FarmVille: 20% off Farm Cash with Halloween Game Card promotion

From now until Halloween - October 31 - you can get an extra 20% of Farm Cash when you redeem a Zynga Game Card in FarmVille. According to a new loading screen you'll see when entering your farm, this promotion doesn't seem to require you to purchase your Zynga Game Card from any particular retailer; it's just a setup that will see you (in Zynga's words) having 20% off Farm Cash when redeeming a card.

As I've said before, the language in these kinds of promotions is a bit misleading. It shouldn't say "20% off" at all. Instead, it should say that you'll earn 20% more Farm Cash when redeeming a card. After all, it's not like GameStop (or any other retailer that sells the cards) can give you a discount on actually purchasing the card in the store. You're going to end up paying the same amount of real-world money either way. You'll just receive more Farm Cash in the end than originally.

Still, this isn't to say the promotion is bad, as you're going to end up with more Farm Cash than you expected by taking advantage of it. Just keep in mind that your out-of-pocket expenses will be the same, and keep in mind that you only have until the end of the day on October 31 to take advantage of this deal if it sounds interesting to you.

FarmVille Lighthouse Cove: Oceanside Farm land expansion now available for coins

Looking to add more room to your third FarmVille farm, the Lighthouse Cove, but don't want to spend Farm Cash to do it? If that's the case, you'll be happy to know that yet another land expansion has been given the coin treatment. Specifically, we're talking about the Oceanside Farm expansion, which brings your farm to the 20x20 size.

Of course, in order to unlock this Oceanside Farm, you'll have to do a few things in advance. First and foremost, you'll need to unlock all of the previous expansions, which have been released for coins over the past few weeks as well. Once you've unlocked the 18x18 Harbor Homestead, you'll then likely need to add an arbitrary amount of new neighbors to your game to unlock the coin option for the Oceanside, 20x20 farm. I say arbitrary as there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how many neighbors each user has to add, if they have to add any at all.

In my case, for instance, I'll have to add 11 neighbors, bringing my total to 128. That's not a nice, round number, so why was it chosen? Why would "11" be the magic number for me to unlock this new expansion? Like I said, it doesn't make much sense, but it's unfortunately what we're stuck dealing with as of this writing. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones that only has to add one or two neighbors, or even none at all. For your sake, I genuinely hope that's the case. Regardless, once you finally reach your required neighbor total, the expansion can then be purchased for 1.5 million coins. You'll gain access to planting more individual crop squares on your farm after that point, but whether or not that will make any of the upcoming Lighthouse Cove goals any easier (or just continue in the same difficulty) remains to be seen.

FarmVille adds new items to Special Delivery Boxes

FarmVille made a welcomed enhancement to the game on Thursday afternoon - the addition of several much-needed items to Special Delivery Boxes.
Players who open Special Delivery Boxes in the game now will also find the following items:

• Count Duckula castle parts
• Fence Post
• Shrub
• Grazing Grass
• Wrench
• Pipe
• Painted Wood
• Water Pump
• Wire

This is in addition to the usual parts players get out of them, including Watering Cans, Animal Feed, Shovels, Bricks, Boards and Nails.
The theory is that the boxes will give you what you need for your buildings, so if you're expanding your Aviary, you will receive enough Wire to expand it to the next level.
We always suggest opening Special Delivery Boxes with caution - and only cracking them open 10 at a time. This way, if you don't get what you were expecting, you're not wasting your boxes.

FarmVille Trick or Treat quests guide

FarmVille released six new quests to coincide with the release of the Trick or Treat feature on Thursday evening. Players will have two weeks to complete these quests, and there are some pretty great prizes up for grabs!

Quest 1: Let There Be Light (Sticks!)
Your first quest will ask you to get 8 light Sticks from friends, visit 3 neighbor farms, and harvest 200 Fruit crops. Your rewards will be 50XP, 1 Reverse Skunk and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 2:  The Bucketeers
Next up, you will be asking friends to send you 8 Candy Buckets, harvest the Reverse Skunk, and harvest 200 Flower crops. Your prizes will be 100XP, 1 Granny Wolf and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 3: Jack-O-Lighting
Your third quest will ask you to get 10 Jack O’ Lantern Flashlights from friends, harvest the Granny Wolf once and harvest 200 grain crops. Your rewards will be 50XP, 1 Halloween Robodinoninja and 2,500 Farm Coins!
Quest 4: The Route to Loot
Your next quest will ask you to get 10 Candy Maps from friends, place the Halloween Robodinoninja in your Zoo, and harvest 100 Candy Corn crops.  Your prizes will be 50XP, 1 Hippo Tutu and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 5: There’s Always One…
Your fifth quest will ask you to get 12 Cardbox Box Costumes from friends, master the Reverse Skunk to level 2, and harvest 200 vegetable crops. Your prizes for completing these tasks will be 50XP, 1 Cardboard Robot and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 6: Trick or Treat?
Your final quest will ask you to get 12 Confetti Bombs from friends, harvest your Zoo once, and harvest 150 Black Tulip crops. Your final prizes will be 50XP, 1 Purple Dragon and 2,500 Farm Coins.

FarmVille Lighthouse Cove: Chapter 6 quests guide

FarmVille released six new Lighthouse Cove quests Monday evening! These new quests are chapter 6 in our Lighthouse Cove story, and offer players some pretty great prizes for their participation.
These quests are running concurrently with the nine Jack O’ Lantern quests currently available in-game. Need help on those? Get it here.
NOTE: These new quests are currently on a slow release. If you don't have them just yet, be patient - they're coming very soon to your farm!
Here’s what you will be doing and what your rewards are.
Quest 1: Treasure Hunt
Your first new set of tasks will ask you to get 3 Map Pieces from friends, harvest lighthouse Cove once, and harvest 70 Candy Corn crops. Candy Corn is a 4 hour crop, so this is a pretty easy one. Your rewards will be 100XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and 1 Jack O’ Lantern Tree.
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Quest 2: Hang the Haunts
Your second quest will ask you to get 3 Jack O’ Lanterns from friends, harvest 70 Cove Cranberries, and buy 1 Cat O’ Lantern from the Market (they are only 40,000 Farm Coins, grab a few for decorating!). Your prizes will be 200XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Great Dane.
Quest 3: The Mystery of Pirate Pete
Your next quest will ask you to get 6 Clues from friends, harvest 70 Butter & Sugar Corn crops, and make the Fruit Cider recipe twice. Your rewards will be 300XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and 1 Ghost Sheep.
That wraps up the three required challenges this week, but in true FarmVille fashion, there are also three Bonus Quests you can work on! Here’s what you’ll be doing in those (if you choose to do them).
BONUS Quest 1
Your first bonus quest will ask you to level your Creamed Corn recipe up to level 20, harvest 110 Daylilies, and harvest Lighthouse Cove once. Your prizes will be 500XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and 1 Spooky Tombstone.
BONUS Quest 2
Your next challenge will ask you to reach level 1 mastery of Butter & Sugar Corn, improve Lighthouse Cove to level 7, and make the Jonnycakes recipe 4 times. If you complete these tasks, you will earn yourself 1,000XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one White Tailed Duck.
BONUS Quest 3
Your last bonus quest this week will ask you to harvest 1 Aviary, harvest 110 Dill crops and harvest 1 Orchard. Your final rewards will be 500XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Pirate Sheep!
Remember, the Pirate Sheep and Ghost Sheep are Ewes, so they will not pass their patterns on to new babies when using them in your Sheep Pen.

FarmVille: Free Mystery Game Darts making the rounds

If you've yet to try this week's FarmVIlle Mystery Game, filled with Halloween-themed animals and decorations, make sure to go into your game pretty quickly, as you'll be able to play for free! That's right, another free dart as started rolling out to players, and if you haven't already claimed yours, you can do so right now!

When you login to your farm, you'll likely see the Mystery Game pop-up automatically, telling you that you have a free dart. If not, you can go into the store and click on the Mystery Game manually as though you were going to pay to play. There, you should see that you have a Free Play available, in place of the button that would normally charge your Farm Cash. If this is anything like previous free Darts, you can hold onto it for future use, if this week's items don't do it for you.

For your reference, this week offers the following prizes:

Dragon Fountain
Haunted Theater
Nightmare Duck
Nightmare Pegasus
Scuba Chicken
Witch House

Remember, the prize you'll end up with is random. For instance, I won the Dragon Fountain with my free dart, but you may have better luck and walk away with the Nightmare Pegasus (you lucky farmer, you)! Either way, make sure to claim your free dart as soon as possible, even if you don't use it right away, as it's likely it won't be available forever.

FarmVille: Home Farm Unwither Ring back for five days only

Here we go again, farmers! Your opportunity to purchase one of the most exclusive (yet functional) items in the entirety of FarmVille is now once again here. If you've yet to purchase an Unwither Ring for your farm, you now have the opportunity to do so by heading into the game's store on your Home Farm and shelling out Farm Cash to do so. How much Farm Cash? A whopping 250, to be exact.

If you're new to the game, or just need a refresher, the Unwither Ring is a permanent addition to your farm that will stop your crops from withering ever again. It doesn't matter how long you leave them; you can go on vacation, or simply stop playing the game for an extended period of time, but will come back to fresh crops when you do finally return.

As usual, if you already have a ring, or know someone who might get more use out of it (or just appreciate the gesture), you can also send an Unwither Ring to a special farmer in your life. This particular version comes in a blue box, but functions the same as those released previously. To make things especially clear, when you click on the item in the store, you're told that this Unwither Ring will be locked to your "Home Farm," so you'll still have to worry about withering crops on your English Countryside and Lighthouse Cove farms.

With the current rate of exchange for Farm Cash, this Unwither Ring costs more than $40 - is it worth it? Some farmers must think so, or Zynga wouldn't keep releasing the ring for purchase. Still, it does leave me to wonder what other in-game goodies I could be spending all of that money on instead...

FarmVille: New Cranberry Sauce crafting recipe celebrates fall

If you've been looking for more recipes to craft inside your Lighthouse Cove Restaurant in FarmVille, here's one for you: a new, limited edition recipe has been added to the Restaurant this week, taking advantage of plenty of Cranberries. The recipe is one you'll be seeing a lot of in the future weeks and months, both in the in-game world and in the real world, thanks to holidays: Cranberry Sauce.

For this virtual version, you'll now have access to the recipe which starts at level one, but is only available to craft for the next 16 days. It takes three Cove Cranberry, three regular Cranberry and two Dill bushels for each Cranberry Sauce you'd like to craft. From there, it's the same process as always - waiting six hours for it to finish crafting, and then coming back in later to actually "complete" the process. As you craft the recipe more and more, you'll level it up.

Remember though, while other recipes require far more crafting to master, this one simply requires you to get to level 20 for the entire thing. At level 20, you'll not only walk away with the expected crafting recipe mastery sign, but it will come complete with all five stars to boot! Again, this is a limited time recipe, so you'll definitely have to put forth plenty of effort to unlock that mastery sign, but if you do, you'll be able to share it proudly knowing that those who miss out might never have a chance at it again. Want to be in on the action? Make sure to start crafting as soon as you can!

Earn 2 free FarmVille Farm Cash in Puss in Boots Promotion

If you're fast, you might have a chance of taking part in a new free Farm Cash promotion located under the FarmVille gameplay area this week. This one doesn't come labeled as the particular promotion it actually turns into; rather, you're simply asked to complete an unnamed activity to earn some free Farm Cash. Once you click on the window, you'll likely be greeted by the new Puss in Boots 3D movie promotion, which seems lengthy, but really isn't.

Technically, the activity asks you to watch three movie trailers in their entirety and then vote on which one you like best. You can feel free to do that, if you're genuinely interested in the movie, or don't want to "cheat," but if you're just in this for the Farm Cash (as I know many of you are - and I can't blame you), you can speed up your time in this activity considerably by simply clicking on each video long enough to let them start playing and then clicking on the next. Within a matter of 10 seconds, you'll be able to "vote" for your favorite and will walk away with two free Farm Cash for your time.

Interestingly, this seems to be one of those promotions that won't automatically update your Farm Cash total once you return to the game. If that's the case for you, you'll need to refresh the game completely in order to (hopefully) see your Farm Cash total having risen by two. What you do with those two free Farm Cash will be up to you, but we'll continue to bring you news about how you can earn more as soon as new promotions launch.

FarmVille Huge Jack-O'Lantern: Everything you need to know

The time has finally come farmers! It's time to stop wondering when we'll be able to start redeeming tricks and treats for Halloween themed goodies in FarmVille, and time to start actually doing it! That's right, the Huge Jack-O'Lantern (otherwise known as this year's collection basket) has finally started rolling out to farmers. Here's what to expect!

You'll receive a pop-up giving you a free Huge Jack-O'Lantern the first time you login after the update has rolled around to you. This item is different from others, as it isn't simply a "basket" or "bucket" to hold treats; rather, it's a farm plot that will grow as you collect Treats. As of right now, there are six different prizes up for grabs by collecting Treats:

• Mini Jack-O'Lantern - 5 Treats
• Pumpkin Terrier - 15 Treats
• Pumpkin Cow - 35 Treats
• Big Candy Pumpkin - 75 Treats
• Halloween Pond - 100 Treats
• Nightmare Stallion - 170 Treats

As with the release of the Apple Barrel, this collection event gives you a chance to bypass collecting treats altogether if there's just a specific item or two you'd like to add to your farms, as you can purchase them outright with Farm Cash. One Treat equals one Farm Cash, so your prizes are the same as the amount of Treats you'd pay otherwise. If you'd rather go the free route, however, you'll be able to earn Treats by asking your friends to send them to you, or by using your Count Duckula's Castle (and the castles on friends' farms) to earn even more Treats on your own.

It's interesting that the biggest prize here is 170 Treats, as that's far less than the prices we've seen for such events' largest prizes in the past. For instance, the Eiffel Tower in the Valentine's Day event ended up costing 275 Valentines! Could this mean that additional prizes (perhaps an entire "page 2") will be added to the Huge Jack-O'Lantern before Halloween proper, or are we simply being given a break with this holiday? We'll make sure to keep an eye on things, and will let you know if additional prizes are added before all is said and done.

FarmVille Chapter 5 Lighthouse Cove quests guide

The Chapter 5 Lighthouse Cove quests were released to FarmVille players on Tuesday!
This next set of quests is Halloween-themed, but you’ll still be doing some heavy duty planting and crafting if you want to make it to the end of the line this week.
The contents of the next set of quests and prizes are below. If you’d rather not know ahead of time, head over to our other articles now!
Quest 1: A Spooky Season
Your first quest will ask you to get 3 Halloween Masks from friends, harvest Lighthouse Cove once, and harvest 70 Hay crops. Your rewards for completing this challenge include 100XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Trick or Treat Bear.

Quest 2: Ghost of a Chance
Your next quest will ask you to get 3 Lollipops from friends, harvest 70 Red Clover crops, and harvest 1 Orchard. Your rewards for completing these tasks include 200XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Innkeeper Gnome.
Quest 3: Ghost Hunting
Your third quest this week will ask you to get 6 Flashlights from friends, craft the Farmhouse Cheddar recipe twice, and harvest 70 Tarragon crops. Your rewards include 300XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Shipwreck!
That concludes the three basic quests this week. There are, of course, three bonus quests you can also participate in if you choose. Their info is below:
BONUS Quest 1
Your first bonus challenge will be to master Farmhouse Cheddar to 1-star mastery, harvest 110 Cove Cranberries, and harvest Lighthouse Cove once. Your rewards will be 500XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Trick or Treat Baboon.
BONUS Quest 2Your second bonus challenge will ask you to harvest 110 Daylillies, improve Lighthouse Cove to Level 6, and make the Cranberry-Pineapple Relish recipe three times. Your rewards include 1,000XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Giant Conch Shell.
BONUS Quest 3
Your last bonus quest will ask you to make the Jonnycakes recipe 3 times, harvest 130 Butter & Sugar Corn crops, and harvest 1 Orchard. Your rewards will include 500XP, 2,500 Farm Coins and one Giant Gnarly Tree.

Get a free FarmVille Winged Unicorn from Mafia Wars 2

FarmVille is running a new cross-promotion with Zynga's latest game release Mafia Wars 2. Players were informed of the promotion via an in-game FarmVille popup notice on Tuesday afternoon.
By clicking the in-game offer to play Mafia Wars 2, players who reach level 5 in the game will earn a free Winged Unicorn for their FarmVille farms!
If you've already played Mafia Wars 2 and you've already reached level 5 in the game, simply click to visit Mafia Wars anyway, then refresh your FarmVille game. Your free Winged Unicorn should appear in your Gift Box.
If you need to get back to the promotion after the initial popup message, you can find it in your neighbor bar where you usually see the Model Farm.
For players who are not familiar with the new Mafia Wars 2, it will take a little bit of time to reach level 5. We suggest simply following the quest cues to level up fairly quickly. Most of the completion rewards include the needed XP to level you up.

Black Mini Unicorn, more released in FarmVille

FarmVille has been enhanced!
In our regular Sunday night update, several new items were added to the Halloween Theme. Since all of these items are part of a limited edition collection, they will only be around for the next 13 days. This week, we’ve got some new avatar costumes, a few Farm Coin items, and of course, the almost-weekly horse release.
Here’s what you can find in the FarmVille Market this week:

• Spooky Swamp for 80,000 Farm Coins
• Duck Head Stone for 10,000 Farm Coins
• Kermode Bear for 1,500,000 Farm Coins
• Black Mini Unicorn for 30 Farm Cash
• Pilot Pig for 18 Farm Cash
• Trick or Treat Donkey for 16 Farm Cash
• Count Duckula for 14 Farm Cash
• Halloween Tree for 8 Farm Cash
• Big Halloween Tree for 14 Farm Cash
• Haunted Market for 30 Farm Cash
• Haunted Farm House for 20 Farm Cash
• Spooky Swamp for 5 Farm Cash
• Chicken (costume) for 22 Farm Cash
• Cat (costume) for 22 Farm Cash
• Bunny (costume) for 22 Farm Cash
• Cow (costume) for 20 Farm Cash
• Monster Gnome for 15 Farm Cash
  
  The Black Mini Unicorn can be placed in your Horse Paddock, which means you can share foals with friends. The Halloween Tree is a level 1 tree, and its seedlings can grow into a Big Halloween Tree, so we suggest purchasing the level 1 version only if you’re low on Farm Cash.
  The Mystery Game has also been restocked with some new Halloween animals. See what they are here.
  

FarmVille Raffle Booth (10/16/11): Buckskin Mini Horse and Giant Pot Fountain top the charts

It's that time again farmers - time to try your luck with the FarmVille Raffle Booth. How many tickets did you claim last week? Hopefully enough to walk away with all five prizes available, but if not, there's always tonight's (well, this week's) new game to try yet again. Unlike previous weeks, where the top two prizes have been available previously (and are therefore not as interesting), tonight we see a prize that animal collectors (specifically horse collectors) are going to love: the Buckskin Mini Horse. Sure, the other prize is a re-hash from previous weeks, but your odds are better for the horse anyway. Score!

As usual, here's the list of prizes available, along with the supposed odds of winning them.

10 Special Delivery Boxes - 1:5
3 Farmhands - 1:20
5 Love Potions - 1:50
Buckskin Mini Horse - 1:200
Giant Pot Fountain - 1:500

Remember, you'll be given a single Raffle Ticket for free with the beginning of this week's event, but can then gather together plenty more by either purchasing them with Farm Cash, or by asking your friends to send them to you. Or, if you're really lucky (or perhaps just casually into the event), you can wait for your friends to voluntarily stock your Raffle Booth with tickets in the hopes that you'll return the favor. Maybe if you do, you'll earn enough luck to walk away with all five of this week's prizes. If so, would you mind passing a little bit of that luck over here?

FarmVille: Animal Mastery and Crop/Tree Mastery statues permanently added to the store

 While we had already brought you news concerning the Platinum Mastery Statue in FarmVille, that particular statue disappointed many farmers as its effects only worked on crops and trees. If you're more of an animal collector than anything else, you'll now be happy to know that a specific "Animal Mastery" Statue has been launched in the game's store. Along with that, the Platinum Statue has received a name change to be more clear.

Now, the Crop / Tree Mastery Statue (formerly the Platinum Mastery Statue) and Animal Mastery Statues can be found in the game's marketplace under the "Farm Aides" category. Both of these statues work permanently on your farm to provide you with double the mastery points on either crops and trees, or animals, for life, depending on which one you choose. These bonuses don't stack with events that may launch for holidays and the like - you'll simply gain double the mastery points on all items harvested of those particular categories.

The prices? The Crop / Tree Mastery Statue costs 300 Farm Cash, and the Animal Mastery Statue itself costs 250 Farm Cash. No one said the cost of convenience was cheap, as these prices most certainly aren't. Still, remember that if you already have a Platinum Mastery Statue on your land, you don't need to purchase the Crop / Tree Mastery Statue as it has the same effect. If you just must spend that much Farm Cash, why not pick up the animal version as well? Heck, you'll even save 50 Farm Cash in the process!

FarmVille Express available for mobile devices

FarmVille released the mobile browser version of their game on Friday!
FarmVille Express is a new way to farm on your mobile browser without the need for an app. It’s a fast way to take care of your farm on the go.
There are only a few features available in FarmVille Express, viewing your actual farm is not one of them. You can, however, take care of accepting gifts, harvesting, plowing and planting your crops.
See images from FarmVille Express in the slideshow to the left!
You can open FarmVille Express in your mobile browser by visiting m.farmville.com on your smart phone.
What you can do:
·         Accept gifts
·         Send gifts
·         Harvest crops
Plant new crops
·         See if your crops are ready for harvest
·         Add neighbors
What you cannot do:
·         Visit neighbors
·         View your farms
·         Make market purchases
·         Use items in your gift box

We do see a couple minor glitches thus far, including the crop mastery tallies being incorrect when planting new crops (only our second level mastery star was filled out for crops we’ve mastered long ago).
You also have to click once for each plot you want to harvest and replant, so in our case, if we want to take care of the 316 fallow plots on our home farm, we’ll be clicking the “Plow and Plant” button 316 times. The game does let us know that harvesting all with fuel usage is coming soon, so we can hope that will alleviate some of the clicking.

FarmVille Count Duckula's Quest guide

FarmVille released six new quests in celebration of the Count Duckula Castle feature on Thursday night!
If you’re not familiar with the constructable Halloween building, be sure to read up on it in this article.
The six new quests have some pretty nice Halloween themed prizes in them. Let’s take a look at what you will be doing:
Quest 1: A Frightening Feast
Your first quest will ask you to get 8 Banquet Invitations from friends, place 1 Count Duckula Castle on your farm and harvest 75 Pumpkin crops. If you’ve already placed the castle on your farm, you will instantly receive credit for it. Your prizes are 50XP, 1 Red Cat and 2,500 Farm Coins. Place this Red Cat down on your farm right away!
Quest 2: Lively Libations
Next up, you will be asking your friends for 8 Spooky Grails, harvest the Red Cat and harvest 100 Grain crops. Your prizes will be 50XP, 3 Ravens and 2,500 Farm Coins.
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Quest 3: A Spooky Scene
Next up, you will be asking friends for 10 Scary Decorations, upgrade out Count Duckula Castle to “Spooky” and harvest 100 Fruit crops. Your prizes will be 50XP, 1 Spider Web and 2,500 Farm Coins. Count Duckula’s Castle reaches “Spooky” at the completion of level 1, which means you need 12 of each item to build it.
Quest 4: Fun in the Dark
Your fourth quest will ask you to get 10 Blindfolds from friends, master the Red Cat to level 1, and harvest 75 Golden Poppies. Your prizes will be 50XP, 1 Pumpkin Gnome and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 5: Setting the Table
Your next quest will ask you to get 12 Table Centerpieces, master Red Cat to level 2, and harvest 150 Vegetable crops. Your prizes will include 50XP, 1 Pumpkin Snowman and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 6: Finishing Touches
Your final quest will ask you to get 12 Party Favors from friends, harvest 2 Duckula’s Ravens and upgrade your Castle Duckula to “Eerie.” Your final prizes include 50XP, 1 Court Jester Costume and 2,500 Farm Coins. The castle becomes “Eerie” at the completion of level 2, so you will need 14 more of each item to add to it.

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Ice Tulips and Ice Roses coming for Winter?

While we may be in the middle of a large Halloween celebration in FarmVille (complete with Halloween items in the store, and even a Count Duckula Castle), it looks like some of the first Winter items have now been added to the game's files, but have yet to be released in the store. As of right now, it looks like two different ice crops are going to be released in the game: Ice Tulips and Ice Roses.

FarmVille Freak has discovered crop and bushel images for both of these crops, but while they don't necessarily scream Winter or Christmas, keep in mind that some ice-themed items were released last year, so it's not a far stretch. And while it might seem unusual for Zynga to already be preparing for store content so far in advance, keep in mind that these crops don't necessarily have to be released in December, as they have nothing to do with Winter Holidays, and could instead come out earlier. Or, if we're wrong with our Winter prediction, they could come out whenever the folks at Zynga decided they felt like it.

Either way, the inclusion of Bushels here tells us that we'll at least be able to master these crops faster by doubling our efforts, but whether or not they'll be used in any sort of themed crafting recipe remains to be seen. We'll make sure to stay on top of things, though, and will let you know as soon as we see these crops even mentioned in the game, let alone released.

FarmVille: Super Crops arrive in Lighthouse Cove

Back at the end of July, FarmVille received a series of Super Crops on our Home Farm. These crops offer you plenty of XP and coins, like normal crops do, but require a bit of work to unlock them. First, you'll need to have mastered the original form of the crop, and then ask your friends to help unlock the final ability to plant them. Well, this feature apparently went over so well that Super Crops have come to Lighthouse Cove as well.

To be specific, you can now unlock and plant Super versions of Hay, Chandler Blueberries, Lady Slippers and Kennebec Potatoes. Again, to unlock each one of these crops, you will need to have first mastered the original version of the crop. When that step is done, you can ask six friends for help in "certifying" the crop, which helps you unlock the Super version. To be especially clear, you must unlock each crop individually. Just because you have mastered both Hay and Chandler Blueberries (as examples) and have gathered six certifications in one crop, you'll still need to do the same in the other crop as well.

Interestingly, the rest of the Lighthouse Cove crops don't have Super versions as of this writing, but you also now have access to planting Home Farm crops on your Lighthouse Cove, along with the Super Crops released previously. When and if other versions of Lighthouse Cove Super Crops pop up in the store, we'll make sure to let you know.

FarmVille Count Duckula's Castle: Everything you need to know

Truly kicking off the Halloween event in FarmVille (if the slew of decorations, trees and animals already released this month wasn't enough), Count Duckula's Castle has been released for building. This new castle can be built and upgraded through one of six stages, and you'll be able to "harvest the castle" - think the Haunted House from last year - in order to receive 1-4 Tickets every day for your "Halloween Ticket Basket." This basket hasn't come out just yet, but you can now build the Castle in full to get prepared.

To complete the initial construction of Count Duckula's Castle, you'll need to collect three new building materials in bulk:

• 12 Haunted Bricks
• 12 Goo
• 12 Knockers

As usual, you can gather these materials in a variety of ways, the most prominent of which is simply asking your friends to send them to you. You can send requests to friends for any of these three parts once every four hours. You can also send (and receive) gifts to/from friends by using them on the Free Gifts page, or you can purchase them outright for Farm Cash. Finally, it looks like you might be able to earn these items by opening Special Delivery Boxes, but this doesn't normally happen with new buildings, so don't be surprised if you open a few with no luck here either.

After the initial construction of Count Duckula's Castle is complete, you'll be able to immediately start upgrading it. Upgrading the Castle requires the same building materials you used before, but in larger quantities. For instance, to upgrade to level 2, you'll need to collect 14 of each item, rather than 12. Furthermore, upgrading to level 3 requires 16 of each item, and so on until you eventually get to level 6 (requiring 22 each). However, for Levels 4, 5, and 6, the Haunted Bricks are replaced with Creepy Candles. The process, however, is the same.

As one final note, while you can simply stick with harvesting your own Castle for Tickets, you can also visit your friends' farms and harvest their Castles for extra Tickets as well.

Again, the Tickets earned in from this Castle are apparently available immediately, so you'll need to hang onto them for a few days before we see the "Halloween Ticket Basket" itself release (that could happen sometime this week - perhaps Sunday). Either way, we'll make sure to let you know when the Halloween Ticket Basket launches, and what you can earn in side, so keep checking back!

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Halloween animals like to play dress up

If you're both an animal collector and a fan of Halloween, I've got some exciting news for you! A whole slew of new themed animals look to be coming to FarmVille in the near future, if images spotted by FarmVille Freak are anything to go by. Of course, there's no telling exactly when or how these items will come to the game, although we can make a few guesses. It's likely that most will be released in the store for coins, while others may be prizes for Halloween themed goals that have yet to be released. Either way, here's a sneak preview of these items to get you excited about things to come.

In the image above, you have the Space Chipmunk (c'mon, just say that - it even sounds awesome!), Candle Deer, Bat Cat, Hunter Duck, Ghost Goat, Trick or Treat Donkey, Lobster Corgi, Skeleton Horse, Skeleton Sheep, and Candy Corn Sheep. While this group is pretty large on its own, don't forget about the unreleased decorations that we also think are coming, and don't forget that there have to be tons of trees in the works as well (I mean, there's no guarantee, but how can Zynga resist?).

While details about each of these items, and the role they'll play in the store/game are still unknown, you can be sure we'll make you the first to know when they start to release. Just be warned: if these items are released in the store as limited edition items, they'll likely cost Farm Cash. Have that wallet ready!

FarmVille Lighthouse Cove Chapter 4 Goals: Everything you need to know

Continuing in the saga of the Lighthouse Cove in FarmVille, we've seen the launch of Chapter 4 in the story, along with three goals to get you started. These goals bring in a bit of Halloween fun with the appearance of Candy Corn and themed decorations, but as usual, your progress is being timed. You'll only have two weeks to complete these goals, and while that shouldn't be a problem, here's a guide to completing the three of them for sure.

A History of Fun!

• Get 3 Candy Corn
• Harvest Lighthouse Cove
• Make Fruit Cider Twice

Candy Corn can be gathered by posted a general request on your news feed for all of your friends to respond to. As for the Fruit Cider, this recipe is made inside your Restaurant using two Cove Cranberry, three Red Currant and three Lady Slipper bushels each. You'll need to wait six hours for these to finish crafting, so that gives you a bit of time to wait for your Lighthouse Cove to become ready to harvest (that happens once per day). For finishing this first goal, you'll receive 100 XP, 2,500 coins and a Founder Sheep (dressed as a classic founding father from American history).

Sea Lion Search

• Get 3 Tasty Fishes
• Harvest 90 Cove Cranberries
• Improve the Cove to Level 4

If you've been vigilant about adding Stones, Steel Beams and Logs to the Lighthouse Cove ever since the farm launched, you're likely already well beyond Level 4. That being the case, this task will be completed for you, allowing you to simply post a wall post for the Tasty Fishes and wait the 24 hours for your Cove Cranberries to be ready (or, if you're planning ahead, you could have them mostly grown or ready to harvest by this point as well). Finish this second goal and you'll receive 200 XP, 2,500 coins and a Sea Lion for your efforts.

Heritage Days

• Get 3 Wrapped Candies
• Make Fruit Cider Twice
• Harvest 90 Chandler Blueberries

The Wrapped Candies are earned by asking your friends to send them to you, while the Fruit Cider takes the same bushels mentioned above: Red Currant, Cove Cranberry and Lady Slipper. As for the Chandler Blueberries, these ones take eight hours to grow. The rewards for this final goal are 300 XP, 2,500 coins and a spooky Mausoleum. This one may not necessarily scream Halloween, but when I think of Halloween, graveyards aren't so far behind, so I suppose it fits.

Once you've finished these three goals, you'll technically have completed Chapter 4, but there are always Bonus Challenges to complete as well. We'll have a guide for those harder goals (they aren't called "Challenges for nothing") as soon as we can.

FarmVille: Animal Habitat expansions on sale

A few days ago, we brought you the news that Animal Habitats in FarmVille could be upgraded and expanded. This process is done by collecting larger amounts of the same building materials used to complete each Habitat in the beginning. For instance, expanding the Cow Pasture takes more Hay Bundles, Stones and Tin Sheets. With each Habitat being allowed to expand twice, and each Habitat needing to be expanded individually, this has suddenly placed a lot of work (albeit completely voluntary work) onto our plates. What if there were an easier way? Well, there is.

If you're not opposed to spending some Farm Cash to get ahead, you'll be happy to know that all Animal Habitat expansions can be purchased outright with Farm Cash. What's more, those expansions currently happen to be on sale. You'll know if you have these sale prices available to you if a pop-up like the one below appears on your farm at login. Your own menu will vary, depending on how many of each Habitat you have on your farm and how many you've already completely upgraded (the 0/1, 0/2 numbers will vary), but the general process works in the same way.

You'll simply be able to look around the window, picking out which expansions you'd like to complete with Farm Cash, with the costs seemingly depending on how many parts you've already placed manually. As you can see, my Horse Paddock is the closet Animal Habitat I have to being completely expanded, so it costs the least amount of money. Formerly, that expansion would cost me 14 Farm Cash, but with this sale, I could save a single Farm Cash.

While that may not seem like a lot, look at some of the other expansions - 75 down to 68 Farm Cash, for instance, on the two Wildlife Habitats. Again, these numbers vary between Habitats, and will likely vary in your own game as well. What stays the same is that you're guaranteed to save at least some Farm Cash if going this route. Is it worth it? That will ultimately be up to you, but I think I'll personally stick with collecting free ingredients the old fashioned way.

FarmVille: Corn Fence, Giant Maracija and Witch Scarecrow available for Farmer Appreciation Week

While it may be Sunday (and therefore technically the start of another week), that doesn't mean that you've missed out entirely on the goodies associated with FarmVille's Farmer Appreciation Week. In fact, three more items have been re-released in the game's store this weekend for the event, and all are available for coins. If you're into decorating for the Fall or Halloween seasons, you'll especially want to pay attention. Here's a look at the three items in detail:

Giant Maracija

• Originally Released: Southwest Event 2010
• Cost: 6,000 coins (formerly 4,440 coins)
• XP Gained: 60
• Sells for: 300 coins

Corn Fence (single piece)

• Originally Released: Fall Event 2010
• Cost: 8,000 coins (formerly 4,000 coins)
• XP Gained: 80
• Sells for: 400 coins

Witch Scarecrow

• Originally Released: Halloween 2010
• Cost: 100,000 coins (formerly 80,000)
• XP Gained: 1,000
• Sells for: 5,000 coins

Yet again, these three items have received a price hike over their original releases in the store, but you have to take a certain amount of convenience into mind when discussing them. Without this Farmer Appreciation Event, we could be left wanting, without access to purchasing these items at all. In that case, I think the simple fact that we've been allowed to purchase them again (either in bulk or individually) makes up for the increase in price, don't you?

We'll continue to bring you a look at all things related to the Farmer Appreciation Week in FarmVille, but remember - double mastery is still on, so make the most of it while you can!

Click here to find out more! Ugh: Zynga’s Farmville in talks for movie treatment

As annoying as it is to get Farmville requests from friends on Facebook, now there may be no way to escape the popular game: Farmville in talks to be made into a movie.
Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, writers on the classic film Toy Story and decidedly not classic movies Garfield and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, revealed late last week they have been in talks with Farmville-creator Zynga to write an adaptation.
“We’re in conversations with Zynga to do something with one of their brands,” told IGN on Thursday. “Can’t really say too much on that front yet, but ‘Old MacDonald’ didn’t have a factory, if you get our drift.”
We’re not exactly sure what that means, but previous rumors indicated Zynga had reached out to work on a Mafia Wars film based on its popular Mafia-themed game. So it’s no surprise it might be working to develop other content based on its immensely popular games.
Farmville launched on Facebook in June 2009 and became one of Zynga’s first big hits. The game’s a little older now but still counts more than 35 million users. Comparably, Zynga’s Cityville has had more than 76 million active monthly users after launching in December 2010.
The goal of Farmville is to build a thriving farm by planting trees, harvesting crops and raising livestock. The social aspect of the game comes from having your Facebook friends as “neighbors” and users being able to send supplies and gifts to each other, among other actions.
A movie would most likely use Farmville as a title for branding purposes, but not necessarily feature any farming-with-friends action. However, it’s not hard to imagine a computer-animated film with talking farm animals coming out of this. If it’s anything like Garfield or Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, however, I’ll be skipping it.

FarmVille: Mini Stonehenge, Short Palms and Hanging Chilies back for Farmer Appreciation Week

If you've got 115,000 coins to spare in FarmVille, then I've got a trio of items you'll want to check out in the game's store. As part of the ongoing Farmer Appreciation Event, we've seen the re-release of three formerly retired, formerly exclusive decorations to the game's store. Here's a look at all three, so get those (virtual) wallets ready!

Mini Stonehenge

• Originally Released: Earth Day 2010
• Costs: 100,000 coins (formerly 12,000)
• XP Gained: 1,000
• Sells for: 5,000 coins

Short Palms

• Originally Released: Southwest Event 2010
• Costs: 10,000 coins (formerly 2,700)
• XP Gained: 100
• Sells for: 500 coins

Hanging Chilies

• Originally Released: Southwest Event 2010
• Costs: 5,000 coins (formerly 3,500)
• XP Gained: 50
• Sells for: 250 coins

As you can see, each of these three items has had a price increase (a significant one, in the case of the Mini Stonehenge) from the first time they were released in the store. While that might seem rude or "greedy" on Zynga's part, remember that these items used to be retired, and we had no guarantee of ever seeing them again. If you'd like to take your second chance at these items, now's the time, regardless of how much more expensive they are now.

This is especially true when you consider the items' time limit in the store: just under 11 hours, as of this writing. At that time, the items will go back into retirement, and we'll only have to wait and guess (without holding our breath) as to when they'll come back... if ever.

FarmVille Halloween Items: Dark Apple Tree, Batwing Horse, Bat Pumpkin and more

With tonight's FarmVille update, we not only see the launch of the Apple Bobbing / Barrel feature in the game, but there's also been an addition to the current Halloween limited edition item theme. It's interesting that the Apple Barrel feature comes out now, rather than a Halloween collection event, but either way, these new store items should be enough to tide you over until further developments (apparently) arise. Here's a look at the new items available in the store.

Trees

Dark Apple Tree - 8 Farm Cash
Giant Dark Apple Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Halloween Lantern Tree - 8 Farm Cash
Giant Halloween Lantern Tree - 14 Farm Cash

Yet again, we see two different pairs of Halloween trees released this evening, but neither really scream Halloween. The Dark Apple Trees are simply a dark purple color, while the Halloween Lantern Trees are more themed with hanging lanterns appearing when they're ready to harvest. However, I can definitely see these trees being used in a general Fall theme as well, and not specifically Halloween. Either way, remember that the two more expensive trees can be earned for free via Mystery Seedlings.

Animals

Dire Wolf - 10 Farm Cash
Batwing Horse - 26 Farm Cash
Bat Rabbit - 14 Farm Cash
Pink Patch Bull - 1.5 million coins

The Batwing Horse is a dark, black and green horse with large wings. It honestly does look like someone combined a bat and a horse. The same thing can be said for the Bat Rabbit, with its widespread wings, although the rabbit portion doesn't look like other rabbits traditionally released in the store. As for the Pink Patch Bull, this is a special item that's only available for a week.

Buildings

Werewolf Shack - 15 Farm Cash
Dilapidated House - 20 Farm Cash

Unfortunately, both of these buildings cost Farm Cash, although they do give players that want a spookier, gloomier Halloween theme something to get excited about (that is, as opposed to all of the happier, brighter items already released in the theme). The Dilapidated House is the larger of the two items, but the Werewolf Shack comes with some cool animations (eyeballs blinking in the windows) and extra details.

Decorations

Bat Pumpkin - 50,000 coins
Haunted Drive Inn - 18 Farm Cash
Giant Candelabra - 20,000 coins
Werewolf Gnome - 15 Farm Cash

Here, the two coin items are less elaborate than the Haunted Drive Inn, as you'd expect, but they're still rather cool and are nicely sized items for the price(s). As with the other items released this evening (including the Avatar Costumes below), these decorations will be available in the game for the next two weeks.

Avatar Costumes

Wolf - 8 Farm Cash
Vampire I - 10 Farm Cash
Vampire II - 10 Farm Cash

Here, the two types of Vampire costumes go with either gender. Vampire I is for male avatars, while Vampire II is a dress and wing combo for female avatars. Remember, it's not this often that we see so many items release for avatars, so if you want your avatar to have fun costumes the rest of the year through (and into next), this is a great time to stock up.

In addition to these items, there's a new purchase / collection event going on that will reward you with a free Halloween Forest item (a heavily animated forest with four trees, blinking eyes in the shadows and ghosts) for purchasing eight items released this evening. You'll have to purchase the Dark Apple and Halloween Lantern Trees (both large and small), along with the Batwing Horse, the Dire Wolf, Werewolf Gnome and Werewolf Shack. That's an expensive set of items, sure, but if you purchase them all within a week, the exclusive Halloween Forest is yours.

FarmVille Apple Bobbing Goals: Everything you need to know

While the Apple Bobbing / Apple Barrel feature launched in FarmVille earlier this afternoon, don't think that Zynga is letting the feature start and end so quickly. If you've got the time, Zynga is ready to fill it with six new goals that will see you being rewarded with a brand new Horse if you complete them all. Does that have your attention? Good! Let's get started on our guide to the Apple Bobbing Goals, so you can get through them (and receive your rewards) as quickly as possible.

Picking Some Fun

• Get 6 Apple Baskets
• Place and Orchard
• Harvest 5 Apple Trees

If you already have an Orchard on your farm, this task will thankfully already be completed for you. As for harvesting the Apple Trees, it doesn't seem to matter if they're harvested within an Orchard or outside of one, but either way, they can be purchased from the store for 325 coins each. As for the Apple Baskets, they can be earned by posting a general request to your news feed. For finishing this first goal, you'll receive 100 XP, one Apple (for placement inside your Apple Barrel), an Apple Cart decoration and 1,000 coins.

Cream of the Crop

• Get 6 Blue Ribbons
• Harvest 25 Pumpkins
• Harvest 25 Squash

Luckily, both of these harvesting tasks can be completed at the same time, so long as you have 50 plots of land on your farm. This isn't likely to be an issue, so just wait eight hours for the Pumpkins to be ready to harvest and (unfortunately) two days for the Squash. This is one case where you may want to plant these Squash early, before you ever start on this second goal, just to be more prepared later on. Finishing this second goal gives you an Apple for your Barrel, 100 XP, a Honeycrisp Apple Tree and 1,000 coins.

Bobbing Around!

• Get 6 Horsehead Rakes
• Harvest 50 Strawberries
• Place Honeyrisp Apple Tree on Farm

You'll receive the Apple Tree in your Gift Box, so just pull it out and onto your farm to pass that step. You can do this while you're waiting the four hours for your Strawberries to grow. By making it past this third goal, you'll receive 100 XP, an Apple for your Barrel, a Pig with an Apple and 1,000 coins.

A Fall Treat

• Get 6 Romantic Centerpieces
• Harvest 1 Orchard
• Harvest 5 Cows

The Romantic Centerpieces aren't new to the game, so you might already have some in your inventory, saving you the trouble of posting another request to your news feed. Either way, Orchard become ready to harvest once every two days, while you can harvest five cows in a single day as well. Complete this goal and you'll receive three Apples for your Barrel, 300 XP, an Apple Covered Sheep and 3,000 coins.

A Canter to the Left

• Get 6 Horse Combs
• Harvest 10 Horses
• Harvest 100 Fruit

Luckily, it doesn't appear to matter which king of fruit you harvest, so long as you don't harvest fruit trees and expect that to count. This definitely has to be a fruit crop that you plant on squares. As for the Horse Combs, they've been required for multiple goals now, so you should have no problem finding six, even if you have to ask for them on your news feed. Finish this goal and you'll receive 300 XP, three more Apples for your Barrel, an Apple Costume Chicken and 3,000 coins. Yes, that's right - a white chicken dressed as a red apple.

Will It Pop?

• Get 6 Popcorn Machines
• Harvest 100 Vegetables
• Harvest 1 Orchard

By this point, hopefully two days will have passed since the fourth goal here, so that your Orchard(s) are once again ready to harvest. If not, you can kill some time by planting any vegetable crop for the second task, and can post a general news feed item to your wall requesting the Popcorn Machines. For finishing this final goal, you'll receive 300 XP, three Apples for your Barrel, 3,000 coins and - as promised - the Apple Horse.

All six of these goals need to be completed within a two week time frame. That gives you plenty of time to build an Orchard if need be, and to plant those Squash that take two days to grow. Still, if you plan ahead, you'll be able to finish these goals even more quickly and then get back to collecting Apples for the prizes inside the Apple Barrel proper. Good luck in receiving them all!

FarmVille: Free Skeleton Cow making the rounds

If you were one of the many players that participated in the Chapter 1 Goals in FarmVille's Lighthouse Cove, keep a special eye on your inbox and in-game Gift Box over the next few hours / days. It looks like Zynga is out to reward those players who jumped so quickly into the game's third farm with a Halloween-themed cow, and this one's quite the prize! The price, specifically, is a Skeleton Cow, and, again, you can claim one in one of two ways.

The most common way sees a pop-up automatically appearing when you login to the game. You'll be thanked for your participating in Lighthouse Cove and will be told you can find your new cow in your Gift Box. If that doesn't happen, however, you'll want to keep a special eye on your email, as the developer is sending on newsletters to players containing an "Accept Gift" link that will let you claim the cow manually if you don't receive the pop-up.

Either way, we're specifically told that this release deals with Farmer Appreciation Week, so it's possible that you'll only be able to claim your cow for a few days more. Make sure you login to your farm sooner, rather than later, to have the best chance at securing one of these cows for yourself. One last thing: if you've already received the Skeleton Cow in-game automatically, you can't click on the email link to claim a second (trust me, I tried).

FarmVille Bobbing for Apples quest guide

FarmVille released 6 new quests to kick off the new Bobbing for Apples feature on Thursday!
If you need a rundown of how the new Bobbing for Apples feature works and what you can score for prizes, be sure to check this article.
We’ve got six new quests to get through, and if you’re still working on the Lighthouse Cove Chapter 3 quests, you’re going to be a pretty busy player for the next few days. Let’s take a look at the new quests and prizes.
Quest 1: Picking Some Fun
Your first quest will ask you to get 6 Apple Baskets from friends, place an orchard down on your farm, and harvest 5 Apple Trees. Your rewards will be 100XP, 1 Apple Ticket, 1 Apple Cart, 1 Log and 1,000 Farm Coins.
Quest 2: Cream of the Crop
Your next quest will ask you to get 6 Blue Ribbons from friends, harvest 25 Pumpkins and harvest 25 Squash. Your rewards will be 100XP, 1 Apple Ticket, 1 Honeycrisp Apple Tree and 1,000 Farm Coins.
Quest 3: Bobbing Around
Your third quest will ask you to get 6 Horsehead Rakes from friends, harvest 50 Strawberry crops and place the Honeycrisp Apple Tree on your farm. Your prizes include 100XP, 1 Apple Ticket, 1 Pig with Apple and 1,000 Farm Coins.
Quest 4: A Fall Treat
For your fourth quest, you will be asking friends for 6 Romantic Centerpieces, harvest 1 Orchard and harvest 5 Cows. Your rewards will be 300XP, 3 Apple Tickets, 1 Apple Covered Sheep and 3,000 Farm Coins. Pretty easy stuff!
Quest 5: A Canter to the Left
We’re in the home stretch now! Your fifth quest will ask you to get 6 Horse Combs from friends, harvest 10 Horses and harvest 100 fruit. Your prizes will be 300XP, 3 Apple Tickets, 1 Apple Costume Chicken and 3,000 Farm Coins.
Quest 6: Will it Pop?
Your final Bobbing for Apples quest will be asking you to get 6 Popcorn Machines from friends, harvest 100 Vegetable crops and harvest 1 Orchard. Your final rewards will be 300XP, 3 Apple Tickets, 1 Apple Horse and 3,000 Farm Coins.

FarmVille: Farmer Appreciation Week highlights

While the biggest perk of FarmVille's Farmer Appreciation Week has arguably been the release of Double Mastery lasting the entire week, that hasn't been the only perk released thus far. In addition to the Skeleton Cow we told you about earlier this evening, Zynga has also announced that other changes (some that you may not notice right away) have also gone into effect.

For instance, after this update rolls around to all famers, it looks like any rare Mystery Baby from a Wildlife Habitat, Zoo or Pet Run will only require 20 Animal Feed to grow into an adult, rather than 30. Any babies that are already on your farms don't look like they'll receive the decrease, but any babies spawned after the update should require less feed. We haven't been given a time limit as to the end of this tweak, so it just might be permanent.

In addition, we've been told that the Candy Corn crop has started to roll back out to farmers. This crop was available last year, complete with crop mastery, so it might not mean much to many veteran farmers, but if you're new to the game, or didn't have a chance to complete the entire mastery tree of Candy Corn the first time, this will be your second chance.

Finally, if you've yet to unlock land expansions in the English Countryside up to 30x30, you can now purchase those expansions for 50% off their original Farm Cash prices. For instance, the 26x26 English Expanse normally costs 100 Farm Cash, but now costs 50. Unfortunately, this sale has had no effect on the coin prices of the 26x26 or 28x28 farms.

According to official FarmVille forums, this still isn't a complete list of items or changes that will be released as part of Farmer Appreciation Week, and we'll make sure to bring you further highlights as interesting prizes and changes continue to roll out.

FarmVille Gift Box Expansion: Everything you need to know

If there were ever one fundamental error in FarmVille's design, it's the low inventory limit placed on your Gift Box. Now though, that is far less of an issue thanks to Gift Box Expansions. It's not clear whether this expanded Gift Box has already hit every users' farm, or if we'll need to wait for it to roll out over time, but Zynga has given us a complete rundown of how this Gift Box expansion changes things - mostly for the good.

First and foremost, your Gift Box now has two different limits. Whereas before, the limit was technically 500 items (granted, there were plenty of ways to go above that, but we won't go there), now, the overall limit is 5,000 items. That's for total items, regardless of duplicates, meaning that you could have 1,000 Special Delivery Boxes, 1,000 Fertilize Alls, etc., until you reached the 5,000 item limit total.

As for the other limit, this comes in how many total unique items you have. This limit is 500. To give this one an example, you could have 500 different items, only having one of each, in your Gift Box before being unable to technically accept more. You could have one Red Calf, one Special Delivery Box, one Cow, one tree, and so on. The second you added a duplicate item to the list (say, two trees instead of one), you will then only be able to hold 499 other unique items. Of course, the possibility that someone would ever reach 500 unique items before clearing it out is pretty far fetched, but I digress.

Overall, this means that your new gift box works on a "whichever limit is reached first" system, and it will start to delete items (or whole groups of items) if the limits are crossed, based on rarity. If you happen to have 1,000 Mystery Seedlings in your inventory, for instance, along with 499 unique, rare items (Fuel, Love Potions, Instant Grows), you will have reached your 500 unique item limit. As the game judges your Gift Box based on item rarity or value, these Mystery Seedlings are at the very bottom of the list. If someone then gave you an Unwither Ring, which is arguably the most rare item of all, all 1,000 of your Mystery Seedlings would be deleted, simply to give the Unwither Ring a slot in your Gift Box.

Here's an example list of item rarity, starting with the least rare and going to the most rare, straight from the game's official forums:

Gift-able items, coin price items (SDBs, seedlings, watering cans)
Non-consumable, non-LE coin items (haybales, fences)
LE coin items (themed coin decorations)
Consumable LE items (Captiol One Quick Grow) WILL NEVER BE DELETED
Non-consumable cash items (Unwither Ring, Platinum Mastery Statue) WILL NEVER BE DELETED
Consumable cash items (Fuel, Love potions) WILL NEVER BE DELETED

As you can see, there are whole groups of items that can never and will never be deleted from your Gift Box, regardless of how many times you breach the 500 / 5,000 total item limit(s). However, those items in the first three categories are fair game, so make sure to periodically clear out your Gift Box, just like you probably do now, to save yourself from losing all of those freebies.

FarmVille Apple Barrel: Everything you need to know

At the beginning of October, we brought you a sneak peek of a an Apple Bobbing feature in FarmVille that we thought would be coming to the game to celebrate the launch of Fall. As it turns out, we didn't have to wait long for this feature to arrive, as the Apple Barrel collection feature has officially begun rolling out to farmers this evening. This collection even gives you plenty of ways to earn Apples, but you'll only have three weeks to do so.

Once you place your Apple Barrel on your farm, you'll be able to either collect Apples traditionally by asking your friends to send them to you via individual gift requests, or you can purchase them for Farm Cash. You'll also apparently be able to earn Apples by harvesting Orchards, though we haven't been able to personally confirm that. While that works in the way we'd expect, if you want large bunches of apples at once, you can earn those by asking your friends to join your Apple Barrel Crew.

You'll be able to send out individual requests to friends to join your Crew, with each friend adding five Apples to your overall total. As of this writing, all of that work will help you unlock one of five prizes at five different Apple totals:

Fall Flowerbed - 15 Apples
Autumn Fireplace - 25 Apples
Harvest Gnome - 50 Apples
Ghost Pig - 125 Apples
Candy Corn Horse - 200 Apples

Again, you'll have three weeks to collect Apples, but let's say that you come up short by the time the event is over, or simply don't wish to bother collecting Apples to begin with. You'll also have the option of purchasing each item outright by "unlocking" them for the matching amount of Farm Cash. That is, the Fall Flowerbed is unlocked for 15 Farm Cash, while the Ghost Pig is unlocked for 125 Farm Cash. That's an expensive method, to be sure, but it's also a time-saver for those that aren't afraid of throwing down some serious Farm Cash for otherwise free items.

If additional prizes are added to the Apple Barrel in the future, we'll make sure to let you know. For now, make sure to gather as many Apples as you can in this Apple Barrel event before the (expected) Halloween Jack O' Lantern feature launches as well.

FarmVille Animal Habitat Expansions allow storage of 40 animals each

One of the biggest problems many farmers had with the new series of Animal Habitat Buildings in FarmVille is their small storage capacity of 20 animals each. This is especially true for the Horse Paddock and Cow Pasture, as they have almost entirely replaced the Horse Stable and Dairy Farm buildings on all farms. Either way, the 20 animal capacity has "forced" many farmers to build multiple buildings of each kind, just to have room for all of the grown Mystery Babies we claim from friends. Now, though, that is all about to change, as Animal Habitat Expansions have started a slow rollout in the game.

To be clear, each Animal Habitat can be expanded, but they must all be expanded separately. To begin, just head inside your Animal Habitat and click on the "Expand" button at the very top, next to the "Animals" tab. Each expansion requires you to collect the same items that the building was constructed with to begin with. So, for example, in the Cow Pasture you'll need to collect additional Hay Bundles, Stones and Tin Sheets.

The first expansion of each habitat looks to require 15 of each item, and will take your habitat from 20 animals max to 30 animals. If that's still not enough, you can collect 20 more of each individual ingredient and take your capacity to the now current max of 40 animals per Animal Habitat. As usual, you can ask your friends to send you these ingredients, or you can purchase them outright for Farm Cash.

Is 40 animals per habitat enough? That will ultimately be up to you to decide, but if the maximum capacity of Animal Habitats increases even further, we'll make sure to let you know. Now, if only we could have the amount of Animal Feed per Mystery Baby decreased...

FarmVille Express: Zynga working on mobile browser version? [Rumor]

According to this single image found by a FarmVille Freak tipster, that very well may be the case. A mobile browser-based version of FarmVille may be in the works at Zynga. The website reports that readers are reaching this screen when attempting to log into their mobile farm via the existing. However, those readers' claims strike us as odd considering what's displayed is clearly the Safari browser on an iPhone.

FarmVille Freak goes on to say that the app isn't completely functional at the moment. When we attempted to reach this same page through the native FarmVille app for iPhone, we simply arrived at our existing farms. But when trying to access FarmVille from Safari by typing in "www.farmville.com," we were redirected to "m.farmville.com/fx/" and a message that reads, "Howdy Partners! FarmVille is currently not available for this device."

The fact that we were redirected to that web address suggests that perhaps mobile web version of FarmVille really is in the works, but the release of this image was accidental. If you remember, Zynga approached players earlier this year with a survey asking players what they would want from a mobile web version of the game. Why Zynga would suddenly release a mobile web version of its flagship game after working so hard to bring the native FarmVille app up to speed is beyond us.

This news follows the mild announcement of a new Mafia Wars game for iOS, Shakedown. More importantly, this news comes just after Zynga's mobile head David Ko told The Guardian that he thought HTML5, commonly used by game developers to make mobile web game like what FarmVille Express appears to be, is still too early. Though, there is Facebook's Project Spartan to consider. We've contacted Zynga for comment.

FarmVille: Farmer Appreciation Week starts with Double Mastery

If you're one of the many players that's still dedicated to FarmVille, you'll be happy to know that Zynga appreciates your support. Or, at least they appreciate it enough to launch a full "Farmer Appreciation Week" in the game. While we have very little details at this point as to what the entirety of this event will contain, the biggest news comes via a new loading screen that has just gone into circulation.

This particular loading screen advertises Double Mastery, but don't worry - you don't have to wait until the weekend to receive it. It's already starting to hit players' farms as of this writing, and the double mastery will stay on all week. We've tested it out, and so far it does appear this Double Mastery event applies to animals as well, so now is definitely the time to be as diligent a FarmVille player as ever before. Just note that if you have any sort of statue on your land for Double Mastery of trees and crops, it's likely that this won't stack. Everyone that plays this week will simply receive 2x the mastery points on all crops, trees (and yes, apparently even animals) harvested.

Again, Zynga hasn't officially announced any other bonuses that will be released during this Fan Appreciation Event, but we'll make sure to keep an eye out for any freebies or announcements and will share them with you as soon as we know more. Personally? This sounds like a great time to release Calf and Foal mastery - c'mon Zynga! Don't let us down!

FarmVille players receive Adventure Monkey

Tuesday evening, many FarmVille players found a surprise in the Gift Boxes - an Adventure Monkey!
A couple of weeks ago we let you know about a cross promotion with Adventure World, another Zynga game. FarmVille players who reached level 5 by October 5 could earn an Adventure Monkey for their FarmVille farms. Zynga is delivering on their promise, and the monkeys are here!
The Adventure Monkey can be placed in your Zoo, and does have a chance of producing a rare mystery baby.
When placed outside of your Zoo, the Adventure Monkey is animated (and is amusing to watch, too).
See a photo of our Adventure Monkey to the left, then let us know if you've received yours yet! Keep up with all the latest FarmVille news and info on our official Facebook fan page.

FarmVille Lighthouse Cove: Chapter 3 quests guide

The third set of FarmVille’s Lighthouse Cove quests were released Tuesday afternoon!
This next set is all about horses, so you’ll be collecting parts, planting crops, and working on your cove some more. See photos of all the quests (and the prizes) in the slideshow to the left, and read on to see what you will be doing this time around.
Quest 1: Hay Beautiful!
For your first quest, you will have to get 3 Horse Combs from friends, harvest 70 Hays and harvest 3 horses. Hay is a 1 day crop, so unless you’ve expanded your cove or you use some InstaGrow, you will be on this quest for a little while. The Horses must be harvested on Lighthouse Cove, so if you don’t have any there, be sure to ask your friends to send you a few! Your prizes for completing this task will be 100XP, 1 Steel Beam, 1 Log, 1 Fall Color Cow and 2,500 Farm Coins.
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Quest 2: Horsing Around
Your second quest will ask you to get 3 Horse Tiaras, improve Lighthouse Cove to level 3, and harvest Lighthouse Cove once. If you’ce already expanded your cove to level 3, you will immediately get credit for it. Your prizes for these tasks are 200XP, 1 Fall Tree and 2,500 Farm Coins.
Quest 3: Set the Table
Your next quest will ask you to get 6 Romantic Centerpieces from friends, make the Wild Blueberry Pie recipe twice, and harvest 70 Red Clovers. Your prizes for completing these tasks will include 300XP, 1 rare Pet Run Baby, 10 Animal Feeds and 2,500 Farm Coins.
That completes this week’s regular quests, but there are also 3 BONUS quests you can work on if you choose. Their info is below!
BONUS Quest 1:
You first bonus quest will ask you to get 3 Hobby Horse Rakes from friends, harvest 70 Cove Cranberries, and improve Lighthouse Cove to level 4. Your prizes will be 5500XP, 1 Fall Gnome and 2,500 Farm Coins.
BONUS Quest 2:
Your second bonus quest will ask you to harvest 90 Chandler Blueberries, expand Lighthouse Cove to a Harbor Homestead, and make the Wild Blueberry Pie recipe twice. Your rewards will be 1,000XP, 1 Red Cedar Tree and 5,000 Farm Coins.
BONUS Quest 3:
Your final bonus quest this week will ask you to harvest Lighthouse Cove, harvest the Zoo (on Lighthouse Cove), and make the Black Raspberry Wine recipe twice. Your final rewards will be 500XP, 1 Gorilla, 10 Animal Feeds and 2,500 Farm Coins.

FarmVille German items start an Oktoberfest celebration

Here's one update I honestly didn't think we'd see come to FarmVille so soon. With the Halloween theme officially launching in the game earlier this week, we've seen yet another theme - German, or Oktoberfest - launch tonight as well. This theme is relatively small (so far), consisting of nothing but buildings and decorations that are re-releases of those items seen in a previous German theme. Whether or not we'll see any trees or specific animals launch as well is anyone's guess. For now, let's take a look at what's available so far.

Buildings

Festival Wheel - 38 Farm Cash
Festival Tent - 34 Farm Cash

I have to admit, even for its high price, the Festival Wheel (Ferris Wheel) is still one of the neatest looking items I can remember seeing launched in the game (it was originally available in last year's German event). This thing has it all - animation in the wheel itself and lights throughout as though it were at a real carnival. I'll tell you one thing: it will be hard for me not to personally splurge on one of these items for my own farm this year.

Decorations

German Gnome - 18 Farm Cash
Festival Carriage - 22 Farm Cash
Festival Gnome - 18 Farm Cash
Cider Stand - 120,000 coins
Festival Pavilion - 240,000 coins
Barrel Tub - 120,000 coins

Again, all of these items are re-releases of those seen in the game previously, so you'll want to take a few moments to search your storage for any of them so that you don't needlessly purchase duplicates (especially if the item costs Farm Cash).

It will be interesting to see if any other items release that are actually new to the German theme this year, but for now, you've got seven days to purchase any of these items that have come back around.

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Apple Bobbing feature coming soon?

With the fall season now upon us, it looks like Zynga will be releasing a new feature in FarmVille concerning a Fall staple at carnivals and parties: Apple Bobbing. Via a new Apple Bobbing Stand, seen in the banner above, along with at least five goals, we'll be able to apparently bring the chaotic fun of apple bobbing to our farms.

While the exact function of the Apple Bobbing Stand or even the accompanying goals has yet to be announced, there's always room for speculation. With the bag of Apples that we see above, it looks like the Apples themselves might be collectibles of some kind. Could this be the return of the token-collecting feature that sees us collecting dozens, if not hundreds of apples to redeem them for special fall-themed prizes?

Or, perhaps these goals will simply function as a way to reward us with this Apple Bobbing Stand, which will animate in some way (or serve some other purpose beside being purely decorative) to make it worthwhile. Whatever the case, it has this farmer incredibly interested in learning more, and if you're the same, make sure to keep checking back with us as we'll bring you all of the info about this supposed Apple Bobbing feature as soon as we know more.

Note: This is an unreleased feature, which may change before release or may never release at all (granted, that final option is incredibly unlikely).

FarmVille: Is a free Duckling a sign of things to come?

The last time we were frequently given free Ducklings in FarmVille, we had yet to see the launch of the Aviary animal habitat in the game. One could theorize that the launch of the Ducklings back then were a warning for us that Ducks and Birds in general would become pretty important in the game in the future. If we take that route of speculation, then what does today's free Duckling mean?

First things first, you'll receive this free Duckling automatically when logging in (if you don't receive it yet, it's possible that the freebie hasn't "rolled around" to your game yet). Once you click on the "Place" button, you'll see that your Duckling is a Red Duckling (by all accounts, it doesn't seem that this varies across users), which can grow into anything from a Black, Blue or Red Swans or even a Rainbow Duck (with a few options in between).

Unfortunately, this free Duckling doesn't let you escape from the work of growing it, so you'll need to ask seven friends for help in nurturing your little Duckling. The quicker you do so, the more options you'll have when it comes to growing it into an adult, or you can simply sell the Duckling for a quick 100 coins of profit, if you'd rather not deal with growing it up.

If we go back to speculating, does this mean we might see a new Duck/Bird-themed item released in FarmVille in the future? Perhaps a set of Ducks will be released in the Lighthouse Cove theme? Or, maybe this isn't as complicated as all that, and is simply a gift from Zynga to us to keep us busy this weekend. Whatever the case, we'll keep an eye on things and will let you know.

FarmVille: Coin Tree and Giant Coin Tree now available in the store

While you may already have a collection of Giant Coin Trees on your farm(s) in FarmVille, if you're like me, you were probably fairly disappointed in the "giant" size of that particular tree. Well, be disappointed no longer friends, as Zynga has finally fixed the size discrepancy with these trees, making them truly giant (at least when compared to other giant trees in the game), and has even released them for purchase in the store.

Not only that, but we see the Level 1 tree of this pairing - the regular Coin Tree - also available to buy in the game's marketplace. The pair goes for 5 and 10 Farm Cash each, which is exciting for those that were tried of the 7/8-14 Farm Cash prices we've seen take over the store in the past few months. Again, this Giant Coin Tree is the same one you likely already have on your land to begin with, and you don't have to do anything special (or purchase any additional Giant Coin Trees) to automatically convert all of your existing trees to the new "Giant" size.

For a look at the two different trees, you can check out our picture at right. Keep in mind that the Giant Coin Tree used to look like the version on the left, which is now just the standard Coin Tree. The larger tree on the right is the Giant Coin Tree as it functions today in the game, the way it should have been all along.

If you don't happen to have one of these Giant Coin Trees on your farm, or you just wish to purchase the smaller version to go along with it, make sure to do it fast as they'll only be available for five more days.

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Giant Jack-O'-Lantern collection event coming for Halloween?

My, my is Zynga ever predictable. It looks like a third Jack-O'-Lantern collection event will be coming to FarmVille to celebrate Halloween this year, asking users to collect pieces of candy or other themed items (called "Treats") in order to trade them in for collectible items inside a new "Giant Jack-O'-Lantern."

If the menu below is anything to go by, then FarmVilleFreak has discovered that the menu will allow us to not only collect Treats to fill a meter (as we're used to), but we might also be able to purchase the prizes themselves directly from the menu, if asking for Treats is too time-consuming for your liking (this could also just be a link to purchase Treats in bulk). Either way, keep in mind that some of the text in this window is a placeholder, as we'll of course be able to redeem our Treats for themed items, and not just six different "Purple Valentine Cows." Still, this gives us something to look forward to in the long run, as we know we'll be able to interact with friends to earn as many Treats possible within the few weeks that will likely be available to do so.

As for the Treats themselves, it looks like we'll be able to collect Candy Corn, wrapped pieces of Candy and perhaps even small Jack-O'-Lanterns to fill our Giant Jack-O'-Lantern to the brim. It would be great to see a return of the Haunted House as well, giving us free Candy daily, but a new item released for the same purpose also wouldn't be an entirely bad thing.

We'll make sure to keep an eye on all of the Halloween festivities in FarmVille, and will make sure you're the first to know when this Giant Jack-O'-Lantern (or Halloween collection event in general) kicks off in the game.