The Economist ~ May Day giveaway!

Day 2,354, 04:58 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Spite313







Dear friends,


Every year on the first of May I do a giveaway to the players of this game to mark International Worker’s Day. In real life we all work and live in different countries. We are different races, have different religions (or none). We are very different, but we share our common humanity. In eRepublik we play for different parties and military units, fight for different countries and alliances. But we all share our common humanity and our common love of the game.


For me May Day is a celebration of that- whether you’re Serb or Croat, Hungarian or Romanian, British or French, you have things in common which transcend rivalry and unite us all. No matter what the circumstances you are, someone in Beijing coming home from a hard day’s work can empathise with someone in Mexico City doing the same. We are all people, and this is meant to remind all of us to show a little more kindness, respect and empathy for one another, at least for one day.


This month I am giving away 5 Q7 weapons to every player who posts “Solidarity” in the comments below, up until the end of day 2,354


You don't have to subscribe, but it would be nice if you voted and shouted the article so that others could see it.





Here in the RL UK May Day (May 1st) is more associated with dancing round a big poll dressed in bells than it is with worker’s rights. Yes that does still happen. Around the world however it is a much more important festival and many people have the day off in celebration. Here in the UK when we have a festival of some sort, other than Christmas and New Year, we get the holiday on the first Monday after the date. So for example we’re all off next Monday.


Today in eRepublik it is a day of solidarity for players to unite and face their common problems- namely the game administration. We all have our gripes with the admin team, and whether you’re fighting for Sirius, Aurora or Asteria they are probably fairly similar. The lack of long term achievements, the reliance on gold buying, the fact the game still relies on players to balance it rather than mechanics.



For me the biggest issue facing us is the nightmare of a second parallel server being added. Obviously the reason the admins are promoting this is because Strength is a constant problem. They have to either keep devaluing existing strength to allow new players to catch up, or reset the server. The first option only lasts so long, and the second would anger all the gold buyers. So they’ve decided to feel out the option of creating a second server. They are very aware of dropping player numbers and want to fix it, but creating a second server would destroy the community by making all old players quit and make this server into a museum piece as no new player would ever join it and it would slowly die.


Instead what they need to do is completely re-write the military module. Transfer some bonuses to players with high strength so they have some advantage, but get rid of an exponential growth in statistics over time. The strength problem is even more severe than the problem of gold buyers dominating the battlefield. A new battlefield would still have statistics, but make it so new players did not have such a lengthy curve ahead of them and the possibility did exist for a player to (for example) catch up with the lead players after a year of hard work and investment in their character.


Anyway, just a few thoughts from me. Have a happy May Day/Worker’s Day!


Iain


Solidarity!





Ps. I will send all the gifts at once, so don't be surprised if you don't get anything until tomorrow.