My take on the eRepublik 2012 Official Summit

Day 1,846, 01:58 • Published in China China • by mihail.cazacu

I was one of the ~100 people who attended the 2012 eRepublik Official Summit in Bucharest.

It was great to meet with people who had to travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers in order to participate (Oblige flew half the USA, the Atlantic and half of continental Europe to get here).

It was also great to meet and discuss with the people who run eRepublik. Face-to-face interaction beats any ticketing system.

The eRepublik team offered a sneak peek at two of the features to be introduced soon:

1) Better maps;

2) The [re]introduction of Player-versus-Player combat.

"Better maps" means the eWorld will still be divided in the same provinces as it is today. However the map itself will offer more information than it does currently. For instance it seems we would be able to see all the battles that are taking place.

The new version of Player vs. Player seemed to be a simplified version of "Counter-strike". Unlike in V2, this time PvP fights will be optional. If we don't want it, we don't take part in it. However taking part in PvPs will bring some advantages to the players who win the fight. They will be able to collect special items from the vanquished foe, their stats will increase faster and, it seems, they will make a much more important contribution to the collective battle.

How exactly winning a PvP will impact the damage dealt in the classical battles is still to be discussed and beta-tested.

After the eRepublik staff finished the presentation of these new features, we were invited to come up with our own suggestions to improve the gameplay.

The most popular proposals among the participants were:

1) Hard-wiring the Alliances into the game:
- Presidents will be able to propose Alliance Laws to their Congresses, MPPs would be automatically proposed to the members of an alliance (with the possibility that some countries opt-out, for strategic reasons like a land-swap agreement);
- the Alliance HQs will be able to transmit "Alliance's Campaign of the Day" to each member country, just like the countries' presidents set the "Campaign of the Day" and the military commanders set the daily missions of their Military Units;
- Alliance-wide resource allocation might become possible: instead of distributing weapons and food by hand, the Alliances might have a central warehouse from where such resources would be automatically distributed to those who fight according to the priorities set at alliance level.

2) Hard-wiring the distribution of resources at Military Unit level.
- There might be a return to some of the features of the orgs.
- The MUs might have their own factories and warehouses, distinct from the factories and warehouses of their members. Resources (food and weapons) would be automatically allocated to those who work for the MU companies and accomplish the daily missions and/or fight according to the MU's priorities set by the commanders.

3) There might be a change in the MU's hierarchy. The 2nd Commander might be able in the future to also set the MU's priorities (just like the captain does nowadays). The Captains will be appointed instead of elected, in order to increase the discipline of the MU.

4) The country presidents and/or the Congresses will be able to control the country's resources through automatic resources allocation:

- for instance the MUs which follow the orders set by the Country President/Minister of Defense would automatically receive funding, weapons or food from the State, eliminating the current manual distribution;

- Congress might be able to decide how to allocate automatically the resources between say the "military schools" which train the young players and the experienced/elite Military Units. Then the CP and or/MoD would further fine-tune that allocation by distributing each budget among battles, divisions, etc.

- "Mercenaries" might be hired automatically, according to the need for additional damage in the various battles. The Country Presidents and/or MoDs might issue "mercenary missions" which would reward those who accomplish them with money, weapons and/or food;

4) The party management might be improved. Party Presidents might receive tools for mass-communicating to their members, political advertising might return, parties might become similar to the Military Units, encouraging the members to work together for the common good in-between the election campaigns, etc.

The eRepublik team would probably implement some of those proposals. If they do, then it is quite likely the game would become more interesting and fun.

So stay tuned for Plato's announcements. We might like some of them.