Extreme Mission #4: Shady Deals

Share:

Leonard is on a roll with the Extreme Missions. Here is the forth. We got 6 new loot items so you will probably see 2 more. I'll be off line so check the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page for updates.

Extreme Mission #4

Shady Deals

The loot reward is a Brite Lite and has stats of 121/84.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

Extreme Mission #3: End of the Line

Share:

Leonard did it again and is on Extreme Mission #3. Leonard said it took 39,690 energy to complete the second task.

Extreme Mission #3

End of the Line

The loot item reward is a Sooty Falcon and has stats of 82/121.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

Happy New Year!

Share:

Happy New Year's 2012 from all of the admin of the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page. Thanks to all of our fans you who dropped by to do the same.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below. 

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

Extreme Mission #2: Gunning For Glory

Share:

Thanks to Leonard Wong, we now know what the second Extreme Mission tasks are. Gunning For Glory doesn't look very extreme unless you pay for it. It should take about 6 days if you stay in sync with your crafting timer of the Private Zoo. There are no timers on Extreme Missions so I wouldn't recommend using Reward Points to buy off tasks.

Extreme Mission #2

Gunning For Glory

The experience reward is based on your level and Leonard is way up there. The loot item reward is a Red Line Legguards which has stats of 85/119.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

Skill Point Reallocation Available Now

Share:

Skill Point Reallocation is active. We will probably see it a few times throughout the day so check the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page frequently for updates. Find the Skill Point Reallocation in the Marketplace under the Stat Items tab For more information on how Skill Point Reallocation works, go here. You can purchase one of each item every 4 hours. Each reallocation offering is only available for a limited time so if you are reading this late, it's gone. Despite the misleading background colors, these purchases will not count towards the Countdown To Annihilation Marketplace Promotion.

My progress meter is still at 0 as I won't participate in the Marketplace promotion unless I can buy the Holiday Mayhem Crates for 6 Reward Points each.  Because Skill Point Reallocation purchases do not count, I didn't need to break my promise to get them.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

Get Your Party Animal

Share:

The Party Animal was added to our inventory on December 21st (1). It was obviously a Special Event item created for New Year's but it wasn't included in the line up for the New Year's Resolution Event.  Many wondered when we would see it and how we were going to get it.

Zynga consistently fails to inform players and this is a classic example. I learned exactly where to find the Party Animal from a post made by Maurice on the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page (1). To get your hands on the Party Animal, go to your Home Page and look under your Apps (in the left column of the page). Click on "Apps and Games" or you can go directly to http://www.facebook.com/games?ap=1 (thanks to Prissy Anna Green for the link).

Look for Mafia Wars (under Requests from friends) and open all your requests by clicking on the "See requests from XXX" link located at the bottom.

Now scroll through all the useless requests that don't work anymore to find your needle in the haystack. You are looking for a request from the Mafia Wars Application that says "Free! A party Animal to kick start your countdown to 2012! Play Mafia Wars and win rewards for completing your New Year's Resolutions!".

To make this Where's Waldo easier, press the Control key and F key at the same time (CTRL + F) and type in Party Animal. The word will them be highlighted for easier spotting (thanks to the Aaron for posting this tip in the comments).

Click on the "Accept" button and you will get a popup welcoming you back to the family. I never left so I don't know what that's all about. Maybe they were hoping that players who quit Mafia Wars will search for blocked application requests.

Once you close out the popup, check your inventory to verify you got the item. If you didn't then contact Customer Support.

The Party Animal request will not show up in your ZMC. If  it gets bumped out of your Facebook request page, you will need to ignore the 200 items listed. Unlike the ZMC, Facebook game requests are stored in a queue. If you ignore the ones listed, the older ones will appear. If you get thousands of gift requests per day, you may need to go through this process quite a few times. If you accidentally ignore the Party Animal request then you will need to contact Customer Support. I asked Team Spockholm if they would be able to create a link to get this item and was informed that it's not possible because you need the specific request id and that is different for everyone. Zynga could have saved themselves many support inquiries if they made it easier to get this item. People will remove it by mistake or it will get bumped and players will think they never got the request.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

Individual Property Part Request Bug

Share:

If you are working on getting your School of Choice Property upgraded, you may find it a little more difficult than it should be. I've seen a few reports of a bug affecting the individual part requests and have this bug on my account as well. I don't know how widespread the problem is as the bug is not present on all of the accounts I tested. Some players are finding that the "Ask for More" buttons for the individual parts are not working. You can click on them all you like but nothing happens. I cleared my cache, tried multiple browsers and computers, disabled all scripts, went to mafiawars.com and blocked/unblocked the Mafia Wars Application. None of this solved the problem.

The only way to get a individual part request circulating in the news feeds is to scroll your wall and locate the last individual part request you made. These requests are active until you generate a new one or fill up on your current upgrade. Copy the link address and paste it to your wall or group page. This workaround will only help those who still need the last part they requested. In the example above,  I would have chosen the Cordless Drill as my individual request. Fortunately it was the last individual request I had made.  You can see the request was made 14 hours from the time the image was taken.

I shortened the link (via tinyurl.com) and pasted it to my wall and the {ASS} Family wall.

I quickly got the 12 Cordless Drills I needed. If I wanted to ask for Galvanized Steel, it would have been impossible. The charity purchase buttons are working.

Players are expected to get a total of 291 parts to upgrade to Level 10 and were only given 8 days during a holiday season to do so. Zynga granted an extension for the Cider House because of a bug (1). Ironically we were initially given 14 days to upgrade the Cider House and less parts were needed (204 total).

Level	Treated Lumber	Galvanized Steel	Cordless Drill	Total
1	1	1	1	3
2	2	1	2	5
3	3	2	3	8
4	4	3	4	11
5	6	4	5	15
6	8	5	8	21
7	11	10	11	32
8	17	12	17	46
9	25	14	25	64
10	35	16	35	86
Grand Total	112	68	111	291

If Zynga cares about the children of Haiti (or their own players), they will extend the timer of the School of Choice (1). Eight days is simply not enough. The longer the charity donate buttons are available in the game, the greater the proceeds will be. If players don't feel they have adequate time to upgrade their property, they will simply give up on it and thus not be tempted to donate. 

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below. 

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

City of Traverse Bug: Fixed & Zynga Apologizes to Players

Share:

Yesterday the community was in a uproar over the City of Traverse (1). Those who paid to unlock this Secret District were locked out before their timers expired.

Nobody was sure what was going on because Zynga never explained what the 2 day timer on the Home Page was all about (1). Had we known the 2 day timer was intended for purchasing a replay, it would have been obvious that this was a bug and not a rip off.

Today the following message was posted on the Customer Support Site:

City of Traverse early ending

Updated 12/31/2011 at 08:36

Due to a design flaw, which we apologize for, a limited number of players who paid to extend the City of Traverse event were inadvertently locked out.  This was not an intentional element of the game.  Over the course of the next few days we will identify those players who made the purchase for the extension and reopen the City of Traverse for them. In case we are not able to do this, we will provide those players with the mastery item and experience that they would have received should they have been allowed to complete the district.

Because we have been able to identify this issue and will be providing a resolution to those players who paid to extend the event there is not a need to submit an incident as Customer Support will not be able to make any adjustments or credits to your account over this matter.

Thank you for your patience!

The Mafia Wars Team

I went to my account and was happy to see that the City of Traverse was unlocked, my mastery was preserved and the timer was reset for 12 days. There is also a message that states "Sorry for the inconvenience. City of Traverse has been unlocked for you again and will remain unlocked until January 11th 2012, 17:00 hrs PST".

Because Zynga couldn't figure out how to restore the current timer, they reset all accounts that had the City of Traverse to 12 days. Now there is a universal timer and a new Home Page Banner. If you did not purchase to replay, you won't have this banner.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

City of Traverse Pulled Without Warning

Share:

UPDATE:  This was a bug and not something intended by Zynga. Go here for more details and do not contact Customer Support.
----------
A few day ago a banner for the City of Traverse appeared on the Home Page (1). It had a countdown timer of  2 days and it wasn't clear what it was for.

I didn't know what Zynga was counting down but I had about 7 days left on my City of Traverse timer. I decided to put this district on hold because of the new events that required my energy.

The 2 day timer on the Home Page has expired and now we know what it was all about.

To my shock and horror, the City of Traverse which I paid 60 Reward Points to play is no longer available! You can see I didn't finish mastering it. According to the timer on my Job Page, I had 5 more days.

At the time of my purchase, I had a 12 day and at no point was I told it would be cut short. If Zynga would communicate with their players, we would have known what the countdown timer on the Home Page was for. I assumed it meant the you would no longer be able to purchase the City of Traverse not that I had to finish it. This misunderstanding could have been avoided if the timers on the Job Page matched the ones on the banner.

If you got screwed like I did, contact Customer Support right away and ask for a refund as this is a form of fraud. If a refund is not in order than the skill points and loot item you would have gained seems reasonable. I'm really getting fed up with Zynga's tactics and shouldn't need to contact Customer Support. I will update you on how they handle this situation.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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

Who Is Ms. PAC?

Share:

The New Year's Resolution Event has brought a lot of attention to the Ms. PAC Party loot item. Yesterday there was a spam battle on the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page and players were campaigning votes for both Ms. PAC and the Shadow King. Those who were in favor of the Shadow King were being strategic (or spiteful) and felt he was the best option because he had the early lead. Since Day 1, I told players the majority of my votes were going to Ms. PAC (1).

After the event was out for a few hours, I was approached by several clan leaders and was asked to write blog posts promoting the Shadow King. Many felt that the position of the Shadow King on the voting board would lead to an guaranteed victory. I explained that wasn't going to happen because Ms. PAC was modeled after my friend Jana Gucci. I suspected the Shadow King might come in first place because of the early lead and his position on the voting page but hoped that spreading the word would put Ms. PAC in the lead (1). Mafia Wars is a game of many choices and I don't agree with telling anybody how the game should be played. I did my best to remain neutral and only stated who I was going to vote for. I took some criticism some felt I was doing a disservice by not supporting the Shadow King.

Some have asked in comments and emails who Jana Gucci is and why I was voting for Ms. Party PAC. If you know who Jana Gucci is and the history of how the Ms. PAC loot item was created, you will understand why I went against strategy and chose to defy the Shadow King. Jana is a longtime member of the [MIG] Family, a co-host of the Informant Podcast and a member of the Player Advisory Committee. She is well liked by many and is one of the few players in Mafia Wars that doesn't have a group of haters.

Although Zynga rarely listens to the PAC, it is still an active group. When the Retro Gaming Crates were in the development phase, Zynga sent an e-mail to all the female PAC members and stated "We’re looking to feature a female PAC member as “Ms. PAC” in one of our upcoming in-game items".
(click image to enlarge)

Interested members were asked to send a photo for consideration. Jana sent the image below to Zynga and it was selected for the featured loot item named Ms. PAC.

When Ms. PAC was first added to the inventory we were disappointed because it looked nothing like Jana.

The original MS. PAC looked more like a love child between Jana and Trader Goh.

Zynga listens to the Informant Podcast and we had a big discussion about how disappointed we were that the item didn't look like Jana. 5 days after the original was added to the inventory, the Ms. PAC image was updated (1).

In November the Retro Gaming Crates were released and many players went crazy buying them in search of Ms. PAC.

When players got one, they often posted the images on the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page. It was fun for us and I'm sure Zynga made a lot of money.

When the New Year's Resolution Event was in development, Jana received an email from Zynga asking if her image could be used again. She agreed and Ms. PAC Party was created. For her friends, fans and supporters, Ms. PAC Party is the obvious choice when it comes to voting for the New Year's Resolutions Event. Those who didn't think the community voice would be louder than the default and voted for the Shadow King were wrong. Ms. PAC Party now has over 100,000 votes and has a clear lead.

Those who didn't think the community voice would be louder than those who don't get involved outside the game promoted the Shadow King and were wrong. Ms. PAC Party now has over 125,000 votes and the Shadow King is trailing behind by about 25,000 votes.

I don't mean any disrespect to the Shadow King. I haven't met him personally and don't know much about him. I don't even know what he looks like because he is always wearing a hood over his eyes. He likes to point at people and some find this offensive.

Even with his party gear on he isn't very personable.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jana and the other members of our podcast almost a year ago. It should be no surprise to anybody that this site, Team Spockholm, [MIG] and many other families would promote Ms. PAC Party for the New Year's Resolutions Event.

If you want to hear what Jana thinks about the event and all the attention it has received, listen to the latest episode of the Informant Podcast. Click the play button below to listen now.


There are a little over 5 days left of the New Year's Resolutions Event. If you want to have as many loot items in your inventory with stats of 122/122 than you should use your votes for Ms. PAC Party as this will be the obvious winner.

Comments are moderated and won't appear right away. For faster feedback to your questions, comment on the Fan Page referenced below.

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