Six hundred and thirty days since round 7 started on the second of February 2012, we can now say this round is officially dominated! Officially? What a bold statement to start an article with, right? Well, it's certainly something I and many others agree is the case but does that make it official? Probably not but one can argue for this as you'll never get an official statement declaring such a result by the Bootleggers staff, well, unless you believe the announcement of a reset to be one.
So, how exactly do the Bootleggers community see the current state of the round? I decided to speak to 3 different individuals to get their take on the round. In order to get a broad and unbiased view, I decided to interview the bosses of 3 crews. A newly formed crew, one that had been around for a while and lastly, one of the dominating crews. First on my list was iDaltonn, co-boss of Dead Rabbits and our current Buzz editor. I started the interview by briefly asking him how he managed to get the crew spot. He alerted me to the fact that he was the boss of Sons of Silence, a crew that had previously been on the stats this round. A month or 2 ago, a few members got in contact with him about starting the crew again to which iDaltonn decided to create Dead Rabbits. Sometime down the line, another former member of Sons of Silence offered him co-ownership of Nuestra Familia which led to Dead Rabbits taking their place. With introductions out the way, I divided in with the interview and asked him what he thought of the round. iDaltonn had this to say; "My opinion about the current state of the game would be that it is like any other long lasting round. At the beginning of a round, everyone needs to start from the beginning. Smart people know that they need to collect resources as quick as possible and start banking to gain a decent amount of cash/points which will make them last the entire round.
I believe this is not how the game was intended by BSF2000. The struggle for power shouldn't be won by those who are the best bankers. So my opinion about the current state of the game would be that the impact the federal bank currently has on the round is something which destroys the enjoyable gaming experience as the round evolves and this is something which should be looked at for next round." iDaltonn clearly believes that the impact of the federal bank feature is killing the game. A statement I completely disagree with.
Correct me if I'm wrong ladies and gentlemen, but doesn't every player/group start off on the same foot? Why should updates be introduced into the game if the players (in many people's view) are arguably lazy and not playing the game properly? Shouldn't every player/group utilise benefits set out by the use of these features if manipulated correctly? Won't spoon feeding players destroy the game? I posed the those questions to iDaltonn before asking whether he believed an updated federal bank would ensure for more competition if it was announced. He wasn't certain whether it would ensure for more competition but believed the impact this feature has on the game should be something to look at. Something one of our moderators Aldarion believed needed changing. iDaltonn went to say that if new players joined the game, the vast wealth obtained by underground crews would mean they were at a disadvantage. That there is another point where I disagreed with him. Why should new players that suddenly join the game be able to acquire wealth at the same rate as those that worked hard for several months? Isn't that unfair? If anything, the fact that he pointed out underground crews in particular shows me where his true intentions lie but for argument sake, less assume he didn't mean to pick on them. He then added; "Take a look at The Black Horde, it was their mission to destroy The Family and what happend to them? Dissapeared after getting slaughtered and losing all their funds, and once you lose your funds, it's incredibly difficult to regain them in order to keep the compounding effect alive."iDaltonn's final comments were that he didn't believe that UG crews were destroying the game but the current era where text based games aren't as popular but I think it's better we don't get into that for now as that's a whole different topic we could discuss for hours. With that, I thanked iDaltonn for his time and moved onto our next interview with TheLoneWolfV2, co-boss of Around The Corner Bar, a crew that had been on the statistics for a while until quite recently.
I started the interview with TheLoneWolfV2 by firstly asking how his crew were coping, a week on from the shooting that resulted in them losing a crew spot, 3 state dons as well as lots of other members. With several other crews being wiped, crewless players being shot, the average ranks are now very low so surely his crew had a tough time with finding and arranging organised crimes. Also, with the loss of so many players, could the number of individuals selling points in order to get some wealth back outweigh the demand, meaning they wouldn't be able to sell points? TheLoneWolfV2 stated that a few close friends helped the crew out and with some crew points saved up meant that only one person had to sell them in order for the whole crew to benefit not to mention many rankists, the crew managed to all chip in together as they had no other alternatives and thanked those rankists and close friends as they couldn't have done it without them. When asked about the state of the game and what he thought was the reason behind the overall downward trend in the number of players playing the game this round, he believed it was mainly something to do with personal problems rather than in-game mechanics and that it isn't something that can be changed by the Bootleggers staff. Hmmm, a different view to that of iDaltonn but one that does raise a fair point. Could this all be due to real-life obligations? I personally doubt so. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the final interview with the individual from a dominating crew I hoped for.
As any round in Bootleggers gets nearer to the end, I believe players leave due to the fact that they don't want to put much effort into actually playing the game. When it becomes apparent that the round is closer to being dominated, players would rather give up, thrown their dummy out the pram and go off for a strop and return when a reset is announced with of course the occasion glance here and there to see if anything has changed at all. Lets be honest, players have become lazy. A comment by Shinji aka Aaron, leader of Most Wanted, in the game forum summed it up brilliantly. Players would prefer to have pretty profiles and concentrate on becoming the best buster rather than put any real effort into actually obtaining wealth. That I believe to be true. Come the end of the round when a crew(s) is dominating, the players complain and ask for more help from the moderators with the occasion rumours of cheating occurring. To those players I say this; if you don't like what's going on in the game, pick up your gun along with friends and shoot. If you have no funds and you are struggling to make any then tough luck. Maybe at the start of the round you'll decide where you priorities lie. Just don't complain when it doesn't go your way. Stop expecting features to be updated that help you because you can't do what other crews are able to with the same options available to you. Seriously, what's wrong with Bootleggers?
I leave you with this final comment. At the start of round 8 (as it's apparent this round is pretty much over), use all that socialising and friendships you build to good use and actually try dominate the round yourselves too.
