Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Issue: 146   Editor: Shaktoolik


And remember.. Respect is everything! RomanCAN
Having the 6th anniversary of Bootleggers fresh in our mind, it's a sure thing that we've seen hundreds of crews passing the static page. These known groups of our well maintained Bootleggers community will keep entering our memories, forever and ever. Question rises, who do we actually like? And of course don't forget, who do we actually dislike?

A crew can earn respect in many different ways. Sometimes shooting another crew is enough already to earn respect of a group of people. As we play a mafia game, shooting is a thing that happens frequently. Having that in mind, staying alive is much harder as finding death. If we must name a crew that handles this pretty well, it would be The Order. I asked a group of players who they respected most and we can say that The Order has gained respect just by staying alive for a long period of time. "Mainly because they managed to stay on the stats for a long time." is a direct quote from Head Buzz Writer AldoRaine. Another crew that is known now for a long time, shown on and off in previous rounds and is still on the statics page right now, is Virtual Reality. "Aerius and Ebbie control Virtual Reality for a long time, I think it's wonderful to see two people having control over a crew" was quoted by someone who wants to remain anonymous.

If you think about it, people can't shoot without having bullets. To gain bullets in Bootleggers, you'll need to buy them from a Bullet Factory. Go to the States page and we can see that The Order owns three Bullet Factories and that The Invisibles owns two. Having those in hands doesn't only give you a reasonable amount of money, it does let you control your own bullet price as well. Of course this makes shooting a bit easier. Also here comes the fact of respect back in the story. Having a Bullet Factory is one thing, controlling it for a longer time is a whole new thing. Earlier in this round we've seen the monopoly position Revelation had with their Bullet Factories. We could say that The Order and The Invisibles took their spot in the bullet business.

"Respect comes with lots of responsibility" was quoted by CustardCreams, member of The Invisibles. Crews can gain much respect from many different players, but what does this mean exactly to the crew itself. In the past we've seen crew relaying too much on members outside the crew. "Winter Hill Gang had lots of respect from players outside the crew. As more loyal members were in another crew and had to make choices, less people with true loyalty were kept in the crew. I'm pretty sure that has cost them at least one wipe they could have avoided" was quoted by a player without a crew who wants to stay anonymous.

Some crews don't get respect at all while we can think about many reasons for that. If a crew is disliked more than another, it doesn't mean that they haven't gained as much respect as the other crew. Hate and love are bonded more than most people think. Respect can be fear, it also can be love and in some cases we love crews that we are actually scared of. I'm sure that as long we play Bootleggers, we'll see crew wipes. What we can't say for sure is who the next crew will be that, temporarily or not, leaves the statics.