The Economist ~ Nihilism in eRepublik
Spite313
Dear friends,
Take a look at the erepublik map- it’s something that I don’t do very often, and I guess most of you are the same. Unless you’re actively involved in your countries Ministry of Defence (MoD), you probably aren’t that interested about things which don’t affect you- you just fight where your daily order (DO) or Campaign of the Day (CotD) happens to be. During the period it had x2 damage, the already supreme Serbia managed to conquer a big chunk of Europe, including Poland and it’s “home” colonies in Germany. The Poles didn’t even bother trying to resist double damage, instead preferring to wait and strike back later. Now that it is “later” Serbia is coming under attack from several RWs and direct wars. The question is, what did the expedition achieve?
Long ago, wars in eRepublik were much more vicious and personal than they are now. Poland is one of the most pragmatic countries in the game, least prone to defending a bad idea out of nationalism. But the Poland of 2 years ago would have been in political turmoil over the decision to not defend a battle, no matter how hopeless. But now it’s ingrained into our minds that every victory is ultimately transitory with no real long term benefits. Without the x2 bonus from the competition, Serbia’s expedition wouldn’t even have lasted the ten to twenty days it has. The game has become an endless cycle of periodic victory and loss.
Argentina’s occupation of Spain and the UK offered some hope of a sustained occupation, but ultimately failed because the finely balanced alliance system meant that to keep it’s territories, Argentina had to fight harder than normal all the time, whereas Aurora-Sirius only had to fight hard long enough to dislodge them. I guess greater co-operation between the UK, Spain and Aurora had a part to play- Chile’s indifference toward them made them vulnerable to Argentina. Argentina’s night damage advantage, and the political unwillingness to spend big on CO played their part too.
However the point is that in the end, long term occupation of countries is a thing of the past in most cases- the exception being agreed region swaps and France, whose rubber bonus and general ability to annoy everyone, ever, means that they struggle to get support from allies whilst being one of the most attractive targets around. If the UK had rubber or saltpetre, it would be in the same boat. In any case, wars now have small benefits for the aggressor, and as a result most people just don’t care anymore about them.
Ask yourself, when was the last war you really cared about? Where you thought that it would make a real difference to your country? Even the countries who used to fight long ping pong wars against real life rivals (Croatia-Serbia for example) don’t really have the same level of care as they did. The passion has been worn down by repetition and a global stalemate which is only briefly disturbed by a larger victory- and those larger victories (like the one TWO achieved) are political, not battlefield.
So what is the solution to this? I remember when I was first born, the UK was not involved in any wars at all for the first 5 months of my life. I mean zero- by MPP or direct. That’s because war was insanely expensive. Hundreds of gold to declare, then every region attacked cost hundreds more- with Resistance Wars (RWs) equally expensive. I freed Bavaria from Poland once, and it cost 129 gold to start the resistance war. Imagine that, with the dozens of RWs we see every day now? It’s hard.
I’m not saying we should go back to that system, but there must be a happy medium. The Natural Enemy mechanics make war cheap and plentiful, but desensitise us to it. With a dozen minor wars going on at any time, it’s hard to feel engaged with any of them. The mechanics need to be tweaked to cut back the number of wars- whether that is by increasing the cost (or rather, making a cost) or by removing the NE law altogether. Attacking regions should have a cost too, and RWing them should have an even steeper cost. Right now it costs 50g to start a RW, but spread across 10 people it is nothing, which is why we get spammed proposals everywhere. Increase the cost, or remove the ten sponsors rule and have a single person foot the cost.
I guess a lot of people will disagree with me, because these changes cut down the number of personal benefits you as a player receives from the war module. However at the minute we do have a system where people fight for medals, or for benefits. How many times have you hit in a 66-0 battle just because you couldn’t be bothered to find a more meaningful one and needed to get the hits in to reach a competition milestone? We are playing for personal rewards, the war itself has become meaningless.
With a more expensive system, and less wars, we would again have the situation where whole alliances were clashing in a single key war that we all get behind. We wouldn’t all be playing for ourselves. Countries wouldn’t be starting wars just to get true patriot medals or out of boredom. We would have a genuine alliance system where allies were bound by the experience of fighting together in heroic battles like those of the past. Those names that echo down from V1, with no counterparts in the modern world of consumer battlefields.
The current game tends towards nihilism, but this is something the admins can change and should change. For battlefields with meaning!
Iain
To those of you wanting to join Unity drop Count Drakula, Lord Farhan or myself a PM. Be part of the best unit in the world
😁
Comments
oops xD
Nice and interesting
Agreed- But admin won't listen.
Actually they do quite often listen, at least enough for me to keep writing these things. They often take the time to explain themselves as well if they don't want to do something.
When? Where?
It would be interesting to know their replies.
I often read you articles, especially the ones with suggestions for the future, but to my knowledge I've not seen any disclosing the Admin's response.
They do reply, but correspondence with admins can't be published. Nevertheless I know of several player suggestions which have been implemented. If you have an idea which is either simple, or complex but well thought out, they will listen. Most player suggestions are shit though.
@Ian Keers
You mean that awfull division change?
Can't read - it's Romania 🙂
I always look in the map 😛
The current system leads to the most gold buying, so I don't see it changing at all.
But you're right of course.
I don't think it would change the amount of Gold bought if there were fewer, less regular wars.
People would still buy the Assault/Warpack/whateverpack as there would still be wars and benefits to buying them.
Also, with fewer, more important wars people may actually be inclined to drop real cash to make a real difference to the eWorld.
It's all speculative, though.
Nice!
That's even more true for smaller countries. They know that they can't reasonably expect to defend against bigger attackers, but the also know that their regions will eventually be freed - be it via RW or someone other who removes the occupier for them. So why bother spending tons of the already sparse resources a small country has to defend?
Why not bring that V1 allback ;P? It's was sooo beautiful in all these stories.
In my opinion, it's not a V1 vs. V2 question. I was young and weak in V1, and barely fought, so I have no attachment to V1 mode. However, there have been tons of changes post V2 There are a lot of incentives to fight on your own, even on occasion against your alliance or your country - mercenary medals, for instance, almost require you to ignore your country's interests in favor of your own. The same is of the newer FF medals. Many times RWs are started by people who have no interest in strategy, just want another medal opportunity. These are all changes that were brought in long after V2, and all tend in the same direction.
If i would be active since my e-born, I would have this mercenary medal without hitting against my country 😛
You certanly could do it without hitting against your county directly, but pretty near impossible to do without hitting against your alliance.
I have 1 merc medal, because the alliance system changed halfway through. It is possible though, because sometimes you need to fight "against" your country/allies for RWs
Yes, it's possible. I have 16 of them myself. But it's much more difficult if you are paying attention to who is an ally and who is not. Hitting for 50 countries means you inevitably are going to have to have some allies on your list. If you want to be a team player, it's going to take you a heck of a long time.
Agreed.
Damn... I have no in game personal achievements xD hahahahhaha
Good one, voted
where is Serbian language? fail article
If you want a Serbian version, by all means translate it and I'll link your article in mine.
I dont understand English language... "speak Serbian if you want to undersand you all people 😃 "
ako zelis srpsku verziju ovog clanka, prevedi clanak na srpski i ja cu linkovati tvoj clanak ovde
VOTADO
I AM THE MOST CRAZY FUNS OF YOUR NEWSPAPER 🙂
5 months without a war? Good times, V1 was good.
Now it's 5 days until a newborn can get himself a BH medal.
Stop all fighting and wars and force admins to make changes for the better.
That was already tried some time ago. A lot of us got FPs for our efforts in supporting it, and some of the organizers got banned.
http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/2011_eRepublik_Rebellion
"Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"
Personally, I would change the movement system, because if people cannot hop from one war to the next, the war scenes will be more realistic. It would be nice to see more strategic moves, to get firepower for the next attack.
Maybe once they will make the game better.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/open-letter-to-plato1-2412051/1/20
Thought provoking, as usual. In retrospect, I would say we moved through the middle ground on this about 3 years ago. The constant introduction of new medals that give incentives to fight for yourself instead of your country has pushed things over the edge, combined with systematic destruction of media, political and economic modules that has turned this into a game where many players see no reason to do anything but mindlessly push the fight button in pursuit of a little gold.
hello kitty and lion king \o/
erep is a dead game, in one year from now 2/3 players will leave, it becomes pointless - admins only care about money, they don't care about players
Agreed!
PLATO FAIL
Imo, nihilism ingame become from lack of real challenges. Almost everything has been achieved and Plato has been unable to create incentives to attract and retain new players, a group of people wich could change status quo giving new life to the game.
As a result, to confront a superpower is an impossible in short term. That's the reason why Argentina and Chile are the only communities that have changed this game a little bit, bringing some novelty, and just after one year and half of efforts and fighting....This game needs new strong communities, we need to see falling and arising of superpowers not in 2 or more years, this game needs new faces and open the window to breath better with clean air to overcome nihilism.
Voted!
And people ask why I cba to fight for weeks at a time
"The game has become an endless cycle of periodic victory and loss."
Fake , eFrance cycle is one of perpetual loss :3
The truth has been spoken!
The bonuses received for possession of the regions has a drawback. If a country has all the possible bonuses, it is not economical to conquer other regions.
This should be changed to have 2 mines nitrate should give a bigger bonus than having one.
Lion King and Hello Kitty, those where good times 🙂
My first BH cost me 70 gold, today's BH is meaningless 🙁
Bring back v1 !!
LionKing, HelloKitty, Saarland, EastSiberia.... Ehh that was a times
training wars!
another problem is, most of the players are stuck in D1 and D2, take years to get to D3 where you really have to fight to win. in D1 no matter what you do, other divisions decide.
But then again, you get fee BH's in div. 1
1) erep died several years ago.
2) using military module in erep means feeding admins current war module and too simple ideas of world interactions.
3) missleading interpretation from Iain: Admin can change those pointless wars.
-> game is made for the users. majority doesnt care about politics (coz these and other modules are pointless with current [~ 3 years] game mechanics). no reason to change anything, coz users majority simply doesnt care about contexts or even content, just earning rewards or (meaningless?) gold and stuff.
long expl. short: We are guilty, nobody else. Caused by missleading game behavior of the users majority. (espec. military module)
All in all a good article with good intention. Enjoyable reading and of course insanly crazy hope for better times.
Less is more.