Personal Trainers in Erepublik: Bad Idea

Day 752, 10:29 • Published in USA USA • by Greg 454

According to this article, we now have the option of paying 1 gold to a personal trainer, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of our military training.
This is a bad idea because it rewards new players who are rich in real life with the possibility of purchasing gold in eRepublik and getting a better training than the rest of us.

Let me quote:
“ In theory, if someone used the full-booster in just 4 months they could turn from a “baby” to a strong enough soldier to be called a war-god, if this is your preferred part of the game.”

Some of you may say, “but Greg, anyone can buy 20 gold and start a company.” True, but success or failure of such company depends solely on the player, if you don’t know how to run a company all the gold in the world is not going to make a difference.

With the military is difference, you click to train and you click to fight, there’s no intelligence involved thus someone could become a super soldier faster than the rest of us just by spending 1 gold a day in training.

What else is eRepublik going to sell to us now?

Buy 100 gold and become President? Spend 1,000 gold and buy your own country? Got a forfeit point? No problem, just give us 1 gold and we’ll make it go away.

This reminds me of Latin America, where corruption is common and if you want to get a passport or drivers license, all you have to do is bribe somebody, that is if you don’t want to wait 5 or more hours.

But this isn’t Latin America, the developers of eRepublik live in Spain and Romania, first world countries
where corruption is penalized.

By letting players increase their strength by paying gold they’re creating a class war. Now I’m not someone who hates millionaires or who wants to tax them to death, quite the opposite. But I think some things are universal. If you join the military, you can’t tell your Drill Sergeant “hey buddy, I want to get some personal training from you, here’s $50.” Nor can you bribe your way into private accommodations, better meals, private showers, and so forth.

So why should players get better training just because they have the gold? That sends the wrong message to the rest of us.