Where Have all the Nations Gone?

[Sephiroth]

[quote name='Roquentin' timestamp='1334979058' post='2956375']
Losing nations that contribute nothing to the community is no big deal.

People tend to mass quit after losing wars. "See you on the moon."

ooc:There's more of an answer. The game also does not incentivize action, so collecting taxes every 20 days and paying bills is not appealing.
[/quote]
Just because they don't start off in an alliance doesn't mean they won't join one naturally when they find one they like or start a new one eventually. When their introduction to CN is they get invaded by a bigger alliance, then if they fight back end up having to write essays as they suck up to their attackers on a mercy board, it doesn't make them want to stick around to find out what more the community has to offer when no one is willing to give them a helping hand or do business with them due to their situation of being under attack.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Methrage

[potato]

[quote name='Alterego' timestamp='1335028453' post='2956632']
Back in the day people (todays hegemony) blamed the (then) hegemony. So everyone is leaving because of todays hegemony of PB & Out House.
[/quote]

That sums it up about right. Which works pretty well since that's our end game. Be warned, Planet Bob.

[potato]

Oh and, Alterego, before you make this an official policy for MK, DH and PB, my exact titles were Lord High Envoy (MoFA) and Lord High Communicator (MoComms). And a bunch of Duke (Interior and Intel) and Baron (Vulgar Comms and Aquatics) titles.

Edited April 21, 2012 by potato

[Incitatus]

[quote name='Facade' timestamp='1334978775' post='2956369']
Your comment also brings up a point, in that many of our older members who are still around do not have the same drive, and who could blame them? I believe a lot of the stagnation is caused by the fact that everyone repeatedly points towards history anhttp://forums.cybernations.net/public/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gifd acts like it's the most important thing in the world, and cites all of the previous dynamic/important leaders as if they're the best we ever had and why even try?

OOC: There are also times where I wonder if we've exhausted everyone who's interested in a type of game like this, and we've simply run out of people. But then I remember that nothing interesting has been added to the game in a few years, and that the game mechanics is the absolute last reason 90% of people play this game.
[/quote]


I'm guilty of this myself. But you, SF, and BloodFury seem to be spot on.

[Bob Janova]

The chance to make a stand against aggressive raiding was Bipolar. Most of the world made a clear choice to stand up for the raiders. PB needs to fall from grace before there's another opportunity.

[Bob]

Pretty surprised to see this thread from Starfox. Not meant to be a dig, but more a comment on how times have changed.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Penlugue Solaris

[Tick1]

I'm going to go out on a limb here an say the reason for the major decline in nations is because everything is set. It gets harder and harder for new alliances to form everyday and the reason many of the new nations fall off is because they can't become relevant in a short period of time. In my honest opinion the best way to increase the world population is through a global catastrophe where everyone dies! OOC: A server reset.

I might be wrong, but that's just my honest opinion. Large nations can't do much of anything except wait for a war or rogue. New nations can't make any large impact in the world without waiting a long time.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Tick1

[lonewolfe2015]

The mechanics of CN have been broken for awhile now. Add on that for years the place has been surviving off of the hard work of a small group of people and eventually everyone gets worn out, leads to destruction.

Once upon a time it was fun to recruit or work on forums or build alliances. Now it is just "work".

[Starfox101]

[quote name='lebubu' timestamp='1335016135' post='2956558']
Ah, yes, it is our duty to compensate for the indifference of this world's creator by giving up on the few practices that still offer enjoyment in this horrible place and pretending that tech raiding is some sort of recent phenomenon that is chasing young rulers away from this extremely well designed planet-

e: dumb sentence
[/quote]
If this place is horrible why not attempt to change it? Rather than 3v1 unaligned nations for some tech. You're only making something horrible even worse.

Also, we've been in decline since what, GW2? Raiding has been around since then. I'm loving these attempts to try and play off techraiding as not being a cause of decline.

[quote name='Alterego' timestamp='1335028453' post='2956632']
Back in the day people (todays hegemony) blamed the (then) hegemony. So everyone is leaving because of todays hegemony of PB & Out House.
[/quote]
At least the old hegemony offered up some drama, and intelligent political discourse. They were excellent enemies. These days, if you start arguing with GOONS and co. they all post some stupid one liner, or make a comment about how evil they are.

The decrease in seriousness of political discourse certainly hasn't helped anything.

[quote name='Penlugue Solaris' timestamp='1335043675' post='2956771']
Pretty surprised to see this thread from Starfox. Not meant to be a dig, but more a comment on how times have changed.
[/quote]
Yeah, like I said, I used to raid alot. :x

But, just because I did it doesn't make it right. Something alot of people need to realize in this world.

[ChairmanHal]

[quote name='lebubu' timestamp='1335016135' post='2956558']
Ah, yes, it is our duty to compensate for the indifference of this world's creator by giving up on the few practices that still offer enjoyment in this horrible place and pretending that tech raiding is some sort of recent phenomenon that is chasing young rulers away from this extremely well designed planet-

e: dumb sentence
[/quote]

Dude, when we were in \m/ together. Raiding rules as you might remember were as follows:

[i]Members may NOT declare war on the following without PRIOR authorization from alliance leadership:

a. Aligned nations belonging to ANY alliance. An alliance is hereby defined as a group of 5 or more nations flying the same alliance affiliation.

b. Any current members of \m/.[/i]

Now go look at similar rules for raiding alliances now. Can you honestly say that more liberal raiding rules are helping things? I can't. It's drain on Planet Bob. Things need to at least go back to the way they were.

[Tick1]

[quote name='ChairmanHal' timestamp='1335062651' post='2956917']
Dude, when we were in \m/ together. Raiding rules as you might remember were as follows:

[i]Members may NOT declare war on the following without PRIOR authorization from alliance leadership:

a. Aligned nations belonging to ANY alliance. An alliance is hereby defined as a group of 5 or more nations flying the same alliance affiliation.

b. Any current members of \m/.[/i]

Now go look at similar rules for raiding alliances now. Can you honestly say that more liberal raiding rules are helping things? I can't. It's drain on Planet Bob. Things need to at least go back to the way they were.
[/quote]

Without more people things can't go back to that. Without resetting the population thing will never go back to that.

[enderland]

The primary answers to this question are not appropriate for this forum (OOC related).

[Monster]

The old hegemony wasn't any better. There is no difference. They had legions of drones that would hail. Most people treat whoever is in charge as absolute until those with initiative turn the tide. Simple as that.

[enderland]

[quote name='Roquentin' timestamp='1335063482' post='2956925']
The old hegemony wasn't any better. There is no difference. They had legions of drones that would hail. Most people treat whoever is in charge as absolute until those with initiative turn the tide. Simple as that.
[/quote]

What, you want to risk 3+ years of work?

No one does. It's easier for the "karma" alliances to rock the boat because most of them lived under the "NPO and co will roll us eventually anyways" cloud.

[Williambonney]

[quote name='New Frontier' timestamp='1334979012' post='2956374']
GOONS trembles at the thought of Starfox disapproving, I'm sure.

An aside: Way to go guys! We made it quite a while without one of these threads. I really thought we'd manage to go half an hour, but hey, fifteen minutes is a good first try.
[/quote]

This. Also Starfox, I think there's a suggestion box on this forum if you've got ideas that can help the community out and improve things.

[Banksy]

something something six years old

[Monster]

[quote name='enderland' timestamp='1335063601' post='2956926']
What, you want to risk 3+ years of work?

No one does. It's easier for the "karma" alliances to rock the boat because most of them lived under the "NPO and co will roll us eventually anyways" cloud.
[/quote]


Yes, grow a pair. People playing it safe makes the overall thing much slower. I want people to act on their dislikes. It's not 3 years of work, it's 3 years of stathugging lol, which I was frequently accused of myself. It's not even work in a lot of cases since the most fearful are those who do not put in the effort to optimally build their nations.

I mean one of the things I used to do was always overestimate the opposition and watch their moves through diplomatic movements, but most of the time, they were never ambitious enough to make the hypothetical moves I was scared of.

I mean, I've been doing pretty much everything I'd think they needed to do behind the scenes in terms of fixing misconceptions, encouraging x, y, z. I haven't been overly successful precisely because there is a lack of ambition, but I've still been doing it nonetheless.

I guess the thing that needs to be understood is most of what I've been doing has been intervening in an independently existing political dynamic and trying to strengthen the potential opposition. Others think I'm on a personal crusade in an otherwise static world, but that's really missing the point.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Roquentin

[ChairmanHal]

[quote name='Tick1' timestamp='1335062789' post='2956920']
Without more people things can't go back to that. Without resetting the population thing will never go back to that.
[/quote]

Either raiding alliances deal with raiding less in the short to medium term or one day there's simply won't be enough left to raid.

OOC: A game reset solves nothing, if that is where you are going. This a "hearts and minds" issue and players have to change their attitude about some things to fix it, because all a reset would be is a massive reroll and we'd soon be right back to where we were before in short order, minus some people who decided that rebuilding just wasn't worth it.

[Tick1]

[quote name='ChairmanHal' timestamp='1335070592' post='2956974']
Either raiding alliances deal with raiding less in the short to medium term or one day there's simply won't be enough left to raid.

OOC: A game reset solves nothing, if that is where you are going. This a "hearts and minds" issue and players have to change their attitude about some things to fix it, because all a reset would be is a massive reroll and we'd soon be right back to where we were before in short order, minus some people who decided that rebuilding just wasn't worth it.
[/quote]

Honestly it isn't a 'heart and minds' issue; the reason this game is stagnant is because there are zero 'new' nations that can influence changes within the current diplomatic webs.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Tick1

[Sigrun Vapneir]

[quote name='Starfox101' timestamp='1335059927' post='2956894']
Also, we've been in decline since what, GW2? Raiding has been around since then. I'm loving these attempts to try and play off techraiding as not being a cause of decline.[/quote]

Pretty sure raiding was going on well before GW2.

And pretty sure there are several other contributing causes as well.

It's like freaky friday in here, what's going on?

[quote]At least the old hegemony offered up some drama, and intelligent political discourse. They were excellent enemies. These days, if you start arguing with GOONS and co. they all post some stupid one liner, or make a comment about how evil they are. [/quote]

Meh, some of the goons are not lame at all, and the old Heg was only better before they destroyed all the opposition, once the masks come off, they're all the same, jackbooted thugs, goons or \m/arauders...

[Monster]

[quote name='Sigrun Vapneir' timestamp='1335097033' post='2957097']

Meh, some of the goons are not lame at all, and the old Heg was only better before they destroyed all the opposition, once the masks come off, they're all the same, jackbooted thugs, goons or \m/arauders...
[/quote]

Yes, exactly. I don't really remember anyone in the old heg being overly sophisticated. NPO had francoism, but that's it and it didn't really help anyone outside of NPO. Like could you attribute intellectual discussion to the Continuum? No.

[potato]

Just a random thought: isn't it the opposition that sets up the level of the discourse? The hegemony (MK or NPO) can do what they want, it's the opposition that actually sets the field of play by... opposing this or that.

Edited April 22, 2012 by potato

[enderland]

[quote name='Roquentin' timestamp='1335066165' post='2956948']
Yes, grow a pair. People playing it safe makes the overall thing much slower. I want people to act on their dislikes. It's not 3 years of work, it's 3 years of stathugging lol, which I was frequently accused of myself. It's not even work in a lot of cases since the most fearful are those who do not put in the effort to optimally build their nations.
[/quote]

It's still the answer to your problem.


You can either ignore it, go "no! its not true!" or simply realize that whether or not you want to agree with it, it is a primary answer.

[Zhaan]

[quote name='ControlVolume' timestamp='1334983139' post='2956418']
e: OOC

The game is dying because the game sucks by today's standards. It's sucked for quite some time now. While zynga might be rightfully decried for being nothing but a moneygrab, it brought to light the large playerbase willing to play browser games, and browser games have in turn advanced in complexity and enjoyment whereas this game has stagnated. The game has not brought anything interesting to the table in quite some time. admin's solution to high-level nations not having enough to do was to add wonders, where they can add a single click once a month. Wooooo! Even wars themselves are mechanically tedious at the upper levels, a simple waiting game while one side waits for the other side to run out of money over the course of a month. There is no skill, there is no strategy, and unless you're a leader or somehow politically involved, there is nothing to do except wait for a war to pop up to make things less dull. It's Progress Quest that can sometimes go in the opposite direction instead.

oh also mandatory OOC tags are also pretty dumb and most people think roleplaying a ~glorious leader~ is weird so that probably hurts OWF discussion

/OOC
[/quote]


This is the truest answer to the decline. Even new games that want to maintain player base and attract new players are constantly updating and improving their games. It's a competitive market. For many of us, this place is our niche, but we can't do anything to avoid its inevitable demise. Only admin can do that.

[Johnny Apocalypse]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1335043421' post='2956769']
The chance to make a stand against aggressive raiding was Bipolar. Most of the world made a clear choice to stand up for the raiders. PB needs to fall from grace before there's another opportunity.
[/quote]

You were more than happy to assist in the standing up for raiders during your tenure in PB gov, what changed Bob?

Not making a dig here, just curious.