May 20, 2014

Job Caution & Time Out Messages

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UPDATE: It appears this has all been taken away and things are back to normal. Many predicted it wouldn't last long but this was pulled very quickly. Maybe one of the few remaining whales in the game complained that they were unable to use the 1 million energy skill points they paid good money for.

Players all over the world got a special surprise as Zynga unleashed a bag of mixed messages. If you do too many jobs in a given amount of time then your account will get locked and you won’t be able to do anymore jobs for the day. Zynga themselves have encouraged us to do as many jobs as possible by offering competitive events called Job Boards as well as passing out free energy in an event called Energy Rush. Now they want us to tone it down. I’m just confused. For years Zynga has tried to combat the use of bots but every time they have tried it has been reversed. Can you remember Captcha Checks and Time Outs while fighting as well as the Continuous Play messages? Below is a review of such shenanigans and more details about these messages. At least Zynga gets some credit for providing a pre-warning as well as an FAQ about this.

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If we must limit the number of jobs we do in a day, what will happen to the Job Board? The last one was on April 7th so maybe they are done with these [1]. We have said from the beginning that competitive events were a bad idea because they encourage as well as reward script abuse.
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On many occasions Zynga has tried to tone down fighting and none of their ideas worked. We have seen Captca Checks in the middle of fights as well as Time Outs from fighting [1],[2]. These didn’t last long. sus2 sus1
We also saw a rash of Continuous Play messages and that didn’t do much damage either [1]. sus3
Zynga is always peddling Energy. It’s for sale in the Marketplace but now that we are afraid to use it who will buy it? Emerald Level VIP subscribers have the ‘benefit’ of 30% Energy Refills. With this looming over a players mind how can they call it a benefit? They can now call it a job hazard!
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There is even a current event in which we get free energy as well as an Operations event in which we must rely on others to do jobs! How will we ever get them done? If players need to limit their energy expenditures, they sure won’t be wasting them on your Operations. Those bots users you claim are destroying the game are most likely the same one who do your Operations and click on your property requests. Most likely they will be the ones who will be unable to help you this time around.
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Many are probably wondering what the script writers think about Job these suspensions. Here is the breaking news and reaction in the Spockholm Skype room. This probably sums it up for most of us.
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Mafia Wars is Zynga’s game to destroy and it’s much to late to clean up now. This, like all the other things they have tried will back-fire. There aren’t a whole lot of players left and based on script user statistics, most of us are using them as the game would be unplayable without them. Many are losing interest in the game and have found other things in life to enjoy. I for one am getting bored with blogging about this repetitive game and time constraints (along with lack of interest from readers) have made it difficult to keep going. 
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If you look on our fan page it seems that almost everyone has already been suspended for the day. I tried to reproduce this on my mini and so far I’m over 5,000 jobs in South Africa and still going. Over 83 million energy has been used so this will probably only affect accounts built to serial level and who have been running for a long time. We don’t know the variable Zynga is using. As Martin from Team Spockholm ponders, is it single job click or energy based. How long of a time span do they measure, will slowing down to 1-2 secs between jobs help. For now it’s pure speculation until Zynga gives up numbers. All we have to go on is the FAQ shown below. sus7

Job Suspension FAQ

Tue May 20 11:45:45 EDT 2014

Q: I received a message that all Jobs on my Mafia Wars account have been locked for the rest of the day. What happened?
A
: You have received this message as our servers have detected that you have completed an abnormally high number of Jobs today. Accounts can receive a warning if our systems detect irregular activity.
All the Jobs in the game will be locked down for the time period displayed in the notification, after which the Jobs will be unlocked again.

Q: What is "irregular" activity and how are “abnormally high” numbers of Jobs defined?
A: Irregular activity can include, but are not limited to, the following:
- High-frequency activity that is beyond humanly possible means
- High-frequency activity that serves no in-game benefit
- Attempts to repeatedly access links not promoted by Zynga
- Attempts to access/manipulate your account through other means to give yourself an advantage, or to the detriment of the experience of other players.
- Unauthenticated acceleration in statistics, points or items
https://company.zynga.com/legal/terms-of-service (Section 6: Usage Rules)

Q: For how long will the Jobs be locked for my account?
A:
You will be notified about the Job lock-down period through an in-game notification. After the lock-down period expires, you can resume working on the Jobs.

Q: This suspension is unfair! Your information is wrong.
A:
Please note that the process is automated, consistent, and accurate. This restriction is only applied in the cases where our system has detected highly irregular, non-standard activity in the account. Customer support agents do not have the ability to remove the lock-down period or to restore the Jobs for your account before the lock-down period expires.

Q: My friend’s account was affected, how do I get information about their account?
A:
Customer Support can only communicate with your friend if the friend has submitted a ticket or contacted Live Chat support. For privacy reasons, Customer Support will only discuss a player's account with that account's owner.

Q: Where can I find the Terms of Service?
A:
You can find the Zynga Terms of Service here: https://company.zynga.com/legal/terms-of-service
Did this article help? If not, ask a Zynga player!


6 comments:

  1. I was on auto for about 9 hours continuos today and didnt get one of these notices.

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  2. Or maybe one of the cheats with millions of skills (cheats that this site and zynga regularly protects) not liking this reminded a zynga studio drone developer and/or Zynga executive of their dalliances with underage folks backed up by pictures.

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    Replies
    1. Can't blame us as this was posted after it was fixed. Guess it's time for you to retreat back to your basement. If it weren't for scripts, the game would have been shut down years ago. We know it, you know it and obviously Zynga knows it. Of course they are going to protect their players that spend money. They aren't developing the game so free players will be happy. Those with common sense appreciate the money spent by other players and realize scripts make it possible for them to play. Those who don't just like to whine and moan about how unfair it is that Joe Blow is stronger because he spent some money. Money talks and bullshit like yours walks.

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  3. thats the end of the game now

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  4. If you or anyone really believes this is the last you have seen such messages, than I have some swamp land to sell you. This is just Zynga's first attempt to stop those using a drone/kami account for passive exp on their main account. What Zynga forgot about was the small percentage of self leveling accounts that spend $ to increase their Att/Def. But I predict they will figure out something to screw most players in Mafia Wars with this and the game will die shortly after they do. I give it less than 1 yr.

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  5. to be homest, i hope zygna will read it here, if and when they do stupid things to stop bots/kam/ fast click players, they are mistaken, zygna will drop dead......

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