Sunday, February 27th, 2011
Issue: 70   Editor: AyeAldarion


M-M-M-Monster Kill! AyeAldarion
Last week, we witnessed a massive event when Haters Gonna Hate decided to wipe one of its most powerful allies: Event Horizon. The wipe led to much speculation as to why Event Horizon was wiped. In the days following the wipe, Haters Gonna Hate went on to kill members of Event Horizon (and others) when they were ranked as low as thug. At that moment, it seemed as if the crew would simply continue the way it already had for several months, simply including Event Horizon as one of their enemies. This also seemed to way Haters Gonna Hate felt about it. However, most of us were completely wrong (and perhaps surprised) when Event Horizon completely wiped Haters Gonna Hate. As a bonus, Event Horizon also shot Death Road Ministry and TOF R FGT.

When Event Horizon had finished shooting Haters Gonna Hate, Trigamain released the following message on the Game Forum:

Quote:
The preceding message has been brought to you courtesy of Event Horizon.

Attention BL Community!

Are you tired of randomly getting shot?Or do you have a general dislike for HGH and all their sub crews?Do you ever find yourself without enough cash to buy enough bullets for an attack?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you’re in luck! For a limited time only bullets in the following bullet factories will be sold for only $1.00!!!! Yes you read right, $1 only!

All of them

So my fellow Bootleggers, now is the time to get off your collective asses to stock up and shoot back! This offer is for a limited time only so act now!!


You are not dreaming, Event Horizon lowered the prices of bullets for every bullet factory they owned. As a result of the systematic sprees in the last few months, factories had been stocking bullets, which resulted in a very large stock of bullets, some even going above 500K. Thanks to Event Horizon, almost every bullet factory emptied within a day. As a result, approximately 1,500,000 bullets entered the game that day. To find out the reason of Event Horizon’s attack on Haters Gonna Hate, as well as details on their strategy to lower all bullet prices, we had a chat with VpX, council member and shooter of Event Horizon.

First of all, we asked VpX whether Event Horizon expected an attack from Haters Gonna Hate. He told us, “The attack on EH by HGH was something we were not expecting at that moment. It caught us off guard because, even though we had the S&M incident, there were no obvious hints as to what they were going to do.” The past few weeks, speculation about a possible war between Haters Gonna Hate and Event Horizon had increased after the incident with Smoke & Mirrors. For those of you who are unaware of what happened: shooters from Smoke & Mirrors hid within Event Horizon to prevent being killed in one of the systematic wipes done by shooters from HGH. The shooters went on to shoot Haters Gonna Hate. Event Horizon claimed that the shooters had abused EH’s hospitality, whereas other people claimed that the shooters were let in on purpose.

Leaving the truth in the middle, this specific event led to rumors about a possible war between the two crews, and therefore we asked VpX whether Event Horizon had prepared itself for the possibility of a war. He told us, “Our strategy was simply to react to what happened. After being attacked, we figured the game needed a change and since we have always said that people needed to stand up when they were shot at, we couldn't do things differently. After our wipe, we just gathered ourselves to show them that contrary to what they thought, EH is not dead.”

A large number of people feared an even stronger domination from Haters Gonna Hate when they continued their sprees, killing people ranked as low as thug. These kills included accounts from Event Horizon. Many players did not expect Event Horizon to reacted so quickly. VpX talked us through that process, “It was a matter of some people who died, or hadn't played for a while training their guns until they had a fully trained hitsquad. After this all we had to do was pick a time that would suit everyone. The points and money were quickly gathered, everyone from EH that had some left chipped in. If anything, this really was a team effort of a group of people working towards the same goal. It may not sound fancy, and the main reason for that is, well, it wasn't. We got shot, trained our guns to hitsquad in 4 days, then shot, nothing more, nothing less. People often underestimate EH, there are lot's of people in here with a good load of shooting experience, once we set our minds to something, we get it done.”

As mentioned before, Event Horizon also took the Bullet Factories from Haters Gonna Hate. The holders of the bullet factories, all stocked with hundred thousands of bullets, set the prices to just $1, an idea of Betty. Releasing over a million bullets into the game seems really friendly, but from Event Horizon’s perspective it may also be dangerous. Why then, did they decide to do it? VpX told us, “The thought behind this was to give the average player a shot of doing something in this game. The bullets were almost of no use to the average player who would die as soon as they ranked up, so by doing this, now the average player can hopefully shoot and come back to their playing game style. Of course, people pointed out that this also gave a chance for HGH to restock their shooters, but lets be honest, they already had the bullets and the money to do this, so not like they could not get bullets before this.”

A lot has been said about the current balance in the game, or at least, the balance as it was the last few months: a few crews systematically dominating all the other players in the game, often not letting them rank above Assassin or Hitman. Now that the responsible crews have been wiped, and no longer own their bullet factories, the balance may be – at least partially – restored. VpX told us that, “It is up to the players. We certainly hope it will, but we cannot guarantee anything. Our actions will be pointless if people don't train their guns and shoot back. Of course, this does not mean that we did this and will stop playing now to hand the responsibility to the rest of the players alone, but they know that the game can't be balanced by just taking bullets out. It helped because now HGH has less bullets, but this doesn't mean that it is balanced.”

Event Horizon went on to kill Death Road Ministry and TOF R FGT. The former was wiped because the crew held Bullet Factories owned by Haters Gonna Hate. The members of the crew were hitlisted and bought off before the attack stated, but Event Horizon stated they were not responsible for the hitlisting of the members, “We did not do the hitlisting. Just the shooting.” The wipe of these two crews leads to a new record-low amount of crews: just two crews remain: Testicles of Fury and The Scummie Crew. The latter can hardly be taken serious as they accepted every applicant into the crew.

However, we may soon see Event Horizon join these two crews again as VpX told us, “Event Horizon has been one of the longest standing crews in BL and that wont be changing anytime soon. We certainly hope to keep playing this game together, until the day we all decide to say it was enough. Only time will tell what our actions will be in the near future.” With these actions, though, the balance seems somewhat restored. Even though several thugs were killed by a HGH shooter (skyblu) after the wipe, we haven’t seen the systematic kills throughout the second part of the week. That is a good sign for Bootleggers. Although much, much more, needs to be changed in order for it to become the ‘good old’ Bootleggers again, this is definitely a start. VpX’s final words are words I do not want you to miss: “To quote some famous words: "We very much like the fact that HGH was wiped. Too bad it also included us shooting a few nice HGH members. But I guess that's just part of the game.”