Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Issue: 19   Editor: Mika


O Drama, Drama, Wherefore Art Thou Drama? Neverender
Drama has been active since the beginning of time. There have always been conflicting stories, feuding beliefs and hatred sparked by those beliefs. No matter if we like it, want it, strive for it or try to avoid it; it’s there. This is never more evident than in Bootleggers. Drama runs rampant every day, every hour and every minute. Whether it’s crews going to war, players who didn’t like the percentage they received in an OC or people taking a stab at a moderator due to past actions they don’t agree with.

Focusing on the latter, Nyxxie is one moderator that always has drama attached to her. If she’s inactive, she’s looked at by the masses as being a horrible moderator. If she’s active and bans, mutes or verbally combats players she’s looked at as being a horrible moderator. One player brought up a valid point stating, “When I started playing there was hardly any drama and there was much more respect for the staff. Did the players change or the staff? Back in the day the staff earned their respect and hardly ran their mouths in the forums.”

Nyxxie is a very outspoken moderator when given the opportunity. She’s not afraid to go toe-to-toe, or rather in this case finger-to-finger, with any player that wants to call her out for doing the right thing or in their eyes doing the wrong thing. Most of her comments are stated in quick, witty retorts and only if she’s goaded does she actually bite back. This in itself is looked at by a lot of players as something a moderator should not do, thus resulting in the general Bootleggers public creating drama in an attempt to annoy her or push her from her position.

Another opinion stated Nyxxie “really does abuse her power, constantly. She bans people when they say something she doesn't like. She makes snide comments to people and then finds a reason to ban them when she doesn't like their responses." This is always one way to look at it and could also be considered one side of the story. Do we always receive Nyxxie’s side of the story? Of course not. Most of the time she’s on a gag order from the Elite Guard. The opinions that create the drama will always be the same, whether it is someone jumping on the Nyxxie hating bandwagon or someone that has a legitimate gripe. It’s up to those not on the bandwagon to sift through the drama and decide what they want to believe.

In what some can consider a deep contrast, Riserva is a fairly quiet and revered (by most) moderator that is good at what he does; moderate. However just like anyone in a position of power he will attract his group of “haters”. One such hater being Shaggerty who recently brought up old “dirt” on Riserva, stating that he once account shared with Aurora when in The Supremacy before becoming a moderator. Riserva was unable to be reached for comment but Aurora was eager to give her thoughts on the matter.

“I'm not really sure why people feel the need to bring up old shit” she said, “but there were some dupe accounts that we knew that were dupes in The Supremacy but not everyone knew the passwords to them. They were just there for cannon fodder, basically, because they were all Boss+. But that only lasted until the family accounts rule started, and then the owner of those dupes had them mod killed. And as far as Boby (Riserva) and I sharing passwords that’s not true at all!” Being this happened in a past round there’s really no way to look into it, Sweetie even chimed in and stated, “I really don't think it holds grounds now, I feel Boby is a good Mod and has intentions of keeping Bootleggers clean.”

Not all opinions of Riserva are negative though, Hecatoncheir made a point to say, “Riserva is probably one of the only ones of late I can vouch for that's tried to stop cheating, actually.” Although this may not be the case as all moderators should be trying to stop the cheating in the game this is obviously Hecatoncheir’s attempt and defending the quiet moderator.

One thing that has always been proven as time drones on; drama will always keep the masses “lively” and give them something to discuss around the water cooler, or in this case, the virtual casino table. We can continue to try and avoid it but it will keep coming. As Fluxxeh so eloquently put it, “BL drama" keeps the game alive in some respects, it gets people talking. The off topic forum and/or game forum can seem a little boring and this drama keeps the blood flowing.” Blood flowing or not it does create an interesting read.