Bugs, Incompetence, Selfishness and Bots
•
by Polio
The day of release of V2 - "eRepublik Rising", rather - was due to be the day of my departure from this game. Recent events, however, have caused me to rage quit today. Apologies in advance for the tl;dr.
Bugs
Yesterday morning saw a -2.5million wall in Scotland. A well planned attack from EDEN and a tough challenge for Phoenix considering all the other open battles.
After many hours of debating and waiting for people to come online, it was decided that using the Netherlands to block Poland by swapping though the UK was our best option. This relied on the Polish CP being offline to prevent a F5 battle so we planned to do the swaps at ~5am CET and retreat Scotland to Poland. However, the bug infested game prevented Woldy from retreating Scotland as he explains here. This is effectively game over. Poland with grain, wood and oil is ridiculous and it won't be long before Liaoning falls.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time bugs have completely altered the outcome of events. For example, the "extra time" in Western Australia allowed Indonesia to, unfairly, occupy the region. A DoW bug prevented the USA from attacking Liaoning when they originally wanted to. These are just a few examples of a game almost defined by bugs. As everyone knows, thousands of gold was also created through exploitation of bugs (cba to find a link...).
These bugs lead me onto the next part of this article...
Incompetence
In any other game, bugs such as those mentioned above are not tolerated by the players. But, for some reason, we all seem to accept it as part of the game. However, it is not the actual bugs themselves that surprise me (nothing is perfect, bugs are bound to appear occasionally), it's the incompetence of the people who should be fixing them. For example, this is the reason why nothing was done about the Western Australia battle "When a battle had come to an end and it had been influenced by a delay in the system, we did not interfere with the results. This exact decision will be applied also in this case." So because previous bugs weren't fixed, they won't fix this one? Logical... Recently we have seen numerous battles carry on way past the time they should have closed - this shows that the bug has still not been fixed.
As for the USA DoW bug, it was around 2 weeks (I think) before they were finally able to DoW. A bug which I estimate would have taken an hour to fix.
Now for more incompetence without bugs. What happened to "No Fridays without updates"? Why promise such a thing if there's no way it will be provided? Unless I've missed it in an article, there has also been no word from the admins as to why we have had many Fridays without updates. Surely it's not hard to come out and say "Sorry, we were wrong, there will be Fridays without updates."?
Inability to respond to support tickets is another incompetence. God knows how long I've been trying to get my server unbanned so I can access the API.
Finally for this section, I want to mention something that was said in this article. In regards to V2 - sorry, "eRepublik Rising" - the admins said "We promised that the new modules will be playable this spring, didn't we? 😃
". This article was posted in the middle of June and today, a few days before the end of June, the public beta for V2 - damn, I mean, "eRepublik Rising" - opened. Perhaps it's different in Romania but in the rest of the world, June is not spring. Rather than trying to pretend it is, how about a quick update saying the launch will be delayed?
Selfishness
So, Rhone Alps... There has been a great deal of media surrounding the deal between France and Hungary over this region and I will briefly give my opinion - an opinion which I'm sure will result in me being kicked out of Phoenix (again...the first time was for this article).
I've been involved in most of the negotiations between France, Hungary and Phoenix. France's first offer was a rather ridiculous 4000g per month. Hungary countered with something in the region of 1000g per month (I can't be bothered to check my IRC logs). This was more realistic but still not enough for the French. Finally, a deal of between 1600g and 2300g per month for 3 months was agreed (the exact amount depended on how much income RA gave Hungary, I think). This was a pretty bad deal if you ask me but a deal is a deal (or so you'd think...). However, as soon as Hungary occupied the region, they started being difficult; refusing to honour the deal they made. Fortunately, rather than telling Hungary where to go (as they would be entitled to do), France tried to carry on the negotiations. Hungary offered 1000g per month for 2 months followed by 1300g per month for the 2 months after. So 1150g per month for 4 months overall. A very good deal if you ask me when you consider Hungary originally offered 1000g per month for 3 months. France, reluctantly, agreed but the Hungarians went back on the deal once again. They are now refusing to pay to rent Rhone Alps and demand that France pays Hungary (not Phoenix) 6000g and only then will Hungary return the region to its original owner.
Selfish much? I'm sure I'm not the only person who is fed up with Hungary's selfishness. Hungary's attitude disgusts me, especially when you look at their neighbours Serbia who are one of the, if not the, best allies/ally anyone could ask for. Rhone Alps could have been won at the previous attempt if Hungary (as well as a couple of other countries) had followed Phoenix orders and fought where they were instructed to.
Bots
The cheating that goes on in this game is ridiculous. It seems people will try everything they can to gain an advantage over other people, screw any honour. There are 2 prominent countries that are very well known for their many bots and I'm sure this gold is used to fund many military operations. What's the point in playing a game where the outcome is decided by a combination of who can make the most bots and which bug will occur today?
See you in another life
That's it, I'm done.
See you in another life,
Polio
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
Good Article
see ya :/
<3
shame on you ...
see ya Polio :/
Was nice playing with you. See you next life!!
Best of luck to you!!!
run to the hills, everything is falling apart!
Polio : Stay in the game or i swear i'll come to England and Punch You ! <3
Nothing that different from RL matters unfortunately...
Cheaters probably use the bank card to pay for the game, so admins cannot kick them out, they'll lose money.
Incompetence here, it's more corruption than anything else i think
Selfishness, that's how powerfull countries are when their population is too arrogant.
In RL, France is a very arrogant country, i think in erep we are not, Hungary replaced us quite well. But for sure, I prefer having my pride than put my pant down. Until Hungary doesn't ask for some apologizes from us, i'll be on the other side.
Bugs, we should all have security boots and smash them hard indeed 😃
o7
I'LL SEE YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE, BROTHER.
Manly tears ;_;
See you in another life, but not in the V2 :/
;_;
+1 for RA 😒
You Huns will never change.
Why you don't join EDEN and ruin the other alliance?
good article...
i think i'm going in the same way... :/
Shame to see you go, but you make some fair points 😐
Induringdelicioustears.
Give me your gold now?
Bai Bai
"Selfish much? I'm sure I'm not the only person who is fed up with Hungary's selfishness. Hungary's attitude disgusts me, especially when you look at their neighbours Serbia who are one of the, if not the, best allies/ally anyone could ask for. Rhone Alps could have been won at the previous attempt if Hungary (as well as a couple of other countries) had followed Phoenix orders and fought where they were instructed to."
Damn guy. You're so right. So France is not the only country that find this arrogant ? I admitt France made mistakes ( 4.000 G months. LOL. ) but then the agreement was great for the two parts (1150 G/Months...)
V
🙁
Polio <3
Admin is wildly incompetent. Tell me something I didn't know.
You'll be back.
return
vote
well said
gold pl0x
voted ! well said
hmmm
Wait - you are just now finding out Hungary is selfish?
Good article.
Maybe the admins dont roll back the server/s cause it would cost more money in man hours than to just leave it.
If there's multiple servers, rolling them back to an exact right time could (depending on the structer of the DBMS) cause even more bugs.
Dont listen to me. I have no idea what I'm talking about as usuall.
Good article Polio.
Best article I've seen in a while.
FUCKING SORT IT OUT ADMINS.
Good article Polio.
Good reading.
🙁
eRep is a joke really. I have been here for two and a half years and have spent for money than I would admit to on this game. Yet I don't buy gold anymore. Why? Because it is full of cheats, glitches, bugs and is geared to solely making money.
I could except the bugs when I started, it was a beta after all, yet over two years later nothing has changed other than the fact it is geared towards payment. It wouldn't be a problem if the game was bug free or as close to that as possible, but it isn't.
vote
Excellent article and you will be sorely missed <3
I will defend the admins on the date of release though; the first day of summer is the 21st of June (the longest day of the year), so they have got the thing nearly ready to roll in that timeframe (barely).
However, all other points are well made. And I heard on the grape vine that the erep admin team in real life are basically out of money to keep the game running, so if they do certain things we don't particularly like in order to make sure they've got a job tomorrow then that's fair enough.
[removed]
Oh, you're so damn right about everything...
I keep playing only because of friendship with many people I've met here AND an ability not to care for which_bullshit_will_happen_next.
Once the exciting game is all meanless crap now.
Most depressing article I have read to date!