I've played Mafia Wars for some time now. I've mastered all the major cities - New York, Cuba, Bangkok, Moscow, Las Vegas, Italy, and now Brazil. For kicks I even bought a gaming card to spend Reward Points on their virtual goods. Suddenly within the last 6 months I've noticed the new players being treated differently than players like myself who have been around for a while. It came in the form of virtual loot drops and incentives to entice new players to keep playing. I was not getting the same loot drops or incentives to keep me playing. The worst part about this is that these new player accounts seemed to be close to mine in strength despite my efforts to build my account over the many months.
What is this? Zynga wants to create a "level playing field" so that all players have the same opportunity on missions, cities, fighting, robbing, and other special events. It's become apparent to many players that if you want to be powerful in Mafia Wars, you need to pay Zynga real money for virtual goods. Also, they don't want the seasoned players to drive off the new players and Zynga miss out on a possible money making opportunity on a inexperienced gamer.
I have earned my loot, level, and strength in a fair manner. Currently you can declare war every 8 hours. I might do it once a day. Today I received this lovely system message:
Dear Mafia Wars player,
We ran an audit of Mafia Wars accounts that showed abnormal behavior and found that your account exceeded the expected number of Declare War rewards. To ensure a level playing field for all our players, we adjusted your Declare War rewards based on the order you earned them to the maximum limit allowed under the current system.
Sincerely,
The Mafia Wars Team
The way I see it, I've earned my account status. This "level playing field" is a complete joke. Furthermore, since I did sink real money into some Reward Points to purchase virtual goods, now that Zynga has downgraded some of the loot in my account to ensure a "level playing field" they have committed an unethical business practice by stripping good player's accounts as well as making any real money I put into my account, worthless. This is stealing and it's a crime.
Update 8/4:
Remember in the post above I indicated that I only went to war 1-2 times every 24 hours? Yesterday I participated in ONLY 1 war which was my own. Today, I got this system message:
You have already helped in five wars today and will not be eligible for the helper reward. You can still help your friend win this war, but you will not receive a helper reward again for 17:39
Five Wars, huh? Without even being home to do it....... think about it. This is really bad treatment and when Zynga doesn't like what they see or don't have the ability to do anything about it, they'll roll your account back a few days to a previous state with less experience and less loot.
Update 8/5:
Surprise, Surprise Zynga is just a problematic issue. I fought no wars in the last 24 hours. The Daily Take rewarded me nothing when I went into claim it last night.
You have already helped in five wars today and will not be eligible for the helper reward. You can still help your friend win this war, but you will not receive a helper reward again for 32:17.
