'The game' we lose anyway

Day 1,277, 10:51 • Published in Serbia Poland • by Notorious Suicide
Artykuł nie zawiera w zasadzie niczego, czego polski subskrybent by już nie czytał w tej i poprzedniej gazecie; tym razem bawię się w infekowanie prasy serbskiej. Woty są mile widziane, bo przepchnięcie się w Serbii jest dużo trudniejsze niż w Polsce, w dodatku - po angielsku. Jako że pojawiły się pewne wątpliwości (pzdr. Nasir, Anglov i Bóg wie kto jeszcze), tłumaczę: wotując powtarzacie tylko czynność, którą wykonaliście już w Polsce. Jeśli nie wotowaliście tamtych artykułów, bo się z nimi nie zgadzaliście, prośba Was oczywiście NIE DOTYCZY. Z tych samych powodów nie proszę o pomoc VC (i nigdy tego nie robiłem).

Greetings, Serbia!

Since it's my first article in your e-country, it would be impolite of me not to introduce myself first. So, my nick is Notorious Suicide and I came from the country of your biggest (though not the greatest, for this title belongs with no doubts to Hungary) ally, ePoland.
I'm playing this game for circa two years, though my profile tells something different (important to note: not even one of my accounts has ever been banned; all of them were abandoned or given to the other players).

Recently I'm occupied foremost with sowing the seeds of discontent all over my e-country, with some success – I contributed to some degree to the previous 'revolution', the spectacle you remember perhaps very well as the battle between players and admins. Even though we failed, the war is by no means over yet.

ePoland is dissatisfied with 'the game' reality; it's just enough to take a look at our press, which looks like graveyard – graveyard of the biggest country eRepublik has ever seen. People don't want to write, read and put any significant attention to eRepublik reality, reality of wars with no results, reality of first, massive, online and free of charge strategy, where the truth is 'online' only.

Serbia looks somehow different; your press is full of life, you seem to enjoy battles and still try to play the game which is in fact nothing different from militarized clone of facebook.
Since I've always held Serbia in the highest esteem for your in-game achievements (especially for highly integrated community), I came to sow the seeds of discontent here as well.

'Why?', you can ask and the answer shall be obvious: I don't like this kind of situation when thousands of people let themselves be tricked. And you're tricked, just as everybody else in eRepublik. In fact we're all losers and this is what I'd like to discuss for a couple of minutes today.

'The game' we lose anyway

Firstly, it's important to ask ourselves: when we're satisfied? The answer is different, as the people are. Still, it's quite easy to distinguish some groups of people with specific attitude, among which the most problematic one I call with the name 'unreflective customer'.

The unreflective consumer is glad under some simple-minded conditions, among which the most important is 'winning'. If you're a winner, you're glad – this is something you can see on example of your beloved friends, Croatians, among whom nobody complains about 'war of mastercards', i.e. a war when ordinary player is nothing but a part of audience, 'enjoying' spectacle of some guys with wallets full of money, who have all the job done. But this is also something that can be observed on your very example – since Romper/Argrob/whatever did once again 'X millions for nothing', you forgot for a moment about 'war of mastercards', enjoying so-called 'victory'
Unreflective consumer is also very easy to be bought – if you remember 'revolution', you're fully aware of its end, by which I mean the new pack of 'wonderful' missions, easy to be accomplished. Unreflective consumer rapidly forgot about all his or her demands – some candies were enough to buy his or her gratitude.

Unreflective customer prefers not to think too much, since thinking is kind of bothersome activity. His main concern is to 'increase': his strength, amount of experience points, currencies and GOLD (recently quit problematic, isn't it?). Together with the other parts of the mob, he lives the illusion of 'having impact upon something' – like, for instant, the outcome of battle. It's kind of sad, for no one can by successful in eRepublik any longer.

If you're soldier, your strength and rank is something of the second-rate importance, for the most important factor is the money you have in your bank account.
If you're businessman, you just a sucker – all of your companies, thousands of RSD and GOLD reserves means nothing when compared with the unlimited amount of GOLD one can purchase in no time.
If you politician, you're the sucker among the suckers: you contribute thousands of hours on IRC, organize elections, develop strategy...and for what? For nothing. There's no strategy in this 'game', since all you can do when waging wars is just to select ONE region to attack and try to coordinate your armies to win another mini-battles. That's all. You cannot rule the world, conquer any country for a longer period of time, send your military across the world or provide your economics with some stability. You're the man who does a Sisyphean job, to let 'the game' go on and keep administration satisfied.

There's no war, there's no economy – basically, there's no game; eRepublik, as a simulation of anything else than facebook, is gone from the moment v2 died. Since September we're not playing – we're simply vegetating.

But there's a certain group of unreflective customers that sucks even more than we do: our beloved mastercards. I described their situation in the previous article that you can read here if you want. Just to underline my main thesis – we're living under illusion of playing game, which costs us plenty of time. They live the same illusion, but they contribute with not only their time and efforts, but also – thousands of euro and dollars. This is a little tragedy, in fact very typical for people tricked by advertisement. The guy we all love, Romper, cannot win any war, not matter what enormous amount of GOLD he purchases; even if he, with cooperation with all EDEN and TERRA mastercards, erases any country, the country will be back on map very soon – it's just the matter of hours. Can't he see it? I wonder...

Warning! Illegal public debate

You know that, don't you? Plato's beloved reason to make me silent. It's funny, for I cannot see anything illegal in discussions like this. I'm not against eRepublik, in fact – I would like to see this product to be the game once again, the game we can enjoy together. I've also wished all the best to owners of eRepublik – the more money you guys have, the more cheerful I am, really!

But there's a problem that smrtan used to name as 'the Romanian theory of economy' (or 'the Romanian capitalism'). Under circumstances of well developed capitalism everybody knows, that the best way to earn money is to keep customers satisfied. Customers here are not, even unreflective ones (they are raging against eRepublik with very regular frequency – and the reason is always the same, even if they're unable to give it the proper name). Admins cannot understand the responsibility which they hold upon their shoulders, for, because of some unknown reasons, they don't get the fact that we built the game and we're the very reason behind all the money they have. There's not mastercards without community, there's no money without mastercards – quite easy, as for me.
Since they don't get it, they prefer not to put any attention to our comfort of playing, focusing mainly on the profit they have because of unlimited wellness box. Kinda foolish strategy – this 'game' can be much bigger and profitable, satisfying needs of majority of us in the same time. All they need to do is to concentrate on improvements instead of tracing the changes in their bank account.

But now, it's merely the game we all lose.
We, players, we, mastercards...and, hell yeah, 'we admins' as well.

P.S. Accept my earnest apology for my limited knowledge of English; I would prefer to write in Serbian, but, as for now, all I know is your alphabet and some words.
P.P.S. Maybe you don't know, but we just have been given the new mission, called "Romanian border". You can find one if you purchase 1000 of GOLD. And remember – it's not a bug, it's a feature! (More details here).