More than one year ago the players on Bootleggers faced a new feature; Gymnasium. In order to buy a Gun and Protection you needed certain levels at the Gymnasium. At the beginning the requirements were insanely high. If I remember correct, you needed to invest more than 40 hours clicking on Gymnasium to get the best gun. It was insane and eventually the Elite Guard agreed. A few months ago we witnessed a change of the Gymnasium feature; the requirements were lowered. If you wanted to purchase a Gun you mainly had to train your Strength and if you wanted to purchase a Protection you mainly had to train your Agility. What about Stamina? Well, Stamina lowered your timers on certain features (Crimes, Auto Burglary and Organized Crimes). The requirements were not as high as before, but you still needed to invest plenty of hours to get a proper Gun/Protection. This week we witnessed another change; the requirements were lowered, again.
A few seconds after the update the Game Forum woke up and the discussions started. With even lower requirements more players have the ability to get a better Gun/Protection much faster than before. Does this mean this update will result in more shootings? Will this update solve the current domination on Bootleggers or will it increase the domination?! Interesting questions, but at the Game Forum we only witnessed some classic Bootleggers complaints. Some players even predicted total chaos and absolute domination of the underground crews. Let’s pretend that Bootleggers is not being dominated and ask ourselves why this update would result in domination. More players have the ability to get a better gun much faster, which means they can finally take action against the underground crews. Besides, the members of the underground crews were already able to get the best gun with the old requirements. Other players on the other hand, also have the ability to shoot faster. I truly believe the new update will result in more action on Bootleggers from crews who are trying to prevent the domination of certain underground crew. The only problem is; not enough action.
The past months a lot players complained about the current mentality of the players. Some players even call Bootleggers a ‘social network game’. Whenever players are killed they quit instead of taking revenge. Whether you agree with that or not is up to you, but it is a fact that a lot players quit after they get shot. Now, the big question is; why? Why do players quit after they get shot? Random or not, being killed is part of the game these days. Whenever you are killed, you should need some sort of motivation to avenge your death. It seems players do not care a lot about this anymore. Why? Is it because the game is already being dominated and it is not worth fighting anymore? No? Maybe because the gymnasium requirements are too high? Maybe both? We at the Buzz had many questions so it was time to contact the green man behind the coding of the latest update; Sky.
The current state of Bootleggers may not be at its best, but the current Elite Guard has a few very loyal members. Whenever the state of the game is changing, several in-game changes are needed. Since Sky has now the ability to code small updates the current state of the game will most likely increase. The Elite Guard obviously decreased the Gymnasium requirements on purpose, but why? According to Sky the changes were needed to ‘‘make it easier for those who have recently died to get a gun, so that they can avenge their deaths sooner’’. Just making it easier or were the updates a way to 'solve' this mentality? Sky stated: ‘‘It may be as a by-product, but at the very least the aim is to encourage people to do what they can to progress as far as they can as quickly as they can, regardless of the unscrupulous elements who wish otherwise’’. A ‘by-product’, which means the reasons behind the updates are not the Bootleggers mentality. Not weird, because what feature do you need to update to change a certain ‘mentality’?
Finally, we asked Sky his opinion about the whole Gymnasium feature. A few years ago you did not need any Gymnasium requirements to purchase a Gun/Protection. At the introduction of the current round you needed extremely high Gym statistics and they have been changed for two times now. Maybe the feature it not needed at all? Sky replied: ‘‘I think at the start of the round it served a purpose by requiring players to put in a serious amount of effort in order to be in a position to go on a meaningful spree. But unfortunately it's been bypassed by some determined cheaters and now can serves only to hinder people's attempts at vengeances. I wouldn't be opposed to removing the gym requirements on guns entirely, though I think it still has potential to improve game play in other areas’’. It is not a secret that these ‘determined cheaters’ are the current dominating crews. It seems the Gymnasium feature was introduced to prevent a lot sprees, but unfortunately that plan did not really succeed.
Gymnasium, a failed feature or a needed feature? I believe the current requirements are perfect. It takes a few hours to get the best Gun/Protection, which means you actually have to do something in order to become a stronger player. Without the Gymnasium feature most players would only commit two Organised Crimes a day. In order to accomplish something you now have to meet certain requirements. However, it seems the purpose of the feature failed. Determined cheaters were able to bypass the feature which once again resulted in domination and which also resulted in the so called ‘Bootleggers mentality’. I believe you cannot change the Bootleggers mentality by adding or removing features. It is about removing the wrong players.
