Well it looks to me like the dreaded untraceable cell phones and concealable cameras are going to be necessary at some point in Mafia Wars Moscow. The loot items on the first two Moscow jobs are cell phones and cameras. Hopefully the loot items are just to help people finish up New York rather than being needed for later in Moscow. We shall see.
I still need probably 50 to wrap up New York and the Cuba. I try not to do the cell phone job as it is a waste of energy doing a job I have already mastered. I would rather use the energy towards productive jobs that I have not mastered. Thus I get my cell phones from looting and rewards. Might have to change that strategy, but would rather not waste the energy. I'll just use the Moscow cell phones I get back in New York and pray we dont need more cell phones down the line in Moscow.
Looks like I will not have to choose sides in Mafia Wars Moscow until the third level. At that point you will have to choose a side to support and this will affect the final stage, boss battle and special loot item dropped at the end.
Again, any Mafia Wars tips are appreciated. Feel free to post in the comments.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Mafia Wars Moscow is Live Today!
Mafia Wars Moscow is live and running as of this morning! Lots of new fun and challenges ready for us. I am going to wait a couple of days before doing anything other than fighting and collecting money from the taxi business. I am very close to completing the entire Cuba level and want to go ahead and finish that up. It will also give me a couple of days to study Moscow so that I do not rush over there and make a mistake.
Money could be a problem in Mafia Wars Moscow, but we'll wait and see. The inventory items look to be quite expensive with the cheapest weapon a dubina for 500,000 rubles. The cheapest armor is 900,000 rubles. Cuba had money issues early on as it was tough to get going there as well. It looks like the businesses in Moscow are not to be bought but rather earned once you reach certain levels there. A new twist there.
It also looks like in Chapter 1 that there are mystery items required to do the jobs as there is a question mark next to the job requirements. Hope they aren't cell phones or something like that. Ouch. We'll find out soon enough.
Either way around it, Mafia Wars Moscow is an exciting new chapter in Mafia Wars and I am looking forward to embarking on it in a couple days once I wrap up Cuba. Any Moscow tips please post them in the comments below!
Money could be a problem in Mafia Wars Moscow, but we'll wait and see. The inventory items look to be quite expensive with the cheapest weapon a dubina for 500,000 rubles. The cheapest armor is 900,000 rubles. Cuba had money issues early on as it was tough to get going there as well. It looks like the businesses in Moscow are not to be bought but rather earned once you reach certain levels there. A new twist there.
It also looks like in Chapter 1 that there are mystery items required to do the jobs as there is a question mark next to the job requirements. Hope they aren't cell phones or something like that. Ouch. We'll find out soon enough.
Either way around it, Mafia Wars Moscow is an exciting new chapter in Mafia Wars and I am looking forward to embarking on it in a couple days once I wrap up Cuba. Any Moscow tips please post them in the comments below!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Mafia Wars - Here Comes Moscow!
For all you Mafia Wars players out there, and there are an easy 5 million of us, get ready for Moscow. Yes, the Moscow expansion is coming soon....very soon. It couldn't come soon enough either as many of us are finishing or are alrady done with Cuba and ready for a new challenge. Moscow will require you to be at least level 70 to visit and word on the street is that Mafia Wars Moscow will be much much tougher then New York or Cuba.
New York was pretty much a breeze, with money easy to get and jobs definitely doable. The only real challenge of New York was getting enough of those damned cell phones to actually finish up.
Cuba was tougher for sure. Money was much more difficult to obtain and getting started took time. More challenging and more fun. I'm hoping Mafia Wars Moscow takes the same step forward.
The biggest difference in this expansion? Mafia Wars Senior Product Manager David Kahn says it will have, "a new look and feel," and, "will be much harder than other expansions we released before, more geared to higher level players, level 70-plus."
Also unlike the other Mafia Wars scenarios, missions will be broken down into chapters, and you will not be able to see the next set of missions until you complete a chapter and defeat the boss at the end. Players will also have to rely on friends more than before to defeat these high-powered crime lords.
Once Moscow is taken care of Mafia Wars players can look forward to Asia and Western US expansions as well.
New York was pretty much a breeze, with money easy to get and jobs definitely doable. The only real challenge of New York was getting enough of those damned cell phones to actually finish up.
Cuba was tougher for sure. Money was much more difficult to obtain and getting started took time. More challenging and more fun. I'm hoping Mafia Wars Moscow takes the same step forward.
The biggest difference in this expansion? Mafia Wars Senior Product Manager David Kahn says it will have, "a new look and feel," and, "will be much harder than other expansions we released before, more geared to higher level players, level 70-plus."
Also unlike the other Mafia Wars scenarios, missions will be broken down into chapters, and you will not be able to see the next set of missions until you complete a chapter and defeat the boss at the end. Players will also have to rely on friends more than before to defeat these high-powered crime lords.
Once Moscow is taken care of Mafia Wars players can look forward to Asia and Western US expansions as well.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
How Can We Function with a $9 Trillion Budget Deficit?
The Obama Government came out today and predicted a budget deficit of $9 trillion over the next decade. How can we function like that? How can the rest of the world take the US seriously when it will be so far underwater? At the end of the decade the debt will equal 75% of the entire American economy as we will owe almost $20 trillion dollars!
Politicians have to stop the ridiculous spending! Now! We have to tighten the belt and do without some things. When I don't have enough income then I stop buying things. I do not go out and charge and charge and wrack up more debt.
We the voters need to take a stand and let Congress and the President know that this type of rampant spending is not productive for the long term future of the United States. Period. There are two options.
Raise taxes or cut spending. Raising taxes in this economic environment is not productive. The answer: quit throwing money around.
Politicians have to stop the ridiculous spending! Now! We have to tighten the belt and do without some things. When I don't have enough income then I stop buying things. I do not go out and charge and charge and wrack up more debt.
We the voters need to take a stand and let Congress and the President know that this type of rampant spending is not productive for the long term future of the United States. Period. There are two options.
Raise taxes or cut spending. Raising taxes in this economic environment is not productive. The answer: quit throwing money around.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Laura Ling and Euna Lee to be released by North Korea
Former US President Bill Clinton visited North Korea in an attempt to release Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee who have been held for months after being arrested last year when they crossed into North Korea illegally. The two were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor earlier this year. Word out of North Korea is that Kim Jong Il has decided to pardon the two.
The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea's "humanitarian and peaceloving policy," the Korean Central News Agency reported.
The North has been playing up the Bill Clinton visit as a major event and state run media is reporting the visit was used to discuss political issues between the US and North Korea. They are also reporting that Bill Clinton delivered a personal letter from President Barack Obama. The US government is denying the visit was for anything more than to negotiate the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee and that no message was delivered from Obama.
The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea's "humanitarian and peaceloving policy," the Korean Central News Agency reported.
The North has been playing up the Bill Clinton visit as a major event and state run media is reporting the visit was used to discuss political issues between the US and North Korea. They are also reporting that Bill Clinton delivered a personal letter from President Barack Obama. The US government is denying the visit was for anything more than to negotiate the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee and that no message was delivered from Obama.
Friday, July 17, 2009
You Wonder Why the Airline Industry is in Bad Shape?
So you wonder why the airline industry is in such a bad state? Let's say poor business model and poor customer relations. So I have a Sunday evening flight from Orlando to DFW on American Airlines booked. I was hoping to move up from the 6:30pm flight to the 11:30am flight to get back in town in time to get to the Chelsea-Club America soccer game at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium Sunday night.
So I do my online research and see there are seats open on the 11:30am flight. Should be an easy change right? Nothing to it. Just move me off the later flight and put me on the earlier flight. Maybe $25 processing fee that's fine.
I talk to the reservationist at American. No problem. Seats available easy change. Then she says "That will be a $436 processing charge." Heck I only paid $220 for the round trip tickets! Amazing. I'll pass. $436 to make a 2 minute change. ridiculous.
So I do my online research and see there are seats open on the 11:30am flight. Should be an easy change right? Nothing to it. Just move me off the later flight and put me on the earlier flight. Maybe $25 processing fee that's fine.
I talk to the reservationist at American. No problem. Seats available easy change. Then she says "That will be a $436 processing charge." Heck I only paid $220 for the round trip tickets! Amazing. I'll pass. $436 to make a 2 minute change. ridiculous.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
BCS is just not right at all
Despite some eloquent grandstanding on its behalf before a US Senate subcommittee Tuesday, the Mountain West Conference caved in the next day and re-upped with the Bowl Championship Series. This action was as predictable as it was understandable. Five more years of crumbs, after all, beats death by starvation. Still, it's a shame.
The BCS is designed by elites, for elites, who also accord themselves the privilege of defining what constitutes an elite. It exists to generate and horde wealth for a select few, locking out others who aspire to join their club. And that's all.
The elites would have you believe theirs are the only college football teams you want to watch, or to see play in a national championship game. So that's how the BCS is set up, to orchestrate the proof that perpetuates the fraud. This would be like the government clearing the shelves in all grocery stores of everything but dog food, then saying, "All the people want to eat is dog food."
It's crazy. You know this. You know the BCS is wrong. You know this unholy concoction constitutes an unreasonable restraint of commerce within the intercollegiate sports industry; that the BCS willfully acquired its power and exercises that power in monopolistic fashion. In other words, you know what Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and anyone else with a working brain knows: The BCS violates pretty much everything the Sherman Antitrust Act was designed to prohibit.
Now, teams of lawyers might get drunk and rich debating the fine points of anti-trust law. For example, Vanderbilt Law School graduate and Deadspin.com associate editor Clay Travis last week posted a brilliant essay in which he noted the BCS is not actually a legal entity and, therefore, could not violate Sherman. The probability that the BCS was structured to avoid such a challenge should be enough to make fans regurgitate, if not revolt.
Fine points be damned. We all should want what is right. It would be nice if the eloquence articulated by BCS opponents Tuesday were sincere, for their arguments were spot on. At the top, the Bowl Championship Series consists of five major bowl games: Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar and the BCS Championship. The winners of the six BCS conferences that govern the system — the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-10 and SEC — are guaranteed berths in one of those games, regardless of how they rank in terms of overall quality. The top two teams in the final BCS standings, determined by a compilation of two polls and six computerized ranking systems, play for the national championship.
While nothing in the BCS setup directly prohibits a member of one of the five non-BCS conferences from grabbing one of the four remaining spots in the big bowl games, or from qualifying to play for the national title, the deck is stacked against those things happening. Of 94 berths in major bowl games the past 11 seasons, only four have gone to non-BCS teams. No non-BCS team has played for the championship; not even last season, when Mountain West champ Utah was undefeated while Florida and Oklahoma matched one-loss records in the title game.
"In this country," Utah president Michael Young testified to the subcommittee, "we should decide championships by competition, not by conspiracy."
Alas, there was little sincerity here. The only outrage was self-serving.
"I would not be here today if all universities had a realistic opportunity to compete for the national championship and if BCS revenues were equitably distributed among institutions," Young said.
I find that hard to believe. Young was there testifying and Hatch was there from gavel to gavel, pontificating about BCS arrogance and later goading the Justice Department to investigate, only because Utah was the latest program gored by the Bull Championship Spit.
If Utah joins the Pac-10 in the next major realignment of big-time conferences, thus becoming an official elite, their outrage will sink to the bottom of the Great Salt Lake, and Hatch and Young will begin reciting the bunk sounded by Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman, whose university belongs to the Big XII.
"I don't think it's arrogant if you've thought about something for five or six years and concluded that it's really hard to do something different," Perlman testified.
No, it's the height of arrogance to think the rest of us are stupid enough to believe him. The solution actually is very simple, if you are dedicated to what is right instead of what lines your pockets.
The Justice Department should set him straight and put the BCS in its place.
KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216.
The BCS is designed by elites, for elites, who also accord themselves the privilege of defining what constitutes an elite. It exists to generate and horde wealth for a select few, locking out others who aspire to join their club. And that's all.
The elites would have you believe theirs are the only college football teams you want to watch, or to see play in a national championship game. So that's how the BCS is set up, to orchestrate the proof that perpetuates the fraud. This would be like the government clearing the shelves in all grocery stores of everything but dog food, then saying, "All the people want to eat is dog food."
It's crazy. You know this. You know the BCS is wrong. You know this unholy concoction constitutes an unreasonable restraint of commerce within the intercollegiate sports industry; that the BCS willfully acquired its power and exercises that power in monopolistic fashion. In other words, you know what Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and anyone else with a working brain knows: The BCS violates pretty much everything the Sherman Antitrust Act was designed to prohibit.
Now, teams of lawyers might get drunk and rich debating the fine points of anti-trust law. For example, Vanderbilt Law School graduate and Deadspin.com associate editor Clay Travis last week posted a brilliant essay in which he noted the BCS is not actually a legal entity and, therefore, could not violate Sherman. The probability that the BCS was structured to avoid such a challenge should be enough to make fans regurgitate, if not revolt.
Fine points be damned. We all should want what is right. It would be nice if the eloquence articulated by BCS opponents Tuesday were sincere, for their arguments were spot on. At the top, the Bowl Championship Series consists of five major bowl games: Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar and the BCS Championship. The winners of the six BCS conferences that govern the system — the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-10 and SEC — are guaranteed berths in one of those games, regardless of how they rank in terms of overall quality. The top two teams in the final BCS standings, determined by a compilation of two polls and six computerized ranking systems, play for the national championship.
While nothing in the BCS setup directly prohibits a member of one of the five non-BCS conferences from grabbing one of the four remaining spots in the big bowl games, or from qualifying to play for the national title, the deck is stacked against those things happening. Of 94 berths in major bowl games the past 11 seasons, only four have gone to non-BCS teams. No non-BCS team has played for the championship; not even last season, when Mountain West champ Utah was undefeated while Florida and Oklahoma matched one-loss records in the title game.
"In this country," Utah president Michael Young testified to the subcommittee, "we should decide championships by competition, not by conspiracy."
Alas, there was little sincerity here. The only outrage was self-serving.
"I would not be here today if all universities had a realistic opportunity to compete for the national championship and if BCS revenues were equitably distributed among institutions," Young said.
I find that hard to believe. Young was there testifying and Hatch was there from gavel to gavel, pontificating about BCS arrogance and later goading the Justice Department to investigate, only because Utah was the latest program gored by the Bull Championship Spit.
If Utah joins the Pac-10 in the next major realignment of big-time conferences, thus becoming an official elite, their outrage will sink to the bottom of the Great Salt Lake, and Hatch and Young will begin reciting the bunk sounded by Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman, whose university belongs to the Big XII.
"I don't think it's arrogant if you've thought about something for five or six years and concluded that it's really hard to do something different," Perlman testified.
No, it's the height of arrogance to think the rest of us are stupid enough to believe him. The solution actually is very simple, if you are dedicated to what is right instead of what lines your pockets.
The Justice Department should set him straight and put the BCS in its place.
KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216.
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