There’s been so much going on in FarmVille recently that it’s been hard to keep up. There was the snow and the winter holiday decorations. When the snow melted we had the Zynga Haiti Relief Fund special white corn, then we all needed help from our Neighbors to build stables for our horses (which you can now paint different colors!) and have good old fashioned barn raisings to increase our storage capacity.
Yesterday they released the expanded chicken coops, which work in the same way – your Neighbors have to help you build yours, and you help them build theirs. Neighbors who finished expanding their chicken coop can share bonuses with their friends.
Then there was Valentine’s Day, and everyone was busy sending Valentines that could be exchanged for special love-themed decorations. There were other special decorations that could be bought, and special Valentine’s Day limited edition crops – various colors of roses that matured at different rates. The roses are gone now, but you can still exchange Valentines if you want to (the Valentine mail box works in the same was as the Holiday Tree, so you can have a virtually unending supply of them if you want.
There are currently three limited edition FarmVille themes running – Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras and the Winter Olympics. So far the Olympic theme only extends as far as decorations for your farm (and you can still put the snow blanket back if you want to look authentic – check under the ‘Upgrade Farm’ tab), but there are special trees for both Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras.
The Chinese New Year theme tree is the Mandarin, which is available for 4 more days and costs 850 coins. The Mandarin crop takes 4 days to mature, and is worth 80 coins at harvest. Or you could choose the special Carnival tree, which costs 1500 coins, matures in 3 days and also has a harvest value of 80 (although it’s not yet clear what that harvest is!).
There’s also a new giftable tree – the Gulmohar – which is very colorful, but again it’s not clear what the harvest will be as in real life the Gulmohar is considered to be ornamental. We shall have to wait and see. The Gulmohar is the latest addition to giftable trees; other new ones are walnuts and guavas, to go with the star fruit and durian. You can also find a new almond tree in Mystery Gifts (the boxes you exchange, not the ones you have to buy).
The Chinese New Year theme also comes with two special crops – bamboo and lotus. Bamboo costs 75 coins per square, takes 16 hours to mature and has a harvest value of 190 coins. It isn’t a fruit, vegetable or flower so it won’t help you towards gaining your Ribbons.
The lotus costs 160 coins per square, matures over 8 hours and reaps you 250 coins. It counts as a Flower crop. Both new crops offer 2 XP per square planted.
While I’m thrilled to see both of these new crops, I’m on the fence about limited edition crops in general. They’re available for such a short time that it’s hard to fit in growing them, especially if you’re in the middle of a long term (3 or 4 day) crop when they arrive. Then they’re gone, with nothing to remind you of them unless you take a snapshot of them while they’re growing.
You can’t gain normally gain Mastery in these crops (iirc you could with the Valentine roses, but the time period was short so you’d have to be dedicated to manage it) and it’s never clear whether they will be returning or whether they’ll be gone for good. With the Valentine roses I wasn’t really bothered, but I would welcome the chance to continue growing both the Lotus (which is edible in real life and cultivated throughout Asia) and Bamboo (which also has edible shoots and is a realy useful plant). But then I’m a gardener with an interest in edible and useful plants, so I would :)
What about you? Do you relish the novelty the limited edition crops bring, or are you still pining for one which has been and gone?
