Job Board event (more mafia chores) 3/26

 Toothy Walkers, armor [145/220]

Because we don't already have too many Mafia Chores to do each day, Job Board event!

January Job Board

February Job Board

Family Job Board Leader gets the Toothy Walkers!

Global Job Board Leaders get the Graveller, vehicle [varies]

Family Progression: SNAFU 5/23

S.N.A.F.U.

It's what happens whenever Zynga "fixes" something.

Like in Chaos Theory, when Zynga moved a butterfly with our properties, the Family Progression got jacked up for some of us. Because I was able to stay up late last night, I got to collect my Family Progression bump before midnight. 

Funny thing is, when I collected, my timer said I had 6 hours left. Imagine my surprise when I got on  this morning and saw this

Well that sucks. So, before I send a frantic message off to Customer Service, I checked the Known Issues Forum .  

The first thing I read was "We believe the following issue has been fully resolved". *Not*  Keep Reading, there is a spot a little lower where they ask us to "report here" if you are having an issue with family progression. Which I did. We'll see how long this takes. Good luck!

*UPDATE*
09:42 a.m. Pacific Time:
 The In Game Support Page now has a post on this issue. It links back to the same Survey

Don't forget to click on the bandage so they know you want it fixed!

Spockholm toolbar updates, now shows mastery for Family Progression

 

A few minutes ago I was playing Mafia Wars and I noticed that mastery stars were now appearing on my Collect buttons for Family Progression. At first I thought this was a neat new feature added by Zynga, but Zynga doesn't often add such helpful features without bugs and Buy buttons, especially not on Sundays. Then it occurred to me to check my various tool bars. Sure enough...disabling the Spockholm toolbar made the stars go away, and the mastery stars showed up again when I re-enabled the toolbar. I checked with Eike, and he told me these are in fact a new feature for their toolbar. I love it!

There have been many times when I was close to leveling that I skipped collecting a Family Progression bonus because I couldn't tell which bonus I was about to collect. This will be quite helpful when planning and choosing which bonuses to collect.

Additionally, I figured out it will show the mastery star for the next level bonus you can collect, not necessarily which level mastery you have achieved. For example, I have mastered my Property portion of Family Progression for today, but I have not collected. As you can see, it is displaying a bronze mastery star, not the gold one.

I also noticed that the Spockholm toolbar will alert you when there are new or updated bookmarklets, AKA Spocklets.

Good job guys, I really like this update.

5 new levels of Family Progression

From the Zynga blog (the real one).

We're excited to announce 5 new levels of Family Progression, each with a new perk! You'll find the new levels 11 - 15 at the bottom of this complete chart:

Level	Family XP	Perk
1	0		Ambitious I Restore energy 5% faster. Store +1 energy pack (6 total).
2	50,000		Well Connected Get 4 hired guns per request for 501 Mafia, +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF, and 10% less damage in losses.
3	100,000		Industrious Upgrade faster with one less construction part of each type needed, 5% chance to loot 2X parts.
4	225,000		Grudge Holder Add 10 more players to your Family Rivals list. Get extra loot from helping in Operations.
5	500,000		Ambitious II Restore energy 10% faster. Store +1 energy pack (7 total).
6	1,000,000		Overkill Do more damage from Power attacks, get +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF, and 20% less damage in losses.
7	2,250,000		Craftsman 10% chance to loot 2X Property parts.
8	5,000,000		Loot And Pillage Get extra loot when you help in Wars. Add 10 more players to Family Rivals list.
9	10,000,000		Ambitious III Restore energy 15% faster. Store +1 energy pack (8 total).
10	22,500,000		Scrapper Restore stamina 10% faster. Cut timer by 2 hours to Declare War every 6 hours. Get +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF.
11	32,500,000		Repairman Increase family battle safe house heal rate by 10%.
12	42,500,000		Gang Up Increase damage to family bosses by 5%.
13	52,500,000		Treasure Hunter Increase loot drop rates in Secret Districts by 5%.
14	65,000,000		Slugger Increase to Mafia attack/defense by 500/500, stamina regenerates 15% faster.
15	77,500,000		Demolitionist Increase damage to opponents in the family battle by 5%.

Zynga inquires about Family Progression issues

Ten days ago, I made a post wanting to know how many of you have had or are having issues with your Family Progression timers or objectives getting "stuck". After pressing the issue repeatedly with Customer Support, finally one of the Zyngons wrote back saying that my account had been reviewed for the problem. Since then, the only issue that I've had is the timer and objectives not resetting on nights that I don't complete all of the objectives.

I no longer bother with the forums or Get Satisfaction, as they generally offer nothing but canned answers, no resolutions, and infractions which you may or may not be told about, but I did happen to notice that Super Moderator Rinzler recently made a post about the Family Progression issues.

Hi Players,
Are you still experiencing family progression issues? If so, please reply below with the following information: 

1) Please describe your issue and anything else out of the ordinary you have witnessed. 

2) Please post your Facebook User ID Number, or profile link:
This is almost as important as the issue itself. 

3) Post Browser/Operating System/Flash Version: This helps us find patterns with particular issues. 

The more information and detail that you supply, the faster we can get this resolved. 

All posts will initially be hidden from public view, but will be moved to another location and made public if they contain no personal or other confidential information. 

Thanks!
-Rinzler

I can't imagine that many people would want to post their info on the forums, given the kind of behavior that moderators allow to go on there, so I made a test response to the thread to verify that posts are indeed private.

If you are having issues with Family Progression, please go to this forum thread and make your report.

Is Your Family Progression "Stuck"?

I have a question, for any Mafia Wars player who may read this: have you been having issues with your Family Progression getting 'stuck'? 

My timer isn't stuck, but my Objectives are; these were completed three days ago, and have not reset. Since my Family got rolled into the daily timer, it seemed like I kept on having issues with being able to complete the daily objectives - because of the 'stuck' objectives, so I started paying attention. 3 of the last 4 days, I have this issue. Gee, I wonder if the Developers are aware of this issue.

Question number 2: have you contacted Customer Support about this? 

This seems to be a widespread problem, now that I have my ear to the ground, and I'm not getting sh*t done with "Customer Support". What else can we do?

If you have this same problem, I ask you to take a couple of minutes to email customer support about the issue, then email ME your incident number (you'll get this in the confirmation email after submitting your ticket).

And then share this with your friends, because something tells me this isn't just me. Let's see what we can get done.

Family Slums - Weekly Gold Mastery "Challenge"

Our "weekly timer is once again ticking... but a day late... 6 days to finish most parts of the Family Progression may seem like enough... but loosing a day of Property collection is fatal to completing your mastery RP Free.

I thought I timed my property collection yesterday properly... so that when the timer restarted I would be able to squeeze in enough crafting sessions to finish without spending the 24 RP a second week in a row.

I collected my properties today as soon as I could. Try as I might to align the stars and the clicks... I will be < 2hrs short of  of the crucial last collection to make Gold.

The bumps in the daily timer roll out worked their way through quickly... our kinks... they take waaay to long to get past.

If you are in the same boat... or would like to help make sure your daily life doesn't change into a weekly struggle...

Please take a minute to come by Get Satisfaction here to share your thoughts.

I'll here working on my 24 levels to afford to finish this week's mastery.

Family Timer Searching for Satisfaction

Good morning... it's a beautiful summer day here... but all is rather cloudy on the family front.

The timer has not been fixed:

So I started a thread over on Get Satisfactions:

Simple idea... bag the timer... let us play! Please head over here if you agree... or if you just need a place to vent while you wait for the reset.

Family Flu - Timer-itis Strikes

They said it... it's in the banner add for the Family Progression FAQ ... more on that later...

How is your daily quest going? Did you know you were the only game in town again?

This isn't a bad black box overlay from Photoshop... this is what my mission bar expansion looks like... Chrome didn't burp... it's the current version... people are resetting and restarting and clearing more cookies than a Sesame Street episode... 'Tis true folks... the week has ended...

Our family will be loosing 1/3rd of our next level of effort... I used 24 RP to finish my Property Mastery... starting out with  less than a full week on the clock there was not way to complete it RP free.

As for the Jobs and Ices... we ran through those soooo fast the first 3 levels I don't even want to think about how many family points were lost when the bars were full... and people just wanted to play the way they always do.

I am really really proud of how we came together and figured out what we could as quickly as possible... I am finding this a lot of fun and can't wait to be able to help the family all over again with the new time period...

So when does the new week start?

If the FAQ is to be believed... there is no more time for the weekly folks... it's letting us know... it's GONE!

Don't worry... you can still Get a Grip and Smuggle a Haven on timers... just not the timer that gives you family XP and well... sick perks :-(.

Supreme Problem with Weekly Family Timer

I am finding this weekly timer a Supreme pain! It made me burst into song this morning:

Stop! In the name of love
Before you press collect

Baby, baby
I'm aware of where you go
Each time you craft that gun

I watch you send in your points
Knowing your other level will climb

But this time before you press collect
Leaving me alone and hurt

(Think it o-o-ver) After I've been good to ice?
(Think it o-o-ver) After I've been sweet to help?

No one likes to be told how to play... when to ice... when to craft... but this Family Progression is proving to be really challenging.

Our family is on a weekly timer... if you reach silver on the first day... the amount of effort to finish gold is HUGE! There is no way to help the family on a daily basis.... except to collect less.

We didn't realize that the family progress doesn't work like the individual mission progress.

Right out of the starting gate I chose a Brazil Ruby job do do... it blew through Bronze and well into the silver  progress... cool... I can just play and play and not care and collect when I want..right?

WRONG

2 ways to screw the pooch... both your own and your pack...

1. If you just keep jobbing or icing and never collect... and you reach gold mastery... you can't collect... not your own points or your family points... now people who have done this are on the leader-board for the family... so we *assume* the family points got counted??? There is no ticker tape of points... so who knows!

2. If you press collect after your family has reached 100% complete in a section... NOTHING will be shown in the bar when you reach the next level!  It may have helped you level... but your 1400 or 2100 points won't help your family get more perks.

Soooo you would have to make sure that you didn't finish gold until the family levels in order to have all of your family points count... and still get your individual XP...

Sound confusing? Sure enough!

But you don't get a do over the next day like the first families to get this feature! In order to get the gold level of ices... 1050... that's right... you have to do better then an icing season worth and you still could not help the family? 70,000 experience points in jobs... and not a % closer to a perk... blow the gold collection... either by pressing too early... or continuing to play and have the points auto dumped by the game... and your effort is for naught...

Not cool! Not at all!

Family Progression now fully released

FINALLY!

Our admins have been eagerly waiting for this all weekend. They've been working together to figure out how to best coordinate our redtag group members and the info they had - which was confusing! I'm still looking it all over. According to Zynga, the rest of the redtag groups that received the feature today will have a weekly Family timer, as opposed to a daily one that those in the first release got. After a few weeks, we'll all be transitioned to the same timer set-up.

It's nice to see that Zynga has fully tested its content prior to release, as always.
/sarcasm

Now for the task of figuring all this out!