Mafia Wars Live recap notes

This past episode of Mafia Wars Live was the 9th broadcast, the first without Nate, and the first with Ben. It was also plagued by sound issues, and it was very difficult to glean any information from it. It was so bad that they didn't even bother posting the video, but they did post a list of the player-asked questions and the answers that Ben and Jeff provided during the broadcast.

MORE ZYNGA LIES:
"Getting a feature released to everyone has always been one of our priorities."

"We are pleased that you enjoyed the original Stamina Pack, but they were experimental in themselves."  

BULL!!! Where do they get off lying to our freaking faces!!

Igtenos asked: Why oh why do you hate Exotic animal feed so much? And Special Parts? We've complained countless times DO NOT TAKE THESE ITEMS OFF THE GIFT PAGE yet here we are yet again with the Exotic Animal Feed taken off the gift page.

Answer: Ah, the eternal struggle to properly stock the free gifts page. We are constantly reevaluating the mix of things that appear on it. We appreciate your continued feedback about what should be on it. 

. . .BLAH BLAH BLAH. How many freaking times have we complained about them bumping useful items from the Free Gifts page in favor of crap we don't care about? Nor do they appreciate our continued feedback, or this question wouldn't have even been asked.

• A fight loot "refresh" should be coming in a few weeks. They won't give us another double loot event because they want us to work hard for the new loot.
  
  
• The hit list won't be updated in the "foreseeable future".
  
  
• Loyalty program won't be updated any time soon.
  
  
• Family-related achievements will be coming.
  
  
• Future Union Hall updates will probably include an option to collect cash from properties.
  
  
• Ice Seasons are to be an ongoing event, but look for changes soon.
  
  
• There will be a new fighting feature that will make surviving attacks much more important. ★★You hear that, Health Haters??★★
  
  
• More bullshite about Power Pack "experiments".
  
  
• They liked IreneNP's idea about being able to find Family members by typing in their name, and said it was likely to be added eventually.
  
  
• Family mock wars are coming soon. Month is working on that feature now.

Don Jimbo asked: How soon could a feature be included, possibly in the inventory section, to identify the items used in defense when a player was last attacked or if that player were attacked at that moment?

Answer: We recall this coming up in a previous episode of Mafia Wars Live!, so this makes 2 people who want such a feature... or the same person asking twice? Unfortunately, we would need quite a bit more interest in such a feature to consider devoting the time it would take to create.

(So in other words no one at Zynga gives a crap about your idea.)

If you have any follow up or entirely new questions, be sure to ask them in the forum post for Episode 10 of Mafia Wars Live!, which will broadcast live at 3:30 pm PDT on Wednesday, September 7th.

"Zynga Goes Stealth" from the MPR blog

A fun little spoof I found on the MPR blog about questionable activities on the part of Zynga - as witnessed by two anonymous Farmville players.

Cuban Mercenary consumable

Just for fun and even more so curious as to the pending re-opening of Cuba, I was looking around the Inventory when I found the following item listed as a consumable for the "new" Cuba.

This is the Cuban Mercenary. It is listed as 0/0 stats so clearly a consumable item. It is giftable and therefore wishlist-able. So I added to my Wishlist.

Took opening around 10 mixed combo of Reds and Blues and then on the 11th mystery bag, which was a Blue, it finally dropped. So armed with my 1 Cuban Mercenary in Inventory, now I am clearly way ahead of the crowd when it comes to the pending re-opening of Cuba.... :-D

27 August - FAN BLAST - Defense Point

Get extra protection on your side with a FREE DEFENSE point!

http://zyn.ga/8OK -- Claim your FREE DEFENSE point!

Family Boss Fight rewards updated

When the Family Boss Fight first rolled out and our Mistyfied redtag group defeated Jeff The Knife for the first time, I really thought that the whole experience was a let-down. Particularly, it seemed a lot of work for just one loot item.

That part was changed today - all Family members will now receive 4 loot items for defeating the boss. That makes it a bit more interesting. Truth is, my opinion has really changed about these Family boss fights. They do take a little coordination, but that's fun. And the XP for stamina attacks is pretty good if you can keep down both Boss Rage and your Fatigue.

You'll notice the loot rewards table has been expanded for boss fight rewards as well. For Rare and Uncommon loot reward items, you even need to scroll to see them all.

Here are the other Rare items.

And those are the last 4 of the uncommon items.

Zynga gives extra XP for Family timer issues

Some welcome damage control on Zynga's part, by way of making up for all the Family mission timer snafus.

Dear Mafia Wars Player,

Over the last several days we have experienced some instability with the reset timers for Families that led to lost progress for some players. As a result we are compensating all of our Family players with additional Bonus XP.

You have been awarded xxxxx individual experience and xxxxx family experience of each type.

Thank You,
The Mafia Wars Team

26 August - Collector's Edition Painted Wolf - Second Batch

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

The collector's items are usually 35 reward points each, however I believe I heard it said that the Painted Wolf would have skill points attached to it, so the price in reward points will probably be higher. /MD

There are 5,000 up for grabs.

Friday's collector's items will have skill points

Hey, thanks for the backhanded answer Zynga! I was harrassing a few Zyngons earlier this week to find out which of the upcoming Collector's Edition items would include skill points. In an effort to show how much they care, they pointedly ignored me.

At any rate, the official blog finally has an answer for all - now that we have no more Fridays left in August, they've finally said that Collector's Edition items which are released on Fridays will contain skill points. I guess this means we'll be seeing a September list of collector's items soon. Yay.

26 August - Collector's Edition Painted Wolf - First Batch

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

There are 2,000 up for grabs.

The collector's items are usually 35 reward points each, however I believe I heard it said that the Painted Wolf would have skill points attached to it, so the price in reward points will probably be higher. /MD

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

26 August - FAN BLAST - Attack Point

Become more powerful with a FREE ATTACK point!

http://zyn.ga/8OJ -- Claim your FREE ATTACK point!

Last Days of Summer sale starts tonight

There's a bright, shiny new banner on your Mafia Wars home page about the upcoming Last Days Of Summer sale. That'll be starting tonight at midnight, presumably Zyngon time, otherwise known as Pacific time.

I'm guessing this will involve a purchase mastery system, involving this nice little Aurora vehicle. The Aurora comes with stats of (140,81). Check the Marketplace in the next little while!

 I'm guessing the LX Tronic and Dusk Visor are two of the first items we'll be seeing of the sale.

Return To Cuba

• 
  Return To Cuba
  In Progress (0/6)
  Earned by mastering Cuban Job tiers up to Ruby.

Yep, that's a new achievement, listed with our other retired Cuban achievements. Do you think this means Cuba is coming back? Some are worried that Cuba will the "new city", after we've started thinking about Chicago.

Judging by the new inventory, all that we're looking at with the Cuban business is a special event. A mini city challenge? I hope not; I don't like those.

But then again, this new Cuban inventory item, the Cuban Mercenary (consumable) references a "reopening event". I guess we shall soon see.

gold mystery bags are still here

Yesterday afternoon, we saw the reappearance of Gold Mystery Bags on our home page. It seemed they were "back" for just one day. Well, it's been much longer than 24 hours now. How long will they hang around this time? Shall we start a betting pool?

Mafia Wars Arch Enemies Gifting Event

Collect all 3 boosts for a Grand Prize.
Send and request boosts to master each level. 

GRAND PRIZE

SUPERIOR

OLYMPIC ARCHER

151 114

Quiver boosts +125% defense skill

Mastery Reward Quiver Of Cobras 100 45 105 47 110 50

Master all three levels of the Quiver boosts (125% defense skill) to win the Quiver Of Cobras mastery reward item.

 

Arrow Shaft boosts +125% attack skill

Mastery Reward Arrow Plane 47 104 50 109 52 114

Master all three levels of the Arrow Shaft boosts (125% attack skill) to win the Arrow Plane mastery reward item.

Vital Sight boosts +200% robbing win chance

Mastery Reward Competition Compound Bow 108 50 113 52 118 55

Master all three levels of the Vital Sight boosts (+200% robbing success chance) to win the Compound Bow mastery reward item.

Game Bar + Game Ticker: HOWTO Hide It From Your Page

Nothing annoys me more than extraneous stuff on my screen, I'm a minimalist when it comes to my screen real estate. The latest screen annoyance comes from the Facebook Game Ticker scrolling down your screen's right column, where it shows all your friends what games you are playing. Not only a major annoyance but there are privacy issues to consider also. There have been several posts being passed around as to howto workaround it, hide yourself, or install specialized extensions to get rid of it which is all well and good. So what I'm going to show you is just *my* method of getting it off your screen entirely.

Very Annoying right?

First off you will need to head over and install an extension called Adblock Plus. Available in Chrome or Firefox flavours. Once installed it will ask you to initially pick a "Subscription" for adblock rules. So pick one that is most relevant to you; most will pick the 1st off the list, called EasyList. Now the primary function of this extension, is to block *most* adverts you may encounter while browsing the web. You should notice right away when you refresh your FB after installing this that most if not all the adverts you normally would see on the right column have disappeared. Very good indeed! So I will be showing you custom filters to be used to block out the Z-Game Bar and the FB Game Ticker.

Once you've settled in with Adblock Plus, open up it's options screen. I will continue by using example from Chrome, which I use pretty much exclusively these days. It should be relatively straight-forward in Firefox also, so most should not have a problem. Anyways the Adblock Plus options screen is pretty much the same in both browser flavours (the picture you see below). Click on the [Add your own filters] tab.

Now to get rid of the Z-Game Bar you will need to enter ##div.snapi in the dialog box and then click [+ Add Filter] button. Then enter ##div.fixedAux and add also to get rid of FB Game Ticker.

Again the two custom filter rules are these:

##div.snapi

##div.fixedAux

UPDATE: 29-Aug-11
FB added another ticker to our right-hand column detailing what we get from reading our own feed. Here is the custom filter rule for that ticker:

##div.fbFeedTicker

Reload your game and Voilà, tis all gone!