This week we were in for a real surprise here on Bootleggers. The past couple of days BSF2000 has entered the realm of mobsters once again which he created many years ago. This time he brought a present with him to make up for his absence the past couple of months. We already heard the rumors about a possible new feature lurking in the testing shadows of the Elite Guard, but we didn’t have a clue what it could have been until the day came that BSF2000 himself implanted it and made a topic on the Game Forum.
It is now possible to collect various achievements in the form of bottle caps for your hard work here on Bootleggers, at the time of this writing there were 58 achievements you could achieve. I’m sure almost everyone took a look at them and realized that some are harder to achieve than others. Keep in mind that the ones we can achieve at the moment are not all we can achieve in the future. In the Game Forum Mika explained the following: “The way I understood it the system has been set up so that achievements can be added relatively easy later on, so we will definitely be looking into adding different and additional achievements in the future.” This means we of the Bootleggers community can share the ideas we have for future achievements in the forum or through the Help Desk and it’s very likely some of these will be added in the near future. We at the Bootleggers Buzz have made a list for you. This list wil also be posted beneath the article for people willing to copy some it, or have trouble reading it in any way.
These all come with a different bottle cap of their own and pop up on your screen when one of above standing criteria has been reached. Some have shared with us that they think this is extremely annoying, while I get excited every time on pops up on my screen! For the ones who state they find this annoying: Just click on it and it will go away, there’s no reason to make a fuzz about it. Just click on the achievement letting it disappear out of sight forever and play Bootleggers like you have played it before this feature got introduced. No need to keep whining about it.
Of course, with every new achievement or addition to Bootleggers there are people who have a positive opinion about it and you have those who have a negative opinion about it. I took the liberty to message a few random players asking them what their opinion was about this latest feature implanted by BSF2000 himself. Younv16 said: "I think it's a cool feature with potential. There still are a few points open for improvement, basically it is a 100% cosmetical thing right now, while there are enough opportunities to integrate some parts of it into the basic gameplay. Generally I think it was a good choice to implement this feature and I'm hoping it will be expanded into something bigger at some point in the future." While Younv16’s comment being positive about this new feature, there are some who state: “Too little, too late. That's my opinion. BSF has messed up, yet again.” By RogerSterling. While others have an entirely other point of view on it, like this statement given by TinPotV: “The achievements are a good idea but too many of them are random achievements. For example, I don't think I've ever stolen a Duesenberg with 0% damage, despite stealing many thousands of cars over the years. If the achievement was "steal one of each car type in every state, with less than 10% damage", that would be more realistic - and could actually be worked towards. But to take the trouble to achieve something like that, there should be an incentive. A symbol on your profile for each achievement would be a good idea.”
After talking to some of the Bootleggers community it was time to harass some of the green coats and ask them what they think of the newly added feature. Of course, they already knew it was coming and had time to prepare themselves for this. I’ve had a chance to ask Mika and Aldarion what their opinion was of the latter and Mika replied first saying:
“To be honest I am happy with the Achievements, they look great and may even require me to get to cranking up some statistics on my Moderator account so that I can earn some of them myself. Now that the feature is out, there are some things I think we could add to it such as a way to display either the achievements or your progress on your profile. I have seen some people suggestion a gamer score variation as a suggestion to show how you are faring with achievements and I actually think this is a really good idea as an optional thing to have displayed on your profile. I have seen both positive and negative comments on the forums of course, and as always all constructive criticism is welcome. We care about how players feel about an update so constructive feedback is always welcome so that tweaks and alterations to a feature can be considered and discussed within the Elite Guard. Of course the negative feedback I have seen too, but since most of it seems to concern people feeling the Achievements do not add anything my opinion is that those people can just click away the pop up that notifies them that they have received an achievement and continue to play the game the way they did prior to the introduction of the achievements. Another thing seems to be players wanting a reward for getting an achievement. In my opinion the achievement in itself is the reward. Achievements have been introduced, as far as I understand it, to motivate people to work on certain account statistics. If they then meet one of the goals set by the game they are awarded with an achievement. Once an option to show them on your profile is added in one form or another (this is being discussed on our crew forum right now) you will also be able to show it off to people as well, which should be an added motivation I think. If that is not enough for you as a player then it could very well be that the Achievements feature is not the ideal feature for you. But I hope that you will enjoy the bottle cap art regardless because it looks really neat!”
Mika really put some thought in his reply and I was happy that he did. It looks like even the staff has an urge to get working on their statistics now to collect some of the desired bottle caps! Also Mika stated that the achievement and the bottle cap which goes with it is a reward in itself and that there isn’t any need for money, points or experience points to come with it. Also Aldarion was kind enough to get back at me and he stated the following:
“I'm happy that we were finally able to release the achievements feature and I think it adds another dimension to the game. I saw someone posting that it adds a sense to people wasting their lives on this game and I thought that summarized it pretty well. I understand where the negative comments come from, and I think we can (greatly) improve the feature and its use, and that is the general consensus within the Elite Guard. We should consider this as Achievements 1.0 with a lot more to come. The potential which I think the feature has comes from two things. First, new achievements can be added and I've already seen a few brilliant suggestions (such as stealing a police car), I also think we need a few 'unusual' achievements such as killing a crew boss as successor. Possibilities are endless. Second, I think we should consider the concept of achievements as applied by Microsoft with the Xbox game achievements. Everyone wants to have these achievements and I always check them before I start playing a new game, and that's not even because the awarded points can be used (I barely use them) but simply because it offers comparison with other people. Right now, this comparison does not exist on Bootleggers, at least not officially supported. People can decide to copy and paste the achievements on their profiles, but it's no feature as such. At this moment we're discussing such changes and we'll definitely release updates to (further) improve the feature over what it is now. This shows we're both happy with the release but also understand (and agree with) criticism. We hope to take most of it away with upcoming updates.”
When looking in the Game Forum you can't deny the fact that a lot of people are complaining about the feature being too late and that it’s not even finished. Also the only reward you get for achieving them is a pop up block and a shiny bottle cap in a carousel at your home page. At the time of this writing there isn’t any money, points or experience points to be made, so why would anyone want to pursue the dream of having all these shining bottle caps on your home page? The answer is simple: To show people that you can. That you have done all those things listed in this article. To show anyone that you know what it means to be a hardcore Bootlegger. But what is missing in this feature? The option to put it on your profile and actually show people that you've done them. Of course you wouldn't want to show each and every one of them because some may be private, but I believe everyone should have the option to link them to their profiles. Now, get those statistics up and start aiming for those achievements!
