Mafia Wars Unified Trade Ratios

Share:

 

The past few weeks have not been easy on the trading community.  The glitches, new rules and rumors have all had a huge impact on the community.  I've written several articles in this blog about the specifics (#1,#2,#3,#4).  With all the commonalities of issues facing this community, the leaders have joined forces to do something about one long standing problem that they can resolve.  Trading ratios are the foundation of the trading community.  Without them nobody would be able to determine what a fair trade is.  A trading ratio is simply the value of item A divided by the value of item B.  This is simple to define.  What makes trading ratios complicated is that every trading site determines their own.  The leaders of many trading sites have come together and created a website called Mafia Wars Unified Trading Ratios.  This is not a trading site, it is a place for all people to go and learn what fair ratios are, what tools for trading are available, and how to prevent scams.  Nobody is restricted from using the MWUTR site.  Weather you are arguing with your best buddy over how much your Slot Machine is worth, posting a trade to your mafia family or using the big and small trading sites, MWUTR can help you get it right.
MWUTR consists of two pages.  The first page (UTR) consists of an updated list of ratios and the second page (Trade Tools) contains the current tools and locations used to make trading easier.

The UTR page lists the most recent trading ratios of all the giftable loot and collection items.  If you don't know how to calculate trading ratios, refer to my article titled Talk of The Trade.  In addition to a complete ratio list, this page also features a search bar and a wishlist adder.  Click CTR + F and a search bar will appear at the bottom of the page.  Type in the item you are looking for and boom you will be directed to the ratio for that item.  If you click on the item name, it will be added to your wishlist (if you have a vacant spot).

The Trade tools page lists all the great bookmarklets which facilitate the trading process and links to the script writers websites.  You can install them directly from this page.  If you aren't familiar with bookmarklets and how to install them, read my article titled Bookmarklet Installation: The A,B,C, and Ds.  If you need help using the tools, read my article titled Tools of The Trade.

A really cool feature located on this page is a Loot Converter.  If you are not mathematically inclined or don't feel like calculating a trading ratio.  Simply click on the Loot Converter bookmark and you will be directed to the page containing this tool.  Find the picture of the item you are going to offer in your trade, type the number of item(s) you want to trade, and click submit.  All the other pictures will now contain numbers letting you know what you can ask for.  Click reset to get the ratio of a different item.  It's that easy.  Even Raul The Cuban Local Tough featured in this The Mafia Wars Video Guy Video  (Scott Rendall, at 1:55 seconds) can now quickly and easily calculate a trading ratios.

I was so impressed with MWUTR that I had to know who created it.  David Reedy of The Kingpin Trading Market is responsible for bringing together all the people who worked very hard on this site.  When I complimented David for coming up with a brilliant plan and seeing it through, he replied "It's not about me. Never has been; never will be. This is all about the traders. Simple as that. It has always been my mission to do what I can to help the everyday Joe Trader".  I also learned that about 20 of the major and smaller trading sites have started using these ratios and the website will also focus on combining all the scammer lists out there to create a Unified Scammer Bookmarklet.  Mafia Wars Unified Ratios is a very good thing to happen to the trading community.

"I had an idea to bring all the best and most respectable sites together in unity for the purpose of unifying trade ratios, creating a common scammer database (which is in the works) and define what constitutes fair and safe trading. Others have tried to do this, but it seems that the timing was ripe for unity. I don't want anyone to think that unifying the trade groups and trade ratios was solely my idea and my doing. It has been a cumulative effort put forth by many people from many trade sites.  Within days after uniting we were faced with a huge problem. There were rumors, and finally proof of a cloning script going around that people were unfairly using to give them an illegal edge in the game. We took immediate action and did everything we could possibly do in order to stem the flow of these items.

We, the trade sites, are the equivalent of the Stock Exchange and the Fed combined. When the market was suddenly flooded by Lotto, we did things like drop the universal value of Lotto, raise the value of other items and anything else we could do to keep the trade market alive. It was the equivalent of the Fed dropping interest rates to combat inflation and recession.

The main idea of uniting was to commonly protect our traders from scammers. We all have scammer databases, but sharing of that information is very difficult. We now have an avenue to report new scammers and everyone is able to find that info in a common location and take appropriate actions.
All the best trade sites are essentially after one thing, and that is to protect their traders from the unscrupulous.
 
The UTR (Unified Trade Ratios) was an idea whose time had become necessitated simply because a lot of smaller sites don't have the man power the keep current on ratios.  It is a huge job for any trade site to single-handedly define present ratios based solely upon their own traders.
By uniting our efforts, we are able to gather data from the masses and fairly define the current standings of what is hot, what is not, what is glitched and what needs overall improvement.
Unified, we can create a common standard and make sure that people follow it. We can make sure that traders will find the same numbers where ever they decide to do their trades and not have to routinely refer to each site's ratio list.
A lot of the current ratios are in place to help combat the illegal script some people used to clone Lotto and other loot.

We are now unified under the group title Mafia Wars Unified Group of Trade Site Administrators. This is a secret group and you can't enter without an invitation. You must be an active current trade site or anti-scammer site Administrator or Officer.
We are together discussing what we can do to for the daily traders, and even the daily players who have never traded, to help their game.
We are currently in direct contact with Zynga and the General Manager of Mafia Wars. We are going to help them by offering our insight and ideas to improve the game for everyone. Current immediate issues include glitches and gifting problems.

So the Unified Trade Ratios and the MWUTR site is but one of the many things to come from this venture. Everything we're doing together is an altruistic outreach to the traders and the daily players who may never know what we're doing for them.

To give me full credit is really not necessary. I am merely the creator, mediator and spokesman of the group. Everyone else has put a lot of hard work into this group, too. Credit goes where credit is due... and a lot of people deserve the credit./David Reedy, Kingpin Trading Market