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Hello eWorld!

A little bit about me

It has been a very long time since I last wrote an article and in the time I have been away many of my friends have left the game, so I will begin by introducing myself to those of you who don’t know me. My name is Michael Crookes and I have been a citizen of the eUK for closing in on 2 years now. I was originally born in eSouth Africa (although I am British IRL) and in my time in the game I have made many mistakes and seen many successes (in my own way). Anyway, enough about me, on with the article.

What do you want to take away from this game? Why did you start playing it?



I would imagine the answer to that question is pretty well the same for all of us, wherever we are and whatever country we are part of. We were bored, or wanted a hobby or a bit of fun to help us relax from the stresses and frustrations of real life.

However, for most of us who have played this game for any length of time, we find that the game does not fulfil the role we desired. Those who were seeking for an interesting game find the game monotonous and boring, those of us who were looking for a way to relax find the constant changes and downgrades implemented by admins to be frustration, the list goes on.

So why do we carry on playing the game?


Community

I would like to submit to you that there is only one reason that there is still anyone here, and that is the community. This will come as no surprise to 99.9% of you as it is common knowledge within erepublik that other players are the thing that keeps us engaged.

I believe that this community is coming increasingly under threat and that by extension the appeals of the game for me (and I am sure many others too) are being overcome at the moment by the negative effects of what is going on around us.

The reason I took a break from actively playing the game was that the community is becoming more and more fragmented and hostile. This is being seen not just in the eUK but across the eWorld, it is a problem being experienced in every single country.

You see the longer the game goes on, the longer the players of the game have to get to know each other. This has both advantages and disadvantages, however, I believe that the issues we are seeing are relatively simply: we are focussing on what differs between us and not on what we share in common.

We all have goals in this game, we all have our own agendas and aims, and sometimes they conflict with other people. Rather than treating our opponents with respect, we troll each other, aggravate each other and generally put each other down. We have got to stop knocking each other down and start building each other up.

Why do I say all of this?



The answer is simple, in all my experience of erepublik I have seen that times when I enjoy this game is when I meet people who are looking to build each other up and work together, and not trying to pull each other down

The parts of this game I remember are the days with the people who built me up and helped me, Those are the memories I will take with me into the rest of my real life when I finally leave my citizen account to fade into obscurity.

I remember the days of the RAF, with Woolfie, Octavian, Thomas765, Lord Matthew Russell and many others besides (you know who you are)

I remember the best days of the UKRP, with Thomas and LMR along with the likes of Kain propan, inwegen etc.

I remember the friendships I had and some I still have with my current “enemies”: Margaret H Thatcher, Chewie, artela and others

I remember the people who nobody else ever heard of who supported me or were my friends long ago: Ralph francis mason, Snake321, Lord Holfex, Lord Cole

Of course there are many more but I hope that you are starting to see my point: if the thing that keeps you playing this game is the community, stop focusing on in game achievements and start building up the community!



Most of the people who read this article will (I suspect) agree with it for the most part and do nothing about it, but I challenge you, if you agree with what I have written, then send somebody a message of encouragement today, make a helpful shout, write an article which interests people…in fact do anything to help and unify people, because otherwise I guarantee the communities of countries around the world will become even more bitter and self-defeating, and we will see more and more citizens like me entering “hibernation”.

Here is my final challenge to you: what will you remember, when you leave this game behind and get on with the excitement of living your real life…what do you want to stay with you?

Stay safe, play hard and support one another!



(Michael Crookes)

Tl;dr: So long as all we do is troll and pull each other down, we will never make any progress as a community and we will ultimately only end up destroying our own experience of the game.