[Plato] It's Closing Time

Day 2,527, 17:34 Published in USA USA by Gnilraps

Closing Time (Mandatory listening)
Day 2527 of the New World
21 October, 2014


Allow me to explain.

Earlier today I published this: Plato, I Fixed That For You.

The article simply pointed out that there were very, very few “Epic” battles throughout the day, and so I crafted my trollish redux of Plato’s banner:



A few people took it as a complaint and I understand why. A lot of people just like to complain all the time, and these kinds of people tend to make the rest of us “complaint gun-shy”. A lot of us sort of immediately assume that someone is complaining when they are pointing out something that isn’t quite right. I am empathetic with those who thought I was complaining, and so I didn’t really argue with them.

But I do want to point out more clearly what was really my thought behind that initial troll article. It is a refrain that over the years I have grown weary of hearing, and yet I now find myself singing it too.

eRepublik is pretty dead.



During the first Epic Warfare tournament, there was virtually always an Epic battle going on. And so when you were ready to fight, there it was for you.

But so far today, (and things could still pick up with people increasing their energy consumption), of the 12 times I have logged on between 04:00 and 17:30, 10 of those times there has been no Epic battle in D4, one time there was two going on, and one time there was one. This is a very stark contrast from the last Epic Warfare tournament.

And why is this the case? I can imagine three reasons. I am counting on my readers to add their wisdom in the comments below.



Reason #1: Smaller Player Base
This has been well documented recently with statistical data to back it up.

Reason #2 (closely related to reason #1): Epic Battle Formulas are no longer sensible.
Back when there were many more players, (and as I will point out in reason #3, back when there were more players who were spending cash), the formulas for an Epic Battle made sense. A certain amount of damage is necessary for a battle to be considered Epic. That amount of damage is simply not being done with any frequency any more, even in an environment where there are rewards available for the taking. Plato should probably lower the standard, but that would probably come too close to admitting that problem #1 is a PROBLEM.

Reason #3: Fewer people are spending their RL cash on this game.
We don’t really have access to the receipts, but consider a few anecdotal pieces of evidence.

First, of course, is the current circumstance of the Epic Warfare tournament. In an environment where players are daily gaining strength, you would think that it would be actually easier to get a battle to hit Epic status. But today has shown us that few battles are hitting Epic. The only reason for this must be that few energy bars are being expended. Now it could also be that the rewards for this tournament were not sufficient to generate a massive response. But I don’t think that’s the reason. I just think that a lot of people who used to buy energy bars are no longer buying energy bars.

The second anecdotal evidence is the recently introduced Housing market. As a House producer, I can tell you that the market for houses is very slow. So OK, not a lot of people are buying houses. I can’t say I blame them. But despite the slow moving market, take a look at the supply! There is very, VERY little supply of houses in markets around the eWorld. What does this mean? It means that very few people are spending gold to build Housing companies.



All this to say, no, I am not complaining about the lack of Epic Battles. I am one of the hordes of people who used to care. I am simply pointing out that there are growing signs of accelerated decay.

It’s sad.

Maybe it's just... Closing Time.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled clicking