Hope Amidst a Storm and Marketplace 11/12

Aid-El-Weiss, vehicle [154/210] fund raiser item for Direct Relief International $15.00

Group Sale item, Bomber Toolkit 25 RP

Barbary Lioness Bundle, $108.00 comes with 2x Icelandic Horse, 2x Splurge Sail, 60 Skill Points 2x Polo Player and a Barbary Lioness

Mega Pack, $79.00 comes with a Galah, 3x Three Shogun Crates, a Skuller, 260 Reward Points, 60 Skill Points, 500 Mafia, and 4 punches on your Reward Card

More Collectible Stat Cards

Marketplace Mess (facepalm) 8/10

With Zynga stock in the toilet and the Resignation of their COO they seem to be getting desperate to show increased earnings by selling us more and more crap.

This week in the Marketplace in game we have loads of stuff to spend cash or Reward Points on.

Today's is Pick Your Own Bundle.

Earlier this week we've had Finally a Bargain LMAO

Rewards Card deal.

Daniela's Deal (not)

And of course these lovely collectible Cards

Sorry guys, I'm still on my Mafia Wars Spending Diet.

No Sale.

new Zynga gimmick: "Collectable Stat Cards"

There's a new money-grubbing gimmick to be found on your Mafia Wars home page banner. This is apparently one of the ways that Zynga thinks it can double its paying customers. I've got news for them. They can't double paying customers out of the existing customer base, they need to keep both existing customer and find new ones, and the only way they can do that is get their act together and start giving a damn about the players. If I sound bitter, so be it. It's been a bad day and suffice it say, my purse strings got quite a bit tighter.

These images were posted by some peeps in the Mafia Wars Gods group. I'm saving my 60 RPs for the next round of skill point reallocation, but I'm told the going rate is 1 "card" for 15 RPs and 3 cards for 42 RPs. If you glance at the images, it appears you can get anywhere from 3 to 7 skill points in various categories per card. I'm betting it evens out on the lower end of the scale.

Good luck to you if you decide to participate in this; feel free to post your results here.