Don't forget about Rewardville!

I'll be honest, Rewardville barely makes my radar. It's an obvious gimmick to waste yet more of my time with not only Rewardville but all the other Zynga games. Sorry, but that's not gonna happen. I would go INSANE if I spent any more time on a game than I do Mafia Wars!

So most of the time, Rewardville is just an annoying blurb in the upper right of my Mafia Wars screen. I do not play any other Zynga games, so it's fair to say that I probably accumulate fewer rewardville credits (or however the hell it works) than some players. All the same, I've noted that it does pay to remember to visit Rewardville once in awhile to cash in the coins/credits that I earn via my normal Mafia Wars gameplay. There are many rewards worth having, including the Emperor Scorpion that I got. At 45/68, it's a nice freebie to get occasionally, and there are many other offerings.

Mafia Commercial

I ran across this in my news feed and thought it was somewhat amusing. It's a mafia-themed car commercial. I'm watching some of the related videos right now (bored) and finding some other funnies. Enjoy :0)

Achilles Heel: reduced to 5 cracks of the bat

If you're working on the new mission and have gotten to the Achilles Heel part, you were probably horrified to find that you needed to get 12 cracks of the bat from robbing. I know I was! Jennifer mentioned to me that in her game it had been reduced to 5, but apparently even that was on a slow rollout as mine still said 12 last night. Today though it has indeed been reduced to 5. That's good.

Problem is, I don't think I've gotten one single crack of the bat from robbing, so I'm not sure the reduction will even do me any good!

'Hidden' Atlantic City District

Atlantic City Intro: Petty Crimes

For those of us who have completed the Uptown, Boardwalk, South Jersey and Camden County districts in Atlantic City you won't see the Intro: Petty

Crimes district in there at all. That is a total of 24 skill points that somebody who hasn't yet started Atlantic City will get because they can see the Intro district. Take heart though, there is a work around to get this.

First you will have to go to http://m.mafiawars.com/mobileweb?iframe=1

This will take you to how Atlantic City used to look before all jobs could be done from in the phone on the m.mafiawars.com

Once I was to the page all I had to do was paste this JavaScript code into the address bar of my browser and it opened up the Intro: Petty Crimes district for me.

javascript:(function(){loadPage('mobileweb?xw_controller=StoryMobile&xw_action=view&iframe=1&storyId=9')})()

In the image below you can see that I had already completed all the available districts in Atlantic City and there was no Intro district, yet on somebody else's account they have the Intro available to them with all other districts locked.

The loot that drops in the Intro: Petty Crimes district is really not worth mentioning.

About all this district has going for it is the 24 skill points you will get once you master it to Ruby Level. There is no Job Mastery Loot like we got from other districts in Atlantic City.

It is a good to note that the 2x Mastery Boosts as well as the Wheelman and Mastermind job bonuses count. If you have plenty of the 2x Mastery Boosts you will be able to zip through this district in no time. If you don't have any of those available to you, you are looking at this districts costing about 21,323 energy to master.

To make things a little easier try the District 0 bookmarklet:

District 0

District 0 Bookmarklet provided by Mr. Wizard
Click to load Mafia Wars Mobile unframed from anywhere, click again to load District 0 Jobs.

Frontierville horse design contest

This isn't Mafia Wars related, but I saw it hit my news feed from the Zynga Inc. Facebook page and thought it's pretty cool for those of you who also play Frontierville. They're having a "Design a Horse Contest", and you can design the horse any way you choose using the template provided. If this sounds interesting to you, make sure you check out their rules here.

I'd like to see them do something like this for Mafia Wars. It's been done in the past. I might just bring that up :) 

Roughhouse Rafael 411

The info is on Zynga's site now for this event, click here to read it for yourself.

• As with most events and features, this was said to be on a slow rollout, although my guess is that almost everyone should have it by now since this came out late last night. 
• Ends on 5/18, so we have a week. 
• The boss will regenerate health every 8 hours, or if you run away from the fight. 
• No stamina is used, instead we must collect "ammo" (the new boss fight consumables)

The items that can be collected are: 

• Shotgun Blast -> 25-35 damage.  This consumable is a free gift and can be found in feeds.
• Knife Slash -> 5-15 damage.  This consumable may be found by completing Jobs.
• Knuckle Punch -> 7-13 damage.  This consumable is may be found when Fighting.
• Crack of the Bat -> 9-11 damage.  You have a chance at finding this consumable when Robbing.

• There are three combos, two if which are already known. One Combo will also be found by completing a Quest Event, which will begin after the Boss fight begins and will continue for the duration of the event.  
• Jobbing, fighting, and robbing consumables are limited to collecting 50 a day. The limit is 40 a day for the giftable consumable. 
• Once you've reached the limit, consumables received as free gifts will open as Mystery Bags. 
• Three mastery levels to this boss; bronze, silver, and gold. 
• Once fully mastered, you will be able to continue beating the boss through the end of the event. The information doesn't say, but I wouldn't be expecting multiple mastery items from that. 
• The timer resets each time you beat the boss.

boss fight on slow rollout, combos hit the feeds

  

The new boss fights are on a slow rollout, and we're starting to see those combos hit the news feed. FC Mike Shay shared an image from his game, so we know that it can be found under the Operations tab.Thanks Mike!

We should get a module on our homepage in Mafia Wars once the feature is available to us.

Mike also found an achievement for this event, called Rafael Boss' Weak, which is earned by finding all ammo combos. So I guess this means there are only 3 combos? That sorta sucks.

Zynga wasn't kidding when they said we'd be able to share combos in the news feed, because there's going to be an actual post for it. You'll need to click the posts from your news feed, which will redirect you to the game and tell you what the combo was. So far I've only seen this one twice.

Zynga goes Gaga

I saw something about Lady Gaga earlier this evening, but I thought it was related to Farmville. Now, I realize that some of you are fans of Lady Gaga. I am most definitely NOT. I think she's a disgusting-looking mess that makes a pathetic mockery of anything relating to "talent". But that's just my opinion.

But I digress. W-T-F does that mess known as Lady Gaga have to do with Mafia Wars? I just puked, seeing the above announcement coming off the Mafia Wars fan page.Gagaville or whatever the hell it's called can stay exclusive. I hope it doesn't find its way into the game. Ugh.

FWIW, I was highly amused by some of the comments made on the post.

• "WORST IDEA EVER!!!4 minutes ago"  

(Unless you count wars against your own mafia or not fixing secret stashes but instead rolling out an all-new more complicated less-exciting version of secret stashes.)

•  That is the gayest thing I have ever heard!!!5 minutes ago

(Well, I've heard gayer, but this is definitely pretty gay.)

• I hope they make a boss fight where we get to kill Gaga (multiple times, preferably)7 minutes ago

(You are my hero)

• wish i had more arms so i could give it 3 thumbs down...4 minutes ago

(What he said.)

For what's worth, this doesn't sound like an ingame thing, but I have a sad suspicion there will end up being some Gaga sh*t in our game somehow. 

Milestone promotions make false promises

ETA...Feature Contributor Mike Shay pointed out to me that you can only collect 5 mystery shipments a day, so this could very well be the cause of this. I'll have to pay closer attention next time, as I'm not entirely sure the account that accepted the bonus had even accepted any mystery shipments.  

It seems that you won't always get what you're told you will get when accepting these new promotion bonuses. I clicked this one for 5 Mystery Shipments and got... a burner? I'm pretty sure burners aren't contained in mystery shipments, and at any rate, I only got one.

This came up recently on our fanpage recently, too. Jimmy Valle reported getting a burner from a promotion post that he was supposed to get something else from. I wasn't able to duplicate the issue that day, so I assumed it was a random thing for Jimmy. Now I'm wondering though, if this only occurs on milestone promotions? The milestones being, every 5th level. You are prompted to select only certain friends to post a promotion reward on their wall, rather than posting to the news feed in that case.

<which, I think svks balls because the only people in the list are people who don't play and aren't going to play. and besides, I wanted to brag when I hit level 700, but I couldn't because of this 'feature'>

If anyone has input on this or has noticed something similar, comment here, or email me at mistyfiedmafiawars@gmail.com

I have collected other milestone promotion bonuses previously, but this is the first time I haven't gotten what I was supposed to get.

A Thank you to Mafia Wars players from Direct Relief

Direct Relief International has a word of thanks for Zynga and Mafia Wars players for our help in Japan, posted on the Mafia Wars fan page.

Scruffy mod - Chucker

During a discussion of Arun's Chucker on the Mistyfied Mafia Wars fan page, Mari Lajunen posted a link to Scruffy's Mafia Wars Bookmarklets and recommended Scruffy's Chucker mod. I had never actually heard of this site, so I checked it out and found not only a Chucker mod, but mods of other scripts as well. I'll check them out later, but I did use his Chucker and liked what I saw.

If you're someone who makes use of Chucker, you may like Scruffy's Chucker mod, as it breaks down what loot you have by how many you own, how many are active items that you are using, and how many you can give away. It otherwise works just like original, but I suspect many may like the additional information offered in Scruffy's mod.

Thanks for the tip, Mari!

Mistyfied Clan/Family Survey

I'm revisiting an idea that I got distracted from a few months ago -- a write-up on different Mafia Wars clans and families, how they operate, and most importantly, why people join them.

If you are a member of a clan/family, I'd love some of your input. When you have a few moments, please fill out the Mistyfied Mafia Wars Clan/Family Survey.

New Boss Fights "coming tomorrow"

The Mafia Wars fan page has begun advertising that the new boss fights will be "coming tomorrow". A little birdie told me it might be late today, so we could be looking at an early morning Zyngon time release, we'll see. Tomorrow is fine by me, I've been greatly enjoying the break from events, which I never thought would happen. I'm happy to participate in events when they are spaced out like this.

Memorial Day Mock War in the works

There's another mock war in the works, The Memorial Day Mock War.  It will be open to everyone, and is scheduled for Memorial Day weekend at the end of this month. It will begin at 6:00pm Zyngon Time on Friday, May 27th, and will run til 6:00pm Zyngon time on Monday the 30th.

The event is sponsored by Playerscripts.com, and will offer a special version of MWE (Mafia Wars Enhanced) to help keep track of ices, and there will be prizes! I have really had a lot of fun in past community mock wars, so you can bet your ice that I'll be in the thick of it come Memorial Day. Besides, that weekend is my birthday, so I'll be lookin' for a fight :0)

There's more to this mock war though than just fun, and there's a purpose to it being slated for Memorial Day. During the mock war, donations will be accepted for Fisher House, an organization that provides a home-away-from-home for military families who have to travel to major military and VA centers for medical care and treatment. Alex, a founder of Playerscripts.com, told me that "it's a great charity that helps a ton of military families in need.  I am ex-Army, [I'm] fortunate that I never needed them, but I have friends that have been hospitalized and it's tremendous to have a place for their families to stay."

Donations will not be required to participate, but will play a part in team scores. Registration opens later this week. See ya there!

more on non-mafia gift errors

A little while ago, I posted about errors in receiving gifts being the result of welcome gifts from new mafia members who are not Facebook friends.

 This is continuing to hold true, and I've been able to duplicate it. When the "trick" is used, you are able to send mafia invites to people who you are not directly connected to on Facebook. Those mafia invites show up in the ZMC (Zynga Message Center), and when accepted, gives you the option to send a free gift to the person whose mafia invite you just accepted.

 As you can see here, it bypasses the usual list of Facebook friends and allows you to send directly to the other person even if they are not a Facebook friend.

 

When that free gift request is sent to the non-friend, it shows up in their own ZMC, and also on their Facebook requests page.

 If the gift is accepted, it gives an error, both through the ZMC and if the request is accepted from the Facebook requests page.

 So I guess now we know that error code af-77 is due to not being Facebook friends with the person who sent you the gift.

errors accepting gifts due to crack the safe trick

If you're someone who, like me, made use of the Crack the Safe trick, you may be noticing that you're getting an additional number of errors when trying to accept free gifts. This appears to be because all of these new mafia members who are not connected to me on Facebook are sending "welcome" gifts, and the error occurs because we are not Facebook friends.

I made use of the Remove Non Friends feature, and it removed only 48 people. I know I added a lot more than that. I also tried Spockholm's Remove Non Friends bookmarklet, but it didn't find any additional people to remove, so I guess I'll just try again in a couple of days. Hopefully removing that first 48 will help.

World Ends 5/9/2011

I just got goosebumps when I realized there are NO EVENTS IN MAFIA WARS!!

Get 1 to 5 FREE SHOTGUN BLASTS for use in this week's Boss Fight

From the Mafia Wars fan page:

You gotta round out your ammo collection if you hope to shell out some pain to Roughhouse Rafael in the Boss Fight this week! Get a head start with FREE SHOTGUN BLASTS, then come back to show Roughhouse who's boss!

http://zyn.ga/5Gj <-- Get 1 to 5 FREE SHOTGUN BLASTS for use in this week's Boss Fight!

 I got mine!  Congratulations! For being a loyal player you have been rewarded with 3 Shotgun Blasts for boss fights.

Show Worst Items spocklet

When visiting Spockholm's page to reinstall a bookmarklet, I noticed this "Show Worst Items" bookmarklet. Very simple, and very handy -- run from any unframed Mafia Wars page, and it displays this box in the upper right corner of your screen. It will tell you the lowest stats of active items, items that are part of your attack and defense equipment. For those who find the information provided by analyzers to be overwhelming, this spocklet is all you need to figure out what loot stats you should be looking for.

free Cracks of the Bat for boss fights.

From the Mafia Wars fan page: 

You gotta swing hard and fast if you hope to knock Roughhouse Rafael out of the park in the Boss Fight this week! Get a head start with FREE CRACKS OF THE BAT, then come back tomorrow for FREE SHOTGUN BLASTS!

http://zyn.ga/5Gi <-- Get 1 to 5 FREE CRACKS OF THE BAT for use in this week's Boss Fight!

Congratulations! For being a loyal player you have been rewarded with 3 Cracks of the Bat for boss fights.

the Crack The Safe "trick"

 

In recent days, you may have heard people talking about 'the Crack The Safe trick'. I heard about it too, that you could add mafia members for Crack The Safe without actually having to send Facebook friend requests, but I didn't get motivated to check into how to do so until today. Many players, myself included, have been hit with blocks on messaging and sending friend requests by Facebook. In my case, I got slapped with a 4 day block, for sending fewer than 15 friend requests, all of which were accepted by the people I sent them to!

Facebook's logic for this is questionable, and I've seen many players complaining that Zynga shouldn't have an event or feature that works solely by making us add new mafia members. One person even said I should punch the developer that came up with the idea, lol. 

Personally, it hasn't bothered me. The loot rewards were worth it, but nevertheless I wasn't in a hurry to crack the safe a hundred times as fast as possible. As Nick put it, I was happy 'just plodding along'. 

Then today, Holger Massa wrote to my inbox asking if I knew of this workaround and included instructions. Ironically, I had just been wondering about the "trick", so I decided to follow Holger's instructions. 

 

Click on the image for a larger view.

You will need at least two accounts. To add mafia to your main account for Crack The Safe, you will be using mafia invites from another account.

1. From your main account (or whichever account you are wanting to crack the safe for), log into Mafia Wars and UNFRAME the page. 

2. Open another tab, and log out of your main account. Then, log into a secondary Facebook account. 

3. Return to your original tab, where your main account is still unframed in Mafia Wars. 

4. Go to the My Mafia Tab, which takes you to the recruit page.

 

 What you will see is a list of people to invite to your mafia, but the list is from the secondary account that you logged into. 

Select friends to invite until you get the message that you've reached the limit, and then send the requests.

When you go to send these requests, it will appear that you are sending from the account that is currently logged into Facebook, but those receiving the requests will see that they are from your main account, and will get added to your main account's mafia. 

 I even got a mafia invite from myself, which amused me more than it should have. 

I noticed that if you send an invite to someone from your secondary account that is already in your main account's mafia, it doesn't credit you with a mafia add (makes sense). I went through three accounts that I have access to, and sent a ton of mafia invites. I started early this afternoon with having cracked the safe 42 times, as per the Crack The Safe bookmarklet by Spockholm.

You'll have to remember to refresh your Mafia Wars home page frequently, to crack the safe when enough people have joined your mafia each time. But it does work! By the end of tonight, I reached 100 times. At that point the Crack the Safe module disappeared entirely from my home page. That might have confused me, had I not known how many times I had cracked the safe.

The only downfall that I can see to doing this, is your ingame news feed will become cluttered with updates from people that you're not connected with on Facebook. If that bothers you, you can always utilize the Remove Non-Friends feature after collecting all of your Crack The Safe rewards.