MAFIA SPIRIT

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Richie’s Stash – Set 3 Loots And Parts

Yes, this post may be coming a little late since we, Mafia Spirit, first posted the new Richie’s Stash Loots on the Mafia Spirit Facebook Fanpage on March 5th. I am an extremely busy individual, however. Busy playing Mafia Wars, researching for and writing blog posts, working my day job, raising my children, and tending my relationships with my spouse and friends makes this posting better late than never, I guess.

I would expect that the next Richie’s Stash will appear in Mafia Wars as early as tomorrow Monday, March 11th. It could be anytime within the week when it reappears in the game.

When Richie’s Stash does reappear there are a few minor issues looming that may cause a little confusion with some players. I am referring to some of the Feed image links not exactly matching the images that they link to.

Richie's Stash Set 3 Feeds

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I don’t want to spoil all your fun so I’ll let you guess, or figure out for yourself, which ones I’m referring to.

The loots that we will get to build include a Swordsmith, an NK Double Damage, a Golden-banded Butterfly, a Golden Catch, a Deadly Combo, a Fruit Bomb, some Sonic Bolas, and a Battalion.

Richie's Stash Set 3 Loots

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The Bronze, Silver, and Gold mastery reward loot will be a Steel Fury.

Richie's Stash Set 3 Parts

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The four parts you will be asking your friends for include a Golden Wrench, a Sharpening Stone, a Dynamite Watermelon, and some Steel Spheres.

With the Steel Spheres in the game Zynga can now answer Kixeye’s question; “Who’s Got Balls Of Steel?” with “We Do! And They Are In Our Game!”

Saturday, March 9, 2013

When Will The Robbing Board Start?

There have been 2 Job Boards and with an updated banner for the Job Boards on the servers there will be more coming.

There have also been 6 Ice Boards (the current Ice Board included).

This brings us to the questions;

When will there be a Robbing Board?
When will there be family related or Social Boards?
Will Zynga figure out a way to make these Boards fair so ALL players would be interested in them?

It is my guess that only a few hundred players (at best) even try to win the Global portion of these events. They could be fun but they reap of ‘If you spend enough money then you might win’.

If Zynga wishes to retain the remaining 238,000 (estimated) Daily Active Users then they either need to expand the number of players who would win a prize in any of these events or simply do away with them altogether.

We, the players, aren’t stupid. We know that these events are designed to get us to purchase energy and stamina refills like they are going out of style. We are just pleading to Zynga to stop treating us like we are! The player base is dropping for a reason and this is just one of those reasons.

SIMCITY ISSUES UPDATE…SOMETHING FOR YOUR TROUBLE

Since it’s launch the new Sim City has been a hit.

But, the game did go off (launch) with a few hiccups. Players have been being booted out of the game since the servers have been overloaded with excited SimCity fans who are/were dying to build their cities. In addition, many players have found that once they’ve started a city and returned to the game their cities have been lost.

EA is aware of the issues and problems that the players have had to contend with. An announcement was posted yesterday in regards to the issues SimCity incurred.

Ultimately EA will make things right. To keep in your good graces, on March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem a free PC download game from the EA portfolio.

A SIMCITY UPDATE…AND SOMETHING FOR YOUR TROUBLE

LUCY BRADSHAW

GENERAL MANAGER, MAXIS LABEL

POSTED BY Lucy Bradshaw ON MAR 8, 2013

Here’s a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.
The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.
So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.
OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.
So we’re close to fixed, but not quite there. I’m hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.
Something Special for Your Trouble
The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.
And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.
I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.
SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud. Hang in there – we’ll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.

On a side note; Zynga couldn’t let an opportunity slide by without getting a promotion in and attempt to sway some of those SimCity fans toward Zynga’s CoasterVille.

Now that’s Mafia. Hitting a competitor gaming company when their servers are down.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

More Facebook Evolution – Timeline And News Feeds Getting A New Look

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

We knew changes were coming to Facebook. On March 1st Mafia Spirit shared a ReadWrite.com article that was titled ‘Facebook Tests Timeline Redesign In New Zealand.’

The news today from acebook is there will be a new look for feeds. The new feed are designed with the intent of reducing clutter and to focus more on the stories that you care about (Like all our posts here at Mafia Spirit). In addition to having a brighter and more beautiful look and feel the types of feeds that interest you will be easier to locate and separate from those that don’t interest you.

A New Look for News Feed

March 07, 2013

To make sure you're seeing all the stories you want to see, we're introducing several new feeds to explore in addition to the same News Feed you have today:

News Feed

Most Recent

All Friends

Photos

Music

Following

Games

Groups

- All Friends - a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing
- Photos - a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and the Pages you like
- Music - a feed with posts about the music you listen to
- Following - a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like and the people you follow.

With the new design, now Facebook has the same look and feel on mobile, tablet and web. For example, the left-hand menu is accessible anywhere you go on Facebook. You also have a way to jump right to the top of News Feed whenever new stories come in.

Facebook will be rolling out the new design slowly over the coming weeks on the web and mobile devices. Facebook is offering you to get it early. Simply visit www.facebook.com/newsfeed and add yourself to the waiting list.

If you have an iPhone or iPad these design updates will be available in the coming weeks and soon after for Android users.

Behind the redesign

Learn more about the thinking behind the new look.

Get to Know the New Design for News Feed

By Greg Marra - Today at 2:00pm

Today we announced a fresh, new look for News Feed on web, tablet and mobile. This design aims to make it easier for people to access the things they care about. For developers, this new design improves how the content appears in News Feed and how people can use bookmarks to reengage with apps.

In the new design, the things people share through apps are larger and more engaging in News Feed. We're also making it easier for people to access their game and music feeds, now accessible from the top right area. To take advantage of this new design, we encourage you to optimize for high-resolution feed stories on both web and mobile by providing 600X600 pixel images (minimum 200X200 px).

Bookmarks are now more relevant for people and appear on every page. Bookmarks are an important way for people to reengage with apps, and we've made improvements so people can quickly access the games and apps they use the most. These ever-present bookmarks will also display the notification counter from the most recent game requests to help drive re-engagement with players.

We are beginning a slow rollout of this new design today. We will be testing and closely monitoring key metrics to optimize this experience for both users and developers.