I started playing Bootleggers back in 2005 whilst on my free periods at school. Me and my friends quickly got hooked into this world of online Mafia warfare. We were committing crimes and stealing cars, doing arm wrestling and busting people out of prison all with each other as company. But we felt something was missing. When we looked on the stats page we would see all these crews (30 when I started playing) full of people, new people, people we didn't know, and we wanted in.
After a while one of my friends got chatting to someone and was then accepted into a crew. First contact had been made. The months that followed had us as a group joining crews and meeting new people. Sometimes together but other times on our own, starting a new adventure alone.
Now as I said earlier the crew page had 30 slots. You had your top crews that stayed there at the top, had been there for a while, probably fought off a few smaller crews to stay where they were but now have cemented themselves up there. Now and then there would be a shooting or two and a crew would drop to an inside man (all that can't really be done now with the layered updated) but apart from that they were safe. The middle was made of crews that would come and go but always return, being brought back by their devoted members, no matter how long it took. Then finally the bottom third was a real mix up of new crews that would change nearly daily as people shot for a place on the ladder. They were exciting times to be in a crew.
The time then came that the powers that be thought 30 to be too many so they took it down to 10. At this point due to real life commitments I stopped playing. And that was that. Except just over month ago I thought back to those enjoyable days I had on the site and wondered if it was still going. I typed the url in and up it popped. Now it must have been written in the stars for me to come back when I did as only days before the new round ha been started. The first thing I tried to do was get back in contact with anyone that remembered me or I remembered. Making a few contacts I was left staring at a webpage that had changed so so much from when I last looked at it.
Yet one of the changes that interested me the post was the crew page. This tiered system of gang to crew then finally family. I wondered what each meant. Which had the powers that 'crews' used to have or have they completely redesigned the structure? What was the major differences? Did you really have to progress if you didn't want the added danger? And finally were there any crews that I actually recognise still going? To the latter question there were a few. Also new crew names but with connected bosses and under bosses I knew to stay together from previous rounds. With all this I still sat and pondered, who were these new groups of people that felt they had the power, the wherewithal, the right, to be an official gang, crew or family of Bootleggers?
So my mission, to get to know each crew, their leader, their history, their future. And if the topic arises, their stance on this 'Alliance War' I'm hearing so much about...
