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I see more new citizens dropping out in lack of interest for the game, rather than starving to death because of their inability to apply for a higher position.

If anything, we need a steady flow of Skill 0 & 1 jobs with some personal interaction from round-the-clock Mentor shifts to keep that interest level high.

Critical of the MoW program? ..A little bit. But I'd personally love to see some new citizens that applied for the MoW assistance comment on here. What was your experience with the program?

(BTW, good article, Krems.)

This was my experience. I applied very soon after staring the game and today I got my relief.

(BTW, thanks! 😃)

Good article, thats honestly my opinion on the whole MoW issue-useless.

The mentor program IMO works much better to keep people active in the game.

Troy Roberts

My experience was exactly what you describe😛 the food did not arrive until I didn't really need it. Long before the MoW food arrived, my employer had sent me some gifts to raise my wellness. I would have made it without the gifts, but not at such wellness - and hence not at such productivity.

I'm more in favor of the MoW scheme (or similar gifting scheme) than I am of a charity scheme that would involve requesting food. Maybe it is a matter of personal pride when you are poor. One can accept and be grateful for the generosity of other people, whether they be individuals or the people of the eUSA collectively without it feeling like one is begging.

Does it simply need more of us to help with MoW?

Very little of the taxpayer's money is spent on MoW in comparison to military spending, and MoW does help with national productivity.

I agree entirely, MoW is unnecessary, and my own existence is proof of that. I started this game about 6 weeks ago, and without MoW, I managed to survive and now thrive -- at least, I think so. The key is to realize it will take consistent activity to see this actuality -- any time lost will contribute to the player's death.

Currently, we operate at a 5 USD citizen fee. Coupled with the current minimum wage and the typical price of Q1 food, a player has 16 days to move to a job with an skill 1 requirement... beyond that, the player's personal deficit will overcome the player and they will be forced to work without food for returning wellness.

Now personally, I have trained every day of my existence, even those starting days that contributed to further wellness degradation. In hindsight, I had good breaks that set me up to replace my lost wellness through combat (once I reached 25 exp, I started swinging) -- many thanks to Operation Taco Bell -- however, not all players will have breaks that swing this way. It may be a good idea for new players to _not_ train until they are operating a black-letter budget, because training eats wellness faster and will prevent you from combat if you drop below 40 wellness early.

No matter the case, MoW is not an absolutely necessary requirement to play this game... consistent activity and persistence through adversity are the order of the day.

It may, but I feel that the money could be better spent on a program with far more usefulness, such as the mentor scheme. Noobs will have low wellness for a very short time (5 or 6 days max) until they can take part in war games. After that its advice they need the most, not Q1 food.

Good Artical and excellent point.

If I had known to spen my gold on a house I would have had no problem. That is why I donated my Q1 house to a beginner in the party. I couldn't sell it. We all should look into our storage. Do you really need to have old Q1 junk.

From the proposed budget information posted recently, MoW will account for 1.15% of the expenditure. Almost all the rest is military expenditure.

Currently I am a noob

I am level 3, and I train every day (although I haven't been able to train for to long).

I look at the different policies of the United States and I'm quite impressed at the complexity of players on this online game.

However, I'm quite upset about exactly these things. I have applied for meals on wheels, and I still haven't gotten it. I currently have 61 cents, not dollars, for trade and enough q1 food for 3 days stockpiled.

Right now, I've tried to obtain any information possible, and look forward to sometime joining the marines. (reading forums, articles, looking up the economy of the United states, which has no one building hospitals btw).

Awhile ago, I saw the minimum wage of $9 voted down, and I was kind of interested to see what the minimum wage was. As you have said, it was 1, and food costs a bit more then that. What i'm asking is why don't we raise the minimum wage to about $3. Then I can pay for my food, and then I can also start a gift exchange or something like that. Right now, my wage isn't high enough for my daily bread, so I'll most likely have to switch companies in a day or two to compensate.

@Mysteriousdoor: That was a 'lulz' proposal, it was never actually going to happen. If we raised the minimum wage then all that would happen is the price of Q1 food would rise as the higher wages have to be paid somehow (higher prices). A good point though. Msg me if you want my MoW food, I dont need it.

to all of the citizens that do not need the MoW food donate them to
Angle Food Charity. I can use it to help people hear and overseas.

Contact AidenAstrup if you have any problems with Meals on Weals. He's the director.

"I see more new citizens dropping out in lack of interest for the game, rather than starving to death because of their inability to apply for a higher position."

This. The biggest killer is realizing that this game is really slow and can be really boring. If you really want to play this game, you'll find a way.


Also, I've been against MoW for the entire time that it's existed, and now I hear that it's laughably slow on top of that. This is ridiculous.

I am the new Welcoming Committee Chairman, so we have somewhat of a jurisdiction over the Meals on Wheels program. But I have almost no direct involvement. The MoW was started to help people who are in the situation that mysteriousdoor is in...they don't have enough money to buy food, and so, instead of having them starve, we can get them some food and they won't have to pay for it in the coming days and can start saving a little. Then, this money may go to a Moving Ticket once they level enough to fight in the war games, and need to move to Florida or New Jersey.

But, I am disheartened to hear that the Meals are taking a long time to reach the applicants. This should not be happening, and it will need to be fixed. The program is a waste of time and money if the people who ask for meals do not receive them right and no longer need them when they do.

You said that you would like more money to go to the mentor program? Well, that doesn't really need money, we just need help. We need volunteers to be mentors.

Krems - keep in mind that war games is a temporary thing and new citizens are lucky now to have that benefit (this will not last forever). I know when I started there were long periods of no wars or war games which made the first couple of weeks much more difficult since there was no way to get taht wellness up other than begging for gifts.

@ClammyJim: thats a fair point but I was thinking of a system where mentors could be paid (not very much) for each noob they help. But the person who decided if they got paid would be the noob, insuring that they got help. Also each mentor could be helping 2 or 3 noobs at each time. Hopefully that would increase the number of noobs the system could help.

@Danylo: Fair enough, but even without them once yo get a decent wage its just a matter of time until your wellness goes up.

Problems with your article:
1. You never bothered to read the confirmation message did you? Sad. It would have made you look like a fool. In case you were wondering: "Meals On Wheels is going to be on shut down for a week due to spring, we will return Monday". Ouch.
2. You never bothered to contact MoW or me for information. Due to the Public Information Act and my own kind heart and to stop insolent fools from posting inaccurate information - I provide all information about MoW per request. If you had asked you would have found out that MoW on average sends food within 2 1/2 days of the request.
3. The mentor program ain't MoW's fault - sorry to burst your bubble.

@AidenAstrup: I dont want to get into a pissing contest but judging by the amount of people who agreed with my article its quite a regular occurrence for MoW to be late. Also I got food delivered to me this week, so clearly your not shut down.
Oh and 'sorry to burst your bubble' but the main point of my article was that the MoW program isn't even necessary, no matter that its inefficient and slow.

Wow Aiden, you sound like a complete jack ass. The wedding is off. I guess I didn't know you after all

@ Aidan - What confirmation message? The shout that arrived _after_ the food, saying that there was a six day backlog?

MoW is necessary. We have proven over and over again that new citizens can not afford food and that it is inefficient and extremely costly to raise the citizen fee. We are saving money by using the Meals On Wheels program. When I log back on I will show you the emails I have received from people who have been sent food.

MoW is a stupid program and it should be eliminated

I filled out MoW and got my food to late for it to do any good. I redonated the food lol

But I agree with Aiden...I did feel a sense of community when I did get the food and I really felt that someone cared. I think the program needs to stay if only for the prestige. Maybe the cost can be lowered somehow.

Perrin,

The current budget allocates a mere 1.15% of our taxes to MoW. Reducing the MoW budget by about half could reduce income tax to 19.9% instead of 20%. Is it really worth trying to lower it?

Meals on Wheels is a large part of why I'm still playing here. Because I'd have been dead otherwise.

As a true noob, I was making just over a dollar for salary, and paying just over a dollar for Q1 food. I was lucky if I had 15 cents after food saved.

Then Meals on Wheels came in, donated several days worth of food (and some of it was Q2 food too). Thanks to them I was able to save up some cash and start buying better food, as well as get a better job so that I could regularly afford better food. Then in some of the "spam" of my shout box came the greatest gift of all. Advice saying I should sell my gold. Thanks to that tidbit I'm now in a house, working a well paying job, and making money steadily.

THANK YOU MEALS ON WHEELS!

This article sums up my recent experience with Meals on Wheels almost perfectly.

I've played eRep for 9 days now, and during the earliest days I was struggling to maintain my wellness, even in spite of efforts on my employer's part to educate me as to how to maintain it. It was through his efforts that I learned of the MoW program, and I was excited.

A government that cared about it's citizens, I thought. Alright! I applied for the program and waited anxiously, all the while barely making the pay I received translate into meal, several times going without.

Along the way, a stroke of good fortune led me to the Human Resources page at the right moment, and I was able to acquire a job with a salary that would not only allow me to feed myself, but also to save money.

This job happens to be q2, and so I found myself buying q3 food just to maintain. No big deal, with my fancy new salary.

Then, a week after I had applied, and far after I needed it anymore, I log on to find that MoWs has donated 2 q1 and 2 q2 food to my inventory. That idea that I had when I was just getting started, about a government that cared about me, was now corrupted. If a government cared about me, would they really invest my hard earned salary in a program so inefficient as to be absolutely useless to me?

The MoW program is a good idea in theory, and I agree with it in theory, but in practice I now have four pieces of food that I will likely donate away, and an extreme sense of disbelief when I hear proponents state that MoW sends relief withing 2 1/2 days of application.

The system is broken and needs to be scrapped, in my honest opinion.

New player help for anyone needing it! Knowledge is needed not q1 food that does not help much anyway.



Dear New Players,
We spent quite some time putting together a Google
web page to help train new players learn to play
and enjoy EREPUBLIC.

Go here:

http://tinyurl.com/E-Republican-Noob-Help


Learn and enjoy,

The Republican Party Mentoring Committee

Feel free to use this no matter what your party affiliation or even your country, lol! We want to improve our game and that starts with keeping citizens playing.

Meals on Wheels is a great program, and provides a huge shot in the arms, and a connection point for new players. A mentoring program is also key, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I got my food after 7 days. I plan on eating it. MOW worked for me!

As a recipient of MOW I agree that it is not always the most effective program at delivering food in a timely manner. I joined Erepublik with a few friends and some got food the next day and others about a week later. Looking back now I see that my character would have survived with out MOW, but MOW provides much more than just food to myself and new players. It embeds a sense of belonging to the community, it lets new players know they matter and we want them to continue playing the game.

The MOW idea is not the problem, the implementation of the program is.

I had the exact opposite experience with MoW. I got food a day or two after I applied and it helped out a lot.

I think my experience was good.. As soon as I applied a couple half hours later they sent me four pieces of food.

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/a-vacation-goes-bad-777075/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/a-va[..]/1/20