Join the new world

Dear fellow citizens!

First of all, I’d like to ask you to forgive any eventual translation mistakes. I couldn’t find anyone to help me translate this article, so I did it myself. I would also like to apologize from the users who are reading this article the third time (there was a Hungarian, then Romanian version posted already). You may just skip the article, I didn’t change anything (or you could vote it 😉 ).

So here is the article:

Yes, this is my first article, and yes, it’s for/about the admins. Not very original, is it? Well, I can promise you that it will be longer then 5 rows, and contain more then just an “Unban [Insert Tank Name] or ban me!”, and (therefore) probably won’t reach the international media, with 400+ votes. But, despite these, I will try to share with you a part of what I have observed in eRepublik, in my humble 21 days, and I hope you will not regret the time spent on me!

Erepublik, after 20 days

I have noticed that the “veterans” of this game, who have a good number of months under the “Bio” tab, and 4-5 medals under the “Career” one, can be split into two categories:

a)The unsatisfie😛 Their articles are the most popular in almost every country’s media, you see their articles first when you take a look in the media (of course, only after the usual mud-throwing ones). Most of the time they are strong critics of the flaws of our game, the bugs, of the passivity of the admins, of unjust bans etc. They are the most popular, and they enjoy the support of the masses.

b)The calm ones: You won’t hear them too often. Even if you do, rarely, write something, it’s short, clear, and when you read it, you can feel that they’ve already gone through the greatest obstacles of eLife. Their actual thoughts are not really known, perhaps this is how most of the knowledge is lost. They are not well known, but this does not mean that they are insignificant. While the previous category always revolts, changes, renews, but mostly through words only, the “calm ones” are the puppet-masters of this game: if something mayor suddenly changes, they are most likely to be behind it.

Those who are new to the game usually have a mixed opinion. That includes myself. I should be blind, not to see the flaws: this game is far from being perfect! There are plenty of bugs, I myself have experienced one or two, there are many things, which make no sense etc. But the situation is not that bad! The game itself, despite it’s bad sides, is quite good! There are plenty of original things inside, things you won’t find in any other game, and even though the modules are not perfect, at least they are creative, original, interesting!
I’ll say something that will probably cost my hea😛 We should be grateful to the developers of this game! (whom, a bit incorrectly, we call admins). You can ask the question: Why?! Why should we be grateful?! There are plenty of bugs, and we find unjust decisions and mistakes all the time, and, to top this, they even make money out of it! We should we thank on that? Well, I’ll tell you, there are things we can!

What can we be grateful for, to the developers of this game?

1. They have created, and are maintaining and interesting and original game!

Yes, it’s not as easy as we’d think! Moreover, the game is original, there are not many like this one! I’ve spent a few years playing text-based games on the Internet, and I can tell you I have seen 200 games which are exactly the same, but I have never, or very rarely seen a game like this one! And it’s not a small thing to put an original game on the market! It needs creativity, and bravery. Let’s not forget this one when are talking aobut this game, or it’s developers.

2. The game is free, the extras are cheap!

No matter how many complaints are, linked to the small inventory, limited messaging etc. the game can be played comfortably without paying, especially for a beginner, who has no use of a large inventory, or spacious inbox. And when player gets to the level at which these extra features are a necessity, it would be shame not to give something to the game, after using it all that time! Moreover, the extras don’t cost much, you can easily spend 3-10 euros on useless things, in one afternoon, so it’s not much for a month.

3. There is no in-game advertising!

Except for their own, which fits the theme, is only one, and after a time it becomes nearly invisible, not an advert, but part of the wallpaper. If someone played games on the internet, they know how bothering in-game adverts are. For example: You are playing a nice, medieval themed game. At the bottom the page there is and advert of a bloody sci-fi game, at the right an advert of a university, and at the left a “Cheap WoW gold” advert. They would really-really ruin the feeling of the game. Also, we should forget that adverts mean a lot of money, money, to which the developers have renounced, for our comfort, despite the fact that with this many users, they could cash in a lot of money!

Despite these facts rarely, almost never does anyone say a good word for this game! 60% of the international media is made up from complaints, attacks, and the people vote these articles up! You could ask the question: Why is it like this? If there are things to be grateful for, why can we only hear complaints?

The answer is simple: Our gods are silent!

They have a newspaper, but we can call ourselves lucky if we get an article once in 10 days, and even that article is short, impersonal and does no contain a lot of information.
I have never seen replies to our open questions, and even though they do solve our problems, we will rarely, or never seen comment an article, or at least say something like : “good idea, we’ll think about it”, “thanks for warning us, we will solve it” or “we are sorry, but we can’t to that” (Except for the latest edition of the Insider, but even there, only a fragment of the questions are replied, thus it is not satisfactory)

If you have a complaint, suggestion, and you send it straight to them, you’ll either get no reply, or a reply with some standard “thank you for..we will..”, and rarely a good, satisfactory reply.

If there is something new to the game, an innovation, new feature change, most of the time it’s not announced. Let’s take for example the new design introduced for the training and work results. It’s not a major update, but it’s pleasant, nice. Did we know it in advance? No. Would anyone who does not work or train find out about it? Most likely not, and especially not from official sources.

In the comments of the Romanian article, Danaos has told me that he is not bothered by not knowing the upcoming things. Well, I am no psychologist, but I can tell you, from my own experience, that for some reason, I have always been more grateful things I knew in advance, then the things I found out. If someone from the field could explain this phenomenon, I’ll include it in the article.

In conclusion:

We can all feel the tension between the admins and the players. This is not because they would be so untalented, or that we would be so inclined to “whining”! The main reason is the lack of communication! If we knew what the admins were doing, working on, we would value their work much more! If we wouldn’t hit ourselves in a wall whenever we want to say something, we would probably respect them more, and understand if they make mistakes. But the problem has two sides: If we wouldn’t attack them all the time, working for us would be much more pleasant to them, and they would be more understanding too.

How can the problem be solved?

What the admins/developers of the game should do:

· Increase the number of employees who are communicating with the players, because at the moment, the communication is very lacking!
· They should reply! We are humans too; we have an opinion, and respect those, who listen to it. They should, and they should reply as well, they should not be “silent gods”!
· Make a decent newspaper out of the Insider! They should use it as a development diary! If they the work on something, the should tell us, so we can see and feel that they are working for us!
· Step down from the “mountain of Olympus”! They should not play the role of the cold, mute authority! They should be our partners, because they depend on us, and we depend on them!

What we should do:

· We should try to be more understanding; we should not attack the admins every time we can! If we have a complaint, we should use neutral tone! I mean no one would like to work, when he/she is criticized all the time!
· And most importantly: We should not support the attacking articles! We should not vote them up! And, we should not support those, who make a living from attacking the admins!


Dear reader! If you have reached the end of the article, I congratulate you, and thank you for reading it! Although most likely the admins will not see this article, if you feel the message of it should be seen, and could improve the situation, please vote this article up!

Thank you for your time!