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My fellow eAmericans,

I don’t do interviews very often but after my interview with this gentleman, I believe I may have to make it a habit. This gentleman first approached me on IRC in the Libertarian Party chat room when I had stated that I needed something to do with my paper since it was on the mend after the failure of the Party Perspectives series and the disinterest I was beginning to feel with the POTUS series. I thought he was joking when he asked for an interview but as I soon found out, the man was as serious as a heart attack. He would ask me when we spoke together on IRC and featured a request from himself and encouraged his subscribers to do the same in his paper The Fieldist, which I highly recommend you subscribe to when you finish reading the interview.



Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my interview with the former US Secretary of Fun, SamWystan!

Q: Firstly, I know you first asked to be interviewed when I was discussing The Royal Tribune. However, why did you really want to be interviewed by me?
A: Well, mostly, because it allows me to play up myself and my newspaper, The Fieldist. A large portion of this game is media presence. Since I'm relatively cheap and sparing with how I spend my gold, I don't do many advertisements, and I rely mainly on word-of-mouth and trackbacks from other papers to pump up The Fieldist.

Also, if I want to show I have an ego about this; I think I have interesting things to say, and enjoy interviews.

Q: I’ve been reading through your paper The Fieldist and it appears that you have an excellent command of the issues that affect the eUnited States and do an excellent job of presenting them to the viewing public in an easy to digest format. How did you develop this understanding?
A: Well, mostly it's reading. I read other people's papers really quickly. And if I don't understand an issue, I read it again until I do. Or I look for articles on the same subject. For instance, I've never quite understood the t'jelle-ERX collapse. And the articles on that show. But mostly, news is about narrative. It's important to look at an issue and say "well, what's the story here?" I then present that story-line in an amusing arc. For instance, Haliman is president of the United States Workers Party, and they pretty much dominate the country, thus, no matter who is POTUS, the President of the USWP is always the real leader of the country in my paper.

Q: I believe that as a citizen of any country with a free press, it is your duty to keep informed of what is occurring in their government. In your opinion, why is it important for eAmericans to be well informed?
A: Americans should be informed if only to prevent trolls from going "shut up, you know nothing." One doesn't have to be particularly informed. They just have to be cautious. They should ask, "is this person lying? What's their interest here?" Being informed helps. It also makes my job (telling lies) a lot harder if the citizenry is informed, which it should be. We're all actors, and having information tells us how to act.

Q: You highlight a variety of issues in The Fieldist. What issue do you think has had the greatest effect on the eUS and why?
A: I think the issue that has the greatest effect has never appeared in The Fieldist. I'm sure there's a lot of people who want me to say, "elite-newb divide" or some such nonsense, but really that's not it. What really affects the US is the lack of innovation on the parts of many of our citizenry. We're often trapped into certain ways of thinking. Hate it or love it, you have to admit Dioism was (and may still be in some places) innovative and fun. You have to push to the edges of game mechanics. Anything that isn't exploiting a bug, should be legal. RP (which is really just the social aspect of the game) gives us a great way to subvert mechanics and create compelling stories, and we need to use it a bit more, and in interesting ways.

Q: What have you enjoyed the most about operating your paper, The Fieldist?
A: Well, the feedback has been wonderful. And the people who ask to write for it always make me glad I have that option open. Breaking stories has been nice, especially for a joke paper like mine. But the bits I've enjoyed most are when people get really angry at The Fieldist. It goes to prove my point that people get too wrapped up in the game. I've had all sorts of players come at me for mocking them, and I've never once changed an article because someone tried to bully me.

Q: Considering your experience reporting on different issues, what do you think the future holds for the eUS as a nation? How can the nation prepare for this?
A: I think we have two futures. One is stagnation. We'll just continue as we have been, shedding players and nothing really changing. We'll pile on more Google Docs, and forget the aspect of the game that's about camaraderie. We can prepare for this future by staying the same.

The other future (the one I'll be working for) is for real innovation. It's for saying "well these parties suck; government doesn't have to be run like this; is this military structure really necessary; what's this alliance really going to do, anyway; etc." We own Mexico, for Dio's sake, but the only people who really seem to be trumpeting that are the Mexicans with their revenge-swearing. People want heroes, and all we've got is bureaucrats.

Q: Do you have anything else you would like to say?
A: I hope you'll keep up the quality writing. That stuff is important.

Till next time, my dear readers…
~ PrincessVictoria