Money, Greed, the Price of Loyalty

Day 1,943, 10:51 • Published in Croatia Croatia • by Arrlo

For a long time now EDEN has been losing the fight against the unholy mega alliance between CoT and TWO. Perhaps this is an oversimplification, because no amount of damage they can arrange against us can break what EDEN is supposed to be, so I should say that we are losing most battles to them around the globe. It's not surprising given the shifts in damage from our side to against us, and I can accept the charge of "reap what you sow". Losing to superior firepower does not dishearten me. And yet there is still a feeling of unease among even the most faithful of us: not because we are losing battles, but more that we are feeling the effects of the general rot of the game. EDEN is the oldest alliance, and since we are only human it’s natural that we begin to take certain things for granted, and that we pick up and are perhaps too tolerant of bad habits. One such bad habit is buying damage.


A malnourished tree



Radix Malory est cupidity



In the past I've had several arguments with Lazokrats. I could never (and will never) understand the way they play the game, with no allegiance to any country or alliance. Not only did they fight where they were paid to, but they were totally unapologetic about the mercenary nature of their style of gameplay. No appeal to principle had the slightest effect on the ones I spoke to, to the point where I began refusing any friend requests from them, and avoided interaction with them because there was no way we would ever see eye to eye. I don’t enjoy arguing for the sake of it, and they choose to play that way, so that is that. 🙂

The one positive thing I could say about them is that they know who they are. They play the game their way and they do not pretend to be anything except a rootless mercenary unit.

Unfortunately, following the trend I mentioned earlier of general decay in the game, EDEN and other alliances have resorted to paying people to fight for them. This is beyond merely supplying people to fight for you. In the economic climate of the game, it is probably impossible for a newer player to make anything like enough money to be able to feed and arm himself, so giving enough weapons and food to cover their fights for you is ok. Not ideal, but ok.

But some time ago the concept of mercenaries became increasingly popular, with several new organisations flourishing with the operating model of arranging payments from countries to players based on the damage they inflict. They demanded not just weapons and food to equip their members, which would be within the remit of any normal Military Unit, but payment for the sum total of the damage they would do. In this sense, the Lazokrats have it right. They have no friends, they have no allies; they have no sense of duty to anyone or anything. But then there exists another kind of mercenary unit, ones which claim allegiance to an alliance.


You're doing it wrong if you can look at this without feeling furious

This strikes me as cynical, greedy, and indicative of the total breakdown of any feeling of comradeship within an alliance. What player can claim to feel any kind of loyalty to a friend, whilst demanding payment for the help he or she gives? In this context you can no longer use the terms "help" or "friend". What was previously helping has thus been reduced to a mere business transaction, and what were previously known as friends are now nothing more than service providers and customers. What deluded, hypocritical eRepublikan dares to hold his friend to ransom by withholding fights until payment has been received, while insisting he or she is anything more than a damage pr*stitute?

Furthermore a certain mercenary group's commanders have recently decided to award themselves a salary drawn from a 10% cut of the group's received payments.


Suggested uniforms for the "mercenary" and their "commander"

And now compare that to the people who sit in national supplying channels for hours on end, giving out weapons without asking for anything, often getting no thanks or recognition themselves. The thought of any of them asking for cash is risible, and makes the money grubbing mercenary groups look even more disgraceful.

Well cut it out. Almost everyone old enough whines that this game has changed for the worse, and maybe it has. Everyone agrees in particular that EDEN is not what it was. But what part have you played in the decay of the game, and the alliance? Do you think about how much you can get paid instead of how can I help my ally? It is not enough to only sell yourself to one side. There are plenty of military units in the world which provide generous supplies, and flourishing communities where you don't have a price tag on your potential damage. There is no excuse for becoming a mercenary if you have any loyalty to anything in the game, and I'm afraid many older players - many of them friends - have let themselves be degraded to nothing more than wandering tramps who don't give a **** about anything except money. I don't want anything to do with you if you continue to sell yourself. People have the right to play the game how they like within the rules, but don't ever kid yourself that you're anything other than unprincipled, unaligned, and a big part of the problem with our alliance and the game.

By no means are mercenary units the only problem our alliance faces, but they are a particularly ugly symptom of a much deeper moral apathy among our members. DON'T buy any damage from mercenary groups, and see how long whatever loyalty they think they have to us lasts.

"Every man has his price", and the price for your damage should be mutual commitment. You fight in my battles, because you know I will fight like Hell in yours.



Always hoping,

Arrlo