Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
Issue: 62   Editor: AnotherAldarion


Russian Roulette- The Family Style POI2000
It was a fairly innocent Friday afternoon and then a fairly inconspicuous topic popped up in the game forum entitled “Pick up RLT and Get shot”, and the body of the topic wasn’t exactly a surprise:

Quote:
Pick up roullete's and get shot

Rlt owner's wil be shot



Well I don’t think anyone can accuse TFTREH, who identifies himself as “a rich member” of The Family and The Triad, and is the player who posted the topic, of not being to the point. The message was clear, with the backing of The Family and The Triad anyone who picked up a Roulette would be shot, resulting in the loss of not just the property but their account and any cash, bullets or other assets they may be holding. Quite a bold claim, and one that takes people believing your ability to follow through with your threat as well as the will to do so. With The Family and The Triad involved few people doubted either.

However, not everyone was convinced of the authenticity of the threat, with opinions being voiced in the thread that this was a lie and some even doubted that TFTREH was a member of, or had the backing of either The Family or The Triad. iAleese was one of the most vocal doubters, when asked whether he believed the threat he simply replied, “Nope and I don't care.” The main reason for his distrust being that he claimed to be the one who had shot the last roulette owner to die, and as he saw it TFTREH was just piggybacking his shooting and taking advantage of that along with the power of the two crews he was claiming to be a part of.

The doubters fell away as quickly as the roulette owners in the time following the posting of the topic though, with five being shot and their casinos remaining un-owned. Along with many others who hadn’t been sure of the authenticity of the threat, I was convinced and got in touch with TFTREH to see what he had to say. Firstly, I had to double check he wasn’t pulling our collective leg, he wasn’t, saying, “This threat is for real yes” adding that this was just the start of a much more impressive and grand aim, he revealed “we want to drop all properties so in the end the state page is black and says none”. This aim has already been achieved across the row on the States page home to Blackjack, which is widely regarded as the least valuable casino, people don’t pick them up as they cost $750,000 and sell for about 5 points. This puts the owner into a position of negative equity, and with Blackjacks having never been renowned for their ability to make huge profits this is a difficult deficit to cover, and cutting public sector and relying on the public sector to fill the void isn’t going to work... wait, sorry this is what I get for doing politics at the same time as writing for the Buzz. Anyway, the loss of money as well as the recent risk of getting shot has made Blackjacks the property no-one wants and this puts TFTREH, The Family and The Triad one sixth of the way to their goal of wiping the states page clean.

At this point a rather trivial question came up at the Buzz, The Family and The Triad have promised to shoot any and everyone who picks up a Roulette table; they have also promised not to kill any member of North Korea, the statistics crew that promises protection from ”what you call random shootings”, so what would happen if a member of the aforementioned crew picked up a Roulette? A trivial question but an interesting conflict of interest, we thought.TFTREH told us that “I would buy it from the person in N.Korea that is holding it and drop it.” Oh, ok... not that interesting then.

So the threat is real, the plan is in motion and working, but why do it? TFTREH told us it was “Just because I can”. The message seems to be clear here, The Family and The Triad with the help of Event Horizon, Komodo and Virtual Reality believe they have taken over the game and are now doing things simply for the sake of it, because the whim takes them. Can anyone do anything about it? We shall have to wait and see.