Like all games the community who plays changes over time with new blood joining and old blood leaving the game and with this the game itself changes too as in the end it’s the players who decide how the game is played. As a player who has been around for quite some time I have seen people come and go and see Bootleggers change, not just the features but the way the community plays and to be honest, I can’t say I like it.
For me over the last years Bootleggers changed from a competitive game where (groups of) players competed with and against each other to reach the highest ranks, become rich, powerful and whatever goals people had to a ‘social network’ game where a majority of players all work ‘with’ each other, whose goal it is to help random people they never even talked to before, to keep everyone happy. In my opinion it is this (new) attitude that has and still is killing this game.
When I first started playing Bootleggers many years ago the game was alive and active. If you wanted something out of the game you were expected to make your own fortunes and nothing was free. If you didn’t want to put in effort in ranking and making money, you’d simply wouldn’t get anywhere. Starting with doing crimes that made $1-$3 a crime (not the $20+ it makes today) you’d go through the lengthy process of ranking to thug and getting sufficient money to be able to join an OC. You’d think twice before you started asking random people for money (that’s called begging) as then you’d be told to make your own money like everyone else did or you were shot on the spot.
Once you had made it to a high rank (don+) you could start making some money out of that by hiring yourself out for OCs, as I said, nothing was ever free so the people who wanted to rank fast by doing high ranked OCs were willing to pay good money to hire high ranks so they could rank fast with less effort.
These days it’s the complete other way around, the person who puts in the effort to play Bootleggers is truly not very smart. Why spend like 4 hours on doing crimes to rank from scum to thug when you can also go to the classifieds forum and make a topic that says ’I can OC but got no money’ and watch the good people that play Bootleggers, the social network game perform. Generally within 30 minutes you will get money, a car, an OC, most likely a percentage of the vault and of course the XP. Its fast, takes no effort and you can do this all the way up to LDon if you want.
Do note that for every person who ranks his way up by begging there has to be at least 1 person (per OC) who allows him to do so by giving him the money and such, but 4 or 5 is more accurate.
There are beggars out there who have been running the exact same begging scam for close to 2 years and still succeed each time they try and beggars who have done over 100 OCs without ever paying for their own equipment. I truly wonder why so many of you (my estimate is about 500 accounts) continue to pay for beggars.
Perhaps it might be because you think you make more profit? Well that isn’t really true. In a normal OC where everyone pays for his own equipment the people all get a share of the profit and XP in return for their investment into OC equipment. The beggar doesn’t pay anything yet he gets both profit and XP. If you pay for his equipment, not only do you own his profit (means 0% to him) but he still gets XP that you paid for, where do you get rewarded for giving him free XP? The rest of the team paid for their XP.
High ranked OCs are the same story. These days a lot of people seem to think they have some sort of right to OC with high ranked players and that high ranked players have an obligation to help random low ranks.
When a high ranked player, say a Ldon, does a Don+ OC where low ranks either cant join at all or can join if they pay money or points they regularly get called a rankist and that they should be killed. Yet, where a high rank often sets a minimum rank below their own rank and might allow anyone to join if they make an offer that is consider sufficient, there are also dozens of low ranks, such as hitmans and assassins, who lead OCs where the minimum rank is set LGF+, far above their own rank. When you as a low ranked can’t find an OC don’t blame it on the higher ranks, blame it on the people of your own ranks who won’t let you join because they set minimum ranks well above their own and perhaps, blame the LGFs who join these OCs without demanding payment for the extra XP they give. Yes, I know they generally get a few percent extra, but seriously, 5-8% extra is what, $12,500-$20,000? To any LGF this should be nothing, they can make like $15,000 a booze run, $1,000 a crime and by the time you reach LGF a $20million bank account is not much if they had played bootleggers.
These are just some every day examples I see on Bootleggers that show how it changed from those who work hard get rewarded to those who work hard are stupid. In the social network game Bootleggers has become nothing happens as everyone helps everyone and everyone should be kept happy, boring as hell. Plenty of people agree with Bootleggers being boring but for the solution you all look to BSF and new features to save the day, well think again and look at yourselves for a change.
BSF can change features as much as he wants but in the end it’s the players who decide how the game is being played. At the moment the majority, by their actions (and non-actions), vote for safe, secure, happy, helping, boring Bootleggers. And like I said, I believe it is this attitude that is truly killing this game. Guns and bullets won’t kill this game (as it takes playing the game to acquire a gun and bullets). Inactivity and the lack of willingness to play Bootleggers the way it was meant to be played has, is and will continue to kill this game, and so far the lot of you are doing a very nice job of it. Want Bootleggers to change? Want Bootleggers to get better again? Simply stop doing it this way and start playing Bootleggers the way it was meant to be played, you know like a mafia game.
