02/20/2012 Mafia Wars Daily Links

- Mafia Wars ENERGY Point: LINK
- Mafia Wars Daily Email Bonus: LINK
- Mafia Wars Slot Machine, 3 FREE spins: LINK

Facebook Launches Verified Accounts and Pseudonyms

Josh Constine

posted yesterday

34 Comments

Facebook, a service built on real names and real identities, will tomorrow start allowing prominent public figures to verify their accounts and then opt to display a preferred nickname instead of their birth name. Those with verified accounts will gain more prominent placement in Facebook’s “People To Subscribe To” suggestions.

Verified accounts are not a departure from Facebook’s policy that users sign up with their real name, as birth names will still be shown on a user’s profile About page. Instead it’s a way to ensure people don’t subscribe to the public updates of impostors. It will also arm Facebook for its battle with Twitter to control the interest graph.

Tomorrow, some users with many subscribers will be notified through their profile of the option to verify their identity, Facebook confirmed with me. There’s no way to volunteer to be verified, you have to be chosen. These users will be prompted to submit an image of a government-issued photo ID, which is deleted after verification. They’ll also be given the option to enter an “alternate name” that can be used to find them through search and that can be displayed next to their real name in parentheses or as a replacement.

For example, Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, could use Verified Accounts to verify that she is the famous Stefani Germanotta, to display her name as “Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga)”, or display it as simply “Lady Gaga” with Stefani Germanotta appearing the About page of her profile.
Lady Gaga would then appear more frequently in Facebook’s Subscribe suggestions. Additionally, those who enjoy her music wouldn’t accidentally subscribe to another person with the same birth name, or that registered an account with that name in hopes of duping subscribers and spamming them.

Facebook will manually approve alternative names to make sure they’re real stage names, pen names, or otherwise established monikers for applicants. It will need to be careful to avoid mistakenly verifying fake accounts, like Twitter did in the Wendi Murdoch fiasco.

Unlike Twitter or Google+’s verification programs, verified Facebook accounts won’t show any sort of badge or denotation that they’re approved, though, which could lessen the program’s ability to guide users. This new system shouldn’t be confused with the verified developer program or secondary email verification.

Previously, those who wanted to display a nickname had to change their official name. The conventional hack was to place it in parentheses after one’s name, but Facebook maintains a long block list of unacceptable words, and too many unauthorized name switches can cause one’s name to become unchangeable.

Facebook does allow users to show their maiden name or their real name in an alternate language on their profile and search, but not across the site like a verified alternate name. In an effort to clean up the service and enforce its real name policy, in late 2010 Facebook stopped allowing the use of special characters in names.

Three months ago, Facebook launched its asymmetrical follow feature for subscribing to the public updates of people you’re interested in but not friends with. There haven’t been widespread reports of impostor spam, but this will prevent the problem without denying accounts to normal people who happen to have a famous name.
Facebook has been making a lot of progress incentivizing celebrities and journalists to use the feature by making it easy to amass subscribers from its user base that’s 8 times the size of Twitter. My subscriber count blew past my Twitter follower count of roughly 3,000 in 2 months, and now I have 30,000 subscribers.  Many of these come from Facebook’s dynamic suggested user list that appears in the sidebars of the site. Verified Accounts will allow it to improve its suggestions algorithm.

Subscribe is a huge threat to Twitter’s long-term growth because it offers an interest graph subscription solution that’s “good enough” for the mainstream. I’ve heard Facebook has teams aggressively recruiting celebrities to the feature, and Verified Accounts will let it dangle the carrot of even faster-growing subscriber bases
Soon, you won’t have to connect with Calvin Broadus. If you’re cool enough, you could become friends with the verified Snoop Dogg.

Article obtained from TechCrunch

VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE

Valentine's Day Massacre

Play Now!

Love is war, and we’re giving you the advantage. There is no better time to grab this opportunity than duringValentine's Day Massacre. 

Enjoy the massacre!

TOUGH LOVE

Tough Love

Play Now!

Mobsters,

Our Tough Love Sale Event has begun! Toughen up your account this Valentine’s Day and earn a Rogue FBI Agent. It’s time to shape up or ship out.

Purchase any 15 qualifying items* in the Marketplace to earn yourself a Rogue FBI Agent (184/116). Sale items also include 4 limited time “Tough Love” items, including the Beetle Chest Guard (164/100), Bludgeon (101/164), Hoopoe (102/163) and Metal Mouse (165/99). The Tough Love Sale Event ends at 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) February 18^th, 2012, after which these items will no longer be available.

* Items selling for 5RP or less, Loyalty Program items, and Skill Point Reallocation are not eligible for the prize.

Sometimes we each need some Tough Love,

The Mafia Wars Team

FAMILY PROPERTY UPDATES

FAMILY PROPERTY UPDATES

Mobsters,

We've edited the in-game explantion of Family Properties for clarity and to include some tweaks (in bold italics below) we've since made to the feature:

Your Family Property is a property shared by your family. It provides a bonus stat to the entire family. The higher the level of your Family Property, the higher the bonus stat received by your family. The bonus stat is calculated based on the level of your property and the damage status, so ensure that you upgrade and repair your property frequently in order to earn the highest bonus stat possible.

You can upgrade your property by using consumable parts. Your property can be upgraded up to a maximum of Level 10. If damaged, you will need to repair your property before you can upgrade it.

The defense of your property is determined by the items allocated to your property by the individual members of your family. Each member can contribute 5 items per property, but these will be permanently removed from one's Inventory, so choose wisely. Both the attack and the defense stats of these items count towards the defense of your property. Items of all classes may be contributed, excluding limited or restricted items. Different combinations could earn special bonuses.

Once damaged, the health of your property regenerates over time. You can also repair your property by using consumable parts. Remember, you can only upgrade your property once it is fully repaired, so make sure that you repair any damage to your property immediately.

You and each member of your family can obtain the following maximum number of consumable parts per day to repair/upgrade your property:
– 20 parts from requests
– 20 parts from feeds (a feed can be published every 6 hours)
– 60 parts from successfully robbing rival properties

You can rob your rivals' Family Properties as you stand to win repair/upgrade consumable parts. The damage dealt to a rival property is determined by two factors – the strength of the player attacking the property and the defense strength of the property being attacked.

End Of Days Mission Walk Through by Jennifer

The End Of Days Mission Event was pushed out earlier today. Seems like Zynga is trying to grab as much money as possible from the existing players of Mafia Wars. I doubt you would be able to complete this Mission without spending a single Reward Point. Either way...Good luck on completing this Mission ..

All mission images, and titles for this post were taken from the MW LootLady Blog post made by Jennifer.

Part 1

Alpha

 Part 2

In The Beginning

Part 3
The Big Bang

Part 4
Redemption

Part 5
Resolution

Part 6
Retribution

Part 7
Armageddon

Part 8
With A Whimper

Part 9
Omega

Part 10: Bonus Mission
Post Script

New Secret District: Back Alley Business, Brazil

The new Secret District, Back Alley Business, Brazil, is out! We have a little under 14 days to complete it.
A total of 180 Rifle Cases will be needed to fully complete the Secret District.

We've Increased the ZMC's Gift-holding Capacity!

Mobsters,
We've heard your feedback and increased the capacity of the ZMC from 100 to 250 items! This alleviates the issue that saw gifts 101-250 fall into a black hole if your ZMC had already reached the previous cap of 100.
We already know what you want to ask: "Will the number of gifts one can accept each day be increased to match the new capacity of the ZMC?" We are looking into that, but we first need to understand the effect that a 250-item ZMC has on the game. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we carefully make changes to improve your Mafia Wars experience.

5 New Levels of Family Progression!

We're excited to announce 5 new levels of Family Progression, each with a new perk! You'll find the new levels 11 - 15 at the bottom of this complete chart:

Level	Family XP	Perk
1	0		Ambitious I Restore energy 5% faster. Store +1 energy pack (6 total).
2	50,000		Well Connected Get 4 hired guns per request for 501 Mafia, +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF, and 10% less damage in losses.
3	100,000		Industrious Upgrade faster with one less construction part of each type needed, 5% chance to loot 2X parts.
4	225,000		Grudge Holder Add 10 more players to your Family Rivals list. Get extra loot from helping in Operations.
5	500,000		Ambitious II Restore energy 10% faster. Store +1 energy pack (7 total).
6	1,000,000		Overkill Do more damage from Power attacks, get +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF, and 20% less damage in losses.
7	2,250,000		Craftsman 10% chance to loot 2X Property parts.
8	5,000,000		Loot And Pillage Get extra loot when you help in Wars. Add 10 more players to Family Rivals list.
9	10,000,000		Ambitious III Restore energy 15% faster. Store +1 energy pack (8 total).
10	22,500,000		Scrapper Restore stamina 10% faster. Cut timer by 2 hours to Declare War every 6 hours. Get +500 Mafia ATT/+500 DEF.
11	32,500,000		Repairman Increase family battle safe house heal rate by 10%.
12	42,500,000		Gang Up Increase damage to family bosses by 5%.
13	52,500,000		Treasure Hunter Increase loot drop rates in Secret Districts by 5%.
14	65,000,000		Slugger Increase to Mafia attack/defense by 500/500, stamina regenerates 15% faster.
15	77,500,000		Demolitionist Increase damage to opponents in the family battle by 5%.

New Family Property ~ The Artillary Station

The First Property of Family Property had been released earlier today.

It is Artillery Station. To access to this page, Go to My Family-> Properties

There is only 1 consuamble part (Artillery Shell) needed to upgrade your property,

You can get it from sending free gift on free gift page

You are only allow to accept 20 of it each day.

The other way is to rob from other Family Property and you are allow to get 30 of the consuamble each day. The Stamina will increase each rob and you do not get a 100% drop rate on the consuamble.
Stamina usage will reset 6 hours after your first rob done on other family.

Everyone will start up with 500 Health and we require 1000 Part to upgrade to Level 2.
It can upgrade to Level 10 max. By adding item in, it will increase the Defend of the property and also the Health of the Property.  Right here I trying to change the item I placed earlier to a higher Combined stats item (Attack + Defense of the item)

You will then receive this Confirmation Popup

Let see whether the above message is true.

Before

After

Before

After

So It is true the item you place will be gone from your inventory forever.So Choose Wisely!According to the in-game FAQ

Each player can contribute 5 items per property. Items of all classes may be contributed, excluding limited or restricted items; try combinations to earn a bonus.

When you place a item from each class(A Weapon , An Armor , A Vehicle , An Animal and A Henchman),You will awarded with a special bonus and there will be a Gold Frame beside it.

Once Your Family Property is being robbed by other Families , The Health of family Property will decrease and you won't be able to contribute your part to the Family property.You might notice this

When you purchase it, you will get the item : Sniper as a Henchman Protecting the Family Property.Here is the image

Based on the in-game FAQ

damaged properties can't be upgraded until repaired. Parts will be consumed.

and my observation , the health do not auto-heal over time. You or other families member need to contribute your upgrade part(consuamble) to restore the Health of the Family Property.The most fail thing is that the part needed to restore your Property Health will be ridiclous if it has been damage to a very low health.For Example,It have 1650 Health in total and it has been reduced to 407, the parts needed to heal will be 503!!!

It will be a tough job to get it to Level 2,let alone Level 10  There will be another 2 Family Property Coming Soon

Thats about it,will update more when I get more info.