Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Issue: 116   Editor: Mikamon


Telling It Like It Is... BrickTamland
Once again, hello and welcome. If I remember correctly, this is the 7th publication this week, heading towards that mighty figure that is the double figure 10. This week and last week in case I didn't mention it, the Help Desk received a facelift, the Elite Guard, and more to the point, the Administrators decided it was time for a shake-up of the Help Desk. As I'm sure you're all aware by now, Myst, JuanFran, Joris, Kaya, Star and Franny either got demotion or decided it was time to leave. In their place, Mikamon (Mika), DrZoidberg and SplitPersonality joined PaintBSFPink (Sylv) and NotMeNextTime (Farkie), the gruesome two-some, as Nyxxie and Riserva (BoBy) received promotion to be spray-painted green. On top of that, we finally saw an update of the Crimes feature and as I've been testing, it seems a lot more useful that it was before. With all that to come and more when I think of it, time to get started.

Firstly, the promotions and demotions. Who agrees with them? Now clearly there must be some reason for them, but I can't see what some did wrong if they were fired. They didn't seem to be particularly inactive. Obviously those that they felt they were, such as Myst, decided to resign. Of course there were some, such as Kaya and Joris who I never saw online, but Franny for example, I don't see why he got demoted. I guess I never will. On to the promotions. Firstly, the new HDOs. Mikamon was first to appear, I challenge anyone to say he didn't deserve it. Next came SplitPersonality and DrZoidberg. This caused uproar. It provided me with mild amusement.

Some were complaining DrZoidberg was too much of a 'forum whore' to be HDO. The same people were complaining that they didn't see SplitPersonality doing anything. Shock horror if he wasn't just helping on the forums. Make up your minds. Of course, there's always the jealous few who long to be HDO, some even enough to admit it. On a side note to this, I saw people posting derogatory comments in some of their Congratulations threads. Honestly, why would you do that? I'm not sure keep quiet otherwise I'll beat you to a pulp. What I AM saying is, if you're going to complain, send it to the Help Desk or make a separate thread. I made a stand in one of those topics so I thought I'd reinforce it here.

Next, the promotions of Nyxxie and Riserva. Oh what a bundle of laughs this was! *enter the ecstatic smiley here*. Yet more complainers decided to arrive, acting like reinforcements to the first wave. Both deserved it in my opinion. No, I'm not just saying that, it's what I believe. Riserva, I know has been here for a long time, doing a great job, obviously. Now we come to Nyxxie, the main attraction when it comes to haters. Wen I logged in and realised she had made Mod, I laughed, then contemplated how many "WHAT?! HOW IS NYXXIE MOD?!" topics there would be. Sure enough, there was a substantial amount. Let's get this clear. If she wasn't good enough, she wouldn't have been promoted. It's as simple as that. How silly to think that she was promoted on her ability to help players and the Game, rather than other certain abilities people have claimed she had used to get there. Clearly, there are so many who are on this bandwagon, not a lot will like this issue, but you're silly, to say the least. Get over yourselves.

I think I'll move onto the new Crimes. Would you believe it?! More complainers! How unpredictable. "Oh, I can't do crimes to save my life now". I suspect that's because you hadn't done them before the update. As some of you may already know, I've been giving this 'have-great-stats' malarkey a go. Lo and behold, when I saw my crimes, there were already at a large percentage. Sticking to the positives, since there are so many now, Crimes are worth doing. I have been testing doing new Crimes, only Petty ones mind, and they appear to give much more experience than before. A friend, who completed around 2,000 of the new Crimes was able to rank to Godfather after just 28 Organized Crimes, only 5 after he had ranked to Respectable Boss, which was before the new Crimes were introduced. Of course, I understand that it'll take a long time to get good now if you start from Scum, but, taking another example, someone ranked to Peewee in 14 crimes using them. It appears they give a lot of Experience Points. I'm still unsure if Petty Crimes that become more accessable at higher ranks give more XP than the others, but they are worth doing. Everyone, if they have enough patience can keep their OCs down before ranking. I'd even go as far as to say that you can use these Crimes %s to govern when you can rank, acting as a rank bar possibly in some cases. I won't tell you what are what, but Crimes are really useful now.

Um, I think that's about it for this week but rest assured there will be more same time next week. I'd like to point out yet again, for those who rate the article, please give a critique, what you liked, didn't like, agreed with, didn't agree with, etc.

Thanks! Until then, I bid you adieu.

~ LW