Why new players get bored with erepublik.

Day 461, 17:52 • Published in USA Singapore • by Charles Martel

It's a fact. Noobs don't like erepublik. There are thousands of inactive citizens who only played for a day or two. Maybe a friend invited them. Maybe they found it by themselves. But many countries have an employment rate that is way too high. In this game, the employment rate is more of a measure of activity than economic strength. Belgium, Chile, Poland, and the USA all have unemployment rates over 60%. Noobs don't like the game, and it's obvious why they don't.

90% of a new player's time is spent trying to figure out what to do. If it weren't for this, they would ask "Is that it? I just buy food, work and train?" a lot quicker. Obviously, this is why a lot of noobs quit. The problem with fixing this is that it requires fundamental changes to the game. Obviously you can make major changes to make them stay. I'm going to stick to little changes that will have a big effect.


Most people suggest that we need to give the noobs something else to do. I say that is much too hard, and would cause problems. It would require a major overhaul. Mostly, we need to give the noobs something to look at, and explore. Distracting them with stuff that doesn't affect the game would also work.

1. A good map that's easy to access. The admin rarely updates the map, and it's annoying to get to. There should be, under info, an interactive map of the world that automatically updates, shows where battles are currently taking place, hospitals, defence systems, and resources. Now who, new player or Beta veteran, would not like that?
2. People should be able to post stuff on their profile page. Links, pictures, text, whatever. The welcome message says "No one like to look at the default avatar." Well no one likes to look at the default profile page. Allow the players to add stuff to it, like their own "page". Looking at these and making their own would interest new players.
3. Improve the history section of the wiki. I'm sure many old players could do this. One of the first few things I looked at in the wiki was the history page. I could have spent hours looking through a history section, but it only took be 10 minutes. A good history article would interest many noobs. The history and politics sections of the wiki have changed very little since Beta. This needs to change. See my last article for more detail on improving the wiki.
4. Link the forums to the main website better. The admin should allow a party to post a link to their forum on their page. Same with countries and companies. This will allow noobs to communicate with others in the same party/country/company and make friends.

This is about all that can be done to interest new players. If these were implemented, I believe the unemployment rate would drop by at least 10% worldwide.