MMO Watch

A new massively multiplayer strategy game, eRepublik, targets gamers who no longer have the massive amounts of time to invest (I use the term loosely) in a game but want to support some level of MMO habit. The game itself sounds like a combination of the Sims, Civilization, and Eve Online, wherein each player takes on the role of a single citizen-unit in a massive economic and national security real-time strategy game. I particularly enjoyed the answer to this question, from eRepublik’s CEO:

Chris – There is a great focus on the stories that emerge from the game, what are some of your favourites?

Alexis – “Dio Brando” managing to declare himself god emperor of Pakistan and have about 600 people regularly voting for him to keep things that way is quite interesting.

Another favourite for me is Spains very peaceful approach to the game, whilst most countries have been quite aggressive and declared war on their neighbours easily, Spain has really concentrated on building its economy and infrastructure.

Iran opening an embassy in the USA and the dialogue that created between Iranian citizens and Americans was also something nice to see.

You may have thought I was only kidding when a few weeks ago I quoted Charles Stross as predicting that eventually mankind would be permanently plugged-in in order to explore virtual horizons. Think again.