An eAmerican Perspective-Motives

Day 529, 14:32 • Published in USA USA • by Ananias

First off, let me say that my views are mine alone, I do not presume that they are shared by other eAmericans; however, I am making the extraordinary leap of assuming that they may have value for my readers if for no other reason than to have a greater understanding of my motivations in eRepublik, and, through that transparency, to develop stronger relationships with those that read this series, and perhaps to address some of the misconceptions about my intentions.

According to my profile, I started playing eRepublik on October 24th, 2008. I always thought I joined in September, but I assume that the information is accurate. eRepublik, like many of the MMORPG strategy games I have tried in the past was little more than a new favorite added to my internet URL list at the time that I stopped by for five minutes once a day to “two click” and move on to more interesting facets of my day. I read some articles, looked through the wiki occasionally and pretty much just coasted through what was, for all intensive purposes a pretty mediocre online game.

So, I guess the first thing that it is important to know is that I perceive eRepublik in the same way that I did last October, as a game. Now, my perspective regarding the sophistication of the game has changed dramatically since that time, but, from my perspective, eRepublik is a game. I am extremely competitive whether in checkers or massive online social strategy games; so competitive, in fact, that the general social structure of eRepublik probably benefits greatly from the fact that competition is not player versus player, but nation versus nation. Due to the nation vs nation game mechanics, I can focus my clear intent to compete and win for the benefit of my team, the eUnited States of America, rather than focusing solely on individual achievements.

I play this game with the sole intent to win it for the eUnited States of America.

That should come as no surprise to those that have come to know me through eRepublik. Victory for the eUS is my central driving goal. There are many that think that goal is futile and that the game of eRepublik should be leveraged only for the benefit of expanding our virtual social network.

There is a great deal of value in that perspective, and I have really enjoyed meeting new people and developing friendships that I hope will outlast the game of eRepublik. However, if I, like many of you, have no time for a game that can never be won, and, additionally, I have a couple of specific personal constraints to my pursuit of the social networking functionality in the game:

First off, at over the age of forty in RL, it has been my experience in eRepublik that I am twice, or more, the age of the majority of my fellow eRepublik players in RL. Additionally, I have been married longer than many of my eRepublik friends have actually been alive in real life. I also have some great kids that are roughly equivalent in age to many of the active eRepublik players. And, finally, though I know that I experience some “slippage” at times, primarily in IRC conversations, I am fairly conservative in my use of profanity and sexually explicit conversations. Therefore, for those of you that wonder why I do not spend more time on IRC, I simply find many of the conversations offensive in content and IRC, in my perspective, subtracts more than adds to my game playing experience because of that. I generally focus on communicating through the rich forums of eRepublik where the level of dialogue tends to be more commensurate with my personal values the eUS Forums and the USWP Forums. While there are a diverse group of players in this game that I believe add real value to the game in the welcome elements of randomness and conflict, the reality remains that the range of diversity within the group lends itself to the diversity of priorities.

In summary, most of us have differing real life and eRepublik priorities, some of us seek anonymity and competition, and others seek transparency and increase in our social sphere of influence.

Neither set of priorities is wrong. Fortunately, eRepublik, as a game, when the forums and IRC, are added, is large enough and sophisticated enough to pursue our varied priorities.

I engage in this game only to the extent that I can exercise my desire for anonymity and personal values in pursuit of victory for the eUnited States of America.

In the next part I will start sharing my individual perspectives, for what they are worth, on eAmerica and the motivations behind so many of my actions, ostensibly to help those that share my goal of eAmerican success can better understand why Ananias (or Ananus as my favorite detractor, Emerick, likes to call me) does the things he does. I hope to share my views on the steps that have been taken, and need to be taken, to facilitate my, perhaps unique, goal of “Team eUSA” victory in the areas of citizen support, government, infrastructure, communications and, in a generalized manner, military and foreign policy.

In order to make sure that you, my reader, have a better grasp on my specific definition of eAmerican victory, I will restate the definition that I offered in this article:

“When the eUnited States of America becomes so populated with engaged players, so organized militarily and socially, so well developed in the distribution and strategy of our infrastructure, so efficient in the management of our economy, so profitable in our international trade and domestic markets, and so unified in our focus to extend our influence to all corners of eRepublik, that the administrators of eRepublik are compelled to reset the game in order to re-establish game parity for fear of losing players (consumers) internationally, then regardless of the rationalization made by the creators of eRepublik, the eUnited States of America has won.”

In conclusion, I appreciate your time in reading this wall of text and I thank you, in advance, for your votes and subscriptions, just as I want to thank again all those that have read my material in the past. I also believe that it is critical to share with you all that, while I feel extremely fortunate to have had some political success, my focus remains on team eAmerica winning the game of eRepublik, not on titles or offices, and therefore, based on my desire for RL anonymity, I would be extremely unlikely to ever run for the Presidency..I want to make sure my motivation for anything that may be considered an egotistical meandering is not misconstrued as pursuing ambitions beyond my primary focus…an eUS win in eRepublik.