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You are reading an article written by a citizen of eRepublik, an immersive multiplayer strategy game based on real life countries. Create your own character and help your country achieve its glory while establishing yourself as a war hero, renowned publisher or finance guru.

Notes on: Lulz, Modules, and Markets.

Day 1,045, 03:24 • Published in United Kingdom

• by Mr Woldy

Interview with the eFrench Minister of Lulz

A number of days ago I conducted an interview with the eFrench Minister of Lulz. He was telling me about the way the eFrench government entertains it’s citizens and entices them onto the forums. As Kemelvor didn’t speak English, and I don’t know much French, former French CP and friend Naischa acted as a translator for us.

The interview got me thinking, after all we could always do with a hand from our friends, and not always militarily. Speaking to foreign governments on how we can deal with aspects such as recruitment and retention can give us ideas and plans to incorporate into our own unique society. We just have to venture out there and ask.

The following is the interview:

Firstly, what is your job in the French government?

I am Minister for the lulz, my job is to entertain french people with events and contests. Each contest allows to win "lulz points" that you can convert in golds. We are supposed to gather citizens and help them integrate in French community by playing together.

That's a good idea 🙂
What sort of events or games do you run as Minister of Lulz?

We offer flash games once per week, miss eFrance contests, large contests using imagination and paint.net, and events inside videos games. Like League of Legends lately.

Cool 😃
So, how many games would I need to win to get 1 gold?

You can only play one contest, whichever you like. You just need to have a good position, and after that be lucky enough to get a good case from the board (which contains the rewards). The probability to get a 1 gold case is quite high, so to win it at first time is easy. If you miss all the time, it can take longer

(:
How many people take part?

We have exactly 107 members, we get more and more. Generally, there are a dozen entries per contest.

That’s a lot 😃
Would you mind if I pitched this idea to the eUK? 🙂

You can! You can even invite them to participate in our contest 😛. We are not jealous of our secrets and we would be pleased to cooperate 🙂

In essence what seems a broad reaching cash for prizes scheme. As many economists say, people respond to incentives. What bigger incentive is there than cash? Paying people to join the forums is extreme, but a fun set of games that offer prizes for a wide range of people and utilise off site features hold the potential to pull together and expand our community.

Here in the eUK, a ministry of Lulz, or if the name is too informal, Ministry of Fun or Entertainment was set up and well advertised - it could make the game more interesting and fun for a lot of people. The current entertainment group do a great deal of work within the MoHA, and I think it’s about time that for retention purposes we expanded their role in government.

Finally~

Do you prefer French Wine, or English Cider?
I prefer American Coca Cola, I don't like alcohol !
o______o
😃

The New Military Module!

As you would have noticed by now, the admins have launched the new-new military module.

Contrary to popular belief, this just at least show that admins respond to citizens feedback, and as much as we may kid that they have moved back to a V1 style wall, they have also kept the PvP element by introducing a 1 on 1 style system that works with a new idea called influence. But what do the people of the new world think of the new module? After asking around, I gathered some of the likes and dislikes of V1.5’s military module.

Likes

Several people enjoyed the simplicity of the new module. No more wondering in empty battles or being swamped in full ones, a pairing system has been set up and upon joining the battle it’s as easy as clicking fight.

The fact it looks like it can't be broke and it's easy to understand, buy a weapon you're skilled in and attack - doesn’t need rocket science to work out.
Pensive ~ eUK Congressmen.

An easy to handle military module is something that in many ways is vital to the player base. Make fighting to hard, then a lot of people have no reason to stick around in the game. A simple way of pairing people up against people who they won’t get slaughtered by will undoubtedly make the new module more appealing. Especially for younger players.

I love it so much. Last night I got around 2661 influence and it was sweet, I can get around 7 kills to 1 death
Joe Newton ~ Co-host of Fightin’ round the World.

Dislikes

All in all the module has been well received. However in the cruel world of browser gaming the admins can never get it completely right. There are a few cons, and an economic aspect that needs to be considered. One thing that doesn’t seem to have gone down well is boosters.

We do not have a real PvP, thus booster does not do any good with defeating enemy.It is pretty unnecessary.It should be removed.
BattalGazi ~ PHX former SC and DIFA.

A pal of mine sums it up quite well, after all the admins do like us to spend gold, and the new module has a very tempting button to use if you find yourself up against a tough looking guy.

The 1G instant kill thing is annoying, but they've [the admins] always got to have that gold sink I suppose.
Myles Robinson ~ eUS State Department.

However the ‘simpleness’ of the new module hasn’t quite gone down well in all areas of society. Some people liked a new kind of tactic to be devised and used on the battlefield itself, something that people can no longer do in the new module.

I dislike the fact that you no longer have to think. In v2 you could plan strategy. In this, v1 on steroids its just the same boring wall
Desert Hamster ~ eSerbian MoFA.

My Verdict:

Durability, Guns, and the markets

However on the economic side of the module, it seems that admins have overlooked a couple of things.

A few people, such as Ernesto-Che-Guevara have picked up on the fact that with a new V1 style module, many more people will be fighting and all of the defenders will be using a hospital.

The ‘old-new’ module didn’t have as many fighters and also had an area of effect for hospitals, meaning in comparison fewer people would end up actually using a hospital. However despite the changes hospitals still have a durability, which currently is too low.

Hopefully the admins will alter the durability of hospitals to suit the new module, so that people can use them and so they don’t run out faster than they can be made and placed. For those who don’t know, the new module currently only allows defenders to use the hospital, making them in my opinion an even greater asset for defence.

The Walking Stick. A Greater Asset of Defence.

Other items that have to have their durability at least reviewed is you bog-standard weapons. My knowledge of economics and the markets may not always be the best but I had my little theory confirmed on IRC last night by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, BMThatcher so I hope I can break down some market theory in a way you can understand.

Basically, current weapon durability means that people can rapidly use up a lot of weapons very quickly whilst fighting in the new module. For example, I used up four weapons last time I thought and I am now broke.

Well, not completely broke, but what money I do have doesn’t quite cover the cost of a decent new weapon. This is because there aren’t enough weapons available to be sold at a cheap price. This is where basic supply and demand comes in: As there aren’t many weapons general managers can raise prices and not worry about being undercut. This leads to a steady increase in weapon prices and means GM’s need to sell less to make a tidy profit.

To explain the reverse of this, if there was an excess of weapons in companies selling to the UK then GM’s would be competing with each other in order to sell their products. As they undercut each other to try and physically sell their goods in order to make a profit, prices would fall.

Unfortunately this won’t be happening anytime in eRepublik, there aren’t enough active companies to meet basic demand. Even if there were many countries would begin to face the economic issues of a small workforce, rising wages would effectively cap the amount GM’s would be willing to drop to without making a loss.

tl;dr ~ The admins really ought to increase weapon durability, but in the meantime you should join the army, where you get guns for free. Signing up is easy, hop over to the forums or #army.training on IRC.