Monday, October 29, 2012

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

FarmVille Sunflower Meadows

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

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

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

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