Mafia Wars Bangkok is the newest expansion from Zynga and is a continuation of their very popular game. This expansion takes place in the mysterious orient and is based in Thailand.

The Japanese Yakuza and Chinese Triads have battled for control of this city and country for years and you will be thrust into the middle of the conflict just as you were with the Vory and Mafiya in Moscow.

While the expansion is not live yet Zynga is giving you the ability to get your hands on the items that will be required to unlock the expansion.

Here is a quick reference for the items.

• Triad Coin – This item can be found in the New York Soldier Tier.
• Yakuza Sake – Find this item in the New York Hitman Tier.
• Thai Note – You can find this item in New York in the Enforcer Tier.
• Thai Passport – To get this item you will have to wait until the launch date.

I hope that they iron out all of the problems with the expansion before they roll it out. The Moscow expansion was released before it was ready and resulted in major changes involving earning R$ and the bribe penalties. Perhaps they have learned from their mistakes.

While the exact release date of Mafia Wars Bangkok is unknown it is probably best to get the items to unlock the expansion now and be ready. Good luck in Bangkok and look forward to up to date information as soon as it is available.

Recently Facebook announced changes being made to the privacy settings of its users. While these changes are designed to make things easier and simpler for its users is it more of a pain in the butt than helpful? You decide.

The default settings for the new privacy features will make all of your information available not only to the 350 million Facebook users as well as search engines such as Yahoo, Google and others.

Does this open up your account to even more danger in the form of hackers, scammers and other unscrupulous entities? I believe that it can, but you can do more to protect yourself by tweaking the following settings.

Search Settings

With the release of these new privacy settings all accounts were set to a default configuration. This configuration includes resetting your public search settings to the on mode. This setting means that you are allowing your information to be seen by any search engine. If you do not want your information to be available to anyone who wants to see it you need to reset the option to the off mode. Read the rest of this entry

I have been playing Mafia Wars for quite some time and have built numerous characters so I thought I would pass along four simple things that are the basis of creating a strong character.

1.) Use your Energy effectively

This is probably the most important thing in Mafia Wars. If you want to level quickly you need to make sure that you put your energy to the best use. Visit one of the bookmarklet pages and pick up a tool to help you determine how to manage your energy when completing jobs.

2.) Linear Jobs

Complete jobs in a linear manner for the best results in the long run. If you are starting a new character begin with the Street Thug tier and complete all three levels of it before moving on. Resist the urge to jump around on the tiers simply because you are high enough level for them. This holds true for expansion as well. Visit them to get your business started then forget about them except for collecting your business payouts. Read the rest of this entry

Here is a quick list of items that have been leaked for the new Bangkok expansion that should go live very soon. While the stats for the items was not part of the leak you will at least have an idea of what to expect

As soon as I have the stats for the items I will post the list so you can incorporate it into your spreadsheets.

Here we are just a few days before Christmas. In no time jolly ole Saint Nick will be making his yearly rounds and the snow is falling in the United States. With the spirit of Christmas in the air many of us think of our loved ones and look forward to spending time around the Christmas tree.

Zynga has been busy this year as well. When we had scheduled maintenance on Friday, December 12th, I thought that they may implement the Bangkok expansion but I was mistaken. Instead they were setting up a blowout sale, setting up Holiday Event, and presenting us with a charity to which we can contribute. Read the rest of this entry

Mafioso might all seem to be big tough shoot first ask questions later type of people but they do celebrate Christmas. Sometimes I imagine what a mafia member might get their family. I picture t-shirts with catchy sayings. Some of these might fit the bill.

• Mafioso Morgue – We Stab em Then We Slab em
• Carmine’s BBQ – Grill em Then Kill em
• Anthony’s Cleaning Service – Let Us Handle Your Dirty Work
• Mikie’s Dry Cleaning – We Launder Anything
• Who’s Yer Godfadda?

Zynga is in on the Yuletide season as usual and is holding a holiday event through January, 3rd, 2010. During this time they have made special Christmas gifts available for you to put under your mafia’s tree.

The Safe House

The Safe House is another Christmas feature but it should not be confused with the free gifts listed above. In order to get gifts from the Safe House you need to click on the “ask for more gifts” button and select as many of your mafia as possible each day.

In order to ensure that you get as many gifts as possible you should select members of your mafia that you know are active players. Daily players are your best of course. Make sure that you return the favor when your mafia members request gifts from you too.

The gifts that you receive are completely random but I am told that the items are some of the best yet in Mafia Wars. You can open your gifts early but it will cost you Godfather Points. Best wait until Christmas Day.

Limited Time Job

You will also have access to a holiday limited time job called “Bring the Family Together.” Completing this job results in special holiday gifts and is a multi step process once again giving you the chance to get you hands on some hard to get loot.

The holiday celebration gives Mafia Wars players the chance to grab some of the more rare in game items as well as the chance to win a real Xbox 360 or a Mafia Wars Jacket. If you have not started sending and asking for gifts do it now and your Christmas Day might include a game console or a jacket from our friends at Zynga.

All around the world the Christmas season has traditionally a time of giving. Some give to “Da Family” and others give to friends and acquaintances, but there are some who choose to give to charities to help those who are not as privileged as they are.

This Yuletide Season Zynga has chosen a charity and asked that the members of Mafia Wars help. The charity that they have chosen is called FATEM and is based in Mirebalais, Haiti. The group is dedicated to bringing information technology to the people of Haiti which will help with economic advancement in the area. The group also supports the general education of Haitian children and ensures that these children receive meals that will help them grow and learn.

For you contribution Zynga has chosen to offer a special Limited Edition item that you can use in Mafia Wars at the cost of 25 Godfather Points.

Haitian Drum – 44 Attack – 46 Defense

As Mafia Wars players I can guarantee that none of us know what it is like to go without a meal or live in live in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti is the 7th poorest nation in the world and we have the chance to help Zynga bring needed food and technology to the country.

The cost of the item is 25 Reward Points. Many of us have that many saved up from leveling but using these points will not help the people of Haiti. You can purchase 42 reward points for a measly $7.00, less than most of us pay for a fast food meal. If you can afford it please invest in the future of another country.

Help Zynga change the lives of the children of Haiti if you can.

The year of 2009 is about to come to an end and I for one must say that it has been quite a good year.

Even though Mafia Wars experienced some glitches and hiccups in the later part of the year the folks over at Zynga have done a great job of fixing most of the problems that we have encountered.

The New Year looks like it is going to be a good one as well as far as Mafia Wars goes.

New Years Job

Expect a brand new featured job starting December 28th and continuing through January 4th. According to Zynga “This job will give you even more options than before including choosing different missions with different payouts.”

Bangkok Expansion

Originally the Bangkok Expansion was slated for release during the Christmas holidays but has been pushed back to a January 2010 release. Personally I am happy to see a game provider that is willing to make sure that an expansion is ready instead of pushing it out before it is ready. Bravo Zynga!

Other 2010 Features

Multi-Item Gifting – Zynga will be making it much easier to strengthen your Mafia Wars mafia. This feature will most likely migrate into other games which bear the Zynga brand as well.

Translations – Mafia Wars will become available to many more players throughout the world by offering it in many more languages. Once again I foresee this opening up other games as well.

Robbing – Zynga has heard the voice of its players and will be reintroducing robbing in 2010 with and new format.

Developers Days – This is in my opinion one of the best ways to improve any game. Zynga plans to hold meetings between the development team and player base in order to come up with new ideas.

Beta Testing – It seems that Zynga has decided that do more in the way of beta testing. You can never test enough when putting out a quality product. Everyone needs to keep in mind that even though a product goes through an extensive beta process there will always be the inevitable problems once the product goes live.

Free Stuff – It looks like we will be getting more free stuff in the way of weekly giveaways, rewards, contests, and more. Hey, free stuff is always good.

With 2009 coming to an end very soon I took some time to reflect back upon the year and realized that in the Mafia Wars world 2009 was a good year. We saw many new features and even though some were very good and others not so good, all in all we had fun and it was great. 2010 is almost upon us and I think that it is going to be another great year.

The new Mafia Wars limited time job, The Last Score of 2009. As advertised, there will be 3 different jobs you will have to choose between.

Each time you do a job, you get a little bit of job mastery. I am assuming there will be a nice item available once you reach 100% mastery.

After you do a job one time, you will be locked out either 5 minutes, 4 hours, or 8 hours, depending on which job you picked. After that time has passed, you can collect your reward and choose a different job. Read the rest of this entry

Thanksgiving is a special event at Zynga and they have once again spread the spirit to Mafia Wars. From 12:01 am, Thursday, November 26th through Monday, November 30th at 11:59 pm all jobs and fights have a chance to drop holiday themed items.

Here is a quick list of the items along with their stats.

Weapons

Stuffed Turkey: 19 attack, 25 defense

Mashed Potatoes: 24 attack, 21 defense

Pea Shooter: 26 attack, 12 defense

Cooked Goose: 15 attack, 27 defense

Electric Carving Knife: 34 attack, 10 defense

Armor

Lucky Wishbone: 16 attack, 36 defense

Food Coma: 20 attack, 42 defense

Vchicles:

Gravy Boat: 40 attack, 24 defense

Out of all of these I think that the Food Coma is hilarious. How many times have you eaten Thanksgiving dinner and everyone rushes to the living room to watch football and are sound asleep before the first quarter is over? It was always that way as I grew up and the tradition of “Food Coma” is alive and well still in my family. Oh well I guess that the condition saves us from the boring games that are the usual fare of the Thanksgiving celebration.

Additionally, even if you already have everything, you can get 2 free reward points associated with the event. Every time you get an item you can publish it for your friends to get 2 free reward points.