The five stages of CN

[zoskia]

I don't like the Kübler-Ross model.... So I create another model for CN using the 12 steps program, just because I can:

The 12 Steps of CN, as opposed to the Kübler-Ross model:
 

1. We admitted we were powerless without an Alliance—that the raiders had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that an Alliance greater than our nations could restore our nations to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the Alliance.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our warchest.
5. Admitted to our Alliance, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. <<--- i.e, National Audits.
6. Were entirely ready to have our Alliance remove all these defects of our nations.
7. Humbly asked our Alliance to remove our shortcomings.... and we really ask our Alliance to give us aid!
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to plot against them and plan how to completely destroy their nations.
9. Made plans with other Alliances to destroy the evil ones wherever possible, except when to do so would get us into a war in which we are outnumbered.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and ask more aid from our Alliance.
11. Sought through prayer, meditation and Alliance jobs we try to improve our conscious contact with our Alliance, praying only for the dstruction of the enemies.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we send a lot of recruitment messages.
    
    
    Having said such thing, today I found that humans and bananas share 55% of their DNA. Interesting, isn't it? It makes you think....

[Broncoskid8]

Mark my words my friends: Stage 5 will happen to me next year because of one thing: College

Edited September 6, 2013 by Broncoskid8

[Steve Buscemi]

Most never get out of 1

And some try to be a 3, but are never are allowed into high gov because they alliance hop too much.

[Alex987]

Lol, I found this to be amusing. Though I don't think it takes a sizable amount of intelligence to get past Stage 1, just some activity and ears that work (figuratively :/)

I think a 3.5 titled Existensialism would be apt, when you have the worse realization that not only do your friends blow with the wind, but even more anti-climatically so do your enemies. I feel like that's the worst part.

[Canik]

Fixed.

I also think its safe to say anything sort of mind control, there is no means to guarantee an alliance or person is unquestionably under your control. With that in mind each alliance leader can in fact scheme and have their schemes be significant to some degree. It might not be on the same scale but it certainly isn't insignificant enough not to take into account at all.

Thank you, Dcrews. Even if they are manipulated it doesn't matter, they're still [i]trying[/i] to scheme and that's what counts. It is about a mindset. The 5 Stages of CN is pretty dead on, and does not need Rush's "improvement".

[xoindotnler]

I just sleep walk to my computer "play" CN and walk back to go to normally sleep some more.

Edited September 6, 2013 by xoindotnler

[IYIyTh]

And some try to be a 3, but are never are allowed into high gov because they alliance hop too much.

 

Oh my, someone reaffirms my original post.

[Helbrecht]

Stage 1: Excitement

Lasts about one week, from nation creation (unless a re-roll), invites from alliances, talking to recruiters over PM, finally signing up with an alliance, making changes to your nation to conform with the membership requirements, getting rid of raiders if any, reading the charter getting more wide-eyed with each sentence therein.

 

Stage 2: Boredom

Can last very long. Getting your nation upto speed to be able to take part  in the alliance as a fruitful member. Harbor, Trade circle, starting tech deals. Reading spam section, getting a forum sig. All set. Reading academy guides, reaching milestones... selling tech, selling more tech, selling even more tech.... quickly realizing that all one needs to do, really needs to do is to check in once every 10 days to either send of tech or to accept the cash from buyers. Frequency of posting on the forums decreases. Reading through alliance announcements in game, saying "meh" reading sign-in PMs from the war minster or the PM from the recruitment guy asking for volunteers, saying "meh".

 

Half heartedly signing in, signing up for recruitment (if at all), burning out as a recuiter after 10 days of not a single recruit to your name even after using your daily quota of 200+ PMs. 

 

Stage 3: Hints of upcoming excitement

Frequency of advise PMs for warchests go up, you wonder whassup. You finally deign to go to the forums and read a thread other than the monthly sign-ins or inbox. You see posts by government telling everyone to get their house in order as there is to be a war pretty soon, to either get ready for a beating, or to get ready to hand out a beating. Finally sighing and saying "well its about fucking time something happened around here"

 

Stage 4: Blue Balls

The government sounds the all clear and "sorry guys, false alarm" or "heh the enemy chickened out and paid reps", "here we have one ghost, who wants at him:"

Damnit, out of my range. 

 

so on and so forth. Till the recruit deletes one fine day, or alliance hops for a few months before deletion. 

 

Those that get a bit more involved, have a slightly interesting run, till such time as they get burnt out and jaded, and then delete. The more involved you got, the more the likelyhood of someday "they always come back"

[RevolutionaryRebel]

I skipped stages 1-3, is that a problem?

I don't have a problem with the people who want to go around plotting shit, I just see it as counter-intuitive to what I want. When I do plot, It's just to counter the people that do, or watch them squirm around trying to out-Batman each other..

[katashimon13]

:/

 

this is for lame fa pplz D:

 

but yea 3.5 is where its at xP

 

rawr

[King Brandon]

Best part of all this was npl dude thinking he was ever at 3.

Edited September 6, 2013 by King Brandon

[Schad]

Followed by deletion at stage 6, re-rolling in the misguided believe that you'll get a little stage 3 action, before settling in for a gentle slide back through 4 and 5 before repeating the process several times. 

Edited September 6, 2013 by Schad

[Franz Ferdinand]

And some try to be a 3, but are never are allowed into high gov because they alliance hop too much.

Or because of other factors, still it's good to be back at stage 3.

[Steve Buscemi]

Oh my, someone reaffirms my original post.

 

lol, someone just doesn't get it.
 

[Chimaera]

There's a sixth stage - reroll.

 

Because everyone comes back.

[jerdge]

Ogaden's five stages are a fun read, but in the end they're too bitterly ironic and cynical to be true. The truth is that everyone here has their story and I doubt that that many player follow the path described by Ogaden.
I know that I touched a stage similar to 1, back in 2007, but the rest of my CN experience (since way before turning to the neutral side) can't be described with any of the other stages. What about people that are interested only in the internal affairs of their alliance? Those that role-play? Those that just hang around and enjoy the occasional rise of events in their otherwise easy time-killer? Those that enjoy the economics, or the constant low-NS warfare/raiding, or that keep their nation around to give tech away, or... Most people don't even ever "play the political game"!
If anything, the people in denial are the ones that "scheme" all the time and that believe that the rest of the players are there to do the same but are just too "incompetent" to do so. CN is what you make of it, and this one-dimensional approach is not going to explain it all.


Additionally, the following is a great post on the subject:

I'm not going to lie, this is a pretty dismal and grim way to look at things. There is far more to playing the game then just this, and I'm sure some of the puppet masters of today will even agree with what I am saying. There's an awful lot of negativity about this game and it's pretty wide-spread as well. It's literally causing the game to become worse. Negativity is like a disease, it's contagious and the more you think about it, the more you talk about it, the more you embrace it, the more it becomes. However, Positivity is the same way. Both have a direct correlation over activity as well. Proof of this lies in what the "becoming" sphere is now-a-days and their emergence as a new and machine moving sphere. Many people tell me how they feel so much more revitalized and how they love the game again, like they once used too. It's a positive environment and it's changing the game. People should really follow their example in those regards.

Just my thoughts.

[Canik]

Valid points. Stage 4 should be adjusted to include all of those, since they have no care or ambition about politics. Would that fix it? :)

[zoskia]

Ogaden's five stages are a fun read, but in the end they're too bitterly ironic and cynical to be true. The truth is that everyone here has their story and I doubt that that many player follow the path described by Ogaden.
 

 

There is an alternative scale:
 

1) Ignorance: The most blissful stage of CN, the one that is the filled with the most starry-eyed optimism, is blissful ignorance of how CN and this planet's political system actually works.

2) More Ignorance: You join the GPA.

__________________________________________________________________________________

LOL.... having said such thing, the scale that this thread brings... it probably works for those with Political Ambitions.

 

A lot of players, I include myself, don't have Political Ambitions and we don't have the time or the will to plot... and we enjoy the "war game".

 

i.e, if my fellow Polars decided that I have to be their Emperor.... it would be like a nightmare for me and I would say: "NO WAY!!!" (same thing for any other Alliance, I simply said Polar because it's the best Alliance).

 

I really really really don't wanna spend time plotting or chatting on IRC with most of you.

 

EDIT: and I LOVE playing the game that way....

Edited September 7, 2013 by zoskia

[jerdge]

Political ambitions don't need to include "scheming to get on top".
People like Schattenmann play an heavily political game, but you can't put them in any of Ogaden's "stages", because their aim is not to become able to wield a lot of power, or to "roll" others, but to influence politics in other ways. Neutrals want to stay, to prosper and to be safe, not just to have a nation, and that's another political goal that doesn't involve becoming powerful in the military sense.
People's objectives can be (and often are) political but different from that uni-dimensional "stage 3".
Even becoming a known propagandist, which is arguably a thing that most of us do on this board, is political but doesn't fit well in Ogaden's model... :)

[Canik]

I agree Odaden's model is too, how should I say.. violent? to encompass everyone. I do agree there. Though I dispute the idea that whatever neutrals think or do matters, and that Schattenman is totally not a schemer. :P

Edited September 8, 2013 by Big Ego

[Gingervites]

1.) War

2.) Optimistic rebuilding

3.) 5 months of socialising on IRC 

4.) Blue balls

5.) someone actually does something => prepare for war

 

repeat

 

Of course many peoples experiences are different and generalisations are just that, generalisations.

[Beauty]

I don't think you're entirely in a stage at a time, rather in between them. So instead of being in stage 4, you may be 4.5. Which is what I would most likely consider myself in now. Also my stage 3 was pretty awesome in my opinion. :awesome:

 

inb4 rotavele is in stage 1

[steodonn]

Its true I was going to write a longer doom and gloom post but I just don't care enough 

[Margrave]

I've been stage five over and over again.

[Dexomega]

I seem to have skipped 3.

 

Weird.