Meet the Myrmidons: The fagulous Obliterate

Day 2,499, 14:13 • Published in Greece Greece • by Lithelon


Hey fag, i'm thinking of starting an interview series called "Meet The Myrmidons"
for debut i'm considering "The fagulous Obliterate". What do you think?

Hi! That's an interesting idea, are you sure you want to launch it with me?

Yeah, maybe, actually i'm not really sure 😛 Seriously though, you're nice to talk to, so yes. What about starting with a brief intro? Share a few things about yourself.

Hello! I'm ObIiterate, I'm 29 and I live in England. In the game I have played for Croatia now for some years, I don't quite remember how many.

An Englishman playing for Croatia. How come? Before getting to know you a bit, i thought you were Croatian. I'm guessing many still do. And what about the nick? Everyone knew you as Arrlo, what inspired the name change?

I left eUK because I was let down by some of their foreign policy decisions -- at the time they were not known to be very loyal -- and joined eCroatia because they were the opposite.
I began as Margaret H Thatcher but when I got bored of being a "woman", I liked the name Arrlo and chose that. The change to ObIiterate was because the word means to destroy, and I think I had decided not to be a nice player any more. I'm impulsive, what can I say?

Another "Iron Lady" 😛 Myrmidons seem to have a few.
Now that you mentioned it, i think i remember the player, but i had no clue it was you, i'm much younger after all, so i guess i'm allowed this little slip. How come you chose this name? Was it your female side coming forward 😛 or you just liked the politician? Come to speak of it, since you're almost as old as Plato, what's the deal with using fag, oldfag etc to address each other, how did this begin?

She wasn't a woman known for femininity so I don't think it was my feminine sided coming through... that time. I guess I thought it'd amuse me to be "soldier" with a Thatcher avatar on a battlefield somewhere. It was not amusing for long.
I am comparatively old, but there are still many people who were big tanks while I was still a noob. I think calling each other fag is an internet thing, and oldfag is just an extension of that, a word that can be insulting, used among friends with affection. I think there is a Greek word like that that I have heard once or twice on TeamSpeak. 🙂

You probably heard a lot, since we like inventing new words for swearing 😛 but it's true we don't come short in affection. 🙂
Anyways, moving on, would like to tell us about military units you've been in and how did you end up in Myrmidons? (Hopefully, you got the end up hint 😉 )

Joining an MU is the best way to meet good people in this game. When I moved to Croatia all that time ago I joined Elite Squad Tuljani and met some really great people who are still my friends now. I spent a lot of time in POW, a military unit whose principled behavior won my admiration forever, and they're a lot of fun too. 🙂 The third MU I feel I belong in is of course Myrmidons, a great bunch of people who you can really relax and enjoy yourself with. I came here some time after the unit made its feelings on the current geopolitical status clear, and I had some firm friends here long before asking to join. We meet on TeamSpeak and talk and joke about the game, about RL topics-- anything you want really. And about the game, when we do have a joint action in a battle there isn't a wall, a country or an alliance who can stop us. I've seen and been part in some really great strikes; it's so great to watch the tide of battles turn because of us.
Hint acknowledged. 😛

Since you brought it up, what do u think about the status quo, regarding politics, military and alliances? In the past, we witnessed a crazy old dude "obliterating" an entire alliance just using CO. I remember shouts like, "heading home, prepare for 11-0" and indeed that was the case. Do you see the fall of current alliances and rise of new ones, or is there any chance for a different gameplay? Either many smaller alliances or just mpping with those closest to each country? In the case of new alliances, if it was up to you, how would you form them?

These alliances have become failures, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar or an idiot. There are countless examples of Aurora, Sirius and Asteria countries totally unwilling to lift a finger to help each other. I think the concept of real teams of countries is long gone, and friendships between people and MUs mean a lot more than the ingame alliances. Asteria was a flop from the beginning, Sirius became one soon after and Aurora is the same now.
About future alliances, I don't know. These current ones won't last for very long, but if I had to be involved in the creation of the next generation, I wouldn't know where to start any more. There are some countries I would want nothing to do with in future because of their past actions, others I would not mind attempting to improve relations with and finally some who I would be happy to work with. Confusing times. 🙂

Come on, give some names, spice things up, we need readers and the occasional bad-mouthing of those ditched 😛 . Then you can tell us about some of your best and worst moments relevant to the game. Can we have something like a top 5 and a bottom (stop making kinky thoughts) 5?

I don't want to influence anyone's opinion so I will keep quiet about which of my categories each country fits into. 😃
My top and bottom 5 moments! I don't know if I can name 5 of each, let's see... The most exciting times were the big alliance battles, where both sides threw everything they had at the wall to try to win, not caring about themselves. These were V1 battles in China, every V1/V2 invasion of Croatia, every campaign which took time (I mean weeks and months), patience and superb tactics to achieve. Meeting great people is always a good moment in the game for me, so moving to Croatia and joining Tuljani then POW then Myrmidons all count as the best times. And the crowning moment is of course, meeting my love, Bogi!
Worst moments include death of EDEN I guess, can't really think of many bad times that last for very long.

You're spoiling all the fun 😛 I don't like you this way…I'll move on to recover from my frustration.
Let's get into politics. You've been in a number of cabinets, assumed roles in alliances (though this is kinda a hybrid politics/military job) even got elected in Greek congress, despite "not having hit once in favor of Greece" 😉 Do you like political module, do you believe it is intriguing, or is it just a necessary evil? Would you improve it or discard it?

My big mouth gets me in a lot of trouble sometimes, I'm trying to be a bit dignified!
Politics is an ugly business, I've seen a lot of stupid sh-- done and said in the name of party politics in my time here. I will give you the perfect example: when I was still in the eUK they had a "House of Lords" which was where useless oldfags were "appointed" to when they were too lazy to gain any power through hard work or merit. This group of players in the "House of Lords" had some imaginary powers which meant they could block the ingame congress from getting some things done, and since this system favoured one political party more than the others there used to be absurd arguments to abolish it or save it.
One evening some years ago London was attacked, in a time when losing a region was a much bigger deal than it is now and before London had ever been conquered, so I went into the UK congress channel to make sure everyone was primed and ready to defend the realm. To my dismay I found the people there squabbling yet again about this stupid House of Lords. I had to ask "You do realise London was just attacked, don't you?", and the reply I received was "JUST SHUT UP THATCHER, WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE THE DAMN LORDS HERE". I hated politicians ever since!
I think the political module is becoming less relevant. People can fight wherever they like, and the people and units who deal the most damage don't have to pay attention to what the campaign of the day is, nor whom their country has an MPP with-- things defined by the "politicians". I'm not sure if there's a way to improve the module to bring it back to relevance, but I think some people really enjoy arguing about taxes, welcome messages or other trivial business. And fair enough, but that is not me.

Should i bother asking you about the economy, or would it be better to ask you about the game in general? Why (still) erepublik? Habit, addiction or simply something you enjoy?

I am terrible with companies and the economy. if I couldn't buy gold I would probably barely be able to find money to train with.
I still enjoy this game, I like to fight alongside friends against enemies and I enjoy playing as part of a team. It used to be Team EDEN, but increasingly it's with my MU that I get most enjoyment from the game itself. After playing so long of course there's an element of addiction, but above all it's the friends that you make that keep you here. I know everyone answers that question with "it's the community", but it's the truth. Who knows why or how, but some people you meet here become your friends.

Which was/is your favorite game version and why? Are there any features you'd like to see reinstated or implemented? Where do you see the game going and what do you expect of it?

Favourite game version was V1. In the war module I liked a lot of features, including that a country's MPPs were only activated IF it was attacked in a core region. The addition of a maximum wait of 24 hours until an automatic attack was a mistake too, as well making all wars free to declare. All these changes were implemented with the aim of forcing everyone to be involved constantly in struggles to the death in the hope that we'd all buy 1000s of gold every day. I think it just cheapened and devalued wars to the point where people barely care about winning or losing a war; you can just start a new one for free immediately anyway.
Perhaps the admins could re examine some of the old rules of war. There were many different rules about initiative, opening wars, activation of MPPs etc that meant that only the best strategists could plan and execute military operations on any scale. We've totally lost that now, finding a way to reintroduce some more strategy would certainly raise some more interest in the military module.

The older the fag, the older the preferred version. Changes rarely seem to be welcomed by the community. I think we're approaching the end of this, will be too long either way 😛 Is there something you'd like to share, or you believe i have omitted asking you? Feel free to say whatever you'd like 🙂

You're right, admins can never please everyone with updates, though I really think some ways to introduce more strategy to the war module would improve the game no end. I'm sure many disagree.
I just assumed you'd keep sending me PMs since it was obvious this isn't an interview but an elaborate flirting technique of yours, but I am spoken for! Move on!

I think freedom doesn't suit you well. You start being insolent the moment i let you out of the dungeons, so i think it's time for you to go back to your little cave.
Oblifag, thank you for this. It was really fun.

Thank you for thinking me worthy of an interview! 🙂

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I'd really like to thank pauki for giving me the idea of this series, with the release of the nyaken.