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1000 Days in Cybernations - The Waaay Too Exhaustive History of Apriland


apriland

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On August 4th, 2007 I was looking at my friend Matthew's Facebook page, thinking about all the stuff I should have picked up on to know that he was going to commit suicide. To me, it came completely out of the blue, he had just accepted a permanent position at an arboretum after college that would bring him back out to California where I lived and we met. All my interactions with him were so positive, he was kind and thoughtful, and constantly working hard to boost my self esteem with heartfelt compliments. He had hidden the fact that he was mentally ill so well that I never even would have guessed. On his page was a note, with a brief statement about CN and how it was a great game. I created my nation as a way to be still linked to him, and to try to understand why he did what he did and to try to find people that he might have interacted.

If I had thought I was going to be playing CN for three years, I probably would have tried to come up with something more creative than April (my RL name) of Aprilville in Apriland. Oh well. :P Like any noob I got dozens of recruitment letters, nearly all about military prowess of the respective alliances. For some reason, the idea of killing nations and destroying things didn't really seem appropriate to the reasons I joined CN much less what I am like as a person (insert jabs of mhawk and Sir Wellington and shadow making fun of me for being a hippy). Somehow I ended up on YouTube looking at this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwmWkUgSURo. I was totally sold. I signed up on the GPA forums and proceeded to have a funny discussion with El Bruc about how I didn't ever want to get out of peace mode (his response was like, aside from some lack of knowledge about game mechanics and the fact that you don't need an alliance if you stay in peace mode, it sounds like you're in the right place).

For no logical reason whatsoever and much to the chagrin of my mentor Vestitor, I took a month to take the GPA test. I was pretty busy in RL and for some reason I thought it was going to actually be hard. Maybe it was for the best, because by the time I actually became a GPA person I definitely knew what they stood for and had a fairly good grasp on their history and the goings on of CN.

My leanings have always been diplomatic (did MUN in HS and stuff), and as soon I left the GPA academy I was appointed to be the ambassador to \m/ right before \m/ ceased to exist. At that point I was reassigned to Grämlins and BAPS. I ran for MOFA for the November term of 2007 but dropped out of the race during the vote despite a huge lead because I wanted to focus on helping out with local stuff related to the huge San Diego fires in 2007. This saved me from being government during the whole Valid was president travesty of GPA history. Sigh.

What's funny about that is that while I made a commitment to focus on RL, I got dragged back into the game via interest in a guy in November.... This would be the first of several "WTF am I doing" moments in CN, and to this day I still have zero clue whether he had any feelings for me or if he was just using me for in game political advantage... Screwed up, I know, but CN is kind of a screwed up game a lot of the time.

In January 2008 I became AMoFA. Thanks to the president leaving in the middle of his presidency, I was appointed VP under his successor. This lasted for less than 24hrs due to the MOFA and I pressuring the new president to trust my FA abilities (which is what made him want me as his VP in this dangerous time for the GPA in the first place). This basically involved doing full disclosure on the ex-president among other things to warn other leaders in CN about him, apologizing and attempting to move on. Anyway, that resulted in the new president quitting the GPA 24hrs into his term because he realized it was a ridiculous source of life stress and inbalance to try to hold things together. This made things interesting as the vote to confirm me as his VP was still going on. Once that vote finished I became the official VP and then President all in one fell swoop. The MoIA quickly flipped out on the ex-president that was trying to publicly sabotage the GPA on the OWF (and them promptly quit GPA and joined MK) and the MoC had quit (maybe other people I don't really remember). This meant that I along with MOFA were basically running the entire GPA while I figured out how replace everyone. I did, and then Valid/CK went crazy and like spied on the cabinet boards despite the fact that we thought he had been ousted thanks to the stealthy work of out tech gal. The leaking of this info bred instant distrust in the cabinet and entire another set of people quit on me.

While this was all going on, a long time CN player in the GPA "committed suicide" and told us about it via his "sister"... Due to my history of why I joined CN, as well as my personal relationship with the guy as his "confidant" of sorts, I was dealing with a lot of grief about what happened while simultaneously trying to hold an alliance together on the eminent threat of war, act as like 5 different gov role of the largest alliance due to my cabinet constantly imploding, and deal with the guy who claimed to like me being a complete $@! to me. As it turns out, the GPA member wasn't actually dead. This bred a lot of mistrust in a lot of the CN leadership about whether we had faked everything to gain sympathy and I had to deal with that at the same time as my own shock and grief and anger about the whole situation.

Three days later, I quit the GPA and I thought I was going to quit CN. I hung out in peace mode while lots of people attempted to change my mind... successfully. Around two weeks after that, just after I joined VE, the GPA was attacked in the famous "War on Peace" (aka "Epic Tech Raid") and I watched everything that I ever cared about in the game turn to dust and so many OoC friends left CN completely.

Some time around that time (I guess it wasn't deemed worth of being archived) I created a looong poll that asked why people play CN. When I realized that things like "to blow stuff up" and "for the lulz" dramatically surpassed "I like diplomacy" I knew this basically was not the right game for me at all. I have no idea why I continued to play for so long after that, but for a game that makes you completely miserable, CN sure is addictive.

A month into my time in VE this guy very sweetly but emphatically tried to make me government of VE because he (like too many people in GPA back in the day) believed I was the only possible salvation of a decaying alliance. Good times. I quit VE as a direct result of being afraid of caring about the game again. I attempted to actually quit the game too and even posted a quitting thread on the OWF. http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=20561. Obviously that wasn't successful. while I randomized my CN password and created a fake email account for any password requests to be sent, I somehow managed to remember the fake email's password and reinstated my account. I rejoined VE and proceeded to do nothing. Again I was swayed by friendly pressure not to quit (http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/bigwoody_torn/aprilstay.jpg, etc), and ended up rejoining VE (and ardus made me take the admission test despite the fact that I didn't even have to take it the first time... curse you! :P) My dearest friend in CN quit at the same time: Sophia: http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=20561, this, of course, made Valhalla hate me for no logical reason because the gov at the time didn't understand the difference between OoC and IC.

Then after a brief second stay in VE, I joined TORN after an intensive grilling session with their gov. "You do know we like to fight, right? A LOT." In TORN I think I kept a pretty healthy RL vs IC life balance, and even was council for a few terms. Definitely met some of my favorite people in CN there, and I definitely had some of my best CN OoC friendships with people in that alliance.

Also while I was in TORN I FINALLY found the community of friends that knew Matthew, my friend that had committed suicide and made me want to join CN in the first place. As it turns out, Matthew was called "Magissima" and was a member of CIS, and had a stint in government there. Of course, right after this NPO intimidated CIS to disband for some lame reason and the community that Matthew knew and loved disappeared forever. The channel stood for a long time, with the RIP for him still in tact (Rest in Peace Matthew (Magissima) You won't be forgotten) In an strange way, if felt like he died again.

Eventually right before Karma I left TORN due to my complete distrust of NPO and my frustration that we continued to be allied to them, as well as feeling pretty disconnected as so many people had left to join other alliances. At that point I joined Grämlins, which was the alliance I wanted to join after the GPA in the first place, but couldn't bear to join a Continuum alliance after constantly fighting against them all the time a month earlier. I was barely active during Karma and became pretty much completely inactive in CN all together except sporadic jaunts on IRC in the past year.

As it stands I'm currently sitting on a new alliance's AA after 3 weeks or so of being in "None" after I left the Gramlins in protest of their ridiculous "unconditional surrender" bullcrap. I hate CN too much to bother with trying to find another alliance that I would also be a good fit for, to try to find a new trade circle, etc. I haven't been able to grasp why I haven't just deleted my nation and maybe soon I will.

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Not to be a pessimist but you will never find an alliance that fits you perfectly, it's just an impossibility. I would suggest that you don't quit and pick an alliance that you think has a history/policy/membership you like and try it out.

And congrats on 1000 days.

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Thanks for sharing this. It was a welcome read. By the way you very might find an alliance that fits you perfectly, the only catch is that you have to start it yourself. Like I said in your forum thread best of luck to you where ever your journey takes you.

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1000 Days! That is an amazing acheivement. Same time, same place 1000 days from now we shall meet again where I'm congratulating you on 2000 days and planning the 3000 day party!

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All I can say is I love April. She is one of the kindest, sweetest people on CN and I hope that no matter what you decide April... That you always keep in contact :)

Congrats on the 1000 days.. and surviving RL ... Neither are easy and I'm sure most of us have thought of Deletion as the only salvation for our RL's :P

oo/ April (Much love! :wub:)

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I know how you feel. it's the same BS reheated every alliance wide tech raid war.

1: Manufacture some CB.

2: Diplomatically isolate the target alliance and muster an alliance so large that it is a complete curb-stomp.

3: Declare war using the CB from step 1.

4: Drag the war out for as long as possible to raid as much tech as possible.

5: Impose draconian terms on the alliance.

6: Continue to drag the war out for as long as possible to raid as much tech as possible. Remain immovable on the terms. Remember to smack talk the target alliance's members into radio silence.

7: When the target alliance has stopped losing members for about a month and is begging for peace accept their unconditional acceptance of your terms and turn them into a puppet tech farm alliance.

8: Rebuild

9: Repeat

CN is just too predictably asshatish now. I find myself wistfully remembering the quieter more stable days of the hegemony when I could at least do what I wanted to do in the first place, build a large nation with all the wonders.

I would not mind fighting in a war if it was an evenly matched affair, but I have never seen one in CN ever. I have only ever seen curb-stomps.

But enough of my bitter ramblings, congratulations on 1000 days. I will be able to join you in about 650 or so days when my new nation is that old, if the powers that be in the new hegemony do not decree that I have to delete again.

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The MoIA quickly flipped out on the ex-president that was trying to publicly sabotage the GPA on the OWF (and them promptly quit GPA and joined MK)

That was TailsK wasn't it? He went to Rok not MK. Or was he involved in some other BS internal drama then? I'm always so out of the loop on the drama.

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