Improving the Game
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by Kaleb
I’ve only been a citizen for a few days but I’m really enjoying the experience so far despite the frustrations.
I know the admins are very busy doing their bit but it is very much in the spirit of the game for us, the citizens, to try and make ER better. Even in the last few days it’s noticeable that there are lots of new citizens keen to contribute to the discussions about how to make improvements and reforms.
I believe the key to making this game really successful is to add complexity and detail to the game whilst having an interface that people can intuitively understand and get stuck into. The more complex the game, the more decisions have to be made about how run a country, run a company, organise your own citizen. The more decisions that have to be made and options to choose from the more discussion about what the best options are to take. And hey presto – a dynamic and active Erepublik community!
The way I see it improvements to the game come in 4 types:
1) BUG FIXES
Naturally the admins top priority (e.g. fixing the food bug of the other day)
2) TWEAKS
3) GAME CHANGES
These are the things that require more effort by the admins to implement or a more fundamental change in the way the game works. I’ve got loads of ideas on this front (as do many people) but I think we need to organise ourselves to petition for the changes that as a community we feel we need most urgently. I, along with others, feel that the most pressing issue is the Gold problem. I’ve already put up a petition about this but I will also explain more about this issue below.
4) SIMULATED CHANGES
Along with changes that have to be made by admins there are changes that we as a community can SIMULATE using mechanics that already exist in the game. This is great for 2 reasons as it is something that (if we get organised) we can implement straight away and secondly, it gives the admins a chance to see how the system works before putting in the effort to program it.
2 such examples of this happening right now are the loans scheme and shared company ownership (which hopefully people will post about).
I have three ideas of my own which I will write about in a short series of articles:
A) MACROECONOMIC TOOLS (tools governments can use to manage the economy)
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GOVERNMENT ENTITIES (including Central Banks and International Institutions)
C) SUPPLY CONTRACTS (for both public and private sector use)
Crucially with many of these ideas, it really need a country President to be on board and willing to participate in the experiment. It is possible otherwise but a lot harder to get going.
I’ve tried to run a simulation to test elements of all 3 of the above with my DoD idea. My own (UK) President was away and it seemed to me that most reform-minded President available was Korbin of the US Democrat Party. However, he turned out not to be so willing after all as he’s more interested in doing what he thinks is in the best interest of the US economy that trying ideas out to improve the game as a whole. And that is his right – I respect that. If other US citizens disagree with his decision you will either have to petition for a change of heart or vote for another President.
You can read more on that discussion here: http://www.erepublik.com/article-3117.html
Here: http://www.erepublik.com/press_release-304.html
And the original suggestion here: http://www.erepublik.com/article-2576.html
As I said at the start though – this is just the kind of debate I want to stimulate! The key is to have the OPTION of doing certain things so you can then discuss and then decide whether indeed you do want to do it. Different times and circumstances will call for different solutions.
But the long and short of it is I am without a Partner (preferably a President) to help try these simulations. Any Presidents out there want to give some of these ideas a go? Please PM or leave a comment.
As for everyone else – I’d love to you know your thoughts.
Please subscribe to receive updates of my next articles (more on Gold, and then my mini-series on Simulated Changes)
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Comments
I have been thinking about a way to do investments in other companies. A kind of impromptu stock market, a way for people to invest in companies they see have a good understanding of what is going on a sharing in the chance to help them succeed. One idea I have is to invest a certain amount (negotiated between owner and investor) and have a certain percentage of profits go to investors. Make the contracts something that can be sold to other players. Maybe have the owner set up a set number of investors they would take in and arrange profit percentages for each investor, something like that. The other, easier option would be if you could have more than one job. If citizens were able to be employed by multiple companies, it would automatically (in my opinion) turn into an investment group. I could donate a set amount to a company and be hired on as an employee to that company. As long as the company makes money, I will be earning some back. The more investors, the more employees, the greater benefit to society as a whole. Converting resources to riches (probably) pretty quickly.
> IrishOutlaw
Well I'm sure we could simply have it specified in the contract that the company owner should issue dividends out fairly between the stockholders, that stockholders may sell their shares (via the forum) to anyone interested, and that should the entire company be sold, the revenue is redistributed
Only negative aspect of course is the tax on redistribution of profits from one person to another 🙁 . Particularly given that it'll mean *double* taxing (once to get the money out of the company to the main owner, once again from the main owner to the shareholders)
Furthermore, you can have simple voting in favour of company decisions - such as the size of the dividend, any major investments, strategy...etc.
I am unfortunately not very rich myself but willing to put in 10 gold. Any other investors?
Kaleb, would love to hear more on your ideas, as I'm sure the admins would as well. They seem pretty open to new ideas and expansions. If you do write up your ideas for each new area I would also post them as individual items in the suggestion thread so the admins can add good ideas to their todo list. -- IrishOutlaw -- A formalized stock system would be great, would be neat if you could flesh out the details on what you would desire in the suggestions forum and we could all provide input from there. -- bortas -- I agree that the taxation system on donations is making it hard to create user-driven systems to stimulate the economy, I know they dropped the tax on gold...would be nice to see the tax on currency dropped as well.
yeah - let's put up another petition for that one!! I'll be posting anything I put in here in the forums as well. It's nice to have a place to collate one's thoughts so people can follow a line of thinking more easily.
I'm not exactly sure why this is a newspaper article. Why not post in on the Suggestions Forum so that way your thoughts can be viewed by admins - which is where it counts the most.
I've put a link in the forum already but perhaps I'll repost the full article. bit long for a forum post though, don't you think?
here's another example of a 'simulated change': http://www.erepublik.com/forum-topic-945.html
Great ideas all-round.
Indeed, the lack of capital seems to be the general problem and much of the present impediments against businesses are the lack of financial instruments.
cheers