Playing the game "right"
•
by Illusive Serb
I've... "played", this game for some time now. And I realized a couple of things.
#1 It's the spitting image of the real world
#2 I'm not playing it "right"... just like in the real world, hence #1 is proven
I mostly two-click. I'm not likable enough to have a circle of minions who make me spend more time on the game and also I don't care. Maybe I should have started with that...
Anyway, the market fluctuates, just like in the infamous "Real life" (citation needed), mostly influenced by the changes to the game made by the eRep labs themselves. So sometimes, as a true capitalist, I would quit my job and take the advantage of the couple of days of the 200+% increase in salaries.
But that dies away in a couple of days and you are left searching for the permanent employment (if you are a two-clicker class). Mostly, you get fired. But the real issue is this. There are players who seek to exploit the two-clickers. And after the cooldown period, they would sneakily reduce your salary by a shocking 50%. At best, the two-clicker doesn't notice and keeps on clicking for pittance. At worse, they cheat a player out of the day's salary if the players are like me and work/train BEFORE checking their notifications and seeing the reduction in pay.
And that's when I FINALLY realized that I don't play this game right. Or rather I was told so.
http://image.prntscr.com/image/fe07c4b926534d3eb01c7741714180e1.jpg
(erep is broken and won't allow me to [ img ] the image)
See this guy at the very top? He is always at the very top. And he does this little trick. Apparently, "everybody does that" because that's the "only way to make money". Seems like he is "losing money" if he keeps the salary he initially proposed.
I called him a cheap trickster and he told me that considering how long I'm playing the game, he plays better than me and I'm "playing the game wrong". And I realized, he was right.
I've played this game for a long time. Too long. But what else would I do in the absence of life? Anyway, in that time I've seen a lot of things. I've seen ePoliticians steal the country blind. I've seen the military commanders abuse their positions to make themselves into tanks. And as shown, I've seen tycoons take advantage of their workers.
All those people are at the top of their game. They are well known, respected by the community, strong accounts that are clearly "playing the game right". So, just like in real life, the game promotes douchefaggotry as the most desired attribute in an eCitizen. Only they make it in the game, and only they play the game right.
I realize that newspapers are dead, much like the game itself (hence the self promotion of other eRep lab games), but I figured maybe ONE person would read this article and wake up, hence starting to play the game "right".
-forever wrong, Illusive Serb
PS: Don't take jobs from Bojerianov.
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
[removed]
The problem with "taking advantage of their workers" is in the ridiculous economy where absolutely no profit is possible unless you pay for the tycoon pack (which I consider cheating, along with every other RL money game enhancer in every game possible). So, if he kept the salary that is on the market, he would have no profit and would, more likely, lose money.
That's why I've fired all my workers and my companies are used to collect the dust. I am still working in the work-as-manager companies, but I am considering dropping them as well, since raw materials are sold usually at the lowest price possible (0.01) and 500-something * 0.01 = 5 rsd, while the tax is 5% of 130 rsd (in Serbia) = 6.5 rsd which is less than the value of the sold products.
And yet all these companies keep offering higher salaries. I'm not going to debate broken economy, but if the players do all these things, like taxes, prices, initial salaries, then they are to blame. But you can't get all players to reduce their job offer salaries, because they all seek players/workers, because they will profit NOTHING without the people to work their companies. They all seek that edge over the "competition" and offer bigger salary. Well if you got a salary in Real life, and then after the first week they reduced it, would you accept it? I mean, they need to make a profit.
The fault is in humans, who allow the system to break them.
You don't get it. They might not profit nothing without the workers, but with the workers they will lose money. Up until recently it was barely possible to profit from the companies, but after the introduction of air industry the salaries doubled and, while the prices also went up, they didn't go high enough. With these prices and salaries it is impossible to profit without the tycoon pack or people that work for less than the offered salary.
Here's an example from the air industry:
One company produces from 8 to almost 10 airplanes
http://prntscr.com/cob6wg
for that you need 180something air raw materials which is basically one half of a worker in an air-raw company.
So, 9.5 planes you need 1.5 salaries = 1.5*190 = 285 rsd.
9.5 planes sell for 28.5 rsd each - 1% vat = 28.2 rsd.
28.2 * 9.5 = 267.9 rsd
So, yeah, if you want a salary with zero profit, that would be 268/1.5 = 179 rsd. With the regular market salary one loses 11-12 rsd per worker.
I get everything. I remember when airplanes were first introduced. I remember one plane costing more than 200 RSD. Why was that? Because there wasn't enough airplanes on the market + the "new and shiny" factor. If you flood the market, the prices fall down. If you don't profit from 190rsd salary, THEN DON'T POST A 190 rsd SALARY ON THE JOB MARKET. But it seems everyone does it. Why?
Not everyone can own their own companies. JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE. Even though you are able to, you will flood the market with product, reducing the price due to hyper production. You will NOT be able to hire workers because if everyone has companies, there is MORE THAN ENOUGH for the people. Not enough people to work, people post a lot of job offers and since they don't care, they want to be the first on the list and grab the worker. Salaries go up, prices go down thanks to the COMPANY OWNERS.
Close down your factories, instead of exploiting other players. PLAYERS.
Close them all down, reducing the production of products, making them scarce thus increasing the price. Reducing the need for workers, thus reducing the salary because you are not constantly hunting for workers.
The game mechanics were ALWAYS lame, so you can't place all the blame on dumb eRep labs.
I remember v1, when production was based on a very important and LIMITED resource. Player's health. I, as a company owner, besides the salary, would send the good old gifts to my employees for FREE, to help them increase their health/energy, making them more productive and thus helping both the player and the company owner (myself) with the better production.
The way to fix the economy is simple. #1 limit the energy (they won't do it, because less energy = less fighting and that = less profit from gold sales) #2 limit the number of companies any one person can own. If one guy owns 30 companies, in a small country, he fulfills all the job market and product need in a country. Limit it based on level, or maybe even introduce a new skill that will increase your company limit based on any number of things. 3# make country owned production that is limited to manufacturing instead of raw materials, and no transfer of goods available, making the country buy the raw directly from the people, increasing the use of raw and possibly increasing the price due to demand. Then make the country ONLY available to fund legal military units with food and weapons.
There are number of things that they can do to force greedy players to be more balanced.
[removed]
[removed]
[removed]