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Day 2,541, 16:31 • Published in USA USA • by Aeriadne

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatev.

Not an Instrument
A few days ago, we lost a good man. I'd say "another one," but Keers was different. For those of you who are new and have never read the Economist, it was one of the few true attempts in this game to formalize and take a critical eye to the way we play. Keers' paper was a highlight reel of the goings on in the country, and more often than not, would spark intense debate between players as to what was occurring on many fronts. The man's a genius writer, and to see him pass fills me with as much sadness as to see Sam Wystan gone.

I made a graph.



The graph you see is the compiled number of total votes in the eUS CP elections as far back as the game can give, which is December of 2008. A couple points of reference:
-The most amount of total votes ever had in an eUS CP election was in Josh Frost's Nov 2009 election, with 4585 votes cast.
-V2, aka eRepublik Rising, was implemented July 7th, 2010. On the graph, you can see this as the small spike to 3,214 votes in Harrison Richardson's election, before falling down to 835 in Krems' election in August.
-The highest total votes after the V2 activity crash was in Israel's Stevens June 2012 run, with 3286 total votes cast.
-Unity voting was implemented in fall of 2012.
-As the comments point out, 2014 is the first year we do not get the "summer bump" of increased activity.

Those are just some quick points of reference to help understand what's going on. There are more, and I could make more graphs. But I didn't. Sorry not sorry.

The real point I want you to look at is at the end. Prior to the V2 crash in the summer of '10, no amount of total votes had ever numbered under 835. Yet, in the last three months, the total votes cast in each CP election have all been lower.

In August it was 792 votes.

In September it was 758.

And just last month, it reached our country's all time lowest number of votes ever cast in a CP election: 649.

Prospeculation
I've been outta the game for a while, so what follows is a limited viewpoint on this country's recent events. I won't speak to the last six months, but what I will speak to is last November.

Let's turn back the clock.

Josh Frost had just gotten out of office. MelissaRose was America's sweetheart. The Liberty Advancement Party had just been founded as a successful PTO countermeasure. Shit was cash monies.

And then Artela announced she was running for POTUS, and was met with some criticism (from myself included). The wheels on the bus were spinning round and round. There was a sense in the country that we were just doing the same thing over and over again.

Ultimately, Artela herself recanted and stated much more succinctly that which I had tried to speak to: we needed new blood. We needed an interesting election to spur activity and to grow our populace onwards.

If you look on the graph, you'll see the decline into that November election that was signaling a loss of activity. In that election, you saw step forward the names that would come to define 2014: NewAzazel, Wild Owl, dmjohnston. Tyler Buublar had even tried for the Fed nomination. It was a veritable who's who of who would go on to shape the nation in some way, and there's a bright uptick in the next few elections that shows the increased interest.

Now. Naz had two terms, and the second election for him was much less contested. It was essentially agreed upon he'd get both of them, and as MoFA, I was totes fine with that. I enjoyed getting used to the work and feeling like I was contributing. When January 2014 came around, I remember going to Wild Owl and asking him point blank whether he was going to run or not. We two were arguably the biggest hitters who had the greatest shot of being POTUS, and he said he was interested.

I didn't run. And, in hindsight, I should have. I don't know that I would have won (my track record speaks otherwise) but it would have at least been a race. Because what happened over the next few months changed things back into the gears we had known.

Wild Owl got a second term, cus of course he should.

Gnilraps then ran, cus he wanted to, and everyone else did. Tyler tried and failed to oppose him, but at least he got nominated and ran.

Gnil then ran again, cus of course he should, and we all went along with it.

Then Molly got elected, cus we all knew it was time for her to be POTUS, just like with Gnil.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Again: I wasn't here for most of this year. I left when Molly got elected, cus I saw the same cycle settling in that we had tried to buck a bit in November. Apparently Largo had a good run at Molly in June, but didn't quite cut it. Then dmj got elected, then again, then Tyler, then Tyler again, and now here we are. Oblige is running for the seventh time, and we're pretty much gonna let him take it.

I'm not saying he's undeserving. I honestly don't care, and that isn't the problem. The problem - at the end of the day - is just letting him get it.

Shooting Feet
We were afraid, and Unity was our solution to a problem that had plagued us for many years. There had been limited use of that sort of thing earlier in our history, but it really took until we thought Ajay was going to hop into office for us to really push all the parties working together. And now they do, and it's killing us.

There aren't real problems to fix anymore in the game. Sure, tax debates spring up every so often, but that isn't what draws new players to the court now, is it? People join this game often with the hope that they will be something more than they are. I know I did. I joined, saw that CP medal slot, and I wanted it so badly.

I wanted to be the savior, to help people, to make moves and bring my party to the forefront. That CP medal has been my driving obsession almost the entire time I've played. And for many, it's the same.

But we don't offer the same environment to make that worthwhile like we used to. There is no fiery clashing of the parties, no truly disparate ideas over which we draw lines and work to undermine.

We are too complacent in our agreement with one another to foster any new growth.

In our desire to "solve the game" and "make our country" we lost total sight of what really draws people in: fun. We are afraid of the possibility of screwing up, of possibilities in general. So cornered in our happy nest of working things out and not taking risks that we have sucked all the fun out of the game.

We are the problem made manifest by our own solutions.

I've talked at length with my therapist/eternal butt-buddy RaccoonGoon about the matter. We're so stuck in agreeing with one another and not wanting to be the guy to break unity that nothing happens. We just go month after month, the numbers ever dwindling, deciding whose turn it is to be the king of our lonely little island. Is that really what gets you guys on? Is this whole system fun? Is it enjoyable?

Think back to the times you really, truly enjoyed playing this game, and I guarantee you it will involve some conflict with another entity. Beyond a measure of a doubt, the funnest times you ever had in this game were when you were fighting, working hard for your cause, and pitting yourself against the odds of others. That, above all else, is the meat of this game. It's why we all engage. It is the forgotten dream of this realm.

Solving Solutions
The methods we could possibly use to change the way things are are heinous and would never be agreed to. Someone would intentionally have to stab another person in the back. We would have to get aggressive. Parties would essentially have to be either reshuffled with hardline goals they require all members to support arbitrarily, or just become so radical in their current actions that it requires others to break with them.

Simply put, though, fabricated disagreement is our only real recourse. Because it ain't gonna happen on its own. We've proved that. Too many times has someone tried to do something different and been shot down just for the sake of not breaking rank. Dave Gulya, a man who by all means hasn't done anything particularly spectacular in his career but does truly care about this country and its future hit that same wall I once did. The one that tells you your ideas won't fly, no matter what. I'm not saying Dave's the right choice in this election; I'm just saying he is a choice, and that he should be seriously considered.

Elections are the heart of where our great drama against one another plays out. And we need to find a way to get back there. Throw Unity out the window. Don't be afraid to make big moves with your party. Foster that same competitive culture that once made us great. Because it is through the forge of such disagreement that we find greatness.

It's how we've always done it.

We have a choice right now: sink or swim. You either embrace the way the game is going, say "it's not going to change," "there's nothing we can do," "admin are screwing it up more than us," and just lay down and watch it all crumble. But I've seen what people can do when they work. Admin has always screwed this game up, that's no excuse. I still believe in the dream of Dio: that we can find a game beyond this and work to make our little world more interesting for ourselves.

Maybe it'll take that. Maybe instead of the fighting, we need a greater unifier. Something to catalyze us into wanting to be the best country, truly striving to get everyone involved on every level, and working to promote our new players and get them the experience that makes them worthwhile and want to keep coming back.

I honestly don't know how to solve the problem we have. I just know that we can't keep on this course. We can't sink.

It's time to swim.



Bonus section, for those wondering where I was for so long
Anyways, please listen to me. That it's really related to this thread. I went to Yoshinoya a while ago; you know, Yoshinoya? Well anyways there was an insane number of people there, and I couldn't get in. Then, I looked at the banner hanging from the ceiling, and it had "150 yen off" written on it. Oh, the stupidity. Those idiots. You, don't come to Yoshinoya just because it's 150 yen off, fool. It's only 150 yen, 1-5-0 YEN for crying out loud. There're even entire families here. Family of 4, all out for some Yoshinoya, huh? How fucking nice. "Alright, daddy's gonna order the extra-large." God I can't bear to watch. You people, I'll give you 150 yen if you get out of those seats.

Yosinoya should be a bloody place. That tense atmosphere, where two guys on opposite sides of the U-shaped table can start a fight at any time, the stab-or-be-stabbed mentality, that's what's great about this place. Women and children should screw off and stay home.

Anyways, I was about to start eating, and then the bastard beside me goes "extra-large, with extra sauce." Who in the world orders extra sauce nowadays, you moron?
I want to ask him, "do you REALLY want to eat it with extra sauce?" I want to interrogate him. I want to interrogate him for roughly an hour. Are you sure you don't just want to try saying "extra sauce"?

Coming from a Yoshinoya veteran such as myself, the latest trend among us vets is this, extra green onion. That's right, extra green onion. This is the vet's way of eating. Extra green onion means more green onion than sauce. But on the other hand the price is a tad higher. This is the key.

And then, it's delicious. This is unbeatable.

However, if you order this then there is danger that you'll be marked by the employees from next time on; it's a double-edged sword. I can't recommend it to amateurs. What this all really means, though, is that you, should just stick with today's special.