Free Stuff Friday #11: Three 55 FV Cash Winners

We did not run a Free Stuff Friday contest last week, so we’re pleased to bring back Free Stuff Friday with a vengeance! You see, we normally pick one winner per week, but this week we are feeling particularly generous!

Above: Who has time to sleep with so many horses to click?

We are compiling real stories of how FarmVille has affected your life for a humorous article we’ve got brewing up, tentatively titled “You’re Addicted to FarmVille When…” So naturally, we want to hear funny stories about your addiction to FarmVille. Three lucky winners this week will win 55 FV Cash Cards! That’s right, three (3) different winners will win $10 in FV Cash!

In order to win this prize package, you must complete the following steps:

Step 1: First up, Like us on our Facebook page. You can find our Facebook page by clicking here. Be sure to Share our link with your friends, too!

Step 2: Leave a comment on our Facebook page telling us at what lengths you have tailored your lifestyle to play FarmVille. Surely, some of us have canceled our evening of going grocery shopping (yuck) in order to make sure our Strawberries get harvested before they wither, right? Have you ever found yourself Googling something like Amaranth to figure out what the heck it is? Let us know what ways you’re addicted to FarmVille and we may include your story in an upcoming article, as well!

Be sure to tell your friends about us by clicking “Share” on our Facebook statuses and links! We give stuff away every Friday! The cut-off date for entry to this contest is Friday, May 6th at 12:00am sharp, so make sure you enter before then! We will choose THREE winners on that same date, and they will be contacted by Farming Elsie on Facebook! If you get a message from Farming Elsie, it is 100% legitimate and you have won! We do not declare winners in public due to the fact that our readers’ privacy is very dear to us. Duplicate entries will result in disqualification, in order to keep things fair. Good luck!

If you are new to FarmVille Post, please take a look around! You can find our weekly in-depth articles on Crops by searching our Crop Spotlights, like this one on English Roses! If you’re into thorough research for various new features around FarmVille, take a look at our How-to sections, which is deeper than a copy and paste of Zynga’s own community guides. We also review every item that arrives on the Market, usually on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, like this review of the Mystery Game.

For the latest Contest we are running, check out our Contests page – even if this contest has expired, there is an active one every week! After all, every Friday is Free Stuff Friday!

How-to: Royal Wedding Party

In celebration of the upcoming wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, FarmVille is throwing a Royal Wedding Party! If you recall the New Year’s Party from back in December of 2010, this should be a familiar affair.

Step 1: Upon logging in, you will be greeted with the above screen. You will be in placement mode once you’ve accepted your invite to host a Royal Wedding Party, so plop that Welcome Tent anywhere on your farm. Thankfully, this party is much, much smaller than that of the New Year’s Party, so do not expect for it to take up much space on your farm.

Step 2: Click on the “Go to Party” option on the Welcome Tent to head inside. Once here, you can see the prizes for inviting people to your party: Lover’s Arch for 4 Guests, Royal Crystal Tree for 8 Guests, Majestic Rose Crop for 16 Guests, and the coveted Royal Steed for a full party of 32 Guests. These are definitely worthy prizes! Yes, the Crop can be Mastered, and the Royal Steed produces a new baby Foal.

Step 3: In order to get all of these prizes, you will need to invite many, many neighbors to your Royal Wedding Party. In order for 32 Guests to accept their invites, you will likely have to send invites to more than the 32 required. Click on the “Invite Friends” button at the bottom of the “Go to Party” screen, as seen above. You will want to invite 50 friends, the maximum amount allowed at a time, to your party in hopes that they will accept.

As for the brand new Majestic Rose Crop, it is a 1 day Crop in terms of duration, and your license to plant the Crop will last for a full month once you’ve unlocked it. It gives 145 Coins back to the player when it comes time to harvest. It seems weird that we have seen just about every color of Rose except red at this point, doesn’t it?

No word has hit regarding the logistics of the Tree, but we will have more info as it springs up!

News: English Countryside Co-Op Jobs

Elsewhere in tonight’s update is a trio of brand new Co-Op Jobs for the English Countryside!

Now, we spoke briefly about two of these Co-Op Jobs – the Amazing Asters and the Cornflower Contingency – within our How-to write-ups on the new Quest chapters that were introduced tonight. These Co-Op Jobs are fairly straightforward, so let’s hop right into them!

The Amazing Asters
In this Co-Op Job, you must harvest 1,200 Pink Asters within 18 hours and 59 minutes for the Gold Medal, 1 day and 4 hours for the Silver Medal, or 2 days for the Bronze Medal. Your reward for completing the Co-Op Job will be a Love Potion, offering yet another way of obtaining the coveted item.

The Great Rabbit Caper
In this Co-Op Job, you must harvest 700 Turnips and 700 Radishes within 1 day and 10 hours for the Gold Medal, 2 days and 4 hours for the Silver Medal, or 3 days and 15 hours for the Bronze Medal. If you managed to get Gold, you will be rewarded with an adorable Brown Spot Rabbit.

The Cornflower Contingency
In this Co-Op Job, you must harvest 1,200 Cornflowers within 18 hours and 59 minutes for the Gold Medal, 1 day and 4 hours for the Silver Medal, and 2 days even for the Bronze Medal. This is probably the weakest of the three rewards, as you will be given a Cornflower Pot for succeeding. Hey, at least the Cornflower is a really beautiful flower.

Are you excited to finally see new Jobs in FarmVille? We certainly are.

New Items: Star and Camo Rams, and Welsh Corgi

We beat up on FarmVille pretty badly the other night in our article on the “illegal” Sheep Breeding cut-off, and we feel it was justified. However, it seems that Zynga is doing the right thing by correcting the majority of the issues caused by the blocking of breeding Star and Camo Sheep with this release…

On the Market as of late last night is two “new” Rams: the Star Ram and the Camo Ram. Now, this may not seem like noteworthy news, but hear us out: with the arrival of these two Rams to the Market, you can continue breeding Star and Camo patterned Sheep! No, you do not have to buy a thing, you can instantly begin making those two patterns once again since they are released and no longer deemed “illegal.” Should you purchase these Rams, they will cost you 30 FV Cash each, but if you’ve already got some of your Star or Camo Rams handy from their “illegal” phase, they will still work properly in your Sheep Pen.

The Knight Steed has returned to the Market for 26 FV Cash, but we have already covered that when we broke the exclusive news on its arrival to FarmVille. Instead, let’s talk about the other addition to the Animals tab, the Welsh Corgi. For those of you who are into the Dogs in FarmVille, this new addition does not require any Treats or any such similar item. It works exactly like any other Animal in FarmVille, in that it can be collected from upon purchase – in this case, for 18 FV Cash. We’re not sure why this one is not a member of the FV Dogs, though we are guessing it may have something to do with the fact that the Dogs’ purpose is a little archaic by today’s standards, what with the whole Farmhands being so readily available and all.

What do you think of these new additions?

How-to: Back to Basics Quest

That is not the only brand new series of Quests to come to FarmVille this week, as the second Quest to hit is Back to Basics.

Step 1: Aww, look how distraught this fella is. You can start out turning his frown upside-down by returning to the basics of farming: simply plow 200 fresh plots and then plant and harvest 200 English Peas out of aforementioned plots. Completing these simply tasks will award you with the above items, which are at least an improvement from the initial Quest of the night.

Step 2: Our goofy newcomer is in dire need of assistance regarding figuring out what all of the Buildings do across FarmVille, apparently suffering from virtual farming amnesia. First up is a long haul effort to craft the Duke’s Stout to Level 15, which we had thankfully already accomplished, as well as harvest both your Chicken Coop and your Horse Stable twice each. These will take a couple of days to accomplish. The crappy part? The rewards are exactly the same as the first portion of this Quest. Ouch!

Step 3: An array of new objectives will hit you in the third portion of this Quest, including the use of one of the other three Co-Op Jobs, the Amazing Aster Job. In this new Co-Op Job, you must complete 1200 harvests of the Pink Asters within two days, and of course you can ask your friends to pitch in and complete the objective faster for a Gold Medal. Beyond the Co-Op Job, you must also use your Combine 50 times, and Master the first level of Field Beans. You’ll receive the usual EXP and Coin bonuses, as well as some decorative English Rose Pot, for succeeding.

Step 4: Henry is still in need of figuring out the basics of being a good neighbor. Start off by immediately clicking on the “Get 6 Testimonials” objective, since you will need your neighbors to send in their written words commending poor ol’ dim Henry. Let’s face it, it’s sort of like giving a bad employee a positive reference; you know they’re going to be terrible, but you do it out of kindness, right? Beyond this, you will have to fertilize 40 plots on your neighbors’ soil, as well as expand your farm out to a larger piece of land.  Upon completion of these tasks, you will be rewarded with Lush Soil, a brand new bonus awarded to only the best of farmers, as well as the usual EXP and Coin bonuses.

Lush Soil works exactly like the Soil in the English Countryside, where you receive additional Mastery points and Bushels, but on your home farm! This is truly an awesome reward for those of you who love crafting or have a lot of Crops to Master.