NationStates Jolt Archive

Ever since NS went indie, there's been quite a lot of discussion of proposed game changes based on current issues with the game. A number of ideas have been proposed, discussed, disputed, and generally summarized here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=589919). Examining these and the concerns arising with of them, what has become clear to me is that a good improvement would be one that is based on existing features and is accessible to all NSers, as opposed to just one group, such as raiders or RPers. I've drawn inspiration from these existing ideas and needs for my own suggestion:

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I propose the creation of 27 new game regions - that is, one corresponding to each nation type (Psychotic Dictatorship, Left-Leaning College State, etc.). Being Delegate of one of these regions would allow a nation to send out a telegram to all nations of that type at intervals (let's say a week - I'm not certain about the optimal interval) starting several (let's say three) days into that Delegate's incumbency. This telegram would have a special title - the name of the region, perhaps - similar to the messages sent by the WA or the mods. These regions would have gimped regional controls in the manner of the Rejected Realms or Lazarus; that is, no passwords and no ejection.

The underlying idea here is a broadly usable mechanic based on features all NSers will recognize and the concept that having a certain type of government puts one in the communication sphere of similarly-minded nations. Of course, not everyone is interested in their nation types, but there are a lot of meta-uses for this: recruiting, alliance offers, news services, RP invitations, general flag-waving, and so forth.

In practice, this would mean that those in charge of one of these broadcast regions could say whatever they want to say to all nations of a given type - but if they want to keep that power, they had better be saying something that those nations want to hear. In this sense it would be self-policing; Delegates of broadcast zones would have no game-mechanical tricks with which to protect themselves, and so holding one would come down to popularity. Anyone using their power to do something that offends more people than are willing to support them would find themselves deposed in short order. This would mean that different approaches would be needed for different types. The broadcast zones of more popular and moderate nation types would be worth more in that they would allow messages to be sent to a large audience. However, they would require greater caution lest the Delegate's messages draw the ire of many powerful nations that could remove them from the seat in short order. The broadcast zones of rarer, more extreme government types would probably allow more leeway in what could be said, but at the cost of a smaller audience.

For the sake of keeping my proposal succinct (Well, the NS definition of succinct, anyhow!) I'd like to explain the whole rationale for a number of details separately. I've thought through this a lot, and I want to flesh out the 'nuts and bolts' of my reasoning, but I don't want to make the proposal itself too long-winded and boring. Since most of these are answers to questions that came up in preliminary discussions, I'll use a Q&A format.

Won't only raiders use this?

The lack of ejection and password controls is because I don't want a feature that will only be used by raiders. I don't even want a feature that will be mostly used by raiders. Without ejection, passwords, or urgent deadlines, raider skills aren't a factor in the usage of this. If you have something to say to a nation type, and you can get more people who support you saying it than who support someone else having airtime, you can have it - regardless of what part of the game or forum(s) your support comes from. It doesn't matter whether you walk in in broad daylight with your grassroots support network or storm it in the middle of the night with your military organization.

I am certain that raiders would make use of this - but it would be exceedingly useful to all the other NS communities. I suspect that raiders would find many or most of the broadcast zones to be useless for their purposes or nigh-impossible to retain control of, although some would certainly be useful to them.

Why the special text in the telegram?

Suppose you're an isolationist nation - the sort that's boxed up in its own, one-nation self-founded region with an uncrackable regional password. All you want to do is RP with your specific group, or just answer your issues, and you don't want interference from the outside world. I imagine this isn't much of a stretch for many folks. Let's say you're a Civil Rights Lovefest. So you get a telegram from the Satellite of Equality*, but you don't want to be getting telegrams from the Satellite of Equality. So you put it on your blocklist. That's it, you're done, you can forget about the whole feature and go back to what you were doing. If it was a telegram from the Delegate, you'd have to keep blocking them every time there was a new Delegate.

27 is a lot of regions. Why so many?

I think that a true "TG-all" feature would be a very bad thing for many reasons, no matter who has access to it, and so I'm trying to steer clear of that in favor of something with more strategy and variation. 27 is enough regions that many different kinds of players could use the feature, enough that no monolithic organization could ever control all or even most of them, and yet few enough that some degree of competition can be expected.

So would you have to be of a given nation type to enter that nation type's region and vote for its Delegate?

As strange as it seems, broadcast zones shouldn't require this, for several reasons. First, just as I don't want something that requires raider skills to use, I don't want something that involves mastery of the issue system to use. This should be simple, easy to understand, and accessible from the get-go to anyone who wants to hop in and use the feature. No raid planning should be required, and nor should calibration of issues among a large group.

Second, such a limitation would hurt the self-policing nature of the system. The idea is that if (for example) some Anarchy-type nations are offended by what's coming out of Radio Free Anarchy*, they should be able to gather support - from region-mates, from allies, friends, military groups, whatever - for their case and oust the offending broadcasters. This would be prohibitively hard if they would have to do this solely by tracking down other Anarchies and saying "hey, I don't like what RFA is saying these days, do you?".

Third, and most important, we don't want a feature that only raiders can use. If only nations of the specific type were allowed in that type's broadcast zone, raiders would figure out exactly which origins/questions they need to get each type and pump out puppets of that type to take broadcast zones. Only defenders and other skilled region-conflict players could mount a suitable response, as nobody could hope to oppose them without such puppets. This would exclude the nine out of ten active NSers who don't primarily play those aspects, which would be bad since I want that nine-tenths to be able to use this feature freely.

Wouldn't this spam up my telegram inbox?

At a (proposed, I'm open to alternative timing) one telegram a week, with the substantial possibility of a protracted period without a delegate capable of sending one, you'd have to be very idle for a very long time to get your inbox spammed out this way. And if you thought it was spam you could just block it.

Why the incumbency interval?

Another safeguard against raider dominance. It means that it isn't necessary to show up at a very specific time and date, as it would be if the telegrams were sendable at, say, exact dates. Most NSers are not raiders and have no interest in storming a region late at night right before the telegram updates. This way, if a new broadcast zone delegate was clearly distrustworthy or well and truly hated, the opposition would have a decent amount of time to mount a response before the first mass telegram could even be sent out.

What if I switch nation types a whole lot?

To be totally honest, this is my biggest concern with this. Some sort of universal opt-out button in nation settings might be in order for those that truly want that, but I don't know how much of an issue it'd be.

*What's with the region names?

Yeah, the region names I'm listing as examples aren't really a suggestion in the sense that the proposed mechanics are a suggestion. I just like the idea of all of them having suitable NS-ified media names, like Radio Free Anarchy for Anarchies, All Things In Moderation for Inoffensive Centrist Democracies, The Student Weekly for Left-Leaning College States, and so forth. I'm not being too serious about that, though.

Immediately, I see this helping two aspects of the game: community & activity, and, of course, making the nation types more meaningful instead of just a label.

In short, I like this a lot. Well thought-out and thorough. I only hope the all-powerful mods and coders will consider this.

Imagine the rush to these regions. i would like to see how the influence changes in regions once bored nations get wind. We may need the riot squad.

Yes. An important idea.

I'd love to see it established along with the TG-all in Region feature.
I don't think anyone could really be hurt by it - expecially considering you should be able to put the broadcast on a banlist.

Something cosmetic I mentioned earlier to you Kandy, I'd like to see the telegrams appear a tad different like Moderators or the Compliance Commission.

Such as ... Radio Free Anarchy

Glad to see it's published finally. :D
Nice job on the FAQ.

If there's an opt-out button, I'd use that for all my nations and subsequently ignore those 27 regions entirely.

Frankly, I don't see communication to be a problem at all. This proposal is an attempt to somehow 'activate' the idle masses, and it'll fail because those masses prefer to be idle. And if the spam becomes too annoying, they'll just go and play a different game.

I suggest sticking to changes which will encourage people to be active, making something important out of what is otherwise a simple game mechanic. You cannot spam people into caring about things outside their region.

Ballotonia

A good new feature doesn't have to make the game better for everyone. It is sufficient that it make the game better for some, make it measurably worse for few (ideally, none), and that the implementation cost not be incommensurate with the benefit.

This proposal feels like one of that kind to me, but of course I have no clear idea of the implementation cost.

I have to say that I find it very unclear whether my enjoyment of the game would be enhanced by the proposal or not. It would depend on whether the stations evolved (if that is the right word) in interesting ways. But I can't see how it would do me any harm.

When I first read this, I thought you were suggesting that there be only 27 regions. The second time I read it, I realized that you are suggesting something similar to social groups, rather than actual regions. This should probably be made more clear.

If I have this wrong, then perhaps you should think about proposing social groups rather than regions. :P

When I first read this, I thought you were suggesting that there be only 27 regions. The second time I read it, I realized that you are suggesting something similar to social groups, rather than actual regions. This should probably be made more clear.

If I have this wrong, then perhaps you should think about proposing social groups rather than regions. :P

one for each nation type

Becomes

one corresponding to each nation type

Hopefull that should help with the misconception (which, looking at it, I can understand).

Glen-Rhodes: What are regions but social groups?

Ballotonia: You may ignore the feature... I have a feeling most UCRs wouldn't. As an individual nation, I might or might not turn off the feature; but as a political player, I personally would check in on the station broadcasts just to see what was being talked about across NS.

I've been a big proponent of some sort of TG feature elsewhere, but frankly I think this is a better way to go about it. This still has the potential to encourage cooperation and competition among the politically active regions, without locking new or more casual players out of the field entirely. And it provides more of a forum for WA players, or pretty much anyone else who is interested in maintaining contact with the larger NS community.

I'm all for giving it a shot.

@Naivetry: those messages wouldn't be "what was being talked about across NS." It's 27 spamfeeds, one-way communication only. I can already tell you I wouldn't be missing out on that much more by blocking the sender, since my main nation wouldn't be getting the other 26 spamfeeds anyway. So what are we expected to do... each create 26 other nations just to keep tabs on what is being sent to others?!? Do you know many people who regularly create a new nation in each of the pacifics just to keep tabs on what spam new players get in their inbox?

Gaining control of one of those regions would grant control of 1/27th of that spamfeed for personal use. So, an army of 54 WA nations is needed to hold all of them, and then those 27 regions would have delegates with just 1 endorsement each... Gobble all invader regions together utilizing 100% of their resources, and they'll still only make a small dent in capturing / holding these 27 regions at once. In other words, the numbers simply don't match up to make this something worth fighting over.

Ballotonia

@Naivetry: those messages wouldn't be "what was being talked about across NS." It's 27 spamfeeds, one-way communication only. I can already tell you I wouldn't be missing out on that much more by blocking the sender, since my main nation wouldn't be getting the other 26 spamfeeds anyway. So what are we expected to do... each create 26 other nations just to keep tabs on what is being sent to others?!? Do you know many people who regularly create a new nation in each of the pacifics just to keep tabs on what spam new players get in their inbox?

Gaining control of one of those regions would grant control of 1/27th of that spamfeed for personal use. So, an army of 54 WA nations is needed to hold all of them, and then those 27 regions would have delegates with just 1 endorsement each... Gobble all invader regions together utilizing 100% of their resources, and they'll still only make a small dent in capturing / holding these 27 regions at once. In other words, the numbers simply don't match up to make this something worth fighting over.

Ballotonia

Actually, it wouldn't be 1/27 each. The breakdown of frequency of nation types is massively unequal, and so different regions would have different values in practice. Controlling some regions would grant an audience of thousands while others would have less than two hundred. This is just fine in my view, as it encourages multiple different approaches.

The 54-nation strategy you suggest would only work if there was nobody else with more supporters who wanted to use any particular region. If anyone could find two endorsers who wanted them to be delegate, that one-endorsement plan would fall apart, so the possibility of an invader takeover of all of them is even more distant than you think. This is also just fine in my view. I am not suggesting this as a feature mainly for the use of invaders, but all communities (though invaders would certainly make a move on some of these regions). There are many, many more possible uses for these regions than as an invader spam feed trophy. I for one hope fondly for the birth of NS news services with an honest-to-Max market share, among other things.

@Balltonia - I don't foresee these becoming recruitment spam sources. Sure, that's one possibility, and probably the first one people in the UCRs will think of trying. But after the dust settles, I think we're much more likely to see interregional cooperation in recruitment blocs - i.e., alliances could actually mean something again - or the re-formation of interregional groups centered, this time, on controlling the media.

Based on previous NS history, we might see the broadcast stations developing archives in blog form, or on offsite forums. At the very least, I would expect them to utilize the RMB to post their message as well, meaning I could check in on the regional NS page once in a while to see what had gone out. As for it being one-way... so are newspapers and the vast majority of embassy posts these days, but that doesn't mean people don't talk about them, or can't send a TG back or complain on their own RMBs about what has been said.

Kandarin's right about the very uneven breakdown of nation-type populations and hence the differential value of each station, which is what saves this, imo. It's the kind of thing that NS players have always thrived on manipulating - a simple mechanic that creates complex results.

To me, this whole idea seems like it's giving 27 people a license to spam.

To me, this whole idea seems like it's giving 27 people a license to spam.

Sure, but you're only going to hear one of them at a time (unless you have puppets) and you can put them on a banlist for telegrams... so?

To me, this whole idea seems like it's giving 27 people a license to spam.

Which can easily be revoked at any time if more people dislike what they're saying than are willing to support them in saying it. Flagrant spammers would have no way of protecting themselves if they used it.

I have no interest in hearing what other nations of my nations type are doing. I have no interest in changing regions to be in a region filled with other nations of my nations type.

or what Balltonia said:

If there's an opt-out button, I'd use that for all my nations and subsequently ignore those 27 regions entirely.

Frankly, I don't see communication to be a problem at all. This proposal is an attempt to somehow 'activate' the idle masses, and it'll fail because those masses prefer to be idle. And if the spam becomes too annoying, they'll just go and play a different game.

I have no interest in hearing what other nations of my nations type are doing. I have no interest in changing regions to be in a region filled with other nations of my nations type.

This suggestion would neither guarantee that messages come from others of your nation type nor require you to move regions.

Furthermore, you wouldn't be getting 27 TG's persay, just one per whatever nation type you have.