Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Issue: 115   Editor: DoubleAgentNyxxie


Winning or Losing - What is it For You? Duper
I am no longer sure what it means in BL to win or to lose. Once you logged in to BL to rank up as fast as you could, and when you got to L Don you were somebody, and I mean somebody. Everyone treated you with respect for getting that far. In those days being a crew boss was also being seen in most peoples eyes as a winner. The downside of course was that you had to stay in a safehouse 24/7 apart from doing the OC's.

Then BL moved on and so did the aspects of the game people craved. Hacking and points exploitation through multiple windows became a great big problem. We had one Christmas where there had been a roll back and we were given OC's every four hours. I made boss in four days in that short time, that was fun. But with all the roll backs and hackers it was difficult to know if we were winning or losing. Perhaps if you were a hacker then getting BSF to do a roll back over Christmas meant you had won, but for the rest of us it was a shame, you log in, do stuff, and log in a few hours later to find it had been rolled back. (It wasn't every day just a few times but if you love BL it was a bad time).

Once we had an update way back, that was quickly amended. I was a scum, made it to peewee through hard criming, and then in my first OC I made Hitman! There was uproar, something had gone wrong in the ranking and people were flying through the ranks,,,.... It was great, then you felt like a winner for sure! Until they rolled it back but this one we all knew was coming so everyone was pretty much OK about it.

We got to the reset, and just before BSF gave us all loads of bullets and we got to shoot, well pretty much everyone. We could also create our own crews, now that was manic with hundreds of one player crews with different names. It gave everyone the chance to feel like a crew boss at least for a while. Some banked cash in the Swiss bank in the hope it would be safe after the reset, some died glorious deaths shooting anything that moved, me, I was the last boss of Corleone, one of the great crews before the last reset. So winners before the reset, all of us thanks BSF, winners after the reset, well it was a manic race to Boss to pick up a crew spot.

Then came the nation and state dons, that made it clear, now we know who were the winners and who were the losers don't we ladies..... and of course Andino. Third state don, said to his bodyguard, "do you think this rumour about a BG killing his state don in 100 bullets is true", click bang,,, RIP Andino.... But the Nation and State Dons with their own BF's were created. The crew bosses trembled as they were no longer in charge. But as we all know after a while the rules were adjusted and a balance brought in.

And what of players like the Resistance, the Triad. Shooters from underground locations, against visible crews. A quick wham bam and a crew was down, replaced by another who had a chance for glory. Gone were the shooters before anyone had a chance to understand why. Also every now and again they would decide to wipe random high ranks or rich players. Losers, easy to see in this case, crews, N Rich, but winners, hidden but lurking building for the next big hit.

Revelation, love them or hate them, they certainly stayed around at the top of the game for a while. Now they are gone but a few players remain. I feel sorry for the global economy, clearly Carlito turned his attention to Icelandic banks once he left BL, and now we have a credit crunch. Hopefully he is out there fishing and drinking beer, Carl you are a winner in my eyes. Thanks for all the memories.

At the end lets hope that however you play, you win in your own way from time to time. And when you lose, which we all must, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and throw yourself back into the fray. I have been around since nearly the start and the fact I am still here is due to one thing, its you, the players that keep it interesting. So perhaps I am a winner after all.