Your Satisfaction With CN

[Scorponok]

[quote name='Logan' timestamp='1282407249' post='2425732']
Almost voted the second option, but the third one relates to me much more I guess. If I didn't have CN what would I do? DO something productive in my real life? The horror.

Edit: Yeah I like my alliance too. That's pretty much all CN is to me at this point.
[/quote]

Not much point in playing without a community to enjoy it with.

[Sabertooth]

[quote name='Yevgeni Luchenkov' timestamp='1282418719' post='2425890']
For us, it's been four months and two weeks since the end of the conflict. I can still tolerate such time without war. Mostly because I've spent all that time paying reps, too.

In fact, we at TOP did our plans with a year-long period of peace. We're not even half-way. Warchests and tech have to be rebuilt. Also, even in curbstomps, if you're directly in the line of fire, you'll suffer. Last war was arguably a curbstomp by the time Polaris did its little dance and C&G still took a beating, losing 40 to 50% of their NS.

In all seriousness, some of us are trying a new approach to this game, since Admin is obviously not adding stuff. Changing style takes some time. I'm not sure if it's the same for other alliances, though.
[/quote]

Maybe the major problem is rebuilding. It takes a long time. Maybe something could be added to speed up the rebuilding process, but then again war terms would get even more extreme if that were the case.

[Hereno]

I don't think anybody disagrees that game mechanics could use a bit of an overhaul, but none of us can really complain because we contribute just as much (if not even moreso) to stagnation, as players, than admin ever could. We're the ones who deemed that CB's be absolutely necessary and validated by RL morals, even though there's absolutely no in-game reason for that. We're also the ones who created the massive treaty web that we always complain about. If you all are so tired of the game, why don't you actually do something about it yourselves to make it more fun? Cancel some treaties, declare a few wars. Stop spending years building up a nation that you're too attached to to let it go to war. What's the fun in playing a game that you've, for all intents and purposes, beaten already?

I think it's possible that Admin realizes the game is dying, and doesn't want to continue to put effort into it just to watch it go down the drain. If we actually made the game fun for ourselves, it would end up being fun for all the new players who joined in, too. People sit back and complain "Oooh (insert raiding alliance) are ruining the game because they raid new nations!! It's their fault! They drive them away!". Another side to that argument is: raiding alliances actually use the game mechanics that we have now. They're really the only ones with any right to whine for even more. Also, I'd be willing to wager that newer nations are far more put off by the fact that it's literally impossible for them to become the biggest and baddest nation in the game, than the fact that they lost a few hundred infra that takes not even a week to rebuild. Who on earth wants to play a nation simulator with thousands of other people and zero possibility of war? Nobody. So why do we keep trying to create that?

Really, this is a game that was made for people to have fun with. If you booted up the Sims, and all you did was the same things you do in your own life, why on earth would you waste your time playing it? Likewise, if all we're going to do is sit here and ignore 50% of the game mechanics, there's no incentive for admin to add any more. I just don't think anybody has the right to complain about anything boring them if they haven't given any effort themselves to make it fun. We expect everything to be spoon-fed nowadays. We can't even see a world where there aren't phones or computers and internet. But we can't just sit back and expect to be entertained without any effort at all on our part, for years and years and expect the same game to keep spoon-feeding us fun. CyberNations didn't just suddenly become boring overnight -- we made it that way. And we're the only ones who can do anything about it.

[MrMuz]

IMO, SF and C&G have won the game. Look at the sanctioned alliances. GPA, TDO and WTF are staying neutral. NPO and The Legion are the only sanctioned ones without significant links to SG. Barring internal conflicts within SF and C&G, it'll be either peace or curbstomps for quite a while.

[Owned-You]

[quote name='Arrnea' timestamp='1282411320' post='2425786']
What's that whistling noise? Oh, it's your credibility, flying away.

Also, voted for the second option, although the last option is also true. They're not mutually exclusive, after all.
[/quote]

Firstly, one of the credible things I've done would be helping to first take out LSF, dismantle The Internationale in under 5 days, and then orchestrate LSF to be a tech-farm afterwords.
Secondly, the sound of anything flying through the air is a woosh, not a whistle.

[kulomascovia]

I see that most people here ignore the 20000+ nations that aren't really politically active. Again.
Politics aren't a huge part of the game to a lot of nations. Most are here to build their nations, not to participate in some political simulation.

[Shifty Stranger]

Cybernations is being killed by alliance leaders. Alliance leaders want to protect their pixels. The only reason why they're in power is because people don't want to form new alliances on their own and find new leaders because its too "risky" and it takes too much effort on their part. Honestly, what power to CN leaders have, if no one cares what they say or bothers to follow them? I've switched alliances 4 times in the past 2 years and I've noticed that it doesn't matter what alliance you're in, everything is the same pretty much. Starting a new alliance isn't a good source of change either since you're going to be stuck following the alliance who protects you and you're going to have a hard time recruiting along with limited resources. (plus theres just too damn many now)

[The Reccesion]

Someone should make this game interesting by hopping over to the other side and !@#$@#$ up the treaty web [b]BIG TIME[/b] and starting some lama drama.

[D34th]

Yes, I love paying bills, collecting taxes every two weeks, and buying tech.

Tech

[Chickenzilla]

[quote name='zenergy' timestamp='1282407062' post='2425729']
I'm still having fun. As long as I get 6-8 months in between wars to rebuild I'm happy, so this current drought of conflict has been fine for me.
[/quote]
haha classic NATO


We need an option for MK or TOP because our communities are actually active.

[LJ Scott]

I essentially keep on chugging with my nation so that when the time comes, I can $%&@ people in the $@! in the name of Umbrella.

Edited August 21, 2010 by LJ Scott

[Shakira]

[quote name='LJ Scott' timestamp='1282426807' post='2425990']
I essentially keep on chugging with my nation so that when the time comes, I can $%&@ people in the $@! in the name of Umbrella.
[/quote]
Sounds hot.

[LittleRena]

[quote name='Hereno' timestamp='1282423311' post='2425942']If we actually made the game fun for ourselves, it would end up being fun for all the new players who joined in, too.[/quote]

Since much of this is alliance related talk and diplomacy, there is little for new players to get into, I try to get people I know to come and play but most of them aren't intrested, mostly because the interface isn't all that fancy compared to other things out there, infact it's way behind other simulations I have seen.

[quote name='Hereno' timestamp='1282423311' post='2425942']People sit back and complain "Oooh (insert raiding alliance) are ruining the game because they raid new nations!! It's their fault! They drive them away!". Another side to that argument is: raiding alliances actually use the game mechanics that we have now.[/quote]

Personally, I think raiding new alliances is a bit mean, they are new to everything and may not know how things work, so raiding them is most likly going to put them off. Raiding older nations or inactive ones would make more sense.

[Itsuki Koizumi]

i do some minor gov stuff and a lil talkin. Just a routine thing for me. Idk what i'd do with the spare time

[Ashoka the Great]

The game isn't suffering owing to a lack of upgrades. To believe otherwise is to ignore the fact that 99% of the game takes place on various forums and IRC, not on the game screen itself.

We've gotten into a rut, and it goes something like this:

1. Major war.
2. Peace concluded.
3. Modest change(s) to the treaty web.
4. Nothing happens.
5. Someone screws up.
6. Major war.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Always repeat.

Step #4 seems to last forever. And, based on recent events, it would seem that we now have to include a 5(a).

5(a). Whoever screwed up does something in order to avoid #6.

*yawn*

It's a good thing I'm not in CN for the game mechanics or this forum.

[quote name='Arrnea' timestamp='1282411320' post='2425786']
What's that whistling noise? Oh, it's your credibility, flying away. [/quote]

Actually, Owned-You [b]is[/b] one of the best players to have graced CN. The alliance he founded and served as first Emperor of is thriving. The fact that he founded and led Nueva Vida at the age of 14 is good reason for the old farts of CN (myself included) to be a bit more humble sometimes.

Also, this topic and the discussion seems to be decidedly OOC and thus probably in the wrong place.

[Banksy]

Oh, another one of these topics.

You're bored because you've been playing for ages and you're jaded. So stop playing.

[quigon jinn]

Considering the enjoyment I've gotten so far from optimizing my nation growth (going to pick up a third wonder in under a week) with no free aid (unless 6M/250 tech deals counts as free aid =P), I'd say I'm enjoying things yes.

http://www.cybernations.net/nation_drill_display.asp?Nation_ID=403758

Most people are not in the situation I am in however. I suspect that the coming months will test my patience with the slow crawl I'm about to hit.

[Mason]

[quote name='Hereno' timestamp='1282423311' post='2425942']
Also, I'd be willing to wager that newer nations are far more put off by the fact that it's literally impossible for them to become the biggest and baddest nation in the game, than the fact that they lost a few hundred infra that takes not even a week to rebuild. Who on earth wants to play a nation simulator with thousands of other people and zero possibility of war? Nobody. So why do we keep trying to create that?
[/quote]

As a new nation, you can only hope to achieve greatness in terms of pixels by being willing to follow the routine for 2-3 years. Then you may crack the top 1000. Most people just aren't going to invest in that.

The political side of things is so clustered now that it's a near impossible task for any individual or group of individuals to have enough power to cause the treaty web to break down and create global conflict. IMO, this is where a change in game mechanics could help. Perhaps if you were only allowed to create an alliance in-game after having been actively logging in to your nation for 3 months minimum, we would see less micros popping up. And by the time many players reach that mark, they would be so integrated in their current alliance that the prospect of setting out to create a new one wouldn't interest them. Less alliances equals less cluster. Several other minor tweaks could dramatically change the face of the game as well, but the argument will continue that it's all on the community to make the game...which is ridiculous. We are tasked with contributing to the game and making it more enjoyable, yes, but we need clay to sculpt with. For new players, other avenues are much more enticing in today's world than what existed in 2006.

[pd73bassman]

Would you love CN more if I attacked you Owned


Just a friend helping a friend

[Mustakrakish II]

I do it for the lulz. and IRC.

[Teddyyo]

Voted fourth because it's true.

[Fallen Fool]

I play this game because I have a core of friends I like to bull !@#$ with. Pretty much all, with the exception of CN politics, is boring.

Also, in case you were wondering, CN politics can still be interesting if you take a longer view of the situation and try to read political under currents. If your waiting for someone to be ZOMG DRAMATIC, then yeah you'll probably be disappointed.

[Moridin]

First off, the poll is terrible, and I completely do not understand what its purpose is given that there's no conceivable way it actually represents the different opinions people hold.

Second, we've heard this cry about stagnation before; I should know, I was one of the louder voices making it at one time. Kingzog is essentially correct with his [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91051&view=findpost&p=2426012"]outline[/url] of how the political cycle works these days; this has been the case for years now, and the "rut" we are currently in is absolutely no different from the one we were in after the War of the Coalition, or after Karma, or for that matter after the Unjust War. Every time a war ends, within a few months there arise these complaints that we are in the worst stagnation the game has ever seen, yet without an explanation as to how this is any worse than the other periods of stagnation in between wars. As a community we have a tendency to attach a strong sense of nostalgia to the game of years past; in our memories, the excitement of the wars is heightened and the length of the intervening stagnation is shortened, simply because we are more inclined to remember those events that interested us most and to forget those that failed to enthrall us.

This isn't to say this cycle of stagnation has always been the case, certainly, in the early months or even the first year of the game there was a boldness, even rashness to how alliances conducted themselves on the world stage, while today caution is the rule in foreign affairs, resulting in less frequent wars than in 2006 and early 2007. I've seen several flawed explanations for this shift.

One of these explanations, in this case offered in the OP, is that the problem (or part of it) is a lack of major changes to the game mechanics. In the past, however, changes to game mechanics have not had any effect on the frequency of wars. Aircraft were introduced at the beginning of an unprecedented period of peace (after Great War I), and the case is similar for spies, which were introduced shortly after the Unjust War, and about ten months before the next major war. Political stagnation is caused by the enormous treaty web, which emerged in anticipation of the Unjust War, and which we all know is not going away anytime soon; it's ridiculous to blame the game for a problem caused by how alliances conduct their foreign affairs.

As I see it, there are only two possible ways game mechanics could be altered to increase the frequency of wars, and neither of them are desirable. The first is fundamentally altering the relationship between strength in numbers and chance of victory; in an era where large numbers of defensive treaties are the rule and aggression the exception, the aggressor in a war is at a numerical disadvantage from the very start, if the aggressor and defender have similar numbers of ties. This is a problem rooted in how alliances conduct their foreign affairs rather than how the game mechanics work, so not only is it bizarre to seek a solution through game mechanics, but the change required would have to give an inherent advantage to the outnumbered side. This would have the bizarre side effect of making sides in a war [i]try[/i] to put themselves at a particular numerical disadvantage; alliances would become hesitant to call in allies and escalate the war, having the opposite effect of what was intended (namely, creating more wars).

The other way the mechanics could be changed is introducing some element of scarcity; something for alliances to fight over. It could be a limited amount of tech to go around, or infra, population, cows, whatever you want. Again, it is absurd to introduce changes to the game because the community can't be bothered to start wars on its own, but an even greater issue is that in contests for limited resources, someone is going to lose out in a major way, and this is going to drive people from the game. Asking Admin to implement a change that will drive people away is something I can characterize only as bizarre.

This leads to the next most common explanation I hear; the game is stagnating because the number of players is decreasing. This is simply incorrect, and can easily be proven as such by the observation that the most militarily active period in the game (the first seven or so months) had the fewest number of players. Furthermore, major wars tend to accelerate the decrease in numbers rather than stem it. The majority of the players in the game are not here for the political intrigue, and seeing their nations destroyed doesn't help keep them around.

The last suggestion I hear for 'saving' the game is a reset. It's entirely possible that a reset would revive the game for a few months; maybe the game would, however briefly, be more like it was in 2006. After a few months however, things would settle back down into the same routine and soon we'd see another thread complaining about the political stagnation. We can't fully return to the naïveté of the first year of this game, where an MDP was a rare and special thing; even if the treaty web were destroyed in a reset, players wouldn't forget how things worked before the reset, and the expansion of the web would most likely be quite a lot faster than it was the first time around. There would also be the side effect of driving away thousands of players who care more about their nations than the political state of the world.

The problem is, and always has been, with how alliances conduct themselves; I've said it about three times so far but it bears repeating. Blaming it on a lack of changes to game mechanics is absurd, and suggesting a reset is a band-aid solution at best. The game stagnates because the alliances that have survived to the current day have done so by faithfully following this pattern. If you want to change this, become the leader of your alliances and cancel all your treaties. It would help if you're in MK or Ragnarok because you guys have like thirty. You'll probably end up getting destroyed, but hey – at least we'd have a war!

[Owned-You]

[quote name='pd73bassman' timestamp='1282453910' post='2426375']
Would you love CN more if I attacked you Owned


Just a friend helping a friend
[/quote]

Actually, I'd be completely satisfied with you rejoining NV. My career in CN is firmly in your hands now, mold it like clay or flush it away.

It's your decision my old friend.



[quote name='Moridin' timestamp='1282470851' post='2426520']
First off, the poll is terrible, and I completely do not understand what its purpose is given that there's no conceivable way it actually represents the different opinions people hold.

Second, we've heard this cry about stagnation before; I should know, I was one of the louder voices making it at one time. Kingzog is essentially correct with his [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91051&view=findpost&p=2426012"]outline[/url] of how the political cycle works these days; this has been the case for years now, and the "rut" we are currently in is absolutely no different from the one we were in after the War of the Coalition, or after Karma, or for that matter after the Unjust War. Every time a war ends, within a few months there arise these complaints that we are in the worst stagnation the game has ever seen, yet without an explanation as to how this is any worse than the other periods of stagnation in between wars. As a community we have a tendency to attach a strong sense of nostalgia to the game of years past; in our memories, the excitement of the wars is heightened and the length of the intervening stagnation is shortened, simply because we are more inclined to remember those events that interested us most and to forget those that failed to enthrall us.

This isn't to say this cycle of stagnation has always been the case, certainly, in the early months or even the first year of the game there was a boldness, even rashness to how alliances conducted themselves on the world stage, while today caution is the rule in foreign affairs, resulting in less frequent wars than in 2006 and early 2007. I've seen several flawed explanations for this shift.

One of these explanations, in this case offered in the OP, is that the problem (or part of it) is a lack of major changes to the game mechanics. In the past, however, changes to game mechanics have not had any effect on the frequency of wars. Aircraft were introduced at the beginning of an unprecedented period of peace (after Great War I), and the case is similar for spies, which were introduced shortly after the Unjust War, and about ten months before the next major war. Political stagnation is caused by the enormous treaty web, which emerged in anticipation of the Unjust War, and which we all know is not going away anytime soon; it's ridiculous to blame the game for a problem caused by how alliances conduct their foreign affairs.

As I see it, there are only two possible ways game mechanics could be altered to increase the frequency of wars, and neither of them are desirable. The first is fundamentally altering the relationship between strength in numbers and chance of victory; in an era where large numbers of defensive treaties are the rule and aggression the exception, the aggressor in a war is at a numerical disadvantage from the very start, if the aggressor and defender have similar numbers of ties. This is a problem rooted in how alliances conduct their foreign affairs rather than how the game mechanics work, so not only is it bizarre to seek a solution through game mechanics, but the change required would have to give an inherent advantage to the outnumbered side. This would have the bizarre side effect of making sides in a war [i]try[/i] to put themselves at a particular numerical disadvantage; alliances would become hesitant to call in allies and escalate the war, having the opposite effect of what was intended (namely, creating more wars).

The other way the mechanics could be changed is introducing some element of scarcity; something for alliances to fight over. It could be a limited amount of tech to go around, or infra, population, cows, whatever you want. Again, it is absurd to introduce changes to the game because the community can't be bothered to start wars on its own, but an even greater issue is that in contests for limited resources, someone is going to lose out in a major way, and this is going to drive people from the game. Asking Admin to implement a change that will drive people away is something I can characterize only as bizarre.

This leads to the next most common explanation I hear; the game is stagnating because the number of players is decreasing. This is simply incorrect, and can easily be proven as such by the observation that the most militarily active period in the game (the first seven or so months) had the fewest number of players. Furthermore, major wars tend to accelerate the decrease in numbers rather than stem it. The majority of the players in the game are not here for the political intrigue, and seeing their nations destroyed doesn't help keep them around.

The last suggestion I hear for 'saving' the game is a reset. It's entirely possible that a reset would revive the game for a few months; maybe the game would, however briefly, be more like it was in 2006. After a few months however, things would settle back down into the same routine and soon we'd see another thread complaining about the political stagnation. We can't fully return to the naïveté of the first year of this game, where an MDP was a rare and special thing; even if the treaty web were destroyed in a reset, players wouldn't forget how things worked before the reset, and the expansion of the web would most likely be quite a lot faster than it was the first time around. There would also be the side effect of driving away thousands of players who care more about their nations than the political state of the world.

The problem is, and always has been, with how alliances conduct themselves; I've said it about three times so far but it bears repeating. Blaming it on a lack of changes to game mechanics is absurd, and suggesting a reset is a band-aid solution at best. The game stagnates because the alliances that have survived to the current day have done so by faithfully following this pattern. If you want to change this, become the leader of your alliances and cancel all your treaties. It would help if you're in MK or Ragnarok because you guys have like thirty. You'll probably end up getting destroyed, but hey – at least we'd have a war!
[/quote]

Firstly, the entire purpose of the poll and topic was to vent the frustration I'd been building up over the summer months, rather then serve as any analytical debate or objective poll. If I'd wanted it to be contrived as such I'd have posted it in a far more refined manner. But I've never been a person to shy away from an intellectual exchange so I'll respond to your points.

Secondly, my personal reasoning as to why this period of stagnation differs from the previous episodes stems from the current condition of the political climate. Currently, there is only one central power at the core of the political realm; that being the Super-Grievences power structure and it's associated groups. Now, the treaty web has firmly secured the S&G position as dominant; all other existing power-clusters are either too small to make serious moves, or directly under the umbrella of S&G influence. Whilst the old-power structure known commonly as "Ex.Hegemony" is no longer a threat in the slightest; most alliances formerly belonging to it find themselves isolated and lacking the political capital to challenge S&G. Ultimately, this only leads to a climate where political intrigues and events are generally uneventful and short. Now everyone likes to argue and flirt with the possibility of an S&G split; which is perfectly fine and dandy to fantasize about, however in the present time that is a notion that isn't conceivable. In the future as time drags on and alliances continue to grow anxious, there is a slight possibility. But by pulling away from each other both C&G & SF risk losing there position of dominance; and being a leader for so long I know it won't happen unless there is a real strong schism in opinion within leadership on both ends; the issue being the only possibility of that is 6 months down the road. Hence, this period of peace we find ourselves in will be substantially longer then those in years past; because unlike in years past the current power-structure has effectively won the game and successfully suppressed any organized opposition. It will be many months, before anyone can even fantasize about breaking the current order apart.

Thirdly, I never stated the lack of game mechanics around warfare as a chief issue with the stagnation. Albeit, I understand why you'd perceive it as such due to my writings; which was as I stated above only a rant. But rather, the lack of any game mechanics in any field has resulted in a lack of interest into gameplay entirely. Meaning, older nations like yours and mine literally know every single thing there is to know about this game off the top of our heads without having to blink, we've got all the wonders and improvements, and we don't have much left to aspire to buy or wonder about anymore. If there was some new mechanic introduced, it would force us to adapt and learn to it which would add some interest for the players like myself who like to know everything about a particular function. Now, there are an abundance of suggestions that could be implemented to improve warfare, economics, team-color, and frequency of wars beyond the two suggestions you touched bases with in your post. To ignore that is a bit of a stretch to say least. While, you mentioned the decrease in players I'd say that that problem is only an effect of the community and the mechanics of the game but that's not really anything to argue about objectively.

Lastly, in regards to your final paragraph concerning a pattern. It isn't just the political web that must change; but it's the players within it as well. Frankly, there are an abundance of players lacking any real ambitions or drives who aspire to reach positions of importance in an alliance but then fail to do anything once there. It's why there are so many micro alliances in the game, because everyone wants to be a chief; but only a few are willing to do a chiefs work. If you want to change the game or increase your enjoyment; you only have to aspire and do more then those above you presently do. Sure, it's a simple concept; but few actually live by it. Now, my problem is I don't have the time to actually put in the work it takes to make things happen in this game anymore. But somewhere out on Bob's surface is a random man or woman with a wealth of time to devout to this game; the only thing they lack is the guidance to focus there talents onto a singular goal. My only hope is someone comes along with the gumption and tact to make a name for themselves, because the GWII generation that I belong in is steadily moving on toward newer things (RL) and sooner or later someone will have to take up the torch if this game is to continue.

[Moridin]

[quote name='Owned-You' timestamp='1282512388' post='2426884']
Secondly, my personal reasoning as to why this period of stagnation differs from the previous episodes stems from the current condition of the political climate. Currently, there is only one central power at the core of the political realm; that being the Super-Grievences power structure and it's associated groups. Now, the treaty web has firmly secured the S&G position as dominant; all other existing power-clusters are either too small to make serious moves, or directly under the umbrella of S&G influence. Whilst the old-power structure known commonly as "Ex.Hegemony" is no longer a threat in the slightest; most alliances formerly belonging to it find themselves isolated and lacking the political capital to challenge S&G. Ultimately, this only leads to a climate where political intrigues and events are generally uneventful and short. Now everyone likes to argue and flirt with the possibility of an S&G split; which is perfectly fine and dandy to fantasize about, however in the present time that is a notion that isn't conceivable. In the future as time drags on and alliances continue to grow anxious, there is a slight possibility. But by pulling away from each other both C&G & SF risk losing there position of dominance; and being a leader for so long I know it won't happen unless there is a real strong schism in opinion within leadership on both ends; the issue being the only possibility of that is 6 months down the road. Hence, this period of peace we find ourselves in will be substantially longer then those in years past; because unlike in years past the current power-structure has effectively won the game and successfully suppressed any organized opposition. It will be many months, before anyone can even fantasize about breaking the current order apart.[/quote]

This is, once again, the exact same line that I and many others have repeated ad nauseum through the past years. The World Unity Treaty will never have a civil war, One Vision will never split, and the Continuum hegemony is impossible to take down because nobody else has the numbers. There was no conceivable way anyone outside the World Unity Treaty could have won a war against that bloc, and as I'm sure you remember the same cries of "NPO has won the game" and the like were raised during the summer of 2007. The end of a bloc always begins within; the Unjust Path was formed on one side of the Initiative, and on the other side Polar gathered a group of allies for an eventual confrontation. Once again, in the era of Continuum dominance, after the War of the Coalition there was no group of alliances that could stand in opposition to the hegemony. Doing so would have been suicide, both politically and militarily. No one in the Continuum had any ambition; they were comfortable and secure in their bloc. All it took was a single alliance opting to leave (for moral reasons, no less! Those who complain moralism stagnates the game should take note) and the ensuing drama fractured the bloc beyond repair. I am perhaps oversimplifying the cause, as other events such as Vox's spying perhaps helped catalyze the split, but in the end an extraordinarily powerful bloc comprised almost entirely of unambitious alliances collapsed in on itself.

The power structure dominated by Superfriends and C&G is not all that different. Unlike the Continuum, many of them do still possess an irrational paranoia that what they think is a competing group of alliances ("ex Hegemony", I use the term only with the greatest distaste for it) could somehow contest their dominance of the world, so perhaps united by their common enemy, their power structure will have greater longevity than the Continuum, but that doesn't in any way mean that internal fractures are not inevitable. Sooner or later - perhaps later, we hope sooner - those fractures will surface. There's nothing extraordinary about Superfriends or C&G that makes it any different than the blocs that dominated in years past. As for the frequency and duration of today's drama, this is once again an issue of looking at years gone by through rose-tinted glasses. What actual drama occurred between the War of the Coalition and the Karma War? There was the Grämlins' departure from the Continuum in December, and the apparent dispute between Sparta and Valhalla over some small issue of spying in January. Other than that, it was a bleak nine months, colored only by the entertainment provided by This Week in Pacifica and other Vox Populi propaganda. Those few conflicts that did occur were, just as is the case today, a matter of hours or days rather than weeks. The recent drama surrounding the high-profile expulsions from \m/ and the 'attacktorate' was about as interesting as some of the better drama from the antebellum period after the War of the Coalition and prior to the Karma War.

[quote]Thirdly, I never stated the lack of game mechanics around warfare as a chief issue with the stagnation. Albeit, I understand why you'd perceive it as such due to my writings; which was as I stated above only a rant. But rather, the lack of any game mechanics in any field has resulted in a lack of interest into gameplay entirely. Meaning, older nations like yours and mine literally know every single thing there is to know about this game off the top of our heads without having to blink, we've got all the wonders and improvements, and we don't have much left to aspire to buy or wonder about anymore. If there was some new mechanic introduced, it would force us to adapt and learn to it which would add some interest for the players like myself who like to know everything about a particular function. Now, there are an abundance of suggestions that could be implemented to improve warfare, economics, team-color, and frequency of wars beyond the two suggestions you touched bases with in your post. To ignore that is a bit of a stretch to say least. While, you mentioned the decrease in players I'd say that that problem is only an effect of the community and the mechanics of the game but that's not really anything to argue about objectively.[/quote]

That was directed at you only in part; there was more than one reply in this thread citing the perceived lack of changes to gameplay as a major source of political stagnation. For me, it has never been the game itself that is captivating; it runs smoothly, has a war function, doesn't have major bugs, and that's all I really ask for. Changes to game mechanics are briefly interesting, but it takes only days or perhaps weeks at most to figure out everything that needs to be figured out about the changes, and then we find ourselves back at square one, complaining about stagnation again. Sure, there are improvements that can be made to the game, but that doesn't mean that those improvements would in any way alter how interesting this game is in the long-term. Warfare could be made more complex while having only a minimal effect on how interesting the politics of the game are. The two suggestions I cited were the only two I believe could actually fundamentally alter how politics work and how alliances are motivated to create the foreign policy they do; there are other suggestions that could change the game but not in a manner that would make it any more inherently interesting. The politics and community are what first made me involve myself in CN, and changes to how the game functions won't affect whether or not I want to continue involving myself.

[quote]Lastly, in regards to your final paragraph concerning a pattern. It isn't just the political web that must change; but it's the players within it as well. Frankly, there are an abundance of players lacking any real ambitions or drives who aspire to reach positions of importance in an alliance but then fail to do anything once there. It's why there are so many micro alliances in the game, because everyone wants to be a chief; but only a few are willing to do a chiefs work. If you want to change the game or increase your enjoyment; you only have to aspire and do more then those above you presently do. Sure, it's a simple concept; but few actually live by it. Now, my problem is I don't have the time to actually put in the work it takes to make things happen in this game anymore. But somewhere out on Bob's surface is a random man or woman with a wealth of time to devout to this game; the only thing they lack is the guidance to focus there talents onto a singular goal. My only hope is someone comes along with the gumption and tact to make a name for themselves, because the GWII generation that I belong in is steadily moving on toward newer things (RL) and sooner or later someone will have to take up the torch if this game is to continue.[/quote]

I agree entirely; I may have phrased my point such that I was blaming alliances as a group, but since alliances are comprised of individuals and it is individuals that set the direction of their alliances, the fault for political stagnation most certainly does rest with the players. I am personally hesitant to phrase this as a complaint rather than a statement of fact because I am in no way contributing to making this game interesting. I consider myself retired; I played my hand, I lost, and I simply have no desire to ante up again. I am content spend my days making commentary from my ivory tower, and I suspect this is the case for many other people who consider themselves burned out.

Edited August 22, 2010 by Moridin