Plato's Most Epic Fail

Day 2,842, 09:30 • Published in USA USA • by Gnilraps
Town with No Cheer (Mandatory listening)
Day 2618 of the New World
January 20, 2015



Well, Plato has gone and done it again.

He consistently makes decisions that disrespect his player base, shows his misunderstanding of why we play, and proves that he has no clear direction for the future of this game.

Today he announced that unless an Epic battle is between 49% and 51%, there will be no double Prestige points given. In a vacuum, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. But given the circumstances and his stated reason for this decision, Plato has just confessed his incompetence.

I’d like to explain.





A brief history.



Epic Battles were introduced in October of 2014 (On Day 2523) with the “Epic Warfare” Tournament. Prior to that, there was no special designation for Epic Battles.

Epic battles initially awarded 3x Prestige Points per hit regardless of where the wall was.

3x Prestige Points per hit.

Players were so excited by this tournament that we crashed the eRepublik servers. Several times.

Why do players like to get 3x Prestige Points per hit? Because more Prestige Points results in better awards. It’s not rocket science.

In his massive apology to the eRepublik community, Plato promised to learn from this tournament.

...we’ll do our best to learn from these difficult times. -Plato, Oct 30, 2014

What we all hoped Plato would learn had nothing to do with server load. We expect that in a game which charges money for ingame incentives, that income will be used for appropriate technical infrastructure.

No, what we all hoped Plato would learn was that his transformation of eRepublik from a social browser game into a button-clicking-pixel-fest had been accomplished.

But what did Plato actually learn? The answer to that is terribly confusing.





One thing is for sure, Plato had what he wanted.

In the early days, Plato lured an eager and growing bevy of micro-communities into a game that offered a sparse gaming interface with open-ended social possibilities. The real “game” was achieving community-oriented victories that would ultimately be reflected on the battlefields.

Once Plato had his player base, he began making changes to the sparseness and open-endedness that had caused eRepublik to become one of the buzz browser games in the world. Plato began to exchange organic features for canned clicks.

Gone was the region-based Congressional Election process that had created a cottage industry of community activity. In its place - log in. Click. Log out.

Gone was the worker skill that had created an actual economy - a greatly differing economy from Nation to nation. In its place - log in. Click. Log out.

Gone was the commune-advantaged-economy which awarded working together with products that could be produced for greatly reduced cost. In its place - log in. Click. Log out.

Gone was the necessity to coordinate what few battlefield hits you could afford each day so that your national objectives had the greatest chance for success. In its place - log in. Click. Log out.

I could go on. But the gist of this is that Plato, over time, very systematically changed eRepublik from a social browser game into a pay-to-win button-clicker.

Clearly that's what Plato wanted. Clearly, at least until now, that's what Plato learned.





Now I am not claiming that everyone who continues to play this game is playing pay-to-win. However, it would be foolish to ignore the fact that all of the changes, events, tournaments, updates, and offerings directly create a super-class of money-spending players called “whales”. And the Whales enjoy all of Plato’s benefits.

This last tournament is obvious proof of the thesis. It was an invitation to unlimited spending.

All it took was for a few Whales to coordinate enough damage to send a battle into Epic. The walls were very easy to keep within the 49--51 parameters, so we enjoyed 4x Prestige Points.

4x Prestige Points per hit.

We all know the rest of the story. Surely there isn’t a week in eRepublik history that saw more raw damage than this past week.

And the social-only players? Even they benefited from the Whale's pursuit of Whale-bonuses. Plato, geeze, you got it right. Throw out krill and even the minnows can feast.

But the idiot Plato has completely misunderstood the result of his own success.





What was the carrot that encouraged the minimal coordination necessary to send these battles into Epic?

4x Prestige Points. Krill. Whale food.

Who were the individuals who were accomplishing the coordination? Was it the remaining class of players who enjoy what is left of the social structures of this game? LOL no.

It was the Whales. Whales who rarely take interest in "coordination" UNLESS THERE'S WHALE FOOD.

Whales coordinated damage because Whales love 4x Prestige points.

HELLO? PLATO? DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

You have, at every turn, malformed this game into a Whale Party. You are at least smart enough to design events for Whales to Whale.

NOW WHY DO YOU KILL OFF THE EPIC BATTLES?

Plato. Don't starve the Whales.

Are you stupid?





I truly don’t understand it.

According to the new update, Epic Battles will only award 2x Prestige Points if the battle is between 49-51%. I lack the technology and archives to estimate how rare this has been in the 10 months since Epic Warfare, but I’d estimate that less than 30% of Epic battles have been within this range for any decent period of time.

Does Plato expect Whales to send battles into Epic when there is a 70% chance that there will be no reward for doing so?






In the early days of eRepublik when this was a social browser game, this change would have made total sense. Force our micro-communities to coordinate to a superior level and offer a meagre reward for doing so. PERFECT. Today’s update would have fit perfectly into the eRepublik of 5 years ago.

But in a click-fest? IT IS THE SUCKIEST UPDATE EVER.

It is an EPIC SUCKFEST of an update.

Trust me, Plato. I’m one of your Whales. I hate you today.





Never before have I ever endorsed a mass community boycott. And I am not doing so today.

However, I believe Plato has just created a de facto boycott.

He has de-Whaled eRepublik at a time when Whales are the ONLY THING KEEPING THE SERVERS RUNNING.

What a moron.





I predict that Plato will revoke these changes. Either that, or after a couple of months of reduced revenue (I know many Whales who will be skipping the next round of Packs), Plato will see his stupid error and make some other change which will even further Whalize this game.

Here are a few suggestions, Plato:

1: Whale Pack - 9.99 euro = 4x Prestige Points for 30 Days

2: Orca Pack - 9.99 euro = Damage Limiter. Fire Button only works when wall is 49-51%, then Fire Button makes 30x hits per click. Lasts 30 days.

3: Humpback Pack - 9.99 euro = Automatically increase the wall by .1% with each fire of your weapon. Lasts 30 days.

4: Great White Pack - 14.99 euro = Instantly make any battle Epic. Single use.

I can go on. But I would bet dollars against donuts that all of these horrible ideas AND MORE have already been discussed in Plato meetings.

But I have a final point to make.





Plato has lost his way.

He has no actual vision for where this game is going. This is not the first time he has instituted changes that have undone previous changes.

V1 - V2 - V1 again
Housing - No Housing - Housing
No WAM - WAM - No WAM
No Epic - Epic - SUPER EPIC - No Epic

I could think of more, but you get my point.

Plato has NO DIRECTION for this game. His decisions are made shortsightedly.

Basically, eRepublik Labs is leaderless.





I am curious to know how the community feels about all of this.

Who’s ready to quit?

Who’s gonna hold out?

Who has hope for a bright future in this game?

Who is gonna go into two-click mode?

Who is gonna stop Whaling?

Plato, listen: I am done spending money on you. I am officially looking for a new game. Congratz.






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