Raising Kids In The eUS

Day 881, 12:48 • Published in USA USA • by NeilP99

When a child is born it is treated a particular way. It is nurtured, it is protected, it is considered the miracle that it is, and people do everything they can to make it happy and comfortable. As the child gets older it is educated. It is taught to crawl, then to walk, it is taught to talk, and it is taught the things that are dangerous in the world, as well as the things that are safe and enjoyable. The people who love that child, and often even those who have only a passing interest in the child, do everything they can to make sure that the child succeeds. This is not the case in the eUS.

In the eUS when a new player is “born” it gets few of these benefits. Sure, the citizen gets a message welcoming them to the game, sure, the Admins have built in features to prevent the new citizens from fighting their health away, but what about the mind of these new citizens? If we go back to that real life child, can we as citizens of the eUS honestly say that we’re doing everything for these new players that the parents of the real life child are doing? We do try to nurture these new citizens with gifting and food programs, we do try to protect them by explaining how to fight and getting them to move to one of our fortress states, and we do teach them how to talk by telling them how to get to the eUS forum. But what do we do when they talk? What do we do when they make a mistake? What do we do when they try to learn more about the eWorld that they live in?

We don’t treat new citizens like the miracles that we consider new born children to be. In fact, more often we harass new citizens for not knowing enough. The forums are filled with threads where new players ask questions, or make suggestions, or try to show an interest in the game, and are shunned for it. They are mocked for suggestions that won’t work, laughed at for asking questions that have widely known answers, and made to feel inferior to other players. Why? Because we started playing eRepublik before them, and since we started before them we already know the things that they do not. We read the things they say and we laugh at the foolish ideas that they have. I won’t lie, the ideas often are foolish, and would end terribly if implemented. But what we need to remember is that they don’t know that, and we wouldn’t know that either if we had just joined the game.

Perhaps because we all know that the people behind the avatars and user names are actually much older than infants we have a hard time thinking of them as that. But in all actuality that’s exactly what each new citizen is. They’re infants, who don’t know the history of this game, or even all of the rules. Some of them will learn quickly and other will take longer. But we need to start treating them like kids instead of idiots. Rather than act inconvenienced by new players we should cherish each chance we have to teach them something new about the game. I’ll freely admit that from time to time answering the same old questions about how to do different things, or what things used to be like, or why things are the way they are can be annoying. But what does the eUS gain from treating the people asking these questions like fools? What do we gain from mocking them?

We all know that player retention is what will decide the future of the eUS. No matter how many allies we have, no matter how organized we are, and no matter how many high resource regions we control we are still powerless if we don’t have citizens. So each and every time that someone starts playing this game we should be doing everything we can to make sure we’re friendly and helpful to them. Because if we are, then they might just stick around, and the longer they stick around the more useful they become. They gain strength, they gain understanding, and they gain higher worker still levels. All of this makes them better players and makes them have more of an impact on the eUS.

An elite exists in the eUS. I’m hesitant to say it because the term “elite” often has a stigma attached to it. It’s a term that often is used by those who wish only to bash those who have power. But in this case I use it as a term for the players who have been around for long enough that they think they know everything. They are the people who have been playing long enough to know why the taxes are what they are, why different countries are on particular sides in the alliances, and why different strategies won’t work. Their knowledge is undoubtedly valuable, but they, along with everyone else, should remember that they were new players once too. How many of us can honestly say that we’ve never done something stupid in this game? Who can honestly say that they never asked why we don’t raise the minimum wage, or why we don’t invade Canada, or what PTO, MPP, VAT, and Org mean? We’ve all been there at one time or another. We’ve all been that new player who didn’t know anything and wasn’t even sure we should keep playing this game. But those of us who kept playing often did so because another player was friendly to us (For me it was Tiacha <3).

The point of this article is simple enough:


Treat new players like you would treat her!

It’s a simple request really. Just take a second each time you post a comment on an article or leave a reply in a forum to think. Think if you’re being harsh or unfriendly to a new player who might not know better than what they said. Think about whether or not your comment could discourage this player from playing this game. Because if you’re making people quit then you’re hurting eUS efforts to create a baby boom, you’re hurting our chances of getting a new tank some day, and you’re damaging the country. Everyone, myself included, should be nicer to new players if we want the eUS to win. Thanks for reading.