Sunday, November 7th, 2010
Issue: 54   Editor: oSean


COLUMN: Next Few Weeks Crucial For Bootleggers NVIDIAldarion
This week was marked by two events that certainly will have impact on the game. First of all we saw Nyxxie leave the Elite Guard, followed by 5litre, just a mere 24 hours later. This leaves us with just four staff members, with BSF2000 as only administrator, and considering the recent drop in players, the question is whether this development will do the game any good.

To kick off, we are going back to just over a year ago, the start of the sixth round in the history of Bootleggers. Albeit Sabin was no longer part of the team the round initially looked promising with a lot of old players that returned to see if anything had changed. Some changes were made and every now and then (although sometimes relatively late) existing features were altered to improve gameplay and some things were entirely renewed.. However, as the round continued administrator activity declined (not that I am purely talking about BSF2000 here). Promised updates did not arrive and no changes were made to the game in the past few months, leaving the lay-out change out of consideration as the major part of that was done by someone else.

A graph based on data showing the number of players logging in, in a 24 hour period, shows us that the number of players roughly started to drop as soon as administrator activity grind to a halt.

We can all see what we already knew, it is not going well. Adding to these events is the fact that Nyxxie and 5litre left the Elite Guard. Although none of them pointed to one specific thing as the reason of leaving, it was clear they were not very happy about BSF’s lack of activity. And they are not the only ones, the whole game seems to be fed up with BSF. We have not heard a word from him in months and all he really seems to do is not care. Communication has always been an issue with BSF as mostly one of the other administrators communicated with the players (first Sabin, then 5litre took over the role). It is probably the right time to hear something from BSF himself, for once.

Judging by the downbeat reactions which often involved RIP statements for the game it seems clear that players have not much faith in the game and it seems BSF lost most of his credit as well. But let’s face it, this is down to no-one but himself, lack of communication, (non)behavior towards players and/or other staff members resulted in this isolated position he has been in for years. Personally, I think it is amazing it went from bad to worse. Most of us remember when he apologized for his lack of involvement in the game, but remarkably, nothing has ever changed since then. By ignoring each and every player he creates the impression that he simply does not care, even though that may be totally untrue.

The latter, combined with the decline in players, combined with Nyxxie and 5litre leaving makes the situation of the game absolutely critical. If nothing happens, the game will face certain death. If this game wants to get out alive something needs to be changed and I am really hoping something will. Because, secretly, I like this game. Just like everyone of you.