MafiaMatrix: Rise Above the Law, or Become the Law
Ever want to be part of an online community in which you can be a criminal or part of the solution? I just started playing a game called MafiaMatrix and I’m having a blast. It’s a free massively multiplayer web game. I’m currently a banker (though sometimes I shoplift) and I regularly launder money for gangsters. Check out MafiaMatrix if you’re interested (that referral link benefits me somehow). Latest Character: Luckbard in Miami (Luckbad and Bard were whacked).
If you like the game and end up playing it, let me know your name or send me a message in-game so I can add you to my Buddies list.
Cranston in New York.
Not sure about it. Currently a Mechanic in New York and waiting 2 minutes to advance 1% with each job I take. Did do an investment of $5k of my money for a 5% gain over 10 hours. Can’t go to NYU yet for some reason, but going to see if I can’t get both Engineering and Science jobs going, though it looks like you can only be one or the other.
Yeah, you have to quit your job to pick the other up. I think you retain your basic rank in the other though… but I’m not sure.
Well, I tried it out, but I don’t think this game is for me. Went the way of the police force, became a Police Officer and was then sent more than a few messages on me being killed if I didn’t leave town because I didn’t ask some random mob people if I could be on the police force. Furthermore, now that I had access to the police procedures, the first thing I’m told is that if I find any cases incriminating other officers or judges I’m to bury or frame them with the penalty being of the Commish putting me out on my arse.
Seems there’s some fun to be had if you’re into doing the shady stuff, but otherwise there’s a community in place that doesn’t seem to want to be bothered and has the bats and ridiculous amounts of cash laying around to bother the heck out of you if you don’t play ball their way.
Heh. Logged on this morning to check it out and… I’ve been framed it seems for drug dealing and the Commish has fired me. So, how the heck do you become a legit police officer when the Commish is all about framing those that don’t cooperate with the gangsters? You don’t. Yeah, not my type of game, I don’t like to be pushed around by the old timers and told how to do things, especially a requirement to do illegal things to appease people.
That’s part of the beauty of the game! I’d suggest doing something a little lower on the radar like becoming a banker. You’ll get messed with a lot until you become a Loan Officer, then people mostly leave you alone (if out-of-towners piss you off, you’ll never launder money for them).
Well, that’s the beauty and fault of the game: I don’t want to do anything illegal, yet the community makes that option impossible and there is nothing to prevent you from being incriminated in your first day. Someone is in charge? That someone gets whatever the heck they want, even framing the cleanest of clean persons for drug trafficking on their first day in the game.
This is like FFA PvP games where powerhouse guilds just take over and pretty much determine where and when people can experience the content. Sorry, far from my cup of tea. Even in this game I’d prefer some limitations as to how people can treat others because the community determined concepts rarely mimic my own wants and I just don’t have the time it would take to make even the slightest of change from their pre-existing associations and player-set guidelines.
I admit it was hilarious opening up the police forums area and seeing the rules for who to frame and why, but that is where the amusement ended.
It’s interesting because my experience in Miami has been more civil than any PvP or PvE game I’ve ever played.
I’m TrueLawman and working my way to becoming a lawyer. Ryan, have you ever played those insane browser-based mafia games where you run an entire crime operation? I believe it is mafiaboss.com. It tries to be a TBS/RTS kind of a game. I spent a few hours building up my “family” only to be wiped out in a single drive by. It was harsh. I like MafiaMatrix a bit better because you have time to think and you don’t have to think too much.
Jhaer, in Miami. We’ll see if the people there allow me to be a lawyer and/or police man without tearing me down…
You’ll want to edit your profile and go to Quote. And add something like the following. It basically means “don’t mess with me. If you do mess with me, don’t harm me permanently, and pay me back for anything you do.”
Mug = PAY BACK ($100k per max health)
B&E = PAY BACK
GTA = No
GBH = No
Torch = No
Whack = No
Dog Whack = No
Protected by Luckbad.
Translates really to…
You can mug me, but pay me back. If you take any max health (which you can’t get back except randomly for clicking banners), you owe me $100,000.
You can break into my house if you give me all my stuff back.
You can’t steal my car, you can’t do grievous bodily harm (takes max health), torch my apartment/business, kill me, or kill my dog.
I am under the protection of Luckbad who will come at you with a pitbull and assault rifle if you mess with me.
Done. And thanks.
I think what bugs me most about this game… as it does with every game to some degree… is that a shorthand has developed that makes no sense to people new to the game. And the fact that their help site is not searchable doesn’t make matters any better. I get a message from someone that says, “maul 50k?” Huh?
Why, oh, why is the menu text color black on a dark blue background? I can’t even read the menu item names…
I started in Toronto [RL connection] but someone subsidized a move to Miami. A cop who needed a nurse to process dna samples. The gameplay is not that easy to pick up but I’ve never played a game with this format so…..
@Jason someone was offering you $50,000 to allow their dog to maul you. Someone in Miami offered me 250K but I’d been mugged within the last 2 hours and was still protected.
Gemini, now in Miami
Use the HelpDesk forum instead of the crappy help page (linked at the bottom with the names). http://mafiamatrix.com/forum/forum.asp?t=8
Yeah, the shorthand is funky, which is why I explained what each of those things meant. Another weird one is “duping,” which means making a second character to work in concert with another (you are only allowed to have one).
Hoping I get to play again, but I don’t know.
http://nerfbat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=460&start=15#p4425
I got admin whacked because I signed up an account for my wife and tried to get her to play. I’d asked about it before doing it, and they said it was okay. Then I got a message a couple days ago about being a possible duper (multi-account user), but it got cleared up and they said it was okay. Then I got banned and killed by an admin today.
Unfortunately, it seems like the admins don’t communicate with each other about who was authorized to do what. So, I’m admin whacked (character and all my stuff = gone) and suspended for 7 days (during which I’m not allowed to make a new account either). 7 days of not playing and losing millions of dollars of stuff that I’d acquired means… yep, no motivation to play again.
Hi Ryan Shwayder, yeah I’m that mean nasty that whacked you. Unfortunately you had made two accounts, same name (not your wifes), same IP, same password etc and it looks like 2 accounts for the one person. The admins agreed for “your wife to play”, and I’m almost certain if she had created an account, and tried the game out it would have been a different outcome.
It wasn’t admin mis-communication. I was aware that you asked if your wife could play but then everyone asks if their brother can play etc. From my perspective, I don’t know how any reasonable admin could not have whacked you.
As soon as people are killed they all “claim it was their brother, sister etc” but if we beleived that then there would never be any admin whacks for multiple accounts. Perhaps some innocents get caught in the crossfire, but there is no realy way to determine who is telling the truth so we base it on facts that we can prove, not what people say.
Mob
Thanks for at least responding. It makes sense, I guess. I set it all up that way because I thought it would be easier–I could click the link to activate, get any important emails, etc. The password is the same because she knows my passwords. Basically, yeah, I set the entire thing up for her in an attempt to make it easy because the process is daunting to her.
She, as I suspected, didn’t like the game. That’s why you’ll notice that there were only a few earns on her character and that, as far as I’m aware, there’s only about 5-10 minutes of total play time on it (unless she tried it while I was at work. If she did that, you’d have seen her logged in from one IP and me from another simultaneously, though).
I guess I should have just suicided her character after she stopped playing, but I didn’t think anything of it and it seemed like it wouldn’t be an issue if the account was never logged in again anyway. Now that I know heavy-handed moderation takes place, I would never have left the character alive (and, to be honest, she never would have tried the game because I’d be worried that this would happen).
I know it makes sense not to trust people, but in the regular MMO genre (the ones you have to pay for), we tend to take people’s word for just about anything, especially if no harm was done. It’s just a rule of customer service, and it sucks because we do get taken advantage of sometimes.
In this particular case, I (as a former Community Relations Manager for EverQuest II) would let things slide. Why? Here are the negatives and positives of the situation, as I see it:
Taking everything into account, I would objectively determine that this person (me) is good to have around, and I would lift the suspension and restore his main character (but not the second, since the person in question [me] indicated that the Windfall character wouldn’t be played again anyway, and to avoid further issues the wife should create an account of her own if she wants to try the game).
To be honest, at this point I’d deal with having the suspension lifted and nothing restored at all, because at least then I could play and work toward something. It sucks because I did work hard to get a bullet-proof vest, assault rifle, pitbull (with a bunch of trains), galaxy king transporter (which I sold before being banned), pistol, etc. But, that can be replaced. What can’t be replaced is time–it’s a player’s greatest asset, and it’s what I don’t have right now because of the suspension.
Ryan…you forgot to add that some of those players you recruited are now all alone in a cruel, cruel matrix. It’s cold in there. Really cold.
Ryan,
To be honest, you don’t sound like the typical tard player who gets caught for multiple accounts so I’m happy to lift your suspension. The normal responses I get are like “wtf y u whack me 4? it woz my bro not me” I am usually quite happy to do it for players who admit their mistake and apologize, or go through and explain things like you have, I’m not completely heartless yet lol. Yes you have been quite civil about things.
I guess it’s difficult for some games to whack their players when they pay subscriptions, but MM is a mostly free game and we don’t treat donating players differently from others. I will change the account information on your wifes account so there is no possible mix up in the future, even if she doesn’t want to play.
Something that is a little confusing is that your wife’s account was created before your own, so are you sure she didn’t invite you? Your wife (Windfall) also had a one week old character, and donated the $10 and $5 while you had a 1 day old character.
rshwa****@gmail.com created on 2008-04-15 23:13:47
blackg****@nerfbat.com created on 2008-04-16 06:27:29
Neither characters have vehicles, pitbulls, assault rifles as you suggest. You may have had them with LuckBad, that that character was killed by a player in the game and not an admin so yes you will have lost all that gear.
Be sure to clear your cookies as well or it won’t let you in until after that week.
Mob
Thanks much, Moberator. That is strange. I definitely donated the $10/$5 on the blackg****@ account, which is the one I’ve been using and had Luckbad then Bard on. I did suicide a character early on and may have made Luckbad on the wrong account or something.
As far as the gear goes… I transferred most of my stuff from Luckbad to a friend (the one you talked to) during the insane gang war because I accidentally went gangster and figured I’d get whacked. Luckbad did get whacked by a player, after which I created Bard. I had my friend transfer the following to Bard thereafter:
- Pitbull named “Dogbad”
- Kevlar Bullet-Proof Vest
- Galaxy King Transporter
- Assault Rifle
- Pistol
- $300k
Unfortunately, I forgot to transfer my clothes, and I had $1 mil invested when I got whacked (on Luckbad by a player, so I lost those legitimately). After starting Bard, I decided to go armed forces and full legit (wasn’t allowed to travel, and didn’t need the transport space), so I sold my Galaxy King Transporter to another player for $1 mil. He gave me $300k upfront and was going to give me the $700k later, but I got admin whacked before that happened. He may have never given me the rest anyway.
Bard had the following stuff on him when he was admin whacked, apart from the default crap clothes:
- Assault Rifle
- Pistol
- Kevlar Bullet-Proof Vest
- Pitbull named “Skald” (6-7 days old)
- $600k
Bard only existed for maybe a day before I got whacked. I’d managed to do my 15 (?) army trains just before I went to sleep so I could start my career in the armed forces, then woke up and was admin whacked.
Is it possible that there’s no record of any of that gear on Bard because he was whacked so soon after he was created (i.e. before a server backup)?
The only thing I really regret losing is the pitbull, which I camped for in Miami for an entire day to get. I trained him around 200 times (mostly via community service, but spent several hours in Beirut with him). His name was Dogbad when I owned him with Luckbad, then I changed his name to Skald when I transferred him over to Bard.
Either way, I’ll be able to get those things again, it’ll just take some time. It really only took about 3 days to pick up all the hard-to-get items (pitbull, bullet-proof vest, assault rifle). This time around if I go with rifleman in armed forces I can get the gun, and I guess I’ll start in Miami so I can pick up a dog and vehicle as they become available.
Anyway, thanks for listening and lifting the suspension. At least I can play. Time to clear my cookies…
If you weren’t such a damned cheater, none of this would have happened.
-Drawmeus
Screw you, Bryan. Screw you.