Response to Demonaire and Community Failure

Day 3,571, 08:49 Published in USA USA by Gnilraps

Day 3571 of the New World
August 30, 2017


If you have not sent Demonaire a friend request yet, do so. He is an asset to eRepublik and you should follow him.

And if you haven't read his excellent article criticizing the eRep "Community" for its implicit role in the sad state of eRepublik, stop reading this now and read it first. No really, I'll wait.


And though I had intended to do some work on Meme Wars (results are due TOMORROW!), I am instead writing a reply to Demonaire's article. I don't usually do much of this, but since Demonaire called me out (more on that below), it only seemed right for me to reply. So I started typing out a comment in his article. When I ran out of space, I knew it was time to publish my response instead.






Summary of Demonaire's Article

Demonaire refers to the eRepublik player base as the "Community". He rightly points out the many prominent criticisms made by the Community of the "administrators and developers" (or Devs) over the years. Anyone who reads the eRep Forum knows that every game change is met with whining, trolling, and complaining.

Every change.

Demonaire's point is that the Devs have had the game's best interest in mind and have done their best to improve the game (making some mistakes along the way), meanwhile the Community has failed the game by misusing the game improvements and avoiding leftist policies. Here are a few quotes from Demonaire:

Speaking about Combat Orders: "That would be the first time (the) Community gave up..."

Speaking about Work Tax: "the thing that disappoints me the most is to see "communist", "socialist" and, overall, far leftists and leftists political parties around the world radically against raising Work Tax, like behaving as zombies for right-wing parties. Bonte put his bets on the Community for them to change. And the Community didn't live up to his expectations."

Speaking about the implementation of Freedom Fighter: "Community didn't do anything..."

Speaking about Taxation of Occupied Regions: "Countries turned tributes and peace agreements/NAPs with sum in golds/money in taboo. [Irony]Bravo![/Irony]"

and so on.

With regard to Dictatorship, Demonaire criticizes the Community: "Making use of an extraordinary but known fear to the changes, Community decided to mount defensive dictatorships around the world with the sole purpose to keeping the current status-quo."

There is much more.

Demonaire's most transparent criticism of the Community comes as he recalls a 16 Shells article. Here's Demonaire: "All of you can see it. If Plato really admitted eRepublik is dead, as Gnilraps once told us, Community was the murderer, or, at least, an accomplice for that murder."

According to Demonaire, I and others regard the Community as "just a good girl troubled by that "ugly bastard" called Plato." And later he calls us all "cowards".

Again, if you haven't read his article, please do. It's quite good, filled with many valid points, and yet several things I'll take issue with below.





Positives from Demonaire's Article


First of all, Demonaire is to be commended for publishing his article out-of-country. This underutilized (albeit expensive) mechanic could certainly be better frequented by a motivated publisher. This is a point made by Demonaire himself. [logic]Bravo![/logic]

And Demonaire is also to be commended for taking a new look at an old problem. I have not read anything like this article before. This is original thinking.

As to the substance of Demonaire's criticisms, I am sure he is onto something vital. There is no doubt that a "status quo" mentality has dominated eRepublik at least ever since the Community base began shrinking. There are reasons for this, however status quo is a killer. He's right.

It is also quite true that the level of criticism coming from otherwise disengaged players is astounding. Complaining, as Demonaire adroitly points out, is easy. I wish Demonaire would have done better to distinguish between active players criticizing and disengaged players criticizing. More on that later.

In total, I think the general point that Demonaire makes - Game Developers should not receive 100% of the blame for the current state of eRepublik - is spot on. I hope many people will take Demonaire's main point to heart and get to work on a new approach to eRepublik. Remember, people, this game is a Tabula Rasa... Go make something!


But Demonaire pushes things too far...





My Disagreements with Demonaire


I've already stated that in essence, Demonaire is on solid ground for casting blame onto the Community. In eUSA, for instance, dead citizens have long been afforded positions of influence in the meta-community where they ought to have none. Many of these dead ones are my own game friends. But I wish they'd either leave entirely or else start playing again. They are decidedly not helping. These are the kinds of disengaged players who really have no right to complain anymore.

But the flaw in Demonaire's thinking has more to do with how he regards game mechanics.

Let's start with the Dictatorship module. Demonaire correctly identifies the potential (and ultimately realized) problems it create😛 reduced access to the political game. But Demonaire, along with the Devs, were hoping that the mechanic itself would add some increased political variety. Their thought: "Maybe some Socialist idealist would overthrow a right-wing government, enforce high taxation and aggressive domestic social programs, thus creating a nation truly different than it was under Democracy." It's a lovely hope and an admirable theory. In my opinion, this game would be vastly greater if it were possible to implement wildly Left or Right Wing policies. How great would it be to see Alliances formed based on Fascist or Communist or Socialist or Democratic ideals? It would be AWESOME.

But what Demonaire and Devs seemed to overlook was that the game mechanics themselves hindered this lofty ideal. Ever since the destruction of the International Market (independent country currencies, globalized citizen mobility, and the disastrous "resource wars" distribution, etc.) the economy has become elementary and simplistic. This means that there is a very narrow band of optimized settings for Work Tax, Import Tax, VAT, and Minimum Wage. Any Dictator which would seriously deviate from these optimized settings would be destroying his Nation's economy. Remember, a citizen can work anywhere in the world, can work-as-manager in foreign-held companies, and can simply stop working if policies don't favor his efforts. In short, there is only one type of "government" in eRepublik that is truly wise: the government which optimizes the settings based on simple economic game mechanics.

So to criticize the community for utilizing the Dictatorship module as to the only real benefit it offered,defense against foreign invasion, is like criticizing a chef for making a crappy meal out of rotted ingredients. Or to quote Jesus, "a bad tree cannot bear good fruit". If you are interested in hearing what he then went on to say about what happens to "every tree that does not bear good fruit", google it.

My general disagreement with Demonaire's article can be extrapolated from what I've just illustrated about the Dictatorship module. Devs produce a new mechanic, new mechanic does not elementally affect the narrow band of optimized settings, Community adapts new mechanic into old game style.

This is a decidedly different narrative than Demonaire's.






Review of My Points

When game mechanics are established that create narrow arrays of optimized game-play, a wise player base will always find that narrow array and focus its game-play there.
Not: Players should experiment with unwise settings because it might be fun.

eRepublik game mechanics have grown more simplistic over time, thus creating even narrower arrays of optimized game-play and fostering an atmosphere of boredom.
Not: The Community has acted like babies who fail to appreciate how good things truly are.

The eRepublik community should be scolded for its childish attitude toward a hard-working Admin, but should not be blamed for the game mechanics.
Not: If the Community would just embrace every game change the game would be better.

Play the game or get lost. If you're not into this game anymore, stop poisoning the waters with invective against those who remain. Play the game or get lost. You are the real cowards.
Not: I used to play this game therefore I have a reputation but I don't play anymore yet I still want to preserve my reputation.

and finally,

New changes to the game, in order to succeed, must also be accompanied by careful thought (if not wholesale changes) to existing mechanics.
Not: Let's throw something out there without giving true thought to how it intersects with the game while we stubbornly hold to the very mechanics which damaged the game in the first place.






Direct Message to Demonaire

I am an extremely active citizen, I have given away tens of millions worth of Gold/CC to other players in hopes of making the game better for everyone, and I've played long enough to understand the fundamentals of how the game has changed. I therefore claim the right to criticize in a respectful way what I see wrong. While I have at times overstepped the "respect" boundary, I reject the accusation of cowardice, nor do I regard the community as heroine. The Community has warts which should be burned off. But there is only so much the Community can do. People like master_rg and YUI are doing more than their share to foster a positive gaming experience. They should not be regarded as coward either. Lastly, thank you for an excellent publication. I would be pleased to call you "friend".




You may now return to your regularly scheduled clicking