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....