I remember when there was a time when people had difficulty choosing a crew because there were so many amazing leaders. When they knew that a handful of them were there to have fun and help guide them. When a leader was there to support their people, and encourage their strengths here in this world of ours. What happened to getting to know each and everyone of your crew members? My first ever crew leader was amazing, he talked to everyone personally, encouraged his crew, had fun comps. RIP Brother.

As I was fighting on TheMadHatter and my people were dying I was being mailed as to where they should go to have a chance at the same fun and the same encouragement that they had received from my crew. My mailbox is still getting messages from people that weren't even in my crew asking where I think they should go. My response has always been and always will be "take your time. Ask questions. Find a place where they not only are asking what you can do for them but what they can do for you." When recruiting one of my first questions was what goals do you have this run that we could possibly help you achieve. When did this hidden agenda become more important than having fun here and building a good associate, crew, district and city? 

I know this is a mafia game and I will openly admit that I love building a gun and shooting the fuck out of people but it's not so much fun when people have no hope, no fun, no reason to be here. People are starting to question coming back anymore because they don't have someone that will let them just be them and play. I've been told a few times I'm bloodlined and honestly I don't really care. I have no problem with Nilf or anyone from the disorder regime that decided I deserve to die when I become a threat. I commend them for being able to do what they have done and what they do, that takes a lot of work and time. My issue is when the "little people" can't live long enough to finish a rp thread or try to reach that goal of 50 million in earnings. They aren't all threats to your agenda. There will be rogues and jerks that can't keep their mouths shut, they make it interesting but fuck give people a chance! Figure out who your real enemies are and shoot them, not the innocent people that mean you no harm. Let the game rebuild and get to a place of fun again. 

Wars happen, people die, it's a part of being here. I'm not saying it shouldn't be. I am just asking that you let people remember why they love this game. I am asking that you stop being tyrants and start getting to know your people.

Stop being shitty leaders and give your associates a reason to die for you. 

Or give us leaders that we actually want to play for? Just an option.

Well spoken. I also still remember my first time playing back in 2009. It feels like I'm doing drugs and I'm searching for that high, that Family I experienced the first time. To me a family doesn't feel like a family anymore. Maybe that is the reason why we don't see new players as often. They just have no reason to come back. 

I believe in change, and changes do happen here when enough people are willing to fight and die for it. 

I think we maybe need to be realistic. Things have changed and this is how they now are. They will be different again, and again, and so on.

I think what's best to focus on is what we can personally control by answering this simple question.. 'Can I have fun here regardless of the current landscape of crews and community leaders?'

And I think if we dig deep enough and look at things with a curious eye, much like the one we had when we first started playing here, the answer can be a definitive yes. It may take some changing on a personal level, but that can be fun too.

Note:  I started writing this over an hour ago.  I know better than to think most folks will read the whole thing so I'll put my points in a box to highlight them for those who simply can't be troubled to read 2,000 or so words for the betterment of the community and mutual  understanding.  Please note these points are over simplified and you'd be much better off reading what I have to say before you reply. 

Thanks. 

-Dee aka Lucy

• Scarlett is awesome for making such a great post.
• This game site is a click game to kill each other on and you're probably never going to live long or make it to Godfather.  Accept it.
• Dying is playing the game the same way striking out in baseball is.  Don't worry.  You have another at bat if you want it.  Best of luck and I hope you keep a good attitude.
• Because survival is the only win condition, leaders in the game are going to kill characters not only when they do naughty crap but realistically any time they look like they might have the ability to challenge for power.  This includes well liked players, powerful guns, and any combination there of.
• They are not stopped by the Admin from killing people without reason because that's the point of the game
• Leaders in the game aren't paid for their positions and so owe you nothing.  They are not here to facilitate your entertainment.  They are not required to make good rp, help you learn how to shoot, or anything else.  NOR are they here to 'be a good leader' any more than you signed up to 'be a good leader'... most folks came here to pew pew at other players.  And they have every right to play their game as aggressively as you do.  They are no more obligated to make this site a great place to be... than you are.
• Happily you don't have to be a leader to make the site great.  And even if you die repeatedly, you can STILL make the site great.  I'm inviting anyone who wants to ... to do so!
• In conclusion... Scarlett is awesome for making such a really good post in which she asks folks to help make this place awesome.  Therefore, we need more people like Scarlett... who want this place to be awesome.  Scarlett... in closing, you're awesome.  :)

First let me say that I REALLY appreciate the direction you came at this from Scarlett – it seems like you care about players and you genuinely want to make the community more fun.  That makes you a pretty damn cool person in my opinion.  I hope we can get to know each other better and work on that goal together!

I'd also like to take a moment to thank you for openly acknowledging that this is a mafia game where you don’t NEED a reason to kill people, because the point of the game is to kill people. (And, you also point out that killing folks without reason is kinda a douche thing to do - as we all know, but none the less the truth of your other statement stands.) 

Scarlett - this following section isn't directed at you so please don't take offense.  I'm going to make some general commentary on my observations of late.  So, skim this if you want to.  I just didn't want you to think I was lecturing to you or at you as you seem to understand these concepts.

HOW MAFIARETURNS IS LIKE BASEBALL

I feel like a lot of the complaints about the game come from people feeling as though they’re “not being allowed to play” but the irony in that statement is, dying is a part of playing a game where the goal is to kill each other.  For example:  Image if people playing baseball got angry and walked off the field saying "I'm not being allowed to play!" every time they were struck out at the plate.  Striking out doesn't mean you weren't getting to play or that your efforts in training were invalidated.  It just means that this time you just didn't win any points this time and you're gonna go back to your home field and train more before you get an at bat again.  Go back to the bench, take a seat - try again and know that striking out / losing games is also part of playing.  

The game (and I can't believe I'm going to say this because I AM an RP'er) isn’t the Role-Play really; you can tell that by what tools and resources are provided by the site creator to facilitate the game play.  The vast majority of the site's functionality surrounds the growth of your stats, while RP is a way to draw in players and to retain them for longer periods of time than they would otherwise have stayed for the click-based game alone.

IN PBBGs SURVIVAL IS THE ONLY WIN CONDITION

Let's face it, the percentage of people who sign up for the site who ever become godfather is VERY small and this leads to high turn over... no one likes to lose all the time.  As you can see by all these posts of people saying "we're not being allowed to play, every time I start to get into things I'm being killed!"  <--- see, that's an example of folks getting tired of losing who will probably leave eventually.  Sadly (and Squishy could confirm if this is true by numbers) most folks don't make even speak up when they realize they don't like dying over and over and never winning... they just leave because they realize that's the nature of this type of game.  It's not something "wrong" with MafiaReturns... it's the nature of every PBBG out there. 

That being said... RP and good community are what help keep people here past the point that most people would have walked away because the GAME is the Persistent Browser Based Game (PBBG) of growing a Mafioso and killing other Mafioso and very VERY few people will ever have the time/money needed to take hold of the top spot and keep it for any real amount of time. 

To be the top dog, to "win" and stay alive for a long whiel you need to build yourself up (which most people get how to do), socially connect with peers (some people get this part right) and BRUTALLY assess threats and recruit the firepower necessary to eliminate those threats and anyone connected to them BEFORE they grow powerful enough to take you out of the top spot.  As I said in the last paragraph this takes a lot of TIME and ideally real world cash.  Since there is no way to ‘win’ except finding ways to stay alive longer... a valid way to do that is to kill anyone who you think could be a threat to you.

Ways Someone Might Appear to be a Threat to Someone at the Top

• Posts rants on the boards/chats/whatsapp that pretty much outline their desire to see your character dead.  Is someone who brings up topics in chat or forums that tries to rally folks to their way of thinking and is critical of site operations and in game leaders.
• Agrees with people who post rants saying they wish to see your character dead.
• Gains enough power and allies to challenge you.
• Is someone who has made account after account to come after you in the past (even if unsuccessfully so.)
• Is allied with, in crew with, appears to be friendly with someone who has come after you repeatedly or is CURRENTLY talking about doing so.
• Is in a crew, or leads a crew, with a known rogue… how can you be sure they aren’t one too?
   

I know I've said a lot... if you're still with me - THANK YOU.  

WHY LEADERS DON'T JUST GET TO KNOW THE REAL YOU & THEN DECIDE

Could people get to know each other better, Scarlett, yes they could try find out for sure if someone is a real rogue or maybe just incidentally made friends with someone who is or accidentally recruited one into their crew – but people lie.  Some people are VERY good at it especially when you only have to lie to someone through text.  So, you're asking people to risk the positions they got to over long hours and with real world money to protect the fun of other players... but aren't they players too?  Don't they get the right to protect their in game position with an tool available to them because they're players in this game as well?

I don't think anyone at the top had their position given to them.  If they made the climb to the top, they’re not sitting up there on their laurels… they do have to take time to talk to people and get to know them - they are building relationships which they hope they can trust for their own protection.  NOW, let's say a Godfather believes someone isn’t a rogue simply because they seem nice via chat/forums…  They do what you ask and get to know folks and because of that relationship they don’t take a shot at their "friend" when evidence (of any kind or size) presents itself that someone near to that "friend" IS potentially a rogue; then most likely they won't be Godfather much longer.

Let me let you in on a secret... If I were dumb enough to ever want to be a Godfather (WHICH I don't because it's the most thankless, hated, stressful, stupid position in the whole game where no one thinks you're allowed to play as everyone else does and literally turns you into the site-wide villain no matter what you say or do) here's how I'd do it.

• STEP ONE:  Make friends with them.  I’m make friends with their friends and I’d do all I could to separate myself from known rogues and rebels – particularly the very vocal ones (which, is how most people play the game just to survive, btw)
• STEP TWO:  Once in a secure and powerful position, I’d build a team of allies and not tell them I'm plotting to take out a GF.  I can’t remember who said it but the saying goes:  Two men can keep a secret if one of them is dead.  So, no one could know, not until I was ready to make my move. 
• STEP THREE:  Then, at the last possible moment when I felt I had all the power necessary – THEN AND ONLY THEN – would I tell the otherwise innocent people in my family that :SURPRISE!  TODAY'S THE DAY WE'RE GONNA ROLL ON A GODFATHER!"

Think about that… from the outside I’d look the same as any other person on the site.  Your innocent average gangster, a friend to everyone, not at all a threat, just a sweet girl trying to click her buttons and role-play with friends.  HOW is that any different than most of the people on the site?  How would you, as a Godfather, really tell the difference between the above plotter and a TRUE innocent person just plugging along in the game?  And how do you account for the truly innocent person who one day simply wakes up and decides, "I got enough of a gun and friends, I can take my shot!"

In short:  YOU CAN’T.

A WORD ABOUT MAFIAREURNS TROLLS

At some point, the powers that be have to make the hard calls and with so many trolls running amok here at MR it becomes an unfortunate truth that a lot of innocent and newer players lose their characters just by association with people who really don't care about them at all. 

DEFINITION  - MR Troll:  Account whose only purpose is to saber rattle and get newer players to join their disgruntled campaigns of hate before they know any better or form informed opinions.

MR Trolls are just here to be entertained by the people standing up to scream in defense of their way of thinking.  MR Trolls don't want the site to be better.  They don't care about it, or you, or me, or the game (as seen by the fact they stopped trying to play at all) they're just here to get a rise out of us because that's funny to them.  Even worse, the more of these newer people who die, the more people leave MR for good or join the troll force.

Let me be clear - I respect folks who are out in the streets speaking their minds... if you're doing that as Scarlett has... good for you, you're not who I'm talking about.  I say this... if you don't like something - say something or better yet DO something to change it!  Let's talk and debate... but folks who hide behind alias' and secretive organizations all the while continuing to yell about people with allias' and secret organizations - that feels more like trolls to me.

CHARACTERS OF HIGHER RANK ARE STILL PLAYERS TOO

At the end of the day Crew Leaders & Godfathers decide which crews live or die based on... well, whatever they use to assess threat.  And as a player who pays the same to interact here that I do... they have every right to do that. 

Crews can sometimes be wiped out simply because they have a charismatic leader in them (maybe not even the Crew Leader) who may or may not have expressed their desire to make their move on power.  BUT, if a Godfather can logically see that the crew has been building the ability to do so – how can you be angry with the player of the Godfather for wiping out that power base?  Aren’t they just as entitled to play the game as you are? 

Are Godfather’s more responsible than a low level goomba for making the game / community better?  If you say yes... why?  They paid their dues to get that rank, they didn't get paid to take it an they aren't being paid to improve the community in some way that I'm unaware of (are they?)  The same thing for crew leaders – why should they carry the burden of being mentors and teachers and making things fun… they’re just players too!

ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR MAFIA

Each of us, regardless of level or position in the game can make the community better and YOU seem to understand that by asking people to step up.  But that’s not enough.  If ½ the energy spent in making all these posts about “what’s wrong” with the community was put into teaching, mentoring, story creation, etc – imagine how cool this place would be?

Does it suck when you die?  Yes.  But it doesn’t end what we’re doing here as a community.  We can yell at Godfathers and Crewleaders to fix what’s broken all day long – we can beg Squishy to change the code/mechanics or help us be rid of “bad regimes” to make it “fairer” so we can live long enough to become crew leaders to ‘save the site’ **or** we can grab our bootstraps, jump in the shit, and get to fixing whatever we feel is wrong. 

I don’t need to be a crew leader to make things better.  I just have to have the desire and the time to do so.  I’m doing what I can, I welcome others to do the same.  Maybe THAT is the discussion we should have as a community:  What can each of us (regardless of rank/power) do to make this place better?

WE NEED MORE SCARLETTS

In closing – you made a solid post.  And your points aren’t bad.  Having been in seven crews now, I’ve seen a variety of leadership styles (albeit some of them I saw very briefly) and I’d love to see more crew leaders like the ones who I thought were kick ass… but wanting something won’t make it happen.  Let’s mentor people, let’s educate people, let’s create great community content ourselves.

This is #MyMafiaReturns too.

LuckyLucy

Leaders in the game aren't paid for their positions and so owe you nothing.

In a way they are. They gain money from their members in tributes and taxes. They then get to use the money as they see fit, which can be as credits for their next character.   So I would disagree that they aren't paid, because technically if you get down to the bare bones, they are.

I have to agree Goldberg here. I understand I’m a CL and that some of you might completely dismiss what I’m about to say for that fact alone, but please bear with me.

As a family head, I want my family to be as fun, as social and as pleasant as possible. But I can’t do it alone. I can’t force people to talk in the chat or to get involved with the projects I have. I think a big part of it is the family dynamic, how people interact with each other. You could the best CL out there, making comps left and right, chatting with everyone, but if your family doesn’t vibe together, it’s not going to matter.

I am extremely lucky. My family is filled with amazing people, that participate in the projects that me and my hands prepare for them. They get involved in the streets without me having to push them. They often participate in the chat. They seem happy, and I hope they are, because it warms my heart everytime I see them messing around in that chat, or posting a big thread they have been working on for days.

Dizzi wrote:  "In a way they are. They gain money from their members in tributes and taxes. They then get to use the money as they see fit, which can be as credits for their next character.   So I would disagree that they aren't paid, because technically if you get down to the bare bones, they are."

A fair point to bring up but a few things I'd like everyone to consider on this point...

1. Cash For Safety.  Not sure that it's written anywhere on the site or wiki that crew leaders are getting paid taxes in exchange for something.  So far as I know it's just like the real mob - you pay tribute to someone who ideally protects you with the weight of their name in the mob world.  Ie:  Someone might not kill me if I were in The Kid's crew because he's well liked.  Thusly, I pay him a tribute so that I can stay in a stable group where I'm less likely to die.  That's the exchange.  Cash for safety.
2. Crew Leaders Got Bills.  Pretty sure Crew Leaders (I haven't been one so correct me if I'm wrong here) have to pay city taxes or some such and most of what they take in tribute goes to that or to keep the HQ in one piece or to buying bodyguards so they look tough enough to make others think twice about threatening their crew members.  

So is it possible that a crew leader is taking tributes and buying credits with that tribute... sure it's possible!  Maybe even likely.  However you're paying for the right to be protected (or strangely enough condemned) by their name alone so that's what you're paying for... not for an education or entertainment.

Maybe a current or former crew leader could speak to this?  Do I have the right of it or is Dizzi on to something here?  If Dizzi is, maybe that's something that we should suggest is spelled out because I'm not sure how many crew leaders think or know that it's something people think they're paying for with their taxes.

Oh and Real World Mob terms, you pay taxes for the right to do your petty crimes and felonies in his/her (your crew leader's) turf without getting killed for it.  In truth any mobster doing business who ISN'T in a family, doesn't have the protection of a family when guys with guns go prowling the streets looking for someone to up their wack stat with.

Again, paying for protection ... pay to play in the mob.

Jeeze.

Let's be honest, I am not in a family and I can manage to do petty crimes just fine.

The_Kid I have to say you're one of the people who seems to be doing good work.  I love how you encourage activity from your crew and create a sense of community among them... and how some of those things make those of us on the outside go, "hey that's pretty neat - what's that all about!"  

Creating interest in what your crew and it's members are doing... absolutely A+.  

Come to think of it... I'd love to have a thread for people telling about what your crew is doing RIGHT since there is a lot of what people aren't doing being talked about.  Let's hear some of the good stuff and share ideas!

Maybe THAT is the discussion we should have as a community:  What can each of us (regardless of rank/power) do to make this place better?

*coughs up lung in attempt to bring more attention to this statement*

What can each of us (regardless of rank/power) do to make this place better? 

BE FUCKING AWESOME!