GR Embassy in BG, an interview with the vice CP Stolch

Day 2,145, 13:28 Published in Bulgaria Bulgaria by STOYCH3V

1st sorry for my English.

2nd in a while starts the mach of PAOK in AZ Alkmaar so i dont have much time for too much "bold" and "underlines" in the text.

well... I have the honor to represend my country, eGreece, as the ambassador in eBulgaria.

In my first days i have asked Tablov (the Bulgarian CP) wich one of the members of the eBulgarian government is worth to make interview with and he told me that Stolch (the vice CP) is that person and i thnk he was right cause he has some interesting opininios about this game and he can show to us how many of the eBulgarians thinking about some issues in the game.

Stolch... thanks for the efford!

so... The questions:

You think that you are a politician in this game?

Not really a politician, I regard myself more a statesman, since I've never really worked for any political idea or party, rather for a national idea and "way to play the game". It's no secret I've always been in favour of empowering all players.

You stayed in the game for the country or for the people?

For the people, I started the game for the country because it was a challenge back then and well there was some semblance of a game, now it is just Pinocchio playing by himself and a bunch of masochist who can't let it go yet. Soon there will be less then 30K active players in the game if it hasn't happened already. If it is not for all the people I met and made friendships with I would not be here at all, one of them even brought me back to the game after I had decided to leave.

You think that only the “baby booms” are going to save the countries in this game?

Baby Booms can't happen anymore, the game stops them from happening. Simply put the idiots have created a system where new players have to not play to have a chance to play months later. You can't hope for any retention in such a counterintuitive system. I don't know if it is done out of stupidity, but they have made retention impossible with the current mechanics, any BB that happens is temporary and it only can happen in a "virgin" country as the new players can have their attention focused on some political aspects for long enough to outlast the initial months, but even there it is harder and harder to generate and keep interest. The new players that are "coming into" the game currently are restarting old players, some professional others as a means to better their development. The practice is wide spread, but Pinocchio bans only some from certain countries.

Original regions with some bonuses or exotic regions with full bonuses?


Regions have no meaning anymore, original or not. In a game where battles are 24 hours a day and military plans are influenced to a greater degree by the whims of Pinocchio and not your opponents, regions have no worth or meaning other then a burden to carry out some semblance of activity to keep your dwindling population interested. In essence most players do not play neither for their countries, nor for an idea but basically are coasting right now in a futile wait for the game to change. So it is that the coaster countries are actually doing good and those that have traditionally fought are dwindling as their players are loosing interest faster. In terms of resources it matters little nowadays how many you got as it does not create a huge difference, basically because everything has been inflated so much that the advantage from having more resources has remained the same in real terms but in relation has dwindled to insignificant levels. Bonuses have started to be a burden rather then a value, especially the 5th weapons bonus

Bulgaria – Greece, where do you think are the big differences in their organization as countries in eRep?

Bulgaria is inclusive, where Greece is exclusive. Each has strong and weak points but in a virtual game where nothing can be won lost or of any consequence other then "pride" and virtual pixels, there is not need for exclusivity. Most countries in the game however have exclusive governments with an elite that rarely if ever relinquishes control, same can be said for all alliances that have existed before CoT. The key is that sooner or later people leave the game so exclusive countries are bound to fail in the long term and are periodically forced with the decision wether to stay exclusive or become inclusive when the inevitable change comes knocking. Usually that leads to a "shot in the arm" for the country which stops and disappears if elitism returns. Inclusivity leads to periodic crises which are generally short lived as people get a chance to show what they can do and not all of them are able, in a normal situation without Pinocchio influencing the game so much and the effect of exploits , multies and other "robotized" tools was smaller, that would give an advantage in the long term as it did for Bulgaria for years while there was some semblance of "fairer competition". Right now to be honest exclusivity is probably the better doctrine especially if you have a "connection" to Pinocchio.

I was e-born the last days of “BulGreece”… you are much more younger but Tablov says that you are “player-institution for the e-hitory of your country” … so tell me… what you have heard for those days

I'm not younger, I just left the game for a while and when I came back started with a new account. BulGreece worked, while Greece had an interest in it, unfortunately that is one of the consequences of exclusivity it is entirely interest driven and there is no loyalty other then to ones own interest. Thus when the situation "on the ground" changed so did the attitude of Greece which led to the eventual breakdown.

Simply put when Macedonia was added to the game, Greece needed an ally on it's borders out of the 3 countries it was bordering and at that time, the only possibility was Bulgaria so it channelled a lot of energy to woo Bulgaria. When the Arabian countries were added however things changed as the only country able to be a danger to the colonies down south would be Turkey, thus over time it became more opportune to have Turkey as an ally instead of Bulgaria and eventually the switch was made. What stung the most was not that this was done out of interest, it's a game after all, it was the cynical propaganda campaign that has dissipated but not disappeared entirely that accompanied the process to make Bulgaria look bad. This is the reason why BuGreece could never again exist in this game, as well as Macedonia now plays the game in a very much similar style as Bulgaria which is very much the opposite of Greece and the rest of the countries in the region.

Many citizens say “fix the economy Plato”. If you were the owner of eRep you would say the same thing?

The players will always want more, you can't appease all, however Pinocchio seems incapable of appeasing anyone except maybe the ones that are able to "purchase" events for their own entertainment albeit hugely overpriced. Main problem with that strategy is that when the normal players stop giving a beep or leave altogether there will be no "glory" for the fat cows to be enticed to pay huge amounts of money to feel important.

It has happened already to a great degree, nothing that get's achieved nowadays has any lasting legacy or meaning and is forgotten if not the next week, the next month. Deleting a country or negating them the ability to have congress has no meaning anymore and people have even stopped trolling over it and don't even think to celebrate it.

As far as the economy is concerned, the main problem has been and remains the "linear" development strategy, the high "cheating and manipulation" factor and of course the basic misunderstanding of Pinocchio, that to have a functioning economy you need more "consumers" then "producers". I think they tried to achieve that with the introduction of the divisions, but rather did the opposite as D4 accounts that had not accumulated or were unable to accumulate enough resources to be producers and were consumers, restarted their accounts and stopped being consumers while they developed their accounts and by the time they reach D4 they have achieved a higher development rate that they're now producers as well. Generally speaking out of stupidity every change is made for the worst, because they lack people who can analyze even elementary numbers and thus what effects changes and events might have on the game itself.

Of all the Greek military units you know, which one you think is closer to your “taste”?

The current MU system is pretty bad in my opinion, it was something the players wanted but not in the current morphed state. Because of the lack of any type of reliable statistics and ability to see the actions of different MUs other then their "fat cats", it is hard to judge the worth of any MU in the game. I generally like team players and don't like mercs. To be honest I don't have good enough overview of Greek MUs to be able to say which one I might like, definitely not an elitist one.

Tsipouro or Ouzo? (don’t say Rakia… its like the championship in front of premier league 😛 )

Whiskey. Rakia and ouzo can't be compared they're different drinks altogether. I'm moving away from my heavy drinking years and so do prefer a more laid back drink to coincide with a more laid back style of life, hence my preference for whiskey.

e-enemys or whatever... we are all people... respect!