The Economist ~ How to solve a problem like rank 29
Spite313
Dear friends,
Today I’m writing to challenge a particularly repetitive bit of New Era propaganda. If you click the little flag below your profile, it will bring you to the UK national page. You will see there a small note saying that the UK is rank 29. Now this is a particularly ambiguous piece of info, because it doesn’t explain the ranking system at all, just gives an arbitrary number. For those of you who were wondering, it used to be that countries were ranked by the collective experience points of members. These days they’re ranked by population.
First of all let’s debunk the biggest myth of all- that rank reflects relative importance. Let’s look at a few discrepancies. First of all Poland, the biggest hitting country on Earth. Poland does over 4 billion damage a day, making them the strongest country by damage. However they are way down in rank 8. Brazil which is rank 2, is 15th in the world by damage. You can see here that rank really means nothing in terms of national power, or importance. The most powerful country is six ranks below the fifteenth most powerful. Slovenia which is sixteenth for damage is 30th, behind the UK, in rank.
Oops, you look silly now
Actually New Era, and especially Don Dapper, has made such a big issue about rank that he’s spamming it everywhere like it’s some sort of argument that the UK is sucking, and blaming the government for it.
Here is a list of countries by damage, taken from egov4you, a statistics website. As you can see, the UK ranks above every single country Don mentioned. If you’re going to talk crap, at least do it sensibly. Some of the strongest countries in the world have relatively small populations. Croatia, one of the strongest nations, has just 2,800 active citizens. Mexico, 20 ranks below them in damage, have 3700.
Now the second great myth is that this rank - population - is the result of government rule. The truth is that it’s based on two things, player recruitment and player retention.
Retention is the main role of government, parties and MUs. All of these have a significant role to play. The forums themselves are a vital retention tool - it’s been proven that a citizen who joins the forums is significantly more likely to keep playing. Normally a player has a half life of about a day. About half of players only log in once, about half of those last a week, half of those a month. Players who last over a month are equally likely to be still playing over a year later (this information was given out by the eRepublik admins) and the retention rate only varies a few percentage points between the best and worst nations.
Getting players to keep playing means keeping them interested. In some countries this means nationalistic wars, which often get players over the “hump” of the first month and thus increase their chances of continuing to play. The UK has always struggled in this regard because we don’t really have a natural enemy in the real world. The continued simplification of the game has been the harshest cause of reduction in retention in the UK and worldwide. World population has more than halved in the last year, and continues to fall.
Recruitment itself is the main cause of rank changes. All of the top 10 countries by population are countries that have recently experienced “baby booms” where successful online advertising campaigns have resulted in thousands of new, division 1+2 players joining the country. These booms also have a half life, and once the boom is over countries slowly decline in population. For example Spain was rank 1 a few months ago, now they’re rank 3. Chile similarly, but now rank 5. It’s actually arguable how effective these booms are- the UK had the benefit of admin advertising on facebook and google a few months ago and gained around 1000 citizens, rising to around rank 15, though long term our population has been stable.
So what’s the recruitment solution? Recruitment means advertising, either by word of mouth, recruiting from other forums or paying for online adverts. This is something that can be done by any citizen- not just the government. Last time Goku was in the country, he was Minister of Recruitment and the population increased by around 10% by the combined efforts of himself and others who spammed forums and bought ads. That kind of increase would improve our rank from 29 to 27 by population if it was repeated again today. That isn’t to say don’t try- it’s to say that using rank as a way of putting the government down is stupid, and makes you look like a fool who doesn’t understand basic game mechanics.
In short, don’t trust statistics, especially those generated by the admins. The population of the country isn’t determined by the government, it’s determined by YOU, the average citizens. The military strength of the country is dependent on the MUs which fuel it, and that’s a much more important statistic.
Hopefully this has successfully debunked yet another durpy propaganda piece
Stay classy,
Iain
Comments
IMPERIUM
Stay classy, San Diego
Excellent article- the UK is doing rather well!
voted panpa
Good article. Nice to see we're punching above our weight!
Seems UK is doing fairly well. (:
Well that thwarts Diaper. I can't wait to see his wonderfully structured replies.
Good article! : )
PEJWAN GAN
I will never understand people who act like they know shit without ever having bothered to learn the facts.
ok, at least, I admit Keers is using even my sentences 'Retention is the main role of government' , and that's clever. For me population and erepublik-rank are the valid pieces of statistics. Damage is not. Although damage counts. For example, we know that France is stronger in damage than us. Damage fluctuates a lot. Anyway good article. Now if you admit TUP responsability and you change things , then I would even vote TUP , eventually. Change things? using the 3 million GBP treasury into it.
if we all agree that "retention is the main role of government" , then treasury, foreign affairs, home affairs and every single thing should aim into making life easier and funnier to new players. It implies a STRONG and generous NHS, a decent national army (with generous supplies), good media from government, less attention on older history (it's not interesting for (most) new players)... Btw, harsh moderators are not fun. Not draconian laws of expression.
So what do you actually propose Alphabethis? Its all well and good saying "They should change things by using the 3 million GBP treasury", but when you don't mention WHAT change, it sort of falls flat on its face.
If we could buy ads IRL with the 3 million in our treasury, we might increase our population.
Our NHS is strong and has had 2 big increases in coverage and donation over the past month. PS the NHS is run by a UKPP guy.
Our national army is the biggest hitting unit in the UK.
We have a new government article out every day.
There you go, please stop talking rubbish now.
The population of the country isn’t determined by the government, it’s determined by YOU
YOU MEAN ME???
\o/
Yes Hugh, you (:
Even inviting 1-2 friends can make a big difference. Three people I invited to the game got involved with government and everything.
Facebook ads are quite cheap and usually have a better return on investment than buying gold.
Even recruiting from other games you can play. If everyone playing actively recruited one person that would be another 600 citizens.
Horatio has tried facebook ads, 100,000 views and one active player from them : P
@keers, did you miss the Elm Street Episode about big, bigger, biggest? If current young players are supplied with X, then suppy them with X*2 , using the treasury. Help them grow, organize lotteries and hand out money, give even MORE supplies to LEGION, and make it hit HARDER. Having 3 million in the bank is not favouring the "retention is the main role of government" principle.
5 million weapons wouldn't keep most players, and if we eat into the emergency reserves it is not viable long-term, as they are just that: reserves for emergencies.
Your own screenshot has us at Rank 22 for Damage...
Which Population may not be the best measure, what ARE we high ranked in?
We're probably ranked among the highest for party politics. Not gonna lie, it's always been quite bad here.
Goku what do you suggest to improve our damage? I do my bit, all my money goes to weapons to supply the UK's only unlimited supplies MU. Improved damage relies on more citizens, and from experience you know how hard it is to meaningfully achieve that. You yourself tried for months with little long term success.
Alphabethis, throwing weapons at inactive players is pointless. The majority of our active fighters are in MUs which supply them. Reserves are for emergencies.
No I tried for 2 weeks and got a 10% rise, then I went back to a full time job unfortunatly. The problem is that the active high rank political players don't get invovled with recruitment - at all.
To improve our damage we need to increase the gold flowing into each player (in game policies) as well as getting new players into the game (out of game recruitment). So even without doing recruitment we can boost damage with the ingame policies.
The UK makes barely enough to cover MPPs, so I'd love to hear how you'd manage to fund that government wise? The key is every player taking a positive step to work for the national team. That means spending personal wealth on helping everyone. A lot of people do that now by running MUs.
As for recruitment, as I said that's not anything to do with government- it's something anyone can do. You don't need a fancy title, though if you fancy the job no doubt one can be made up for you.
What in game policies?
For starters we need a training MU for low damage players which has daily orders set to battles which will either help players get Patriot Medal or Mercendary Medal for +5g. They can use that to buy a better Training Grounds for more damage.
All of the current policies are geared towards short term damage for Eastern Europe/Balkans... ranking up doesn't actually help boost damage a great deal you know. Supply newbies GBP/Gold and not Q7s they don't need.
Ps. I am high rank and did spend quite a lot of time (and even about £40!) on recruitment, with moderate success 🙂
keers, foster this principle:" the more you fight the more you get", trust me , there's shortage of weapons for MOST of PLAYERS.
Lots of MUs give 1g a day or more in weapons supply. That is an upgrade every 20 days lost for a handful of rank points and weak damage for our MPPs.
We've always focused on getting stuff to new players, but the bulk of new players are recruited by private MUs. They then perform this function. We do have an NHS program to give people food. Orders are set by MU leaders, so it's up to them to organise new players into appropriate regiments and give them appropriate orders. Mercenary medals can only be gotten on an individual level. No country has 50 MPPs, and you can only set orders to MPP countries.
Not many MUs give 1g a day to brand new players. Alphabethis you should talk to Goku, he can explain the relative value of guns and food/money for new players.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-legion-the-guide-to-all-things-free-1-2157099/1/20
Iain you got 19 players max. I'm on 100 pre refferals and 80 after from finding a handful of good forums. I can't be the only person who vists other forums.
It takes a little effort I don't have quite enough time for anymore, but a group project in the government would make it effortless. Considering that commenting on this was why I was forum banned, it's a bit rich that you hint that I should do this again.
Iain why do you need 50 MPPs at once to get a Mercenary Medal for everyone in a MU? You won't do 1250 kills in a day or even a month. Think long term.
Why does it have to be government sanctioned? Can't a few like minded players set something up, recruitment doesn't need to be politicized anymore then it already is...
it's not about relative value, it's about hitting and having fun, not about increasing strength, in a game where you can either fight or build, but at the beginning you are sorely limited to both things, you have to, at least, let people FIGHT ( with tanks and food , I don't care if it's q6 or q5 or q7)
Doesn't have to be government sanctioned Wayne, just need a decent sized group to step up and listen to advice and do it.
I either ran it but didn't have enough staff, or tried to give advice and was ignored by the Minister (previous month work ignored/deleted, stickers on buses, new twitter and facebook each month).
I have preached only upgrade your training grounds if you can for about 3/4 months. Save for your training ground upgrades etc. Please do not think it is a new idea. I have been sitting here, putting lots of effort into the eUK via trying to help eUK citizens (I gave away over 6,000,000 wellness when I was only a month or so old and upgraded training grounds for Legion members) then pushing on to a Legion role and last month the MoF.
Please don't tell me I am not trying.
limited IN both things* , I meant.
Goku I didn't always use my referral link for everything I did, and a lot of the recruits didn't reach level 17 (when that's what it was, and when it was a lot harder to get there).
A lot of your recruits were from some WoW server and never joined the UK. Some of them are probably multis of you too, let's face it. You've made at least six multis I can think of, so there's probably loads more than that.
Haha! \o/
voted !
🙂
@Goku, then step up, advertise for helpers and mentor them. Surely we have a handful of players willing to help out in that way.
If I was to make multies, last thing I would do is link them to my account lol Iain, I did my Medals befoire you did yours so mine where even harder! Yeah I did 100+ people for North Korea and 80 for random countries so I've done both targeted and random recruitment. Still makes money for the UK.
Carlini I know that lots of individuals put in lots of effort... too much effort... we need to group all these willing recruiters up to spread the load.
As Wayne said, that's not a government action. The only thing the government could do is hang a title round your neck, there's nothing the government can do to make recruiting easier for players. If you want the job step up!
Too much moaning about how things are bad, not enough doing. The people in government are all working really hard whilst armchair generals complain and do nothing.
Very good article indeed.
V from Mexico
very interessting. i didn't thought about this at all until now... well until now i didn't know that anyone would use statistics from the erepsite and especially the rank of the country... because what could this even tell me? which country has the most multies/multiuser and twoclickers of the month?
i also think high rank says if anything than about babyboom and only damage says at least a bit about activity and age because of strength/rank-influence
and i have to say retention is not just for government especially in small and poor countries the state-organized help for citizens is at a minimum if even existend. there are many ways to support others as a not government person.
donationbutton - everyone can use it:
as an older player with some companies you will produce more than you alone need. part of this you can hand out to newbies.
send message - comment on stuff:
even if you are poor you can help newbies with "just" your knowledge. it is easy just tell everyone what you think about the discussed problem via comment/PM/article...
caution!: if you want to make this you actually need to have knowledge about the topic
entertain everyone:
you need nothing for this (being dumb can be your weapon here!)
the heart of the game is the irc of the parties/MUs + stupid, nice or exciting articles and not the gov-forum...
so i don't really understand how one can blame just the government for anything above (or even want to blame anyone for the rank-thingy).
even the support with weapons and food from the government what the...
why is anyone playing a game when he just leeches and doesn't attain his position on his own? support for a smooth advancing is nice but shouldn't even be a part of a reason for playing game...
nowadays the newbies whine about everything:
in the old days you knew you would never ever get a BH because there were people with strength 20000 and you had just 200.
now with bazookas and divisions and rockets they whine when they don't get weapons for free.
in the old days you worked to buy food.
now with owning a food-company when you start the game they whine because they don't have enough food for 2400energy - well surprise you just started and don't have all a 3y old citizen has.
the newbies who depend on help from others (as reason to keep playing because without it it would be impossible to become a big boy) these are the first who drop and leave the game when the admins mess up the game.
they are maybe even the dumb ones. because why should they bother to look for openings in the game to make a living if they get everything they need just by asking. why should they bother learning about game-mechanics if they don't lose their own ressources they worked hard for