As summer slowly draws to a close, Zynga is getting all the digital sun in it can get. A new business has been released to CityVille along with a brand new Goal to introduce it. However, not everything has been put into place just yet, as this new building seems to be in preparation for something much greater.

It’s called the Sea Shell Stand, and instead of providing Coins for Goods, it earns you Sea Shells. This new item seems to have no real purpose … yet, but consider our interests piqued.

Once you receive the Goal, which requires you to place the Sea Shell Stand from the Goal menu and collect three Sea Shells from it, throw the new building where you so please and give it two whacks costing an Energy each. Then, a new menu will appear demanding that you gather these items from your friends in order to finish the building:

• 3 Spades
• 3 Visors
• 3 Buckets
• 3 Sand Molds
• 3 Sand

Oddly enough, not every one of these items comes from friend help requests. The Visors, for one, come as a random bonus from clicking a friend’s Train News Feed post. Alright, so the other four items are found by asking friends (even the Visors can be requested). However, keep in mind that putting an item on your Wish List increases your chances of finding said item when opening Mystery Gifts. Once this is complete, you’ll receive a paltry 10 XP.

Players can then upgrade the Sea Shell Stand by asking friends for another seven of each item, which improves its output of Shells by one. Though, it doesn’t improve the amount of Coins it provides, which sticks at a tiny 250 Coins. We still don’t know what Zynga is up to with this Sea Shell Stand, but we bet it has something to do with an addition to the Beach area of the game, so stay tuned.

[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]

Have you started your Sea Shell Stand yet? What purpose do you think it will have in the game, or what do you hope will come of it? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

Back in March, CityVille saw the launch of the City Works community building, which at the time added 350 citizens to your town’s maximum population. But in our ever-growing cities, is 350 really enough from a single building? Apparently not, as Zynga has released upgrades for your City Works building, which will see you going from a measly 350 citizens to over 1,000!

The first upgrade requires you to be at least level nine, and have a population of at least 1,150 citizens to undertake. You’ll see a green arrow above the building, signifying that you’re ready to upgrade it, and will need to enter into the familiar process of collecting building materials to actually do so. You’ll need three each of Welding Torches, Staplers, Water Faucets, Pipe Wrenches and Rubber Boots. Once those are collected, your building will go to its Level 2 state, becoming a more complex building with a new van parked out front. And oh yeah – you’ll be able to house 650 citizens in your town as well.

If that simply isn’t enough for you, you can continue to upgrade the building to Level 3. Level 3 requires you to have a population of at least 2,800 citizens. As this is the second of the building’s upgrades, it’s also harder, requiring six each of the building ingredients required above. You’ll be able to purchase a single unit of each ingredient for 6 City Cash each, or can go about things the old fashioned (albeit slower way), by asking your friends to send you these ingredients instead.

Again, once you’ve collected the necessary building materials, you’ll see another visual transformation to the building, and will finally be able to house the full 1,050 citizens allowed by your new building. If you’re looking for a way to increase your population cap without taking up anymore room in your city with buildings, remember to keep these upgrades in mind, as they just might end up being a life (city?) saver.

Will you upgrade your City Works building, or does your town already have a high enough population cap as it is? Are you the type that can’t stand to leave a building un-upgraded when upgrades are available? Sound off in the comments.

If you’re ready for a fast-paced goal in CityVille, then take to the ice and help Paul teach some kids how to play hockey in the game’s newest timed goal: The Mighty Pucks (a reference to the Mighty Ducks, of course). This newest timed goal is open to users Level 50 or above, and it has just a two day time limit for the Gold Trophy (and the top prize). Here’s how to get things done – and fast!

Gather 16 Hockey Sticks
Send 75 Tour Buses
Collect from 4 Grade Schools

You’ll need to ask your friends for the Hockey Sticks, and while you’re waiting for your friends’ help, you can visit their towns to send Tour Buses to their businesses. The Grade School requirement might slow you down a bit, unless you have more than one school in your town, in which case the two-day time limit shouldn’t really be a factor.

If you can complete these three tasks within 48 hours, or two days, you’ll receive the Gold Trophy, 10,000 coins and the Frozen Lake decoration. This Frozen Lake offers a 27% payout bonus to surrounding homes and buildings, and if it looks familiar to you, that’s because it was originally available to purchase in the game’s store for 35 City Cash.

If you can’t finish this goal within the first two days, but finish in under 72 hours, you’ll receive the Silver Trophy, 7,500 coins and 5 energy, while finishing at any time after that will give you just the Bronze Trophy and 5,000 coins. There doesn’t seem to be a time limit for when you need to start this goal in your city, but as it’s themed to winter, I wouldn’t expect it to stick around long after the season passes. If you have any interest in the Frozen Lake, make sure to start and finish this goal now while you still can.

What do you think of this Mighty Pucks timed goal? Do you think you’ll be able to finish all three tasks within two days for the ultimate prizes? Sound off in the comments.

If you’re looking for a way to store more items in your CityVille town, in order to free up land space for additional items, you can now build the Learning Center in your town. The Learning Center is an 8×8 community storage building that can hold up to eight different Education Buildings once its fully built.

The Learning Center requires 10 energy to build, and then asks you to collect building materials to finish it off:

• 5 Dino Skull
• 5 Coral
• 5 Entry Tickets
• 5 Painting
• 5 Periscopes

Finishing this first level of the Learning Center gives you four storage slots for education, library or museum community buildings. It can be upgraded to hold up to eight buildings, but you’ll need to collect plenty of additional building materials in the process: eight each of Pinwalls, Seismographs, Telescopes, Info Booths and Plasma Globes.

When you completely finish off the Learning Center, you’ll get a “Wonder” bonus, giving you three minutes to claim all sorts of boosts from businesses and homes around your town. This bonus can only be activated once. Good luck finishing off your entire Learning Center!

[Via CityVille Wiki]

What do you think of the Learning Center in CityVille? Will you build one to store your educational buildings in CityVille? Sound off in the comments.

Way back in the Spring of 2011, CityVille saw the launch of the City Port and Cruise Ships that allow you to earn large coin payouts every time you supply and collect from the Cruise Ship that waits in port. After a while, though, the feature fell into the background. In an effort to get users to care once more about their City Ports, Zynga has released new Cruise Ships and City Port upgrades to users that are Level 20 or higher (of course, you also have to own a City Port).

First things first, you’ll need to start upgrading your City Port to Level 2, which requires the following:

Gather Parts
Unload Tourists from Alaskan or Scandinavian Tours 25 Times
Unload Tourists from Caribbean or Mediterranean Tours 25 Times

The part gathering task sees you collecting 35 building ingredients. You’ll need to collect seven each of Baggage, Check-in Booths, Captain’s Hats, Waiting Benches and Brochures. To complete the other two tasks, you can now take part in another new feature – the ability to send your Cruise Ship to whichever location you desire (from a list of five), with each location requiring different amounts of Goods to activate.

Alaskan Tour – 200 Goods; Lasts 8 Hours
Scandinavian Tour – 300 Goods; Lasts 12 Hours
Caribbean Tour – 500 Goods; Lasts 1 Day
Mediterranean Tour – 750 Goods; Lasts 2 Days

When you complete your first upgrade, your City Port will be a Level 2 Port, unlocking the Delucxe Cruiser ship to be purchased from the game’s store for 500 coins. It offers a 1.5x payout on coins, depending on which Tour you purchase with your Goods. In comparison, the basic Little Liner only costs 100 coins and has a 1x multiplier.

You can continue to upgrade your City Port to Level 3 after this point, but you’ll need to collect 12 each of five different building materials, instead of just seven. One final perk of upgrading your City Port is the fact that it become longer, allowing you to purchase larger boats for the sides.

What do you think of these CityVille City Port and Cruise Ship upgrades? Sound off in the comments.

CityVille has received a fairly standard update this week, allowing players to upgrade 11 more Community Buildings so that they can allow even more citizens to take up residence in their towns. There’s no celebration of fanfare with this release, just a simple announcement that these upgrades are indeed available. Here’s the list of newly upgradeable Community Buildings:

• Fine Arts Theater
• Marina
• Phone Company
• Community Pool
• Discovery Center
• Lifeguard Station
• Swiss Museum
• City Jail
• Water Bottling Plant
• Modern Art Gallery
• Observatory

While these upgrades definitely aren’t mandatory, if history has taught us anything, you’ll want to make sure to upgrade these buildings as fast as possible in case they’re used in upcoming goals or other in-game events. It’s not uncommon for a goal to specifically ask you to collect from a Level 2 or Level 3 version of a particular building, so make sure you keep all of this in mind when planning your next move. You won’t want to be given a goal with a great prize only to not be able to complete it because you procrastinated (trust me, we’ve been there). We’ll make sure to let you know just when these upgrades are required, if ever, so keep checking back with us!

What do you think of this set of Community Building upgrades? Which Community Buildings would you like to see upgrades released for next? Sound off in the comments.

Are there any expensive City Cash or coin items in CityVille that you’ve always wanted to purchase but you never wanted to actually splurge on? Now’s the time to head back into the store for a second look then Mayors, as quite a few items have been given a temporary markdown in a “Campaign Rally Sale.”

While some items, like a Back to School House are only marked down 10%, and therefore are likely too expensive to be worthwhile (in our example, the home still costs 75 City Cash), there are other deals here worth mentioning. For instance, decorations like the Bandstand and Sign Spinner now cost less than 10 City Cash each due to their 40-50% reductions, while larger items like the Discovery Aquarium are 33% off, bringing that item’s particular price to 61 City Cash.

There are plenty of coin items on sale here too, and these share some of the highest discounts in this particular sale. A Celebrity Trailer decoration, for instance, costs 12,000 coins instead of 24,000, while the Camera Shop costs 11,000 coins, down from 22,000. Also keep in mind that some of these items are limited edition, giving you even more incentive to purchase them during this sale (after all, what’s better than getting an exclusive item at a cheaper cost if you were already going to purchase one anyway?).

Here’s a look at all of the sale items – happy shopping!

Will you purchase any of these items while they’re on sale, or did you already have any interesting items city? Which ones did you decide to purchase? Tell us in the comments!

See? I knew CityVille was more for people than just a time sink (right?). Well, at least that’s what I hope we find out in helping Kira, a communications undergrad at Technical University Dresden in Germany. She’s writing her bachelor’s thesis on none other than Zynga’s social city-builder , and needs the help of players like you to help give her study the boost it needs.

Kira has put together an anonymous survey asking several questions that seem to be revolve around the psychological reasoning behind why people play CityVille. While many of the questions do appear to be personal, none of it really reveals any personal details, thanks to the initial anonymity.

According the CityVille Info, where Kira seems to have first made the call out for players to complete her survey, she needs more data to create scientifically valuable results. The more participants she has, the better the data would be as an example for why CityVille players log into the game daily. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about how and why you play Facebook games, then help turn this project into a viable answer. Click here to take the survey, and hope Kira publishes her work.

Are you interested in learning more about how and why you play CityVille in relation to others? What do you think other social gamers are like, generally? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

Nearly a year after the game’s release, it’s finally time to unlock the first CityVille Wonder: The Eiffel Tower. We’ve guided you through building both the Sailboat Hotel and the Tonga Tower, and now Zynga has released the French Riviera Casino to the game. It’s the third and final building required to access CityVille’s first Wonder, and follows about the same pattern as its predecessors. But that doesn’t make it any simpler of a task, so here’s everything you need to know:

Players must be at least Level 30 to access the French Riviera Casino. Once you reach that point, you’ll come across a new Goal from Edgar. It simply asks that you place the foundation for the building, and rewards you 2 XP for doing so. Keep in mind that you don’t have to complete the Sailboat Hotel and Tonga Tower to access this Goal.

However, you will have to finish all three to access the Eiffel Tower. Once you place the new building, it will appear complete with massive tarps, scaffolding and a giant crane. Click on it again to reveal the next giant steps in constructing this massive building in a window featuring three tasks.

Unlock the French Riviera Casino

• Gather parts to Unlock
• Upgrade one French Business to Level 2
• Master one French Crop to Level 2

Like most buildings in CityVille, you must ask your friends for a list of items, though this time that list is more like a litany. You must ask friends for 12 of each of these items: Roulette Wheel, Dice, Slot Machine, Deck of Cards and Poker Chip. Once you receive one of each, you can place them on your Wish List to possibly make this part pass by more quickly.

Of the French Businesses listed in the Goal, we recommend upgrading the French Restaurant, as it costs the least at 4,500 Coins and holds just 110 Goods, meaning it will be open for collection more often and thus more upgrade points. Choosing the best French crop to upgrade is easy: Go with what’s cheapest. That would be the Sun Flowers, which cost just 51 Coins and take 15 hours to harvest.

Once you completed all three daunting tasks, click “Finish Building” to unveil the French Riviera Casino. Of course, the building is functional, but operates much like a standard Hotel. Click on the building to supply it with a whopping 500 Goods. Click it again, and a menu similar to the Hotels will appear. While your city’s residents will populate the French Riviera Casino, you can invite friends to boost the building’s payout up to three times the normal value.

You can even invite friends as VIP guests after the Casino is ready to be collected. Just click on the hovering VIP icon to select five VIP friends. This is the final building to unlock the Eiffel Tower, so go on and build the first Wonder ever to hit CityVille.

[Source and Image Credit: Zynga]

Have you finished all three buildings to unlock the Eiffel Tower yet? What do you think of how Zynga has handled this new set of buildings? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

With the increased demand for Premium Goods in CityVille (thanks to CityVille Downtown), it can be a bit hard to keep up with demand using only the Factory or Trucking Depot to supply your businesses. Now, you can plant new Premium Crops that automatically generate Premium Crops via the Farmer’s Market, which is now available to users level 30 and above.

The Farmer’s Market functions as both a way to earn new Premium Crops, and as a “decoration” of sorts, giving you bonuses on your surrounding homes, businesses and community buildings. It comes with a single booth intact, and can be upgraded until you’ve built and opened all four booths in total. Of course, you’ll need to collect some building materials along the way, with the second booth (the most important) requiring the following:

• 5 Fruit Scales
• 5 Milk Crates
• 5 Coolers
• 5 Baskets
• 5 Tent Umbrellas

Once you’ve collected these items (that is, once your Farmer’s Market has at least two complete booths), you’ll be able to open it up for business, and will receive a 50% bonus on the payout of surrounding buildings. When you build the third booth in the same manner, that bonus will increase to 75%, while the fourth and final booth will boost it to a full 100% bonus (doubling all payouts).

As for the crops, while your Farmer’s Market is open (it will only stay open for 12 hours in each sitting), you will have access to crops you can plant in your regular farm plots. Note: the Farmer’s Market needs to be sitting next to your farm plots in order for this to work. With just two booths in your Farmer’s Market, you’ll have access to planting Heirloom Tomatoes, and with each additional booth, another crop becomes available. In our example, Heirloom Tomatoes take an hour to grow and produce 30 Premium Goods for each square harvested. The other two crops, for the record, are Organic Squash and Cantaloupes.

It’s possible we’ll be able to upgrade this Farmer’s Market even further in the future for more Premium Goods access, and we’ll make sure to let you know if that ends up happening. Sound off in the comments.