NationStates Jolt Archive

Ever since I first started playing NationStates, I always thought that the concept of "playing war" would be fun. I did not realize until days later that, on the forums, people do exactly that. I read through some of the very well-written threads where people roleplayed a fictional war between their two or more nations. Soon I realized that rules would help reduce the number of players who always wanted to win or made up their own super-impossible weapons. This has become known as “god-modding” and ruins the fun for all.

For the last few days, I have taken it upon myself to create a war component to NationStates. This simple program logs into your NationStates account, parses your nation's homepage for statistics, and then gives you a simple read out of how much money you have in your military budget and an income. With the money you earn, you may purchase military units ranging from slaves, to conscripts, to marines, to tanks, to rocket launchers, to stealth bombers, and even battleships.

Once you have amassed a military, you may choose to use the weapons and attack an enemy of your choice (assuming they are participating in the Battlegrounds game) or defend yourself from an invading nation.

All battles are logged in detail for those who participate, but also, there is an in-game “Global Defense Chronicle” newspaper who informs the world of recent events. Players may write their own roleplayed news articles to help describe the battle and/or why they attacked. This allows players to continue roleplaying and create a real story behind their nations. Of course, it is encouraged for people to expand their stories beyond the in-game newspaper and write on the forums like they have for years.

Before I make the game public, I would like to invite several moderators and/or staff to help me beta-test this game to ensure there are no bugs. I have only play tested the game with smaller nations no larger than 10 million people. I am also sure they have questions about how the system works.


Questions and Concerns I Imagine You Have:

1. This game does not break into the NationStates website any way. It simply uses the website as-is to download nations’ homepages. It functions the same as a normal HTTP request. In no way did I hack or break into the NationStates website.
2. There is no spyware, adware, or malware included in this software (or any other piece of ZoopTEK software).
3. All Battlegrounds information is stored on a ZoopTEK server, not NationStates.
4. This game does not store passwords in any way. Not even on the Battlegrounds server.
5. Battlegrounds has absolutely no impact on a nation. No new descriptions will be added or modified on a success or failure of a battle. Battles only impact your units that you have purchased in the Battlegrounds game.
6. Battlegrounds only works on Windows systems.
7. Battlegrounds takes place in modern day. There are no star destroyers. There are no laser weapons. No death rays. No aliens.
8. To prevent “god-modding” and for more strategy, there is currently no such thing as a weapon of mass destruction: no biological weapons, no nuclear weapons. Only ground units such as tanks and infantry, air units such as jet planes, and naval ships such as submarines and battleships.
9. People who have never logged into Battlegrounds will be invulnerable to attack. The Battlegrounds server does not even know they exist if they have never logged in. If you do not wish to participate in Battlegrounds, simply never log in.
10. Just like the website, this game is not graphical. But operation is done through a GUI interface.
11. Combat functions similarly of Archmage or other website-based strategy games games. This is not a real-time strategy or a Civilization replication.

Moderators and staff, please respond only. If you are a random player who is curious, start up a new thread and I can probably answer your questions there.

Thank you for your time,
-Commando Zoop
--ZoopTEK
--Dictator of LEFT

Moved to Technical.

Role playing has always been free-form, and is likely to remain so; if people want to use your program, though there's nothing wrong with you making it available to people to download and play with. We're not going to sanction any third-party software officially, but as long as it isn't malicious, we aren't going to ban it either.

Unfree People
Forum Moderator

That thingamajig sounds really beezer.

I wasn't saying to make my application official NationStates material. However, I was hoping to find a few enthusiastic moderators willing to test the program. (It can be chaotic having random players testing a game--personal experience.)

Perhaps I will make the game open beta but cap the number of nations. I just would like to get rid of any possible bugs before having everyone join.

-Commando Zoop
--ZoopTEK
--Dictator of LEFT

That sounds like a really good idea:

Just a few questions: The password, Do we give the pw we log in to NS through to your page so it can get into our accounts, or do we create a new one there? Does the program require our PW to access the NS database?

What will happen when a nation ceases to exist?

Is there a trade, Ie, can you trade between nations? If so how do you stop people trading between there own nations?



If you do plan on making it open (ie, not just moderators) give me a TG I'd be interested in it...

We can't endorse this - you'd need to get an admin's opinion.

The password: You type in your login and password into the program, which simply plugs in the values into the NationStates website. I could have had it so you gave the program the link to your nation's homepage yourself, but that could lead to a lot of problems. My way ensures that people are using /their/ nation, are really a nation in NationStates (not made up), and makes it easier for the player. If there is one thing I have learned in software writing: Pretend the people are stupid... try to hide anything that is even remotely technical (this includes copy and pasting).

Everything involving the Battlegrounds game is in the software itself. There are link buttons to the NationStates website for anything else: forums, managing your nation's issues, etc.

How the Battlegrounds account creation works: It's all automatic. When you first login with your Nation's name and password in Battlegrounds, if the NationStates website says it exists with that name and password combination, Battlegrounds will automatically create a Battlegrounds account on the Battlegrounds server and log you in there. There is no manual account creation. Again, this was to make it easier and more simple for the player.

What will happen if Nations cease to exist: If logging in, it will say "Could not log in. Incorrect password probable." If you're trying to attack a non-existant nation or a nation that does not have a Battlegrounds account, it will say so and stop the attack.

Trade: There is no trade at this time. I am open to suggestions, as with any of my projects, however, I would like to get the basics going first and I can add on from there. When creating games, I tend to overshoot my objective because I am so excited which means more testing when it is done :-). I am going for smaller steps this time, hehe.

Open: Yes, it is planned to be open to anyone who has a NationStates account. I was simply hoping that moderators would be willing to /test/ the game before I have it open for the public. I assume that if Max Berry trusts them with his game, I could trust them with testing my add-on to his game. However, it appears they are not interested, so I will probably make the game open beta with a limited number of participants.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I hope it answers your questions thoroughly,
-Commando Zoop
--ZoopTEK
--Dictator of LEFT

The password: You type in your login and password into the program, which simply plugs in the values into the NationStates website.
And you want Moderators to "beta test" this? Uh-uh. This creates massive OPSEC problems.

HACKER ALERT!!!!!

thats a load of rubbish, you DO NOT need to log into an NS account to get ALL of its info, there's one great calc around which allows you to find out exactly how much money your spending on which ting, how much money your nation is making etc, and all it requires is the nations name.

This is just a scam to get Mods passwords and get their accounts to ruin nation states.

If i was a Mod, i would ban your nation and ISp from ever entering the site, or forums at least, and TGing people, ever again.

If your not trying to scam people's nations, i take it that the Mods can make a new nations and test it out with that nation then, on a completely different PC that hasn't been used to log into NS before, or else your "software" might just be spyware....and probably is!

HACKER ALERT!!!!!

thats a load of rubbish, you DO NOT need to log into an NS account to get ALL of its info, there's one great calc around which allows you to find out exactly how much money your spending on which ting, how much money your nation is making etc, and all it requires is the nations name.

This is just a scam to get Mods passwords and get their accounts to ruin nation states.

If i was a Mod, i would ban your nation and ISp from ever entering the site, or forums at least, and TGing people, ever again.

If your not trying to scam people's nations, i take it that the Mods can make a new nations and test it out with that nation then, on a completely different PC that hasn't been used to log into NS before, or else your "software" might just be spyware....and probably is!

Hmmm...judging by his or her join date and nation size, is it possible to suggest that this person simply did not know of it's existence?

I also belive that this person, now knowing of some of the flaws, would be willing to fix them?

How can you be sure it's spyware? Have you not heard of a thing called an "innocent mistake"? Whilst it is fine to be exercise caution over any software, to instantly deem it spyware is ridiculous.

I for one feel this is a good idea, and am willing to beta-test it if the Mods aren't willing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't the moderators create/use puppets for this? Then they'd still be the reliable individuals he'd like for beta testers, but without the security problems. I didn't even think of it before it was mentioned.

And I really don't think an ISP ban would be a good thing...there must be a fair few people using the same ISP as him...

Thanks for the trust guys... *sigh*

If you don't believe that I have made legit software before, please visit my website at http://www.zooptek.net. I have created (and retired after five years of existence) a top-down multiplayer action game called Paint Ball 3 EXTREME that had well over 80,000 downloads. No spyware. No cracking.

I also have created multiple applications and smaller games throughout the years--all for free. With no complaints of malware.

If you read my rants of the day on http://www.zooptek.net, I thoroughly despise malware of any kind. Not only have I dealt with it on a personal basis cleaning out friends and clients' computers, I have dealt with hackers in Paint Ball 3 EXTREME having to ban their accounts and IPs. Not only that, I have had to program around hackers' abilities by putting in memory checks--what a pain. I have just as little respect for them as you--probably even less.

I would be more than willing to discuss with the moderators and/or staff how I did my password check. It can be done in internet explorer's address line even. However, I am sure they don't want their "secrets" exposed to the public. Have a moderator or staff member e-mail me on my website or telegram my nation. Or, if they are willing to have everyone know (it's not rocket science to figure out), they can just post and tell me to explain it here on the forums. I have no secrets to hide.

Once I have the download up (hopefully today?), you can scan it all you want for spyware, adware, and malware. Nothing will be found. The only files are:
-NationStates Battlegrounds.exe: the game
-START.EXE: an executable that comes with Windows that allows you to launch websites or other documents with the appropriate programs. This is included to open Internet Explorer (or your default web browser) to visit the NationStates website.
-History Logs: your nations battles are all recorded locally in .txt files.

The ONLY reason why I wanted moderators or staff to test it (even with dummy nations) is to get rid of bugs. I have done public betas before with little success. Usually, with all the luck of the world, I end up with a few ten year olds who write, "da game ddnt work sometines," with no details and of no help to improving the program. Since there is so much resistance to it, I will make the game public beta once again (no moderators) and simply restrict the number of nations for a while to whittle out any bugs.

Moderators and staff can also prove my methods by checking their server logs for logins of: Lord Reiden and Fanatical Left-handers. Both are nations of my own. The Lord Reiden account was the one I particularly used for testing and probably has the most logins. I have tested the game to the best of my ability using those two accounts. If I was truely misusing the system, they would have probably noticed by now and banned me. However, mine uses the very same request as the website, so they probably cannot differentiate a login from the game or from Internet Explorer.

I am trying to be respectable to NationStates and make sure I don't go too far too fast. I am more than willing to explain /everything/ the best I can.

As for my short existence: I like the game. And yes, I did only join a week ago after a friend recommended it to me. I have spent the last four days making the Battlegrounds client. It is short notice, but I was enthusiastic about the project and I liked the idea. Is that a crime?

I hope that clears up some issues. Please do not assume the worst of me... believe it or not... there are some computer people that /build/ and do not /destroy./

-Commando Zoop
--ZoopTEK (http://www.zooptek.net)
--Dictator of LEFT

Hey listen, I trust you.

TG me the details and I'll do your beta test for you.

I think I can say what flaws I find, even if I can't recommend how to change them.

I've always wanted to do a beta.

It's not that we expect malware. It's not that we don't trust you specifically. It's that we don't want any 3rd party software (outside of our control) requiring a NationStates logon. We know our security systems, we don't know yours, and our players HAVE been burned with password thieves before. (from offsite forums users, mostly)

Can you visit #themodcave on IRC's esper.net? I can't promise you that a technical person will be there to discuss your methodology, but we can at least log the private chat for the attention of the admins.

I have explained the login procedure on the IRC chat as requested.

By the way, sorry for being a little irritated in my previous post. Security is an understandable fear. I've been accused of such things in person and it just never seems to stop bugging me that people assume the worse. I apologize for my ranting and hope to expand NationStates the best I can with Battlegrounds.

Thanks,
-Commando Zoop
--ZoopTEK
--Dictator of LEFT

All automated access to NationStates must abide by the rules (and the spirit of the discussion) here: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=5812823&postcount=59

As always we advise all players against sharing their passwords with anyone.

Any testing/etc. that is done with regards to this game is not sanctioned (though by no mean condemned) by NationStates and we do not endorse this (or any) 3rd party software.

(As you might guess, this is pretty much boilerplate, but I honestly don't see anything about this proposal that needs special attention from us.)

Mods, you will want to check your IRC chat again. I found something you will want to know about. I have explained it fully there.

On another note, I have uploaded Battlegrounds to ZoopTEK.net. You can find it at: http://www.zooptek.net/nationstates_battlegrounds . Right now the game is capped at 30 nations. If you want to test, be sure to come soon before the slots are used up!

If you find any bugs (hence beta-testing, hehe), please report them to ZoopTEK's e-mail: zooptek@gmail.com

Thank you,
-Commando Zoop
--ZoopTEK
--Dictator of LEFT

I have to say, as one of the beta testers, it is pretty good...

Except that 750 special forces whiped out my 40,000 slaves :mad:

Hm... that seems to make sence...

A slave is a 1.1.1.1 and a special force is a 7.6.1.1...

I wonder how many a heavy tank (30.20.1.1) can get...

Anyway, check your inbox Zoop, I've sent an update... and mods, its it cool to link this thread in my sig? If not, I'll remove it...

Hm... that seems to make sence...

A slave is a 1.1.1.1 and a special force is a 7.6.1.1...

I wonder how many a heavy tank (30.20.1.1) can get...

Anyway, check your inbox Zoop, I've sent an update... and mods, its it cool to link this thread in my sig? If not, I'll remove it...
Ouch, I am not buying slaves again:

The Commonwealth of Butzington lost 480 units of Special Forces.
The Commonwealth of Butzington lost 240 units of Anti-Aircraft Infantry.
The Commonwealth of Butzington lost 5 units of Stealth Fighter.

The Rum distileries of BundyBear lost 22 units of Fighter.
The Rum distileries of BundyBear lost 40696 units of Slave.

My current units lost ratio is sitting around:
Battles Won: 5
Battles Lost: 8
Ratio: 0.625

Enemies Killed: 3514
Troops Lost: 89150
Ratio: 0.039

If people want to start a discussion thread, may I suggest Gameplay or General. It doesn't belong here.