FarmVille Podcast (June 4) highlights: Biplane, 7-Eleven and crafting cottages

This week's Official FarmVille Podcast was on time as scheduled and hosted by FarmVille Community Manager Lexilicious. You can listen to the video above, read the FarmVille Freak Summary below, or read the official transcript at the bottom of the post. This week's FarmVille Podcast contains some exciting news, especially for higher Level farmers that are Level 70 and above. New Levels! New Rewards! New Challenges! Read complete details in "Coming Soon" section.

This Week's Releases:

Move & Recycle Tools

* Move and Recycle Tools that allow you to easier decorate and re-arrange farms.
* Move Tool allows you to even move planted plots!
* Recycle Tool deletes items with no value and sells items with no value.
* Recycle Tool features a quick delete tool that will not notify you or warn you when you are about to sell items that cost under 1,000 coins.


Biplane

* Biplane applies instant grow on crops, making them grow instantaneously.
* Can purchase one for 30,000 coins.
* Accessible to Level 12 farmers and above.
* First flight is free, additional flights can be purchased with farm cash. The cost varies.
* Can win one as Gold Reward for completing the new Co-Op Farming "Peanut Butter and Jelly" Job.

Limited Edition Tuscan Items

Birthday Themed Decorations

Cracked Ribbon

* Cracked Ribbon rewards you for finding or "cracking open" Mystery Eggs.

User-Submitted Questions:

* Q:What made FarmVille decide to partner with 7-Eleven for a promotion? A: Danielle of FarmVille Product Marketing says that initially it started as FarmVille Slurpee cups and extended beyond because of the opportunity to promote offered by 7-Eleven.

* Q: Why is this 7-Eleven promotion available to the United States only? A: Due to specific restrictions and time constraints they were only able to open it to United States and Canada, some future promotions will include international players as well.

* Q: Will there be other similar promotions available in the future? A: Yes.

COMING SOON

New Content for Higher Level Players

(The Zynga gods are listening to our FarmVille Freak pleas :) )

* In the near future, the Level cap of 70 will finally be increased and extended to Levels 100 and beyond!
* New high level crops will be introduced that can be purchases with a one time use permit.
* New crops that will require you to Master other crops first.
* New high level coin items and gifts will be introduced for higher level players.

Crafting Cottage Preview

* Will give information on 3 upcoming buildings including what they produce.
* Learn which Bushels will be required to make some of the crafted goods.
* There will be a special gift for those that participate in the Preview.

Thank-You for Farmers that Submitted Email Permission

* Farmers who have given their email to FarmVille will receive a special prize.
* They will be rewarded with Free Fuel.
* As a thank you they will be given Free Fuel once per day, for 2 weeks.

The next Podcast will be Friday, June 11th 2010.

What is the most exciting part of this Podcast for you? I am excited about the new features for higher level farmers because their dedication deserves recognition!

Click here to read the Official transcript provided by Zynga below: Continue reading »

FarmVille Podcast – June 4th:

Hey Farmers, and welcome to this week's installment of the Official FarmVille Podcast! My name is Lexilicious and I am here to bring you all of the latest news and information about FarmVille from Zynga. This week, we will be discussing our latest releases, you guys will all be getting a sneak peek of things coming to FarmVille in the future, and we have a very special guest with us today to answer some questions from the FarmVille community!

This week featured lots of great new Limited Edition items, as well as some great new features.

The new "Move" and "Recycle" tools made an appearance this week, allowing users to more easily decorate and rearrange their farms. To access the Move tool, Simply click the Hand icon from the multi-tool menu to enter decoration mode. When in this mode, you will be able to move items with a single click, including plots!

When using the Move tool, you can also use the space bar to rotate applicable items when they are being held.

The new Recycle tool can be used to quickly clean up your farm. This new tool can be accessed by clicking the Recycle symbol in the Multi Tool menu.

The recycle tool will delete items with no value and sell items with coin value. In addition, the Recycle tool includes a "Quick Delete" mode. Quick delete will not warn you about selling or deleting any object worth less than 1,000 coins that is not a limited edition item when enabled.

Quick Delete will also give you an option to choose not to be warned about selling or deleting specific types of items until another tool is used. The new FarmVille Biplane was also released this week, which allows you to grow all of your crops instantaneously by applying an eco-friendly mix from the sky!

The Biplane can be purchased from the "Vehicles" Tab of the Market for 30,000 coins and is unlocked at level 12. Alternatively, you can obtain the Biplane by obtaining a Gold Medal in the new "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" Co-op that was released on Thursday.

Applying Instant Grow with the Biplane costs Farm Cash. The amount of Farm Cash you pay is dependent on how much time is left until your crops mature and how many seeded plots are on your farm. After you first purchase your Biplane, you are entitled to one free application of Instant Grow. To use it, simply click on the Biplane and select "Apply Instant Grow".
And lastly, new Limited Edition Tuscan Items and the new Birthday themed decorations are now available in the market, along with the new "Cracked" Achievement.

Alright! And that's about it for new releases this week! On that note, let's go ahead and get into answering some questions submitted by members of the FarmVille Community! Today, we have a special guest with us who has graciously taken time out of her busy day to sit down and answer some questions from the community about the 7/11 promotion that is currently running.

Our first question comes to us from Ar-nak-nag-sak, and they would like to know "What made FarmVille decide to partner with 7-11 for a promotion?"
Here is what Danielle had to say about this question.
Hi Farmers, my name is Danielle and I work on Product Marketing for FarmVille. I've been on the team for close to a year and have seen FarmVille grow into something that has brought enjoyment to millions of players around the globe.

As FarmVille has grown, so has the opportunity to partner with other companies to expand our brand. One such company was 7-Eleven. What initially started as bringing FarmVille to Slurpee cups turned into an opportunity to work with 7-Eleven on a full fledge promotion that involved numerous Zynga branded 7-Eleven merchandise, Zynga marketing posters in and around the store, and the ability for consumers to earn exclusive virtual items.

Our next question comes to us from Icanhazbeez. "Why is this promotion only available to the US, and not to international users?"

While we would have loved to bring this promotion to our international community, we work with all of our partners on an individual basis and due to a number of different variables, including time restraints, we were not able to bring the 7/11 promotion to our international users.

However, It was amazing that we were able to bring this promotion to US and Canadian users within the time frame that we had, although we are still open to future promotions that will include our international community.
And finally, our last question comes to us from Super Woman. "Will there be more future promotions similar to 7-11?"

Due to the popularity of the 7/11 promotion, we will be looking into more opportunities like this in the future. I would personally like to thank everyone who has participated in the 7-eleven promotion and we are very interested in hearing your feedback. Please make sure to visit the official farmville forums with any ideas or suggestions.

Thanks for having me on the podcast. I may be back in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

Alright, awesome. I want to give a big thank you to Danielle for taking time out of her busy schedule to sit down and talk with us today. And going forward, we will be doing our best to get other members of the FarmVille team to sit down with us to discuss new features and answer questions from the community.

So for this week's coming soon segment, I actually have some information for you guys on something I mentioned very briefly a few months ago in one of our earlier podcasts. The FarmVille team has recently been spending a lot of time coming up with content for our higher level players. Because of that, I am very excited to let you know that in the near future, we will be raising the level cap of 70, and adding more levels to FarmVille! Soon, you will be able to level up to level 100 and beyond. We will also be introducing new high level crops that can only be planted with a special one time purchase Permit and crops that require another crop to be mastered before they can be planted.

Along with the great new crops and additional levels, new high level coin items and gifts will soon be available to our most dedicated farmers.

Make sure to also keep an eye out for the Crafting Cottage preview, where you can find out about these three upcoming buildings and what they can produce. Learn which bushels are required to make some of the crafted goods and make sure to claim your special gift for participating in the preview!

And lastly, as a thank you to our users who have provided us with their email addresses, we will soon be emailing out fuel once a day for 2 weeks to anyone who has signed up for email.

Alright Folks, that's it from me this week. I will be back next Friday to give you all of the latest news and information from around the Farm. Again, my name is Lexilicious, and I will see you soon. Happy farming everybody!

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak >

FarmVille Silly Bandz Sponsored Link offers 25 Farm Cash

You could call the two mirrors, FarmVille and SillyBandz. One is a money-sucking phenomenon in the real world while the other serves that exact purpose in the digital world. So, it's only fitting that Zynga puts out a Sponsored Link to help merge the two wallet-incinerating hobbies. Though, this promotion goes one interesting step further.

Clicking on this Sponsored Link below your FarmVille game will take you to a purchase link to the SillyBandz website. Clicking on "Place Order Now" will redirect you to where you can buy FarmVille-inspired SillyBandz. However, to get the 25 Farm Cash you'll have to spend $8 on the mysterious wrist bands that somehow maintain their shape. In the special FarmVille pack of SillyBandz for $5.95, you'll find cows, tractors and even everyone's favorite sheep. While it's not free Farm Cash, at least you're getting it for less than paying directly and something tangible along with the 25 smackers to boot. And remember: only trust FarmVille Sponsored Links for ways to get free or discounted Farm Cash.

FarmVille Scam Alert: White Kitten News Feed posts are not real

White Kitten scam
The FarmVille scammers have to be turning some type of profit to brew up a new scam almost daily. This time, FarmVille Freak reports that News Feed posts offering a free "White Kitten" are circulating through Facebook. Like all other scam posts, this is not an official offer from Zynga, thereby making it fake and a potential source for nasty malware. So, should you and yours fall for one of these scams, we recommend changing your password and running a virus scanner. Also, please do spread the word, because we're kind of getting sick of writing these up. However, we really should turn this into a game show, no? Sure, you could just take every relatively new item or animal in FarmVille, place them on a wheel, and spin it to predict which one becomes the next scam. Throw in some social features and--boom--Zynga's got their next big game.

[Image Credit: FarmVille Freak]

Have you fallen victim to this or a previous scam before? What steps do you take to avoid getting tricked or brought down by malware?

FarmVille 2nd Birthday Goals: Everything you need to know

It's almost time to blow out FarmVille's second set of candles this June 19. But before we do that, Zynga has some goals in store for us to help ring in the game's third year right. The series of three Goals has no overarching title, because we kind of already know what they're all about. However, these are limited edition, timed Goals that are only around for the next two weeks. So, hurry on over behind the break to find out how everything you need to know to celebrate FarmVille's second year of life.
FarmVille 2nd Birthday Goals

1. Happy Birthday to FarmVille

    Get 8 Party Hats
    Harvest 100 Strawberries
    Buy 1 FarmVille Flag

Happy Birthday to FarmVille rewards
You can likely already guess that the eight Party Hats are found through asking your buddies, which can be done easily through the Goal menu. All the while, you should plant 100 Strawberries--that will cost you a mere 1,000 Coins and take at least four hours to harvest without any Instant Grow. The FarmVille Flag can be found in the Market for 500 Coins. Complete these tasks and 200 XP, 2,500 Coins and a Birthday Gnome decoration. You'll have the option to share a Mystery Gift with your friends.

FarmVille turns two
2. FarmVille Turns Two!

    Visit Five neighbors
    Buy 1 Zynga Flag
    Harvest 100 Cupcakes

FarmVille turns two rewards
Before you visit those five friends, remember to plant those 100 Cupcakes, which will cost a total of 2,500 Coins and take at least eight hours if you plant all 100 at once without using Instant Grow. The Zynga Flag is available in the Market for 500 Coins--just like the FarmVille Flag. Finish this Goal, and enjoy 2,500 Coins, 200 XP, a Mini Party Horse and Fireworks.

farmville mini party horse

And many more!
3. And Many More!

    Harvest 200 Peppermints
    Get 6 Party Favors
    Place 1 set of Birthday Fireworks

And many more rewards
Acquiring the six Part Favors is as simple as posting a News Feed update through the Goal menu. The 200 Peppermints will cost a nice 10,000 Coins, but the rewards from the previous Goals should cover a chunk of that expense. Then, all you need to do is place the Fireworks on your farm as if they were a decoration. For toppling this challenge, you'll sit pretty with another 2,500 Coins, 200 more XP, four Glitter and one Birthday Trophy.