Podcast Jan. 24th

Hey there, Farmers!

This week's podcast is now live. Check it out to get information on our new features, as well as an exclusive sneak peek of things coming your way soon!

Please find the Transcript of this week's podcast below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyS4tVIQRxE


FarmVille Podcast - Jan 24th!:

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 the latest news and information about FarmVille from Zynga. This week, we will be discussing our latest releases, and all of you will be getting a sneak peek of things coming to FarmVille in the near future.

So first up this week is the release of the new Model Farm. Now, this feature should be available to a majority of you right now, but some users still do not have access to this release, as we are working on fixing some bugs. Now, users who have not yet checked this feature out may be asking: What exactly is a Model Farm? Think of it as a showroom for Limited Edition and other thematic items where you can see a wide variety of buyable goods arranged in a display farm.

You can visit the Model Farm at any time by clicking on the Model Farm card, which you can see on the far right-hand side of the neighbor bar. Once you click on it, you’ll be taken to the Model Farm, which works similar to visiting your FarmVille neighbors.

On the Model Farm you will see quite a few Limited Edition items. Some of them may not be available, as they may have expired in the Market, or could be coming soon, and a few may be regular Market items. Each item that can be purchased will have a glowing price tag next to it that fades in and out over time. Move your mouse over that item and you can see what it is and if it’s available. If you want to know more, just click on it and you’ll see a preview window similar to what’s currently in use in the Market.

You can purchase items from the Model Farm by clicking the “buy” button. If you click “Send” you’ll get a window showing all of your Farmville neighbors. Please note this option may not be available for some items.

And as a special bonus, every day you visit the Model Farm you can get a special prize—just for showing up! Every so often the Model Farm will be refreshed when we have new Limited Edition themes or other things we want to show off.

FarmVille also started gearing up for Valentine’s Day a bit early this year with the release of Cupid’s Castle! Cupid’s Castle is a multi-level constructible building that you can build up now, and harvest for Valentines later. Similar to the Haunted House, you’ll be able to redeem these valentine’s for special goods at a later date.

You will get the initial frame for Cupid’s Castle for free the first time you play FarmVille after the update, and you will immediately be entered into Placement Mode. You can place the Cupid’s Castle frame on your farm now, or you can choose to place it in your Gift Box for use later. You must be at least Level 5 to place a Cupid’s Castle.

As stated earlier, Cupid’s Castle is a multi-level constructible building. Each level requires a different number of building parts to complete. Level 1 will require 12 Parts, Level 2 will require 45 parts and level 3 will require 60 parts in total.

Like many constructible building parts, you can acquire these items via neighbor requests, the free gifts page, Special Delivery Boxes and Farm Cash.

As you complete each level of Cupid’s Castle, it will become visually bigger and grander. Now, if you do not get Cupid’s Castle initially or wind up accidentally deleting it, you can purchase it in the Market under the Buildings tab.

Stay tuned for more information on Cupid’s Castle coming your way soon!
And lastly, we would like to share some information about the new collection limit. If you regularly visit the FarmVille Forums, you are probably already familiar with the information I am going to share. However, many of our users do not visit forums, so I would like to share the Producers Letter with everyone today.

Now, as we all know, FarmVille is, at its heart, a social game . A game that is fun because you can play it with your friends and family. We’ve heard from all of you that one of the most fun parts of the game is the ability to share cool items and rewards with your neighbors. Sharing that rare foal from your stable with friends, or sharing holiday gifts with your neighbors – these are the things that really show how important the social side of farming is to everyone.

We also know how exciting it is to see that someone you know has posted an animal or decoration you want for your farm, and how it can be a letdown if you don’t get that item. Especially if you never seem to get the items you want because they are gone in seconds.

Over the past year, a number of computer programs have been written that will automatically claim everything posted to the feeds. The result is that, while one person can get a massive number of rewards, everyone else is left out with almost no chance to get anything. We receive regular feedback from players who feel as if it’s not even worth trying to collect items and animals from their feed any more. Not only is this a bad experience for our players, but the use of these programs is a violation of the FarmVille Terms of Service.

To improve this experience for our players, we have recently implemented two changes to FarmVille.

Firstly, each player will have a maximum number of items that they can collect from a feed in a single day.

Secondly, Any player seen collecting a high number of feed items per second will also be subject to a throttle that will limit the speed they can collect items for the remainder of the day.

The vast majority of players will never hit either of these thresholds. Players who use programs to automate feed collection will quickly find that they are either dramatically slowed down or are stopped at their limit, and they will be unable to grab everything that is posted for the rest of that day.

Currently, our daily maximum is set to 125 feed items collected per day. This limit was selected after looking at feed item collection behavior in our game, and is meant to limit only the most extreme feed collectors – most of whom are using these automated programs. As mentioned, the vast majority of our players will never hit this limit. This limit will reset daily at 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. Wall to wall posts between two neighbors, barn raising help requests, and fuel posts do not count toward the 125 items limit.

Our goal is to make sure that both of these limits are restrictive enough to prevent automation software from creating bad experiences, but also high enough that most people playing the game are unaffected. We will be monitoring the results as we roll this out in the coming days, and may tune the limits over time. We invite and encourage you to provide your feedback in the FarmVille forums.

We would like to thank all our players for the time they spend playing our game with their friends and family, and we look forward to working with you to continually improve the experience.

If you have any feedback you would like to share with the FarmVille Team regarding the new collection limit, please make sure to visit the official FarmVille forums and let us know what you have to say.

Now for the coming soon segment this week, we have a very special guest named Charlie. He is here to share some news with everyone about our latest upcoming feature.

[“Good Afternoon, Farmers! Soon you will experience a new and exciting way to play your favorite game. We’re sure it’s going to be a jolly good adventure so make sure to keep an eye on your farm this week for some very exciting foreign news!”]

Thanks Charlie! And along with this special surprise, Farmers can also expect to see the new Glass House in the coming weeks. This three-stage expandable building will allow you to breed your own special crops that can be mastered. Each stage will unlock more breeding trays so you can create even more hybrid seeds.

Alright folks, well that’s it from me this week. Again, my name is Lexilicious, and I would like to thank everyone for tuning in this week. I will be back on February 4th to bring you all of the latest news from around the farm. Happy Farming!