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


COLUMN: The Year 2010 McAldarion
As we are just a mere week away of moving into 2011, it is time to review a year full of events. It all kicked off a few weeks after the reset with the game just settling itself into round number six. Plenty of old players had returned to see what had become of Bootleggers. During the year, the number of players declined rapidly, but the story of how and why has been explained a lot of times by a lot of people (including myself). So, if I ask myself the question, what will I remember the year 2010 for?

Looking pure statistically one can almost not overlook the decline in players. Strangely enough though, that is not the feeling I currently have, and I am pretty sure that isn’t just down to this being a Christmas week. A couple of weeks ago new crimes were introduced, which I think can be classified as the best update of 2010 and a major improvement over the old crimes. Most features that are updated start by receiving negative feedback just because players are not used to it. However, the new crimes were immediately received with positive feedback. To me, this shows how good the feature really is.

December was also the month of bonuses and challenges. BSF2000 set up the Winter Bonus weekends giving the players the ability to gain something extra throughout the four weekends in December. Combined with the Christmas contest this gave the players some nice advantages over other the normal gameplay.

Another interesting event that influenced the game was Nyxxie and 5litre stepping down from their positions as mod and admin. Judging on the comments made after they left it appeared they weren’t satisfied with the way things were being run. This event resulted in several promotions and three new mods joined the Elite Guard. David, the most killed Help Desk Operator in the History of Bootleggers, who I think, really need to kick the habit of dying a lot. Also promoted was Mika someone who may quite possible be addicted to Pirates of the Caribbean. Judging by his forum posts anyway.

Right, you probably know that old staff members sometimes return, and this year Bootleggers was granted another return as someone who was known for his ability to code (which made us some wicked tools back in the days as well, I remember something like a timer). It’s Zeb! I think it is great to have him back on the team, as his coding skills will definitely help the Elite Guard one way or another. Lately, some people here spewed a lot of crap on this mod, but if you’re not in that corner, you should ask yourself whether you should judge someone based on a story from one side.

I also want to mention the domination of a few crews that occurred during the year. Somehow the crews united, or gave in with each other simply because they did not want to be killed. Some of the big crews from before are no longer around, now that the number of players dropped, and I think that is the major reason for this domination. However, it must be said that they have been responsible for most of the big shootings in the last few months as well as on of the biggest sprees in the history of Bootleggers. Having said that, I also think that was partly down to the state of the game.

Onto 2011 we go. What the game will bring in that year remains to be seen, but considering the recent updates, changes and promises of more changes to existing game features in the near future, I think chances are that 2011 will recover some of the lost users in 2010. At least, that is what I hope.

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