Un4Gvn1

United Purple Nations and the Fellowship of Elite Allied Republics have enjoyed 16 months of comaraderie and friendship illustrated by The Phobos Accords treaty. The time has come to lay The Phobos Accords to rest but FEAR and UPN shall always be friends. We, in the UPN, respect FEAR and we know she shall have an excellent future. [center] [center] [/center][/center][center][img]http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/92/200pxupnsvg.png[/img] [img]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a144/Choryo/fearsmall.png[/img] [left] For UPN: Prime Minister, Peggy_Sue Chancellor (retired), Warlord Nazrag Tribune, DonVox For FEAR: Grand Chancellor, CodArk2 Internal Chancellor, Mad Larkin External Chancellor, CBray [/left] [/center]

GoFast, that is an interesting correlation you've presented. Many thanks to AirMe for the commentary in his talk show. [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91563"]Airme's talkshow thread.[/url]

Heh! So we with a bit more seasoning and miles on our shoes are more up for and interested in change here on Digiterra. Fascinating things we're learning here! I will begin to send friendly 'Hello' PMs to newly registered nations, time permitting. This is one small way that I as an individual ruler can help new folks. I will ask my members to VOLUNTARILY stay away from raiding the very new nations; this is one small way that I as an alliance leader can help new folks.

Will you consider addressing some of the discussion that has occurred in the [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91309"]Positive Brainstorming[/url] thread? i.e. Do you think it would help if new nations only had one defensive war slot (to prevent gang-banging style raids)? Can individual nations have an impact on player retention by lending a hand or advice that isn't connected to a recruiting message? Do large war reparation terms discourage rulers from keeping their nations up?

[quote name='Alterego' timestamp='1283297378' post='2437550'] Your alliances use of the treaty web to stay out of the last war and your attempt to cosy up to the C&G side of the world since that last war. Really who are these alliances who signed with UPN. At best they will throw a dozen nations into a war for a week but its more likely UPN will run a mile if it looks like they will be nuked. Your alliance is a big part of what is wrong in CN. Desperately trying to hang on to stats when half your alliance would surrender in under 10 days to save their skin. I would be filled with shame to lead UPN. [b]WHAT IS THE POINT OF YOUR EXISTANCE?[/b] Long story short I despise your alliance and it will take a battle of monumental proportions against overwhelming odds for a hell of a long time to change my mind. [i]If you want to save the game boot your ghosts & useless members, grow a back bone, pick 1 side only and when the next war comes be the 1st in and last out. If the UPNs of tyhe world do this CN will be a much better place.[/i] When your allies go to war they have to worry if you will run away or make a lame attempt at their defense. Its painless, yet alliances like yours are quaking in their boots of war. [/quote] You are not informed about current events within UPN. I asked you to give example(s) of what I, personally, have done as leader of UPN; you did not provide an example. Stop by IRC and have a chat with me sometime and I'll enjoy talking with you and filling you in if you are interested in accurate current event information.

[quote name='Batallion' timestamp='1283234340' post='2436775'] If anyone does anything out of the ordinary, you get referred to as an "idiot" and countless other nasty words. This game does not adapt well to change, and the general populace really does not want change, that's for sure. Only a few us. [/quote] You have hit that nail on the head, Batallion. The average age of players is YOUNG and it amazes me that young people have such a stranglehold on tradition in this game. It is a game and change is good. [quote name='Bavaricar' timestamp='1283236189' post='2436809'] As someone who has been called everything from an attention whore to who knows what else, yep. I don't think I am right or wrong in my ingame actions, I do things for entertainment value or to make a point, usually with some subtle attempt at humor that far too often is lost as being too serious or taking the game too seriously by my detractors. Breaking from the herd is hard, and we only think it's easy when we think in abstract terms like not following someone over a cliff. In this game it's rarely such an obvious situation. It's almost as if it's hardwired into us to think that if we are not doing what everyone else is doing, we must be doing something wrong. [/quote] Breaking from the herd is indeed hard. Benefits in self-actualization that can come from said breaking are potentially high, though. Following the herd is the easiest path in some aspects of life but this virtual life is the place to change it up and be a bit different. Role-playing is fun and would be great if more rulers here would play a role. Sure, a person's RL personality is there -- just can't hide it all -- but attempting to role play is one of the fun things here.

[quote name='Alterego' timestamp='1283234310' post='2436774'] OP Your own actions and the actions of others like you are a big part of the problem when it comes to heavily lopsided wars. Id love to see alliances, everyone knows the ones Im talking about bandwagon or switch sides to the much smaller sides instead of jumping to the bigger side every 18 months. [/quote] Alterego, give concrete example(s) of what you claim my actions to have been (to cause a heavily lopsided war). Give example(s) -- if you can find one -- of me doing this while in a leadership position of UPN. When in TPF I had no more say in who or what the alliance did in terms of war than any other peon.

[quote name='AirMe' timestamp='1283214256' post='2436308'] Just a word to the wise, Archon, Rafael or lebubu would probably be the person to talk to in MK about that. [/quote] Yes. I was trying to be crafty without actually saying 'You're not the one to announce xyz."

[quote name='Sandwich Controversy' timestamp='1283206779' post='2436170'] Never, and certainly not us. [/quote] Would you explain why the Mushroom Kingdom would be against discussing war reparations?

[quote name='Vanilla Napalm' timestamp='1283159441' post='2435638'] Buying technology from other nations? I'm shocked at the amount of reverse-raidism that's prevalent throughout this community. For shame, game killer. [/quote] Vanilla and Voytek, I asked for positive brainstorming, not sarcasm. Please.

Would the leaders of all alliances entertain the idea of having a Reparations Summit with the goal of agreeing to discuss war reparations?

[quote name='admin' timestamp='1282963563' post='2433408'] I’ve been following this thread and others like it and I am reluctant to post in any of them as there are always people just waiting to challenge what that I say, but be that as it may, I’ll go ahead and post my thoughts on the subject.[/quote] Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Admin. [quote name='admin' timestamp='1282963563' post='2433408'] I’ve repeated the story of how CN started many times over the years and it is one that I think a lot of you are forgetting or ignoring. When I created Cyber Nations my goal was to create a game that a few people might like to play for a few months. I didn’t spend much time developing it initially and when I released the game it was extremely limited in features (no trades, foreign aid, tanks, navy, aircraft, etc… OMG!) But I was happy with what I had created so I did a little advertising to get the word out about my new game to get some initial players to sign up. I wasn’t expecting much but soon we had a few hundred players and the server started having difficulty keeping up with demand. I stopped advertising but by that point word of mouth had taken over and soon players were joining Cyber Nations in the thousands. What was the draw to such a simple, feature limited, text based browser game? There were other nation simulators available in 2006, but Cyber Nations was one of the few nation builders that actually allowed players to fight wars with one another which allowed players to engage in politics and to actually back up their bark with their bite. Also in 2006, social sites like Facebook hadn’t yet totally owned the Internet and graphics heavy MMO games weren’t as predominate, so it was a little bit of people having nothing else to do, a little bit of people not expecting much out of their web based games, a little bit of dumb luck, but mostly people were attracted to the political environment within the community here. I began adding new features to the game as the community grew but the primary draw to Cyber Nations has never been about in-game features. It’s the political environment within the community, which interestingly enough, has always been beyond my control and with that the success or failure of Cyber Nations has never been up to me, it is in the hands of the community. Over time the game itself reached a point in development where there was a fear of overdeveloping the game as well as adding new features that would disrupt years of dedicated gameplay so over time the addition of new in-game features has slowed down, not because I don’t care about Cyber Nations, but specifically because I do care because I don’t want to discourage new players and old players alike by adding too many features or throwing a wrench in the existing rules of the game. Besides, I’ve never seen a real measurable influx of new players as a result of any new game feature being added but where I have seen influxes of players, time and time again, was the result of an active political climate especially during global wars. That political climate has been stagnant for years and in direct correlation there has been a consistent decrease in membership during that same period of time. This has all happened despite my best attempts to advertise the game so [b]it is clear that if there is to ever be a resurgence of activity it must come from within the community itself. [/b]No amount of new game features are going to bring back the peak activity of 2007, if anything new game features will only dissuade people from even wanting to sign up for such a complicated and confusing game. Finally, I have never understood all those players that have purchased everything available in the game and leave the community because they say they are bored and let all that time and dedication of developing their precious pixels go to waste because they are obligated under treaties. If you own everything in the game and have more money than you know what to do with then freaking use it. Kick some ass. [b]If more players and alliances would grow a pair and play the game with that kind of mentality, and stop with the insane reparations after wars, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.[/b] [/quote] I would applaud if we stopped doing the war reparations things. Just have a war and when it is over it is over. Would the leaders of all alliances entertain the idea of having a Reparations Summit with the goal of agreeing to end all war reparations forever?

Ahh, M6, Congratulations! Take good care of your lady because when she's happy the whole family benefits.

[quote name='Hime Themis' timestamp='1282869557' post='2432183'] Gentle Persons If I may once again be permitted to offer an idea or two. For newer nations 1. Add a free zone of 10 days not 5 for new nations in peace mode. 2. Confirm and send to each new nation a nation building guide approved by Admin that removes some of the more nebulous aspects of the earl stage building. 3. Eliminate the ability to choose an AA for a nation less than 11 days old. 4. Offer a direct and automatic link to an OWF forum account as part of the initial nation creation package. 5. Offer a direct link to the Player created alliance thread as part of the initial nation start up package. 6. Prevent any nation from attacking a nation less than 60 days old unless they are under that age themselves. 7. Prevent recruitment messages from being sent until a nation is 6 days old. 8. Provide a happiness bonus for every day a nation is active until the nation is 30 days of age. 9. Change activity from collection of taxes to logging in to the nation. This will provide us a far greater understanding of the true activity level of nations and alliances. 10. Reduce the peace mode penalty during the first two months of a nations existence .For Older nations 1. Allow mentoring assignments. Allow each nation under 60 days to have an assigned mentor chosen randomly from a volunteer list. The mentor would have access to view an assigned nation much as nation sitting but would not have access to actually do any actions. 2. Give access to every nation the ability to purchase nuclear weapons BUT restrict the maximum regardless of to 1 nuclear weapon per 10,000 NS starting with 1 at 0 NS. 3. Reduce incoming and out going war slots. As I had suggested in another thread. 1 incoming war slot and 2 outgoing would make wars, wars not possible curb stomps. Also allows smaller nation to fight larger ones where skill becomes more important. 4. Reduce the effects of anarchy as they stand now the aggressor has all the advantage if they can first strike and knock a nation into anarchy. If we want nations to fight then give them an incentive. 5. Force nation into battle fatigue. No more than 14 straight days of war before they are kicked into an enforced peace mode for 5 days. This would encourage wars to be far more tactical and strategic along with the other recommendations. 6. Increase the maximum aid that may be sent per slot to a nation at war. If a nation is currently fighting they can receive double the normal cash aid only.Make the Federal Aid commission effect one way required. If I have it I can send more. 7. Let there be a rogue designation that prevents a nation from continuing in war. If one senator of each colour agrees then that nation is kicked from war mode to peace mode. 8. Provide bonuses to nations for length of time in game, Infra level, Tech level, land levels but these bonuses may only be sent to another nation not used by the receiving nation. 9.Promote longevity of a nation through OWF and in game awards. Such as a new flag choice, mod for a day , free warn reduction, in game PM signature etc...... 10. Allow the voting for one specific upgrade each quarter. 1 vote for every 100 days of nation existence .For alliances. 1. Approval of any nation using the alliance AA designator or alliance flag. 2. Declaration of an alliance war where more than 5% of nation attack a specific AA. This allows a 5% bonus to all attacks. But a 5% to all counter attacks. 3. Make treaties worth something. +1 happiness for 10 days to an AA that signs a PIAT, +2 for ODP or OAP, + 3 For MDP, MAP or MADP. However no attack possible on that AA until treaty broken. Double the bonus as a loss if the treaty is broken. 4. AA kick for a nation if three designated alliance leaders approve. 5. Happiness bonus for alliances like above for alliance age, number of nation levels, avg nation strength levels, and average alliance nation age for example. Just some thoughts. I appreciate the opportunity to give some possible options. Update The above were posted to elicit discussion not as direct suggestions for change.. They will now all be posted to the appropriate suggestion thread.Thanks to the mods for the reminder and Good Sal Paradise for the suggestion. Respectfully Dame Hime Themis [/quote] Thank you for these excellent suggestions. I am especially fond of the following: [quote][b]4. Offer a direct and automatic link to an OWF forum account as part of the initial nation creation package. 5. Offer a direct link to the Player created alliance thread as part of the initial nation start up package.[/b] 6. Prevent any nation from attacking a nation less than 60 days old unless they are under that age themselves. 9. Change activity from collection of taxes to logging in to the nation. This will provide us a far greater understanding of the true activity level of nations and alliances.[/quote] These aren't all necessarily actions Admin. would have to take to improve the first days of a new nation ... A Planet Bob Welcome Wagon could create a PM packet with tips and links (to the OWF and the Player Created Alliance thread). Other suggestions are superb and should go into the suggestions area of the forum. Perhaps a request to put your post in the suggestion area would be beneficial? A Welcome Wagon effort is something we can do without Admin. approval but it would require the assistance of at least a dozen members. These 12 people would monitor the All Nations page round the clock and send welcoming messages as soon as possible. If new sign-ups are still around the 160 range, this would be a simple 13-14 messages each (if registrations are scattered uniformly around the clock and if coverage is the same). Example PM: [quote] Welcome to CyberNations, a little place on the internet the community calls Planet Bob! We are happy to have you here and would like to help make your first days with us as smooth as possible. One of the best ways to learn about the community is to visit the Open World Forum. You may register an account here -- [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?act=idx"]http://forums.cybern...dex.php?act=idx[/url] As you read the forum you will want to visit the Player Created Alliances page to get an idea of the sub-communities available to offer your nation protection from raiders. (Raiders are like pirates ... they invade your nation and attempt to steal technology, land, and money.) [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showforum=24"]http://forums.cybern...hp?showforum=24[/url] We have alliances with themes based on familiar movies, color trading spheres, geographic locale (Indonesia, for example), etc. Please let me know if I may be of assistance to you. I want to help you settle in and enjoy the community and game. Regards, [/quote]

The suggestions are very interesting and it is enjoyable to read posts made in the manner of the vast majority of posts in this thread. Welcoming new players by being polite and helpful here on the forum is something that everyone reading this is able to do. Sure, we get the occasional trickster pretending to be new and hoping to get a chuckle out of fooling us, but the great majority of new posters here are just that -- new posters. The manner we address each one tells that new poster a lot about us as a community. As Lenny N Karl said: [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91112&st=180"]http://forums.cybern...ic=91112&st=180[/url] [quote]I still hold out hope that the more intelligent and mature individuals that play this thing will FINALLY say enough is enough and start promoting a more realistic professional way of dealing with alliance diplomacy. IF you really do have control over your alliances, lets see a month of professionalism from your crew in here and in all matters of diplomacy. Do you think you can do it? ... surely you all aren't [b]14[/b] out there. [/quote] As II Impero Romano said: [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91309&st=20"]http://forums.cybern...pic=91309&st=20[/url] [quote]There are literally thousands of pages full of examples of this that have popped up in the past few months, which, conveniently enough, is the time period in which the population has declined. I have spoken with veterans who leave, not because they are angry, but because its just simply not interesting to read 50 pages of [b]7th grade style[/b] argumentation every time anything of minor significance, or even of no significance sometimes, happens. I have spoken with promising new players who say the same...shortly before they go inactive and delete. Lots of things that the community may find interesting are kept wholly under the table and in back channels, not because of some cool old boys club trying to keep the pleb out of the loop, but because no one wants to deal with the mind numbing crap that will be flung in post after post both supporting and decrying whatever the issue at hand may have been. [/quote] 14 and 7th grade style. <<<<< THIS. NOTE: We have a wealth of very young players that don't act this way. I know one that is so intelligent and diplomatic and mature in all dealings that I thought he was an old married (with kids) guy. Unfortunately it isn't coming entirely from the youngest players, but it can be dealt with if the rest of the community will put its collective foot down and say[b] [/b][center][b] "Knock It Off"[/b]. [/center] It is possible. We can invite newly-created rulers to this forum with a nice PM and a link. We can welcome them with posts that are helpful to them and encouraging them to get to know the community. We can show them through our posts to one another that we are not all constantly trying to pick a fight with one another. We can show that we try to act the part of rulers that engage in diplomatic behavior.

[quote name='Lenny N Karl' timestamp='1282846905' post='2431885'] This guy nailed it. [/quote] He sure did.

[quote name='New Frontier' timestamp='1282845181' post='2431860'] Why does every single person in this game think they need to make this topic/blog? Seriously, do you all just really want to be the saviour of CN? Get over yourselves. The eightieth thread isn't going to have different results than the first. [/quote] [b]We all know how negative/snarky/lulz-y some of us can be ... in this thread please show us how positive/polite/serious the denizens of Planet Bob are capable of being.[/b] Why did you bother posting? Is the negativity just in your nature and you can't do anything else? I welcome your positive input, if you have any. If you don't, then move down the thread list and find something else to snark about. Please. Game mechanic changes would be interesting and help older nations want to stay involved but the retention of the newest nations may not be helped by mechanics changes. I'm not thinking of being all Polly-Anna about it, but maybe some kind of U.N. type welcome to all newbies might help them want to stick around and see what other social interactions go on here?

[quote name='Alfred von Tirpitz' timestamp='1282842441' post='2431833'] I have had to cajole/beg/threaten colleagues so that they do not sign up on CN. We all are on the same network and it is my one nightmare scenario that someone likes the idea of playing CN at work apart from me. So i am actively demarketing it to my colleagues. [/quote] Do you suppose requests to Admin. might have a chance of relaxing the network rules?

[quote name='supercoolyellow' timestamp='1282839583' post='2431793'] Better in game education to help new players learn about the community of CN. Perhaps a five minute youtube video placed on the homepage, that explains CN, alliances, and such. [/quote] I really like the sound of that. A real person's voice with positive things to say about how to get your feet wet here. To PhysicsJunky -- Invasion groups all ready have a sort of community, depending on where they come from and I agree they do well. Is there a way to advertise or post on other text-role-play sites to invite people here?

[quote name='The MVP' timestamp='1282838455' post='2431781'] Is this a suggestion or a "global" effort? [/quote] I'm not sure I understand your question. I certainly can't do more than ask rulers to contribute ... therefore it is a suggestion. A global effort? That would be nice, but again, I can't do more than ask rulers to give input.

Hello everyone. I'd like to try a gigantic world-wide brainstorming session in this thread. We all know how negative/snarky/lulz-y some of us can be ... in this thread please show us how positive/polite/serious the denizens of Planet Bob are capable of being. I've seen suggestions in several threads over the course of the last year that address the issue of the dwindling planet population. Possibly the largest effort recently went toward inviting people we know through Facebook connections; this endeavor hasn't worked, or if it did work the natural attrition of nations was higher than the new blood could compensate. The fact that many of us, myself included, don't care to announce to a world that is often cruel our RL identity likely hampered the Facebook membership drive effort. My hope is for us, as a community, to come up with new ideas of how to entice and KEEP new nations. Please keep the discussion civil and post ideas. I think we can all agree that a world with 30-40K nations will benefit us all. Sincerely, Peggy Sue

[b]Cat Land and the United Purple Nations formally agree to peace. [/b] Signed for Cat Land: SWAT128 ~ King Kitty Signed for UPN: Peggy_Sue, Prime Minister DonVox, Tribune

[quote name='SWAT128' timestamp='1282148252' post='2421664'] I didn't have any reason to continue the war nor do I now. But the way Peggy went about this whole ordeal hasn't done your alliance any favors in my mind. If you wanted me to have no warchest for peace, it should have been made clear by your alliance a long time ago. It wasn't, and that caused my view on your alliance to go down the drain. Hopefully Peggy learns to no longer says things she doesn't mean, because it certainly doesn't help your alliance in the long run. [/quote] You were offered alternatives to using a term of 'white peace'; I didn't agree to aiming for a conclusion of white peace from the beginning. I told you I would not go for that and I offered first one thing then another in an effort to coordinate an end with you. Spin it how you like but it doesn't make what you say true. White peace is not CN standard for the ending to a nuke rogue situation. Rather, a senatorial trade sanction coupled with a ZI is pretty typical. The trade sanction didn't happen so other things were offered in lieu of that. There is no reason to be deliberately illogical, SWAT. We all walk away and you move on to your next adventure. Will you become a professional rogue?

[quote name='Penkala' timestamp='1282102310' post='2421064'] Uhh, what? I know even more than you do regarding the events of our rogue attacks, and the aftermath each time. I am of course in constant contact with my government regarding you, and I am well aware of what is going on. In fact, if anyone 'doesn't know what's going on' it would be you. It got quite frustrating having your government send you to talk to us. You'd make a decision, then your government would completely reverse it. Perhaps it's best you remove yourself from the entire situation, stop trying to stir things up, and go back to the retirement home you came from. VA is incompetent enough without you !@#$@#$ things up. [/quote] I don't remember the last time I saw you make any sort of a reasoned or logical or 'good cheer' kind of comment on this forum. Always antagonistic ... always sounding like you want to start a fight ... why so bitter All The Time?

[quote name='SWAT128' timestamp='1282084355' post='2420447'] This is my warchest [img]http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g50/MaverickSWAT/Mywarchest.png[/img] It is by no means large, so I'm still not sure what your problem is. [/quote] Thank you for providing the screenshot. I will declare peace as soon as the rulers respond. Cheers, SWAT. You are an interesting character.