With the recent Game Forum post regarding the addition of another state I thought it would be quite interesting to write up an article about it. It’s difficult to know whether someone is serious when they post something like this as it’s probably been suggested many times before, it can be hard to tell whether someone is just trolling the Game Forum.
However, trolling aside, I thought it was interest enough to write up into a column. The first thing that came to mind when discussing adding another state was ‘which state?’ The one suggested in the forum thread was Florida. You could have a crew called ‘Disney’ and they could run the state completely, proper old school style.
The biggest issue with adding another state would be another split of active players into another state. There are plenty of states at the moment that are already pretty quiet without adding another one to divide the player base a little more. If you’re into busting (like me) then you’ll know how annoying it is to be in a state like Colorado or Nevada where the jails are almost always empty. Even other popular booze run states like Michigan and New Jersey have empty jails from time to time.
It would also create more casinos. There are currently 45 casinos to hold in Bootleggers. Adding another state would bump this up to 50. Does that seem like a bit much to you? Does 45 seem like a bit much? It does to me. More casinos might be seen as a good thing for some players as it means that there are more available and more players get the chance to own one. But the downside is that the value of the casino itself would be less. Holding a casino in a quiet state isn’t necessarily as fun as it’s intended to be.
The Game Forum thread also raised an interesting response from Mika, who stated that he’d be more in favour of removing a state than adding one. I think that is also an interesting topic of discussion. The idea of removing a state would be interesting in terms of the points that I already raised against adding a state. It would increase the number of people in the quiet states (ideally) and therefore lessen the problem of having an empty jail or no one playing your casino.
However, an important downside to removing a state would be the loss of a bullet factory. There are currently nine bullet factories (obviously), one is held by the Elite Guard, two by Event Horizon, three by Death Valley, two by Gangsters Sanctuary and one by Axteze. So, if we discount Louisiana bullet factory as it’s held by the EG, there are eight bullet factories to be held by the players. With eight available they are already only held by four out of 15 crews.
Removing a state would mean removing a bullet factory – with their current setup at least. I’d see this as a major negative to removing a state. Bullets take a lot of time to build up without using points. I think that the loss of a bullet factory would be quite harmful to the balance of the game. However, aside from the loss of a bullet factory, it’s difficult to see any benefits to having lots of different states.
I’d always say to think of each aspect of the game and think ‘What is it adding? What is the point of it?’ If each state had its one unique feature or property etc. then it would definitely be adding something. It would have real purpose that set it aside from all of the others. Right now, all states are the same, with the exception of popularity. If each state had something different to offer then it would mean that each state had appeal to different parts of the community. If the only difference is how popular the state is then that is the thing that players will look at before travelling to a state.
