EI February 2010

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No Friday without updates

Published on February 27, 2010 (Day 830 of the New World)

Dear citizens,

It is Friday so we would like to keep you informed about the latest updates and improvements, as usual. Brace yourself for a pretty long list! :)

Let's start with a hot topic: new languages. To keep it short, here is the next wave of eRepublik languages: Icon-Serbia.png Serbian, Icon-Croatia.png Croatian, Icon-Greece.png Greek, Icon-Turkey.png Turkish and Icon-Bulgaria.png Bulgarian. When? One or two weeks at most and your wait will be over! Also, don't forget to send us your feedback (message to the Feedback department) in order to let us know about mistakes, or to suggest improvements for already existing languages. Thanks!

National Chat Room law: this law allows you to vote for any private chat room to become the National Chat Room of your country. This has several advantages, one of them is the possibility to self-moderate the chat room. If you want to learn more about this feature have a look at our Wiki page. Happy chatting everyone!

Payment by SMS update now allows citizens in the following countries to buy GOLD by SMS: Icon-Turkey.png Turkey, Icon-Ireland.png Ireland, Icon-Czech Republic.png Czech Republic, Icon-Netherlands.png Netherlands, Icon-Portugal.png Portugal, Icon-Malaysia.png Malaysia and Icon-Singapore.png Singapore. Welcome!

Citizenship glitch: newborn citizens now receive the citizenship of the region's original country. This way, at registration, new citizens receive the correct citizenship, regardless if another country had occupied the selected region. Furthermore, in order to make our newborn citizens' first steps easier, here are some more modifications: they start their e-life with 100 wellness (instead of 50) and reach experience level 2 with only 6 Experience Points (EP). Also, they'll be able to fight from level 3, move from level 4 and send e-mail invitations from level 5 onwards. This will make the exploration of the New World much more interesting during the first days.

Hospital glitch: We continue with some news for food companies. You will love it: your products will become much more important in our daily lives. The old "trick" to use hospitals as a substitute for food and houses is going to change: a citizen will be able to recover from a hospital only the wellness lost in battles, on that day. The maximum wellness which could be restored through healing does not change, it remains related to the hospital quality. So, if you want your character to be happy and healthy you'll have to buy other products, like tasty food and cool houses. The hospital will only heal your war wounds, which makes sense, not like going to war in order to get healthier. Of course, the new modules introducing customized products and time management will add interesting possibilities: for example, you could sleep more to recover more wellness...but why would you waste your beautiful e-life sleeping? :)

And last but not least, a surprise for you: we are about to launch a new eRepublik forum platform! We've been working on this for several weeks, and right now we are approaching the final phases. The new forum will be much more attractive, with a clear structure of forums and subforums, some new sections and also with national forums (which will be implemented gradually). Apart from the improved structure, we'll have lots of new features which forum veterans missed so much; features like the search function, quick reply, quote and multi-quote, languages, easy and plentiful formatting options, polls, nice layout and many other “small details”. Well, the devil's in the details, and at the moment we are importing the existing posts and topics in a separate section of the new forum called "Legacy". If no unexpected events occur, the new forum will be live in a couple of weeks at most, offering all of you a really cool communication tool. We will give you more details in a future Insider.

And yes, we'll return to the new modules series soon with an Insider about Customization Points, which will push the “qualities” concept one step forward.

Well, that's it for today,

Your eRepublik team

Phishing alert

Published on February 24, 2010 (Day 827 of the New World)

Dear citizens,

Once again we want to remind you: always double-check links you received from someone else before and AFTER you clicked on them and avoid installing scripts.

You can encounter links in many places, like private messages (PMs), shouts, articles, forum posts, etc. It is very important that any link you are about to click starts with “www.erepublik.com/”. EXACTLY LIKE THAT. If the link contains only random characters (e.g. links shorteners like tinyurl.com or bit.ly), verify the address the link opens. The easiest way to protect yourself is to be careful!

SCENARIO: You have logged in to eRepublik, you receive a PM with a link to an interesting article, you click the link, and then for some strange reason “eRepublik” asks you to log in again. Well, this is suspicious, isn't it? Double-check the address bar! The slight difference between the genuine and the fake eRepublik (phishing site) will become visible. You just need to look carefully and make sure that the address starts with "www.erepublik.com/".

Apart from fake sites, there is another way of giving away your login details: scripts. There are many scripts out there which have only one purpose: to steal your username and your password. Of course, they promise you Gold, weapons, houses, and many other things; but once you installed the script you soon might find yourself in the “I've been hacked, my GOLD is gone, heeeeelp!” situation.

The responsibility of keeping sensitive information safe belongs solely to you, as stated in our Terms of Service (ToS). Let's work together to keep eRepublik safe! Again, please be careful where you give away private data; do not share your password! Do not install scripts or add-ons!

If you encounter the situation that you cannot log in to eRepublik for more than 24 hours, please send an email to support[at]erepublik[dot]com from the email address that you used to create your eRepublik account.

Regards,

The eRepublik team

New Economic Module Products

Published on February 19, 2010 (Day 822 of the New World)

Dear citizens,

Today we continue with our educational Insiders by proudly presenting the new products that will make your virtual life much more interesting! Even the "old" products that you are used to can be considered new because in the future the products will be made of components that provide certain benefits or improve/influence certain attributes. For example, there will be no more generic “food”, but food that offers you different benefits according to the component customizations; this is explained below.

1. Food has two product components: ingredients and packaging. Ingredients increase health, while the packaging increases happiness. So, depending on your daily needs, you can purchase the type of food that suits you best. One day you might want food that gives you a lot of health, while on another day you need more happiness.

2. A Travel Ticket has three product components: paper, packaging and itinerary. The paper gives a health bonus and the packaging increases the traveller's happiness. The itinerary defines the moving distance. This means that you will buy a ticket according to your needs. You can buy a ticket with a short moving distance if you only need to fly to the neighboring country, which means that there are lots of customization points available to increase the other two attributes. But, if you want to fly halfway around the world at the same price, you will have to lower your expectation when it comes to your health or happiness.

3. A House consists of roof, layout and wall. The roof influences health, the layout influences happiness, and the walls assure longer durability (days of usage). If most of the customization points are used to improve the roof and the layout, naturally this means weaker walls and the house will collapse earlier. Conversely, a house can have long durability, but not provide as much health or happiness to the inhabitant. We are sure that the market and citizens will define what the most desirable characteristics are to have in a house.

4. A Hospital is made from three components: roof, walls and logistics. Roofs and walls work almost like they do for houses. Logistics determine the “area of effect”. We will describe this concept more in-depth in the future Insiders about the military module. But, in short, each hospital will only heal the citizens which are inside a certain area surrounding the hospital (different from how it is now, with one hospital per region). The bigger this area, the fewer points are available for the other characteristics. Once again we are confident that the eRepublik citizens will calculate and customize these components to reach the optimal hospital.

5. A Defense System has the following components: layout, walls and project plans. The layout gives defensive power to protect against enemies. Do not confuse it with the layout-happiness relation we have seen in houses. The walls have an impact on durability. Project plans do for defense systems what logistics do for hospitals, set the area of effect.

6. A Rifle has four components: rifle barrel, frame, rifle butt and ammunition. Rifle barrels determine the attack accuracy while the frame provides defensive capabilities, which make it harder for an enemy to hit you. The rifle butt is responsible for durability while the ammunition causes damage. If durability is totally "consumed", you will need a new rifle. Of course, a rifle which is simultaneously very powerful, long lasting and with very powerful ammunition, will be expensive, similar to the current Q5 weapon. But of course, many of the four components can be combined to create many customized weapons. Additionally, rifles like all military products, can be used several times, depending on how it is customized.

7. A Tank has four components: tank barrel, engine, body and ammunition. Resembling the rifle barrel, the tank barrel gives attack accuracy, the tank's body provides defense capabilities, the engine is responsible for durability and ammunition determines the damage of the tank.

8. Artillery is almost the same as tanks, except the only difference is that the barrel is called the “gun barrel.”

9. Helicopter is also identical to tanks with the only difference of “missiles” instead of “tank barrel”.

Along with these new and enhanced products, there will be a change in the raw materials used to produce them.

  • Grain is used for food;
  • Oil is used for travel tickets;
  • Stone is used for houses, hospitals and defense systems;
  • Titanium is used for rifles, tanks, artillery, helicopters.

Yes, some industries are gone. We assure you that you don't need to worry for your business in gift/diamonds/wood industry. You will not lose your investment, it will be converted. More details about migrations of current products, companies, skills, strengths and so on, will be offered in a separate Insider.

Stay tuned for the next Insider, which will present the “customization points” concept and how the current “quality upgrades” are going to turn into improved products!

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

New Economic Module Professions

Published on February 12, 2010 (Day 815 of the New World)

Dear citizens,

Today we will talk about the new professions in eRepublik. Let's start at the beginning: all manufactured products available in the New World will require teamwork. This means that a company will need several types of employees who work as a team to create the final product. Furthermore, each component of the product will influence a specific attribute. One short example of teamwork: If you hire only carpenters you will get many roofs completed, but no whole house that you can sell! More about this topic later, for now, let's examine the professions.

1. The Producer creates the ingredients for food and the paper for travel tickets. A spontaneous riot of producers would mean death by starvation and the shutdown of the entire moving ticket industry!

2. Marketing Managers are responsible for designing the packaging of food and travel tickets. Without cool packaging you will sell nothing, that's a law!

3. Carpenters work hard to build roofs for houses and hospitals. What would our houses be without roofs? Brrr, we can't even imagine!

4. Architects design layouts for houses and defense systems. Pay them well; a nice layout means a big happy smile on our citizens' faces!

5. Project Managers establish itineraries for travel tickets and take care of the logistical requirements of hospitals. Since they are managers, it's also their job to create project plans for defense systems. These guys will influence your daily life a lot. But you`ll understand later how :P

6. Builders give us walls for our houses, hospitals and defense systems. They work hard and they make fun of the architect. Why? WHY? The Architect has never done any real hard manual work! He has never held a hammer in his hands nor has he done anything but the easy work of designing and managing from behind his desk!

7. Engineers produce barrels for rifles, tanks and artillery, and missiles for air units. No engineers mean no war. It is as simple as that.

8. Mechanics forge the frame for the rifles, and the engines for the tanks, artillery and air units. No engineer or no mechanics means no war. It is as simple as that.

9. Fitters create the rifle butt for the rifles and the body of tanks, artillery and air units. No engineers, mechanics or fitters means no war. It is as simple as that.

10. Technicians fulfil the hunger for ammunition for the rifles, tanks, artillery and air units. No engineers, mechanics, fitters or technicians means no war. You get the idea :P

11. Last, but not least, we have raw materials workers. They are the ones extracting the valuable resources, the only familiar job so far!

In our next Insider of the Series, we'll talk more about products, product parts, and what exactly each product part influences. So, stay tuned!

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

New Economic Module Time Management

:Published on February 8, 2010 (Day 811 of the New World)

Dear citizens,

today we are going to talk about the new Time Management feature. But first of all, why such a thing? The answer is: because we want to add a lot more authenticity to your experience of being immersed in a living virtual world, simulating the real-world. For that, we will offer you 24 hour days within the game and let you decide how to spend your time in the game. The only difference, a cool one in our humble opinion, is that instead of waiting for hours to pass like in real life, in eRepublik you can enjoy the benefits of the day's activities after just a few minutes!

Although we explained it in the last Insider there are still some citizens which are afraid that the Time Management feature will force them to wake up in the middle of the night to work, train, or study in eRepublik. Don't worry, you don't have to! When you start a new eRepublik day you can finish your “jobs” in just a few minutes. But why rush it in the first place? You better analyze carefully how to spend your hours, because, as we'll see, every single hour will be very important for your character! Time Management will differentiate citizens from each other, and turn each of you unique!

Time Management will let you go to four different places: Company, Library, Training Grounds and Entertainment district. The more hours you spend doing something, the bigger the benefits for your citizen will be. Your task will be to balance the daily life of your citizen, and you will love that! You can select time periods in steps of one hour, up to the maximum value of 12 hours. That means you can't work for 24 hours or spend a whole studying in the library. But you can have fun in eRepublik all day long, if you wish!


Let's have a closer look at the Company, the familiar place where you will work. A new gameplay improvement is that you will earn your salary according to the number of hours you work. Of course, working long hours means more money for you, but also a bigger decrease in Happiness. The wellness (aka Health) will still decrease by a fixed value, according to the company customization level, just like it is now with the quality level of a company. As compensation, the ones working hard will receive not just more money, but also a greater increase in their profession skill! This is because of another improvement: the profession skill increase will depend on your actual productivity, just like in real life. Most likely you will want to work as healthy and happy as possible, to achieve the highest productivity.

Ok, let's move on to the Library. There you can find another new concept in eRepublik, studying. This cool activity offers you the possibility to specialize in one or more professions. After you have worked, you might want to visit the library and learn more about your profession, thus improve your profession skill. Studying increases the profession skill of your choice, but it decreases your happiness at the same time, which we'll see later how to handle. Oh, we said “your profession”. Well, if you don't like your profession, you can simply focus on another one and find a new job. You might work as a builder, but this does not mean that in your "free time" you have to learn only about building. You can study how to become, for example, a better carpenter, architect, or project manager. You can follow your dreams! The only limitation is the maximum total hours per day you can spend in the library. It's up to you how to manage your time: Spend all hours on studying just one profession, or spend them on a combination of different professions. Still, you can't study a specific profession more than once per day.

Now we get to the new Entertainment District. Besides buying products from the marketplace, which make your citizen a bit happier each day, you can spend some Gold on, for example, a cinema ticket that takes you to the movies for 2 hours, a nice restaurant where you dine for 3 hours, or even a day trip that takes 8 hours but returns your citizen as a very happy chap. See it as an investment in the overall well-being of your citizen. And don't forget, it's not a must-go area but might help you sometimes.

The Training Grounds work almost the same way as studying at the Library. You simply select the military skill you want to improve and the number of hours and there you go: you're on your way to becoming a great soldier. Yes, the new military module will have different types of military skills. Citizens will have four types of “strengths” which reflects their capabilities of fighting as an infantry soldier, a tank driver, a helicopter pilot, or an artillery gunner.

Remember, the new war module will offer player-versus-player fights; in combat between a highly skilled infantry and a highly skilled tank, the outcome of the fight is almost certain. But on the other hand, tanks are vulnerable to helicopters, and helicopters are vulnerable to artillery, while infantry has an advantage against artillery. So nothing is really certain at the end of the day. You will learn more about the ways of fighting against each other and strategies on the battlefield when we get to the military Insiders. For now, let's get back to Time Management.

Again, the limitation is that you can't train the same skill twice in one day, and that you have a limited amount of hours at your disposal. You can train, for example, one skill for 8 hours, or spend 2 hours on each military skill separately; it's completely up to you. The important thing is the total number of available hours.

Well, that's it for Time Management. You will learn pretty fast how to play with it, a bigger challenge will be to find the best way to spend your time each day. One day you might need to work longer because you need more money. Another day you decide to spend as many hours at the training grounds as possible because you want to reach the next skill level as an infantry soldier. We are sure that this will be a lot of fun! It will give you the best of both worlds: Play the game for 5 minutes a day or spend more time in eRepublik if you want to dive deeper into the gameplay.

Stay tuned for the next Insider, which will explain in detail the new professions.

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

The New Economic module - an overview

Published on February 4, 2010 (Day 807 of the New World)

Dear citizens,

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, beta-giants and babies, here we go: A long road lies ahead of us, lined with a plethora of exciting new gameplay features in eRepublik! This Insider is the first in a series of at least 12 articles, which will present the upcoming new Economy and new Military features to you in detail! This first Insider gives you an overview of what the new Economy will have in store for you. The following Insiders will then shed light on single economy features in much more detail, so you can prepare yourself for the new gameplay experience. After presenting the Economy module we will continue with the Military one. So for now, brace yourselves for the new Economy!

Some features of the New Economy will extend the existing gameplay, others will be completely new, and some will just stay as they are right now. Read on to learn more about the main changes and additions:

Time Management


The new heart of your everyday eRepublik experience will be a feature that we call "Time Management". Just like in real life, your citizen will live through virtual 24-hour days. This means you can decide how your citizen will spend his or her time. Maybe one day you will need more money, so you decide to let your citizen work for twelve hours instead of eight. Not satisfied with your current career level? Want to get a better job? Send your citizen to the library to study for another eight hours to increase your job skill faster. After so much activity your citizens really should rest for the remaining four hours of the day; otherwise, your citizen's Happiness level will decrease too much over time!

Letting your citizen work for eight hours does not mean that you have to wait eight hours in real life before deciding what to do next! You can still organize the daily life of your citizen within a few minutes. But with the new Economic module, you also can spend more time with your citizen if you want, besides reading newspaper articles.

Happiness


Being a happy chap is all about balance in life. If your citizen spends too many hours at work or in the library they will have not enough hours left in the virtual day for resting and recovering Happiness. It will be important for you to find the right balance between activities and leisure time. The rule of thumb is easy: Keep Happiness at a high level so your citizen will be more productive, will learn faster, and will fight better.

New Professions


We will replace the existing professions with new ones and even add several more. Don't panic! Your citizen will not lose their existing skill levels! You will be able to transfer them directly into the new professions' system. You will lose nothing but will gain a wider range of choices. This is because companies will be able to produce new kinds of products, and for that they need specialists. They need you! For example, a company that produces houses will need builders who build walls, carpenters who produce roofs, and architects who design layouts. Each profession has its own career path. You start as an apprentice and time after time advance to higher skill levels and titles (e.g. Master Builder).

Product customizations


You will be able to specialize in different jobs because company owners will need a different kinds of specialists in their companies! For example, what makes you decide which food to buy at the moment? Right, the price; and only the price! Within the new Economy, company owners will be able to customize the various components their products are made from. Each product consists of components that employees create separately in order to assemble the final product. As mentioned before, a house consists of walls, roofs, and layouts; each of the components requires different types of workers. Also, each component directly influences the attributes of the citizens, thus how the company owner customizes their houses will be very important and will make a difference in the marketplace. The stronger the walls the longer the house will last (=higher durability); the better the roofs the more Health the house will restore each day; the better the layouts the more Happiness the house will provide. What does this all mean? Products on the market will no longer only compete with other products by the price but by the way the company owner has customized them! A real competitive market at last!

Customization points


This brings us to the Customization Points (CP). At the moment company owners can already upgrade the quality levels of their companies. In the New Economy, each company upgrade will come with Customization Points, which company owners can spend on the various product component to increase their quality and attribute benefits. It's up to you as the company owner to decide whether your house will provide more Health each day, more Happiness, or if the house will last longer. Does the market demand longer-lasting houses? Then spend your Customization Points on walls and hire more builders. Balance the product attributes to meet the demands of the market.

New products


So what products are we talking about? Here is a selection of new products companies will be able to produce and customize:

  • Rifles
  • Tanks
  • Helicopters
  • Artillery

That's it for the moment. We hope this Insider has given you a first insight into what the New Economy will be about. The next New Economy Insider will pick out one of the features mentioned above and explain it in more detail.

Oh, we almost forgot: Of course, the new Economy will also bring a redesigned marketplace, job market, company page, citizen profile, homepage, and more.

Stay tuned!

The eRepublik team