The Heartbeat of the GCRs - Five Years On

[Tim-Opolis]

Well, he was responsible for introducing it to the GCRs anyway -- Worth noting quite a few UCRs had adopted it well before the GCRs moved over.

Pretty sure Kingdom of Alexandria was first among gameplay-related UCRs at least, even before the GCRs started switching. So Raven still introduced it.

If I recall correctly, Hobbes started pushing it for TEP a good half-year or so before Alexandria got wind of it.

[Consular]

Well, he was responsible for introducing it to the GCRs anyway -- Worth noting quite a few UCRs had adopted it well before the GCRs moved over.

Pretty sure Kingdom of Alexandria was first among gameplay-related UCRs at least, even before the GCRs started switching. So Raven still introduced it.

I'm not sure that's true but don't really care enough to investigate.

[Cormactopia Prime]

Pretty sure Kingdom of Alexandria was first among gameplay-related UCRs at least, even before the GCRs started switching. So Raven still introduced it.

I'm not sure that's true but don't really care enough to investigate.

I hear you. I asked myself after I posted why I cared enough to post that.

[Wopruthien]

Can we get a version of the graph with Werewolf channels filtered out?

Not to beat our own drum too much, but I'll note that there's a lot of general chatter in #werewolf - probably more so than in our chatter channels. It's quite difficult to separate out, but it'd be quite incorrect to say that all of the activity in that channel is driven by the game.

As already been mentioned and discussed Bel.

[RiderSyl]

I'm not sure that's true but don't really care enough to investigate.

I hear you. I asked myself after I posted why I cared enough to post that.

Raven's influence is so great, it even seeps into the unconscious mind

[Glacikaldr]

Celebratory yay for TRR!

[Marilyn Manson Freaks]

Celebratory yay for TRR!

Hip hip hooray!

[The Heartbeat]

APRIL

This time, I have graphs! I've made them only for some of the stats that NationStates doesn't already make graphs for, because that would feel a bit redundant. Also, many people have asked how I will deal with the many Discord servers created for Lazarus. I will, as always, use what is official at the end of the month. Sorry. I'm not lazy, I'm just sane.

Population
Table 1 - 4th to 13th April

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Population	8075	8386	10037	8221	8381	4240	6580	6453	6568
Founded/week	2445	2377	2401	2363	2268		1408	1486	1529
CTE/week	1016	1221	1351	1229	1210	614	638	690	656
Nations entering/week	75	128	218	59	121	1306	45	19	46
Nations leaving/week	1411	1251	1238	1261	1320	712	720	705	697
Net growth/week	93	33	30	-68	-141	-20	95	110	222

Table 2 - 22nd to 29th April

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Population	8217	8656	10242	8181	8661	4319	6745	6478	6464
Founded/week	2591	2508	2570	2509	2507		1099	1137	1038
CTE/week	1099	1153	1264	1214	1106	543	756	734	722
Nations entering/week	81	107	254	54	165	1341	269	32	45
Nations leaving/week	1444	1278	1349	1277	1313	687	583	516	464
Net growth/week	129	184	211	72	253	111	29	-81	-103

Overall population has increased slightly over the two weeks, seemingly due to an increase in foundings, in every GCR except the West Pacific, the Rejected Realms, and Balder.

In the last week of the month, Lazarus had the highest immigration of any GCR, as subversives of all shapes and colors flooded in. The North Pacific maintains the highest immigration of the feeders, with the East Pacific and South Pacific not far behind. The West Pacific has the least immigration of the feeders, and Osiris of the sinkers. (I'm writing this section last. "The West Pacific least x of the feeders and Osiris least x of the sinkers" seems to be a common theme this month.) The Pacific has the highest number of nations leaving. In early March, it just about had the most nations leave, but since then, its comparative emigration seems to have risen.

Early in the month, the sinkers had higher net gain than the feeders in general. I believe this is due to nations being refounded for the April Fools' event. Later in the month, however, thereIn the first week, the East Pacific had the most net loss, and Balder the most net increase. In the second, however, Balder had the most loss and the East Pacific the most gain. Swings and roundabouts.

Over the last few months, the sinkers except the Rejected Realms seem to have net gains and losses at the same time, while the feeders generally follow the same patterns but are more spread out. For example mid-March - compare the gap between the East and North Pacific in the following graph. The Rejected Realms follows its own patterns, which are largely dependent on what region is being purged this week.

Net increase/decrease in nations


The curve in the above graph might suggest that there are massive changes in foundings, but really changes are happening on quite a small scale. There has indeed been a dip in foundings, then a recent rise, but these are pretty small. The site isn't in danger yet. There have indeed been outliers - such as the massive fall in CTEs in late January, and the spike in late February. Overall however, things have seemed stable over the last four months. Looking closer to the present, the rise in refoundings in early April makes sense to me as the result of the April Fools' event, though I'm not sure why they have fallen below previous levels since. Perhaps everyone has just blown through their reserves of dead nations and there's nothing left. I'd also predict a large amount of CTEs next month. There has also been another rise in foundings, which I will assume is because it is exam season and people are desperate to procrastinate.

Overall foundings, refoundings and CTEs

---

Regional Engagement and Demographics

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Avg residency	121	118	131	107	108	126	136	110	114
Avg influence	291	971	6644	686	1386	520	613	271	304
RMB messages in week	2223	3216(1762/224*)	12026	339	4957	839	1419	106	137
WFE changes	10	2	8	3	3	6	15	1	0

*Posted via embassy to Knowhere and Psomewhere, official South Pacific roleplaying regions. 5202 total.

Changes in residency and influence have been fairly small. The biggest change in residency is the drop in Lazarus, from 150 days to 136, as many new nations have moved in and at least one high-residency nation has been removed from the region. Average influence has risen by roughly 200 in the East Pacific, and 50 in the South Pacific. It has fallen by 60 in the Rejected Realms, likely due to influx of new nations, and fallen slightly in both Balder and the Pacific. There have been tons of WFE changes in Lazarus, reflecting the many changes in the region.

The North Pacific still has the most RMB posts over a week, with the East and South Pacific the next highest at around 5000 messages. The Pacific's number of RMB posts has risen by around 1000, and Lazarus' by 1200. The West Pacific had the fewest of the feeders, and Osiris the least of the sinkers.

Number of RMB posts in a week

---

WA Stats

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Endorsements per week	217	2325	18431	1542	4094		14304	161	215
Admits/week	45	67	75	56	105		60	35	43
Endorsements on del	513	612	1095	581	832	275	273	173	385
Total WA	688	875	1596	732	1047	707	527	326	492
Percent of WA on del	0.75	0.70	0.69	0.79	0.79	0.39	0.52	0.53	0.78
Percentage of region WA	0.08	0.10	0.16	0.09	0.12	0.18	0.09	0.06	0.09
Avg endos	0.32	3.33	23.39	1.99	6.75	1.49	3.07	0.3	0.29

Lazarus has shot up in the endorsements given in a week - I can't imagine why! The North Pacific is still first in endorsements per week, though, having almost doubled the number from last month. The numbers of endorsements given has actually risen in every GCR except the Pacific, where it has halved.

Number of endorsements given in a week


The East and West Pacific currently share the highest percentage of endorsements on the delegate, with Balder not far behind. The Rejected Realms and Osiris both had their endorsement percentage fall - I believe this can be explained in the Rejected Realms by the increased number of WA nations in the region, many of who have likely not logged in since being banned to endorse the delegate. The North Pacific now has the lowest percentage among the feeders. The South Pacific's and Balder's percentages both rose by 3%, the second highest rise, but despite the recent delegate transition, Lazarus' endorsement percentage increased the most of any GCR, presumably due to low support last month and a lot of external endorsements this month.

Percentage of WA nations endorsing the delegate


The percentage of nations in the World Assembly has stayed stable for most regions. The North Pacific still has the highest percentage. The Pacific's percentage fell by 1%, and Balder's rose by 1%. Both the Rejected Realms and Lazarus had significant increases this month. Lazarus rose from 7% to 9%, presumably due to an influx of WA nations, and the Rejected Realms rose from 14% to 18%. I believe this is due to many WA nations being banned this month, perhaps in raids.

Percentage of nations in the WA


Total number of nations in the WA - spoilered because the pattern is so similar to the last graph

---

Forum Activity

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
All posts	214,695	169,126	557,800	62,822	207,761	98,251	995	71,387	128,687
Posts in Month	1310	707	6958	273	1283	1438	995	120	1149
Posts per day this month	43.67	23.57	231.93	9.10	42.77	47.93	497.50	4.00	38.30
Members	3213	955	3323	1571	3222	1960	78	805	1252
New Members	29	21	90	33	75	20	78	12	32
Members/day/month	0.97	0.70	3.00	1.10	2.50	0.67	39.00	0.40	1.07

Before anyone gets their hopes up, there aren't any graphs for forums because I only have three data points for the data I'd want to make a graph of (new posts per month). Three isn't enough for a good graph in my opinion, so that will wait until next time.

The North Pacific has both the most new members and the most new posts. The Rejected Realms' amount of forum posts have doubled this month, placing them 100 posts more than the next two GCRs, the East Pacific and the Pacific, though the East Pacific has more than triple the amount of new members than the Rejected Realms. The West Pacific has the least forum posts of the feeders this month, and Osiris the least of the sinkers. The South Pacific had the fewest new forum members. Lazarus gained a new forum this week, and so I have measured its per-day averages as over the few days it has been in existence. This gives it the most new members per day and the most new posts per day. In merely three days, the new Lazarus forum already has as many members as the Undead Dominion's forum, and almost double the posts made on it over several months. We shall see soon if it can maintain activity.

---

Discord Activity

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Public posts	158,170	416,290	862,690	312,702	264,194	797,466	111,408	145,133	194,066
Posts in Month	17,078	16,684	70,647	24,338	89,292	70,970	11,408	20,710	22,433
Posts per day this month	550.9	538.2	2278.9	785.1	2880.4	2289.4	1901.3	668.1	723.6
Members	1006	452	1242	397	536	325	149	206	229
New Members	57	30	34	12	96	14	149	2	22
Members/day/month	2.04	1.07	1.21	0.43	3.43	0.50	24.83	0.07	0.79

Lazarus, for probably obvious reasons, has gained the most new Discord members this month. The East Pacific is not far behind, with almost 100 new members, while the West Pacific has the fewest new members of the feeders. While the Pacific also gained many, it has the advantage of recruiting from several games. Among the sinkers, with Lazarus accounted for, Balder and the Rejected Realms gained a similar amount of members, while Osiris gained the fewest new members of any GCR at only two in a month. Over the last four months, almost every GCR has gained a significant amount of Discord members - the East, North and the Pacific have had the fastest rise. However the numbers in the West Pacific and Osiris have risen very, very little. Lazarus has technically lost members in the last month but I'll give them a pass since it's a new server.

Total Discord members

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Posts in January	17078	16,684	70647	24,338	89,292	70970	11408	20710	22433
Bot interaction	5168	3207	32619	6184	12706	13663	1062	1466	259
Human Interaction	11910	13,477	38028	18,154	76,586	57307	10346	19244	22174
Percentage Human Interaction	69.7	80.8	53.8	74.6	85.8	80.7	90.7	92.9	98.8

The East Pacific has now overtaken the Rejected Realms in both overall messages and human-only messages. Lazarus has a very high amount of messages per day, because their server was created a week ago - it will be interesting to see, when the initial flurry dies down, the eventual posts per day it will settle at. In overall messages, the North Pacific has risen to the level of the Rejected Realms, but when its bot interaction is removed, it is still 20,000 messages behind the Rejected Realms. Overall messages have fallen in the East Pacific, the Rejected Realms, and the South Pacific, while rising slightly in every other GCR.

The North Pacific's total messages have remained stable, yet its bot interaction has fallen to the same extent its human interaction has risen. Human interaction has also risen 10% in the Pacific and 17% in the Rejected Realms. Osiris, Balder and Lazarus all have bot interaction equalling less than 10% of all messages, and human interaction percentage has increased in both Osiris and Balder.

Total Discord messages each month


Discord messages each month with bot interaction removed


It feels slightly perverse to finish off a post with an image, so I will take this opportunity to thank people for their support and their interest in this project.

[Malphe]

OMG this is awesome.

[Solorni]

OMG this is awesome.

Did you even finish reading it?

This is definitely awesome but I have to read it first lol...

[Malphe]

OMG this is awesome.

Did you even finish reading it?

This is definitely awesome but I have to read it first lol...

I just saw the graphs and I was satisfied. I've read it all and can confirm it is, in fact, awesome.

[Catalyse]

Interesting stuff as always. ^_^

I think, at least in part, that the surge in WA nations in TRR and the decrease in the rate of nations endorsing me is due to Krualstiken's ejection of a nearly a hundread nations from UCR, in a month's time half of them will have moved to another region or CTEd.

[Solorni]

This was pretty neat, there was not a lot of analysis with regards to Balder so here are my Balder takeaways:

1. Balder's forum activity decreased by a bit & was surpassed by TRR (good job to them!). This is because of a slowdown in the middle to end of the month but it has picked up since then.

2. Balder's rate of gaining new forum members increased by a ton and was actually higher than many of the feeders. I feel like this was due to our improved integration infrastructure.

3. Balder's discord activity nearly doubled. I think this was in part because the forum slowdown didn't affect discord as much, more new members and March was half of the previous slowdown and half renewed activity.

All in all, I think in general the Continuous Infrastructure Development project that Balder has embarked upon has shown early strong results in many fields which is demonstrated by the improvements compared to the last Heartbeat. Still not where we want to eventually get to, but still pretty good. It's cool too because there is still a lot of refining to come & many new projects which should help once they are implemented.

EDIT: Also; big thank you to the Heartbeat for doing this!

[Marilyn Manson Freaks]

Great work as always!

[Lord Dominator]

Amazing stat collection, I love how every other sentence ends up mentioning Lazarus, like the GP forum writ small

[Solorni]

How come there isn't a graph for forum activity?

[Darcania]

How come there isn't a graph for forum activity?

Before anyone gets their hopes up, there aren't any graphs for forums because I only have three data points for the data I'd want to make a graph of (new posts per month). Three isn't enough for a good graph in my opinion, so that will wait until next time.

[Solorni]

Lol, whoops... I thought I had read something about it but couldn't find it the second time

[Escade]

This is so cool and I especially like the graphs and colors!

TRR really is the hot spot for a lot of fun conversations whether political or Werewolf related or makeup club or otherwise! Then, TSP has multiple Discords, for example for each ministry and each event we run, that aren't added to the total but we're working on seeing how to better represent some of those as well!

[Malphe]

Then, TSP has multiple Discords, for example for each ministry and each event we run, that aren't added to the total but we're working on seeing how to better represent some of those as well!

TNP has a similar conundrum, a lot of our activity is in the separate RP server, and a lot is also in the NPA server, the Executive server, ect.

[The Heartbeat]

It's been five years since the first Heartbeat, and I figured it might be interesting to see what's changed. (One of the things that's changed is me - this isn't gonna be as detailed as prev ones, but I hope it's still interesting )

JANUARY 2023

Population

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Population	8276	10436	12012	7098	10450	8586	10432	10126	10024
Nations leaving/week	1913	1830	1894	1993	1727	1360	557	574	569
Immigration/week	49	80	173	40	56	1934	47	18	18
Founded/week	3138	3132	3105	3090	3058	0	1389	1437	1441
CTE/week	709	852	844	645	733	370	656	592	585
Net growth/week	565	530	540	492	654	204	223	289	305

Interesting things here: not much, the regions are pretty similar to each other in all of these except immigration. TNP's got the most people moving in, significantly more than the other feeders; Osiris and Balder have barely any people choose to move in, while Lazarus is more comparable to the feeders.

A few notes: CTEs are unusually low this week due to the Christmas outage, and I noticed like 4000+ card farming puppets being made and moved around. That's definitely a change - I don't remember such huge puppet regions being common at the time of the first Heartbeat, and even though all GCRs have grown since 2018, there are now two card farm regions that have overtaken them all. Yay for organic population growth.

Speaking of population growth:

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Population in January 2018	7292	7172	8785	6826	7239	3254	5276	5294	5384
Population in January 2023	8276	10436	12012	7098	10450	8586	10432	10126	10024
Difference from 2018	984	3264	3227	272	3211	5332	5156	4832	4640

There's been an absolutely massive growth of sinkers, with all of them gaining roughly 5000 nations, so that they're much more on par with the feeders than they used to be. I welcome suggestions on why - something to do with card farms? Among the sinkers and feeders themselves, though, trends have remained pretty consistent: Lazarus, Osiris and Balder still have pretty much the same population, TNP's still the biggest feeder, TP and TWP are still the smallest, though the gaps have widened significantly.

---

Regional Engagement

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Average residency	156	184	204	149	184	223	176	159	146
Average influence	374	3772	8692	1608	1851	610	707	500	435
RMB messages in week (2018)	2150	3932	12881	556	1485	522	192	60	66
RMB messages in week (2023)	1463	6781	16002	378	2376	2706	860	112	65

Average residency doesn't vary thaaaat much between the GCRs, so I don't have much interesting to say about that; it's surprising to me that TRR is highest, but I suppose they're more likely to have freshly-ejected nations move out, so that there are fewer low-residency nations. Influence though obviously varies a lot depending on WA activity, which I'll get to in the next section.

As for RMB posts - shockingly, TNP is super active! Same as five years ago, it's head and shoulders above the rest of the regions - though TSP's catching up. Lazarus is the most active of the revivey-flavour sinkers, with far more posts than the others, and much more than five years ago - TRR too has had significant growth. TWP and TP have both had significant drops in RMB activity. Or maybe I just got them on a bad week. Balder's had almost no change, which is genuinely impressive.

---

World Assembly

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Number of WA nations	723	1096	1582	753	925	539	404	375	444
Endorsements on del (Jan 2018)	514	433	1045	537	673	184	232	203	268
Endorsements on del (Jan 2023)	516	779	1167	622	557	226	233	232	292
Percent of WA on del (Jan 2018)	73%	60%	67%	78%	73%	39%	60%	60%	73%
Percent of WA on del (Jan 2023)	71%	71%	74%	83%	60%	42%	58%	62%	66%
Average endos	0.43	12	30	4.9	4.76	0.83	0.84	0.34	0.23

As in 2018, TNP has a huge amount of endorsements on their delegate, and has further increased their endorsement percentage on the delegate. TSP's had the most dramatic change, with their percentage jumping by 10 points and the endorsements themselves rising by around 350. TEP is the only region that's had a significant drop in endorsements, with a 13% decrease in endorsement percentage on delegate - this could be because it's only been a few months since their last delegate transition, but still, that's pretty significant. TP and Laz have impressively barely changed, and Bal maintains the highest percentage among the sinkers.

---

Forum Activity

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Foundation	8/7/2007	10/9/2022	11/25/2005	11/3/2012	5/31/2003	10/17/2004	7/10/2018	12/1/2013	1/1/2019
Days since foundation	5655	113	6275	3740	7184	6679	1665	3347	1490
Members	34,559	381	11,679	2,888	4715	2933	577	1545	583
Posts	2,100,000	-	955,976	89,000	-	124,551	16,388	81,916	8,487
Posts per day	371	-	152	24	-	19	10	24	6

I deeply resent TSP and TEP for not having viewable post counts. Heinous behaviour. The rest should however reflect all posts, even the ones invisible to me. TP and TWP display a rounded number.

Balder, Laz and TSP have all gotten new forums since 2018 which explains their low member count, though TSP's has been gaining new members far faster. TP has by far the most active forum, with TNP second - but TP is used for multiple games, so a lot of that activity won't come from NS. Still impressive though. TWP's activity is more comparable to the sinkers than to TNP or TP; then again, it might be comparable to TEP and TSP. IF POST COUNTS WERE VISIBLE. Grumpy face at Discourse.

---

Discord Activity

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Foundation	7/18/2016	12/2/2015	2/11/2016	9/8/2016	10/14/19	11/30/2016	4/23/2018	7/29/2016	11/3/2016
Days since foundation	2387	2616	2545	2335	1204	2252	1743	2376	2279
Members	2615	954	1640	745	1310	440	471	346	342
Public posts	3,118,277	2,257,334	2,280,270	987,456	509,270	3,615,000	183,153	573064	734,066
Posts per day	1306	863	896	423	423	1605	105	241	322

"Hey, why aren't you separating out bot channels?" Because I value my time more than I did in 2018 ;-; Also, Discord has rolled out a fun new feature called 'giving the wrong numbers the first few times you search', so these may be slightly inaccurate. Still! Some trends are clearly visible: TRR and TP are Active AF (same caveat as above applies to TP tho), TSP and TNP are Very Active, TEP and TWP are twins, the revivey sinkers are less active, with Balder having the most posts per day. TRR has the most activity and almost the least members - Rejects are obviously just cool like that.

Also, I made a graph of Discord activity over time:



TRR are you okay

[Comfed]

Interesting summary! The numbers for the Pacific's forum are probably distorted by the fact that it also contains all the posts from their other branches in other games.

[TheKeyToJoy]

A lot of commitment for you to do that for five years, I hope this cookie can help you. Places cookie.

[Minskiev]

TRR are you okay

Not really no

[Jar Wattinree]

---

Discord Activity

Region	TP	TSP	TNP	TWP	TEP	TRR	LAZ	OSI	BAL
Foundation	7/18/2016	12/2/2015	2/11/2016	9/8/2016	10/14/19	11/30/2016	4/23/2018	7/29/2016	11/3/2016
Days since foundation	2387	2616	2545	2335	1204	2252	1743	2376	2279
Members	2615	954	1640	745	1310	440	471	346	342
Public posts	3,118,277	2,257,334	2,280,270	987,456	509,270	3,615,000	183,153	573064	734,066
Posts per day	1306	863	896	423	423	1605	105	241	322

"Hey, why aren't you separating out bot channels?" Because I value my time more than I did in 2018 ;-; Also, Discord has rolled out a fun new feature called 'giving the wrong numbers the first few times you search', so these may be slightly inaccurate. Still! Some trends are clearly visible: TRR and TP are Active AF (same caveat as above applies to TP tho), TSP and TNP are Very Active, TEP and TWP are twins, the revivey sinkers are less active, with Balder having the most posts per day. TRR has the most activity and almost the least members - Rejects are obviously just cool like that.

Also, I made a graph of Discord activity over time:

(Image)

Relevant passage underlined and BOLDED. It should be noted that of the public channels in the NPO's server only three are game-specific, and those are just general chatter (or, in one particular channel's case, K-Pop). The rest are general channels not necessarily limited to any particular game. Still otherwise impressive.