eRepublik's Forgotten Module, or; The Importance of the Media

Day 1,491, 01:55 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Mr Woldy



Howdy chaps. Just a heads up, this is one of those ‘tl;dr’ articles, but if you take a look at the section about improvements, you’ll find some suggestions for the media module. If you read anything today, read that.

I’m writing to remind you of eRepublik’s forgotten module.

The Media Module.

Oh yes, it’s still going. Indeed, only yesterday admins ‘revamped’ it, in a change that required no downtime or update and was purely cosmetic. Yes, the first change to the media module in months really fixed the module, the admins were oh so insightful when they decided to not only change the size of text, but also change the font.



I remember a time when the module was almost overused - the national media would be saturated with articles and getting one into the top 5, or even the top ten, felt like a great achievement. As someone who accumulated over three thousand subscribers, (then had 2600 removed by the admins when they cleared out the dead - oops) I was obviously someone who indulged in the pleasures of the media module regularly, but now I find that publishing doesn’t quite seem the same.

Needless to say, a cosmetic change won’t fix the module. Changing the colours on the military module won’t urge people to fight more, changing fonts on the media module won’t urge people to write more.

This is an issue I have put much thought into, both through personal interest and in my capacity as ‘MoHA Media Man’ and I have come to the conclusion that there are two major contributing factors to this significant decline.



The factors I believe have led to it’s demise are as follows;
- People can’t see and don’t check articles.
- People have very little if no incentive to write articles.

It really is that simple! On a fundamental business, the media module has become stagnant because people simply aren’t checking articles anymore. Those who remember the ‘top 5’ (the top 5 voted articles were displayed on your homepage) may be able to relate to this. I certainly remember, that under the top 5 system, I would check the news. Purely because attention grabbing headlines seemed interesting and as they were right under the work and train button I rarely missed them, and importantly, I was compelled to read them.

Under the new system, and I am as guilty of this as the next guy, I rarely check the news. I don’t feel compelled to click and scroll through the different categories and articles. I check my subscriptions tab, and that (until recently when I took it upon myself to check the news daily) was it.

We can assume then that people have the same ambivalence that I, and those who I have spoken to feel - we simply don’t feel like we need to check the news anymore. If you think about it, with the top 5 system we didn’t need to, as the news was thrust in our faces.

As a possible result of this, or, a result of the general e-decline, it seems as though less people are publishing articles nowadays. Perhaps getting into the top 5 was people’s main motive, or perhaps people have seen how poorly received the news is nowadays and simply lost the motive to write. People, in short, don’t feel like writing articles is worth the effort anymore.

A vicious cycle has developed, in which the decline is publishing and the decline in reading are interacting in a way that is destructive to both the media module, and, in the wider scope of things, our player base - which I shall explain later.



I have a few modest suggestions for improving the module;

After identifying what I believe are key contributing factors to the decline of the media module, I have a few humble suggestions, that may remedy the situation.

- Change font and text size
- Increase the number of medals rewarding publishers.
- Create missions aimed at publishers and readers
- (And this old chestnut) Bring back the top 5
- Allow more editing/formatting options

The astute among you will realise the only the latter two are improvements to the module itself; but the first two are vitally important as the media module is dependant, more-so than the other modules, on player engagement and interaction. In other words, the module can only thrive if a large sector of the population utilise it - unlike the politics and military module which doesn’t change whether two people use it or whether two thousand people use it. Therefore encouraging said interaction is of crucial importance to the actual functioning of the module.

My first two suggestions as I have said are aimed increasing our incentive to read and write. To build on them further, I think seeing as a we have a multitude of medals and missions that are dedicated to rewards us for involvement in the other 3 modules, why is there only one (Media Mogul) aimed at making us use the media module? And why is it so hard to achieve?

To remedy this I would push for and addition to the ‘work and train’ doctrine and extend it to include a brief checking of the news. It may be the case that urging people to actually click on the category tabs would be enough to increase readership. ‘Work train and read’ in order to get your daily bonus. It is simple, yet could prove effective.

This is perhaps an example of a more extreme idea, but I certainly think that more missions should be made to encourage reading and writing. For example, we see every day missions urging us to go and kill X amount of people for our country. Why not have missions which urge us to get X amounts of articles above 50 votes, or to publish X number of articles during a time period. Why not have missions that urge us to check the news? To vote or subscribe? The rewards for doing so needn’t be much, a handful of exp let’s say. But it would certainly urge people to write articles and to check the news, two things which are obviously fundamental to a working media module. (Limit’s on articles per day could be imposed to avoid spam.)

Medal wise, the Media Mogul medal is really hard to get. Pre-wiping the dead from the game, I had somewhere in the range 3.2k subscribers. Now I have almost 700. In certain countries (In the UK gaining votes and subs was notoriously difficult) achieving a MMM is very difficult. One thousand subs is a hard number to reach. Perhaps make the medal easier to achieve, or introduce more to provide added incentive to publish.

Finally, bringing back the top 5 has an obvious advantage that I have already touched upon - it thrusts the news in your face. Makes it almost unavoidable, just as in real life, grabs our attention and makes us want to read on. Something I feel is completely missing under the new layout. I understand why formatting options and the use of coding were removed from the media module - I myself fell victim to the hacks - never the less I would quite like to see the admins provide within the module editing or formatting options that go beyond the generic bold, italics and underline. I’m sure any reader of ‘Za Warudo’ will remember with fondness the layout of the publication, and I would quite like to see admins pander to the publishers creative side.



The Importance of the Media

I imagine there are a few sceptics out there who think that missions are wasted on the media module, and that rewarding people for participation in the media module is a fruitless giveaway of experience or money. Indeed, some governments - such as our own - do provide cash incentives for publishers, but such schemes are incredibly limited compared to the incentives admins can offer through missions.

Those who do think this about the media module, have perhaps failed to grasp the role a thriving, competitive media plays in our e-societies.

Being a history student who has very much specialised in the Early Modern Period, I am well equipped to tell you of the advantages and revolutionary changes brought about by the introduction of the European printing press in 1453. In my mind, our media module plays a pretty similar role. It’s major use is basically the dissemination of ideas, arguments, opinions, and facts. A healthy, well populated and competitive media drives journalists to get new, interesting, informative and/or controversial articles published, which in themselves make a contribution towards the education and the calibre of our users, both on and off the forums.

In other words, a high quality media produces high quality noobs. A stagnant media, leaves noobs turning (if at all) to the eWiki, which may not be as up-to-date or informative as the publications that arise from a good media.

Think about it, from our early days in eRepublik, our opinions, our interests, knowledge and views are all derived from the media module. On a wider scale, examining the foreign media has its benefits as does the publications of political rivals. All of these things build our enthusiasm for the game and act as a retention tool.

In other words, a healthy media offers a better educating aspect that you can ever produce by simply publishing articles from a government paper. They not only educate new players on the game, but develop them as individuals, with political ideologies, viewpoints and opinions all of which provide a greater pull for them to use the forums.

I could go on, for but I am conscious of how large this article already is and could easily write one of equal length on the developing factor of a thriving media-module, and I hope this short summary has made clear enough the advantages a healthy media brings.



Thanks for reading,
Mr Woldy,

OBE, KCVS, MC, HRH.


Writing articles since forever






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