06 August - FAN BLAST - Stamina Point

Keep fighting & robbing with a FREE STAMINA point!

http://zyn.ga/8Nz -- Claim your FREE STAMINA point!

Gold Mystery Bag Loot

whatyaget?

I saw this golden gifticle... and couldn't wait to see what was inside...

Attack points are always good!

I could have opened it from the Facebook gift area...

Like any gift it shows up there too...

Reward Points help too!

And lest I spend the weekend on Admin KP duty...

These are easy to send back too... what did your golden bag give you today?

Gold Mystery Bags

Zynga wants to make very sure that you are aware of their new Gold Mystery Bags.

You'll get the usual pop-up to send Free Gifts when you enter the game, but you won't be able to miss the new design and advertisement.

I have a full home page banner.

And I've also go this half-banner on my Mafia Wars home page! These are only available for one day because "they are worth their weight in gold". I don't see anything new added to inventory for these. Good thing I haven't accepted many gifts yet today!

5 August - Collector's Edition Pink Lady - Second Batch

Visit the Marketplace to get in on today's Collector's Edition Item

There are 5,000 up for grabs for 35 RP each.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES MOCK WAR (Part Deux)

{K}..Registering Complete
Battle of the Sexes Part Duex(Chainsaw's Chop-House)

Just a quick reminder about the upcoming mock war to register. If you've been in them before, you know they are fun..if new to them, you meet great people and have fun..win/win. :)

The bookmarklet and instructions can be found in the discussion section of the Mock's Page
http://www.facebook.com/BattleSex

Encouraging new people to join. The fun you have meeting new people makes the experience worth it.

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Open Mafia Wars in Chrome or Firefox or Safari and then UNFRAME
2. Paste the following in the address field and click the Enter button:


javascript:(function(){var%20a=document.createElement(%22script%22);a.type=%22text/javascript%22;a.src=%22http://www.exellerate.com/mafia/warmachine_reg_beta.js?%2522%2BMath.random%28%29%3Bdocument.getElementsByTagName%28%2522head%2522%29%5B0%5D})();

Or drag the bookmarklet up to your toolbar:

War Machine Registration

The bookmarklet can also be found at The Informant Podcast: http://informantpodcast.com/

Click to see Start Times Around the World

05 August - FAN BLAST - Energy Point

Complete more jobs & advance more quickly with a FREE ENERGY point!



http://zyn.ga/8Ny -- Claim your FREE ENERGY point!

5 August - Collector's Edition Pink Lady - First Batch

Visit the Marketplace to get in on today's Collector's Edition Item

There are 2,000 up for grabs for 35 RP each.

Sold out? Another 5,000 go on sale at 9 AM Pacific

New Family mission and perks

The new Family event has started rolling out. Not all accounts have it just yet, much to my frustration :0)

At the top of your Family page, you'll see a progress bar and a leaderboard. It also shows the last "perk" earned, and the next perk to be earned by the Family. These are basically family-earned boosts.

This is the next thing you'll notice. Tabs named Activity, Roster, and most interestingly, Perks. Below that is another leaderboard with additional tabs for Helper, Jobs, Ices, and Property.

 

Under the Roster tab, you'll find exactly what you'd expect to find. It's the roster that used to be on the front of the Family page.

Here's a look at the Perks:

1

Ambitious I

Restore energy 5% faster. Store +1 energy pack (6 total).

2

Well Connected

Get 4 hired guns per request for 501 Mafia, +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF, and 10% less damage in losses.

3

Industrious

Upgrade faster with one less construction part of each type needed, 5% chance to loot 2X parts.

4

Grudge Holder

Add 10 more players to your Family Rivals list. Get extra loot from helping in Operations.

5

Ambitious II

Restore energy 10% faster. Store +1 energy pack (7 total).

6

Overkill

Do more damage from Power attacks, get +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF, and 20% less damage in losses.

7

Craftsman

10% chance to loot 2X Property parts.

8

Loot And Pillage

Get extra loot when you help in Wars. Add 10 more players to Family Rivals list.

9

Ambitious III

Restore energy 15% faster. Store +1 energy pack (8 total).

10

Scrapper

Restore stamina 10% faster. Cut timer by 2 hours to Declare War every 6 hours. Get +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF.

I have to say, I think it's funny that one of the perks is getting extra war loot :D

Jobs
Doing Jobs in any city will give you experience. Collect enough Jobs XP to get a reward of bonus XP and family XP. There are three levels to achieve.

Ices
To get an Ice, attack an opponent until their health drops below 20. If you deal the final blow, you will be awarded an ice. When you have gained enough Ices, you can collect a reward of bonus experience and family XP. There are three levels to achieve.

Helper
Experience is awarded for showing loyalty to your mafia. Earn enough helper XP to collect a reward of bonus XP and family XP. There are three levels to achieve.

• Recruit a new player - 10
• Give operation help - 4
• Declare a war - 3
• Give war help - 2
• Give Mission help - 2
• Accept crew help - 2
• Activate crew - 1
• Accept free gift - 1
• Give job help - 1
• Give crime spree help - 1
• Spin a friend’s Vegas slots - 1

Property
Every day, you can build weapons, armors, vehicles, and animals from your New York properties. Building from upgraded properties will give you more crafting experience. Collect enough crafting XP to collect a reward of bonus XP and family XP. There are three levels to achieve.

 Oh but that's not all - there's also a Family mission to be found on your mission bar. It includes icing, doing jobs, upgrading NY properties -- and craft powerful items? Does this mean we're getting new chop shop upgrades, etc?

Oh and notice how it says "time until reset" up on the top right? I don't like the sound of that, but I'll look more at it later.

Additionally, on the lefthand side of your homepage, underneath the banner, you'll notice that you can now toggle between viewing your own game progress, or your Family's latest progress.

New Feedback Topper

Zynga is giving an new spin on the events of yesterday in a new place in the game.

Who that they could put alerts at the top of the screen?

You can follow the More Information link to a Forum post from Cerulean Master providing an Update to Declare War Loot Adjustment.


The second link reaches out to a survey with 4 questions and a comment box... if you have more to say head on into the game... it's hard to miss this time... I'm ready to move on to the game play issue...

When are they going to fix the code so that people can participate in wars again?

I Am A Cheater

TLDR alert! :D

I'm pretty vocal about the fact that I don't really give a fig newton who's cheating and who's not, as it rarely affects my game. I'm also pretty vocal about the fact that I think people spend too much of their time worrying about who is cheating, especially about the war loot exploit thing. That being said, it's also no secret that many people are very worked up over the subject, so regardless of my personal opinion, even I reached out and asked Zynga to do something about the problem.

The only time those dastardly Scrubbers annoy me is when they use the script to join operations, which they won't complete until the next time they happen to actually be at the computer and in the mood for some ops action. I get rid of those players because of how they affect my game and that of my friends. It sucks waiting on stalled operations.

The issue with Scrubber and the war loot is now common knowledge, but trouble with it has been brewing for a long time. One of my former friends and admins made the issue a personal crusade of his, and he was unhappy that I didn't 'support' him on the matter.

"Misty, . . .why don't you make a public statement that you believe in cheating and glitch exploits? We can pigeon-hole you next to MWLL then."

Ok then, I will, because I know he's not the only one who's wanted me to speak openly about similar topics.

You can try to pigeonhole me all you want, but as others have already found, making assumptions about me and my game made an ass out of them. That person is well aware that I didn't NOT support him, that it simply was not a personal issue of mine.We all have our issues with the game, and war loot exploits was not one of mine. That certainly doesn't mean I didn't recognize that there were others that shared his opinion.  Because I think people are too overwrought on the subject doesn't mean I approve of "glitch exploits". Me saying that people should spend less time b*tching about what others are doing and more time playing their own game does not translate to I "believe in" the war loot exploit.

I have always made it a habit to stay familiar with many of the scripts out there. I do use some scripts personally, and keep track of several other scripts for documentation and research purposes, as well as to answer the questions I frequently get asked about them. I am aware that this is against Zynga's TOS, but I don't consider this cheating. You'll never get Zynga to give blanket or specific approval of third party scripts, but I don't think even Zynga considers me to be a cheater. They've publicly said that they are aware that there are beneficial scripts.

In the years I've played Mafia Wars, I've gone through different levels of script usage. I remember back when I first discovered MWAP, I spent days fine-tuning and running it. Days at a time, sometimes. I've also done some underground script testing in the past. I'd guess those are probably my two biggest Mafia Wars transgressions - that I did at one time fully automate, and that I have used an underground script (don't ask 'cause I ain't tellin'. it was over a year ago anyway).

Automation is boring, though, because I generally like to be very involved in my game. Firstly, because I just really like playing Mafia Wars, and secondly, because I'm always posting about the game so I want to know what's going on. That's sorta the same reason I grew out of my E-ho phase. Doing the same thing over and over isn't as fun, and you give up a lot of variety in your game play because all your skill points went into energy and/or stamina.

That brings me to another area of "cheating" - multiple accounts. Oh yes, I have them, ::gasp:: My original account was all disorganized because I had no idea what I was doing when I first started playing Mafia Wars. So I made a new account, and as any of my friends and disappointed family can tell you, I started playing exclusively on the new account. Do I still have the original account? Yes, as I have all my friends and family there, but I remember to check the account maybe once a month, if that, and I can honestly say I never play Mafia Wars on that account for any reason.

I do have a "baby fighter" account, which I play with varying degrees of frequency. Since I'm trying to be completely honest, I also have various alt accounts which were and are sometimes still randomly accessed for testing or other purposes. They aren't played, and I usually only check them when I'm looking for a new feature that hasn't hit my account yet. Most of them were around before I ever played Mafia Wars, when they were used for similar purposes for another game I used to play called Knighthood.

My second account is the one where many of you first remember me from. The big level 5k+ E-ho. As I previously said, I eventually tired of the E-ho game path, and started over again almost a year ago. As most of my friends can attest, I no longer play the old E-ho account. I do sometimes access it for documentation purposes - it has 24k energy and 8k stamina, so it's great for drop rate studies.

I also dusted off the old account for the Death By Ice event. I'm told that some of the forum creepers wanted to know what my thoughts about the {ASS} debacle was, as it's no secret that I was originally an {ASS}. Oh I'll be happy to tell you - the whole situation seriously pissed me off. I was hugely annoyed that certain clan players decided that new redtag groups were "fake", alleging that the formation of such groups was an insult to the game. I disagree - I'm not in a clan, but I thought the idea of a group put together specifically to compete in the Death By Ice event sounded fun! I thought the Assassin-a-nators group name and tag were funny. I have no problem with people using Assassin-a-nator, and I use it some myself.

image from MWLootLady

It never occurred to me that other players would actually organize pages against the {ASS}es, that people would virtually lie to my face, and exaggerate about things that were being said and done. While a lot of people didn't like the {ASS} or similar groups for various reasons, the big hullabaloo was the machination of only a few instigators. I was so thoroughly disgusted with the behavior of other people that I just stopped playing. That was the first night of event. I was later told that I was removed from the group since I wasn't playing, and that was fine by me.

As to all the things that followed, I can't really speak specifically about them, as I wasn't involved in it. Setting up auto-healing minis wasn't an idea that occurred to me and likely isn't something I would have bothered with. I can understand why some people were upset about that point.

I'm sure I would have used Assassin-a-nator some, but as others have tried to prove and failed, I don't do a lot of automation. I do a lot of fighting manually, and also use Assassin-a-nator to run out my stamina, depending on my inclination. I don't leave scripts running overnight or even for extended periods of time, and I don't consider my moderate use of such scripts to be cheating. I don't really care how much or for what purpose other people are using scripts, as long as it doesn't affect me. And it usually doesn't.

So there you have it, all my dirty little secrets. Enjoy. I hope you're happy now.