Official FarmVille Podcast October 23, 2010--Giftable LE Seed Mastery & More

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FarmVille 10/23/10 Podcast  transcript--interesting info / upcoming features highlighted.

FarmVille Podcast - October 23rd:

Hey Farmers, and welcome to this week’s installment of the official FarmVille podcast! My name is Grimwell, and I’m filling in for Lexilicious during this week’s Podcast, and over the next few minutes I’ll be bringing you the latest news and information about FarmVille from Zynga.

FarmVille continues to celebrate Halloween in a big way this year, and we’re glad players are enjoying their Haunted Houses and Candy collections! Be sure to redeem your candy for exclusive items through the Halloween Basket like the Candied Gnome, Bat Tree, and Pumpkin House! Though most farmers seemed satisfied treating each other, we knew it wouldn’t be Trick or Treating without the tricks. You can now trick your neighbors on their farms by covering their barns, fences, and trees with cobwebs, or turn their animals into ghosts. Tricking can be done 5 times on each of your neighbor’s farms, and these tricks can be Accepted or Declined by your neighbors like most visitor actions. You can also purchase a Spooky Effect for 2 Farm Cash that lets you play tricks on your own farm for decorating purposes.




We’ve prepared a spooky assortment of items to choose from in this year’s Halloween Limited Edition theme. Some old favorites from last year’s event have crept their way back into the marketplace, like the Cat-O’-Lantern and infamous Plant Monster. We’ve taken your feedback on some of these past favorites into consideration for our new additions, like the Palm Monster, Haunted Tower, the nefarious Count Duckula, and the Ghost Gnome, and we’ve even brought back last year’s Haunted House by popular request! Also be sure to check the Free Gifts tab for even more Halloween goodies you can pass on to your neighbors.

While keeping Halloween on the farm filled with tricks and treats, we’ve also greatly improved the Character Customization system. You can now create a whole new look for your farmer by customizing their pants, shoes, shirts, whole outfit, and other accessories like glasses and hats. You also have the option of dressing your character up in Costume for Halloween! Click on the costume list to choose from over 30 different costumes like the Astronaut, Sheep, Ghost, Ninja, and Vampire, and my favorite: The Ugly Duckling. For our avid collectors, a ribbon is also available for clothing purchases. Be sure to purchase your Halloween costumes soon, as they’ll no longer be available for purchase after the holiday theme expires! And to answer a question on many of your minds: Yes, those of you who purchased their costume during the Halloween event will be able to keep it and wear it after Halloween. You just won’t be able to buy them again until next year.

If you’re a U.S. Player and haven’t used the giant blimp in your gift box yet, you’re missing out on wither protection for your crops! The in-game Farmers Insurance Airship is part of FarmVille’s U.S. exclusive program with Farmers Insurance. For as long as the airship is placed on your farm, Farmers Insurance will protect any crop from withering! But don’t wait to place it on your farm, as the promotion will expire on October 28th.

In mobile news, FarmVille is now available as a native application on the iPad! This version makes use of the iPad’s large display to show more of the farm and an improved mobile user interface. Best of all—the iPad version of FarmVille is free through the Apple app store. And for those of you who do play FarmVille on your Apple device, be sure to look for new exclusive, Apply-only gifts that you can send to your friends.

If you still haven’t taken advantage of our upcoming content videos on the new FarmVille Youtube channel, be sure to have a look! For the release of each major theme, you’ll find previews like our Halloween Limited Edition showcase, featuring animations of our new Halloween items. You can view this, and other FarmVille videos, at youtube.com/Farmville.

As the FarmVille Team receives thousands of questions from players a week, I’ll now be taking a moment to address a few of them.

We’ll start with a question from whitede8, which asks: “Is there a technical issue which prohibits users from purchasing only 1 chicken coop?” Well, the answer is yes, and if you had more than one Nursery Ban recently, you might even know why. The game looks for just one chicken coop, and if we do anything to the building, having more than one coop can cause all kinds of problems in FarmVille, including the possibility of lost chickens, which is something we don’t want to let happen to players!

In a related question, MEHogan asks: “When are you going to allow us to purchase more chicken coops or expand the one we have. My chicken coop is expanded to 60 and is full. I probably have another 60 outside my chicken coop. I would love to be able to harvest more eggs by having another chicken coop.” Well, MEHogan, for reasons I answered to whited8, we can’t have more than one chicken coop on the farm, but we do know that people love having animals in buildings and harvesting them. So the FarmVille team is looking into ways we can let you have bigger chicken coops, because we know you’d like it! Keep listening to future podcasts, because if we can do it, we’re going to tell you first here!

And now for our next question from shecop1992: “I would like to know when an expansion will be made available. I am running out of room on my farm and my storage is filling up fast.” Well shecop1992, we’re constantly looking for new ways in FarmVille to give you more space and storage, but we need to make sure it’s going to be in a way that works great for everyone. If we offer more space in the future, we would like it to be in a way that does not slow performance for players.

snowqueen1426 asks: “Will we have sweet potatoes?...Endive... or collard greens”? That’s a great question, and the FarmVille team is constantly looking at options for new crops that fit our new themes as well as player input. Please continue to make your suggestions for new crops and you never know when we going to pick yours!

And now for our last question from holp, who asks: “Will the ‘Country Fair Event’ be returning to Farmville this fall? I know many many farmers would love to see this event return, many of us where disappointed that it was not part of the 7days of summer....” Well holp, all I’m going to say for the answer to this is stay tuned, because I think we have good news for you in the future!

If you have a question you would like answered by the FarmVille team on our weekly podcast, please make sure to visit the Official FarmVille Forums for more information on how to participate.

So let’s take a look at the future of FarmVille. In our last installment, Voltai announced Tree Orchards would be coming soon. There has been a lot of speculation about what they are, how they look, and what you’ll be able to get out of them.

Orchards will be a constructed building. You’ll be able to place up to 20 trees in each Orchard, and you can have more than one. The appearance of each Orchard will depend on the trees you put inside it! You will be able to harvest Orchards once a day for coins with a chance to receive a Mystery Seed. These can grow into any type of tree in your Orchard, and must be planted on watered before they mature into they mature into fully grown, upgraded versions of their parent trees!
Enhanced trees will be a part of the Tree Mastery system. You will be able to progress as you harvest Orchards or individual trees, and there will be three levels of mastery with rewards for each level of mastery completion. Level 3 mastery will also grant a unique mastery sign!

And now let’s discuss a completely new feature: Gifted Limited Edition Seeds! That’s right, you’re going to be able to gift your neighbors packets of 20 seeds. Once accepted, the seeds will be found on the Marketplace window. You can plant these seeds on your farm like a normal crop, and yes, you will be able to master them, and they’ll also be available for Farm Cash if you don’t want to gift.

Look for the Black Rose crop coming soon for Halloween as the first giftable Limited Edition seed crop to learn more about how they’ll work.

That’s all for this week, Farmers! Thanks for listening! The next podcast will be hosted on November 5th, and may be the return of Lexilicious, in addition to all the latest news and information for FarmVille.