I recently was reading in a thread that posed the question of whether or not there is a place for spys in this thing of ours. This got me thinking. Backstabbing sobs are not welcome in any family, however, if there was a legitimized Spying option it could work. For example: Lets say that I go to Detroit (I don't want to offend any existing Families) and go to Locals and select one of the active users in the town and select SPY. This could allow for updates on the individuals actions, but could also include entire messages or possibly just snippets of messages being intercepted to and from the user.   This would NOT BE RISK FREE! There could be an anonymous factor until the individual clicked CATCH SPY or something like that. There could also be a training option to avoid being Broken, and your identity being discovered. It would be a very dangerous profession in fact. If you were Broken, your life could be taken, or you could train for escapes etc... it has potential.. This could wreak Havoc on our streets though, perhaps only someone authed by their CL could train for SPY or some other measure to restrict the practice could be implemented.

It'd be an interesting new addition to the game. And a viable "other" option for people who don't want to deal with the competition there is in hitting. But it'd cause to much drama and be sort of pointless in some cases if you scout out a goomba that just pettys every 3 minutes and nothing else. But I don't really see any other downside other then forcing people to be more secretive about their operations.

The idea of intercepting mails has been tossed around a few times, but it comes down to a lot of people use MM for personal RL stuff. Nobody wants someone else reading there messages. 

We are trying to stop spys, not promote them aren't we?

I like the theory of the idea, but I seriously doubt it'll be implemented into the game. As Toby said, many people send mails about real life issues, etc.

Tyler it's a totally different type of spy, this is a spy inside the family not someone that joins another family and feeds privledged information otherwise unaccesible. But yeah there is that problem of RL issues. Privacy stuff and all that.

I like the idea of some kind of spy orientated option, though I have no idea how some spy related stuff could be implemented.  I absolutely do not like the idea of intercepted mobmails, however.

Very similar idea suggested already.

http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/170406

Okay so I didn't even think about the implications of non "business" mail being intercepted so we can forget that idea... along with the bribe the post man thing. New Plan. Something like INFORMANTS could be implemented. You could hire informants to keep tabs on certain people... they could keep you up to speed on someones location, report if they are shooting, BG counts, number of gun trains, amount of cash on hand/in the bank, etc etc. You could also have an option to take out someones snitches that are following you, find out whose snitch it is etc etc. This kind of information on a rival could be amazing. I don't know if I should go as far as to say you could plan "Bank Robberies" and steel money from actual players banks instead of just pp ing.. it couldd make it interesting though..