Podcast Transcript 2009-11-13

Hey, farmers! Welcome once again to the official FarmVille podcast. My name is Lexilicious, and I am the FarmVille community manager. As per usual, I am gonna be going over some of our new releases this week, I am gonna be giving some of our newer players some FarmVille tips and tricks, and you guys are going to get an exclusive sneak peek of things coming your way soon. So, let's go ahead and get this show on the road!

This week proved to be another really exciting week for FarmVille. We saw the release of the new version of Sweet Seeds for Haiti, the new Chicken Coops are now available and a little thing we like to call land expansion. We know you guys have been eagerly awaiting a bit more leg room, so we're super excited to be able to give you the 22x22 land expansion. For those of you who might not know or haven't had a chance to purchase the new land expansion, the 22x22 can be unlocked for 30 Farm Cash or 250,000 coins and 20 neighbors.

The new Chicken Coops also appear to be a big hit with the community. This building that matters is a little different than the Dairy Farm, so I want to explain this feature in a little more detail. Chicken Coops can be purchased for 5,000 coins from the marketplace. Chicken Coops are also a giftable item, so make sure to ask your friends to send you one if you don't wish to purchase it. Chicken Coops can be used once every 24 hours, and will yield the sum of all of the Chickens stored within it. Once your Chicken Coop reaches 100%, it's ready for harvest! When harvesting your Chicken Coop, you have the chance to receive a Mystery Egg. Mystery Eggs can be white, brown, black or golden. If you receive a Mystery Egg, you will see a popup that allows you to post a feed to your wall. This popup will tell you what type of egg you have received. Once you post the feed to your wall, up to five of your friends can click on the feed. These friends will receive various items, including different color chickens. One thing to know about Chicken Coops is that you can only have one of them. If a player receives multiple Chicken Coops, the additional Chicken Coops will become Chickens that you can use on your farm.

Chicken Coops are a really fun way to store your Chickens and to give your friends cool stuff. Since this is a pretty big new feature, we would love to hear your feedback. If you have any opinions you would like to share, please visit the official FarmVille forums or www.farmville.com.

I'm sure you guys are familiar with the Sweet Seeds for Haiti charity event that we held a few weeks ago. Since we raised over $575,000 for children and their families in Haiti, we wanted to continue with this cause. That is why we are proud to release the new version of Sweet Seeds for Haiti. In this event, players will be able to purchase special Sweet Corn from the market. After purchasing the Sweet Corn, all donors will receive a one-week license to plant them. This means that users are able to plant Sweet Corn in unlimited amounts for seven days only. Sweet Corn is a six hour crop that costs 10 coins to plant, and yields 125 coins when harvested. You will gain 3 experience points when planting this crop, and the best part about Sweet Corn is that it never withers. Zynga will continue to donate 50% from the sale of Sweet Seeds for Haiti to support sustainable and healthy meals for children and their families. Again, we would like to thank everyone who participated in the first Sweet Seeds, and we can only hope that this version is just as successful.

There was also some pretty significant changes made to the gift box in FarmVille. We've heard a lot of feedback from players that using the old gift box could be a pretty tedious process. That is why you no longer need to place gifts on your farm to sell them. Items can now be sold directly from your gift box. There is also a new option to sell all of the items in your gift box at one time. If you need to make some room, and are looking to save time, click on the "Sell All" button located at the top of the gift box popup.

And I think that's about it for releases this week. Another thing I do want to let you guys know is that FarmVille is on Twitter. Following us is a really great way to stay up to date with all of our new features and releases, as well as letting us know what you think. If you're interested in checking out the FarmVille Twitter, it can be found at www.twitter.com/zfarmville.

This week's tip for our newer users is about achievements. FarmVille features numerous achievements that can be obtained by completing various tasks within the game. In addition to a ribbon to show off to your friends, you can also gain experience points, decorations for your farm, and coins. If you wish to look at your achievement progress, simply click on the ribbon icon located to the left of the market.

On that note, it's time for us to get into the coming soon segment of this week's podcast. We have a lot of things to talk about this week. Firstly I want to let you guys know that we will be enhancing the fuel system over the next couple of weeks. While I can't go into too much detail, we have heard our community's feedback about this feature, so we're working on making it even better for you guys.

Storage is another feature you guys have been eagerly awaiting and I'm happy to announce that it will be making its way to FarmVille some time in November. So make sure to keep your eyes peeled, and we'll have storage coming your way soon.

We also have some limited edition country fair themed items making an appearance. While I can't give you guys too many details, just know that this is comprised of some really awesome animated items that are sure to look great on your farms. We also have a new Mystery Box, and even more country flags will continue to roll out in the coming weeks.

Before we go ahead and wrap this podcast up, I just want to let you guys know that the FarmVille developers have made some huge headway regarding the out of sync issues. About a week ago, we implemented a fix that has drastically reduced the number of users experiencing out of sync problems. Unfortunately we have not found a solution for everyone affected by this, but we are continuing to address this issue, and we hope to have a solution for you guys soon.

And that's about it for this week. Thank you guys so much for listening. Next week's podcast will be hosted by another member of the FarmVille team, so I'll see you guys in a couple weeks. Happy farming, everybody!