Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Issue: 8   Editor: Mika


Clash of the Titans Seannypoo
Since the beginning of the reset, editor of the Bootleggers Buzz, Nyxxie, has been posting a humorous comic strip at the bottom of every issue, usually reflecting issues in Bootleggers that many players were concerned with. However, this week, many players felt the comic was a little below the belt.

The comic she posted showed an image of a woman asking a man how they were getting on in their government job and the man replying "What government job?!". Seems harmless enough, only when the Administrator Sabin resigned at the end of the last round, the main reason stated was because he had just received a new job in government and would not be able to give Bootleggers his full attention.

Many players were furious that Nyxxie had implied that he had lied. In the forum, however, Nyxxie said that she was not attacking Sabin directly, but was referring to a lot of players who "quit" Bootleggers, only to come back a week later.

As the week raged on, more and more topics started appearing in the Game Forum attacking and calling for Nyxxie's immediate resignation from the Buzz and/or Help Desk. Eventually, BSF2000 posted a topic on the Game Forum titled "An opposing view" and in the topic he explained that Sabin had indeed lied about his government job and that, in fact, he had fired Sabin but allowed him to tell the players he had resigned to save any embarrassment or "other negative emotions." He went on to say how he would never have given Sabin the chance to "resign" if he had known that he would "take advantage of the procedure." BSF2000 felt that Sabin's behaviour following his departure from the Elite Guard was shocking and that he had began spreading lies and using "deceitful tactics" because he was fired.

BSF2000 then went in to some reasons behind why Sabin was fired. He decided to inform the players in order to clear up the lies that, he claimed, Sabin had been spreading. The main reason given for the dismissal was "poor performance." This started with a rollback caused when Sabin implemented the new Stock Market. BSF2000 said that he accepted Sabin's claims that things would get better for months, but when his "poor performance was now causing actual liabilities instead of just delayed features" was worrying, but the rollback was a success and everything returned to normal. Shortly after this, BSF2000 informed Sabin of the upcoming reset that was planned. He told Sabin that he would need to be around for the week leading up to it just in case he was needed for any reasons. However, Sabin did not show up until Wednesday of that week and only then put in a "few hours work." He told BSF2000 that a few hours was enough and that is when he was fired. In the topic, trying to justify why Sabin was fired, we were told "The poor performance all summer long, the late logs, the continued bugs, the exploits, the rollbacks, all stemming from his work had just gotten to be too much." Naturally, after finding his Administrator position removed the next day, Sabin "frantically" messaged BSF2000 all day to find out if he was really fired. He was informed that it was, indeed, over.

After the new round began, bugs were then found in three of the features made by Sabin; Bootlegging, Kill and the Help Desk. BSF2000 said that this did nothing but reassure his decision to fire Sabin. He also said that Sabin assured him previous money spikes were caused by Moderators gambling on players' casinos. If he had continued to believe this, BSF2000 was confident that there would have been two more rollbacks in the future.

After telling us just why Sabin was fired, he then went in to how Sabin's "lies" about a government job and telling players he was forced to lie about his job, while BSF2000 was fixing problems that had been caused by Sabin's poor performance only added to his list of reasons why Sabin was a liability. He said that he had to "look out for the best for Bootleggers as well as its players, even if that means [he'll] look bad in the process." He then went into how Bootleggers had treated Sabin well and generously, even helping him after being fired from a previous job "which coincidentally was because of being a safety liability."

He finished by saying that he was sorry the matter had been dragged out so far, but he felt Bootleggers deserved to know exactly what had happened and ended by mentioning that he never relied on Sabin and that a new coder would surely be found soon.

It didn't take long before the topic received a huge amount of attention from the players, most of which was negative. Many players were saying that BSF2000 was just defending Nyxxie's mess up with the comic, while many others thought he was being ungrateful for all the work Sabin had put into Bootleggers over the years. The player-base generally agreed that without Sabin, there was absolutely no way Bootleggers would have survived and even went on to say that since he was gone, Bootleggers had already began to fall drastically in its level of quality.

The next day, following an astonishing amount of negative feedback over his dismissal, Sabin posted a topic called "Opposed to the opposing view" in which he explained his side of the story in full and challenged most of what BSF2000 had said.

He opened the thread by saying how it was "interesting" that BSF2000 decided to post his side of the story when Sabin had been saying in the forum that he was going to post something similar about the Elite Guard and his departure the next day. He said that most of the topic was "either unfounded, exaggerated, or outright untrue."

Sabin tried to discuss each of the points mentioned by BSF2000 in roughly the same order, starting with his supposed "firing." He stated that himself and BSF2000 had mutually decided that it was time for Sabin to go, so to say that he was fired was, in fact, "inaccurate."

He then said that he was happy to leave things as they were prior to the reset but that Bootleggers had began attacking him before he started retaliating. He went in to the details of the Buzz article written about him leaving the Elite Guard and said that it was edited in such a way that it made him look like a "tool", while simultaneously making BSF2000 and the game look impressive. This was the point where Sabin was concerned that Bootleggers was not prepared to leave his departure alone.

Next, he admitted that he had indeed lied about the government job and accepted that it was a mistake to be so specific. He simply didn't want to discuss the matter to death with everybody messaging him asking why he left and if he'd come back. He told us that BSF2000 said he would allow Sabin to "retire" on the condition that he "say nothing negative about him, Bootleggers, or my experience as a member of the Elite Guard", which he didn't.

Then, in reflection of the relationship he had had with BSF2000, Sabin was fond of the memories and friendship that they had together. However, when BSF2000 texted him informing him that he was "undeserving of a job and undeserving of his friendship", Sabin knew it was over between them and decided that he didn't want to remain friends with somebody who told him that he was undeserving of his friendship. A hurtful argument between them ensued.

Sabin believes he had never been more of a liability than any other member of staff, including BSF2000 and that he had "kept Bootleggers alive during its worst crisis" when BSF2000 was barely around, except to verify points. Furthermore, in the week up to the reset, he was never more than two hours away from the computer and said he was sorry if his priorities were out of order (an apology most players felt is unnecessary, as they feel real life should always come over Bootleggers).

He then went in to all the work he did for Bootleggers during the week and summed it up by saying "I basically worked 70 hours a week for 45 hours pay. Not really BSF2000's fault, but I believe an important point of context." He then said that, regarding the rollback, which he had caused, he apologised at the time and was still apologetic about it. He said "There's no softening that one. I screwed up." Sabin believed that the only reason BSF2000 logged out in disgust (and thus abandoning the players himself) was because of a temporary dip in point sales caused by the rollback.

He then said, regarding the week leading up to the reset, "Neither I, nor anyone else I know, would put their whole life on hold for 8 days for maybe a dozen hours of paid time. I'm more than happy to go above and beyond to help out, but the expectation here was ridiculous." He said that he didn't realise just how much BSF2000 expected of him, until he was being shouted at for it and sacked. He summarised by saying he had often done anything within his power (including sacrificing his real life) to try and meet his "demands" but it was "never enough."

The next thing Sabin addressed was the bugs that had cropped up in his features. After all, BSF2000 had implied that he felt Sabin was responsible for them. Sabin cleared this up by saying the booze "bug" was not, in fact, a "bug" but intentional to allow players to get a quick start. The "bug" (according to Sabin) was allowing users to buy booze, travel, sell it and send the money to a friend who would then repeat this procedure so they could all quickly make some money. It was intended to balance itself out with an inventory system in which each state would only have a limited amount of booze. Sabin is of the opinion that BSF2000 didn't understand how the feature was supposed to work, so he took it offline to ensure that no one could get a fair start and by lowering the prices he, effectively, ruined the feature. Sabin admitted he could not see how the Kill feature could possibly bring any money in to the game, as it was designed to subtract money and not add any. He simply felt that he could not be held "responsible for anything that cropped up after the reset" and that BSF2000 had never taken any responsibility for anything that went wrong in Bootleggers, and Sabin didn't expect him to start now.

He then cleared up the matter about his previous real-life job that BSF2000 had (perhaps unfairly) brought up. He said that he was not fired for having a bad safety record, but rather the company he worked for had a declining one and they fired their newest staff, Sabin included. He had never had a safety incident in a motor-vehicle (this was important as he drove a truck as his job), but that, ironically, BSF2000 had.

Coming back to the "mutual agreement" stated at the beginning of Sabin's post, he said that he had every intention of leaving the Elite Guard when a "certain HDO was promoted to Moderator." He felt it was "dangerous" and firmly believes he was right. He did not state which Moderator he was referring to, but said that he was intending on quitting as the game had declined since their promotion and now that he was free of the shackles of professionalism forced upon him by his Administrator position, he would retaliate if Bootleggers used features such as the Buzz to attack him.

A very long story, indeed, but an interesting read. The Buzz firmly refuses to take any side in a debate so you will have to make your own mind up which of the two you decide is in the right, if either. Nyxxie still says that she is not sorry for the offence the comic caused and had no intention of apologising as it was just that; a comic, meant to be taken lightly. She agreed, however, that the whole situation had been blown way out of proportion.

The majority of the player-base seems extremely disgruntled with BSF2000 at the moment, with many saying that Sabin's story has a lot more credibility (mainly because Sabin actually showed his face and posted in the forum, while BSF2000 chose to adopt the persona of mystery and never interact with the players). A certain player said it was "funny how Sabin was basically the face of Bootleggers" and that without him, Bootleggers was nothing.

Despite all the bickering, arguing and drama this week, we hope it hasn't interfered with your Christmas as the Buzz is certainly in agreement with the players that real life is a whole lot more important than this game.