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The purpose of this series

In my almost 16 months on eRepublik, I’ve almost done it all. I’ve been through the ordeals of Congress and tanked with the best of them. I’ve had the best of friends. I’ve also made the worse of enemies. But I think that the lessons I’ve learned through my enemies have taught me the most about eRepublik. It is usually the hard lessons in life that make the most impact upon you. They shape your character and transform you into a better person. Every enemy I’ve had in eRepublik has taught me something new. In fact, some of those enemies have become some of my best friends in eRepublik after I’ve learned the lessons I needed in order to grow.

This series has many purposes. First, it is an act of introspection. Throughout my life, I’ve enjoyed the act of journaling. I feel that it is not only refreshing, but allows people to reflect upon experiences and find out what they can learn from each situation and grow from their mistakes. I’d like to share my experiences with the eRepublik community in a hope that they can learn from my experiences. It is also an act to record eRepublik history through my eyes. The game has changed so much since I first joined in July 2008. From beta, to the advent of V1, to the death of the trivia module, to the introduction of citizenship, eRepublik has quickly changed from what it was from its conception. Many citizens do not what it was like to play before they were born. I want to share my experiences so people can see how the New World has changed. This series was inspired by my former Federalist colleague, Gilroy. Gilroy wrote a series reflecting on his eLife in the eUS which was full of introspection. I only hope that I can emulate the quality of that series. I hope the theme of growth is something many players can relate to as they advance their careers and learn from their experiences.

Enemy #1 GoBucks: Do not point your finger too quickly

In beta, I was a silent observer of politics within eRepublik. I initially joined the USWP because they were the first people to PM me. I tried to get involved in politics, but I felt isolated because the roles within the USWP were pretty set. I admit, though, I didn’t really try to get involved because the game seemed pretty boring to me.

My real life friend, Royamen, invited me to the game initially. He was shortly elected mayor of eColumbus. I helped him with various projects such as trying to write an article for his article contest and donating money towards the Q3 hospital in eOhio. Beyond that, though, I was pretty bored with the game. I tried the PVP module once but that was about it. I quietly watched eOhio politics at the time, which was quite interesting. Back then, state politics mattered as mayors usually fought to raise money for states to get hospitals. Near the end of beta, eOhio was likely the most interesting state to watch. Royamen and AAP big-shot, Citizen Hem were big politicians in eOhio. In the last month of beta, a new player entered the eOhio scene. His name was GoBucks. 
 GoBucks gained an immense amount of popularity because of his program called the “eOhio Rebate”. GoBucks was the last mayor of eOhio. Since state treasuries were going to become useless because of the elimination of mayors with the advent of v1, he refunded the money that was left over from the Q3 hospital fund to all the citizens of eOhio who asked for it. This was a smart political move by him because it basically bought him the confidence of all the eOhio citizens going into v1. GoBucks was, and still is, a very keen politician.

Going into v1, I finally decided to get off my ass and do something. On the first day of v1, eRepublik was pretty much completely broken. That day gave eRepublik the infamous reputation as being one of the most buggy browser games on the internet. That day, many beta giants quit the game, including then eUS President, Ruby Perric. It was the day, Franco (Harrison Richardson) took over as President because so many people left the game because v1 was so buggy. It was also the day I vowed to push for reform within eRepublik and improve the game.

After I found a new home with the Federalist Party after becoming disenchanted with the USWP, I decided to run for Congress for the Nov.-Dec term. I was warned by my party leaders such as Rise and Logomaster304 that running in Ohio would be political suicide. That month, not only GoBucks was running, but Citizen Hem and my own friend, Royamen. Even though it was going to be a tough race, I was determined to run and win. Back then, state pride was pretty high so people usually ran in the state they lived in real life. With a tough hill to climb, I was ready to face all the challenges I needed to face in order to win.

I started by PMing the entire state. Back then, there was no mass mailer. So you had to go through the entire list by hand and copy and past messages. My campaign article was pretty well received. The only other person who was actively campaigning was GoBucks, so I thought I had a decent chance to win. Either way, I knew it was going to be a close race.

When election day came about, surprise, surprise, there was a glitch that didn’t allow people to vote. This was the first month of state voting in v1. During the first month of v1 (Oct-Nov), it was a winner take all system. All the Congressional candidates were put into 1 pool, people selected a party and then a candidate. The party with the highest number of votes got the largest percentage of senators. This was the first month with the territorial voting system. It was an “attempt” to bring back the mayor concept of beta. Little did the admins know that the idea of state sovereignty was going to quickly die in favor of a game mechanics style of gaming. Unfortunately, that concept did not become popular until late in the Scrabman administration. But that’s another story.

Throughout the day, it was a very close race between GoBucks and I. But, halfway through the day, I got a weird message from a citizen called CooldudeDan. It was a response to a campaign PM I sent him. He said he’d never vote for me because I was a woman and I should just drop out of the race and concede to GoBucks. Back then, people did not know that you could not drop out of a race once your PP confirms that you are its party’s candidate. I PMed him back and told him that was pretty mean and thought that was that. Then, a few hours later, I got a message from a CoolDudePhil. He sent a message that was pretty similar saying some pretty harassing, and sexist things, saying I should drop out and that GoBucks should win. It was only then when I started to get suspicious.

Not only did this person have a similar name, but he did shout some of the same things as GoBucks. It was only then that I suspected that these “Cooldudes” were the same person as GoBucks. From there, I made a public statement accusing GoBucks of using multiple accounts. This was the first multi account accusation in the history of eRepublik (or at least the first publicly known accusation in v1). From there, I began to feel the wrath of the USWP.

The USWP was only starting to become a powerhouse of organization within the eUS. After my accusation against their guy, I got a backlash by their party members defending GoBucks and his integrity. I was somewhat overzealous in my fight against him, though. At one point, Panther called me a whiner because of my fight for “justice” against GoBucks and “his multis”. After the admin investigation, though, it was found out that the “CoolDudes” were in fact multis but GoBucks did not own them. They were banned but their votes were not removed from the vote count. The election ended in a tie, and I was supposed to win because I had one more XP than GoBucks. Yet, in another bug (big surprise), GoBucks was given the election.

Both myself and the Federalists were enraged. Even though the admins eventually corrected the mistake, I felt the backlash of the eUS community. They were angry at me for both making an false accusation against GoBucks and for whining about an admin mistake in giving GoBucks the election. I had to fight hard to gain the respect of Congress back. It took me a while for the country not to take me as a joke. I ended up feeling pretty embarrassed by the way I acted. Yet, only after a month was I able to let go of my pride. After deciding not to run for Congress again the next month, I ended up endorsing GoBucks the next month in an act of peace.

After that, GoBucks and I became pretty good friends. I turned out that we had a lot in common. In fact, I will still say that GoBucks is one the best class acts in eRepublik. Throughout our campaign fight, he always kept his cool and professionalism. He’s like that in anything he does and I consider him one of the best people I know in the game.

I learned from this ordeal not to judge people before you really know them. Even though it may look like there is shady business going on, it maybe someone else who is causing a problem and not the person you think. Even when it comes to multi-hunting, you need to take time to examine all the facts before you make accusations against others. So have patience and try not to judge a book by its cover. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Part 2 preview...
My fight for transparency...ProggyPop...