Join the new world

In this issue:

- Editorial: How to Have Fun
- Lunch with Bob: Johnathon Whisky and Kaylei
- World Press Review: None this week, cause I'm a lazy sod




Editorial



Once upon a time, the plains of eRepublik were covered with grass and trees and bubbling brooks. The rains fell gently on the veldt. The e-lions laid down with the e-lambs. The e-unicorns roamed where they pleased, followed by fluttering clouds of e-butterflies, or e-tshubayabaya, as they are called in the Tshiluba language. The ostriches kept their heads out of the sand. The animals spoke and the humans cared for them. All e-living things co-existed in harmony, co-dependency and peace.


Sadly, even the most ancient amongst us never saw it. The great e-destruction happened before we were born.

The wars came. Now unceasing conflict visits every region, wracks every nation, shakes every province and state, and puts every nest, burrow, den, hold, holt, sett, hive, byre, pasture, pen, lair, savanna, pond, hutch, kennel, shed, wallow and barn under constant threat of destruction.

This is our New World now. It's the only one we know.

Round and round it goes. During a rare visit to the New World after a long hiatus traveling around the Universe, my old drug buddy pal Bill Galaxia was just saying the other day: “I might have known it would still be like this after all these years. Though I suppose one can’t complain. I still have my e-friends. Why, somebody texted me only yesterday. And was it only last week or the week before that Shiloh bumped into me on Discord and said ‘Bother!’. The e-Social Round. Always something going on.”

"Yep," I'd said to him, while scrolling through a list of 997 wars pondering which would be the most fun to click on.

Just before re-launching himself into the Out There, Bill had added, somewhat cryptically: "We can't all, and some of us don't."

Yep. Exactly.







Dear readers, my topic today is "how to have fun with eRepublik". Why this? Why now? My friends, don't you hear the cries of the e-people? They cry out for change! And the silence of the lambs? They yawn with boredom and they suffer in silence, then they slowly drift away...


But seriously. The following notes are directed to players at all levels, as well as to the Wigs, both the Big ones and those who simply go for a perukey kinda look as a way to keep the e-rain off their heads.





OK, let's get into it. By the way, these deep thoughts are a quick take on Raph Koster's Theory of Fun, while thinking about the concrete conditions of the New World. Not pretending I have the answers. And I didn't want to do another "Here are my 5 suggestions for eRep Labs" kind of thing.


These notes are intended to provoke but not to instruct.






Tic-Tac-Toe is Boring

Tic-Tac-Toe is a dumb game. It's too easily mastered, at which point all matches become draws. Games need a certain level of complexity to keep our interest and attention.


Solving the Same Challenges Over and Over is Boring

Once we have mastered a certain type of puzzle, even when a challenge is more difficult, that game is over. Yes, there can be a certain kind of zen comfort in repetition. And sure, some poems, stories, songs, paintings are pleasurable every time we read or hear or play or look at them. The best games have a way of posing a new type of challenge or a new twist on a familiar challenge, no matter how long we play it.

Sometimes this is because the framework of the game inherently lends itself to a kind of randomization and creativity (think of Chess or Go). In other cases it's because the game is capable of generating (almost) never-ending combinations of its elements (maybe, Civilization or Sim City).




We Like To Be Able to Master Patterns

A game that is a chaotic mess isn't much fun to play. We like being able to make instinctive choices based on a whole complex array of thinking, observations, learnings, intuitions. When the choices we make sometimes provide a reward and sometimes provide negative feedback (also known as "learning"), it's like the best part of living.

When outcomes are random no matter what choices we make, we feel useless and bit betrayed. When outcomes are entirely predictable, we feel bored.

And, to put a finer point on it -- while using our brains is fun, practicing is even more fun! For example, I like learning about tonal harmony, say, reading about why a tritone interval sounds displeasing to us and how some musicians have learned to use them to good effect, but I really like plonking on my guitar through various scales and chords, randomly making up 12-bar blues progressions and whatnot.

When all is said and done, we like to play games because they help us (albeit in an abstract, somewhat metaphorical way) to develop the kinds of skills we need to deal with real life. Games are practice for real-life challenges.



Interesting Games Provide Interesting Challenges

Lots of games deal with patterns and challenges which are based on concepts like aiming, hunting, jumping, running through mazes, defending territory, timing, and projecting power. Such games assume, in effect, that we still live our real lives like cavemen.

Furthermore, some folks criticize certain types of games for promoting bad ethics. Grand Theft Auto: "Run over that hooker and get your money back". Other folks like to "do good" by promoting games that have a kind of ideological "goodness" to them. Wolfenstein 3D and its successors: "Killing Nazis is a good life skill to master".

In fact, the psychological "boost" that most players tend to want is simply to "power up", to get to the next level, to master whatever the challenge is. The story, setting and backplot are mostly a side dish that help to make less-challenging games more palatable.

When all is said and done, though they may have fun story-telling elements, games are not fundamentally the same thing as stories.





Delight

When playing games, I might experience delight for many reasons, including: schadenfreude (seeing my enemies/opponents suffer), fierceness (look at what I've done!), naches (look how well my student/child/apprentice is doing!), kvelling (bragging about my success), intimacy (I made a real friend!), visceral thrills (that felt like a real roller coaster!), bliss (wow! that is some beautiful artwork!), and glee (dang that was funny!).

Delight in a game is fine and good. In addition to practice, folks like playing games for "meditative" reasons (the delight in repetition and zoning out), because they really enjoy its storytelling aspects, or simply because the delights they take in the game are welcome respite.

But the fundamental quality of a really good game is that it continually, in a balanced way, provides challenges that always ping away at the margin of our abilities, no matter what level we're at. Such games tend to move players into a psychological or emotional state where they can "zone out" in a "pro" kind of way -- for example, like when skiing or ice-skating or when enjoying jamming with other musicians.



The Kitchen Sink Syndrome

It's not easy to design a really good game. Different players have different strengths and desires. They enjoy game play in different ways. They have different levels of capability in different skills. They have different kinds of real-life needs and demands.

One way game designers try to deal with this is put every possible kind of puzzle into the mix. "It's a massively multiplayer strategy-based real-time shooter with RPG character development, puzzle-game combat, a racing sub-game and you can play it on a virtual dance mat installed as a browser plug-in!"

The difficult challenge for designers is how to increase the possibility space, to create self-refreshing, always-interesting puzzles. They analyze games according to human-activity matrices cross-referencing things like user goals vs. game style. The art of designing such puzzles is coming up with puzzles that have more than one right answer, puzzles that lend themselves to interpretation.

It's neither easy nor obvious how to do it. In this sense, the problem is not entirely unlike writing a book, or composing music, or doing choreography for a dance, or really understanding your significant other. It's not just about mechanics.






A Healthy Garden

A strategically-placed trellis is one of the coolest things you can put in a garden. It gives plants a place to go. They may even out-grow it, escape from it, and start to climb up a wall or a long a fence.

A good game provides such a trellis, one that provides the means for its players to grow and develop, perhaps in unexpected, interesting directions. The key concepts it should build on include those most important to modern humanity: love, ethics (how we treat each other and other living things), self-sacrifice, duty, and healing.

Having profound respect for players implies creating challenges which are as sophisticated as those in the best stories.





Following on last week's double-tap of interviews, I am pleased to announce that this time around we have a double date of interview, featuring two delightful e-citizens who have chosen to join my favorite political party -- the Socialist Freedom Party (SFP).

Kaylei is relatively new to eRepublik, while Johnathon Whisky is an oldfart who's been banging around this place off and on for ten years.


While Kaylei is from Seattle, Washington, USA, Earth in real-life, I would like to note that my correspondent Bill Galaxia has indicated that Kaylei is, in reality, probably descended from the Mandalorian survivors who took refuge on Nevarro and then escaped following the infamous attack by Gideon's imperial remnant, and that she may in fact be an ancient member of a Yoda-like species, presently hiding-out here on Earth.

As for Johnathon Whisky, a Coloradan in real-life, my inter-galactic time-traveling amigos tell me that he may in fact be a Time Lord, or possibly just an accidental time-slipper from the far future. Not sure which. But this would explain why his e-journal, A Journal in Time, is mysteriously blank. Obviously, the articles were all written in the distant future -- which explains why they don't yet appear to show up for us in this time line.



I met up with both of these excellent comrades at our Socialist Tea House, squirrled away in the deep, impenetrable forests that cover Bear Mountain, legendary home of the Bear Calvary and ground zero of the e-Global Anarcho-Socialist Movement (the e-GASM), of which the SFP is the conscious, but accidental turbo-charger.

The Tea House is decorated with epic tapestries from the great battles of the Bear Cavalry, for example:




RFW: Kaylei, Johnathon, welcome! I hope you two enjoy our lunch! The griddled chicken teriyaki rice bowl is made with rice harvested by Texan anarchists and the chicken is made from the flesh of useless politicians. LOL! Just kidding. The ice water is fresh from that mountain stream right over there. Johnathon, I know you enjoy simple, straightforward fare -- totally understandable for a person from a time when people don't eat other living things anymore, right? (wink-wink)

JW: Are you stoned? I smell weed.

RFW: Ha-haha-ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Hee-hee-hee. What? No. Of course not. Ahem... Anyway, we've made you a nice PB&J with potato-bread, made from potatoes grown by democratic-socialists from Iowa, peanut-butter made by revolutionaries from the Carolinas, and fresh grape jelly from, ummm, Weed, California.

RFW: Oh hey, do you guys mind if I smoke? I'm trying out an existentialist thing this week and just got a carton of Gauloises gifted to us from our koinrades in the Parti Koinmuniste!

K: Please don't!

JW: I'm not a smoker either, something about the smell, yuck. But my Dad was a pipe smoker. Whatever, though... I can't point fingers about bad choices because I do like my drink. Most times it is bourbon.




RFW: Très bien, alors. (He puts away the disgusting French cigarettes.) So, Kaylei, you are from Seattle, right? (wink-wink)

K: Yes, near Seattle.

RFW: And Johnathon, I understand you are a refugee from e-Florida?

JW: e-Florida is a bit too e-humid. And the fear of an e-hurricane trashing my e-house is overwhelming sometimes. I really like living in Colorado near the mountains. As long as I keep the mountains on my left I always know which way is north. In the mountains I just keep turning in circles.

RFW: (Laughing out loud) Did you bring some of that bourbon with you?

JW: Sure! Only the best!

RFW: Drinks for my friends!


(Johnathon pours a drink for everyone, but Robert F pushes his back with a "no thank you" gesture.)


K: What? You're not drinking, RF?

RFW: When I’m drinking around people, I tend to get silly or pugnacious or wild, which can cause problems. So I've given it up for lint.

K: For Lent? But that doesn't start until the end of February.

RFW: Non! For lint. I collect lint from the clothes dryer and weave it into fuzzy scarves and whatnot. Very therapeutic. Better than drinking.



(A long silence ensued. Obviously, my interviewees were simply so delighted with the lovely sounds and sites of the forest that they zoned out for a bit.)



JW: (breaking the silence) So.... I think I do smell weed.

RFW: Nah. Probably. Well, maybe. I think Max Planck has a hut somewhere around here. Anyhoo, why don't y'all tell me about your experiences with eRepublik. How'd you get started? Do you put much time into it? What's your general take on it?

K: Friend from another game referred me. Still learning the ropes. I like working on the resistance war and mercenary rewards, along with topping the weekly HoFs. The warring is reactionary and entertaining, but the political drama dampens the overall experience.

JW: I started playing way back in the time when the internet was mostly string and cans. I was looking for something free and simple and might lead to building my own little empire that wouldn't be destroyed by some faction or powerful player. Life back then was tough. Gold was hard to get and you really could starve to death in the cold. The missions were fun and there were so many players but being a newbie, my ability to do stuff was very limited. I literally had to take all day to finish my daily orders and work. I was pretty pleased when I built my own food and weapon companies. But the ability to do "something" was limited by energy and strength. It really felt like 2-clicks then wait. Things are certainly easier to survive now but the decrease in players has changed the feel for the game. Also Plato seems to have become a bigger part with so many changes for people willing to spend money.

RFW: Have you ever felt like taking a break or starting over? What have been the high-points, low-points for you?

K: I've played less from week to week depending on real life requiring more of my focus. Best times: Getting into my military company, Bear Calvary. They're a crazy bunch, but I definitely feel like I fit in. xD

RFW: Ursa Fi!

K: Worst times? When the current CP was elected. 😑*

RFW: How 'bout you, JW?

JW: I was like hcmadman (RFW: current PP of the SFP) and others who quit playing for many, many years. I logged on a few years ago and saw weapons had changed and every new player was given some startup companies and the risk of starving to death was gone. I clicked a few times then left again. Last year I was trying to get my passwords in order and logged on to see if they still worked. I saw hcmadman was back and remembered him and just kept clicking. My big change this time is I joined a political party for the first time. I'm trying to play with others so it is tough to follow threads and check discord to see what's happening. You would laugh at how I struggle just to list my choices for congress.

RFW: Anything you'd change about the game if you could?

JW: I would make things easier and cheaper for new players and harder and pricier for bigger players. Plato wants $ so make the whales pay a bit more but stop things that rob from the small players. I'm not a big fan of division switching or stopping rank points. I see that player count is WAY down so that there are hardly any players fighting in many battles, just the same 12 big names. And many of them are chasing gold.

RFW: Kaylei?

K: A better run of leaders in the eUS politics array. Hopeful for some much needed change in the upcoming presidential elections. 😃

RFW: I'll drink to that! (Has a nice long sip of cool, fresh mountain water.)



RFW: So, enough about the e-world. Let's talk about something serious. First, when you join the circus, what will your circus acts be?

K: I'd definitely be a clown, able to be as silly as I wanted to be behind the anonymity of a painted face.

JW: (has a nice long sip of Blanton's) Funny bit of "I have never ...." But I was in the circus for a weekend when I was in high school. It was my scout troop and we did Indian dancing in the center ring while they moved equipment around the other rings. Didn't meet anyone or animals but it was an exciting 7 minutes in the spot lights. (I was one of the drummers who sang while the others danced).

RFW: Cool story, bro! Kaylei, that's really interesting. Y'know, I might like to be a clown too... But I'd probably end up more like the Joker, going a bit mad and trying to incite a mass rebellion against the rich... Hmmm... guess that would be quite a circus, now that I think about it. (RFW stares off into space, humming "The Marseillaise").

K: I know you like music. Do you know Ingrid Michaelson's Missing You? I've got that whole album, Stranger Songs, on a loop lately.

RFW: She's great. Very cool. Beautiful voice. Under-rated I think.

JW: My go-to song is Queen and David Bowie singing Under Pressure.

RFW: Oh yeah! An all-time classic!






Thanks for checking out this edition of "Radio Free Dixie"! Please provide feedback and suggestions. If you'd like to have Lunch With Bob, drop me a line and I'll send you an interview form.

In-game: Use the handy comment section below, or send a message RF Williams, or go hang out with the libertarian-socialists for a while and chat me up on the Socialist Freedom Party feed.