EI December 2009

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This is it, 2009!

Published on: 31 December 2009

Dear citizens,

Well, this is it! We are enjoying the final hours of 2009, a year both difficult and beautiful, filled with passions and sometimes anger, with raging wars and beautiful friendships. A year providing many changes and improvements in the eRepublik gameplay as well as a long list of new modules.

The “super powers cycle” is crystal clear in our New World. We started the year with Romanians marching through Hungary and crowding them into just one region, this while at the same time Romania was fighting with the super power of Indonesia. We are ending it with Hungarians conquering Crisana, and right now assaulting Transylvania, idea which might have seemed unimaginable a year ago. But in eRepublik everything is possible, dreams can turn into reality if you wish hard enough. In the first months of 2009 Indonesians got their hands on the rich region of Karnataka (the turning point of the Ro vs Hu-Ind-Rus war) while the US was an almost “dead” and inactive nation. And yesterday they occupied Karnataka, the crown jewel of Indonesia, this way announcing the USA undoubtedly super power statute.

France and Spain had their own regional war, France being wiped out at some point, which led to a huge baby boom in France. Then it was Spain's turn to be wiped out by France. Today, once again, about half of France is occupied by Spain. Another hot spot of never ending wars is in the Greece-Turkey area. In autumn Canada was completely conquered, but the love for their homeland, supported by the sacrificing spirit of their allies, quickly regained their lands. The USA too was reduced to only a couple of regions back in the summer, but just like Karnataka for Romania, later those regions proved to be a turning point for the armies of PEACE stuck in front of Washington: the start of a retreat which ultimately led to PEACE alliance fading out from the world scene and making space for PHOENIX birth.

Anyway, there were so many interesting events in 2009 that only one article could not possibly cover all of them. Many memorable moments, hunters becoming hunted, genuine mass-media wars, epic battles deciding the fate of countries or even alliances of countries, "baby-booms" reviving sleeping nations like Serbia and Russia which today have a strong influence in the eRepublik universe. One certain thing is that we end this year under the war sign. The other is that we look forward to the next year's evolution of the New World. Just like you, we are all waiting for the new dimensions of the eRepublik citizens' experience, and we are confident that it's going to be awesome. The new war and economic module are going to be just the beginning. We have plans for many other “goodies” in the media field, communication and political module, in our constant work to improve eRepublik.


These being said,


Farewell 2009
Welcome 2010
Happy New Year!

The eRepublik Team

eRepublik under DDoS attacks

Published on: 29 December 2009

Dear citizens,

As some of you might have noticed by now, there were some server issues in the past 48 hours. The cause for them are some systematic DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, coming from a huge number of random IPs. The botnet used (that is, attacks having the source in trojan-infected computers of innocent users) makes our job harder, because we can't just block those IPs. These types of attacks have one and just one purpose: kneeling down the servers. In our specific case, it is a flood of UDP packets that causes the problems for our hosting provider.


Shortly said, in human language: one or more bad guys are expressing their “love” for eRepublik by trying to smash into pieces our little universe. And they try hard!

Right now we have half of the job done, and we hope that by tomorrow morning everything will be back to normal. We would like to apologize for any inconveniences, and assure you that we are doing everything that we can to protect eRepublik infrastructure from future attacks. It is in everybody's interest that the ones responsible for the attacks face the long arm of the EU and international laws and we will take all the necessary measures to achieve that.

Thanks for your support,
The eRepublik Team

Merry Christmas, eRepublik world!

Published on: 24 December 2009

Dear citizens,

Many of us are preparing to celebrate the Christmas holidays. Traditionally, in many countries these are the days when families are reunited around a table, sharing warm moments together, forgetting about all the bad things. Sometimes after a long time. It's also said that the Christmas spirit turns mankind into a more friendly one. The perfect days to forgive and forget, to prove altruistic, to be a better you. It would be nice if we would have this spirit in eRepublik too, at least for a couple of days. To see old enemies shaking hands and remember that after all the New World is a virtual one, just a game.

We are approaching the end of a year which from our perspective was a good one. It is true that there is always a place for “better”, that's why the work never ends. But if we close our eyes and fast forward the months of this soon-to-end year, we can say that we have done many things, we have grown so much in terms of activity and citizens. And we will continue to do so, as the next year will bring spectacular new dimensions to your experience in eRepublik.

Until then, let's fill the New World with joy and kindness. Merry Christmas and welcome to all Polish babies. Merry Christmas to all our older citizens. Merry Christmas everybody. We wish you all to have a wonderful time together with your friends and families.

Merry Christmas,
The eRepublik Team

It was a busy day

Published on: 22 December 2009

 The annoying sound of the alarm hardly manage. He did that because he was in great need of money. Of course, more working hours means more money, but also less wellness. Hence, he was tired. But the chance to buy that tank factory was a once in a lifetime opportunity and he just could not miss it.

He made some coffee and grabbed the newspapers. His fellow compatriots were still surrounded near that damn mountain since yesterday. This does not look good, but hopefully, a stroke of genius coming from somewhere, from somebody, will change the fate of that battle. On the economic page, he saw an interview of a reputed businessman advising everybody to “Customize! Customize! Customize!”. An intriguing title, but what followed seemed logical: “If you want to survive nowadays, your only chance is to customize your products, no matter what you produce. But of course, so will all the other businessmen, so your products must be different, must be special. Customize your products such that you offer the best balanced benefits for the money. The balancing is extremely important. Would you buy a house that offers you everything, wellness, happiness, but which is very expensive and will collapse in just one week? Think about it.”

He indeed thought about it. Once he'd bought that tank factory, he would implement some modifications to the tanks it produced. Maybe increase their accuracy, so that it would be more likely to hit the target, in detriment of other characteristics. Or something else, but for sure he must do something, to turn the factory profitable.

He was still dreaming with his eyes opened, when he had arrived at the office. He was hired as a project manager, a job that he truly liked. The need for money convinced him to work a lot today too, more than 8 hours actually. In the afternoon, in spite of the tiredness, he decided to study and improve his architecture skill, for another 2 hours. He enjoyed studying architecture, so the time passed really quick. Moreover, he was feeling a bit refreshed. So he decided to work another two hours to improve his infantry skill. Someday he would be there, near that mountain, fighting for his country. Someday..but for now, after such a full day he needed some relaxation. So he bought a ticket to the cinema, and after watching a comedy his happiness was restored.

He allocated the remaining hours for sleeping. A wise decision, as there is always a “tomorrow”, waiting right around the corner.
 

This is a story of a citizen living in the new economic module. It's a story to illustrate the concept, but you`ll not have to be online 24/7, to work x hours, to study y hours, etc. The game will still be open for 2-clickers logging on just once (ok, 10-clickers), but those that would like to occupy more time, will be able to do that. Starting in January, a series of Insiders will start presenting the new economic and war modules, from general concepts to detailed in-game situations. Given the huge complexity of these modules, the new concepts and changes in the game-play compared to today's eRepublik, there will be many such dedicated articles. So watch out for the Insiders, to stay informed.

Regards,
The eRepublik Team

A New World War has just begun...

Published on: 18 December 2009

It seems that the era of peace is over. A new mega alliance appeared, risen from PEACE's ashes and burning bright as the mythical Phoenix. This wind of change has brought the world to war, continent versus continent, country versus country, neighbor versus neighbor; invigorating the global economy. Ironically, the era of peace brought economical crises, while death and destruction have brought short term prosperity in certain countries. Will inflation and poverty replace this blood lust prosperity?

After this month's presidential elections, the new national goals set countries and armies on the path of war. Presidents and army commanders array their forces and unleash them against their prey; some countries will rise and others might disappear from the map. The bold goals some countries have set (Romania to conquer Heilongjiang, Hungary to conquer half of Romania, USA to conquer London, etc.) have fueled the global war machine.

Brazil and the USA are racing to grab as much land as they can on the opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean. There is turmoil in South America and there is also chaos in Asia.

After being crushed under the French yoke, the Spanish have risen. The Spanish army is marching through France and nobody knows when or if it will stop. Germany is under constant attacks from their Polish neighbors, holding on with the help of their Phoenix brethren.

In this chaos, many eyes are on Hungary. Will they invade Transilvania in order to achieve their national goals? But the large system of alliances that Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Croatia have built in this part of the world will make any invasion attempt a risky business. Of course, history is made by those who had the courage to pull the trigger!

Citizens now have the opportunity to improve their fighting skills from the Masters of Warfare Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar in the Training grounds. How this will be changed by the new types of economies and wars that we are working on not even the Gods know.

Meanwhile, you have the power to change the future and your suggestions on potential improvements to existing and new modules are very helpful as always.

There is no certainty in this New World and power is for everybody to take. Fight for your right and take hold of this power!

A New World War has just begun...

New feature: Personal Trainers

Published on: 11 December 2009

Dear citizens,

Some of you may already know Lana, who is going to be the eRepublik army adviser, willing to help you improve your military strength. Only if you like the idea of listening to her advice every day, of course :) Anyway, the first request she had was to rename the “Army” section into “Training grounds”. Training grounds, not playing grounds!

Lana is a good girl happy to help, but the New World has also been enriched with Personal Trainers. These army specialists can boost your strength gain every day, if you choose to have a training session with one of them. By doing it, you will get a higher boost in addition to the standard strength increase. This is good news which we are sure everybody is enthusiastic about. New players now have a chance to “catch” up with the older players (it is not very motivating to keep dealing 15-20 damage and see "tanks" dealing 450 damage). Older players know that this will keep the “babies” motivated and will, therefore, help their country prosper.

The help from the great army leaders does not come for free, as a fee is taken each time you choose advanced training. We really can't blame them, otherwise, we would have just increased the strength gain for everybody. You can spend your stockpiled GOLD to prepare for the upcoming war module. In theory, if someone used the full-booster in just 4 months they could turn from a “baby” to a strong enough soldier to be called a war-god, if this is your preferred part of the game.

Now we are entering a 7 days split-test. What is this? It's a test period that we will use to analyze several variables of the concept, so that we come up with the final version that offers you the best experience. During this period some of you will only see Lana and one personal trainer, while others will see Lana and more personal trainers, as well as some other differences.

Another thing that we would like to announce is that we are introducing a Captcha system for working and training. Don't worry, it's not going to be annoying. It will appear only a couple of times during your journey in eRepublik. The addition was made in order to keep away some unfriendly New World bots we spotted.

Regards,
The eRepublik team

Interesting national goals

Published on: 7 December 2009

Dear citizens,

Over the weekend we had presidential elections going on, which were a bit different than the previous ones. The introduction of National Goals added a whole new dimension to electoral campaigns, by offering politicians the opportunity to jump from the “words are just words” school of thought, to “words are actions”. This was a powerful tool, as around 80% of the elected presidents had set goals which now are national. The list of newly elected Presidents can be found here.

Of course, while we had prudent and realistic candidates, we also had candidates promising to build bridges where there are no rivers :) Well, this adds a bit of variety to elections, doesn't it?

Spain seemed to enjoy uncertainty and emotions, the main two candidates achieving 1367 (Durruti) and 1336 (Ballantines) votes at the end of elections; close call! The USA elected the candidate promising to conquer UK regions while Russia handed the power to the candidate promising to conquer North Korean soil. Australians trust their leader to defeat Indonesia and conquer several South African regions, which would be a great surprise as Australia was once entirely under Indonesian occupation. Many other interesting goals have been turned into national goals as well; you can check them yourself.

But the most interesting situation was in the Hungarian elections. The candidate promising to bring Romanian soil under Hungarian occupation for the first time in eRepublik history won the elections, by a large margin. This is not surprising, as many Hungarians have thought about the war against Romania for a long time. If this attack does take place, Romanians will have a tough job defending their homeland, as Hungary is one of the biggest military powers of the New World right now.

What can we say, other than we have an interesting month ahead! Let's see how things evolve, now that a new alliance has arisen, PHOENIX. The mythological bird, rising up from the ashes of PEACE.

One thing that we would like to bring to your attention: on the Gold and Extras page you can see that we have made some changes (like Icon - Gold.gif 140 GOLD pack at the same price as the Icon - Gold.gif 80 GOLD pack!), offering you the best value package. Your feedback would be appreciated, as these offers might be limited in time.

One last thing: take a look at this young lady. Yeah, she's nice, and more importantly, she's going to be one of the newest eRepublik characters, which will help you a lot on the military side :D! She is Lana, and we expect her to arrive in eRepublik sometime this week. More details in future Insider.

Regards,
The eRepublik Team

They were all dead

Published on: Day 745

"The young soldier opened his eyes, bleary by blood, by tiredness. By lack of hope. Instinctively he wanted to wake up his comrades, but soon realized that he was almost alone in the trenches. Just 48 hours ago his proud unit consisted of 280 infantrymen, all of them war-gods of countless battles. But the insanity and incompetence of the old general sent them all to doubtless death. To slaughter. Flesh and bones against 40 steel tanks. Only a few escaped, including him.

The mug-dirty radio yelled between pops and cracks “Soldiers, I command you, keep hill 525 by all means!” Easy to say, harder to do. Enemies were much more organized, attacking the hill from all directions, [b]infantry, tanks and also some air support[/b]. This was what he hated the most, the death coming from the above. Because you could not stare her in the eyes, to show your disgrace, to show her that you don't care if you die. Unseen but lethal. To feel the breath of the enemy, to see his hands shaking on the gun, this is an honorable fight. Human versus human. Machine versus machine.

The young soldier closed his eyes. He was thinking why was he here dancing with death. For whom or what was he fighting? Slowly his cold hardened face started to change. He was smiling, remembering his hometown, his family, his friends. He was here because it was his duty to fight for his country. It was his duty to die here, if needed, like his comrades.

Afar there were heavy battles around a bridge. His comrades were desperately trying to conquer the bridge, the only access path to the hill. They knew that any delay could cause their brothers, who fought with only bare hands, to be overcome by the tanks. And finally! The unmistakable buzz of engines announced the arrival of the long-awaited air support. Pure hell unleashed upon the bridge area. Humans, tanks, aircraft were all mixed together. After two hours their enemies were defeated in spite of their harsh resistance. They had conquered the bridge! Countless units were marching over the bridge now. Some of them stood still, to defend it, and the rest rushed towards the hill.

The ones that circled became circled. You could feel their fear in the air. It was short. Merciless. They were all dead..

The army advanced, towards the next strategical point on the map. This was just one battle. The war... it never ends."

This is a war story from the upcoming war module.

Regards,
The eRepublik Team

Nominate eRepublik for Crunchies Awards!

Published on: Day 743

Dear citizens,

How are you today? Having fun in eRepublik, aren't you? Are you eagerly waiting to see the National Goals listed for the first time? Well, that's good, because the beloved admin has a small favor to ask you all. You don't love admin, you say? Not even a bit? OK, then, the bad admin still has a small favor to ask :p

It is crystal clear how much you guys (and girls) love medals. No matter how hard we try, we can't provide you with enough medals for your chests or for your countries, lately. But eRepublik admin has feelings too, you know! He would also like to have a badge, not for him, but for his great game. What is your favorite game, the game without which something is missing in your life? Who said “Warcraft” back there, in the last line? No, no, it's eRepublik not Warcraft! And we would like to ask you all for your support by nominating eRepublik for the 2009 Crunchies Awards. All you have to do is to access this link and this one and press the “Nominate” button. And it's all done, your vote for eRepublik counted!

You can also share on Facebook/Twitter, to let your friends know about this and support us! The nomination process ends on 4th of December, so let's propel eRepublik among the Crunchies Awards Finalists until then! The more people hear about eRepublik, the more fun we all have. Acceding into the final would be a recognition of our hard work this year, and also would encourage us to do an even greater job in future.


Thanks in advance for your support, we appreciate it!
The eRepublik Team