This Tuesday evening, a simple topic asking where people were in the United Kingdom in the Off Topic Forum, sparked an idea. BootCon. A convention for you to meet the Bootleggers in your nation. Half joking, half serious, we were requested to write an article about the idea.
Some websites and forums do host events, such as in Australia, Aussie streetfighters forum host an April fools run, a bike ride on April 1st, however could this idea be carried over to Bootleggers?
First we have to address the global scale on which the game is played. Using the graph on the login page, roughly 20% are UK players and Netherlands respective. Jordan and USA are about 17% each. So far, this accounts for about 75% of players in four different countries, so it could be possible to have four simultaneous events, though players from countries such as Australia, Canada and Norway would miss out.
When I wrote this, there were 1493 users active in the last 24 hours. Using some approximations, this is about 300 players in the United Kingdom and Netherlands each with and 255 in the USA and Jordan. Although it is a very rough estimate, there are over 1000 players showing there is potential for a good turnout for a BootCon in these four countries, assuming everybody does go.
Who would run these events? There are no staff members in Jordan, so here it would definitely have to be organised by players, that is also assuming the staff elsewhere would be willing and able to run their countries events, they have jobs and lives outside of Bootleggers too. Even at that, the event would be too big for one person or two people to run alone. It would require a dedicated team.
If a BootCon was organised, it would have to be accessible to most players, to give everybody equal chance to turn up, even at this, it might still be too far for some players to travel. There is also the matter of payment for such a venue. How would this be arranged? One method could be tickets for BootCon. The profits could then go to local charities, agreed by those that turn up.
What would be on offer at these events? Would it just be a giant booze-fest or would there be some structured activity? Calling back on Aussie Streetfighters, they organise a ride out as the main event with drinks for those wishing to stay afterwards. For BootCon there could be a poker tournament, though I'd recommend not car jacking from the street and don't steal from local businesses.
There is also an issue of what about rival crews turning up? What if there had been a crew war the previous week and there was still some bad blood, how would this escalate after a few drinks? Also for consideration if somebody has a vendetta against a moderator for legitimately banning them for cheating, players scamming other players and finally meeting.
How about for all those players that didn't go? Assuming most players who attended would be gone from early to late, if not over night, it would be open season for those who did not attend. A crew could be shot down by a rival crew who boycotted BootCon.
When asked his thoughts, Lynx replied "It is possible, although I think, being realistic, between 10 and 60 people would turn up. It depends how many people are actually serious about going, if we could get maybe 30, we could organise one spot, slap bang in the middle of the country. Organise it for an early time, so it could be a day thing, and every one could head home at night, if drinking trains etc. It depends how much interest the buzz article attracts, then if the ball get's rolling, we can look into more."
We approached Sky for an opinion also, "Well I might be inclined to go if it were near to me, yeah. It could be interesting to see just how wide our community is. And I doubt that users with differences in the game would really carry that in to a face-to-face meeting. It could be interesting though, computers could be provided and users could all login from the meeting. Of course, we couldn't interact, and our family accounts list would go through the roof!"
Mika did however add "Sky would actually be able to interact seeing the Family Accounts filter does not apply to Elite Guard members."
In conclusion, the idea is possible, however there are a lot of kinks to address, it would require a team willing to put a lot of effort in to the event in each country, though for the foreseeable future, it's a nice thought, but nothing else. One thing is sure, when there's a BootCon, The Bootleggers Buzz will be there!
