I am a new player that has about 6 other players from another game here to play this one. Several of us have bought CAs each time we have started a new character. The events in Chicago (most recent example) have repeatedly affected us tho we have not been personally involved in them. It is frustrating enough to donate the money and time to the game and to die over and over whilst these families do not even bother to let us know there will be (or even is) a war going on as we sit there online. My first is feedback for ALL leaders and isn't JUST for Chicago as I have seen this throughout the game, so please don't spam this with blames to Chicago leaders.

Please stop ignoring the new players to the extent that they are completely shut out of wars and are just led to the slaughter house over and over again. Secrets and such are expected but once war is declared, send a message out to let them know to defend or hit. Let them at least have a minute or two of fighting to keep what they have built. As it is now, this is the equivilant to being admin deleted.  I see you have had time to send your money away safely to your other friends. Perhaps we would like to do the same? This might actually benefit your rebuilding? If you valued your new and lower ranked players, maybe they would follow you more? The worst part of losing what we purchased is that we weren't involved in the politics, worked building all of these stats and then died without even a message from the family, and had no chance to even use all that we built AND that it wasn't even communicated from our own families! Then we start over and are preached to about LOYALTY as the same thing will likely happen again. Being a victim of this now several times and losing the benefit of our CAs everytime is extremely frustrating and I can completely see why many would either stop donating or just leave. Due to feeling they have wasted thier time and money yet again, some of the new players that came with me here will not be back.

This leads me to my actual suggestion for the admins. Why not allow the CA to continue it's 30 days on that account? You could start it back over as tho it is new and not producing the same amount of bags as it were, but allow it to work it's full 30 days. I see that the timers I purchased stayed. Or, prorate the credits back to the account for the remaining days? Im fine with loosing something but to loose the entire benfit that was already paid for is a waste of my money. I don't want to even bother wasting money again on these since there is very little consideration for the new players or lower ranked at war time.

I agree! 10 credits is a lot! If we die or an officer is shot, it sucks...

Yes, dying two or three times and have two CAs each time and never completing the time is rediculous. I love having them but 20 credits for the two each time is just too much for not ever really completing thier time. I would think they have sold well but I expect repeat business will decline.

I have to agree here, the CA should attach to the account and not the character

To explain why leaders don't tell many people about wars: the attacker doesn't tell the target because that would lose the advantage of surprise. I think you've noticed how devastating firing the first shots in a war is. No one wants that directed at them.

The attacker doesn't tell anyone outside their core group of hitters until after the first wave because, again, the risk of losing surprise -- and having it turned against them. Surprise is only effective if you can unleash a massive wave of bullets. A massive wave of bullets requires hours of time to plan. In fact, the attacker often will not even tell their core wave of shooters until a few minutes before the bullets fly. Until then things are done entirely at the very-top level.

Why? Because too many people have too many friends out there, and all it takes is one "hey buddy, watch out" for the entire gig to be up and your devastating surprise turns against you.

As far as including new players, I think most leaders do their best at that. I know last night my leader sent out a mail less than five minutes after the first round of bullets was fired with instructions for how anyone in the family could help.


As for CAs: you are not required to buy them. If you don't think they'll pay off for you, don't buy them. You can protect yourself from that risk by asking the right questions and strongly considering who you join on creating an account. I have had characters that didn't buy CAs because I figured I wouldn't survive past 30 days. Over time you'll get a general feel for what families are higher risk than others. Ask around about who the "big man on top" is, join that city, and you've got a very low risk experience. You'll more than likely (but not 100% certain) live a long time and make a lot of money. On the other hand, a well established "big man on top" city generally doesn't have as much opportunity for advancement -- they can become a clique. There are tradeoffs in everything.

CAs are not for everyone. Consult your local mortician for a list warning factors and side effects.

Mr, Squishy, thanks for your reply. I do appreciate that you are trying to make the money plus balance the cash flow of the game. So far Im on the losing end of the feature and tho I love it I may have to spend my cash elsewhere on the game until I get better odds for myself.  :)

JohnGait- I went on and on in the Streets forum about this today so I wont rehash it all here. I totally get that there will be secrets and a surpise attack and an inner circle, etc.  A new player's goal would be to work hard enough to be in that inner circle (IF there is ever time). I am saying that for us several new players, thru several characters, in several families, and finally several wars and deaths.. we were not told of the war beginning, of being attacked or anything of the sort- certainly no msgs from the bosses after a bit or even replies to our offers of help as we watched people die. We sit in the chat and are not invited to the war chat (bar once one person was invited, sat there for hours and was not ever given a chore- war ended and they didnt even bother to tell them lol), but sit as a duck and killed. This is after building stats and CAs, tributing,  buying bgs, etc. In our cases there hasn't been alot of relationship building with the families we ended up in but there wasn't much time before wars broke out so we did the best we could. We did get promoted, made, some as far as boss level. Such a message that you describe has not happened, but does send a glimmer of hope that somewhere out there a boss does such a thing.

Who wants to keep building everything up and never actually get to use it?