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

[Bhang Bhang Duc]

In other news, I’d think I’d like to attempt to compile a list of all known GCR Delegates (In the six ancient GCRs). Does anyone have any knows or happen to know any enlightening resources on the topic? Besides the Wayback Archive and various things I have in TRR.

A full listing of all TWP Delegates can be found here.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1257850

[Comfed]

In other news, I’d think I’d like to attempt to compile a list of all known GCR Delegates (In the six ancient GCRs). Does anyone have any knows or happen to know any enlightening resources on the topic? Besides the Wayback Archive and various things I have in TRR.

Mcmasterdonia has compiled this list of TNP delegates.

[North Prarie]

In other news, I’d think I’d like to attempt to compile a list of all known GCR Delegates (In the six ancient GCRs). Does anyone have any knows or happen to know any enlightening resources on the topic? Besides the Wayback Archive and various things I have in TRR.

Kringalia compiled this list of TSP Delegates: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=664591

[Twicetagram and JYPe]

This question is probably vague, but:
When was NS' darkest time? Like, when did it legit feel like the site was dead and was gonna close down/fail?

Extra: any (semi)famous people who played NS?

[Daytime to Night]

This question is probably vague, but:
When was NS' darkest time? Like, when did it legit feel like the site was dead and was gonna close down/fail?

Extra: any (semi)famous people who played NS?

The post-ADN era was always considered the great decline of NationStates that some thought the game would never recover from - around 2008 was probably the peak of that sentiment and there were open discussions about how to revive the game. It was also a pretty fun time to join, you could climb up the ranks of important regions and there was space for everyone to have an impact in gameplay. If you built one of the few decent sized regional militaries you could have a fairly pivotal role in the game. Feeder delegates were only sitting on a few hundred endorsements and TRR and Lazarus were under 100, as well as feeders keeping the same delegate for years no matter how inactive they were, which made for some interesting times. The flip side was that a lot of regions were filled with the same people, many prominent people would have five or six cabinet positions in different regions just to fill spaces and it was difficult to create a unique culture and group within your region.

[Nakarisaune]

In other news, I’d think I’d like to attempt to compile a list of all known GCR Delegates (In the six ancient GCRs). Does anyone have any knows or happen to know any enlightening resources on the topic? Besides the Wayback Archive and various things I have in TRR.

I made this in 2017: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I don't remember the sources, and there are definitely some gaps in it, but it might help out a tiny bit at least

[Twicetagram and JYPe]

This question is probably vague, but:
When was NS' darkest time? Like, when did it legit feel like the site was dead and was gonna close down/fail?

Extra: any (semi)famous people who played NS?

The post-ADN era was always considered the great decline of NationStates that some thought the game would never recover from - around 2008 was probably the peak of that sentiment and there were open discussions about how to revive the game. It was also a pretty fun time to join, you could climb up the ranks of important regions and there was space for everyone to have an impact in gameplay. If you built one of the few decent sized regional militaries you could have a fairly pivotal role in the game. Feeder delegates were only sitting on a few hundred endorsements and TRR and Lazarus were under 100, as well as feeders keeping the same delegate for years no matter how inactive they were, which made for some interesting times. The flip side was that a lot of regions were filled with the same people, many prominent people would have five or six cabinet positions in different regions just to fill spaces and it was difficult to create a unique culture and group within your region.

Ohhhh
That sounds scary but fun
Thanks!

[Warzone Codger]

The post-ADN era was always considered the great decline of NationStates that some thought the game would never recover from - around 2008 was probably the peak of that sentiment and there were open discussions about how to revive the game. It was also a pretty fun time to join, you could climb up the ranks of important regions and there was space for everyone to have an impact in gameplay. If you built one of the few decent sized regional militaries you could have a fairly pivotal role in the game. Feeder delegates were only sitting on a few hundred endorsements and TRR and Lazarus were under 100, as well as feeders keeping the same delegate for years no matter how inactive they were, which made for some interesting times. The flip side was that a lot of regions were filled with the same people, many prominent people would have five or six cabinet positions in different regions just to fill spaces and it was difficult to create a unique culture and group within your region.

Ohhhh
That sounds scary but fun
Thanks!

Should add this was around the time of NS2 which went....badly and the general feeling that they aren't maintaining this game anymore. Max's post after the debacle and the move to these current forums was as an assurance for the future.kf the game after that: https://www.nationstates.net/page=news/ ... index.html

[The Church of Satan]

I wonder how many games Jolt has stolen, half-assed and closed since then.

[The Blaatschapen]

I wonder how many games Jolt has stolen, half-assed and closed since then.

Not a lot, since they went belly up.

[Nepleslia]

Apologies if this has been asked before, but who are the “Rahls” and why are they - from what I’ve read elsewhere - so infamous?

[The Church of Satan]

Not a lot, since they went belly up.

I saw Legend of Zork at onRPG just the other day. I hear it was rebuilt from the ground up because what it use to be was such garbage.

Apologies if this has been asked before, but who are the “Rahls” and why are they - from what I’ve read elsewhere - so infamous?

They are one of a multitude of secretive cabals that have sprung up over the years which pursues there own interests at the expense of others. Gathering power, overthrowing governments, influencing policymakers and other such things. They can be trusted only to do what is in their own best interest.

[Sail Nation]

When was the advent of regional politics, rather than just R/D gameplay (as in fully-politically focused regions, with legislatures, regional courts, organized elections etc, like UDS, Thaecia, TSP etc are today), and how did it come about/evolve?

[Daytime to Night]

When was the advent of regional politics, rather than just R/D gameplay (as in fully-politically focused regions, with legislatures, regional courts, organized elections etc, like UDS, Thaecia, TSP etc are today), and how did it come about/evolve?

From what I have seen it was largely around April-May 2003 that regions were getting a bit more organised with offsite infrastructure for this kind of thing - although I'm sure some predated that. Some of the initial problems were that the RMBs would only show the latest ten posts and there was no history or search function, and in some regions every new regional delegate would create their own offsite forum and the delegates were changing every few weeks. So it took a bit of stability and organisation just to begin to get those things in place in any form.

In TSP this happened once LadyRebels took the delegacy in July 2003 (although KillerMonkeys/Goddessness maintained a forum during their brief delegacies in May/June). Those forums remained the main forum until 2012.

Max did a news post about the New Meritocracy's offsite in December 2003 - https://www.nationstates.net/page=news/ ... index.html

[Klaus Devestatorie]

I wonder how many games Jolt has stolen, half-assed and closed since then.

I actually got my start in this game because Jolt acquired another pair of nation simulation games in mid 2008 called Earth 2025 and Utopia from a now equally defunct company called Swirve Gaming. I played the former, and decided to check out the other "new games" we were suddenly related to. They were both created in the mid 90s, and Jolt wound up closing both games in 2009 (we suspected they were sold old that it was impossible to even discern what programming language they had been written in). The communities of both games turned around and used the month's notice they'd been given to completely rewrite and rebuild their own games from scratch, and unbelievably, they both still exist today.

[Unibot III]

When was the advent of regional politics, rather than just R/D gameplay (as in fully-politically focused regions, with legislatures, regional courts, organized elections etc, like UDS, Thaecia, TSP etc are today), and how did it come about/evolve?

From what I have seen it was largely around April-May 2003 that regions were getting a bit more organised with offsite infrastructure for this kind of thing - although I'm sure some predated that. Some of the initial problems were that the RMBs would only show the latest ten posts and there was no history or search function, and in some regions every new regional delegate would create their own offsite forum and the delegates were changing every few weeks. So it took a bit of stability and organisation just to begin to get those things in place in any form.

In TSP this happened once LadyRebels took the delegacy in July 2003 (although KillerMonkeys/Goddessness maintained a forum during their brief delegacies in May/June). Those forums remained the main forum until 2012.

Max did a news post about the New Meritocracy's offsite in December 2003 - https://www.nationstates.net/page=news/ ... index.html

I know I've dug up an Anarchy forum from Feb 2003 and I think the old Texas forum was also from Feb 2003 (I saw posts as old as March 2003). The official forums were extremely buggy and slow, so it encouraged players to make use of regional community forums as an alternative.

One of the difficulties of answering this question is that April-May is the cutoff for Wayback Machine's archives of regions, so it can give the appearance that "time began in April." The old myth that the first forum was in the Pacific in Aug 2003 is completely bogus, for example.

I think if we had more oral history from pre-April, we'd probably think of that time as more exciting and instrumental.

There was a fair amount going on in Early NS, for instance, an extraordinary series of 'pileoffs' called the Nazi Wars happened in December 2002, which were an ancient conflict. The Farkers joined NS at the beginning of January and that brought a new level of intrigue and activity to the game. The Atlantic Alliance (March 2003) was especially sophisticated though - with a group website and forum and rank organization that is genuinely appealing. AA pioneered & popularized conventional NSGP.

I think it took more time for democracies to become more sophisticated, however. Perhaps a lot more time. I wonder if something like the ADN (Fall 2003), with its rigid US-esque constitution and its Assembly, might have popularized the idea of formalizing regional governance.

[The Church of Satan]

I know I've dug up an Anarchy forum from Feb 2003 and I think the old Texas forum was also from Feb 2003 (I saw posts as old as March 2003). The official forums were extremely buggy and slow, so it encouraged players to make use of regional community forums as an alternative.

One of the difficulties of answering this question is that April-May is the cutoff for Wayback Machine's archives of regions, so it can give the appearance that "time began in April." The old myth that the first forum was in the Pacific in Aug 2003 is completely bogus, for example.

I think if we had more oral history from pre-April, we'd probably think of that time as more exciting and instrumental.

There was a fair amount going on in Early NS, for instance, an extraordinary series of 'pileoffs' called the Nazi Wars happened in December 2002, which were an ancient conflict. The Farkers joined NS at the beginning of January and that brought a new level of intrigue and activity to the game. The Atlantic Alliance (March 2003) was especially sophisticated though - with a group website and forum and rank organization that is genuinely appealing. AA pioneered & popularized conventional NSGP.

I think it took more time for democracies to become more sophisticated, however. Perhaps a lot more time. I wonder if something like the ADN (Fall 2003), with its rigid US-esque constitution and its Assembly, might have popularized the idea of formalizing regional governance.

While looking into the AA Manson and I had discovered a few of their sites. One of them appeared to be purely for recruitment (and is still up to this day albeit not in use) so they seem to have been quite strict about vetting their members. I found that one of their sites was registered on a college domain. It's rather curious.

[Daytime to Night]

You can see which groups were using offsite stuff (and a lot of nations were too in the absence of Dispatches and NSWiki) by checking out this thread on the old forums here - https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/1234/274874

The Farkers organised on a yahoo chat rather than forums and weren't too fussed about building Government structures etc (at least until their members settled in other regions).

[Whole India]

When was the Tag 'Socialist' and 'Anti-Fascist' added to TSP?

[Kuriko]

I know that one of the oldest posts on the 10000 Islands forum I can find is from November 2003. I'm not sure if there are older ones on our forum, but there might be.

[Mathuvan Union]

When was the Tag 'Socialist' and 'Anti-Fascist' added to TSP?

Tuesday when they became socialist (not communist, there’s a difference!)

[North Prarie]

When was the Tag 'Socialist' and 'Anti-Fascist' added to TSP?

I added Socialist because of Coup Tuesday. Anti-Fascist has been there for a while, as we are a region that hates fascists and partakes in military operations to raid them. Hence, anti-fascist.

[Kanaia]

I know that one of the oldest posts on the 10000 Islands forum I can find is from November 2003. I'm not sure if there are older ones on our forum, but there might be.

The oldest posts I can find date back to the end of November 2003 as well. Interestingly, there is a reference to even older forums. The wayback machine from December 2003 also refers to the current forums as the "New Forum." The next older wayback machine capture is from July 2003 and there are no references to a forum on the WFE. Additionally, XKI appears to have had a population explosion from 14 to 319 nations from July to December 2003.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030727174 ... 00_islands
https://web.archive.org/web/20031210105 ... 00_islands

[Comfed]

Could someone post the URL of the previous (ZetaBoards) TNP forum? Thanks.

[Goobergunchia]

Could someone post the URL of the previous (ZetaBoards) TNP forum? Thanks.

http://s13.zetaboards.com/TNP/index/ is what I think you want, although there have been quite a few TNP fora over the years.