Mafia Wars promises 'a better user experience'

Mafia Wars players have been extremely vocal about the game's bugs and general sluggishness. So it seems very brave for Zynga reps to say that a better user experience is on its way in the most recent post on the official Mafia Wars blog:

    "Our team has fixed a whole lot of bugs over the past 2 days. Some of these issues include fixing cross-promotional items that players weren't receiving, replacing wonky error messages and stopping players from awarding themselves extra skill points when they complete jobs."

OK, so we're glad that some bugs have been fixed. Some is better than none. Perhaps more telling are the seemingly endless comments after the post, brimming with suggestions on other things that need to be fixed or changed in the game, including "overloaded' servers, complaints about players using 'snag' cheat apps, no more challenge missions and allow clans/all players to share loot... to name a few.

The post ends by saying "Our work is far from over." Seems like a lot of fed-up virtual mobsters will agree with that.

Mafia Wars: Harvest 20 FarmVille crops for a free stamina refill

Mafia Wars cross promotions have been popular lately, and here is another from Zynga that will refill your stamina in Mafia Wars after harvesting 20 crops in FarmVille. While we're sure that this promotion will appear in your game in due time, why wait for that?

Mafia Wars Manic has found a shortcut link that will take you straight to the pop-up in Mafia Wars. Just copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://tiny.cc/lr9nx

After that, follow the pop-up to open up FarmVille and start harvesting. But remember to use all of your stamina up before starting this promotion to make the work worth your while.

Facebook urges game makers to ditch Flash, go HTML5

Here's your proverbial nail in coffin for the Flash versus HTML5 debate. All Things Digital reports that Facebook plans to spread the good news of HTML5 to all of the social game developers living within its cushy walls. The norm today for social games is to be developed using Adobe's Flash, which many peg for being a resource hog that isn't cross platform. (My laptop's processor and cooling fan can attest to the former.) This means that developers like Zynga can't simply take FarmVille for Facebook and throw it on the iPhone--that version was built from the ground up.

But no more. The former CTO of Second Life-creator Linden Lab, Cory Ondrejka, gave a lecture at Facebook headquarters yesterday proclaiming the benefits of making the switch to HTML5. Now a member of the Facebook team, Ondrejka wrote this in a blog post:

    With wide adoption and industry support, HTML5 will transform desktop and mobile gaming, creating amazing user experiences that are only a link away. Already, over 125 million people visit Facebook using HTML5 capable browsers just from their mobile phone, and that number skyrockets when we add in desktop browsers. The future is clear.

With HTML5, the next step for website development that can also handle pretty intense game creation, making several versions of the same social game would be a thing of the past. In fact, Zynga's recent release of Mafia Wars: Atlantic City across nearly all smartphones was thanks to HTML5. Using this fresh technology, it's possible that social games could look no different if played on Facebook through a computer or a smartphone. Ondrejka admitted that HTML5 still has a ways to go when rendering games. Despite this, he wrote "We want to help," referring to Facebook's mission to getting as many developers on the HTML5 bandwagon as possible. And that means more social games in more places for us.

Mafia Wars 2: Like Facebook fan page to unlock prizes in final game

While little is known about Mafia Wars 2 in terms of it's actual gameplay, we do know that prizes are being offered for users that Like the game's Facebook fan page. If this entire promotion looks familiar, it's because EA/Playfish pulled this one during the Sims Social pre-launch hype, and now we're seeing it again here.

Either way, we know that there will eventually be nine prizes available to unlock, although only seven of them have been revealed. These prizes are limited to varying (increasing) amounts of Likes, and will be unlocked in the final game upon launch if we reach those milestones in time. Here's the complete rundown:

Black Mohawk Hair - 20,000 Likes
Casino Row T-Shirt - 50,000 Likes
Graffiti Wall - 100,000 Likes
Skull Bandana - 250,000 Likes
Animated Lions - 500,000 Likes
Tribal Tattoo - 1 million Likes
Stripes Baseball Cap - 1.5 million Likes

Two additional prizes have yet to be revealed. So far, the fan page has only gained 70,000 Likes, so we've only managed to unlock the Black Mohawk Hair and Casino Row T-Shirt as prizes. Since the game's announcement is so new, and the hype train has barely left the station, I'd imagine we'll see that number climb slowly at first, and then monumentally as the game comes closer and closer to launch. And once we find out what those final two prizes are, we'll make sure to let you know.

Are you excited about Mafia Wars 2? If the game doesn't offer any incentive for users to switch from the original to this new version, will you? Sound off in the comments.