[Plato] It's Closing Time
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
Comments
STFU AND BUY GOLD
pole!
and you did not mention the famous headles chick ups i meant chiken so even when there was a epic something no one culd fight
I didn't get a chicken today.
you weren't on between 00 and like 6 am, we got KFC all you can eat for 1$ then
(Damn lost pole because of reading)
I support you, and your previous article was right too, this tournament only made those who buy gold to buy more, but some months ago more people used to buy gold.
Me for example, used to buy every month the war/combat stash or a pack of gold, I've been 8 months without buying any gold and I have some fun in game with all i have achieved only buying when discounts are placed or things like that.
hope Admins really improve the game and make some changes if not this won't be a game/business anymore.
vote
I like it that there aren't many EPIC battles to fight in. This gives me an advantage over players who aren't ready to spend as much time on the game as I am.
P.S. Today I made ~50g from COs in EPIC battles and almost 20k PPs and I only started with ~350 EBs
In terms of reasons. First, the bar is set quite high this time IMO. Last time, it wasn't very hard for a battle to become EPIC. This week, it takes more than 1-2 tanks from each side to make the battle EPIC. I can't know if it's the same between the divisions, but this is what it is for d4.
Second, there are really A LOT of POINTLESS campaigns open out there. Apparently people prefer to hit for TP points, instead for Prestige Points. I don't understand this, I admit. Or, some governments thought that they could make their own EPIC battles - well, surprise, you can't.
Third, even the VERY SPECIAL operation of Aurora is failing hard - even soldiers on Greek territory rarely see EPIC battles today. The most consistent has been the Chinese RW in Turkey.
Third, to recap on the previous one but from a different Point of View - if we had a smaller amount of campaigns for people to fight in, damage wouldn't have been distributed among so many and we would have been able to see more EPIC battles.
k.... that is for div 4, but what about div 3??? it takes 4,5 billion dmg to get epic=45 div 3 players doing 100 mill each might get that wile the normal BH in div 3 is under 20 mil and a strong, buying packs div 3 player with 50% booster does around 25-35 mil dmg with FF and a bit extra.
So in conclusion for Div 3 the margin is to dam high, especially when there are 20+ battles around and not to many decent str div 3 players
Yep, I included this in my post, if you can spare time to read it once again. I cannot know what it looks like in other divisions and if d1-3 find it even harder to turn a battle into an EPIC one.
But given that d4 is the one where tanking takes place usually, and we only had 2-3 campaigns with an EPIC battle so far, I hope this was what the admins had aimed for (:
You're right, there's tons of wars going on so people aren't focusing their damage in any battles. One good thing is that I am fighting for prestige points. I can't get 3x for an epic battle, so I have to settle for top 3, 1.6-2x points which is a lot less.
Sounds about right to me. Since I created my account, I've spent money on eRep nearly monthly. That's stopped, and I doubt I'll ever be buying another stash or pack or whatever. It used to be that I wouldn't even have enough damage in D3 to matter, but I regularly find myself in the top 5. I haven't gained that much strength, but it seems that, aside from the BH amounts, damage counts are shrinking. I'm spending fewer energy bars, doing less damage, and still able to nudge a wall.
This game isn't dead until I say so.
Or people just sit back and don't want to hit unless it's an epic battle already? An epic battle is a battle where tons of people participate in and are ready to spend energy bars to tank in, it is not some battle where just a few people on each side start using a few energy bars each. We are already early into the tournament and already the complaints have started? Wait until the majority pulls in 160 health / 6 minutes and we'll see if there's a difference. Wait until many of the battles die out and we see more focused damage instead of right now, spread our or people that just sit on their asses and wait for others to make the battle into epic ones.
Yes the game is dying, but this tournament you have no one but yourself to blame for the battles not turning epic. Do you think that ereplabs should take into consideration that people are greedy bastards that all want that x3 prestige points for every single fight they make this entire tournament? If people didn't we'd see many epic battles out there today. I have made over a billion damage on my own today, so we basically just need 9 other people, hmm?
It's like you miss the point on purpose.
at least u and ur men could fight so usa win some shield and gold
Not really, I just have a different opinion on this matter.
Maybe its a generation difference, maybe we see two sides of the coin, but I was hoping a youtube reference was coming about 'Closing Time' Bahahaahahahahahahhahaahahahahah
Also, anyone receive that erepublik email today about aliens or something or other? I guess Plato has a side project that caters to a smaller player base since this one is just entertaining enough to poke at those suckers who keep buying mads amount of the gold. Plato won't say it, but I think this is a just a run out the clock and see who keeps buying...
sounds like a certain Old Fu-k might consider moving over to the "Oh, F.U." Party...
be in good company (we're all Old Fu-ks there).
get in on the ground floor of something new, and help make it a fun thing.
and, of course, there's always the Early Bird Specials down at the Village Inn.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/party-members/3940
This is TEMPTING
true dat
I'm experimenting building houses for my own use. An extremely good way to waste gold to be sure, but at this point I'm more into experimenting that doing anything 'profitable'.
As for the stupid tournament I was very pissed this morning. Plato needs to buy more hamsters. I will leave it at that.
Shoot, I still need to look at the rules to see why I'm supposed to fight in epic battles. This whole tournament thing has ruined the fun Canada was having last week. Just pulled the rug right out from under it.
Same here with my House Factory. Once Plato comes up with his next 45% Promotional Discount, I'll spend the Gold to upgrade it.
About your house analogy. I think the housing concept is quite nice. It's made to be a trickle down mechanism. Luxury goods are offered and then it rages wages and all citizens make more money every day. The thing is that not everyone will be able to afford houses, it's practically impossible because of how the market is setup. Every house you buy is made up of wages and increased demand will surely lead to a rise in wages. The only house that is different is the Q1 house but citizens can only buy one of them.
I read, actually quite a lot, especially when I can't get online. I also love to argue, but that generally means I have to have someone willing to have a debate with me, but as this game has demonstrated lots and lots of people only are interested in their own point of view....
so I ask, do you want this game to end, so you can get on with your life? And what point did Heap Seppo miss, he joined in on "we all are stupid for being here, but somehow I am less so" rant...
I read a WWI period book, training in the arm forces was anything but pleasant the author points out the the soldiers kept a brave face and didn't complain least they further depress the fellow unit members, how many woe be the game articles have you written over the many dozen months you have played?
Just popped in to say HI. Can I be CP once before the doors are locked?
I will totally vote for you no matter what
Thanks 🙂
They need to focus on (re) building the community, not squeezing money out of people. Without a community of people to interact with, this game isn't a game at all. Also, do they advertise anywhere? 5 1/2 years ago (Jesus...), I got introduced to this game through an ad. Haven't seen one since.
thing is from the very beginning ppl kept complaining and threatened to quit. many of them are still around. there are things about erep that should be improved and erep did not change always for the better. but it worked for almost 6 years. and all the clones failed. lets face it, erep is a cash cow, they are grateful for every penny they can get from it but they already consider new projects. i even think erep was never intended to run this long.
So with all this talk about the game being dead and so on, is eUS going to go out with a wimper or are we going to take over the world? The next presidential candidate that comes up with a plan to do this will have my vote.
eChina's RW against eTurkey has turned Epic every round. Though I agree that more wars should be closed to focus down damage on only one or two battles. Governments should put aside their differences this week so they help each other have an Epic Battle going on at all times.
comment
thanks. Can't wait for this mission to end so I can go back to sleep.
here to comment 🙂
tyvm
np, we've all been there 😛
I remember the days when I loved writing this paper and the comments section was abuzz with activity.
oh and btw I read it yesterday, I agree with all. Just didnt bother to comment since well, whydoibother 😛
I know right. I remember discussing "opportunity cost" with you in one of your articles about 2 years ago 🙂
here
tyvm
meep
o7
Comment!
voted o7
Agree in everything.....especial the conclusion
Not much to add... unfortunately!
Maybe they just increased what an 'epic battle' is. The strength keeps getting higher, the damage of countries remains very similar... So yeah. Perhaps it's a little more spread out rather than have main battles?
Too distracted to comment properly. My apologies.