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Hands of Lightning: Ten-thousand volts of reason delivered straight to your brain

Some mood music



There is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die - H.P Lovecraft

So we're all aware by now that Ronald Gipper Reagan, AKA the fourth incarnation of notorious (and not in the good way, like Biggie) Ajay Bruno returned after not even a day of permaban. You’d think by now admin would clue in and at least ban him for multiple accounts or something, but such a thing does not happen, not in our universe anyway. This is in fact a much smaller part of a much large issue in eRepublik: admin incompetence.


The eRepublik mascot of a Headless Chicken is apt

This is not a new issue, sadly, and it’s one that has caused all the great ills of this game: economic collapse, a switch from social focus to gold-buying and war focus, and – yes – people either being kept active when they should be banned, or banned when they should still be allowed activity. Now, as a RL Anarcho-Capitalist, I’m tempted to use this as a metaphor for how the state interrupts the free market and turns it into a mess, damaging the chance for prosperity with its use of force and illogical decrees. That is a debate for another time…though a valid debate, and one we need to have some time just you and me *wink wink*. No, I’ll keep this to the game itself, and my hypothesis: the admins are not very good painters.


eRepublik through its various stages: beta, v1, and whatever we’re in now

Imagine a painting, and imagine somebody buying that painting. They take it home, stand back, but realize a little flaw in the lower-right corner of the artwork. They take their brushes and paints and “correct” the mistake. They stand back yet again, and realize what they’ve done made the piece far less attractive. Now, any logical person would argue “well I’ve damaged this enough; I’ll leave it as is and let this blotch be a reminder to never do this again”. Sadly, we’re not dealing with a logical person. Instead, this imaginary painter “corrects” more and more of the painting, until it is unrecognizable from its former self. The painting, once a beautiful portrait of some fair Italian maiden, is now some gross abstract piece of clashing colours. Any reasonable person would throw this artwork out and start again, but our dear painter – in the endless depths of his wisdom – proudly displays the painting in a deluded fervour and calls it “perfect”.


Plato in his famous “up yours” pose

This is where we stand today, my fellow players. Now I wasn’t around for beta, but I was around for the bulk of V1 all the way until the dawn of V2. Whatever phase we’re in now is unrecognizable in all the worst ways from the original painting, or at least the one I saw when I first started. Yes, Ajay Bruno is back again, and this sucks only as far as he’ll troll us some more, attempt a PTO or something, and will continue to be irrelevant to the bigger picture. That he’s back, and that we’re stuck in this awful painting is part of a larger issue; and I hope I’ve illustrated it, forgive the pun, for you today.

And for those of you who may be tempted to say “then just leave the game”, I – or any of the other so-called “oldfags” need to tell you that this isn’t possible. We all love eRepublik, the way someone may love an abusive partner, or why I continue to buy Final Fantasy games when the last one I enjoyed was FFX; and we believe deep down in our heart of hearts that it can someday be great again, or that it’s not so bad once you roll with the changes, or whatever we can say to justify it. Maybe we’re just too far in now that we can’t leave, like quicksand…or the mob. Maybe we've spent too much money on this, and need some use out of it. The reasons change on an individual basis, but one thing stays the same:

If we’re going to enjoy the game like we once did, Plato’s going to find a way to quench his thirst for gold, and some serious retooling of the game will have to happen. So many of the game’s greats have left this world, and many more secretly plan to daily. Many have found better games, and even games close enough to eRepublik (they exist) to fill in the same slot this game once did. eRepublik Labs faces a shameful legacy, a death without burial, unless it changes its ways and returns to what made it great: being the premier social strategy game.



Until next time,
Kaminarinote