[Series] Visiting eRepublik Labs [Part 02]
Master_rg
you are reading a part of my series of articles about my trip to eRepublik Labs from 07th to 10th dec. In order to make it more easier for you to get in touch with every topic, this table of contents can be found on top of every article. It will directly link to the specific topic you click on.
Table of contents
1. Preamble and some rules
2. Clarification about some used terms
3. How did it come to that visit
4. What happened during the days
4.1 Wednesday
4.2 Thursday
4.3 Friday
5. Problems eRepublik is currently facing
5.1 Community
5.2 Economy
5.3 Military
5.4 Politics
5.5 Newspapers
6. Some quotes of players which appear regularly
7. Conclusion
#4 - What happened during these days
#4.1 Wednesday
Wednesday was the day of arrival. I got a ticket from Vienna to Bucharest and travelled by plane. I was picked up at the airport and we directly drove to eRepublik Labs in the city centre of Bucharest. During the drive I already got a great discussion about the history of Romania, its development during the last years and of course: About some local attractions.
We arrived at eRepublik Labs and I was literally welcomed by everyone. It was an awesome experience to get in touch with all of them as we’ve mostly talked via slack / chat - so yeah, it was great to see them from face to face.
Guess who I’ve also seen: Alexis Bonte. He also welcomed me and of course for me it was a real honor to see him as I just barely know him from interviews at Youtube. Just moments later we all (the eR developer team + Alexis) went to lunch where we started to have first discussions about private stuff in order to get to know each other, but also about eRepublik.
Even though you may don’t believe it yet, I already experienced that the team is well informed about the current state of the game. They know the problems, they know what the the players are waiting for and we all had really intense discussions just within minutes.
You may ask yourself, “what questions have you been asked” and “did you try to convince them of your ideas” - and well, basically I was asked what I would change in order to “make erepublik great again” - and of course I already had some thoughts and ideas BUT I also have to admit that I was aware that there won’t be a simple answer.
We spoke about several issues I will try to point out later in this article and of course, possible solutions - but still: We hadn’t found a simple answer yet.
After lunch we went back to the office where I got a first basic introduction to the used technologies within eRepublik while listening to dance and house music coming out of a flat tv. Everything was very modern and they were using state of the art technologies for developing and monitoring everything. Somehow it felt good to see those things as some people got a picture of eRepublik where it’s right before crumbling and just hold together by duct tape.
However, speaking of duct tape, there is of course one thing you can’t really deny: eRepublik still uses some very old code parts which some people have implemented like years ago (some parts date back to 2009, which is ages in dev time). I saw it, it still exists and it isn’t that easy to remove. But, of course: I will come back to this topic later in the article.
Time flies and all out sudden it became late afternoon. I was taken to my awesome apartment, received the keys from a beautiful woman and.. well.. went back to the office. Around 7pm I noticed something interesting: People finished their work (like their coding stuff) but: They stayed at the office and had discussions about the games and of course especially about eRepublik. For me, as the “german guy”, this was an awesome experience. I mean, in Germany it’s basically like: “Well, I worked the whole day in the office, I did my required hours, stuff is finished, see y’all tomorrow” - here it was a huge difference like: We finished it, let’s grab a drink and start some discussions.. (and at least they told me that this was a quite usual thing they do).
So.. yeah.. we discussed a lot: How can we make the game attractive for new players, How to fix the economy, how broken the economy really is, how can we improve the military module, what about the dying political and community module - people, even though I won’t hit any details right now it was just awesome. And again: I really felt like they are aware of the whole situation and that they are actively trying to improve the game for everyone.
You may ask yourself the following question right now: “But why the %”$! don’t they change anything?” - well, to give you a first short answer: Because it isn’t easy as you need to involve all aspects of the game, the myriad of different player types AND you also need to take a look beyond the module you are playing around with.
So.. let’s take a look at the clock: It’s around 23:00 / 23:30 - time to get one last drink and then just head to the apartment to catch up some sleep.
Comments
gay&fake.
The endorses will be expensive.
o/
Good to know!
62,636 and dropping
Na, wie ar denn so der älteste Filz? schön kuschelig?
ging, ab und an n bissl kratzig
hast du eigentlich auch eine schicke Frau gesehen? Lena Lisa, wie war ihr name nochmal
(miss her 🙁 )
da waren einige äußerst hübsche damen anwesend.. zumindest inhaltlich komme ich in einem artikel kurzzeitig darauf zurück
Du meinst Lana (wo man trainieren konnte früher?). 😛
Wurde nach Taina modelliert, welche nicht mehr bei eRep arbeitet.
so they bought actors for your visit? : 0
: D
ahahaahah 😃
not only actors, from time to time it was like a musical with everyone singing and dancing around
okay, calm down, they drugged you 😃
ahahaha fethulah great sense of humour
"They stayed at the office and had discussions about the games and of course especially about eRepublik"
- that is main problem.
If you need a business solution you must have a normal conversations during the work time.
If you prefer for a light discussions with a cup of beer after work - it looks like your have no business critical troubles.
Well, I will come back to a similar situation about those kind of discussions later. However: There are also a lot of conversations during the usual work time and, last but not least, the discussions we had during my visit, especially after work, weren't "light" ones as we literally wrote books about the things..
But again: I will get back to this topic in the next articles
I got it.
Anyway it is very useful for the game and its community. They should be as open as possible o7
btw: while post my prev message i had recaptcha v1 challenge.
It is sad cause Google made recaptcha v2 2 years ago 😃
Invasion checklist
1. a reason
u just wasted your time... but If you did some sightseeing in Bucharest ,it's okay.
well, i don't think i wasted my time - and maybe we are going to see some stuff we talked about at eR Labs here in game in future.. 🙂
also, for me as a software developer, it was nice to see how the developers dealt with certain situations.. so.. dunno, to be honest i really enjoyed it and never felt like "i'm wasting my time"
good to read that they still seem to care. hopefully some changes will be made. good guy master_rg, make him president of ..... dunno canada?
He travelled to Romania, alright, but I do not believe he'd be THAT deranged.
Add the view counter to this article i'd like to know how many people read this 🙂
Well, it's added to every article but set to invisible, you can check out the stats manually at https://www.erepublik-deutschland.de/en/tools/articlecounter/details
IN MASTER WE TRUST!
wait continue...
So ist es ja nicht in deutschen Unternehmen ...
Wenn der Chef bezahlt, geht man auch mal zur Nachbesprechung zusammen in die Kneipe 😉
This article does not really say much of anything other than "the guys at erep were cool and we talked".
well it's basically about the stuff i experienced during the days. i want to try to show both sides of the story: the community and the eRepublik part which will hopefully result in discussions about possible design changes or improvements within the game.
and.. it's not only about "they are cool and we talked", it's also about "they care", even though it isn't visible for you all the time.. and i mean.. i am playing the game some years now and believe me: i'm aware that there's a lot of stuff to deal with speaking of the current situation here at eR.
however, hopefully all this can be a foundation for a better future for eRepublik and its community, because that's what i am caring about
OK, not many details - not even about the beautiful woman that gave you the apartment keys. 😁