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Moratorium on tech raiding


Dajobo

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Listen up folks for a serious discussion.

For as long as I've played CN the debate has raged on whether tech raiding drove players from the game.
I'm purposing a serious discussion on us all agreeing to try no raiding for a set period of time. Eight weeks.
The goal would be to once and for all establish if raiding drove players out. I've posted this discussion in the OOC part of our boards deliberately as this suggestion in no way is a comment or even implication of one on the morality of the issue.
With such a rapidly declining played base I feel now is the time to try it. For this to work it needs the support of all alliances and may even require ingame enforcement on a few.
At the end of the eight weeks we go back to normal while we analyze and discuss the findings.

Please discuss and tell me if I'm insane or this is worth trying for the short time it would take.

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I'd argue that boredom drives players out far more quickly then the scenario that a tech raided newbie gets frustrated and leaves. However, if you're looking to start a war between Tech Raiders and Pacifists, by all means do so. That would be the most entertaining thing to happen here in a number of years.

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It would be interesting to quantify how many tech raids are really going on at any one time. Took a cursory glance and found only about 12-20 active identifiable raids going on. I suppose it would depend on your definition but most of the active wars appeared to be noobs from alliances I haven't heard off hitting each other, which I suspect wouldn't stop even if a moratorium was in place.

 

The problem being, of course, that those wars involve the nations that are most likely to quit as they're small, haven't invested much time and energy into building their nation, and are in alliances where they're unlikely to have formed social attachments.

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It would be interesting to quantify how many tech raids are really going on at any one time. Took a cursory glance and found only about 12-20 active identifiable raids going on. I suppose it would depend on your definition but most of the active wars appeared to be noobs from alliances I haven't heard off hitting each other, which I suspect wouldn't stop even if a moratorium was in place.

 

The problem being, of course, that those wars involve the nations that are most likely to quit as they're small, haven't invested much time and energy into building their nation, and are in alliances where they're unlikely to have formed social attachments.

Of the people I have raided, 2 have gone on to alliances, 1 has bit the dust (no trades, looked like he was quitting anyway) 1 has remained unaligned and 2 have yet to log in.

Not exactly a bastion of driving people from the game.

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Rather than no raiding at all, I think instead convincing alliances to raid the tech raiders who attack innocent nations would be more realistic.

 

A tech raid is pretty much an undeclared war, I think more anti-Tech Raiding alliances allowing their members to raid nations who tech raid innocent nations would be a better way to achieve the goals you're looking for. This keeps plenty of targets open for those who like to tech raid, but rather than tech raid innocents; convince them to focus their tech raiding on deserving targets & then they are helping victims rather than creating victims. There are enough tech raiders in this game, those who like to tech raid would have no shortage of targets if they decide to only tech raid those who raid others.

 

Tech raiders who want to take the moral high ground could just search wars across the globe, then target the tech raiders who are targeting innocent nations. The main problem with convincing nations not to tech raid at all is the benefits associated with raiding, but changing who they target would be more realistic than getting them to stop raiding altogether.

Edited by Methrage
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Just my opinion, I think chronic tech raiders, or even declared wars that have no CB, should be grounds for team sanctions imposed against the offenders. If everyone got behind that the raiders would think twice and maybe behave a better/get more creative at least.

Arizona Bloc didn't survive the test of time, but it's concept was great, imo. If a raider got caught in its snare, it would become their nightmare. Raiders came to the negotiating table pretty quickly once they knew they wouldn't get away with it.

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Listen up folks for a serious discussion.

For as long as I've played CN the debate has raged on whether tech raiding drove players from the game.
I'm purposing a serious discussion on us all agreeing to try no raiding for a set period of time. Eight weeks.
The goal would be to once and for all establish if raiding drove players out. I've posted this discussion in the OOC part of our boards deliberately as this suggestion in no way is a comment or even implication of one on the morality of the issue.
With such a rapidly declining played base I feel now is the time to try it. For this to work it needs the support of all alliances and may even require ingame enforcement on a few.
At the end of the eight weeks we go back to normal while we analyze and discuss the findings.

Please discuss and tell me if I'm insane or this is worth trying for the short time it would take.

 

Might be best to try this in another 7 weeks.  Right now we already have the population boom from the land cap implementation, and I would hate to intermingle the two effects.

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Dajobo, we've disagreed on this particular issue before so let me share the story of one of my best new officers in Supernova X.

Leicaboss had been rotting away on none, fighting random wars but otherwise doing nothing productive with his nation for a while. I raided him and we had a chat about how alliances work. As a new player he simply didn't know about alliances and game mechanics beyond a few hundred infra.

He joined SNX and immediately with my assistance got his nation in order, got trades, made new friends, and followed a roadmap to strength. He started tech dealing and signed up as a paramilitary officer.

So rather than being chased from the game, he is now more active than ever and extremely loyal.

Edited by Immortan Junka
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Please discuss and tell me if I'm insane or this is worth trying for the short time it would take.


You're insane! Joking aside it just wouldn't work as there are too many alliances out there that wouldn't even humour the idea of a flat out short time ban.

You would get more of a positive response from raiders and raiding alliances to ask to message first to see if the target is active and/or in need of some guidance, if inactive and no response after a day or two then its open season.

At least then they're offering an open hand first rather than the boot.

But maybe they won't as most want the pocket change tech instead.
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Rather than no raiding at all, I think instead convincing alliances to raid the tech raiders who attack innocent nations would be more realistic.
 
A tech raid is pretty much an undeclared war, I think more anti-Tech Raiding alliances allowing their members to raid nations who tech raid innocent nations would be more a better way to achieve the goals you're looking for. This keeps plenty of targets open for those who like to tech raid, but rather than tech raid innocents; convince them to focus their tech raiding on deserving targets & then they are helping victims rather than creating victims. There are enough tech raiders in this game, those who like to tech raid would have no shortage of targets if they decide to only tech raid those who raid others.
 
Tech raiders who want to take the moral high ground could just search wars across the globe, then target the tech raiders who are targeting innocent nations. The main problem with convincing nations not to tech raid at all is the benefits associated with raiding, but changing who they target would be more realistic than getting them to stop raiding altogether.


If anyone white knights and raids me they are going to be in for more than they can chew ;)

The problem with the moral objection to raiding is that it ignores that consequences result from individual choices. A nation leader who choses to remain nonaligned places himself in a situation of lessened security, having no allies to call upon for mutual defense. Vladimir referred to this as the state of nature, and this is the primary reason why Nations come together for mutual defense in an alliance.

Now, if someone wants to play white knight there is nothing wrong with that, but doing so will bring the full military might of the raiders alliance against them. That is the purpose of an alliance, after all, to defend the sovereignty of its members, not random nonaligned nations.
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Listen up folks for a serious discussion.

For as long as I've played CN the debate has raged on whether tech raiding drove players from the game.
I'm purposing a serious discussion on us all agreeing to try no raiding for a set period of time. Eight weeks.
The goal would be to once and for all establish if raiding drove players out. I've posted this discussion in the OOC part of our boards deliberately as this suggestion in no way is a comment or even implication of one on the morality of the issue.
With such a rapidly declining played base I feel now is the time to try it. For this to work it needs the support of all alliances and may even require ingame enforcement on a few.
At the end of the eight weeks we go back to normal while we analyze and discuss the findings.

Please discuss and tell me if I'm insane or this is worth trying for the short time it would take.

 

Your goal is to determine if raiding drove players out by creating a freeze on current raiding. Your experiment is flawed at the premise level as it would assume the conditions now and then are concurrent. 

 

Also, I am assuming that you understand what words mean and chose them with that understanding. In the past that has been a horrible assumption in CN, its still likely the case. 

Edited by Thorgrum
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CA hasnt launched a raid since May or earlier, global population decline appears unaffected.

 

I spent years anti-raiding but I have come to see I was wrong. I no longer believe raids *per se* are a problem at all - quite the contrary, they are a solution. I've seen new recruits losing interest and on the path to deletion discover raiding and suddenly become active and involved.

 

*Abusive* raids may still be a problem at times (I would be rather shocked if they are not) but that's really quite a different sort of problem, and requires different sorts of answers.

 

What is needed is not a moratorium on raiding, but simply higher standards of behavior for raids.

Edited by Sigrun Vapneir
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The thing I see is a whole bunch of individual examples on why raiding can be good yet no representation from anyone who quit over the issue. Think about that for a minute...


I must admit Thorgrum raises a good point though.

For what it's worth I actually suspect raiding does as much or more good than bad myself, the trouble is there's only one way to find out.


Edit: Typos because tablets suck.

Edited by Dajobo
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Perhaps we should do less anecdotes and more data? It should be possible to check the deletion rate for raided new nations versus the deletion rate for non-raideds, and similarly the deletion rates for (small) raiders and for small non-raiders. That should at least give a hunch of how it works, and is a much more minor undertaking than a worldwide raiding ban.

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It's a very good point about our lack of data dajobo, but I dont see any practical way around it.

 

Getting everyone here to quit raiding isnt going to happen, and even if you did most of the raiders these days are unaligned/underaligned themselves and dont even read here.

 

Methrages idea has some severe problems but it may not be completely unsalvageable. If we had a group scanning every day for raids and reached out to the targets each time we might be able to generate some nearly-reliable data.

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It's a very good point about our lack of data dajobo, but I dont see any practical way around it.

 

Getting everyone here to quit raiding isnt going to happen, and even if you did most of the raiders these days are unaligned/underaligned themselves and dont even read here.

 

Methrages idea has some severe problems but it may not be completely unsalvageable. If we had a group scanning every day for raids and reached out to the targets each time we might be able to generate some nearly-reliable data.

 

 

A very valid point. Most of the raiders are unaligned and are extremely well below the NS range of 3,000, it is highly doubtful that they would be even aware of a tech raiding moratorium then suddenly, they're getting hit because they attacked an unaligned nation and being informed that they cannot raid. From what I can see at that point, it's a double edged sword, raiding the raiders and the raiders would be pushed of the game as well. Raiding is a game feature and personally, I do not think raiding people would lead the "victims" to quit, they would be more likely to find an alliance and seek protection.

 

Overall, I do not think imposing a moratorium on tech raiding would help, given limitations there. If any, taking away a new nation's ability to war and raid for a certain amount of time (4 weeks) is far a much better "solution."

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With such a rapidly declining played base I feel now is the time to try it. For this to work it needs the support of all alliances and may even require ingame enforcement on a few.
At the end of the eight weeks we go back to normal while we analyze and discuss the findings.

Please discuss and tell me if I'm insane or this is worth trying for the short time it would take.

You are insane.  But IF you can actually convince every other raiding alliance to do this then more power to you and I would bring it up for discussion at Doom Kingdom.  I'm  98% sure I will not have to bother.

 

You would get more of a positive response from raiders and raiding alliances to ask to message first to see if the target is active and/or in need of some guidance, if inactive and no response after a day or two then its open season.

At least then they're offering an open hand first rather than the boot.
 

Same as above except I'm 88% sure I will not have to bother.

 

I spent years anti-raiding but I have come to see I was wrong. I no longer believe raids *per se* are a problem at all - quite the contrary, they are a solution. I've seen new recruits losing interest and on the path to deletion discover raiding and suddenly become active and involved.

 

My experience is similar to Sigrun as far as the raiding vs. anti-raiding debate is concerned.  I was at least informally involved somehow in every anti-raiding push that was announced since 2008, when I joined, and I was aware of in the past. 

 

Here are a few observations from many talks with non-aligned:

 

!. The #1 reason given to me by people who hesitate to join alliances is that he or she doesn't want to be required to sign up on a forum.  So, my solution was to find alliance(s) that don't require and suggest that the join. 

Here is one: http://www.cybernations.net/alliance_display.asp?ID=10091

 

2.  Out of frustration I started sending personal alliance invites to nations being raided, specifically mentioning that the alliance I was recruiting them for was non-raiding and offering diplomatic help to end their war and help them rebuild.  I had at least a 50% success rate from those who were active.  They would join and I would send the raider a PM and all but GOONS would offer peace when asked.  Last Call still has active nations who were recruited by me in that fashion.  So this is what I suggest for people if they take an interest in helping non-aligned who are being raided.  If the person doesn't want to sign up on a forum, see #1.  Also, if the person says no, they don't want to join, ask why.

 

3.  The best time for non-aligned in terms of not being raided are during "world wars."  Very very few raids during those times, and they last more than 8 weeks.  I think I've been told that numbers go up at those times but only slightly.  Look closely during the next global war.  (it's also a fantastic time to recruit if your alliance isn't involved in the war.  Far less competition :) )

 

The thing I see is a whole bunch of individual examples on why raiding can be good yet no representation from anyone who quit over the issue. Think about that for a minute...

 

Propose an "exit survey" to admin with it as one of the reasons.  My guess is most answers would be either boredom or not enough time.

Edited by White Chocolate
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