EDITORS NOTE: This article is written by Nuvalari, boss of Asura, which is currently playing underground.
Over the past few weeks the rumour mill has been working overtime, conjuring some amusing stories and ‘truths’ about my humble group Asura. I felt compelled to write this, partly as a follow up to my previous article published in Buzz issue 46, but also to address some of the things that people have put a lot of effort into communicating to the community about us, which are unfortunately wrong. Furthermore, the Buzz is a feature I appreciate the value of and is something I want to contribute to again rather than, as a friend of mine suggested, post in the forum, a place where people who talkmore-than-play-the-game turn constructive discussions into complete troll-fests. So without further ado...
Crime Scripting
Some of the statements I have seen were clearly made with the intent of causing a stir. Others merely seem to be misguided assumptions, such as the familiar notion that Asura has used scripts to commit crimes, auto burglaries etc., particularly in the early states of the round, in order to build up funds or more recently to buy bullets. For years my group and I have manually bought literally millions of bullets each (nolifersinorite?), and without scripts clicked tens of thousands of crimes, the way the game intended to be played. Of course I am no saint and I have, in the past, dabbled in auto-refreshing for example. Back in 2007 I even used a crime script, a fact that members of The Syndicate (TS) will be quick to point out. However, I never abused this tool to the extent of dominating the round or unfairly ruining the game for others à la TS. I used it to crime my way to Legendary Godfather in 20 OCs, whoop-dee-doo. That was six years ago and this is now. The fact of the matter is we have not cheated our way into our current position. Just because you can’t comprehend buying 500,000 bullets or clicking 10,000 crimes on one account does not mean that it cannot be done without scripts. Most people on Bootleggers simply know nothing about playing the game hardcore style.
Puppet Crews
There has been a lot of hilarious finger pointing at certain stats crews who have been housing known members of underground groups. I personally would not ask a friend to get me into their crew if I knew I was destined to use my account to shoot and potentially threaten the integrity of them of their members. It is down to the crew bosses and the strength of their relationship with the underground player whether they choose to take the risk. Of course if you do not care about your association with an underground shooting crew then fair enough. Now is as good a time as any to adopt this approach as there are very few people out there capable of wiping anyone off the stats.
While it is understandable for people to jump to conclusions about crew relationships and arrangements, it is not so black and white to label a crew an enemy or puppet of an underground group. I have friends in a number of stats crews and as such I choose not to shoot them or their members. I don’t like to use or bully anyone, especially not friends. Any benefit I have ever gained from a crew has been mutual and based off a good relationship. Of course there are some crews on the stats that I do not care about in the slightest. Naturally everyone thinks that because X crew has survived for a long time means that they must be a puppet or front for us. If I don’t see the merit in shooting a crew I will leave them be.
Financial Support
This leads on to something that confuses me greatly, regarding financial support gained from external parties. A recent buzz article entitled ‘The Puppet Show’ made some bold, baseless claims that assume Asura has been financially sustained, essentially by suck-ups:
All those of you who try to, in effect, suck up to Asura, for example. Where do you think Asura would be without you? Consider this. There are fifty different parties all vying for a slice of the Asura lifestyle, wanting to be a part of the group and get some fame of their own. If all fifty of these minor contributing parties were to pull out, resulting in the total loss of funding for the group, where would they be? Nowhere near where they find themselves today is your answer.
Your ‘answer’ is far from the truth. Having crimed intensely at the start of the round, and then sensibly banked for several months, this resulted in a good foundation on which to start shooting people. This goes for all the members of my group. We worked together, shared resources completely, and played a conservative game up until our first spree in June. As a result, all subsequent action has been borne of our own bank accounts, not those of outsiders or friends. The acquisition of crew bullets is also mentioned in this article and once again I contest that we have not owned a Bullet Factory this entire round, besides the ones we have picked up following sprees. On the other hand I do not deny buying bullets from crews on a couple of occasions, but as I said before this is where mutual benefit comes into play; I do not expect to be given bullets for free. Of the 18 million bullets Asura has fired so far this round, 400,000 from crews hardly account for a game changing contribution.
The article in question correctly cites my assertion that Asura is most likely not the richest group on the game. What does this say to you about us and other rich or at least previously rich parties? The difference is that we do not have an insatiable appetite for wealth and we are not afraid to spend a lot of money on what we enjoy (we’ve used over $600 million on searches alone and converted more than 200,000 points, bought with game cash, to bullets). The money and bullets we have dropped from the game has aided the continuation of our killing sprees by reducing the ability of our enemies to shoot back. At the end of the day however, this is just a by-product of our pursuit for fun and I have always felt the satisfaction of just shooting some people is far more important than the relative gains in wealth it does or doesn’t bring.
It is interesting to note that since our campaign of shooting from November, the most significant gains in our wealth have come from the moderators banning our allies for essentially having too much money. As always, moderator intervention does not have the anticipated effect. Another prime example of this was when one of our shooters got banned immediately after a spree. This discriminatory, overzealous reaction resulted in an incorrect ban that was rightfully overturned within days. In those golden hours post spree when he could have been shot in retaliation he was instead saved by the moderators. Naturally then, when he returned from the ban he was able to go for another round of shooting. What I’m trying to say is, moderators are too suspicious and often jump the gun when it comes to intervening in game changing matters, such as banning holders of billions of dollars.
Safe Lists
The article mentioned above goes on to explain the existence of safe lists and who earns a place on them i.e. people “seeking alliance or to be a part of these groups”. Again, this statement is a myth and the truth is nobody has ever asked, let alone begged to join Asura, quite possibly due to how badly Cheese smells. The article then goes further into the issue:
This gives you a sense of purpose, a feeling of being 'special' but the reality is, you are one of many, and eventually, at some point, you will be deemed excess to the cause and cast aside.
To suggest this is to completely disparage my integrity. Of all the names I have kept safe from our shooting, I have not compromised a single one. Some people consider the act of giving me their names leverage, but it simply makes sense for me to know and be responsible for who we are not shooting, given that we have been shooting more frequently than anyone else and have the most enemies who would want to see what we have planned. Showing target lists to everyone is a sure fire way to not achieve the full effect of a spree, so this is not how I choose to operate. For people moaning about the ethos of safe lists, they are nothing new and everyone uses them to a certain extent, so stop being a noob and get used to it.
Bot Accounts
Once upon a time there was actually room on Users Online for legitimate bot accounts, even ones that could collect usernames and view profiles i.e. Bootcrews. This is no longer the case, so it is surprising that the bot accounts I have witnessed and reported in the past few months have not been banned sooner or at all. As to who is responsible, the staff should really know by now. Once again however, the Buzz shares its view in ‘Banker? BOT? Bootlegger?’ with some more interesting statements:
With the total amount hitting $20,430,000,000+/-on 18/12/2012, it seems implausible that shooters would be so lucky in their random killings to of removed over half of this money in the two months following this date.
To suggest our previous efforts and resulting drops in cash were down to illegally acquired target lists is stupid. To date Asura has killed 1,400 accounts and dropped $8.7 billion from the game. There is nothing untoward about these figures; it was bound to happen with a brute force method of killing like ours. The staff and indeed the community is smart enough to see that a much smaller spree with a high drop in game cash and victim ranks varying wildly from scum to don, is the result of a banker script collecting names. There have been a couple of small sprees recently matching this exact description, aimed primarily at our allies and us. Crews are welcome to try and shoot us and diminish our standing, however I would be annoyed as much as the next man if I was shot due to a script collecting my name.
It is therefore down to the often-criticized staff to implement a way to hinder the effect of these bot accounts. To date they have done a good job of reducing duplicate accounts for example, and the Bootleggers landscape is completely transformed as a result. However, as suggested by GPEnergy in his article ‘Cheating; A Blessing In Disguise?’ maybe the way forward is to legalise, to a certain extent, duplicate accounts and make information like wealth statuses very much visible and searchable once again, ultimately reverting some of the key aspects that have brought us to this current situation. There are even simpler, cosmetic fixes that have been proposed to the staff, which I believe will solve the problem. The question is, do the Moderators want to push for a very easy fix to safe guard the community as a whole from these illegal bots, or are they reluctant to act because in doing so they also help the groups that are currently dominating the game.
You’re Doing it Wrong!
Having given some background as to why we shoot back in issue 46, I just want to reiterate our intentions and once again express how disappointing BSF’s contribution towards the improvement of the game has been. The way that the game has been set up and altered over the past few years means that the natural course of a round is not sustainable happiness and enjoyment for all, but for a determined shooting crew to take over and assume shooting superiority. I believe we have achieved this.
However there is no definitive conclusion to the round, which is a major flaw and reason for a lot of people leaving the game. This round has not been as competitive as previous ones but it is no longer about criticising the enemies, unknowing bystanders, innocent newbies, dedicated jail busters or raging idiots we have killed, because they have decided to quit. We want to win round 7 but first and foremost we play to have fun and in the purest sense we get our enjoyment from killing, a lot. It’s not our intention to ruin the game but should we really stop playing the game in the only way we enjoy because of how it is set up?
Several people have said they respect what we do but don’t agree with it, possibly because our mass killings appear overly aggressive. However, if the game, with it’s you-die-you-lose-everything mechanics was less harsh then maybe it would retain more active players and it would be more competitive and difficult for tiny groups to dominate. I believe that most of the staff have the best intentions but BSF ultimately has the power to change and rebalance the game. So basically, I don’t feel responsible for the current state of the game, that’s on the developer.
Final Comments
In summary: people think they know a lot when in fact they are clutching at straws. Have we cheated? Nope. Have we used and abused other crews to our advantage? Nope. Have we played hard and smart? Of course. Have we had fun? Hell yes. I hope this has been an illuminating read, assuming you reached the end without falling asleep! The future of the game really is in the hands of BSF. The challenge is gone now and collecting names to shoot is growing ever tedious. Reset the game, give crews 1000% health, introduce wait times between kills, bring Sabin back, ban the obvious bot accounts... for God’s sake, do something.
