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[Intl] Ten Easy Steps to Fix the Game
WARNING! Massive text wall
The people we use to call Admins are actually divided in 2 categories:
1. The owners;
2. The employees
For us this is a game, a form of entertainment. For the Admins this is either a business or a way to make a living. And if the things continue on the same trend they will be out of business and looking for jobs by Christmas.
The good news is there are just 10 steps to fix it quickly. Those steps are very low-tech and very cheap to implement. In order to make it even easier to implement them I will group them into 3 categories:
A. Kill the Cheating
Let’s face it: the cheaters are above-average tech-savvy people whose motivation for cheating falls into one or a combination of the following categories:
- They are psychopaths in the medical meaning of the term.
The overwhelming majority of the psychopaths don’t run wild wearing ski masks and wielding chainsaws. That’s how Hollywood depicts them.
The true psychopaths “value self-gratification more than ethics”. They would simply ruin the game for the sheer pleasure of ruining it. They get high on watching the outrage they cause to the “lamers” (this is us, the people who enjoy the game) and the Real Life problems they create to the Admins (who are threatened in their livelihood by the demise of their business);
- They have a Real-Life axe to grind. Their cheating attempts to redress “historical injustices” in-game by making their country artificially stronger on the computer screen (as if the in-game situation would redraw the Real-Life borders);
- They are in for the money. In many countries there is a black-market for the eRepublik gold. People can pay less Real Life money to get it instead of purchasing it from eRepublik. This creates an economic incentive to bot-farm it. And hurts your bottom line.
Whatever the motivation, you don’t need those people in your business anymore than we need them in our game.
Keep Jason out of eRepublik!
The following easy ways would kill most of the cheating:
1. If a battle is DDoSed, freeze the military module (freeze all the battle running) it and restart it at the same time the next day.
24hrs is ample time to fix most of the DDoSs since the ISPs have grown very intolerant to such activities even in the most exotic countries where law enforcement is otherwise weak.
If the hackers are persistent they might DDoS it again once or twice but they will run out of resources soon. We have seen a decline in DDoSs after the battles which brought Serbia to Liaoning and which stopped Poland from taking North of Brazil. You Admins know very well the decline in DDoSs didn’t happen because of lack of trying but because of the attackers ran out of resources.
No hax0r has unlimited resources at hand
Restarting the frozen military module at the same time next day eliminates the need for you having to decide the winner. It spares you conflicts with one of the sides in that battle, maintaining that very precious commodity called goodwill.
It does not change the time-zone advantage for the attacker or defender. It protects the “investment” of the people who used Real Life money, your paying customers, the most important people for you.
Since all the DDoSs happen towards the end of the battle it means both the attackers and the defenders had their people mobilised anyway. One more day for mobilising them won’t alter much the outcome. Given the military module was frozen, all the battles, including the diversionary attacks will be running in the same time. Who would dare to divert resources from the diversionary attacks to the “main” battle? A true diversionary attack is an attack on something valuable which therefore must be defended. Otherwise no diversion is a serious one anyway.
2. Restrict new players registration to the country indicated by the IP and block the access from popular proxies of that country.
Each country has only a handful of “anonymous surfing providers” plus the TOR network. This makes the process manageable and would kill only one currently existing country: North Korea. If you want to keep North Korea alive nevertheless, allow first-time registration from South Korea only.
Such measure would have eliminated the Argentinian “baby-boom” and countless of scripted PTOs.
If you want a real clean game, do the same like when you’ve introduced citizenship for the first time: automatically grant the “IP citizenship” to everybody and eliminate the possibility to acquire automatic citizenship if the Congress is dead.
“Oh, but I am a South Korean working for Samsung in Bucharest - I want to play for South Korea, not for Romania”
Since the Admins reverted all the citizenships of the “South Koreans” to their IP-based citizenships and eliminated the Congressmen who don’t have a South Korean IP, next time all the Congress will be comprised of Real Life South Koreans.
You will be able to apply for South Korean citizenship. If you are a South Korean of course you speak the Korean language and can convince the Congressmen you deserve the South Korean citizenship.
“My only reason for playing this game is the role-playing. I didn’t join for nationalistic reasons. The best proof is even though I’m Real Life Romanian I have joined the game as Brazilian. Reverting my citizenship to Romanian would ruin the game for me and I’ll quit”.
Just like in real life, citizenship of another country than your native one must be earned. If you role-played so far as a eBrazilian the Brazilian community knows you as a loyal eBrazilian citizen and therefore the Brazilian Congress will grant you back the Brazilian citizenship when you re-apply for it.
They don’t know you as a loyal eBrazilian citizen? The you didn't role-play as you should have. Start earning their trust now.
“Oh, but if we revert citizenships to the IP-based ones, some countries will be very sparsely populated, would have no economy and would be easy to overrun. So they will be invaded by their bigger neighbors or, even if that’s not the case, life there would be very boring. Then we’re back to the situation of a Real Life citizen joining, seeing his country is under foreign rule or there’s no company working because there are no internal goods market and labor market and quitting”.
Right now we have the rule that a new country is protected against war for 45 days. This rule can be extended to something like:
- New Countries are protected against war until 45 days after they reach a population of 200 active players;
- Any citizen of such new country can travel to any destination in the eWorld or from any destination of the eWorld to their New Country free of charge. The purpose of this rule allows people to register as say Egyptians but go to work and gain military experience in the eUSA until there are 200 Real-Life Egyptians playing the game. Since initially Egypt has no plane ticket companies (no economy at all) that’s the only way they could travel;
- Once the population of a new country has reached the 200 active players level, the fist elected Congressmen could grant up to 30% passports (the rule for old countries is 10%). Such measure would allow the country to quickly increase the population by accepting friendly immigrants.
Given such a new country has had 45 days of protection from attacks she has had enough time to negotiate security arrangements with either EDEN or Phoenix or any other already existing military alliance. Therefore the meaning of the term of “friendly immigrant” would be clear by the time the measure is implemented.
“Why not allow automatic granting of citizenships if the Congress is dead because the country is under occupation?”
Chaos doesn't necessarily breed order
Your interest as businessmen is to have as many paying customers as possible. That means you want as many customers as possible who feel like using their credit cards. If the country is under occupation and then PTOed it decreases the likelihood of the Real Life citizens continuing to play the game after joining it. This can be best seen in countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Australia, South Africa.
Or simply look at the situation in the USA: they need to go through the hoops on every Party President, Congress and Presidential election due to how easy is nowadays to abuse the game mechanics and PTO a country with so many states/provinces/regions like the USA.
Going through the hoops distorts the electoral process killing the fun for the people interested in the political module. Kill the fun means kill the players and killing the players means also killing the paying customers.
“Oh, but that would ruin the game for many people!”
Oh, really?! The real people involved in PTO or APTO operations are very few. And the overwhelming majority of those real people are not paying customers anyway.
The largest PTOs in eRepublik history were when Romania captured half of the Indonesian Congress, when Romania captured the majority of seats in the Ukrainian Congress and when Romania again captured the majority in the Czech Congress.
As a Romanian I am very proud of the organizing skills of our PTO team leaders. Unlike scripted PTOs with bot-farms, it is not easy to coordinate a few hundreds of real people involved in each of those PTOs.
But how many of the members of those teams were paying customers? How many of them helped you Admins pay the bills, provide a decent return on investment to your investors and put bread on your tables?
Do not forget this is a business. Today many Real Life high income countries are PTOed in-game. What do you think would a guy from such a country do when he joins the game and finds out almost everybody there speaks a foreign language? Would he use his credit card to buy gold or would he simply walk away?
PTOs not only prevent you from acquiring paying customers from the high-income countries, they further encourage cheating:
- without PTOs most of the land-swaps would not have been possible, which in turn would not have encouraged DDoSs;
- robbing PTOed countries’ treasuries is a simple way to get gold for the Black Market.
3. Don’t give gold as a reward for bringing people to the game. Give gold only for bringing paying customers. Reward bringing non-paying players who reach a certain level with objects like “Q5” houses, weapons, free classes with Napoleon, etc.
Yes, I know you imagine it’s cheaper for you if we act as your salesmen “for free”. However it is worth to understand our motivations and the whole picture before deciding how to reward us.
The only people who are in this game for the gold are the people who do bot-farming so they can sell the gold for Real Life cash on the Black Market.
The rest of the people convert the gold into houses, weapons, sandwiching Lana between them and Napoleon. So why not simply give us that stuff directly?!
Keep the gold for rewarding those who bring you the paying customers, the credit-card users.
4. Captcha all the elections.
Yeah, the captcha is annoying but we have only 3 elections per month: party president, congress, country president.
You are yourselves aware of the relation between bot-farming and elections. After all, that’s why you’re now taking time to check the election results. Even in the Real Life elections they check our IDs. Why should it be different in the in-game elections?!
5. Eliminate the monetary donations, either of gold or any other currency.
The only allowed monetary donations should be:
- between players and the orgs they have founded or among the orgs owned by the same person;
- from the State Treasury to the players starting RWs. This should be a very special type of donation available from the RW menu in order to make impossible to rob the State Treasury;
- from the players or orgs to the State Treasury, but such donations should be always captcha-controlled in order to eliminate the “patriotic bot-farming”.
Killing the ability of the bot-farmers to collect their gold (or to transfer it easily to the State Treasury - in case of the “patriotic bot-farming) would eliminate one of the biggest incentives to bot-farm.
The method has another benefit, less obvious: it would kill the ability to trade goods bypassing the market (the so called Black Market for Goods). If the Black Market for Goods disappears all the goods will be traded and taxed by the governments. This means more money for the State Treasuries and therefore more wars. More wars means more fun.
Killing the Black Market for Goods would also eliminate the risk of fraud like when somebody donates money for a Q5 house and receives a q1 bread instead.
“There are many honest traders out there on the Black Market for Goods. Why hurting them as well?”
The solution is simple: allow the orgs to also sell goods on the market.
The honest traders use their orgs to buy the goods on the markets where those goods are the cheapest and then donate them to the players in exchange for gold. If the orgs are allowed to sell instead of donating we eliminate the risk of receiving Q1 bread instead of a Q5 house.
Besides, the State Treasury collects the VAT. More money to the State treasury, more often the countries can engage in wars. And wars keep the economy running and the people interested in the game.
“This would kill the ERX”
Doesn’t bother you a smart idea like the ERX isn’t already implemented in the game mechanics?
Do you lack the manpower to implement it? Hire the guys who created it instead of paying the hackers who sabotaged your game repeatedly. Reward constructive behavior instead of the destructive one.
By hiring the hackers you only encourage more people to get your attention by destroying the game. The problem is each time a hacker “advertises” his skills and gets your attention you lose players. And on average each dissatisfied player would tell to 8 other people how crappy your game is.
6. Kill the “tax evasion via the Monetary Market”
The other way the bot-farmers transfer the gold is the Money Market with the famous offers like 1USD = 100 gold. Make it impossible the offers on the Monetary Market to be lower than 5% below the 24 h average exchange rate.
When legitimate companies use the Money Market for tax evasion the State collects zero profit taxes. Zero profit taxes means less money in the State Treasury and therefore less gold for attacking.
Less gold for attacking means less frequent battles, bread and weapons piling up, companies going bankrupt and players getting bored. Just like in the Real Life, tax evasion is bad. It helps the bot-farmers and ruins your business.
B. Treat the Players with Respect
No long article can do without boobs
1. Pay attention and encourage criticism of ANY type
The following provision of the eRepublik rules is a major business killer:
“Public debates are encouraged in the New World, however public debates and/or complaints regarding the eRepublik team's actions toward one citizen or a group of citizens will not be allowed. Only the eRepublik team has the necessary tools to determine if a citizen or group has made a violation, and public discussion only created to undermine the team's decision will not be permitted.”
This image captures the essence of the text above
If you act in North Korean style and try to keep criticism behind close doors you will have the people criticising your game and your decisions on external forums like the US forum or the Romanian forum where you have absolutely no control.
Angrier people would hunt you down on gamers’ forums and on Tech Crunch (it has happened already). Even angrier would write to your investors (that has also happened).
“But people are often unfair with us Admins and this is psychologically taxing for us”
Yes, and you are paid to handle criticism. You have what to eat, you can pay your bills and so on because eRepublik is still in business and you have a place where to work. You can’t handle the heat? Look for a less nerve-wreaking job!
If you are doing voluntary work, then you chose to do that work. Nobody forced you at gunpoint.
“But people are unfair and they scare away the new players”
Do not insult the intelligence of the new players. If an article is truly unfair the majority of the people would know it, even when a troll-gang posts supporting comments or votes that article up.
Besides the new players are players. People who read on other forums about your Stalinist style of Public Relations will never become players to begin with.
2. Respect our commitment to the game:
- Make it possible for the decision makers to see how much money each tax brings.
Right now neither the Country Presidents nor the Congress Members can see how much money each tax brings to the Treasury. Because of that running a country becomes a matter of guessing.
This is intolerable especially considering how much time a Country President puts into this game.
- Warn the people who want to create a new company if the new company won’t be profitable given the level of market prices and labor costs.
You probably imagine it’s good for your business if people burn their gold by opening companies destined to fail from day one.
Yes, they will . Then they will decide the economic module sucks.
If people are prevented from wasting their gold on creating stillborn companies they will use it on weapons, food or wellness packs. You would still collect that gold. But that gold would generate a pleasant experience.
Pleasant experiences entice people to spend more Real Life money for eRepublik gold. Unpleasant experiences hardly make them to use their credit cards.
- Stop wasting our time
A. Do you imagine it is fun for an army or militia commander to hand out weapons, tickets, gold and food by hand to between 30 and 150 people?
An army commander or a militia commander plays a very important role in building the community. He or she keeps the other players interested in the game, gives advice to the less experienced members, builds the esprit de corps which makes people eager to wake up at odd hours in order to fight in a battle happening in another time zone.
Those guys actually work for YOU for free. Treat them with respect. Let them automate the repetitive tasks which bring no fun, just burnout.
If you implement the measures listed in the “Kill the cheating” category then scripting the weapons and food distribution and the buying of raw materials is helping your business not hindering it. Because all that food, all those weapons and all those raw materials would end up being used by real people.
Each minute an army or militia commander saves by automating the tedious tasks is a minute he spends with his people keeping their spirits up and their interest for the game alive.
B. Do you imagine it’s any fun in sending PMs by hand to the new players, inviting them to join the IRC channels or chat rooms and informing them help is available if they have questions?
The people who take care of the new players, guiding their first steps through the game are your UNPAID Customer Service staff. Make their job easier, not harder if you want to increase the retention.
“But we’re afraid of spamming”
At the beginning of each term the Country President would give access to the mass mailing tools to the members of the Welcoming Committee. If you see those guys abusing the system you can revoke their access, permaban them or do whatever you deem appropriate. But give them the tools to help YOU.
C. Make War Not Love
Yet another chick to make the loooong article more palatable
It’s harder for the countries to make money in V2. And people leaving the game makes it even harder. As a result the attacks are less and less frequent. Whole alliances are forced to cooperate in order to finance one or two battles simultaneously.
Less battles means less fun.
Don’t fool yourselves imagining if the countries have less money to attack each other the people would magically start to use their credit cards. Patriotic spending won’t happen.
People would invest in their own character. Maybe in their own company so their character makes more gold in-game. But that’s how far the spending would go. You know that already but you seem not to understand why is it happening.
Let the export licenses be cashed in by the countries’ treasuries. Do the same for the company upgrades or at least a fraction of the amount. That gold would return in-game as attacks. If you want to be sure it doesn’t gets redistributed to the players, simply create an account called “Defense budget” from which only attacks can be paid.
More action means more fun. More fun means more interest in investing Real Money in one’s character.
D. Make it worthwhile to spend OUR time on YOUR website
Forums and blogs are a big thing on the Internet for good reason.
If there are players who can write, let them write on whatever topic. It would be easier to sell targeted advertising space in specialized “newspapers” even though the articles are not about eRepublik.
If people like what’s written there it’s not your job to delete those articles as spam. Your job is to convince advertisers to sell their Real Life cars, computers, cameras, fishing rods or whatever in the pages of those “newspapers”.
Also stop the double-faced idiocy about bringing Real Life issues in-game. You chose to make this a war-game based on Real Life countries. Nobody forced you to place your game on Earth instead of on the planet Alderaan.
All the baby-booms are spurred by nationalism and trying to mute it simply kills your business.
Hey, even your add about “A new war is about to begin, you can start it or you can stop it” uses what you naively assume to be a Real Life rivalry between Germany and France over Alsace. It isn't! The Germans don't care about Alsace/Elsass. Try harder!
“But we don’t want skinheads, racists, white supremacists and Neonazis joining our game”
Of course not. They are bad for the business and anyway they tend to spend their real money on booze, drugs and porn.
Use the ban-hammer for any blatantly racist or Nazi stuff and allow the rest. Look at how the war game forums based on say WW2 or history in general handle such issues, learn and apply.
For my American readers who may not understand why the Europeans consider legitimate to ban-hammer racists and Nazis from the Internet:
In Real Life it might be OK to allow people parade on the streets carrying torches and spewing their hatred. As long as they are only shouting but not acting on their hatred one may say they’re exercising their freedom of speech.
In-game however the KKK, skinheads and Nazis can’t physically hurt anybody. But they will ruin the pleasure of the game for the rest of us. We have invested long hours in that web-based game or Internet Forum. Time is money. Vandalizing the game with their filth is like vandalizing our property. So most of us in Europe consider the vandals deserve what they get.
So Admins, I have took the time to write this over the week-end. In Real Life I do consulting and I charge for my advice. You are receiving it for free. Make good use of it. Or do whatever you like.
The people we use to call Admins are actually divided in 2 categories:
1. The owners;
2. The employees
For us this is a game, a form of entertainment. For the Admins this is either a business or a way to make a living. And if the things continue on the same trend they will be out of business and looking for jobs by Christmas.
The good news is there are just 10 steps to fix it quickly. Those steps are very low-tech and very cheap to implement. In order to make it even easier to implement them I will group them into 3 categories:
A. Kill the Cheating
Let’s face it: the cheaters are above-average tech-savvy people whose motivation for cheating falls into one or a combination of the following categories:
- They are psychopaths in the medical meaning of the term.
The overwhelming majority of the psychopaths don’t run wild wearing ski masks and wielding chainsaws. That’s how Hollywood depicts them.
The true psychopaths “value self-gratification more than ethics”. They would simply ruin the game for the sheer pleasure of ruining it. They get high on watching the outrage they cause to the “lamers” (this is us, the people who enjoy the game) and the Real Life problems they create to the Admins (who are threatened in their livelihood by the demise of their business);
- They have a Real-Life axe to grind. Their cheating attempts to redress “historical injustices” in-game by making their country artificially stronger on the computer screen (as if the in-game situation would redraw the Real-Life borders);
- They are in for the money. In many countries there is a black-market for the eRepublik gold. People can pay less Real Life money to get it instead of purchasing it from eRepublik. This creates an economic incentive to bot-farm it. And hurts your bottom line.
Whatever the motivation, you don’t need those people in your business anymore than we need them in our game.
Keep Jason out of eRepublik!
The following easy ways would kill most of the cheating:
1. If a battle is DDoSed, freeze the military module (freeze all the battle running) it and restart it at the same time the next day.
24hrs is ample time to fix most of the DDoSs since the ISPs have grown very intolerant to such activities even in the most exotic countries where law enforcement is otherwise weak.
If the hackers are persistent they might DDoS it again once or twice but they will run out of resources soon. We have seen a decline in DDoSs after the battles which brought Serbia to Liaoning and which stopped Poland from taking North of Brazil. You Admins know very well the decline in DDoSs didn’t happen because of lack of trying but because of the attackers ran out of resources.
No hax0r has unlimited resources at hand
Restarting the frozen military module at the same time next day eliminates the need for you having to decide the winner. It spares you conflicts with one of the sides in that battle, maintaining that very precious commodity called goodwill.
It does not change the time-zone advantage for the attacker or defender. It protects the “investment” of the people who used Real Life money, your paying customers, the most important people for you.
Since all the DDoSs happen towards the end of the battle it means both the attackers and the defenders had their people mobilised anyway. One more day for mobilising them won’t alter much the outcome. Given the military module was frozen, all the battles, including the diversionary attacks will be running in the same time. Who would dare to divert resources from the diversionary attacks to the “main” battle? A true diversionary attack is an attack on something valuable which therefore must be defended. Otherwise no diversion is a serious one anyway.
2. Restrict new players registration to the country indicated by the IP and block the access from popular proxies of that country.
Each country has only a handful of “anonymous surfing providers” plus the TOR network. This makes the process manageable and would kill only one currently existing country: North Korea. If you want to keep North Korea alive nevertheless, allow first-time registration from South Korea only.
Such measure would have eliminated the Argentinian “baby-boom” and countless of scripted PTOs.
If you want a real clean game, do the same like when you’ve introduced citizenship for the first time: automatically grant the “IP citizenship” to everybody and eliminate the possibility to acquire automatic citizenship if the Congress is dead.
“Oh, but I am a South Korean working for Samsung in Bucharest - I want to play for South Korea, not for Romania”
Since the Admins reverted all the citizenships of the “South Koreans” to their IP-based citizenships and eliminated the Congressmen who don’t have a South Korean IP, next time all the Congress will be comprised of Real Life South Koreans.
You will be able to apply for South Korean citizenship. If you are a South Korean of course you speak the Korean language and can convince the Congressmen you deserve the South Korean citizenship.
“My only reason for playing this game is the role-playing. I didn’t join for nationalistic reasons. The best proof is even though I’m Real Life Romanian I have joined the game as Brazilian. Reverting my citizenship to Romanian would ruin the game for me and I’ll quit”.
Just like in real life, citizenship of another country than your native one must be earned. If you role-played so far as a eBrazilian the Brazilian community knows you as a loyal eBrazilian citizen and therefore the Brazilian Congress will grant you back the Brazilian citizenship when you re-apply for it.
They don’t know you as a loyal eBrazilian citizen? The you didn't role-play as you should have. Start earning their trust now.
“Oh, but if we revert citizenships to the IP-based ones, some countries will be very sparsely populated, would have no economy and would be easy to overrun. So they will be invaded by their bigger neighbors or, even if that’s not the case, life there would be very boring. Then we’re back to the situation of a Real Life citizen joining, seeing his country is under foreign rule or there’s no company working because there are no internal goods market and labor market and quitting”.
Right now we have the rule that a new country is protected against war for 45 days. This rule can be extended to something like:
- New Countries are protected against war until 45 days after they reach a population of 200 active players;
- Any citizen of such new country can travel to any destination in the eWorld or from any destination of the eWorld to their New Country free of charge. The purpose of this rule allows people to register as say Egyptians but go to work and gain military experience in the eUSA until there are 200 Real-Life Egyptians playing the game. Since initially Egypt has no plane ticket companies (no economy at all) that’s the only way they could travel;
- Once the population of a new country has reached the 200 active players level, the fist elected Congressmen could grant up to 30% passports (the rule for old countries is 10%). Such measure would allow the country to quickly increase the population by accepting friendly immigrants.
Given such a new country has had 45 days of protection from attacks she has had enough time to negotiate security arrangements with either EDEN or Phoenix or any other already existing military alliance. Therefore the meaning of the term of “friendly immigrant” would be clear by the time the measure is implemented.
“Why not allow automatic granting of citizenships if the Congress is dead because the country is under occupation?”
Chaos doesn't necessarily breed order
Your interest as businessmen is to have as many paying customers as possible. That means you want as many customers as possible who feel like using their credit cards. If the country is under occupation and then PTOed it decreases the likelihood of the Real Life citizens continuing to play the game after joining it. This can be best seen in countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Australia, South Africa.
Or simply look at the situation in the USA: they need to go through the hoops on every Party President, Congress and Presidential election due to how easy is nowadays to abuse the game mechanics and PTO a country with so many states/provinces/regions like the USA.
Going through the hoops distorts the electoral process killing the fun for the people interested in the political module. Kill the fun means kill the players and killing the players means also killing the paying customers.
“Oh, but that would ruin the game for many people!”
Oh, really?! The real people involved in PTO or APTO operations are very few. And the overwhelming majority of those real people are not paying customers anyway.
The largest PTOs in eRepublik history were when Romania captured half of the Indonesian Congress, when Romania captured the majority of seats in the Ukrainian Congress and when Romania again captured the majority in the Czech Congress.
As a Romanian I am very proud of the organizing skills of our PTO team leaders. Unlike scripted PTOs with bot-farms, it is not easy to coordinate a few hundreds of real people involved in each of those PTOs.
But how many of the members of those teams were paying customers? How many of them helped you Admins pay the bills, provide a decent return on investment to your investors and put bread on your tables?
Do not forget this is a business. Today many Real Life high income countries are PTOed in-game. What do you think would a guy from such a country do when he joins the game and finds out almost everybody there speaks a foreign language? Would he use his credit card to buy gold or would he simply walk away?
PTOs not only prevent you from acquiring paying customers from the high-income countries, they further encourage cheating:
- without PTOs most of the land-swaps would not have been possible, which in turn would not have encouraged DDoSs;
- robbing PTOed countries’ treasuries is a simple way to get gold for the Black Market.
3. Don’t give gold as a reward for bringing people to the game. Give gold only for bringing paying customers. Reward bringing non-paying players who reach a certain level with objects like “Q5” houses, weapons, free classes with Napoleon, etc.
Yes, I know you imagine it’s cheaper for you if we act as your salesmen “for free”. However it is worth to understand our motivations and the whole picture before deciding how to reward us.
The only people who are in this game for the gold are the people who do bot-farming so they can sell the gold for Real Life cash on the Black Market.
The rest of the people convert the gold into houses, weapons, sandwiching Lana between them and Napoleon. So why not simply give us that stuff directly?!
Keep the gold for rewarding those who bring you the paying customers, the credit-card users.
4. Captcha all the elections.
Yeah, the captcha is annoying but we have only 3 elections per month: party president, congress, country president.
You are yourselves aware of the relation between bot-farming and elections. After all, that’s why you’re now taking time to check the election results. Even in the Real Life elections they check our IDs. Why should it be different in the in-game elections?!
5. Eliminate the monetary donations, either of gold or any other currency.
The only allowed monetary donations should be:
- between players and the orgs they have founded or among the orgs owned by the same person;
- from the State Treasury to the players starting RWs. This should be a very special type of donation available from the RW menu in order to make impossible to rob the State Treasury;
- from the players or orgs to the State Treasury, but such donations should be always captcha-controlled in order to eliminate the “patriotic bot-farming”.
Killing the ability of the bot-farmers to collect their gold (or to transfer it easily to the State Treasury - in case of the “patriotic bot-farming) would eliminate one of the biggest incentives to bot-farm.
The method has another benefit, less obvious: it would kill the ability to trade goods bypassing the market (the so called Black Market for Goods). If the Black Market for Goods disappears all the goods will be traded and taxed by the governments. This means more money for the State Treasuries and therefore more wars. More wars means more fun.
Killing the Black Market for Goods would also eliminate the risk of fraud like when somebody donates money for a Q5 house and receives a q1 bread instead.
“There are many honest traders out there on the Black Market for Goods. Why hurting them as well?”
The solution is simple: allow the orgs to also sell goods on the market.
The honest traders use their orgs to buy the goods on the markets where those goods are the cheapest and then donate them to the players in exchange for gold. If the orgs are allowed to sell instead of donating we eliminate the risk of receiving Q1 bread instead of a Q5 house.
Besides, the State Treasury collects the VAT. More money to the State treasury, more often the countries can engage in wars. And wars keep the economy running and the people interested in the game.
“This would kill the ERX”
Doesn’t bother you a smart idea like the ERX isn’t already implemented in the game mechanics?
Do you lack the manpower to implement it? Hire the guys who created it instead of paying the hackers who sabotaged your game repeatedly. Reward constructive behavior instead of the destructive one.
By hiring the hackers you only encourage more people to get your attention by destroying the game. The problem is each time a hacker “advertises” his skills and gets your attention you lose players. And on average each dissatisfied player would tell to 8 other people how crappy your game is.
6. Kill the “tax evasion via the Monetary Market”
The other way the bot-farmers transfer the gold is the Money Market with the famous offers like 1USD = 100 gold. Make it impossible the offers on the Monetary Market to be lower than 5% below the 24 h average exchange rate.
When legitimate companies use the Money Market for tax evasion the State collects zero profit taxes. Zero profit taxes means less money in the State Treasury and therefore less gold for attacking.
Less gold for attacking means less frequent battles, bread and weapons piling up, companies going bankrupt and players getting bored. Just like in the Real Life, tax evasion is bad. It helps the bot-farmers and ruins your business.
B. Treat the Players with Respect
No long article can do without boobs
1. Pay attention and encourage criticism of ANY type
The following provision of the eRepublik rules is a major business killer:
“Public debates are encouraged in the New World, however public debates and/or complaints regarding the eRepublik team's actions toward one citizen or a group of citizens will not be allowed. Only the eRepublik team has the necessary tools to determine if a citizen or group has made a violation, and public discussion only created to undermine the team's decision will not be permitted.”
This image captures the essence of the text above
If you act in North Korean style and try to keep criticism behind close doors you will have the people criticising your game and your decisions on external forums like the US forum or the Romanian forum where you have absolutely no control.
Angrier people would hunt you down on gamers’ forums and on Tech Crunch (it has happened already). Even angrier would write to your investors (that has also happened).
“But people are often unfair with us Admins and this is psychologically taxing for us”
Yes, and you are paid to handle criticism. You have what to eat, you can pay your bills and so on because eRepublik is still in business and you have a place where to work. You can’t handle the heat? Look for a less nerve-wreaking job!
If you are doing voluntary work, then you chose to do that work. Nobody forced you at gunpoint.
“But people are unfair and they scare away the new players”
Do not insult the intelligence of the new players. If an article is truly unfair the majority of the people would know it, even when a troll-gang posts supporting comments or votes that article up.
Besides the new players are players. People who read on other forums about your Stalinist style of Public Relations will never become players to begin with.
2. Respect our commitment to the game:
- Make it possible for the decision makers to see how much money each tax brings.
Right now neither the Country Presidents nor the Congress Members can see how much money each tax brings to the Treasury. Because of that running a country becomes a matter of guessing.
This is intolerable especially considering how much time a Country President puts into this game.
- Warn the people who want to create a new company if the new company won’t be profitable given the level of market prices and labor costs.
You probably imagine it’s good for your business if people burn their gold by opening companies destined to fail from day one.
Yes, they will . Then they will decide the economic module sucks.
If people are prevented from wasting their gold on creating stillborn companies they will use it on weapons, food or wellness packs. You would still collect that gold. But that gold would generate a pleasant experience.
Pleasant experiences entice people to spend more Real Life money for eRepublik gold. Unpleasant experiences hardly make them to use their credit cards.
- Stop wasting our time
A. Do you imagine it is fun for an army or militia commander to hand out weapons, tickets, gold and food by hand to between 30 and 150 people?
An army commander or a militia commander plays a very important role in building the community. He or she keeps the other players interested in the game, gives advice to the less experienced members, builds the esprit de corps which makes people eager to wake up at odd hours in order to fight in a battle happening in another time zone.
Those guys actually work for YOU for free. Treat them with respect. Let them automate the repetitive tasks which bring no fun, just burnout.
If you implement the measures listed in the “Kill the cheating” category then scripting the weapons and food distribution and the buying of raw materials is helping your business not hindering it. Because all that food, all those weapons and all those raw materials would end up being used by real people.
Each minute an army or militia commander saves by automating the tedious tasks is a minute he spends with his people keeping their spirits up and their interest for the game alive.
B. Do you imagine it’s any fun in sending PMs by hand to the new players, inviting them to join the IRC channels or chat rooms and informing them help is available if they have questions?
The people who take care of the new players, guiding their first steps through the game are your UNPAID Customer Service staff. Make their job easier, not harder if you want to increase the retention.
“But we’re afraid of spamming”
At the beginning of each term the Country President would give access to the mass mailing tools to the members of the Welcoming Committee. If you see those guys abusing the system you can revoke their access, permaban them or do whatever you deem appropriate. But give them the tools to help YOU.
C. Make War Not Love
Yet another chick to make the loooong article more palatable
It’s harder for the countries to make money in V2. And people leaving the game makes it even harder. As a result the attacks are less and less frequent. Whole alliances are forced to cooperate in order to finance one or two battles simultaneously.
Less battles means less fun.
Don’t fool yourselves imagining if the countries have less money to attack each other the people would magically start to use their credit cards. Patriotic spending won’t happen.
People would invest in their own character. Maybe in their own company so their character makes more gold in-game. But that’s how far the spending would go. You know that already but you seem not to understand why is it happening.
Let the export licenses be cashed in by the countries’ treasuries. Do the same for the company upgrades or at least a fraction of the amount. That gold would return in-game as attacks. If you want to be sure it doesn’t gets redistributed to the players, simply create an account called “Defense budget” from which only attacks can be paid.
More action means more fun. More fun means more interest in investing Real Money in one’s character.
D. Make it worthwhile to spend OUR time on YOUR website
Forums and blogs are a big thing on the Internet for good reason.
If there are players who can write, let them write on whatever topic. It would be easier to sell targeted advertising space in specialized “newspapers” even though the articles are not about eRepublik.
If people like what’s written there it’s not your job to delete those articles as spam. Your job is to convince advertisers to sell their Real Life cars, computers, cameras, fishing rods or whatever in the pages of those “newspapers”.
Also stop the double-faced idiocy about bringing Real Life issues in-game. You chose to make this a war-game based on Real Life countries. Nobody forced you to place your game on Earth instead of on the planet Alderaan.
All the baby-booms are spurred by nationalism and trying to mute it simply kills your business.
Hey, even your add about “A new war is about to begin, you can start it or you can stop it” uses what you naively assume to be a Real Life rivalry between Germany and France over Alsace. It isn't! The Germans don't care about Alsace/Elsass. Try harder!
“But we don’t want skinheads, racists, white supremacists and Neonazis joining our game”
Of course not. They are bad for the business and anyway they tend to spend their real money on booze, drugs and porn.
Use the ban-hammer for any blatantly racist or Nazi stuff and allow the rest. Look at how the war game forums based on say WW2 or history in general handle such issues, learn and apply.
For my American readers who may not understand why the Europeans consider legitimate to ban-hammer racists and Nazis from the Internet:
In Real Life it might be OK to allow people parade on the streets carrying torches and spewing their hatred. As long as they are only shouting but not acting on their hatred one may say they’re exercising their freedom of speech.
In-game however the KKK, skinheads and Nazis can’t physically hurt anybody. But they will ruin the pleasure of the game for the rest of us. We have invested long hours in that web-based game or Internet Forum. Time is money. Vandalizing the game with their filth is like vandalizing our property. So most of us in Europe consider the vandals deserve what they get.
So Admins, I have took the time to write this over the week-end. In Real Life I do consulting and I charge for my advice. You are receiving it for free. Make good use of it. Or do whatever you like.
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yoy ce mult ai scris... poti pune un rezumat la inceput?
>>> Restrict new players registration to the country indicated by the IP and block the access from popular proxies of that country.
Kim Jong-il in North Korea anyone?
"“Oh, but I am a South Korean working for Samsung in Bucharest - I want to play for South Korea, not for Romania”
Since the Admins reverted all the citizenships of the “South Koreans” to their IP-based citizenships and eliminated the Congressmen who don’t have a South Korean IP, next time all the Congress will be comprised of Real Life South Koreans.
You will be able to apply for South Korean citizenship. If you are a South Korean of course you speak the Korean language and can convince the Congressmen you deserve the South Korean citizenship."
North Korean citizens will disappear if this rule will be in the game...
mah da ai scris ceva...
bravo!
"Restrict new players registration to the country indicated by the IP" - w00t? It's unfair, I'm Romanian, I live in US. WTF?
Reasonable enough.
well, i think deleting North Korea and creating another country such as Macedonia or Belorussia (in order to keep the quantity of 60 countries in game can be a solution).
epic article
@vasmegye & karolina: Not necesarily, they would be restricted to the South Korean IPs (read carefully please)
@Radu Pangaiu: You will apply for Romanian citizenship with the Romanian Congress. You can convince them you're Romanian, can't you?
votat
I don't want my citizenship from a freaking 13 yo congressman. As a Romanian, I have the expectation to get my citizenship as a birthright. Anything else is unfair.
one BIG vote from Croatia! \o/
Genial. Votat
Pacat de timpul pierdut pentru a scrie articolul si de ideile bune care se vor pierde in eter..
iar ma ustura ochii de la atata citit.. votat
felicitari pt efort !
VOTAT
loolz, more loolz
signed
Felicitari pentru articol. Sfaturi foarte bune. Sper sa se tina cont de ele. Votat.
“My only reason for playing this game is the role-playing. I didn’t join for nationalistic reasons. The best proof is even though I’m Real Life Romanian I have joined the game as Brazilian. Reverting my citizenship to Romanian would ruin the game for me and I’ll quit”.
-
So suddenly you now agree that this is role play. Before this, you were blaming Hungarians from Romania about why they don't play in eRomania. Well, maybe because of role play?
You really are a biased person when it comes to Hungarians.
@mik_zoltan: Are you sure you understand what this article is about? I know it's too long and it's hard to stay focused. That's why I have put boobs here and there.
mihail.cazacu: Yes. And I agree with everything you mentioned in it. Good job. Unfortunately, the admins will not read it
My comment was about that sentence. I know, it's off topic, but my comment is still correct.
I just had to mention that. Sorry.
@mik_zoltan: We both know what makes you guys tick. Besides, roles are _chosen_ and the choice says a lot about the person.
mihail: Well, I AM from Romania and I play in Hungary just for the sake of the language
Coun't care less about "historical injustices" and shit. Really....you have nooo idea how wrong you are about this.
I'm sure if you were born in Bolivia for example, to 100% Romanian parents, you would still play for Romania...just for the language and the common identy with the other Romanians....
I've always played clean and never broke a law in eR, except getting FP's for insults ; )
BUT, the day I'll see your no 5 "bright" idea implemented in the game, I will quit for good, never looking back.
@mik_zoltan: We have Romanian Hungarians who play for Romania like Leandros or Alpho or the people who work in the intelligence gathering (and who wear your uniforms as part of their mission).
You are not one of them. You chose to play against your RL country. What else is there to be said?
mihail.cazacu: I do not play against my RL country. My RL country is Romania, which's laws I respect and follow.
I play in a GAME called erepublik, where I click buttons to "fight", "learn", "train" etc. And I'm a "citizen" of a "country" called "eHungary" where I fight against a "country" called "eRomania"
Note the difference man...and the " " marks.
@mik_zoltan: I said "You play against your RL country" not "You fight against your RL country".
The choice you made tells a lot about you. Your choice defines you, Zoli, the Szekler Legion, etc.
The choice of the Romanian Hungarians who play for their RL country (Romania) defines them.
Feel free to rationalize your choice. Look to Pizza the Hut for additional inspiration.
Man, you really do not get it.
The fact, that Hungarian Romanians play in Hungary is maybe not because they hate Romania or want to restore Great Hungary in real life ( lol! I still need to meet the idiot who actually truely wants this), maybe...they play just because so they may talk with the other players in the mother language. Maybe because it's easier this was to express yourself. Even if a Hungarian from Romania is on expert level on Romanian, he still talks better in Hungarian, simply, because that's his mother language. This is absolutely natural, and you don't need to hate them because of this.
And back again, please, don't awoid this this time: Tell me, if you were born in Ukraine for example, in the region where Romanians are in majority, to 100% Romanian parents, who would have raised you in the spirit or Romanian traditions and culture, in which country would you have played, Romania or Ukraine?!
@mik_zoltan:
Our intel gathering works well because we have 18 ethnic minorities in Romania therefore we have players speaking "Phoenix languages" at native level.
Those players were born in Romania and play for Romania, not for Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia or Ukraine (well, they do but only as part of their infiltration mission).
Why? Because unlike you they feel more attached to their native country, not to their ethnic origin.
So if our Romanian-born Ukrainians play for Romania I think the opposite would be also natural. Especially in-game, where Ukraine needs to get rid of the Russian PTOers.
Obviously, you do not wish to reply to my question, because the answer would be in contradiction with what you wrote here.
I rest my case. We are off topic anyway. You made a good article here, so lets not ruin it with off topic. Too bad, that no admin will read this. : (
excelent articol,ar merita sa fie citit in toata lumea:),macar pentru idei
felicitari...
@mik_zoltan: I did answer your question: unless one is a supporter of some sort of ethnic superiority the first and most natural impulse is to play _for_ his native country not _against_ it.
Do you think that if somehow find out there was a mistake at the hospital and my biological parents are say Bulgarians I would start playing for Bulgaria?! (incidentally I speak the language and I am familiar with that culture as you can check for yourself by looking up an issue of this newspaper, published in Bulgaria in May or June).
mihail.cazacu: then we have here different interpretations of nation.
According to the Romanian interpretation of nation, the nation represents all the inhabitants of the country. All people behind a border of a country belong to the same nation.
The Hungarian interpretation is difefrent. A nation is a cultural, historical, and liguistical community. Borders don't matter.
And this is why Hungarians from Romania don't play in Romania. No, not because they want to restore Great Hungary, or because they don't accept Romania as they native country....it's simply because we look at the concept of nation from a linguistical and cultural perspective, rather than a statal/country related perspective, like you, the Romanians.
This is just how it is, and is nothind aimed against Romania or the Romanians.
It may be strange for you, I know. It's also strange for me looking at your interpretation of things. But we both need to try to understand each other and get past the natinal bias.
There is a much simple reason why .ro Hungarians play in Hungary, instead of Romania, then the stuff about they don't respect, or aren't loyal to Romania. Really, try just a little, little bit to understand our way of thinking too, and you will see this isn't that evil and wicked you imagined.
Have a nice evening.
@mik_zoltan: Riight! How do you explain the Romanian Hungarians playing for Romania then?!
Things are very simple: the majority of the people are inclined to identify themselves with their native country. It's natural to identify yourself with the people around you, the people among whom you live.
And then there are always a handful of people who can't fit in in Real Life and blame it on their ethnic background or "historical injustices" or both (why else would you annex Burgenland which has zero economic and strategic value other than to "redress" the injustice of Burgenland being part of Austria in Real Life?)
Good ideas: it will be difficult for eden cheaters to win elections in the countries they do not belong to, and to finance battles and tanking with illegal gold.
btw South Korea and North Korea are different countries. And NK is not so close to the USA as some guys in Illinois think. So better to delete eNK at all and add eBelarus & eMacedonia
@Luzhkow: They are the same country artificially divided in 2 by commies. Germany used to be that way too.
May be it will be better to make 1 Korea instead of 2?
And given in Russia less people fight than those who vote (like between 1/3 and 1/2 of the voters actually go on the battlefields of Mother Russia) I wouldn't be too quick to utter the word "cheating".
In Russia many people are depressed by the bugs-full military module
And much more are interested in politics.
@Luzhkow: Riiight!
mihail.cazacu: Exactly, it's like you said. People tent to indentify thelselves with people around them. So most likely the .ro Hungarians who play in Romania live in regions where the majority of the people are Romanian. And guess what, there is no problem in that.
The others, who play in Hungary ( mostly the Sekely guys you mentioned), live in the area, in where they are in majority, so it's obvious for them to play in a "country" with a similar/same linguistical and cultural community then theirs. ( aka the one they have in real life - because despite them living in Romania, they live in a region, with Hungarian cultural and linguistical majority). And here too, there is no problem at all...at least, there should be none.
PS: About the Burgenland issue: I hope you know, that the president who did that was impeached beacuse of this, and there was a national outrage against him and against this action! So this argument is not valid...
mihail.cazacu Day 1,021, 11:56
"So if our Romanian-born Ukrainians play for Romania I think the opposite would be also natural. Especially in-game, where Ukraine needs to get rid of the Russian PTOers. "
Looks like a butthurt.
I know a lot of ukrainian players and only 1 of them lives in Russia in RL. The others may be ethnic russians or prefer speaking russian, but they live in Ukraine in RL.
On the contrary, there are many players from Ukraine, who play for Russia. Some of them get high positions in our government, some even become presidents. So it would be more just to speak about ukrainian PTO of Russia, than the opposite.
But we do not consider it a PTO because we are friendly nations (or one nation as some think), unlike, for example, ukrainians and romanians
and no, people do not identify themselves with the country they live in.
They identify themselves with their national-cultural-linguistical heritage.
This is why a Hungarian living in Romania will always consider himself a Hungarian, not a Romanian.
This is why a Romanian living in Hungary will always consider himself a Romanian, not a Hungarian.
@mik_zoltan:
Did you forget to return Burgenland to [Hungarian PTOed] Austria after impeaching the guy? 'Cause I've just checked and it's still under Hungarian occupation.
But soon there will be more pressing matters for Hungary than Burgenland.
It took 1000+ Serbs to take Podolia _in overtime_ It took 1000+ Serbs and the Admins giving Hungary 8 more hours for you to manage to evict Romania from SGP. It took 300 Serbs to stop the 150-strong Romanian surprise attack on NGP.
You will soon run out of Serbs. What then? Would you guys make any difference?
Excellent article, too bad those who have the power to change things probably won't even bother reading it
Mihail:
You really don't get it do you?...
Hungarians living in Romania have absolutely no connection to Romania except that they live in it by the decision of certain politicians 90 years ago.
Why would a Hungarian living in Kovászna who spent his entire life among Hungarians play for Romania?
By the way: I would really be surprised what Romanians from Ukraine, Serbia, etc. feel about what you just said. Should they all play for Ukraine and Serbia just because they live in that country? Really?
And by the way: I don't think you can mention ANY Hungarians that play for Romania... they all come from mixed marriages. No 100% Hungarian would ever play for Romania my friend. Not because they hate Romania, it's because they are Hungarians. And Hungarians play for Hungary, because that is their country. Even though some 20th century politicians decided otherwise...
Just because you speak the language does not mean you are Hungarian. Your choices make you what you are. People like alpho or Leandros are not Hungarian. They may speak Hungarian, but they are not Hungarian. Otherwise they would never play for any other country, especially not an in-game enemy country.
BTW -- I would never thought I would say it, but -- good article! Just add one more point: ban Polish IP-s:) That should clean up the game nicely...
@Galantai: Thanks for making such a great comment to an article published in a country which is a melting pot just like Romania is on a much smaller scale (10 times smaller).
Have you ever wondered why you can't make real friends in this game? You may have opportunistic allies but never true brotherhoods like the Brolliance, Spoland or Cromania.
You've pissed of Indonesia, you've pissed off Russia, you've pissed off Brazil, you've pissed off France, you're about to piss off Serbia.
Why? Because unlike any other human beings you are "special" and "unique" and "100% Hungarians will always play for Hungary" and nobody else.
You are a master at avoiding sticky questions : )
But of course, your changing the subject is a revelation in itself...
There is one difference that you don't seem to get: everyone who is an American CHOSE to leave his country and nation, and become American. It is a country of immigrants. The deal is: you can get economic benefits in exchange for losing your roots and becoming an American.
In Transylvania nobody chose to live in Romania. They did not leave their home, their home was forced to leave them.
I'm not really sure that you just don't get this difference, or you don't WANT to get it...
About in-game relationships. I believe Romania is not even a little bit better off than we are. You got screwed by the US, you had a row with Poland, you lost the Ukraine... you really shouldn't be talking about in-game friends.
eRomania has exactly the same number of true allies as Hungary: one. For Hungary it is Serbia, for Romania it's Croatia. That's it.
And that my friend has nothing to do with anything you just mentioned there to change the subject...
excellent article
voted n subbed, great article!
Good work, voted
Admins, hire this man!
He will do good to both your business and us, the players!
"Don’t give gold as a reward for bringing people to the game"-not a good idea...the system is already totally fucked up.
14 players had joined using my referral link , ALL left the game , I got only 0,43 gold !
Some good ideas, some not so good ideas.
C. Make war and love! ; D
Switzerland rox! VOTED
for the most part, these are good ideas.
Not all of your ideas are great, but overall they were very good and a very good article.
id vote that.
Great ideas. Well written and thought out. Voted for truth.
Awesome!
awesome article...
Liked most of ideas except citizenship... Supporting the diea of freedom of speach...tbh i doubt admins will listen..
I agree with most of your ideas, it's a shame they wont listen to you