Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Issue: 120   Editor: Mikamon


Crews iXVI
The people that have played Bootleggers now for a while certainly will have noticed that there are not only lesser crew spots on the game, they are half filled as well if not even less than that. Do we have fewer friends now? Perhaps are we more careful now? Or maybe we are just a bit more scared as in the old days. However, fact is that there is a big difference between how the game is played now and how it was 2 years ago or even longer. The fact that crews are half filled these days can’t be simply because a lot of people have stopped playing in the mean time. Of course it’s true that the “users online” page has become a bit a smaller, but where people quit, other people join. This, together with the lesser crew spots, makes me think this simply can’t be the main reason.

Did we get more careful then? That certainly is true. The crews do recruit more carefully and they are taking a better screening these days. They prefer low ranked people who they can train their self and so built up a better trust between the management and their members. With lots of crew spots, lots of players – more players make more noobs – kind of every fool could join a crew. Today you mostly need a couple of vouches, 1 dead account – basically a history – and some money so you can pay crew tax every now and then. If you are at a higher rank, Legendary Godfather plus, you mainly can forget to join a crew unless you have some good friends in the formation vouching for you. Some crews even choose not to recruit at all. They prefer to work with an invite only system. The lucky ones that can join these crews are mostly high recommended by whoever they trust. A well fit and worked out system.

And are we more scared these days? I think we can answer that with a yes and no in the same sentence. Yes, we are more scared to get insided. Letting in a high ranked account who is unknown increases the risk of being insided strongly. On the other hand, laying back and enjoying the relax moments doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. How do you know the inside action will succeed? Once you get the crew in your hands, how do you know you are able to defend it? Or perhaps more important, how do you know you weakened the attack crew enough so they can’t strike back? How loyal were these people that were recruited so carefully? Enough questions are still open after a crew gets insided and they mostly get answered all by only one action.

Lesser crew spots, half filled crews. Are we satisfied the way we play now? Or would we like to go back to the old days where we had at least 150 members to handle with?

Whatever you like most, fact is that we have to handle changes and chances all the time.
You change, I change, crews change, but most important is that Bootleggers changes, whether we want it or not.