Hey Bran_Stark, thanks for granting me this interview with you about this week's Behind The Name, first of; could you introduce yourself to the Bootleggers community? Well hello everyone! I am 27 and live in Southampton in the UK. I am the rl son of a very well-known player on here and most of you know me for myself by now
Well usually I say nice to meet you, but obviously we know each other already. You say you are the son of a known mobster, who is it if I may ask? MisterLawrence, the Boss of Gangsters Sanctuary. Haha true, we've known each other for ages!
It has been a while now, indeed. But for the people who don't know you, please tell us who you are, where you come from and what you do in real life? My name is Chris, I was born in London and moved around a lot through my life! Even though I have a degree I currently work for Dreams. It’s a company here in the UK which sells beds.
Hmm your job sounds dreamy, do you often get a chance to sleep at work? Hahaha more often than I would like! We have over 80 beds on display in our shop... At the moment we are in a quiet period... I have certainly tried out most of them now.
Haha and your boss doesn’t mind that you try out the beds? About your education, you say you have a degree, a degree in what? No, I am encouraged to try them! That way when I am selling them I know what I am talking about. Psychology with Performance and New Media... Which is a fancy way of saying film technology combined with Psychology...
Technology combined with Psychology Please elaborate? What kind of profession would you be able to do? Film technology, as in creating films. It was focused on artsy types. My early goal was advertising. Creating adverts that reached people on deeper levels. But since then I have realized that it’s not an area I want to work in... Ideally I would like to be a lecturer in Psychology conducting my own research. Or someone who works in a video suite editing films of almost any variety produced for entertainment... Be that for the BBC or for an art studio or wherever! I love editing films.
You should work towards those dreams! What are you doing at the moment in order to achieve that dream? Well I recently applied for a job with Microsoft editing demo films for them! In all hoensty I don't think I will get the job as I haven't done anything since Uni... I regularly check the BBC's (British Broadcasting Network which is a major TV company here in the UK) Southampton branches vacancies... I have a plan where, in the new year, I will talk to a friend there about volunteering for a bit to see how they do it and learn more from them so that in the future I will be better equipped to apply for such jobs! In terms of lecturing, until I can afford to go back to Uni and complete a masters and phd there is no hope lol
Oke thanks for sharing that with us, now about Bootleggers. You say your dad plays the game, do you have anyone else in real life you play Bootleggers with? He used to... Not so much at the moment! Well my girlfriend plays. I live with her. Her name is Liliana and she is a Buzz writer too! When I was still at school my brother also used to play. But he hasn't had time to play for years now!
So your idea of a nice Saturday night is to sit on the couch, both having the laptops on your laps and writing for the Buzz? Well most of the time I have finished my article mid-week so that Saturday night I have no worries! But that’s what she does, yes! To be honest, we have a lot of interests in common and are both Geeks. It just gives us another subject to talk about and keep things interesting! No one wants life to get boring
It's common sense that people with the same interests are together, so why not play the same game if you're both into gaming. So tell me Chris, for how long have you been playing Bootleggers and what have been your greatest achievements other then becoming a part of the Buzz? Well I started late in 2003... After the game had been running for a few months... Maybe even early 2004. I loved the game and a lot of my friends at school played too! When I went to Uni I stopped playing as I had real life things to focus on. But I came back a few times for months at a time in order to watch the game evolve! Then, last year, I went to visit my Dad very early i to this round, around May, and found out he still played. So I started again! My biggest achievement would be reaching Don. With all of my Accounts that was all I ever wanted to do, be Don! So I managed to do it and I was very happy! Also I would say having 43 out of 68 achievements, but that’s not a big thing at the moment lol
It was on the account Rob_Stark that you managed the rank of Don, right? What crews have you been a part of in the past? Oh gosh... Loads from before this round, but insubstantial ones... I don't even remember the names as they didn't ever do anything!
This round:
Gangsters Sanctuary
Utilo for a bit
The Priory
Suspect Zero
Dead Rabbits
I have also visited more than half of the crews that were around including The Chain Gang, The Asylum, Death Valley, Coscas Origins, Padrinos Palace, Event Horizen, The Holders Syndicate, Enemy of the State, La Onda, Axteze, Around the Corner Bar and many others!
You have been around quite a lot so it seems! I see a lot of nice crews So what are your future goals for your mobster career? Well hopefully soon there will be a reset and we can all see some fancy new changes with a new way to play! Until then I have some thoughts in mind... Nothing major as I have never been much of a shooter... But just enjoying the many features this game offers and coasting along until something in the power levels change...
Talking about the reset, what do you think the game needs the most at the moment? And what would you do if you were BSF2000? Right now? A fix to the crew system in order to reverse the power... Stat crews should be at least twice as powerful as underground crews, rather then unable to compete. Having your name in the open should be something that scares people rather then paints a bullseye over your head! If I was BSF, and I had a busy life/work schedule, I would take a week off work and talk to players. I would code features which were suggested, that worked, and explain why other suggestions wouldn't. I would do the updates promised within that week, such as crews and casinos, and then at the end of a long week of fixing the game I would activate chaos mode and announce a reset for everyone to start over. Anything that brings in an income, no matter how high or low, you should work hard on in order to ensure the income continues and to maximize profits. I would also advertise for a mobile coder to get an app developed for Bootleggers and get some serious advertising going on facebook and many other places which people visit regularly in order to spread the word of bootleggers!
From what I've heard their won't be a crew update. The current crew system will be reprogrammed into something completely different. This will get implanted during the reset. How would you make it more difficult for a stats crew to get wiped? Any ideas on that? Yeah have a time delay in shooting so that you can't just drop an entire crew of fifty players in a few minutes. Also have a chance for crews that a p.i. Agency will tip them off as they will be scared of the big powerful crew. I would at least triple the health of any account within a crew as opposed to outside of a crew. I would also make unique protections available for people in a crew and give crews extra features such as a shared car pool, a fast pi search if a crew member gets shot, a ws system that favors crew mates over random people and a shared rss system where a dead account in a crew doesn’t necessarily lose everything as he might be with his fellow crew mates so they could grab his stuff to give to his son/brother/cousin/ whatever you want to call his next account!
Oke, now some random off topic questions! Movies or music? Movies for sure
What’s your favorite series? Game of Thrones? Actually it’s firefly. But i do love game of thrones.
Why did you pick the Stark names? The stark are a loyal family. I started off as eddard stark after i got shot as voluns4 because i was betrayed by some friends... I am true to my word, honest and loyal. Too trusting, exactly as eddard stark. Ten i became rob stark, it made sense... But my main name is voluns, if anyone remembers that! That name comes from a reoccurring dream i had as a teenager where i was a writer and voluns was my pen name. I was also rakdos and sorin _markov, two characters from a game i love playing, magic the gathering.
Fruits or vegetables? Fruits... But i much prefer meat!
What’s your favourite food? Pork pies... Or pies of any kind!
Favourite musician/actor? Alex Day, he sings a lot of songs about doctor who.
Unsurprisingly, Sean Bean.
Would you rather be George Bush or Justin Bieber? George bush. At least i would still be male.
Thank you for the interview, anything you would like to add? Goodbye and thanks for all the fish
Fish? o_0 It’s a quote from the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. The last words the dolphins had before they left the planner earth, goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
