the fun, or even allowing veteran players to have a second sleigh on another farm (for example, if they haven't unlocked the Mistletoe Lane shipping license yet).

Santa's Sleigh can be placed for free when logging into your farm, and it can be built in stages using (at first) GPS units, Silver Bells and Holiday Lights. All three of these items are earned by sending out individual requests to friends, asking them for help. These items will get you through Stages 0-3 of Santa's Sleigh, but Stages 4-6 require a new trio of items: Milk and cookies, Reindeer Treats and Holiday Cheer.

There are six upgrade stages in all, and we're here with a breakdown of each, thanks to Zynga. Please note that everything from 0-8 of each item is called Stage 0.

Stage 1
  • 8 GPS
  • 8 Silver Bells
  • 8 Holiday Lights

Stage 2
  • 10 GPS
  • 10 Silver Bells
  • 10 Holiday Lights

Stage 3
  • 14 GPS
  • 14 Silver Bells
  • 14 Holiday Lights

 
Stage 4
  • 18 Milk and Cookies
  • 18 Reindeer Treats
  • 18 Holiday Cheer

Stage 5
  • 24 Milk and Cookies
  • 24 Reindeer Treats
  • 24 Holiday Cheer

Stage 6
  • 32 Milk and Cookies
  • 32 Reindeer Treats
  • 32 Holiday Cheer

Remember, you can purchase these items for Farm Cash if you'd like to complete Santa's Sleigh without waiting, but you unfortunately can't find any of these parts inside Special Delivery Boxes (that would apparently be too convenient). Once you start building Santa's Sleigh, you'll be able to collect free holiday gifts from it to place inside your Holiday Tree, which can be opened on December 24. Good luck completing Santa's Sleigh before that date!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

FarmVille 2 Holiday Tree Part 1: Everything you need to know


Christmas has come to FarmVille 2 in a big way, as players can now place and build a Holiday Tree on their farms over three complete stages and weeks of events. So far, only Part 1 of this Holiday Tree event is available to complete, but it gives you plenty to work on while we're waiting for more.

First things first, the Holiday Tree can be placed for free when you login to your game. It has two building stages, starting with an item collection task. You'll need to collect eight Tree Stand Screws, eight Ornament Hooks, and eight Metal to finish it off, with all three of these items coming by way of individual requests sent directly to your neighbors. Once that's done, you'll need to ask four friends to come and "decorate" the tree as staff members within it.

After the first stage of the tree is entirely build, you can work on decoration quests to give it some pizzazz. Each individual quest corresponds to a type of decoration on the tree, and each of the three weeks in this event has four quests to complete. By completing all of the quests in a single week's row (as seen below), you'll win an individual gift for your farm, starting with a lovely decorated lamp post. While completing all 12 quests will give you a fully decorated tree, completing all 12 will also give you the exclusive Winter Clydesdale Horse that's only available via this event.


Again, each ornament or decoration has a different quest, and we'll work on bringing you a complete guide to each of Week 1's four quests as soon as we can. Keep checking back for more, and good luck!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

FarmVille 2 Winter Holiday Crafting Recipes: Everything you need to know


As FarmVille 2 continues to celebrate Christmas on Facebook and Zynga.com, we can now craft three new themed recipes within the game's Crafting Kitchen. Two of these recipes are technically premium, as they require the use of premium ingredients to craft, while the third is a completely separate recipe, using items you can gather with your friends' help. We're here with a complete look at these new Winter Holiday crafting recipes, so let's get started!

The first of the three new recipes is the Winterberry Crepe, which requires two Winterberries and three Batter to craft. Winterberries can be earned from the Winterberry Tree, which costs 12 Farm Bucks to purchase. If you don't want to purchase this premium tree, you can try to earn some of these by visiting friends that have purchased one and tend theirs. As for the Batter, this is a complex crafting recipe in and of itself, requiring you to first craft Flour from Wheat. A single Winterbery Crepe can be sold for 1,470 coins, but once you take into account the Batter's sale price of 290 coins (and the fact that you need three of them), that leaves us with just 600 coins of profit from this recipe. That's still better than simply selling the Winterberries outright, but it is unfortunate that the profits aren't higher.

The second recipe is the Mont Blanc, which is crafted using 14 Chestnuts and five Eggs. These Chestnuts are earned from another limited edition tree, the Chestnut Tree, which costs 12 Farm Bucks to purchase in the store. It can be harvested every 16 hours. A single Mont Blanc can be sold for 2,040 coins, but remember, you might struggle in finding Chestnuts in the first place if you don't purchase one of these trees yourself.

The final recipe is Eggnog, which is created using two Eggs and three Cloves. These Cloves are earned simply by asking your friends to send them to you via individual requests. Since that makes the Cloves worthless in the market, the only real "coin" investment your placing in this is the pair of Eggs, which would sell for just 120 coins in total. A single glass of Eggnog only sells for 460 coins, but that's a great use for some extra Eggs if you already have more than you know what to do with.

Regardless of the recipe you choose, these three recipes will only be available to craft for the next 26 days. It's likely that we'll see additional Christmas-themed recipes launch at some point in the future, and we'll make sure to let you know if that's the case!

FarmVille Extinct Animal Zoo: Everything you need to know

FarmVille's many animal collectors have a new feature to dive into this week, as the Extinct Animal Zoo is now available for building on our farms. This Extinct Animal Zoo will see players collecting various fossils over time to create new extinct animals, in what might be yet another in-game nod to Jurassic Park. We're here with a look at the Extinct Animal Zoo, thanks to Zynga. Let's get started!

The Extinct Animal Zoo can be placed for free via an in-game pop-up, and it requires 30 building materials to build. You'll need to collect 10 Meteorites, 10 Broken Thermometers and 10 Food Chains to complete the construction of the Extinct Animal Zoo, with all of these items being earned through individual requests sent directly to your neighbors. When you complete the Zoo, you'll be able to look inside it to see the parts that you need to create the next extinct animal on the list.

Fossils can be earned once a day by tending the Extinct Animal Zoo, and obviously, the more animals you have inside (and the more variety of animals) the more likely that you'll receive a Fossil you actually need to create a new animal. You can also claim Fossils by clicking on your friends' news feeds when they share them on their walls, or by purchasing them outright with Farm Cash.

We'll have a complete list of the animals you can create in this Extinct Animal Zoo as soon as we can. Stay tuned!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Is the lost city of Atlantis FarmVille's next big thing?


While most FarmVille players are happy to spend their time working on the game's many Christmas related features this month, the folks at Zynga are already looking ahead to new things, including a potential new farm expansion for the game. The developer has launched a survey for FarmVille fans to complete concerning a new underwater Atlantis farm, and wants to know what we as a community think of that idea.

The survey is available via the official FarmVille Fan Page on Facebook, and it comes with concept art for some of the items that would could expect to find in an underwater farm (seen above). This leads us to believe that the survey is more of a preview than anything else, as it seems unlikely that Zynga would pour this many resources into creating Atlantean items only to scrap them if the survey answers turned negative.

Still, the survey asks players how interested they are in seeing an Atlantis-themed farm, and also asks us about some technicalities concerning underwater play. That is, would we like to see all kinds of trees and animals in this underwater world, or should the game limit the use of land items underwater as that's simply not realistic

Saturday, December 1, 2012

FarmVille 2 Village Grocer: Everything you need to know

As most FarmVille 2 players have come to realize, many of the game's quests are level-based, leaving players without quests and objectives to complete if they complete everything before they level up and unlock new quests. In order to give players something else to work on, Zynga has introduced Cornelius, the Village Grocer, to our farms. We're here with a guide to this event, thanks to Zynga. Let's get started!

Cornelius will arrive on the road outside your farm, and his truck will immediately break down. He's stranded on your farm until the tow truck arrives, but you can also work on fixing Cornelius' truck as well. This is achieved via a timed quest which must be completed before you can unlock Cornelius's daily quests after that.

Cornelius's Quest
  • Fix Cornelius's Truck
  • Get 5 Traffic Cones
  • Make 8 Lemonades

The Lemonades are crafted using one Lemon Water and four Lemons each, with Lemon Water itself requiring two Lemons and one Water each. As for the Traffic Cones, these are earned by posting a general request on your news feed for help. Finally, Cornelius's Truck can be repaired by first collecting eight Wood Planks, eight Fire Extinguishers and eight Toolboxes. All of these are earned by asking your friends to send them to you. After that, you'll need to ask four friends to come help repair the Truck before finally finishing it off. Once you complete this quest, Cornelius will be "back in business," as it were, and you'll receive 40 XP and 2,500 coins.

After you complete this quest, you'll be able to start working on the actual Village Grocer partnership on your farm. Each day, he'll have an order for you, consisting of items that he wants to purchase from your farm. For instance, one order might ask for seven Parsnips, one Flour and one Cheese, and you would need to sell each of those items to Cornelius to be rewarded. Each specific item comes with its own point reward, and if you can sell all of the daily order items, you'll earn a special point bonus.

As you will have new orders each day, you will be able to collect more and more points in total, which work cumulatively to unlock prizes. There are nine prizes to earn as of this writing, with the first being a lovely Mosaic Bench for your farm. You can see outlines of the prizes via the Village Grocer menu, and it looks like we'll earn Baby Bottles and large packs of Unwithers as part of this event. Good luck completing these daily quests and earning all of Cornelius's prizes!

FarmVille Herb Garden: Everything you need to know


Are you running out of crops to master in FarmVille? I so, the new Herb Garden has been released with you in mind, as it introduces a series of Herbs to the game that can be planted and mastered over time. This Herb Garden may not appear immediately when you login to your farm, but you can find it available for purchase for five coins in the market. We're here with a guide on what makes this Herb Garden tick, thanks to Zynga. Let's get started!

Once you place the Herb Garden, its timer immediately begins counting down to the availability of Thai Basil seeds. You'll need to wait 23 hours to collect 20 Seeds, and in the meantime, you can work on collecting building materials to expand the Herb Garden and increase the amount of seeds you'll collect each day. The first expansion stage requires 10 Clay Pots, 10 bags of Special Soil and 10 Peat Pellets. All of these items are earned by asking your friends to send them to you through individual requests rather than news feed posts.
From there, you'll be able to complete four more upgrades, taking your Seed total to a whopping 900 Seeds per day. However, this is much easier said than done, as seen below:

Stage 3: 20 Clay Pots, 20 Special Soils and 20 Peat Pellets

Stage 4: 30 Clay Pots, 30 Special Soils and 30 Peat Pellets

Stage 5: 40 Clay Pots, 40 Special Soils and 40 Peat Pellets

Stage 6: 50 Clay Pots, 50 Special Soils and 50 Peat Pellets
As for unlocking more herbs, this is accomplished via "chained" planting. That is, you'll need to master one herb before unlocking the next, and so on. Here's a complete rundown of the different herbs that are available to plant and master as of this writing.

Thai Basil
Thyme (master Thai Basil)
Rosemary (master Thyme)
Marjoram (master Rosemary)
Parsley (master Marjoram)
French Tarragon (master Parsley)
Oregano (master French Tarragon)
Sorrel (master Oregano)
Shiso (master Sorrel)
Cilantro (master Shiso)

There's always the potential for more herbs to be released in this event in the future, so the upgrades really are worthwhile in the long run. Still, there's no time limit forcing you to rush through these upgrades or mastery levels, so feel free to work on everything at your own pace. Good luck!