Join the new world

Before I begin, moderators if you delete this article too you're going to lose a paying customer

For me, Q7 tanks are the 'tip of the iceberg'. It isn't coincidence that the promotion runs alongside a gold promotion; this is one of the lowest points yet in money grabbing.

Also, any admins who may be reading this and got past the title before deleting - You cannot ignore criticism. The very people you're censoring are paying your wages, and will quickly stop if you continue to ignore them.

A Brief History

eRepublik started out as a unique experience. There were very few games like it, (although I can name a few in which they stole the theory and basic mechanics from, something they neglect to mention!) quickly gaining popularity in beta. Mixed with the good publicity of eager gamers wishing to get involved, the game had a great start.

The New World was born. (Or at least opened to the public) It was a great strategic game in it's peak years. Battles actually cost gold to start, making wars take the economic factor in to account. We didn't have bonuses, we had places where certain companies thrived better than others. International trade was required for a country to get the resources to make either food, weapons or moving tickets. We could even make seperate accounts called organisations!

V2, The First Strike

I think it was around 2010 that the developers unveiled version 2 to us. The eagerly anticipated upgrade to eRepublik had arrived - with very mixed feelings however. The battle system obviously wasn't planned out. The poor had a major disadvantage, the newbies couldn't get any kills at all and the strong only got stronger.

The economy was over complicated and had a reverse effect on attempts at player retention. I did enjoy the added depth the economic module brought us, but the rest I didn't like one bit.

After much protest from the players and many boycotts of gold, the developers decided to reverse the changes. They simplified the economic module and the military module you see today was born.

Mass Protests

Many changes later turned 2011 in to an interesting year. Players were becoming increasingly discontent with the bias towards gold buyers. Numbers of players had fallen rapidly to 150,000, and to add to Plato's misery, his customers had now become so discontent with his decisions that they stopped buying gold completely.

At first the admins just saw it as a war with their own customers. (Yes, eRepublik is the only game I know where admins are actively against the majority of their players, I'm not sure what kind of business model that is but it doesn't seem to work too well) Presidents were banned for speaking out, hundreds of articles per day were deleted because they spoke negatively about the direction of the game and many players quit.

Some weeks later, Alexis Bonte must have realised that the game is no longer in the black. Out of no where, the admins suddenly started to communicate with the players. Plato started to post in the forums to address concerns, support suddenly started to act interested and we were promised change.

This was short lived however, the game quickly reverted to it's previous ways - now with much less communication with the developers than before. The primary channel for feedback, the forums, were deleted, along with many more poor decisions.

Present Day

This leads us to present day eRepublik. I feel that the admins seriously need to reconsider the bias towards gold buyers. They need to reopen all channels of feedback, and more importantly; actually read articles, learn how to take criticism and stop deleting them.


To Plato

Q7 tanks are just a sign that this game is headed back to worser times. We still have no real economic module - stop focusing on the war module and actually improve the game for the better. And if you didn't take the hint from the rest of the article, listen to your customers!