This Secret Stash has been...REMOVED!

Part of my usual morning routine involves that moment of annoyance when, having completed the other many tasks associated with keeping up in Mafia Wars, I finally get to the business of running out accumulated energy and stamina and then have to decide if I want to bother with that stupid Secret Stash.

I almost didn't even notice when that moment never happened this morning, until one of our other admins commented about it.

A quick glance confirmed the Secret Stash is no longer located under the Bosses tab, either.

And I say Good Riddance!

The Secret Stash has a long and contentious history. They used to litter our walls to the point that many of us blocked our friends from posting on our Facebook walls at all. It was definitely abused by Click Monkeys.

Then some players took it into their heads that you weren't really their friend if you didn't let them post on your wall. That's right, people defriended each other because others could no longer stand the wall spam.

Then there were the error messages. Where the hell did Zynga come up with those error messages?? This stash has already been found ...Your friend got the bonus ...it only took a few paranoid idiots to kick off the great Gamers Unite Divide.

Ignorant people making assumptions decided to educate other gullible players into believing that evil, dastardly scripts were really the problem. Let's never mind all the other countless errors Zynga serves its players. This one SAID someone else took the stash, it must be right!

More specifically, Gamers Unite and its Snag Bar came under fire. Misinformed players started defriending and attacking their friends for even liking the Gamers Unite Facebook page, which in no way remotely indicated Snag Bar usage as the new 'experts' proclaimed.

Facebook pages and groups and independent websites sprang up, all for the purpose of spreading propaganda and identifying "cheaters". It really was quite stupid, because it took barely 5 minutes of actual research to determine that these were nothing but ill-founded lies.

All this, because of a Zynga error message.

This past summer, when the new fight module started rolling out, the fight secret stashes disappeared. The new Secret Stash was introduced, and met with rather lackluster reviews.

You got this

a lot more often than you got this.

Will anyone actually miss this feature? I somehow don't think so. I think this was a long time overdue.

fight Secret Stashes, may they rest in peace

I've had the new fighting system since June 1st. A couple days later, I realized something: there are no secret stashes in the new fight module!!!!

Now several days since the initial release, I've still yet to see a single secret stash, and others are starting to notice the same.

There are now at least 3 "stash" variations in the game, but most players think most commonly of the controversial secret stashes that are posted from fight result screens, directly onto your mafia member's wall.

Sadly, since their introduction well over a year ago, those secret stashes have returned a number of errors, issues, bugs, mysteries, and controversies.

Even more sadly, the wording and persistence of these error messages created some serious rifts between players. At some point, the website Gamers Unite came to be touted as the source of a terrible, cheating tool called the Snag Bar. Rumors began circulating that the Snag Bar was somehow stealing the loot contained in those Secret Stashes posted to an individual player's wall. Status message rumors flew. Players started attacking each other. It goes on to this day, with multiple websites, Facebook groups, and fan pages dedicated to the views of one side or the other.


I cannot possibly describe how much I will not miss the fight secret stashes. They rarely worked and caused a metric a$s ton of controversy. Good riddance.

If anyone has seen otherwise, please let me know.
mistyfiedmafiawars@gmail.com

Gamers Unite: A Challenge

The debate on Gamers Unite and the infamous Snag Bar has now raged on for nearly a year. Which is really stupid, because it takes very little effort to learn the truth for yourself. That's what I did, very early on in this melee, and that's what I'm doing again.

That's right, I have the snag bar installed right now, and it's snagging away merrily. Well, actually, it hasn't snagged sh*t yet. It's not the magical tool that many people seem to think it is. But, if people want to keep trying to tell me it's stealing their stashes, I wanted to see if it's true, so I downloaded it and installed it.

The past few days have seen not only a resurgence of rumors about Gamers Unite and the snag bar, but also a new wave of people claiming that "there are posts th[a]t confirm GU DOES INDEED WORK ON MW" (an actual quote).

"GU" does not in and of itself "do" anything, so the originator of that statement has already shown a clear lack of knowledge of the topic. "Does indeed"? Orly? I must not have the same snag bar as you, because mine most definitely does not indeed.

See that? It snags for Farmville, Cafe World, Frontierville, and Cityville. No Mafia Wars.

Although, the snag bar's snagging functionality isn't quite as awesome as some people think, because it ONLY snags items that are already posted to the news feed by other players for their mafias to claim, and it's not even very efficient at that. So even if it did snag for Mafia Wars, it wouldn't be touching the secret stashes that get posted to your wall, it would only be looking for items published to the news feed for the taking.

Ugh, the things I do for the sake of staying informed! I even unblocked Farmville, Cityville, Cafe World, and Frontierville in order to take a fresh look at what the snag bar's capabilities are, and so I'm flooded with requests from those games, lol.

So, as I sit here actually running the snag bar, I'm telling you, you're wrong.

My challenge to you is, if you're certain that it steals stashes, where is your proof? I want to see it.

mistyfiedmafiawars@gmail.com