Sunday, January 10th, 2010
Issue: 10   Editor: Mika


Going, going, staying?! Alcaeus
The silence of a largely uneventful week was broken as The Vanguard (TV) came under fire. A wipe seemed imminent, however, after taking out the majority of high ranked members of the crew, the shooting stopped abruptly, which lead to more controversial claims in the Game Forum. Either way, one thing was for sure, The Vanguard remained standing. A show of strength or just a lucky break? You decide. The Buzz caught up with Boss of TV, Blinky, as well as various shooters, all of whom displayed loyalty to the group that does not exist, The Syndicate, a prolific shooting force of last round.

This was part of what Blinky described as an ongoing shootout between the two crews, as he said, “It's pretty clear, we shoot TS sometimes they shoot us sometimes. We keep each other sharp I guess.” The way in which Blinky referred to the shootings made them seem almost like a friendly game. However, perhaps now the mood will intensify with many TV members losing highly ranked accounts.

Speculation fuelled multiple topics in the Game Forum, as after members of The Syndicate, including Makaveli, Dazed and buggedv2 seemed to have finished their shooting, claims were made that during the shooting, points belonging to Makaveli became unverified and thus were not available to be converted to bullets and instant flights for the shootings. This lead to claims from many that the points had been exploited. However, bearing in mind none of the accounts were banned this seemed to be whistling in the wind. When asked on what he thought about the issue, Blinky told us, “Sure, could be that BSF unverified their points. Others say it's just an excuse for running out of resources. Who knows what’s true.” This seemed the most reasonable view to take, as has been proven in many events and topics this round so far, nothing can be proven unless a Moderator or Admin speaks out about it themselves, and with this being a rare and admittedly unexpected thing to happen, users will debate without conclusion for a long time to come.

The Syndicate was, as always, very co-operative, saying, “The Syndicate has no comment on the shootings. Only thing we want to let you know is that BSF unverified 10k+ points of ours without responding to our HD tickets. No reason has been given.” Though its members obviously feel they deserve priority over other HD tickets, the reason for the lack of response may well be that there is a queue and therefore the members whom submitted a ticket will have to get in line rather than pushing in.

We at the Buzz then contacted VasiliosX1, who claimed to of been the user who shot from the account Empty. This account had successfully conducted 22 of the kills. VasiliosX1 told us, “The reason was simple. My account VasiliosX got killed by Diablow a player of The Vanguard.” Continuing by saying, “When I died at first I was not planning on taking any revenge. But then when I talked to a ‘good friend’ on MSN he told me he could get me in touch with TS so we together could shoot some Vanguard ass. And so I did. My ‘good friend’ also had a LGF account. With a high trained gun. So I just added some points on that account. And bought allot of bullets.” What VasilliosX was exactly implying with this statement was unclear, as it may be seen by some that this was an admittance of rule-breaking, namely multiple logging in to an account. He also added upon the conclusion of the interview, “I just would like to add. For u people who probably are wondering to which crew I belong or which gang. I AM WITH NO ONE! I just have a few connections and a nice amount of points!” It would appear then that VasiliosX’s brief but effective spree with The Syndicate is over, and he will now once again go underground.

This appears to be a spree which comes with more than its fair share of controversy, but one that is far from over. With VasiliosX telling us he has now taken any revenge he feels necessary on The Vanguard, and members of The Syndicate with a host of unverified points, it remains to be seen who will make the next move. All shooters have been taken out but The Syndicate prides itself on having inconspicuous accounts all around Bootleggers ready to shoot at any time, which leaves TV continuing to search out these accounts and take them before they have time to do the same to them. For now however, happy gaming!

~Alcaeus