Bootleggers is quite a unique gaming community in my opinion. I’ve played a number of online games and have found that, although the community is strong within most games, the community of Bootleggers is very well established, structured and different.
What do I mean? Well, maybe it is because the game has been around for so long and so have a lot of the players. Many of the players know each other and have known each other for a number of years. It’s the reason that certain crews can have so much prestige. It’s the reason why players have so many unwritten rules amongst themselves. The fact that the community has long since been established helps in terms of creating a unique environment.
Something else that really has a large effect on the community structure is the sort of hierarchy of the admin/moderators. There is a type of long running conflict between the very quiet administrator and the outspoken community. I think the fact that very few people get to communicate their ideas about the game and aspects of the game directly to BSF2000 means that the players are drawn together in a way.
There was an article in last week’s issue by z2k that talked about players being nicer etc. I think that one of the reasons that players group together more these days as a community rather than in certain cliques is because of the collective nature that seems to be players vs. admins.
People may disagree with that statement, but I feel that it does ring at least a little bit true. It makes me wonder why the players don’t collectively have some kind of council or representative that can communicate with BSF directly. I hear mutterings of a union… but that isn’t what I’m getting at. Or is it?
When you play a game you are sort of committed to playing it. You have the choice of leaving but if you enjoy it then why would you? After playing a game for a long time you can start to think “you know what this game lacks?” or “you know what could make this game a bit better?” on Bootleggers it feels difficult to have ideas and make clear suggestions that will get acknowledged and taken on board.
There is a clear gap between the man at the top and the rest of the community and it is really quite damaging to the game and the community. If the players could create some kind of group that could discuss things openly and report back to BSF with their findings for ideas/suggestions or what the players would like to be the priority in terms of new features or fixes etc. In a lot of ways BSF has the mods as his point of contact to the community, so why can’t the community have some points of contact to BSF, without those players being part mods.
Sometimes all that is missing is a bit of communication. Could something like this be a step towards opening up communications? Maybe. Will it ever happen? Who knows. Either way, all we can do as players is keep on playing!
