Sunday, December 26th, 2010
Issue: 61   Editor: McAldarion


COLUMN: My 2010 on Bootleggers Mika
Time is a strange thing. It is relative, or so Einstein said, and it is of great importance to our lives. If I do not mind the time in the morning I will miss college and will have angry lecturers to pay, not to mention the potential trouble I could be in during the exam. On Bootleggers, time is even stranger. Whereas I keep track of time carefully in my every day life, I tend not to while playing. The question “Since when have you been playing?” is one I usually answered with “I do not know. Since 2004?” Usually I did not include the question mark in this answer as you will probably understand, but the point is clear: people, or at least I, tend not to keep track of time when on Bootleggers, and this is exactly why writing a column on the past year is difficult. Nevertheless, it is something I will attempt to do.

I seem to remember particular events when Bootleggers is concerned, rather than the dates and times on which they occurred. Therefore it is somewhat of a risk to actually go over certain events as part of me may not be entirely sure with regards to whether or not it actually happened in 2010. One thing of which I am sure it happened in 2010, however, is my promotion to Moderator. Was this my highlight of the year for as far as Bootleggers is concerned? I take it you can say that it was. Becoming Moderator has never been a goal by itself, but eventually it became something I was beginning to take into consideration. I think that every Help Desk Operator reaches a point where he or she begins to realize that it may be possible that they will one day be asked if they want to become a Moderator. To me, the fact that I could become Moderator was something I realized when I was just promoted and something that I began to realize again after I had been in yellow for about a year.

As a Help Desk Operator I spent a lot of online time in 2010 on editing the Buzz; managing Fierce Allegiance, my crew, with Aldarion; and fulfilling my Help Desk Operator duties. Especially the first two are things that I can now no longer do and ones I must admit I miss every now and then. The fact that you are working with a group of people, a team, towards a release every weekend is extremely satisfying, especially when you manage to deliver a product that receives positive feedback from the readers. As a Moderator, the interaction with players is different. There are no more crewmembers and building a relationship with players happens in different ways. You no longer build a relationship because you work together or are in the same crew, but because of your duties. What you create by doing this is different from what I was used to, but both certainly have their advantages.

When I accepted the green jacket I felt the game was somewhat in a dip, players yearned for updates and everyone, staff included, felt that they were needed. Things have changed since then. Although I know that there are people who may disagree with me, I feel the game has begun to climb out of the dip, or ravine rather, it was in. We are not there yet, but certainly seem to be headed the right way. The new crimes are the main illustration of this. Do not think things will end here. The staff is aware that players felt the game was at an all-time low, and we are doing what we can to help the game improve. What this takes, and something which is difficult to ask for as you have already been giving the game a lot of it, is time. New changes are planned, which you will hopefully be seeing at some point in 2011. Patience, however, is a virtue.

It has been quite a while ago since I wrote an article or column for the Buzz, and I must say I have missed writing. From time to time you may see more columns from me, for now that I am less rusty I may write a piece every now and then. For now I wish all of you happy holidays. It is Christmas at the time of writing, but it will be Boxing Day when this is read. Therefore, I hope that you have had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones and I wish all of you happy holidays and, in advance, a happy new year.