CHAPTER 1
A GLORIOUS BEGINNING
Once upon a time, a land called Entrecard, ruled by the “benevolent King of the Land, Graham Langdon opened its doors for everyone, of any creed, color, or economic standing, to enter.
To welcome the people, he had his faithful steward and right hand man who oversees his kingdom, Phirate, create a world where the people could gather, make friends, and make money, Entrecard money. Amazingly, every person who entered, categorized themselves as they entered the kingdom. As they liked the place so much, they started creating multiple personalities of themselves, some even creating up to 20 characters, for after all, there was so much of them to know and they wanted to talk about every facet of their life (and make some money).
CHAPTER 2
FITS AND STARTS
To understand how the land’s government and economy worked, there was a big fat book that you could read. But it seemed that like all manuals, no one bothered to read it. Instead, the new citizens went to the town hall (forums) where everyone and anyone could gather to listen in or join in any discussion. If they wished, they could even start their own conversations, which many did, repeating over and over again the same questions asked before (ad nauseum) and all laid out in the book that no one wanted to read.
As citizenship grew, minor aches and pains, even some small battles, marred the kingdom due to one reason or another. Many irate citizens left. Nevertheless, the Kingdom called Entrecard grew in splendid fashion as more and more people in other kingdoms heard about how its citizens were prospering, both in terms of new found friends, and a new currency called Entrecard Credits.
CHAPTER 3
CRISIS UPON CRISIS
Ballooning citizenship caused great cheer but it was an illusion. Even as the benevolent King Graham declared 11,000 for its population, the citizenry knew that it was really more like 5,000 since so many citizens had multiple personalities and even more had left, had died (in battle or of natural causes such as boredom), had gone on permanent vacation, or had been banished for black market and illegal activities that tilted the economy negatively.
FIXING THE LAND
In the meantime, back in the hallowed halls of King Graham’s Lair, he gathered with a handful of citizens and engaged in a group-think session where everyone agreed and patted each other’s back on how good their ideas were. Believing strongly in their beautifully crafted ideas, they then sprung it on the rest of the citizens, expecting songs of cheer and rejoicing.
Instead, its citizens, all of whom could have been informed easily with a simple message to their inbox, were thrown into a state of confusion and frenzy with the brand new laws that were unilaterally declared “effective immediately without notice”. One of the new laws was that everyone was now worth only 2 Entrecard credits even if they were worth 500 before. The other law was that if someone buys your services once, then you can charge double the next time, and then double it again, for the third person, and yet again, for the fourth person, and wouldn’t this just be grand because you could make so much money in so little time.
The citizens BOOED! How ridiculous?! If you had 12 customers, the exact same product you sold for 2 EC, you could now charge the 12th customer, 4,096! The exact same thing!
THE KING’S REPLY
“There is nothing wrong with that,” the King and his men could not believe their ears. It’s easy money, so easy that the King would take 75% of the sales and he was sure that no one would protest! How could they be wrong? They had deliberated. They were the best men. Entrecard was a great success and everyone seemed to love it because they said they did.
“Live with it! It’s my kingdom! It’s for your own good. Your Entrecard Money will be worth a lot more now,” the King and his men shouted but could not rise above the din of the crowd. So the Entrecard money which sold for $10.00 for 1,000 plummeted even as the King insisted he was right. Soon, it would drop to $2.50 and to keep people from selling at those low prices, the King told everyone that it was unsafe, what if that citizen had his/her money taken away before he/she could give it to you since they serve at the pleasure of King Graham and could have their citizenship revoked at any time?
Not convinced, the King put up a sign that said, Entrecard money is worth $9.50 for 1,000 and to prove that to you, you can buy it from me! Some new citizens were fooled, and would soon leave with a bad taste in their mouth when they found they could get the EXACT SAME THING for $3.00 from many other places.
MORE CRISES, THIS TIME WITH THE OVERSEER
With all the chaos more chaos ensued. Overseer Phirate who had to put in many new additions onto a system that had very shaky foundations, soon found himself having pizza thrown at his face instead of being offered in sweet thanks. Blogs went missing, Entrecard money went down the drain as people clicked on empty ads or had queues that ran the wrong ads, or could never get the ad to load because there were too many people, or citizens would get booted out of the land and have to come in again and again or because of kingdom scheduled outages of which there were too many.
UNDYING LOVE DESPITE IT ALL
Through it all, the citizens who loved Entrecard the most stayed and declared their undying support. Some of these staunch advocates also happened to be the most vocal residents of the land. Some were riff-raff who came as lone (and paid) hunters while others formed gangs and took over the town halls. They were rude, disrespectful and disruptive to the point of pissing people off.
TOUGH LOVE
Finally, things got so out of hand that the Entrecard guards threw them out to keep order. Of course, as with all bullies, they felt they were just exercising their rights to free speech and if people get hurt by verbal attacks, that’s their problem for being weak and feeble. Unfortunately for them, the Kingdom did not want the majority to be subjected to the random assault and confusion of help/love and hatred from this fanatical group. So the grand overseer, Phirate, placed them in a prison called Firestorm, which ironically, had no doors and locks.
As with all detention halls, this only served to fuel the firestorm until finally, the people were banished from the land. Some, on their own accord, others, by force. But no one knows the real score because no one really knows why so many of the once prominent members of the Kingdom called Entrecard disappear. Nor do they know what name and category they will return as in the future, if they do.
CHAPTER 4
The ashes are still falling, but the Kingdom stands. Badly beaten it is, but still strong. The King is starting to come to his senses, and is considering rectifying the rigid pricing laws he had uniformly imposed on its citizens.
What will happen next? Only time will tell. In the meantime, you may want to enter the always crazy, often frustrating, intermittently down and out kingdom called Entrecard and see for yourself.
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