Erepublik, more than a game?!

Day 1,906, 04:00 • Published in China Republic of Moldova • by Luceafar Voievod
Music for the article! (:

According to the guardian.co.uk ”eRepublik offers a real seccond life”, but what does that realy mean and does it apply to all players? :/

In my “long” period of playing this game I saw different types of players:

1) Hit and run ones - they log in the game cause a friend asked them or saw a post on a forum about the country being deleted by “rl enemies” and want to “teach them a leasson”

2)Two clovers or “farmers” - they had a moment when they liked the game but cause of changes they refuse to spend the time till “the game gets better”

3) The casual gamer - spends some time on chat and from time to time even goes to RL meetings.

4) Passionate gamer or “the no lifers” - the ones that spend A LOT of time on channels/game, time spent making plans, strategy, organising MUs. They really like to do that and love to go to eRepublik RL meetings. They are heart and soul for this game!

5) Card player aka “Plato’s kid”- the guys that pour more then soul into the game, their RL money .. and some spend A LOT on this game. They are the guys we love to hate and love to love (I guess). We root for them when they win us battles and hate them so much when the enemies card players defeat our MUs.

So coming back to my dilemma we have so many types of players, each one with his perception over the game, some love the game while others hate it(but they still continue to play it which is kinda baffling for me - how can you hate a game and keep playing?! - there is a Log Out button guys - or they just enjoy the punishment? - we shall never know).



In my opinion for the most of us, this game kinda becomes a somewhat of a second life, a place to maybe shelter yourself from the somewhat harsh realities of life, or maybe you just are feeling like a diva and want to share your happiness with the others, or maybe u have to much free time at work and want to fill it up to make the clock run faster.

Like it or not, this game gives us a place where to either let our alter egos be free, transforming ourselves in the totally different person that we are in RL, we can transform ourselves in persons without any moral value, liars, stealer, backstabbers, the things that we won’t even imagine of becoming in RL.

Or we can pick to act like heroes, upstanding citizens, with high moral values, following a cod of honor we read about, saw in a movie and can't really implement it in RL cause let’s be honest life is not that black and white .. it’s mostly gray and just a few of us do see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Either way we decide to play it villain or hero .. mentor or n00b .. soldier or politician .. it’s our role, the one we really asume for us and with our personal reasons .. as many players there are as many paths, decisions, reasons to play and act the way you act here.

But here comes the other side of the coin, the flipside if you may. Playing the role we do we still develop relations, connections, feelings with the others players, some who truly become persons we gladly call and really consider friends, even if they are not all from your town, city, area or even country, damn some not even in the same continent with you.

Those are the persons that frankly keep you going on, that make you spend all the time, all the money and the persons that make you invest so much heart, soul and feelings. The moments of triumph are the sweetest with them at your side and the moments of defeat are easier to pass by with them at your side.



The somewhat beauty of the game but also the thing that mostly hurts us in this game happens when we get down and personal when we pour our heart and soul, when we develop feelings, when we get in love, when others break our trust, shattered our hearts, missplaced our trust and when we get insulted by other players.

I kinda lost track of the idea I started with or what I wanted to talk about at the beginning, the idea I started with, but I do hope I managed to send my message through.

Signing off,
Didei.



PS: In my opinion this is more then a game, it’s more then just some clicks, this game brought me persons that I proudly call friends from all over the world. Offered me feelings so intense I didn't thought to find in RL, not in a game. I feel like I did all loved, fighted, hated, ignored, was the bad guy, was the good guy. I was a crook, I was a friend, I was there, I was the good guy. Thank you all for being my friends, my “enemies” and my loved ones.