Sunday, August 5th, 2007
Issue: 34   Editor: Air


Money Inflation SeanLovesFunneh
A brief look at the Statistics page can tell you everything you need to know about in-game money. When I looked earlier this week I found that there were roughly sixty five thousand total users and the total in game money was around thirty three billion dollars. “$522,006 per player”. Now, with the amount of begging and accounts labelled “Food Stamps Applicant” I find this hard to believe. So, where did all the money go? Well, there are several possibilities. There are, of course, people who have way over $522,006 (they only have to be Rich) and obviously, this will have made the money very uneven.. But also there could be other causes. The War odds, for example, seem to be rather low. Plenty of people complain everyday how much they hate War and that they just lost thousands upon thousands of dollars on it. It’s actually rather rare when someone makes a big win on War.
I asked CavuII what he thought of inflation and he said:

1. In your opinion, how do you think the steadiness of the game's money is handling?

The problem I have seen is that people are trying to rush inflation. People are getting greedy when selling points, they are asking for money that doesn’t exist for some. Now, I really think that money is growing much like it did last reset. Unfortunately there is OC scamming because of indecent people.

2. Since the beginning of the reset, certain changes have happened to Bootleggers, supposedly to minimize the risk of inflation. Could you care to comment on this?

Well inflation has always been evident in Bootleggers, if you multiply the number of people by how much money they make committing organized crimes and other profitable activities, there is going to be inflation. The only thing I am bothered by is that the missions are non profitable. The main purpose of the missions is to reward you, not take away.

3. Every player should really have their own opinion on inflation in Bootleggers. Now, do you think from the point of view of the Elite Guard, there's an ideal, too much, or too little amount of money in the game?

Well like you said every player has their own opinion the Admins have their own. I think for where we are at this point in the round there should me more money, if the missions gave you profits I think that the average player would have $600,000-$700,000 if he or she was active with OCing and doing missions.

4. If you were given the chance to organise your plan over BSF2000's, what would YOU do differently, if you would change them at all?

Hmm, I’d personally keep the missions as they were, or at least give them profit. Now, if I was in BSF’s position I’d keep the game running as it is.

5. What would you personally, with the consent of BSF, plan to alter to hope that inflation doesn't happen so quickly as last round?

Well if there were small amounts of points released through missions there would be less inflation because point prices would be kept down because of the abundance. Inflation happens in BL because of the amounts of players all interacting and making transactions.

I went on to ask senior Moderator 5litre the same set of questions:

1. In your opinion, how do you think the steadiness of the game's money is handling?

I think it's rising at a normal, steady rate. Might be a bit faster then what people wanted but it's nothing too excessive.


2. Since the beginning of the reset, certain changes have happened to Bootleggers, supposedly to minimize the risk of inflation. Could you care to comment on this?

The biggest change which I can think of was when the interest rate from the bank changed from 5% to 3%. Obviously there will be inflation no matter what, and all that the admins are able to do is try to delay it so it doesn't happen as quickly. Which is where all the taxes come in so that there is always money being taken out of the game.


3. Every player should really have their own opinion on inflation in Bootleggers. Now, do you think from the point of view of a member of the Elite Guard, there's an ideal, too much, or too little amount of money in the game?

I think there is an ideal amount of money in the game. According to the Statistics page there is 34 billion right now, and 29 billion of that is in the bank. So inflation will start to be going up rather quickly with all the 3% interest that will be coming out of that. But currently I see it as an ideal amount of money for the game to have at this point in time.


4. If you were given the chance to organize your plan over BSF2000's, what would YOU do differently, if you would change them at all?

Well, I think that's a tough thing to do. We want to minimize the inflation as much as we can, but also have it where the players aren't losing out. Obviously an increase in tax would be the ideal way to go. But who likes taxes!

Aside from that I don't think there is any real way to slow down inflation anymore then there already is.

5. What would you personally, with the consent of BSF, plan to alter to hope that inflation doesn't happen so quickly as last round?

I don't know if I would change anything. Changing the bank interest rate from 3% to 2% wouldn't solve much. If taxes were to be raised it would only deter people from using the games features. So as of right now, there wouldn't be anything which I would change.


In conclusion, I personally think that has not inflated too rapidly but slightly faster than expected. The missions were changed to “stop dupers from gaining bullets and shooting easily”. However, by making the missions non-profitable it really leaves the honest players at a disadvantage. I am aware that this point has been brought up many times and it doesn’t seem as if there is any clear alternative. It must be difficult for BSF2000 to keep inflation down. I myself cannot think of any sensible or fair solution to the problem so I can’t put down BSF2000’s plans.

I hope this article is of some benefit to whoever takes the time to read it. Thank you.