www.nationstates.net

29 June 2008

NationStates 2 Beta Approaches...

I think everyone's excited about the latest post on the NationStates 2 blog. Those fortunate individuals chosen to be testers should remember how privileged they are and not leak information to anyone, and those who aren't testers should be responsible enough not to hassle those who are for details.

Moving on, to those interested in the Scottish NS meet I have sent telegrams so please reply. Anyone interested should let me know what time would be best for them (from 27th July onwards to August) and where would be best for them (Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow, or Edinburgh). Also I'd like to know where you would be prepared to go to if your favoured city is not ultimately chosen.

Those who frequent the World Assembly will notice two changes. There is no longer a Bookkeeping category and there is no [repeal this resolution] button on the first WA resolution by Maxtopia.

In regards to the first change, I thought it was high time we removed it because we never came to any agreement as to what the Bookkeeping category should cover and so we've just been deleting any proposals submitted under that category. This is both a waste of our time and highly confusing for our players. Perhaps at some later date we'll reintroduce the category but only when we know what it's for.

The reasons for the second change is rather obvious, we can't let the resolution founding the World Assembly be repealed because that would completely undermine an entire section of the site and a great big chunk of the gameplay. We were never sure what we'd do if everyone had voted against the resolution to begin with, but thankfully that didn't happen. Before now we'd been deleting these repeals which, again, was a waste of our time and confusing for the players.

A lot of people have been complaining of problems with the forums. All I can say is bear with us for a while: we're hoping to have it resolved soon.

25 June 2008

Possible NationStates Meet In Scotland

I've decided that since we've had all the UK NationStates meets in England, to which is too far away for me to travel, it would be prudent to organise my own Scottish one. So, anyone interested should check out this thread and let me know if you'd be willing to come. Once we've got a sizeable number of people (anything bigger than three would be good enough I think) we can start deciding the all-important where-and-when of things.

21 June 2008

OMAC Buys Jolt

Gadzooks! I, along with everyone else, was very surprised to hear about the sudden takeover of our forum hosts by the people developing NationStates 2. Either OMAC have much more investment than I previously suspected or Jolt was much cheaper.

So what does this mean?

Well, it explains why there was no hurry to go shifting our forums somewhere else because they're exactly where they're supposed to be. It also means we should see the improvements we've long been waiting for - better controls, better interface (i.e. one that works) and at long last we should be able to free up all the old account names so that players can create nations with the names they want instead of being told that they were reserved by someone who maybe played for a few days many years ago.

If we do get this then all nations that died more than a year ago and weren't deleted by moderators (too much potential for confusion) will have their names unreserved. That was the old plan anyway, things may be changed this time around, we'll just have to wait and see.

The second big change we've all seen is the great big advert at the top of the screen, and obviously I'm not talking about the ads for Max's books. Some may see this as a sad departure from the whole ethos NS had as this wee site created by an author wanting to sell his books without the usual corporate influence, but NationStates is expensive to host and it's perhaps surprising that this hasn't happened before now.

Just remember that the ads are about cost limitation, not turning NS1 into some sort of money-making machine. I think if we were given the choice between a pay-to-play NationStates 2 and a free NationStates 2 with some adverts (which will probably/hopefully become a bit more targeted at some point - I think we've all seen 'The Naughty Button' whatever that is) then most would pick the latter.

In other news, my computer has collapsed again and if I can't get it fixed I'm going to have to wait until autumn before I can (possibly) get a new one. All in all this means I will have less time to moderate and edit issues. It also means that I can't come on to IRC. Sorry 'bout that. In the meantime, I've put a further three issues into the game. The whole 'save up a bunch and then release' thing will just have to wait for another time. Enjoy!

08 June 2008

Hyperlinks For All And Sunder

Hello, working on plenty of new NationStates issues, about ten in all, three of which are just about completed, only requiring some fine tuning. I'm really quite pleased with the haul I've got from this batch. I'm going to save them all up and release them in one go rather than let them go one by one like I usually do. Why? Just 'cos.

Yesterday we got hit by a spammer who went wandering round some of NationStates' larger regions leaving obscenely long spam messages, but that's been sorted now. We then had our tasklist spammed. Apparently we're all gay.

Anyway, got some interesting links for you guys and gals:

An Amazing Regional Map of the International Democratic Union courtesy of Domnonia. It's really quite an impressive piece of fictional cartography.

Blast's Vexillogical Shoppe courtesy of Jeuna who's taken place of 1 Infinite Loop as the benevolent flagmaker, dispensing his art to those who do not have the wherewithal to create their own.

A potentially interesting discussion about NationStates on mobile phones can be found in the Technical forum. I'd like to see what people think about that.

The World Assembly is voting on its first repeal just two months after being founded. I'll try not to get emotional.

If you're ever stuck for ideas on issues, check out this site: WikiLeaks.org

This site is just brimming with government corruption, and shady dealings. Perfect for budding submitters of the next daily issue.

Finally, if anyone reading has ever wanted to watch someone play Castlevania while relating pithy discourse, then check out the video series 'Let's Play Castlevania' produced by our very own GMC Military Arms.

03 June 2008

Code Fixes

Some people will occasionally notice that no matter how hard they try they just can't get their economic freedoms to go up, or they can't get their nation to change category, or whatever. Well, I think I may have your salvation, though I wouldn't bet on it.

Over the years, some issues code has slipped in that was faulty and some that has now become defunct. The problem was that these bits of code would get stuck in a nation and then stay there with no way for the player to get rid of it. To put it simply: if your nation got a faulty bit of code that, say, lowered economic freedom, then you'd never be able to raise your freedoms much afterwards. You'd be able to raise them somewhat, but that bit of code would still be dragging them downwards.

But no longer! I compiled a list of the code and handed it over to Pythagosaurus who has done some magic and created an automated system for dispelling the code. When a nation logs in, all the faulty code will be wiped (if present). Eventually, NationStates should be free of all of it and that will be cause for celebration.

A side-effect of the purge is that many nations, particularly older ones, may see their freedoms suddenly spring up or plunge. Don't worry! It's all part of the healing process. After this, your nation will be untarnished and you'll be able to mould your nations to a much more successful degree.

Many thanks goes to Pythagosaurus for making this possible!

NationStates Advertising Board

While region-browsing I came across a rather interesting little region called the NationStates Advertising Board.

If you want to advertise your region but can't be bothered with the tedious (and frankly obnoxious) spamming of the feeder regions then you should definitely check this place out.

02 June 2008

Issues Spring Cleaning

I've recently gone on a massive undertaking: going through ALL issues and giving them a small do-over. Fixing typos, clearing up stats, adding new ones here, different ones there, and, in the case of the beauty pageants issue, adding a whole new option. Because when I originally edited it all those years ago, I forgot to include an option that actually supports beauty pageants. Whoops.

Anyway, that's not the exciting news. Last time when I was going through all the old issues, I was doing so to add unemployment ratings to NationStates. So if you ever see a world census on highest unemployment ratings in the world, that was me.

This time I'm added two new things. One of them you'll never know about because it's to do with something I can't even properly explain to someone who isn't a mod. The second thing however is something I've wanted to add to the game for ages and at last those plans have come to fruition. Some people may notice it sooner, but it's only going to become properly visible in a few months.

In other news, there's a new blog post for NationStates 2 up where you can make suggestions for the user interface if you want.

Oh, one last thing. Look out for the special 200th issue which was previously unattainable because of a typo in the validity code. Whoops again.