Mafia Wars FrontierVille Beaver Pelt Promo: Everything you need to know

Mafia Wars Beaver Pelts
Looking for some easy items to come by in Mafia Wars? Well, Zynga has introduced another of its infamous cross-promotions in the game involving FrontierVille. This time around, all you need to do is take a trip over to your New York properties and click on any of the four buildings that produce items, which includes the brand new Private Zoo.

Chop Shop FrontierVille Promo
From there, you'll see some brand new items on the first page, but they each require a unique part that you won't find on the streets of New York, but way out West on the frontier. Click on the "Get Part" button with the FrontierVille logo attached to get started.

Follow us after the break to find out how to nab these limited edition items.
A Day in the Life of a Beaver
Clicking the "Get Part" button will transport you to your FrontierVille game. Upon loading the game, you will instantly be greeted with a new Goal titled "A Day in the Life of a Beaver I." Thankfully, this Goal can be completed in minutes, especially if you're already a seasoned pioneer. You'll need to have or collect 15 Wood, clear one Stump from the homestead and have or purchase two Fences from the Market. As for that final requirement, you must clear one full tree and remove its Stump to get credit for it. In other words, old Stumps lying around on the homestead will not count. Once completed, enjoy 50 XP and 250 coins.

A Day in the Life of a Beaver II
The second Goal in this series, "A Day in the Life of a Beaver II," is simple enough. Just click on "Claim Reward" to be launched back into your New York Property page in Mafia Wars one Beaver Pelt richer. Then, enter any one of your production properties and notice that a "Build" button has replaced that "Get Part" button. Just click and you got yourself a nice weapon, vehicle, armor or animal with a permanent stat increase. That's right, all of the items in this promotion will permanent boost one of your stats, just see for yourself below. (If you want the rest of these promotional items, then follow these easy steps in all four production Buildings--the mission will be exactly the same.)

Bearskin Cloak

Venture Axe

Big Horn Sheep
As you can probably already tell, all of these items have the same exact stats on them. However, each provide a unique, permanent boost to either your Defense, Attack or Energy, making them well worth the effort for min/max players.

FrontierVille 12 Days of Christmas Goals: Everything you need to know for Day Eight

It's time to go huntin' this Christmas in the eighth day of FrontierVille's 12 Days of Christmas Goals series. Today, in "On the Eighth Day O' Christmas," it's all about clobbering some Groundhogs, but you'll need to coax them out of the ground. Thankfully, part of this Goal is to do just that. Apparently, these little buggers love Potatoes, so plant 28 of them and another 38 Tomatoes for good measure.

Your total cost for all 66 crops is going to be 3,740 coins and take over four hours to plant and harvest at least, but that's if you even have the room for so many crops. Between 66 crops harvested, you're sure to find at least 8 Groundhogs, but remember that the chance is random. If you're looking to get this Goal done quickly, you could always use a Boost from the Upgraded General Store, but that will set you back pretty far. Complete this Goal and a Boost Set for both Potatoes and Tomatoes is all yours. Gee, thanks for giving us something we could have used four hours ago. (Don't you hate when that happens?)

Find the rest of our Holiday 2010 coverage right here.

FrontierVille New Year Collection now available

In addition to the six New Years Resolutions missions that are now available in FrontierVille, you can also complete a new New Years Collection in the game.

This collection consists of five items:

Baby New Year
Calendar
Resolution List
Scale
Toast Glass

You'll receive these items by participating in activities around your frontier, and you'll need to collect items like the Calendar in order to complete the New Years Resolution goals as you go along. If you can manage to collect all five items, you'll be able to turn them in for an Angel Statuette reward, so good luck in trying to collect them all.

And if this collection is as difficult to complete as collections like those released for "Back to School" and "Independence Day," I think we'll need all the luck we can get.

FrontierVille St. Patrick's Day Collection has a Pot of Gold at the end

Just in time, FrontierVille has decided to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. While you're out hunting Leprechauns, you'll also work to complete this St. Patrick's Day Collection by finding five items. The five items include a Penny Whistle, Pint Glass, Shamrock, Hurley Stick (nice reference, Zynga) and a Celtic Harp. For completing the Collection, players will receive their very own Pot of Gold. So, get to hunting those Leprechauns and hope that luck (couldn't help myself) is on your side.
Pot of Gold
[Source and Image Credit: FrontierVille Legend]

Have you seen this Collection in your game yet? What's your plan to complete it as quickly as possible?

FarmVille scams are out of control; Zynga can stop them with Goals

It seems that at least once a day a new FarmVille scammer emerges, and we're always here to report the news, spread the word in warning. Unfortunately, that's about where our powers of prevention stop. Admittedly, I am no security expert, so suggesting methods for either Zynga or Facebook to track and thwart these scam artists is beyond my knowledge. However, the creators of FarmVille have one tool to impede the scammers' progress: the game itself.

Thanks to the release of FrontierVille, there has not been a more powerful feature at the hands of Zynga: Goals. In fact, these series of requirements guiding players into new content have been incorporated into every one of its games since. Even the original FarmVille has seen its fair share of Goals. These Goals make themselves known before the player can even resume their daily routine of farming or city management.

FarmVille Scam
It's been said that the ultimate prevention is education, and considering that stopping these scammers would be a job in itself, this is likely the best method to bring their impact to a screeching halt. Isn't this exactly what Goals do? They educate players in new ways to interact with features and content, most times without the player even realizing it. It's a brilliant method, really.

Zynga could easily create Goals detailing the dangers of News Feed scams and the like through all of its games. Of course, the Goals would have to be available to all players regardless of their progress. More importantly, they would have to be included in the first few levels of each for brand new players months from now to learn of the dangers of News Feed scams. Sure, some players are likely asking their computer screens, "How does fit in with the overall theme of the game?"

FrontierVille Goals
It doesn't nor does it have to. When is the last time the words "This doesn't fit with our theme" stop Zynga from introducing McDonald's to FarmVille? It sure didn't stop the company from adding a new building surrounding Intuit, the business website builder service to the game. (Not to mention a bear using a laptop within the loading screen.) So, somehow simulating a scam situation and tasking players with making the right moves to prevent its effects--and later spread--doesn't sound unreasonable.

How the Goals would look and play is entirely up to Zynga. In fact, this would be in the company's best interest, no? Surely the FarmVille scams have scared plenty of players away. Better yet, this would likely reduce call after call into Zynga customer support for something that's generally out of their control. But it doesn't have to be. Instead of releasing the next big feature, push it back and release some educational Goals--this is far more important than the next Crafting Building.

[Image Credit: Virus Removal Support]

Have you fallen victim to a FarmVille scam before? Do you think this would be helpful in preventing future successful scams?

Pioneer Trail Capital One Goals: Everything you need to know

While we've already taken a look at the Capital One cross-promotions in FarmVille and CityVille, Pioneer Trail's version of the promotion is definitely the most complex, taking four goals to complete. The first of these goals introduces you to the Capital One Goat, who hopes that you can help him find his lost band mates, and bring their bandstand to life on your Homestead. That's right - there's a new building to create as part of this cross-promotion, along with the four goals. Here's a complete rundown of the event.

Sterling the Bloodhound

    Collect one Bandstand Upgrade Part
    Visit Capital One Facebook Page
    Craft Sterling's Guitar in the Bandstand


First things first, the Bandstand can be purchased inside the store for under 10 coins if you have the discount enabled in your game. You won't have to whack a frame or collect items to create a functioning Bandstand; however, you will have to collect these parts to upgrade the building. This is done by clicking on the Bandstand and then clicking "Upgrade" on the menu that appears. From here, it's the familiar process of asking your friends for items.

You'll need to collect 10 each of Stage Lights, pieces of Band Merchandise and Concert Wristbands, all of which are earned through general news posts, while 15 each of Sandbags and Scaffolding are earned by sending out individual requests to your friends for help. The final item - the five Band Groupies - are earned by completing these new goals, as they'll be earned automatically. That being the case, you don't have to be in too great of a rush to collect the rest of the ingredients, as you literally can't complete it anyway.

As for finishing this first goal, you'll need to head inside your Bandstand to craft items as you would in other buildings. From there, you'll need three Guitar Fretboards and five Guitar Strings to actually craft the guitar. These are both new items, requiring you to tend goats or simply ask your friends to help you earn them, among other tasks. Finishing the entirety of this first goal will give you 250 XP, Sterling the Bloodhound and 250 coins.

Toonie the Bear

    Chop 10 Trees on your Neighbors' Homesteads
    Feed 30 Goats on your Homestead
    Craft Toonie's Upright Bass in the Bandstand


Again, you'll need to head inside the Bandstand to craft Toonie's Upright Base, which requires three Tailpieces and five Bass Strings. Again, you can ask your friends to send you the Bass Strings, and can craft the Tailpieces, also inside the Bandstand.

Once you finish this second goal, you'll receive 500 XP, Toonie the Bear and 500 coins.

Penny the Bullfrog

    Feed 30 Geese on your Homestead
    Have or Collect 3 Termites
    Craft Penny's Banjo in the Bandstand


Again, just head inside the Bandstand to see the parts you need to craft Penny's Banjo (in this case the Banjo Pot and Banjo Pick), and then make sure you have three termites from the Oak Tree collection to finish this one off. For doing so, you'll receive 750 XP, Goat and Penny (the two remaining band members) and 5 Band Groupies. Remember those Groupies that you needed to complete the upgrade of the Bandstand? There you go.

Entertainment, Not Food

    Collect the Upgraded Bandstand Bonus Once
    Collect 10 Wildberries
    Harvest 50 Corn


Like a regular building, the Bandstand has a daily bonus that can be collected, so complete that and these other simple (albeit time-consuming) tasks and you'll be golden. You'll receive 1,000 XP, a Rockin Horse (a new mount for your avatar that wears sunglasses) and 1,000 coins for finishing this final goal.

All told, we're not given an expiration date for when this cross-promotion and these goals will leave the game, but your best bet would be to finish everything off as soon as possible just to make sure you don't miss out on anything. Have fun!

Check out the rest of our FrontierVille Cheats & Tips right here.

What do you think of this entire Capital One promotion in Pioneer Trail? Are you going to make your avatar ride this horse-with-shades?