Traffic 
SuccessA Comprehensive Guide to Playing FarmVille on Facebook
“Howdy Ya’ll! Come on down to the Farm today and play with your friends. We got plenty of land for everyone. Come and see what everyone is hootin’ and hollerin’ about.”
If you are a Facebook user, you must have got accustomed to notifications filled with invitations to join FarmVille and gifts of trees, chickens and sheep from your FarmVille-farmer friends. All the FarmVille action on the Facebook wall is drawing even the novice gaming crowd towards it. The nostalgic urban crowd is quickly getting hooked onto the virtual farming game and deriving simple pleasures from ploughing land, sowing seeds, harvesting crops, collecting fruits and raising livestock in their own virtual farm.
The game was developed by San Francisco based gaming firm Zynga and launched on the 17th of June. Despite being a fresh entry into the world of gaming, FarmVille has carved its niche and already boasts monthly stats of 30 million registered players across the globe, hundreds of them adding each day.
You have been wanting to start farming like your friends, but you have postponed the plan for quite some time. Your wall is notifying you about friends moving up on FarmVille. They are exchanging gifts, have a collection of beautiful FarmVille photographs with new animals and trees being added everyday. If you want to kick start farming now and if the activity on the wall is freaking you out, fret not!! Here is a comprehensive FarmVille guide which teaches you FarmVille farming from the scratch.
Getting Started
Installing the application in your profile:
- You can get started by accepting the invitation sent by your friend on Facebook, asking you to join FarmVille. On accepting the invitation, the FarmVille application automatically gets added into your list of applications. If you get started by this method, just click on “applications” on the bottom-left corner of your Facebook home page and start gaming, oops… farming.
- If you do not any invitation to join FarmVille, and want to venture out all by yourself, this is how you get started:
- Click “applications” on the bottom-left corner of your Facebook home page
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- Click on “browse more applications”
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- Enter FarmVille in “search apps” and press “enter”.
- The first search returned is FarmVille. Click on the application and get started!!
Note that there are “38345,101” monthly active users (dated: 7/9/09)
Basics- learning the ropes
FarmVille is a multi player game, with a twist. Every Facebook member is eligible to participate in the game. Irrespective of whether a Facebook member has joined the game or not, friends who are already registered users on FarmVille can send virtual gifts to them and also invite them to join.
Upon joining FarmVille, you get a small piece of land, some virtual seeds, and money to plough the land and to sow the seeds. How you use the money to develop your farm is left to you.
In FarmVille you can plow, plant and harvest crops to earn money. The money earned can be used to buy different items for your farm or further expand and improve your farmstead. You can also earn money by harvest trees and rearing livestock.
The Twist: FarmVille is a multi-player game. But each player has individual plot of land. Your friends on Facebook can assist you with various aspects of farming as you move on. While you all play simultaneously, there is no competition in the gaming sense of the word. FarmVille gives virtual farmers great sense of freedom. You can customize the farm as you want and develop strategies to make money soon or rather choose to beautify your farm by spending the money you earn.
Basics:
- Farmer: You, the Facebook user is the farmer. You can customize your look with available features.
Examples:
- Farm:
The farm is where you grow crops, rear livestock and plant trees. Each user can customize the farm as he/ she likes.
- Plots:
Each square in the image indicates one plot in the farm
- Tools:
The tools are used to plough the land and to harvest crops.
1 2 3
1) multi tool
2) plough tool
3) hoe
- Money:
Money is needed to plough the farm, buy seeds, sow seeds and other items from the market. Every time you harvest crops or rear livestock, you earn some money.
In FarmVille there are two types of money- Coins and FV ( currency notes). To buy items on FarmVille, you mostly require coins. However, some items like buildings and extra land can be bought only by FV notes. Coins can be earned soon. But earning FVs take time.
( Image showing coins and FVs of a level 10 player.)
FarmVille integrates real world money with the virtual world. You can pay up using credit card or your Pay Pal account and buy coins and FV notes instantaneously.
Here’s how.
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- Ribbons:
Ribbons are like awards that you get for your farming skills. Once you earn a ribbon, you can publish it on your Facebook wall and even share your wealth among friends who are farmers on FarmVille. You will not lose any money upon sharing wealth. [Key to FarmVille Ribbons]
- Market:
The market is a place where you can buy seeds, trees, animals, buildings, decorations, more farming land and vehicles for your farm.
↓↓
Click
Playing the game
My Farmer
You can change your farmer’s appearance by clicking on your avatar. This will display the avatar customize screen, where you can modify skin color and various facial features, as you did at the beginning of the game.
Customizing your looks (options)
NEXT 
SELECT & SAVE
Walk
By clicking the arrow button, you set your farmer to walk. In this mode you can walk your farmer to anywhere on the screen by clicking that location. This is the default setting and can be used to open object menus (to move or sell trees, decorations and buildings) and use the contextual commands (for example, clicking plowed land to seed or fully grown crops to harvest).
Plow
When you click on the hoe, you enter Plow mode. Now you can click on any fallow or clear ground to plow it. Each square plowed costs 15 coins and gives you 1 experience.
(You can find this on the right hand corner of your farm)
Plant
If a square is plowed, you can seed it by clicking on the plowed square. This opens the Market where you can choose which seed to use. The mode is changed to planting and you can click multiple plowed fields to plant that seed again. Seeds cost different amounts depend on the level needed to unlock the seed and how long it takes to grow. Most seeded crops awards 2 experience, but crops that take less than a day to grow only award 1 experience (and future types may yield no experience). Plan ahead by planting crops that will become ripe by the next time you can check your farm.
Harvest
Crops can take from 2 hours to 4 or more days to grow before they can be harvested. Click on the ready crop to harvest it. Harvested crops are immediately sold for coins. Care should be taken not to leave the fully grown crops too long or they will wilt, becoming spoiled and useless. Crops will start to wilt after a period of time equal to their growth, so a 1 day crop will start wilting after 2 days have passed since planting.
Example: The user has planted Soyabeans here. The seeds required for each plot of the farm costs 15 coins and when harvested, it can be sold for 63 coins. The time required for harvesting is 1 day. The image indicates a 69% growth. This means that the time span of 1 day is not yet complete in this particular image. Suppose you do not harvest it for 2 days, you will find it withered and it results in loss.
Level and Experience
Actions like Plowing, Planting, Helping Friends and Buying Farm items (buildings, trees, animals) award experience points. As these points accumulate the farmer raises his level and more items are unlocked.
Example:
The user here is on level 10. The user must have got a few awards and rewards by now depending on the performance. The money accumulated by this user is 19,089 coins. The money accumulated across different users on level 10 can differ depending upon how they have spent it. To reach level 10, the user should earn a minimum experience of 1800 . In this case, the user has accumulated an experience of 2238 through incessant farming over 10 levels. Once the experience reaches 2800 , the user is promoted to level 11. The items the user can afford to buy on Level 11 cannot be bought by someone on level 2. The buying and gifting capacity betters with each level progressed.
Market
Click the Market Icon to open the market menu. From here you can purchase a variety of items:
(You can find this on the right hand corner of your farm)
- SeedsThese are the seeds used to plant crops. The higher the level needed to purchase a seed, the more coins can be made by harvesting and selling it.
Each seed has is sold for a particular price, has a particular harvesting time, the farmer gains some experience and the harvest can be sold at a certain profit.
Example: At FarmVille, strawberry seeds can be bought for 10 coins, they are harvested in 4 hours and can be sold at 35 coins. The farmer gains 1 experience out of each plot harvest made.
There are 29 varieties of seeds in all. In the image, the first 8 varieties of seeds are displayed. On clicking “=>” you can see the next 8 variety of seeds. Since the user on level 10, he/she can afford to buy any of the displayed seeds. But for a user on level 2, the seeds on the second row would be “locked”. As the user progresses to higher levels, greater choices of seeds are available for sale.
- TreesThese are fully grown trees that when purchased can be planted where you desire when purchased or given as a gift. Trees take 2-5 days to grow a crop of fruit, and after a crop is harvested a new crop starts growing. Fruit from trees will not wilt. You can sell Trees (either bought or gifted) at Level 7.
- AnimalsSome animals can be purchased from the market; others can only be given as gifts. You can sell Animals (either bought or gifted) at Level 7. Animals will yield products to be sold every 1 to 5 days.
- BuildingsThese items can be used to decorate your farm, and in the future may have game effects on the farm. At present they award Experience when bought.
- DecorationsThese items like fences, wagons and garden gnomes will help make the farm more complete. They award Experience when bought.
- Expand FarmYou can purchase additional land to expand your farm.
- Vehicles
You can buy vehicles for your farm and fuel to run them. As you progress, the choice of vehicles you can purchase increases.
Gifting
You can receive gifts from your friends as well as send them gifts. Usually gifts are trees or animals. Send your friends gifts often, and they’ll be sure to return the favor!
Select the gift you want to send and click : proceed to send”.
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It takes you to this page
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You can check the person you want to gift and click on “send FarmVille gift request”. The gift will be sent automatically.
Instead of spending money and buying items in the market, you can use gifts given by your friends, the more friends you have on FarmVille, the more gifts you get.
Example: In buying a cherry tree, you will have to shell out 225 coins, you can have it gifted free of cost instead.
Neighbors
By using the MY NEIGHBORS page you can invite a friend to be one of your neighbors. Your friend must accept the invitation.
(All your neighbors will be displayed below your farm.)
In buying some property, say to expand your farm by buying a 14×14 Homestead, you cannot buy it unless you have 8 neighbors.
Visiting and Helping Neighbors
All Neighbors are shown in the list at the bottom. By clicking on a Neighbor from the bar, you open a menu that has an option to visit that friend. When visiting a friend you haven’t done a job for that day you will get an offer to perform a job to help that player. Performing a job awards experience and money. Invite new friends from the INVITE page and invite friends to be neighbors from the MY NEIGHBORS page.
On clicking “accept” , you will be taken to your neighbor’s farm. Helping your neighbor is just a click away and you can earn 20 points by doing so.
Options
- Mute Sounds
Turn on/off sound - Mute MusicTurn on/off music.
- Toggle Graphics QualityTurn on/off anti-aliasing (picture jaggies)
Camera/Full screen shot/zoom in-zoom-out
These options are available just above the tools/market options bar
1 2 3 4
1) Zoom In
2)Zoom Out
3)Full Screen
4)Camera (can take photographs of your farm at any point and display it on your wall)
Moving Up in the game:
The vital components of FarmVille has been explained, But if you want to excel in the game, you need to play smart. Here’s how you can make FarmVille a rewarding experience.
Money making:
Whether you want to grow different types of crops or make money soon and move to higher levels, here are some smart ways of doing so.
- Profit-loss sowing theory: you may want to grow different crops in your farm, but when you start, grow those crops which give a good return on investment.
- Timing: Buy seeds according to the amount of time you play. If you play all day, you can buy raspberry seeds which can be harvested within 2 hours. But if you play only once in a day, choose crops that take a day to grow fully. Withering of crops leads to loss.
- Buying items: choose carefully when you buy. A tractor that costs 30000 coins can be sold only for 500 coins. Decide if it is worthy of buying.
- Neighbors: Invite your friends to be your neighbors. This will help you unlock ribbons and unlock farm plots when you want to expand your farm.
- Daily Raffle: this depends on luck. You can win as many as 100 coins a day in the daily raffle.
- Animals and trees: unlike seeds, which once harvested need to be bought again, animals and trees are permanent entities on your farm. Even after collecting eggs from chicken and harvesting trees, they remain in your farm and reap again.
Aesthetics of FarmVille Farming
- The landscape: You can move items in the farm and arrange them the way you want. Unleash your creativity to beautify your farm.
Below are farms of three different farmers on FarmVille:
- Accolades: on reaching higher levels and collecting ribbons, can be published on your Facebook wall. Tell your friends about the accolades you earned as a farmer. Be a proud farmer!!
A Case study on “Soya bean farming” (Step by Step Explanation)
Step 1: Login
Step 2: Click on “Applications”
![clip_image005[1]](/images/AComprehensiveGuidetoPlayingFarmville_D11B/clip_image0051.jpg "clip_image005[1]")
Step 3: Click on “FarmVille”
Step 4: click on “Play” to start playing.
Step 5: Select the “plow tool”
Step 6: Click to plough the fallow land
Step 7: Click the fallow land to “plough”
Step 8: Go to the “Market”
![clip_image036[2]](/images/AComprehensiveGuidetoPlayingFarmville_D11B/clip_image0362.jpg "clip_image036[2]")
Step 9: Buy seeds:
Step 10: Sow seeds
Step 11: wait for a day to harvest and harvest when it is “fully grown”
Note: You can grow and harvest other crops similarly. The cost of seeds, harvesting time and profits differ across different crops.
Livestock
The livestock on the FarmVille farm includes Chicken, Cows, Sheep, goats, Pigs, Rabbits, horses and ducks. Different animals take different time to reap products.
Example: Collecting eggs:
- The chicken takes 1 day to lay eggs. When the chicken is ready, click on the chicken
↓↓
Collect eggs
You can earn coins by collecting eggs.
Conclusion: You can rear other animals similarly. The cost of animals, reaping time and profits differ across different animals.
Other Useful Links Related to FarmVille
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on FarmVille – Found Here
FarmVille Support Forum – Found Here
Hope you enjoyed this guide. Please provide us your inputs on how we can improve this further.
Happy Farming!
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About the Author Kruthika is SEO Copywriter with Zitz Solutions. Her interests are: Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. |
A well written handbook. Now even an amateur person with no experience in playing games will easily get hooked to the game…Yeehhaaww…:)
why there were time i cant harvest my crops?and my farmer cannot move or even i use harvester machine?
Thank you to have posted this guide.
I can give this link to my friends who are still not into this gaming but want to play.
Nice writeup….
This probably just would make people like me who are fed up of seeing those unwanted farming updates that keep ticking on my facebook profile, to perhaps just give it a thought to try playing the game and find out what the fuss is all about.
Very comprehensive . Just started with this game yesterday. Had no clue what to do, this guide was of great help.
Thanks
-jai
Nicely explained Kruthika. This should really help help beginers!
Neat….!!! thanx a ton mate….!!
Cheerz
Easy to follow, the game is a blast lots of fun!
This was very awesome. I had no clue how to play but by reading this I feel like a pro and I am ready to play! Thanks!
add me up reiearth@gmail.com
level 24 be my neighbor… need 14 for blue ribbon
This is great!! I have been playing for months now, and am level 20, but if I had this guide i the beginning, I would have gotten an easier start!! Thatnks for sharing this!! Now all I have to do is find a list of ALL the trees, and animals and times they take (I only know the ones that I can buy!!).
I bought a 14 x 14 Homestead but I don’t know where it went, it doesn’t show on my farm. Can someone tell me what might have happened to it?
@B*W*Q*
When you buy a homestead, the size of your farm grows and you will see more empty land available along the left and the front edges of your farm.
Thanks for your help, I own a plantation now!
I’m so addicted it’s ridiculous.
What happens when someone sends you a Farmville building request? Are these buildings you can receive?
Farmville building request is sent using another (separate) application and those gifts you cannot use in Farmville game on Facebook.
So what do I need to do with such requests?
I keep receiving those kind of gift requests ( trees, buildingds etc) & they do not appear in my gift box
What’s the point? Where can you use them? Help me out, man!?!
hi i need to know how to change the way the fences go and changing te way my tool shed is pointed i cant findthis info anywhere please help!!!
Fences you can rotate, just click on the fence you want to rotate and you will have a menu pop-up with rotate as an option. Tool shed direction cannot be changed.
Hi! Thanks for this great guide and the screenshots!
I have two questions:
1) Is there a way to only notify your Farmville Neighbors of your “Share the Wealth” accolades as my non-FV friends really don’t care and
2) I see screenshots of FV with a Dog and Cat. How do you get those animals?
Thanks Again!
So far there is no way to do that. You post it to your wall or you do not, that is all the options you have but FarmVille is evolving and may be they will come up with these features soon.
Dog and cat are not there as of now in FarmVille but they might be introduced
use a gift creator application on facebook and send cat, dog and other strange items
How do you purchase a homestead?
Hi Trish I was woundering if you got your answer on how you purchase a homestead, Im trying to expand my farm but i cant figure it out. So Can you please Help me?
I can’t find the buildings my friends have gifted me:(
Building cannot be gifted in Farmville (as of now). May be your friend gifted you a building using another application which allows people to send FamVille building but this application is not relaated to the original FamrVille game and those buildings cannot be used in the game. They are merely for gifting.
I bought land but that didn’t increase my land to plant /plow.
Can you please explain to me how to increase the size of my land to plow?
I just figured this out myself. I bought land thinking it would increase my farming area…and it didn’t. Then I figured out that you need to click onthe plow tool. Then go to your plot area. A green box the size of a plot appears, click it and you will have an additional plot to farm. You can keep doing this until you run out of money, so be careful, or you won’t have nay seeds to sow.
` hey !! how can I change my farm`s name ?
I am not sure if you can do it.
Very nice, but you left out the one questions no one seems to be able to answer…
How do you erarn FV? Seems to me it comes from Levelong? But no one seems to know for sure….
Thanks,
FV (as of now) seems to be given by the game and the only other way to get it is to buy with real currency. Let us see if it changes in the future.
` nyai ?! XD .. are you sure that there is noany way to change it ?
Does petting the animals have any benefit?
None that I am aware of. Anyone else knows what petting does?
when I select farmville there is no play button.
it takes me to my facebook home page
Sometimes it happens. Try after some time.
How does the fuel work for running the vehicles? I bought fuel but don’t know what it’s doing for me.
Now petting FarmVille animals does make them happy and feel loved, try petting them today!
Can anyone tell me how to re-align my plots? They are irregular and I want them to be in neat rows? So far I have not found a way to do this. Clicking on them does not produce a menu with the option to move them.
Delete you plots using the delete tool (at the end in the tool list, third one from left). Then arrange in whatever fashion you want.
where is the delete tool? i’ve looked everywhere and can’t find it! thanks!
It is the spade with the red handle
Is there a limit on how many neighbors you can gift at one time? It will only allow me to gift 9 or10 neighbors during a 24 hour period. Is that correct?
Does deleting the plots cost money?
No it does not cost any money.
How big is the starter farm? The Homestead is 14×14, but how big is the farm before you buy any expansions? Is paying 10k coins for the homestead worth it?
May be 12×12 but growing it will give you additional rows to grow crops. If you really want to keep playing this game you might want to keep expanding and 10K money is nothing (you will be able to recover that soon)
How do I earn farmville bucks!?!? Like what exactly do I need to do to earn more
FarmVille is offering baby elephant as a gift option for the next 48 hours. Hurry, send it to your friends now!
I loved the guides… and I thought I’d add to it for all you farmville users, I’ve recently created/updated the latest farm optimization tool and more updates will come along to improve it.
It can be found at:
http://www.woftools.com/farmville
The newly updated crop list with mastery levels can also be found there.
Thank you
When you get a ribbon and a bonus, do you get to keep more money if you do not hit “Share the wealth”. Is there a benefit to keeping it to yourself?
It just helps out your fellow neighbors.
Gives them a little bonus.
No extra bonus for yourself if you dont share.
Just a quick question, I have the money to expand my lot except when I try to do that it says I must purchase a home stead first? so does that mean a barn or a house or what? if you could help me that’d be awesome
You cant skip and buy the largest farm lot.
You have to go in order and buy the next lot size first.
I am having trouble with the market icon. i have coins but i when i click on the market or the ribbons it will not bring me to the market. Please Help!!!! I am stuck and i Love this game. I have tried everything….
Every now and then I see a gold coin pop up and float around for a few seconds before it falls to the ground and disappears. What is it? I have tried clicking it but nothing happens. Can someone enlighten me?
It is like a gold potato and I have seen a 100 float up with it, so I am thinking it is a bonus for planting a
certain number of plots. And yes I tried clicking on it and it doesn’t do anything.
I’ve seen this too but can’t do anything with it either, can anyone help?
You don’t have to click on the coin. It automatically adds the 100 coins.
When I logged onto Farmville I saw red arrows over all of my animals heads…what does that mean?
That is a new way of saying that they are ready to yield
How can i make two different ground levels?
You cant.
There is an example farm that gives that illusion the way the hedge and fence are placed.
I love playing this game, but don’t understand a lot of things! Say a pink cow shows up on your farm, are you allowed to adopt it? If so, how?
I am not sure about that. You can try publishing it on your Facebook wall and then see if you can adopt it from there.
Did you guys get all the Halloween special stuff at FarmVille?
On the wandering animals that show up on your farm. You can not adopt them but your neighbors can
once it is posted to your wall. I have found that the notifications do not show on my wall when friends get them but they do on there wall. So I basically check my neighbors walls every once in a while to see if there is one available. If anyone knows how to make those show on my wall, please let me know.
Click on “live feed” it will show you new posts by your friends-
or in the bottom left corner of your home page click on
-applications
-scroll down to Farmville-click on it-
all the new farmville posts should show up
-you may have to bookmark farmville for this to work
How could we use magic tools in farmville without the farmer moving around while automatic plowing, planting or harvesting is executed. Pls help me. Thanks
I dont know what you mean by “magic tools.”
You can “trap” your farmer in a small area by surrounding him/her with hay bales, fence, or hedge so he/she doesn’t wander while you’re trying to harvest, plow, or seed.
Ummmm when you find an animal on your farm it says adopt how do i get said animal
When you find an animal on your farm, you can’t adopt it yourself.
Watch for other friends posts, when they find a lost animal then adopt theirs.
How do i move my crops? i put it in a wrong spot and i dont want it there how do i delete it and put it somewhere else?
Hi,,Deleting option is not working for me and also i can’t sell trees ..please help..
Do you know at what level the Big Ole Plantation and Mighty Plantation unlock?
I unlocked ‘Big ole plantation’ at level 34.
My Big ole plantation was unlocked at level 27.
Hellooo….I got the Farmville bug few days ago…and i already have problems…I can’t see my all my neighbours…although they accepted my invitation…and some items got unlocked because I have the number of neighbours needed..but they are not shown in the boxes…And i recieve gifts…within the FV gifts(bird bath for instance)…i accepted it….but i didn’t get it…..What’s wrong?I even updated the flashplayer….and nothing…
Pls.help me!!!
I am having so much fun with this and turned my friends onto it as well. I had an opportunity to have an ugly duck, clicked on it…. It never showed up on the farm. Really disappointed.. wish I could find the duck
Hi Lisa,
Did you ever find out the answer to your question ? ?? The same thing is happening to me. I only got the menu the very first little crop I planted, and now no matter what I try I still can’t plant because I can’t get the market icon ot work.
SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ! ! THANKS IN ADVANCE.
Can you delete “multiple” plots at one time, or only ONE at a time?
what does it mean when I get the message in Farmvill, that I cannot accept or use anymore of my gifts, when 30 is the limit.
the market do not open. What can I do to fix the problem? I can open the market in other computer from my neighbor and it work perfectly, but my neighbor use his account in my computer and he have the same problem. I tried using Firefox, IE8, and OPERA but the problem still there. I configured all these explorers with personal security and i shutdown my antivirus, firewall, windows defender, everything and the problem still there. Somebody have another suggestion?
Jose…did you ever figure this out…..I have been having the same issue……and have taken the same steps…..pls PLS help…so I can get back to farming…..
my farm animals will not walk around when they are clicked to allow, please tell me how to get them to move
Question: Why is it that my name does not show up on my friends lists to send gifts too? Is it something I did and if so how do I undo it? Please help. Game going very slow when noone can send me gifts.