Sunday, July 11th, 2010
Issue: 36   Editor: HowlingMadMika


The New Style Altro
Early this week Bootleggers received its first full style makeover for over 4 years. Made possible by the Elite Guard’s very own Nyxxie , who remade the images for the game. A change that has been in the works for several months, of which, an early version was leaked a few months ago via a link on Bootleggers before being removed.

A number of changes were made, including; the Title bar, Bullets instead of arrows, the jail, hospital and shooting range were given pictures. The background colors were changed, bootlegging booze has new images and the format of the welcome message on the train station is different. In general the majority of images from the time period have also been darkened (missions, states, etc.).

5litre said, “BSF2000 is shying away from using the barrel any longer as a logo.” The barrel is now only used for the messaging icon, the new logo being the crate of bottles of booze. The old classic Bootleggers text with the sideways gradient also no longer exists on the site; it used to be on both the title bar and the login page. As now both have been replaced 5litre said, “[the header] matches the front page completely, which was important for BSF2000.” It has however, been two years this very month since the login page was updated.

The style’s implementation (at the time of writing) is not yet complete. It has, for example, created a few bug and glitches. A minor one would be the images and land squares to do not currently line up. We are also waiting for the change in profile color which 5litre said would come by the end of new week. The color will be changed from #737373 which has been used from the start of the game, to #4a4a4a. On the topic of the delay 5litre said, “This was at the choice of BSF2000 as a way to give players some time to fix their profiles without having them look mis-colored.”

Original reactions to the changes were mainly negative. “At first, I hated it VERY much,” said Refu. He continued, “I was pretty pissed off by this new color scheme being way to dark and being a pain in the ass.” A reaction that many players share, “I love everything about the new layout except the darker colors,” QuadrupleM told us. He also said, “I just wish the colors weren’t so dark; that’s what I hate about other games.” Musicala said, “It’s too dark and hurting my eyes!” The color scheme was under attack for several reasons, including the change to the profiles that will require a lot of updating from picture makers. Szia told us, “What I dislike and do not want to happen is the profile update. I do not want the profiles to change colour: I feel this will ensure that picture makers will make a lot of money due to this and it will annoy me.” Refu mini-raged on the forums, “due to this I received a picture from Nyxxie,” he told us.

Over time however, a few opinions changed. Refu said, “Now I’ve started to actually like it, and it does give a nice feeling when looking at it.” He was not the only one to have changed their mind. Siza said, “At first, I really did not like the update of colour (to 4a4a4a): but I have moved on and I feel it looks better than it did before after comparing the two. It now appears more serious.” MyL4dy expressed the same sentiment as Refu, “I had to get used to it a first but I actually like it now.”

Unfortunately the change sparked a different debate. Lexiachu, for example, saw the situation in a different light. “The ‘update’ looks nice. Buts that’s about it really. I don’t see why this was necessary when we still have a few bugs open (Major Crime bug etc. etc.)” HungoverDragon however, said, “Although it may only be a visual improvement, it fills me with hope that the mods may be looking at more improvements though out the game, like the features.” He also said, “People need to see this as a positive action, however big or small.” Lexiachu had however, pointed out that this was not a particularly fast update. “I like the update,” she said, “but BSF could have let us know. Nyxxie stated they were working with it for over a month so I don’t see a reason why we didn’t see this happen.” Nyxxie has also stated that it had taken her several months to make images that BSF2000 was happy with. Lexiachu had also raised an interesting point about why we were not informed of this before hand, now that we have the new Bootleggers blog. Maybe the staff members still like to surprise the players. MyL4dy like Lexiachu didn’t see why it was ‘necessary’. “I don’t understand why made them decide to change the layout when there was nothing wrong with the old layout in the first place, and there are more important things that need to be fixed and/or should be implemented.” Mycon however, felt the same positive vibes that HungoverDragon had expressed, “It gave me more motivation to carry on playing. Just because it appears newer it gives the game less of a boring feel. I just hope BSF can keep these nice little updates coming.”

The timing of this update seems to show a new life among the staff. HungoverDragon said “We have new HDOs recruited, a new blog and a new layout. What’s next!?” This week we have also seen BSF2000 released several updates in protection of a hack, and 5litre said in the external blog that bug fixes were “DEFINITELY next on the list.”

While the change in color scheme will not affect game play, it may help revive Bootleggers, giving it a nice lease of life. Only time will tell.