All players should now have Crack The Safe. This has been one of the slowest roll outs in the history of Mafia Wars. The loot items are great but they come with a risk. Many players are receiving bans from Facebook for sending too many friend requests. It's unclear if Zynga failed to recognize this risk or determined it didn't matter. The most common ban is a 2 day block from sending friend requests and inbox messages to people who aren't one of your Facebook friends. You will get the following notice and then you have to decide to remove all of your pending friend requests. It is optional but if you want to reduce the chance of Facebook thinking you're a spammer, it's wise to do so. Once you click on "Continue", you need to check the "I understand box" and then "Confirm". This will mark the beginning of your 2 day block. From experience, it doesn't always last two days.
Mujtaba is another player who cracked the safe 100 times and got the special Grand Prize item that Zynga failed to warn their players about. A 30 Day Block from sending friend requests.
Since Zynga didn't bother to warn us of this risk, don't expect them to give you advice on how to prevent friend request blocks. Here are a few tips to help you invite friends without getting blocked by Facebook.
1. After sending 12 friend requests, wait 30 minutes, send 12 more and wait 30 minutes again. If you follow this pattern, you won't hit your friend request limit and get flagged by Facebook.
2. If you get a verification box asking you if you know the person you are sending a friend request to, do NOT click on "Cancel" or "I know XXX". Stop what you are doing and refresh the screen by hitting the F5 key. Save the person you tried to add for later and you can continue to send more.
3. If you have a lot of pending friend requests that haven't been accepted, you're at a greater risk of getting a ban. There currently is no way to get a list of your sent requests so you have to visit the profiles of the people you sent them to
(1). To remove all of your pending friend requests, you have to wait until you get the 2 day block shown above.
4. If you ever joined mass add e-mail groups to get mafia members, you may have a lot of pending e-mail requests that you should probably remove. To do this, go to your account and select "Edit Friends".
Now select "Invite Friends" located on the upper left of this page.
Click on "Manage Invites and Contacts" located on the lower right of the page.
Check each request and click on "Delete Selected". This will remove all pending Facebook friend requests that you have sent through your e-mail address.
Another thing that wasn't thought through are the "Invite" buttons on the Crack The Safe Module.
Zynga, in their infinite wisdom, will give you a list of players who are already in your mafia if you click on the "Invite" buttons from your Home Page.
If you don't believe me, try it. Here is the first person on my Crack The Safe Invite list. I went to his profile, did a switch and sure enough he is already in my mafia. Nice one Zynga!
You need to go to your My Mafia tab from the Home Page and select the Recruit tab to get a list of Facebook friends who aren't in your mafia.
For information on the best strategy of adding mafia members for Crack The Safe, read my post
Crack The Safe Do's and Don'ts. There are now many great Facebook groups to help you get mafia members for Crack The Safe. An example of one is
MW Crack The Safe. For a list of them all, type Crack The Safe into your Facebook search bar. Click on "See more results for crack the safe to find even more groups.
Many thanks to Thunder Crew and Tom Huges for posting tips to avoid Facebook bans on the
Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page and to Percy and Mujtaba for the blocking screen shots.
Or, you could just ignore the event altogether. Is there anything even remotely fun about this?
ReplyDeletethe loot is worth it - thanks for the tips, Jen
ReplyDeleteloot is decent - especially for not having to do too much.
ReplyDeletei opted to -re-sign up for the MW slotmachine 'add me' list and promptly got a 4 day suspension. yeah, won't be doing that again!
now, i just play the slot machine (once a day) and check out the home page and friend 5-7 folks who have had 10 or less hits recently. that way, i get my loot (got my 20th item today) and they get help with their achievement. seems like a win-win to me.
as with all things, just gotta do it in moderation...:)
Ppl forget fast. How many of us did get the piky box and many 1000 account was closed down by FB when we start play this game. When we all try to get 500 member fast. Dont know who is worse zynga or FB but both are nuts if you ask me. This game was fun when i started plat. We help each other out . Then players start trade, and some start cheat as hell and many still are, Selling loot and so on. Now its not fun any more. When zynga make the drop ratoi like 0 on many loot they give monet to them who know how to cheat the system
ReplyDelete"not having to do too much"??? That's the whole problem here: adding 500 friends just for this *is* too much. It's ridiculous. Who the hell even has 500 real friends? This goes AGAINST facebook policy. We are now faced with a decision: do all this *work* adding non-friends, or don't do it and fall behind those that do. This is no fun at all. Perhaps now is the time to quit the game.
ReplyDeleteAlways appreciate the tips.
ReplyDeleteAdding slowly :))
ReplyDeleteJust going to get 1 of each item.....have 3 already.
ReplyDeleteToo much of an effort adding friends. I've been removing non-playing friends over the last month or so, so adding new ones again is a bit of a pointless exercise.
In any case I'm sure in about 3 months time this loot will be outdated and you'll be stuck with managing 500 new friends.
FHEL 5 coming soon....I should hope so....
Here is a good one for u too scratch ur heads over. I have been put on the ban list 5 times -starting out is 1 day then 2 days then 2 days then 2wks and again 2 wks. so explain this one for all to know about being banned for 2 weeks. thanks loot lady. i have others ways around the ban since i can not invite or send out messages. and they work just ask me.
ReplyDeleteI love this event. Replace old non-playing friends with new friends who are excited about the game! Way to pump new blood into things: link up people who play!
ReplyDeletePity FB has to be stupid about it.
Why not just give us an option of "This account plays a lot of games, and does not mind receiving friend requests from strangers" that you can click or not? When you need friends, click it, when you don't, unclick it. Stupid FB.
Yes cracked 100 safes but took a while
ReplyDeleteHow do you suggest I find new ppl that will qualify for "crack the safe"? I have no idea anymore!!! lol thanks!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/#!/BostonBrawla
Crack my head open! zynga!
ReplyDeleteAnything remotely fun about this? Items in the 80s and 90s are nice, but I'm sure they'll be junk by the end of the year!
ReplyDeleteHow do you know how many you've added ? Is 100 times cracking the safe a win ?
ReplyDeletebe careful 12 in 30 min will still get you banned, i waited 45 min and got to my 6th person then got banned for 4 days :(
ReplyDelete4 days banned what bs.it's hard to ask addminns 4 freinds to join groups
ReplyDeletei've been banned since i came over from msmw. i didn't know there was a ban from sending fr's here. and i was just accepting the ones that were sent to me from other friends and got in trouble. still have more, first time my ban was up i clicked on 5 of them and BAN, again. today i clicked on 8 of them and BANnnn again. but now that i'm reading what you have in here about cracking the safe and sending the invites i am wondering if it's that, that has been adding to it all along. i really have no clue what i'm doing being that i had never played here b4 the switch over.
ReplyDeleteIs there any how to cancel 30 days block. Pls Help!
ReplyDeleteAnd it's also sometimes pretty arbitrary. Got a 7 day ban after sending five - yes, 5! - friend requests. My only guess is that some of the people in the Crack the Safe groups get all they need then start refusing further requests. :(
ReplyDelete"My only guess is that some of the people in the Crack the Safe groups get all they need then start refusing further requests. :("
ReplyDeleteThat's a good guess. Refusing a request can also lead to the requestors ban. Pretty mean thing to do after squeezing out their own maximum.
I am also going slow here ... not more than 20 a day, thats 4 safes. I'd rather not make the 100 than being blocked. Does anybody know for how much longer this will be on? I suppose I was one of the last to get it, I think the rollout took them more than 2 weejs so I am expecting this to be around for awhile.
With all the groups and Add-Me's, etc out there, I feel there really isn't too much reason to add/request friends yourself. Just put your name out there on the various pages and people will flock to YOU.
ReplyDeleteI especially like Josh Miller's JGrabAllGifts tool, since you get other people that use that tool. Paying a sponsor fee, you help his cause, AND help yourself. Easy!
arrghh...i hate this banned stuff, facebook really..really annoying..
ReplyDeleteWow, i need this tips. Thanks
ReplyDelete