Lost FarmVille animals being replaced?

FarmVille Freak has received quite a few emails about animals now being replenished to players who experienced loss in last week's FarmVille animal fiasco. But, are these replacements the correct animals? Many players are reporting that when logging on their farm animals have been added directly to their buildings with purpose/animal storage buildings, enough to stretch the capacity of the building, but these animals are not what they initially lost. Zynga is clearly attempting to make good on farmers losses but maybe not in the most efficient way?


FarmVille Freak Lisa lost Cream Draft Horses and Rhode Island Red Chickens but was given Grey Horses and Gold Chickens.

    I noticed something odd in my stable this morning when making my round I noticed I had more horses than there should have been room for! I had 65 horses when capacity is only 40! I guess they are trying to compensate for lost animals, but they missed the mark by far giving me such common stock when I lost the much harder to replace cream horses, red chickens and etc. :(


FarmVille Freak LittleBuePig had a similar experience:

    During Farmville's recent updates I lost 14 cows from my dairy and 10 bricks from my Japanese barn. A day of so later I received 7 cows, 30 golden chickens, 3 green calves, and no bricks. I've attached a screen shot showing by chicken coop with 60/60 chickens, but 83 golden chickens.

    FarmVille Freak LittleBuePig Incorrect Gold Chicken Replacement

FarmVille Freak Ashley found calves in her Nursery Barn, but her missing cows were not replaced:

    This morning I logged onto Farmville and noticed that in my nursery barn (where all my missing animals had been) I had 32/20 animals in there. I looked inside and noticed that I had 14 regular calfs...when before I only had about 3. I checked my other things like the dairy barn, horse stable, and chicken coop but those all seemed normal even though I did have a missing cow or two. I was just wondering if this was a glitch or will I acutally be able to keep 32 animals in there!

    FaceBook FarmVille Freak Ashley Missing Cows Replaced With Regular Calves

The good news? Some restitution plan is in action. The bad news? Players are not the receiving animals they lost. Hopefully this is just the first stage of Zynga's plan to replace our precious animals.

Have you received correct replacement animals?

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

FarmVille LOLs: Girl quits broker job and outs her boss as a FarmVille jerk

We've no idea if this is a joke or for real, especially since The Chive walks and talks like a close cousin of The Onion, but it's got everyone on the internet cackling today.

Here's what The Chive has to say:

    We received the following photos last night from a person who works with this girl. Her name is Jenny (not confirmed) - we're working our contact for Jenny's last name. Yesterday morning, Jenny quit her job with a (flash)bang by emailing these photos to the entire office, about 20 employees we're told. Awesome doesn't begin to describe this office heroine. Check back as we will be updating if we get more details. [Source]

Since Jenny's boss installed a "little office snitch" to monitor everyone's computer time, Jenny thought it was time to turn the tables on her boss.

Here's what she discovered -- her boss spends 4 hours per week on Scottrade, 5.3 hours per week on TechCrunch, and for the coup de grâce... 19.7 hours per week playing FarmVille!

At the time, Jenny's surname has yet to be confirmed. So I'll just like you guys to know there's no way Jenny can be your -- this here -- humble Games.com blogger. Especially since if we DIDN'T play FarmVille in this office, we'd definitely lose our jobs! A fact like that certainly takes your head for a spin, doesn't it?

Update: Peter Kafka of "All Things Digital" interviews the owners of The Chive to ask if Jenny is real. [Source]

Final update: After one day, The Chive has confirmed that "Jenny" is one of their pranks! But they hope we were entertained, and judging by all the positive online buzz, this prank did the job. [Source]

Is FarmVille changing everything? Games biz bigwigs speak out

To say the game industry is undergoing a transformation would be an understatement. The entire playing-games-on-one-system paradigm is rapidly shifting, as more people play games on multiple devices -- consoles, PCs, and increasingly the iPhone, iPad, or even the favorite medium of the Games.com - The Blog! crew, Facebook (along with other social networks). And, more people are starting to play games, period.

    ... Not only are there a lot of new customers showing up and becoming gamers for the first time, but we're seeing really big behavior changes by traditional gamers that used to just camp on one platform like the PlayStation and now they're using a diversity of media, and they're engaging with friends, so they're doing a lot of things that are more casual.

    Trip Hawkins, Digital Chocolate

In this new video series, Game Theory, video game industry bigwigs like Sims creator Will Wright and Fable creator Peter Molyneux talk about the tectonic shifts in the industry and, of course, social games come up more than once.

    "It's changing... and we can feel it. We're literally on the bow of the ship and the waves are crashing and the wind is in our face and we're like holy sh*t."

    Chris Taylor, Gas Powered Games

This pair of videos might be too 'inside baseball' for most of you, but if you dabble in gaming trends, this might be worth a few minutes of your time. I am still amazed at how much of an impact that FarmVille, Pet Society and others have had on the traditional video game console business. Social games might be classified as "casual," but there's nothing casual about the wake up call these non-traditional games are giving the traditional game industry.

FarmVille 'Fertilize All' limited edition gift was a little too 'limited'

While accepting FarmVille gifts this weekend, I noticed that there's a new free gift going around called 'Fertilize All.' After doing a little research, turns out that 'Fertilize All' was a limited edition gift that appeared in the Free Gifts section briefly before it disappeared again. Not sure if this vanished due to a bug or if this was a truly 'limited' edition gift.

If you were lucky enough to score this amazing gift, accept it from your feed and then open your gifts menu in the game. Click 'use' to instantly fertilize ALL of your crops! Next thing you know, your little farmer will be surrounded by sparkly crops that will yield extra experience points and other bonuses.



Not sure if this generous gift will resurface soon or if this was a one-time deal. Stay tuned.

FarmVille official podcast (9/10): New co-op jobs and three-in-one vehicle (and more) coming soon

The new official FarmVille Podcast has arrived -- it's now on a bi-weekly schedule -- and Community Manager Lexi 'Lexilicious' Smith reviews what launched in the farm game last week and then talks about some cool stuff coming soon, which includes new Bushel Co-op jobs, a time-saving "three-in-one" vehicle and a new limited edition German theme. I'll say Prosit! to that.

You can listed to the podcast in the player above, or if you just want to skim the highlights, check out the recap below:

FarmVille Podcast Recap:

Pigpens

* Visit neighbors' pigpens and give them slop
* Four levels of truffles
* Trade in truffles for exclusive pigs

Toy Collection (Collectibles)

* Available for a limited amount of time
* Find by seeding.
* Can purchase for 67 Farm Cash.
* Complete for special prize and XP rewards
* Fewer pop-ups than before

(See our Toy Collection Quick Links here)

Two New Permanent Crops

* Square Melon, Gladiolus and Lupine (LE)

Mystery Gift Updates

* Updated with several new prizes.
* New Prizes: Butterfly Stick, Tricycle, Owl Statue

New Wild West limited edition Items

* Train and rotatable train tracks and train pieces introduced this week.
* Wild West LE Animals include: Appalloosa Mini Horse, Wild Turkey, Horned Toad, and Western Longhorn

FarmVille Game Card Exclusive Prize - the Valeductorian

* Back-to-School Valeductorian Duck is an exclusive Game Card redeemable prize.
* Free with the purchase of a Game Card that is redeemed through September 6-13.

Coming soon!

Bushel Co-Ops Jobs

* Users who own Crafting Cottages will be able to start a Co-Op for a specific Recipe.
* Grow ingredients and any friends that join will also get rewards and Bushels.
* The faster you finish, the more Bushels you get.
* Friends without Crafting Buildings will be rewarded with a high-level ingredient.

Super Combine Vehicle

* This all-in-one vehicle works as a seeder, harvester, and tractor.
* Eliminates the need to switch between vehicles to tend crops

FarmVille Wild West Train Station, Ranch & Tipi

    farmville train station     farmville tipi
FarmVille introduced three new Limited Edition Wild West themed buildings tonight that includes a Train Station, Wild West Ranch and Tipi.

You can purchase these buildings during the next 12 days only in the FarmVille Market.

FarmVille LE Wild West Buildings (Released September 9, 2010):

    Train Station – 42 FV$
    Wild West Ranch – 36 FV$
    Tipi – 360,000 Coins


This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

What do you think of these new buildings?

FarmVille Wild West Mini Appaloosa & Mini Appaloosa Foal

farmville mini appaloosa
One of the cutest animals ever, the Mini Appaloosa, has hit the FarmVille Market!

The Mini Appaloosa is part of the Limited Edition Wild West theme. You can purchase it in the FarmVille Market for 26 FV$ farm cash during the next 9 days only.

And yes, there is a chance at yielding a Mini Appaloosa Foal when you place in the Horse Stable.

FarmVille LE Wild West Animal (Released September 9, 2010):

    Mini Appaloosa – 26 FV$


This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

Will you purchase the Mini Appaloosa?

Earn 2 free FarmVille Farm Cash from Microsoft Office 2010 promotion

Just in time for some last-minute holiday shopping in FarmVille, Zynga has given users another activity to participate in, rewarding them with 2 free Farm Cash for doing so.

The activity is one that advertises Microsoft Office 2010, and you can take part in it by looking for the "Sponsored Link" window below the FarmVille gameplay area - just look for an image like that at the right of this post and you'll know you've found it. Here's the link for those that don't see the activity on their account, but note that we can not guarantee that it will work for you - you may need to wait for it to actually appear on your own game before you can claim the two free Farm Cash.

Once you click on the link, you'll be shown a trailer for the computer program in a new window, and will be asked how you will "Make it great." You'll be able to choose from a variety of responses, and your answer will be submitted even before the trailer ends (if you're quick enough). Once you see the "You've earned your Farm Cash" text appear in the top right corner of the screen, you'll be able to freely close this new window.

Head back to your FarmVille game and you'll see that your Farm Cash total will have gone up by 2 Farm Cash, for just a couple of minutes (at most) of your time. How great is that?

Are you a veteran with these free Farm Cash opportunities, or is this one of the first you've completed?

FarmVille: Zynga fixes Snowman event issues, considers compensation for the affected [UPDATE]

If you're one of the many FarmVille players that were having a difficult time completing their Snowman in the newly released Snowball Fight feature in FarmVille, you'll be happy to know that the FarmVille team at Zynga has been hard at work fixing the issues that were previously present, and all things should be back to normal by this point.

For those that weren't affected, users had been having trouble when asking users directly for items (buttons, scarves, and the like), in that they could ask their friends via wall posts, their friends could respond to said request, and yet no item was being sent. This issue has been fixed, along with a much-needed change in the selection of friends whose walls you can post on to begin with.

For many farmers (myself included), the list of three friends that I could ask for Snowballs was static and didn't change. This wasn't how the feature was supposed to work, as the users available to ask should be rotating once every 24 hours. Now, this part of the feature apparently works as it was intended, so feel free to start checking to see if you have any FarmVille players in that list of three that you can ask.

As a result of the inconvenience players have suffered as a result of these unforeseen glitches, Zynga is "evaluating" the possibility of offering some form of compensation to those players that were affected by the above Snowman issues, or any others that they have now fixed. There has been no statement as to what compensation users would receive exactly, if it actually comes to that, but it is promising to hear that the team is at least considering it.

[UPDATE: Users that were affected by the issue have now been given 20 free Farm Cash, as seen in the pop-up below. You'll see this pop-up the next time you load FarmVille, after this update has rolled out to your game]

What do you think would be a fair "reward" for those that have been set back as a result of these glitches? Were you one of the players affected by these problems with the Snowman event?

Chinese FarmVille players receive exciting new gifts

If you've become one of the many FarmVille players that have taken on managing two farms since the release of Chinese FarmVille, you'll be happy to know that you're about to be rewarded for your devotion to the game. While this reward is available even to those that are just trying FarmVille for the first time, it's always nice to have a little something special appear in your gift box.

Be on the lookout for an email from Zynga, rewarding you with a Giant Panda and a "Care Package" for use in Chinese FarmVille. The Care Package contains 1 Unwither, 1 Fuel, 3 Farm Cash, and 1 White Goat. Both this and the Giant Panda were made available in the standard version of FarmVille in the past, but are currently unavailable, so it's interesting to see them show up here.

What's more - these items are available to all FarmVille Chinese players through universal links, so click here for the Giant Panda, and here for the Care Package, if you have yet to receive an email about receiving them in your own FarmVille Chinese game.

Could Zynga be using Chinese FarmVille as a sort of testing ground, to see if standard FarmVille users would be interested in seeing a re-release of such items? Keep checking back with us for more as we find out.

FarmVille Holiday Tree, Gifting events end tomorrow

No more Holiday Gifts for you
If you've yet to finish that Holiday Tree in FarmVille, you better gift and beg your fingers off today, because tomorrow it will all be gone. FarmVille Freak reports that on Jan. 6 Holiday Gifts will be removed from the Free Gifts page. Furthermore, the "Ask for Parts" button within the Holiday Tree menu will be disabled and the Holiday Tree itself will disappear from the Market tomorrow.

Well, it was fun (for most) while it lasted. Hey, at least the New Year's events will still be around for a bit. But then it's back to the doldrums of being between holidays. Unless Zynga thinks some stuff up for Valentines Day, Easter/Passover and more. Who are we kidding? I can almost bet that they will (but no promises), so sit tight farmers.

Poll: Is the FarmVille Pot of Gold full of cheaters?

After seeing an image of FarmVille forum contributor Grazy197's Pot of Gold, players appear to be split down the middle on the issue. Some of his friends have amassed over 30 thousand pieces of Gold for their Pots, which appears to be impossible. Sure, the players could, in theory, gather this much Gold through the News Feed, their own Leprechaun Cottage, their friends' Cottages and the Free Gifts page. Though, according to some players, that would take entirely too much time for these players to not be using a third party application like Bonus Clicker. So, we want to hear it from you:

Is the FarmVille Pot of Gold full of cheaters?
Isn't it obvious? Just look at those numbers!No. I could get that much Gold through dedication and more friends.I'm not friends with cheaters, so it doesn't matter me none.Look, just leave these players alone. I'm no cheater or anything...

FrontierVille Oregon Ho! Goal is here: Ready yourself for the Oregon Trail and receive exclusive items

Unlike FarmVille, which left users eagerly anticipating the English Countryside expansion for weeks or even months, Zynga's team behind FrontierVille has started the festivities relating to the Oregon Trail just hours after releasing an official trailer for the new expansion. New content has launched in the game today, in the form of the Oregon Ho! goal that we told you about just this morning.

The goal contains the same three requirements that we told you about in our sneak peek: Collect nine pages from the Medical Journal, watch the Oregon Trail video, and collect 10 Snake Bite Kits. However, you'll receive a set of decorative items along the way that we didn't know about before (and that you can learn about behind the break). But first, the Snake Bite kits are earned through a general news post asking all of your friends for help, while the Journal pages are earned by "performing various actions on your Homestead."

Indeed, I received pages of the Medical Journal by simply accepting friends' help with feeding animals, and by clearing debris on my land. This is the same sort of setup as seen back in the Rango mission released back in February. That is, as you collect Journal pages, you won't just earn progress towards the Oregon Ho! goal, you'll also earn three exclusive items as prizes along the way.

Your three items are the Weiner Campfire, the Pelt Line (earned at six Journal pages) and the Paisley Medical Kit, which is received when you've found all nine Journal pages required. On top of all of this, for completing the Oregon Ho! mission itself, you'll also receive 100 coins, 300 XP and a Camp Pack, like the one seen at right (that normally costs more than 7,000 coins in the store).

As you're told at the beginning of this quest, Doc Auburn's nephew, Doc Paisley, is headed off to the Oregon Trail on May 30, presumably the day when the entire Oregon Trail expansion will launch. Sure, that's a long time away, but as we're already receiving tasks to work on related to the Oregon Trail, we can only imagine that the next few weeks in FrontierVille will be very interesting indeed.

What are you waiting for? You don't want to be left behind when Doc Paisley heads off on the Oregon Trail, do you? Complete this goal and then head back here to learn more of what to expect from the upcoming expansion, as we bring you all of the latest news as it becomes available. Or, you can just play the old Apple II version of the Oregon Trail that has inspired it all to pass some time. It's up to you.

Check out the rest of our FrontierVille Cheats & Tips right here.

Are you excited for the Oregon Trail's release in FrontierVille? Were you hoping that the Oregon Trail would work as the English Countryside in FarmVille, giving you an entire second Homestead to build on and grow?

FarmVille Let's Build feature allows for faster use of building materials

Remember how we were promised a new way (a quicker way) to complete our building projects in FarmVille, by simply being allowed to more quickly use each individual building ingredient we have in our Gift Box? Well, the time for that merciful change is now, as Zynga has released the "Let's Build!" feature in the game today.

To activate this mode, simply click "Use" on any building ingredient in your Gift Box. You'll then see your farm magically (ok, maybe not magically, but automatically) transform, showing you all of the buildings/items that currently need that particular ingredient highlighted in blue. As an example, I clicked on a Shovel in my Gift Box, and was then shown a bright blue outline around my Storage Cellar and my Duck Pond, as both need Shovels to expand.
Hovering over a building turns the outline from blue to orange, and your cursor changes to show you how many of that particular ingredient you can add. In keeping with my Shovel example, you can see that I have five Shovels in my inventory, and that my Duck Pond already has two of the Shovels it needs for its next expansion. I'd simply have to click on the Duck Pond one time for each of those five Shovels to be used. That is, one click per one ingredient, not one click to use every Shovel I have.

The same can be said for my Storage Cellar. What if I chose to use just one Shovel in my Duck Pond, and spend the other four in my Storage Cellar? I don't have to return to my Gift Box, I can simply navigate by clicking and dragging to the Storage Cellar on my farm and use some of my Shovels in it instead. It's an entirely seamless process. Once you choose your building ingredient, you can use it on as many, or as few building projects as you'd like. To disable the use of building ingredients (say I wanted to save some Shovels for another time), you'd just click back on the arrow in the bottom right corner of the screen, to reactivate the "multi-tool" as my cursor.

The best part of this entire setup? It works when using Watering Cans on Mystery Seedlings as well! No more clicking and waiting for each Watering Can to be used on a single seedling and waiting for the image to catch up. You can now grow a tree in less than ten seconds! I could literally cry tears of joy.

While the new building cursor may sound complicated in writing, in practice it saves so much time, as you don't have to use each ingredient, wait for the Gift Box menu to reappear, pick your ingredient, choose the proper building and so on and so forth. This is an absolute blessing for those users that like upgrading each and every project to their highest or greatest level, and I am personally so glad and thankful to Zynga for implementing it, even if it did take them a while do to. Better late than never, right?

Do you like the new building ingredient tool in FarmVille, or did you not mind using each ingredient individually via the Gift Box?

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Gift Box update coming soon?

In an update that just might be as fantastic as the recent upgrade to building material usage in FarmVille, it looks as though a "Gift Box 2.0" of sorts (Or would we be on 3 or 4.0 by now? Anyway...) will be launching in the game soon.

While the standard buttons appears to all be here - the Re-Gift, Sell, and Use buttons - the best part about this Gift Box redesign looks to be the inclusion of sub-categories, or tabs, that we'll be able to click on to sort our items, perhaps by theme, or by animal, building, and decoration type, just like we do in the game's marketplace.

While this could just be coincidental, it's also worth pointing out the quantities of these placeholder items (yes, all of which are apparently watering cans). If they are all available in quantities of 122, then that gives us the thought that perhaps an expanded Gift Box capacity will be coming with it. Either way, if you're an item saver, that tends to always hover around the 500 item cap (like I do), the new sorting ability will definitely be better than nothing.

[Via and image credit: FV Nation]

What do you think of the upcoming changes to the FarmVille Gift Box? Would you collect more items from your friends' news feed posts if the Gox Box limit was increased or removed entirely? How else would it affect your gameplay?

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Moat Bridge, King's Castle, Brown English Spot Rabbit

A new trio of unreleased item images have appeared for FarmVille today, with two of these items filling in the blanks seen in the massive set of moat items we brought you a sneak peek of just this week. Now, with this Moat Bridge, and the King's Castle, we'll clearly be able to build an entire medieval expanse on our land, and will be able to rest easy knowing that our imaginary citizens can walk to and from the castle safely, without falling into the deadly waters below (ok, so I guess no one says the waters have to be deadly, but it makes it more dramatic that way).

The third item is a brown recoloring of the English Spot Rabbit. We're assuming he will be called the Brown English Spot Rabbit, although there's no telling whether or not he will be released for the same cheap price as his predecessor, of it this will be yet another Farm Cash animal users will have to splurge on.

Either way, we'll make sure to bring you all of the news about these new items as they officially launch in the game, so keep checking back.

FarmVille Sneak Peek: Storage menu update coming soon

While the Gift Box update that's coming to FarmVille is enough to satisfy most users (including myself) for quite some time, there is another, even more archaic system currently in place in the game that few would argue against changing. That system is the Storage menu, which lets you scroll through page after page (after page...) of decorative items and buildings, without holding your place, so you have to scroll through all of those pages again to find a subsequent item.

Needless to say, this all makes redecorating your farm for a holiday or "just because" a lot of hard work, and very time consuming. Apparently, though, just as an update is coming to the game's Gift Box, so too is a massive overhaul coming to the Storage menu. It's about time, I say! Just check out the image above, and you'll see everything we expect to launch. It looks as though there will be a way to look at both items stored on your Home Farm and your second farm via tabs at the very top, you'll be able to search for a particular item, and perhaps most importantly, you'll be able to sort your items by category, whether that item is a building, decoration and so on.


While it's likely that the Tree and Animal tabs in this placeholder image are just that - placeholders that will be changed in the final product - I personally think it would be great if we could store such items for future use. After all, this would allow you to store any trees related to a specific holiday, so that when you pull them back out, they're all the more special as you see them again as if for the first time.

Also, it's possible that an expansion to your total Storage capacity may also launch, as there is a button here dedicated to expanding your storage amount. Hopefully, Zynga has finally learned that unlimited storage is best, even if we have to work at it. It would make users purchase more items (even with Farm Cash) in the long run, if they knew they would have a place to safely store them, and not having an infinite inventory limit is simply an outdated, and unneeded limitation at this point, but maybe that opinion is just my own - what do you think?

[Image Credit: FarmVille Feed]

Either way, we'll make sure to keep an eye on this exciting update as it gets closer to launch. Let us know what you think of these new Storage menu options in the comments. Would you purchase more decorations if there wasn't an item limit?

FarmVille Tips & Tricks: Quickly master trees with Orchard rotation

It's no question that the higher the level you reach in FarmVille, the less new things you have to work on. That is, by the time you reach level 75 and above, you've likely come to greatly understand bushels, crafting, animal breeding and the like, and might be looking for something else to occupy your time. I was in such a situation until I finally decided to hunker down and master the dozens of tree types that were quickly filling my Home Farm.

Sure, Tree Mastery has been around for some time now, but if you're only casually participating, or you delete more trees than you plant, you're missing out on a fine opportunity to expand your Mastery Sign collection by leaps and bounds. Luckily, there's a surefire way to master each tree much more quickly than if you had simply left the trees to grow on their own, harvesting them every two days (or less often) and then moving on, and this all has to do with your Orchards.

For those that have yet to undertake the Orchard Rotation trick to master trees in FarmVille, we've got a detailed guide on how to get you started. Just be warned - once you start, this addictive (yet admittedly time consuming) process might pull you in and you won't want to stop!

First and foremost, there are some ground rules to consider. Most importantly, the amount of time it will take you to master a particular tree will be greatly decreased by each individual Orchard you have. If you're going to undertake the Orchard Rotation strategy, you'll want to build as many Orchards as you have materials to build. I'd suggest having at least 10 on hand at all times, if you really want to earn the most bang for your proverbial buck.

From there, you'll need to make sure that your trees are organized. The best way to master trees is if you've been able to assort all of your trees in groups of like-species, so that all of your available trees can be used in this trick at the same time. To setup your farm, you'll want to place just one tree (either the type of tree you're trying to master, or some random species) into each Orchard, so that the overall Orchard becomes "ready" to harvest as normal. Place all of your desired trees to master in the first Orchard on a line, and then wait for everything to become "ready" to harvest before moving on.

Once your farm looks similar to the picture above (I keep each Orchards separate visually by placing incredibly different trees in each as the "starter" tree), you can begin. Each time your full set of Orchards is ready to harvest, click to harvest the Orchard that's full of your current active tree. If you're like me, you'll gain up to 19 individual mastery points with that single click. From there, do not harvest any of your other Orchards, but instead, remove all of the trees from the Orchard you just harvested, and place those trees into the next Orchard in the line (remember to leave one tree inside). Since you haven't harvested the second Orchard, these moved trees will instantly take on the "ready" status of the entire thing. Once full, harvest the second Orchard, earning another 19 points of mastery.

And so on and so forth the system goes. It's best to click slowly as you move trees from one Orchard to another, so that you don't accidentally harvest a ready Orchard before it's full (trust me, I've done it before, and losing all of those points is disappointing, to say the least). Once you've harvested every Orchard in your possession, you'll be pleased to know that you will have earned dozens or even hundreds of mastery points, all on a single type of tree, all within a single 10-15 minute session simply by following this plan.

Again, the more Orchards you have, and the more trees you have of that particular type, the more effective this strategy will be. We'd suggest even leaving some excess trees outside of your Orchard, if you have that many extras, so that they can continue to grow as normal (a few extra points never hurt, after all). In this way, you'll quickly find that you can take a tree that requires over 500 points to master, and whittle that point-earning process to a matter of a week or even just a few days (again, depending on the number of Orchards you own).

Orchard rotation may take up a lot of your free time, but with Orchards only becoming "ready" once every two days, those extra-long gameplay sessions don't have to take over your life. And as the mastery signs start piling up, I'm sure you'll agree that the process is worth the hassle. We can only hope that Zynga doesn't remove this "exploit" of sorts from the game to ruin our fun, but for now, take advantage of this great earning potential while you can!

Check out the rest of our FarmVille Tips & Tricks right here.

Do you currently use the Orchard Rotation strategy to quickly master trees? Do you consider this to be "cheating," or just an effective use of items already freely available in the game?

FarmVille: Show fewer pop-ups option removes ability to share trees

Last week, Zynga launched the option to allow folks to see less pop-ups in FarmVille. These "show fewer" windows appear after you've repeatedly canceled or "x-ed" out pop-ups to share item to your friends / news feed. While that seems like a perfect system, there's one particular area that has users very concerned due to its execution. The area? Growing Mystery Seedlings into adult trees.

For users such as myself (and the many others who have reported this issue on the FarmVille forums), we received the "show fewer" pop-up while canceling the option to ask for Watering Cans on our feeds. When I'm in a marathon tree-growing session, the last thing I want to do is spam my friends with 30+ news feed posts, all asking for watering cans, especially when I currently have enough of them in my inventory or I wouldn't have started the process in the first place. So, being given the option to skip these pop-ups seems perfect, right? Unfortunately not, as canceling the Watering Can windows also seems to have permanently removed the ability to share any fully grown trees with your friends. Uh oh.
farmville pop ups share trees
For tree collectors, one of the easiest ways (and most fun ways) of expanding your collection is to claim those adult trees grown by your friends. After all, if you chose not to purchase a particular tree from the store for Farm Cash, you can find one, absolutely free, from a friend. But now, these pop-ups have vanished for those users that simply didn't want to spam watering can requests.

As of this writing, Zynga has yet to make an official statement on the matter, but it does raise an interesting question. Have we brought this on ourselves? Or has Zynga's lack of an explanation only made things more confusing and compacted the error? On one hand, we did request to see less pop-ups, but when we allow the show fewer pop-ups stipulation to take hold when dealing with watering cans only, there's nothing logically stating that it should extend to every aspect of the tree growing process. Perhaps Zynga should better layout the ground rules for these "show fewer" windows when they appear, letting us know exactly which windows will vanish, and which we'll still see.

Until then (or until they release a way for us to "undo" our choices), I suppose the best thing would be to avoid these pop-ups when doing anything related to your trees, lest you end up in the same boat as we are - with a group of disappointed friends who can no longer claim your free trees. Yikes!

Have you experienced this issue on your farm, where you wanted to turn off one kind of pop-up, but actually saw the removal of all tree pop-ups?

FarmVille: Storage Transfer between farms (finally) coming soon

I'd hate to sound cliche, but this truly is a time to rejoice: Storage Transfer between farms in FarmVille is coming. So, go on and rejoice. (Are you doing it yet? Good.) The FarmVille Examiner reports that the long-awaited feature will be released as a reward for completing the final Goal in the English Countryside series. Storage will essentially be something that exists between farms, meaning if you put an item in Storage on one farm, and take that item out of Storage on the other, it will be as if it was there the whole time. That's because, really, it was. It's unknown exactly when this new feature will arrive, but you better believe that when it does we'll be all over it.