Join the new world

Intr-un articol anterior am amintit de un pericol foarte real ce pandeste Romania (dar nu numai): lipsa jucatorilor noi. Atunci am aratat ca avem o rata de nastere mult mai mica decat alte tari din imprejurimi (Polonia, Croatia, Ungaria, Indonezia, Marea Britanie etc). Iar asta ar conduce spre un singur lucru, evident: diminuarea puterii eRomaniei. Azi e o exceptie, avem jucatori multi inscrisi in joc, probabil din cauza noului articol aparut in Adevarul.

Am propus atunci ca fiecare jucator activ sa aduca in joc, cel putin inca un jucator, scriind prietenilor, rudelor, invitand persoane de pe forum etc. Multi au spus ca nu e atat de usor, deoarece invitatiile nu ajung pe email, in special pe cele de yahoo. Se pare ca exista o problema pe care eRepublik o are in acest sens, si anume ca emailurile nu ajung la destinatie.

Atunci, ar exista o solutie alternativa, de care ar beneficia atat tarile erepublik (cele care stiu sa se organizeze cat mai bine), dar si jocul in sine.

Astfel, propun ca eRepulik sa permita invitatiile prin linkuri personale. Linkuri pe care membrii comunitatii sa le poata insera in forumuri, bloguri, diferite profiluri, emailuri trimise direct prietenilor etc. Asta ar conduce la cresterea numarului populatiei si ar face jocul mai interesant (more players, more fun).

In forum am deschis un topic pe care va invit sa o semnati in cazul in care sunteti de acord cu aceasta propunere. Scrieti pur si simplu signed (in cazul in care sunteti de acord) sau expuneti-va parerea in detaliu. Daca va place sugestia, eu voi mai veni si cu alta saptamana aceasta, va rog dati un subscribe si un vot.

Acum varianta in engleza, publicata si pe forum aici

Lately, eRepublik seems to have a problem that may affect its future. The growth rate is down as far as I can see. The lack of massive new players affects all of us. It affects the community, as well as the staff.

Besides being the summer season (when traffic to community types of sites is down), I think that there is a solution that addresses this concern.

Erepublik did very well in my opinion giving an incentive of 5 gold for every new player invited, that reaches experience level 6. The problem with this invite feature is technical, it does not always work. The problem is that, many invite emails do not arrive, or arrive in the spam folder. Especially Yahoo emails are affected, though I heard of cases where Lycos users are also affected.

Why is this a problem? Very simple. People hesitate to recruit new players when they know they can get a reward of 5 gold for this. And new players won't come to the game if they do not get the email.

I think there is a solution for this, a solution that it is widely used in other communities. Personalized invite links. Every user should have a personal link that (s)he can use to invite people to the game.

Why is this so great? Because people would be able to insert this link in many places: forums they frequent, profiles at social sites like Facebook, Myspace etc, blogs, and basically all over the place.

I am sure that eRepublik would feel a massive boom if they implement this feature. People would work getting new players to the game, as their ecountry needs them, and eRepublik would grow a lot faster.

Now, I know there are 2 sides for every story. And I thought about the damages that a feature like this could cause. And the only one I could thought about is spam. There will always be some players who would not give a second thought about inserting their links to places they do not belong to (forums where they have no other activity etc). But eRepublik could take measures against these users by penalizing them.

And for everybody's safety, the personalized invite link should be kept secret, so that people cannot abuse other people's links.

Everybody would benefit out of this, and many well known communities are using links instead of undelivered invite emails. Please consider this suggestion, and I await your answer.

Also, users, if you agree please sign this.

Regards,

Leandros.