Inside the Kooky Bin : How Erep admins code

Day 3,365, 15:10 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Releasethe Krakken

Now when normal folks learns coding or to design websites etc. They are taught to keep it simple: Have a easy to use program that a user can easily follow and learn and easily understand. In other words



Now erepublik has in the past not required much effort to understand. But I am see'ing a pattern develop.

Ignoring all normal principles



I see now an pattern basically it seems the average admin is coding like this:



Put simply everything is calculated using complicated formulas and maths only they know the details off.



The media module was easily understood after 2 days your article is removed and the article with the highest number of votes is first on the feed.

Yes there was vote buying but still the money involved usually meant it was still an article important enough to spend money on.

Now we have this again:



Lets go through changes to the game that is now locked into an unknown algorithm that makes the results counter intuitive

1. Pollution in a region - UNKNOWN ALGORITHM

2. How damage is calculated in an Air Battle - UNKNOWN ALGORITHM

3. How perception will influence the damage(not yet rolled out) - PROBABLE UNKNOWN ALGORITHM

4. The criteria upon which articles is ranked on our feeds. - UNKNOWN ALGORITHM




They have taken a simple system and introduced COMPLEXITY into it based on little to no request for it or feedback even.

lets go further and look critically at how this game is operated

1. Updates are announced but never rolled out - Houses level 5 to 7
- Perception Training
- regional government

2. Updates are made haphazard - there is no call for many updates - many aint even announced.

3. Updates are made with zero or no feedback - where was the surveys that tested the media module the mu module etc.

4. Updates are never beta tested. There is no beta world but one can always release an update as a beta and then identify problems scrap it or re-engineer it. For example the new update makes low voted articles number 1 or 2. It keeps important news below the radar. Even when the algorithm will be somewhat figured out people will just adapt their strategies and this perpetual ignomity of articles will continue.

5. A clear roadmap aint outlined and the updates on them implemented.

6. No stakeholders are consulted with some updates until after their introduction.

7. Many updates after their introduction is so difficult to understand that they dont really improve the game.

: Media module - nobody can figure out why certain articles is ranked higher on the feed hence the writer have no clue as to why it is 2nd or third or first. Hence he cant really replicate the result.

- Pollution high bonus regions are almost universally at full pollution. Lesser bonus regions have a higher production.

8. Its never explained why unpopular updates are kept for instance Maverick Pack we now learns comprises about 20% of their income hence I guess they will keep.

9. There is no point to user feedback. An update is introduced - none of the negative feedback is listened to for example dictator was universally hated but not retracted. Players will start to feel that their feedback is wasted.

10. Too many products becomes obsolete quickly in the game as their just not economically feasible: Q3 houses and upwards are unprofitable to produce unless you have a multi farm. Q7 Weps is difficult to produce in sufficient quantities. The trend to lean towards worker tickers v wam clicks makes most products unprofitable to produce.

I am certain that the media module will remain as it is now. Most articles will go unread although there is a see all fix many wont use it. As worker tickets is preferred for most new products there will still remain an imbalance in most industries.

But ok guess this is a good way to code