ChairmanHal

The fact is that you declared two aggressive wars against Stripes after peace was declared. The fact is that you aided someone who less than 24 hours later declared new wars on Kashmir and NSO, and rather than condemn their actions, here you are following them into battle again--against an alliance that was not even involved in the continuing action. Rather than trying deescalating the situation, you further escalate it. Not Stripes, not anyone else but you. Get off your high horse. You haven't earned that seat.

He gets $9 mill in aid from Sigrun and proceeds to declare new wars on Kashmir and NSO. Maybe that's the kind of people that Meth likes to surround himself with, but any normal alliance leader would have told him to knock it off and peace out or would have already kicked him, whether he was the president of the Meth Fan Club or not. But I think we know that Meth isn't any sort of normal alliance leader. <_<

See you on the battlefield, sweetheart.

Want to bet?

Steady only because there are enough schmucks left out there who felt sorry for you that they sent you enough money so that you managed to tread water. Hopefully now they will wise up.

It's true...last time I visited NoR, I saw a lot of people carrying these around.

I wouldn't say that Valhalla's maneuvering (make that Levi's...trust me, I had no part in it...I WANTED war) was without repercussions. Forget for the moment that it flushed what was left of a reputation for aggressive action built up over a period of years down the toilet, it caused serious divisions within the alliance, and was a major contributing factor in several key departures. Frankly I don't see why Mi6 is a target rather than Valhalla, save that miraculously Valhalla maintains enough treaty weight that it would be difficult to pull off, whereas Mi6 does not. Perhaps Mi6 would have maintained enough treaty weight to prevent it from becoming lunch for someone(s), but then they were counting on retaining that pre-war Valhalla treaty, which was my preference, but then my preference in FA matters didn't matter. <_<

Came to hail the OP, not concern myself with Germanic saber rattling. Nice to see this wrap up.

Interesting move. I sense a trial period coming on. Best of luck to both parties.

I'm happy this came together. o/ SPATR o/ kaskus o/ Stripes

My first thought...

This pleases me.

Will he be killing the Marvel Universe as well?

You gotta admit though, Meth writes some of the most creative short fiction on the OWF. <_<

I'd be curious what the profile of the typical raiders looks like today versus what it was 4-5 years ago. I think you might find that the era of the large, systematic raiding alliances is mostly over. What you've always had and continue to have however are people who roll up a nation, get bored within the first week and started putting the pain to other noob nations. Guaranteed that occasionally someone who otherwise might have stuck around long term will get frustrated and quit instead when that happens, unless the victim is lucky enough to have someone come along and rescue them, and most don't get rescued. How many alliances actually make an effort to seek such people out? Probably no one. Let's face it, the numbers for retention of new member/new player types aren't all that great, even if you have a descent program to keep people active and guides to help them along with their nation development. Investing $6 mill up front in someone who more likely than not won't stick around long enough to be of benefit to the alliance even temporarily as a trade circle filler and tech dealer doesn't seem worth it. However, if we value the game and want to see the number of players at least bottom out if not increase a bit, then I think we've reached a point that we need to reach out, dust some people off, and take the losses that will inevitably occur.

ITT I told Rey he needs to get his shit squared away, PM is besides the point except it's keeping him from getting pounded. I'll admit that's sort of an obvious thing to say, but when you owe people tech and accept 45 mill from NPO for whatever "Rising Stars" is, then take a walk soon after for whatever reason, then perhaps NPO is going to be annoyed.

Then I suggest you find out before being a dove becomes a habit.

Neo Uruk is a peaceful nation. War is not an option since 8/19/2015. Expecting trouble were you, Rey?

Good luck finding members of m they can be very elusive. The members of \m/ were sometimes confused with them and it made us angry enough to raid people. True story.

Somewhat more advanced than that...

I have outlasted two incarnations of GOONS here. I take no joy in it. May everyone find good homes. Umbrella is a good choice.

I'd love to end it. So would a lot of other people. But when you have a couple individuals who have their entire ego wrapped up in their ability to be "unbeatable" because they are the biggest, baddest 30 year old 7th graders in the middle school, no one is ending this fight any time soon. I don't know...you thinking if we gave them a shiny participation medal they'd prance off happy? Maybe their moms will buy them ice cream. <_<

The older players have pretty much made up their mind at this stage whether or not they want to play to the end. Odds are if you are still here, you'll be here then. That said, life happens, even if you aren't one of the people who makes a deliberate choice to quit. There will always be a certain amount of "evaporation" of the player base as a result. As the management, you have to come up with ways to compensate for that and perhaps grow the player base a bit over time, at least enough to offset any increase in expenses so that you have a steady revenue stream. Taking the long view here, I think you can easily go back to 2007 and see where the game started having the issues that have gotten us here. Part of them where player issues--harassing people out of the game (including IC and OOC attacks), and the general attitude as expressed by a member of NPO in 2007 though certainly shared by others that there were "too many people playing already". Part of them were management issues--serious problems with moderation of the forums and the game (I'll refrain from detailing those here), a general negative attitude by some of the staff toward players, and long periods where there was no new development of the game, and indeed a number of attempts, some successful, to get changes made to the game to help secure/improve the position of some players at the expense of the long term health of the game. We can go on and on about everything we perceive to be wrong with the game, but ultimately if there is to be a genuine attempt to save it, then we all need to step back and figure out where to go from here. Is the existing player base salvageable and are they open to radical change? If not, how do you create a new one? How do you create a competitive environment that demonstrates that the lessons learned from the mistakes of the past? I still think that divorced from all the baggage of the past, this is still a pretty cool game in need of some modifications, both to plug glaring holes and to update the interface for the future. But it needs more than just TLC, it needs someone who can market the shit out of it and generate interest. Believe it or not, there are millions of potential players who have never heard of CN and don't care if you had a bad time playing it 5 years ago and are willing to give it a try. But unless and until Admin asks himself the hard questions and acts on the answers, we're here trying to have fun (at least I hope we are...) and I'm learning to take things more one day at a time.

Trend line crosses zero some time in early summer 2019. However, the game will have become essentially unplayable by the end of 2018. Only Admin knows the real end date, that being the point at which the game is actually costing him money to keep running rather than at least breaking even or generating positive revenue. Note that there is also the possibility that we'll find a "floor" somewhere above 5k nations and that it will become easier once again for the number of nations created to exceed the number of nations lost the closer we get to that figure. Of course if we bottom out at a higher figure that would be even better. Ultimately though new players are what's going to save CN, and those are brought in by advertising and positive news stories about the game, whether that happens after a reset and improvements or not.

I suppose this means that NpO will be required to fire up the war machine....