SLAINTE Part Three begins tonight 3/29

SLAINTE Part Three begins tonight at 10:30 p.m. Pacific Time

Prepare to be bombarded with gift requests for these lovely Snake Venom

The reward for completing this section will be the Emerald Mamba

Once we have mastered this part to the Bronze level we will move on to Silver and then Gold to receive the Grand Prize

Best of luck to you!

Earlier Posts on this event are    SLAINTE: Luck of the Irish and   Slainte Part Two 

5 Things I Would Change About Mafia Wars

5 Things I Would Change About Mafia Wars

By Misty Dady

I posted this yesterday as a guest on the Mafia Spirit blog.  Be sure to check out their blog! We would love to hear your ideas and feedback.

Have you ever thought “I’d love to change ___ about Mafia Wars”? I know, I know, silly question. Of course you have! Today I saw the DAU (daily active users) has fallen below half a million players, according to App Data. I’ve never seen it that low. Players continue to get bored or sick of what some now call “Mafia Chores”.

Hi, I’m Misty, an author of the Mistyfied Mafia Wars blog and fan page. We’ve been around for 2 years this April. I’ve been playing Mafia Wars for 3 years this May.

On the Mistyfied blog, some of our admins have posted a series of articles regarding items they would personally like to see changed about Mafia Wars. I give you my personal list of things I would change, for all you Mafia Spirit fans. These are my ideas of how Zynga should handle Mafia Wars and certain game features. Somewhere along the line, Zynga took the wrong garden path and followed number spikes instead of loyal players, and now here we are.

1. Firstly, I would reinstitute some form of means by which Zynga and Mafia Wars programmers, designers, and community managers have an open forum with the players. The forums don’t work. PAC didn’t work, although not for lack of trying on our parts. After the exit of 2 community managers who worked with us, we slid off of Zynga’s priority list. Get Satisfaction didn’t work, either. Believe it or not, many Zyngons who work with Mafia Wars and other games want to hear player feedback, but Zynga's business model of the Almighty Dollar doesn't give heed.
   
   
2. Cut the event fatigue! There's just too much going on in the game at one time. Zynga is too focused on their “metrics”, which unfortunately mean nothing in terms of player enjoyment—that silly little thing that keeps us coming back for more. They like their number spikes, and don’t concern themselves with the following valleys. It makes no sense, in terms of business or gaming, but Zynga refuses to listen.
   
   We need a game that isn’t so frenetic that, if we’re forced to be away for a few days, we don't run away screaming when we log in and see everything we're behind on. I faced this situation personally just two weeks ago, after the death of a family member. I had to be away for several days, and on top of all that I’m a college student with a sizable class load. Mafia Wars has now fallen by the wayside, sad to say, because I couldn’t keep up, lost interest, and honestly? I started dreading logging in.
   
   
   
3. So let’s talk game. One of the first things that comes to mind is those help limits. “You have already helped 5 people today.” How many times have you cussed at your computer monitor over that? I could start counting…but I’d fall asleep! I understand why limits are in place, truly I do, but 5 or even 10 helps per feed is just too low. I thought this was a social game! Something more realistic that would keep us online and playing longer would be 25 or so, similar to job helps. Or make it 5-10 helps per 4 hours.
   
   
   
4. Mission events shouldn’t detract so much from our regular game play. Some of the requirements involve multiple thousands’ worth of energy! For a balanced player like myself, that can slow me down for days, and cause me to make no progress in other areas--which is frustrating. Then again, many players have the energy and time, and will be proclaiming their boredom within minutes of an event’s release, so maybe another approach would be to scale the energy cost of a mission-required job to a player’s overall ability. I would like that much more.
   
   
   
5. Lastly—let’s get rid of that ZMC pop-up every single time we enter the game! Is that really necessary? It slows the overall loading of the game, and for those of us who jump between the game and our news feed regularly, it’s a pain. Especially when the ZMC is empty! Ever miss out on a good Daily Take post because the ZMC loads over the Daily Take pop-up? I know I have!

I know we all have our own ideas about how to better the Mafia Wars experience for everyone. These are just some of my thoughts that come to mind. We at Mafia Spirit and Mistyfied Mafia Wars would love to hear YOUR ideas. If you liked these ideas, please share this article with your Facebook friends, we would appreciate it!

A Slow News Day for Mafia Wars

 ...and thank gawd! I've had my head buried in text books much of the day. I managed to stay plugged in to Mafia Wars nonetheless, but I wasn't very engaged. It was very nice and appreciated to not have 10 million new things in the game to deal with, for once.

I saw earlier today that they have brought back those lame group sales. We haven't seen one in awhile, and last I checked, participation wasn't that great. I guess Zynga thought otherwise, as there's another group sale in the Mafia Wars marketplace and also the home page banner, for the Rivet Leather, AND this one is going to last a whole week ::yawn::. The idea is, the more people buy the item, the more its stats increase...but so does the cost for anyone who buys later rather than sooner. Supposedly this is meant to prompt you to buy quickly, but this tactic hasn't ever worked on me. I think their prices are laughable for a loot item that isn't that great and will be quickly outdated.

Speaking of over priced, Zynga is still trying to push these "collector's edition items" on us. Not surprisingly, they aren't faring any better than they did last year. Not even 1500 sold on this round of the Scion Heavy Machine before it was finally yanked from the home page a short while ago. I've always mocked their pricing, and reducing their prices in order to gain more sales is apparently not something within Zynga's scope of understanding. I am not gonna pay 35 reward points for a piece of loot. But what do I know?

Oh, I finished mission number 7 in the End Of Days mission event awhile ago--Armageddon, and had a funny thing happen. The New Year's Resolution screen popped up again out of the blue, right underneath the Mission Complete drop-down. I'm pretty sure I saw someone post about this a day or two ago; you'd think Zynga would have already fixed that? And no, sadly, I wasn't able to claim more Ms. PAC Partys :(

Although, predictably, the option to waste reward points to buy more votes was still there. Go figure.

And it would be a day at Zynga without some bug or problem, right? Apparently the Draw button wasn't working for some players, and some winning hands weren't winning--well, I did say the house odds would probably suck!

I haven't personally, encountered any problems with the Mafia Poker, at least not that I noticed, and I did play a few dozen hands. In fact it crossed my mind that this was a rare 'win' for Zynga. An easy ingame 'feature' that doesn't completely suck, doesn't force us to BUY BUY BUY, yet still prompts us to send Facebook requests in the form of Poker Cards--Zynga makes money when we send those requests.

Anyway, Zynga is blaming whatever issues people were having on the players using scripts and multi-tabs. I guess that could be the case, but my money's on it being a Zynga bug.

Hello Mafia Players,

We are aware that some of you are experiencing the following issue:

Mafia Poker Issues

Issue: Some players report that their "Draw" button goes missing. Others report that, even after understanding that we consider the Ace the highest card, not the lowest, they will sometimes lose with a winning hand, such as two pairs vs. the dealer having just one.

Status: We have determined that most, if not all, of these issues are the result of playing Mafia Wars in multiple tabs/windows and/or with scripts. Please try disabling any scripts you may be using and playing the game in only one tab or window. If, after doing this, you still experience any issues with Mafia Poker, please add your details to this Bug Report.

Workaround: Disable scripts and play Mafia Wars in only one tab/window at a time. If you know of another workaround for this issue, please Submit A Workaround.

Thanks,
The Mafia Wars Team

One last thing--two, actually. Earlier today when I was accepting gifts from my ZMC, the gifts weren't disappearing after I accepted them, which I found much to my liking. It's easier to pick and choose which gifts to accept when the whole dang ZMC screen isn't jumping around due to previously accepted gifts going poof. It was like that for a couple of hours and I'd thought it was something new. But now the gifts are back to disappearing again after I accept them. Doh!

I've had a comment here and a couple of emails from people asking what I mean when I refer to the ZMC. By ZMC we mean "Zynga Message Center". It's the little envelope in the upper right of your Mafia Wars screen that holds your gifts. And now you've learned something today.

Have a great weekend!

Mafia Wars: will we be able to accept more than 200 gifts a day now? It's possible!

The Mafia Wars blog has addressed something that many of us were wondering today when we figured out that the number of gifts held by the ZMC had been raised: will we be able to accept more than 200 gifts a day now? Personally, I really hope they raise it to at least match what the ZMC can hold now. I really liked Ann's idea, though: "if we have to have 501 in our mafia then at least let us give and collect that many gifts per 24 hours." Word.

We've heard your feedback and increased the capacity of the ZMC from 100 to 250 items! This alleviates the issue that saw gifts 101-250 fall into a black hole if your ZMC had already reached the previous cap of 100.

We already know what you want to ask: "Will the number of gifts one can accept each day be increased to match the new capacity of the ZMC?" We are looking into that, but we first need to understand the effect that a 250-item ZMC has on the game. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we carefully make changes to improve your Mafia Wars experience.

Now that everyone’s ZMC can hold 250 gifts, can you fill your Mafia’s up?

- The Mafia Wars Team

ZMC now holds more than 100 gifts

It's hard not to notice your ZMC, since every freaking time you log in the game it's right there in your face. I was surprised to see that I had 240 gifts this morning, so I'm sure you noticed something similar. Apparently Zynga finally raised the limit of the number of gifts that can be held in the ZMC, which many players have been complaining about since the gifting changes were put in place. It's even been a topic of discussion here and here, in our ongoing 'series' of items we would like to see changed about Mafia Wars. I guess I can mark it off the list for my post :D

I haven't personally encountered the new ZMC gift limit, but Mafia Wars Maniac reports it as being 250. Now I wonder if we're still limited to accepting 200 gifts a day...?

5 Simple Fixes For Mafia Wars

I want to start by admitting that I play Mafia Wars all the time.  I've played the game for a long time.  

Quite frequently you can simply type "mafia wars" into the search box on facebook and come up with numerous posts by friends complaining about a new feature, a bug, a gift that did not go through, the new mafia invite that would not work, etc.  Well, after much consideration, I concluded there were 5 simple fixes that (I think) would make the game more enjoyable.

So, without further ado, here goes:

Fix #1 ~ PROPERTIES

If you are going to have us build so many properties, expand either the number of property gift/help clicks or reduce the timer.  And, please, give some thought to offering up periodic bonus days where you can build from every property you have at least once.

Fix #2 ~ GIFTS

Gifts.  Gifting limits.  Collecting Limits.  Gifting system.  Returning of Gifts.

It's simple: if we have to have 501 in our mafia then at least let us give and collect that many gifts per 24 hours.  Period.

Fix #3 ~ THE COMPLETE LACK OF BREAKS BETWEEN EVENTS

I understand the developers are bored.  Truly I do.  But it sure would be nice if they could suffer in silence for 1 day in between events every single time.  I'm not asking for much.  Just give us 24 hours to try to finish the old properties we did not get completed, etc.  One measly little day in between releasing events.  Put a banner up, let us anticipate the new, exciting event for a day.  It would not kill you, and I might just get to upgrade one of my Chicago properties one more level before I have to start collecting the next round of:

1. Secret District Consumables
2. Special Event Items (like the Incognito event)
3. Boss Fight Consumables
4. And so on, and so on, and so on.

Fix #4 ~ GET SOME VOLUNTEER BETA TESTERS TO AVOID ISSUES

Get some real, live, willing BETA TESTERS for the new stuff that's going to get released.  Trust me, there would be plenty of volunteers out there.  In fact, you could stick a silly pop-up ad in the game of a random number of people offering some RP for if they respond to a 5 question survey on a beta release of the newest property, event, etc. you want to try out.  Make it random and test stuff out before you release it.  It might just save you from the chronic roll-backs, delays, etc.

Botanical Garden is a classic example of why testing stuff might help.  It got rolled out too early by mistake and many people collected, built, etc. then got really irritated when it disappeared from their game.

Fix #5 ~ FAMILY PROPERTIES

(Not enough information or simply not worth it)

When you do release new stuff, like the family properties which got released today, try putting out a nice, clear, complete summary of what:

1. is the point or goal
2. needs to be done in order to get to that goal
3. is the bonus or benefit will be if we go through the hassle

I've pointed out #5 specifically because, while I typically consider myself smart,  quick to pick up why we have this new Event, Property, etc. I've yet to figure out why Family Properties will be worth my time, effort and just the overall hassle.

From my review of how the Family Properties works so far I say this:

GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.  

It bites.   

It wastes our gifts, uses up a ridiculous amount of stamina and just looks like a pain in the a^*.

And...that nifty issue with allowing all members of the family the option to issue or accept battle challenges...get it fixed right now.  You want us to encourage new players to play the game, buy RP, etc. - then don't let just anyone in the family have the option to make battle choices for us.

*Dusts hands off and says: enough already.  :Rant over:
~Anisty

What would I change about Mafia Wars?

OK, I confess. I love Mafia Wars. I am crazy about it. Not a day goes by that I do not log in to facebook and do something Mafia Wars related. I even have someone who can take care of my account for me in the event that I will not be able to play. But the game has its flaws. I was recently asked to share five things that could be done that would make the game better. Sheesh, only five? LOL. Well, without being petty or trivial, I have come up with 5 things I would change about Mafia Wars right now.

Fewer events. LESS IS MORE!!! Mafia Wars is supposed to be a game, not a second fulltime job. There is so much to do all the time (Just look at the picture). Ice Seasons, Missions (event missions and city based missions), Gifting and Spam Events, Limited Time Property Upgrading, Secret Districts, 3x Mastery (thankfully i am done with all cities) – not to mention the normal stuff like building in properties, Family Goals, collecting from Brazil properties, family boss fights, so on and so on. Zynga said they had heard us…..seems like they need to check the batteries in the old hearing aid.

More giftable loot, parts, and consumables. As more and more loot is introduced in to the game, it would make sense that more loot should be made giftable. And I do not mean an occasional addition of 1 or 2 items. I mean BLOCKS of items. New fight loot is due out this week. Well how about lets make all the old fight loot giftable? Anything under 100, giftable. All the Italy property parts and consumables. Make them giftable. Even the Brazil property parts and consumables.

Allow players starting at level 1 to get the same loot from fighting and robbing as higher level players. I do not care what the reasons are for this. It is stupid and annoying.

Fix the bugs. An example. Zynga has “blessed” us with all these properties in New York, yet, at least for me, only the old properties count toward my family progress. So I either have to use reward points to craft from an old property twice or I have to be sure and be around 18 hours later and craft again. Geez, nevermind that I might be sleeping or at work or, you know, having a life somewhere away from a computer when the 18 hours is up. And save us all some headaches and test out new features and events more thoroughly before releasing them.

More capacity for the ZMC. The ZMC desperately needs to be modified to hold more than 100 gifts. Since they changes have been made to gift collecting from facebook, gifts that are not collected before your ZMC hits 100 are lost. I’d like to see the ZMC at least double its current capacity.

So there you have it. One man’s opinions. I’m sure there is a lot more I could have said, and PLEASE feel free to comment on this post and add your opinions. Perhaps the only thing I enjoy more than playing Mafia Wars is discussing it (Gawd I’m such a freaking nerd…). I love this game, perhaps too much. I would hate to see it go. Zynga needs to improve a lot of things, but most of all Zynga needs to learn to make the game profitable AND enjoyable while retaining its players. In the mean time I’ll keep plugging away!!! Happy hunting

When will Mafia Wars invites work again?

It's been over 2 weeks since the ZMC "improvements" were rolled out. Almost immediately, we started noticing problems with accepting Mafia Wars invites. Processing new invites is STILL a problem. Why? is what I want to know. In fact, very few changes or fixes have been implemented since then, leaving me to deduce that Zynga simply doesn't care. We still can only hold 100 gifts, and there still is no backlog. Why? Because it doesn't hurt Zynga. They still make money every time we send a Mafia Wars request, even when they don't work and even when we can't accept them.

The biggest annoyance to me by far is this problem with accepting Mafia Wars invites. The Mafia Wars invites that come to the ZMC almost always produce an error, and that person is not added to your mafia or you to theirs.

When I accept Mafia Wars invites from my Recruit page, I don't seem to have any problem accepting the invites. The problem is, players hardly remember to check this page, and instead use the stupid, broken ZMC. Additionally, not every Mafia Wars invite even makes it to the Recruit page. WHY??

Furthermore, I notice that the list of people I can send invites to periodically refills....it's as if I never even sent them an invite, even though I have several times.

This is stupid. Why is this even still a problem?

Another ZMC update

There has been another update to how the ZMC accepts gifts. Formerly, due to the lack of testing and foresight on Zynga's part, we had no idea what was in our Mystery Bags, because as soon as we clicked on "Accept Gift and Thank", it disappeared with no notice of what was IN the Mystery Bag.

Now, you will see a message and graphic of what the Mystery Bag contained, which will disappear after several seconds.

Ok Zynga, that's good. Now fix this issue of ONLY returning Mystery Bags. Mystery Bags are mostly useless and I do NOT want them returned to me when what I actually posted a gift link for was Carpenter Nails or Special Parts, etc.

Requesting Help From Your Mafia Is Now Easier Than Ever!

From the Mafia Wars blog. This means that Double Gifts are gone, but I think I don't mind that. It would be even nicer if we could bypass the Facebook requests page altogether, but short of just ignoring that page, it doesn't sound like it's going to be the case. I wonder what happens when the ZMC is full. Will back-logged requests show up after accepting current gifts and then refreshing?

Requesting Help From Your Mafia Is Now Easier Than Ever!

Sending & requesting gifts and asking your Mafia members to join your City and Mission Crews has received an upgrade to make getting help from your Mafia easier than ever! Here are the recent changes to the Requesting experience:

A New Look

The Facebook-style list and buttons that previously appeared in the Request window have been replaced to better match the look of Mafia Wars. (See the Crew Request window at left as an example.)

Select More Recipients

The maximum number of recipients you can select at a time has been increased to 50, and you can send gifts and requests to multiple batches of 50!

Fewer Clicks Required

You can now check a box that allows you to skip seeing Facebook's request post preview and second "Send Requests" button when you send requests to the same recipients in the future!

How To Send Requests With Fewer Clicks

When you receive the Facebook request post confirmation window the first time you send a request with the new system, make sure that the box next to "Don't ask before sending Mafia Wars requests to..." is checked before clicking Facebook's "Send Requests" button. This whitelists the recipients so you aren't presented with the Facebook request post confirmation window when sending requests to them in the future. Whitelist your entire mafia and you may never have to see that Facebook request post confirmation window ever again!

A Note About Mafia Wars Requests on the Facebook Game Requests Page

The enhancements above were made possible by shifting the handling of Mafia Wars requests to be entirely in-game. Another change that results from this is in the behavior of Mafia Wars requests on the Facebook Game Requests page. Before, you were able to accept Mafia Wars requests on that page. Now, the "Accept" buttons bring you into the game, where you can accept all gifts, etc. in the ZMC. Also of note, handling requests entirely in our system means the error codes KE-29, AF-77, and MC-24 sometimes encountered when accepting gifts through the Facebook Game Request page will cease to be problem! These error messages will become a thing of the past once all old requests are cleared out, which should happen within approximately 30 days.

We hope you enjoy the improved Requesting experience. Check it out by sending some free gifts to your Mafia!

The Night Before The Raven

Twas the night before The Raven, when all through the house

Not a peripheral was stirring, not even my mouse.

The Mystery Bags were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that Stamina Refills soon would be there.

The Yakusa were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of Bloody Knuckles danced in their heads.

And mamma with her Master Chief, and I in my Skull Cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long Mafia War’s nap.

Sorry... this feels like a fairy tale from the Brother's Grimm... and I mean the original book version... not the cutsie cartoon version!

Tomorrow the Raven will appear "sometime" should I choose to go fighting... I have tried several Serial Level test runs... and think that I am now ready to try and defeat this beast without wasting a single unit of Stamina searching for a Sniper Shot!!

Here are all of the things that I have done to be ready for battle:

• Sent out Blue Mystery Bags to my entire mafia (using the Chrome Extension FGS) asking that they send one back in return.
• I have 6 Stamina Packs in my ZMC (Zynga Message Center) just in case I try and open one too early or any have expired.
• Accepted all gifts that are not Mystery Bags, Brazil Crew Requests, or Stamina Packs.

Here are the things I have not done today... or at least in the last 12 hours:

• Brazil crew slots are empty, 10 people wait to be added.
• I have not collected the Brazil properties since this morning
• It has been more than 24 hours since I used my last energy pack.
• I have not even visited the Marketplace so no Fight Club Energy Refill was used.
• I did not visit Atlantic City today.
• I did not open my e-mail bonus.
• I did not post for help with any jobs.
• I did not open a single mystery bag.

Soooo... now I am ready... I will post my game plan in the morning... as you can tell from the above list... Some options are solid full refills... some are small energy or stamina adds... some are dice rolls trying to get refills.

I have the house to myself all day... and except for puppy piddle duty I am ready to serial level and battle my best to not use a single RP or combo to defeat this goon!!!

What tips and tricks do you have to make it through the session with a Raven body in hand?

PS - If I had found more than 4 Sniper Shots per 10,000 stamina I honestly wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to avoid RP... but if you make me use every bit of time for 8 solid hours just searching for parts to TRY and play... I'll change from Checkers to Chess... not a problem!! The 3-D board is 10 ft away... we can go THERE too! This is supposed to be a game and a challenge... not an 8 hour job for a year for a single skill point. /rant

Stamina Pack FAQ

Stamina with a Twist and Shout

Instant Increase = Careful Opening

Be very careful how you plow through your gifts... the stamina pack refills the meter as soon as you open them... Use FGS / JGrabAll / or other click savers at your own risk.

Your first warning might come in the Facebook gift area:

Or if you first notice it in the ZMC (Zynga Message Center):

Once you click "Accept Gift:

Your stamina will be filled to the top... but no extra.

There is a 16 hour timer... but not a visible timer... just an internal clock. If you accept another one too early it will turn to a Mystery Boost...

Spreading the Love

As soon as you enter the game you will see them on the free gift page waiting to share stamina happiness throughout your family...

This is a limited time gift with no announced end date. Time to send send send and ice ice ice!

ZMC Mafia Invite Not Quite Right

Not quite sure what to make of this, but I am pretty sure that it isn't supposed to look like that. The Send a Free Gift Back button still works as intended.