As many of you have noticed, there are some strange things going on with the Chop Shop at the moment, and this weekend we will be having an “Ultimate Chop Shop Weekend”.

First off, the Chop Shop is now upgradeable to level 13:

While the 85 Car Part every 24 hours is nice, the new vehicle (Day Rider 2K) is pretty weak with only 45 attack, 50 defense, and +1 attack and +1 defense. Hopefully it gets upgraded a bit soon.

What is more exciting is that starting in just a few hours (or probably will have started by the time you read this) is that the Chop Shop will be able to produce 1 car every 12 hours and there is a new, limited time car called the Future Shock 1985.

The Future Shock 1985 will only be able to be built for a limited time, has a beefy 55 attack and 45 defense, and will “provide energy, stamina, and health”. Not sure how much stats it will give just yet, but we will find out within a few hours.

This event, entitled “Gone in 60 Hours”, will only last 60 hours. In theory if you build things immediately, you will be able to get 5 Future Shock 1985s.

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As far as the other new things in game, as part of the “must play weekend”, we are supposed to be able to get some “Vegas Chips” which will give us an “advantage” in Mafia Wars Las Vegas. Not sure what advantage that is, but anything that gives me a head-start in Mafia Wars Las Vegas is good for me.

Players will also get double job mastery and double loot on fights this weekend.

—

As most of you have noticed by now, amongst all these job additions, the Top Mafia Wheelman and Top Mafia Mastermind bonuses have been stealth-nerfed to 10% (from 11%). This makes speed leveling a good bit harder.

The thing is though that the Bangkok XP:Energy job buffs were significant enough that it is still much easier to finish off Bangkok now than it was prior to the XP:Energy nerf. It makes it harder to finish off other cities though for new players.

Not sure what to think about this. The drop to 10%/10% isn’t that substantial I do not think; players will still be able to speed-level with energy accounts. The only difference now is that it will be harder for players to get to level 3000+ just by spamming Settle a Beef over and over again.

I think that if the nerfs go any further (I’m sure they will), players will really feel the pinch at 9%/9% and 8%/8%. The developers have already stated they do not like the power of these Top Mafia bonuses and are looking to tone them down. It’s a double-edged sword really.

Yes, speed-leveling is kind of silly, but now that everyone is already level 1000+ (if you aren’t by now, you better hurry up because the chance won’t last much longer), it will make it very hard for brand new players to get ahead, unless major changes to game mechanics are created.

In typical online RPG games there is a soft-reset with each expansion – the level cap is raised and players farm all new gear and get all new levels, so even brand-new players can catch up every so often. In Mafia Wars, since there is no “level cap”, new players will never catch up and there will never be a true reset.

Just something to think about! At any rate, lots of new stuff is coming and there will be a few more posts soon.

The Mafia Wars Las Vegas limited time job, “Whack the Rat Jimmy Vegas”, is now live in game. The standard format is being used: choose between a 5 minute, 8 hour, and 24 hour job, complete a collection, and get an achievement.

1. Master Jimmy Vegas event to 100%.

Pretty straight-forward – do the limited-time jobs! Here is the job list:

The 5 minute job will provide you a lot of mastery points if repeated regularly, but it will cost you the most energy. The 24 hour job has a low energy cost and pays a lot of EXP, but only provides 20% mastery. It is a good idea to do at least some 5 minute and 8 hour wjobs prior to switching over to the 24 hour job.

Each job can also drop loot pieces:

Hack Into Hotel Records – Padded Heavy Jacket (armor; 28 attack, 24 defense)
Bribe A Guard For Roof Access – Trio Berella (vehicle; 32 attack, 23 defense)
Position A Sniper – Field Rifle (weapon; 28 attack, 38 defense)

For mastering the job to 100%, you get Jimmy’s 220 Sunset (vehicle; 48 attack, 23 defense)

2. Complete the Slots Collection

Just like with other similar events, the Slots Collection is spread between the limited time job, normal jobs, fighting, and gifting. Here is the item list and where they can be found:

Liberty Bell and Lucky 7: Jimmy Vegas Job
Plum and Lime: Normal Jobs (any)
Triple Bar and Cherry: Fights (any city)
Orange: Received as a free gift

The best way to get the Jimmy Vegas collection pieces is to do the 5-minute job. That way, you will earn on average 2-3 items per hour (you only earn an average of .06 items per hour with the 8-hour job and .04 items per hour with the 24-hour job! Don’t rely on the slow jobs to get both of your collection pieces.

The Reward for vaulting the Slots Collection is the One-Armed Bandit, an armor with 28 attack and 50 defense.

3. “What happens in Vegas” Achievement

This automatically completes once you finish the previous two requirements.

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Also, it looks like this weekend is another double mastery / double fighting loot weekend. Looks like they are really trying to speed players through content so everyone can get to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, I think most players are bottle-necked by $B rather than energy.

Oh, I got Las Vegas VIP Access, doesn’t seem to do anything though.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there was a lot of good comments going on the last post and I wanted to keep the discussion open as long as possible.

But now, back to the content. In this article, I will be discussing the jobs, loot, and strategies associated with Mafia Wars Las Vegas District 3: The Lower Strip

Jobs

This job tier actually has 3 different paths: fighting, energy, and social. The fighting and energy paths work just like they did in previous chapters. The stamina cost is intense; on the fourth level of mastery, one of the fighting jobs costs 96 stamina and only offers 3% mastery for a win.

You’ll need to spend over 3,000 stamina to master the job (and that is assuming you win every fight).

Loot

Pump Shotgun (weapon; 32 attack, 22 defense)

Classic Convertible (armor; 30 attack, 35 defense)

Motorcycle Helmet (armor; 22 attack, 32 defense)

El Escorpion (weapon; 40 attack, 30 defense)

These items drop randomly from any job.

Also, the “Buy some Black-Market Info” job drops the Alarm Code. The Alarm Code is a consumable required to complete the “Do Some Late Night Shopping” job.

“Convince a Restaurateur To Leave Town” job drops a Chef. The Chef is used to upgrade the Restaurant in your Casino.

Boss: Juliana ‘Black Widow’ Trieste

Wow, killing this boss is an absolute pain! At the Ruby level of mastery, she has 25,000 health and kills most players in 1 hit.

Here is the strategy I used to defeat her on Gold mastery:

- Engaged her in a fight.
- Asked for help.
- Spent all my consumables fighting her.
- Lost and healed up in Las Vegas (spending $V and not leaving the chapter)
- Repeated jobs in the same tier in order to get a few more Stun Guns

When I re-engaged the boss shortly afterwards, I got around 5,000 damage done to her by my Mafia and was able to just finish her off by re-spending my consumables.

It seems there are two key strategies here:

1) The “get help” function is buggy and seems to have potential to do a lot of damage. One of my Mafia members dealt Trieste 4,200 damage!

2) If you do not leave the chapter (as was suggested by an anon poster) and heal in Las Vegas, her HP seems to regenerate much slower.

As a result, you can fight her, use all your consumables, heal in Las Vegas, re-engage her and she will not have regenerated any health.

If you are really desperate to beat her, it seems that the “Get Help” function can be leveraged to deal a lot of damage. What you want to do is find a lot of your Mafia Members who are strong, have them online (will require some coordination), and have them help you out.

If you are having trouble doing this, ask random mafia members using Facebook’s built-in chat system.

Now, the key is to make sure all 10 people click it. If they all do it right away and they are all pretty strong players, it’s possible to deal 10,000+ damage to her outright. This way, you will have a much easier time beating her.

Additionally, if you save up a lot of $V, you can heal repeatedly in Vegas and fight her over and over again until she dies.

It’s a bit tedious, but that is the way it seems to have to work. Here are the rewards:

Trieste’s Pistol

Bronze – 85 attack, 58 defense
Silver – 101 attack, 75 defense
Gold – 113 attack, 85 defense
Ruby – 129 attack, 104 defense

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oh, and a new fighting feature:

For some players (this is in beta and not live for most, yet anyway):

“Martial Law” has been declared and now fights are capped to 50 people. Here are the practical consequences:

1. Maybe one day you will not need to have 500 people in your Mafia to play this game (there is still all the social jobs, robbing, gifting, and other mafia-dependent events)

2. Random job loot is de-vauled, job mastery loot is more valuable. You probably won’t use random job drops at all with only 50 people, given all the job mastery loot, specialty items, and rewards from things like spinning the slots.

3. Another nerf to energy accounts who tend to have good items and bad stats.

My impression is that this is something that should have been implemented at release. It makes things more balanced, but it doesn’t necessarily make the game feel more meaningful and I am not sure what exactly it accomplishes.

It makes fighting accounts better at fighting (they won anyway), but I feel that there is still not a legitimate progression for fighting. The tournaments are a step in the right direction but need to be fleshed out more and be a lot less random and I think we will be making some good changes.

Since I have been getting a lot of e-mails on Episode 5 (and one topic in particular), I decided to skip over Episode 4 for now and cut right to the chase.

People want to know: how do I beat ‘Red’ Jackson on Ruby level?

A reader named Al shared his strategy with me for beating her:

Make sure your Top Mafia are good fighting characters. Do not use weak top mafia members (i.e. energy accounts). Test this out by attacking the boss once and seeing if you survive. If you are able to survive one round, you are good to go. If not, find some tougher top mafia members!

1. Load up with Shivs, Stun Guns, and Grenades (10 of each).

2. Attack the boss, and attack her one round.

3. If you survive (your top mafia members should be almost dead but not quite), proceed to step 4. If not, heal up and try again.

4. Use all of your Grenades.

5. Use all of your Stun guns.

6. Use all of your Shivs.

7. Attack until you die.

8. Re-arm with shivs, grenades, and stun guns. You need pretty much all 10 grenades and all 10 stun guns to make a re-attack worthwhile.

9. Repeat this process a few times (could take up to 5 rounds). The boss will heal some but if you are quick and do not leave Las Vegas it is doable. You may need energy packs and even have to spend reward points on energy in order to collect more items.

–

The Shivs really do go a long way towards defeating this particular boss. Each Shiv will hit the boss for about 40 damage, so you can knock off 400 of her 6,000 HP by using your Shivs. After you use all the Grenades, it will still take 5-8 stun guns to kill off all her helpers, depending on your strength. This only leaves you to get a few hits on her.

You really need some good attack strength in order to dent her HP. It can be really tough with an energy account and take you a lot of rounds to win. With a fighting account, it is just as tough if not harder because it is really hard to collect all the items you will need to take her down with a small energy pool!

With that said, for killing ‘Red’ Jackson you get her Motorcycle. Here are the stats:

Bronze: 107 attack, 73 defense
Silver: 120 attack, 92 defense
Gold: 138 attack, 105 defense
Ruby: 162 attack, 140 defense

Other Mojave Desert loot:

Bark Scorpion (animal; 50 attack, 30 defense)

Dune Buggy (vehicle; 41 attack, 35 defense)

Set of Biker Leathers (armor; 30 attack, 48 defense)

Bighorn Ram (animal; 37 attack, 42 defense)

Precision SMG (weapon; 42 attack, 30 defense)

Range Finder Rifle (weapon; 37 attack, 54 defense)

Mojave Mike (vehicle; 40 attack, 53 defense)

..and the “Rescue a Hotelier” job drops the Bellhop, which can be used to upgrade your casino.

So, as many of you have pointed, our new Mafia Wars Las Vegas “Jackpot Weekend” is actually the same thing as our previous Las Vegas loot weekend!

You can collect 7 items between fighting and doing jobs (the same items as before):

Stage Show Tiger (animal; 28 attack, 50 defense)

Casino Guard (armor; 48 attack, 28 defense)

Suit of Suits (armor; 46 attack, 24 defense)

High Roller (vehicle; 46 attack, 23 defense)

Royal Flush (weapon; 48 attack, 25 defense)

Big Blind (weapon; 52 attack, 25 defense)

Viva Las Vegas (weapon; 27 attack, 50 defense)

and the reward for collecting the 7 items:

Jackpot (weapon; 30 attack, 54 defense)

—-

You can only get 10 of each item it seems, so if you hit the Las Vegas loot item cap before, you cannot collect new items.. foiled again!

In other news, this weekend for the third weekend in a row is a double fighting loot / double job mastery weekend. Players will earn twice as much loot in fights and they will earn twice as much mastery on jobs.

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In another news note, Mafia Wars South Africa has been extended by a day. Players now have 2 more days to finish up.

In this post, I will try to get together all of the information for the Mafia Wars Las Vegas Casino. There are a lot of parts to the casino, so this post will be continually updated as I get more information. Any contributions via comments or e-mail are most welcome!

About the Casino

In Mafia Wars Las Vegas, players are able to build their own casino. Essentially, the player’s Casino replaces properties/businesses for Mafia Wars Las Vegas entirely. The Casino is actually a mix of several different properties:

Slots
Table Games
Restaurant
Poker Room
Hotel
Vault

Each one of these properties is upgradeable much in the way the Chop Shop and Weapons Depot are, however, they only seem to produce $V.

Upgrades

Your Casino’s individual properties are ranked on a star system, just like Casinos are in real life. Each property you build starts out with .5 stars (level 1), and each time you upgrade it, it raises by .5 stars. Your overall Casino’s ranking is based off an average of the ranking of all your individual properties.

The max is currently for the entire casino and individual properties is 5 stars, which is equivalent to level 10. Each time you upgrade your property, it produces more $V and it occasionally it will a different graphic. Will have an example of this shortly.

Each property within your Casino needs pieces to be upgraded with special items just like the Chop Shop and Weapons Depot. Each Casino part seems to follow this pattern:

Specialty Item: 2 + Current Level * 2 (4 for the first upgrade, 6 for the second upgrade, and so on). This includes things like the Poker Tables or Chefs and also one item from the list below.

Cinder Block, Steel Girder, Concrete, Construction Tool: 1 + Current Level (2 for the first upgrade, 3 for the third upgrade, and so on). Note that each property requires extra of a certain item on the list. For example, the Restaurant requires extra Steel Girders, while the Table Games property requires extra Cinder Blocks.

Essentially, each building has its own specialty item (like Poker Tables for the Poker Room) which drop from specific jobs (listed under each property down below) along with the same other 4 materials listed above.

Cinder Blocks, Steel Girder, Concrete, and Construction Tools drop randomly from jobs (not sure if they are dropping outside of Vegas yet). You can also “ask for more” parts once every 24 hours just like with the Chop Shop or Weapons Depot.

Below I will cover each individual piece of the Casino.

Slots

The Slots property is unlocked by mastering the “Steal a Truckload of Slots” job in District 1 of Mafia Wars Las Vegas. You only have to master it in the Bronze tier to have access to the property. Once you have access to it, you can build it for free, and it starts out as a .5 star property.

To upgrade the slots, you will need the Slot Machine item, which drops from the “Steal a Truckload of Slots” job in District 1. Here are the Slot levels and payouts:

.5 Stars (Level 1) – Produces V$600 every 4 hours.
1 Star (Level 2) – Produces V$700 every 4 hours.
1.5 Stars (Level 3) – Produces V$800 every 4 hours

Table Games

The Table Games property is unlocked by mastering the “Recruit a Table Game Dealer” job in District 2 of Mafia Wars Las Vegas.

This property requires the “Casino Dealer” to upgrade. This item is supposed to drop from the “Recruit a Table Game Dealer” job, but I have not yet had it drop for me for some reason (bug I believe).

.5 Stars (Level 1) – Produces V$2,800 every 8 hours.
1 Star (Level 2) – Produces $V3,600 every 8 hours.
1.5 Stars (Level 3) – Produces $V4,400 every 8 hours.

Restaurant

The Restaurant is unlocked by completing the “Convince A Restaurateur To Leave Town” job in District 3.

The same “Convince A Restaurateur To Leave Town” job also drops the “Chef” needed to upgrade the Restaurant.

.5 Stars (Level 1) – Produces $V7,500 every 12 hours.

1 Star (Level 2) – Produces $V10,000 every 12 hours.

1.5 Stars (Level 3) – Produces $V12,500 every 12 hours.

2 Stars (level 4) – Produces $V15,000 every 12 hours.

2.5 Stars (level 5) – Produces $V27,500 every 12 hours.

3 Stars (level 6) – Produces $V32,500 every 12 hours.

Poker Room

The Poker Room is unlocked by completing “Hijack a Poker Table Delivery” in District 4.

This job also drops Poker Tables, which are needed to upgrade your Poker Room.

.5 Stars (Level 1) – Produces V$ 17,500 every 24 hours
1 Star (Level 2) – Produces V$ 25,000 every 24 hours

Hotel

The Hotel is unlocked by completing the “” job in District 5.

.5 Stars (Level 1) – Produces V$ 40,000 every 48 hours
1 Star (Level 2) – Produces V$ 55,000 every 48 hours

Vault

The Vault is a completely different property. At the Vault, you can store your $V, much like the bank. However, the Vault is different in that it has a limit (default is only $V100,000, which is very easy to get).

You can upgrade the Vault by collecting the following pieces:

Security Camera
Reinforced Steel
Deposit Box
Motion Sensor
Magnetic Lock

These items drop randomly from jobs and you may have some already from an old event. Level 1 requires 3 of each item and the cost goes up 1 item every half star upgraded (1 Star to 1.5 Stars requires 4 of each item, 1.5 Stars to 2 Stars requires 5 of each item, and so on).

In addition to holding your money, your Vault can convert your worthless New York dollars into valuable $V. Before you get too excited, note that this feature can only be used every 24 hours.

As you upgrade your site, the capacity of your Vault to convert and store $V increases. Here are the levels:

.5 Stars (Level 1) – Holds V$100,000 and converts $500,000 into V$1,000.

1 Star (Level 2) – Holds V$200,000 and converts $1,000,000 into V$2,000.

1.5 Star (Level 3) – Holds V$400,000 and converts $1,000,000 into V$2,000 and B$10,000 into V$2,000.

2 Star (level 4) – Holds V$800,000 and converts $1,000,000 into V$2,000, B$10,000 into V$2,000, and C$50,000 into V$2,000.

2.5 Star (level 5) – Holds V$1,500,000 and converts $2,000,000 into V$4,000, B$10,000 into V$2,000, and C$50,000 into V$2,000.

3 Star (Level 6) Holds V$3,000,000 and converts $2,000,000 into V$4,000, B$10,000 into V$2,000, C$50,000 into V$2,000, and $R50,000,000 into $V4,000.

3.5 Star (Level 7) – Holds V$5,000,000 and converts $4,000,000 into V$8,000, B$10,000 into V$2,000, C$50,000 into V$2,000, and R$50,000,000 into V$4,000.

4 Star (Level – Holds V$10,000,000 and converts $8,000,000 into V$16,000, B$10,000 into V$5,000, C$250,000 into V$10,000, and R$50,000,000 into V$4,000.

4.5 Star (Level 9) – Holds V$20,000,000 and converts $12,000,000 into V$20,000, B$10,000 into V$2,000, C$250,000 into V$10,000, and R$200,000,000 into V$20,000.

5 Star (Level 10 ) – Holds V$50,000,000 and converts $24,000,000 into V$40,000, B$200,000 into V$40,000, C$1,000,000 into V$40,000, and R$400,000,000 into V$40,000.

Thanks Sachiko Yakusa for the info!

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At any rate, the list is definitely still very much under construction. Feel free to contribute any information you might get! I am currently now unable to play due to the lag since I’m sure a lot more people than normal are online and messing around either in Vegas or trying to get into Vegas!

Since some of you are asking about it, the Beat the Feds limited time event has been put on hold.

The gist of the event was that there were a group of 4 bosses that you could fight, upon winning you received an item with decent stats.

After you beat each boss once, you got an item which offered +1% to chip drops from Vegas fights. You then completed the Bronze level of mastery and could move on to level 2 and fight each boss again.

On Level 2, each boss got more HP and was tougher, just in Mafia Wars Las Vegas. After beating the bosses a second time, your weapon that you got from the first fight got upgraded in stats.

However, this job was pulled since it was really buggy and crashing the servers. Here is the official response:

“Hey all,

Just to clarify – this [the Feds job] has been delayed, not canceled. I do not have an official time frame for when the feds will return, but all players should be able to participate in this event in the future. I’ll try to keep you updated when I get more information. Thanks for your patience!”

Will cover this event along with loot when it comes back to the game. Not likely to come back within the next few days I’d imagine.

In Mafia Wars Las Vegas, the loot system is a little bit different. All of the new armor, weapon, animal, and vehicle pieces drop randomly from jobs in each district.

In other words, there is a set of about 5-10 items (I will refer to this as the “loot pool” for ease of reference), and by doing any job you randomly have a chance to get any of those 5-10 items.

With that said, here are the loot pools for each district (big thanks to Steven for putting this together!):

District 1

Moving Truck (vehicle; 12 attack, 20 defense)

Carver (weapon; 24 attack, 16 defense)

24k Chainsaw (weapon; 29 attack, 15 defense)

Football Jersey (armor; 10 attack, 28 defense)

District 2

Sand Storm (vehicle; 29 attack, 15 defense)

Bison (animal; 23 attack, 40 defense)

Road Tractor (vehicle; 25 attack, 33 defense)

Highrise Sport (vehicle; 29 attack, 38 defense)

Reinforced Boots (armor; 27 attack, 19 defense)

El Escorpion (armor; 40 attack, 30 defense)

Reinforced Tuxedo (armor; 28 attack, 34 defense)

Biohazard (weapon; 18 attack, 28 defense)

District 3

Pump Shotgun (weapon; 32 attack, 22 defense)

Classic Convertible (armor; 30 attack, 35 defense)

Motorcycle Helmet (armor; 22 attack, 32 defense)

El Escorpion (weapon; 40 attack, 30 defense)

District 4

Two Pair (weapon; 31 attack, 44 defense)

High Society (vehicle; 37 attack, 29 defense)

Femme Fatale (armor; 45 attack, 28 defense)

Ventilated Blast Cap (armor; 32 attack, 24 defense)

Belt Fed Shotgun (weapon; 27 attack, 36 defense)

Hard Four (vehicle; 30 attack, 50 defense)

Bark Scorpion (animal; 50 attack, 30 defense)

District 5

Dune Buggy (vehicle; 41 attack, 35 defense)

Set of Biker Leathers (armor; 30 attack, 48 defense)

Bighorn Ram (animal; 37 attack, 42 defense)

Precision SMG (weapon; 42 attack, 30 defense)

Range Finder Rifle (weapon; 37 attack, 54 defense)

Mojave Mike (vehicle; 40 attack, 53 defense)

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I think this list is incomplete; if you have anything to add, please post in the comments. The best three pieces I have seen so far are the Bark Scorpion (animal; 50 attack, 30 defense), the Range Finder Rifle (weapon; 37 attack, 54 defense) and the Mojave Mike (vehicle; 40 attack, 53 defense).

I have seen the Bark Scorpion in District 4 and the Mojave Mike and Range Finder Rifle randomly in District 5. Players are claiming to have found pieces in all cities, but I have not been able to confirm this or noticed this myself. Anyone have any pictures?

Mafia Wars Las Vegas is also now live for all players!