My name is Ludooki and I'm an alcoholic. Wait, what?

Hello everyone. I came to this forum because I was invited by a fine fellow nicknamed fingerguns. We had a little chat after I read his article (with which I disagreed on a few points, but that's a totally different story). I liked his reasoning and he promised me cool people and free beer if I do come here, so here I am. Okay, maybe he didn't mention that second part at all, but a guy can have hopes and dreams.

So, I guess introductions are in order. My real name is Aleksandar, and I am from Serbia. My eRepublik nick is Ludooki (roughly translated from Serbian it means "the guy with crazy eyes"), as you've probably guessed by now, and I have had USA citizenship for some time. I don't really keep track, but more than 6 months, I suppose.

To be honest, I came here for the resources which you had at the time and easy currency for buying new companies. I stayed after that because I pretty much stopped caring. I am not here to mess with your politics, or to try and take over your parties or your Congress seats. I couldn't care less for stuff like that. As far as politics go I am the founder of a political party in eSerbia (which is more of a group, or a movement than a party) called "I Love Boobs" (still alive and kicking), so you can guess how serious I am about all that elections thingy. Its basic goal is to gather guys and girls who, well, love boobs, and don't care about politicking. I retain that attitude even if I'm, by game rules, not able to be the party member because of the different CS.

That being said, I hope we can exchange some interesting, engaging or simply funny thoughts on this forum. Fingerguns says you are a cool group to hang out with and talk to, so I came here to test it. As I've said, I don't do politics and I'm not a member of the Federalist Party. I came (in peace :P) to hang out and meet some more possibly interesting people. If I made some grammar mistakes don't be to harsh, English isn't my first language. :)

Something about boobs and kicking? Sounds very S&M.

Nice to meet you.

lol Glad you made it over to the forums, Ludooki!

You seem like a very cool lady. I'm glad to have you here.



There. Dancing bacon.

Welcome to the Feds!

Glad to have you :)



/me secretly wants to travel to Serbia to join the "I Love Boobs" Party

Am I missing something or is this a gender bender thread?

In any case, dobrodošao! Welcome to the forum! And if you like boobs, well... this IS the proud/horny party, so you might stay for than just cookies and milk.

Wait... milk. Hmmm.

And all this time I thought fingerguns was a woman. I guess it takes a Serb to enlighten us.

Kara Beth wrote:And all this time I thought fingerguns was a woman. I guess it takes a Serb to enlighten us.

It's not the only instance of gender confusion in this thread, mind you.

He called me a dude so I called him a lady.

I think he's realized his mistake. lol

Fun times.

Well, I said I was an alcoholic in the title, didn't I?

@everyone

Thanks for the welcome. o/

@Duncan Crowe

You would be a welcomed guest. :)

Ludooki, I was wondering something...

How do you feel about Serbia being our in-game enemies? As a RL Serbian do you feel conflicted at all? Or is this just a game so it's not a big deal?

Curious to hear your thoughts

I had a very liberal point of view since the first day I started playing this game. There are things which I never did (like winning a BH against my country, or selling CS), but because I play this for myself almost everything else was always fair game. At least to me, but there also weren't many complains from other people. I fight for whoever I want and do with my ingame currency and items whatever I want. Although I try not to poke other Serbs in the eyes with my actions since I'm not that kind of person. If I'm doing it for myself then I don't need to broadcast my actions to everyone. That would be attention whoring.

I am still a member of a Serbian military unit (Tesla Troopers) and my commanders never had a problem with my actions. They didn't support some of them, but ultimately they also realize that this is a game and they respect my choices.

As for Serbia and USA being enemies in this game - I'm not bothered with that fact. I mean it's not like I'm selling you my countries war secrets and plans or something like that. And it's not like I'm sending them some secret info about you guys (I bet some of you will get somewhat paranoid at this part :P). Sure, I pay my taxes to USA instead to Serbia. Big deal, they get stolen over there anyway by the same group of people that always rules the country.

Ludooki wrote:Big deal, they get stolen over there anyway by the same group of people that always rules the country.

Now why does that sound familiar, whatever the permutations?

Issues of control (because the accumulation of wealth in this game ultimately results in control, nothing more) are dominant in pretty much every country you look at.

I mean, looking at the Greek governments, no matter which faction gains power, it always seems to be the same people running the ministry of finance. And it seems that every single month SOMEthing goes missing (money, weapons, whatever). The factions are always at each others' throats, but the practice simply never ends. (Guess why I'm more involved with the political scene here, then.)

I find it truly disheartening that there are people who would steal virtual stuff and later even brag about it in public. And that there are many people who would support them after that because "he's such a good showman, how can you not like him?".

It is always fun to interact with people from other countries, though really i could give a flying duck where you are actually from ("a person's a person no matter how small" lol). I do like your response to FG's question, and agree that it's just a game, and meant to be fun. Just b/c you may end up across from somebody on the fight screen doesn't mean you can't enjoy bantering and interacting back and forth with them.

So, regardless of all the hoopla that crap brings, welcome to the forum o/

p.s. I do believe a boobs party would be the Serbian equivalant of the P/H party.. yeah?

Very well said and thank you. o/

stewy wrote:p.s. I do believe a boobs party would be the Serbian equivalant of the P/H party.. yeah?

I guess it would be. The difference is that we are a rather small group because politicking is such an important thing in eSerbia that it is hard for people to stay away from it. Simple concepts like "I love boobs and don't want to have anything to do with country elections" aren't largely appreciated. Though we did have CP candidates (by accident or by most bigger parties supporting just a couple of other candidates) and it was a giggle to see them in the poll.

If anyone is interested this is the party link, and here's the wiki page (last updated ages ago, but it will do).

welcome aboard Ludooki! Fingerguns tricks........I mean recruits another!

I think it's awesome to have people from other countries in the party, to give us an expanded world view. It helps to remember that even though we are always right :P others may see things differently, and international flavoring is excellent to help us in this.

free beer!

lol I didn't trick him!

If anything, he tricked me. You heard what he said about stealing all of our secrets!!!

*puts on a foil hat*

LET'S GET HIM BEFORE HE KILLS US ALLLLLLLLLL

j/k

Thanks for answering my question, Ludooki. I think it's funny that people in other countries have a more relaxed view of nationalism than we do. Well, not funny. That's probably a good reflection of real life. I think for so many Americans, the idea of playing for some other country is just absurd. But in this country (in RL) people throw around accusations of being 'anti-American' as if it meant they worship Satan. Very interesting.

tl;dr

But welcome aboard!

Oh, don't confuse my relaxed view with the views of the majority. :) As with Americans, being a nationalist in Serbia is basically mandatory. If you don't have a strong sense of belonging to a nation or if you realize that there is nothing to be proud about something on which you had no influence you are indeed given weird looks, if not very harsh words. I am glad that I am a Serb for many reasons, but I'm not proud of something that isn't my personal success.

If it was any different I don't think we would have so much RL problems in the Balkans (or with the rest of the world), because nations that surround us are more similar to us then they would like to admit.

Thanks, Slade. O/

Ludooki wrote:Oh, don't confuse my relaxed view with the views of the majority. :) As with Americans, being a nationalist in Serbia is basically mandatory.

...and everywhere else, really. Greece is no different. A big faction is very focused on nationalism, and a good chunk of that faction pretty much carried that baggage over from RL. I think that eRep, as a game, really encourages the fringes more than it does the center, so to speak. (Not necessarily as RL ideologies, but definitely as in-game stances.)

+1000 points to this thread.

I'm glad you guys are here.

@Vasilis Karavias

I guess so. Pretty much all of eSerbia's baby booms had their basis on hatred toward Croatians (who "incidentally" had our regions occupied during them), because this game promotes it. Our RL newspaper and TV channels were full of news like: "Croatians conquered Serbia in an online game, we can't allow that". Youtube is also full of them. Funny thing is that we (Croatians, Bosnians and Serbs) get along very well in other online games, and often form multicultural Balkan alliances with other countries.

On a different note, USA and Serbia have one other thing in common: But, if I understand it correctly, you like it fried while we prefer it raw (with onions and/or garlic). Because true men eat raw meat! Nah, just kidding. But we still eat it more or less raw, after a period of drying it in the smoke (I'm not really sure about the English expression for that, but we call it "meat drying").

...does it count that I usually eat a raw rasher while I'm laying out to cook the rest? :p

With Greece it's hard to tell. I came into the game while Greece was occupied, but I don't think I was part of a baby boom. I kinda wandered in on my own, wondering what the game might be about.

But there's been a general rise in nationalist sentiment here, in part because of FYROM, in part because of the huge illegal immigration. And that's just drawn out the communists as well, and so begin the epic troll wars that rock the Greek community on a daily basis.

Really... it's much milder here in the States, infighting or no infighting.

It counts because it's delicious.

I remember when FYROM was introduced to the game very well because in those two months I broke my record in doing tickets. I had my quota two days after they put them on the map. Crazy stuff was going on in the media. :)

Oh yeah. I wasn't around back then, but my MU's commander served as historian and gave me a lot of the background at the time, from the days before to the day it was introduced to the day both sides were waiting to be able to declare war on each other. Funny stuff.

Also, disturbing.

But in a sense, I've been realizing that as long as you have the opportunity to step away from such rivalries for periods of time, being able to go back to such a strong rivalry is what prolongs the lifespan of the game.

I think I need to write an opinion piece on that at some point. This whole "away from the Balkans" debate has gotten me thinking...