Sirocco's Blog | NationStates

Mr and Mrs Sirocco

2010-07-26T21:16:00.002+01:00

Jingle Bells

2009-12-23T21:12:00.000Z

Merry Christmas, everyone!

As a special Christmas treat, I've entered a new issue into the game. Enjoy! Also, if you need to contact me, send a telegram to sirocco@nationstates.net as I've been too busy to read my telegrams. Sorry about that!

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T18:34:00.000Z

I apologise for the lack of updates - I'm putting most of my energies into university work at the moment. But I'll still do what I can.

Have a fun evening, everybody!

N-n-new Forum Mods!

2009-10-20T15:00:00.000+01:00

A big old welcome to our three new forum mderators: Czardas, Lunatic Goofballs, and NERVUN. A big welcome to all three of you!

Since the move away from Jolt, the General forum's become a bit of a pariah as the idea of sensible rational arguments about ideology, politics, religion, etc. got thrown out the window somewhat and players decided that anyone with an opposing viewpoint must be trolling. This led to some rather ugly drama in the Moderation forum as you can imagine. That's where our new moderators come in! We needed some fresh blood... some General blood!

I wish our new mods the best of luck in their endeavours!

N-n-n-new Features!

2009-10-07T22:57:00.000+01:00

A first step towards the 'annexe' feature (see previous posts, can't be arsed finding a link) has been made! Regions now have history pages for an automatic record of notable events. Check out your own region page and have a look! Regional settings have been twiddled with so that everyone can see them without having to manipulate URL addresses. You can check that out too!

I've been rather absent from NationStates recently. I've got a LOT of university work to do, and I also got engaged as well, so I've had little time to tell you guys to play nice!

Welp. I've got stuff to do (sigh) but we should have some new issues on the way (huzzah) so keep your eyes bright and your tails bushy. The only way is up.

Jennifer Government Hits The Small Screen!

2009-09-21T08:43:00.001+01:00

And in two different ways! If you've read the latest MaxChat you'll already know that AMC (an American TV channel) is going to turn the book that launched NationStates into a TV series - very exciting! - but if the wait until we actually hear more about it is too much for you then you can thank some students from Weddington High School for filming their own abridged amateur version.

Watch it here!

I only learned of this because it was linked by Seculartopia in this thread so kudos goes to him/her for discovering it as well.

MaxChat V: The Log

2009-09-20T03:02:00.003+01:00

http://www.nationstates.net/pages/MaxChat5.html

It's been great fun and we all look forward to having another... hopefully not after waiting for three years again though! Thanks everyone for coming, it was a blast!

Oh, and something I forgot to mention: telegrams now have a 'preview' feature thanks to Pythagosaurus! If you haven't already seen it, give it a shot.

Oh! And something else I forgot to mention! The new spiffy banner at the top of my blog is courtesy of Imagey Nation. His name is as apt as his banner is awesome. Thanks!

MaxChat V Coming Soon!

2009-09-19T20:46:00.000+01:00

As in quarter of an hour! If you haven't already downloaded an IRC client, do it now and join us at #nationstates on the Gamesurge server!

Click here for more details!

MaxChat Date Announced

2009-09-12T19:35:00.002+01:00

I don't have anything more to add to this except that I hope to see you there! Just follow the link:

http://www.nationstates.net/page=news/2009/09/10/index.html#maxchat5

Regional Flags And More!

2009-09-10T14:47:00.000+01:00

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!

Slow News Day

2009-08-24T20:01:00.002+01:00

Ever wondered just exactly HOW are you supposed to play NationStates? How do you get started? Never fear! There is a handy online instructional video for all your NS needs.

New Forum Moderator: Flibbleites

2009-08-16T14:38:00.004+01:00

Welcome aboard, Flib! We've been needing some additional WA expertise for a while and Flibbleites, who's been hanging around the UN/WA side of the game since the year dot seemed just like the man for the job. We all look forward to his contribution to the team.

In other news:

The daily update has been, well, updated! Delegate turnover is now recorded every twelve hours instead of every twenty-four. This will add some spice to the raider/defender game! Follow the link for more details.

WA proposals have updated formatting thanks to Pythagosaurus, and players can now link to individual proposals - it's not the simplest of arrangements, but it works! Click here for more details.

Well, that's enough procrastinating from me for now, I suppose. This flat's not going to tidy itself!

We Have Issue Editors!

2009-08-13T12:11:00.002+01:00

I'm back from my holiday! I'm certain lots of interesting things happened while I was away but I can't remember what any of them are.

Except for the thrilling conclusion to the issues contest!

I'm pleased to announce that three volunteers have taken up the role of 'Issue Editor' and will be helping me convert player submitted issues into game-worthy dilemmas. Our winners are:

Kandarin
Responsible
Glen-Rhodes

You'll notice they all have a rather nifty badge designed by Charlotte Ryberg. Kandarin seems to be building quite a collection of decorations for his spotlight page!

I'm going to be very busy over the next month or so, so let's hope our new editors are up to the task!

For more details, you can check out the forum post I made.

MaxChat V: The Empire Writes Back

2009-07-30T08:24:00.003+01:00

Ha ha ha, I only suggested that title as a joke. I didn't realise it was going to get used! Anyway, for the first time in many years, Max Barry is going to be answering player questions in #nationstates, the official NS IRC channel. The official announcement can be read here: http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9894

Very exciting! The event has been tentatively proposed to occur on the 19th or 20th of September, though that may change.

We have a new feature for telegrams: nations may now select telegrams that are dear to them to be spared should their inbox overflow and old telegrams get purged.

A possible new feature, annexing, is still being discussed. It got a bit forgotten, so I dredged it up again by posting my take on it.

[violet]'s later post on the thread is most intriguing. It casually mentions ANOTHER possible new feature: regional embassies. I wonder that's all about?

Reploid Productions has updated the latest chapter in her Bastard NS Mod from Hell saga. Check it out.

I'm going to be visiting my family for the first week or so of August so I won't be around much during that time. Just a heads-up.

250 Issues

2009-07-26T13:55:00.005+01:00

I'm a bit late in reporting it, but I'm very happy to say that NationStates has reached a new milestone! There are now a grand total of 250 issues in circulation. I'd like to thank everyone who's submitted an issue, doubly thank everyone that submitted a good issue, and wish the best of luck to future writers of issues.

In other news, Belgium has been liberated prematurely by various defender regions who somehow learned what the password the raiders were using was. This has put the liberation debate into a different light, since the original intent of the resolution is now moot. Congratulations to the defenders, anyway, and hard luck to the raiders. I'm sure they'd have been able to put up a better fight if they hadn't been ambushed. There's still a chance though! If the liberation resolution passes they can rally another attack.

Ah, irony.

Moving on, Erastide has devised a new Security Council proposal category: Open Immigration - this category, if passed, would clear and disable the banlist of a selected region. I haven't had much time to mull over it yet, but the debate makes for an interesting read.

Another liberation-related debate is on whether it's up to the moderators or the World Assembly to ascertain how factually accurate a resolution is. If a liberation tells outright lies to further its argument should it be deleted? But how can mods tell whether something is true or not without psychic abilities? Hmm.

Max Barry has posted to the News page summarising recent additions to NationStates.

The issues contest ends in just under two weeks! I've received one shy of fifty entries. I've been very impressed by the quality of even the losing entries - the standard has been very high! I'm looking forward to being able to take a step back and supervise the budding new editors (whomever they may be...). Still plenty of time for creative NSers to win a position.

Remember, there is also a badge-making competition for designing a little logo to go on issue editors' nations. The winner will be able to select their own custom forum title! Those are like gold dust, don't you know!

Good luck!

Discord And Chaos In The WA

2009-07-25T02:27:00.002+01:00

I'm tired and I don't have much time for pontificating so I'm just going to summarise recent events:

The proposal to liberate Belgium has reached the floor and is now being voted on by the World Assembly. With liberation proposals been written left, right and centre I can't help but feel that maybe the defenders are spreading themselves a little thin. Reclaiming one region will be difficult, regardless of password restrictions. Organising a way of reclaiming several regions will be much harder.
A temporary ruleset has been written up by Ardchoille for the Security Council. This has been quite a formidable task in many respects and it's still in the process of being beaten out on the anvil. We need rules that are clear, concise, and appropriate. I just hope we can manage it quickly, because a lot of players are rather losing their patience!
Voting times on proposals that have reached the floor has been reduced from a week to four days.
We've had a few glitches and bugs popping up here and there but they've not caused too many problems.
I've finished the latest batch of issues and am waiting upon admin to give me the next.

In conclusion, and in reference to my second point, the new rules for Security Council resolutions need to be sorted out with co-operation between moderators and players. So if you have any ideas, let us know. If you think any rule shouldn't be there, let us know. We've got a framework from which to build something that could benefit the gameplay. So let's build!

La Mort d'Ordinateur

2009-07-16T01:36:00.003+01:00

My laptop has kicked the bucket, given up the ghost, and pushed up the daisies. You know there's something wrong when error messages predicting an imminent failure of your hard drive disc haunt your every virtual step. Ah well. I'm under warranty so I guess it'll either get fixed or replaced. I don't know when though. Fingers are crossed that it will be soon!

As you can imagine, this makes it difficult for me to contribute to NationStates as much as I'd like so new issues are probably going to be a bit rarer over the next couple of months. Don't worry about the competition though! That's still on track. I've had around thirty-five submissions so far! Not bad at all! There's still about three weeks until the contest ends, so there's no need to be anxious about not having written an entry yet.

Due to the new feature I and Pythagosaurus have developed, I decided it was high time to give past issues a bit of a make-over where needed. Sadly, all my changes disappeared with my laptop, so that may have to wait a bit longer. In the meanwhile, though, you can report typos and grammatical errors and such to this thread.

Liberation And Customisation

2009-07-08T15:14:00.008+01:00

We've had two new features added to the game in as many days! Let's cover the new 'Liberation' WA proposal category first.

Liberation is a new Security Council proposal category that [violet] suggested a while back. The general idea is to give the WA the power to remove the passwords from invaded regions to give defenders a chance at throwing out invaders. How effective this will be remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic that this will give the raiding/defending game a bit more balance and also put an end to the 'game over' scenario that's been a blight on the R/D game for a while.

Goobergunchia has almost immediately submitted a 'Liberate Belgium' proposal for the delegates to vote on. Belgium has been a particularly infamous case of the afore-mentioned 'game over; scenario so it should be interesting to see how it goes. Though it reads 'Liberate belgium' because the code doesn't automatically stick a capital letter on the beginning - I'll see if I can get that changed. You can read more about the debate over liberating Belgium here.

Other thoughts I'd like to hear your opinions on:

Liberation proposals are inherently quite urgent - should they get higher priority in the queue than other WA resolutions? Or perhaps just other Security Council resolutions as the General Assembly crowd might not like that at all?
Should any changes be made to voting times/quorums?
What rules should govern how Liberation proposals may be written?

I've set up a new sticky in the Security Council forum for discussing things. If you have any problems, let us know.

There've been a whole bunch of bugs affecting the WA recently, probably as a result of all the admins tweaking and adding things of late. The current resolution at vote is still on the World Assembly page despite voting ending a day ago and there's been a lot of other WA-related oddness reported in the Technical forum. OK, the last one's not WA-related but it is odd.

Now, moving on,

I don't want to spoil too much, so if you'd like the new issues I put in recently to be a complete surprise then stop reading now.

HERE BE SPOILERS

The second feature in the game is something that you guys have been wanting and demanding for six years so I'm quite honoured to have had the chance to be responsible for it. I've contributed stuff to the game before, but this is the first time I've been able to create something new rather than add to what was already there.

The new feature:

I have devised three special issues that give your nation brand new customisable fields (akin to national animal, currency, etc.) - I won't mention what they are specifically for those who'd rather wait and see - if you pick particular options. After the issue goes into effect, you can edit the new field(s) from your Settings page.

Everyone will be able to get these issues except those whose population is not high enough and those who have already chosen an option which gives you a field. This rewards players for sticking with the game.

I wrote all the issues (that's why there's no editor), the new descriptors, the automated telegram you get when a field becomes available, and decided how the whole thing would work. So yeah, if you can't already tell, I'm really quite proud of this! It's my one major contribution to the mechanics of NationStates. I'd like to thank Pythagosaurus who wrote all the code to take care of the new macros I made up and implemented the feature into the game for me. We put a lot of work into getting this right for you all, so let us know if you run into any problems!

Will there be any more special issues in the future? I'm not opposed to the idea, though three should be enough for now. If there's anything you guys think NationStates just couldn't be without then let me know and I'll maybe consider it. Just don't submit special issues to me for editing because that would be really annoying.

Oh, and I had a lot of fun reading this thread here (don't click the link if you don't want to be spoiled). You guys are cute.

Jolt Forums Update

2009-07-06T12:53:00.004+01:00

I'm thinking OMAC/Jolt didn't appreciate Max tampering with the nationstates2.net redirect because they've taken away our access to the moderators' private forum over there. Either that or wiped it. And if they have wiped it, it's not unreasonable to guess the rest of the forums may follow. SO - again, if you have any threads still on Jolt that you want to save, here's a step-by-step guide on how to back up forum threads to your hard drive.

You can find a link to the Jolt forums by clicking the redirect link I posted above.

Oh, OMAC!

2009-07-02T09:24:00.003+01:00

They really don't give one crap about their players do they? Now that NationStates 2's been wiped, visiting the NationStates 2 website brings you to one of Jolt's other games without so much as an explanation. What a kick in the teeth. Players really are just numbers with dollar signs in OMAC's eyes and they're not afraid to show it.

However! Even though Max Barry doesn't have the rights to the game, he still owns the domain! www.nationstates2.com now redirects to an announcement explaining what's what, a link to NS2 support, and the NS2 forums. Like what should have been done in the first place.

To finish... here's how our players reacted to the news: The Loss of NationStates 2

Have a good day.

How To Use Tags In NationStates

2009-07-01T19:59:00.005+01:00

I've been hearing that a lot of people don't know how to use tags in their telegrams/RMB/whatever! It's in the FAQ guys! Here's the appropriate part copy/pasted:

You can use some BBCode-style tags to improve the look of your telegrams, Regional Message Board posts, and (if you control a region) your regional World Factbook Entry. These are:

Bold: [b]Hello[/b] becomes: Hello
Italic: [i]Hello[/i] becomes: Hello
Underline: [u]Hello[/u] becomes: Hello
Regions: [region]The Pacific[/region] becomes: The Pacific
Nations: [nation]Testlandia[/nation] becomes: [flag deleted by Sirocco] The Borderlands of Testlandia
You may optionally specify "short", "long", "flag" and "noflag" formats. If you omit these, the default is "long+flag".
- [nation=short]Testlandia[/nation] becomes: [flag deleted by Sirocco] Testlandia
- [nation=noflag]Testlandia[/nation] becomes: The Borderlands of Testlandia
- [nation=short+noflag]Testlandia[/nation] becomes: Testlandia

The following tags work in Regional World Factbook Entries, but not telegrams or Regional Message Board posts:

Links: [url=http://www.maxbarry.com]Hello[/url] becomes: Hello
Colors: [color=blue]Hello[/color] becomes: Hello

I've omitted the wee flags because they didn't cross over to Blogger very well. In other news, I've recently added a brand new daily issue to the game. Although it credits me as editor, this one required little input by myself!

Oh, and NationStates 2 closed down today. Bye bye, NS2.

The Return of Forum Seven

2009-06-29T23:18:00.000+01:00

Foooooooruuuuuuuuum Seeeeeeeveeeeeen!!!

*shakes fist*

Yet More Features On The Horizon

2009-06-26T17:09:00.002+01:00

There are so many interesting threads in the forums I'm not sure even where to begin.

...

OK.

[violet] is currently gauging interest in a possible new feature: annexation - this would allow regions to declare another region as part of their 'empire', depending on whether the annexed region is willing. I think the possibilities for some major interregional power struggles are obvious - and totally awesome. Click the link for more details.

Naivetry, birther of many interesting threads, has compiled a list of offsite forums players have made for their regions!

Marcuslandia's thread on whether regions should be able to opt out of the invasion game is running into six pages now. A lot of back and forth arguing about to what extent regional politicians should be able to play without fearing sudden ejection to the Rejected Realms. He's also trying to solve the difficult question on how an invasion should be defined.

Well I guess that's four threads that caught my eye today. There's a whole lot more that I've mentioned in previous posts, so if you're not up to speed have a look and see what you've missed.

We've got some new secret (for now) features in the pipelines and they're ones I get to be directly involved in! They're a little something a lot of people have wanted for a long time so... keep your eyes peeled!

OK, now that's that out of the way, I'd like to invite readers to suggest new World Census rankings. Be imaginative, be daring. If it's usable, we'll do it, if it's not then no harm done, right?

Send your submissions to me using this format:

Title: What is your ranking called? (Examples: Nudest; Most Eco-Friendly Governments; Largest Pizza Delivery Service)

Description: What descriptor should accompany this ranking? (Example from today's ranking: The following governments spend the greatest amount (per capita) on environmental issues. This may not always be reflected in the quality of that nation's environment, however.)

Stats: What is the ranking measuring? This might be obvious for some, but if you want to go into more detail, you can do so here.

Either leave a comment or send me an e-mail at sirocco@nationstates.net; I'll see if I can wangle winners a custom forum title from Reploid Productions.

Got Issues, Got Soul

2009-06-18T17:45:00.002+01:00

I have officially moved on to a new batch of issues so we should be seeing some more new ones in the near future. The batch I'm working on now extends from the 25th of May 2008 to the 29th of September 2008. All issues submitted before then have either been deleted or put into the game.

Region Lists Tweaks

2009-06-13T23:25:00.005+01:00

Another surprise new feature! They're just coming thick and fast aren't they? Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll explain. For years, most likely ever since NationStates started, players have wanted to be able to rank regions by size. Well... now you can! You can also see where your region places in terms of that day's World Census ranking. It works by either summing up or taking an average of the ranks of all the region's component nations. It depends on what World Census ranking it is. The official thread is here for your reading pleasure.

While we're on the subject of improving the game, did you know we reached version 1.12 five days ago? You can read more about it on the changelog.

We've had some bad lag today, with people unable to access the site and forums at times. We're not sure what's causing it yet, but we will eventually.

UPDATE: It was the region of Texas using a script. Tsk. Details here.

There have been some more discussions on possible changes to the way regions are controlled to regulate the raiding/defending game better since I last posted. Here they are:

Bring back the competition - a novel and surprisingly simple idea for reducing raiders' capability for griefing.

The Update Time Makes Me Wanna Cry - A discussion about the time NationStates updates itself. Updates are a central part of how the raiding game works, so there's some interesting debate here.

The Security Council

2009-06-11T20:30:00.004+01:00

First things first: I beat my personal record for a high score in Scrabble. 649 points! 649 points! It's crazy, and I had to share.

Yes, my username is Scirocco. What of it? Hmph. Moving on.

NationStates has undergone some more changes since my last post! The Commendation and Condemnation controversy has been mostly quelled (if not totally, I think) by the introduction of the Security Council. The World Assembly forum is now known as the General Assembly.

Now, when submitting a proposal you are asked which council the proposal is being submitted to (Security/General) and then asked what category (C&C/all the 'normal' categories). This has tidied up a great deal of the problems because now the WAers (or GAers now) can keep roleplaying the way they wanted to and deal with C&Cs separately. Also, GA proposals that reach quorum take priority over C&Cs so they won't have to wait several weeks/months if a particularly long string of C&C proposals achieve quorum.

All in all: very nice. With the new forum comes new ideas, particularly looking at the possibility of having other gameplay-centric resolutions. [violet]'s suggested a proposal that would allow the WA to disable a particular region's password. As you can imagine, the implications are... complex. You can read all about it here.

The very first C&C proposal to achieve quorum is a condemnation of the region of Gatesville. At the moment it looks like it might be defeated, but who knows... you can read the official thread here.

Unibot, incorrigible as always, has started a thread exploring yet more possibilities. Some interesting reading to be had there.

One interesting Technical thread I noticed is Marcuslandia's Eliminating regional passwords entirely - a simple suggestion with complicated ramifications. Be prepared for walls of text.

The issues contest is going well so far. Eight submissions have been received and a quarter of them were to my liking. That's not bad! There's also been a number of ideas for 'Issue Editor' badges in the official thread. It's going to be close-fought. Perhaps even more so than the primary contest...

I've also put in a brand new issue. Hope everyone likes it.

Finally... another awesome nacho hat! Waarg!

Issues Contest!

2009-06-08T13:23:00.007+01:00

I've devised a contest that all players are welcome to enter. I know there's plenty of you out there certain you could do a better job than me at editing issues into something halfway-usable so stop sending me telegrams and get out your word processor! All the rules are in the link I just gave, but if you're too lazy here's a copy:

---

Aspiring Writers Wanted!

We here at NationStates need YOUR help adding new, original content to the game! For many years now we've had a system whereby players write their own daily issues and submit them to the moderators. We then edit those submissions and put them into the game. Unfortunately, not many moderators have the time to do this on top of their other responsibilities and RL concerns so what we're proposing is that talented players pitch in and help us edit issue submissions. We know there's a lot of creative people in these forums, so climb out of your favourite subforum and show us what you can do!

This is going to be a contest with the potential for multiple winners (or none at all. It depends how good the entrants are).

How do I enter?

Very simply. Write a new, original daily issue according to the official guidelines and send it to sirocco@nationstates.net

Please send only one issue.

What happens then?

If you show promise, I will send you an e-mail and go over your issue, raising points, giving advice, et cetera. If I'm still unsure, I will ask you to submit a second original issue. If I approve of your second submission, then you will be taken on as an honourary issue editor. If your first submission doesn't show promise to me, then I'll send you an e-mail telling you that you have been declined.

What's in it for me?

Winners will get the one or two issues they sent put into the game. They will also receive a special 'Issue Editor' badge on their nations to show off to everyone. They'll also have the glory (infamy?) of being credited on every issue they edit. We haven't designed the badge yet (I don't even HAVE Photoshop), but maybe someone can come up with one?

If I win, what will I be expected to do exactly?

Issue editors will be sent the raw data for issue submissions by myself. You edit them and send them back to me where I'll add the code needed to change player stats and maybe a few minor tweaks if they're needed. There's no need to worry about deadlines, you're free to complete them at your own pace. Hopefully you'll find the experience and skill-developing involved its own reward.

How long do I have to submit my issue?

The competition will be ongoing until midnight on the 8th of August 2009.

---

I'm hoping for a good turnout with this contest, and anyone with above average English skills will be in with a chance of becoming an editor. Good luck!

In other news, we're definitely closing in on a solution for the C&C problem. Players should see some differences to the game very soon to take new ideas into account.

The forums have passed the load tests. With flying colours I might add! Here's the official news post.

And finally, in closing, the old, old region of Belgium has been invaded and is about to be destroyed by the region of Macedon. This has caused a lot of debate over whether the regional influence system is as effective against griefing as it was supposed to be. I'll write up a post looking at influence and the raider/defender game in more detail at some point in the near future. It may be time for a change.

Commendation And Condemnation, Part Two

2009-05-31T15:58:00.006+01:00

Wow, this new feature really didn't go down well with the denizens of the World Assembly forum. The thread's even been locked temporarily at the time of me posting this so everyone can go breathe deeply and get themselves back together. I didn't expect such a strong reaction (nor did [violet]), but on reflection, perhaps I should.

For those not interested in reading the ten-pages of argument, I'll try to explain the situation as simply as I can and give my own input.

Over the years, the World Assembly has had a number of rules that have been carefully devised so that the whole system can function properly. A proposal proposes new laws, changes to the world - BUT it obviously can't ACTUALLY change the world because that world is NationStates, a fictional game. The WA is fundamentally a bit schizophrenic. On the one hand you've got regional delegates, casting votes, regional passwords, and other assorted WA gameplay things. On the other hand we have the proposals themselves, the drafting of said proposals, the long discussions, the RPs, and the debates. It was necessary to segregate the two because it just wasn't possible to have the ambassador of Sirocco arguing why child labour should be banned when entire countries were being airlifted by helicopters out of the Pacific in the game. This is the most important complaint. There are some other problems, but I'll get to them later.

C&C has forced these two worlds to merge together, quite abruptly. I'm struggling for a particularly apposite analogy here, but I suppose it's a bit like this: you've got a bunch of actors who have been rehearsing and performing Othello for years. They've honed it to perfection, and they're having a great laugh doing so. Then one day the director comes in and tells them that they can refer to each other by their real names on the stage now, and they can kill Othello earlier on if they want. And the audience can join in too and do a dance.

OK, enough of the analogy. Simply put: it means that the WA people are being made to acknowledge things they cannot acknowledge in character. Commendations have perforated the cocoon that the WA's been safely nestled in all these years. Regional passwords, raiding, ejection to the Rejected Realms, the actual players behind the nations- it's all completely irreconcilable with the idea that everything the WA produces is wholly IC. A number of the rules were placed to protect that distinction. How can the roleplayed ambassadors of a nation possibly even begin to debate the merits of commending a region for its role in reporting spammers? It just can't work.

It may seem a bit silly and confusing to some people, but you can imagine how pissed off footballers would be if the spectators could jump on pitch and boot about their own balls if they wanted and yet be able to affect the score.

Now, before I go on any further, I want to point out that though [violet] didn't discuss this with anyone and just put it into the game, it wasn't done with any kind of malevolence or disregard for the WA forumers. She just wasn't fully aware of how things went down there. We all want to make NationStates a better game, and this was one of the first steps. The problem wasn't that [violet] didn't think the WAers opinions mattered, it's that she didn't realise she was completely shattering their game for them. You ARE valued members of the community. None of us want to lose the people who've made the WA what is today, believe me, we all think you've done a tremendous job, and we don't want to completely bulldoze over everything you've been doing until now. We're no trying to piss in anyone's sandpit. I'm don't want to speak on [violet]'s behalf here, and I'm not trying to, but I want to emphasise what I said before. The WA community is a valued community. It just wasn't completely understood. Once we get to a mutual understanding, I think things will progress much more smoothly.

So, let's look at the other side of the argument: everyone I've talked to who isn't a hardcore WA forumite has loved the idea of C&C and think it's a fantastic addition to the game. Suddenly the WA has become a great deal more interesting to casual and involved players alike because now it's doing something that could, potentially, directly involve themselves. There is enormous potential for the C&Cs to become something really impressive. Here's a scenario I imagined if this really took off:

Region A and Region B are longstanding rivals for ideological reasons and currently in the middle of an uneasy truce. One day, a nation from region A goes on a smear campaign against region B, telling everyone not to join them and even succeeds in getting a few nations from region B to defect. The delegate of region B is furious and files a proposal to condemn the nation for its lies. Region A, acting in the defence of one of its member states, goes on to the forum to counter this and tells all and sunder that Region B is lying and spreads even more lies about the region. Region B calls on an ally, Region C, to spread the word and condemn Region A for its blatant warmongering. And so the dominos fall until the condemnation of some insignificant nation has become a very big deal indeed...

I think we can all agree that this would be a really fun thing to happen in NationStates. Nothing else has ever given cross-region alliances in NationStates any proper meaning apart from raiding. The problem is that this is all incompatible with how the WA forumers see things. How could regional disputes ever cross into the WA forum where the OOC concerns and the IC concerns could possibly (and probably) be completely ignored? It's not so much that the WA can now affect gameplay, because it can't really, it can only comment on it. But it acknowledges that gameplay exists, therefore admitting a game exists. How can one RP under those circumstances? So we're going to need some sort of compromise. There's a number of things we could do at the moment...

Leave things as they are. WA forumers leave the game and while things remain much the same, a lot of what goes on in the WA forum will be seen as meaningless. No one will want to RP because it's too difficult and eventually it becomes a very dull place to post. No one wants this.
Change the C&C system into something that complements the World Assembly rather than changes it. This could be difficult and I can't say I've thought of anything yet. But it would be a very happy outcome if we could manage it. Suggestions are very welcome! Ardchoille is in the midst of building up a ruleset for these new categories. Have your say!
Make the C&C system separate from the proposals section. On the upside, this would mean that it could be put into a separate subforum where IC and OOC could mingle. On the downside, this could make C&C seem less important than normal resolutions and divorces it slightly from being part of the WA which was kind of the whole point.
Keep the C&C system as it is but make it separate from the WA. Again, this rather demeans the concept of the C&C in that it was about the organisation as a whole uniting to comment on a particular nation or region. A possibility I wouldn't exclude, but it's not very desirable.
Only allow IC Commendations and Condemnations. This would be very difficult and confusing for players. Not desirable.
Make separate categories for IC and OOC C&Cs. Again, this is difficult and confusing. Messy too. Not desirable.
Remove C&C altogether. It's a possibility, but for something with so much potential, I don't think it's desirable.
Make the C&C and the proposals two distinct branches of the WA. I don't think it would take long for things to become... internecine. But it's an idea to hold on to.
Something else? If anyone's got a suggestion, I'd love to hear it! Drop me an e-mail (sirocco@nationstates.net) or post in the thread I linked to earlier when it becomes unlocked.

There's a similar discussion going on in the Gameplay forums. Very interesting.

Now, there is another source of contention over the C&Cs and this is something that changes a very fundamental rule of the World Assembly, if not the entire game, and it is this: the WA cannot in any way affect a non-WA nation. This rule's been present since almost the beginning for a few obvious reasons, some practical, some ideological, and some philosophical.

If someone submits a proposal that says trade with non-WA nations should cease, we should invade non-WA nations, blah blah blah, we have to delete it. Why? Because there's no provision in the game for affecting those changes. The code only allows for changes to affect the WA nations, otherwise what's the point? Why join the WA at all? Suddenly joining the WA isn't a major decision anymore and is reduced to a triviality. Also, some object to the power of the WA over sovereignty and don't join because of that and other personal objections to certain resolutions or the general ideological thrust of the World Assembly. And then there are those who don't join because they're simply not interested in that part of the game.

The upshot of all this is that these people (a not inconsiderate number of players) may and could strongly object that the WA is doing something that affects them. Now, the C&C system rather neatly sidesteps this by not actually affecting them and merely putting a badge on the C&C'd nation. I can still see problems though, as this would still be too much for some. Or many. Who knows? The point of fact is that if the WA puts up a proposal condemning your nation for anti-WA attitudes then your nation has no defences because it is completely at the whim of WA members.

They could deal with this by joining the WA and submitting a repeal after being C&C'd but as you can imagine this could be seen as distasteful for the nation on many levels. They could also entreaty WA members on their behalf or debate it in the forums which may be better, but I don't know if that's a perfect solution. Ultimately because they've been branded with something they don't want and, from their point of view, shouldn't be made to have. I don't want to see people ditching their favourite nation because of this.

Possible choices as I see it...

Keep things as they are. Possible, but probably not the best solution. I can foresee many players getting pissed off about this.
C&Cs can only affect WA members. A solution, it's true, but not exactly desirable. The system carries more weight and importance if it can be used worldwide.
C&Cs affect non-WA nations but only WA members can see them. Something to think about. Imperfect, but... still something to think about.
non-WA nations can make an appeal after getting C&C'd to be voted on by the WA. It's a nice idea, but I think it's ultimately unworkable. Not only would it be difficult to work into the game, but if the nation loses the appeal then it's still stuck with a badge it hates forever.
non-WA nations get the C&C but it expires after a time. This is an idea I rather like. It allows the WA to make its opinions known and allows the non-WA nation to be badge-free after enduring whatever blessing or black spot it just acquired. On the other hand, this would lessen the impact of the C&C and the WA would probably be rather disinterested in voting on matters involving non-WA nations which would be a shame.
Something else? Again, let me know. I'd love to hear.

Finally, there all sorts of practicalities that need to be overcome if the new system isn't going to strangle itself with its own umbilical cord. I think Quintessence of Dust's post here best explains this for me.

Some other neat threads, you may like to look at:

The Modern WA - A discussion on WA roleplay.

NS School of Ideological Studies - Something I completely missed until now. It's New South Hell again, this time analysing issues with more passion than anyone previously. Obviously not to be missed. You should check out his forum for quite an illuminating list of essays and analyses.

Latin Motto Clinic - Naivetry is translating mottos into Latin for everyone. Very, very cool. I wish I could remember how to write in Latin.

An Analysis of NationStates Generations - An updated version of the essay Unibot wrote a while back.

That's it from me for now. Ta-ra.

Commendation And Condemnation, Part One

2009-05-29T09:23:00.003+01:00

We have a new feature! And it's one I (or any of the mods, I think) had no idea was coming! The new system allows the World Assembly to collectively shun or celebrate any particular region or nation. It's a pretty neat idea which gives the WA a whole new relevance. I can't wait to see where the players take this. These new categories completely contradict a lot of the rules we have for submissions, of course, so there's an ongoing discussion as to the ramifications of these new proposal categories in the WA forums. You can take a look here: http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1479

Ultimately, I think this will tie the players together as they start to consider the actions ans reactions of others. This has the potential to be a major political weapon. I think that's great.

There's a whole bunch of other small tweaks to the game too. I'm sure everyone must have noticed the rounded frames the data tables have now?

We have a new subforum for discussions about nations, embassies and such: Factbooks and National Information. More information can be found here.

The WA Archives has its first thread. Get out your party whistles!

The new forum has surpassed the 10000 users mark! the distinction of 10000th member goes to... Bosa. Well done, Bosa, you win a biscuit.

There's a lot of very interesting threads going on at the moment, so here's a rundown of all the ones I've come across. Do tell me if there's something else to which you'd like attention brought.

Military Gameplay and Game Mechanics - A Primer - A discussion on how raiding and defending can be integrated into the game that satisfies everyone.

Suggestion For The WA - The power to defy the WA by not taking on a resolution you don't like. But what kind of ramifications could there be...?

NS History - Users sharing years-old telegrams.

"RESERVED. That name was used by a former nation." - A discussion on how to go about freeing up old names.

Allow mass-telegrams for delegate or founder? - The thread title describes the content perfectly. [violet]'s reply that it's on the to-do list is exciting.

Unibot's List of NS Improvement Suggestions - A Bible for all those wanting to keep up with the fast flurry of ideas and whatnot. Has links to most (all?) of [violet]'s feedback on suggestions.

The Bastard NS Mod From Hell - Injustice For All - Reploid Productions brings us a new chapter in the (fictional) story of everyone's most despised moderator.

What Does Your National Currency Look Like? - A creative thread (often my favourite) where players are invited to design their own currency and show it off.

Unofficial NS Survey Results - Quite interesting.

As much as I don't like to give any exposure to OMAC's properties, I feel it's worth mentioning that people have been having trouble accessing the Jolt forums because they've been changing the URL. You can access them by visiting this link: http://forums.joltonline.com/

I recently learned of an offsite forum for Generalites: http://generalitemafia.ipbfree.com/index.php ; so if you spend a lot of time around the General forum why not pay a visit? They've even got a webcomic with more words and speech bubbles than you can shake a stick at.

And finally... How To Make A Nacho Hat

That's all from me for now. I've got some laundry to deal with.

NationStates 2 Closing Down

2009-05-21T01:44:00.007+01:00

The dream has ended. This is something I've been predicting for a looong time though I never mentioned it here for reasons I'll elaborate on later.

Here are some links for all of you to get up to speed on the situation:

NationStates News Page Post

NationStates Forum News Post

Some NS2 forum posts about the matter:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=594350
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14802865

I've deleted my lengthy rant about OMAC here because I didn't think it was very becoming of me. I'll give a short paraphrase instead:

OMAC sucks. They reneged on their promises, and raped the community in its quest for revenue. They didn't pay me for some of the work I did and have ignored my e-mails for the last four or five months. I am owed nearly £100 and have just about given up on ever getting it. They have been screwing us since day one by using us as venture capital for their REAL projects, those of which are just rip-offs of other games.

I implore readers not to deal with OMAC. If you haven't done so already, leave the Jolt forums and come join us on the new funky self-hosted one. They have treated the NationStates community extremely poorly in its quest for more and more money to the deficit of everything else. Stay away. Stay far, far away.

In other news, NS1 has a whole bunch of new tags for World Factbook Entries. Check out the news posts here:

Tags For Everyone
A few good tags

I've got some plans for a site-wide contest which will be all about asking players to show off their creativity! More on that later though, I'll probably launch it when the forums come out of the beta stage.

One last thing: despite the general chaos of OMAC and Jolt and NS2... I would like to thank Lydias who's really gone above and beyond in helping players, mods, and the community at large even when everything else has been falling apart.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Forum

2009-05-10T22:39:00.003+01:00

The new forum's been working very well so far (long may it continue), so I thought I'd direct your attention to a few of the more interesting threads have been sprouting up and touch on a few other developments.

First of all, is there's a competition (!) for users to design a special avatar for nations that have ceased to exist. You can post your own submission here. Remember to read the rules in the first post.

Secondly, and of more importance, we have a few new subforums, namely Global Economics and Trade, NS Sports, WA Archives, and Fiction which has superseded the old Jennifer Government forum (which you can still visit on Jolt, of course).

Excepting Fiction, I was the one who suggested these forums so I hope they're well received! Yeah, NS Sports is a bit of a lame name, but I couldn't think of anything better at the time. Perhaps you can all suggest something better?

The WA Archives is still virgin soil. Learn about how you can help make it an integral part of the World Assembly here.

The new Technical forum is also brimming with interesting threads. Here are a few links to click at your leisure:

About This Forum
New Forum Thoughts, Suggestions, and Problems
2 Questions: Antiquity? The original, original forum?
.:The BIG Collaborative List of Suggested NS Improvements:.

In other news, there's some new World Factbook Entry wizardry in the form of [nation] and [region] tags which you can use to link to nations and regions. In the WFE. It's really quite straightforward. There is also a [url] tag you can use to direct visitors to your own offsite regional forum! No more copy/pasting to the URL bar! Read all about it here.

I've got one exam this year on top of all my coursework in early June. I'll be performing Chopin, Satie, Skryabin, and one of my own pieces. Wish me luck!

Ring The Bells! We Have New Forums!

2009-04-30T13:21:00.004+01:00

www.forum.nationstates.net - BETA!

Also, read the official announcement here: http://www.nationstates.net/page=news/2009/04/29/index.html#bravenewforum

It's still early days, so go easy on it. We're still figuring out how to get everything working properly.

Great News... Soon

2009-04-26T12:32:00.006+01:00

NationStates readers: just skip to the bottom.
People who actually know me in real life: HOLY SHIT WHERE DID MY HAIR GO?! AND HOW WAS THIS PHOTO TAKEN IN THE FUTURE?!

The clock on the camera's wrong, OK? But I have a more serious question...

Is my head really that rectangular?

It's rather unsettling.

...

Aaaaaaaaanyway.

I completely forgot about it, but Sirocco (the nation) turned six years old on the 14th. Go me! But the really exciting news is that in the very near future there will be... exciting news.

We've got something in the works that we're all very pleased with and can't wait to expose to the NS public. But for now it's secret.

Ooh, the anticipation.

Issue #234 Is In The Game

2009-04-12T20:02:00.003+01:00

Attention all budding issue writers:

I am very close to finishing the most recent batch of issues. When I have completed this batch, I'll move on to the next one which will consist of all the issues written for the last year or so. If you have any issues you've been thinking about writing, I highly recommend you write them as soon as possible. If you submit it after I've moved on, you may have to wait another year before I see it.

Anyway, new issue.

Woo.

Glory Be

2009-04-08T05:40:00.001+01:00

Issue #233 Is In The Game

2009-04-07T23:21:00.001+01:00

Hooray! Break out the booze - the editing train is back on the rails.

All The Cool Kids Are Backing Up Their Threads

2009-04-04T02:13:00.015+01:00

Before I get to the gamut of this post, I first need to say I'm sorry to report that the NationStates DS version was suddenly - and unexpectedly - cancelled the day following its announcement. We're all very disappointed by this of course, but one day maybe we'll at least be able to get involved in Top Trumps or something.

On to more pressing matters, however.

As you all should know by now, NationStates 1 is no longer affiliated with OMAC Industries but our forums are still hosted by Jolt which is owned by OMAC. This is all very good as it means Max doesn't have to pay for the costs of hosting such a large forum. There is, however, a slight possibility that at some point we will no longer have this forum for reasons related to the previous two sentences - Jolt could, at any time, delete our forums. All of it. We have absolutely no control over this.

This is obviously the last thing we want to happen, as the forums represent not only six and a half years or so of NationStates history, they contain a goldmine of user-created content from roleplays and other works of writing in the NS and II forums to the WA (and UN) debates over proposals and resolutions. Not to mention, some of the diamonds that occasionally surface in the coal pile of NSG. The forums are a very large part of what defines NationStates' personal character and believe me when I say we are working very hard towards minimising any risk of their loss.

However, we must be prepared for the worst, and if the worst does happen, we will work towards hosting our own forums. We have requested the forum data from Jolt (we are entitled to this data) but unfortunately these requests have, as of this post, been refused. I do not know why.

So what can we do? Nothing that we aren't already doing, believe me! I've prepared a little something for everyone fearing the future of their favourite threads: here's a step-by-step guide to backing them up so even if our boards go down in a ball of flames you'll have your own copy safely stashed on your computer.

How to back up a thread.

1. Find the thread you want to save. (All images can be made larger by clicking, by the way)

2. Check out the thread's URL:

See that number there? That's the unique ID of this thread. In this case it is 338362, yours will of course be different. Unless you really like my issue writing guide. If we replace the hash signs in the following URL: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-######.html then we will be able to convert the thread into a format in which it can easily be saved.

Like so. Point your browser at this address.

3. You should now see something rather like this:

Excellent! I'm using Firefox, so this next step may differ a little depending on your browser. You need to go File and then click Save Page As... in the drop down menu.

4. You will be asked what type of file you want.

Pick this one, or nearest equivalent.

5. Finally, place your saved file wherever you wish. You now have a copy of the thread on your computer to cherish for all time.

That's that!

I'll not lie: I have been disappointed with the way things have worked out between us and Jolt/OMAC, but I retain optimism that all problems will be resolved in a way that suits everyone. The NationStates community is very precious to all of us who have invested so much time in making the site what it is today and we want to protect it as much as possible.

So, I'll end this post on a small suggestion that if you've got any friends with favourite threads. you help them back it up. They may thank you later.

Oh, and I've got two new issues under construction. Hoping to add at least one of them within the next few days.

NationStates On The DS!

2009-04-01T11:12:00.003+01:00

This is something we've been working towards for a while, so we're very pleased to be able to announce it now. There's going to be all sorts of exclusive features such as quick-time segments for wars and trade, and the ablility to send handwritten telegrams using your stylus. Don't like your latest issue? Just shout 'DISMISS!' into the microphone!

Long term plans include customised NationStates NS cases for your DS and is specially designed to be compatible with the DSi so you can include photographs of yourself as the leader of your country or spiffy photographic flags. but until then check out www.nintendo.nationstates.net and be excited!

NationStates Needs YOU

2009-03-27T08:48:00.002Z

The floodgates are open to suggestions for improvement to NationStates 1. With our newly acquired independence, we've turned our collective hive mind to adding new features to everyone's favourite nation simulator. Some of our ideas are quite ambitious! Everyone interested in throwing in ideas should visit the Technical forum and join the discussion. We've got some quite exciting developments that we've kept secret to be revealed soon.

In other news, the NS2 blog reports a favourable review of the game at www.bbgsite.com

The players have promptly visited the comments section and shat all over it. C'est la vie, I guess.

I've got an awful lot of work to sort out over the next three weeks, but I'm hoping to be able to put a new issue into NationStates at some point during that time. It's been something like six months since I last contributed. And that's a tad too long.

An Analysis Of NationStates Generations

2009-03-14T18:18:00.003Z

An anthropologist has put NationStates under the magnifying glass in the Gameplay forum. Take a look.

Also, in the Jennifer Government forum is a thread about how Erastide took an edition of JG with her to various countries and got it signed by as many NSers as possible. I wish I'd had the chance. Ah well.

There's possibly going to be a UK NationStates meet, perhaps even two: one for the people of the north and another for the south. I strongly recommend everyone tout Edinburgh or somewhere even further north as the meet location, because I want to attend a meet for once, goddammit! Here's the thread.

Finally, did you know Max Barry has an Australian accent?!

Mind blown, guys. Like, totally.

The Future Of NationStates

2009-02-26T00:29:00.005Z

... Is looking pretty good, actually. Now that NationStates is on a new server, and NS2 is properly being looked after by OMAC, we can start developing the game a bit more again. I realise I've already linked to this thread in an earlier post, but things have got even more interesting since then. [violet] herself has chipped in a few words about what changes might be coming to NS so if you've got a suggestion, join the discussion!

Special kudos goes to Unibot for his/her interesting ideas. Regional issues make me go all gooey inside.

Also of note is the NationStates Trainers thread in International Incidents. If you're interested in roleplay but don't know where to begin, that's a damn good place to go to get some advice from our more experienced players! If you're reading this blog, you're probably not new to NS, though. Or your Google search has forsaken you. If this is the case I bid you good luck in your search for HOT LESBIAN PORN. Heh heh heh.

In other news, Jolt's taken the advertising on the forums up a notch to the point where the ads are actually within the posts. Many people have voiced their disapproval. Everyone who's upset by the new ads should realise that we don't have control over the forums, so if you wish to complain to Jolt, do so here: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=584726

NationStates 2 now has war! It's been a long time waiting for this most-coveted feature, and it's now tentatively been introduced to worlds 34, 64 and 119. Here's the official announcement.

Initial feedback for the new feature has been quite scathing, but there's optimism too. Here's a few links to threads about it:

War is a disappointment

Gg OMAC

War

World 64 Laws of War (there's some amazing politics-building in here, I'm impressed)

There's a lot of interesting stuff in the forums, including transcripts of the war issues in the NS2 Got Issues? forum, but you may not want to have that spoiled for you.

Speaking of issues, I've resigned my post as an NS2 issue writer, mostly because I couldn't keep up with the deadlines due to university work - however, since NS2 now has a 'submit your own issues' feature, I'm a bit of a fifth wheel there anyway, so it all works out. And not that many of my submissions have ended up being used so it's not big loss. It does mean, however, that I will be editing issues for NS1 again, not as frequently as I'd like, but there will be new ones I promise.

To conclude this post, I'll finish on some rather promising news straight from the typing fingers of [violet]. I shan't spoil it, go see yourselves: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14551293&postcount=47

Update: Max Barry has posted to the NationStates News page affirming NS1's independence of OMAC Industries.

NationStates 1 Moves On To Pastures New

2009-02-18T19:29:00.002Z

http://www.nationstates.net/page=news/2009/02/18/index.html#exodus

NationStates 1 is in the processes of being moved to a new server so nation restoration has been disabled temporarily while all the data is moved across. Not much more I can add to this! I'll just settle with paraphrasing.

Here's some an interesting link to keep you occupied until there's something more interesting to say:

NS World Adjustments: Feeders <-- An interesting thread by The Bruce discussing possible changes to the feeder regions to compensate for the dropping player numbers (nation numbers seem to have stabilised around 50000 or so for now).

NationStates 2 YouTube Competition

2009-02-09T09:59:00.002Z

Yes, I'm still alive. Just suffering the consequences of a wisdom tooth giving up the battle against decay, and getting back on board the University Studies Express. The tooth in question is hidden right at the back of my mouth where no manner of head tilting in front of the mirror will let me look at it, but from feeling it I can tell that I only have half a tooth there, it smells unpleasant no matter how much I brush it (or try to brush it, it's almost inaccessible), and it is SORE. VERY, VERY SORE.

Trying to get an NHS dentist is also excessively difficult.

On with NationStates business:

NationStates 2 has launched a competition to advertise NationStates 2 on American TV. They seem quite fond of the idea, linking to the NS2 Youtube channel three times in one post.

I think it's a really good idea, though I'm yet to see any entries I particularly like. The premise is pretty simple: make a ninety-second video of you addressing your nation about whatever you like. Winner gets to become the focus of OMAC's NationStates 2 advertising campaign. I'm intrigued to see what creativity this will inspire as more entries get listed though I'm a little sceptical as to how people will be drawn in by an ad done this way.

Time will tell.

In other news, New South Hell has written a new essay, this time about how NationStates categorises ideologies: http://cityofulthar.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/deconstructing-the-ideocube/

Hello, 2009

2009-01-01T03:08:00.002Z

Happy New Year, everyone! We're homing in on the end of the first decade of the new millennium. NationStates has been around for six-and-a-bit years now and long may it reign over its small corner of the internet. This blog has been around for nearly four years. Still going strong!

Moving on, I forgot to mention an important NationStates 2 update: players can now submit their own ideas for issues to OMAC and possibly get them included in the game! I am, thankfully, not an NS2 issue editor, so don't ask me if any of yours have been looked at.

Submit your NS2 issue here!

NS Chronicles

2008-12-26T13:07:00.003Z

One of our players has decided it's high time NationStates had an online newspaper and asked if I'd be willing to give an interview. I obliged, and you can read the full transcript over at www.nschronicles.com

There have been attempts at making a newspaper for NS in the past, but they've all failed. Mostly because most people couldn't be bothered, but also, I think, because of the enormity of the task. There's always something happening, and it'd be impossible to keep abreast of all of it. But I wish them the best of luck! It's always interesting to read what someone else has written about NationStates, and there's not much material out there.

I look forward to reading later editions!

Gadzooks And Forsooth!

2008-12-19T12:18:00.005Z

I logged on to NationStates today, and had a quick look at the world page to see this:

The world contains 56,973 nations in 8,203 regions.

I've never seen the world population be so low. The last time I looked it was around 70-80,000 nations. What could have happened? Are people finally getting bored of NS after five years? Could be, it's hard to say. NationStates has been fairly static for a while. Perhaps it would benefit from a fresh dynamic?

Google Trends indicates a definite decline.

What do you think would boost NationStates' popularity, gentle readers?

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Of Kryozerkia And NationStates 2 Updates

2008-12-12T13:13:00.003Z

Kryozerkia is our new forum moderator! We've been needing some fresh blood for a while. I, for instance, don't do ANY moderation work at all now, being involved with writing new issues for NationStates 2 (some of which are up in edited form - I hope they're liked!) we're all sure she'll do a splendid job! We've actually sent offers to two users, but the other one hasn't checked their telegrams yet. Hurry up, user!

I've got a NS2 nation called Sirocco. Might as well mention it now.

Now, there's been a few things to note since I last posted, especially about NationStates 2, so let's take a quick look at that.

NationStates 2 has had more bugs than a tropical rainforest, so many that I'm not going to even try to discuss them in detail (or at all - I'm overworked and lazy) but slowly and surely they're being tackled and fixed.

I'm more interested in what NS2 has to offer than what's not been working though. A really good thread in the NS2 Technical forum should be good for all those wanting to see what other players want from NationStates 2. Take a looksy!

I'm most impressed with the new rankings system NS2 has. While it's not as epic as having your nation plastered on the front of NS1's world page, it's got enough information to keep stats-lovers in a heavenly paradise full of numbers and lists and stuff. You can see who's topping the boards for just about EVERYTHING.

One neat feature that might be possible to add to this would be to find out what list your nation was the highest/lowest in. Then, if you wanted, you could focus on that area.

I think the worlds list should be in numerical order too. Makes sense, you know? Also, either it doesn't work properly or I've misunderstood something. Sirocco has a cotton industry of 44 which should put me right at the top of world 3's list - but the list has me at 40... the same as about thirty other nations. Hmm.

The big news though is that the business-end of NS2 has devised a way of letting players get Ambassador status for free! How's that? With Offerpal, that's how! And what's Offerpal, exactly? Well, nowhere on Wikipedia for a start, but you can take a look by clicking Offerpal on this page. As far as I can tell, it's a system whereby some companies pay NS2 for every user that is 'passed on' to their sites and special offers. Users partaking in these offers earn Jennifers (NS2's special feature currency). Some of these offers are free, and others require you to spend money before getting the Jennifers. There's a lot of gambling sites which I'm quite leery of, and plenty of offers devised to grab your e-mail address, but all-in-all, it's not such a bad idea. Personally, I'd rather pay for Ambassaor status outright.

Well, that's me for now, read the Developer Updates for all the stuff I missed out.

I'm such a lazy blogger these days.

NationStates 2 Reaches Open Beta

2008-11-21T16:22:00.002Z

I'm several weeks late with this announcement I know, but I've been working hard on doing up some new issues for NationStates 2. Which I really need to get on with right now actually, so this post's going to be pretty brief. Check out the announcement in the NationStates 2 blog and, if you haven't already, create a nation in NationStates 2 and check it out yourself.

Two Small Enhancements

2008-10-30T12:07:00.002Z

A few months ago, I mentioned that New South Hell (whose name's probably going to be popping up more and more often on this blog) had suggested a whole bunch of descriptors to me that could go on the nation's spotlight page. Tired of being told for the thousandth time that your nation is remarkable for its compulsory vegetarianism? Or military conscription? Well now there's a whole bunch more to make things just that little bit more varied.

The second enhancement is one I devised myself. Right now NationStates 1 has nations upwards of ten billion, but have always been described as 'massive' since they hit the one billion population mark. I thought it was high time we changed these population size descriptors to be a bit more fitting, and more interesting for long-time players. The ranges have been redefined and some more have been added. I hope everyone approves!

Kudos goes to [violet] who implemented these features into the game for me.

In other news, the site's gone down a few times and there's been a bit of a glitch affecting issues, with horrendous error messages appearing where the issues should be. Don't worry, we'll have it fixed soon, so there's no need to beleaguer us with frantic cries of 'my nation's not working!'

The official thread for this problem is here.

Issue Repetition Analysis

2008-10-26T00:19:00.001+01:00

New South Hell has written up an article for the blog about his studies of how often daily issues in NationStates 1 repeat. Interesting reading!

---

If there are images in this attachment, they will not be displayed. Download the original attachment

I would like to thank Sirocco for allowing me to post this writeup in his blog. It is a study of the phenomenon of issue repetition in NationStates – how it behaves, what we can deduce about the implementation from that behavior, and ways in which this behavior could be made less annoying.

Every NationStates player who pays any attention to issues becomes aware that they repeat. It doesn’t matter that you’ve stated emphatically that you’ll be having none of that cannibalism in your nation, sooner or later, you’ll be asked again. Let me note right here at the start that this behavior is unavoidable, since players would be somewhat peeved if NationStates were to tell them “I have no new issues for you; try again tomorrow.” Nations can answer issues at the rate of two a day, so new ones would have to be created at a rate of more than two a day to keep from running out. And I don’t imagine we’re going to see that happening in a free game with volunteer staffing.

People regularly post complaints to the Forums about issue repetition, usually along the lines of “I told it not to ban Harry Potter, but it keeps bugging me about it anyway. Why won’t it ask me about something interesting?” Which leads to the question, is it really that bad? Does issue selection actually get into ruts, or is this just a delusion commonly affecting NationStates players.

To answer this question, you need data from a lot of NationStates nations. And, as it turns out, I am a lot of NationStates nations. To be more specific and slightly more accurate, I play almost 100 nations, and keep records of all the issues I’m asked and the choices I’ve made. (I hear a significant fraction of the audience gasping “Clearly, this is someone with no life!” Could be. But if I didn’t keep busy with NationStates, I’d probably be out spraypainting trains.) I didn’t take things this far when I first started playing NationStates – and I have complete records for only about 50 of my nations. The rest of this writeup is based on those 50. The longest-lived of those nations has responded to issues over 300 times, but 150 issues is more representative. The nations represent a wide variety of government types and issue-answering styles.

(For those interested, I wrote a program which I refer to as “my Python assistant” (MPA) for keeping these records. This makes the labor much less intensive than if I were forced to use manually-updated files or (gasp!) pencil and paper for the task.)

Based on data from these nations, I outline the national life-cycle as consisting of 4 stages. (There could be more of course. Maybe at issue 500 things become very different. I wouldn’t know because none of my nations has been around that long. But I’ve found no hints in forums, blogs, etc. of any such phenomenon.)

1. Stage 1 lasts for one issue. You are asked what kind of elections your nation has (issue 0). But for a short period, there was a bug in NationStates that caused other issues to be asked as the first. This turned out to be rather revealing. More on this below.
2. Stage 2 lasts until issue 20. You are asked issues from the set numbered from 0 to 30, the ones originally contributed by Max Barry. You may be asked issue 0 a second time, but otherwise there is no repetition. Occasionally, stage 2 may appear to last one or two issues longer. I believe in such cases that in fact Stage 3 has begun, but by chance issues from the original set are chosen a time or two more.
3. Stage 3 lasts a while, for at least 80 issues. I believe that no issue is absolutely excluded from this period, though there are a few which require a certain population, and which therefore would require you to go into vacation mode in order to grow enough to be asked them. (Also, I have never been asked an Easter egg, so I have no idea whether it is possible for them to turn up at this stage.) This stage ends when an issue other than issue 0 repeats (or, I believe, when issue 0 repeats for a second time, though I’ve never observed such a case). In my data, on the average, 133 issues have been asked before the first repeat. The lowest number of issues I have seen before this repeat is 108, the largest, 157.
4. After the first repeat, there will be more. Up to this point, except for issue 0, you have never been asked a duplicate. Now, all issues, including the one you answered yesterday, are possible. Sometimes, there will be a flood of repeats after the first one, and sometimes you will be asked mostly new issues for a while more, with the frequency of repeats gradually increasing.

As I noted above, there is an upper bound on the number of issues you can be asked. Further, many issues apply only to certain circumstances. You won’t be asked if you want to rescind the ban on computers if you haven’t banned computers. There are presently 232 issues. But the most any one of my nations has been asked is 164. And a different nation of comparable age has only been asked 125. I conjecture that 160 is about the maximum number of issues that apply to any one nation at a specific time. The nation with 164 issues is Eternal Repentance, a nation which answers issues using the strategy of changing its mind. This allows it to be, depending on its recent moods, asked democracy-only or dictatorship-only questions, which permits its total to surpass those of nations foolish enough to stick to one or the other. No matter how long I play Eternal Repentance, it still isn’t going to be asked everything. For instance, I know of a few issues which are only asked of certain extremist government types. Eternal Repentance is never going to have one of those governments, because they require one to persevere in answering a certain way (e.g., totally pro-capitalist), and Eternal Repentance will never betray its lack of principles in that fashion.

Can you be asked the same issue over and over again? Absolutely. My nation SQ (not its real name) was asked about eating its national animal three times in six days, two of the three times on consecutive days. So it does happen. But though this is annoying, is it surprising? To answer that question, it is helpful to have a model of what the implementation is doing. And so now I’m going to try to put together a fragmentary model from the evidence.

First of all, I have no doubts about the existence of Stages 1 and 2. They’re documented on the Forums. But why do I say there’s a difference between Stage 3 and Stage 4? An easier model would be this. After Stage 2 completes, NationStates selects an issue at random each turn. Because most issues have not been seen before, this means you get new issues for a while, but then, by chance, an old one is picked. This simpler hypothesis is ruled out by the evidence. If it were so, issues would repeat much sooner than issue 108 – because of a phenomenon known as the Birthday Paradox. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox for a mathematical description of the paradox.) If one assumes that all 232 issues are equally likely, there would be a 50 % probability of a repetition within 19 issues. If one assumes the more likely number of 160, the chances of repetition are even after only 16 issues. This clearly contradicts the data I’ve gathered.

My conclusion then is that the game goes out of its way, during Stage 3, to keep from asking an issue a second time (except for issue 0, which I’ll get to before the end). Now, an interesting thing I’ve observed is that periodically someone will ask on the Forums for a feature that depends on the game remembering what you’ve been asked, in what order, and how you answered it. The official response to this is always the same: it would take too much storage, given that there are 75,000 nations to consider. I don’t doubt that this answer is true, but it tends to obscure the fact that the game must be keeping track of what issues have been asked, up to a certain point, and that point must allow for retention of at least 140 issues or so, to fit my data. It turns out, however, that to keep track for all 232 issues of whether they’ve been asked requires only 232 bits, which is 29 bytes. This is not a lot of storage, even if it does become over 2 megabytes when multiplied by 75,000 nations.

So now here is a revised model for the NationStates implementation. It keeps track of whether or not each issue has been asked. After 100 or so distinct issues have been asked, it starts to allow issues to repeat. A developer comment on the NS2 Forums suggests that in NS1 the odds may be deliberately enhanced for unseen issues as opposed to repeats, and there is some anecdotal evidence suggesting this, but without more detailed knowledge of what issues are allowed when, it is impossible for me to test. So I don’t try to model exactly how the game decides when to repeat its first issue. Perhaps it occurs when the number of unseen applicable issues drops below a certain threshold. At any rate, once repeats are allowed, they come to dominate – and once they have started, no consideration is given to whether an issue has been asked recently before asking it again.

Now let me go back to the question of issue 0. As I noted, there was a period where, for some reason, your first issue might have been something else. One of my nations got issue 222 (terrorist attack) as its first. This nation observed that issue 0 did not repeat early on, but issue 222 did. In other words, the issue that can repeat early is the first issue, and the phenomenon has nothing to do with issue 0 specifically. I have a model for this too. The first issue is special. It is queued up at nation creation, not, as with all other issues, added during the game’s twice-daily cycle through the NationStates world. I hypothesize that, by design or by accident, this issue is queued in a way that causes it not to be recorded as having been asked. Thus, it would remain to the game as an unseen issue, one which can be asked again despite all the effort to prevent such a thing. This is a testable hypothesis – it leads me to predict that issue 0 will never repeat twice in the first 100 issues. If anyone sees that, or has seen it, then I am wrong.

I am going to end this post with a discussion of the effects of issue repetition, and an idea or two for ameliorating them. For all that it is understandable, issue repetition is just plain annoying. I have seen Sirocco himself express frustration at the repetition of daily rankings, which occurs for the same reason as issue repetition. We’d all rather answer something we haven’t seen in a while than be stuck in a rut saying “No, I already told you, no Inquisition, and that’s final!” There are hints that even the maintainers of the code are somewhat aware of this. When I’ve been too busy to play and let issues back up for a nation, I’ve never seen the same issue twice in the pending list. Maybe someone else has but, if not, it means that someone put in a check to prevent it. Similarly, if you answer the same issue in the same way very soon after a previous time, only one of the answers shows up in the prose national summary, leading me to believe again that someone put in a check for this which skips over the duplicate. (It does show up twice in the regional history however.)

There is another more serious effect of issue repetition on the game, however. It produces more extreme, one-sided nations. For instance, the easiest way to show up very high on the “Nudest Nations” ranking is to be lucky enough to be asked the “right to dangle” question repeatedly, and to always respond with option 2, making nudity mandatory. This is how “Penultimate Option” (not my nation this time) got to be tenth most nude in the world. It’s not hard work and perseverance that pay off, it’s being asked the right question the right number of times! If you take NationStates seriously (or want to take it seriously) as a nation simulator, then you want the growth and development of your nation to be organic and gradual, rather than a byproduct of the sequence in which issues happen to be presented. I note that complete sequence dependence is unavoidable, due to questions with abrupt and discontinuous consequences, like switching from democracy to dictatorship or cutting off military funding. Still, I think that the unconstrained issue repetition in NationStates is a real blemish, as it interferes with your ability to set your nation’s course.

Of course, unlike most players, I have my Python assistant. I use it to help me navigate through repeated issues. It lets me know when an issue is a repeat and, under two sets of circumstances, it advises me to dismiss (and I almost always take its advice). First, it advises me to dismiss if an issue is repeated within ten turns of my previously answering (not dismissing) it. In this case, the repetition will show up in the nation’s event log unless I dismiss. This seems to me a bad thing. If issues are going to repeat, they should at least have the decency to do so out of sight. Secondly, it advises me to dismiss if the issue has been seen (dismissed or not) within the last 60 turns. The number 60 is half of 120, which I believed at the time I wrote that part of the code to be the lower bound on the point at which repetitions start. The intent was that I could divide issue space into two halves, the recent half and the distant half, and respond only to issues from the distant half. I admit that I have a few nations which I want to become extreme, and for those, I only dismiss for the first criterion (repeat within 10 turns).

Naturally, my assistant keeps records of all this as well. And it tells me that, on the average, 4 % of the issues asked in Stage 4 are 10-turn repeats. That’s pretty much what you’d expect if the process is really random. On the other hand, on the average 26 % of all issues are 60-turn repeats, and for some individual nations, this rises as high as 52 %. So, thanks to my assistant, I end up dismissing between a quarter and a half of the issues that are asked me, simply on the basis that they’ve been asked again too soon. But my reward is that my nations grow more naturally, even though their growth is slowed by the dismissals.

I feel strongly that NationStates ought to be changed to eliminate 10-turn repeats. This would take 10 bytes of storage per nation (or 20 to be ready for issues with numbers greater than 255). This cleans up the national history, and makes repetition invisible to players with short memories.

I feel that going further and establishing a longer limit on repeats would also be a good thing, simply because of the resulting improvement of the simulation. Let me sketch an implementation – assuming I’m right about the use of a 30-byte bit map for the record of what issues have been asked, this implementation gets by with adding only one more bit per issue, for 60 bytes rather than 30. The values 0 to 3 can be encoded in 2 bits. The idea is that you have three periods, distant (1), recent (2) and current (3), and that 0 continues to mark a never-asked issue. (This would be needed if the odds of selection are to be different for a never-asked issue.) Every 30 issues, you change all the 2 issues to 1 and all the 3 issues to 2. Every time you select, you select from 1s and 0s, and upon selection, mark it with 3. This ends up doing what my assistant does – it keeps issues from being asked again for between 30 and 60 turns, 2 weeks to a month at two issues a day. You could use some number other than 30. I just picked 30 so that you wouldn’t run out of new issues before you’d gone through 3 periods. Note that if the game doesn’t actually need to know whether an issue has ever been asked, you could use 0 for a period also, and increase the guaranteed time between repeats up to 50 or so.

I respectfully ask the keepers of the game code to consider this idea.

Finally, I’d like to close with a bit of advice for a certain class of players. The people who really get into issues often set up nations or regions of nations whose goal is to eventually be asked every issue, and to give every response. For instance, several players (and I am among them) have set up nations which choose option 1, 2 (and so on) of each issue they are presented. Because of the fact that some issues have specific prerequisites, some of them are essentially impossible to get in this way. For instance, as I recall, no issue has a second response which makes your nation a dictatorship, and so no “2nd option” nation which starts as a democracy will ever receive a dictatorship-only issue. There are two lessons to draw from this. First, if you want to be asked everything, your nation has to change. Your best shot is a nation that switches back and forth from democracy to dictatorship, from socialist to capitalist, from libertarian to oppressive, and from frugal to spendthrift. And issue repetition helps you with that. As like as not, even with this advice, the goal of achieving the complete issue experience is out-of-reach, but a strategy of perpetual change is certainly a more interesting way to fail than one of single-mindedness. And thus, if you’re a fanatical issue devotees like me, issue repetition is your friend. In the final analysis, it’s a feature, not a bug.

-New South Hell-

I'm A NationStates 2 Issue Writer

2008-10-16T08:53:00.002+01:00

Good news! I've committed myself to writing eight brand new issues each week for NationStates 2 which should mean a good thirty-two or so new issues per month if I can meet the deadlines. I hope everyone likes them!

That's all I've got to say for myself for now, but watch this space: got some interesting posts lined up for the near future.

Be Right Back

2008-09-21T08:16:00.002+01:00

This is going to be a short post as I have to leave very soon, but I will be back around the 29th of September. I'm going to visit my family for a few days and then I've got urgent things to deal with straight from Wednesday to Sunday so it's going to be a difficult week.

Got some good news, I have written an issue for NationStates 2 and shown it to the NS2 development team who loved it and it'll be put into the game sometime around tomorrow. The CEO of OMAC Industries asked if I could write them on a regular weekly basis. I haven't said yes or no to this yet, but if I do then you can expect to see many more NS2 issues going into NationStates 2 regularly. It does mean that I'll have very little time to do NS1 issues, but don't worry I'll do my best to do both at once! It's just going to take me longer to do NationStates 1 issues.

Finger crossed the week goes well! See you in a week.

My First Impressions Of The NationStates 2 Beta

2008-09-08T13:26:00.005+01:00

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be going into some detail about things I've encountered in NationStates 2 like issues and such. If you don't want to know about it, you may not want to read any further. This isn't a review for NationStates 2 as such, more of a series of musings.

NationStates 2 has been released in beta form for about two weeks now, so I'm going to have a brief look at the various aspects of this game and give my general opinion on what's good, what's bad, what could be improved, etc.

OK, let's make our way down the sidebar. First up are issues:

Issues

NationStates 2 issues are quite, quite different from NS1 issues:

NS1 issues are heavy on satire and looking at how different people have different opinions on what should be done on a wide range of topical issues.

NS2 issues are much more slanted to the wacky side of issues than anything else... the other day I had an issue about a crimewave of attacks by ninjas which, amusing as the idea is, is difficult to take seriously. You can't really impose your own morals on a premise so silly.

I've got about seven issues in my pile (there's no 'dismiss all' button. Maybe there will be in the future, I rather hope so.) so let's take a look at one of them:

"Jailing people for pot, is like... bad."

The Hebdomadal Gabfest Editorial: As more and more marijuana users are fined and jailed, our editors ask, "Is marijuana possession a criminal offense?" We interview The Hebdomadal Gabfest's top authorities on the subject.

"Marijuana use is a disease, not a crime" asserts noted physyician Doctor Danny. "Decriminalize this 'pot' and increase the health budget to steady our people when they stumble.".

[Accept]

"Dude, marijuana isn't a disease, it's a path to enlightenment!" says noted Libertarian Alex Truberg. "Make it legal and take some of these cop pigs off the streets, man. What I do to my body is my... wait, what was I talking about?"

[Accept]

"We need to beef up our police force to deal with this growing crime spree. Marijuana is illegal for a reason." says Drug Elimination Agency Officer Irons. "It affects people's memories, and makes them paranoid. If we don't nip this in the bud, they could form some kind of druggy army and kill us all!"

[Accept]

[Dismiss The Issue]

Before I talk about the contents, I have a few small remarks to make about presentation: the options don't have 1., 2., and 3. before them and there's not much to separate the options from the issue description but an [Accept] button. It doesn't look as neat and clear as NS1 issues do when it should look better.

Few things to note: my nation in NS2 is called Meticulous Care and its newspaper is The Hebdomadal Gabfest.

This particular issue isn't so bad, you've got a for, an against, and a compromise (which comes as the first option - an unusual place to put it. Ideally you want to make the most direct solutions the first ones read an- never mind, I'll be here forever), but I think the issue description could have been done differently.

The Hebdomadal Gabfest Editorial: As more and more marijuana users are fined and jailed, our editors ask, "Is marijuana possession a criminal offense?" We interview The Hebdomadal Gabfest's top authorities on the subject.

This description seems a tad clumsy to me. "Is marijuana possession a criminal offense?" Well, for that particular nation the question's been answered earlier in the same sentence where it points out that possessors have been fined and jailed. The question should have been "Should marijuana possession be a criminal offense?" but even then, there's no good explanation why it's even being brought up. Why is the government interviewing the newspaper's authorities? It makes no sense. If I were to write this description, it would have been something like this:

The pro-marijuana organisation 'My Body, My Choice' has been at the centre of debates on recreational drug use after they accidentally set their clubhouse on fire during a 'conference'. The Hebdomadal Gabfest has used this to highlight their latest editorial on whether marijuana should be legal or not.

There, it's clear as to the issue and it even includes the national newspaper (which is used profusely in NS2 issues for some reason). It has the added bonus of being ambiguous as to whether recreational drug use is legal or not. This means that you can take any stance on it and still get the issue later if you change your mind. If it's affirmed that it's already illegal, then countries where marijuana use is legal won't be able to get it.

While the NS2 issues aren't bad, they're still not very good and I think they could definitely be improved.

National Summary

Here's my national summary for Meticulous Care:

The Allied States of Meticulous Care is a huge, moderately restrictive nation, remarkable for its harmony between citizens and politicians. Its population of 67.55 million citizens are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion. The average national tax rate is 28.00%.

A multitude of tap, swing, and hip-hop schools have added classes for the lesser primates. Air-freshener salesmen peddle their wares to fish-scented patrons. Doctors are known to prescribe nothing but anti-biotics. Drilling structures tower over the land. It's rumored that gangsters have been thanking cement manufacturers for their quality production of "shoes." Sports cars have been spotted peeling rubber on the roads.

Lack of food has made the Atclan starvation diet all the rage. Nudity has lost a lot of its appeal due to the abundance of flesh from the clothes shortage... or maybe it's just the frostbite. With such a dire shortage of medical supplies many mothers are delivering at funeral homes to save on transportation costs. The country has become famous for its well stocked silos of materials feeding industries all that they require. Housefires are up 240% as the black-outs have households returning to candle light. Highly skilled professionals are quitting their jobs and becoming fast-food drones as the transportation shortage makes commuting impossible. More and more elite officers are graduating from military training. The country is known for its new renaissance of entertainment art.

Meticulous Care's fearless leader resides in the nation's capital of Juniper City, making grand decisions typically with a pet slime beast curled-up on the carpet.

Meticulous Care was built upon the blood of bureaucrats, pen–pushers, and narrow–minded busybodies everywhere. Their skulls make up the great throne in the Palace of Dread in Juniper City. Blood–curdling screams are a constant reminder of the danger that lurks round every corner.

Please visit the gift shop!

Meticulous Care was founded on the 20th of August, 2008.

Meticulous Care became Moderator of Blanchfield on the 25th of August, 2008.

All in all, it's not bad! One problem though is that because NS2 has two sidebars at both sides of the screen, all the text is squashed into mammoth paragraphs. It's a little off-putting. One obvious boon though is that you can add your own paragraphs to the nation's description (mine's the one that begins 'Meticulous Care was built on...') which is really liberating, and the roleplayers are going to love it. I also like that other notable events in your nation's history are inserted automatically (see the last two lines in the description). Looking at the second paragraph, I notice they put a hyphen into antibiotics. Whoops. There're a few other typos, but I'm not here to nit-pick. Moving on.

Dossier

The dossier is very good, you can order nations by name, last login, population, etc. which I approve of. No complaints here, though it would be nice if it had the little header explaining what the dossier is for, like in NS1 for the benefit of new players. I have noticed that a lot of the features don't have much explanation with them except through the blue question mark buttons.

Telegrams

This feature needs more work. At the moment there is no option for deleting telegrams (single or multiple), or blocking senders. In NationStates 1, you're presented with the option to send telegrams the moment you view another nation. In NationStates 2, you have to click 'Send [whomever] a telegram' which is tucked away in the sidebar. I think it's a shame that in a political simulator (and politics is, at its most fundamental, persuading through communications) that this essential feature isn't more prominent.

Trade

I like trade in NationStates 2 very much. Here's the trade FAQ for those wanting to follow what I'm about to say.

The trade page is broken up into sections so here's a rundown:

Trade news

The latest information about what trade relations you've made. Tellaria just set me to partner.

Trade relations

This shows you what trade relations you have with other nations. I'm neutral with everyone at the moment so there's nothing here, but you can rearrange nations in this list by name, population, etc.

Your GDP vs. Your Set Trade Relations

This shows you your nation's Gross Domestic Product in comparison with nations you've got trade relations with.

Others' Trade Status to you

This shows a list of other nations' trade status to your own nation.

Your GDP vs. Nations with Trade Relations Set to You

This show's your nation's GDP in relation to nations who have trade relations to you.

Trades

This tells you what the latest trades your nation made with a little clipboard symbol bearing either a plus or a minus at the side to show whether you made a surplus or a deficit with the trade. Mine are mostly minuses though my cement industry appears to be flourishing. Go cement!

There's also a number of clipboards showing how many goods you yourself consumed before trading. Mine includes this:

'You consumed 3.00 million units of your own dancing monkeys to satisfy food.'

I'm not sure what to think of that.

Total Goods Produced Yesterday

A list of the goods produced and a line graph indicating how much of each has been made over time.

Surplus After Trade

This shows which industries have a surplus after trade and how much.

And that's it for trade. There's a lot of information there but it's presented in a manner which is, quite frankly, only half-comprehensible.

Most of the information is parlayed through line graphs with no explanation as to what the numbers on the axes represent. Only so many lines are visible and no explanation is given to why these lines are shown and others are not. Another problem is that often the lines for different things are the same colour so there's no way to tell which is which without hovering over the nametag at the bottom. The numbers also use commas instead of decimal points ($13,85 instead of $13.85 for instance) which makes no sense to me at all.

Trade in NS2 is done top-level management style with no micromanagement which I approve of. It sets NS2 apart from other trade simulators which, unless you're pretty canny, will burn you alive in Statistics Hell. So I like trade, but it needs better presentation.

Economy

Again, this section is split into sections, so I'll guide us through:

Government Spending by Branch

Wow! A pie chart! I can understand that, well enough, though it's still got the whole commas-instead-of-decimal-points thing. This section shows what percentage of your budget is going towards different departments. I like this a lot, it means I can keep track of where my government's funding is being wasted most. Which is... healthcare and welfare right now.

Yesterday's Cash Flow

This shows how much money is being put into trades, if I'm right.

Money available for trade: 45.49 million electronic walnuts
Money remaining after trades: 0.00 million electronic walnuts

All of it, by the looks of things.

Total Needs Yesterday

Shows how much demand there is within my nation for verious amenities (food, clothing, energy, etc.).

Unsatisfied Needs Yesterday

Shows how much unsatisfied demand for various amenities there is in my nation. Right now there's a lot.

Yesterday's Average Market Price for Goods

This shows how much goods are going for by value of your nation's currency (which will always be represented by the dollar sign [$]). A brief glance at the list indicates that automobiles are the most valuable asset on the world market currently, whilst we're all practically drowning in ballistics (or at least, that no-one wants them). The second worst is... cement! NOOOOOO-

Anyway. Looking at these last sections, I can't help but think that they're more useful to decisions you're making when dealing with trade. Do you really want to have to swap between both pages while doing that? It makes more sense to me to put them all together. Also, it'd be helpful if you could rearrange the goods by value, name, etc. for easy reference.

Alliances

Ah, alliances. Alliances is where NS2 really comes to the fore as the possibilities here are endless. This is where the core gameplay exists.

Alliances are like NS1 regions: nations come together, bound by a common interest usually, and build up an organisation with laws and diplomatic relations aimed at furthering its interest. It'll be interesting to see which alliances become the strongest.

Alliances can be of two types: alliances and continents. Nations on the same continent are brought together simply by geographical closeness.

Continents are like NS1 regions. When you create your nation, it gets plonked in a random continent on a random world (mine is World 3). Continents have a description, forum, an elected moderator (like a delegate in NS1) and that's about it.

The continent I'm on is called Blanchfield (Lord knows why) and with some prompting I've encouraged other Blanchfield nations to get to know each other so we can create a proper alliance (which we have done now). The alliance is just getting on its feet, but let's take a look.

The alliance is called The Dyriiad Federation as its HQ is based in the capital of the alliance's founder, Theyst.

Alliances are highly customisable, much more so than continents, which is really wonderful. So let's take a look at what makes an alliance:

Name

Obviously.

Description

Here you can write up what your alliance is all about. Blanchfield simply has 'Blanchfield is a continent of contrast.' for now (oldtime NSers should get the reference).

Forum

Individual alliances all have their own in-game forums which is really great, it's something that many have been hoping for in NS2. They're simplistic, but good enough for most I should think.

Alliance News

Shows the latest happenings in the alliance (members joining, rank changes, etc.)

Alliance History

Lets you record anything about the alliance's history that you want.

Nominations

Some ranks (which I'll elaborate on later) are elected positions. You can nominate yourself, or endorse someone else's nomination here.

Alliance Laws

This is where those with the power can write up the rules for members to abide by, much like writing up WA proposals for the World Assembly in NS1 but less onerous. Laws are proposed, and then voted upon. If they get more FOR votes than AGAINST votes then they're passed and take pride of place in the list of enacted laws. This is a great way for alliances to acquire their own distinctive flavour.

Alliance Ranks

This shows what ranks members may have. The ranks are fully customisable (by whoever has a rank that lets them customise ranks anyway) so different ranks have different powers within the alliance from inviting new members to promoting/demoting members of lower ranks or editing the alliance's description.

In short, I like alliances, which is good because they're just about the most important feature of NationStates 2. I don't know if this has been addressed or not, but it would be good if there was a page that allowed you to read all enacted laws at the same time without having to click on each one and read them separately. My one major gripe though is that alliances don't have messageboards like NS1. The forums are all well and good, but they're not as immediate as messageboards are. To put it simply, forums are like meetings and messageboards are like conversations. They're more casual and therefore more accessible. I think messageboards would be a good complement to alliance forums.

Espionage

Meticulous Care is not an ambassador nation, so I don't know much about how espionage works in the NationStates 2 beta.

Browse Nations

A list of all nations in your world. You can rearrange the list according to name, population, GDP, etc. but there is no search function which is quite annoying. I'm sure that will be sorted at some point though.

Diplomacy

This page shows what diplomatic relations you have with other nations, what diplomatic relations other nations have with you, and the latest changes in diplomatic relations.

But what is diplomacy in NS2? It's basically a measurement of how friendly nations are with each other. You can be White (ally), Green (peaceful), Blue (neutral), Yellow (alert), Orange (hostile). At some point there will also be Red and Black which will be there for NS2's war function (which is yet to come). Diplomatic Statuses besides White, Red, and Black are purely there for public show, or, diplomacy. Neat, huh?

I like the diplomacy in NS2, it's very accessible.

And that's it for the sidebar. I'll look at two more things before I give my Grand Conclusion *fanfare*

Nation creation

I liked the nation creation system. It was like NS1's except better. More initial questions, and more things to customise: you can pick a national newspaper, a predominant terrain, and, at last!, a capital city. One thing that is puzzling is that you have to be an ambassador to have a custom flag. I don't know why you'd have to pay to do something in NS2 that you could do in NS1 for free. Shouldn't it be the other way round? But nevertheless, I do like the nation creation system.

I'd like to see you be able to create a name for your national leader and perhaps even supply a picture. That would be neat.

Presentation

NS2 is styled in a more complicated way than NS1 but it suits it. I really like the artwork by Karl Tiedemann. It's absolutely perfect for the game.

Grand Conclusion

I like NationStates 2 a lot, but there's definite room for improvement. Some features are very good but need more work (alliances for instance), and some features are sorely lacking (search functions). I'm sure NS2 will be great once it's out of the beta stage, but I do have some concerns about how playable some aspects of the game are going to be in the long run. I'm not sure what the point of the commendations and trophies are either. Surely they're just two words for the same thing?

I also think worlds should have more interesting names than World 1, World 2, etc. It's hard to grow a community around something with such an uninspiring moniker.

---

There we go, now some smaller news:

NationStates 2 released another 4000 beta keys, which means more players. Expect even more to be released soon!

There is a new NationStates 1 issue.

More first impressions of NationStates 2 from regulars of the NationStates 1 General forum.

AND OH MY GOD FORUM 7 IS BACK.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Beta Keys

2008-09-02T23:37:00.002+01:00

Hello everyone, I've been terribly busy recently. SAAS buggered up my student loans application, so now I may have to wait three weeks to get it processed. Also, the bank sent me a new card which promptly either got lost in the post or stolen by a bastard postman. It's been a fun few weeks, certainly.

Anyway.

There's been a lot of fuss over these keys because people have been too excited to read. So here's how to get a beta key:

1. Pre-register your NS1 nation.

2. Cross your fingers and wait patiently.

That's it. The beta keys are handed out RANDOMLY so don't kick and scream because you haven't been given one. The idea is that more and more keys will be handed out as time passes and the site is debugged and improved.

In other news, the NationStates 2 forums have been rejiggered into an arrangement that actually makes sense.

I am also working on a new issue for NS1 (if you're wondering, I have nothing to do with the issues in NationStates 2). Events have delayed me from touching it these last two weeks but I'll get on it soon.

I'm a bit dozy right now so my take on NationStates 2 as it is so far will have to wait until the next post.

NationStates 2 Invite-Only Beta Launches

2008-08-19T12:07:00.004+01:00

Yes, NationStates 2 is one step closer to a baying public! Those who applied to be on the beta now have a chance of taking part in the game in its (still early) stages. Remember that the game isn't finished yet and new features are still being added.

A random five hundred applicants will be given keys to access the game. Remember to make sure you register with the e-mail address in your NS1 settings or you won't be able to use the nation name you (presumably) registered. Those, like the dunce I am, who already made this mistake will have to wait for the admins to fix this for us.

Gradually, more people will be invited until the open beta is launched. Then, soon, the game will be complete, excepting the odd enhancement and bug fix every now and again.

NationStates 2 Blog announcement

I've created a nation called Meticulous Care until I can get Sirocco. I'll maybe post my views and comments on NS2 within the next few days. In the meanwhile, check out the new NationStates 2 FAQ. It is very exciting.

NationStates YouTube Video Round-Up

2008-08-14T12:38:00.005+01:00

NationStates, being a text-based game, does not exactly lend itself to the creative thinking that goes into making YouTube videos.

Nevertheless, there are those that have tried.

Cordova - A Memory: I am not entirely sure what all this is about, but the sad mournful music accompanied by pictures of handsome young men, various images from NationStates, forum posts, and other random images gives an effect which is oddly hilarious.

Hitler vs. Raiders: your founder can't help you now.

NationStates Issues Commentary: this is genuinely interesting (to me at least), one of our users, Kushin Los, has decided to document the progress of his nation on video camera by reading issues aloud and evaluating his decision. It's rather odd to hear something you've written being recited by a complete stranger half a world away. Check them out, just don't expect the video to be as interesting as the audio.

I've set up a thread in the Got Issues forum for anyone wanting to comment on these videos.

NS2 Name Reservation

2008-08-14T06:41:00.003+01:00

If you worried that you might not get your favourite nation's name for the eagerly-awaited sequel, then fear no longer - we have name reservations. Simply follow the instructions on the link in the middle of your nation's spotlight page and make sure you're using the e-mail address you want to confirm your reservation in your settings.

You can find more news on this with these links:

NationStates News
NS2 Weblog

Also, you can join the discussion about the NS2 reservations in the Technical forum.

Sisters Of NationStates

2008-08-09T02:30:00.002+01:00

Two posts in one day! Who'da thunk it.

OMAC Industries, which owns NationStates and is developing NationStates 2, has also acquired some other games which I thought I'd mention here. I'm neither encouraging or discouraging anyone to play these, just sharing some information about the other gaming sites in the OMAC 'family'.

First off, the two Swirve games:

Earth: 2025, a contemporary nation simulator which first rose to prominence in 1996 or so. In it you can build alliances, wage war, and other numerous national management things. They also have forums.

Utopia is more of a fantasy-orientated nation simulator, in which you can be a specific fantasy race (elves, dwarves, etc.) and ally with or wage war against other 'kingdoms'. Their forums can be read here.

The most recent acquisition of OMAC's is a game called Trukz, a 'trucking simulation' where you take the role of a lorry driver, transporting goods from one place to another. Their forums are here.

Trukz was invented by Kevin Marks, the creator of Cyber Nations. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

In other news, NationStates has been, quite frankly, ripped off by the makers of a FaceBook application called Nations. Not so much as an 'inspired by'. It's rather similar to the whole Scrabulous affair (if you don't know about it, look it up).

I'm not aware of any intent to complain officially about the application, and there probably isn't any need to do so. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Of Avatars And Paedophilia

2008-08-09T01:15:00.006+01:00

Absolutely not in combination though!

I've been doing little NationStates-related things this last week due to RL difficulties. I'm poor, living costs in Aberdeen are high, jobs are ludicrously thin on the ground, my rent's been increased, things in my flat keep breaking, and my loan application for the coming year was pitifully small because the application forms are as easy to follow as a VCR instruction booklet that's been translated from Japanese. I've got a lot of phone calls to make in regards to this.

Anyway, the forums have undergone some more changes, the most immediately obvious one being that not only mods may have avatars now. Is this a good or a bad thing? Well, there's a discussion concerning it in Moderation. For us mods it's another thing we'll have to police, so players should try to restrain themselves from using anything offensive.

Also, the NationStates 2 forum has been expanded to have the same subforums as NationStates 1. This is a strange move by OMAC since no one's actually played the game yet. The big question of course is do we really need two General forums? God forbid!

The Paedophilia thread in General has, understandably, caused some controversy as to whether we should be allowing our users to discuss such a harrowing subject. Last time we had a thread on this we suddenly attracted a number of pro-paedophilia posters who were unnerving and unwanted to say the least, so we stopped that thread in its tracks. This time round, however, the debate seems to be progressing with actual reasoned discussion without users agressively trolling on the subject (both advocation and condemnation) which I'm pleased about. We will not support a thread that devolves into the promotion of paedophilia, obviously, but we see no reason to stop people from talking about it.

To put things simply, we're OK with people debating whether it's excusable to like children sexually, but we don't want our users debating about whether it's excusable to act upon it because it's not, and we don't want that sort of thing on our forums. It doesn't sit comfortably with our policies and attracts people we have no interest in attracting.

I'd like to say more issues are on the way, but until I've got past all the financial difficulties I'm facing, I can't do anything.

OpenId On NationStates

2008-07-31T14:05:00.005+01:00

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.

OMAC Interviews Max Barry

2008-07-24T19:23:00.002+01:00

Check it out: http://blog.nationstates2.com/2008/07/q-and-a-with-ma.html

In other news, the world page buggered up today because the 'featured region' feature glitched. The randomly chosen region that turned up was deemed inappropriate, so we renamed the region causing a giant error message to distort the page. Ah, c'est la vie.

More Forum Work

2008-07-23T16:27:00.004+01:00

The changes to the forums are becoming more obvious now with the introduction of ads right in the middle of every single thread. I'm using a Firefox browser which blocks ads, so I'm not affected too much, but of course there're a lot of people who are. Here's some threads where the new changes are being discussed:

Wilgrove's NSG thread
Chaotic Nightmare's Technical thread
Rambhutan's open letter to OMAC

The general consensus is that the ads are obnoxious and in-your-face, interrupting the narrative flow of threads, especially the ones in the roleplay forums. But if we're going to have OMAC pay for the expensive hosting of NationStates and its forums, not to mention the development of NationStates 2, then I think it's something we're going to have to put up with. Oh, and the ads sometimes link to very inappropriate material. If you see any of these ads, please report them to Jolt.

If you really can't bear the ads then download the Firefox browser here.

NoScript and AdBlock are the best add-ons for blocking online adverts I am told.

Finally on the subject of changes to the forums, if anyone has anything to suggest to the Jolt admins about what they'd like on the forums, or are coming across any bugs, then I recommend this forum: Suggestions/Bugs/Feedback

Feel free to comment your opinions on this blog too, I rather miss knowing that anyone reads this thing.

Remember that many changes are forum-wide and can't actually be forum-specific, like the member titles. You know, the annoying descriptors like 'Pimp' and 'Honorary Spam Forum Owner'. Any changes to those happen to all of Jolt's members, not just us. So remember that what you want may not be possible.

Also, NationStates 2 now has its own great big forum for everyone to have fun with, as I subtly mentioned in my last post.

In other news, two of the seven new World Census rankings have appeared, which I'm pleased about. For those who missed them, they were 'Laxest Drug Laws' and 'Most Godforsaken'.

There is also a new issue.

Forum Work

2008-07-20T01:36:00.003+01:00

There's been a little rejigging of the forums. At the bottom of the screen is a list of all players viewing forums, a counter of how many are viewing each individual forum, and even those viewing the same thread as you. It's quite nostalgic, reminds me of the pre-Jolt days, though the mods' names aren't green this time. We're just plain black. Like civilians. Ah, I jest. Thread displays are now a bit more customisable, and you can send little messages to forum users directly by clicking on their names in the forum. You can even befriend them. Aww. I have a feeling that, as a mod, being able to receive messages directly from anyone clicking my name on the forums may either be really useful or bane of my thread-prowling life. But I survive well enough with the same sort of thing happening on NationStates with telegrams. Out of all the mods, I'm the one with a link to my nation strewn about the site most. Now, moving on, the NationStates 2 forum is missing... oh my god, it's gone! It's the end of days! What will we do now?! Oh, wait. There it is. In a new home.

If you want to discuss these latest developments, check out this thread by Ifreann.

New World Census Rankings

2008-07-17T13:00:00.001+01:00

After some brainstorming I designed some new world census rankings for possible addition to NationStates. I am pleased to announce that [violet] has coded (and enhanced) most of these and put them in for me. So keep your eye on the World page. There are seven new rankings that could crop up any day.

General Forum Purge

2008-07-17T00:49:00.003+01:00

At some point in the near future, a great whopping bunch of posts and old threads are going to be excised from the General forum. So if there's anything you want to save then direct your attentions to these threads:

Tell us which threads you want archived here.

Comments and discussion goes here.

In other news:

I did a quick tally and I have edited 113 issues and written 4. So out of the 230 issues NationStates has at the time of writing, I'm responsible for over half of them. Go me!

Behold: The Tourism Industry!

2008-07-12T16:32:00.002+01:00

About five weeks ago, I went through all the old issues fixing as many typos and bugs as I could find (I'm 99.99% sure I found all the bugs) and on top of that, added a new feature to the game. It's only recently that players have noticed the new feature which is, of course, a new industry. Yes, along with the other seventeen industries, NationStates now has a tourism industry which is a very important business in many parts of the world today. I reckon this addition will maybe make players think twice before choosing particular options...

There is no World Census ranking on the tourism industry yet, but there will be soon. In the meantime, if you have any requests for other World Census rankings you'd like to see then send me an e-mail, telegram, or whatever and I'll consider it.

In other news, in startling (and slightly maddening) contrast to my own failure to garner any interest in an NS meet, the New York NationStates Meet is progressing in leaps and bounds. If you're in the area, check it out.

Oh, and I've put a new issue into the game, NationStates' two hundred and thirtieth no less. Enjoy!

Issue #229 Is In The Game

2008-07-07T09:45:00.002+01:00

Managed to set aside some time to put a new issue into the game. Enjoy!

The NS2 Beta Is Here!

2008-07-02T12:01:00.002+01:00

As of Monday, the beta for NationStates 2 has launched, and I'm afraid that's pretty much all I'm allowed to say on the subject, except that there's a post about it on the NationStates 2 blog.

I've had a grand total of zero replies on the Scottish NS meet so I'm thinking it's not going to happen. It's a shame but I guess everyone lost interest.

This is also the blog's three hundredth post. Not bad.

NationStates 2 Beta Approaches...

2008-06-29T06:14:00.002+01:00

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.

Possible NationStates Meet In Scotland

2008-06-25T20:07:00.003+01:00

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.

OMAC Buys Jolt

2008-06-21T23:03:00.003+01:00

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!

Hyperlinks For All And Sunder

2008-06-08T18:16:00.004+01:00

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.

Code Fixes

2008-06-03T11:45:00.005+01:00

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

2008-06-03T10:22:00.002+01:00

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.

Issues Spring Cleaning

2008-06-02T19:23:00.002+01:00

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.

The Editing Floor

2008-05-26T12:57:00.002+01:00

I have founded a new region called The Editing Floor.

I decided it was high time there was a region out there for discussing daily issues in and by gum, I wanted to be part of it.

There's no password, all are free to join, be you an active participant or a passive observer.

Catching Up With Issues

2008-05-25T13:26:00.003+01:00

That's the last backlog of issues completed.

The batch we're working on now extends from the 24th of May 2007 to the 24th of May 2008. Good luck everyone!

There have been exactly 1223 issue submissions this last year. Time to have a look at them...

Ideology Testing Inc.

2008-05-24T10:11:00.010+01:00

In my travels around NationStates regions, I happened across one called Experiments which was run by some players who were messing about with the effects of issues.

Obviously I was intrigued.

So after some chit-chat I asked if New South Hell would mind writing up his findings and thoughts as an article for this blog which I'm glad to say he did. So, here it is, a probe into the ideologies of NationStates.

Small note before reading on: for some reason when copy/pasting there were formatting errors which I don't know how to fix which have broken some of the paragraphs up slightly. Not a big problem, but there you go.

=====================
IDEOLOGY TESTING INC.
=====================

This is a description of the NS region called Ideology Testing Inc.
I set it up for exploration of the NS issues system by means of
ideologically-based states. I started with the 10 government style
choices presented by NS during nation creation, and then added 4
(later 5) more styles that seemed to me to be missing from the
original set of ten.

Since the region was created, it has developed some internal geography

and geopolitics, primarily because it was fun to work out. In this
writeup, I will describe the ideologies, present a map of the region,
and discuss some of the geopolitical issues.

Each nation in the region has a name like "ITI X Extremist". The
single letter following ITI is a mnemonic for the ideology, often but
not always the initial letter of the ideology. Having a single
character mnemonic is very useful in shortening regional descriptions,
tables, summaries etc. After the mnemonic letter is the official
(adjectival) name of the nation ("Extremist" in the example above.)

First, the 10 NS nation creation ideologies:

Sensible (M for Moderate) - Those poor souls trapped between
Conservatism and Liberalism, believing in both fairness and
propsperity, torn between giving the bum on the corner food stamps and
telling him to get a job. The Sensible state wanders between
Inoffensive Democracy, Liberal Socialism and NY Times Democracy.

Liberal (L) - Believers in equality, diplomacy and selected liberties.
The Liberal state oscillates between Democratic Socialism (Liberal or
not), and Scandinavian Liberalism.

Conservative (C) - Believers in enterprise, chastity and selected
liberties. The Conservative state meanders between Moralistic and
Inoffensive Democracy.

Compassionate (S for Sensitive or Socialist) - Modern trendy liberals,
more interested in diversity and the environment than trade unions and
free speech. The Compassionate state equivocates between Democratic
Socialism (only rarely Liberal) and Scandinavian Liberalism.

Oppressive (O) - Played as a militant theocracy, whose tenets include
vegtarianism and polygamy. (While I don't know of any militant
vegetarian religions active at this time, dietary rules have always
been de rigeur, and so it doesn't seem all that far-fetched.) The
Oppressive state is pretty much a Psychotic Dictatorship, though it
occasionally softens into Iron Fist Consumerists.

Corrupt (B for Business) - Played as a state ruled by money, where
anything is available for a price. The Corrupt ideology is one of
three in the region which is neither democratic nor dictatorial, and
which simply dismisses questions about voting. It has a Parliament
and holds elections, but they're more important for the bank accounts
of the legislators than for the state of the nation. The Corrupt
state wavers between Capitalist Paradise and Compulsory Consumerist
State. It is by far the wealthiest state in the region.

Libertarian (F for Free) - Believers in unfettered liberty and
capitalism and, since these are Heinleinian Libertarians, a strong
military. The Libertarian state is an Anarchy, until it reaches that
point in its life cycle when it abolishes copyright, and becomes a
Civil Rights Lovefest for the rest of its days.

Anarchic (A) - Left libertarians, and the second non-democratic,
non-dictatorial regime. Let's face it - anarchism makes no sense
whatever. If you wanna protect the poor and downtrodden from the
strong and rapacious, how you gonna accomplish that without a
government? Almost all of the other ITI ideologies have been used
successfully throughout history, admittedly sometimes at great human
cost. But the closest you can come to a real-world anarchy is the
hellhole of Somalia, and I don't think that's exactly what the
proponents of anarchy have in mind. Never mind all that, in NS
anarchy works. But the Anarchic state is never an NS Anarchy, because
of its "strong anti-business policies". It's pretty much a Civil
Rights Lovefest, all the time. Take that, Somalia.

Evil (E) - The Evil ideology I play as Communists. Anti-capitalism,
anti-freedom, anti-God. But there's this little problem. NS doesn't
understand that when the state and industry are one, a pro-industrial
policy is not exactly a pro-business policy. And so the Evil state is
normally Iron Fist Consumerists rather than a Psychotic Dictatorship.
I've seen it spend brief periods of time as a Corporate Police State.

Psychotic (P) - The Psychotic ideology is not really an ideology -
it's a state of mind. It has no fixed beliefs, other than hatred of
Democracy. One moment it will make nudity mandatory, and the next
outlaw streaking. You would think the Psychotic state would be an NS
Psychotic Dictatorship, but you'd be so, so wrong. Apparently
insanity is good for business. The Psychotic state dithers between
Corporate Police State and Compulsory Consumerist State, with
occasional stopovers in Iron Fist Consumerists and Father Knows Best
State.

Then, we have the following other ideologies, which I have added.

Aristocratic (I for Imperial) - Played as a state of medieval
aristocrats, more or less lost in the modern world. The third
non-democratic, non-dictatorial ideology. The Aristocratic state
drifts all over the NS government spectrum, but is most frequently a
Corporate Police State or a Compulsory Consumerist State. Which is
really ironic, since the barons look down on the CEO's as little
better than the peasantry, people who deserve a big lesson in
humility if only they could afford to give it.

Technocratic (T) - This is government by the regulars on Slashdot.
Pro-liberty, anti-business, pro-environment and, above all,
pro-technology. A more practical blend of liberalism and
libertarianism than anarchy. Undecided between Scandinavian Liberal
Paradise, Left-Leaning College State and Left-Wing Utopia.

Populist (R for Redneck) - A liberal caricature of conservatism:
nationalistic, fundamentalist, xenophobic and poorly educated.
It's probably insensitive of me to offer such an ideology, but I don't
think I'm any harder on the Populists than I am on the Compassionates.
I try to be an equal-opportunity offender. The Populist state varies
between Inoffensive Democracy, Moralistic Democracy and, believe it or
not, Democratic Socialist.

Fascist (V for Vicious, or perhaps Volk) - A very recent addition to
the ideology set. Extremely militaristic, and pro-economy without
being at all pro-capitalist. It's too early for me to say for sure
how it will turn out, but right now it's a Corporate Police State.

Harmonious (H, or W for Wharmonious, or possibly Wholistic) - The
Harmonious ideology is a blend of all the others. It decides each
issue the way a plurality of the other ideologies decide it, with a
tie-breaking procedure I won't go into. The H Harmonious state was
based on the ideology set before I added Fascism; the W Harmonious
one is post-Fascist. Adding Fascism really made the Harmonious
ideology much darker. The H lands are a pretty good place to live,
the W ones less so. The Harmonious state alternates between
Inoffensive and New York Times Democracy. It's too early to know how
the Wharmonious state will turn out in the long run, but so far it's
mostly been a Corrupt Dictatorship or a Father Knows Best state.

The order of ideologies above is canonical. A useful mnemonic for
remembering it (should you find some reason you need to) is:

Mary Lovingly Cooked Some Outrageously Bloody Fowl (After Entirely
Plucking It) To Revolt Vegetarian Wimps

The ITI region contains two nations that are not ideologies.
Because they are not true ideologies, they're a bit out of place,
but I've become fond of them anyway. Note that their positions on
issues have no effect on the decisions of the Harmonious states.
These last two nations are as follows:

Nasty (N) - This is a dystopia, a government which decides issues in
order to inflict the greatest amount of unhappiness on its people.
It has elements of all the tyrannies in the region. Sometimes it is
atheist, and sometimes fanatical, whichever hurts more. Similarly, it
sometimes drives away business in the interest of poverty, and
sometimes instead allows foreign corporations to enslave its citizens.
It somewhat resembles the Psychotic state, but sometimes the Psychotic
state will make bizarre decisions that actually improve its residents'
lives, like flirting with pacifism. The Nasty state never makes such
mistakes. So far, the Nasty state has been a constant Psychotic
Dictatorship, though an older nation of mine with much the same
mission has occasional moments of Corrupt Dictatorship and Iron
Fist Consumerist to prevent monotony (and allow its population
the miserable experience of shattered hope).

Pleasant (G for Good or Grand) - An opposite to the Nasty state, but
not a utopia. A utopia would be hard to do, and would require deep
thinking about which of several states of the world is better. I
imagine that, while I'm capable of imagining a government that
virtually everyone would agree was wretched, coming up with one that
most everyone found admirable is a different story altogether. Just
asking the question of whether its economy would be a welfare state or
laissez-faire is probably enough to start fistfights. So the Pleasant
state is something immensely easier. It is a government which decides
issues based on the immediate happiness of its people, the future be
damned. Questions like "how will we pay for it?" or "what if the
police abuse their authority?" or "don't you think an army might be
a good idea?" are not to be asked. My mental image of the Pleasant
state is that it is a sleepy Pacific island, where the citizens spend
most of their time snoozing, playing the guitar and making love to the
tourists. The Pleasant state has spent most of its existence as
Liberal Democratic Socialists, with occasional vacations as a New York
Times Democracy or Civil Rights Lovefest.

Here is a map of Ideology Testing Inc. I wish it were a real map,
with nice colors and real borders, but unfortunately I have no artistic
talent.

(Editor's note: I've fancified it a little from being ASCII art with my own brand of No Real Talent. Hooray for MS Paint! -- Sirocco)

The map was derived from data on how often two ideologies decided
issues in the same way. In general, the states which border a
specific nation are those which most frequently echo its decisions.
My original map was a mirror image of this one, but I reversed it to
make the left and right sides of the map correspond, more or less, to
the leftist or rightist nature of the ideologies. The layout is not
really that different from what you would expect, except that I found
the placement of the Corrupt (B) state quite a surprise, since all the
states around it are honest democracies.

With such a variety of ideologies, government styles and economies in
the Ideology Testing Inc region, one might well expect its geopolitics
to be interestingly turbulent. And this is the case. The region
divides naturally into 4 subregions, and I think it most profitable to
consider each of these areas in turn.

The northern (freedom-directed) subregion consists of the Libertarian,
Anarchic, Technocratic and Corrupt states. Relations are amiable.
The Corrupt state is regarded with some suspicion by the other
northern nations, whose style is to permit all manner of hedonistic
behavior, in contrast to the less open Corrupt approach of banning
these activites and then paying no attention whatever to the laws.
The nations of the north have a history of cooperation in promoting
their common agenda, notably free trade in both legal and banned
items. But there will never be a formal alliance, as neither the
Libertarians nor the Anarchics would consider binding themselves
to any other nation in that way.

Northern relations with the rest of the ITI region are also generally
good. The Oppressive regime considers the Corrupt state to be the most
worthy of destruction of them all, but the Oppressives are far away,
and have considerably more pressing enemies closer at hand. Relations
are quite tense between the Libertarian state and the Conservative
state, due to drug trafficking. Both the Corrupt state and the
Libertarian state find the drug trade quite lucrative, but the Corrupt
state makes token efforts to stop the trade if asked (and will even
shut it down entirely for a while if rewarded with enough "foreign
aid"). The Libertarian state, however, rejects these requests with
amusement that the Conservatives would dare ask them to help deprive
their population of the basic human right to get high, a right which
apparently very many people under Conservative rule wish to exercise.
This flagrantly immoral attitude tends to piss Conservatives off a lot
more than simply pretending to cooperate would, even though the
practical effect is the same.

The western (fairness-directed) subregion of ITI contains the Liberal,
Compassionate, Pleasant, Sensible and Harmonious nations. These
states have a formal alliance for mutual protection and promotion of
their agenda. It should be noted that only the Sensible and
Harmonious states have significant military power. Ironically, these
two states are often felt by the Liberals and the Compassionates to be
only half-hearted in their support of Peace, Equality and Abortion,
and therefore suspect.

There is much angry rhetoric exchanged between the western and eastern
alliances, but in fact relations are not bad, and conflict between the
alliances is unlikely. The Harmonious and Sensible states have
excellent relations with both the Conservatives and the Populists, and
not infrequently act to reduce tensions when necessary. To the
north, relations are touchy between the Compassionates and the
Technocrats, due to Compassionate fears of runaway technology. The
Compassionates live in dread of the day that genetically-modified
grain drifts across the border, and they end up eating Frankenfood
without even noticing.

The one potential trouble spot in the western subregion is the border
with the Evil state. There is a constant flow of miserable refugees
into the Liberal and Compassionate states, giving eloquent testimony
to the inhumanity of the Evil way of life. But when the Liberal and
Compassionate leaders meet with the Evil empire, they are always
impressed by the sincerity of the Evil state's rejection of corporate
greed and determination to bring true equality to its people, and
therefore resolve to maintain friendly relations. Stories of slavery
and genocide are rejected as Conservative disinformation. Because the
Evil empire has very serious enemies elsewhere on its borders, the
western alliance will probably suffer little harm from its blindness
to the true nature of its southern neighbor.

The eastern (faith-directed) subregion of ITI contains the
Conservative, Populist and Aristocratic nations. These states have a
formal alliance for mutual protection. It was formed in opposition to
the Evil empire, but in recent years it has been much more concerned
with the Oppressive state on its borders, especially after their
allies the Fascists gave them nuclear weapons. The eastern alliance is
shaky, due to poor relations between the Aristocratic and Populist
nations. The Aristocrats look on the Populists as no better than
peasants, and nothing angers the Populists more than people who think
they're superior (except maybe for their own citizens who fail to
"support the troops"). The Conservatives have their work cut out for
them trying to remind their allies that they have more to worry about
from the Oppressive regime than from each other. All three states are
heavily armed, but the Aristocratic army is laughable because of its
failure to progress much beyond 18th century technology.

The border between the Oppressive state and the Populist and
Aristocratic states is the second tensest border in the world. The
Aristocrats have to be periodically restrained from declaring a
crusade against the Oppressives, an action which would result in the
rapid annihilation of the Aristocrats, even if the Oppressives'
Fascist allies chose not to help out. The hatred between the
Oppressives and the Aristocrats is mutual, but any attempt by the
Oppressives to intervene in the east would likely be exploited by its
other enemies, and so if the Aristocrats can be controlled, ITI War
III is unlikely to break out in this way.

Finally there is the southern (force-directed) subregion of ITI,
comprising five hellholes of human misery, the Oppressive, Fascist,
Psychotic, Evil and Nasty states. There's no unity here. The
Fascists and Oppressives are allied, and at present there seems to be
a detente beteween the Nasty state and the Psychotics, but other than
that, everyone hates everyone else, and says so loudly. The tensest
border in the world is that between the Fascist and Evil regimes - a
human disaster waiting to happen. All the states have large
militaries (except the Psychotics, during their intermittent periods of
pacifism), but only the Fascist military is modern and effective, a
fact which gives the rest of the south, and indeed of the region,
considerable pause. The Fascists also have the only truly functional
economy in the south.

Apart from the general aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes, there
are four causes of the instability of southern ITI: religion, the
refugee problem, the impending collapse of the Nasty state, and the
unpredictability of the Psychotics.

It would be useful at this point to interject something about the
general distribution of religions in the ITI region. Most of the
region is Christian, equally divided between Catholics and
Protestants except for the Aristocratic state, which is entirely
Catholic. In the West, church attendance has dropped off considerably,
to the disgust of the East. The other major religion of the region is
Oppressivism, practiced in the Oppressive state and a minority religion
in the Fascist, Nasty and Harmonious states. (At one time, there was
also an Oppressivist minority in the Aristocratic and Populist nations,
but intolerance, sometimes to the point of ethnic cleansing, has
forced them to go elsewhere.) Oppressivism is presently in a very
militant phase, and its leaders, both religious and secular, have made
their intent to subjugate or convert the Christian world very plain.
The Evil state is officially atheist, and periodically purges the
overtly religious within its borders (mostly Christians). In certain
parts of the ITI region, but especially the Compassionate, Technocratic
and Fascist states, new age, pagan and occult religions such as
Wicca have become popular. And finally, His Humble Insignificance
Psycho III recently proclaimed himself the Prophet of Psychosis, and
forced his people to convert. It is widely held that there is in fact
only one sincere practitioner of Psychosis, the First Inmate himself.
Rumor has it that the Psychotic ruler has recently begun the study of
Scientology, and the region awaits with some concern the next phase of
the religious evolution of His troubled state. It is however
considered unlikely that the Psychotics' regrettable flirtation with
Violetism a few years ago will ever be repeated, and that cult has
pretty much been suppressed even in the backwoods of the Nasty state
where it had its last hurrah.

As can be seen, religion puts the Oppressive state at odds with
everyone in the region except for the Fascists (who have no official
religion, and tend not to interfere with it) and the Harmonious (who
are unusually tolerant of the aspects of Oppressivism that most
Christians find disturbing). The Fascist toleration of Oppressivism
may well be an artifact of the alliance. It is widely believed that
if the alliance were to break up, the native Oppressivists in the
Fascist lands would find themselves in labor camps the next day.

One of the symptoms of the general dysfunctionality of southern ITI is
the refugee problem. This hurts all nations of the region, but the
worst hurt are the Fascists. Because of the economic health of the
Fascist state, it is the destination of choice for those fleeing any
of the other states (except for those lucky enough to be near the
Liberal or Harmonious borders). The Fascists try to find places in
their society (generally as menial laborers or cannon fodder) for the
refugees, because most of them have a very pro-Fascist attitude on
reaching what they see as safety. But the economic strain of the
neverending stream on Fascist resources has them considering sending
all the refugees immediately to labor camps, even if better use of
them might be possible.

Adding in great measure to the refugee problem is the imminent
collapse of the Nasty state. Its economy is in tatters, its people
are starving, and its army has been privatized. Its desperate people
imagine any other state in the area will be a distinct improvement,
and so they leave as quickly as they are able to make their way
through the minefields. Despite their mutual enmity, the Oppressive,
Fascist and Evil regimes have been holding secret talks about
partitioning the Nasty state among themselves. They have invited the
Psychotics to participate, but the First Inmate is currently very much
in favor of the self-determination of peoples, and vows to defend the
Nasty state's territorial integrity from any aggressor. (It has not
been noted that the Nasty citizenry particularly appreciates His
concern.) If a partition takes place, it will surely be an improvement
in the lives of many Nasty citizens, but not of Christians in the
Oppressive slice, nor of believers of any sort in the Evil portion,
nor of members of "inferior races" in the Fascist remainder.

Not much can be said about the final problem in southern ITI, the
complete unpredictability of the Psychotic state. Most of its ruler's
strange notions have been directed at His own population rather than
against other states, which leads one to hope that He will not decide
that the time is right for bringing on Armageddon with a bacteriological
strike on the Fascists. But hope is a fragile thing indeed in the
south of ITI, and was last reported in very bad shape in an Evil
reeducation camp.

This leads finally to the subject of weapons of mass destruction in
ITI, a problem affecting the whole region. All the states of the
area, except for four, have WMD's, as well as long-range missiles
capable of delivering them to any regional target. The four
nations without WMD's are the Compassionates, the Pleasants, the
Anarchics and the Aristocrats. The Aristocrats are too backwards to
make them, and rely on their alliance with the Conservatives for
protection. The Compassionates are ideologically opposed, and rely on
their alliance with the Liberals to protect them. The Pleasant people
find the whole thought of warfare disturbing, and are likewise forced
to rely on the western alliance for their defense. And while the
Anarchics as a nation possess no WMD's, a surprising number of their
citizens possess personal WMD's, which will definitely give a
potential aggressor pause. Further, it is widely rumored that the
Technocrats have a really terrifying black project, possibly involving
gray goo, and absolutely no one wants to annoy them sufficiently to
find out whether the rumors are true.

I do not know what the future holds for Ideology Testing Inc.
Certainly there are dangers galore, but there is always the
possibility that the vulgarity of the Corrupt, the decadence of the
Libertarians, the hypocrisy of the Conservatives, the complacency of
the Liberals and the indecisiveness of the Sensible may yet overcome
the forces of intolerance, madness and despotism at work in the south.

Attention All Issue Writers

2008-05-21T11:47:00.006+01:00

I'm very close to reaching the end of the current batch of issues (the 24th of February 2006 to the 23rd of May 2007). As you can tell, I have some serious backlog. But after a lot of searching, a lot of pruning, and, happily, a lot of triumph (a shout-out goes to Vincon who got two of his submissions accepted) I'm nearly on to the next batch which will probably extend from the 24th of May 2007 to now.

So, listen up: if you've got a great idea for a new issue and want to submit it and have it put in the game and all that jazz then write it up and submit it as soon as possible before I get the new batch of issues. If you don't then I probably won't see it for a year to a year and a half. Possibly even two years if I'm very busy.

If you're stuck for ideas, here's a few issues I'd like to see:

Nuclear meltdown
Slavery
Issues affecting third-world countries

It's easy to notice that a lot of issues are topical for the nations of the Western world, but I'd like to see more issues submitted that relate to problems faced by African governments. Or Eastern European governments. Or Asian governments. Just more issues that lean away from being British or American-centric. Good luck everyone!

Promotions

2008-05-17T15:51:00.003+01:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tsaraine and Ardchoille have been promoted from forum moderator to game moderator.

There's also a new issue in addition to the one I mentioned yesterday.

More issues on the way.

Issue #222 Is In The Game

2008-05-16T14:23:00.002+01:00

Yup, another issue has come to the end of its long and weary journey through the issues queue. This particular one was originally submitted in September 2006. So yeah, I'm a little behind. It's another nice big one, but it is rather difficult to get so if you do, count yourself fortunate.

In other news, the NS2 blog has a big fat new FAQ to read. It's very exciting. I'm particularly interested about these spies and national newspapers mentioned.

Recently I decided to send my nation around the regions for a while. My first stop was Scotland. Then I decided to visit The Featured Region Followers who all visit the region randomly generated on the world page each day to congratulate them. Why? I have absolutely no idea. Still interesting though, the reasons for nations to tie themselves to others are so varied. You can find a region covering interests, hobbies, political affilations, and hundreds of other things.

The region I'm in right now is NationStates Cook Book where players can share their favourite recipes. Isn't that great?

One last thing before I finish this post. Is it only me who finds the region of Anarchy has an incredibly ironic World Factbook Entry?

Modliness Regained

2008-05-13T01:06:00.002+01:00

I'm officially a game moderator again and have been for over a week or so. Why? Well, I've got a lot of spare time coming up. My one exam is on the 29th where I will be performing one of Satie's gymnopedies, a 15th century harpsichord piece I forget the name of, Einaudi Ludovico's La Linea Scura, and one of my own compositions. I'm confident I'll pass so no problems there.

Moving on, there's no need to worry about how this will affect my issue editing. Issue editing is still my biggest priority for NationStates and I've got a few ones I'm looking at right now. True, some of the issues in the queue are over two years old, but there's only one of me. I try my best!

I also discovered an error in one of the old issues' validity checkers which has now been fixed thanks to Pythagosaurus so people who are eligible for it can expect to see a 'new' issue at some point.

Finally, the computer that I got repaired has broken again about two weeks after. I'm going to have to get a new one which will either be a long drawn-out hassle (i.e. getting a free one from the university) or expensive (having to buy one when your average laptop costs two months' worth of rent). So I might not be on NationStates as much as I'd like.

No news on the NationStates 2 front... hopefully there will be some by the next time I post.

My New Niece

2008-05-04T20:37:00.004+01:00

This is Johnny, my sister Rufus, and their new baby Maisie May. This is the first new bairn in the family in over a decade so everyone's quite excited about it. People will now go up to me and say 'Wow, you're an uncle!' but I've been an uncle ever since I was born, as one of my nieces is older than me (I now have three in total, and one nephew).

As for NationStates, there has been some interesting things to be read in the blog belonging to the NS2 developers. Looks like we'll have alliances instead of regions. Most intriguing.

NationStates 2 Weblog

2008-04-28T21:07:00.002+01:00

The developers of NationStates 2 have set up a weblog to get feedback from the average NationStater, which I think is fantastic. Check out these links so you can register your thoughts with the people actually coding our much-awaited sequel.

NationStates 2 Weblog

NS2 Blog Sticky - here you can discuss NationStates 2 with other NSers (and possibly the developers).

Issue #221 Is In The Game

2008-04-24T16:00:00.002+01:00

This is an issue I've been meaning to do for a long time, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. Enjoy!

Oh, and after a year and a half, we have a new Game Mod Olympics, courtesy of [violet].

Way, way, WAY back in the day there was a Mods Academy Awards to demonstrate what the moderators had accomplished. Sadly, this was lost with the original forums before the move to Jolt. Still, we now have eleven archived Olympics that I have tracked down and linked here for your reading pleasure.

Mod Olympics I
Mod Olympics II
Mod Olympics III
Mod Olympics IV
Mod Olympics V
Mod Olympics VI
Mod Olympics VII
Mod Olympics VIII
Mod Olympics IX
Mod Olympics X
Mod Olympics XI

Yet More Cartography

2008-04-22T15:54:00.003+01:00

Those interested in map-generators might remember my previous posts and might like to check out these two websites shown to me by resident map-nut, Tsaraine:

http://home.comcast.net/~brons/NerdCorner/Planet.html

http://www.bin.sh/gaming/tools/world.cgi

These are both planet-generators as opposed to nation-generators, but still, I think, of interest.

For more map generators check out this site: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

NationStates 2 News!

2008-04-21T18:57:00.007+01:00

As you can see by the forlorn look of despair in my eyes, my girlfriend attacked me with a pair of hair straighteners with horrifying results. Well, I don't really care that much but I'm glad she prefers my natural curls.

Anyway, the big news that even warranted a telegram from admin to all nations (which I don't recall seeing before), the news we've all been waiting for... NS2 is coming.

Wow, have we been waiting a long, LONG time to hear this. NationStates 2 is definitely being developed and is set for a release date of late 2008 which is amazing. Whether that deadline will be met is a different thing altogether, but we'll worry about that later. There were many nay-sayers, reckoning this sequel was never coming but we now have confirmation that it is. Check out www.nationstates2.net for the FAQ!

World Assembly Building Two Feet To Stand Upon

2008-04-16T14:50:00.005+01:00

Well, it's been two weeks since the fall of the UN, so how is the WA coping? Pretty well, I think. We've had two passed resolutions, and the third one looks pretty certain on passing as I write this though with strong opposition. I won't be surprised if it it gets repealed soon.

Still tidying things up a bit, we've stripped the historical resolutions of their [repeal] links which meant that venturous players were trying to repeal already defunct resolutions. We also had to strip the first WA resolution about the actual foundation of the World Assembly of its repeal link because after all the trouble we went to to put that resolution on display, we're not having it undone. Besides, we can't go back to how things used to be because of legal issues.

The only remaining issue is what to do about the new proposal category, bookkeeping. Proposals of this nature have no statistical impact, but as for what they actually cover categorically... we never quite got round to discussing that. So that's what we're talking about over in the WA forum. If you have an opinion or just want to keep up-to-date on things, swing on over. Grab a lemonade.

Finally on the subject of the World Assembly, those banned from the UN may reapply to join the WA, but any cheating will be dealt with outright deletion.

In other news, Reploid Productions has put a new issue into the game, and the mods and I are getting groovy new NationStates e-mail addresses. So if you wish to send me an e-mail about NationStates, please send it to sirocco((at))nationstates.net and I'll get back to you most timeously.

In other other news, my computer is at last repaired and returned to me. Not after some kerfuffle though. After a half-hour-long walk to and back from the computer repair shop I discovered that they'd given me someone else's laptop. By some eerie coincidence another gentleman with my surname had also required his laptop repaired at the shop. So back I went.

That's all for now. My involvement in NationStates will be a bit spotty for the next month or two because of exams but during the summer I will probably be a lot more active.

The World Assembly

2008-04-01T16:50:00.003+01:00

Egads and forsooth! The United Nations has fallen!

This was brought about by the real UN who have demanded that our use of its name and flag be removed from the site. At first we figured we could ignore it, because it worked for Saddam Hussein, but eventually we thought it best that we acquiesce to the cease and desist and begin a new organisation in its stead: the World Assembly or WA for short. There is now a new emergency resolution on how to deal with the crisis that you (as a WA member) can vote upon on on the World Assembly page.

Here's some dandy links to where it's all happening:

The official discussion thread of the emergency resolution.

A thread discussing the new world order.

NationStates Moves

2008-03-29T15:37:00.003Z

This post is a bit late, I know, but since the laptop on which I would usually record my thoughts is currently in bits and pieces at a local repair shop I've been a little out of touch.

So, what's new? A lot as it happens, NationStates has been upgraded, it has reached v1.11! We now have spiffy wee flags, national happenings to complement regional happenings, a 'reports' section for even more rigorous espionage of nations needing watched, and no separate frame for the sidebar. There are RSS subscriptions and players can now resurrect their dead nations should they want to taking a small burden off the mods' shoulders and speeding up the system nicely.

NationStates' move is just about complete by now I should think and now it's just a matter of soothing out the glitches and bugs caused by it. To join the discussion, check out this thread about the upgrade: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=552128

Issue #219 Is In The Game

2008-03-08T12:32:00.002Z

We have a new issue!

Otherwise, not much happening, at least that I can relay here, so I'll just finish by saying that I am a happy, happy man. My girlfriend moved in and all the possible financial hardships that could have come with it have been resolved. The future is looking good.

That is all.

Flightless Hippo Stuffed Toy

2008-02-21T14:06:00.002Z

My girlfriend made me this as a present. It is officially one of the coolest things I have ever recieved.

In other news, I finally have internet access at my flat! This will (probably) mean more involvement in NationStates from me. So if things work out alright, new issues will be added to the game every now and again hereafter.

Internet, Internet, Internet

2008-02-17T17:09:00.002Z

It's been a long while since I posted anything. As regular readers may know (and if you exist), I have no internet access at my flat which has prevented me from doing much in the way of NationStates-type things. What have I been up to? Trying to get a damn internet connection! And at long last my efforts have been rewarded, despite BT (the monopolising, money-grabbing bastards they are) failing to send me the papers I needed to change to a different service provider. I will have access by the beginning of March and I am so looking forward to it. No more two-mile walks to the university to check my e-mails.

On St. Valentine's day I woke up to find out that my flatmate was abruptly leaving me to pay the £130 a week rent by myself unless I could find another tenant in ten days which considering my flat's location will not be easy. On that same morning my girlfriend discovered that her degree had been buggered up by a spectacularly failed exam. All in all, not the best way to start the day off. Not that that's a good way to start any day, but I am glad it was on the 14th rather than the 15th because then it would have fallen on my girlfriend's birthday which would not have been pretty.

NationStates-wise, a few interesting things have happened that I've been aware of. The West Pacific delegate is attempting to accrue 1000 endorsements to set a new record for bloated powermongering. An effort I salute. Good luck to him/her I say.

There are plans for a new forum layout. You can have your say here.

The Most Glorious Hack put his first ever issue into the game and I am extremely proud. I'm sure he'll make a fine editor.

That's all I can remember for now, but next time I post I should have internet access. And you will get to see a most AWESOME NationStates-related photo. Watch this space...

Hello, 2008

2008-01-02T13:15:00.000Z

Help! I'm trapped in a snowglobe!

It's another new year for the world, and another new year for NationStates which I assure will be experiencing wonderful new things soon. And yeah, that's about as concrete as I'm going to be for now.

I meant to do some issues during the holidays, but what with one thing and another I simply haven't had the chance. Once I FINALLY get wireless internet at my flat we'll see how things go. I plan to do a number of small things (and one big thing) in regards to the game in the near future. Ooh, it is going to be a GOOD year. I can feel it in my bones.

I have recently been introduced to the joys of MSN Messenger (which gives me an error message whenever I try to use it, so I use Pidgin instead - I've looked up every conceivable way of fixing the error but it never works. Quite irritating.). If anyone wants to talk via that network, my username is JBASiroc@hotmail.co.uk, but please don't e-mail me using that address, use siroccothemod@gmail.com instead.

Merry Christmas Everyone

2007-12-21T08:43:00.000Z

Many happy returns from the Christmas hippo.

NationStates And Facebook

2007-11-16T13:37:00.000Z

Having read Max Barry's latest post, it occurred to me for the first time that there would probably be a NationStates group on the site and so how could I not join up? I'm not a big fan of social networking sites as such because I'm too lazy to do much with my profile. Still, it's a good way to keep in touch.

Oh, and happy birthday NationStates! NationStates, as of four days ago, is now a hardy five years old.

In other news, I decided to edit another issue for the game on sheer whimsy and it's finished but for technical reasons I can't put it in quite yet. It should be released sometime within the week.

To conclude, here are the salient Facebooks links for those interested:

NationStates Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204519273
Max Barry Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2233898088
My Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746592156

Still Still Alive

2007-10-30T22:18:00.001Z

Another photo of my own good self.

Right now I still have no internet access in my flat but when I do I plan to do a number of things to improve NationStates (an honourable goal, I feel).

One: I will add a new feature to the game. I'm not going to say what it is right now because I'd like it to be a surprise.

Two: Add more issues.

So, don't fret! Got plans!

Still Alive

2007-09-12T12:40:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of my flat's living room.

Life in Aberdeen is wonderful. My flat is perfect (at least in my mind) and I'm doing a university course on a subject I'm interested in.

But what's been happening with NationStates? Well, I have received news that NSTracker is back with us, and you can visit it by following this link: http://nstracker.jfsoftware.com

I've got to go now, piano practice beckons, so I think I'll leave it there.

To The Deen!

2007-08-23T23:40:00.001+01:00

This is a photograph of the Blue Stane which lies just outside the Protestant kirk in Crail. Legend has it that the de'il himself hated the kirk so much that from the Isle of May he picked up a rock and flung it with all his might at the offending building. But in mid-flight the rock broke up and the largest piece fell short of the target. This largest piece is the Blue Stane and it is believed (or at least believed to be believed) that the hollow at the top of the stane was caused by Auld Nick's thumb which can STILL BE SEEN TO THIS VERY DAY...

So, besides the superstitions of my home village, what's up? Well, I can very honestly say that I am incredibly excited because I leave for Aberdeen and my new flat tomorrow! I'll try to update the blog as soon as I'm comfy in my new home, and still too busy to wonder about how I'm going to finance myself without interfering with my studies (ahem: I will accept PayPal at siroccothemod@gmail.com very happily. In return I can... write you a national anthem? That might not be a bad idea actually... hmm...).

Until then: ciao!

Romance In NS General

2007-08-22T21:37:00.000+01:00

This is a photo of the North Sea, taken from atop Kilminning Rock.

Two well-known NationStates forum regulars, Allanea and Rejistania, have announced that they're tying the knot which is wonderful and I wish them both the very best. Congratulations!

In other news, even though I promised I would I would get at least one new issue into the game before I headed back to university I have failed to do so, and with the date of departure (24th of August) approaching I am going to be too busy to get it done. But never fear! My new flat has internet access so I should be able to get something in the works after I've settled down. The fact that I have ready access to the internet poses another question however: should I return to my post as moderator? The reason I retired in the first place was because I couldn't access the internet from my room in the accommodation the university gave me. It's a thought worth thinking over and I shall return to it later once I've properly got my slippers by the fireside (or large brown radiator anyway).

Another interesting thing that's cropped up is the current discussion over the diminished number of nations in NationStates. At the time of typing we have 76555 nations which is fairly low, even during the summer months when our players remember there's an outdoors. One result of this is that UN proposals require a lot less support to achieve quorum. The political aftermath of this should be pretty interesting. If you wish to have your say, check out Safalra's thread in the technical forum.

That's all for now. I'll maybe get one last post in tomorrow before I leave for the Deen to say goodbye. Hopefully not for long!