CityVille Quests: Sam Reports and Sam Paul's Chat

Zynga has released a new quest series to CityVille surrounding Samantha, and her quest to interview the main characters in the game. To unlock this quest line in your game, you will have needed to complete the Dr. Sheperd and Louise romance quest line, ending with the quest called "Even More L'Amour," which sees you sending the couple to Paris. The first two quests in this new series are called Sam Reports and Sam n' Paul's Chat. Sam Reports is a quest about Ruth, but it may not seem like that directly. You'll be charged with making Ruth's museum exhibit one to behold. There are three tasks required to complete it:

Have a Museum
Collect from Community Buildings 5 Times
Place 1 Pink Flowers

The Pink Flowers is the prize you'll receive for turning into the Forever Young Collection, which is completed by collecting from the Cosmetics Store. Meanwhile, most of you likely already have a Museum by this point, so this step should be completed for you. Once you complete this quest, you'll receive 200 coins.

Once you finish this quest for Ruth, you'll move onto a quest called Sam n' Paul's Chat. Meet us behind the break for all of the details about that quest. and how to complete it.
For Sam n' Paul's Chat, you'll move onto speaking with the in-game carpenter, that appears each time you want to chop a tree in your town (normally after purchasing an expansion). However, it seems as though Zynga might not have thought this one through, or they simply want it to be extremely expensive to accomplish. There are two tasks here:

Chop 10 Trees in Your Town
Have 3 Strawberry Jams

The Strawberry Jams aren't the troublesome item here, as these as a Strawberry Crop Collection item, earned by simply planting and harvesting strawberries which takes only minutes. The problem is when it comes to chopping the 10 trees. Unless you just so happen to plan on expanded your land (that is, you already have the permits and the coins necessary to do so), or unless you just so happen to have saved trees because you liked the look of them, you'll likely not have a single "choppable" tree in your entire city, forcing you to expand. This will force you to require land permits, and most likely save up coins for the now highly increased price of expanding each time. This also doesn't take into account expansions that may not have ten trees on them, leaving you to expand not just once, but twice to complete this single goal. If there were ever a time to go for the City Cash completion option, this very well might be it.

Whatever you decide, your reward for finishing this quest is 150 Goods. That doesn't seem nearly worth it though. Either way, we'll make sure to bring you more details on the rest of Sam's interviewing quest line as they become available.

via blog.games.com 

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FrntierVille Cheat and Tips: Growing Cacti On The Homestead

The FrontierVille forums are in somewhat of a fluster over the next big Goals in FrontierVille: the 37x37 Land Expansion Goals. Land expansions have always been more challenging than other tasks, but just look at the reward. However, players are particularly perturbed by a single requirement within a single Goal (in a series of five): Clear 10 Cacti. As it turns out, it is not impossible.

However, there is a bit luck involved with a dash of finesse. According to several players on the forums and sources like Pioneer Party, the more useful debris grows toward the south of your homestead while things like Thorns and Grass pop up in the north. Take that vital piece of information and run with it. Create a small portion--maybe 10 spaces around--in the south most corner of your homestead that will act as a sort of debris farm. Then, clear out all the unwanted debris to increase the chances of Cacti to appear over time.

To make better use of space, some players even create a small buffer of empty land lining the southwest and southeast ends of their homesteads. Because debris normally grows from the outside in, but doesn't grow within two squares of buildings or crops, this will cause debris to grow in a controlled environment. So, create a two-space buffer zone between the outermost borders of your homestead and whatever you might place there. Within a few days, debris should appear, namely Cacti. Try either of these methods and you should see more Cacti on your homestead than you might have hoped for.

via blog.games.com

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Cafe World Goal: St. Patrick Day

Part I:  Peter's Irish Wish

Unlock Coffee Machine Crate
Place the Drink Bar
Place the Leprechaun Fountain

Part II:   Patty's Parade

Cook 10 Irish Stews
Ask for 1 Flier
Have 1 Shamrock

Part III:  Post-Parade Punch

Serve Shamrock Punch 10 Times
Ask for 1 Corned Beef
Ask for 2 Cabbages

Part IV :  Cook of the Irish

Serve 15 Corned Beef and Cabbage
Own 2 Four Leaf Clovers
Own 2 Green Balloons

Part V:

Serve Virgin Shillelagh 10 Times
Serve Chocolate Mint Shake 15 Times
Have 6 Shamrocks
 

Part VI:

Place Irish Pub Piano
Have 3 Different Irish Stew Collection Pieces
Ask for 8 Sheet Musics

Part VII:

Serve Green Mocktails 40 Times
Ask for 7 Pieces of Wood
Ask for 8 Darts

Part VIII:

Serve Shamrock Punch 50 Times
Place Your New Dartboard
Ask for 6 Darts

Part IX:

Have 1 Pot O'Gold
Ask for 9 Jars of Mincemeat
Ask for 8 Large Eggs

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CityVille Wedding Goal

If you've been keeping track of the love-story between Louise and Dr. Sheperd in your town in CityVille, you'll probably be excited to learn that after all of the dating, Dr. Sheperd finally decides to pop the big question, and Louise even says yes! This triggers a new set of goals called the "Wedding" goals in your town, that begin with a goal called "Wedding Baking."

For Wedding Baking, you'll need to complete three tasks that are all related to your French Restaurant(s).

Have 3 Baguettes
Have 3 Croissants
Collect from French Restaurants 5 Times

Both the Baguettes and the Croissants are part of the French Restaurant Collection, which can be earned by collecting from the French Restaurant, so if you still need them, you'll be crossing off two tasks with one click there. After this mission, you'll unlock the second of three Wedding Goals, called "Wedding Dinner."

Meet us behind the break for more on the "Wedding Dinner" goal and what follows after it. The Wedding Dinner goal has you working on another item from the French Restaurant Collection, but also harvesting quite a few crops as well.

Have 3 Lilies
Have 3 Fromage
Harvest 40 Eggplant

The Fromage is the French Restaurant collectible, while the Lilies are from the Flower Kiosk Collection. While you're waiting for those items to spawn in your game, you can work on growing those 40 Eggplant, which grow in just one hour, cost 28 coins to plant, and produce 30 goods for your businesses.

Those two quests completed, you'll finally move onto the finale of this mission trio, called "Make the Cake." What's a good wedding without a wedding cake? You'll need to help this cake look marvelous by collecting a variety of items, including some parcels from a far off location at the dock.

Have 1 Wedding Cake Topper
Have 6 Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
Collect 15 Paris Parcels

The Wedding Cake Topper is part of the Wedding Dress & Tux Rental collection, while the Chocolate Covered Strawberries are part of the Strawberry Crop Collection. While you're working on growing strawberries, which takes just five minutes, you can send your boats off to Paris, where they will return from after a full day out at sea.

For finishing each of these quests, you will receive 200 coins, giving you 600 coins in total. Whether completing these quests is worth that, however, will be up to you.

via blog.games.com 

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FrontierVille Mission: Expand Your Shed!

While we've been able to expand both our land and our Storage Shed in FrontierVille in the past, in an effort to de-clutter our homesteads, with Zynga releasing so many new buildings, and so many new decorations, the current limit of 35 items in storage simply wasn't cutting it. Luckily, Zynga has addressed this issue in a big, big way, with the release of repeatable Mega Storage Missions in the game (as Zynga is lovingly calling them).

When the update hits your game, you'll see a pop-up like the one above, introducing you to these new, repeatable, missions. These repeatable missions (did I mention they were repeatable?) will allow you to add 15 spaces of storage each time you complete them, and there currently doesn't appear to be a limit on how big your Storage Shed can get (either that or even Zynga hasn't decided what it should be yet). Do you know what this means pioneers?! It means that we're potentially looking at unlimited storage in FrontierVille, with a couple of catches.

First, these missions will take quite a bit of time and materials on your part (I hope you've been saving up coins and wood). Secondly, you'll be subject to a "Storage Expansion Timer," which will only allow you to move onto your next expansion once every four days. You can, of course, pay Horseshoes to unlock a new set of missions earlier, if you wish.

So what exactly does it take to expand your Storage Shed into the "mega" storage range? Meet us behind the break for all of the details.
The Storage Expansion Mission has three parts. Part I of III is called Stacking Wood, and it has you chopping down trees on your own Homestead, and while it might seem like a tedious task, believe me - you'll need the wood you receive from doing so.

Chop Trees 50 Times on your Homestead
Visit 25 Neighbors
Have 25 Cloth

You don't have to actually do anything at your neighbors' homesteads, luckily enough, so just visit and move onto the next. As for the trees, each individual chop on a tree counts, so if you have full-grown trees, these can of course count for more than one chop if you entirely remove them. If you're a stickler for a clear homestead, though, remember that you can receive free trees for turning in either the Pine Tree or the Oak Tree collection, or you can simply purchase the saplings in the market. Your rewards for finishing this first mission are 300 XP and 100 Food. You'll be able to share some Cloth with your neighbors.

Part II of III will take you some time, as, even if you complete two of the steps, you physically can't complete the third in a single day (without the aid of Horseshoes). This mission, called Mortise and Tenon, requires the following three tasks be completed:

Have or Craft 100 Planks
Have 16 Tools
Collect Two Storage Shed Bonuses

The Storage Shed Bonus can only be collected once every day, and if you've already collected it before starting this mission, you'll be put even further behind. As for the Planks, they can be crafted inside the Covered Wagon for 7 wood and 250 coins each. That's 700 wood, if you currently own zero planks - hence my saying I hope you've been saving up. As for the Tools, you'll be able to earn these from your friends if they hire you, or visit you and happen to receive that as the random bonus they can leave behind. Finishing this second quest rewards you with 400 XP and 800 coins. You'll be able to share Tools with your friends.

This brings us to the final part of the Mission portion of Storage Shed expansion (oh yes, there's more). Part III asks you to complete three more steps:

Clear 15 Debris on your Homestead
Craft 8 Sawhorses
Expand your Storage Shed

Sawhorses can be crafted inside the Barn using, wait for it, more Planks. I suppose this is why Zynga only takes 50 of your 100 Planks when completing the last mission. You'll also need to use up the Tools you just gathered from the previous mission, as Sawhorses take 5 Planks and 2 Tools each to craft.

As for the actual expansion of your Storage Shed, you'll need to gather six construction materials, in a same fashion as when you first build the average building in FrontierVille. To start, you'll need to gather 10 Shelves, 10 Bins, and 10 Padlocks by sending out individual requests to your friends. Three more items are 5 Elbow Grease, 5 Cement and 5 Carpenter Pencils, all of which can be asked for in a general news item on your feed.

Here's where things get tricky. The first time you complete these three missions, and collect all of the construction materials to physically expand, you will receive 15 extra storage spaces inside the Storage Shed. That's all well and good, but when four days have passed and you go to work on another expansion, this final building step will have changed, becoming incrementally more difficult each time you complete it. This is due to the fact that each of the six construction materials will be required in quantities that are two units higher than previously.

As an example, since you only needed to collect 10 and 5 of each ingredient the first time, when it comes time to expand again, you'll need to gather 12 Shelves, Bins, and Padlocks, and 7 each of Elbow Grease, Cement and Carpenter Pencils. On your third expansion, you'll need 14 and 9 of each, and so on.

As you can see, expanding your Storage Shed to any great number will likely take you quite a bit of time, as you'll need to gather the wood and tools necessary to create Planks and Sawhorses, not to mention the time it will take to request more and more collectible items from friends. We can't really complain though - we'd much rather be spending time completing these missions than trying to find places to "hide" seasonal decorations because we don't want to sell them.

via blog.games.com 

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Top 25 Facebook Games for March 2011

Like last month, 16 of the 25 largest Facebook games by monthly active users have experienced user declines, with seven, including CityVille, steming from social developer Zynga. Many of these games were launched a year ago or earlier, and massive new games are not emerging to take their place, at least in terms of equivalent MAU numbers.

But before we get into the details, the other important thing to note is that while MAU shows total size, the daily active user count is a better measure of the popularity of a game with serious users, and the game’s ability to monetize through virtual goods. CityVille, for example, has been losing MAU but gaining DAU in the past month; Zynga has flat DAU overall versus a month ago, at 52.9 million today. (For details on these stats and much more, check out our AppData service, which tracks the traffic to top Facebook apps and developers.)

MAU numbers still provide valuable information about what new games are gaining significant numbers of new users. Ravenwood Fair, It Girl, and Mall World have done especially well. Moreover, two newcomers join the list from Gaia Online and wooga in the form of Monster GalaxyMonster World, respectively. and

Also, remember that the big trend in 2010 was a wide range of smaller games growing and figuring out how to monetize effectively, as we’ve covered before.

With all that, here are the highlights for the Top 25 Facebook Games for March 2011:

• Zynga’s CityVille sees a significant drop this month, losing over 3.6 million monthly active users (MAU). Even with the decline, the game still boasts nearly 95 million MAU in total.
• Texas Hold’Em Poker (Zynga Poker) marks one of only two Zynga apps to gain numbers this month with a growth of 544,040 MAU.
• Millionaire City from Digital Chocolate surpasses Treasure Isle for the #7 spot, but still loses over 475,000 MAU.
• As noted prior, Ravenwood Fair, from LOLapps continues its impressive climb up the charts with the highest gain this month. Growing by approximately 3.7 million MAU to come in at #11.
• Right behind Ravenwood comes CrowdStar’s It Girl which grows by approximately 1.2 million MAU.
• The #17 spot hosts our first newcomer to the list this week with Monster Galaxy from Gaia Online. The game grows by just shy of 1.5 million MAU for a total of 6,864,568.
• Mall World is the second “girls-only” title on the list the month. From developer 50 Cubes, the game earns a total of 6.6 million MAU.
• Zynga sees its second gain this month with YoVille which earns 85,374 MAU.
• Coming in at #24 is the next newcomer to the top 25, Monster World from wooga. Gaining 456,0623 MAU, the title totals out at just shy of 6.1 million.

via Inside Social Games

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FrontierVille Mission: Flower Shop

As we told you in our guide to the Flower Shop building in FrontierVille, once you have constructed the building, you'll be able to access a series of four repeatable missions dealing with the four flowers that are currently available in the game - Pansies, Daisies, Carnations, and Tulips.

Each flower has a different repeatable quest, which will reward you with the flower in question for use in decorating your Homestead. These quests deal with collecting various items, harvesting trees or tending crops, and even completing collections, so I hope you're ready for an all-around test to earn these new reward items.

We have all of the details concerning these four new quests, so meet us behind the break for a look at how to finish them all, and the rewards you'll receive in the end.

Pansies Quest:

Have 30 Planks
Harvest 20 Apple Trees
Collect 1 Fertilizer

As we told you in the Flower Shop missions themselves, you will receive Fertilizer items for finishing them, so hopefully, you will have held onto them long enough to get to this quest. Otherwise, we believe they can be crafted inside the Flower Shop (as this is such a slow rollout, some details are as-of-yet unknown). Planks can be crafted inside the Covered Wagon, for 7 Wood and 250 coins each. Your rewards for finishing this quest are 100 XP and a potted Pansies.

Daisies Quest

Complete the Manure Collection
Unwither 10 Neighbor Crops
Collect 2 Fertilizers

With all of the animals we've had to raise and sell in the game over the past few months, you likely have enough manure collectibles to complete that step, and if you've been playing the game for a long period of time, you likely have friends that have stopped playing that would have crops you could unwither. Now would also be a good time to check out users with Victory Gardens, as they would be guaranteed to have withered crops to tend to. Finishing the Daisies quest rewards you with 100 XP and a potted Daisies.

Carnation Quest

Clear 20 Debris on Neighbor Homesteads
Whack 5 Groundhogs
Collect 3 Fertilizer

Again, this is a fortunate situation, as you can travel to your non-playing friends' homesteads and clear their debris to easily complete this step. Meanwhile, if you're looking to quickly bring out Groundhogs, simply plant lots of Clover, as it can be harvested after five minutes. Finishing this quest rewards you with 100 XP and a potted Tulips.

Tulips Quest

Tend 30 Pigs
Harvest 50 Clover
Collect 4 Fertilizer

As we said above, Clover is actually a great crop for quests, as it only requires 5 minutes to grow, and you can quickly be on your way. Meanwhile, you can harvest your own pigs at a rate of once every six hours in order to complete this task, if you don't have 30 pigs in total on your land at one time. Finishing this final flower quest rewards you with, you guessed it, 100 XP and a potted Tulip.

Again, all of these quests are repeatable, so feel free to do them as often as you'd like to continue racking up the free flowers and experience points.


via blog.games.com

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FrontierVille Mission: Flower Festival

Part I:  Gettin' Started

 

Place a Flower Shop

Clear 20 Wildflowers on Neighbor Homesteads

Harvest 20 Pink Roses

The Flower Shop can be purchased from the store for 1000 coins and 100 Wood.  Pink Roses are ready for harvest after 14 hours. 

Part II:

Tend 6 Neighbor Horses

Collect 15 Hand Rakes

Tend 10 Pansies

Ask friends for Hand Rakes by posting on your wall.  You will need to complete the construction of the Flower Shop  before you can purchase and plant it.

Check here for full guide on Flower Shop Missions.

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How to Get a Syringe in FrontierVille?

Along with the release of the Doctor's Office in FrontierVille came a new problem on the Homestead, that being that one of the items required to complete the accompanying Prairie Pox quests - the Syringe - is nigh impossible to find in the game!

As we told you upon release, the Syringe is a collection item available in the Doctor's Office collection that can be received either by collecting the Daily Bonus from the Doctor's Office, or received as you whack the building's frame during construction. Both of these instances seem to require an extreme amount of luck, as a massive thread (15 pages and growing) has appeared on the FrontierVille forums of users asking the same question - where are all of the Syringes?

This wouldn't be such a large issue if the Syringe wasn't required to complete one of the Praire Pox quests, but since it is, we've seen that FrontierVille players have started coming up with some nice suggestions as to how to better increase your chance of receiving a Syringe on your homestead, without waiting for one to appear once per day for however long you'd need to collect the Daily Bonus.

Meet us behind the break for those two solutions. A quick note about the strategy below - this is an entirely voluntary procedure - there's no guarantee that you'll receive the Syringe before running out of Wood, Energy/food items, Coins or patience. Attempt at your own risk!


The first of these methods seems to be the most reliable, but it will require a lot of coins, wood, energy, time, and most importantly - patience. You'll need to delete your Doctor's Office - yes, that item that you spent so much time collecting materials for - and then reconstruct its frame all over again. Through this, you'll be able to whack the frame eight times per construction, giving you eight chances of receiving a Syringe. If you don't, and the frame has once again been constructed, simply choose the Sell tool from the main menu, and then delete the Doctor's Office frame from your land. You will receive no coins in return, so now you can see how expensive a process this can turn into.

How quickly you'll happen upon a Syringe using this method is anyone's guess. Some users on the FrontierVille forums have reported receiving a Syringe on just their second Doctor's Office, while others (myself included) have built the frame over 80 times and still have yet to receive a Syringe. What you will likely receive, though, are tons of the other four items in the Doctor's Office collection, leaving your inventory to look like this:

Before you tackle this, know that you will have to start from scratch on the required building materials to complete the Doctor's Office construction - the Painkillers, Masks, etc.

For those that would rather not spend hours or days whacking and deleting Doctor's Office frames, some users have also been having some luck receiving Syringes from Care Packages - those items that will supposedly give you anything you need in the game for a quest (there are some limits to the items you can receive, making this one a bit shaky). This is an even more rare situation as a result, so we'd suggest saving this as a last resort.

If neither of these techniques work for you, you can always place the Syringe on your in-game Wish List, hoping that a neighbor has an extra to share, or simply purchase the Syringe for Horsehoes (of course, as many users have pointed out, that might be exactly what Zynga wants).

One final solution would be to simply wait it out - as with most things in FrontierVille, with enough negative fan feedback, Zynga normally changes the spawn rate of these hard-to-come-by items, and it's only presumable that they will do the same here. When, though, is anyone's guess.



via blog.games.com

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FrontierVille Mission: Find The Sheriff of Dirt!

Find Rango nine times
Watch the Trailer for Rango
Collect ten Buckets of Water


Rango randomly appears when doing basic tasks like feeding animals, clearing debris and chopping trees. You just need to click on him when he does and repeat this eight times to complete the first task.

Just click Watch the Trailer and it will move you to another browser letting you to watch the Rango Trailer, and at the same time completing the second task. 


Ask your friends for Buckets of Water.  Having ten of this will let you complete this mission.

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