Sunday, December 19th, 2010
Issue: 60   Editor: McAldarion


Assassins 'Spreed' Poisonous

Yesterday we saw more bullets flying, but for a change (these days) the targets did at least seem to have something in common- they were (almost) all Assassins. Perhaps they were in some sort of brotherhood... another shameless inter-textual reference there I’m afraid.

Yet more deaths at the hands of The Family and The Triad along with some other shooters who just jumped on the proverbial bandwagon, the Buzz estimates that around a hundred and fifty kills were made in this spree and one of the shooters promised “more to come”, something they refused to expand upon. This shooting, unsurprisingly, didn’t prompt praise from all and flowers being thrown at the shooters; in fact yet more complaints about how the people in power seem to simply have control of this round. Now many players are complaining that the gap between the richest and the poorest is so large there is no point playing until the game is reset; we got in touch with some of the shooters to see what they had to say.

We contacted a number of shooters but the two who got back to us represented the two different types of shooter involved in the shooting; a paid for a stocked shooter from The Family and The Triad, Palaksi, and a player who simply had some bullets lying around and fancied sharing the wealth, ex-Nation Don GP_Energy. First up we asked them the simple question of why, why did they choose to make the effort to stock up on bullets and fire them into unsuspecting players? Palaksi told us he had no choice in the matter; as a shooter for a crew he was stocked up with bullets and directed to shoot by his bosses, which he obliged in doing, he said “It wasn’t me who decided, my account was stocked and had enough to shoot them all, so the bosses ordered me to start shooting.” Perhaps GP_Energy was simply following orders too... he wasn’t, he was out for the fun, he told us “I simply had the bullets to do some shooting, and heard that a few others were shooting too so I joined in”. Following orders and following the crowd seemingly, we tried to get in touch with the bosses of The Triad and The Family but we were unable to find Bootleggers names or alternative contact details for them.

So one why down but still one left; why target Assassins? Was it simply an illusion that the majority of the kills were to that rank, are the majority of players sitting comfortably as Assassins or was this a targeted attack on a certain rank; a new form or random selection for kills? GP_Energy seemed to be purely looking out for his own interests, saying “The higher the rank the bigger the potential threat... and [there are] not many people above assassin around”. While some people may disagree with killing users who have done nothing to you, few would argue that people should be looking out for their own interests or the interests of their crew and this action certainly seemed to do that. With more low ranks (and less money) on the game, those who are higher ranked (and richer) become even more so by comparison. ? Palaksi’s answer to the same question was far less enlightening, “Wasn’t me who made the list of targets, I’m just a shooter, I get a list from the bosses who i need to search and kill, and that’s what I did”, a good shooter undoubtedly but regretfully a rather poor source of information on the motivation of the attacks. We at the Buzz can only assume that the reasons were similar to that of GP_Energy; keep more power for themselves.

As previously mentioned, approximately 150 kills have been made in this spree with more than 250,000 bullets coming from these two shooters alone. So no lack of resources put into these attacks, but were they like the attacks of the past with people chosen at random? Palaksi told us that the procedure was seemingly random, with users being chosen by “Keeping a good eye on the users online page, suspicious accounts” presumably suspected holders “were checked every day..”, GP_Energy’s system was similar, noting down names by “Simply keep track of all game features”, he added that “not all kills where 'random', a few got shot for being greedy OC leaders, car thieves and scammers”.

So another ‘random’ attack on Bootleggers with more power going to the powerful and the weak falling deeper into the metaphorical abyss. Will this be the last, we at the Buzz believe that is unlikely after being told to “Keep an eye on statistics page the coming 1.5-2 hours” and that “a lot kills on their way”.

We most certainly will be keeping an eye out, will you?