NS History: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers!

[Darkesia]

Does anyone. Remember the name of the region from which Taijitu splintered? It was IP and Cathyy's region. It's hovering at the edge of my memory but I can't quite grasp it. I think they had a problem with Lemuria, but again... can't quite remember. I do remember that I ended up giving a favorite puppet to one of the members. It might have even ended up a delegate in Taijitu eventually.

Help an old girl out? Anyone recall the name of that region?

[McMasterdonia]

That would be the Lexicon.

[Darkesia]

That would be the Lexicon.

Thank you! I thought that was it. But my brain kept telling me I was wrong. Stoooopid brain.

[Funkadelia]

It's The Lexicon.

If memory serves correctly, it all stemmed from a dispute between IP and Cathyy, and Taijituans Eluvatar, Pragmia, Myroria, St Oz, and Sovereign Dixie.

What was the puppet name? I probably know of it.

[Darkesia]

Lucretia Borgia

[Myroria]

Funk just linked me this thread on IRC. It was The Lexicon. A dispute over the delegate election and various other things led the original founders to leave. St. Oz would be able to tell you more than I. And I do think Lucretia Borgia was delegate of Taijitu for a time, yes.

[Funkadelia]

Lucretia Borgia

http://forum.taijitu.org/ministry-of-in ... #msg136026

[Darkesia]

It does my heart good to know that I am not hallucinating and that it seems perfectly reasonable to some people that I ask such random things at odd hours of the night.

Thanks again

[St Oz]

Quick version:
-IP and Cathyy's TNP-Government forum wasn't generating followers so they made the Lexicon to grow an army to invade the North Pacific and get back into power.
-The Lexicon grew and had a pretty big RP community instead of a game playing base
-Senate was won by majority RPers
-IP and Cathy dissolved the Senate when things weren't going their way and they demanded the invasion
-We decided in a MSN conversation to form a community based on Elu's server which was called Taijitu
-First founders signed in the first constitution and founder's agreement
-Taijitu grew to one of the largest player-made regions to somewhat historical ambiguity, sputtering activity now and then.

[The Blaatschapen]

It does my heart good to know that I am not hallucinating and that it seems perfectly reasonable to some people that I ask such random things at odd hours of the night.

Thanks again

What might be odd hours for you, are just regular hours for people in some other timezones

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

I left out a couple bits.

The SC and Rule 4 come to mind. No one was praising [violet] then.

[Darkesia]

I left out a couple bits.

The SC and Rule 4 come to mind. No one was praising [violet] then.

I have blocked that trauma from memory. It makes my RP easier to rationalize.

Yes, indeed I said that with a straight face.

[The Sapientia]

So the Farkers are deemed the fathers of raiding and such, but what made them so prominent? Why are they so fantastically special?

[Darkesia]

So the Farkers are deemed the fathers of raiding and such, but what made them so prominent? Why are they so fantastically special?

That is probably a question for Loop. But I suspect it may have been novelty that made them special.

[Alvalero]

Lies, he couldn't have been busy as the NPO do nothing in CN bar sit in peace mode a let their weak members get destroyed. Fun for the rest of us though.

Oh, dear. I wouldn't say such silly things.

The truth can be hurtful sometimes

[Blackbird]

Oh, dear. I wouldn't say such silly things.

The truth can be hurtful sometimes

*chuckles* Bah. CN NPO performed well in its last war. We took a lot of damage and dished a lot of damage.

[Alterran Republic]

Who/what are the Fishmongers and have they ever done anything besides being troll-ish?

[Joe Bobs]

So the Farkers are deemed the fathers of raiding and such, but what made them so prominent? Why are they so fantastically special?

My understanding is that the Farkers were essentially griefers who kind of went native when they came to NS. An interesting view on NS can be seen on the old Encyclopaedia Dramatica article on it (I believe someone somewhere archived ED from before it went PG-13. If you go looking for it, I warn you, VERY NSFW). 4channers used to consider NS a great target for trolling as they thought we took the internet too seriously. The GRA was once attacked by someone claiming to be from Lulzsec, for example. I'm not saying Farkers were related to this by any means, but I think the psychology was the same, they thought NS was a chance for some mischief. But when the Farkers arrived in NS they got to liking it and formed a community, so what began as some trollers griefing a game found a flaw in, they found that what they did became a part of the basic gameplay.

One theory I have on NS comes from a theory on why English is such an internationally used language: the theory goes that English is very good at absorbing new words and grammar from the cultures it encounters. As such, speakers can adapt the language to their needs whilst also using it as a lingua franca. I think the survival of NS is due to similar reasons, it's managed to absorb many divergent uses, and rather than forcing new players to stick to the established code, it embraces the new user-generated methods and they become an equally legitimate part of the game.

Though I fear I've rambled and not got anywhere near answering the actual question. Loop would be the person to answer. The Bruce's opinion (as one of their leading early opponents) would also be interesting.

[Wickedly evil people]

the Farkers raided when there were no rules and they were first.



they didn't invent the incandescent bulb or anything, they were bored and they decided to take over some regions, and they did. period

[The Bruce]

So the Farkers are deemed the fathers of raiding and such, but what made them so prominent? Why are they so fantastically special?

The Farkers weren’t so much the fathers of raiding as the stepfathers of invading that made you feel a need to lock your bedroom door at night.

Imperialism and the extension of real-world conflicts were the first type of raiding to occur (Irish vs British, Soviet vs America, Nazis vs everyone).

The first real invader region was EVIL (no relation to any later or current incarnations of that region name). They existed only as invaders, invaded four regions, very few people noticed, and they became inactive.

Afterwards, there was a group I referred to as the Driftwood Gang. The nucleus of the group was made up of a bunch of people who worked together, their friends, and family (mostly Canadian, but with at least one prominent American in the group). This gave them a lot of cohesion and made them harder to infiltrate than later invader groups. As they chiefly targeted region names based on North America (United States chief among their long term holdings) they bridged the gap between the extension of real-world conflicts and invader groups. There are prominent members of the Driftwood Gang still active in NationStates, but most have settled into the regions that they long conquered or remain in holding regions. I can't say for certain without reading through a lot of records, but I seem to recall a certain frequent couper of regions in recent years might have been one of them.

The Farkers came along shortly afterwards, their nucleus from offsite Fark.com. They organized themselves in an e-group (Farktopia and others) and emails. As most people were completely unaware that invaders even existed in early 2003, they were able to take a number of regions before getting noticed. They were also in a time when it was harder to catch UN multying, with some severe cheating by some of their members (up to 60 UN nations by one player), but this was not condoned by the group. They had a loose hierarchy and didn’t make a big deal about who the next invader lead would be. They didn’t spend a lot of time crowing on the forums about their victories and hid their identity of their home region (Farkistan and later Fark themed regions), to protect them from reprisals. When someone from 100 Nations of Conquests took credit for one of their early invasions, it painted a bull’s-eye on that region. Being referred to as the 100 NoC confused the Farkers for quite some time, before they read some of my posts on the subject (I had multiple sources state they were certain it was the 100 Nations of Conquest behind it all).

They were pretty much the reason moderators were created, as they were very much 4chan over the top in griefing other players and regions. Their everyday behavior back then was DOS behavior today. They used non-UN nation puppets to grief regions they weren’t invading, destroying numerous communities without even invading them. When founders and passwords were introduced, they used scripts to have non-UN nations region jump to determine which regions didn’t have passwords (originally these were geese themed nations). They also petitioned for and received founder status from the moderators for a number of regions they conquered (most players in conquered regions were unaware this was going on). They were extremely active on the NS Forums, acting as a pack to grief and bait anyone they could to get them modbombed.

After they seized the East Pacific, their invader delegate there proceeded to punt any UN nation not endorsing them. They ejected more nations from the East Pacific than Francos Spain did in the Pacific (where the displaced regime was sending a flood of puppets for banjection). The East Pacific effectively ended the Farkers rampage, as holding and managing the feeder took all of their energy. A number of them also continued to enjoy tormenting some of the prize regions they were made founders of (like America) or in old battlefield haunts like the Heartland (where they later became the most active members of the regional community). That and they were put off by an increase in anti-griefing rules.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

So the Farkers are deemed the fathers of raiding and such, but what made them so prominent? Why are they so fantastically special?

When founders and passwords were introduced, they used scripts to have non-UN nations region jump to determine which regions didn’t have passwords (originally these were geese themed nations).

New conspiracy theory: Migrating Geese and the puppets thereof are a script running on a Windows 2000 SE computer that some long retired Farker has completely forgotten the existence of.

[Reploid Productions]

They were pretty much the reason moderators were created, as they were very much 4chan over the top in griefing other players and regions.

Ah, minor correction on this point; the immediate incident that led to the creation of the mod team was a very intense and large-scale shock image spam attack perpetuated by two players, Perrier and Zoland. I have no idea whether or not they were part of the Fark group or not, but that incident was sort of the wake-up call to [v] and Max that, "Holy crap, this thing has gotten so big that we can't keep an eye out to clean up messes all by ourselves!"

Aside from wrangling the forums though, one of the team's earliest and largest projects was to reign in the abuses related to gameplay, particularly the griefing and UN-multying. Back then, it was not uncommon to unearth multi-rings upwards of 20 nations run by the same guy (my personal record for "Most multis in a single ring" was 63, though that does not count the "National Socialist griefer", who's final multi-count was in the thousands. I tend not to count him as a single ring however, because he had a new ring of 40-80 nations virtually every night.) These days, it's pretty rare to find a multi-ring in excess of 10 nations, and most are 2-4.

Of course, those early efforts also resulted in the none-too-fondly remembered old invasion rules, which attempted to curb the worst abuses with varying degrees of success given our extremely limited suite of tools at the time.

[Alyekra]

Have there ever been any credible attempts to overthrow the NPO?

[Black Mekhet]

Have there ever been any credible attempts to overthrow the NPO?

There was Frak, but I don't think that was credible

[Blackbird]

Have there ever been any credible attempts to overthrow the NPO?

There were numerous attempts to foment significant to the NPO using intelligence methods, everything from the simple endorsement swapping within the Pacific to more grand and long-term plans such as creating "native" resistance movement, made from natives and well ... not natives.

And of course, the "great glitch," and that whole thing.