To ring in the New Year, Mafia Wars is unveiling its latest featured job - "Last Score of 2009"! For this featured job, we're leaving it up to you on how you want to play. You'll have your choice of three different jobs to work on that each have their own unique New Year's Bonus. Master your job and you'll receive a rare item as your reward! Be sure to watch your newsfeeds - if your mafia members complete any of the three jobs, they can share the wealth with you and offer you Reward Points!

We're also just on the verge of unleashing Bangkok! If you haven't already, go get a head start and collect your loot items needed to unlock Bangkok. Keep your eyes peeled - you'll be able to grab your Thai Passport and travel to the new city soon enough.

If that's not enough for you, we're also giving away 5 FREE Reward Points in celebration of the New Year and as a thank you to our players. Click here  for your points and play now! Be sure to score big before 2010!

Thank You,

The Mafia Wars Team

Did you know that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the 7th poorest in the world? In light of this, Mafia Wars has teamed up with FATEM, a non-profit organization that works to provide economic advancements for the Haitian community of Mirebalais. To help FATEM and their cause, we’ll be releasing a special Limited Edition item for purchase - the Haitian Drum, available for a limited time starting Sunday, December 20th.  50% of the proceeds from the sale will be contributed to building school kitchens and establishing meal programs for children who might not otherwise have a source of nourishment.

Zynga has already been working with the organization and has helped initiate a kitchen restoration project. In one school, children have started receiving snacks, and as soon as the kitchen is completed in a few weeks they’ll have access to warm meals. Please help Mafia Wars do the same with the remaining schools in that region. Let’s beat hunger in Haiti – beat the Haitian Drum!

For more information on FATEM, please visit their website, www.fatem.org. Mafia Wars is proud to sponsor their efforts and we look forward to updating you with our progress for this very special cause.

Respectfully,

The Mafia Wars Team, click here to play

Mafia Wars on Facebook will be unavailable between 10-12 midnight PST on Wednesday, December 16th.  This is a scheduled maintenance period to continue the progress we have already made in performance improvement and resolving known user account issues. Thank you for understanding.

Thank you,

Eric M, Developer Lead, click here to play

The maintenance scheduled for tonight has been post-poned. We will update you with as much advance notice as we can once it is rescheduled. 

Thank you,

Eric M, Development Lead, click here to play

Mafia Wars will be unavailable between 8-11PM PST on Tuesday, December 15th.  This is a scheduled maintenance period to continue the progress we have already made in performance improvement and resolving known user account issues. Thank you for understanding.

Mafia Wars on Myspace will be unavailable briefly between 8-8:30 pm PST on Tuesday, December 15th.

Thank you,

Eric M, Developer Lead, click here to play

Dear Mafia Wars Community:

Our #1 goal is to give our users a positive experience, however, last week many of our passionate users’ accounts experienced some serious bugs and glitches.  We understand your pain and frustration and are committed to working through each of these issues before launching any new features into the game.  Here is an update on some known issues that are our top priority:

1.  Users blocked from the game due to glitch.  We have implemented a reversion and repair script and all affected users should now have access to the game again.  If you still do not have access to the game, please visit http://zynga.custhelp.com/app/mwactivate.  You will be asked  for your user id (so we can see who you are) and your email address (so we can write you back).  Approximately 25,000 players were impacted by the recent glitch.  Of these, only 5,000 accounts need to be reverted.  We are swiftly working on repairing the accounts of the remaining affected users (should be complete in 5 days or less).  As a small token of our appreciation for your patience, we are offering affected players the following for your troubles:

• 30 Reward Points
• 15 Skill Points  
• Limited Edition: Stolen Police Car, Dillinger's Overcoat  
• Complete set of Public Enemy loot items  
• Prison Stripes  
• Dillinger's Pistols and Holster  
• Locket of Billie  
• Agents Purvis' Rifle  
• Dillinger's Wooden Gun  
• "Public Enemy # 1 Newspaper" 
• V8 
• Fur Coat  

*Note: Any reverted users who spent reward points they had purchased before the glitch, will be given a credit to their account PLUS a 20% bonus, please enjoy!  Our system knows which accounts have been impacted by the glitch and will deliver an in-game message detailing the compensation you will receive based on the inconvenience you encountered.

2.  Clan links are repaired.  We want to assure you that we did not remove this feature.  There was a bug introduced during the rollout of a new iframe (designed to get rid of spinning revolvers) but the bug has been fixed and you should now be allowed to view your opponents. 

3. Mafia size reduced.  We experienced database issues on Saturday that caused the size of some users’ Mafias to be temporarily reduced.  This issue has been repaired and your mafia size should now be back to normal. 

Listed below are the top bugs we are diligently working on based on input we received from the Community and Customer Service.  We hope to have all of them repaired by Monday December 21st.  If there is an issue that you would like to see addressed that is not listed above, please contact us at mwsupport@zynga.com <mwsupport@zynga.com>  (Note:  this email address is for the reporting of game problems only.  For customer support issues specific to your account please visit http://zynga.custhelp.com/app/ <http://zynga.custhelp.com/app/> )

• Restoring loot drops in fights
• Reduce white screens
• Reduce partial page loads 
• Fix chapters not unlocking in Moscow
• Fix Fight lists not updating frequently enough
• Restore player update profile linking 
• Fix double penalty for single hitlist death 
• Clean up the leaderboards
• Fix Wish list 
• Fix comments on feeds

There are a number of questions that have come up that we thought should be addressed.  My team has put together a Q&A (see below) that I hope you will find useful.

A very special thanks goes out to the Clan leaders who have written in to help us put together prioritized lists of bugs and issues that the Mafia Wars team needs to address. 

Your satisfaction is our highest priority.   I want to assure you that  the Mafia Wars team is working around the clock, 24 hours a day, to make sure that the game is running smoothly and you are experiencing the best that Mafia Wars has to offer.  At Zynga, our mission is to build great games with enduring value to our players and we will continue to do whatever it takes to earn your trust. 

Best regards,

Justin, General Manager, click here to play

Q: “What is iesnare? Does it collect any data not mentioned in Zynga’s Privacy Policy  or somehow put my account at risk?”

A: Absolutely not. iesnare is an innovative technology solution that Zynga uses to reduce online fraud and abuse.  It helps us to recognize more easily the computers used by our valid and trusted users. We’ve outlined more about the service below:

What iesnare does:

Iesnare collects browser information from end-user PCs just like a standard web analytics tool. 

In addition, Iesnare also uses cookies to recognize PCs as do many other standard web analytics tools.

What iesnare does not do:

Iesnare does not violate end-user privacy as it does not collect any personally identifiable information.

Iesnare does not sell, share or distribute any customer/player data.  All collected data is for Zynga’s use only 

Iesnare does not collect or receive credit card data, nor does Zynga store this data

Q: People are saying that Facebook is shutting down Mafia Wars. Is this true?

Absolutely false.  We are in full compliance with Facebook’s requirements 

Q: How do I know that you’re making the game fair to everyone since you’re running two entirely different versions of the same game? Can’t you commit to one game for all – properties or rackets?

A: Mafia Wars is a dynamic game and we strive to create new user facing features weekly.  There have been some hits and misses but we have always gone to great lengths to ensure that the mild variations in features we introduce (ie,” rackets” instead of “properties” or clicking the “travel to cuba button” taking you to the “jobs page” vs “home page”) do not impact the medium of long term balance of the game.  

Q: Why doesn’t Zynga tell their players about drastic changes to the game BEFORE they’re implemented? It can be really disappointing to wake up, logon and then find out that loot drops are gone, for example. 

A: Based on your concerns, we will start publishing our release notes for each build in the game by the end of this week.  Whenever possible we will pre-announce features and fixes to our Community. 

Q: What’s with all the useless wall spam? Can’t you eliminate the free, marginal gifts, energy packs, etc. wall posts with those that give us an opportunity to gain something useful like cash, experience or both?

A: We hear you but the majority of Mafia Wars players really enjoy giving away energy packs and gifts on a daily basis.  Today our players sent out 19.7 million gifts and 20.1 million energy packs!  We are investing significant efforts to improve the value of feeds posted from the game by focusing on enhancing the social experience you have with your friends rather than by volume. 

Dear Valued Mafia Wars Players, 

Earlier this morning we experienced intermittent page load problems that may have affected your game play (specifically, the ability to see your entire Mafia).  Zynga’s Network Operations team quickly responded and brought additional servers online to restore normal game play.  We realize that this problem is one of many you may have had to endure over the last two weeks while we worked to upgrade our systems to speed up performance and stop botters and cheats.  We are grateful for your patience and want to assure you that the entire team is working through the weekend to address these issues and improve our processes.  I will be available to answer any questions you have in an online forum from 5:30-6:30pm PST located at http://forums.zynga.com/forumdisplay.php?f=224.

Sincerely,

Justin, General Manager, click here to play

Hello All,

As posted previously, we have found a solution for the technical problem that has caused some players to be locked out of the game and for others to have their stats scrambled.  It will take us a few days to repair the affected accounts but I want to reassure you again that we are on it.  

Here is a list of the bugs/issues we have repaired this week: 

• Clan links were not working properly
• Missing mastery bars in NYC & Cuba
• Jobs tier bar not appearing in Internet Explorer 7
• Wish lists not posting properly
• Travel bar did not unlock at level 9
• A few unlock items appeared without text in the job results screen
• For some players, seeing a white screen when trying to access the game 

Please note: Mafia Mikes no longer requires friends to acquire more cafes. It is now like the rest of the properties and requires cash to buy. Mafia Mikes is working as intended and not a bug.

We know there is much more work to do.  Listed below are some of the bugs and features we will be working on next week:

• Some players have had difficulty paying when multiple players are sharing the same Paypal account
• Some players have reported losing some or all of their experience points, causing them to go back to a lower level
• Localization into other languages
• New Community Forum dedicated to Clans
• Players seeing a white screen when trying to access the game
• Special holiday loot and events

Have a great weekend everybody and thanks again for your patience this week.

Sincerely,

Justin, General Manager, click here to play