Farmville Pot of Gold: How it Works and What You Get

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, the makers of the hit Facebook application Farmville introduced the Farmville Pot of Gold to the game's most recent update. The feature allows players to send and collect gold pieces which may be exchanged for initially unnamed prizes.

Nearly identical in theory to the recent Farmville Valentine's Day box, the Farmville Pot of Gold is a limited edition item that each game player can find in his gift box. To find yours, visit your game page, and click the Gifts icon in the lower righthand menu. Then click the next Gifts icon that pops up, and a menu including all unused gifts you've acquired to date will appear. Select the Pot of Gold and place it in any open space on your Farmville farm. If you don't see a Farmville Pot of Gold in your menu, contact Zynga directly for assistance.

How can I get gold for my Farmville Pot of Gold?

The object of the Farmville Pot of Gold is to collect as many pieces of gold as possible from friends. There are two primary methods of collection available. Firstly, gifts may be requested from friends. To ask your friends for gifts to fill your Farmville Pot of Gold, click on your pot and select the 'Look Inside' option. A pop-up detailing your collection progress will appear. To make your request, click the green and white 'Ask for Gold' button in the upper lefthand corner of the box. Confirm that you would like to ask friends for gold by clicking the 'Ask Them!' button on the next pop-up that appears. Then simply select the names of friends you'd like to include in your Farmville Pot of Gold request, and click the Send Farmville Gold Request button.

Secondly, each user can collect items for their Farmville Pot of Gold by watching her Facebook friend feed for bonus gold. Whenever a player accrues 5 additional pieces of gold, she will be prompted to share the news (and the wealth) with her friends. The first 10 friends who click a notice will be rewarded with a piece of gold. Players are also prompted to share free gold whenever they surpass a Farmville friend's total gold count. So if Jen has 5 pieces and I add 2 pieces to my pot and wind up with 6, I'll be prompted to post a note telling my friends that I now have more gold than Jen.

As a user collects gold in her Farmville Pot of Gold, the appearance of and label on her pot will change. Once a user receives 5 pieces of gold, the image will include a small amount of gold (rather than an empty pot), and the label will change from 'Empty' to 'Meager'. The pot's appearance and label will continue to change are more and more gold pieces are added.

What kind of gold pieces are available for my Farmville Pot of Gold?

There are five different pieces of gold available to fill a Farmville Pot of Gold, including a gold bar, gold nugget, gold bear, gold coin and gold chain. All five items are giftable, and all carry the same 'weight' in the Farmville Pot of Gold: None is worth more than another.

How can I respond to my friend's request for a Farmville Pot of Gold item?

Gold requests go directly to your Facebook requests area. Click the link and scroll to find your Farmville gold requests. Choose a request and click 'Send Gold'. The next screen will feature the five available gold gifts along with corresponding thank you gifts for you.

Sending the following Farmville Pot of Gold gifts will yield the following gifts for you:

Send a gold nugget, get a small can of fuel

Send a gold coin, get a mystery gift

Send a gold bar, get 20 XP

Send a gold bear, get 1,000 coins

Send a cold chain, get a piece of green fence

Each user is eligible to receive a maximum of 10 bonus gifts per day.

Farmville Pot of Gold Shop: What can I buy?

After collecting a requisitive number of gold pieces, a game player can trade in portions of his bounty to purchase special edition items. All items are initially hidden until the user collects enough gold pieces to buy them. The first three items that can be purchased include a Shamrock Sheep (the brother to the Valentine's Day Ewe) for 10 gold pieces, a Spring Flower Cart for 20 gold pieces, and a Leprechaun Gnome for 30 gold pieces.

On Friday, March 12, three additional items were made available for purchase with Farmville pot of gold pieces: A Spring Pond for 50 gold, a Lucky Fountain for 75 gold, and a Shamrock Castle for 100 gold. All in all, pretty affordable prices for some cute seasonal additions to your Farmville layout.

Is the Farmville Pot of Gold a competitive thing?

As was the case with the Farmville Valentine's Day Box, the Farmville Pot of Gold has a competitive element. Click the comparison button when you're looking inside your pot of gold, and you'll be able to see a list of friends who have accrued the most Farmville gold pieces. There's no special prize for collecting the most gold pieces in your friends group, so don't stress if you're not on the leaderboard. It's all for fun anyway.

Enjoy your Farmville Pot of Gold, and come back for updates as they're available.