Gone To Greece

I'll be away for two weeks. I don't really expect to have internet access so I won't be around until August.

If any other NationStaters are visiting Corfu during this period and want to meet me, I sayeth to you: good luck!

Don't let NationStates die while I'm away.

Another United Nations Forum

Take a look here.

A fine place for all those interested in improving the NationStates world through vociferous debate and bouts of sulking. Just like in real politics.

Issue #198 Is In The Game

Haven't really got much to say that the title doesn't already convey. Enjoy!

The Due Process

Modshort #11

It's been a while since the last instalment, so I'm glad to announce this latest addition to the Modshort series: The Due Process. Remember to put it on 'fast'.

Issue #197 Is In The Game

Hooray! It's been a while since I've had the time to put a new issue into the game. I imagine some people will wonder about the title and my only explanation is that GMC Military Arms wanted me to use it as a reference to some bizarre film in the works. Distinctly odd.

In other news, this is my 200th blog article. Yeah.

Unemployment Rates

At last, the other UN ranking has cropped up - the world's highest unemployment rates. The feature I wrote so long ago was a way to measure your nation's unemployment rates and finally it has come to fruition. The only thing left to do is provide a note on the spotlight pages for day-to-day comparison. I think it's pretty neat. Many thanks to SalusaSecondus, Pythagosaurus and Max for their help in implementing this feature.

We've also passed another record - the mods have now read and resolved over 60000 tasks. Not a small number by any means.

New issues will be on the way soon.

Round Up

OK, I've not been able to post for a fair while because the computer got replaced and the internet connection was faulty. So what's been going on?

Well, for a start, one of our most beloved and eccentric moderators, Cogitation, has decided to step down to forum moderator due to other concerns that severely reduce his NationStates time.

My region, Lancre, has passed the 50-nation barrier. We're all pretty chuffed about that.

I won a trophy for a short story I wrote. It's really quite spiffy.

I can now continue to work on issue editing. It has seemed to me like the world is conspiring against me to delay my progress in this area. First the exams, then my computer... and now the World Cup is diminishing my spare time like anything! It's a shame, but I will try.

Slowly And Gloriously

Well... maybe not gloriously. But it is a brilliant Patrick Byrne album. My computer is progressing at a snail's pace right now and it takes just about an ice age for me to do anything with it so bear with me over the next few days (or, God forbid, week).

I was working on a very promising new issue recently until I accidentally deleted it. I'm going to get an admin to restore it for me as soon as possible. I am working on others, but I'm being very much discouraged by my computer's performance.

One of the new UN rankings appeared, hurrah! The Largest Public Transport Department was an obvious hole that needed filling. The other new UN ranking is linked to the new feature I wrote aeons ago. We're going to introduce an extension to the spotlight page to incorporate it as well, but that can wait. Keep your eyes peeled! The UN ranking could turn up any day.

It's a Demon Day today but I'm not bothered. Tsaraine, alas, is having his eternal soul tormented by kittens from the river Styx. Poor chap.

That's it for now. I might include a new Modshort for the next article.

The Return

I'm back! Exams are over! This means I can devote some of my spare time to editing issues instead of endlessly revising the cultivation of wet rice and geopolitical factors affecting commercial arable farming... so, yeah. I hope to get some good ones in soon.

Exams

I've been very busy revising for a bunch of exams I'm going to be sitting, so that's why you've heard so little from me recently. Expect to hear almost nothing until about June. My poor brain has got enough things to handle.

The Man Behind The Hippo

Yeah, I uncovered a picture of myself. You can have fun guessing which one is me here:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=480239

Still Kicking

That's right, I haven't succumbed to the Bird Flu or anything (the quarantine's been lifted by the way - not that I ever actually noticed one while it was there, but who cares?). I've just been incredibly busy with my studies. If anything interesting pops up I'll tell you, but until then: watch this space.

Oh, and the new Doctor Who series is great!

Two New UN Rankings - Take Two

You may remember way back that I had submitted two new UN rankings to the admins for inclusion in the game. Well, they've lain forgotten for quite a while now, but at last they're in. There's no saying when we'll see one of them (each UN ranking is selected randomly, you see), but be on the look out. One of them's based on a whole new feature I wrote into the game ages back. Maybe it will be expanded on later.

Sirocco Turns Three

Sirocco is three years old! The actual birthday date was yesterday, but I completely forgot. So... um... yeah. Yay me!

More Mod Olympics

The Mod Olympics

Hey hey! Gold medal for me! Congratulations to Fris, Kat, and Euro who all (especially Fris) need less spare time.

In other news, there's a lot of interesting threads to read about players' reactions to the new Influence system. Here's some of them:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=477177
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=477314
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=477401

Still a lot of questions about the Influence rankings, and I don't know how many times we can emphasise this but we're not going to tell you. We never said anything about the civil rights, economy, and political freedoms categories (and, having just looked at the list in the Gameplay forum, I can see the players have still got them a bit wrong) so why would we tell you about these ones? They'll be burrowed into the subconscious eventually I'm sure.

New Regional Power Labels Required

Regional Power labels indicate how powerful your region is compared to others in the world. Right now they are:

Extremely High
Very High
High
Moderate
Low
Backwater

Now, we want them to be more interesting. In our discussions we came up with many possibilities, but they all got vetoed apart from 'Backwater'.

What we want is for you (the players) to suggest some terms that we could use. There are a few criteria that the terms must meet. Backwater met all three.

Ideally each should imply that:

(a) they're referring to a geographic area
(b) they're describing its power/influence, not its size
(c) its members aren't necessarily allied

This is very difficult and we know we may never come up with anything satisfactory, but it's worth a shot. Any suggestions can be e-mailed to me using the link in the sidebar or by sending them to siroccothemod@gmail.com

Or you can just write them as comments! Good luck!

Under The Influence

First impressions of Influence seem to be pretty approving, though everyone was bewildered by the Influence rankings and it's been amusing to see how much they've got wrong about which way round they go. The sheer number of people comparing their ranking with others and boasting about it brings many analogies to mind. But they were wrong, because they were forgetting that your influence ranking only shows how powerful you are compared to others in your region. The regional power labels show how much power your region has compared to all the other regions in the world.

I've started a thread to discuss Regional Influence Rankings here.

But the most amusing thing of all I think was the consternation in the delgates of the feeder regions who believed that the End Had Come. The delegate of the Pacific (Blackadder Goes Forth) in particular went insane with nation-ejecting, believing that the peasants were coming for his head. I heard of paranoid meetings between the feeder delegates all saying "What are we going to do?!" I couldn't help but get a mental image of a clique of old and worried dictators all standing in a circle and wringing their hats. What was ironic about this was that given their circumstances they're probably the most powerful players in the whole game! I guess it only goes to show that those with power really do cling on to it more.

For all those who really do think the new system has sucked all the fun out of the invasion game, remember that there are still the six Warzone regions which follow the old rules. Warzone Sandbox is one of them.

NationStates v1.9: Regional Influence

Ladies and gentlemen, Influence is in the building. After a long, long wait we have grabbed our greatest grievances by the short and curlies and destroyed them utterly with one deft stroke. Region griefing, at least as we've known it previously, is no more. The strangely abstract concept of natives is finito. Ejecting to refound is no longer a crime but a remarkable achievement. And all because of that lovely nine-letter word... Influence. With a capital I. But what is it? Well, just see our explanatory page and you should get the lowdown, but what does it mean in the broad sense?

Well, now we have region crashing properly coded into the game which means no worrying about rules apart from the rather obvious one of only having one UN nation. When NS was first written by Max Barry he'd never suspected that people would gang up together and steal regions from others. He liked it, but obviously we had to make it fair or people would get discouraged from playing because of, for want of a better word, arseholes. So we ended up with a lot of complicated, precise and, sad to say it, makeshift rules to make things fair to all the players. It never really worked terribly well so something had to be done. And now it is. We now have Regional Influence, a co-operative creation between mods, admins, and players. This has actually got roots going as far as a year back and I'm thrilled that it's all finished now. It was exciting to be a part of, even if my contribution was rather small.

Your influence dictates just how powerful your nation is, and thus how easily it can be kicked from a region, or how many nations it can kick should it be delegate. Your influence grows depending on how long you've been in a region and on how many UN endorsements you have. Non-UN nations only have influence based on how long they've been in a region. It costs the UN delegate some of his/her influence to take particular actions like passwording the region or changing the world factbook entry. So, the more powerful your nation is, the more sway you have within a region.

The bit that I was involved in was the user interface - how should we tell nations what their influence level is? I helped create that, along with the regional power labels (which show how powerful a region is compared to the others).

Your influence label shows how much power you have in your region. So you may have the same label as someone in another region, but you might actually have less power (or more) than them. You'd have to look at the other nations in your region to compare yourself accurately.

The practical implications of this new system are I feel, to be explored by you, and not me. So go! Explore! Experiment! Have fun, and enjoy NationStates v1.9 - it's been a while coming.

They Should Have Asked Sirocco

Modshort #10

The latest episode of the Modshort series, starring everyone's favourite NationStates moderator. Enjoy!

It Approaches

So, what's the update on these big changes that are coming? Well, first of all I can tell you that the release date has become a little uncertain. It might be tomorrow (unlikely), it might be Monday, it might be later this week. Still some revision and fine-tuning to be done. Tests to be run, smoking chemistry sets examined, server hamsters fed, code tweaked... and, well, you know. All that jazz. However, the main aim of this whole enterprise remains unchanged: we want to breathe new life into the invasion/defence game whilst remaining fair to all players. We think we're very close to that, but it would be folly to say it's perfect. We want to minimise any possible problems, and hopefully fix them later. Not that these changes will just affect that aspect of NationStates though. It's going to affect regional politics, management, and interregional politics too. Hopefully for the better, but from what I've seen I can't see how it could be considered worse.

Now I KNOW that people will not like it when it come. If there's anything to be learnt from observing people it's that they hate change, or are at least continually surprised by it. Breathe easy! It may take some time to adjust but I can guarantee you'll all be trying to squeeze every last drop out of it by the end and having great fun formulating new tactics, new procedures, new ways of diplomacy... oh yes. It's going to be a hell of an adventure.

So don't get your knickers in a twist if nothing's happened by Monday - we're working on it!

In other news, Reppy's considering doing some more Bastard Moderator From Hell stories in the near future and I've decided to refer to regions with only one nation in them as 'hermitlands' because the alternative is such a mouthful.

And as a conclusion to this article I'm going to give you a tantalising wee glimpse into one of the many things we've been doing to bring this whole 'NationStates v1.9' thingy about. It won't help at all, but I'd be fascinated by your theories as to what it could mean.

Part of the changes that I've been mostly involved in required us to look up the old forum postcount titles. Intrigued? Good! Bye bye for now!