Citizens or TOs?

Day 465, 02:22 • Published in Hungary Hungary • by Quicksilver

About lack of citizenships and TOs

Most players when they start to be acquainted with the game, and perceive its nuances besides the obvious currents that run on the surface, are surprised by one defining thing in eRepublik – the curious lack of citizenship and its logical consequence, the political takeovers (TOs). Now, much has been said about TOs and their ethics – or lack of – and about how the problem should or could be solved, but I curiously haven’t seen two things fully explained or debated; one is the reason for the lack of citizenship, and the other is how it could be used in a way that most would consider progressive or positive.

The first one should be answered by older players and/or even admins; what was the reason for not building a citizenship module into the game? I understand that there used to be a so-called ten days rule, that constituted a very limited form of citizenship (on must have stayed in a country for ten days to be able to vote), which did not make TOs impossible, but at least it made them calculable, foreseeable for others, not directly involved. But this too was abolished when beta ended and it was not implemented in V1.

One reason that I can imagine as a reason is that the creators of the game wanted it to develop into international communities, living in traditional borders, but mixing as they could never do IRL. If that was the intention, then I do see some signs of it; different nationalities living in every country – but its disadvantages still far outweigh these small mixing of people, which can happen outside the game, in the forums and chats. It does not need the lack of citizenship to happen, moreover, by now it, and the subsequent TOs made people actually hate each other more for being TOed by some and suspicious about anyone moving to their countries. So if the plan or wish was to make people mix and build ties then it horribly backfired.

Another, more sinister reason that I can see and still consider having a disturbingly high odds in being correct is that the creators and managers of the game do consider TOs beneficial and/or enjoyable to watch, like experimenters watch their small white mice milling about in a maze, trying to cope with their surroundings. If this is true, then we are expected to find the positive side of TOs, but mightily fast, before they engulf the whole eWorld and make all small countries disappear from the map. For ANTI-TOs seem not to be working anywhere, because the participating countries are in turn endangered by TOs, so less and less will accept the role – because people leaving the game in an alarming rate, mainly because of this situation, mainly from smaller countries, and even though successful recruiting campaigns draw people in it, so the population numbers grow… but it all goes to already big countries, and leave smaller ones loosing more than they can recruit.

So, the question is, if admins are not going to implement citizenships – and they so far refused to even consider the suggested ideas for it – then how should we, the citizens of eRepublik make something good out of this situation? The problem is that we would be required to cooperate while we are, as nations, countries are set against each other – even I must say so inside the alliances too. Another problem that I myself faced lately, that there are groups of people who act independently from government, against its policy, but to the public still claiming to represent the country’s interest – and neither I, the president, nor the government and not even the congress can do anything about it.

What we would urgently need is a sort of judicial system, if possible coupled with the citizenship issue, or in itself; either on the national level or internationally too, but I am afraid eRepublik is not the kind of Utopia where there is no need of law and order. I, the anarchist say this: we are not good enough to live in a lawless world and make good out of it. We need rules and judges and law enforcement because we are not good, we cannot cooperate and we cannot live and let others live too. And I stress that I do not mean wars. Wars are honest. Wars say what they want to do: conquer a country to see who is the better. TOs on the other side always claim to have ’higher purposes’, they work by lies and deception, never honestly, never giving chance to defend.

I would be glad if many of the older players would give their opinion on both the possible reasons for not having a citizenship in eRepublik; and their opinions of how this situation could be solved or at least made better.



Quicksilver
President of eHungary
(but counting back)


A cikkben két kérdésre keresem a választ; elsősorban a régi játékosokat kérdezve, hogy ők hogyan látják, miért nem lett a játékban soha valódi állampolgárság bevezetve, mi lehet ennek az oka, magyarázata. A másik kérdés pedig az benne, hogy a jelenlegi helyzetben, mivel az adminok nem adják semmilyen jelét, hogy változtatni akarnának ezen, hogyan lehetne mégis kezelni ezt, és netán előnyünkre fordítani azt, hogy nincs állampolgárság.