New TG system: Q&A Thread

[Andacantra]

I'm mostly reserving judgement until I've seen this thing, but I've got a few questions.

When you "save" a TG ready to be sent - can it be marked as a recruitment telegram? I'm thinking about manual-recruit TGs that make use of this new API.

Another unrelated thought I've had - will non-executive delegates also have access to the free Mass-TGs, or is that restricted like their regional control access?

I also think it's a really cool thing that doing stuff with TGs now won't require scripting good enough to deal with HTML, just dealing with the API. Makes it massively more accessible. Simple API I can do, HTML I can't

EDIT: Another thing that has just occurred to me. With potential mass-TG autoscripts, is it going to be possible to see, using the API, if a nation has blocked mass TGs? Although saying that, I suppose if you've not sent a TG, you're not up against the rate limit. *ponders*

[Krulltopia]

A quick search didn't get me an answer, so I'm going to ask the question everyone is expecting me to:

Will RMB recruitment spam be removed, as this whole mass TG system (along with the suppression feature), has made it redundant?

[San Leggera]

A quick search didn't get me an answer, so I'm going to ask the question everyone is expecting me to:

Will RMB recruitment spam be removed, as this whole mass TG system (along with the suppression feature), has made it redundant?

People can opt out of getting recruitment telegrams, so I don't think it will. The game mods/admins might correct me on that, though.

[Cerian Quilor]

The issue is, Violet, if you don't allow for existing manual recruiters to be able to continue recruit manually, then you have closed the game (and the founding of new regions, let alone the maintinance of older ones) to the people who have the money and the willingness to spend it in large amounts.

I don't mind that stamps exist. Well, I do a little, but not so much as that I'm protesting their existence. (As long as UCR recruitment is taken out). But since I don't have gobs of money, and I can't be sure other people in my region have gobs of money to spend on stamps. What this means is that now you've closed the door.

I get that you can't allow everyone to mass TG for free, or spamfest. I get that mechanically it is extrmely difficult to allow for people to recruit the old way and allow for people to recruit the new way. But if you don't make recruiting manually at LEAST as viable as it is now, you will put a gigantic barrier between recuiting and all that comes with it (having a powerful, active region) and the player, and that barrier will be called Pay to Play.

[Treznor]

Plus, will there then be offenses for not clicking a "Recruitment Telegram" button? What if I forget or think I click it and it doesn't register. Will I then get a Warning on my nation for such a trivial thing?

The system pops up a warning if you attempt to send a Mass TG (i.e. a telegram that's going out to more than just one nation) that's not a recruitment or campaign TG, just to make sure. So hopefully no-one does this by accident. But to answer the question: Yes, it will definitely be an offense to send a recruitment TG without marking it as such. We won't be draconian about this while everyone's getting used to it, but it will be a violation of the spam rules.

Well, I see that I'll be looking forward to having my inbox inundated with spam until you crack down on this. People don't read the rules as they are now; this will just make it easier for them to make a mistake.

Proposal: make recruitment "opt-in" until the trial period has expired, then flip it to "opt-out." People who frequently appear in the top rankings are among the top targets for recruitment spam because of newbies who can't be bothered to read the rules.

[Warhaven]

Lol. In the store I was playing around, and tried to show the price for one Million stamps. All I got was a pop-up box saying "That's an awful lot of stamps".

Point being, I'm glad to see there's a limit to such purchases, and having followed the conversations concerning the new system, I am looking forward to it with utterly no qualms, reservations, or other concerns. Good job [Violet].

[Unicario]

I'm intensely disappointed with the "pay-for-feature". This is a slippery slope.

[Cerian Quilor]

Okay, I hate to sound like a broken record, but I need to understand how best I can use the new system without payment.

When I recruit for my region Kantrias, I have no tool but Pipes. (For Europeia and TNI, they have much better tools, but they have strict laws about using those tools for other regions, and even if it wasn't against the law there, I wouldn't do it because its just dickish).

So, what I do for Kantrias and with Pipes is this

1.) I open the Pipe for a given feeder (say, The South Pacific)
2.) I make sure my recruit TG is in my clipboard
3.) I click on the name of a nation on the Pipe, and it opens a new window
4.) I paste my TG into the TG box of the nation's nation page
5.) X out of the window
6.) Repeat steps 3-6 until out of nations to recruit on the Pipe.

Now, what I envision doing with the API, under the new system is this

1.) Fire up the API (however you do this)
2.) Make sure my TG is in my clipboard
3.) Find the names of 8 recently made or ressurected regions in a given feeder/sinker or all feeders/sinkers
4.) Plug those 8 names into the 'Send to' box
5.) Paste my TG into the 'TG box'
6.) Check the box for 'recruit TG'
7.) Click Send
8.) Repeat 3-7 untill done (I imagine that entering in the names would take long enough that with my high-pop recruiting nations, the flood control wouldn't be too much of an issue.)

Now, what I want to know is can I do what I am envisioning with the new system and the API, and how? Keep in mind that all I have to work with is the API and a regular, unmodified web browswer (Either IE or Chrome, depending on my mood).

Sorry for such a specific and probably half-asinine question.

My confusion comes around to the fact that I am code-illierate and thus have no idea what that post you link to means.

I still need this addressed, please.

[Communist Eraser]

Lol. In the store I was playing around, and tried to show the price for one Million stamps. All I got was a pop-up box saying "That's an awful lot of stamps".

Point being, I'm glad to see there's a limit to such purchases, and having followed the conversations concerning the new system, I am looking forward to it with utterly no qualms, reservations, or other concerns. Good job [Violet].

Limit is 175,000 stamps, or $175. There are only 118,337 nations in the game. So you can spam the whole world and a bit before running out. (Then buy more!)

[Vladisvok Destino]

I know it's been mentioned a couple of times that those who already have the supporter badge get a discount on the new TG packages, would that discount apply when given as a gift?

Example: Nation A gifts postmaster to Nation B, Nation B already has supporter badge.

[North Wiedna]

I'm intensely disappointed with the "pay-for-feature". This is a slippery slope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

[Andacantra]

I know it's been mentioned a couple of times that those who already have the supporter badge get a discount on the new TG packages, would that discount apply when given as a gift?

Example: Nation A gifts postmaster to Nation B, Nation B already has supporter badge.

Certainly the person who -has- the badge gets a discount - the costs show up lower for me, and my supporter badge was the result of a gift.

[Yes Im Biop]

I'm kinda confused. DO you have to pay for the new system? Cause mine isn't changed.

Nevermind. Wow Cole. Read 3 times. THEN Speak

[Great Nepal]

I'm kinda confused. DO you have to pay for the new system? Cause mine isn't changed.

News was released earlier than release of new TG system. TG upgrade should come in few days time.
Unless you are involved in gameplay aspect or draft many WA proposals (and dont know about scripts), its free.

[Warhaven]

I'm not involved in either, but I'm still purchasing Postmaster General due to the sheer volume of TG planning that goes on concerning the Fall of Gods RP.

[The Republic of Lanos]

Serious question:

When this gets put in, how can you guys tell that someone is using a script to recruit compared to a normal recruit-spam TG being sent by stamps?

[Johz]

I'm kinda confused. DO you have to pay for the new system? Cause mine isn't changed.

It hasn't been released yet. However, when it is released, you'll get a section for telegrams that you've sent, an 'archived telegrams' section, a new look, threaded telegrams, and the other essential parts of the new system.

If, when it is released, you do decide to pay, then you'll basically be getting more space, and also the ability to recover recently deleted emails. Then on top of that there's the mass-TG system, which you will have to pay more for, but only if you want the ability to send TGs to lots of people at once. (Recieving mass-TGs is free.)

[Atmos]

In a word, awesome.

Whenever I get the impression that the back-end of NationStates has been left to its own devices, and new futures aren't even being considered much less actively worked on, a news post comes along to utterly debunk that thought.

The new TG system is exactly what we've been asking for and need. As someone often hosting independent projects and paying out-of-pocket for the bandwidth and storage hits, I can appreciate the need to ask for donations. It's why I became a Supporter from the first day it was offered, on multiple nations, and why I'll be donating again the moment the Postmaster packages are released.

That said, I have one request and one suggestion.

Request: Could we have separate trophy icons added for Postmaster and Postmaster General, in addition to the current Supporter trophy? I know the icons are already available (they're in the package of Icons, etc. and you already used them in the Shop), so it shouldn't be that hard to implement. I think it's important because it'll let us know the mail capabilities of another Nation at a glance, aside from adding to our row of trophies. You might already be planning to do this, but from the news post it seemed like only the original Supporter trophy would be added so I thought I'd request it.

Suggestion: Perhaps the enabling of the [img] tag in TG's could be added to one of the two Postmaster features? I know I was pushing for this to be enabled on the regional WFE, but it would be an added benefit that might lead to both increased donations and more value to the package features.

[Individuality-ness]

The issue is, Violet, if you don't allow for existing manual recruiters to be able to continue recruit manually, then you have closed the game (and the founding of new regions, let alone the maintinance of older ones) to the people who have the money and the willingness to spend it in large amounts.

I don't mind that stamps exist. Well, I do a little, but not so much as that I'm protesting their existence. (As long as UCR recruitment is taken out). But since I don't have gobs of money, and I can't be sure other people in my region have gobs of money to spend on stamps. What this means is that now you've closed the door.

I get that you can't allow everyone to mass TG for free, or spamfest. I get that mechanically it is extrmely difficult to allow for people to recruit the old way and allow for people to recruit the new way. But if you don't make recruiting manually at LEAST as viable as it is now, you will put a gigantic barrier between recuiting and all that comes with it (having a powerful, active region) and the player, and that barrier will be called Pay to Play.

Or script-to-play. Either-or, since I think we're still able to use scripts.

[Eldarion Telcontar]

The issue is, Violet, if you don't allow for existing manual recruiters to be able to continue recruit manually, then you have closed the game (and the founding of new regions, let alone the maintinance of older ones) to the people who have the money and the willingness to spend it in large amounts.

I don't mind that stamps exist. Well, I do a little, but not so much as that I'm protesting their existence. (As long as UCR recruitment is taken out). But since I don't have gobs of money, and I can't be sure other people in my region have gobs of money to spend on stamps. What this means is that now you've closed the door.

I get that you can't allow everyone to mass TG for free, or spamfest. I get that mechanically it is extrmely difficult to allow for people to recruit the old way and allow for people to recruit the new way. But if you don't make recruiting manually at LEAST as viable as it is now, you will put a gigantic barrier between recuiting and all that comes with it (having a powerful, active region) and the player, and that barrier will be called Pay to Play.

Or script-to-play. Either-or, since I think we're still able to use scripts.

Wait, so one cannot recruit the way people recruit now? We have to pay to send recruitment telegrams?

[Jamie Anumia]

Or script-to-play. Either-or, since I think we're still able to use scripts.

Wait, so one cannot recruit the way people recruit now? We have to pay to send recruitment telegrams?

No. You have to pay to send mass telegrams through the NS Telegram System. You can still recruit one telegram at a time for no cost at all.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Do stamps pay for each mass sending, or do they only pay for each recipient of the mail?

Example: I send a message to all WA Delegates with the Stamp. There are 1335 delegates, do I pay one stamp or 1335?

Edit: Puppet post! The Dourian Embassy Here.

To send a Mass TG to a special group or region, it's 1 stamp per recipient. If you wanted to send a TG to everyone in The Rejected Realms (population: 1,823), for example, you would need 1,823 telegram stamps, at a cost of US$1.83. If your message was undeliverable to some of those--e.g. it's a recruitment message and some of the residents have turned on their blocks--then you keep the unused stamps.

Stamps cost $0.001? You've gotta be kidding me. If you're going to enable anyone to send out a telegram to each delegate automatically (and thus get a lot of crap proposals to quorum very quickly), you at least have to make them dig a little deeper for the privilege -- at least one cent a pop. Thirteen dollars sounds like a reasonable sum to get your stupid proposal to quorum, not a measly $1.33.

[The Blaatschapen]

Wait, so one cannot recruit the way people recruit now? We have to pay to send recruitment telegrams?

No. You have to pay to send mass telegrams through the NS Telegram System. You can still recruit one telegram at a time for no cost at all.

Basically, the options are: You spend money or you spend time. When you spend time it comes in two flavours: You spend it once to build a script, or you spend it continually to recruit manually. Depending on how apt you are at building scripts (or bribing people who know), one of them is favourable.

[Individuality-ness]

Or script-to-play. Either-or, since I think we're still able to use scripts.

Wait, so one cannot recruit the way people recruit now? We have to pay to send recruitment telegrams?

No, you can still use a manual script, or do it manually one at a time (which is a pain in the ass, but a time killer), it's just now you're going to have to compete with rich kids and people who know how to code stuff. We could address a single TG for eight nations a time, those with money can do mass TGing to 1000 nations with a dollar.

[Cerian Quilor]

But they've made manual recruiting more difficult by A: Apparently changing the sending interface, and B: Adding in the 'check as recruitment' box, which costs vital ttime when you're trying to recruit.