The Winds of Change
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by Marcos Arolia
(TL😉
R: Indonesia is Poland or however it's said and the Forums are outdated as a social vehicle)
gday Australia,
It seems as if I can never be released from disaster and misfortune. jaja It's only melodrama; a crippling migraine isn't the worst thing that has happened to me. However, I still had difficulty with energy and ability. With that finished, let us now hail our Indonesian overlords and their holy flag.
...Why are the colours inverted? Was it not like this one week ago?
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AH! I understand now. Poland has conquered Indonesia and inverted their flag colours. It is a pleasant change I say. Something worth huzzahs and happiness over. However, that alone wouldn't be enough to title this article WINDS OF CHANGE. There was another topic not in the game itself that grasped my attention.
http://auserepublik.com/index.php?topic=22092.0
For those of you who don't have a forum account, this arguement (thread) was written by BOUD1CCA (Louise Brooks) who bemoans that "There is just no life any more🙁
." This seems to have become a problem despite the ever-constant ebbs and flows of Auserepublik.
Everyone can agree that player retention has always been an issue ever since the beginning of this game. That is something that can't be denied by anyone.
One of the most important things about retaining players is that they should be engaged within the community. However, what happens when a certain community attempts to cater to a group that no longer follows how it communicates?
The Internet has changed from the beginning of the game, and sadly we the citizens of eRepublik have not fully adapted to these changes. To today's potential citizens, the Forums are too slow to truely be an engaging experience and IRC consumes too much of most people's time.
It is wonderful that Poland had conquered Indonesia just as the Circle of Trust has disbanded, but we have now begun another period of uncertainty. And as I look at our dwindling numbers in comparison with Indonesia, I don't see a bright future post-occupation as we are. This is why I say we need to adapt to how the Internet is now or continue to dwindle at every crisis until we die.
Do not misunderstand. The Forums are still very effective for Politics and the Military, but it has become outdated as a way for others to speak with one another to many of the younger generation that we want to engage in eRepublik. Did you agree? Disagree? I want this to be a real conversation that everyone will see and discuss.
Thank you for your time,
Marcos Arolia
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Comments
I think the recent move towards a skype community was a good idea.
yer but not everyone has the time for it. Just like people do not have much time for irc either
Skype is great if the majority of the people are in the same time zone and have the time to chat. We have a large population that aren't in Australia in RL and aren't online at the same time we are, so it doesn't always work out.
any real-time comms like IRC and skype won't work. I have 10-20 minutes at various times of the day to devote to this game. forums are useful as they keep the history of a discussion
this is just a suggestion (well more of a 6 year year old talking to a soccer star on how to play soccer suggestion) is it possible to create a website for eaustralia that kinda combines IRC and the forums? like a forum but with instant messaging perhaps? or maybe something like a basic form of Facebook for erepublik players? that would mean we could have instant messaging (IRC),
group discussions (forums) and it could be quite fun having everyone have their own profile and stuff. again just a suggestion and I am not even sure if it would work.
🙂
The forum has a shoutbox which is a form of instant messaging. I'm not sure it's possible to combine a forum and irc though. I suspect it's not.
The eEspana political party Nueva Espana Liberal had something like this when I first joined the game. It is possible, though I do not know how to implement it.
Forums can have an IRC like area that people can log in and talk in real time, TCO had this before we moved to the new forums, I don't know if it can be achieved through SMF or whether it would be a new forum to do this though.
It's a well known fact that the communications available in game have always been sub-par. This is why it's important to have other avenues. Whether this is IRC, forums or Skype or something else, I don't really mind. I do think that we need something else other than in game though, for our community to thrive.
Si. What I am saying however is that the forum is no longer adequate to bring people into the strongest part of this game and what retains people the most: the community.
Unfortunately Skype and IRC also don't seem to be where the people want to be. I'm not sure if there is a solution to this.
The only issue Skype solved was that it increased greater accessibility for real-time communication. The other issues of IRC are not solved by Skype. What we need in the case of the Forums is something to increase the speed of social communication that will have people want to join. The text-based age has ended, and we must adapt to it if we want an opportunity to regain everything we have lost and more.
I love forums, they pose an all but unique method to cross time barriers and allow for decent communications. Unfortunately, hardly anyone seems to use them, and if they do it's normally drama bullshit, hence, I steer clear of them.
and the one way to fix the forums relies on a single person doing what's right for the community. Selfishness has seen the death of the forums.
If only everyone did the same. Forums will always have a use, but it's just no longer effective for player retention due to how the Internet has changed in the past few years.
I dunno; they're one of the first things I looked for when I started playing, I was most disappointed when I came back and they were dead. As for all that Instant crap like twitter, I avoid it like the plague. Useless crap.
It is indeed disappointing. I despise the instant communication as well, but we do have to adapt to it in some way. There is no need to abandon the forum for obvious reasons, but we do need a way to revitalise our society. Adopting some of the new methods of today (It does not have to be from Twitter) would help make forum use (or its equivalent) more attractive and help bring more people into the community.
It is better than this slow death.
I did create a Facebook pager for eAus during Last term. This is when we started having issues with our PM. I was hoping people would join and we could have discussion threads and poles and stuff.
https://www.facebook.com/eAustralia if you want to join
i cant help but quote Larnis comment
" the one way to fix the forums relies on a single person doing what's right for the community. Selfishness has seen the death of the forums."
this is the root of the problem, hell our current CP had a petition with 30 signatures asking for the removal of quoted person
Interesting article, this conversation is definitely needed.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-petition-to-remove-binda33-from-admin-of-the-eaustralian-forums-re-circulation--2301546/1/20 only 23 people signed it..... not 30
yes, ONLY 23
btw how many people frequent the forums. remember to take off anyone that frequents and also signed the petition
The forums currently have 345 members who have used them within the last six months.
bullshit, how many different users do you get logging in to the forums daily?
Good article Marcos - for what it's worth, I don't find much time or motivation to go on IRC. I'd prefer an in-game comms device - I'm assuming the game's administrators/engineers are not particularly responsive to requests for upgrades to things like communications?
A while back the game added in IRC-like rooms for instant chat. They were unbelievably laggy and took ages to join. Nobody wanted to use them for that reason and they were removed a while later.
I do not know how in Australia, but in Russia forum use only congressmen.
Communication occurs in the articles and Skype (chat rooms).
Military action coordinated on IRC. There is also a script with the orders.
Therefore, I agree with the author of the article. Forums are no longer relevant.