Welcome to the first of hopefully five interviews with the Elite Guard. Every week, a 'Behind The Name' is released where the players of Bootleggers get interviewed by The Buzz, yet there hasn't been an interview with the current up-to-date members of Elite Guard so here at The Buzz we will bring you 1 interview for the next five issues. First, in the hot seat we have Mika.
First of all, thank you for taking the time out of your busy life to grant me the first interview. Can you let The Buzz readers know a little about yourself such as your real name, age and where your from Of course. I am 23 years old and am from the Netherlands.
How long have you been playing bootleggers for? I started playing in 2004. My exact sign up date is 2004-04-28 01:05:08. Unfortunately, I do not have photographic memory but I do have a screenshot from the profile of my very first account, courtesy of Aldarion, hence why I know my actual sign up date. I did not play actively straight away, that started later, somewhere in 2005.
I was working for a big IT company over in the UK when I first started playing, you may have heard of PC World, well I worked for their IT support team. Bored one day a friend introduced me to the wonderful world of Bootleggers and I started playing from there. How did you get in to Bootleggers? I started playing when a few of my classmates did. We started out at the same game BSF2000 did, but by the time we did it was already pay to play. Via my classmates I learned of the game called Bootleggers and I signed up with them. When later Aldarion and another real life friend of mine (Milton / criminalmind) were still playing actively it became fun for me to play as well.
How did you become Moderator, how was the actual moment of promotion like? I contacted 5litre because I had some questions regarding the game for a Buzz article I wanted to write. As the conversation continued it became clear that the answers to the questions I had would not lead to an interesting article, so I told 5litre I would disregard my idea. He then asked me how I would then like to write an article on me being promoted to Moderator instead. I told him I that would be something unexpected, but that it would be very interesting nevertheless. And poof, I turned green and became one of the Moderators of Bootleggers. 5litre also wrote an article about it in the blog the staff used to use back in the day. It can be found here: bootleggersus.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/welcome-mika-as-our-newest-mod/
When you were made Moderator, what were some of your first thoughts? "Holey crap, I'm green!" I believe. That, plus it being a bit of a coin toss. I liked the opportunity that I was given, but at the same time I knew I would miss certain aspects of being a player, such as running a crew. At the time, I felt the benefits outweighed the downsides, though, and I still do.
Do you think you will ever resign as Moderator? It is not impossible. Right now I still have the time I feel is required to fill in the position. I am planning to go on a long trip, however, somewhere in 2014/2015. Should I ever feel I lack the time to properly do my duties as a Moderator then I will consider resigning. For now, that is not something that is playing in my mind.
What is the best thing about being a Moderator? The thing I like best is being part of this amazing team of people who all have the best interest of the game at heart and being able to help develop the game alongside them.
What do you dislike about it? During the 10 year anniversary days Aldarion and myself were reminiscing about the names we used to use as players. I like not dying, but I do sometimes miss not having to come up with funny and crazy names anymore.
What do you miss about being a player? The thing I miss most is running a crew, I always liked that and the social aspect of meeting and working with a lot of players, your members, that came as part of the job.
What do you do for a real life job? I am a student, currently. I study Dutch Language and Culture at the university and I am a trainee high school teacher.
What involvement do you have with running the game? Of course I do my share of banning and deciding appeals, as well as answering Help Desk tickets and moderating the forums, which are my main day to day activities. On top of that I also participate in Elite Guard meetings or one on one conversations with Elite Guard members about ideas we have for the game. We also brainstorm on our Crew Forum about features and other plans for the game, which I also take part in.
Do you have a special 'skill' in running the game that the other members of the Elite Guard don't have? That is a difficult one to answer. I do not think I have a particular skill that the others do not have, but whenever someone feels we should have a meeting or a conversation with the Elite Guard (or other members of the staff) "sometime" I am usually the one who picks a date and coordinates the thing with the people who are to take part in the conversation. Plus, I like keeping track of what our Help Desk Operators do, if more would be needed, if they are still happy or have any concerns, etc. Basically staff management. I would not exactly call this a special skill, though, it is simply something I like doing.
What is your most favuorite Moderator tool? Erm. To be honest every tool we have is useful and it is a combination of tools that makes a certain tool useful. For example, people no doubt expect me to answer that the ban tool is my favorite, but a) banning people is just part of the job and b) offenders would be very hard to track and find without the other tools so on its own the ban tool would be virtually useless.
Can you explain to the readers what a typical day involves when you log in to your bootleggers account? Do you have specific tasks to get done? Usually I will log in and check my messages, then go on to the Help Desk and tend to any tickets that are open/pending. Then I usually make a round of the forums, including the Crew Forum and the High Rollers Forum (the forum for Elite Guard and Help Desk Operators). After that what I do varies, usually I answer incoming messages, do an Organized Crime (because usually an request is amongst the incoming messages) and do some additional user checking.
This may be a personal question, feel free to skip if you don't want to answer it, but do you get any 'payment' such as points etc or is it all volunteer work you do for the Elite Guard? I don't. As you say: it's volunteer work.
Tell us your most embarrassing moment in your real life. Oh God. Okay, here goes: When I was 14 or 15 (I think I was 15) Aldarion and me used to go swimming in this pool in a place called Bedum. One day I saw a girl who I felt was really pretty and I just kept checking her out to the point were it was more than very obvious. Aldarion and me were throwing some ball or whatever to each other and I sometimes turned around to check her out. Aldarion still likes to remind me of that every now and then. This also almost made me guilty of killing someone as Aldarion had to frequently dive under to hide his laughter, causing him to nearly drown.
Have you ever made any big mistakes within the game that you wasn't proud of? There are some bans which later turned out to be incorrect and therefore had to be reversed, which I am not particularly proud of. However, I cannot recall anything major I am not proud of.
What's the best idea / feature / input you feel you have had towards the game? I am really proud of how the crew feature came out. This is yet to be released, but once it is done it should be really cool. I am also proud of the translation of the game, which Aldarion and myself worked on at BSF2000's request, but unfortunately this project has never been completed and the unfinished project is what you can currently use in the game.
Can you tell us something funny about 1 of your fellow Elite Guard? When touring through Asia, Aldarion actually had to cycle for his life because he was being chased by (wild) dogs. That really sped up his tour of that day!
What kind of in-game goals do you have? To continue to help develop and moderate the game and to do the best I can with the tools that I have at my disposal.
Is there anybody on Bootleggers who you look up to or have looked up to? If so, who and why? I used to really look up to Air. I feel he is a great person and he was a fair and good Moderator to the game.
What is the funniest bootmail you have ever received? I have no idea, to be honest. I tend not to remember.
If you could be any vegetable, what would you be? A carrot.
What would you like to see improved? My pay cheque.
What are your thoughts on a reset? That it is pointless to reset the game until some of the changes we are planning, for example the crew revision, have been completed. Once these are completed, I feel the game should be reset.
We approached the Help Desk Operators, The Buzz Team, and some of your fellow Elite Guard team and asked them if they would like to know anything about you. So, first up, we have a question from ShyGuiro, "What do you think the biggest problems of Bootleggers are?" I feel that the biggest problem is the current attitude of the players and the lack of will to do anything with the means that are at their disposal, as well as the general happy, friendly atmosphere, which I guess comes back to the attitude of the majority of the players. Instead of working for their money, rank and bullets and make kills they expect the game is adjusted and made easier so that they can get it. When low ranks cannot get into an Organized Crime, they scream rankism, when players are killed they scream that they were only ranking and that the game is unbalanced. While it is true that some improvements can be made, I feel the biggest problem is the attitude of the current player who wants to rank, bank, chat and just sit around, expecting someone else to kill the shooter that shot him or her the last time.
Rickon_Stark asked, "Whats his favorite football team?" and "What is his middle name?" I have no real favorite football team to be honest, the Dutch competition sucks. Nor do I have a middle name.
Daltonv7 wants to know, "Name the advantages of being tall in your profession (teacher)"? It is easier because students have to literally look up to you, which tends to make them more willing to listen to you when you tell them you want them to be quiet. I am just a little bit more intimidating, which makes them more inclined to comply when I make a request.
Youniverse asks, "My question would be what part of being a normal player he misses the most?" As I said before: I really miss leading a crew and working together with my members. Of course the Elite Guard is a crew and we are also working together towards a joint goal, but it is different from an in-game crew.
Finally, Sky was dying to know something...How long ago was your sex change operation and what was your name before you got your penis? What? I think Sky is confusing two people, here.
When are you and Aldarion going to stop pretending and finally come out? We all know what the deal is with you two so stop hiding it! What no one actually knows is that Sky is currently using Riserva's janitor closet. He has been locked up there when he began coding for the game to prevent him from leaking any important information. For him, coming out is someone coming into his closet, which Aldarion and I hardly ever do together. So we will drop by soon, Sky. Soon.
If you could be any tree, which tree would you be and why? An Ent. Who doesn't love Treebeard?
Thank you Mika for taking the time to allow The Buzz to interview you.
Next week, we see Aldarion take the hot seat, and find out if Mika and Aldarion are still yet to visit Sky in his janitor closet, and hopefully find out something embarrassing about Mika. Will Aldarion get revenge and let out a little secret or be a gentlemen? Hopefully not the latter.
