Join the new world

Endorsement given. 🙂

The answer to your question has been around longer than I have. You won't like it but after 4+ years I can guarantee you that the ancient ones were correct. The only way to win eRep is to quit.

Let me expand on that. The game exists for one reason and one reason only, to make the owners (and now shareholders) money. Not the fake crap, real cash. There is never any end to 'one more thing' to do. Constantly building your Strength. One more factory to upgrade, one more RM to buy. The give us every reason to pay real cash for gold so that we can 'save our country'. If it were not so complicated eRep would make a good carnival game. You know the ones? Pay $5 to do the Ring Toss and if you get 3 rings on the coke bottles you win a 75¢ prize.

That's not to say I haven't had fun here and met some cool people. I've spent my hard earned cash willingly to be entertained. Has it gained me anything tangible? No. Just killing time.

So don't look for a flashing screen one day popping up asking you to input your initials. It never ends, you'll never catch up to those ahead of you and will constantly be chased by those behind.

As far as building up a war machine, break out the Visa. It's the only way. Admin does not give enough to compensate for the lack of thousands of gold.

And yes...
( . Y . )
b00bs!

Dill you cynic! Ok, realist maybe... there is no winning, that is true.

But-- there are some really cool "imaginary" friends, that you can fight wars beside, that don't come borrowing RL money or beer, and you can talk any kind of shite with them whatsoever...

You can fight without really hurting anyone, and hey-- everyone could virtually grow up and be a CP... a GoW... a millionaire... or any combination thereof...

It only takes the time you have to put into it, the RL money you have or want to put into it, and social interaction to the level you're comfortable with. Yeah, the developers are clever and probably getting quite RL rich. So?

I love this game. I hate it. I want my country to conquer every other country. I want to be the strongest fighter and the cleverest entrepreneur (ok, all laughable goals-- again, so?).

So yeah, let's become a mean fighting machine and take over the eworld, and keep looking at some pretty pictures along the way... 😃

And when that's not fun any more, quit-- I win. 🙂

so agree !

I'd argue having fun in this game is being more than a drop in an ocean. I've had my share of it over the years being the good guy and savior to being the villain hated by all making waves for the so called good and bad.

And by all accounts, often on the same day! 🙂 Not everyone has the balls to be a villain, Rylde... Make some more waves and wake everyone's arses up! Oops, I didn't say that, did I? 😃

"everyone could virtually grow up and be a CP... a GoW... a millionaire..."
Been there, done that. Maybe that's why I'm a cynic... or at least don't really give a crap anymore. lol

If developers had taken a different track this game would actually be (ooh! I really dislike this word) awesome. If they'd tried a little less to make it about being fair. I wrote an article about that years ago. Are you familiar with "Tee-Ball"? It's softball for little tots. Instead of pitching the ball it's set on a tee in the batters box so it's easy to hit. If they left it at that it might be a fun way for the little ones to get started. No, they made it easier. The kid (sometimes, depends on who's running the game) gets to swing as many times as he wants until the ball's hit. Then he gets to run the bases and most likely scores because everyone foibles the ball. At the predetermined time the game should end everyone is congratulated and goes home a winner because the score doesn't count! This is what eRep has become.

My first year here I played without buying any gold. I did pretty good because I was smart regarding the econ. I built a nice little corporation with two food factories and 65 employees. Then they made the game fair and every one became "smart" regarding the econ which meant I went broke. Long story short they have "fair"ed the life outta the game. Politics was one last bastion, probably because the majority of it was played off site on forums and IRC. You could be as creative as you wanted and the way people perceived you would take you places. Finally developers figured out how to kill politics with the dictator update. Recent debate about why to bother with the forum drives a nail in the coffin of skill and finesse. Again, we're back to whether you pay for enough gold to become dictator or you sit on your thumbs and take it.

All your comments are great so far ,.. I was also kind of thinking along the lines of how could we use good marketing to recruit new and existing players to want to live in and fight for eCanada ,... how can we help build up and encourage the few existing eCanadian soldiers that we still do have playing ,... and thinking sort of like the old game War ,.. how could we ever just take over the whole world ,...to like ,.. you know win ,.. because I would agree that if an eCountry did that ,.. completely take over the whole world ,.. that they had effectively won lol ,... perhaps these are all just pipe dreams but I have always kind of thought that that was what we were trying to do here ,.. and that also reminds me that perhaps sometimes I could stand to at least take even just a little peek at the map 😉

Hey ! Isn't getting your Wife to play this silly game some sort of victory , hmmm ? And why don't you just go ahead and break this game like you broke Spymaster lol

I guess you are right ,... but it is called an eWife ,... and I still maintain that I was innocent ,... seriously ,.. it wasn't me !