Living Well Is The Best Revenge

Day 979, 14:48 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by amal3k
We all expected a new and improved version of eRepublik. We wanted to play V1 minus the bugs with some complementing new features. We were in ways excited about the new possibilities promised us, those we could use to further evolve our characters in more focused, specialized ways that were useful to our countries and alliances. We wanted improvement, upgrading and the evolution of something we loved into something we’d love even more.

The focus herewith has been on the glory of our individual nation or alliance. We have our leaders, national icons and battle heroes, but overall we take pride and interest in the advancing of our united front, whether it be our region, nation or military alliance. The concept of the wall (as conveyed by Bogdan_L) was one of a solid, unified structure that brought everyone together through each adding his or her individual piece, however big or small it happened to be. All had a role to play and all joined en masse to construct their wall and defend it to the last. Taking this out of the context of a game for a moment, the wall showed us the real value of what the Internet offers: bringing people together.

We became accustomed to these fights and battles, indeed our alliances grew so large we always had a chance to fight with somebody. We’d invest some informed clicks with our character, beef them up and make them profitable, then send them out to kick some foreign ass on the battlefield. We thus expected, after all the baiting, that the new version would give us an expansion on the good things we already had, some improvements, tangents and bug fixes. We wanted the evolution, a real new version – ie, a stable one – and we wanted it in the same vein to which we were accustomed.

What we were given in the end was an altered concept, a significant departure from what we’d come to know and love as the New World. Gone was the focus on dedication and training; in came several two-dimensional tits trying eagerly to get at the contents of your pockets.

Money, I mean. Though the two are not entirely unexclusive in this version of eRepublik (Rising, anyone?)

The focus is now more on what you invest in your character. The more money you put in, the more bragging rights you will receive (bug-permitting, of course). This thinking has encroached upon most aspects of the game; that being more money equals more power equals a bigger signature on the forums. Before it was a factor, but a manageable factor. Now, the pursuit of attaining alpha-male (or female) status is being wholeheartedly exploited for financial purposes.

Our wars have become protracted, never-ending affairs, super-alliance versus super-alliance and all amounts of propaganda flying between the two. Our economy is stifled, shaken and stirred from its recent upheavals; many citizens find themselves below the poverty line. We send open letters, we write petitions, we ragequit and publicly poop ourselves in our impotent rage against the admins.

Sorry, what?

We have built entire governments on our forums and IRC. We have ministries, departments, armies and social institutions. We have free press, international trade, we have an elected body of representatives looking after our greater needs and development. We have instituted all the trappings of a modern, democratic eRepublic.

Yes, Plato is a natural role model for any emerging democracy. His thoughts on the structure of modern society became the basis of our own democratic republics of today. But we have evolved. We have sent Plato into his cave and from the shadows has emerged a whore in warpaint whose only mission is to clear out all that’s in your wallet.

Does any of this sound familiar?

It’s eLife, people. It’s hard. Work will suck your health and happiness. Women will do likewise to your bank account and you’ll rarely paid get what you think you deserve. The economy will falter, your skills will become worthless and you’ll probably wake up one day in Russia.

Well, maybe not all of us.

In any case, what we all bear witness to here is the evolution of eRepublik into what inevitably, lamentably reflects the world we actually live in. Perhaps we have caused as much with our resource wars, our treacheries and our unrepentant, imperial capitalism. It’s natural Carla and her ilk would come along and the game would commercialize. I don’t reference any external companies but we’re all familiar with this process from the preceding years; think user-generated news sites, social networking hubs and so on.

The game now forces us into more lifelike situations. To succeed, you must be a part of the society you call home. You must work, you must trade, you must become economically and socially involved in your society. You need to play the monetary market, to buy a company and manipulate the economy of a nation to your advantage; you have to play the system in order to beat it.

The game has evolved, yes. It has not evolved for the better, no. I’m as disappointed as anyone that the developers chose to pick a new design rather than develop the existing application infrastructure. Yet it does represent a challenge similar to what we face in the real world. We are bombarded by advertising, propaganda, xenophobia and hate-mongering (known as Fox News in the real world), all asking us to accept their views while handing our cash over to their institutions.

It’s natural eRepublik would follow the same pattern.

No matter, there are 10% of 1.8 million playing this game and we’ll manipulate it into something acceptable at some point. Even it does mean open-sourcing the fucker.

With regards, amal3k