NationStates vs ERepublik

For few years now I've been playing NationStates, a very primitive game but entertaining (but also very repetitive). A few months ago the news came out that NationStates2 was on it's way and in a beta state, so I signed on for it. At the moment I've not been selected to trial it but it is suppose to be coming online proper in the near future.

I've also signed up for the beta release of eRepublik, which initially appears to be from the same school of simulations but is very different in outlook and I'm not sure that I am enjoying it too much. Being a simulation of this world rather than an imaginary one has tied things closely into the real-life situations. Things have apparently gone so far that ePakistan has been described by the developers as a military dictatorship, despite the aim of the game\simulation to be 'western' style democratic government, and the first thing to happen when war was introduced was eIsrael being wiped out by an eTurkey invasion.

I will continue to play it in the hope that things will change once it goes live (Scheduled for early October) but I'm not sure how things will pan out.

The element of 'Gold' purchase, which the developers intend to finance the game with, is also a big negative, especially at the 'exchange rate' that is currently set. There is only a restricted supply of political appointments and as the user base expands there is little chance that Joe Bloggs will get that power. Especially as sock puppets and off site invasions appear common. I'm not sure that a game where the only thing that happens is you working in a factory is going to have much traction in the online community.

I can only hope that NationStates2 is better than this and without the overt racism. Information is only now filtering out of the play testing and it sounds like there is going to be a number of different 'worlds' and the potential for conflict between nations. This would be a big departure from the current setup.

With NationStates things aren't personal, despite the fact that it sort of encourages extremism due to the mixture of tongue in cheek policy selections and the satiric responses. My Nation currently hovers between being a Psychotic Dictatorship and being a Corrupt one! but importantly I'm not actually griefing anyone else by being so.