One of the problems of Erepublik
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by Rathena Gelc
Erepublik playerbase is shrinking. As of 12:23, day 2,817, Erepublik had 76,799. Just a few days ago, it had 80,000 players. Yes, we all know that the quality of the game is declining.
But what is the problem that sets Erepublik apart from other browser games?
The problem is that the playerbase basically runs the core of the game, which is warfare and economics. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing, but it is a problem for Erepublik admins because they can't run the game the way the want it.
What do you mean?
Examples: Players create alliances, players invite other players, players invade other countries. What I mean by this is that, for example, country A can be occupied by country B for a year and have everything in it ruined. Of course people are going to leave the game! As for country B, players are happy because their country is stronger and more successful militarily so they invite friends to join them etc. Admins simply cannot deal with this because it is at the core of the game, but that makes it vulnerable to playerbase fluctuations. In other games, where admins can dictate the flow of the story, things are different because they can make the game more interesting and help the other side. In Erepublik, the situation is very much the opposite because admins cannot dictate what country will attack another, what alliance will be formed or how many friends other players will invite to the game. And it is the imbalance that is achieved through this that is very hard to even out, because strong countries, for example, have big reserves and small countries have little to no money so they cannot even try to make a difference in the game.
Not to say that the game shouldn't be improved - it should, massively. But this issue is, I think, vital for a percentage of players as reason for leaving the game.
I don't think I explained it correctly, but I really don't know how else I should. 😛
My two cents, anyway.
What are your thoughts? Comment freely 🙂
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And they handed even more control to the players by bringing in the dictator module, so it's obvious the admins don't actually want to control the game. So long as those continuing to play buy gold occasionally, they'll stay afloat and won't actually have to do a thing to fix the game.
i checked in egov few days ago, there is only few thousands (7500) "active" players (that means players who gain xp), how many of those two clickers are really active? few hundreds.
new players will not help this game, they will have no chance no influence erepublik maybe except politics, but even there few strong players can deside for hundreds with the new dictatorship module.
in my opinion this game came too radical - you need to fight all day for co and epic in order to surive, that's the only thing you can do, and even if you are in the game for the fighting only, if you don't have enough strengh you can't do anything, you need to buy gold or saving it for months in order to be able to help in the next year or in two years from now, and even you will be strong enough and be part of strong group it will worth nothing when someone that is using multies will put CO and break the balance.
it's hard to belive that there will be changes, we saw proofs for that only month or two months ago at the conversations, when cloppyapur asked admins if they will fix economy they laughed in his face, they promised to do something about the too old players in the low division but two days after that they offered a pack that makes sure they will stay there forever, two years ago they promised that there will be mayors, new map and new modules, the only thing they kept is the new map and it still has bugs, if you will go to erepublik youtube account you will see what they are working on - games for iPhone.
i believe that new players don't have a chance or a place in this game without buying gold or using illegal monies, i also believe that the admins left this game for the old players until they get sick of it.
the community is the trap of this game - we always come back to help the people we care about, but the admins no longer let us to, they don't let anything good grow here.
in the last months i brought hundreds of players to help my country, i helped each and any of them as mentor and added them to a skype group of erepublik players, but none of them managed to find himself a place or enjoy the game, because it's no longer possible.
I've played some games where players join alliances/clans/guilds with a certain player limit. These groups can always create sister groups to house more players but it certainly does make the game more balanced than this. Having countries joining up to conquering other countries of tenth their size is not fun for the little guys and will certainly put off many people from the game. With the admins not being able to set free these small countries just makes things worse for them. The game is certainly balanced to stronger military people and those who use real money.
I guess to combat this situation the admins could add a limit to how many citizens a country could hold. Maybe each country can hold 2% of the worlds population plus add extra 0.25% for each region (up to a maximum of 12 regions giving citizenship bonus). That would level out the players a bit but leaves the problem of what to do with citizens who's countries are full. Possibly they could seek temporary residence (of a month) in a country while waiting to be granted asylum (so they have limited citizenship at this time, can't get involved in politics, limited marketplace buying, etc.) and then have to attempt at another country after the month is up - this might limit PTO threat. They can always return to the last country they had proper citizenship in if there is enough room for them so that they might not be going around forever. No doubt there are many flaws in this, please tell me everything that is wrong with it.
Interesting thought.
maybe they should equalise the regions for each country (like another E-game that SIMulates the world) - we in the eUK (and probably eIreland) are lumbered with the Euro-election regions, but the rest of Europe isn't. The eUSA could, indeed, should, be reduced to 10 regions
They have creamed this game now they don't really care, the game is not a fair game and makes people leave.
London Bridge is falling down my fair lady.