So we're back down to ten crews. Back to round five crew numbers. But what does this actually mean for the community? Let's have a look at all of the fall out from this update! It is both a good and a bad thing for the game.
We at the Buzz have kept a close eye on that statistics page ready for any action! A crew spot is suddenly a valuable commodity. Losing one will hurt a crew a lot more then it previously has done as five crews now need to die before a new crew (or an old but recently deceased one) is able to return to the Stats page. That is a lot of resources for any crew, regardless of its size. Even the strongest crews in the game would struggle at this point.
It also means that the price of a crew has shot up! Not that long ago crews were selling for as much as five hundred points to the right buyer, but more commonly selling for two hundred to three hundred and fifty points. Recently they haven't been selling at all, barely one hundred points used when they have been. But now? Five hundred to one thousand would be reasonable once again and they may even sell for more than this.
So why has this been done? Well if we look at the average number of users online they rarely go over three hundred at any given time and one thousand members online per day is about average! Since each crew spot can be upgraded to hold one hundred members ten crews can easily contain everyone in the community that wants to be in a crew, especially with so many underground crews in existence.
On top of that we all know there is a big crew update planned in the very near future. Making a crew valuable now means that when the update comes out the prices will go up even more, but only the strong crews will still exist ready to claim the rewards they have been waiting for. The smaller crews on the Stats are at risk of being killed for their spots, as are the larger crews, and only the strongest ten can survive to meet the upcoming update.
But until that update comes, the question has to be asked is a crew spot worth one thousand points? Besides putting a bullseye on yourself, and your friends, there are a lot of other negatives to being in a crew. You have a series of rules to abide by, or risk being kicked (or worse killed), and you usually have to pay money each week for the luxury of that bullseye. But the upside? You have a nice forum to talk to your crew mates and make more friends. We are all agreed that right now it isn't worth such a high price.
But the crucial aspect here is that it will be. So what can crews do to survive and prepare for the day when they will be strong? Grow. Expand. Recruit more members, build up more points and train more underground shooters to defend themselves, hoping that the underground members are not shot (as many were earlier this week). But another aspect which has popped up a few times is alliances and mergers.
A crew which is allied with another crew will act together, shooting to defend each other and helping each other rise back onto the Stats if problems arise. However they are not one crew sharing two spots, they still have their own separate resources and can break apart if issues force them too. You also generally find that one crew is stronger then another and gains very little out of the partnership. Another aspect which several crews have been discussing is a merger. Taking all of the members of one crew and adding them to another, pooling resources and changing the name of the crew and restructuring the council. It is a drastic step. But selling that valuable crew spot which benefit both sides and the new members will make the two crews even harder to be killed.
Is there a solution here? The only advice we can give you is that if you want a crew spot you will have to work hard to keep it. In the near future it seems like your efforts will be rewarded but for now everyone has to struggle on and hope that they aren't the targets of an attack. We at the Buzz wish you all the best of luck in surviving as the crew number has now shrunk and crews will, in the very short term, be killed! As Mika likes to say “May the odds be ever in your favour!”
