My suggestions comes after the recent experience I had of losing a character while I was offline. Also it is not the first time I lose a character because the entire family is wiped off the server. Frustrating to say the least, I know this game is unpredictable in that way. But I believe there is room for improvements in this area. My hopes on top of the suggestion is that this contributes to a shift in how we think about playing this aspect of the game. 

Offline whacks shouldn't be so straight forward. A quick search on the database and boom you have your target. Maybe introducing a form of intel gathering similar to witnessing for crews that help keep tabs on other crews and families would be beneficial. You might know where a quarter of a family is located, or just a few of the leaders. What better way to send a message than by taking out one of the head guys? 

Being offline should be a second layer of protection. Once you have the intel on the person having your people check when they're on if the person is active recently shouldn't be too hard. You guys check heroin prices like ten thousand times a day. If they don't get on? Screw them, they're the ones missing out on upgrading and making money. After a certain number of days they become MIA right? Ching ching.

I'll use an example from one of my favorite tv shows The Sopranos. Not that I get all my mob information from that one source but it's pretty damn accurate. When Jackie Aprile Jr. needed to go, he was hiding off somewhere in the projects. No one knew where he was, but they had to ask around and pay someone for the information. It wasn't just "Hey he's asleep over there on the bench go whack him".

The pros of this is that less people die before a WAR is actually STARTED. Whatever happened to the concept of a sit down? You take out one of my guys I take out one of yours, a sit down is arranged to discuss the issues and things are patched up. The whole family doesn't have to be taken out in an act of genocide because a leader is paranoid that their family can get wiped out. Recently The top leaders of a family were taken out, that would have been a good time for high ranking members to step up and lead the family. It shouldn't automatically mean revenge, there are such things as the spoils of war. Plus who's going to pay back the admin loans. (lol) It sounds harsh but this is more in tune with the reality of the mafia. The cons? Paranoia, intel bluffing, sounds great to me actually. There's already paranoia, this would lessen it and actually make players be more strategic than simply going Mad King on us and yelling "Burn them allll"

I'm sure these ideas could be tweaked a bit, that's why I'm putting it out here. Anyone else?

I hate to say it but many of us have died while being offline. It is a part of the game. If someone wants you dead, you will die regardless if you are online or off when a war hits.

There's one thing that could make this a big issue. A families top hitter in a war might only be a lower ranked mobster to help him fly under the radar. He's given his targets via irc or whatsapp etc, logs in, shoots and logs out. He's now a hell of a lot harder to track and kill. His family have a lot more time to get him a pro, and the proer logs out making it harder again to kill the hitter and his protection. Suddenly wars go on for days and days and days.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Juan you make a good point, so that would be considered a long term consequence of this as now they know a strategy thanks to your genius : ). I don't understand though why a lower ranked mobster would fly under the radar. What they know all depends on the intel collected about that other crew, which includes knowing about lower rank members. To spice it up maybe every week or so the locations of people change? Making it an on going thing to stay on top of.