Sunday, June 28th, 2009
Issue: 132   Editor: Nyxxie


Bust Parties; What's the Deal? BrickTamland
Although not an actual feature, one part of busting is bust competitions or bust parties. This is in order to give some money away in exchange for increased experience in the busting department or a group of people in the same State helping each other. The Buzz wanted to discover what people really thought their use was and how they've come to arrive on Bootleggers' forums. We took some time out to question the latest Colorado State Don, A1TR0 and a host of bust competitions, gWarNotLove on their opinions of competitions and busting in general.

First, we made contact with gWarNotLove. We asked him why he decided to host bust competitions. He replied, "I came back to playing Bootleggers after a long time of inactivity and found out that there where almost no bust parties being held; atleast not like it used to have been." He then told us, "I decided to start some myself. A bit later on, ProfChaos and I decided to try and do it daily which at that time was do-able because we made more a day then we gave away (mostly we had a prize pot of 10 points wich where usually filled up extra with donations over 10 mil some times, even 100 points one time)." Next, we moved onto State preference, whether one state is more populated and therefore one would be more inclined to host one there. gWarNotLove told us, "Mostly I did them in either Pennsylvania or Illinois and so did ProfChaos." He went on to say why exactly, "Mainly our own booze route, we needed to keep earning money to fund the parties so we couldn't refrain from doing booze as many as possible." Perhaps just keeping profit as opposed to States where there were more people residing. Before ending, we asked whether he was a keen buster himself, and he informed us, "Yes, I try to bust out as many as possible each account. one day I will beat Andy's bust statistics or atleast try to." We wish him a lot of luck in trying to beat Andy's statistics. Finally we asked whether he participated in others bust parties. He replied, "if it's worth travelling I surely do, but most of the time, they only occur at times when I've just started over so I won't waste my booze run on staying over at a bust party. It seems parties are more of an extra activity for gWarNotLove taking second place to making money.

We then got in contact with A1TR0 with questions more about busting in general, perhaps relating to the lack of bust parties we currently see. First, we had to ask him whether he preferred any States for busting. He told us, "Penny, Louis & now Colorado." Having just been promoted to State Don of Colorado, you can imagine why he has mentioned the last one. He told us this was based on, "Friendly busting in both states with great booze running between them. Of course Colorado is also great." Perhaps, again, it's not so much the densely populated States that one targets for busting, but more those which coincide with their money-making strategies. We asked whether he participates in bust parties and he informed us, "I try not to, but when I see a bust game lasting 2 hours and the top busters with 5 busts I have to interject." We then moved on to the crux of the matter; whether busting is harder now. He said, "Not a clue, I go in wild spurts of 100-200 successful busts in one day, 50 in the next which makes it impossible to really tell." A somewhat surprising answer perhaps as many seem to have trouble getting to over 3,000 successful busts when preivously, players have been getting to milestones of 20,000 busts earlier this reset. Finally we asked A1TR0 whether he believes bust parties are effective in terms of really helping improve bust stats. He informed us, "For the leader maybe it helps a little for the rest it probably slows them down if anything. I think finding a few friends and busting them all the time would be better, then everyone gets busted a little."

So, it seems some don't do bust parties to just improve their experience but to give back and help others improve. Perhaps we will never know whether busting has become much harder, but we're sure a lot of people have their own ideas whether it has or not. gWarNotLove did tell us that he may be hosting a few in the near future so you can look forward to that when honing your busting skills. Alternatively, you may just look to do the odd bust whenever it suits you. Do you want to see more bust parties in the future to help your skills? Why not hold one yourself? You may be able to reap the rewards. The Buzz wishes you all luck in your busting efforts.