Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Issue: 16   Editor: Mika


Introducing UCs Aldarion
In the past few weeks my articles in the Bootleggers Buzz criticized several of the decisions made by the staff which may have caused some of you to think I’m just some sort of old whiner. That’s the reason I’ll be moving to a few other things this week rather than giving advice how to improve the game. But there’s one thing I just have to mention, WHAT an update! Without question of doubt the biggest update since twelve upper case letters on the news page were changed to lower case letters.

When I opened my browser I was absolutely shocked by this stunningly massive update. The icon for Bootleggers (as shown in browsers) was updated. Let’s forget about the promised crimes tweak, this is way better! I bet every single one of you felt the same thrill in your veins, just wow. In all seriousness, though, it’s been four weeks since the tweak for crimes was announced and I’ll keep hammering this every single week until it is updated. So, expect me to hammer on for a couple of years. Point being, an admin should either not state such things or he should announce when we can expect an update.

Anyway, as promised I’ll move on to some interesting phenomenon which has existed ever since Bootleggers came online. It’s easy to spot, yet you might only notice it every now and then. I noticed it this week and boy was I annoyed. I am talking about Organized Crimes. Most of the time it is pretty easy to either find an OC or get members for your OC. You can happily do your daily job as long as this phenomenon that turns Organized Crimes into Unorganized Crimes doesn’t strike.

Some day last week, I decided to start an Organized Crime since no-one was leading. I asked a friend of mine and we started the OC, two dons ready to rob silly banks. Meanwhile two other people decided to do exactly the same which meant there were three people leading an OC at that very moment. However, every single person who opened the classifieds page decided to start one as well, which meant that in no time we had about twenty-five people leading OCs which made it ludicrously hard to get members into my own OC.

I was pissed off, and because I feared the same would happen in twelve hours, I decided it would be best not to lead again. Guess what? It was preposterously hard to find an OC because no-one was leading. The next day I swapped my OC time to avoid being dragged into the same wave once again. I don’t know about you, but I have had this million times before. Chances are that I’m not making any sense at all, but let’s try to find a proper reason behind this very strange wave of UCs.

The first thought that popped into my head was that people might want to lead because of greed. Sure, we can find lots of greedy people here on Bootleggers, who then lead an OC and get forty to fifty percent themselves. Thing is, the percentages people offered when I was desperately trying to find people weren’t that bad. Most of you would have joined one of those UCs for these percentages. Although you wouldn’t, you’d start one yourself. Anyway, I remember thinking exactly the same last round.

Last round (and every round before) this phenomenon could be witnessed every now and then. I’ve been pissed off and annoyed by it before. As far as I can see, the lower OC pay-outs this round didn’t influence the amount of UCs, it’s still about the same. This means the amount of people that leads OCs didn’t particularly increase since last reset, which in return means that greed isn’t the main cause of this phenomenon. So, what else could it be?

Perhaps some people just want to lead because they cannot stand other people leading. For example, “Oh no! Mika is leading an OC. Well, if he can lead one then I must lead one as well. After all, I’m considering myself a better leader.” But, let’s be honest, this would be a bit strange. Perhaps it’s down to honor as the leader gets thanked as soon as the vault is high. Perhaps people think leading UCs will give them better experience than being in another position. I’m afraid we’ll never know the truth. This will continue, and we will be annoyed by it.

The most annoying of all is the fact that most of you will probably recognize this and yet it is unstoppable. If demand and supply are messed up, weird things can happen as we’ve seen with the amount of crewspots. But perhaps some of you can think of a reason for the existence of UCs? I’m encouraging you to share all your theories about UCs below this article. There has to be some sort of rational thing behind this, right!?

Finally, I’d like to pay some attention to Andy. As we all know he was removed from his moderator position earlier this week. I think it’s a real shame he was no longer around as I consider him one of the few people on this game that actually seemed to get along with almost anyone. Apart, of course, from the people who were (rightly) banned by him for duping. Those people usually quote some rude message they wrote over ten times. They think people don’t react because they didn’t read it. Truth is, they were ignored for being blithering idiots.

Anyway, after all the timing of Andy didn’t seem that bad. In fact, he left exactly at the right moment. He wasn’t involved in the feud between BSF and Sabin, where the latter was accused of terrible things. So there was no need for him to be ashamed for being a mod. I gotta give him credit for that brilliant timing. It’s a shame that, unless he returns, we won’t be able to enjoy the craziness and sense of humor this great person had. Andy, you’ll be missed!