Neutral Ground - an Open Discussion Thread

[The Blaatschapen]

Somewhat surprised by the lack of interest in nominating people. We've received a nomination or two, but I would have thought y'all would jump on the opportunity to subvert the team.

I just can't really think of anyone, sorry. I could submit some jokes if you're desperate but I figured that might not go over well.

Nah, don't.

[Indo-Malaysia]

Totally. You also were the first to invent "region griefing", and the first to portray invading as a villainous act. Truly groundbreaking.

Thank you

Anyone heard that Max Barry apparently still maintains an NS Nation?

*looks over at Mallorea and Riva*

[Drop Your Pants]

DJ Raid has always been my favorite.

1 minute ago: DJ Raid was banned from Sex by The Hairy Horny Hippies of Cotolon.

Was wondering who that was

[Fratatstan]

Possibly getting a GAer who dabbles in SC? Though not sure how GP supportive they are, IA's probably the most pro gameplay (that I know of), and he's forced to neutrality due to the delegacy, but not sure about getting a non-GPer as mod for SC.

The Security Council is a way to expand the WA into gameplay matters, and beyond the circle of WA authors: any non-GP appointment would be pointless. I know nothing about the newer crowd of authors, if there is one, but I doubt they have a great opinion of GP/the Security Council.

[Drasnia]

Possibly getting a GAer who dabbles in SC? Though not sure how GP supportive they are, IA's probably the most pro gameplay (that I know of), and he's forced to neutrality due to the delegacy, but not sure about getting a non-GPer as mod for SC.

The Security Council is a way to expand the WA into gameplay matters, and beyond the circle of WA authors: any non-GP appointment would be pointless. I know nothing about the newer crowd of authors, if there is one, but I doubt they have a great opinion of GP/the Security Council.

Aye, if previous threads in technical are any judge, most GA authors intensely dislike the SC. The SC is, in their eyes, where GPers can play in their little sandbox and nothing else. You aren't going to find many people in the GA who have the expertise and willingness to moderate the SC let alone gp.

Edit: autocorrect

[Tim-Opolis]

So if we were looking for a player who would make a good moderator for gameplay/spearheading changes in the Security Council, who would y'all pick? Standard disclaimer that this is not committing us to actually bring someone on board and self nominations will be ridiculed then forgotten about.

Details on how to nominate, send your thoughts to nominations(at)nationstates.net

Somewhat surprised by the lack of interest in nominating people. We've received a nomination or two, but I would have thought y'all would jump on the opportunity to subvert the team.

I started writing a nomination for Bhang Bhang Duc, because I think he'd be pretty great for it honestly, but then I got to the part where it asked for links to posts as evidence of his great work in the Security Council and that was far too much effort for such an endeavor, so I tossed the email into my drafts and haven't touched it again

(also please no GA mods touching the SC. They'll try to make us take it seriously and such! D:)

[Sedgistan]

Mall and Mouse were GAers originally, so they're not all bad! But yes, GA experience is very different to SC experience.

The impression I've got is that people are thinking it's vital that their nominees are SC regulars, commenting on legality issues, draft quality, and probably with a resolution or two under their belt. That's not the case.

What matters is that someone appreciates the Security Council (i.e. no haters, plz) and also appreciate the potential it has. It's basically a half-finished project, and there are loads of extra dynamics it could be adding to gameplay with additional proposal categories.

It's not just about the SC - there are obviously lots of other gameplay ideas that we want to see explored, but the SC is a big part of it.

[Flanderlion]

There aren't a lot of nominees who I'd actually support as someone who has the longterm drive to put the SC forward. Lots of people who can keep the SC ticking etc. Pretty much you're looking for a Unibot who isn't Unibot, and I'm not sure if there is another one yet.

I'll put IA (not enough gameplay experience) forward as well, and Todd McCloud.

[Mallorea and Riva]

There aren't a lot of nominees who I'd actually support as someone who has the longterm drive to put the SC forward. Lots of people who can keep the SC ticking etc. Pretty much you're looking for a Unibot who isn't Unibot, and I'm not sure if there is another one yet.

I'll put IA (not enough gameplay experience) forward as well, and Todd McCloud.

Fire in the email.

[Kaboomlandia]

There aren't a lot of nominees who I'd actually support as someone who has the longterm drive to put the SC forward. Lots of people who can keep the SC ticking etc. Pretty much you're looking for a Unibot who isn't Unibot, and I'm not sure if there is another one yet.

I'll put IA (not enough gameplay experience) forward as well, and Todd McCloud.

Ooh, Todd. Never even thought about that one.

[USS Monitor]

There aren't a lot of nominees who I'd actually support as someone who has the longterm drive to put the SC forward. Lots of people who can keep the SC ticking etc. Pretty much you're looking for a Unibot who isn't Unibot, and I'm not sure if there is another one yet.

I'll put IA (not enough gameplay experience) forward as well, and Todd McCloud.

Ooh, Todd. Never even thought about that one.

If you or Flanderlion wants to write up a nomination for him, go for it.

[Flanderlion]

Ooh, Todd. Never even thought about that one.

If you or Flanderlion wants to write up a nomination for him, go for it.

Yeah, I'll let Kaboom do it. I started, got bored with the scrolling through old threads bit, and called it quits. Good luck to whoever becomes the new SC mod(s) or council members.

[Libetarian Republics]

I'll submit a serious list of nominations sometime this week (after I finish my other deadlines )

[Kaboomlandia]

If you or Flanderlion wants to write up a nomination for him, go for it.

Yeah, I'll let Kaboom do it. I started, got bored with the scrolling through old threads bit, and called it quits. Good luck to whoever becomes the new SC mod(s) or council members.

I'll give it a go, I think he'd be a good candidate.

[Tim-Opolis]

Wait, gameplay changes? Does this mean we might be getting new categories requiring new rules in the SC?

That is the hope. It's long overdue, but I don't have the time to push for that given that most of my time is spent on issues now.

Just noticed this while reading back in the thread, and hoping Sedge sees it and replies....

Where exactly on the timeline of the various Technical Changes would we envision these new SC ones? Forgive me for being so skeptical, but with semi-recent happenings such as the R/D Summit leading to most of their ideas being cast to the wayside, with the ones that are still "in the pipeline" causing more concern and opposition from R/Ders than any support, the promise of new GP Changes (for that is what the SC would affect) is one that makes me initially doubtful.

[Sedgistan]

The Summit was a screw-up, and ultimately a waste of everyone's time; everything from the Summit is officially "off the agenda". It wasn't a good way to work technical changes, and it's not how we've done things since.

Changes to the wider site structure (e.g. the new nation creation page, the TG system overhaul, longer RMBs) are generally admin-led projects. Things that affect a particular community (e.g. the General Assembly Secretariat) are normally led by mods.

There have actually been plenty of "gameplay" tech changes in the last few years, but at the nation level of GP, not the regional level which is what this forum is more about. That's because we've had a very active and demanding issues team with the time and energy to push for changes, consider options, and work on projects.

The Gameplay mod team hasn't had a chance to be doing that. My time is being sucked up by the issues team; CG, Luna, Mouse and Blaat all don't have the time for it either, and Mall seems to think that getting a degree is more important than modding. So none of us have the time to be proactive and drive changes.

If we have one or two more Gameplay / SC focused mods, then between us, we will. And we wouldn't expect for them to do it all themselves - the rest of us would be involved too. I know that if I didn't have to keep up with the latest CAIN threadjacks or whatever, because our new forum mod is handling it, then I could do something productive like review the various Technical threads on new SC categories.

[Topid]

The Summit was a screw-up, and ultimately a waste of everyone's time; everything from the Summit is officially "off the agenda".

Whoa, really? What happened to estimated update times being mostly finished by Ballo?

Some of those ideas were pretty solid- why through them out because the process was bad?

[Sygian II]

Mall seems to think that getting a degree is more important than modding.

I swear, that shark man never keeps his word. Sad!

[Unibot III]

The Summit was a screw-up, and ultimately a waste of everyone's time; everything from the Summit is officially "off the agenda".

Whoa, really? What happened to estimated update times being mostly finished by Ballo?

Some of those ideas were pretty solid- why through them out because the process was bad?

The Estimated Update Times idea would have been nice if they weren't going to use it as an excuse for removing the update order from the Daily Dumps. It was as if Ballotonia and the moderators at the time were listening to TITO's ambassador as if it was the word of god when they implemented artificial variance and threatened to remove triggering.

Triggering and greater accuracy is vital for liberations, it's not so vital to invading. You can still rack up a lot of raids in a night by sheer volume and trial and error, but you only get one shot an update for a liberation (sometimes only one shot at all.)

Basically every modern gameplay addition has made it harder and harder to liberate and yet the Summit seemed to conclude through a fog of politics with the exact opposite conclusion. "Let's make it harder to tag raid!" "Let's make it easier to coup feeders!" "Let's make it easier to hold an occupation!" Their conclusions didn't match the real needs of gameplay which was a result of artificially inflating the voices of people who weren't actively participating in military gameplay or had niche political interests.

The main problems with military gameplay are still the same damn thing: it's too easy to pile, you've got multiple invader leads at update, and it's too hard in a high-information environment to stealth raid - there's little incentive to get creative with invading.

For example, there's currently a hundred endorsements sitting on the lead in Illuminati and fifty+ endorsements on the lead in South Pacific. Which means -fuck all- is going to happen in Military Gameplay for the next few weeks while invaders are snoozing away in their piled raids. There will be no liberation attempts and no new major invasions (unless they decide to act just to contradict me because I've said it.) That's what's wrong with piling, it chronically makes military gameplay a bore fest. You see this happen on a monthly basis and it does get boring. It's a non-competitive cycle.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

And yet illuminati likely couldn't have happened without a four-month sleeper, and used mild stealth tactics (jumping directly from an ongoing occupation without preendorsing a new point) to disguise our activities from the native security team online. A major invasion was attempted last night by three militaries. Defenders intercepted a handful of raids last night - 6/7 attempted raids failed for one reason or another. The piling is necessary in this case less becuase of any defender threat and more due to massive native influence - without said pile, we'd either be doing a glorified tag or spending several times as long piling there and not starting new raids. Remember that that it doesn't decay in UCR's - there was over 140k influence there when we hit it, and you can't even get crafty about chipping away at it like ejecting Low-influence endorsing nations so it begins to decay off the better-endorsed nations. You can only tactically slow future growths. Large ops with a destructive endgame have a timeline by default due to influence alone, and only bigger piles are a guarenteed method of speeding that up. Also, deep stealth raiding can and has been executed - everything from mass sleepers like TBR to some of the stuff nephmir and sygian worked on in Aurelia.

[Tim-Opolis]

The Summit was a screw-up, and ultimately a waste of everyone's time; everything from the Summit is officially "off the agenda". It wasn't a good way to work technical changes, and it's not how we've done things since.

Changes to the wider site structure (e.g. the new nation creation page, the TG system overhaul, longer RMBs) are generally admin-led projects. Things that affect a particular community (e.g. the General Assembly Secretariat) are normally led by mods.

There have actually been plenty of "gameplay" tech changes in the last few years, but at the nation level of GP, not the regional level which is what this forum is more about. That's because we've had a very active and demanding issues team with the time and energy to push for changes, consider options, and work on projects.

The Gameplay mod team hasn't had a chance to be doing that. My time is being sucked up by the issues team; CG, Luna, Mouse and Blaat all don't have the time for it either, and Mall seems to think that getting a degree is more important than modding. So none of us have the time to be proactive and drive changes.

If we have one or two more Gameplay / SC focused mods, then between us, we will. And we wouldn't expect for them to do it all themselves - the rest of us would be involved too. I know that if I didn't have to keep up with the latest CAIN threadjacks or whatever, because our new forum mod is handling it, then I could do something productive like review the various Technical threads on new SC categories.

Thanks for the detailed answer, Sedge! It definitely does shine some light on the behind-the-scenes process with some of the changes we've seen and who pushes what, which is really cool to see. I can definitely see how a few more GP / SC oriented moderators would help, then, as it would allow for a more time across the board for you guys to be working on those changes and projects. Is it fair to say by your answer, then, that the Estimated Update Times has been cast aside as well? I think it's fair to say there's a sizable portion of R/D that's been eyeing Technical in worry for a day when we'd lose the ability to trigger operations entirely due to a chaotic Summit from years ago in which most of the R/D-based representatives don't even R/D anymore (more on that in spoiler below)

Looking at the list of Summit Representatives, the ones I see on that list that could be considered active R/Ders at the time of the Summit would have been Andacantra (Abbey Anumia), Cerberion, Charles Cerebella (Cere), Crushing Our Enemies (COE), Frattastan (Fratt), Lyanna Stark, Mallorea and Riva (Mall), Spartzerium (Spartz), and Solm. Communist Eraser (i.e Warzone Codger) isn't really an active R/Der in my memory, SkyDip was an SCer, Xanthal being best described as a "native" (though to be fair SPACE gets invaded so much that he has plenty of experience), Reploid Productions being a Moderator, and I'm 99% sure Sedge wasn't actively R/Ding by 2012 but he should correct me if I'm wrong.

Of the nine active R/Ders identified above, Cere, Lyanna Stark, Spartz, and Solm have all retired from Nationstates. This leaves five existing players. Of those, Abbey Anumia, Crushing Our Enemies, and Mall are not active in R/D anymore, all for various reasons from tiring of it to becoming a Game Moderator. Cerberion remains a member of the TITO but has not deployed on an operation in some time, leaving Frattastan the only member of the R/D Summit who is actually still actively on the field.

The fact that out of the 14 Summit Invitees ([v] and Fris are not being counted), 6 have effectively retired, and of the other eight only one remains R/D active alone says all that needs to be said about a Summit

Alternatively, let's just let Fratt decide all the changes

[Unibot III]

And yet illuminati likely couldn't have happened without a four-month sleeper, and used mild stealth tactics (jumping directly from an ongoing occupation without preendorsing a new point) to disguise our activities from the native security team online. A major invasion was attempted last night by three militaries. Defenders intercepted a handful of raids last night - 6/7 attempted raids failed for one reason or another. The piling is necessary in this case less becuase of any defender threat and more due to massive native influence - without said pile, we'd either be doing a glorified tag or spending several times as long piling there and not starting new raids. Remember that that it doesn't decay in UCR's - there was over 140k influence there when we hit it, and you can't even get crafty about chipping away at it like ejecting Low-influence endorsing nations so it begins to decay off the better-endorsed nations. You can only tactically slow future growths. Large ops with a destructive endgame have a timeline by default due to influence alone, and only bigger piles are a guarenteed method of speeding that up. Also, deep stealth raiding can and has been executed - everything from mass sleepers like TBR to some of the stuff nephmir and sygian worked on in Aurelia.

I'm curious how defenders would organize a 100+ contingent. Is there some stash of defenders I don't know about?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Never said they could lib it I said a good number of your other points are either flat wrong (i.e. Other major operations have already been attempted this week) and that piling it higher also achieves your point of being stuck there less time.

That said, with back to back to back ops, not like length matters all that much - there's always going to be an op ongoing and if we get caught on starting a new one we'll usually just try again tomorrow. If anything, large piles mean we can raid more, Becuase we can run more tags with sacrificing planned updates to start more small ops ;P

[Fratatstan]

The piling is necessary in this case less becuase of any defender threat and more due to massive native influence - without said pile, we'd either be doing a glorified tag or spending several times as long piling there and not starting new raids. Remember that that it doesn't decay in UCR's - there was over 140k influence there when we hit it, and you can't even get crafty about chipping away at it like ejecting Low-influence endorsing nations so it begins to decay off the better-endorsed nations. You can only tactically slow future growths. Large ops with a destructive endgame have a timeline by default due to influence alone, and only bigger piles are a guarenteed method of speeding that up.

tl;dr: "we pile because how else we would eject natives and lock down regions?"

[Sygian II]

The piling is necessary in this case less becuase of any defender threat and more due to massive native influence - without said pile, we'd either be doing a glorified tag or spending several times as long piling there and not starting new raids. Remember that that it doesn't decay in UCR's - there was over 140k influence there when we hit it, and you can't even get crafty about chipping away at it like ejecting Low-influence endorsing nations so it begins to decay off the better-endorsed nations. You can only tactically slow future growths. Large ops with a destructive endgame have a timeline by default due to influence alone, and only bigger piles are a guarenteed method of speeding that up.

tl;dr: "we pile because how else we would eject natives and lock down regions?"

Good job, Fratt! <3

Here's a gold star.