The Joey Development Scheme
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by Peter A Wiggin
The JDS (http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/jds-free-gold-for-new-players--2584460/1/20), a scheme designed to help new players overcome their initial lack of cash and boost their progress, is the topic for today’s article. I will look into the scheme and see if it really is anything but a scam to frustrate new players.
I am a new player. That’s no secret. After all, my eBirthday is listed on my profile page. When I started, I was naturally drawn to the Joey Development Scheme link in the Welcome message from the president, as it promised a head start and the ability to get around the painful process of familiarising myself with the GUI (graphical user interface) I was presented with and at the same time advance myself to a position where I could better understand the underlying purpose of the game. And sure, it looks great. Choose an avatar and you get 1 gold! Join the ADF and you get 1 gold! Wait ... what?! In an article written by our eGovernment linked to by the message delivered to new players, there is an explicit request for players to join a particular military unit? Until I looked around a bit more, I had no idea that there were multiple military units and that you could choose whichever you wished, or none at all. Bribery, anyone? If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t be in the ADF right now!
So, the congress of eAustralia is endorsing one particular military unit, potentially without even realising. In this particular term, 31% of congress is from the Knight Hawks Military Council, which goes hand in hand with the Knight Hawks Military Unit. Surely they don’t support this endorsement. Whoever wrote the latest revision of the JDS reward list is ever so slightly, well, biased. But, that’s not all. As a beginner, I completed some of these tasks (9, I think?) and politely mailed the governor of the time (T.A.X.S.I.R.A) to see if he could give me my reward of 11 gold. He said that the JDS was low on gold and to wait ten days. (Sorry there are no screenshots, the message expired.) That was several weeks ago.
It seems to me that the JDS is simply too ill-equipped to give what it so readily promises. Not only is the first reward listed heavily biased, but it doesn’t give what it promises. And yet it’s listed as a government department despite all this. This simply makes me think that our eGovernment doesn’t work hard enough to produce anything worthwhile. The fact that this stub of a beginner’s help program has made it onto the list of government departments legitimately makes me feel concerned. We need something more than just this, or at least a working sample of this.
My ideas on how to fix this are simple. All that needs to be done is the cutting down of available tasks to complete. If there weren’t so many tasks, then maybe the JDS would actually have enough gold to give out. Or, we could replace the reward for some of the tasks with a small wad of normal currency. (Around 30 AUD.) And, to kick start the program, a donation of, say, 25 gold from the government to the JDS could be made. These are such simple ideas, and yet they haven’t yet been put into action by others. I wonder why.
Thank you for reading; it’s what keeps these articles coming. If you found it remotely interesting, I would appreciate a vote. If you like my ideas, spread them. I don’t care if I don’t get credit for them, as long as it brings us closer to having a better JDS.
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Hi Peter, welcome!
ADF is the most near unit to the government, it isn't about private interest, give out weapons without needs of work in a company and receive government supports when the storage is near to the end. But JDS isn't about "complete all points", you can choose to remain without MU or choose other one without any problem.
Anyway I suggest to choose a MU, because of DO bonus given out by the game.
I'll try to open debate in senate thread and you'll receive more info by MoF about rewards. It's movement days because of large scale event that involve all the eWorld, have faith 😃
True, I guess you aren't forced to stay at the ADF. I just don't see anyone bothering to leave the ADF and join another MU. It's good to think, though, that there'll be change in the program. I've been looking forward to this since I first realised it wasn't working.
Over time when you become more familiar with players, it is common to join a MU which your friends are in as well. The ADF was created specifically for new players so that there could be a couple of mentors within the MU giving new players guidance and supplies where appropriate. I'm not sure how well this is being done now, but generally other MU's are not really ideal for brand new players IMO.
The ADF is Government run and as KHMC PP I am happy to say we endorse this.
But your other points are great and definitely worth examining. It is time JDS is scrutinized and should be routinely. It is outrageous that JDS is being run like this and should be doing better to procure donations and should not be turning noobs away.
Keep on writing my friend and message me if you are ever short on supplies.
o/
The ADF was written into it, because it seen as a good stepping stone MU. It allowed players to grow and seek advice, while they found their feet in the game. Once they felt comfortable, they could either stay or move to another MU. Also it is the one that is most aligned with the Australian government (no matter which party is in charge).
In regards to the JDS being low on funds.... that is surprising to hear. Considering it does work on donations, but as a government program, I am sure the government could spare some money to go towards it. After all, the DoF has made profits every month for quite a while now.
Good article and I would love to see some future articles. Also if you have any questions, feel free to ask them.
That's good to hear, thanks. I just got the impression that the government couldn't properly control an MU for any lengthy period of time, and that the ADF was only semi-official.
the problem lies with the person in control. RL always takes over at some stage, plus ups and downs of life, internet etc etc.
My MU started with a bang, but due to time restraints and other factors, it has changed over time. Depending on what role you do in game, it could take up to a few hours each day to do your duties. So all in all, it is understandable if someone has dropped off. The biggest issue is swapping the leader out, MUs are unlike PP, a MU leader is there as long as his account is 'live'.
Ok. I guess RL does always win in the end, no matter how hard you fight against it (... not that you'd want to.) But what kind of duties take several hours a day? I didn't realise there was enough to eRep for anyone to spend several hours daily fulfilling duties.
Well depending on the MU and its rewards program, you will have to fist check which player has hit their target/quota, then you will be supplying them all with the allotted rewards (maybe food or weapons or something else).
You will also need to set your DOs for the MU, not only for the current battle, but also set the top 5 priority battles, so when that main one finishes, it will automatically find the next DO battle.
The MU leader might need to respond to any PMs from players, speak to them about their actions, plans of attacks, supplies. Also any government based request for military assistance somewhere.
That is just for the MU. Then they have their own clicking to do, for their account and depending on who it is, they might also have a government or congress role to do, Political Party role to do.
And finally get on with the social aspect of the game, catching up with friends, reading articles in the papers etc etc.
First up http://prntscr.com/b20107 whichever monkey is currently running the JDS is to record this on Peter's tasks.
I have spoken up before about this and I certainly have never agreed that JDS should run under/near the government. It had it's ups and downs whilst being privately run but it never turned anyone away.
I am equally pissed off that this has not been brought forward into congress or cabinet by the finance dept that funds are required or that someone hasn't been putting out an article via the JDS newsletter.
The above article is only more reason why the JDS should never of been put under the government's arm.
Very true. Thanks for the gold, I really appreciate it.
waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy back when I was cp, the JDS was semi kick started (it existed but was not functioning) by Dr Hugh, and he was very involved in politics at the time and I think that is part of why it was semi govt run. But we were fortunate to get a significant amount of gold from some players which allowed it to be run independently for a long time, but the govt always had a hand in making sure that the JDS was operating.
Mick not in the times I ran the JDS. I took over when the gov let it lapse and when I needed a break it was passed back and forth between players who ran it without any government input.
Our issue is there is not enough active players who commit to a full term and we can see this with last term where players came and went especially in the DoD. It is becoming consistently worse where players either become too busy with RL, just fail to stay committed or refuse to work with others to benefit the community.
I apologise for the delay. The money is there, but we needed to track down the promised funds from an investor. Once that was done we needed to convert it to gold via the market. Rest assured you will get the gold for the tasks you have completed, it might just take a few more days.
Sorry that should read promised donor.
Also the donor has only agreed to release funds on a case by case basis, once we sign up each applicant they will release enough funds to cover all tasks for that applicant.
How much is owing in cc? or is needed?
Is the JDS done via an Org that can do a bulk buy of gold on the MM?
Guagature has paid Peter 10 Gold so that will cover things for now. It is via the JDS org. J Seemore has let me know the best time of day to list so hopefully it will clear in 10 days.
wouldnt it be easier just to buy the gold on the MM, rather then wait for someone to buy cc? That way the young player who is doing the JDS scheme is getting paid on time?
I think that that would be the best way to do it. I really don't think having 10 day waits encourages new players to stay in eAustralia or even in eRep at all.
To further clarify. The promised donations had been held back until an applicant appeared, the reason the donor did this was because of funds going missing from government orgs in the past. Once they sent me the 10K for one applicant, it still needed to be converted via market, which takes at least one 10 day cycle, but sometimes even 20 or more days at the $333 rate. In this case they didn't clear after the first 10 says, and I apologise that you weren't contacted to clarify the state of things. If I converted instantly it would have been $400 or more and 10K would not buy the 30 gold needed for all tasks. Rusty's extra donation means we can convert some gold ahead of time to avoid this happening in the future, although we can still use the pledged funds from the first donor should we be low on funds again. Also if you can send the current MoF Nathan Hill a message with the tasks you have completed, as well as screenshots required for any, we can mark those off and see if you are owed any further gold. For the ones I was able to see for myself, Guagature's 10 gold I believe more than covers things.
To further further clarify, the JDS is still run by donations, but only managed by the government now as previously it had fallen into complete inactivity. The last listed independent director is no longer active in the game. It took some time to track down the pledged funds, and only just yesterday did I finally get a copy of the previous records of which previous applicants had completed what. I realise things still haven't been perfect but at least now with the management delegated to the current MoF we should always have someone easily contactable who is active and accountable to the Prime Minister and the public.
I miss our our original Boot Camp which was privately run. It didn't give out gold, but did give out food and weapons and a ton of advice and encouragement.
All three major MUs, the Cowboys from Hell, Knight Hawks, and the ADF, do have something in place for equipping, but the system varies. We also have a massive old to new player ratio so finding help, especially in an MU or via the group message of one of the five major parties, is incredibly easy. I did restart the food drops for ADP members also, but I believe I may have missed publishing the article last week with all the Resource War preparation. I should have the final one for my tenure out in the next day or so.
where did the name "Joey Development Scheme" come from anyway?
Unsure why Hugh picked it (if he was the one who started it), but a Joey is a baby Kangaroo. And well development... and scheme, I am sure you can work that one out 😛