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参赛作品
翻译自Iain keers的
The Economist ~ What needs to change, and what shouldn’t be changed.
Dear friends,

After my last article I noticed there were a number of comments on the lines of “you hated this change, and now you don’t want them to get rid of it”. I tried to explain my counterargument in the comments, but it’s pretty hard so I thought I’d address it in a separate article.

在我发出前一篇文章后我注意到有些评论中写道“你不喜欢这个改变，然后你又不想让他们（无头鸡）去除掉这改变”。我试图在评论区中做出我的抗辩，但这真的很困难于是我就另开一篇文章来表达我的观点。

First however I want to ask you all a favour. This Saturday I would like all of you to participate in a little social experiment. This is part of my ~silent revolution~ against the admins. To participate, simply change your avatar to this picture over the weekend.



但一开始我想请你们帮一个小忙。这个礼拜六（）我想请你们全部参与一个小小的社会实验。这是我对于无头鸡们的~无声抗议~的一个部分。要想参与的话，你之需要把你的头像在周末换成plato的就可以了。

Ticket the admin with your concerns on Saturday, it is your right as a player and a customer (paying customer in some cases) to make your voice heard. Most won’t be dealt with by the admins themselves, but mass ticketing is one way to get their attention.

在礼拜六把你所关注的ticket给无头鸡，这是你作为一个玩家和顾客（某些人可能是visa战士）的权利（让你的声音传达出去）。虽然大多数的ticket不会由无头鸡亲自处理，但是ticket海是获得它关注的一种方式

=======正文开始===========
So going back to the main point of the article, first of all I’d like to talk about progression. Character progression is a key part of every role playing game. You start off as a weak noob, and by working hard over time your character develops, and you unlock new abilities, new skills, new goodies and so on. The fights when you’re a high level character or further through the game might be the same (in that the bad guys got stronger too) but you have a feeling of progression and achievement. People are naturally creative, and the feeling of creating a character which is your own sticks with us all. If we deleted the individualism of those characters, so each day your character remained exactly the same, most wouldn’t play very long. It is the long term commitment which keeps us playing and from the admin perspective keeps us paying.

让我们回到这篇文章的主题，首先我想谈谈【成长】。角色成长是任何一个角色扮演类游戏中的关键部分。你一开始是个很弱的菜B，随着你的辛勤耕耘你的角色成长起来了，然后你解锁了新的能力、新的技能、新的商品blablabla…你在高等级或是在未来游戏进程中的战斗难度大致是一样的（因为坏家伙们也更强了）。但是你有了一种成长和收获的感觉。人们天生就是富有创造力的，而且这种创造出只属于自己的角色的感觉存在于我们每一个人的心中。如果这些角色的独立性被删除的话，你的角色会一成不变，而绝大部分的角色你都不会玩的长。长时间的投入把我们拴在了这个游戏上（或者以无头鸡的视角来看，让我们不断掏出visa卡）

Based on this principle, the things which should never be changed are things which contribute to progression, or are a part of progression. For example, if someone was to half your strength tomorrow (but nobody else’s) would you keep playing? Even if you are a relatively new player and (logically) it doesn’t matter, you would probably quit. Because your hard work has been undone, you feel like the concept of progression is gone.

基于这个理论，（E世界里）不能被改变的东西是有助于成长的东西，又或是成长过程中的一部分。举个例子，如果有人明天砍掉你一半的力量（但是其他人不砍）谁还会继续玩下去呢？就算你是个新玩家砍掉一半似乎（在逻辑上）没什么关系，你大概也会不玩了。因为你的辛勤工作被否定了，你感到成长的概念消失了。

When the admins changed the Economy module prior to V2, many of us felt like we had our progress in the game taken away. Work skills went crazy, the economy went even more crazy, and the whole system of running companies changed. Then many of us (me included) worked hard improving our work skill. I reached guru****** level, one of the top players in the game. That was taken away and my skill became the same as a new player. I understand the reasoning, don’t get me wrong- work skill was distorting the economy and made the game less attractive to new players who are the poorest. It was in a way a good move. The problem is that it stole a lot of hard work from people and the only reward was a few energy bars and a Q5 town hall.

当无头鸡在V2之前修改了经济模块的时候，很多人感觉到我们在游戏当中的收获被抢走了。工作熟练度（系统）变得疯狂，整个经济系统变得更为光怪陆离，而且公司的运作体制也被完全改变了。于是很多人（包括我）疯狂工作攒熟练度。我到了guru*******的等级，当时是最牛B的几个玩家之一。这么牛B的成就变成了光辉事迹，我变得和一个新玩家一样水平。我能理解怎么做的理由，别误解我的意思——工作熟练度系统在扭曲着e世界的经济并且使得游戏不那么吸引新玩家（他们的熟练度最低）。这在某种程度上是一步妙棋。问题在于它偷走了许多人的辛勤劳作而且用来补偿的仅仅是一堆棒棒糖和一栋Q5城镇大厅。

When the module changed I adapted by buying 30 companies- a Q5 weps (which could employ 10 people), Q5 food, 6 deer, 9 rubber, 9 iron and some fish and Q1 food. Basically it was designed to maximise the production I could manage on just 300 health a day. I wouldn’t advise anyone to spend 525 gold on Q5 raw materials now- Q4 is sufficient for everyone. But at the time that was how the module worked. Then it changed, and my investments were useless. I had overpriced raw materials companies that couldn’t employ anyone. I had a Q5 which could only hire 5 people. So what did I do? I changed and adapted, made 2 more Q5s. Then came the Q6 offer, right at Xmas time. You know I do buy gold, though normally I only use it for tanking and keep my economic stuff separate. But over Xmas I want to spend money on family & friends, not on giving George Lemnaru a bonus.

经济模块转变之后我很快适应了它——买上30+的公司，1个Q5坦克厂，1个Q5面包厂，6个Q5原料厂9个Q5武料厂，9个Q1武料一些Q3食物原料和Q1食物原料厂。基本上这是为了最大化我每天能管理的300体力的方式。我现在不会建议任何人去刷525G买Q5原料厂——Q4对所有人而言都足够了。不过在当时经济模型就是这样。然后一切都改变了，我的投资变成了一张白纸。我高估了原料厂（他们招不到一个人），我的Q5坦克厂只能招5个人。所以我该怎么做呢？我又一次转变了，适应了——我又盖了2个坦克厂。然后就在圣诞节期间Q6天启厂来了。你知道我会去刷G，虽然通常我只会刷G打枪来维持我经济方面的稳定。不过在圣诞节假期我想要把钱花在我的家人和朋友上，而不是给George Lemnaru（erep老板）发红包

So what did I do (and where is this story going)? I bought up saltpetres. At the time I got Plato’s message I had somewhere between 90 and 100 saltpetres, working towards a planned total of 147, which will mean I use 1800 health a day on my land. When you have something like 1.3m GBP of raw materials companies, it is a bit annoying to get a message suggesting that this might all be worthless fairly shortly. That’s why I was annoyed.

所以我做了什么？我开始买硝石矿（Q4武器原料）。当我收到无头鸡的来信时我已经有了90~100个Q4了（译者注：还不够班啊~~）目标是盖满147个（斯诺克满杆？），这就意味着我每天要花上18管体力自耕。当你有了大约130万英国CC的武料厂的时候，收到这样一条消息像是告诉我说着一切都会变成浮云。这就是我愤怒的理由



To go back to the main theme of progression, changing the economy module is fine. But the important thing is to change it whilst maintaining the feeling of progression for the player. You must also take into account the effect that the changes have on the wider economy. For example, Work As Manager (WAM) was an idea which fit into progression. You didn’t lose anything, you just got an extra worker in each company. But what this effectively meant is that each citizen made the bulk of the food they needed each day, meaning the food market became entirely dependent on an admin controlled bot buying it. This problem was expounded when they gave free food and grain companies to everyone.

回到【成长】这一主题，改变经济模块没什么问题。但是重要的一点是要在改变的同时维持所有人的成就感。你还必须得衡量这一改变对于宏观经济的影响。举个例子，自耕是在镶嵌在成长系统中的一个部分。你并没有失去什么，你只是能在你每一个公司里敲一下。不过这就意味着每一个e世界公民每天都会产出点食物，意味着食物市场变成了完全依赖喂鸡的市场。这个问题在每人都被发了免费的Q1食物厂和原料厂之后被进一步扩大。

The thing is, making changes that fit in with progression isn’t a hard thing to do. To gain inspiration, simply look at other online and free to play games. Most of them have a product store where you can buy customisations, cosmetic changes, extra features and so on. Customising weapons (like in V2) was a good idea badly implemented. They made it so you could mix different “features” on weapons, but then made it so that all of the “designs” except one were totally useless. So everyone just made the same type of gun.

事实上，做出符合成长过程的调成并不是一件难事。要想获得启发的话，只需要看看其他的网游和那些免费游戏。绝大部分游戏都有个商城能购买个性化物品，打扮外观以及其他东西（译者注：怎么这么浓厚的泡菜网游感觉…）个性化武器（像是在V2里面的那个）是一个被很糟糕地施行的一个好想法。他们把武器系统做成你能混合多种武器的【特点】，但然后就把某一个设计以外的设计变得一文不值，于是所有人就只做那种最牛B的武器了。

Again the problem here (like I said last article) is both lack of ambition and lack of planning. The game has a lot of potential going from the basic premise of a real life simulator. But at the end of the day, most people’s ideas and ambitions are limited by the lack of ambition of the admins themselves. Because they have designed a game which is so closed and limited, it means that potential options for growth are also closed and limited.

又一次问题出在了（像我之前一片文章说的那样【译者注：后面会翻】）同时缺乏野心和计划上。Erep这个游戏基于他原本作为一个真实世界的模拟的前提其实有着很大的潜力可挖。但是最终玩家们的雄心壮志和敏锐创意被无头鸡的不思进取给限制住了。因为他们设计了一款如此封闭的、充满限制的游戏，于是意味着这个游戏未来发展的可能选项也被限制住了。

To change this, the admins need to change the game. At the core of this must be the principle of maintaining progression, and indeed opening up new branches to progress down. Specialisation is a feature of all games. At the minute each of us progresses daily through training and fighting, and that is the only measurable progression. Stuff like Economy isn’t really progress, because anyone can walk in on day one and buy loads of companies. But what you need is to develop the game, not just support it.

要想扭转这一局面的话，无头鸡们需要改变这个游戏。在这新游戏的核心部分应该是一个保证玩家们的成长感的理念，并且铺开新的分支系统来延缓成长的速度。专精系统是所有游戏的一个特征。现在我们每天通过训练和打仗来成长，并且这是唯一一个可被衡量的成就。像是经济模块它并不真正在成长，因为任何人都可以在一天内刷爆自己的visa卡买一堆厂。但你所需要的是去发展这个游戏而不仅仅是支持它。

Over the next few articles I’ll cover different areas of the game and compare them to how other games provide those same features (obviously not naming names in case I get banhammered by trigger happy admin types). I’ll also be sticking in a few of my own ideas on how to develop the game. Yes they might ignore me. You could always stick some links to my articles into your ticket on Saturday

在接下来的几篇文章中我会谈到这个游戏的几个领域并把它们与其他游戏在这一方面提供出来的东西做出比较（当然我不会点出名字以防我被无头鸡一ban锤砸中）我也会注重于我对于如何发展这个游戏的几个想法。你可以把我的文章链接贴在礼拜六你们丢向无头鸡的ticket里面

So until then, take care! And happy Plato Day on Saturday

所以直到那时，保重！然后祝周六PLATO日快乐！
Iain