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It is when we start getting to the really mechanistic philosophies that things get a bit alarming

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Dear fellow gents of the eUK (and Lily),

It is as we witness these last few days of 2012 that, inconclusively at war with several of our neighbours and having lost our objective target of Azores, we forget the brief moments of (expensive) unanimity that our campaign and national efforts brought us together. It unfortunately spells a return to the divisive and in some cases dishonest issue of how we operate as a community. Indeed, the overriding principles we all collectively share and oppose can be muddled and full of contention. It is in this arena that we often see terms such as ‘poaching’, ‘game mechanics’, ‘freedom’, ‘forums’ and ‘IRC’ thrown about. It is usually in this arena that we all forget a few key points that apply to all of us, not a single political party (and certainly not as a ‘them v us’ debacle). I still believe that through reason we can reach a consensus and I will use my final article of 2012 to try and explain my own thoughts and feelings on what is chiefly my own philosophy of the game, it's game mechanics and the greater roles they play.

I would like to first cover the topic of ‘game mechanics’ and ‘role play’, and why the two are interchangeable and not necessarily contraries. By proxy, the fact you are projecting subjective reality now reading this as maybe a Congressman, Party Member, Military Unit member, even president – means that you are to some extent ‘playing a role’. The game mechanics, if anything, are the main enabler for this (by virtue of being elected as an MP, you will act like an MP). People who thus make the distinction are making an arbitrary one, as one concept necessarily requires the other to be given any meaning. If you really wanted to push the point, the fact you have a username on here indicates that you’ve already ‘role played’ to an extent (including our own Alfag/Sir Prick/Sage Onion/Crappleby). And it is the demonization of ‘role playing’ and appeal to the minimalist philosophy of ‘game mechanics’ that I don’t really understand.

Entertain me for a moment, and try and briefly imagine a game where everyone was banned from displaying any emotion/individual motive. Where you could only be ‘objective’ in game play. Hell, where your entire human nature was re-written with this proto-robotic concept of ‘non-role playing’ with a subscription to mechanical ability (literally, your experience points denotes what we would call ‘experience’). Well, first of all, as I’m sure most of you would have realised by this point, is that it is completely retarded. You gain experience through ministerial/military roles, not a set number of clicks. It doesn’t make sense without some form of subjective ‘role-play’. There is ultimately no ‘objective’ way of playing the game, and any claims that there are is simply the work of arrogance. When somebody starts running around and screaming role play at you as you wonder along your daily business, ignore them. That is their own role they've chosen to adopt, and it is a disappointingly uncreative one. But it is when people start trying to separate their own intrinsically subjective ideas about the game into one simply of supposedly raw ‘mechanics’ that things get even sillier.


Apparently a number of eUKers have lost a few mental cogs along the path of life

Probably one of the most damaging things about this is that they are right on one fundamental account, which is that the game necessarily needs mechanics to operate and we should function in order to operate them. Sure thing, who could argue with that? But let’s take this a bit further – should we then limit ourselves only to the means of game mechanics in order to function on them like these minimalists want? There are a number of issues here. Firstly, as briefly mentioned in the last paragraph – it is from our ‘role playing’ that we construct our own way of playing the game. And usually this tad of moralfagging seen at CP level means they will not use their game mechanical right to rob the Bank of England every month. And as we are seeing in America, Congressmen simply using their game mechanics for the hell of it can sink an entire community under a tidal wave of random foreigners. But I think this is where I reach my most important point.

Game mechanics dictate the limits of how you can physically play the game, that is not disputed. Where the game is made, however, is in the people that play it and in the interactions they collectively make. Who is supplying, who is handing out the NHS, who is doing MoHA messaging, who is trolling on #eUK. These people are the eUK, not just the soulless page you see on eRepublik itself. The fate of our community lies not in a minimalist interaction with the mechanics of the game but with how we live with each other. It is within our social accord and ability to get along where the true mettle of our national spirit is forged – and it is the ability to say ‘I’ve got your back’ no matter what political party you come from that makes the difference between just pressing a button and genuinely struggling together as a national community.

You are the game, and thus have the right to choose whether you’ll join the forums, 2 click or rather bite off your own arm rather than play this terrible thing ever again. But if you do want to stick around, what’s the harm in at least trying to be civil to one another? In a game that demands you play a role, why not try a slightly friendlier one now and then? Ultimately the party lines that supposedly divide us and fuel these debates exist only mentally (each for different reasons). It is overcoming the destructive impulse of this division do we soldier on in cohort to our national character and collective role.

It’s just up to you to want to play it for a bit.

Yours, as always,



Appleby

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’Behold the abettors of revolutions; see the authors of plots and conspiracies, and take cognisance of the enemies of both