The Beginning
February 5th, 2011, the start of round 7. Finally we were able to create an account, because the reset date was a bit later than promised. The regular addicted Bootlegger immediately noted a new feature compared to the previous round; Gymnasium. In order to carry Booze and purchase a Gun & Protection, you had to train your Strength, Agility and Stamina. Not only the Gymnasium feature was new; the Kill-feature and Bootlegging feature were updated and we witnessed some amazing new Missions. Those players who used their eyes, also mentioned that the Establishment feature was removed. New and updated features, the start of something promising.
After a few weeks the first Boss+ accounts were born in Bootleggers and it was only a matter of time before all the Bullet Factories were picked up. The first crew, Gangsters Sanctuary, was created by a player called Slaine and other well-known crews were following, such as: Event Horizon, Death Valley and Boston Mob. The next step was picking up the Casinos of Bootleggers. A relatively high price and you were not sure if you had actually any profit with your casino. A few weeks later and all the properties and crew spots were taken by the players of Bootleggers.
We waited on the first crew wipe of round 7, however this was not very easy, as the Kill-feature was not properly working. Players were buying bullets for quite some weeks, but nobody was able to use those bullets. We were all waiting for the Elite Guard to fix the bug. So was KanoX, boss of The Black Horde, which performed one of the first shootings right after the Kill-feature was fixed. His crew was able to wipe Confianza Infinita, the first crew which dropped in round 7.
Shootings and crew related events, we witnessed plenty of them during round 7. But there is more than that. The new and regular players of Bootleggers sometimes need some help and there is a small group of players who is always willing to help those players; the Help Desk and the Elite Guard. During round 7 we witnessed various promotions, but also some who left the Staff, like: Poison (Help Desk Operator), Riserva (Head Moderator), Himmel (Help Desk Operator) and Pothead (Help Desk Operator).
A few weeks further we noted many more crew wipes, insidings, funny new crew names and loads of other events. The only thing Bootleggers needed was a State Don. According to the statistics there was already a Legendary Don. Again, it was only a matter of time. Maybe not. Days passed by, but we still did not see any State Don. It was then, when the uproar started. Poison, a former Buzz Editor, started an investigation regarding the hunt of this mysterious Legendary Don. Eventually he found the Legendary Don, who was hiding his rank and was killed before he received the invite of the rank State Don; plax.
The First Problems
Many months further Bootleggers was introduced to a crew which would change the future of round 7; Asura. These so called, power seeking Gods, were playing together with The Family to dominate the round. They were killing random accounts, in order to hit a banker or underground shooter. A clever tactic, however the continuously random shootings resulted in a massive drop of players. More allies were added to the alliance and this alliance became stronger and stronger...
Whilst Asura, The Family and their allies were searching names for possible underground players, there was one player who finally made it to State Don; iRozan. Plax did not receive the invite of State Don because the State Don invite feature seemed to be bugged. It took iRozan many, many crimes and an amount of 363 Organized Crimes. Not much later we already witnessed the first Nation Don; R4tFaceRay, which was later killed by a requested kill.
Round 7 was now lasting 7 months and desperately needed updates. There were too many small bugs and BSF2000 simply did not have the time to fix these. He promised various features but he broke every promise he made. It was too much, but there was a man in Green who had enough knowledge regarding coding and had the excellent attitude; Sky. He received access to the coding stuff of Bootleggers and officially became a ‘programmer’. No red jacket for him, as BSF2000 had some bad memories regarding that colour.
With the ‘promotion’ of Sky it did not take very long to see many, many bug fixes. Bootleggers became more user friendly with some small changes, done by Sky, such as the UNO-card game feature on the Off Topic Forum. The entire Off Topic Forum was loaded with UNO-topics. Sky did not have any permission to code larger projects, such as new features, because BSF2000 wanted to do this himself. A few months after Sky’s promotion we witnessed the long promised feature; Achievements.
Months were passing by and the amount of players kept decreasing. Players were leaving due the fact that they were constantly killed, without a concrete reason. The so called 'Bootleggers mentality' was born. In order to stimulate the activity on Bootleggers, the Elite Guard decided to halve the Gymnasium requirements/levels and decrease the needed EXP to rank-up. Ranking became easier and getting a proper Gun took less time than before. An attempt of the Elite Guard to stimulate players to fight back against a group of players who became stronger every day.
September, 2013. Bootleggers officially celebrated its 10th year anniversary and behind all expectations, BSF2000 posts a YouTube-video of himself with a fancy speech. The entire Bootleggers community is astonished, as we now all know how our Administrator really looks like. Unfortunately the party is over soon, as it becomes clear the Bootleggers is being dominated by one group of players; Asura, The Family and their allies.
A New Road
2014, a new year on Bootleggers. A promising year, as it became clear that the round has finished. Asura, The Family and their allies are dominating Bootleggers and cannot be stopped. The Elite Guard had several motivating ideas, such as the Christmas Event and the Hunger Games to entertain the players who still have the ability to show their faces on Bootleggers. The events were a big success, but not for long.
Bootleggers died and the players were waiting on an update regarding the reset. Various times the Elite Guard communicated towards the players that they were taking preparations for the next round. A lot of things had to be done. Not only new features, but also new structured rules to prevent annoying situations in the future. This took a lot of time, according to many players; too much time. It was unclear what the Elite Guard was concrete doing, which resulted in a lot of frustration. This frustration all ended on the first day of March 2014, the day the reset was announced. Round 8, if everything goes right, it will start on April 5th, 2014. Let the chaos begin.
