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The Existential Threat, Part II


Vladimir

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TheKarmaCurve.jpg

This article is best read while listening to Rico.

Discussion on the great existential threat has picked up again since I last wrote on it, but only amongst the chattering classes of the OWF. Alliances which had once shown such concern over our world's future continue to ignore the issue despite rapidly accelerating decline. Moreover, they have conducted a u-turn on the causes and remedies they had once championed by denying the responsibility of powerful alliances. They won't conduct the open diplomacy they once called for, or shift their policies to create the dynamic multi-polar world so many died for.

An honest change in intellectual direction, I'm sure. Though one can't help but notice that these changes of direction all seem to have coincided exactly with the powerless becoming the powerful. Of course, once cannot expect the powerful to act in ways opposed to their immediate interests, which is why it was easy to predict the continuation of secret diplomacy, curb-stomps, harsh terms and uni-polarity. It's just a shame when these immediate interests lead to the destruction of the entire world in the post-immediate-term. The oceans are rising.

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A famous dutch Philosopher named Huizinga once said "if you go through life questioning everything, you will eventually be forced to question yourself."

So perhaps it's best you don't do that? After all, this is but a game. A game needs controversy, otherwise it becomes dull (which is, by the way part of the reason people are leaving).

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Yeah, to be honest, I don't think anyone aside from politically active players who had lost/casual players in losing alliances have been driven away. For the most part, the general population of CN has little concern for politics. How many people visit this forum out of the remaining player base? I mean, the OWF isn't dead, so the active player base hasn't exactly deteriorated. It's moreso in my opinion that CN no longer is new. We had all the invasions already. The politics of the game were ported and the powers that came over set the stage for everyone else to play on. It was a big deal in 2006 to be able to declare war. It isn't now. The population was bigger when alliances sported scores of ghosts like I've heard Legion had over 1000 people on the AA at one point and similar figures for others. Every day I see dozens of random wars declared by newcomers or even people who have been playing for a while. Do they care about NPO or the Superfriends, C&G, etc.? Doubtful. Did they ever? Probably not.

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Every day I see dozens of random wars declared by newcomers or even people who have been playing for a while.

Yeah I should get back to this.

There's a myth that alliance wars = interest and people in general stay in CN because of wars.

There are currently 21,383 nations and 1,815 wars, or roughly 1 war for every 11.8 nations. Of those wars, incidentally, 206 involve one or more of the 299 GOONS nations.

Frankly, most players are quite happy playing a game where they login every so often and fiddle with trades etc. and try to build their nation. If this was not the case, then alliances wouldn't be so popular; people who want a web wargame have an easy option, the life of the unaligned.

There are 10,775 nations below 10K nation strength. That's one-eighth of the top 5% in the game. The balance of play is heavily tilted towards the casual player, and until people realize that, CN's nation count will continue to decline rapidly.

(On another, related, point - the unaligned are down to 2,908 nations and 52 score. I remember a bit before Karma, there were over 5K unaligned and their score was higher than the #1 alliance. Now they're not even close, altho their average NS is higher.)

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My first clue not to take this post seriously was the quantity of trendy pseudo intellectual words that mean little to nothing in this context. My favorites here are: post immediate, existential and dynamic.

What does "existential" mean in this context?

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I like your projection line. Starts going downhill at the 2nd great war, continues on a similar path at Karma, and then a full year later it takes a sharp turn downward.

DEFINITELY Karma's fault. Right. :mellow:

I blame UPN expelling their ghosts. :awesome:

Edit: 'Downhill' has two Ls!

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Ignoring for a moment the ridiculousness of this ad hominem attack, it is interesting to note that implicit in it is an acceptance that the world is the same as it was, just with a handful of alliances shuffled up and a handful shuffled down. The king is dead, long live the king.

Two points, comrade. Firstly, I made no personal attacks against you. I critiqued your argument and posed a rhetorical question, but I'd like to think that I tried to keep the conversation civil. If I failed, you have my sincere apologies. Secondly, as a representative of a minor alliance in a much large movement, I can assure you that your invention of Karma as a monolithic entity is pure fantasy -- but I'm sure you're already acutely aware of it. It's a cynical ploy, and a rather transparent one at that.

Nonetheless, I only read two blogs regularly and yours is one of them, so clearly you're doing something right. I am jealous of the way that you make it look so easy. You are perhaps the finest propagandist that Planet Bob has ever seen. I'm being completely honest when I say, "keep up the good work."

-Craig

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That's a pretty hilarious 'projection'. (The aftermath of a war, in this case Bipolar, always causes some losers to leave, and that doesn't indicate a longer term acceleration in decline.) However, there is a clear downward trend and one which is a problem.

The theory that it was down to unipolar politics came about because the population of the game peaked during GW3 (just around the start of it I think), and started to decline once the Initiative was in an uncontested dominant position. The fact that the decline continued after Karma (and not just in the immediate aftermath as some people on the losing side quit), when the world certainly was multipolar right up until the TPF War, indicates that perhaps we were wrong about the cause.

There are two other possible causes:

- First, this type of game is now quite old fashioned, almost 90s in its interface and approach. Web games have moved on (I guess I can't mention any here, but there are lots of graphical games with a full UI and realtime action that you can play in your browser), and CN probably isn't so attractive any more. In addition to that, time has given us huge nations and a two year wonder deficit for new nations. Something like 30% of the players are now in what would originally be considered the 'endgame' (full improvements, level 9 aircraft, generating more money than you can spend on aid).

- And second, the rise of tech raiding. GW3 was the final defeat of CNARF and the anti-raiding coalition, and put alliances like (the old) GOONS and \m/, and GGA, into a position of unquestionable strength. Although the Unjust War was nominally fought on something of an anti-raiding platform, the pro-raiding alliances that were required to win that war meant that no curbs were put on raiding, and since then it has just got worse. There's nothing to put you off a new game quite as effectively as being attacked and losing all your stuff in your first week of playing.

The first obviously we can do nothing about. The second we can do nothing about while raiding alliances insist that it's their 'sovereign right' to drive new players out of the game before they've got started.

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You want to make the game interesting and get people back in it. Bring back parity. CnG was completely outgunned until Karma but it got everyone together through diplomatic efforts and by pointing out the problems caused by those in power. Right now SG hasn't be as bad (yes I know how this will come off) as the hegemony of old, therefore its harder for alliances like TOP/NPO to rally alliances to their side to crush SG. What you need to do is start recruiting swing alliances to your side just like SG did with Sparta, ODN, FOK, and NpO then you could start a real resistance and make this game interesting.

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Personally I am ready for the "I told you so" line I will probably deliver sometime mid next year... And I am something of an apolitical player at the moment. And even I can see the writing on the wall, the game is losing players and without players there will be no game, and if there is no game, everyone loses.

Lets try and put the past in the past and work together to ensure there is a future for CN by finding out what is causing the population loss and correcting it.

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