Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Issue: 6   Editor: Mika


Rankbars - Needed or not? AceAdam
Now, there are many similar games to Bootleggers out there on the World wide web, but one thing that keeps this game unique is that there is no official rankbar to use or purchase. However, every so often, a player would make a topic regarding implementing a rankbar to the game. For those who may not know, a rankbar is a progress bar which tells you exactly how close you are to getting promoted to the next rank. For example: 86%, so you'll need another 14% to rank up.

We asked Spui16jereturns for his opinion on rankbars and he said, "I don't need rank bars. People just have to be patient and do alot of crimes and OC's so they can rank." Another player named Platypus also summed it up with his comment: "I dont keep a bar that tells me how many days, hours, mins left until I get older, so why would I want a bar that tells me how many OC's crimes Etc before I rank?" TheHistorian's opinion on rankbars is that "They may be cool to have when you play because most people like knowing, but if they were added to BL then the game wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be as professional. The game is better off without." Finally Teekayoh gave his opinion in one short and effective line. " No, they shouldn't be added. There's no real reason to add them. You rank when you rank."

When the crimes page was updated last round, some players worked out when they would rank by using crime percentages. They worked out that when a crime got to a certain percentage, they were due to rank very soon. However in this round, it has been proven that crime percentages will not show you how close you are to ranking as the percentages will only rise depending on how many crimes you do. The closest thing that players can use to see when they would rank up would be the database Altrozero has on his website. The database let's players upload their statistics from when they ranked so other players can compare stats with each other and get a rough idea on how close to promotion they are. Although this isn't 100% accurate, it's by far the most reliable way to work out how close you are.
The databse which Altrozero created can be found at http://www.altrozero.co.uk/boot/sdb.php.

We asked Nyxxie on why she thinks the rankbar has never been added to Bootleggers. She replied, "Rankbars are a lazy, unfun way of ranking. I would hate to know when I'd rank, it ruins the fun and mystery of it all. So, in conclusion, Bootleggers without a rankbar makes the game much more fun and keeps players on the edge of when they're going to rank.

Thanks for reading,
AceAdam.