New Players Stuck in the Arena

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UPDATE: It appears not all accounts are getting stuck. Players who have made several accounts have found 1 of 3 things happens. You will either get a Level 1 account in Chicago, a Level 25 account stuck in the Arena with 200 health and 200 stamina or a Level 35 account stuck in the Arena with 2000 health and 2000 stamina.
UPDATE#2: The 200 stam account also come with 25 Hired Guns and the 2000 accounts with 500. If you have one of these accounts you can access the Profile Page by clicking here.

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I started getting a lot of emails and inbox messages from players reporting that they were new to the game or starting new accounts and could not get out of the Arena. There was also a post about it on our fan page [1]. I started a new account to see what was going on and things are very messed up. Normally new players go straight to Chicago and start at Level 1. Now they are going straight to the Arena and there are no options to go anywhere else. This is confusing new players but those into building accounts are thrilled. The image below shows the only things new players can do in the game and that doesn’t seem right. You can’t check your profile, your inventory, do jobs, fight or rob. You can’t even go to the Marketplace so this is an obvious oversight. This is confusing new players but those into building accounts are thrilled. Once you take the Arena tutorial, some pretty amazing things happen.

When you play Mafia Wars for the first time, you need to go through some cheesy previews.

You then need to enter your name and give permissions.

You are then welcomed to the Arena. If you look in the background, you can see you start off with 200 health, 200 stamina and 100 reward points. Some accounts made prior to the one I made started off with 2,000 health and 2,000 stamina. What is odd is you are automatically Level 25 instead of Level 1.

Once you begin, you need to take that annoying Arena tutorial and are rewarded with +100 stamina points. So now before one even plays Mafia Wars, they are starting out with 300 stamina.

Now the fun begins. Your only option is to play in a 20 Arena.

New players start with 500 Respect instead of the normal 1200.

Right away I noticed I was given 20 of each Power Up and 100 Stamina Refills in addition to the 2 Stamina Refills, Health Refills and Kamikazes earned from the tutorial. 

When I completed my first Arena, I gained 1 level plus 125 skill points. This is the first view and only way that any new player can see their attack, defense and energy skills.

After my 2nd Arena, I gained 7 levels and 35 skill points. I did use some of those Stamina Refills.

This continued.....

What is very odd and confusing and the reason for this post is players are unable to do anything else.

The only way to add points to your character is to wait for a level up. Now if you keep adding those points to stamina, it will be a long time before your ratio needed to level exceeds the exp payouts you get from the Arenas.

The reason this happens is because the experience needed to level up is lower than your beefed up stamina pool. In this case, I need a ratio of 0.82 to reach the next level and 1 Arena, even in last place will payout more than that assuming all my stamina can be used. If you use some of those 102 Stamina Refills, you can skip many levels.

If you don’t want to fuss with doing non-stop Arenas, just use Spartacus and go about your business. You will level up with each Arena.
Thanks to everyone who sent me questions, information and screen shots of this.