Nov 20, 2011

The State of Gifting

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On November 10th , Zynga told us all about "enhanced" gifting. They told us that gifts from the Facebook side would eventually go away (1). Below is exactly what they said.

A Note About Mafia Wars Requests on the Facebook Game Requests Page
The enhancements above were made possible by shifting the handling of Mafia Wars requests to be entirely in-game. Another change that results from this is in the behavior of Mafia Wars requests on the Facebook Game Requests page. Before, you were able to accept Mafia Wars requests on that page. Now, the "Accept" buttons bring you into the game, where you can accept all gifts, etc. in the ZMC. Also of note, handling requests entirely in our system means the error codes KE-29, AF-77, and MC-24 sometimes encountered when accepting gifts through the Facebook Game Request page will cease to be problem! These error messages will become a thing of the past once all old requests are cleared out, which should happen within approximately 30 days.


The hidden message we failed to realize at the time is that our precious gifting links would no longer work as these are all created to act like Facebook requests. Now when you click on any gifting link, you get an error pig. For a while, you got the gift anyways but this is no longer the case.
If you try to accept your Facebook Requests, you are directed to your ZMC.
JGrabAllGifts still works but you won't get any gifts out of it. It will tell you that you got the gifts but you really don't. As a tool for Mafia Wars, it's only use now is to clean out your useless Facebook Requests.
Obviously, creating links via the Link-a-Nator is only going to add gift links to the news feeds that don't work. The top half of the tool is still useful as it will generate your personal links that still work.
The Gift-a-Nator isn't going to help you either as it will only open the useless links and you won't get any gifts.
As players, we need to adapt and focus on the ZMC because that is the only way to accept gifts. The main problem with the ZMC is it only holds 100 gifts at a time. Zynga needs to increase this limit so players can keep up with the game.
If your ZMC has 100 gifts and players send you more, the gifts at the bottom are bumped out of the ZMC and rendered useless. In the image below, I have 100 gifts in my ZMC and I outlined the 100th gift.
I sent myself a gift from a different account and that one appears in the first position but my total gift count stays at 100.
I scrolled to the bottom of the ZMC and the last gift before I send the one above has vanished and I will never get to accept it. Hundreds of gifts are now lost to thin air because of this. If we can have a mafia of 501 to make up our equipment scores then why can't we have 501 gifts stay in our ZMC?
If they are going to keep the limit at 100, they should remove some of the useless place holders. My family does a lot of Boss Fights. I don't need 8 spots in my ZMC suggesting I join the Family Boss Fight. If I want to play, I will get there from the Home Page Module or the Boss Tab.
The same applies to new mafia requests. These things don't work half the time and there is an option to accept them all at the same time in the Recruit Page.
This change really impacts players with small mafias. It's going to be more difficult for players to finish gifting events or tasks in Missions. If you have a large mafia, the best strategy for now is to send out as many free gifts as you can and hope you get them in return. There is no limit on how many players you can send a gift to but you can only send 1 to each mafia member every 24 hours. You can only send 50 at a time but may repeat the process for however many are in your mafia. Families should encourage their players to send a free gift to each other everyday. This is easy to do and doesn't take up much time. It's nice that there is a family category on the Gift Send Page so you don't have to search for all your members.

Some gifts don't always appear on the Free Gift Page but you can still get to the Send Page by replacing the XXX with the gift ID to the link below.
http://apps.facebook.com/inthemafia/track.php?next_controller=freegifts&next_params={%22gift_id%22:XXX}

Mike Nestor made these links so players who still need to upgrade their Chicago Properties can get the parts needed. Just click on the link and send them out and hope your mafia returns them to you. Now that we can return gifts with one or two clicks, you will probably see more returned gifts than in the past.
Union Worker
Carpenter Nails
Lath Strips
Iron Cast
Douglas Fir Beams

To ensure you don't lose gifts, it's best to open your gifts in the ZMC a few times a day or when you see you are reaching the limit of 100. The easiest way to do this is to use the ZMC Agent by Team Spockholm. You can find instructions here and the Spockholm Toolbar Import Code is below.

eyJuYW1lIjoiWk1DIiwic3JjIjoiaHR0cDovL3Nwb2NrbGV0LmNvbS9ib29rbWFya2xldC96bWMtYmV0YS5qcyIsInBhZ2UiOiIiLCJhY3RpdmUiOnRydWV9

Once you activate the ZMC Agent, simply drag all your gifts into one of 3 categories. Items you want to open will be opened. Items you want to keep will not be opened or ignored and you can open them at a later time. Items you want to ignore will be cleared from your ZMC. I like to open Harvest Mystery Bags manually so I chose to keep those as well as Battle Requests. I don't care to "open" the Boss Fight notifications or Mafia Wars Invites so I bring those into the ignore box.
When the run was complete, you can see the ZMC Agent did exactly what I told it to do. My Harvest Mystery Bags and Battle Requests were the only things that remained in the ZMC.
Once you have your gifts organized, click the "Start" button and they will be opened, ignored or saved. Here is a run where I opened or ignored everything. When the run is over, the Return Gift requests will show. You want to click these out. You only need to return a gift through a request one time for each of your mafia and you will never have to do it again. Future gifts from a player you sent a return gift to will auto-send a return gift.
Once you click all the return requests, you will see your ZMC Agent processed all of your requests. Do this a few times a day to ensure you won't lose any gifts that your mafia took the time to send you.
Team Spockholm will explore ways to do what they can with what Zynga is allowing us to do in the area of gift sending and accepting. Go to the Spockholm Mafia Tools Fan Page to keep up with their progress. Below are a few messages from the team. Zynga really needs to evaluate their system and allow us to store more gifts in the ZMC. Otherwise there will be too many wasted gift requests.

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Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast.
All material is protected by copyright law

40 comments:

  1. Thank you for the Information. I am now using ZMC. Works great.

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  2. I have some Mafia whose gifts to me do not go to the ZMC. They only go to the FB requests. What about this problem? Others are having the same problem. I am losing these gifts. Is this going to be corrected?

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  3. Asking mwll will not do you much good. Ask zynga.

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  4. Would be great if the Zynga toolbar had the ZMC on it.

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  5. I'm loving it. It's about time Zynga shut down the link-a-nator cheaters.

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  6. and what should I do, i still dont fooking have the new gifting update.

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  7. that sound you hear is more and more people blocking the game

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  8. have some ppl in my mafia still using links for gifts that work i did notice all were using tiny service not the spok service which we all usually used before no issues

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  9. its very nice that you can accept AND return gifts through the ZMC in one click (once the person is approved), as opposed to the 4-5 it took before.

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  10. @2nd Anonymous,
    Only gifts sent from framed game will appear in ZMC.
    Gifts sent from unframed will only appear in FB requests...

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  11. super helpful, thanks!

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  12. I've sent plenty of gifts while framed and many of them are not getting to the intended recipients... they are going to FB reqs and are lost forever.
    Does Zynga ever do ANYTHING right anymore?
    I'm fine with all gifts going through ZMC, so if they actually did that it would be nice.
    :-(

    TY Jen and LL staff for all your work.
    You are very mcuh appreciated. :-)

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  13. But I send my gifts in the framed game but they 50% of the time they are just going to facebook requests. I don't use any script things or play unframed.

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  14. Yeah just noticed this as well some more giftlinks that you can send as well.
    http://tinyurl.com/mmfu-giftLinks

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  15. Anonymous said...
    I'm loving it. It's about time Zynga shut down the link-a-nator cheaters.
    November 20, 2011 4:37 PM

    Linkanator use was approved by Zynga Chat Help a long time ago to me personally... We aren't cheaters. We choose to work SMART instead of having the game run our every waking moment in order to keep up. Just because you choose to be an nasty, spiteful idiot doesn't mean we should be labeled "cheaters".

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  16. Zynga killed the gift liks, I blocked MW. End of story.

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  17. Empires & Allies was one of the first games that incorporated the new gifting scenario with facebook's new API push. At that time I had wondered how it would affect the way mafia wars gifting would work, since EA & MW are miles apart in terms of the way the games are designed and played and circumvented.
    Wakazawaka

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  18. if u blocked MW and obviously dont care about the game y in the heck r u posting in here about it. The link a nator is not a cheat - probably the opposite. it allows other players to pick what item they need...doesnt allow the link poster to pick what they get back......i consider it to be a great help to all that use the links...

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  19. Are they trying to make us move to MW2 again...

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  20. "This change really impacts players with small mafias. It's going to be more difficult for players to finish gifting events or tasks in Missions."

    I actually think you have this backwards. It's those with large mafias that have the most to lose by this change. I have a mafia of 16, yep, you read right, 16 (the rest are hired guns)… and I'm not losing anything. What, I'm going to complain about losing the ability to click on 3-4 people's links a day that I already don't click on?! LOL :-D

    Those with small mafias already have ways of playing and groups of friends set up so they're not dependent on links. For these players "life" won't be impacted at all as they're already not chasing links.

    It's the rest that need to change their games. :-D

    PS Zynga does need to fix the fact that you don't get all the gifts that are actually sent to you as not all arrive in the ZMC which loses you the gift in total.

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  21. Healthy information. Sometimes, Gift message do appear to Facebook Notification, but in ZMC no such gift appears but that message is present in Facebook Gift Requests. How retrieve and receive these gifts? I have lost few harvest bags.. :(

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  22. WELL I WAS JUST TOLD THAT USING SCRIPTS IS NOT LEGAL IN AND GAME AND ZYNGA IS BLOCKING ALL OF THE GAME LINKS! SO WHO IS RIGHT?

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  23. Yep. This is the last straw. I'm done with MW.

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  24. Anyone who uses 3rd party tools is a cheater, as per the Zynga terms of service. Get over it.

    And yeah, I am bitter towards the cheaters, because I think you're the reason for the low drop rates other sucky stuff.

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  25. ppl that use "link-a-nator are cheaters" what a load of crock, any help is great learn how to use

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  26. The 100 gift limit in the ZMC will mostly be a problem the next time we get one of those annoying events where we have to collect multiple sets of gifts in a collection but we can't accept the second set until we vault 3 items in the first set and the 3 items are released days apart...meaning we won't be able to "store" the extras and accept them AFTER we vault all three items the first time. We'll have to start fresh each time we vault.

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  27. The way that the system should be working is the way Vampire Wars has worked for a couple months -

    You click on one gift, it takes you to that game, you collect, then move on to the ZMC. Collecting in the ZMC removes items from the Facebook gift request queue, and vice versa.

    MW2 works similarly, except that it hops you directly into the ZMC.

    However, while the VW & MW2 ZMC teams appear to have their act together, FTV/PT, Farmville, Poker and MW ZMCs aren't going back yet and cleaning out the FB Gift Requests properly. This is especially painful with FTV & FV, because going to an invalid link takes you into those games through 1-2 animated, lag-heavy, screens. MW, by comparison, is a lot smaller an issue.

    As for those leaving because the links stopped working on your wall as a result of the changes that allow the game to get around FB's absurd gifting limits, and INCREASE the ability to send and receive, all I can do is quote a rap group

    -"Don't let the door hit hit you where the Lord split you, B***h."

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  28. How do you get the code to replace the XXX to make a link for hidden charges?

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  29. A note about that new way of sending and reciveing gifts it seems after so many you start to get the "something has gone wrong.This error has been logged and we are looking into it" red error message and it recycles them back into your Message Center I now have 60 I cant accept, hopefully I will be able to tomorrow. I sent gifts out to all my mafia which took close to a hour to do at 50 at a time, and got a few hundred returned b4 i started geting that error message.Did i miss something ?

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  30. To the above poster I would say you still can only receive the 200 gift limit per 24 hours and seeing you tried to receive more than 200 you got this error message. They changed the amount you can send to unlimited but not the amount you can receive. I think.

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  31. smokercc1 'the king of kings'November 22, 2011 at 10:05 AM

    this new shit sucks

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  32. These changes make MW ever more demanding and time consuming.

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  33. Zynga has been working hard to bring all their games into their own platform...this new way of gifting in MW's is part of that. I am now getting MORE special Parts and Exotic Animal Feeds than I was from three link groups. I get to "take care of my family" everyday. It's change...get over it and into it.

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  34. Crap that they've made the changes, but I'll manage with my large mafia anyways. Link-a-nator use is not cheating, I'd rather do other stuff than clicking, like w***king for that is much more productive :P

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  35. Yeah only the top profile links are useable now on Link-a-nator, its not cheating... if anyone is still having problems you can try the old school method. Sorry for spamming lootlady
    http://tinyurl.com/mwgiftlist

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  36. This is exactly why I have begun to switch over to Google+..They seem much more friendly user and are starting to carry the same games as FB/Zinga

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  37. I have never gotten close to 100 gifts, despite sending nearly that many a day, so this isn't an issue for me, but the you can only click 5 help requests a day limits are irritating for those of us who like to help others and aren't just greedy. What they need to do is remove all the useless bragging posts, like the ice ones, that do nothing but spam up peoples news feeds.

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  38. Does anyone have the links for Brazil property upgrades.. I have many family memebers who are still in need of them...

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  39. Gifts go to ZMC,but alot still go to Apps/Games page?You can't get them.I wrote zynga,they had me do changes & everything was gone! I only play MWs. Any ideas?

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  40. Are there any Links to the London Properties as well?

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