A Call to Fellow NS MT/PMT Storefront Owners [Attention]

[Anemos Major]

But I digress

Introducing "realistic" flaws into products being sold on GE&T is IMO the best way of moving forward without massive revision and stomping out of some exceptionally well done but wank-tastic designs. A simple paragraph or so detailing how the targeting systems of the Longsword aren't accurate for precise missile guidance at its maximum range, for example, would do away with much of the bickering and near god-mody behavior that companies the deployment of most GE&T procured equipment while also making the design seem much closer to something that could exist in real life as appose to a mythical super weapon forever confined to NS. Even the most lol-getwrkedn00b designs would be, imo of course, vastly improved by introducing flaws into them

just my two sense on the matter

(I know I'm repeating myself here, just wanted to clean my point up and expand it a bit)

to give but just one example, Anemos. Would something like that be a bad thing for you to see (personally)?

You're asking this to the person who went to the trouble of linearting a critically flawed rifle, or put more time considering the role rather than capabilities of a vehicle, or put an hour into writing up a troubled developmental timeline for a tank?

Flavour is great, flavour is king. Hence why I think 'realism' isn't a constraint at all - I feel as though it's far more interesting to flesh out the technological and sociopolitical woes and troubles and occasional triumphs of your kit than it is to constantly compete for the hollow title of 'most powerful designer in a particular field'. My promotional speak is very competitive, like any defence contractor - my write-ups are rather less so.

tl;dr big fan, bring on the critical flaws

E: That said, it's a personal preference, and thus, it should never really be a requirement - in the same way that some people don't have the time or interest to lineart, or write up technobabble.

[Yohannes]

Yup, it's largely down to personal preference or taste. But at least having a place where we can discuss things like that (that was just one example) openly is a good thing for not just us, but our customers (especially the customers who are new players) who are the focus here

Though then again, we have been doing just that in this thread, so

[Lyras]

Apologies to all for my late response. I work hard, and long, and have also just moved house, with all the ancillary issues pertaining to internet connection contained therein.

That being said, I'd first like to thank Yohannes for drawing this issue, though I use the term a little broadly, which I think is long overdue some discussion, though I am uncertain as to whether a problem exists, per se, or whether or not, if so, it can be resolved at all.

The crux of the matter, as far as I am able to ascertain from my limited experience, is definitional, more than anything else. We are tripping over what constitutes the accepted parameters of creative license in a somewhat fluidly fictitious setting.

Everyone here is broadly aware of my personal position. I agree with Allanea's 3-point hypothesis (henceforth to be referred to as 'the Allanean Hypothesis) on the commentary of NationStates II and NS forum RP, and will here quote them again, as they are, in a sense, foundational, though I will paraphrase for broader application.

1. Several very large NATIONS EXIST. If we RP together, we accept in arguendo that our nations exist, that is that a world exists where nations, very often with a double-digit quantity of billion people in them, exist and are comfortable somehow. Unless we are going to enforce population caps...

2. Resource proportionality. The proportional availability of resources, and thus the prices of materials, are broadly SIMILAR TO RL. It has been the general assumption of NS that the prices of most materials - steel, gold, concrete - is broadly SIMILAR TO that of RL.

3. The world is composed of many many nations. We don't know how many (OOCly), but it's very clear that far more than the RL number of (192) nations exist in NS.

4. (Lyran coda) The laws of physics remain unchanged. Fantasy elements notwithstanding, of course.

With these provisions in mind, several subsequent points become evident;
a) NS is hypermilitarised. Seems self-evident, but it's an important point to keep in mind. Full-blown, no-holds-barred conflict between top-tier military powers are commonplace, not solely a twice-in-a-century event, and nuclear exchanges barely turn a head any more. Militaries, militarism and military-technological offshoots are going to be front-and-center, as one would expect, and the drive to pursue ambitious large-scale military developments that may well be perceived as wasteful in RL may not be considered wasteful on NS, when every advantage could mean the difference between success of failure in the next war, which is likely just-around-the-corner.
b) Available resources for military utilisation are substantial. Broadly speaking, NS has tremendous amounts of manpower, and tremendous amounts of the materials that people produce by their efforts. This leads to a very large pool of resources to allocate.
c) NS is very large. Even if you subscribe to a strange multi-verse style view, rather than the easier-to-get-your-head-around really-big-planet-with-lower-density, single states have three-to-four times the current (RL) global population, and many regions have a hundred times the population. Distances militaries must cover are considerably larger than their RL counterparts.

As such, aside from hard considerations regarding the laws of physics, NS-militaries likely can and will operate quite differently, in many ways, to RL ones. The primary point here?


NS Earth =/= RL Earth
therefore
NS situations =/= RL situations
therefore
NS militaries =/= RL militaries

That being said, because of the fact that we are designing on the broad presupposition that the technology levels are comparable, where do we draw the line?

If we assume that the NS world has, at any given moment, equivalent understanding of technology to ours, what would it do with it? That, to me, would constitute MT. Is it able to be done, according to our current understanding of how technology works? Yes/no. If yes, it's MT.

More generously, one could apply subtleties, based upon the differences between conceptualisation, understanding and implementation. Something like this, I imagine;

Conceptualised, understood, implemented. Hard MT. (Of course, it's likely also only applying to actually existing RL hardware...)
Conceptualised, understood, not implemented. NS MT. (Where the vast majority of well-researched, deliberately 'realistic' design falls)
Conceptualised, not understood, not implemented. PMT (Things we can conceptually wrap our heads around, but have yet to be made to function, even in labs)
Not firmly conceptualised, not understood, not implemented. FT (Properly working FtL falls here. We might have high hopes for an Alcubierre drive, but we only have tenuous grasp of even the idea of the thing, let alone what to do with it).


But perhaps most importantly, I have three thoughts to put before everyone. I try my best to adhere to these principles as rigidly as possible, and encourage everyone to do the same.
Thought 1; Don't be a douche.
Thought 2; If you fail at 1, apologise, and resume compliance.
Thought 3; Be cautious in how you express yourself. Words cannot be un-said.

Hope my ramblings here have been of some use.

[Yohannes]

Thank you for your post Lyras! The canon version of this Yohannes (the one in Greater Dienstad) is itself also following your (and Allanea's) concept of NS MT

Added your points to the opening post

If anyone disagree with any points of the players I have put as examples at the opening post, I would encourage for you to voice your concern

[Nachmere]

This is shifting more towards a military tech storefront helpdesk, and though at first I was thinking more of a guild when I saw the OP, you guys p. convinced me.

[Vitaphone Racing]

The problem in II is not caused by GE&T. It's caused by immaturity present within roleplayers which gives them a "win-at-all-costs" mentality and leads them to forget or ignore the real purpose of roleplaying; creative writing. To this extent, the influence which storefronts have over II is effectively meaningless; if they weren't using your tanks then they'd be using someone else's. Roleplayers who desperately want to win and desperately want to be seen as the best will find ways to achieve those ends. If they aren't through "over-powered" designs then it will be through another way. Regardless of what RPing timeframe we are referring to, those people have always existed and they always will exist.

Secondly, there is a huge difference between designing for a hypermilitarized world as Lyras described and just plain not knowing what you can and cannot do in the present. This, I think, is why there is so much confusion as to whether or not the boundaries have in fact shifted; people are confusing science with fiction. If there is a bigger problem presently with designers producing things that could not be considered realistically MT but are thus marketed as MT, that is because fewer and fewer designers are deciding to seek or accept critique on their work in fear of losing their reputation or because they can't be bothered. This does cause problems; if people are confusing what is possible and what is not for their chosen scenario and national context then we have issues of nations straddling two different sections of roleplaying and subsequently causing issues when they attempt to fit into one. The simple solution to this is to get it right, and the community on the F&NI forum is a great start for this.

I don't want to put names to text as I have no interest in beating my drum or engaging in a metaphorical pissing contest with other people but there are many people on this forum who Think They Know^TM and unfortunately for them, they don't know nearly as much about their professed expert subject as they'd like to. In their minds, they might honestly consider something to be plausible and realistic when there may be a myriad of reasons why it isn't. Therefore, maybe its time some people had a serious discussion about where their designs fit in the scheme of things as obviously, they themselves are confused. The newbies to the forum will consistently aspire to the storefronts which attract the most responses thus it would be preferable if those storefronts reflected the roleplaying circles which people typically fall into. That's not to say that I think we should enforce storefronts reflecting our typical communities as that goes against the spirit of roleplaying in its loosest terms.

And thirdly, when Anemos wrote that he spent more time talking about the role of his fictional product than its capabilities, I wanted to shout amen because that is how you design. Creativity is not pushing the boundaries by taking every piece of cutting edge technology you can and stuffing it together in some ungodly package. Creativity is certainly not doing what everybody else does so you can fit in. Creativity is having a serious think about the background of your design, why its important, what it should be expected to do and why it is the way it is. I don't care if people apply that sort of logic in a stringent MT or PMT or FT setting, if you can do that then you'll have my respect. Players should be encouraged to design to their nation first and foremost and then roleplay with the nations that are playing with similar constraints to themselves, whether that roleplay be in GE&T or II. If people could do this, much of the problems with crossover between those with smaller populations and those using their NS populations would be alleviated.

Furthermore, just because something is not "hard MT" does not make the designer clueless. PMT, FT and "NS MT" can absolutely be done well if people are prepared to think long and hard about how "X" product fits within the story of their nation. Example, people talk shit about Lyras' Longsword and fuck them. Lyras is a brilliant creative mind who deserves all the respect which he gets. Those who think that good "designing" is being 100% pragmatic about what we know can work in 2014 are nothing more than jealous twats.

Do I agree that we should attempt to force people to conform to a set regulation? No, of course not. The best thing about roleplaying is that you are free to take the story of your nation, and remember that each roleplay you take part in is just one more chapter in your story, in any direction which you see fit. Regulating and arbitrating to this extent seems a blatant violation of this freedom and seems to be against the spirit of roleplaying in general. I'd much rather a community which has bad roleplayers rather than a community which attempts to regulate and control the creative writing which community members produce. The road to hell was proverbially paved with good intentions after all.

This is not to say that we should not try to enhance the standards and overall quality of our roleplaying community, but rather do it passively. The best way to do this is leading by example, and this is a method which is proven to work and the proof is right here in front of us: Everybody in this thread. We were all bad once by our standards are today. Very few roleplayers are ever proud of their first work, in fact most would be downright embarrassed for it. Yet, by measuring ourselves against those who we considered the best, we steadily improved over a period of time to the standards which we hold ourselves at today. We endured this process, and there will be newcomers to this forum who will develop along that sequence as well. Another way to do it is offer support for those who need it and to that extent, we have the help desk and we have II mentors who are (from what I understand) approachable people who are able to offer assistance with the basics of roleplaying. For those who require help with designing and fleshing out the specifications and finer details of their projects, we have a vibrant and knowledgeable community on the F&NI forums to answer questions. This is really all we need from my perspective; all the tools to help people become better roleplayers are there and they're accessible to boot.

Anyway, here are some things that storefront owners can do to help fix this issue.

• Lead by example: Set the standards and basic etiquette which you would like to see others adopt.
• Be open to criticism: Feedback on your designs and their feasibility is a good thing, even if you're wrong. Be open minded about it, take the opinions of others and consider their arguments which reason and diligence. When you're wrong, you learn. When you're never wrong and know everything, you don't. You can't improve unless you know where to start.
• Provide a backstory of your storefront roleplay: If people knew what sort of a nation you were and why you designed product X the way you did, it would be considerably easier for newbies to determine whether they relate to you and your roleplay, or if there's a clash.

[Radicchio]

I am pretty new to the storefront thing and I have been struggling a little with the MT/PMT thing.

I notice that there is a LOT of that hyper-militarization going around.
I have made my rounds on the threads and it seems that the feeling among most of the ubertrolls is that if it isn't the biggest, heaviest, most overpowered main battle tank, then it isn't worth talking about. likewise, if it isn't the most modern, composite, bullpup, 1000 yrd+ do everything rifle that weighs next to nothing, then it isn't worth talking about.

A defense force does NOT carry around .50 automatic rifles and cruise from base to base in a MBT. But that seems to be what a LOT of the RPers think.
Likewise, a Navy does NOT park off of your coast and go straight for the nuclear artillery without some form of diplomatic RP going on first, but that seems to happen a LOT here.

What I am getting at here is that if you try to run a storefront that is selling things which are somewhat realistic, then you are going to loose business to the magicians.
I had an order come down the pipe just yesterday for a BILLION shotguns, there is no way that a nation my size can fill an order like that unless they are a hyper militarized fascist state with street urchins assembling ARs in alleys.
Heck, an order of a billion shotguns would probably be too big of an order for even the largest nations and the oldest storefronts.

So I guess what I am saying is that I think the problem that is being danced around here is partially the RPers but also it is the magicians who open a storefront selling Bullpup composite .50 Assault Rifles with collapsible stocks accurate to 5000 meters and also they shoot fire, then filling orders in the billions with a wave of the hand "your order is on its way" 2, 3 times a week.
I mean seriously, 3 billion magic boomsticks a week? Why don't you open a storefront selling the startrek replicator so I can buy them and solve my nation's food shortages?

Just some observations from a NEWB.

[Yohannes]

Please don't say you're a newb Rad, your storefront is a good one (and I like your formal way of interacting with your customers in your storefront, it really give you that unique flavour)'

and you are right. I myself am guilty of that, though the reason for that is not because I am ignorant of the issues you have said. But it is because these days I can care no less and will do whatever so long as I am having fun (I guess)

and people like Allanea also know the issues you have presented. But like me, Allanea is the 'having fun' type of player too. So yeah, we are guilty of giving bad examples

But your points are good (for those who perhaps are into the whole 'must abide by the rules' kind of individuals). I'll put it up the OP so others can see your points

And to Vitaphone Racing, very nice points too. I'll add that to the OP'

think it is safe to say that this discussion will die out/decline soon. We have all made our points, and have discussed what we can

It is good to know that we can refer any new or established players to this thread, whenever they have confusion with the whole intermixing issues we have in this forum (or NationStates or International Incidents that are connected to things from GE&T)

I would like to personally (and most humbly) thank each and every one of you for taking the time (which I know some of you don't have a lot of) to write what you truly feel about. Thank you

[Holy Marsh]

To reiterate what Vitaphone is saying: Tell me why your weapon exists, what prompted it. Holy Marsh just had The Shift happen. This means we can't be having our soldiers wear 17.7 kg body armor such as DAUNTLESS, even if it offers amazing protection. We had to create a unique modification of it as a result that offers less protection by a fair margin, even if it has other advantages. The LMG and HMG I am making, the carbine, the Rocker shotgun and Dropper light infantry mortar system were all conceived directly on account of an IC event. IC events driving IC creations. If The Shift doesn't happen, we don't develop them. If we didn't exist in a state of total war for two thousand years, we don't have the ability to adapt and change that fast. So why do your weapons exist? Such an overlooked thing.

[Radicchio]

Adding development histories to all of my products is probably a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Korva]

My storefront is rather devoid of fluff/flavor but I second everything Anemos said.

The constraints of MT Realism are opportunities for creative thinking, not caps.

[Pharthan]

I'll admit, I'm guilty of the "sell a billion supercarriers at once" deals. I've started at least looking at my customer's population/defense spending to say, "Hey man, you've got 200 million people, you could maybe financially support one, maybe two giant megacarriers, and not many more. Furthermore, you really don't need these, go for these small ones instead."

RPing is about fun and creativity; we could try to encourage that by having some sort of "tactical school" or FAQ. A simple "what works best for this situation," series of questions or thread. Stuff like, "don't deploy more than half your Navy at a time, and obviously never to just one location," or "nuclear weapons are a terrible idea for this application."
Just a brainstorm.

As storefront owners, we can "fix" what we see as issues (excessive use of nukes) by doing what we do best: Brainstorming and designing. We've got the intelligence and we don't have the limitations of true-realism. If we want to make ships with lolhuge defensive lasers to kill incoming MIRV-storms, we can. If we want to have massive kinetic-bombardment satellites... okay, that's still silly, but it meets the laws of physics and is plausible*.

*Still need fact-checking/vetting in some forums, as something about the idea is fishy to me.

Adding development histories to all of my products is probably a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

Hell, adding write-ups period for all my products is a good idea.
Don't always have the time for it, though.

I also get a (sinking) feeling that I'm probably one of, if not the guy VR was talking about when he mentioned the "Think They KnowTM" peeps. Something I'm working on; I've started realizing it as much as VR has, I assume. (I'd hoped I would start fixing myself before anyone else noticed.)
Assuming he was talking about me. >.>

[Holy Marsh]

Strategy and tactics need to be handled by others outside the purview of storefront owners. There are enough smart II Mentors that I don't want any grouping of us to coordinate how people use/misuse our stuff. We do our job and people can be called out for not using our stuff well.

[Radicchio]

Strategy and tactics need to be handled by others outside the purview of storefront owners. There are enough smart II Mentors that I don't want any grouping of us to coordinate how people use/misuse our stuff. We do our job and people can be called out for not using our stuff well.

I absolutely agree. This thread shouldnt be for complaining about RPers. What they do with what they buy is upto them.
What i feel this thread is or should be for, is what we as store owners can do to make our products better and to steer our clients(the RPers) towards purchasing equipment that fits their RP well. I feel that in many ways the storefronts drive the RPs, whether it be wha kind of an aircraft your diplomat arrivs in or what kund of a car your new head of state rides in or what kind of tank you go to war in.
People who bother to build/buy these things do so, si that they can have better detail in their RP. i know i do.
Its about presenting, not a real product but a realistic product.

Again, this is just my opinion as a NEWB. also i have had a few beers so maybe i should shutup and let the vets conduct their business.

[Etoile Arcture]

We design stuff cos we want to show off cool stuff. While I'm totally in the MT camp here (see my sig for a taste of my rage-on about the blurring of MT and PMT), I also agree with the general train of the discussion here that you can't impose anything on anyone cos that would ruin people's fun and creativity. The MT tech space is a moving target with constantly shifting boundaries, in part because the state-of-the-art is always evolving, but also because what we are doing is speculative fiction and the only limits are those that we impose on ourselves. Two random players nominally occupying the same tech space can often have widely differing opinions of what constitutes 'realism' - for them - and hence all these contradictory notions of what constitutes MT that we are struggling to reconcile.

A lot of the roleplay drama imo is because everyone is convinced of their relative superiority compared to each other. We have these enormous size scales to play with as the Allanea Hypothesis so succinctly describes and the discussion has latterly been touching on. We fight our wars with the knob permanently turned to 11 or higher! Drilling down to the detail in roleplay is often an eye-watering and unrewarding experience. A good roleplayer, as the maxim often goes, will concentrate on the characters and stories, the bad ones on playing a zero-sum game. Dialling your ambition back a little is difficult when your playground and scope for action is so huge and limitless, and us, the designers, have not helped one bit as we strive for ever greater superlatives in our designs. Though it's not really our fault or our responsibility.

The problem is that we design in a vacuum. Not one where we are unaware of each other's work, for we clearly are, but one bereft of the common drivers of innovation: solving a particular technological problem, countering a particular pressing threat, or trying to fit within a particular doctrine. When world building and pursuing coolness is the goal, we can often arrive at things that are either deliberately overpowered in order to be 'best of class', or tilt in the exact other direction to be deliberately uncompetitive for the sake of flavour. The alternative seems the creatively worst of all worlds, at least by perception - to constrain ourselves within real world plain vanilla MT norms. This does not mean I think it behoves designers to explicitly point out the flaws in their own products in their own write-ups, but I do believe it behoves designers not to try and create flawless and perfect designs. I agree with the notion that designs should include flaws, not simply by design, but because any design should by necessity be a trade-off, achieving superiority in some aspects at the expense of inferiority in others. The problem we face is that when our imaginations run free and we take advantage of every speculative idea, the things that seem average in every respect in NS, are superior in every aspect when compared to RL. This, I think, is a more honest description as to where NS MT has arrived at the present time.

I feel that such nuances, of trade-offs and flaws, are largely lost on the greater roleplaying community in the pursuit of mastery of the tech space and through it roleplay. Or as Holy Marsh put it so well, finding the next "ultimate ultimate super unstoppable megadeathkill weapon." Too many worry that flawed = crap, and yet IRL there are no perfect designs. If there is one thing we (the community) should be encouraging, ingraining and expecting from each other, then it should be to strive for balance and not perfection. It is not just a case of butting up against what is possible or drawing up strict rules of realism, because I agree with the sentiment expressed by quite a few in this thread that 'realism' is a redundant concept when dealing with speculative fiction - but butting up against each others opinions of the range of possibilities. We are not doing science or engineering. We have no benchmarks to work from, no datasets to put into a simulation engine, no physics model to play with, and the statistics we include in our write-ups have no meaningful way to be objectively tested. We rely entirely on our opinion of what does or does not work, our gut for what feels right. And that can be as easily swayed by peer pressure, by trends, fashions and fads, our personal biases, or that of our customers.

There have been plenty of solid suggestions already made in this thread that I can see myself happily swinging behind, like a help desk that provides constructive help, mentoring of designers, a stickied topic with clear definitions of technology levels and the blurring boundaries between them, taking a more balanced approach towards designs that acknowledge the advantages and drawbacks of our machines, and more love being shown towards the non-military sectors (I have been discussing military storefronts mostly out of familiarity that anything else.) It is also heartening to see so many people who take up different positions on the tech scale contributing to this discussion.

What I would add to that, would be offering newbies (and oldbies) an easy way to compare our products against each other, gauge trends and developments in the tech space and help with navigating GE&T easier. Our own version of Jane's is certainly out of the question, but having lists of available products sorted by tech level and sector as a quick and dirty reference - there's a good example of that in Anemos's Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation threads in F&NI - would be a helpful resource. Finally, I would add that perhaps we should consider holding virtual trade shows to go with out virtual marketplaces? Roleplaying demonstrations would give fresh opportunities to break out of the dry tech speak that fills our stores and towards discussing the why's as well as the how's, talking doctrine and tactics and perhaps having a little fun of our own with our designs and seeing how they match up against each other.

[Yohannes]

Thank you for voicing your points of view and opinions @Etoile Arcture @Korva

and @Pharthan, you're not the only one guilty of selling in quantities so ridiculously large bro

I kinda agree with you. I will certainly be looking to add more variation to the usual 'order approved' (perhaps more rejection and more strict inquiries) next time in my case

[Padnak]

Etoile Arcture just gave me an idea...

A storefront that sells weapons and equipment of shody quality and low price, but which is designed to counter the products created by the other major arms storefronts (Halcyon Arms, Lyran Arms etc). By aiming to counter established and widely proliferated equipment the storefronts designer would have something to innovate against much like in the real world.

[Yohannes]

Fair enough, looking forward to see that (I am not really an armchair general myself, more like a follower than innovator like Lyras)

and I have implemented your recommendation for my storefront, Padnak. I have to say it feels a lot better to openly claim your stuff have weaknesses at the product listing

[Anemos Major]

I feel as though there's a bit of a mismatch here between what's being said by some and the lessons that are being taken away by others, in a sense. In reality, a weapon will inevitably have drawbacks and flaws. The skill isn't to then cram flaws into your weapon to try and make it more believable - it's to incorporate flaws and strengths alike into a more sophisticated process of storytelling, wherein you don't simply consider your product in light of what will sell best but in light of who it is that's selling it, and what it was initially sold for. By considering things like developmental history and role assignment, you're not just slapping an image up onto a forum and saying 'alright, this product will be more convincing if I add weaknesses to it', which is just an appropriation of the notion that products need flaws by an otherwise unchanged GE&T hypercompetitive mindset, but a commitment to putting aside sales numbers in favour of making a product that's relevant in a greater way. It's something that's come from the nation you've created, with a history and intended role that justifies the design decisions you've made to create it as it is. Shitty or otherwise, what's key is that you can take that product and why it's shitty or otherwise and turn it into a story, an engrossing narrative - something more than just stats and pictures in a tidy package.

Ultimately? As Etoile Arcture points out, it's the inability to grasp the above that's probably the greatest problem afflicting GE&T right now. Instead of trying to set the bar for the rest of NS concerning matters as arguably mundane as the strict definition of tech levels where none existed before, we ought to be setting our own bar at a higher level. There's nothing wrong with being competitive, or using marketspeak or promoting your own products - that's what defence concerns do on a daily basis in the world of today. But if we're going to talk about problems of creativity, rather than pointing fingers at tech levels we should be asking questions about the products themselves, regardless of what age they claim to come from. What's the point in designing products in the first place when all you're sinking that time and toil into is a series of better-than-thou products across the field? It just seems like a somewhat hollow form of success.

As always, it's all optional, and I doubt that my going on about backstory, relevance, context and whatnot is going to incite a sea-change in this subforum. But it'd be nice if it can incite at least some to sit down and think, if even for a moment, "Why does my nation need a nuclear powered aircraft, and how do I see my nation doing that?" Ultimately, the question runs thus - if you're going to go to the trouble of designing a product of some sort, do you want to make it the most capable, whatever the cost, or the most interesting, relevant and personal? There's nothing wrong with competition - but what exactly are we to compete over?

[Yohannes]

The problem is that OOC has always been mixed with (and will always be mixed with) IC. Realistically, it is human nature to want to always claim the best. We human beings are like that. Hence, why you see that 'series of better-than-thou products across the field'. Everyone want to have the most advanced things, without any possibility of weaknesses for their designs

And in the very rare case that they do, they usually hide them in a very big paragraph of non-sensible technobabble detailing all the good stuff (so as to drown the bad stuff so as few people as possible will notice), like what I did myself lol

And hence, Padnak's solution. Provide strengths and weaknesses of your design in a very simple way for others to see, whether they be on your product page or the beginning of your product write up

[Yohannes]

if everyone wants to be the best of the best, then no one is the best. Everyone is just average because everyone claim to have the best stuff. Only this will result from the hyper militarised environment^(TM) of our lovely NS RPing multiverse

where dogs eat dogs, cats eat cats, and every men and his furry friends have the most advanced of nuclear guided heavy battleships as their coastal patrol

[Anemos Major]

The problem is that OOC has always been mixed with (and will always be mixed with) IC. Realistically, it is human nature to want to always claim the best. We human beings are like that. Hence, why you see that 'series of better-than-thou products across the field'. Everyone want to have the most advanced things, without any possibility of weaknesses for their designs

And in the very rare case that they do, they usually hide them in a very big paragraph of non-sensible technobabble detailing all the good stuff (so as to drown the bad stuff so as few people as possible will notice), like what I did myself lol

And hence, Padnak's solution. Provide strengths and weaknesses of your design in a very simple way for others to see, whether they be on your product page or the beginning of your product write up

Maybe human beings do inevitably want the best. I'd question that, partly because there's a wealth of opposition to that assertion in particular and plenty of similar ones besides, and partly because I've essentially spent two years and a bit now locking horns with statements that start with the words 'human nature'. Even if it's true, though, this is a great example of how little descriptive purchase that phrase holds - humans want the best, and just what exactly is the best? And that, incidentally, just happens to be what we're talking about.

The point is that 'the most advanced products' aren't 'the best' per se - not in the real world, where cost-benefit concerns are somewhat more complex than sheer capability projections, and certainly not in NS, where plenty of people routinely RP inherently flawed nations because, in the absence of an impending existential threat, a fictional world is a wonderful opportunity to explore the realm of flaws without having to claim proportional responsibility for them. Half the fun lies in your ability to do things that you'd never be able to do, or would consider doing, in the 'real world'.. The notion that sheer capabilities are the standard by which we determine the 'best' on Nationstates isn't something that's inherent in our nature, people's nature or even in the nature of GE&T itself - it's something people have come to assume after years of watching GE&T in it's current form. If this many of us can agree that flaws and storied pasts are not only inevitable in products in the real world, but actually a rather desirable touch in NS products, that assumption is one that can be reversed.

So, again - maybe the focus here shouldn't be about telling RPers to roll with our definitions of time periods and our designs' intended use at all. Maybe we ought to sit back, and try to put RPing back into our products. Which is why I can't help but object to Padnak's solution - while he's done a fantastic job of coming up with wonderfully problematic gear and a shady corrupt nation that underpin all of it, the idea that these 'pros' and 'cons' ought to be distilled into some sort of straightforward list is one that ignores the fundamental problem altogether. Just slapping 'weaknesses' onto your product abstract because you feel as though that makes for a 'better' product doesn't make for good design - if your problem is that your product is too two dimensional, you're not going to solve that by just drawing a different coloured line onto your square. You'll have to turn that square into a cube.

Good design is when you can take those strengths and weaknesses, and synthesise them into a story, a context and an intended role. It's when you can go beyond 'simple capabilities' and 'technobabble', and put those together with other things - a narrative, a story, a background - to create a genuinely engrossing product that means something more than fictional and abstract numbers and bland statements. Is your tank high-maintenance? Look to the terrible tale of the MBT-70 for inspiration. Are your airliner's aerodynamics smoother than anything yet seen? Wonderful, but how is it that your nation got to the point where it was able to design such a thing? Making products that genuinely engross people isn't about ticking boxes, it's as much about penning an interesting tale as it is about mastering your technical conundrums. It means ceasing to consider those who visit your storefront as customers or prospective customers, and starting to think of them as readers and viewers.

As always, just my two pennies. Make of that what you will, I suppose.

[Yohannes]

Well made argument Anemos, can not help but admire you for that

I still agree personally with Padnak however (sorry). But that does not necessarily mean that I am an inflexible person (and disagree with you in the process)

You are right too about that immersing ourself in our storyline (or fictional nation) part.

I am always learning myself in this wonderful fantasy world - where I roleplay regularly chat with great personalities like you, Mr Communistcoup, Ms Furry or Doctor Army Guy (you get the gist hue hue) - and I am always open to new things (in terms of how I am always open-minded and realising that I may always be wrong on certain things and every single day is always a new process of, and way of learning for me)

Thank you for taking the time to share your thought with us Anemos (I know you don't have a lot of spare time in real life)

[Allanea]

Notion: We should arrange to have a design contest, like the Golden Shovel contest we did on NSD back in the day.

[Anemos Major]

Notion: We should arrange to have a design contest, like the Golden Shovel contest we did on NSD back in the day.

Sure, friendly contests are always welcome, but how would we judge it without running counter to all that's been said above?