Wish that you could monitor your Mafia Wars mafia all day without ditching work or school? Well the makers of the game have just introduced a new toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox that lets players check out their Health Energy, Stamina and the time remaining until they can use an Energy Pack. It's pretty simple but installers of the beta version of the toolbar will receive an in-game advantage, a Limited Edition Utility Belt that comes with 30 Attack/30 Defense.
While the Mafia Wars Toolbar adds yet another search field to the growing list of search options along with links back to Cafe World, FishVille and Roller Coaster Kingdom, it does add another level of scrutiny. Created with tools from Conduit.com, players can add apps to their toolbar that look a lot like the deals that Zynga has been getting a lot of flak for lately.
Moscow and Cuba might sound more interesting but the push to finish all the jobs in Mafia Wars' first stomping grounds, New York went into high gear this week for Big Apple Week. Offering double the loot and double the mastery, there's little reason not to play. Yet the event's biggest action is with the Raid the Docks job - a special job that gives players double the experience for the energy they'd put into it. The first day of the event, Sunday, allowed players to master a portion of the job every 24 hours.
Yesterday, the Mafia Wars team shortened that span of time to a mere 8-hours. Yes, you'll still need lots of energy to complete the event in a day or two but it can be done. We'll speculate that the reason for the change of frequency might also indicate that players are using their energy points to complete tiered jobs before special job and given that the event ends on November 22, Zynga's making it easier for dedicated players to complete both.
The next episode of Mafia Wars takes place in Bangkok and while the game's creators aren't snicking, they're not floating with the fishes yet either. Instead of dishing the details, the team is doing something better - they're letting fans of the social networking game come up with a boss that they'd like to see in the game.
Announced through The Official Mafia Wars Blog, players have until November 23 at 5pm PT to add a two minutes or less video to YouTube that will pitch the team on a boss they think should be part of Mafia Wars: Bangkok. If chosen, one first place winner will enjoy 1,000 Godfather points as second place scores 500 Godfather points and third gets 250. All entries must adhere to PG-13 rules where "nudity, profanity, racial slurs, illegal activity, etc." should be avoided.
If you've got a great idea for the best Mafia Wars boss ever, grab a camera and take a chance. So far, no one's posted a video on the Mafia Wars page on YouTube.
Players who haven't mastered all the jobs in Mafia Wars: New York got a new incentive to finish. Big Apple Week, which started on Sunday, November 15, gives out double the mastery points and double the loot for jobs in New York City. The perk is a nice one as Mafia Wars players will complete jobs faster, get more loot and beef up their mafia before taking on Zynga's next big chapter, Mafia Wars: Bangkok (which arrives during Holiday 2009).
Big Apple Week also comes with a new bonus job where you're gain double the mastery points for raiding the docks. If you finish it, you'll also gain the biggest loot ever -- a cargo ship. Last night, we gained a pack of 30 Untraceable Cell Phones (perfect for finishing the Capo jobs) and 200 XP when we did the bonus job.
So make sure you schedule plenty of bonus packs from friends this week. The Big Apple Week in Mafia Wars event runs until Sunday, November 22.
In addition to the R$10,000,000 lottery that's being given to Mafia Wars Moscow players, the Godfather also added a new Experimental Crate. The rare items that come with a 10% chance of showing up include several wacky items including "Balloon Boy," "Chevelier Exoskeleton," "EMP Grenade," "Executioner Drone" "Gene Splicer," "Gravity Gun," "Ocular Implants" and "Vortex Ring Gun."
While Zynga released the new rare items along with the crates, the company did not list the attack or defense values for each item. But we may end up dropping some real money just to see what a Balloon Boy actually does.
The past few days for Mafia Wars players has felt "experimental." As the game's makers attempted to release a performance patch over the weekend that would alleviate the connection issues that have increased over the past few weeks (a patch that caused so many errors, it was removed two days later). Then this week, the team removed one of Mafia Wars' greatest barriers to success - the bribe penalty.
Today alone, the game has received two updates with a "Raining Rubles" link on the Mafia Wars Facebook page that gives Moscow players a massive R$10,000,000 for free. Apparently our predictions about Zynga preforming a massive correction with the economy in Moscow may be true.
Hitting the big time in Mafia War usually means that players have amassed a sizable and well-equipped mafia of 500. Last week, the game celebrated a new big time by getting called out in a piece on Time.com.
While the piece probably made the writer's in-game persona, Don Grossman, a hit with hitlists, it may have also helped elevate Mafia Wars to the third highest gainer (adding 1,064,231 players) in AppData's tracking data, which tracks the amount of monthly, daily and weekly players each of the top Facebook games.
Recent players of Zynga's Mafia Wars were getting a whole lot less done last week as the game was plagued by several connection issues that left them with buttons that wouldn't work (not good when you're trying to deposit money) and error message that seemed to defy logic.
In order to alleviate the issues, Zynga released a "Performance Upgrade" on Friday night that the company hoped would get mafia bosses back to faster play. But after the upgrade, players (via the Mafia Wars message boards) reported issues with clicking on tabs, bank deposits and missing loot, purchased items and godfather points.
So the company removed the upgrade on Sunday in order to re-evaluate the upgrade. Of course, many of the connectivity errors that we experienced with Mafia Wars last week seem to be oddly gone as of Monday morning.
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In what seems like the never ending Halloween Loot Event for Mafia Wars on Facebook, the team issued a final loot deal that may, finally, end Halloween.
Zynga's now made Halloween crates available through the Godfather for 20 rewards points each or 55 reward points for three. As it goes with crates, you have a 10% shot at getting a rare item, 30% chance at getting an uncommon item and a 60% chance of getting a common item. Don't have enough reward points? Then you'll have to talk to the Godfather about buying more.
And the winner for most popular game on Facebook in October is ... (drumroll, please!) ... FarmVille. The farm-simulation is still attracting players in droves, bringing in 11 million people in the past month for a whopping total of 63 million users. Zynga's restaurant simulation game, Cafe World, went from zero users to 27 million in a single month and Happy Aquarium went from zero to 22.5 million users in a month.
The other games that made the top five include Mafia Wars, and Pet Society. Even though these games have the most users, it's also important to mention that Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom gained 14 million users last month, Pet Society gained 3 million users, Restaurant City gained 2.3 million users and the newly redesigned Bejeweled Blitz gained 2.6 million users.
Needless to say, Facebook game are continuing to attract players in droves; we're already placing bets as to how soon Cafe World will overtake FarmVille as the top dog on the charts. Care to wager?
Halloween comes to Mafia Wars in the form of a special "Rob A Candy Truck" mission. The mission costs 65 energy different amounts of energy (mine was 65; but it seems to vary from person to person) and delivers a whopping 130 experience points. The bad news is -- this Halloween mission can only be done once a day, so don't expect to wrack up hundreds of points in one sitting.
When you complete the mission, you also loot a Treat Bag -- a pumpkin filled with weapons that deliver 18 attack and 15 defense. Now that's what I call trick or treating Mafia Wars style.
Cameo appearances of one TV show's characters in another show has been done for eons. Now Zynga is taking a page out of the TV executive playbook for Mafia Wars' Halloween Loot Event. Starting this Friday, October 30 at midnight (PT), players will be on the hunt for eight Halloween themed items that are based on FarmVille, Roller Coaster Kingdom, Zynga Poker and Cafe World.
The Official Mafia Wars Facebook page whet the appetites of players by unveiling four of the eight items they'll try to earn as they fight and complete jobs in the game.
A brand new post on the Mafia Wars Facebook page says that starting on Friday, October 30 at midnight (PST), some seriously haunting loot items will be coming to the game. The official post says the following:
Halloween Loot Event! starting Friday at midnight (PT), all jobs and fights have a chance to give you special Halloween-themed items. Sneak peek into some of the items!
The "items" they're referring to are the collection of creepy pics in the image above, which don't all look like they all belong to Mafia Wars. In fact, that undead cow looks like it belongs in FarmVille and the green bowl of cheesy eyeball soup looks like a terrifying remake of the French onion soup from Cafe World. Keep your eye peeled for these creepy items starting this Friday night ... if you dare!
Apparently the gaming world doesn't slow down on a Friday. So we captured a stack of quick stories to fill your time as you wait for your next energy pack refill.
- Halloween fiends with a love of Zynga's new Roller Coaster Kingdom can now gain coins for their creations. Simply add any of the game's new holiday themed items and submit a pic of your park and drop it in the Halloween Decoration Contest Entries folder in the Zynga forums. Win and you'll score 500,000 Coaster Coins.
- Everyone started believing the rumor that EA had already bought Playfish. Now there's word that the makers of Pet Society and Restaurant City) might be considering other (read: higher than the rumored $250 million) offers from companies looking to get into the social gaming world. (TechCrunch Europe)
- Social games as child labor? Just as the world felt modern enough that kids could go to school, one blogger discusses a recent company deal that seeks to monitize younger players without their parents' consent. Might social games become the new youth sweatshops of tomorrow? Hopefully not.
- Bloomberg finally catches on to the social gaming fire by equating Facebook's success to the increase in users playing Mafia Wars, Pet Society and FarmVIlle. You already knew this, right? (Bloomberg)
- Big companies like Electronic Arts are catching up to the social gaming buzz by creating things like Dragon Age: Journeys, a free browser-based game that's based on the company's Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game, Dragon Age: Origins. It's got a Lord of the Rings vibe, we like it. (EA)
Mafia Wars players thinking that they're just about to finish their hoodlum adventures in Moscow got a surprise today as the final two episodes of Mafia Wars Moscow were released. Players who've already completed Moscow's first four episodes quickly started reporting on their time in Vor (Episode 5).
Vor's first chapters tasks players with stopping a terrorist attack in Moscow and uncovering who behind the plot. The latter two chapters in the episode focuses on infiltrating the Ural Liberation Front (ULF) and working to stop them from the inside. Episode 6: Pakhan details are still vague but as players complete Vor, we're bound to hear more specifics.
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Recent players of Zynga's Mafia Wars were getting a whole lot less done last week as the game was plagued by several connection issues that left them with buttons that wouldn't work (not good when you're trying to deposit money) and error message that seemed to defy logic. 
- Halloween fiends with a love of Zynga's new Roller Coaster Kingdom can now gain coins for their creations. Simply add any of the game's new holiday themed items and submit a pic of your park and drop it in the 
Mafia Wars players thinking that they're just about to finish their hoodlum adventures in Moscow got a surprise today as the final two episodes of Mafia Wars Moscow were released. Players who've already completed Moscow's first four episodes quickly started reporting on their time in Vor (Episode 5). 
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