Moscow loot tigers exposed

This is nice...

With that said, turns out there are two good items here, the Liger (45 attack weapon) and the Tiger Tank (43 defense vehicle). Don't worry about trying to collect these in large quantities though - I am pretty sure that these items will be outdated by the later Moscow episodes.

Zynga responded

At last zynga respondes to this dissatisfaction.Zynga responded to the dissatisfaction of players by changing the hitlist back to generating experience. However, they also introduced several new limitations and restrictions both to the hitlist and other aspects of the game. In the meantime, we have done an extensive evaluation of the new Bulletproof MySpace game and the Mafia MoFo game, and feel that they are superior games to Mafia Wars, even before the hitlist change. We highly recommend that you check them out!

Zynga creating frustration

Some people are not familier to this game.Mafia Wars is a Myspace game, produced by Zynga, that has garnered massive popularity since its inception. In Mafia Wars, you are the leader of your family. You build up your family, equip them with attack and defense items as well as vehicles, and fight with other families in the game, building your character up as you go with stronger attack, defense, health, energy, and stamina.

A players level, attack, and defense stats determine if they win a given fight compared to their opponent. With each fight, your health is lowered, and if you run out of health, your character dies, which then requires a visit to the hospital or waiting for health to build up little by little. Each time a player instigates a fight, stamina is used. When stamina runs out, the player can no longer initiate a fight until either the next level is reached or the player waits long enough for more stamina to build up.

Energy is used for performing jobs. At present, there are five categories of jobs, ranging from Street Thug Jobs to Underboss Jobs. Higher level categories require more energy to perform, but yield more experience and money.

Recent Change Causes Massive Disappointment and Hostility

The hitlist has developed into an important part of the game. Players can add any other player to the hitlist, which typically results in the target being taken out. When a player is taken out from the hitlist, experience is lost, and the character is left weak. However, for stronger players, being on the hitlist offered an advantage. Until recently, fights won on the hitlist resulted in experience being gained. Therefore, even though you took damage while being on the hitlist and stood the possibility of dying, you still could at least advance in experience. However, Zynga has now changed the system in such a way that players no longer gain experience from fights won through the hitlist.

This widely unpopular change has resulted in several things:

1. Players are added to the hitlist and constantly attacked with no benefit whatsoever. If the player is strong, hitlist placement could be maintained for days, with constant attacks, requiring continual attention and limiting what else can be done in the game.
2. Many players enjoy fighting from the hitlist. It does not possess some of the inconveniences that the fight section does, and makes for a fun way to build your character. However, since this change, the hitlist is quite bare since no one wants to be on the hitlist or added to the hitlist in retaliation.
3. It takes much longer for a character to advance to the next level. Previously, if your character was almost to the next level, but you were out of stamina and energy, you could count of being on the hit list to help get you to the next level. Since this change, massive time is required to advance to the next level, which is very discouraging to many players.

In fact, since many players have invested considerable money into the game to build their character via Godfather Points, the level of action from players ranges from petitions and names being gathered for those who support changing the hitlist experience gathering back all the way to individuals considering a class action suit against Zynga, since the game is no longer what they invested money into. Needless to say, the majority of players, especially those that play the game the most, are not happy with this change, and in fact, a large number of players have even abandoned the game due to this change.

Whether or not Zynga takes action to reverse the charge could well determine if the game remains popular at all, and the future of the game itself.

Whats new in Mafia wars boosts beta

Its been nice to see the new boosts Update of mafia wars.Just logged in to some cool new updates. One new feature in Mafia Wars is the boost. Also, a new Cuba tier was added - El Cacique. I'll cover boosts in this post, Cacique in the next. Boosts are consumable power-ups that give you added bonuses, for example +5 attack when fighting or energy reduction costs for jobs.

You can get them two ways. The simpler ones can be bought by going to Inventory, then "Boosts". As of now, you need to be in New York to buy boosts, they are not sold in Cuba (yet). I am assuming they will put more purchasable boosts in. This is a needed change because it actually gives Mafia Wars players something to do with their virtual cash.

You may notice that below it is an item called "Hobo Lookout" which provides +60 robbing skill. The more powerful boosts like this one are the result of turning in collection items. You can re-vault a collection to receive a number of boosts. This number appears to vary from collection to collection (but it not a random number). Feel free to post in the comments how many items each vault gives so I can post it up.

Boosts are automatically used if you have them. As an example, one of my hobos will be used up every time I am robbed. Once I have been robbed 7 times, all my hobos will be gone and I will no longer get that bonus.

The boosts can then be found in your inventory. There is a different set of boosts for each collection. Here is a complete list:

Diamond Flush Collection:
Tripwire: +10 fight defense skill

Heart Flush Collection:
Cappuccino: -3 job energy costs

Sculptures Collection:
Alarm System: +15 robbing defense skill

Poker Chips Collection:
Bulldog: +18 fight defense skill

Club Flush Collection:
Problem Solver: -5 job energy costs

Boxing Collection:
Semi-Pro Boxer: +15 attack skill

Cigars Collection:
Fixer: -8 job energy cost

Spade Flush Collection:
Sting Grenade: +20 attack skill

Billiards Collection:
Bouncer: +27 robbing defense skill

Rings Collection:
Blueprints: -10 job energy cost

Ties Collection:
Injunction: +25 fight defense skill

Paintings Collection:
Motion Detector: +37 robbing defense skill

Cufflinks Collection:
Corporate Muscle: +35 attack skill

Barber Collection:
Shave and a Haircut: +30 fight defense skill

Great Race Horses Collection:
Inside Tip: -16 job energy costs


Cuba Boosts (need to be at Cuba collections screen to turn these in):

Rum Drinks Collection:
Flaming Shot: +30 attack skill

Tropical Fruits Collection:
Boosted Smoothie: -18 job energy costs (2 received per vault)

Entertainers Collection:
Sandbag Wall: +35 fight defense skill (7 received per vault)

Tropical Fish Collection:
Blowfish Dart: +40 attack skill

Beards Collection:
Hobo Lookout: +60 defense skill (7 received per vault)

Conclusion:

All in all, a nice little addition to the game. Hopefully the developers will add more boosts that you can purchase with money so that in game currency actually has some value!