"Legitimate Business" Opportunity

The state of our nation has not gone unnoticed by me, and always one to turn an eye towards potential profit, I have decided to expand my family's business into the Healthcare industry. No, I will not be offering "health insurance," unless you mean the wads of cash I have my Mobsters collect from the local businessmen...

No, my plans are far grander, and I am offering all my Mobsters a cut of the action. To do this we will need people on the inside, people not yet known to the neighborhood as "part of the family."

If you are at level 8 or above and have recruited 2 fresh recruits into your Mob starting today, you will be able to complete the Infiltrate Hospital mission. You will claim an ambulance as yours, and untold advantages for the future...

The more fresh faces you enlist, the more strong our infiltrating presence will be. Happy crime sprees...

Mobsters Rules for Conduct

In response to much confusion about the actual rules for behavior on Mobsters, I am publicizing the official Mobsters Rules for Conduct. These rules apply to any form of verbal communication in the game, including your comments, broadcasts, and Mob names.

The intention of these rules is to give a guideline that will allow all Mobsters to play in a fun and safe environment.

Hence, there will be no tolerance for:

• Any derogatory remark regarding a person’s race, gender or sexual orientation

• Any pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually provocative comments

• Any reference to illegal drugs

• Any threatening remarks in relation to minors (bodily harm, sexual acts)

• Any threats to a person or a person’s family outside of the game

• Distribution of another player’s personal information (full name, phone, address, etc.)

These rules should be considered definitive. Any Mob names not complying with them will be subject to censorship. Any person reported to me as non-compliant will be subject to having their commenting and broadcast privileges revoked.

If you have been banned or censored already, please consider your noncompliance to these rules the reason for your punishment.

Weekly Leader Board

Many of you will have had a surprise looking at the Made Men page today. That is because there are now TWO leader boards. The first is the normal, up-to-the minute rankings. The second is a WEEKLY leader board.

Every Sunday, the weekly leader board will reset. Rankings will be determined solely by actions completed since the previous Sunday: most kills, most new mob members, etc.

The new, weekly leader board list is intended as a way for more people to show themselves as truly Made Men. They will reap the glory...and the envy of their rivals.

Addio,

The Godfather

A Miscelleny

Greetings Mobsters,

I wanted to take this chance to cover a few areas that are either on your minds or that need to be addressed.

First of all, everyone is allowed three and only three saved games --for now. There is no way to delete a saved game. Even if you uninstall and re-install the app, your saved games will remain.

Many people have requested the ability to transfer money to their Mob members. While I recognize the utility of this feature, it must remain infeasible due to the opportunity it affords people to cheat.

Finally, to clear something up, the maximum amount you can win in any fight is $70,000. The maximum amount you can lose from being attacked is $100,000. A 30% tax is taken out of your fight winnings. Therefore, if you notice this discrepancy, it is not due to anyone cheating.

Happy crime sprees...

Notice to Renegade Advertisers

Due to the amount of comments and broadcast spam being generated by users promoting commercial websites, I am hearby giving notice that I will block and then ban any user taking advantage of comments to generate advertisement for these sites.

While these measures seem harsh, I am also concerned about the legitimacy of these sites. It is my duty to protect the Mobsters community, and to that extent Mobsters comments should not be used as a means of free advertising.

Hitlist Close to Fixed

Today I discovered what I believe to have caused the problems with the Hitlist. My search for all the possibilities as to what could have caused so many complaints led me to examine a great number of things, without being aware of a bug that affected those users with odd-numbered user IDs, amounting to half of the user community.

I have now fixed this bug in order to make sure that no users are unfairly blocked from seeing bounties.

While I am sorry it took so long to discover this error, I am glad of the opportunity it afforded me to examine the Hitlist closely. I will continue to work on improvements to this and the rest of the game.

One change: I removed the filter that does not allow you to see bounties at twice your level. It is now a much more reasonable amount. As always, I listen to all concerns sent to my support address.

Further Hitlist Updates

The number of complaints about the Hitlist has not gone down since the last time I wrote on the matter. I thought I would take this opportunity to clarify why some of you may think the Hitlist is not working correctly.

In addition to banning self-hitlisting, I now do not display hitlisted people that you cannot attack--meaning below your level. You also may not see anyone twice your level, the logic being that it would be useless to attack them.

All these combined may lead you to believe that either there is no one on the Hitlist, which is not true.

Please rest assured that I am working on improving the Hitlist. Emailing me constantly will not speed along the process nor will it help unless you have genuine suggestions. Grazie.

Memorial

My fellow Mobsters:

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of a very tragic event for all Americans. I am aware that many of you have been organizing a day of memorial to honor the victims of the 9/11 attacks by halting attacks for the entire day. I want to applaud your patriotism and I lend my support to your efforts.

That said, many have requested that I participate by disabling the attack function on 9/11. I want to clarify that, although I approve of the effort, it would be much more meaningful if this were a volontary event and not one forced upon everybody. 

I too will be participating tomorrow. May your thoughts be with the brave men and women who perished in 2001.

The Hitlist

The Hitlist has been undergoing maintenance for the last few days, and as a result fewer bounties were visible than normal. This situation shall be returned to normal soon.

In addition, very soon self-hitlisting will be disallowed. This means Mobsters may no longer take out hits on themselves. I hope this will address the concerns over cheating that takes place using the Hitlist. Please be prepared for the upcoming change. You have been notified.


ADDITIONAL CHANGES: As of this morning, you will no longer be able to see people on the Hitlist that are a lower level than you. Nor will you be able to see people on the Hitlist at twice your level or higher.

Newsfeed Tabs

My children, I am pleased to announce a feature many have been waiting for. Your main page newsfeed may now be divided in two ways.

By clicking on the "News Only" tab, you will receive only fight reports and comments to your profile. "Broadcasts Only" will, understandably, display only broadcast messages. At the top of the newsfeed you will see a button that says "delete all." Be forewarned: this will delete your entire newsfeed, not just the current tab.

Please share your thoughts on the new features on the forum, along with suggestions for how they may be improved.

New Forum for Mobsters

As many have already noticed, the FAQ page now contains a link to a new and improved forum. Over the next few weeks, the old forum (located here on the Mobsters profile page) will be phased out.

The new Mobsters forums have a number of advantages, namely different categories to help people arrive at the discussions they want. It is my hope this new discussion venue will prove beneficial for all Mobsters.

An important note: going forward, please use the forum section entitled Add me / Join my mob! for all add requests. Do not spam the other forums with requests, as they will get in the way of other discussions.

Godfather Glitches, Chain Letters, and Scams

A warning to all Mobsters:

Any broadcast claiming to be from me or claiming to expose a glitch in the game, and that says you can get favor points or money by rebroadcasting a message to some number of people, is false and should not be taken seriously. The only ways to make money and favor points are clearly outlined in my FAQ.

Caveat emptor,

The Godfather

How to Track Down a Mobster

This is not so much a new piece of information from me but a referral to an article that may potentially help many Mobsters. If you have wondered how to track down a Mobster's MySpace profile in order to add them, follow this link,

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=12408457&blogID=425215336

Thanks go to Christopher for taking the time to write this detailed explanation.

Regional Leader Boards

Hello once again,

So that I may highlight more stunning achievers than are currently on the Made Men list, I have created separate leader boards by region. Now when you go to your Made Men page, you will see a column at the side that will allow you to see the overall leader board, the one for your region, and for the 50 regions (city, state, or province) with the most mobsters.

All Mobsters should make sure to pay their respects to these fine exemplars, or at least try to knock them off...

Newsfeed Clutter

Hello my children,

I would like to address an issue I know concerns many of my loyal Mobsters. With the proliferation of our Mobster lifestyle, many have felt their newsfeeds cluttered by bulletins and comments. Many have complained that the information they value most--who attacked them--is buried under the other items and inaccessible.

I am now in the process of finding a solution to this problem. Most likely it will involve splitting the newsfeed into two sections. If you are considering emailing me about this issue, please hold off because I am already working on this.

Addio,

The Godfather