OpenId On NationStates

I have to be frank and admit I'd never heard of OpenId before now, but those who do know about this handy internet device can learn more about its NationStates application here. There's also a discussion about it in the Technical forum.

In other news, the forums have some new member titles which has prompted a long discussion. I think the new titles are vastly superior to the old ones, though I'd have preferred there not to be any postcount-based titles and just call everyone 'member'. But the hordes of the General forum probably feel differently.

I've also involved myself with another two small enhancements of NationStates. One is related to the description of a nation's population. Once your population goes over one billion, it's described as massive, when it starts out it's referred to as tiny, and there's a bunch of others too. Well, I thought, since we now have nations pushing twelve (thirteen?) billion, it's high time we revised those descriptors. So I edited the code and sent it off to the admins. If the boss approves, we'll see some new descriptors, and some new parameters for the old ones.

The second feature is something that was suggested to me by e-mail by one of our players New South Hell. It also deals with descriptors, but more specifically the ones following 'renowned/remarkable/notable for its' on the spotlight page. Like this:

The Holy Hippocracy of Sirocco is a massive, economically powerful nation, renowned for its compulsory vegetarianism.

NSH sent me a whole bunch of ideas for new descriptors. This was something I'd actually been planning to do for a while because it's a very easy enhancement to add to the game. NSH did all the hard work though, so why not use it? I refined the list and added the appropriate code for the admins and sent it off. If anyone else would like to submit new ideas for new descriptors, I'll be very happy to compile a new list for submission to the admins. Just send me an e-mail at sirocco@nationstates.net

I don't know when we'll see these changes. Keep an eye out.