On Your Mark(s) Image Flipping

On Your Mark! Set! Change the images!

As you can see in the banners above this secret district went from being plural to being singular. Truthfully, either would work just fine. You just have a slightly different implication between the plural and singular. ‘On Your Marks’ is telling all those involved to get to their starting position or to get ready. ‘On Your Mark’ is more personal or directed individually.

This was not the only change Zynga made. The ‘What’s This’ pop-up or event description pop-up had also been changed.

The original image was blank with no description and just the image of the Gold Medalist appeared in the lower right corner of it.

Upon the release of the district the Gold Medalist appeared to be called ‘Throwing Axe’. Now the image of the ‘Throwing Axe’ is as it should be.

And the Olympic Stadium was changed to the Sports Stadium.

  Why all the changes? Many are speculating that it is because Zynga may be infringing on some copyrights.

In case you are wondering how your country is doing in the Olympics here is a list of total medals won by country as of August 2, 2012. I find it rather boring watching the Olympics since the USA has an athlete win a medal in nearly every event and dominates nearly every Olympics. Here is a listing of medals won in Olympics dating back to 1896.

Athletes Mystery Bags And ZIG

Athletes Mystery Bags are packed and ready. You will soon be able to take your First Step.

The athletes mystery bags are just one of Zynga’s tributes to the 2012 Summer Olympics.

It would have been interesting if Zynga had included Mafia Wars in it’s Zynga International Games.

 

If you find some extra time then and you wish to participate in the Zynga International Games then you need to play Ruby Blast, Bubble Safari and/or Zynga Slingo.

More New Stranger’s Swag Loots – And A Zynga Nerf

Five more Stranger’s Swag loot items have been added to the inventory. And in typical Zynga fashion there was a nerf. Mafia Spirit knew the 21 Gun Salute was on the servers but we thought it might have had something to do with the next secret district – we were wrong. It was prematurely released today and many players got to take advantage of the nerf as you can see in the image below;

21 Gun Salute

Carbon Fiber Arm

Giant Salamander

Millionaire

Twinkle-Twinkle

We are yet to see the release of the Big Made, Blushing Cheek and the Peddler of the previous inventory upload of Stranger’s Swag loot items.

It all boils down to more unfair BS that aggravates Zynga’s ability to retain it’s player base. If it was accidentally released then Zynga should leave it open for ALL Mafia Wars players to receive the item. We can only collect 5 of them so it’s not like anyone will acquire a huge advantage over others. Those who did get the items, however, do get a small advantage over those who didn’t.

Mafia Wars Update on Fighting ( 8/1/2012)

On the Official Mafia Wars Blog and in the Mafia Wars Forums an announcement has been made regarding a new beta test about the fight feature. Here is a reprint of Zynga’s version of the update;

Mafia Wars Update on Fighting ( 8/1/2012)

Dear Mobsters,

We have news for you! Most of you have requested for a better notification when you are attacked. We are experimenting with a system that notifies your recent attack when you are playing. Please note that the feature is still in beta phase and would require community feedback for improvements.

Please note: We will be rolling this addition today at  03:00 AM PST. Since it’s a slow roll out, some of you might not be able to view this new addition until we roll this out to all players.

Also for the time being, clicking on the notification will have either one of the 2 behaviors:

1. Takes you to the opponent’s profile page or

2. Takes you to fight page with the opponent, by dealing an attack. Based on the players response and inputs there could be further improvements to the new additions.

We welcome your feedback HERE.

-The Mafia Wars Team

 

Personally, I do not see a benefit to this modification. Too many players use the Battlefield or Assasin-A-Nator while they are fighting and therefore won’t ever see the red attack pop-up notification.

In addition, if this works like the notification when a player declares war on you then you will rarely see it pop-up and by the time you respond the war is over which defeats the purpose of the notification.

One more thing about this is the risk that it will confuse players. Some players will see it and think a war was declared on them and they will click on it and be taken to the fight page.

While I am fighting I am only concerned with getting my ices and move onto the next player that I am lucky enough to find that I can beat. In other words, I don’t give a shit who attacked me unless I can beat them. I am only concerned with 2 things.

1. Getting my daily 150 ices.
2. Leveling up

This modification helps with neither.

I only see this as an advantage for the strong players who can beat anyone. I see this as a negative where those strong players will turn around and sit on the weaker players. I see this as yet another taxi for players to take away from this game.