Overall Gamescom (trade day August 19th) was very interesting, the traditional industry was out in force with giant stands in spite or maybe because of a drop in sales of about 33% YoY in June / July.Online players were a lot more discrete, only present in the trade area. Interesting when you think that this where most of the growth will be coming from over the next 5 years. The only MMOG players that were out in force with a large stand were WoW and Dofus (ok and Wharhammer was kind of there to within the giant EA stand and the conference org seems to like Twitter).Most of the big releases that were announced were for traditional offline games with a lot of interest for Avatar and the new Starcraft. Dofus 2.0 was the only major MMOG announcement. In terms of the offline games that I felt were interesting was Ruse from Ubisoft, a wargame that looked really cool. I also had a series of very interesting meetings but I can’t talk about them yet. :o)
Just before GamesCom there was a GDC conference and from an online perspective I think the following were probably the most interesting talks as reproduced by Gamasutra: Playdom VP panel on social gaming Gameforge CEO, Klaas Kersting Keynote (great guy by the way, a real industry leader)
About a month ago, eRepublik promised that the New World would receive its deserved and much needed professional map. A map to mirror rapid changes that occur in the New World. A map to show you how big an empire is, or what enemies surround the region you live in. A map to show you the richest regions of eRepublik, as well as the most populated ones. A map to develop military strategies as well as a map for managers searching productive regions. The New World is so dynamic and evolves so quickly, that the ability to track details at such levels is key.
The new map is live showing you the eRepublik world like you have never seen it before. You can not only zoom in to see countries and their regions, but it gets much more granular - you can view the population, resources, and even constructions (such as a hospital or defense system) in a particular region. You can filter by country, and then even filter further by viewing a country’s active MPP`s (mutual protection pacts) and trade embargoes. The handy map can also be filtered easily by type of map - politically (to see the normal map by countries/regions), by population, by active battles, by resources, and by constructions. You can even filter by date - you might be interested in seeing how the world looked a week ago, or a month ago, etc. Nothing simpler, just select the desired date, and you’ll see the world configuration as it was back then.
Considering the complexity and ever changing landscape of the New World, a map of this caliber is going to be a huge asset to the New World. It’s certainly fascinating seeing the eRepublik world take shape - check out the map below - I currently live in Texas, Indonesia!
Several weeks ago, we made available a citizen-narrated French version of the tutorial. We thought this was a great idea - considering that Plato himself has currently only been available to narrate the Spanish and English versions of the tutorial (available on www.erepublik.com), we thought it would be great to make it available in more languages with the help of citizens. So we asked our ambassadors if they could help translate and record more tutorials in their native languages. Below are some of the first that we’ve developed, which include Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian. We hope these citizen-narrated tutorials will help more eNations have an equal opportunity to grow in the New World. Thank you to the ambassadors for your help with translating and recording!
And below is a Latvian version that we came across.
Recently, a veteran member of eRepublik, Big Brother, decided to “sit down” and chat with eRepublik’s Co-Founder George Lemnaru. Given Big Brother’s history in the New World, his objective for this was not only to ask George many of the questions that the community has been eager to get answers to, but also to make his already informative site just that much more interesting.
His questions ranged from personal to probing - from George’s typical day and favorite eRepublik memories, to new features and where George sees the game a year from now. Big Brother asked some pretty intense questions, and George answered.
When asked about his most memorable eRepublik experiences, one of the moments he shared was regarding the tension between Romania and Hungry both in-game and in real life, saying that, “…in the middle of the RO vs. HU war, the real life president of Hungary met with the real life president of Romania.” This was particularly impressive because it showed that people “do consider eRepublik -and especially the war module- as just a game and that in real life we are friends.” As far as his favorite in-game experience goes, George shared that he actually can’t play eRepublik, but can only work and vote, something that causes him “frustation.”
A summary really doesn’t do it justice, so be sure to read the full interview here.
Big Brother hopes to do more team interviews in the future.
Every once in a while the New World is shaken by a global, worldwide war. Every war is important, but very few are able to change destinies and the shape of the world.
One of the major alliances in eRepublik, PEACE, decided to start a massive offensive yesterday to hunt down former members of Atlantis (a dying alliance which is falling apart). For now, Canada has been attacked, but rumors around the world speak of the wiping-out of the USA and Spain as an ultimate goal. Atlantis may be ripping apart into several smaller alliances, but the old friendships remain the same. In the battle for Nova Scotia we have the attackers France, Italy, Portugal, Indonesia, Iran, Hungary, Argentina and Turkey. Defending the lands of Canada there are Sweden, Norway, Spain, USA, Malaysia, Romania, Germany, United Kingdom and Poland. As you can see, countries from all continents are involved - this is a true world war.
The battle for Nova Scotia started with PEACE countries hitting hard, so that after just a few hours the defending troops found themselves pushed way back. Given the impressive march of the attackers against nine countries, it looked like everything was lost for the defenders, but no! Slowly but surely the defending countries recovered lost ground and after a heroic conquer of “No Man’s Land” they swept away PEACE armies. But the balance soon started oscillating back and forth, with nine hours to go it was clear that this battle would be decided in the last minute. You’ll want to have your eyes on eRepublik starting at 10.00 (eRepublik time), day 602, to see the final efforts put in this epic battle!
This battle might be the beginning of a long war which, once again, will reshape the New World.
Two weeks ago, Paris hosted a French eRepublik “Elder’s Council” in the Klein Holland bar, very close to Île de la Cité. A total of 17 citizens participated - the majority of which included vetran players (five were ex-presidents and many others were important historical figures). However, the meeting was also directed to the newer generation. Citizens born during the “bébé” boom at the end of April were adopted by the versed veterans. The older players took pleasure in answering the questions of the next generation, who have already started holding great responsibilities in France. Many of them are congressmen or even party presidents.
The group had a discussion agenda that included plans on how to deal with citizenship, Spaniards and inappropriate comments, and on who should become the next French president (with Mavie75 and Papa Frantz being among the favorites). The most heated debate was around the French Constitution, its newest applications and controversial articles, with the already famous 40th article on top of the list. Also a preferred topic of discussion was that of the latest military actions of the French as they managed to border Hungary while bringing peace to Germany.
The citizens fantasized about becoming admins and showed their good knowledge of eRepublik laws (as seen in the pictures here), including an 11th which they added themselves: eFrance is the best country in the New World!
ph03n1x, Clow, Fleur de Lotus, num, Mavie75, Melkion, Guibrit, Leon Blum (though he stayed in a Chinese restaurant), meza, Azaret, Ginman, bolanwasright, aguellid, xa2008, Papa Frantz, Jebbidle (the citizen in charge of the French Conscription) and Hober all agreed they should see each other again in early August, but with Mavie75 as master of ceremonies!
A lot of water has passed under the proverbial bridge since January. You remember Jan. don’t you - those dreaded days of complete and absolute downtime? An eery silence covered the New World that time. Under an invisible force, the New World surrendered to a deep deep freeze.
I know, because even though eRepublik was inaccessible to the rest of the world I could still login from our internal network. I diligently did so each morning. I went to work, trained, read the same newspaper every day, scrummaged for food in the once bustling marketplace and in the late evening looked on as the sun set over the New World.
The same deafening silence echoed throughout the entire network. There was still ringing in my years from the day before. You could hear processors thundering furiously, disks spinning like tornados and an entire Universe of photons and electrons being shoved through optic and ethernet pipes. Indeed, a symphony of creation - an orchestra that tirelessly played on, with no intermission, no encore and now … with no spectators.
If that sounds dramatic to you it very well should because, for us, the architects of the New World, there’s no other way to better summarize it’s beauty using mere words. The eAlpha and eOmega - we set the rules and establish what’s wrong and right, where down and up are, where the Sun rises and sets.
But why has everything gone quiet? Where is everybody? Why couldn’t the symphony play on?
The very next day everybody dug into their figurative trenches and prepared for the long battle ahead. Blasting away at their keyboards around the clock, feverishly fighting an enemy force they could not see or comprehend: the embodiment, as it were, of their own success.
Volumes of computer code to sift through in one sitting - they make their stand, facing their own creation. Many bottles of cola fell that day and hot coffee stained the land while the fight raged on through the night. Close to a million lines of code and comments not counting frameworks. What took thousands of man hours to put together now had to be unraveled and reassembled in less than a day.
I can’t even begin to overstate the sheer grunt and effort, blood, sweat and tears that went into this massive undertaking: hour after passing hour galloping ahead of deadlines until the wee hours of the morning.
That night, the foundations for what has grown into today’s New World were laid down. And that night, the New World came back to life but at a cost. For you see, what seems like a faceless collective of “we” everybody lovingly refers to as “Admin” is comprised of individuals like you and me, with their good and their bad, real characters.
Friendships were tested that night: some of them survived and bonds strengthened but some didn’t make it. It’s important to bring that up. It’s technology with a human touch. It’s technology with a soul and passion. It’s the difference between the inanimate and the divine breath that brings it to life.
Bill McKenna, famous motorcycle racer, once said: “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out and proclaiming, WOW, WHAT A RIDE!”
Fast forwards six months later: bruised, battered, mistakes made, lessons learned and far more to experience still, the New World is blossoming and the Sun has yet to set again.
We will be making many new updates and additions to the eRepublik site this week, but there is one that we are particularly excited about - the new eRepublik video tutorial. The aim of this new tutorial is to make new citizens’ first steps in the New World just that much easier. Given that Plato has been each new citizen’s primary mentor, he is actually the one walking people through their new experiences - thus Plato comes to life in the video.
We are so enthused about the new addition of this tutorial, that we wanted to give you all a sneak peak at it (both English and Spanish versions below). Take a look…..and remember, the future is in your hands!
This week marks a pretty important one for many Spanish-speaking citizens of eRepublik. The first exciting news is the addition of the Spanish language version of the site. The new language makes the site available for the many already existing Spanish-speaking citizens in the New World (who largely reside in one of the current 10 official Spanish-speaking eRepublik nations), in addition to those that have yet to join.
Dishmcds, a very active and prominent eRepublik citizen, who has Mexican heritage and speaks Spanish fluently but lives in the US, says, “Adding the Spanish user interface will allow the Hispanic community to really gain on countries like the United Kingdom, United States….Overall, it will make it much more exciting because there will be other challenges to face. Over time, with more increases in language, the eWorld will become as diverse as the real world, which is where the real fun lies.”
To add to this exciting news, we have also just added five new Spanish-speaking countries to eRepublik - Bolivia, Columbia, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. Mauricio López, a Colombian in real life, says “it’s a dream come true….with the arrival of five new Spanish-speaking countries to join Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile, in addition to the Spanish version of the game, there is no doubt that the Spanish-speaking community has a great potential to grow and be a great power in eWorld.”
We are eager to see eRepublik take new shape with these most recent additions and look forward to launching more languages and countries in the future!
We’ll be updating the eRepublik site in the coming weeks with various items (including the Spanish version of the site, in addition to five new Spanish-speaking countries). One new item that we are really excited about is the addition of an official eRepublik tutorial that will help new citizens get acquainted with the New World. The truth is, though, that eRepublik has never been short of really well done tutorials done by the community, and for that reason we want to make sure to highlight such well done videos in addition to our own.
One of the first tutorials that we will be posting on our new tutorial page is the video below. We especially like this one as it really provides some great insight on going to war in eRepublik. If you recommend other tutorials, please send them our way for consideration!
Overall Gamescom (trade day August 19th) was very interesting, the traditional industry was out in force with giant stands in spite or maybe because of a drop in sales of about 33% YoY in June / July.Online players were a lot more discrete, only present in the trade area. Interesting when you think that this where most of the growth will be coming from over the next 5 years. The only MMOG players that were out in force with a large stand were WoW and Dofus (ok and Wharhammer was kind of there to within the giant EA stand and the conference org seems to like Twitter).Most of the big releases that were announced were for traditional offline games with a lot of interest for Avatar and the new Starcraft. Dofus 2.0 was the only major MMOG announcement. In terms of the offline games that I felt were interesting was Ruse from Ubisoft, a wargame that looked really cool. I also had a series of very interesting meetings but I can’t talk about them yet. :o)
ge many of the questions that the community has been eager to get answers to, but also to make his already informative 
