The players of Bootleggers are bound by many rules to ensure that the game is played properly, realistically and that air play is upheld. Failure to play by these rules can earn you a permanent ban. The Buzz thought we would take a closer look at the additional rules that are found on the Game Forum and stumbled across an intriguing one:
'Please be aware the the TOS applies to shootings as well. If we find attempts to reduce the overall quality of the service as a whole by - for example - killing all users who are logged in at a given moment, we will interfere with a permanent ban.'
This rule caught our eye immediately as those of you who played at the end of last round will know, a single party had taken control of the game and shot all accounts that managed to rank to Assassin in order to stop anyone else taking the power back. The upshot of this was that the reset was forced and so began our current round. There have been many different opinions on what should cause a reset or what actions can be considered a breach of the above rule. We asked the community for their opinion and they responded fantastically.
PurpleDino gave us his viewpoint: "I think the round should just end once one crew or group of crews gains a very significant portion of the money on the game. Obviously money is everything. I honestly think we are very close to needing another reset.." This is an interesting point of view. It begs the question about what sort of criteria the staff look for when they decide it is time to reset the game. This round is nearly a year old but is still going strong although the lack of players is somewhat dragging it back. Whilst the topic of this discussion was game dominance and opinions of the rule it was surprising how closely the crew and kill features are related to a reset. Many players argued that if it was harder to wipe a crew then the round would have much more longevity. Bacchus said "Give us some kind of backfire. When you are shot at you can opt to fire back an amount of bullets". The premise of this statement is very valid. If you fail a kill then the only real come back, certainly when dealing with a crew, is that the crew spot may not drop and you have to locate the person again. Reality would argue with this as if you fail to kill the person immediately then they would have something to say about it!
We looked further into the issue of dominance and 2Lazy2DoCrimes provided us with his thoughts on the matter. "I believe that becoming rich, powerful, the top of the ladder and ultimately dominance is the true goal of this game. Especially from October 19th 2006 onwards (to those who dont know, this is where round 4 ended and round 5 started and i believe THE date that BL fundamentally changed)
As in round 4 true domination was impossible as there were thousands of dupes (over 1000 ldons alive at any point) and widespread exploits that allowed anyone to create their own points... Loads of action during the round, i mean 100 dead dons in a week was a slow weekr, but no-one could truly dominate. From round 5 onwards this changed, 90% of the dupes were gone and no more exploits to cheat points, dominanation became truely possible. All it took is to play more active, smarter, and a couple hundred kills. This we've seen for years, revelation and allies, Resistance, Eternal Labyrinth, The Syndicate, The Family, Asura all were dominant at some point.
And as most people seemingly have no interest in becoming dominant its just getting easier to actually get dominance, no-one is willing to stop you. Combine this with an Elite Guard that didnt really think things through before they did something (thats putting it mildly) created the BL of today, Bootleggers, the social network game". The above questions the actual goal of the game aside from just ranking. Various users play the game for a variety of reasons ranging from wishing to be one of the most famous Nation Dons or just wanting to be the best buster on the whole game but what is the true objective? It would seem that we are encouraged to rank, through better privileges, rank rewards and more respect on the game but what next? In my opinion and that of many others there should be some way of winning the current round even if this is not officially the goal. The way the game is structured it seems to be the natural progression for a round. MoxMW put across his opinion of the changes to the game people have been talking about. "The smallest changes on Bootleggers make a huge difference to the game overall. Make the wrong change and the game is fucked. The changes some people are talking about to the most important part of Bootleggers, the kill system, are huge and I personally think ridiculous. It's been proven that any changes that have been made have handed the game even more and more to the people able to adapt to changes, the same people who have always remained dominant. Obviously this is just my opinion, people have others. Stats crews need a boost to change the balance between them and UG crews. My crew the syndicate was the first successful UG crew and many have followed suit since they have realised its the best strategy." Again, the crew system is mentioned showing just how delicately the features are implemented into the game. One affects the others and changes to the kill system will skew how, for example, crews operate.
One of the most intriguing responses we had was posted by Roche but signed as Nuvalari, Asura. "The rule above is an extremely poor attempt by the staff to stop this from happening, and was conceived because they thought that it was the sole intention of the dominant side to ruin the game last round. The shooters had in fact done nothing illegitimate to get into the position of being able to kill everyone Hitman+ over and over. It was clear at the time that the game needed a reset to recover and rebalance, but BSF was stubborn and took an entire year to sort it out.
Shooting superiority has been the reason for the previous 2 or 3 resets. Before that, the game was reset because exploits had resulted in a ridiculous level of inflation. At this time BSF resorted to dirty tactics in order to remove cash from the game (and keep inflation in check), such as the Billionaire wealth status. Then things went entirely the other way and now if someone shoots a billion dollars out of the game, rather than being congratulated by the staff for keeping the game cash down, the mods will look at your account with an eagle eye, to see if they can ban you. When they don't find anything illegal though, it means that at the end of it all shooting crews will come out on top with a monopoly on cash and killing ability.
I believe that BSF wants a game like WoW that will continue to run, on and on with a balanced economy and everyone happy etc etc. In my opinion this ideal is impossible for bootleggers. As it stands the game is more like tribal wars, where for a certain period of time there is a psuedo-balanced game state. However, gradually as the shooting crews gain more and more relative wealth, the farmville crews, the busters, the gamblers etc. are ground down until 'manual reset' conditions exist. This is how I would prefer the game to play out - If someone destroys me and my crew I will simply leave and return next round to try again. Not everyone wants this though and hence the overarching debate. If BSF wants a never ending round then he either needs to delete the kill feature or nerf it so badly that people like myself no longer find it fun to use." This really sums up many peoples opinions on how a round should run. If a single party or group of players manage to play the game, without exploits and cheats, amass enough wealth to take over the game and ultimately become the overriding power, then they should not be stopped from doing this.
With all this talk of the purpose of the rules we tracked down an Elite Guard member to help us understand why this rule is in place. We asked Sky why this rule exists. "That rule is rarely enforced, in fact I don't think I've ever seen it enforced. I'm inclined to agree that the ultimate sign a round is over is that one group dominates. Historically that has been the cause of a new round." This is indeed what the community had told us previously. We asked why it had not been removed yet. "There may come a time when we need to enforce it. It's better to have a rule and not need it than to not have the rule and need it. In all honesty I wasn't even aware the rule existed, nor how old it is". It seems that even the mods are slightly unsure what this rule is to achieve but it is also true that it is better safe than sorry! Our final question was if this round was to finish like the previous one would their be an issue? "I wouldn't say so. The game doesn't really have a goal, so the only logical one left is dominance. If one Crew managed to legitimately embed itself so firmly into the game that it couldn't be taken down by it's foes that's not only a sign that they're the superior players but that it's time to hit the reset button". This further confirms what others have said. The dominance of the game is only achieved, unless cheating and exploits are used, through hard work and determination. It would be a brave man who would claim that it took little to no effort. With this, we thanked Sky for his time and left the Elite Guard HQ.
The subject of Game Dominance provokes many conflicting opinions. There are those who feel that if a certain group of people take over the game it becomes ruined and no longer worth their time. Conversely, many players feel that the rounds should be dictated by the dominance of a certain group of people. Assuming there are no exploits or bugs which cause unfair advantages, having the round defined by the activities of the players seems to be the most hybrid and graceful solution to the conclusive goal of a game which was never originally designed to have a constant, stable economy. The sheer fact that we received so many responses and so much interest in the topic posted in the game forum continues to demonstrate how committed the Bootleggers community is; a trait which any online game would love to have. This community has been patient, stuck by the game through thick and thin and deserve a really solid platform to play on. With the updates which are being rolled out regularly it looks as though the future of Bootleggers could well be prosperous once more.
