Path Of The Assassin: The Raven Returns 10/26

The Raven Returns

Reward for taking out the Raven: Xtreme  Assassin's Jacket, armor [215/140]

Clicking "Go To Fights" will take you to the fight page, where the Raven will show up! Good luck!

Old posts about the Raven

Return of the Raven July 2011

Previous Boss Combos for the Raven

Metal Mafia is here! 4/19

Metal Mafia Secret District (Brazil)

Collect your 2x Loot boosts and Guitar Strings

Do these jobs to collect loot items

Collect these loot items to get the skill points

And finally Beat The Boss  Jairo  Moreira

Use the combos (Percent Damage required to open combos is listed)

Good Luck!

Jimmy The Torch Boss Fight Combos

Jimmy The Torch Boss Combos 

All Combo's will unlock at Jimmy %50 damage

Green Level

Yellow Level

Burnt Orange Level

Great Fire Boss Reward
Bronze

Silver 

Gold

Ruby

The Great Fire

The Great Fire Chicago Secret District

There will be more begging involved in this new secret district

All the begging will pay off in this loot

Fire Bucket

Pumper Engine

Vintage Hose

Enjoy these jobs

Look out for the Bandit of course

Look, something new to spend RP on (or maybe I just hadn't seen it before)

When you complete each level's jobs it's time to beat Jimmy the Torch

Boss Fight Issues

Surprise ~ Surpise

Boss fight selection issues are cropping up.  The pic above is directly from my own attempt to select a role in the boss fight.  We had another peep try to select and no screen whatsoever popped up.  The next two had the standard box & made their choices as usual.

Consider yourself warned - in case the sheer volume of new nonsense in the game had not triggered the idea that the game would start having issues...here's your sign.

I don't know how you do boss fights in your family, but in mine - I've chosen to x out that screen and try again later.

Now I'll start watching for the nifty banner at the top of the game saying they know there are issues...and blah, blah, blah.

Bring on the gold mystery bags I say!

...And stop with the chronic event fatigue.

Zynga flips players the bird

As Ann told you earlier, we've got a new Family boss fight to deal with...oh boy! Zynga is flipping us off! (c'mon, I can't be the only one to notice that!)

The Mafia Wars blog says "If your family is currently engaged in a Family Boss Fight with Silverio Fallaci, you'll have to complete that fight in order for Jimmy Lechon to become available." *coughnottrue* Our Family currently has 3 active boss fights, so clearly Jimmy Lechon didn't wait for us to finish off Silverio Fallaci. Although it appears Jimmy Lechon will supplant Silverio Fallaci, so I assume that after we finish him off, he's gone.

Anyone remember the Raven? WTF happened to him? 

Silverio Fallaci is being pushed out* by Jimmy Lechon, the new Family Boss who thinks there's not enough room for the both of 'em. Use the collaborative strength of your family to show him that he's not as dangerous as he thinks he is, and be among the top contributors to the fight for a chance to recieve the Death Card (200/200) when your family beats him!

Family Boss Fights pit your entire family against an epic boss. In the case of Jimmy Lechon, you'll have 7 days to reduce his 1,125,000 health to zero. (You may have more or less time to take out future Family Bosses.) Whenever the timer runs out on a Family Boss Fight, the boss' health resets and you will have another chance to prove your family is in charge.
*Note: If your family is currently engaged in a Family Boss Fight with Silverio Fallaci, you'll have to complete that fight in order for Jimmy Lechon to become available.

 I'm sure we won't see Jimmy's grand prize item, the Death Card, any more frequently than we've seen the grand prizes from other boss fights.

Here's a little trivia for you. As indicated by the Mafia Wars Death Card stats, the Death Card is not necessarily a bad thing to have turn up. I've been known to read a few tarot cards in my lifetime. It does not herald death, but rather, transformation, rebirth, closure, conclusion, etc. Not that tarot cards hold much water :0)

Jeff The Knife: Family Boss Fight Combos

There are 4 combos. To my knowledge these are the same for every family, but let me know if your family has different boss fight combos from these.

Green boss fight combo, Backstab, Backstab, Crowbar Swing, Crowbar Swing

Yellow boss fight combo #1, Rifle Round, Sucker Punch, Crowbar Swing, Rifle Round

Yellow boss fight combo #2, Backstab, Backstab, Rifle Round, Backstab

Yellow boss fight combo #3, Rifle Round, Rifle Round, Sucker Punch, Rifle Round

Epic Family Boss Fights

Cerulean Master recently posted this on the forums:

We're excited to announce your family will soon be facing some epic bosses, starting with Jeff The Knife. Usually, you are able to complete the Boss Fights on your own, but this time, it will take the collaborative strength of your family to defeat them! Hop on your Thai Centipede and pull your Laser Squirrel out because this will be no easy feat.

So we don't really know what "soon" is, but we do know that a bunch of new inventory items were added to our inventory -- and then pulled again. I KNOW it was there, but *poof* now it's not.

That's almost 30 items there. I look to see them back in inventory in the near future, along with a boring, Raven-like boss fight for us to get out of the way.

Zynga's "business plan"

It's not that Zynga ignores our suggestions and feedback, it's just that our feedback doesn't often fit in with their business plan. They have as much as said so. That's why so much of what we want doesn't get implemented. Or why we see our ideas implemented in strange ways weeks or months later.

Sad but true. And pretty lame, if you ask me. 

Here's an excellent example: this year's April Fool's event, Beat The Devs. Remember what a flop that ended up being? It was horrible.

I'm sorry to say, that was originally the brainchild of a group of players from several months ago. We put together the idea for fun, having no idea that Zynga would later base an event on the idea. It wasn't a new type of event because we liked that type of event, a fact that escaped Zynga.

Our idea was based on the old boss fight events, like Beat The Feds, or It's On In San Juan, or Rumble In Russia, but the bosses were Zyngons. We even made up funny loot items for mastering each boss, and an achievement for mastering the whole event.

You can imagine, when the April Fool's event started rolling out, we were thrilled to realize that Zynga had listened to our idea. You can also imagine how, about five minutes into the event, we were horrified to realize that our idea had been completely bastardized and turned into a god-awful, useless, and annoying spam event. The bosses didn't really die, and all you got was some useless "limited edition trading card". On top of that, event fatigue was really a problem at the time, and Zynga characteristically released the Beat The Devs joke on top of several other events that were already going on.

Now, several months later, a lot of us are still saying we want the old boss fights back. Zynga has  indicated that they are listening to this feedback. However, in typical Zynga style, it sounds like, as usual, they haven't really listened to the feedback, but have been trying to figure out how to squish it into whatever stupid business plan they have.

I understand how businesses run, many of us do. In another lifetime, I myself was a successful professional. The problem here is that Zynga, like most other corporate companies out there, cannot see past their bottom line and profit margin to the players that are sustaining the game. It seems to me that they are not thinking about game longevity, but rather just driving their business plan, along with the game, into the ground. I wonder how many of those stuffed-suit executives at Zynga actually play any of Zynga's game, much less Mafia Wars.

Personally, I think the new boss fights are extremely boring, and were made impossibly complicated to fit with Zynga's definition of "interesting". Players are STILL asking for those old boss fights back, someone just asked the question during last week's Mafia Wars Live broadcast.

Zynga responded "We have gotten a lot of feedback for the return of stamina based boss fights. We are currently developing a....."

WTF Zynga, we didn't ask you to develop ANYTHING. We asked for the old boss fights back. We are telling you that we liked them, not that we wanted you to come up with something new based on the old boss fights. We want the old boss fights back, why is that so hard to comprehend. WHY is this very specific feedback being ignored by Zynga, WHY can't they make something this simple fit into their damn business plan?

The Inconvenient Raven on Get Satisfaction

The Raven is nothing but a headache! As I first wrote a few days ago, the stupid Raven keeps showing for a boss fight when I'm getting ready to go to bed :-/ It seemed to me that we should be able to start the Raven when we're good and darn ready!

I'm very happy to find out that I'm not the only person with the same thoughts.

Leo wrote me earlier today about a Get Satisfaction thread about exactly that, and it already had over 80 "likes" by the time I checked it again! Zynga has been looking increasingly for feedback from Get Satisfaction, so the more "likes" and "Me Toos" a thread has, the more likely it is to get Zynga's attention.

80 likes is a good start, but it will take a lot more people taking the time to show that they agree before Zynga will take notice. Please go to the Get Satisfaction thread and click "like" and "Me Too" - I already did :0)