Zynga addressed many of the current issues today on their Forum Boards in a sticky post titled Mafia Wars Community: The Past, the Present, & the Future. by Jonezie Malone, Community Manager. I'm not going to add my opinion or views on this post because I think it's important that all players read it with an open mind and formulate their own opinion.
 | Community Manager |
Mafia Wars Community: The Past, the Present, & the Future. Hello Mafia Community Members,
I’m writing this address today because we have several important issues currently that affect many of you and we’d like to take some time to give you an update on our progress as a team. One of the more recent complaints from community is a lack of communication from us and I’m letting you know that this responsibility is on the shoulders of me and my team. We are taking big steps in the right direction to ensure you get your messaging from the development team quicker and in multiple viewing locations.
My team is on the forums daily and one thing we have been great at is delivering your messages to the team, a major kudos go out to Al Catraz and Bandilero our Super Moderators and their moderation teams for staying in constant communication with us at all hours of the day. Also a huge kudos to you, our forum community for working with us to catch issues early after release so we can stomp them out faster. I’ll be addressing several topics which I have highlighted in bold so you can read the portions that you are most interested in hearing about.
COMMUNICATION: Part of our dedication to opening our communication is a promise to deliver release notes to the community. We are ramping up this process now and you all should see our latest notes delivered in easily accessed locations this weekend or early next week. Our Developer Section is full of authorized developers and designers, these folks have been having active discussions with members of our community since that forum was opened in February. If you haven’t stopped by, please visit and see what the latest hot topics in the Developers Section. If you would like to comment on this thread there is a copy within the Developer Section that you are allowed to make comments on, please keep in mind this a highly moderated section so please post accordingly.
GIFTING: Gifting is a natural and fun part of the social sharing within Mafia Wars. Many of you have requested the ability to send more gifts daily. We are working on solutions to this request. We have some changes coming to our system that we hope you are going to enjoy and that make your life a little bit easier. We’ll be able to share more specifics about these changes with you early next week as we get final approval and testing on the things we have been working on since Vegas was released and Myspace was updated.
In June we made some changes in the system that slowed down gift sending and we removed some items that were previously giftable to a non giftable state. These decisions were made at a high level because some users were exploiting the systems and duplicating items. Slowing down the gifting program and removing items from the gift list was a temporary solution for us so that we could build in some more sophisticated exploit management tools and detection alerts. As we implement these systems you will see us open up the gifting world again and place more items into the lists again. If you have an item in the game that you would really love to see on the gift list, please visit this thread and make your suggestion. Gift Suggestion Thread.
CHEATING: From checkers to chess people will find ways to cheat in a game when you aren’t looking. Mafia Wars is no exception. Earlier this year, our Mafia Wars Executive Team made a commitment to the community that we would crack down on cheating and exploiting in the game. While the evidence of our success may not be obvious to everyone, we have made tremendous progress decreasing the number and impact of cheaters and exploiters in the game. We have a dedicated effort composed of members of our CS, QA, Community, Security and Development Teams working together to fight this fight. Playing against a cheater is a frustrating and non enjoyable experience and we have a serious commitment to eliminate the areas where people can cheat against other honest players.
3rd PARTY TOOLS & PROGRAMS: Are against the rules. We are currently assessing many of these programs and finding out how they interact with our systems to prevent them from causing game imbalances. Furthermore, installing any unverified software can be dangerous to your own system, from both a virus and security standpoint. If you are using a tool or program for some aspect of the game please understand you are doing so at the risk of being flagged for investigation. Investigation on accounts could lead to more serious action or the removal of items or points if it is determined that those items or points did not come from legitimate sources. If you are involved in player to player trading you cannot always be certain that the goods you are receiving are legitimate. We are working on solutions to combat this issue.
3rd PARTY LOOT & POINT SELLERS: Are engaging in fraudulent & illegal activity often obtaining their goods using stolen identities and credit cards. Purchasing points or loot from these sources could leave you at risk within Mafia Wars and within the real world. Before you purchase make certain you are purchasing from an authorized vendor of Zynga and Mafia Wars. Many groups and individuals are good at making fake virtual store fronts. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so be careful to protect you, your account, and your credit score. Make a dent in real internet crime by not supporting unauthorized sellers.
BOYCOTTS & THREATS: These tactics are not necessary to get our attention and often end up ruining relationships that can be constructive rather than destructive. Our forums are the best way to get our attention on matters that are important to you. Mafia Wars community consists of millions of people that play our product daily and tens of millions that play monthly. That’s a lot of people who have a lot of wishes and desires for improving the game. Help us keep our communication lines open. While many of us work long hours, we are required by law to take some down time. This means we must prioritize and schedule the time we do have to work on the issues and features that will bring the biggest impact and improvement to the game and community. With millions of people wanting things from us we are in a constant state of adjusting our road map and resources to meet the most needs fastest. While we understand some issues are more important to you than others our ultimate eye is providing the best social crime game in the world. Any time we have to focus on a boycott or threat from our community this effort takes resource time away from our end goal. Do all of us a favor and keep us working on the things we should be working on. If there is a problem or project you think needs attention use our Customer Support system, forums, or email feedback@mafiawars.com.
Mafia Wars has a very bright future and we want all of you to be part of that future. We have some new announcements coming up very soon about features and designs we have been working on and we will to share those with you. We currently are still very much involved in the Las Vegas launch and are looking forward to when our game reaches 10,000,000 visitors so we can blow up the Armored Truck. We also have a few more prizes and promotions surrounding Vegas so keep your ears on for more news on this coming this weekend or early next week. Help us maintain the lines of open, constructive communication and we will respond.
Thank you all for your contributions and supporting us by playing the game. We hope you enjoy the boss event and some other goodies we have ready to go during the continued promotion surrounding our most recent Las Vegas launch and we look forward to bringing you some new and hot announcements very soon about some new features we’ve been working on that we hope will blow you away.
Best,
Jonezie Malone
Senior Community Manager
Mafia Wars
I’m writing this address today because we have several important issues currently that affect many of you and we’d like to take some time to give you an update on our progress as a team. One of the more recent complaints from community is a lack of communication from us and I’m letting you know that this responsibility is on the shoulders of me and my team. We are taking big steps in the right direction to ensure you get your messaging from the development team quicker and in multiple viewing locations.
My team is on the forums daily and one thing we have been great at is delivering your messages to the team, a major kudos go out to Al Catraz and Bandilero our Super Moderators and their moderation teams for staying in constant communication with us at all hours of the day. Also a huge kudos to you, our forum community for working with us to catch issues early after release so we can stomp them out faster. I’ll be addressing several topics which I have highlighted in bold so you can read the portions that you are most interested in hearing about.
COMMUNICATION: Part of our dedication to opening our communication is a promise to deliver release notes to the community. We are ramping up this process now and you all should see our latest notes delivered in easily accessed locations this weekend or early next week. Our Developer Section is full of authorized developers and designers, these folks have been having active discussions with members of our community since that forum was opened in February. If you haven’t stopped by, please visit and see what the latest hot topics in the Developers Section. If you would like to comment on this thread there is a copy within the Developer Section that you are allowed to make comments on, please keep in mind this a highly moderated section so please post accordingly.
GIFTING: Gifting is a natural and fun part of the social sharing within Mafia Wars. Many of you have requested the ability to send more gifts daily. We are working on solutions to this request. We have some changes coming to our system that we hope you are going to enjoy and that make your life a little bit easier. We’ll be able to share more specifics about these changes with you early next week as we get final approval and testing on the things we have been working on since Vegas was released and Myspace was updated.
In June we made some changes in the system that slowed down gift sending and we removed some items that were previously giftable to a non giftable state. These decisions were made at a high level because some users were exploiting the systems and duplicating items. Slowing down the gifting program and removing items from the gift list was a temporary solution for us so that we could build in some more sophisticated exploit management tools and detection alerts. As we implement these systems you will see us open up the gifting world again and place more items into the lists again. If you have an item in the game that you would really love to see on the gift list, please visit this thread and make your suggestion. Gift Suggestion Thread.
CHEATING: From checkers to chess people will find ways to cheat in a game when you aren’t looking. Mafia Wars is no exception. Earlier this year, our Mafia Wars Executive Team made a commitment to the community that we would crack down on cheating and exploiting in the game. While the evidence of our success may not be obvious to everyone, we have made tremendous progress decreasing the number and impact of cheaters and exploiters in the game. We have a dedicated effort composed of members of our CS, QA, Community, Security and Development Teams working together to fight this fight. Playing against a cheater is a frustrating and non enjoyable experience and we have a serious commitment to eliminate the areas where people can cheat against other honest players.
3rd PARTY TOOLS & PROGRAMS: Are against the rules. We are currently assessing many of these programs and finding out how they interact with our systems to prevent them from causing game imbalances. Furthermore, installing any unverified software can be dangerous to your own system, from both a virus and security standpoint. If you are using a tool or program for some aspect of the game please understand you are doing so at the risk of being flagged for investigation. Investigation on accounts could lead to more serious action or the removal of items or points if it is determined that those items or points did not come from legitimate sources. If you are involved in player to player trading you cannot always be certain that the goods you are receiving are legitimate. We are working on solutions to combat this issue.
3rd PARTY LOOT & POINT SELLERS: Are engaging in fraudulent & illegal activity often obtaining their goods using stolen identities and credit cards. Purchasing points or loot from these sources could leave you at risk within Mafia Wars and within the real world. Before you purchase make certain you are purchasing from an authorized vendor of Zynga and Mafia Wars. Many groups and individuals are good at making fake virtual store fronts. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is, so be careful to protect you, your account, and your credit score. Make a dent in real internet crime by not supporting unauthorized sellers.
BOYCOTTS & THREATS: These tactics are not necessary to get our attention and often end up ruining relationships that can be constructive rather than destructive. Our forums are the best way to get our attention on matters that are important to you. Mafia Wars community consists of millions of people that play our product daily and tens of millions that play monthly. That’s a lot of people who have a lot of wishes and desires for improving the game. Help us keep our communication lines open. While many of us work long hours, we are required by law to take some down time. This means we must prioritize and schedule the time we do have to work on the issues and features that will bring the biggest impact and improvement to the game and community. With millions of people wanting things from us we are in a constant state of adjusting our road map and resources to meet the most needs fastest. While we understand some issues are more important to you than others our ultimate eye is providing the best social crime game in the world. Any time we have to focus on a boycott or threat from our community this effort takes resource time away from our end goal. Do all of us a favor and keep us working on the things we should be working on. If there is a problem or project you think needs attention use our Customer Support system, forums, or email feedback@mafiawars.com.
Mafia Wars has a very bright future and we want all of you to be part of that future. We have some new announcements coming up very soon about features and designs we have been working on and we will to share those with you. We currently are still very much involved in the Las Vegas launch and are looking forward to when our game reaches 10,000,000 visitors so we can blow up the Armored Truck. We also have a few more prizes and promotions surrounding Vegas so keep your ears on for more news on this coming this weekend or early next week. Help us maintain the lines of open, constructive communication and we will respond.
Thank you all for your contributions and supporting us by playing the game. We hope you enjoy the boss event and some other goodies we have ready to go during the continued promotion surrounding our most recent Las Vegas launch and we look forward to bringing you some new and hot announcements very soon about some new features we’ve been working on that we hope will blow you away.
Best,
Jonezie Malone
Senior Community Manager
Mafia Wars
__________________
I'm a third party tool. My computer is a third party tool. My browser is a third party tool. My mouse is a third party tool. Zynga, Just TOOLS!
ReplyDeleteI smell opium.
ReplyDeleteZynga I love you ! - NOT
ReplyDeleteif zynga listened to the customers then alot of these changes would not have been made. you want peop-le to buy your reward points only to then punish them for doing so. kinda seems counter productive. not all of us can afford it. but we suck it up and play. as far as gifting you made it freaking almost impossible to gift!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a load of Baloney Mr.Malone!!!
ReplyDeleteThis part make me piss out laughing, "Make a dent in real internet crime by not supporting unauthorized sellers.".....
Zynga YOU ARE THE REAL FUCKING CRIMINALS, with your GESTAPO Regime and rules.
Most likely one of the best written letters (Jonezie Malone post) I have seen regarding game management and programming.
ReplyDeleteGood idea to post in multiple locations. I am 50 and don't really read any forums unless they are political.
Didn't know Trading (Pirating) was as much a issue as you say. I get invited to those almost every week and hit ignore.
I always wondered how someone not from your company could "sell" loot.
I can understand trading... 10 chop shop bricks for 1 forest scorpion. But according to the post some are also creating loot too, and I agree, that is wrong.
-Vito Rickhoff
I have been playing Mafia Wars for the last two years, and some of the tool bars are causing no harm at all. What harm can the gifting, switch and repeat job, tool do. You are not stealing anything anything from anyone, only helping people out.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that there are weird things going on with "MW". Like today it is running sooo slow, and rewards do not show up some days, and there are days that it just does not work at all. So maybe ye should put some work into keeping the players online.
Okay, as a player from deep, dark Africa..... How will blowing up an Armored truck benefit me? Players outside the US and Canada have always been excluded from these promotions (btw, Gambling is legal in SA, so no need to exclude us on that one)Couple months ago I convinced a friend to buy some stuff at the 7/11 and send me the numbers...... And after all that I wasn't allowed to take part in the promotion.
ReplyDeleteThis game is full of SHIT now!
ReplyDelete