Sunday, June 6th, 2010
Issue: 31   Editor: HowlingMadMika


COLUMN: How to take over a crew Altro
Convoluted crew structures, misunderstandings and a lack of scripted gaming rule documentation has lead to a surprising amount of misnomers when it comes to taking over a crew. Here we explain some of the basic principles you need may need to know. This column is written as a lesson for newbies and a reference or refreshed for most.

When this round began it was arguably the easiest time in Bootleggers history to get a crew on the statistics. With fewer players than in the past and with the highest amount of crew spots in recent years no one was falling over each other to grab one of the few remaining crew spots. However with the reduction of places from 30 to 15 the competition has started to heat up and more often to take a spot an aggressive footing is needed. Having said this it is not the only way. There are multiple ways in which a crew spot can be obtained from buying off other players, picking one up when a spot is available to brutal killing and kicking. No matter what your method there are a few generic rules you may want to know.

To start with to hold a crew you must be of the rank Boss or higher, anything lower and the game will simply not allow you to pick up a crew or be given the spot. There are currently no exceptions! Older players may remember a rather amusing bug around in the early rounds, where it was possible to complete an OC while members were offline. This gave all accounts experience but the users did not rank till they logged in, the game therefore dropped crews to “Assassins” who were really “Bosses” whose rank had not yet updated. This caused much confusion in the attackers who planned to just take out the visible Boss and higher ranks. You also need to know a crew is taxed daily, depending on the size. While the size of the crew can be upgraded later it cannot be lowered. Therefore you must plan to have a sufficient income in order to fund the crew, failing to pay the tax has consequences which you can read about in issue 30 of the buzz in the article “COLUMN: A History Lesson In Crew Tax”.

Buying a crew
Buying is by far the quickest method of obtaining a crew, but checking the history of the spot maybe vital. Many of the crew spots have tortuous pasts with multiple claimers. In round5 we saw Event Horizon who already had a spot take out a crew they were not at war with just to regain their old spot. Unfortunately there is also one more issue with buying a spot, the hand over.

There is currently no way to transfer ownership of a crew safely, in essence it is very easy for either side to scam the other. The crew holder aka the crew owner also called the crew boss can only hand over ownership to someone inside the crew. He or she is unlikely to do this without first being paid for the spot at which point he or she could hard kick the buyer and keep the money/points. This problem came to a head in round 4. BSF2000 stepped in on a very similar case where payment for the crew spot was several thousand points, the crew in question was held by the Elite Guard’s test account TestAccount till the issue could be resolved. During round 5 scamming was finally declared as a legal action within the game, meaning that now you have to be all the more careful when buying or selling. One of the methods of doing so is by using a middle man, a common practice for most transactions in the game before the Escrow feature was first released. The middle man should be someone both parties trust explicitly. Both parties give them their product of the trade and once he or she has both products they hands them on to the respective parties.

Once you have the crew it is vital you remove all members of the old crew as soon as possible while getting your people in, or they could easily take the crew back by insiding. This is especially easy if the deal has stretched over several hours giving them time to pre-search. It might therefore be wise to ask for all other members to be kicked before the trade starts. However you do it there is always extreme risk of being scammed.

Picking up a crew
Picking up a crew could not be simpler. If you have enough cash on hand and there are free spaces any crewless boss can simply go to the crew page and create a new crew. You can check if there are spare places on the Statistics Page at the bottom of the list of the crews it will say how many crews there are out of how many possible spaces. Remember the page only updates once every ten minutes. If only it was that simple, in fact spots like this rarely come along, and when they do you can expect them to be snatched up within minutes. Take for example just last week, once The Finishing Touch crew was dropped, it was not picked up by the shooters but by The Greek Myth within minutes. Doing so may place the crew that picks the spot up in the frying pan, with the possibility the old crew and their shooters claiming ownership.

If you are picking up the spot you want to get the configuration correct first time, including size, name and colour. It is possible to upgrade the size later but at an additional cost and as already mentioned it is impossible to downsize, considering the tax per size as already mentioned becomes a critical element. You will also be charged for any changes to the name or the colour of the crew. This mistake was not so much of a problem in Round 4 when it was first added but now can cost as much as the size of the spot. Before this feature of changing the name and colour was added crews relied on Moderators to change the name, sometimes taking as long as a week.

Dropping a crew
Dropping a crew requires all Boss+ members who are not banned or on vacation to be killed. When the crew has no one else eligible to fall to it drops. You can then pick it up (see picking up a crew). There are however a few snags, for one it is unlikely that the crew will sit there letting you wipe them without attempting to halt your advances. Several methods can in fact be employed. The crew could simply shoot back killing you before you’ve managed to kill more than a few members, fast searches and a bit of luck on their part may end the party before you’ve even got started. They can also let more people in, increasing the targets and meaning you have to start several more searches. Crew members can also travel, enter safe houses or gang up in the same state to make your job all the more challenging in shoot outs.

Attackers have found several methods themselves to help increase their chances. For one using multiple shooters can reduce the time to take out a crew from hours to a mere ten minutes. Not only does this reduce the time but also the risk, even if one shooter is shot you have only lost a percentage of your arsenal. Shooting in waves can also be employed but requires sacrificial lambs. For example one or more shooters kill as many as they can before they are taken down, you can then judge the crews response (e.g letting more members in) before coming back for a second attack to finish them off. Speed is also of the essence when shooting, it is impossible to attack someone who is already in a shoot out therefore by leaving seconds between attempts decreases their chance of shooting back.

Attacking a crew is not just as straight forward as shooting random members till it drops. You should also consider who to shoot first, crew bosses can give members of the crew recruiting rights or RR for short. These players with this ability can let new members in. By using the crews profile you can usually tell who is in the command structure and who is online. Taking out these members reduces the risk of extra crew bodies to shoot.

Insiding a crew
Insiding a crew which is also known as new schooling (despite being around for the majority of Bootleggers life span) is often seen as a weakling’s way of taking over the crew. While it may not help you gain respect it may very well save you vast amounts of money and points. Insiding is when you attack the crew from the inside, when the crew falls to your member you hard kick (or simply kick) all other members and hence taking control of the crew.

The crew falls in a specific way and therefore it is possible to predict when your inside man or woman will gain control. Crews will not fall to dead, banned or vacationed players and only those of Boss+ rank. The crew boss may set a predecessor who if eligible the crew will fall to, if no valid account is set then the crew will drop to the highest rank. The higher your inside member is the fast the crew will drop to him or her and the fewer bullets will be required.

Obtaining a crew is not as easy as one may think and each method has it’s pros and cons, players therefore have to ask themselves what do they value most? Be it money, respect, peaceful relationships or is it simply a matter of recognition?

Here endeth the lesson.