Gaming is Better Than Dating & Last Night in Cafe World

Gaming is Better Than Dating

Yes, I do play a lot of games in the middle of the night. I suppose it's about the time when other divorced or single people of a certain age start feeling lonely and cry into their pillows or something. I'm twice divorced, and I've been in and out of the dating pool for so many years. By the time you get to my age, you'll see. Dating-Burnout takes hold and you really do prefer playing games to well..... playing games.

Playing video games is so much easier, less drama, more peace; and if you get tired of playing, you just shut off your computer.... so unlike a bad date that won't go home when you get tired of him.
 

Last Night In Cafe World
Last night, I visited my Nice Eats Cafe in Cafe World and got a big surprise; I have a roof and an outside to my building, even bushes and shrubs to decorate the landscape. And neighbors... well buildings anyway. That's a big deal in my little virtual world. Up until last night, all I had was a roofless room.

When I play Cafe World, especially in the middle of the night, I feel like sort of a Cafe God, looking down on my chef avatar and my Facebook Friends customers and my burnt food from on high. That's not changed, but now I can actually go outside. Up until last night, I didn't have an outside to go to. 

Now when I visit my friends Cafe World Friends, I can earn coins and Cafe XP by helping them inside and out. I can do yardwork, sample their daily specials, even unspoil their spoiled food... see, like the great Cafe God in the sky.

Like Farmville, Cafe World can be a lot of work; but what else do I have to do in the middle of the night?

Nice Eats Cafe...Outside

Mafia Wars - Just Open the Door to Vegas and Let Me In!!

 
Jumping Through Mafia Wars Hoops
It's can be rough running a worldwide criminal empire. You try to spread your operations to key spots all over the world, and Mafia Wars gives you hoops to jump through. It's rough for a video game player of a certain age.

Getting into Cuba was a matter of levels, easy to understand. I really don't know how I got into Moscow. Bangkok was new when I started playing the game. I tried to get in; in return I got taunting messages and teasers that hinted at my criminal deficiencies. It was a challenge, and exciting...  not jump up and down exciting, but the kind of excitement tame enough for a video game player of a certain age.

Bangkok colors were mellow. The teasers were shades of purple with really cool graphics. Mafia Wars made you really want to go.... virtually and in real life. But they made it hard. Do this, and do that, so many hoops to jump through. Now there's Vegas...


Why Couldn't They Just Open the Door to Vegas and Let me in?!
The Mafia Wars destination tab, the little drop down menu that takes you to New York or Cuba, finally Bangkok and all those little temporary places like London, Paris and currently South Africa. (What would the Mafia Wars family be doing in South Africa, you ask... why fixing the "Global Cup." Zynga's non copyright infringement nod to the soccer championship games) ... anyway the tab has said "Vegas Coming in 2010 for a while now."

Just the other day (actually in the middle of the night. Criminals do things in the middle of the night.) that tab changed to "Las Vegas Get early VIP Access!

I remember thinking, Early VIP Access means Mafia Wars hoops to jump through. Why couldn't they just let me in?

Poker Chips Baby!
To gain Mafia Wars Vegas early VIP access, you need poker chips...  virtual poker chips of course, which you get from your family. They will send them if you ask, but you can only accept 10 racks of chips a day. The more chips you have, the better your odds of getting into Vegas Baby!, except you can only try getting in once every  21 hours. I've tried 3 times now and I got nothing.... Well actually I got this mean looking guy telling me I have "Bad Luck!!"

A Vegas Diversion
To keep you from thinking about how you can't get into Vegas, Zynga added a temporary "Whack The Rat - Jimmy Vegas" challenge. It's colorful. You collect slot items and earn rewards, but it's just another teaser, a diversion to remind me that I am not VIP enough to get into Vegas.

Last night one of my fellow players got in.....so I know it can be done. I guess I'll just keep pushing computer keys and jumping through hoops until I make it to Vegas Baby!

After all, it is a game.

Tips From a Level 500 Mafia Wars Boss Lady

Mafia Wars is Cool - No Flash and Fire

Mafia Wars on Facebook has neither dancing avatars nor fancy weapons bursting into smoke and flames, no watching your enemies wither and die in a purple cloud.... and no mind-numbing sound effects at all! Still I love the game enough to get to level 500! That's a big deal for me, especially since so many of my gaming contemporaries grow weary of the Mafia Wars challenge and move on to online games with a bit more flash and fire.

Mafia Wars is laid back gangsta' cool and mellow, not flashy. Mafia Wars is strategy; and some folks simply must have their flash. Some gamers of a certain age, just like their children.. and grandchildren, need the instant gratification of digital devastation and destruction; and they quit before they get this far.




New York is Rough
It's the tedium  that makes it hard for an aspiring Mafia Don to finish up the Mafia Wars Boss level and get the heck out of New York. You've come so far. It's almost over....it will take only a bit more effort, or so you think.... but then you realize you need loot, lots of it to finish up those final rounds of kidnapping, bribery and extortion. It gets rough at times.


To get through those last few New York jobs, you'll need to come up with endless untraceable cell phones, computer set ups, concealable cameras for photos... lots of stuff. Some players just don't have the patience. 

For those willing to go the distance, tedious or not, here are a few tips:

1-Know Where to Find the Loot you Need
You get random loot from doing all sorts of jobs; but when you see a little yellow bag next to a New York job, that means you get specific loot (cells, cameras..) as you do the job.  Hover your cursor over the bag and it will show what kind of loot you might get. Knowing where the loot is will help you later in the game when it's important to know where to find the things you need. 

2-Fight for Great Loot!
I was born with this inner niceness; so I didn't take to the Mafia Wars game right away. When I started playing, I ignored the Fight option. It sounded so rough.... so confrontational.

When I did try fighting, as a lowly Mafia Wars Street Thug, I wasn't strong enough to win. I stopped fighting altogether.... until I figured out the great random loot I could get from winning fights. Much of the loot is fancy or high tech weapons to help build your Mafia Wars Family strength, but often you get equipment you will need for jobs a few levels later.

I fight a lot now; but until I got strong enough to take on bigger Mafias, I fought families with fewer members than mine. Fighting Mafias too small to defend themselves seemed inherently wrong at first, not nice at all; but that's exactly what higher level Mafia Wars Dons do.

So when the big guys attack you for no apparent reason, don't whine and wonder why they are picking on you and taking your money. Strike back... not at the big guys, you'll never win. Pick on someone with a smaller Mafia Family than you and reap the rewards.

P.S. After each attack, scroll down to the bottom of the display for loot information, including a link to hidden loot fellow players can find.

3-Never ask your Mafia for help in the "Rob the Electronic Store" job in the Enforcer Level-
You earn Untraceable Cell Phones, Concealable Cameras and Computer Setups as loot in the "Rob The Electronics Store" job in the Enforcer Level. To get out of New York, you will need every phone, camera and computer you can get. Don't get help on this job when it's offered, getting help for this job becomes a disadvantage later on.

4-Grab The Stash Items - If someone posts a stash of weapons on your Facebook Wall, animals or other loot, grab an item before they're gone.You'll need the strength of every item you can get and there's usually only 5 items per stash, so move quickly.



5-Use Your Wish List
Your Mafia Wars family will give you weapons, phones, a lot of what you need if you let them know you need it. Do this by updating your Inventory Wish List.

When you're doing a job and run out of items you need, (cells, transaction records...) a little red box will appear beneath the necessary item. To quickly post that item to your Wish List, click on the red box and follow the instructions. You can post a request on your family member's pages and add it to your Wish List at the same time.


6-Remember Mafia Wars is a Social Game
Don't hesitate to ask for help along the way. You'll need hundreds of loot items along the way, and the friendships you develop with online friends will flourish when you share with them and they share with you. That's another reason to have a big family.

Have You Seen My Farmville Dog?

I know.... no one wants to hear the trials and tribulations of a middle aged virtual farm girl, but my doggie is gone again. Have you seen her?

Carol's Farm in Farmville

 This is my My farm in Farmville; and yes, I did spell my name with trees.

Farmville, a Worldwide Obsession
I heard a news item a while back, how a Bulgarian man was fired for tending his Farmville crops during a business meeting. Farmville can get to you that way, make you lose your job over virtual corn..... I get it though; in my online social gaming world, the only thing worse than coming back to your farm to find your crops all wilted and brown is finding out your doggie is missing..... again.

Of course, I don't like getting iced by criminals in Mafia Wars either...

So What do Farmville Farmers do?
Every day millions of Farmville farmers worldwide grow and harvest virtual crops, raise virtual animals and tend to virtual farming chores. Recently they even added a Farmer's market so you can sell your veggies, fruits and flowers... to virtual neighbors and virtual customers of course.

And you can raise a puppy....that is if the game doesn't malfunction and you lose your little puppy somehow!

I had that whole Farmville doggie rant a few posts back: "Farmville Won't Let Me Farm and My Puppy is Going to Run Away."  so I won't go over the details.  But it's happened again. I can load the game, but one day I came back to my farm and little Nice-Nice... that's my doggie... was just gone.

I Paid the Ransom Last Time
The last time I paid the Farmville Doggie ransom, but there's no ransom for getting back a dog that shouldn't have run away in the first place. So now my doggie is gone.... hmmmm I wonder if that's where they got the expression.... you know.  "Doggone this and doggone that... and doggonit!"

If you're surfing the Net and  see little Nice-Nice out there prancing around out in cyberspace, please send her back to Carol's Farm..

Happy Anniversary Mafia Wars!

Celebrating Two Years of Social Online Crime

Mafia Wars is Turning 2; and if you're like the Video Game Grandma, you probably celebrate your Mafia Wars crime connection by playing the game. There's no better way!

If you've logged in during the past few days, you certainly noticed the celebratory gold Mafia Wars enhancements: gold gift packages, gold page trim, gold announcements. The folks at Mafia Wars are doing more than simply gilding the game; they're celebrating with limited time events.

The Mafia Wars Global Cup 

Just like the Mafia Wars Saint Patrick's Day and Easter Crtime Basket special events, in the Global Cup you earn loot from a series of special jobs. You choose which job you want to do depending on how much Energy you have to spend.

Use 30 energy and collect a reward in 5 minutes, 60 Energy gets a reward in 8 hours. Use 100 Energy and collect a reward in 24 hours. The greater the time and energy risk, the greater are the chances you will receive a rare item.

Collect Global Cup Soccer Balls-
If you're sensing a trend..... you are absolutely correct. The Mafia Wars Global Cup is a tribute.... more or less... to that other big Cup series that has the world going wild. And just like that well known event, the Mafia Wars game has assembled the nations of the world to participate... well sorta'.

Do special World Cup jobs, fights and regular Mafia Wars jobs and you may earn colorful, specially themed Soccer  balls, one each from England, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France Germany, and Argentina.Collect all 7 balls and vault your collection for "Injury Time," a pistol that carries a big 38 Attack and 52 Defense.

Earn The Global Cup Trophy

 Meet all your Global Cup criminal challenges. Do all the jobs successfully, and you may earn the "Grinners are Winners" achievement and the awesome Global Cup Trophy.  

 Double Fight Loot- Fun While it Lasted

If you love staring at your loot page and marveling at all the guns, knives, phones, cars, animals and other deadly objects you've accumulated, the past few days in Mafia Wars were probably particularly exciting for you. For 3 days, Mafia Wars offered Double Fight Loot. More loot.... so exciting!

Of course you know it. To make it in the world of crime, your Mafia Wars family needs all the loot you can get.....and to help you along, Mafia Wars dropped 2 loot items instead of 1..... 2 cars, 2 guns, 2 knives..etc. on random winning fights. It's part of their 2 year Celebration.

I got mine, hopefully you played Maria Wars and got yours too. If you didn't, too bad; Double Fight Loot Days are over and gone.

But it's not too late for you to get in on the Mafia Wars Global Cup. Click here to play the game. Play Mafia Wars

I Finished my Last New York Job - I'm a Skilled Mafia Wars Boss!

Moving Through The Criminal Ranks
After months of thugging  my way through New York City, and slipping in and out of criminal enterprises from Bangkok to Moscow, I finally finished off the New York Jobs. That makes me a Skilled Mafia Wars Boss!.... or in my case, a Senior Skilled Mafia Wars Boss!


For those of you who never played Mafia Wars, being a Skilled Boss means I worked hard at the game. I maintained due diligence enough to move my Mafia family through the criminal ranks from Street Thug, to Associate to Soldier and upward. I mastered jobs like Enforcer (you know like Jason, Sonny's mob Enforcer on General Hospital)

I pushed my way through to the Capo level (Capo, that's like Sonny.... a different Sonny... in Godfather, the movie) Level after level I collected the guns, the vehicles the help I needed to finish each job. It was tedious to say the least.

Being Head of a Mafia Family Isn't Easy
Once I got to the last few New York jobs, I thought it would be easy going....downhill all the way.... but no! 

Zynga created the Mafia Wars game with multiple criminal tasks: blackmail, kidnapping, bribery, in multiple skill levels. It's just like the real criminal world you see on television, complicated and detail heavy.... but with no visible blood and guts.

Which is why I can play the game....  Mafia Wars is all about strategy, no psychotic avatars running around, no dead bodies to step over.... except theoretical corpses of course..... you rack up a ton of those...... It gets easy to 'ice' a fellow criminal after a while, even for a timid, soft spoken lady like me.

Beg Borrow and Steal
Capo, Underboss and Boss, the last few New York levels, require a convoluted effort, running back and forth to levels you thought you'd never have to see again to accumulate loot you must have to finish the final tasks.

You need hundreds of bank records to do things like "Shake down a city councilman," bunches of photos  for tasks like " Blackmail the District Attorney" and "Buy off a Federal Agent." I used a ton of untraceable cell phones to do things like "Flip a Snitch." ...... Whew. it was frustrating!!

Capitalizing on Your Frustration
That point of frustration at needing things to finish the job is where Zynga steps in, offering phones, transaction records, photos.....for a price of course. You can always buy what you need with Marketplace points... virtual money you purchase with cold, hard, genuine cash.

True, you will need a ton of phones..... etc... You will get frustrated thinking you may never get through those final levels, but try not to spend your hard earned money. Beg, borrow or........well steal, like a true criminal (loot from Robbing and Fighting) to get what you need and one day you will be a Skilled Boss too.


My Reward for Being a Skilled Boss
So why did I put a picture of a toilet at the beginning this blog post? That's my reward. For completing all the New York jobs and becoming a Skilled Boss, I got a Golden Throne... yes a toilet, complete with a little roll of toilet tissue.

I don't get the symbolism exactly, but it means I get energy twice as fast now.... which is a big thing in Mafia Wars. You need energy to do all the jobs, so getting it 2X as fast is a great reward; and it helps you level up even faster....

Pac Man Nights

Pac Man is 30!! Can you believe that?

Being a gamer of a certain age, you might imagine I was probably around when that new game, Pac Man, started showing up in dark corners of public places. I won't say how old... or how young I was, but it was a few years post disco and I was in my prime.

Upscale bars with plants, shiny brass rails, big dance floors and fancy drinks were trying to hold onto the disco feel. They had cover charges and membership cards and called themselves night clubs.... and they had Pac Man machines, which didn't fit the decor or the dance party atmosphere at all, so they usually stuck them way in the back near the restrooms.

Pac Man What More Could a Girl Want?
In retrospect, I was never really a bar person.  Like lots of folks in those clubs, I wasn't on the prowl for a mate; I had one of those at home. I danced sometimes, but not much. From what I can recall, those night clubs were a great place to escape family responsibilities for a few hours... and of course there was Pac Man.... What more could a girl want?

Pac Man was, indeed, the main attraction for me...hours of sipping Chablis and maneuvering that Pac Man joystick. I can remember the panic of giving up my machine when I ran out of quarters. I can see the neon colors on the screen. I can hear the sound effects.... the ghosts and that little yellow disc, Pac Man, with the big mouth, gobbling up everything in his path. 


When my job transferred me to another city, I gave up my night club jaunts and forgot all about those Pac Man nights.... until today when I heard Pac Man was turning 30... Wow!

Happy Birthday Pac Man!