eRepublik is now officially available in four more new languages (French, German, Russian and Portuguese) thus making its interface and the game experience itself more enjoyable for thousands of our citizens. More languages will be added in the coming weeks.
This week we took another important step forward towards putting our citizens in the center of the game-play, by improving their chances for interaction with the alpha release of our in-game chat tool. Check it out, create your own chat room, favourite those where you had the most interesting discussions or ideas, visit the Beginners chat room to learn the basics of the game through other players an share your experience during your first days as an eRepublik citizen. Check out the National chat room for your country where you are likely to discuss the hottest political issues affecting your nation.
Our co-founder and CEO, Alexis Bonte, was invited this week to take part in Madrid at the International Forum on Digital Content (FICOD 09). FICOD has become a benchmark meeting point for professionals involved in television, cinema, music, interactive digital entertainment, animation, education, audio-visual production, digital publications, user generated content (UGC), social networks, blogs, interactive advertising, etc.
Alexis took part in one of the official program roundtables “The Games We Get Caught Up In: Online Interactive Digital Entertainment and Digital Content Distribution” (Check the video here) along with other relevant figures of the sector such as Nils Henning, CCO and Owner of Bigpoint GmbH, or Thomas Lee, Senior Director of Business at Gamepot. Alexis had a chance to discuss the important changes that are being experienced by the videogames industry.
Alexis Bonte also had a chance to have an informal discussion with videogame players and experts in the ARSGAMES “User Generated Critics” roundtable, insisting on how online games were moving the power balance in the industry from the companies to the users.
eRepublik celebrated as well its own gathering/workshop, with the presence of some relevant citizens from eSpain. (See photos) where the official launch of the chat was announced as well as previews of national goals and the upcoming improved economical module as we well the new more visual PvP military module. More detailed pictures on this to come in a future insider and blog post. (Plus probably in some fan sites as quite a few citizens had undercover cameras 
About a month and a half ago, we launched Citizen Ads within eRepublik. Many games opt to run external advertising within their games, which can often be irrelevant to users and/or just plain distracting. Rather than take away from the game experience, we realized that our users themselves have plenty that they want to share with other users. Why not let them advertise their efforts to each other? After all, this is something citizens were already doing via newspaper articles and in-game messages. Adding internal Citizen Ads would not only make the game more rich and interesting, but would allow users to more easily advertise their businesses, political campaigns and many other efforts. It in fact makes the eRepublik world more similar to the real world by allowing people to differentiate themselves by advertising their unique efforts to each other.
We never could have imagined the creativity that would have come from the citizens. The ads are relevant, entertaining and really invite you to be more involved in the game. There are some seriously great advertisers out there. I started saving some of the ads a few weeks ago when I began to come across some really creative ads that made me do the following: laugh, my jaw drop, just stop and think, and most of all CLICK.
You can see that there are a few very entertaining and creative ads above. The very last ad was actually posted due to the recent World War that virtually wiped the US off the map, leaving many citizens trapped behind enemy borders. Usually, in order to get trapped US citizens back on to the remaining US soil, it would have involved lots of news articles and private messages, but now, trail blazing citizens posted ads to encourage trapped citizens to return to their homeland. It’s because of these ads that I myself moved from Texas, Indonesia to Florida, USA….good to be home!
Creating a Citizen Ad is incredibly easy, it just takes three simple steps which involve you creating your ad by making it look and say what you want, targeting your ad by choosing your audience, and lastly, budgeting your ad by deciding how much Gold you want to spend and on how many impressions. Then citizens can further manage their campaigns via the “Advertising Department” section. Starting an ad is easy and costs nothing to users other than eRepublik’s in-game currency, Gold.
We are tremendously excited to not only see the Citizen Ads being successfully used by citizens of the New World, but even more excited that it has made the game more interesting and complex.
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!
Another new addition has made an appearance in eRepublik - the personal invitation link. Located on the “Invite friends” page, you can obtain a unique code which is used by the system to identify people invited by you. This means more friends in the New World, and the ability to be rewarded with more Gold too. Friends can still be invited as in the past, but now with the personal link, all you need to do is copy-paste your link and share it in any way you consider appropriate: by email, by posting it on your blog, by sending an IM, etc. It can be used as a signature on the forums you visit, as well as your messenger status. From this point on, everything is as it was before - once your friend follows the link, registers and reaches level 6, you will be awarded 5 Gold. So far people say they are posting it “everywhere”…..where will you post it?
The process of translating eRepublik into Spanish is nearly complete. The release of the Spanish version will take place on June 3rd, and it will only be the first step in providing eRepublik in multiple languages.
As any first step, this was the hardest one to make. Lots of technical modifications were done in order to create a “backbone” that will support all the future translations of eRepublik. We are very enthusiastic about reaching the end of this process.
Our translation team was helped by several Spanish citizens, so we would like to send special thanks to Allyena, Zhuge Liang, and Sabi2 for their support in translating eRepublik. This was no easy task, as there are thousands of unique text lines in eRepublik. Only reading them could take hours!
The next set of languages that will become available in eRepublik has not yet been established, but could contain French, Portuguese, German, and Russian. What is certain is that the Spanish version will bring more of the 330 million people who are native Spanish speakers into the New World. This will especially aid in boosting the population of South America, as on June 10th, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay will join eRepublik.
Just like in the real world, being a citizen in a country is a crucial rite of passage in eRepublik. But what currently differs in the New World, is that you don’t necessarily take your citizenship with you – you can move freely from country to country with little effect on your ability to settle in as a native. Now as much as I wouldn’t mind having this privilege in the real world (being a US citizen residing in Spain), I must admit I would miss my sense of privilege and patriotism. Plus, citizenship is something you earn, not something that is handed out like candy.
I recently moved to Italy in eRepublik and am enjoying my new life there, but should there be other implications to my big move? Perhaps I should have to wait a certain amount of time before I am able to vote as a citizen, or maybe I should be able to take my nationality with me. We have put these questions out to the community in the latest Insider article in hopes of coming to some conclusions on what citizenship should really look like, as it is far more complicated than meets the eye. To read the latest Insider and/or provide your own ideas, please click here.
We just wanted to share some exciting news –our new affiliate program is officially up and running! This new program basically allows those that are interested in promoting eRepublik on their sites, to be rewarded!
So, what does this entail? All it requires is that you apply to our program – if approved, you can then begin posting eRepublik’s banners on your site, and for each successful conversion, you will be compensated one USD dollar. To learn more about the details of the program, be sure to read the Terms and Conditions found on the application page. You can also reach the affiliate program page from the footer on the eRepublik site.
We look forward to growing the New World with you!
Last week, the citizens of the New World were invited to respond to a short survey. Their support was encouraging, more than 16 thousands people taking the time to respond to our questions. This survey has revealed a lot of insight about their expectations from the game, and their favorite activities in the New World. We will use the information received to focus the development of eRepublik in the right directions, and improve the game experience offered to our citizens.
The survey has also provided us with some statistical information regarding the eRepublik users. Until the results are compiled and revealed (this will most likely happen next week), our citizens are invited to participate in a forum contest and guess the number of male respondents to the survey.
