[POTUS] Share the Damn Door
Tyler Bubblar
I was 15 years old when the Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio version of the movie Titanic hit theaters. It was one of the most successful movies of all time. So much so that when I turned 16 nearly two months later it was still in theaters. My mostly deadbeat dad and his wife took me to see it. When we arrived at the movies he informed he didn’t have money to cover the tickets so on my 16th birthday I paid for myself, my father, and my step mother to have the awkward moment of seeing Kate Winslet’s breasts together. However this article is not about my sub-par father, nor is it about Kate Winslet’s breasts circa 1997.
We often hear “the game is dying” or some variation thereof. I have always rejected the notion that eRepublik is in an irreversible death spiral. I believe that we can concentrate on the community we have left. If we focus on retaining and growing the community we can begin to grow again. I saw this at the party level in the Feds when months of work went into injecting life and enthusiasm in our community. The Fed forums are lively as ever, and the Fed irc channel has begun to show signs of life. I have also seen this at the national level Civil Anarchy ran a limited 5 link Save eRepublik initiative and new joins in the community were up by about nearly two thirds.
What has begun to worry me however is the lack of participation and enthusiasm inspite of the efforts of the Executive Departments and Parties. For the past several weeks SColbert and the Media department have been running a writing contest. The prizes are as follows:
First Place 15 gold and 500 tanks
Second Place 10 gold
Third Place 5 gold
Participation 100cc
This is likely the most lucrative contest I have ever seen. Write an article on either why you play this game or what you would do if you were CP, and you get at a minimum 100cc just for publishing. As of this moment we have not had a single entry. In addition to this Dave Gulya posts a daily summary of the goings ons of the Executive Branch. (http://eusaforums.com/forum/index.php/board,21.0.html) Dave does a great job. His entries are funny, entertaining, and informative. Anyone with a question is welcome to post it there. Dave or myself will endeavor to answer it. That said most days the fine work put in there is virtually ignored. These happenings or lack of happenings prompt the question: Is anyone alive out there?
Memory is an interesting thing. When that question popped in my head I knew it was from a movie. I knew it was a movie that I had seen. However, what movie and when I had seen it escaped my attempts to corral it in. Titanic a movie I have not seen in nearly 17 years now, and a fitting metaphor for our present state as a nation and as a game. If you are interested in winning gold, tanks, and cc for simply writing an article it’s not too late. Let us know that you are still alive out there. Let us know that you hear us.
As I touched on in my previous article, this month domestically has not turned out the way I envisioned things. To correct this I have replaced 3 Secretaries and am contemplating the replacement of a 4th. Kevin Sheridan has taken over the Interior, and has already begun dispersing gold for BU2SU, and has an article in the works. Once he gets the programs and books cleaned up he will be expanding staff so if you are interested in giving a helping hand to those in need there are openings. Dave Gulya will be taking over the newly created Census Bureau. A lot of behind the scenes work has gone on to get a website and irc channel in place, but the lack of published articles with links has been a cause for concern. In addition to this DMJ arguably one of the best SecDefs we have ever had is going to take on that role once more.
There are 10 days left in my term, and a this moment I have my eye on two targets. First I want to get the Education, Interior, and the Census Bureau up and running. Continuity of effort is a must in good governance. It does not take long for the efforts of an exceptional team in a department to be squandered and lost if similar effort and competency are not provided by the new team taking over. We will clean these departments up because in this lackluster economy they are essential to the finding and preserving of new players.
My second goal is to earn re-election. That’s right I would like to be your President in the month of October as well. After beating back the 9/11 attack, reclaiming our lost colonies, and wiping Cuba for their treachery we are in a good spot. Our borders and bonuses are secured. At times working around the petty grudges of the various internal feuds of our country wears thin. In the events leading up to and even in the days after the Airstrike on New York I have seen a lot less of that. We had a real external enemy that gleefully flaunted their lack of decency. Our community united and sent a message in the face of what we considered a low blow. Witnessing that gives me hope inspite of the aforementioned silence. We can still do great things. We can share the door!
The script said Leo had to die so he did, but let’s be honest they didn’t try very hard to get him on that floating debris. I say they because he made one little attempt to get on said nope and Kate didn’t really argue very hard to save her love from freezing his nads in the icy North Atlantic. What I am so inelegantly saying is that this is a collective effort. Society is a cohesive construct that can break down when individuals and groups simply stop trying. When that happens neighborhoods, cities, states/provinces, and nations begin to break down. eRepublik is no exception to that. As players stop trying or even cease playing the nation/community are less for it. It is not too late to build something lasting, engaging, and entertaining in our community. I believe there's still time to avert the destruction of our community. I would like the opportunity of a second term to lead us in doing so.
Comments
INSURGIO~
First?
F**k, no Q7 weap's :/
Now, seriously - man, do you realize that eUSA community is one of the most active and best organized ones?
I really admire you guys on your effort's 🙂
And energy spent...
No, we don't. Thanks for your words! Isn't the Argentinian community more active? Your top5 parties have ~550 more members than ours do :3
Do not know. I am just few days in Argentina. I am from Serbia.
And your argument is invalid, sorry but it is 🙂
Numbers (statistic) are not good parameters for activeness 🙂
There are multies, you know. I am not saying anything for Argentina, but as much as I have noticed- in eUSA there is highest number of real peoples that try's to have fun here, and as I noticed- there are few guys that try's to make that possible for them here. How could I put it... I read a lot of your articles, you often have many good ideas, and the best organization. 🙂
Sorry on bad English. o7
Your English is just fine. Thank you for thoughts.
Thanks for your kind words.
This reminds me that, sometimes, to get a full view of a situation, you need to look at it from the outside.
bookmarked , too much text to read before my bed time
You have my vote. Any job well done deserves to be recognized and if the recognition means a 2nd term, than you have earned it.
thank you. Very kind of you.
Hmm...
In all honesty, as someone who likes to watch and advise (but for better or worse, hasn't done real work in a while). I think the problem has many parts.
For one, our community runs in a lot of concurrent threads, You see a lot of people who are active here and there in different pockets, but our unified national community is one dominated by jaded oldfags who believe the game has seen better days and is on its way out (or who at least give that impression), and that kind of pushes people away from forming a cohesive whole.
Also, we have some issues with continuity of the player base and turning our newer folks into capable leaders. I'm not sure what the primary cause for this is, but it seems like the current leaders and truly capable folks on all levels tend to get entrenched and insular in their positions, and this leads them to burning out and/or becoming jaded about the game before they train/breed/educate proper successors. Then, when people finally do burnout/move on/what have you, It can leave glaring holes in organization and structure, and that can be especially obvious in our smaller sub-communities.
And finally, on a perhaps related note, it seems that too often, there's a large gulf between high activity players that serve as community builders and literally everyone else, and there's not enough upward mobility there.
Honestly, I'm torn on whether the game is dying... I'm sure the playerbase is still here, but I think that some facets of our community are basically running on a skeleton crew, and looking back, I think it may be all our doing. If we want to fix this, we're probably going to need to change our mentality and learn to be more accepting of new people and new ideas, mostly because for too long, many of us have approached this game like our exclusive sandbox.
When you look at it that way, it's not too surprising that the sandbox is now rather vacant, is it?
BU2SU
Some interesting points were brought up and as a member of the Census Bureau I took a back seat solely as a Web Developer and nothing had gotten done. However in the last 24 hours the DoCB has increased itself in terms of understanding and activity. Even though Dave & Tyler already know we will have a contest out very shortly, we have already made contact with nearly every party & military unit in the USA.
Check out the Census Bureau
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2450788/1/20
Vote - Subscribe - Comment
P/H Tyler.
The eUS is dying because you tards killed the opposition. Opposition is the life blood of good government. eCanada's comunity is better off because we have real opposition in every single election. We're more active than we were 6 months or a year ago. You want to revive your community you all need to pull out the knives and start slitting each other's throats politically.
It actually is a good point , it gives more RL feel and adds some RP elements if there is strong opposition and you can see articles that are trash talking other parties 😃
Btw, the game is meant to be entertainment. Nothing entertains the mass more than good drama.
At least Plato hasn't killed it yet
She's floating on a piano.
17 years I have avoided seeing that movie, please stop spoiling my ignorance of it
Spoiler: It sinks.
I read Dave Gulya's posts everyday.
Best thoughts/comments to date.
Huzzah o7