Join the new world

The recent loss of the bot, so typically hated by all in lore of Erepublik, brought to light how much we unfortunately depend on it. The questions I hope to address is, what's the big deal with the bot (in particular, why the last few days have been revealing), is it actually better to have the bot around, and how we got here to begin with.


Whats the Big Deal with the Bot

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This section is mainly for newer players. Due to the overproduction from the gazillions of companies, especially, but not limited to, the raw materials markets, the markets are flooded with products far beyond actual consumption needs.

It USED to be that, on occasion, a nation or alliance would run short on weapons due to more being needed than can be produced. With the entire 'you can work in a gazillion companies' bit for those who have been around long enough to get a gazillion companies, we have way too much product for that to happen.

People self-produce and the idea of being interdependent on the market (eg, an economy) doesn't exist. Newer players could use some of those products, but they can't afford to buy the products as much as they could consume, thus leaving the only needy people without, and those who have enough with a lot of products that couldn't move within a valid market.



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Of course, that isn't quite accurate, as the bot plays with the cause and affect of the above. Prices maintain reasonably high only because of the bot buying products and dumping them off into random vague space. However, this in turn causes lots of local currency to be created from thin space, shooting the value of gold to super super high levels compared to local currency, and washing out anything close to the words "legitimate monetary market", mainly due to not having a legitimate economy.


As an added and needed note to this, in an attempt to combat the excess amount of currency, admins added the idea of "land" (which I believe no longer exists?) that costs currency, RW's costing currency as opposed to gold previously, MPP's costing currency, and making RW companies that could be built out of currency. Considering the useless piles of currency around, this wasn't a bad idea. However, it created an interesting drug-type effect on the economy when we went bot-less. Which brings me to


Why the past few days have been revealing

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WHAT has that bot been up to in its absence? hmm....


With the bot not working, prices began to steadily decrease back to the levels that we saw them before the bot was introduced but the 'work as manager' option was added. Simultaneously, the price for gold became lower compared to currency worldwide, briefly and in not nearly as dramatic levels as it used to be (I remember 60 USD buying one gold days, and even one persons 'dream' of 1 USD for 1 gold...hahahaha, oh the good days).

What happened?

There was an outcry for the bot to return, something for which people beforehand had been outraged merely at its existence. Why? Because just like a drug, the 'economy' had become used to the excess amount of currency. People complained about the 'poultry' amount of currency a day they were making.

Yet, if they had compared that amount of currency to how much they were making in gold, they may have found a surprising lack of dropping profits. Indeed, the only affect this change had is it made currency based companies, RW's, and MPP's more expensive.

That is to say, the admins introduced these cash flushing devices to help with the bot-currency dependence, then when the bot went away, the very device for which these cash flushing devices were created for became the thing we need to continue in the way in which the e-world works.



IS the Bot Helpful? Hurtful? And How did we get here?

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Quite simple, really. So long as the devices at current within the game structure requires so much currency the bot will be needed. So long as the bot is around the devices for sucking currency will be needed. Low prices on RM's to the tune of 10 cents is no problem, except that it makes it hard to buy currency based companies.

Overall, the system needs to change. I want a real economy again. Unfortunately, to get it back, there's no way but to hurt a lot of people. Nobody can produce hundreds of tanks a day and this economy be real again.

It will hurt a lot of players, dedicated players, and those people are the ones that own a lot of stuff, and are mostly the ones who buy gold because they are the 'big wig' players. Until the changes are made, most new players won't stick around. Who do the admins cater to, the new people, or the old and faithful?




We got here like this:

-Admins introduce "work as manager", trying to coax people to buy more gold for their new found ability to create empires.

Effect:
-People rejoice and build mega-company structures where they can self-produce everything they need.

THEN
-People overproduce, causing inflation and a utter lack demand vs. production

Response:
-Admins remove skills, attempting to give newer players equal footing while economy moguls build larger and larger company bases. Admins allow people to eat/fight more, to combat overproduction by increasing demand, but its not nearly enough.

Also, Admins add bot, to get rid of extra products.

EFFECT:
Economy is flooded with dollars, and already weak MM goes to pieces, and people have thousands of dollars sitting around doing nothing.

Response:
-Admins add currency needing items instead of gold-items. In particular, MPP's, land, RW's, travel tickets, and RM companies that use cash to be built.

EFFECT:
-Its the world we have now, with people who produce way too much only to get a lot of cash that they can turn into mostly other companies for more overproduction. We're like the nation of China if they had a baby boom. There's no room left.

Random Happening (Response?):
-Bot is taken offline for some reason, intended or not.


Effect:
-Prices fall, gold rises like a zombie slightly out of the grave, and cash hogged economy moguls feel a pinch in their currency buying power even though, relative to gold prices, it may have been a good thing. The very system built to keep the bot from destroying the last bit of the economy created the need for the bot, and so it goes around.




And so we have it, stuck in a circular system that supports itself but leaves us with only a facade of an economy. Honestly, its not all that bad, but it does leave a lot of room for 'class gaps' between long-time players and new players. To say whether it is 'good' or 'bad' is superfluous in the sense that, good or bad, it's where we are and the better question is, what do we do now?


Aren Perry