Podcast Transcript 2010-03-05

<< Back to Podcast = Official FarmVille Podcast – March 5th Transcript =

"Hey Farmers! Welcome to the Official FarmVille podcast! My name is Lexilicious, and I am the FarmVille Community Manager. This week, we are going to be going over some of our newest releases, I will be answering some User Submitted Questions about the FarmVille team and you guys are all going to get a sneak peek of things coming to FarmVille in the near future.

Well, St Patrick’s Day is just about here, and this week, FarmVille was really celebrating in style., On Thursday, we introduced the new Pot of Gold feature, bringing with it the ability to send your friends and Neighbors Gold Pieces! Now, I’m sure you guys will be extra excited to know that these Gold Pieces can be redeemed for special items.

Upon opening your Gift Box, you will find a free Pot of Gold waiting for you. Simply place your Mailbox on your farm and let the fun begin! If you "look inside" your Mailbox, you will be able to keep track of how many Gold Pieces you have collected and how you compare to your friends.

In order to collect Gold Pieces, you’ll have to receive them from friends. Clicking the ‘Ask for Gold’ button will allow you to send a single Gold Piece to any of your friends and give them the chance to send you one in return. You can also send Gold Pieces to your friends via the Free Gifts Page.

As you collect Gold Pieces, you will be able to redeem them for special St Patrick’s Day themed items. The more Gold Pieces you collect, the better the reward!

For every 5 Gold Pieces you collect, you’ll be able to post a Feed to your wall that will give your Neighbors a chance to collect a free Gold Piece. 10 Neighbors will be able to collect one free Gold Piece when clicking on the feed within 24 hours.

As you collect Gold Pieces, you will notice that your Pot of Gold’s progress bar increases. As your progress bar increases, your pot will change appearance. If you're interested in seeing how you compare to your Neighbors, clicking ‘Progress’ in the Pot of Gold menu will show how many Gold Pieces you have in comparison to your friends.

There are also now new ways to find fuel for your vehicles! In addition to purchasing fuel and discovering it in Mystery Gifts or Eggs, you are now able to find fuel while plowing your Farm and when fertilizing a Neighbor’s farm.

When plowing on your own farm, you have a chance to find fuel once per day.

When you find fuel on your farm, you can share this fuel with your Neighbors by posting a feed to your wall. Up to 150 of your neighbors will be able to click this feed once to get fuel of their own.

After clicking the feed, they will be taken to a page that will inform them of how much fuel they have earned. The amount of fuel your Neighbor will receive from clicking on a feed is determined by how many plots they have on their farm. The more plots they have, the larger the amount of fuel they’ll receive. This fuel is added directly to their overall tank. When fertilizing your Neighbors’ farms, you have a chance to find fuel that you can use on your own farm.

When this fuel is found, it will appear as a fuel canister rising up from the ground, much like the coin you see when plowing or seeding your land. Fuel that is found from Fertilizing is added directly to your overall fuel tank. The amount of fuel you receive is also determined by how many plots you have on your farm. Essentially, The more plots you have, the larger the amount of fuel you will receive. You can find fuel once for each neighbor’s farm that you fertilize. However, at a certain point while fertilizing your neighbor’s farms, you may notice that you are no longer finding fuel. In order to find more fuel, you’ll need to use some of the fuel that you’ve gained to make room for more.

However, In order to balance out the new ways that we’ve added to find fuel, we’ve slowed down the rate at which fuel naturally regenerates. All farms will be able to regenerate a full tank of fuel over time, but now this rate is determined by how many plots of land you have on your farm. The more plots you have on your farm, the quicker your fuel regenerates. The new fuel feature is a pretty big change to FarmVille, and as with all of our big releases, we want to hear your feedback. If you have any opinions you would like to share, please make sure to visit the official FarmVille forums or www.farmville.com.

Now, before jumping into some questions from our users, I have some exciting information about the new FarmVille Game cards! In addition to Gamestop, FarmVille Game Cards can now be found in 7-11 and Best Buy! These cards are not only an easy way to get some extra Farm Cash, they are also great gifts for any friends or family you may have who love FarmVille.

And once again, it's time for some player submitted questions. Players from our forums submit questions to us everyday, and the best ones get answered here. So without any further adieu, onto our first question, from Onrie. Onrie writes, "Is Farm of the Week judged based on fancy designs with hay bales and stuff or are you looking at overall good-looking farms?"

This has been a pretty hot topic ever since we started our Farm of the Week event, and to answer you, the Farm of the Week can be just about any of the things you mentioned, so long as it's a very well-done farm. So far, the farms that we have select have not used any haybale art, but if we happen to see farm that makes something with haybales that really stands out with, then they could be eligible to win. The only hard and fast rule to winning the Farm of the Week is to have a good-looking farm, but there are many different ways to make a farm that's good-looking. With the Farm of the Week, we're looking for all of them, so everyone has an equal chance to win. If you'd like to enter, just visit the FarmVille Landscaping section of our forums for more details.

Our next question comes to us from, HenryRex. "I opened a chest, which gave me "Farm Hands". What does that mean? Do I get people, (Farmhands) to help me? Are these "hands" that will milk my cows, manually? What is it?"

Well Henry, Farm Hands are a special consumable item that instantly harvests all the ready animals that you have on your farm that aren't in a building. But they've only good for one time for each Farm Hand you have. So, if you've got lots of animals to tend to on your farm that are ready to go, just click the Use button and all your animals are harvested instantly. You can find them from tending to your Horse Stable, and they can be purchased from the Market for 5 Farm Cash a piece. Just as a reminder, whenever we release a new item or feature in FarmVille, you can get more information about how it works from the Game Updates subsection of the Updates and Announcements section of our forums. There are guides and other important notes on every one of our major releases.

Alright everyone! I think it’s just about time to get into the coming soon segment of this week’s podcast!

Now, do you guys ever find yourselves looking for new ways to communicate with your neighbors? Are sign posts just not cutting it for you anymore? Well, never fear Farmers. We will soon be releasing new features that will allow you to better communicate with your neighbors in-game!

In addition to this, we are also putting a lot of effort into fine tuning Mastery, Achievements and leveling. You will notice in the near future that the requirements to master crops and gain Achievements will be adjusted. And lastly, we all know St Patrick’s Day is fast approaching. In order to celebrate accordingly, we will be releasing new St Patrick’s Day themed Mystery Box Limited Edition items!

And I think that’s about it for this week! Again, my name is Lexilicious and I will see you guys soon! Happy Farming everybody."

=See Also=
 * Official FarmVille Podcasts
 * FarmVille Updates