Mafia Wars London officially opens, let the Crown Jewel heist begin!

There's no time like the present to take your mafia on a working vacation -- to London. The new Mafia Wars London mission officially opened at midnight and for the next three weeks, you'll be pulling off the heist of a lifetime, i.e. stealing a Crown Jewel.

Of course, your crew won't be able to simply walk in and take it. We're talking about the Crown Jewels after all. You'll have to perform a series of special jobs, which require a certain number of London passports (found as loot dropped from jobs and fighting and by visiting the London page every 24 hours) to complete. The longer your perform a job, the more police will be on your tail, which will make it more difficult to get your job done, i.e require more energy and passports to complete a task. The police activity is measured by a Heat Meter, and once its full, you'll have to wait eight hours for it to reset so you can continue your job.
mafia wars london chapter 1 jobs
That time restraint butts up against the fact that there is a limited time frame to pull off this heist -- 21 days to complete all three chapters. If Mafia Wars Paris taught us anything, it's that you have to be a tenacious mobster to get the job done. Once you complete each chapter, you'll be rewarded with an item exclusive to the London mission. In your down time, work like a fiend to get as many London passports as you can (more on that soon) -- looks like you're gonna need them.

Mafia Wars Vegas fun facts: 100 million robberies, 250 million fights

Mafia Wars Vegas has arrived (as if you didn't know already), and as far as I'm concerned, this is the best expansion yet. The jobs have been broken down into new energy and fighting paths, which does a good job catering to different types of players. Properties have been replaced with a Casino that you can build out with help from friends, new boss battles are tough and requires you to think more strategically, and the new Fight Club Tournaments aren't so bad either (except for the fact that I keep getting KO'd in the first round). Sure, it's annoying that I never seem to have enough cash to buy items required for jobs, and that I keep getting killed by bosses -- but no one ever said running a mafia would be easy. And who wants it to be?

But, I digress. Zynga released some numbers for Mafia Wars Vegas, while pimping out the fact that they plan to blow up an armored truck once 10 million people visit the next expansion. The game still has a ways to go, but it looks like the 3 million or so players trying to take over Sin City have been very busy:

- 3 million people have visited Mafia Wars: Las Vegas since launch

- 7 million Vegas gifts are been sent every day

- 8.5 million casino properties have been upgraded

- 1.5 billion jobs have been done in Vegas:

- 250 million fights haven taken place in Vegas

- 100 million buildings have been robbed

- 80 million tournament fights have taken place

Mafia Wars Vegas: What do you do the most?
JobsBuild out my casinoFight in tournamentsFighting in generalRob other properties
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Mafia Wars Social Missions: Are you an Initiator or a Helper?

Mafia Wars Missions tab
The Zynga community team announced on the Mafia Wars forums that a new feature is now live named Social Missions. However, the feature is only live for some lucky players to initiate the missions while everyone can be recruited to help once one of their friends finds a Social Mission. Regardless of whether you've been chosen as an Initiator, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find a new "Missions" tab between the Gifting and Marketplace tabs (pictured above). We're going to make an educated guess and say that this will be the hub for all Social Missions. Common sense rocks, we know.

Social Missions only trigger while doing normal jobs, but once that happens said player, or the Initiator, can recruit his or her mafia friends to become Helpers in the mission. These are timed tasks that have different assignments specialized for certain types of players, which gives the Initiator the chance to make best use of his mafia. We hope Social Missions will make use of the Top Mafia feature, because as of right now it's severely underused aside from its bonuses and being required to Declare War.

According to the forum post, it seems that Initiators will receive special item rewards in addition to a combination of experience, coins and later Loyalty Points, while Helpers will only be rewarded the latter with a chance at common loot. Initiators can also dismiss Helpers if they're too slow or could potentially jeopardize the mission, so be on your 'A' game.

With the ability to Initiate 10 and Help with 10 Social Missions at once, we're going to have quite a lot of work on our hands when this feature goes live for everyone.

Enter to win a free Zynga Gift Card from Klondike Potatoes

If you're in the mood for a giveaway, the folks at FVNation have found a new contest sponsored by Klondike Potatoes. The contest is called the "Steam Away Your Stress Sweepstakes," and it will see users entering to win one of 50 $10 Zynga Gift Cards, which can be used in all sorts of Zynga games - from FarmVille and Mafia Wars, to YoVille and more.

To be eligible for this contest, you must be at least 18 years or older as of January 11, 2011, and you must live in the United States. If you'd like to enter the contest, all you need to do is head over to Klondike Potatoes' website and create an account. It's free to do, and you can always ignore the account for eternity should you not win the contest.

This contest will only be open until February 15, so make sure to enter fast for your chance to be one of the lucky 50 winners.