Just got invaded by DEN

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

In fact, I do stay only in foundered regions just to avoid you guys. Much like I don't play games in PvP areas - I don't want to deal with people like you wasting my time by essentially trolling, and why should I waste my time on you? I'm not here to be annoyed for your amusement.

Mostly, however, I'm annoyed by the high horse most raiders put themselves on. "Oh, we're rescuing you from taking the game seriously!" - like, I'm aware that it's a game, bro. (And yeah, I get it, you don't say it quite so literally, but that is what your arguments mean.) But I'm allowed to immerse myself in things, to enjoy them unironically, and you're not actually doing me or the world a service by saying "lolo why so serious?" And does a hobby become less worthy of respect because it's digital rather than physical, anyway? Do hours of writing fiction on a computer not count as compared to a typewriter? Time and effort are scarce, including the time for leisure. Wasting time is a real cost, really, not just a fake one. (Make us all immortal and I'll change my tune.)

So it's not the full truth to admit you're playing the annoying side of things. Also, your goal of "why so serious?" isn't meaningful either.

And that is your right. I don't recall any raider ever saying you should purposefully make your region raidable - hell, we even have better response times in forums like this for telling you how to make your region immune to us!

Never said we were going good by it. Said that if a game if affecting your life negatively, perhaps you're too invested in said game. I didn't intend to state otherwise either. We have to pull our own friends away for the same reason too often. You indeed have every right to get invested - the idea is that if a game, whether it's CoD, Roleplaying here, The Sims, building a region, or anything else is so big of an investment that you're losing sleep or being too stressed to work over your K/D ratio, the fate of a character, the health of your sims, or the state of your region, it's probably too big of an investment, regardless of what it is. I' say the same exact thing if someone felt this way over an RP I was in - and, in fact, have done so before. Does that mean I RP'd for the sake of showing them they're too invested? Think we can both agree, no. Similarly, most regions we raid don't have that kind of reaction, but when they do, the response is similar. And before you come back and say "well in an RP both parties actively, not just passively, choose to participate," let me state that a retort along those lines is merely attacking a single example and missing the point of the statement.

Writing a book isn't playing a game. We can't mess with your RP's on the forums, and doing so would be against the rules. RMB's? Now, if you're writing your book on sticky notes you leave in a semi-public area and someone sits there and scribbles on them, I'm going to blame you for your choice of medium. Additionally, I'd argue even that is a flawed metaphor - this is a game. It's a wide and varied game, but it's a game. It's not like scribbling in a book someone is trying to write. It's not like interrupting a theatrical performance. It's not even like flipping someone's chess board - that's a game that has only one way to be played, not the dozens this one has, of which R/D is one. I go back to my MMO examples - you can choose to RP, you can choose to build a guild, you can choose to go fight people. If you do those two in an area where the third is valid as well, instead of a safe area, you have every right to call those who forcibly interrupt you assholes, but that doesn't make them bad people. That's putting far too much significance on a game.

Again, I'd be a lot less inclined to argue your point it the average raid followed the path of >mob of random trolls invades< "lol u mad bro?" "lmfao got u" "haha gotcho delegacy" "why so serious m8." That, however, is not really the case. The larger and established groups, at least, maintain a professional and organized military-style setup. that behavior is not a goal, and in fact is often a good way to get kicked out. Our "goal" is to blow off some steam and have fun executing timed events that sometimes take months or even years of planning with a group of friends from all over the world.

[Nayba Collective]

Raiders hardly get the biggest kick out of your reaction when going tag raiding. It's kinda like, pro soccer players are super happy when they score a goal, because they scored a goal, not because the opposition goalkeeper threw a tantrum (though that's always nice to see).

People are hanging out in a building with a ridiculous number of rooms. So many rooms, in fact, that the vast majority are unoccupied, and everyone could technically have a room all to themselves. A bunch of people gather together in various rooms to chat, and they put up stuff on the bulletin board to keep track of things. A bunch of random guys come, rip up all the sticky notes, tear down the bulletin board, and shout about how awesome they are and that they "conquered" and "dominated" the room. Someone says a few words in annoyance at the shock of this incredibly rude behavior.

The guys who rudely entered and tore up the room call this "a tantrum," implying that he is better than them because they were predictably annoyed at his rude behavior. They post polls about annoyed reactions from "the natives" about this rude behavior, again implying that they think they're better than them, while they chill in their own room.

Raiders would not be on NS without non-Raiders, and it would take a lot to convince me otherwise. So no, I don't believe that it's really about "scoring a goal."

Chingis, you're on a high horse. Please, get off of it.

These are all the same thing. Those who think their own internal revolution is more moral or more worthy of being permitted than a "raid" are deluding themselves. The nation with the highest endorsement count is the delegate, period. The delegate has all the powers given to them by the founder, period. A region where the founder has CTEd has no single person with any right to determine the direction of the region other than the current delegate, period.

A region which is unable to defend itself does not deserve self-determination, and it definitely does not deserve to have NS coded in a way to protect founders from themselves who are somehow, after all these years, still surprised when an executive delegate is overthrown.

"Get off your high horse" goes for you, too. Your post is basically "people who aren't willing to commit resources to fighting against time-wasting annoyers (or lose their region history/etc, which is also committing resources) don't deserve to have fun."

Well, I'm sorry brah, but they do. They'd do just fine if you and your lot just left them alone. It might, as a practical matter, be less feasible, but deserve? "Deserve" is moral language, not practical language. Meaning that you are making a moral claim that other people don't deserve to enjoy themselves unless they waste time and energy defending themselves from you.

[Sentinel Optik]

These are all the same thing. Those who think their own internal revolution is more moral or more worthy of being permitted than a "raid" are deluding themselves. The nation with the highest endorsement count is the delegate, period. The delegate has all the powers given to them by the founder, period. A region where the founder has CTEd has no single person with any right to determine the direction of the region other than the current delegate, period.

A region which is unable to defend itself does not deserve self-determination, and it definitely does not deserve to have NS coded in a way to protect founders from themselves who are somehow, after all these years, still surprised when an executive delegate is overthrown.

"Get off your high horse" goes for you, too. Your post is basically "people who aren't willing to commit resources to fighting against time-wasting annoyers (or lose their region history/etc, which is also committing resources) don't deserve to have fun."

Well, I'm sorry brah, but they do. They'd do just fine if you and your lot just left them alone. It might, as a practical matter, be less feasible, but deserve? "Deserve" is moral language, not practical language. Meaning that you are making a moral claim that other people don't deserve to enjoy themselves unless they waste time and energy defending themselves from you.

How much time and energy does it take to make your WA delegate non-executive? Pretty sure it takes less than 10 seconds.

Raiders provide a valuable service to natives by educating and enlightening them on a better way to play NS - by raiding. All natives who are upset by our tags are welcome to join us and take their aggression out on other native regions.

[Nayba Collective]

How much time and energy does it take to make your WA delegate non-executive? Pretty sure it takes less than 10 seconds.

Given that raids don't happen as often against non-executive regions, except as pointed out, to end streaks that would take years to replace and post edgy messages, then the question isn't whether it wastes 10 seconds to set non-executive, but how long it takes to clean up your mess, un-suppress posts on the RMB, and so on. One also has to take into account all the time/energy wasted by the fact that a lack of executive delegates limits who can perform maintenance tasks on the region, limiting, as one would say, delegation. It also limits self-rule. How long does rallying defenders take? How much time does each defender commit? Why shouldn't people be able to have their own self-ruling regions?

Raiders provide a valuable service to natives by educating and enlightening them on a better way to play NS - by raiding. All natives who are upset by our tags are welcome to join us and take their aggression out on other native regions.

Let me change this a bit to be more accurate:

Raiders provide a worthless "service" to "natives" by reminding them, yet again, that nowhere on the internet is safe from people on high horses who indirectly claim that no one should be allowed to take any hobby seriously or enjoy anything unironically. They also remind that anywhere, at any time, someone can barge in to ruin the fun and crash the party. They do this by barging in to ruin the fun and crash the party. This service is worthless because it's already provided in spades pretty much everywhere.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I should note, at least one poster in this thread stands as a bit of an outlier among raiders. There are a small number who do champion it as a greater good, a service to natives, yada yada. For the record, let me note that that opinion stands in minority.

[Almonaster Nuevo]

How much time and energy does it take to make your WA delegate non-executive? Pretty sure it takes less than 10 seconds.

Always provided you have a founder.

And please don't bang on about re-founding. In a large region with a lot of history that is neither practical nor in many cases desirable.


We have to put up with raiders' asshattery. Don't try to pretend it's desirable. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And because there is no reasonable means of stopping you, doesn't mean you have a "right".

[Morndul]

You can take us seriously. We're playing the asshole side of things. The point is that it's like camping in COD, backstabbing someone in DayZ, that realm of ideas - we're being assholes, in a game. We find it fun, apparently, because we keep doing it.

This is, by far, the best and closest description of/series of analogies to raiding I have yet seen. People who just say "it's a game!", making it sound like all they're doing is playing on team red instead of team blue, only capture the technically correct fact that, yes, everything physically at stake is just a simulation. People who say "you're bullies!" are coming from an extremely understandable position, but they only convey the equally correct fact that what raiders do repeatedly tramples on others' fun without provocation (note to all: not having a founder etc. is not provocation). Neither portrayal has any real nuance.

But truthfully, and I think you'll agree, there's no analogy that completely captures the situation, because what we have here in NationStates is completely unique. There's really nothing like it.

Camping is is more of a "dominant strategy" situation. It's an effective, but unsporting, way of attacking the built-in opposing team. Backstabbing someone in DayZ is maybe a little closer, if we're talking about using spy puppets as the "pointmen," but when you join DayZ you're deliberately opting-in to a dangerous and chaotic environment. New NationStates players have no idea what they're getting into where R/D is concerned, "opt-out" founder options or not. The fact that this is a mostly text-based browser game about fictional countries, and those are 3D shooters, makes a pretty big difference as well.

Here's how I described raiding, to someone who never heard of the game, about an hour or so ago:

"I am composing a response to a raider. Raiders join regions in mass and forcibly elect their own delegate into power. It is not an intended part of the game but it's technically not against the rules. As a defender, I am opposed to them."

That's an accurate description, right? The wording is no doubt from a defender's perspective, since the adjective "forcibly" could be omitted and the bit about "it is not an intended part of the game" usually wouldn't be included in a raider's explanation, but I don't think I've misportrayed the situation.

As an outsider, it's easy to call this trolling. But I agree with you, it's not. It has similarities to trolling, but the temperament and modus operandi really doesn't match.

I call it legalized griefing. A lot of raiders seem to hate it being called griefing, and may point out that griefing is considered a separate category by moderation, but it's griefing. To use some non-game metaphors for a moment, imagine a beach with hundreds of sand castles. Tag raiding is like running around kicking over as many as possible. If the builders know how, they can rebuild quickly. Occupation is like kicking over a a sand castle and then sitting on the clump of sand for awhile so it can't be rebuilt. Refounding after an occupation is like pouring cement over the spot so it can never be restored. I was pretty indifferent to raiding until someone tried to pull that last one on my chosen region and I spent a month putting hours of my time into stopping it, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm still a bit bitter about it. I'll always be an "angry native" at heart.

But there are reasons raiding isn't banned also. Back to gaming comparisons, let me talk about Runescape. Runescape has a problem with scamming, botting, and real world trading. There's a place called the wilderness where players can attack each other. Some scammers use a process called luring to trick players with expensive gear into going into the wilderness so they can attack them and take their stuff. For what I hope are obvious reasons, that's as poor an analogy to raiding as anything else. But it's the closest equivalent in RS off the top of my head.

So Jagex, the company behind Runescape, tried to fight scamming, botting, and real world trading for a long time, but it was out of control. So they got rid of the wilderness. Well, technically they just made it so you couldn't fight in the wilderness anymore. But that destroyed the game for a lot of people who enjoyed PKing (player killing, which is another thing you could compare to raiding if every Runescape server was a PvP server and for some reason the advertised point of the game had nothing to do with being randomly attacked by other players). They also broke free trade between players. They made it so items traded had to be of approximately equal value so that people couldn't pay with real money out-of-game. Basically, players couldn't give each other gifts anymore. A lot of players left when this happened. It was huge.

Eventually, they brought the wilderness and free trade back. The old problems returned with them, and Jagex found different ways of combating them. That's similar to the problem here. Mods et al. don't know how to get rid of raiding without basically destroying the game. Two major differences though:
1.) The things Jagex tried to get rid of are still against the rules. As many bots etc. as there are in RS, you'll never see someone saying "Please join my new scamming group!" and they don't take to the forums defending themselves with sentences like "There's literally nothing a scammer can do to a player that can't be undone."
2.) Max Berry and the mods really aren't comparable to Jagex. They have fewer resources and different goals. Jagex is a business, and Runescape is designed to make money. Berry started NationStates as a small side-project to advertise a book and it grew, and grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. It makes money but that's kind of a tertiary benefit, I think. I can't imagine him seriously chopping it up and commoditizing it.

My main point is, although it may not be imminently practical or realistic, arguing against the entire institution of raiding is valid and worth talking about. A central goal of The Inkwell Lobby, if I ever decide to actually build the region, is to make it just as accepted a dimension of Gameplay politics as raiderism, defenderism, regionalism, or cosmopolitanism. I call it the gameplayist/transitionist axis. Transistionists advocate for some amount of transition away from current R/D gameplay. The transitionist spectrum can include everything from minor reforms to complete removal. You can be as moderate or as extreme a transitionist as you want.

So, anyone in this thread think they fit the definition of a transitionist?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

You make a lot of very good points, and I certainly agree with the fact there is no good overarching metaphor. Many come close to one aspect, but each has it's flaws. General, as I've done here, raiders try to push the /less/ off ones - i.e. graffiti over murder, etc. Even in Runescape, there are signs all along the wilderness warning you you're entering a pvp area (or at least, there were back in middle school when I played it, before that change and boomerang back you mentioned ).

My definition, slanting the other way, would describe military gameplay as groups creatively using the system for electing representatives with regional control to put one of their own into power against the wishes of a faction of residents. From there, it's all about who's going after what - If you're in Imperialist, you're probably one region doing it to another who you have political animosity against. If you're a faction of angry region members, you're doing it because of a personal or political feud, and may or may not be in the same region to start with, and may or may not bring in outside help. If you're a raider, the best arching description would be that you do it for the sake of it, at random among acceptable targets, because you can. Even that fails to strictly define the group - there are, as I mentioned, a small subset of raiders that claim morality or some greater cause in their efforts. Even among those some just do it to play more of a villain role, and some truly believe it. That said, I'd rate your definition as quote factual and fair to sum it up in once sentence. At most, I'd modify it a bit - Military Gameplay is electing a delegate against the wishes of a factions making up a significant chunk of the pre-event region with the involvement of an outside force. It is an initially unplanned usage of the delegate system which ultimately inseparable from that system, and inevitable so long as that system exists.

I too, join the mass that argues against griefing - My case being a common one, that griefing is, at least by the definition of this site, sorted with harassment, and implies a specific intent to make the lives of specific other players or regions miserable. By that sense, raiding would be less griefing than, say, imperials hitting a political enemy, or angry native X gathering his friends to annoy region b. It's worth noting that I have seen the latter moderated, mostly via rule-breaking RMB posts. Raiding, by nature, is as above - because it can be done. The goal is not to make the inhabitants of <target region x> miserable, as evidenced by the fact that, if we miss a big hit, we'll usually try once or even twice more to start an occupation while we have people gathered. You'd have to loosen the site's definition of Griefing to include this, as you noted. And, from a moderation standpoint and to adapt your metaphor, there's no consistent way to tell the difference between a serial sandcastle-killer, boy A knocking over Boy B's castle because he doesn't like him in a one-off fit, one of the co-builders of sandcastle 24 deciding he wants to knock it over and start again without the other guy, etc, so long as the serial-knocker-over tries hard enough. Which is why things like founders, non-exec delegates, influence, and passwords were added - a properly secured region, even not using a password, is only open to the sort of raids seen in Texas, Forest, Antarctica, and.....nowhere else, because the number of regions in that situation that raiders can justify gathering dozens of people for make for a very, very short list.

And my main point in reply to your main point is that raiding will not go away. Military gameplay will not go away. Elements of it can be killed of easily - if admin wanted to kill tagging, they could do it tonight. The fact that they haven't goes for something. So does the fact they've stated they want R/D to be balanced, not dead. At the end of the day, the only ways you remove raiding entirely are the messy days of pre-influence judgement calls on which delegate changes broke the anti-raiding rules, which staff has sworn never to return to, or complete removal of any system for people to exert power in regions, which is never going to happen either.

[Morndul]

And my main point in reply to your main point is that raiding will not go away. Military gameplay will not go away. Elements of it can be killed of easily - if admin wanted to kill tagging, they could do it tonight. The fact that they haven't goes for something. So does the fact they've stated they want R/D to be balanced, not dead. At the end of the day, the only ways you remove raiding entirely are the messy days of pre-influence judgement calls on which delegate changes broke the anti-raiding rules, which staff has sworn never to return to, or complete removal of any system for people to exert power in regions, which is never going to happen either.

Too true. Raiding, almost certainly, will only die when NationStates does. But just like in the works of scholars, scientists, and philosophers, the discussion never ends either. But most can't have that discussion as tactfully as you or me. I think we can change that.

[New Los Angelos]

-snip-

Well said. I'd like to add another example: EVO is a sci-fi game with communities who rob convoys of ship. The developers allow this, but made checks and balances to help non pirates. They made pathways that are safer, or policed, and areas that aren't. They saw that the pirates can do things their way, but no one should be excluded. Officers can be used in place of delegates, and alliances and defenders can protect you. Re founding is also an idea, but I'd suggest border control. So the raiders are the pirates, defenders and officers are the police, and RPers are the corporations. Quite frankly, its interesting how they evolve. My first nation was made about a year ago, and then TBR was just raided and officers didn't exist. Paradoxia was talked about in place of Anarchy. So good luck RPers. I hope you can be safe with your RPing, and make great stories!

[RiderSyl]

Obviously, if your purpose isn't solely to amuse yourself by annoying others, then raiding should be a small, insignificant part of the game to you. So why is it so important to you? And if it isn't really something important to you, then why do you bother doing it, and why not just quit doing it?

Raiders don't raid with the sole purpose of amusing themselves by annoying others.

When native populations try to kill raiders' fun by not reacting, or try to 'kill them with kindness', they're often surprised to find out it doesn't work. It's the action of the raiding that we seek amusement from, not the reaction to the raiding. That's why.

[Nayba Collective]

Obviously, if your purpose isn't solely to amuse yourself by annoying others, then raiding should be a small, insignificant part of the game to you. So why is it so important to you? And if it isn't really something important to you, then why do you bother doing it, and why not just quit doing it?

Raiders don't raid with the sole purpose of amusing themselves by annoying others.

When native populations try to kill raiders' fun by not reacting, or try to 'kill them with kindness', they're often surprised to find out it doesn't work. It's the action of the raiding that we seek amusement from, not the reaction to the raiding. That's why.

No, no. You see, I get to decide what is and is not considered worthy of being a "significant" part of the game, and thus what people are allowed to complain about without it being "a tantrum." I say that delegate streaks are significant, and that raiding is not significant. Therefore, you should give up caring about raiding and do something else, and if you get annoyed at anyone for ruining your raiding fun in any way, it means you're "throwing a tantrum," because your feelings about the matter are invalid.

Yes, that is sarcasm aimed at earlier, goal-post-moving posts by pro-raider posters.

Also, again, without non-raiders, raiders would not be here. Without other people's fun to ruin, raiders would not be here. That's why raiders don't create their own "fun zone" regions just for raiding and not bother anyone else.

[ChingisOtchigin]

I again, may note that I'm not sitting on a high horse, I don't believe in me "Doing good to NS", but neither do I really believe I'm "Playing the asshole", at least as far as tag raids go. When I do raid, i have a sole goal, and that's to hit as many regions as possible. Yes, it means "burning them out", but I have yet to see a native reaction and be like: "YAS! A REACTION! LOLOLOLO, I'M SO 1337". During occupations, I loooove seeing a reaction, trolling the native, acting like a 12v who only just discovered the internet, but with tag raiding... I really don;t see how you could say that we do it for the sake of getting a reaction from natives.

[Sentinel Optik]

How much time and energy does it take to make your WA delegate non-executive? Pretty sure it takes less than 10 seconds.

Always provided you have a founder.

And please don't bang on about re-founding. In a large region with a lot of history that is neither practical nor in many cases desirable.


We have to put up with raiders' asshattery. Don't try to pretend it's desirable. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And because there is no reasonable means of stopping you, doesn't mean you have a "right".

It is my absolute right to raid. The highest endo count is the delegate, who has the powers given to them by the founder. Please explain to me where in that chain I lack some kind of right to exercise my delegate powers as I see fit.

You have the right to try to defend against me obtaining delegacies, but as an active tag raider I can tell you that the fendas are poorly staffed and poorly equipped to deal with our onslaught. You are losing heartily on the battlefield.

The SC can muster thousands of vote to condemn my Field Marshal, Gest, but not 5 fenda updaters to stand against our tags. If natives were truly that offended by our actions, wouldn't they stand against us? And I don't mean that paper treaty TITO, how many fenda knights does TITO have? I think it's over a hundred. And yet it's only BT and sometimes Rom who defend, maybe even Pen Pal whoever that is, maybe that's BT or Rom, I really wouldn't know.

I don't buy into the gameplay where people sign irrelevant treaties with each other and then don't act upon them. If I wanted to play make-believe that I was a member of Parliament I'd go elsewhere. I am here to wage war, and DEN is extremely good at what it does, which is why the only opposition we get is on the NS forums, not on the field of battle.

Raiding IS for the greater good because it is the only pure way to play this game, and the only organization where people support each other through actual action, not roleplaying that they're signing a worthless treaty.

[Queen Yuno]

Well, I saw some good things come out of raiding. Super inactive founders return and get active again! Regions have natives who notice their region got raided and check up on it, and once they fix the mild mess we made, they get active and participate!

We just cause a stir with long term benefits, you just don't see it immediately,

(If no founders or natives return to check their region, then that region's dead to begin with and our raids technically make no difference. If they were already super active, then it's very easy to fix. There are TOOLS to recover lost WFEs, and raiders tend to leave overnight 'cuz it's tag raiding.)

I'm not a vicious person, I just see that there is no such thing as permanent damage which is why I raid and also there are some lovely people to chat with in DEN! That's primarily why I'm in it. Not because I'm aiming for hate-telegrams/reactions (though I do get them, gomenasai)

[YoriZ]

Well, I saw some good things come out of raiding. Super inactive founders return and get active again! Regions have natives who notice their region got raided and check up on it, and once they fix the mild mess we made, they get active and participate!

We just cause a stir with long term benefits, you just don't see it immediately,

(If no founders or natives return to check their region, then that region's dead to begin with and our raids technically make no difference. If they were already super active, then it's very easy to fix. There are TOOLS to recover lost WFEs, and raiders tend to leave overnight 'cuz it's tag raiding.)

I'm not a vicious person, I just see that there is no such thing as permanent damage which is why I raid and also there are some lovely people to chat with in DEN! That's primarily why I'm in it. Not because I'm aiming for hate-telegrams/reactions (though I do get them, gomenasai)

Don't forget to mention the very interesting discussions DEN nations have in the occupied regions RMBs. Posts from natives get suppressed and raiders usually post things like:

"DEN IS THE BEST REGION IN EXISTENCE

ALL HAIL DEN

DEN FOREVER"

And if raiders tend to leave active regions overnight, why are you holding your grasp on some native regions for months even claiming natives have to surrender?

In other words: don't believe anything raiders tell you or at least think twice.

Raiders want you to surrender and leave your region if it is from any relevance, so they can refound it and use it as a trophy.
Raiders want you to believe that their actions are beneficial to your region (activating it, showing security problems, ...), but actually they're destabilizing it and scaring away native nations (or banjecting them).
Raiders want you to believe their actions are harmless while they're just having fun, but instead they're bullying other players with the excuse they're more powerfull.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

It is my absolute right to raid. The highest endo count is the delegate, who has the powers given to them by the founder. Please explain to me where in that chain I lack some kind of right to exercise my delegate powers as I see fit.

I roundly reject this doctrine. It is the nations of The North Pacific who are sovereign over our region, and should the Delegate act contrary to the laws we have adopted, we are prepared to take the appropriate measures to end this state of affairs, by force if necessary.

You have the right to try to defend against me obtaining delegacies, but as an active tag raider I can tell you that the fendas are poorly staffed and poorly equipped to deal with our onslaught. You are losing heartily on the battlefield.

The SC can muster thousands of vote to condemn my Field Marshal, Gest, but not 5 fenda updaters to stand against our tags. If natives were truly that offended by our actions, wouldn't they stand against us? And I don't mean that paper treaty TITO, how many fenda knights does TITO have? I think it's over a hundred. And yet it's only BT and sometimes Rom who defend, maybe even Pen Pal whoever that is, maybe that's BT or Rom, I really wouldn't know.

I have written about the state of things before. It's not good.

I don't buy into the gameplay where people sign irrelevant treaties with each other and then don't act upon them. If I wanted to play make-believe that I was a member of Parliament I'd go elsewhere. I am here to wage war, and DEN is extremely good at what it does, which is why the only opposition we get is on the NS forums, not on the field of battle.

I imagine you were not referring to my region, The North Pacific, as regards irrelevant treaties that aren't acted upon?

We certainly have a somewhat roleplayed legislature, the Regional Assembly.

Raiding IS for the greater good because it is the only pure way to play this game, and the only organization where people support each other through actual action, not roleplaying that they're signing a worthless treaty.

I'm sorry, I'm going to let you finish but issue answering is the only pure way to play this game.

More seriously, raiders are not alone in their competence with game mechanics, and plenty of regions do take treaty commitments seriously. The weakness of defensive forces have, as linked above, more diverse reasons than you suggest.

[Pauline Bonaparte]

I recommend that raiders post more screenshots of Nazgûl to illustrate how little make-believe means to them.

[Guy]

On a factual point, BT hasn't been the most active defender on our end for months. Rom has never been. I've a ton of respect for BT, but if you're gonna propagandise, at least make it somewhat believable. Right now, you're just making a joke of yourself, a long insufferable line without a punch-line.

I don't defend that often because 1) Update is at an imopportune time for me; 2) I have far more enjoyable things to do than update defending, which people like you just make boring, repetitive and easy. I'll be on standby for the actual vaders, though.

[Lychgate]

Raiding IS for the greater good because it is the only pure way to play this game, and the only organization where people support each other through actual action, not roleplaying that they're signing a worthless treaty.

Hmm...I think I see a "No True Scotsman" fallacy embedded here. An appeal to purity in order to dismiss criticism is not a valid argument and should never be substituted for one. I would also argue that Defender regions support other regions through liberation (a type of action). Also, noting the fact that "worthless treaties" can teach people to write proactively, while raider regions just teach people to be offensive and disrespectful.

One last thing. An organization in which "people support each other" doesn't exactly mean everyone is forced to bleed out masses of propaganda, contrary to what you might think.

TL;DR: Look at this from the defender/victim/bystander perspective without biasing it for once.

[TheStonedSurfers]

As a region founder (small region), I can tell you the only way to secure yourself against a raid is to either have an active founder (like me) with a non-executive WA delegate or a password-protected region. My region is worthless to a raider because they can't actually do anything in it other than move into it and chit-chat on the RMB.

As far as raiding being the actual way to play this game... there was a time when raiding had much more firm controls over it and raiders could be guilty of griefing back in the older days of NS (this isn't my first NS nation). It popped up after RP developed. In the more modern age of the game, Max relaxed the rules on raiding. He won't stop it no matter how much people complain. So, it's a fact we have to live with. You can debate and argue over the raiding/defending portion of NS, but it is here to say for at least the foreseeable future so the best way to avoid it is to follow my advice--and the advice of numerous others before me--above.

[Narintia]

The entire Raider argument

We can shit on you all we like, and if you have a problem, you should get protection! It's not our fault we're shitting on you!

[Lychgate]

The entire Raider argument

We can shit on you all we like, and if you have a problem, you should get protection! It's not our fault we're shitting on you!

Well said. Very well said.

[The Korami]

Sure there is. DEN could quit raiding.

Or DEN's founder could cease to exist. The moment that happens they're dead.

Yup.

[Knot II]

BT hasn't been the most active defender on our end for months. Rom has never been.

I see that the majority of the fenda establishment still counts inactivity as activity.

I'll be on standby for the actual vaders, though.

Your standby must be "lounging next to the pool in the hot sun while skimming through the Herald Sun and sipping a a pomegranate martini." The "actual vaders" are still waiting.