Srs Bsns, A Discussion

Day 798, 14:16 • Published in USA USA • by St Krems

What makes this game fun? Why do you log in everyday? For me it was originally the politics, helping build my party up from being a close nit group of about 70 members to the fifth largest party in the country with about 650. Along the way I started to hang out in IRC, get active in the forums and eventually started to make friends. Why was this fun for me? Was I helping to make Amurica stronger, was I leading the fight against PEACE (Phoenix) by contributing what I could to my country? The truth is no I wasn't, I was just doing it because it gave me a sense of accomplishment and was fun. This was back when it was acceptable for people to enjoy activities that didn't directly help Amurica to obtain its manifold destiny. Back when congressional elections were contested and people could spend gold on personal things without someone saying behind their back that they are wasting gold that could be used to help further Amurica.

What's my point? There is something missing from the eUS these days. That sense of fun, of political competition is gone. Lets be frank for a minute, this game is atrociously bad. The economic module is only fun for people who get hard ons over graphs, the media these days is terrible (inb4thisarticleisanexampleofthis) try finding an article in the top 5 that isn't a summary of war manurers or an announcement of some description and the war module is probably the worst of them all where people literally just click fight 5 times and then pat themselves on the back for doing a certain amount of damage that is decided purely by how long they have been playing this game, not any skill on their part. The only reason people get worked up over the war module is because they can fight for Amurica! Nothing really changes if you win or lose a battle, the community of players still exists and having your entire country wiped out is usually the best possible out come for said wiped out country yet this is now the module that all of our efforts go towards doing well in.

People say that our retention is worse off then before the invasion and blame a lack of Hospitals, I'm putting forward that it is instead a lack of any interesting user created content that is making this game so boring that nobody wants to keep playing it. Party Politics and Role Playing made this game fun to play and anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves. There has been one group in the eUS that has been more insulated then any other from the effects of the economic slow down and falling population then any other in the eUS, the military. Why is this the case? Well interestingly its probably because the military is one of the few parts of the eUS where Role Play is encouraged. Congress and the Executive now follow the holy writ of game mechanics vigorously and believe that no effort should be expended unless its in the service of Amurica. In congress this is manifest by the lack of anything interesting happening on the 25th each month (until recently inorite?), by a general willingness to be rubber stamp yes monkeys and by the shit storm that was created when a senator posted a lulz impeachment that was actually pretty funny. My suggestion is that the sense of humour and underlining irony that made this community a fun place to be is missing, people now view playing this game as a sort of job. Interestingly this change can be traced back to around when it became fashionable to say eUS instead of USA.


Thanks for reading this far, in return The original Digi-Destined and their Digimon.

As I said earlier the military is one of the few parts of the community to which this does not apply. The emphasis throughout the rest of the eUS is very much on the bare bones of game mechanics and using your imagination to flesh out the game more fully is frowned upon. The military takes a different approach. They long ago realised that Role Playing increases activity and retention and so have built a large and complicated hierarchy complete with history, traditions and other Role Play elements out of what could be described as simply the largest government funded militia. The role of the military is at the lower branches to increase retention and at the higher levels to provide a large amount of damage that can be deployed by order of the president. Around this they have built a rank structure and an esprit de corps that brings players together through the belief that they are doing more then simply clicking fight 5 times on command.

My point is that the rest of this country would benefit greatly from having this sort of Role Playing re-introduced into the other parts of the country such as inter-party politics and Congress. When new players join this game they usually do so because they see the opportunity to Role Play as a politician or general, not because they want to master the mechanics of a relatively simple game. The proof of this? Compare the retention rates of those who join the military to those who don't.

As PigInZen once said, before giving me a horse, a letter of introduction and sending me out into the world, "Krems, it's the story, not the game that matters".

Editor's Note: Some people will disagree with this article and say that I am somehow belittling the military by breaking down their contribution to this country to such a simplistic level but to that I would respond, thank you for proving my point exactly. If you can not figure out how that has proved my point kindly think before posting in the comments section. Also if someone can correctly name in the comments section the person who famously received only a horse, a letter of introduction and some fatherly advice before leaving home they get a Q1 house.