[WHPR] Special Edition: Op-Ed by Tom Cauchon

Day 2,745, 18:43 • Published in USA USA • by James S. Brady Press Room
White House Press Report - Day 2745 – Special Edition: Op-Ed



Dateline: Wednesday, May 27th, 2015 (Day 2745)
Location: James S. Brady Press Room, The White House

Announcement: By popular demand, the original WHPR graphics have been restored. This is Special Edition piece, and occurs in addition to regularly scheduled WHPR.

Editor’s Note: The following represents the opinion of the author and was published with the sole discretion of the editor.

An Op-Ed on the Blurred Lines between Real Life and Erepublik
Tom Cauchon, eUS Secretary of Media

I often wonder who you all are. Is this a strange thought? Perhaps or perhaps not. This is the only online RPG game I actively play. I never got into World of Warcraft, and I only had a brief stint on Runescape. But, here I am, playing Erepublik and interacting as a virtual character in a virtual world.

But back to my earlier point. Who are you all? We all know small snippets and little details about each others lives, like where we are from or what we do for a job or, thanks to ViKy, what some of our beds look like.

Playing this game is like reading a book and creating images of the characters in your mind. I’ve done that for each and every one of you. I’ve created images that I associate with each of you, often largely influenced by your avatars or other things I know about you.

For Trekker, I’ll never imagine you as anything but the green lizard that you are.

For Garmr, I imagine you as the guy that goes to the gym and has massive biceps. Strange, but possibly true? I guess I’ll never know.

For PilotPhil, I’ll always imagine you as a that well-trimmed gray-haired veteran commercial airline pilot that allows you to breathe a sigh of relief when you see him step into the cockpit on your cross continental flight.

For BeachBunny, a bleach blonde talkative woman, with more energy than the next 10 people combined.

For Cubby, I don’t know you well, but your avatar really creates your persona for me. Same for bigcdizzle. You guys will always be associated with your avatars in my mind.

I’m sure I could think of a lot more, I’ve left a lot of my friends out. But, in any case, there has been much talk in both regular gameplay and Congress about how much RL should effect Erepublik gameplay.

I’m not here to provide an answer for this question.

There’s just an interesting idea of blurred lines between RL and Erepublik. Our RL influences seem to creep in at some parts of the game, and other times not. Many of us are honest and fair and truthful, upholding the same virtues we have in RL. I’ve never played a game where more people are fair and honest.

I’ve never played a game where people send you messages thanking you for what you did yesterday, or encouraging you forward with progess.

I’ve never played a game in which I wanted to send a thank you note to someone else. Or a game where I wanted to help nurture a new player.

This leads me to the conclusion that I’ve never played a game with a better community. We love to whine and moan at each other about politics and the like, but at the end of the day, the will power of our community is impressive.

And when I walk down the streets of my hometown, our RL nation’s capital, I wonder who/what/and where you all are. Perhaps we’ve interacted together in RL, or perhaps we’ve passed each other on the street. It’s both an intriguing and exciting thought. But I guess we’ll never know. And that’s what keeps me playing.




Sincerely, Your Newly Appointed WHPR team,

Secretary of Media, Tom Cauchon


Deputy Secretary of Media, Tyler Bubblar


Assistant Writer/Editor, Jude Connors

[WHPR Day 2686]

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