July 13th Server Glitch

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By now, most of you have heard about the July 13th glitch in one of the servers that affected many players accounts.  In a sticky post, Zynga calls this server finicky and the glitch a hiccup.  Many of my affected mafia members call it one big pain in the a$$!

I found out about this "hiccup" when Kevin Nathan,{FIDE⊕MC} Don Beppo, one of my favorite mafia members sent me an inbox message asking if I had 50 Federal Agents he could borrow.  He seemed sad and stressed when he explained that he lost most of his Achievement Badges.  While he was working hard to redo his achievements, he was nice enough to take screen shots and share his correspondence with Zynga.  By the way, Kevin is responsible for teaching me computer basics.  It wasn't easy for him to do but he was patient and I appreciate all the time he spent helping me get it.  Sending 50 Federal Agents was the least I could do.  Kevin and a few others created a group called {Fide} In Fide Familia/{FIDE⊕MC} Morte Concessionari which is a helping clan.  They are more than happy to welcome new members. 
The Discovery
"I logged on a little while ago and had 46 skill points (had 0 this morning). Then I started getting achievements that I cleared last year, checked them out and I have a bunch I have to re-do"./Kevin Nathan

The 46 skill points Kevin received were from Achievements that were automatically "earned" because the current statistics of his account were already at or exceeded the threshold of the Achievements.  This image is from the Mafia Wars Maniac blog, thank you Ade!

The Support Ticket:

From: Kevin Nathan
To: Zynga Customer Support
Subject: Lost Achievements
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:12:14 -0700

I logged on to Mafia Wars today and had many of my earned achievements gone, so I have been working on getting them back. Will I lose the skill points I am getting now, if you find and fix what caused this? I am afraid to play the game if I'm going to lose what I earn now.
The First Response:
Hello Kevin,

Thanks for contacting Zynga Customer Support.

The problem you are experiencing with the achievements that roll back is a known issue that we are working hard to resolve quickly.

Kevin, I am extremely sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. I can only imagine how you might be feeling right now because you encountered this problem.

Please bear with us, our game developers are doing all they can to have it up and running again at the soonest possible time. I hope that you keep on supporting our games.

Kind regards,
Grazel G.
Zynga Customer Support

The Next Day: 
"I kept the re-earned Skill Points! I still have to re-earn a couple of those achievements, but that's alright. Pretty good pay out for it! :-)"/Keven Nathan

The Zynga Forum Notice

 Zynga Customer Support Page

Later That Night:

"They repaired my account *again* when I logged in tonight. It's the same screen I saw this morning.  I *did* get the 50 GF, but it was on the rolled back values (prior to the other 50), so I ended up losing 5 GF points that I got in Mystery Bags, Daily Chance, etc... The properties in each city were ready to collect with no robberies on any of them. That was a nice bump! :-)  Ah, but I lost 200 Chain Vipers that were gifted to me. What Zynga doesn't giveth, they still taketh away... damn them!"/Kevin Nathan   
The Zynga Forum Boards

Support Ticket Part 2
"Losing the Chain Vipers really pissed me off, so I am sending them a response to the ticket I sent yesterday"/Kevin Nathan
From: Kevin Nathan
To: "Zynga Customer Support"
Subject: Re: [Incident: 100713-014187] Reply from Zynga Customer Support
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:59:59 -0700

This morning, when I logged on, I saw you had rolled back my account and I got most of my achievements back. Missed a few, but I can just re-do them when I am able. I appreciated, very much, the compensation you sent with it! Thank you.

Then tonight, I logged on again and got another popup about rolling back to the same date/time, with the same compensation. Somehow, this ended up in a net loss of 5 Reward Points (I had 98 when I logged off this morning and only 93 when I logged back in tonight). I can account for two of them today (Daily Chance and Mystery Bags) and I seem to remember getting another one but can't remember why. However, that's nothing compared to losing gifts -- I had received a gift of 201 Chain Vipers from my clan and they were all gone! As were very many Satellite Phones, Drug Shipments, etc. (I have a mafia member that is quitting and is sending me much of her stuff.) Needless to say, I am now in a very big negative.

I was very happy this morning.

I am very upset tonight. I seem to get screwed quite often in this game, it may be time to think about giving it up. I certainly don't need the aggravation.


Zynga also upset Da Irish Kid!  Don't they know who he is?  To keep up to date with his progress, visit the Mafia Wars Wiki Fan Page.

Update:  Zynga did give me that damn popup and the package, howver my account was NOT rolled back like they said, so I did a live chat again, and they said that it was "a issue they are currently resolving". That was after I started playing a bit. (finishing SA AGAIN, Vegas mission, AGAIN), looting, etc.

Later on that night, they actually DID roll back my account, and I got the same compensation package. However, all the loot that was gathered and progression was reset for the rollback. So once again I had to do SA, and Vegas mission. I did once more a live chat with Zynga, and he did apologize (big surprise) and did not really offer any resolution except to refill my energy and stamina. He could not restock my items lost, as well as the chips that were collected from my inbox (could or would, not sure), and seemed very apologetic. All in all, I ended it with a shameless plug for the wiki. SO in theory, I lost progression, loot and gained: 50 RP, 60 tickets, and 5 racks of chips..........pfft. :/Da Irish Kid