Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Issue: 82   Editor: NyxxieGoneWild


A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed? SeanReborn
In this article, the question I pose is a simple one: Can a player survive in the harsh environment of Bootleggers without making some powerful friends first? In order to answer this question, I will be talking from a personal experience and asking two players with very different answers to the question.

Now, take a seat around the campfire as I tell ye a yarn of one of my previous accounts. I, foolishly perhaps, decided to bank all my money everyday and I got shot and lost everything. To cut a long story short, I made a new account and with one topic asking for some cash to get me back on my feet, I was sent around $2,000,000. A new player with no friends can beg in the forum for weeks and weeks and get nothing from it except maybe some bullets from the more easily agitated Bootleggers’ players. My point is, now when I make a new account, I don’t expect to have to work my way up through crimes, stock market and auto burglary’s because I take the fact that my friends will help me out with an OC for granted. Does this mean that as an old player, Bootleggers is actually easier to play? It sure looks that way. So, from this I think we can deduce that having friends in the right places does indeed make life easier.

Now, on to the players who had to start from scratch. I would talk from personal experience again, but, the truth is, that was so long ago, I can hardly remember my trial and tribulations slowly climbing the wealth statuses! I decided to ask ryneb, who pointed out that he found it “really tough” to get to his rather reputable rank of Respectable Don, some questions. A comment he left on the Buzz Forum intrigued me. He told me that “ranking and getting wealthy took forever”. I asked him to explain, in some detail, how exactly he managed to get the cash to sustain himself in Bootleggers (this is useful for new players wondering how the hell they’re supposed to go about it!). He told me that he spent most of his $500 starting money on the Stock Market and worked through Organised Crimes for 0%. He also thinks that crimes are worthless for money (and he’s not far off with the Swiss Bank netting you a maximum of $120). He went on to tell me that when he could steal cars, he took advantage of it buy stealing them from Pennsylvania and keeping a Duesenburg or two in New York to drive with in Organised Crimes. He also left a word of advice on the Buzz Forum. He claims that if you merely ask for help and not beg all over the forums and act more professionally about it, he found that people are “generally friendly” and will give you a hand.

JackDaWipper, on the other hand, told me that he “doesn’t think it’s difficult at all”. He said that he reached State Don on his first account and that he “did everything on his own”. I asked him the same question I asked ryneb. He told me that he started at the beginning of the round and was in the same boat as everyone else. He informed me that he ranked to Gangster without doing an Organised Crime. When he had enough for petrol, he would join Organised Crimes and ask for a bad percentage in order to get himself ranking. Eventually he joined a crew and his crew mates helped him out a lot and ranked him as far as Don. By this point the had made enough friends to help him out and “it was only a matter of staying alive long enough to reach State Don”. I think JackDaWipper’s story really incorporates everything that a new player should pay attention to. As a nobody, you can’t expect people to throw heaps of their well earned cash your way; it’s going to take some elbow grease to rank up.

To conclude, it seems as though you’ll need to work your own way up before you can expect anyone to give you anything. Some may find this difficult, others may find it easy. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of how much patience you have. Because really, that’s what you need to make it anywhere in Bootleggers. Patience to rank up, patience to watch your cash slowly grow and patience to get to grips with how the game works. Many give up and quit, the others go on to achieve something. It seems as though expecting little in the beginning is the best way to go about it. And this makes sense considering the fact that you’re a nobody on the streets of America; you can’t expect people to throw money at you. A crew seems to be useful, too, as you can make a strong group of friends who are all willing to help you out in their own way. Of course, you need to have some understanding of the game to get into a crew in the first place. Not to mention vouches. So, friends does indeed seem to be a key factor to success in this game. Though they are not essential, they make the game a much easier and enjoyable experience.