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Thursday, December 16, 2010

New Inventory Page Quick Review & Video On How To Use It



Ok I got the new inventory pages and I have to say I am impressed. It looks good but can be very confusing at first and does have some bugs that need to be worked out but it is good overall.


Lets start with the first screen you will see when you go to the NEW inventory page. It will bring you to a page that has all the items in the game (1852 so far) and they are in alphabetical order. It also shows you what you can get to make you get stronger on the right side but the numbers are way off on how it will help you ( They will have to fix that, no item will help me by increasing my attack or defense that much LOL  ). Just so you know the page looks very busy at first but is easy to navigate so far.


Ok now you will see buttons that say View Items, Filter, Watch Video ( The Tutorial), Summary, An Icon which is your Wishlist and a ?. So lets start with the View Items button, what that does is bring you right back to the very first page showing all the items. Next we got the Filter button, this will enable you to filter what items you want to see by category. Here is a picture of it.


This is a nice feature they came up with as it can be very helpful when trying to improve your character. Plus it makes it easier to find specific items. Note most people are asking on how they can find their consumables and Treasure chests and keys. Well when you search your inventory just change only the type to other and there they are. I had to search for that one LOL.

You can also search for items that you own or dont own and if they as they call it active or inactive. This is nice so you will also be able to find out where to get them and if you have to buy them and if they are gift-able so your friends can help you with them. When you click on it it will bring you to the gifting page and then just select the friend you want to send it to and the amount you want to send, very simple. 

Now there is also a drop down box on main inventory page where you can sort items by Attack, Defense, Alphabetical, Gift-able, City Currency & Reward Points. Lets start with Attack, it will sort all the items available in game by top strength to lowest. It will also tell you if you own them or need them ( if they are grayed out you need them), the weapon class, if it is active, items will also have a icon of which city they are from and if you click on any icon it will also give you a detailed view and tell you where you can get them. Here is what shot of what the detailed view looks like. 


The only drop down I have an issue with is the gift-able one as it lumps in everything all into on group but the gift-able stuff is first followed by the non gift-able stuff. I did suggest to Zynga to break it down into 2 different tabs gift-able and Non gift-able to make it easier when we are trying to help our friends and families characters become better. They said they would bring to the team and see if they could do it. We will see as this is still a work in progress.


Ok, on to the fun part which is where the controversy is and also buggy, the summary. I will show you my screen so you can follow along.


Ok as you can see they have it all broken down by color coding on everything.for everything can be found by clicking the ? and it will break down what the colors mean. But in a nut shell on the right side it tells you your mafia strength broken down by items ie...weapons, armor, vehicles & animals. the bars tell you what variety of items you have and under that it tells you what you can get to improve your defense and attack which if it worked right would be nice but as you can see with my attack it says Hopped Up Thugs are my weakest item and nothing can improve that LOL a bug if I ever saw one.






You can also toggle between attack and defense and see the bars. This is very buggy and way off as when I go to my defense it tells me I dont have enough weapons for my mafia and I do as my mafia is over 4700 and I have a ton of stuff for them. So like I said they need to work on this. I will rely on the tried and true way of checking what I need by going to all the items and manually checking them this you have made very easy and bravo to that.


Under the mafia strength there are arrows next to each category and if you click it it tells you how many items you have in each grade of item for your top 501 mafia. This is also wrong they need to fix this but it also shows you what the top item is and that is nice to see.plus if you go to the bottom of it and click compare it will show you what the average is for both attack and defense, I think these numbers are way off but this what they say they are LOL, must be the new math LOL. But if they get it fixed it is a nice feature.


Now there is one more box there that I think they need to remove and not make available to us due to privacy issues. That box is the first box on left under the bars which allows you to see what your friends have in their inventory and what they are using. This is not very smart especially when you are in a family and get people who beg for gifts and now can see exactly what you have and then question why you wont give them anything when you have so many extras. Well it is not because I dont have extras, it is because you are begging  LOL. Plus they have also made it so when you go to someones MW profile you can now see exactly how many and what that person is using on both attack & defense. Plus the fact it will make life easier for hackers as now they can check out what you got before they try to hack into your account to see if it will be worth it for them to get you. Not very smart ZYNGA !!! Remove this option ASAP !!! ***UPDATE*** Zynga has heard the complaints and is fixing this by  adding a Make Private Button or you can leave it Public, so now you can hide your inventory from others. Just go to your mafia wars profile and at the bottom of the page it will give you that option.It will slowly be rolling out to everyone. WTG Zynga !!!


Overall the new inventory page is ok once you get used to going thru it and I would grade it a B- they do have some bugs to work out and I am sure they will or they will be hearing us a complain ALOT. I  have to laugh though they are still trying to get us to spend more money on the game and I know some will to improve their character. I guess they are entitled to make a buck or two but the prices are just way to high for the reward especially for a virtual item that we never get to touch or take home with us.


Oh Well.  So there you have it in lay mans terms or I as I call it the Cliff Note version love it or hate it we are all getting it, so better know what to do and how to use it. I am also including the video again so you can watch it again and again again LOL.



                    

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12 comments:

  1. Another Zynga FAIL award!

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  2. thank you john .. !!!

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  3. Thanks for the help.This is awesome!!

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  4. Thanks heaps John. Well presented as usual.

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  5. Setting the "Make Private" button to private is only for your profile stats isn't it? Mine appears as if people can still see your weapons, etc. inventory...

    Also, I have over 5,600 Mafia... and my bars show I only have weapons, armor, etc. for 280+ Mafia... not even 501, that's a major glitch!

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  6. this was highly informative thanks !!

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  7. Cheers m8, this is very awesome!!

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  8. bring back the old page.....lol a grim reaper is a common item as if :-(

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  9. Now....can we buy weapons, not with reward points, but with lira, vegas chips, or any other currency the game gives us, like before they"improved" MW?

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  10. it sucks . very hard and not user friendly . another zynga piece of crap shoved down our throats

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  11. First I liked it, but then it sucks. I need items in Bangkok but I can't buy those needed things anywhere so I can't do the missions??? Why the view items button and the filter button does the same thing (shows the filter setup)?

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  12. I appreciate your post and you explain each and every point very well.Thanks for the information.

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