When Things Didn't Suck

Day 1,653, 09:45 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Dishmcds


It was just another day when it began, around 5 AM for me. When I logged on, it was already mid afternoon European time, and most of the countries in Phoenix had already gotten past lunch. No bother, personally. We were being invaded by five countries, and almost always had one battle or another going on.

Would this be the day Poland left its perch in the Netherlands and Germany to once again dare our MPP stack? Would today be the day Spain actually activated our MPPs, allowing us a bit more room to play in France? Who knew what the day would bring. Frost, Durru, and the EDEN crew would more than likely dictate what our reactions would be, followed by their counters, and our counters once more. We had thus far successfully defended our three core regions, so things weren't as bad as they seemed.

Around 7 AM game time, plans that had been in the making for quite some time were exploding into real time strategy. Russia, who had taken a jaunt into China to alleviate pressure from Brazil had opened to us an opportunity. Liaoning, an Iron rich region which was currently in Chinese possession was within reach. Our plans to invade were shaping up nicely, as China and most of EDEN were more focused on Brazil and the UK. Hungary sitting in their perch in Heilonjiang waited for the day they could put their Serbian brothers next to them, and with these moves, the long laid out plan only dreamed of about four months before were finally coming to fruition.

Brazil's richest region was the distraction that EDEN was using against us, though. Most of their babies, currently going through their third baby boom in four months (most of which died off as fast as they were made), would die if they didn't have it (according to Antonio, who we all know is a bit of a drama queen). Russia was handling Liaoning surprisingly well, even if we could barely log on to fight, so we moved priority to the last half of the battle (have to remember, these were 24 hour battles) for NoB.

Our wall was seemingly undestructable, but the unthinkable happened. Siddy, EDEN, Spain, and their team of tanks (kind of like our team of tanks) spent thousands of gold, destroying the wall. The last ten minutes were heart stopping. We'd have different military units from our countries show up at different times, laying their damage. You could see the pride as you watched their avatars cross the screen. I'm sure for EDEN it was much of the same. We never even ran out of money (until the very end), we ran out of tanks.

As the timer hit 0, the wall wasn't secured, but it wasn't conquered either. Shit. We went into overtime. At this point, I can remember telling Clueless, "If we don't have 2 million damage to secure this wall right this moment, we ought to prepare for the resistance war". Phoenix's main IRC (the non-strategy one) was going apeshit. People were scrounging for money. At this point, it was about 7 PM my time, so early morning European hours.

We were all still here. We had been online for more than 12 hours straight. We had donated weapons and gold from personal stashes, country accounts, Marco had given out something around 4,000 tanks personally. I can't even remember how much money we all spent, and I don't even want to try and think about how much it was combining EDEN's expenses. I can remember how much Iain complained about how much Phoenix money Antonio and I (the SG/SC at the time I believe) spent.

We had the gut feeling that things were going South. The wall steadily dropped. Not fast. Not slow. Just dropped bit by bit. We ran out of damage, as we had spent too much trying to get our Pearl in China. We began to prepare. Antonio quit (one of three times I can remember him "quitting" Erepublik on IRC because he didn't think he could play anymore). The UK packed up the 700 required gold, and sent it with one of Phoenix's (and PEACE's) respected soldiers. You could see Poland swapping into Spain, trying to get to that Iron resource they had been craving for months. Their babies wanted blood.

We got to the Resistance war ten minutes before Poland could open the regions. I don't recall exactly where they got stopped (I think it was Extremadura), but we finally got our Resistance War opened. Easier to do so off Peru (the country that directly attacked with their EDEN MPP stacks), we knew. Poland had occupied France and Germany for so long, and we had been unable to get anything off either in a consistant manner. Brazil was broke, as they had spent almost 10,000 Gold (at least, that's what Antonio claimed it was at the time), so we were financing this from everyone else's treasury. Russia put up close to 2,000 Gold to fund tanks. The UK another 1,000. Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, and so on all collected funds and sent their best. Euphonix even made a rare appearance. We knew that if we ever wanted to get NoB from Poland, we'd have to get it out of Peru. It would essentially make the entire conflict useless since Peru couldn't hold it without EDEN, and they couldn't continually focus on it.

We continually poured damage into that Resistance War. Every country had reserves though. We held back more than 4 million damage, knowing that the final ten minutes would tell the tale. We wouldn't be hit again without our full compliment of tanks, that was for damn sure.

In the end, the results were reversed. We still went into a small bit of overtime, but this time we had come out victorious. It was time to finish the Serbian swaps through Pakistan and Russia, and finish off what we had worked so hard to get.

Now, I don't recall this tale to tell you about how awesome Phoenix was. We all had our moments. There were moments that EDEN wiped the floor with us, and vice versa. I tell you this because during these types of battles (the battle for Kyushu also comes to mind), we literally spent 36-48 hours online, because this game was really fun. We had a lot of friends that we spent a lot of time with. I've even heard that it wrecked a relationship in the Erepublik office because "he" spent too much time online.

But the more I log in and find these stupid "improvements", I have to wonder. What the hell are they thinking? Are they trying reverse improvements? Giving any one person the ability to lay an immediate 5 million in damage, or even 1 million for each battle hero? All you're going to do is make it harder for your newer players to compete, split damage and make this a more individually unique game than it already is. People won't fight for their country any more. They'll fight for battle heros even if they happen to be losing merely because of the rewards. Who the hell does that really benefit in the long term?

At some point, I hope that people like romper, Flausino, Argrob, and so on stop spending money on your crap ideas to generate money. I could see it if it were 5-10 bucks a month, but in order to truly succeed to a level that might be attainable, you'd have to spend a few hundred every two months (especially given that the current economy module sucks).

There were days where people actually wanted to spend hours and hours and hours (myself included) on a great idea, a great community, and a great team.



If any of those people are still around, they're more than likely wearing a helmet, riding a short bus.

H(J)ugs and Kisses,
Just Another Guy.