Having just returned from a 3 year hiatus from Bootleggers, some things struck me straight away. The introduction of new features which obviously improved the game was what immediately caught my attention. The new roulette system, the new missions and the gymnasium are a few features which intrigued me.
The new gymnasium was the one thing I admired the most as it now made it much harder for the classic dupe shooter as they were required to put in the time and effort of training as opposed to OC’ing twice a day and buying the best possible gun.
After looking past these new features it saddened me to see how the number of users had declined soo drastically. I recall a time when there were over 100,000 registered users and close to a 1000 online at any one time. Forum activity was rife and often a topic you had posted on a minute ago, would disappear onto the second page. Now I see the same topic from 2-3 days still on the first page with a grand total of 2 new comments. The trolls and forum whores are still there, but even they seem to have reduced in numbers (thank God). This lack in activity is evidenced by the reduction of HDO’s to just a mere 4. I find this a huge shame as the biggest attraction that Bootleggers used to have was its active and vibrant community.
Another thing that struck me was how devalued casino’s had become. There used to be a time when they were worth a large amount of points. During these times people would actively kill and be killed over them. It wouldn’t be safe for a low rank to hold a casino for fear of death. Now I see Thug’s and Gangster’s holding them without a worry.
A positive change has been the Moderators who seem much more willing to hold games for the players and interact with them more readily than ever before with the exception of the Head Moderator who seems to just be AWOL.
But despite the best efforts of these mean green machines, the same old story remains. A number of bugs and the forever slow BSF2000’s inability to fix them in a timely manner. It isn’t as much just the time it takes but it is also the lack of communication that he has with the players and it seems with his clueless Moderators who seem oblivious about updates and bug fixes. Sure he has a tiny monthly column in the Buzz but that hardly constitutes communication. Looking at his grandly 32 messages just emphasises my point.
An example which really gets on my nerves is the lack of an FAQ which I have been informed has been ‘coming soon’ for a long, long time. On occasions I have had to revert to the player made FAQ which can be found on the game forum and I am an experienced player who had played the game for years prior to my hiatus. Now if I need to occasionally use the FAQ then imagine how confusing this game must be for a complete newcomer.
Now I doubt this inability to fix bugs and false promises to introduce new features has been the only reason for the decline in the number of users but surely this has played a large part and BSF2000 needs to stand up and take responsibility. We, the players, put our hard earned money in his pocket through the purchase of points and we deserve clear and loud communication. This might just fall on deaf ears but I hope your listening BSF2000.
