The End of an Era for Erepublik

Day 994, 13:24 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Dishmcds
Erepublik has advertised a user base of a million accounts. In reality, up until V2 was released (and perhaps about a week afterwards), the active userbase was probably somewhere around 75,000 people worldwide, and one polish guy, counting all the two clickers and active leaders. We all said that once Rising was released, the shift from the casual gamer, to the more serious, paying gamer would occur. We knew to an extent that our active userbase would shrink well before it increased again, and in some days you'll see quite a few accounts die off (finally) due to people leaving the game.

But, what has really occured?

To put it mildly, our active populations (of every nation, not just the guy who makes 10,000 bots in two days) have nearly halved. In the UK alone, we went from around 2,500 active citizens per day (based on working, not fighting) to somewhere around 600 (shown in the most recent election). It's not just the UK either. Voting numbers are down everywhere (except Croatia, hurr). Our economies are in ruins due in part to some formulas that are still messed up, and partly due to poorly informed migrations of the two clicking population and not being told how assigning percentages of our skills would migrate into V2.

Most countries, at this time, are trying to find ways to recruit or keep their active populations high (as well as trying to figure out how not to get hacked). Retention programs for older players are nearly worthless, considering once you have a taste of the frustration that is Erepublik, most that leave are quite ready to do so. Recent events have a large amount of people upset at the lack of security in Erepublik, so they're quitting, too.

So what do we do?

Thinking back to Beta, when most countries had similar problems (small population, smaller incomes), our solution then was to keep it simple, stupid. We used basic solutions and Organisations, and steered away from complicated setups that required large amounts of manpower, because frankly we didn't have them to utilise. Throughout V1, our population was large enough that just about every country in the World could run some kind of decent Government structure, with 24/7 coverage to it's citizens. I'm not sure we're back to the Stone Age yet, but we're close.

This is a world wide problem. Not only are our markets (particularly weapons at the moment) being ruined by the cheap duplication bugs selling large amounts of Q5 weapons cheap, but the income and tax structures that worked in V1 simply do not work as well for V2. We need to cut back down to the basics that brought Erepublik from a small gaming community, to the massive multi-player game WE made it.

This is everyone's problem, and we need to deal with it together, regardless of where you're from. No players means no game. For some of us, who have spent a lot of time here, that's quite depressing. Taking action now, while we can, is about the last step to take before Erepublik dies a long, slow death.

Hugs and Kisses,
Just Another Guy

Also, boo for no pics.