[October-To-Date]

Is this average percentage gain over a month (average daily percentage gain x 30) or the figure at the start of the month and the figure at the end of the month?

So, say an alliance grows 10% then crumbles in a single day. Do they get put into the draw?

[ASR Teaser: Indiana High School Basketball]

Sounds like your high school experience was a lot different to mine. (People actually turning up to basketball games just to watch wtf?)

[Reality Blows]

Beautifully written. That's all I can say.

[The MCXA in the post-TSO era]

Then why do you have to keep bringing them up?

I brought it up because there is still a large degree of uncertainty about the history of the MCXA during that period. As I said, SuperCoolYellow was asked several times to which he could not answer as he was in a different alliance at the time. One of the first things RoK asked in our embassy was what happened [from our perspective]. By no means is this a nostalgic complaint, it is a statement intended to close the speculation and to clearly state that we are headed forward.

[The MCXA in the post-TSO era]

yes we did agree to pay 1.7 billion to MCXA, you guys asked for a LOT more than that. some may say you deserved more. but lets remember this. When we left. we handed over the forums. the forums that one of our members was paying for out of pocket. at NO COST to MCXA. we didnt have to do that, but we did. we left all the guides, all the posts, and all the work that we had done personally for MCXA. I do know that your forums were hacked but it wasnt by TSO and they did get more than just "TSO evidence" as you call it. they went after everything, if i remember correctly. most of the forum accounts were gone.

honestly though, its been over a year and a half. and this topic is still getting brought up. sure ok, that makes sense....

If memory serves me right, we were still having our forums hosted by Berzerkerweb, which was free (or close enough to it) if a request was made to the server admin. If I am correct again, Dr. Fresh paid for the next set of hosting.

It does make sense because I want to make two things clear to the neutral spectators of Bob: 1. the detailed story of what happened from our perspective and 2. That we are no longer an alliance in transition. We are a growing alliance, seeking new ties that work well with those that have been with us for years. We have a fresh government of very competent individuals and are willing to take the MCXA to a bright future.

[The MCXA in the post-TSO era]

Perhaps you'd like to enlighten the readers of this post Anakey?

[The MCXA in the post-TSO era]

I'm not completly in the know of what happened during the formation of TSO, but after reading your story I have two remarks.

Ask Archon, he will probably tell you MK has turned out completely different then he expected when starting it. He will probably tell us it is a better alliance, why is it then impossible that an alliance you lead becomes worse then expected.

After all the membership makes an alliance not the leadership.

Next to that a persons opinion of what he wants out of an alliance can change, As you put it they wanted a small and exclusive alliance. I'm guessing they wanted to be part of an alliance like Umbrella instead of one that had a pretty inactive membership, I also see no wrongdoing there. Or you must prefer they kicked out 80% of the non-"elite" members MCXA had at that time.

The above two quotes and what I heard earlier about the situation made me to conclude the TSO founders were planning on the following scenario:

They would quietly pull out of Government positions one by one over the course of two months and then start TSO. Which made sure MCXA had some continuity in their government.

Apparently that didn't fell well with some other MCXA members, with drama happening and they probably thought "$%&@ it" and left immediatly. Which may be very disliked by most people, but it still happens far more often then only at MCXA.

They maybe made some stupid moves afterwards but after reading your story I still feel they had the best intentions for everybody when starting it. You even tell us they didn't advertise their alliance to other MCXA members.

In my humble opinion you can't blame 35 people , although there may have been made some major mistakes down the road, but who probably always worked their $@! of for your alliance and made it a strong political entity, for choosing their own way.

If an alliance which had at the time around 600 members can't find other people to take their place their is something completely wrong anyway with that alliance.

You're mostly correct. TSO did have a slow withdrawl plan which was to some extent, conceited. Whilst I understand some prefer a smaller alliance, why would they work so hard to make the alliance they created become bigger and bigger? I think in these situations, it is nothing less than honourable to stay in what you have created. Furthermore, the MCXA Government at the time were very close knit. They were together in their own forum section before the split (nothing wrong with that) yet the 700 member buffer somehow spoiled their party.

Nobody doubts what the members who went on to found TSO did for MCXA, after all, they made it. But it is pretty clear that their sudden exodus had a big impact on the health of the MCXA, not to mention the steady decline in overall CN activity. But do not forget the good that stayed behind. Gopher and Fresh were both competent leaders and both found a government who were keen to lead from the ashes. It definitely was not a case of not being able to find leaders, but rather the very sudden shift and drama that surrounded it.

[CN is losing players!]

Less idiocy on the OWF and less bickering about the game's rich (perhaps too much so) history.

I've noticed we've also developed a strong metalanguage and expectations which aren't easy to learn. Would a newb know what an ODP is? Would they know that EZI and unconditional surrender are looked down upon? Would they know what the Hegemony, Super Grievances or Francoism are? How does one build a reputation with a clean slate?

For example, I have been in this game for three and a half years, lead 215 member alliance and I bet even the most experienced and active CN players would know who I am. Even if I was as active as all of MK put together, I wouldn't be able to muster the respect that players such as Dilber etc. have, probably because I wasn't around in 2006.

I don't think we can ever change what we've become, but this culture and custom-rich community we have become would make a sociologist &*&^ in their pants. Perhaps if we're still all here in four years, I might be able to do a PhD on us. We'll see.

[The Existential Threat]

Perhaps a minor reason, but the culture of this game has its head too much stuck in the past. Every treaty between large alliances has its historical roots to past wars, split-ups and other events that may have occurred years before a new player entered the game. It could take weeks of wiki-ing to learn a sufficient amount of information to even begin to understand the context behind the discussions on the OWF (oh wait, an acronym that new players wouldn't understand). Then for those who are indecisive on joining an alliance (not always because they don't understand the significance of alliances in CN) they have their nations plundered constantly.

[A chance to win 50 tech]

Fantastic idea. All the more reason to pop by http://mcxa-cross.com