EI April 2009

Languages:
	More languages:  Can't see your own?

New countries from Asia and South America

Published on 27 April 2009 - Day 524 of the New World

Dear citizens,

We are ready to announce the countries that will join eRepublik in the next two months. On the 12th of May, North Korea will be the newest country in a part of the New World where Iran, Indonesia, and Romania are fighting to increase their influence. We thought it would be intriguing to introduce an unexpected country such as North Korea - to see how it will fit in eRepublik, and how its new history will compare to its existing one.

We promised in a previous article that more South American countries, including Colombia, will be added to eRepublik along with the Spanish version of eRepublik. Our team has designed and created a set of tools that will allow community members, assisted by members of our staff, to translate eRepublik into any language. This has been the most difficult part of the whole process of translating eRepublik into Spanish, which is now almost complete. Therefore, we are glad to announce that on the 10th of June, five South American countries will join eRepublik. These countries are Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay. These five countries have a combined total area of more than 4 million square kilometres or 1.5 million square miles!

If you can help the researchers with information regarding these countries, please send an e-mail to north.korea@erepublik.com, bolivia@erepublik.com, colombia@erepublik.com, peru@erepublik.com, paraguay@erepublik.com, and uruguay@erepublik.com. They will certainly be grateful for your support.

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

PS: Just a reminder that the invite friends feature for Hotmail accounts has now been fixed, so be sure to invite your Hotmail contacts to join you on eRepublik.

Issues regarding the war module

Published on 23 April 2009 - Day 520 of the New World

Dear citizens,

Knowing that our latest deployment (that took place today) was considered an overwhelming success, the battles pages had a different opinion about it.

Some problems appeared in the battles that have just finished. All issues will be fixed in the next 24 hours and the cause that created all the parties will be further investigated.

Thank you for your support,

The eRepublik team

New support system for citizens released in Beta

Published on 23 April 2009 - Day 520 of the New World

The ticketing system, that has been launched today, will improve the communication between our team and eRepublik citizens, in addition to being a tool which can help our team expand by recruiting moderators from different countries (more details about this coming soon). This was an important feature on our to-do list, and it will replace the old contact form, based on email reports.

How it works

Your messages, suggestions, or complaints will be registered inside a special module. Each message (ticket), representing a task, will be assigned to a member of our team. In a few months, each citizen will be able to see every ticket that he or she has ever submitted to us, the status of that ticket, and our team's response to that particular ticket (one of the reasons why this system is now in Beta). Until this feature is enabled, the resolution of each ticket will be sent to the person who reported it by e-mail. After the previously mentioned feature is available, citizens will have the option of disabling email notifications regarding submitted tickets.

How to submit a ticket

The ticketing system allows citizens to easily contact our team, using an intuitive two-step process. You can access the query for submitting a ticket from the contact page, or by using the report buttons placed on the profile pages of citizens and organizations, below newspaper articles, and on the pages displaying private messages.

The first step consists of selecting the appropriate subject for your ticket, and therefore the department that will assist you in solving the issue presented in the ticket. Selecting an inappropriate department will lead to a longer response time for your ticket, as our staff will have to forward it to the appropriate one. You may find a short list of guidelines regarding the community departments here: Contact_page#Game_support.

Common misconceptions consist of using the “Game Support” subject for messages that should be addressed to the “New Citizen Help Department”, “Appeal”, or “Bug Reports”. Also, please note that the “Press” subject is actually intended for matters concerning real life press. For issues concerning New World media, please use the “Report abusive content” subject.

The second step requires you to insert your name, email address, and the message that you wish to send us. Just as before, if you use the “Report abuse” buttons, a link to the reported page will be automatically inserted into your message. After submitting the ticket, a confirmation email is automatically sent to the indicated email address. Be careful when typing the email address, as that address will be used to give you further information regarding the submitted ticket.

Looking forward to your feedback,

The eRepublik Team

Updates for April

Published on 22 April 2009 - Day 519 of the New World

Dear citizens,

Our team has been working on several improvements during the last month, some of which are ready to be implemented tomorrow, day 520 of the New World. These include optimizations, bug fixes, and new features, including a ticketing system. You can find out more details about this new way of communication between our team and eRepublik citizens in an article tomorrow.

The homepage has been optimized, both in logged in and logged out state. The entire media module has also been optimized. This means that starting tomorrow, news pages should load faster. Some bugs affecting these modules were also fixed.

Further optimizations were also done to the war module. Besides this, two new rules regarding wars will be implemented. A while ago, it was highly requested by the community not to allow presidents to retreat their armies when they are defending the last region of their country. This means that, starting tomorrow, armies defending the last piece of a country's territory will have to fight until the last second.

The second improvement to the war module has already been announced a few weeks ago, as a response to a few open letters on the forum. Until now, allied countries could swap regions amongst themselves in order to prevent other countries from conquering them. It was requested by many citizens to implement rules or features that would reduce the usage of this tactic. This is exactly what will be achieved tomorrow - a defending country will be able to retreat only from the first battle opened in a region. This means that if two battles are opened in the same region, the defending country will only be able to retreat from the battle which started first. If there are three or more battles opened in the same region, the rule remains the same, and the defending country will not be able to retreat in front of the second or third attacker. If the first opened battle is a resistance war, then the defending country will not be able to retreat from that resistance war, nor from any of the battles which started at a later time.

Starting tomorrow, events concerning country administration, such as new laws, will be listed in the latest events section. This way citizens will be better informed of the decisions taken by the country's politicians. Also, citizens will be able to share the news they like with their friends using a “ShareThis” button available under each article. You can choose to share worthy articles using the most popular social networking sites on the web.

Party presidents will not be able to support presidential candidates from other parties, unless they have been proposed as candidates by their own party president. This will prevent members of the same party from competing against each other in presidential elections.

New citizens will find their way around eRepublik more easily due to the new tool-tips that will be implemented. Besides this, some of the potentially confusing copy in the interface will be replaced, and the “Human Resources” page will be renamed as the “Job market”. Also, a red, highly visible text will warn citizens when trying to create a raw materials company in a region with low productivity. This is a common mistake made by new citizens, and experienced citizens have complained about a large number of such useless companies being put on sale.

A major “under the hood” improvement consisted in rebuilding the module responsible for “feeding” your citizen. This means that this process will be done more efficiently, and it will be less likely for server errors to cause a negative impact.

A major bug affecting alliances was also fixed. In some circumstances, it was possible for the allies of a defender to incorrectly join a war as allies of the attacker. The consequences of this bug have been reversed on a few occasions by our team. Other major bug fixes addressed:

• The fatal error which appeared when trying to create an organization with a name that was already used
• The Hotmail address book for invitations is now working
• The bugs causing the subscription alert icon to stay permanently on or permanently off were fixed
• Donations to countries with names consisting of two words (ex: South Africa) are now working

A requested improvement that will be deployed is the ability for citizens to be able to see their eRepublik birthday. The exact date of birth will be displayed in the “Bio” tab under each citizen’s profile, and will also include the day of the New World when it occurred. We would also like to wish a happy eRepublik birthday to all citizens who celebrate one year in the New World.

Finally, following the recent events involving the usage of exploits in order to obtain Gold, we have increased the security of our systems. This issue will be covered in a future article after the entire investigation is over.

In order for all of these cool changes to take place, the site will need to be down for a couple of hours. This will occur on the 520th day of the New World at 5 AM.

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

Funny T-shirts survey

Published on 15 April 2009 - Day 512 of the New World

Dear citizens,

Last month it was suggested by czeckmaster that we should have t-shirts with funny messages in our shop. This idea generated a lot of feedback from our citizens, who have suggested dozens of funny messages for the eRepublik t-shirts. Many hilarious messages were received, and we had lots of fun reading them, but deciding which ones were the best proved to be very difficult. Most of our team members had their own favorite lines, and we ultimately had to organize a poll in our offices, asking our staff to vote for their favorite t-shirt messages.

The best 22 messages were picked, and you can vote for them in the survey we have prepared. Just click on this link, and check the box next to the messages you would like to wear on a t-shirt. You can pick as many messages as you want, or you may pick none as well. Even if you are not interested in an eRepublik t-shirt, you may want to read this survey just for fun.

The authors of the chosen t-shirt messages will receive credit for their suggestions, and we will also send them one of the first eRepublik t-shirts imprinted with that message.

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

A history contest

Published on 13 April 2009 - Day 510 of the New World

Dear citizens,

We would like to propose a contest to those of you who value their countries' history. What you have to do is to write a short article, no longer than 500 words, about the history of an eRepublik country. The best articles will be published on an external website that is being built right now. The published authors will get credit for their work, and a one month extra storage pack from our team.

We will give you plenty of freedom to add humor and some personal touches to your articles, while restricting yourselves to the 500 word limit. A decent dose of objectivity and impartiality is expected, but it's not required to approach this task with the strictness of a historian. Apart from this, the articles should be understood both by eRepublik citizens and people who are not familiar with the New World. And if you are really good with history, you may even submit articles about multiple countries.

We hope that you will enjoy digging into eRepublik history, and your articles will be expected at history@erepublik.com for the next seven days. More information about the winners, who will be chosen by our community and marketing departments, will be published in a future Insider article.

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

eRepubliks of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

Published on 8 April 2009 - Day 505 of the New World

Dear citizens,

Starting today, any citizen is free to move to any of the three Baltic countries. From North to South, these countries are: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Estonia and Latvia are situated to the west of the Moscow Region, currently occupied by Finland, which is their only neighbor. Lithuania is bordered to the south by the Russian region Kaliningrad, and by Mazovia, a Polish region.

The three countries will hold fertile lands, suitable for grain companies, and some forests. Existing citizens who move to these lands will not receive a new citizen fee because they have already received one when they joined eRepublik. Only the new citizens of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania will receive 50 monetary units to be used in one of these countries. The official currencies of the Baltic countries are: the Estonian Kroon (EEK), the Latvian Lats (LVL) and the Lithuanian Litas (LTL).

The treasuries of each of the Baltic countries have received 1000 GOLD and 100 000 units of official currency. The first president of each country will also receive access to an organization that holds 50 000 monetary units. No war can be declared on any of the Baltic countries until day 550 of the New World, and the Baltic countries will also be unable to start a war until the previously mentioned date.

We would like to welcome all Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians to the New World!

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

Presidential elections coverage – April 2009

Published on 6 April 2009 - Day 503 of the New World

Dear citizens,

The 17th presidential elections in the New World have just ended a few hours ago. This month's elections were held during the weekend, like in most real-life countries. Around 20 000 citizens visited the polls yesterday, electing the following presidents:

• Argentina – dajuliani
• Australia – patti11
• Austria – Metallon
• Bosnia and Herzegovina – interwal
• Brazil – Antonio Salgado
• Bulgaria – bimba
• Canada – Bruck
• Chile – Purohueso
• China – Mimihitam
• Croatia – Roby Petric
• Czech Republic – radim*
• Denmark – HrBjorn
• Finland – Simppa
• France – droopy32*
• Germany – Starkad Rorlikson
• Greece – Makoulian
• Hungary – Feherlofia Koppany
• India – BroodRoosterNL
• Indonesia – Don Agung
• Iran – milad_dante
• Ireland – Top Gun
• Israel – Sadeh Badeh*
• Italy – Catone
• Japan – Akki*
• Malaysia – Sudirman
• Mexico – Dishmcds
• Netherlands – dionysus
• Norway – Marginaldefeat
• Pakistan – AgentChieftain
• Philippines – Big Boy Bulley
• Poland – miudyk*
• Portugal – Arthk
• Republic of Moldova – Pan Halippa
• Romania – dani36
• Russia – borges16
• Serbia – Lipec
• Singapore – Arbryn*
• Slovakia – whiteenergy
• Slovenia – Karantanec
• South Africa – Jizzie McGuire*
• South Korea – PowerSweden
• Spain – Fredy
• Sweden – Algaroth*
• Switzerland – Dio Brando*
• Thailand – Bl1ndn3ss*
• Turkey – ImHoTeP1907
• Ukraine – Imre Norbert*
• United Kingdom – malta_1990
• USA – scrabman
• Venezuela – Lesmir Ledezma

Twelve of the fifty presidents elected yesterday have received a vote of confidence from their electorate, being chosen for a consecutive mandate (presidents marked with “*”). Citizens from the United States have also confirmed scrabman as President, who was put in charge of the highest office after the impeachment of former President Uncle Sam. Croatia's first president Roby Petric was elected again, after comfortably winning the third presidential election in the country's history. This is Roby Petric's fourth presidential mandate, as he was also elected twice as President of the United States.

Yesterday's most voted candidate was the new Hungarian President Feherlofia Koppany, who is also the youngest president elected this month. He received 1368 votes, followed by the Romanian President dani36 and scrabman. The highest number of votes was recorded in Romania, where 2770 citizens made use of their right to vote.

There were tight presidential races in Pakistan and Argentina, with the winners being elected with a difference of one, respectively two votes. The presidents of Finland, South Africa, Spain, and Mexico were also narrow winners, receiving only five votes more than their contenders. Dishmcds will face a new challenge as the president of Mexico, after previously leading the United States and the United Kingdom.

We would like to congratulate all the newly elected Presidents and wish them good luck in the following month.

Regards,

The eRepublik Team

Alliances – Chain Reactions

Published on 4 April 2009 - Day 501 of the New World

Dear citizens,

We have seen a great conflict spreading in a matter of days throughout the land of the New Europe. In the beginning, only Serbia and Croatia seemed to be on red alert, preparing for the coming battles.

But, once the first marching order toward the enemy region was given, the allies remembered their signed treaties, and call to arms orders were shouted everywhere.

“One for all and all for one” was the motto that drove allies to the same battlefield. However, in some countries, the danger was more intense, as the enemy had military outposts right on their borders.

Soon, Romania was hurled in direct war against Serbia, while Hungary was directly fighting Croatia. This was only the start of a chain reaction that soon created another new war, Hungary vs. Germany.

Everybody realized that this was the mass effect of alliances, and Hungarians, already having most of their borders in conflict, were expecting the next step of this chain reaction – a new war on the border with Poland.

When this didn't happened, citizens started to ask themselves if the domino effect had come to a halt, thinking that maybe alliances were only causing such a war frenzy until it reached a certain point. But, as like the chain reaction only needed some time to think things over, shouts started to be heard from the Polish borders, announcing full war.

It was clear that science books needed to be revised, and researchers were asked to make public the gathered information.

And so it was, the data was revised and presented in the New Word's Encyclopedia – eRepublik Wiki: Alliance chapter.

500 days of eRepublik

Published on 3 April 2009 - Day 500 of the New World

500 days - this is a lot of time. Few of the early citizens of the New World thought that they would live to see the 500th day of eRepublik. However, some did, and are actually doing well. One of the citizens who saw the dawn of the New World on the 20th of November 2007 is titillica, who is the second-best soldier in eRepublik, despite his age.

The first citizens of eRepublik were 200 adventurers, who were given a little gold in order to build the New World. Economies were so weak that the first president of the United States, Korbin King, tried to reduce unemployment by giving loans to citizens who wanted to create companies. Now, there are around 12 000 companies in the New World, creating twelve different types of products.

Five months ago, 50 000 citizens witnessed the first birthday of eRepublik, now the population of the New World has doubled! Back then, on day 366, there were exactly 366 parties in the New World. An interesting coincidence, but guess how many parties are there now? 500!

Much has changed in these 500 days. We have seen countries rise and fall, like the once almighty “Holy Empire of Pakistan”, which is now one step away from being erased from the map. Its former leader, Dio Brando, once worshipped like a god, now lives in the Swiss Alps, leading the small group of citizens that inhabit Switzerland.

We have also seen some great leaders emerge, and others pass away, perhaps for eternity. The influential American leader with a stylish hat, Platonic, declared a long time ago that he might be back to see what V1 would look like, but he was never seen again. He said just before dying for the second time in his virtual life: “the New World is probably one of the few places where you have the chance to come back at any time and change history”.

Best Regards,

The eRepublik Team

PS: We wanted to make this a proper celebration, so all the citizens had cake today instead of regular bread. You may have also noticed that the eRepublik logo is slightly changed, there is a new banner on the right side of the screen, and we've also forced Plato to wear a party hat. There are also some surprises waiting for you in the Forum: you can test your knowledge of the eRepublik history in the quick contests that are held every half an hour, and share the best experiences you've had in eRepublik on the Anniversary Wall. And finally, we have a new short survey for you.

The eRepublik Onion, the 7 best kept secrets

Published on 1 April 2009 - Day 498 of the New World

Dear Citizens,

Today we just wanted to share some important top-secret information that we are not supposed to share.

• eRepublik founders considering going full 3D and developing a new subscription only V2 with a 10 Gig download.
• Admin decides to relocate to Antarctica for better efficiency and some penguin love.
• Alexis Bonte rumored to be lost in the Sahara desert looking for giant worms and spice after being asked what his long-term vision for eRepublik is.
• George Lemnaru turns down offer from Manchester United B team to teach them how to fake injuries, says he needs to focus on his product development.
• Plato says that after giving advice to over 100.000 citizens every day he is starting to feel overworked and demands more help from the admin.
• An eRepublik aquatic world is launching very soon says Cristi Badea, sea shells will replace Gold and headless chickens to lose their jobs to Nemo.
• RL Dictators plan a D10 summit to denounce the effects of eRepublik on their citizens, Kim Jong Il will play one of his movies at the summit.

Best regards,

The eRepublik Team

PS: This article is our April Fools' Day joke. We hope that you enjoyed it, and although it is said that there is a seed of truth in any joke, this article is missing even that seed.