More eRep History, People Are Not Bots Edition

Day 4,773, 21:38 • Published in USA USA • by George Barker

It might be hard to believe now, but once upon a time in this game, the eUK was a respected country, with a good group of tanks (they called them "Paratroopers"), a country whose membership in alliances was valued.

Then they got smart.



There was a group of UK insiders, as best as I remember (I was ambassador to eUK during parts of this period and maintained sub rosa contacts there throughout) the core was Glados (a RL American, I believe), Michael Collins, the infamous, and all-too-aptly named, Glorious Failure, Hassan Peresan or something like that, and Dishmcds (probably another RL American, although he sometimes claimed he was Mexican). These guys were friendly with Peace GC, the alliance that was the enemy of UK's traditional friends, and decided they were going to swerve the eUK into that alliance, even though the population of the eUK was not in favor of it.

So they undertook a plan. First, they announced a "training war" with Hungary -- then a top-3 country -- to cede Scotland to Hungary, which gave Hungary a border with Canada. Hungary, of course, attacked Canada from Scotland; the eUK, while it had proclaimed "neutrality" (sound familiar?) and innocently said it had no idea what Hungary would do, then (after the eUS was being chopped up by PEACE) jumped in and attacked the US, while its trolls accused the US of doing terrible, but unspecified, things to the eUK (again, sound familiar?). Probably the greatest World War this game has seen was then in full swing.

I won't bother with the details of the war itself: suffice to say, the eUK was too weak to hold the regions it got as a reward for its backstab. It lost RW after RW, was quickly forced back to its island, and has pretty much remained there since. After PEACE died and was reborn as PHOENIX, the UK was invaded by EDEN, and after that ended, just faded from the world stage. But the real interesting thing is what happened there internally in the aftermath. One of the things the insiders thought was that the public, presented with the fait accompli and constant propagandizing, would switch its sympathies and become enthusiastic supporters of PEACE. While that happened to an extent, it wasn't with the same degree of enthusiasm as before. Moreover, their tanks, having nothing useful to do in an alliance where they were an afterthought and with which they had no history or connection, wandered off or quit. Some went to South Africa, some, Australia, some to New Zealand, once it was created -- they just melted away.

Most interestingly, ALL the core members of the backstab left or quit. Glorious Failure rage-quit and gave away his account, decided that was a mistake and came back as "Necrosis," was bizarrely made a moderator by the admins, and then dumped a document containing everyone's (I do think it was every single player's) e-mail address and account password to the public and quit for good, although he continued haunting forums and IRC for some time afterwards. Peresan (who, amusingly enough, had been spying for PEACE while serving as General Secretary of ATLANTIS, PEACE's nemesis alliance and the alliance the UK belonged to. These were not a group of honest, upright people by any stretch.) quit. Michael Collins moved to the eUS (!) with his buddy Dish and Glados, then moved to Canada when he found his machinations weren't welcome here (the eUS was a different place in those days) and finally quit. Glados moved to the US, hung around pointlessly for awhile, and quit. And the eUK became, in short order, the backwater it is today. It was as if they descended on the eUK like locusts, chewed the guts out of it, and moved on from the empty husk.

You can draw whatever comparisons to the current eUS you like. For me, the lesson learned is, you play with a people's sentiments, and you play with fire. Except instead of having the fire spread, you risk snuffing it out, especially if you dismiss the importance of sentiment in this game as mere "past associations," as if people are no more than bots, whose sentiments, like their fights, can be turned on and off with a few taps on a keyboard. This game is about sentiment. It's about getting the juices flowing because you care about outcomes, and one of the reasons you care is because you develop "associations" with people and countries that make you want to fight for them, make you cheer their successes and lament their failures. Take those away, cheapen them, or deem them irrelevant, and there is no reason for many people to log in and click. Erep becomes Farmville, with worse graphics.

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Here's a thought experiment I've been mulling over: right now the Legend bonus is something of a trap. It gives you a great deal of damage potential, but only in your country's battles. Outside of those, it's worthless. So if your sentiment towards a country changes (because you aren't smart enough to abandon "past associations," for example), or you get bored, or for any other reason want to move, that move comes with a heavy penalty.

And here's the thought experiment: what do you think would happen if the rules were changed so players could take their Legend bonus with them, or could agree to reverting back to Titan*** if they moved to another country, with the option of starting the Legend climb again? Which countries would benefit, and which suffer an exodus of top fighters? And since players can't, currently, do that, what do they actually do when they're bored or don't support the direction their country has moved in?