Sunday, October 10th, 2010
Issue: 50   Editor: SeanGoesToUni


Happy Birthday Bootleggers? Deleterio
Last Monday, the 27th September, was in fact the seventh birthday of Bootleggers. Isn’t it both a little sad and a little inspirational that the players got there well before the staff? It probably would have been better if that staff had stayed out.

As a side note, I held this article last week so as not to mar the supposed special occasion of the game’s birthday.

Seemingly it was Gibbons, a scum, who was first to remember this special anniversary... at least the first to remember and be bothered enough to make a game forum topic to celebrate. And once he had posted it messages of goodwill started to come in from players, most sticking to the tried and tested ‘Happy Birthday’ although a few players couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke a little fun at the game, with Sotrossi saying ‘time fly's when you have fun a BL addiction’.

So, seemingly a nice thing for a player to have done and the response seemed mainly positive. Looks like players still care for the game, whether because they know it is an addiction or because they genuinely enjoy playing is seems we ordinary folk still have some fighting spirit left in us to make this work! This was not the case for everyone though unfortunately. Someone rather unexpected piped up with what can only be described as a rather damning opinion of the game; I feel Nyxxie deserves to be quoted in full for this one:


Nyxxie wrote:
Happy Birthday Bootleggers, you're like an old man now! You talk about how the "old times" were the best, you're close to death but clinging on, you tell stories of the past, but forget most of it so the story is splotchy and full of misconceptions, many have come and go during your time here and you're like an aged cheese, crumbling... crumbling... crumbling... but you hang on to your distinct flavour (even if your distinct flavour is on par with that of stinky feet).



Good to see the staff, and I generalise hideously unfairly here, think of the game as ‘clinging on’ and ‘crumbing’. To me, actions speak louder than words, but in Nyxxie’s case her actions seem to contradict her words somewhat. I cannot deny she works very hard indeed for the game, of late she has been the most active staff member, but all of this work is demolished the second she decides to open her mouth in the forums. Unprofessional and ‘bitchy’ are but two adjectives I am sure have been used to describe Nyxxie in her time, and I would have to agree with them. As you have probably sussed out, I must admit I am no huge fan of Nyxxie and I would have thought nothing that she could say would surprise me anymore but the comment above and her next in the topic, ‘Does it really matter if you receive anything "special?" The lot of you will still complain and moan. Makes it not worth wild-- thinking on a business standpoint.’, shocked even me. If you wouldn’t mind me translating (and please bear in mind this is just my interpretation), the two comments she made basically amounted to ‘Bootleggers is on its way out, I don’t know how it is holding on... and it was never that good anyway’ and a rather stroppy ‘Why should I try? If you guys are going to moan why should I bother?’ To answer the last point, how about because you are a member of staff and quite frankly it is your job.

The game is dying, why should I bother? Sounds like the attitude of someone who is going to quit the game, it shouldn’t be the attitude of a member of staff. Unless you fancy following Rod Rod out of the recently opened Elite Guard door.

Don't get me wrong, Nyxxie isn't the only member of staff failing. Let us not forget that it took BSF2000 over two and a half hours longer than an ordinary player to take the time to write a very short topic commemorating this anniversary, despite Altro telling us that ‘[The HDOs] mentioned it a week or two back so [The EG] knew it was coming.’ So, the lack of preparation for today seems as inexplicably lacking as the preparation for new features and the future of this game.

Some of you may be confused at this point, it would seem that I agree with Nyxxie’s that this game is slowly on its way out; ‘Clinging on’ as she so aptly phrased it, and in part I do. But where we differ is that she is a member of the Elite Guard, a position that I very much doubt I will ever have the privilege to hold (especially after this, I can see 5Litre burning my HDO application in my minds eye), and as such she has a responsibility to the game and her employer, regardless of whether she gets paid or not. Would your boss keep you on if you continually went on about the state of the game? I see no other staff members doing it and I see no reason why Nyxxie’s should do so. ‘I have a right to an opinion just as much as you do’ may be a response, and of course she does, but to express it so publicly and to stoke an already burning fire seems a bad idea to me. After that I may seem a bit of a hypocrite but I sit here writing this as nothing but an ordinary player, I am not a HDO, I am not a Buzz writer and I certainly am not a Moderator for this game and that does make a difference.

And on this count, she fails miserably to uphold the standards of her position. In my opinion.

I am sure many of you will disagree with me on the content of this article, but let me reiterate, as far as activity and banning cheats (her main role as a Moderator) Nyxxie’s does an excellent job but regrettably when she became an HDO she was a forum whore and she still is. And I don’t think it helps her or the game.


OJAI wrote:
I know many people who quited this game just for Nyxxie being a cock



Me too, and I might just be one of them. Good riddance right?

Happy Birthday Bootleggers.