My vision as a new member here.

Brandnew to the game, I have no history here, no RL friends or personal friends from elsewhere on the net.

I had a lot to read, a lot of history, a lot of things going on even right now. With this topic, I want to give my point of view on the game, and its relation to what's happening here. However I do not pretend to know the fine mechanics of the game, so sometimes some things I say might not be completely correct, but hopefully some/all members here can reflect back to those days when they were new here and take a step back and see what they're saying/doing right now and how that has changed during the time they spent here.

First of all, it's a game. More, the whole game is based on personal gain. All the game mechanics are geared towards that. You might even say, it's just a what complexer form of Risk, with the added Country administration. But the country administration has little power as such, and even here it's more for personal gain. So we have players who are playing this game for personal gain, as it supposed to be played. This competition to be best will entice people to pay for premium, and that after all is the very reason of existence for eRepublik. The social aspect is very secundary, there's little realtime interaction, outside of IRC. What we now see, that there is a large base of people, who take this social aspect to the next level, even though the game itself has no very stringent rules to enforce this. It's done on a voluntary basis.

So what we have is 2 kinds of players : the gamers ( who are here for perosnal gain ) and the RPGers ( who are more for the social aspect of the game ). Of course, no-one is 100% one type of player, everyone has a certain degree of of both in him/her.

With this in my mind I want to give you all my thoughts on certain debates which are going on within eBel.

Congressmedal donation. A very hot topic. The objection to that what I hear, eBel has a load of gold, I worked for it,... . Sorry to say, worked for it? Congressmembers should realise that you were voted into that, by way of nice talking, a lot of 'friends' and so on.The pro's, they work on the social aspect of this, but again, it's voluntary. Gamemechanics reward the person not the country.
Funny thing is if I compare this situation with RL Belgium, it's exactly teh same, on a social view that is. What we have here is a bunch of congressmembers being 'paid' with the medal/gold and not paying taxes

The Army, completely voluntary, again for the more social player this gives a little more depth to the game, for the more competitive player a complete waste, because he can always fight just like them. Gamemechanics give no advantages to a player ( for example, an extra training facility for strength )


And I think a lot of things can be reduced to the simple fact that this game is based on competition. For larger communities it'll be nicer, the hardcore gamers do their thing, the social players(or sly hardcore gamers) can get a lot more energy out of all the secundary aspects of the game.

We are a very small community, with few active members. What to do with these opposing forces? I have no idea. I am a gameplayer, but the social aspect is for me very important, it's part of the game for me.
I'm no politician, no economist, no writer. I look at the efficiency of the game, I know what I need to be selfsufficient, in production of food and weapons, with a little to spare, and I know it'll take some time to reach that.

For those who read this complete topic, thx for hanging in there, I probably ommitted a lot of what I was planning on writing. But that's me, for those who know what a MBTI test is, and my personality is INTP, then you'd know why my writingstyle jumps all over the place.

And now back to business. Have a good evening all.

nice to see the opinion of one of the newer members in our community ^^

Thanks for sharing your mind with us. Always interesting to have a more "external" view on our debates here. I suppose you don't always like the way the discussions are going on here but unfortunately this is the way it go since a couple of months.

And as for the MBTI question, I'm a INTP as well (if I remember it well because it was a long time ago a did that test)

That wasn't bad.

You told me you'd jump all over the place! But it was a good read hehehe. It's nice to have an opinion from someone different for a change.

> personality tests

HAHAHA

Welcome, though~

Director9, you made me think that I could be a 'sly hardcore gamer' but I want Belgium to win, not me. To say it differently: my victory goal is parallel to that of Belgium, and seeing Belgium strong and proud makes me feel also strong and proud. A whole 'previous generation' was raised on this very realistic idea. But now I don't know for sure whether players who also think like this will again form the next government.
Thanks for your insightful contribution.

we did have political testing a while back

https://ebelgium.forumotion.net/t3493-political-test

L'indépendance au vu de ce que j'ai connue en février/mars 2010
février : président olv007, mars 2010 elynea, avril 2010 Ragoth.

Dans ce jeu, j'ai rencontré beaucoup de personnes intéressantes.
Mon anglais n'est pas terrible, soyons francs, mais je m'améliore.
Je voudrais parler un peu de l'eBelgium telle que je l'ai connue.

1) article en efrance d'un néerlandais qui parle d'une reconstitution de la Belgique dans le jeu. Je me rappelle lui avoir dit, tu sais si la Belgique revient sur le jeu, ce sera difficile de la maintenir en vie, elle va être assaillie par un camp ou l'autre. A l'époque il y avait Peace et Eden.

page sur les élections à ce moment là

Le jour où après une bataille orchestrée par Eden, l'eBelgium renaît de ses cendres, il y avait le changement d'heure. Arrivée à 7h58 (pour une fois que je suis à l'heure), j'ai pu avoir ma nationalité directement. Beaucoup de vrais belges n'ont pas eu cette chance, arrivant à 8h00+, leur nationalité était acceptée par le congrès.

Beaucoup on crut que l'eBelgium serait une petite marionnette entre les mains de deux alliances, l'une accusant l'autre d'avoir infiltré beaucoup de leurs citoyens en vue de contrer l'autre. Malgré de nombreuses batailles d'élections, TheGroup pris le pouvoir, heureusement pas total du congrès.

Un journal écrit à cette époque

Le président était un membre de cette unité. Ils n'étaient pas difficile à reconnaitre, ils portaient tous le même avatar. Ils transféraient les fonds économiques sur un compte à eux.

C'est à ce moment là que j'ai connu Rod Damon, kylero, manong, jofroi, Olv007, apotygma ... et bien d'autres... C'est là, que tous ensembles, nous avons créé le BFB je dirais plus par l'initiative de Manong, Olv007, jofroi...

On pensait que vu la compétition entre les alliances, notre pays serait bien malgré lui, entraîné vers Eden. Certains au bout d'un temps, membres de l'unité TheGroup sont partis du pays, ce sont des militaires avant tout, et à l'époque, lorsqu'on quittait le territoire, il fallait abandonner tout statut politique que l'on soit au congrès ou président...

Cela se passe en Novembre 2009. Ce n'est qu'en Janvier 2010, l'eBelgium revient sur la scène mais cette fois avec des candidats belges, Olv007 gagne les élections. Peu à peu, chacun regagnent leur pays d'origine, nous perdons beaucoup de citoyens. Certains d'origine américaine restent et continuent malgré leur appartenance à une alliance dans le passé à rester dans une neutralité. Je me rappelle de Stilpo et ses quotes...

Du temps à passé et maintenant, je suis contente que la Belgique soit ce qu'elle est, certes, nous ne sommes pas un pays très puissant, mais nous travaillons à sa progression... Vous savez parfois cela relève d'un miracle de vivre ou survivre lorsqu'on est un petit pays dans l'eWorld.

Bonne continuation à ce pays, et qu'on puisse découvrir que les eBelgians sont plus doués en politique sur le jeu que dans la vie IRL.


Nous connaissons tous la politique mais comment la voyons nous sur ce jeu?

En eBelgium, je ne vois pas beaucoup de soucis, il est vrai que par rapport à certains pays, la politique fonctionne assez bien, malgré des oppositions, nous allons tous dans le même sens. Les progrès du pays.


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C'est un peu d'histoire après la séparation forçée de membres d'Eden, et qui je dois l'avouer m'a surprise au vu du chemin que ce pays à parcouru, jusqu'à maintenant. Il me manque une année complète où j'avais arrêté le jeu, peut-être que d'autres peuvent prendre la parole afin d'expliquer ce qui s'est passé par après.

Si quelqu'un pouvait traduire en anglais cette première partie, je lui en serais reconnaissante. Merci

thanks to jery for the translation.
The Independance that I have know in February/March 2010.
President in Feburary : Olv007, March 2010 : Elynea, April 2010 : Ragoth.

In this game, I met a lot of interesting people.
My english is not very goog, let’s be honest, but I’m getting better.
I would like to talk a little bit about how eBelgium was when I first got here.

1) A newspaper in efrance from a dutch talking about the eBelgium rebuilding. I remember telling him "you know, if eBelgium comes back on the game, it will be difficult to maintain it alive, it will be attacked by a side or another". By that time, there were Peace and Eden.

A newspaper about election by that time

The day when eBelgium revived, after an attack made by Eden, we had a time switch. Arrived at 7.58 (for once I was on time), I could have seen my nationality directly. A lot of real belgians didn’t get that chance, arriving after 8.00, their nationality was accepted by the Congress.

Many tought that eBelgium would be a puppet in the hands of two alliances, each one accusing the other to have infiltrated a lot of their own citizens to counter the other alliance. In spite of many elections’ battles, TheGroup took the control of the Congress, but fortunately not completely.

A newspaper written at this period

The President was a member of that unit. They weren’t hard to recognize, as they wore the same avatar. They were transfering monetary funds to their own accounts.

It’s during that period of time that I met Rod Damon, kylero, manong, jofroi, Olv007, apotygma ... and many others... It’s then that, all togheter, we created the BfB, I would say that the initiative comes essentially from Manong, Olv007, jofroi...

We tought that in the middle of big alliances’ competition, our country would slip towards Eden. After a while, some members of TheGroup left the country, they were military units before everything else, and by then, when you were leaving the territory, you had to let down any political status, Congress or Presidency…

That was in November 2009. It’s only in January 2010 that eBelgium comes back with belgian candidates, Olv007 wins the elections. Gradually, people went back to their original countries and we were losing a lot of citizens. Some, with american origins, stayed here and remained neutral despite their belonging to an alliance in the past. I remember of Stilpo and his quotes…

Time passed and now I am happy that Belgium is what it has become. Sure, we’re not a very powerful country, but we’re working to make progresses… You know, sometimes it is a miracle to live or just survive when you are a small country in the eWorld.

I hope this country will go on, and that we can discover that eBelgians are politicaly more talented in the game than what it is in real life.

We all know what politics is, but how do we look at it on this game ?

In eBelgium, I don’t see many problems, and it’s true that compared to other countries, politics works pretty well, and despite oppositions, we all work in the same direction. The country’s progresses.


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This is a little bit of History after the forced separation with the member from Eden. And I have to confess that I’m surprised of the way that this country has done until nowadays. I lack a full year while I stopped the game, maybe other can talk to tell what happened next.

Souvenirs, souvenirs...

It would be an excellent idea to get a newbies perspective every time one joins and becomes part of the community, just to make sure we don't miss anything important out when they join that could frustrate them and make them leave.

Well, as already said, nice to see an independant opinion.

I'm myself a hardcore gamer but I do it on both gaming and social aspects of the game^^.

If I remember well I'm an INTJ, but not 100% sure, procuste will know it better than I do ^^.

If you have any question about economics, feel free to ask .

PS: The Group was a private romanian fighting group ^^. They just left because there was nothing more that could be gained :p.

Jofroi wrote:
If I remember well I'm an INTJ, but not 100% sure, procuste will know it better than I do ^^.

That's correct.

Nice done director9 it is always good to see new views and that can never be wrong. You can agree with it but it can't be wrong.

I'm a social democratic Cosmopolitan

i'm in this game for the challenge, to create something and for the community of course.

But it's always a pleasure to see a post from a new gamer.