Regional Flags And More!

Hello everyone, I've been away for a while! Among other things I've had a tooth removed, which wasn't pleasant at all. There is nothing quite like the horrors of mouth pain is there?

Anyway, let's see if I can round up all the changes that have happened while I was mourning the loss of my incisor:

Regional flags! I do believe this is something we've been wanting since... well, November 2002! Thanks to [violet]'s wizardry, regions can now proudly fly a flag symbolising the whole smorgasbord of countries in their membership. Take a gander at the official news post here.

Also, thanks to Pythagosaurus, you can also add regions to your dossier.

There some other tweaks and minor changes too. Founders and delegates may have noticed that new buttons have been added to nations in their regions so they can ban offenders without having to take the long road all the way to regional control. Some graphics have been updated too. If you haven't noticed, I'm not surprised - it's subtle. Go look until you see it.

[violet] has announced an intent to overhaul the telegram system to make it more efficient. A lot of big region delegates will look forward to this I'm sure!

There has been a little more added to the annexe discussion since I last mentioned it. Check out the thread for more details.

The aptly named Imagey Nation has set up a thread in gameplay where he designs seals/logos/heraldic shields for other players' nations. Very snazzy.

[violet] has posted the latest Moderator Olympics in the Moderation forum. I should probably note that about 3000 of my 'Moderator Actions' were deleting issues! [violet]'s also posted all the old olympics (except for the missing first one) in the Archives forum for anyone who feels like reminiscing.

GMC Military Arms has been playing video games instead of modding the forums, the cad, but he does do it wonderfully. Check out his amusing playthroughs of Perfect Dark and Goldeneye here.

I, meanwhile, have been quite fascinated by a game called Dwarf Fortress recently. A rather intriguing part of it is the generation of rather detailed pseudo-ASCII maps which some NSers might be interested in. It generates everything from oceans, rivers and aquifers to mountains, civilisations, geographical data, and wildlife. Climate too. And a bunch of other things. You can download the game (which is still in its alpha stage) for free at http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ - though it is very complicated so I fully recommend the wiki project other players have set up to help you get into it. Unlike NationStates this could easily have been called Micromanagement: The Game.

That's all from me for now. Just remember that MaxChat begins in a couple of weeks! I wouldn't want you to miss it!