While Establishments are out of the game I figured now would be a good time to write up a suggestion for how they could return. Those familiar with Establishments in previous rounds will have seen a map of each state with blocks of land that can be purchased. The value of the land then increases, it increases more so when you build something on it. Previous buildings have been either a Safe House or a 500 Car Garage.
As for those building choices, a 500 Car Garage had its uses, however it isn’t the most interactive or inventive property to own. If you’re anything like me, then you probably only hold on to a limited number of cars, before selling the rest either on the Auto Burglary page or the Sell Items page. A Safe House is an interesting concept, but as I understand it, the last version of this did not actually keep you completely safe; it merely made it harder for searches to find you, making it an expensive and kind of pointless luxury.
I’ve never really been too keen on the Establishment system in Bootleggers. I always thought that it could have been a lot more than it was. It could’ve been a simple feature, made the right way, and then expanded upon to form a key part of the game. However, I feel that it became a bit of an extra, something that a few players bothered with, while the rest thought “meh, I’ll save my money”.
The first thing that I disliked about Establishments was the fact that you had to buy a plot of a land in a specific state. At times, you also had to rush to buy a plot of land before everyone else bought one. While this attempts to create something for players to fight over, I don’t think that the choice of property really made it worth fighting over, so players either had a plot of land or they didn’t. There are plenty of other things more worth fighting over in-game.
In terms of Establishment plots of land, I think every player should have the option to buy one. The plot of land could start out small, and players could have to upgrade it and increase the size of the plot, in order to build larger buildings. By making it something that everyone can have it means that a feature isn’t being needlessly limited to 10% of the player base. If you’re going to develop a feature, why make it so restrictive?
For the record, I understand the concept of restricting features, restricting access to things, such as the crew system. It makes sense to put limitations on the number of crew spots, it encourages crews to fight and go to war. If players could have an unlimited number of crews then everyone would be in a crew and no one would fight to get onto the stats. It’s the same way that not all crews can have a Bullet Factory, and not everyone can own a Casino. I think Establishments should remain outside of this bracket of limited features. To give focus to a feature and to give it value it is sometimes better to have it open to everyone and not to a limited number of players.
Now, if everyone can own a plot of land and that plot must be expanded to build larger types of building, then what types of building could you have? 500 Car Garages and Safe Houses were again pretty limited in my view. They offered something but what you actually gained wasn’t really worth the cost of building it. In my view Establishments should offer either some form of income or some form of interactivity. Here are some examples:
Pay and spray garage – you could receive X amount of cars per hour/day that you could then fix up/paint and then sell on. This would not be the cars you steal from Auto Burglary; you would receive the cars on the Establishment page.
Debt collectors – you could receive X amount of jobs per day where you had to shoot at a “bot” type player who owed debts to your Establishment. You wouldn’t have to kill the player, simply hurt them enough to scare them into repaying their debt.
Hitman service – similar to Debt Collectors, however players would have to kill their targets, players would also receive less targets per day. Players would receive a set bounty for shooting a “bot” account.
Bar – a bar would be a business that earned money X amount of money per day. This type of Establishment would have the option of hiring some form or entertainment which could increase the chances of earning more money for the day.
Nightclub – much like a bar except that it would be more expensive.
City casino – this would obviously not be like the current casinos in-game. It would be like a business. However, it would be very risky, like in-game casinos. You could earn a good amount of money per day; however, you could also risk losing some money per day.
Vegas Casino – this would be a larger version of a City Casino. It would involve less risk than a city casino, as there are more gamblers in Vegas. However, it would be a very expensive Establishment and require a large size plot of land.
Some properties could be built on a small plot of land while others would require an increased plot of land. The plot could be increased while a property is already built, as you are simply buying up more land. Properties could be expanded to increase their profitability, such as Bars and Nightclubs.
Properties such as the Debt Collectors and the Hitman Service could be expanded in terms of their reputation. The more jobs you do, the better your reputation and the more likely it is that you’ll get better/bigger contracts. The same goes for a Pay and Spray Garage. This type of property would be considered a crime property and as such, over a period of time you would begin to attract the attention of the police. Players would have the option to bribe the police to lower/remove their heat. If players did not bribe the police then eventually their Establishment would be forced to shut down for a set amount of time in order to remove their unwanted attention.
Properties that earned money directly such as Bars, Nightclubs and Casinos, as well as having the option to hire entertainment, would also have to hire protection and security if they were attracting unwanted trouble. If players ignored protection and did not pay out when necessary then trouble would occur in their Establishments and their earnings would suffer because they had a poor reputation for attracting trouble.
Players would only be able to purchase one property on their land, thus meaning that rather than limiting the number of players allowed having an Establishment, it means that players are forced to choose one type of property at a time depending on their style of gameplay and what they are looking for. Do you want to be interactive in terms of shooting, or do you want to simply build a business out of your Establishment.
Establishments would be like businesses, all of them would need to be upgraded and improved, through cash and points, similar to upgrading guns and protection. I think this would be a good way to expand the game in terms of being more “empire building”. What’s the point in ranking up, getting rich, and not actually building some sort of criminal empire? I think it would add good depth to the game. It could also be expanded upon with more properties and eventually some kind of system for players to attack/raid each other’s properties.
Because I like Photoshop, here is an example preview of the Pay and Spray Garage:
