Out of the loop about Westphalia

[Greater vakolicci haven]

All communities deserve to exist.

Try to defend them. To me Nazi regions are an error in the game - an error the moderation will not fix, but we can, by constantly without any break destroying anything they build whenever possible.
I take pride in being someone that made the game experience of NS for these kind of nations living hell.

I take pride in being one of the first outside players to move into NE in support of its delegate at the time of the liberation proposal. NE are, by their very nature roleplayers rather than actual Nazis; the constant attacks against them are very close to harassment.

I'm very much aware I've probably started a threadjack so I'll try to draw this to a close now so I don't get attacked by brigades of angry mods.

[Captain Woodhouse]

NE are, by their very nature roleplayers rather than actual Nazis; the constant attacks against them are very close to harassment.

Hahaha . . . are you the last to know they ain't roleplaying?

[Caelapes]

NE are, by their very nature roleplayers rather than actual Nazis; the constant attacks against them are very close to harassment.

Hahaha . . . are you the last to know they ain't roleplaying?

You weren’t exactly the fastest on the draw in that regard.

[Savaer]

He also wasn't wrong that invaders like Unknown were involved in forum destruction. I mean if we're bringing up scandals in each others factions, let me know, so I can remind you about Predator for the 500th time

To be clear, we harbored the individual who committed those acts, not perpetrated them, and were bit in the ass by him a few months later where he hijacked the founder of Unknown from the then Archempress.

The condemnation that followed came about due to my bullheaded attitude towards the ultimatum issues by the FRA Arch chancellor (can't remember the name off hand...) to ban Rougiers. I forgot exact words used, but the wallpost response summed up to "F you."

Following the founder hijacking (restored to us by the mods of the time) forum killing, including from my perspective, gained a new, abhorrent light to it. Avakael has always held his ground on it in such fashion.

[Captain Woodhouse]

When it’s well-written. It could’ve been improved, but there was some weird sense of urgency.

I’ll be fair, I did change my opinion a bit at Frattastan’s post there about why it is a good idea to pass the liberation. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell them to wait and improve the draft instead of rushing it and making it difficult to pass and other attempts even harder.

Did anyone, including Etlara, bother to campaign for Etlara's proposal? What's stopping a big deal defender from submitting a new proposal now, and campaigning hard for it, in a last ditch effort to take Westphalia from invaders—other than the dumb excuse that voters (lemmings largely) might be turned off by another Westphalia Lib?

Just do it, man. If Misley can convince voters to commend MT for refounding a bunch of dead Nazi regions and keeping placeholders in dead Anarchist regions, then defenders can surely lib Westphalia. For all the world, it appears defenders are bent on punishing a whole region because its leadership ignored their advice.

You weren’t exactly the fastest on the draw in that regard.

I can only guess that you love dancing with me, Misley. This is at least our third public tango to the same tune.

Greater vakolicci haven still believes that NE consists of RPing choirboys because that's the bullshit everyone in the game was fed way back when. Gvh probably hasn't received GD's recruitment TG, identifying NE as a fascist region. In the TG, GD asks potential new recruits if they're tired of being labeled a monster for loving their own [white] people, and invites them to let it all hang out on NE's Discord, which is out of the reaches of game rules.

GVH is clearly unaware that the majority of NE HC unmasked November 2016 on NE's newly created Discord server. After the unmasking, I was informed I'd been deceived to keep me working for NE.

Neither you nor anyone else produced evidence that the individuals in question were anything other than what they claimed to be. There's no reason I would know a whole lot more than you unless I chatted up those folks offsite way more than I did.

I've repeatedly stated that no untoward behavior occurred in TGs, and that my offsite contact with the rest of NE HC was limited. When we did connect offsite, it was largely over NS gameplay matters.

Get a clue that not every adult NS player digs getting close to children, teens or even other adults offsite to uncover their deep darklies.

[Unibot III]

Nice to know you’re the epitome of morals on NS, Uni.

It's not about "morals," it's about principles. And apparently it needs to be said because I don't see anyone else speaking out about it.

I had a lot of veterans in the day talk to me about how to be a defender. We didn't slam veterans as "armchairs" back then. If you think I didn't get my fair share of lectures, you would be wrong. I listened (usually - I was always stubborn), and I was a better defender because of it.

Anyway, it’s not like we wouldn’t have tried to coordinate missions to liberate Westphalia if it was realistically possible. We still wouldn’t have refrained from defending. However, we feel a need to defend our honor when people say “more should have been done to save Westphalia” (which has been said by plenty of people) or, in the case of this thread, Tinhampton’s post about “defenders failing miserably” which was utterly ridiculous. We did what we could, so when people blame us, it’s misdirected. We’d rather not be told that this is our failure, because it’s not.

I know as well as anyone, sometimes you're shit out of luck. Tinhampton doesn't know what he's talking about, but I do. So save the armchair bullshit for someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of defending, the odds, and the challenges. I busted my ass for years working cases just like Westphalia's. I'm not disappointed in the Grey Wardens for not liberating Westphalia, I'm just disappointed you'd run your mouth about natives in public who have already been antagonized enough. Look, some natives are absolute goons to work with, but they're often scared and irrational - they think they're losing their region and sometimes they're right. Gameplay is a schoolyard. Invaders barge in like mean little bullies and shove smaller kids down, your role as a defender is to sock them in the face and tell 'em to go pick on someone their own size. You're their support. You have to be supremely reassuring, determined to go the distance, and you never ever kick natives when they're already down.

Dunno if I’d complain about being forced into the armchair if I were you, that probably won’t go very well.

I'm quaking in my boots.

[La Navasse]

Luckily, that isn’t what it is, even if the armchairs want it to be that. They don’t have control over defending, defenders do. If they want a say, time to turn the TV off and leave the armchair. I don’t think they’d like being disrespected like that.

It's not my choice to leave the armchair, but you know that already.

If you think I haven't dealt with my fair share of frustrating natives (who NEVER LISTENED), you would be dead wrong. We just never aired our frustrations in public to pass off blame; that's not how defenders operated because we always had sympathy for natives and respected their situation. If that's how "defenders" operate now, I think it's right to question whether they're falling short of the mark.

Fortunately, the Grey Wardens aren't the only defending group and if they carry on like this, they won't be a dominant force for much longer.

Funny you should say that. The Grey Wardens were never a "defender" region in your definition - they're an independently-oriented region which mainly just chases raiders, and for the most part works only with advantaged natives who know how NS works in case of occupations. If they don't like a region, they won't help, which is both good (in terms of fascist regions) and horrific, in my case.

I was extremely new to NS when I became a Delegate of Dank Memes, a random founderless region I wanted to play around with. I grew its population, but eventually, I wanted to be the region's Founder. I then went to TGW, where they essentially told me I needed to be patient, gain more influence, and be completely covert in planning a refound. Being the noob I was, however, I displayed on the WFE that I was going to refound the region, and banjected a couple natives out of impatience. I also leaked information from TGW apparently, though to this day I have no idea what it was, nor of any idea of when this happened.

At that, TGW completely cut off communications with my region, and Hydra Command invaded soon afterwards. Out of desperation, I ended up trying to regain control by a treaty with Captain Woodhouse, back when he was part of NE, with illogical, limiting, and highly disadvantageous terms towards the natives and I, and managed to pass a SC Liberation for the region. Woodhouse did snipe the refound, but the whole concept of the region was essentially broken in my mind. TGW and other defenders simply weren't of the mind to offer anything, other than banning me from their servers and forums and giving no possibility of appeal.

TGW is not a defender region in the conventional sense, and that's exactly why Westphalia played out the way it has, so far. If defender regions don't come to the aid of desperate, novice regional administrators, they will seek measures that are more extreme and worse for their community as a whole. According to TGW, I was at fault for essentially not knowing better, but how could I have if I recently joined NS? Are novice players to be blamed for the full brunt of their mistakes?

defenders try and fail miserably

The fact of the matter is, we told Westphalia for months to get a password. We also identified Scrapped 142 as the sleeper and told Westphalia to ban him well in advance. They disregarded both of these critical pieces of advice.

We can only do so much. If natives aren't willing to also help themselves, even when they're being spoonfed what they need to do, then it's not going to end well for them. Hopefully Westphalia will serve as an effective reminder to other founderless natives that when Defenders tell you about something relating to your security, there's a pretty damn good chance that we're right. If you choose to live in a founderless UCR, you have to know the risks and you should try to address the risks.

Do you really feel that Westphalia would be a remainder to other founderless natives? Do you think they'd even know about it, just a couple weeks into the future? They won't know, and they could've have known. The toxic environment that has been conjured by a good intentioned progression away from the moral-based defending of the past has led to an approach of defending by convenience, by feeling, by experience. You try to distinguish yourselves from conventional defenders in your style, but this erodes the very foundations of what defending is supposed to be. You are now the face of modern defending, and it isn't defending at all. It's a sad remnant of its former self, allied with powers such as the New Pacific Order, and it now places the responsibility of defending more upon others then yourselves. You become nothing better than raiders themselves; you might as well be raiders and have some other group "defend", though you've completely stripped the entirety of the meaning of Defending away from what it should have been.

However, with this contemporary rejection of former ideals, you also reject those opinions made by those who you haven't had good history with. The opinions that end up being listened to become the opinions of the one entity you are eager to serve - your fellow defenders. As a result, there is little to no likelihood for any possibility of change, and additionally, this message might as well be a single word to TGW defenders:

Stop.

[Kurnugia]

Since there are so many moral defenders complaning about our ways to do business, why don't they found their own defender org?

[La Navasse]

Since there are so many moral defenders complaning about our ways to do business, why don't they found their own defender org?

In my opinion, a defender organization is only one component in the activities of a healthy, well-rounded defenderist region.

[Kurnugia]

Since there are so many moral defenders complaning about our ways to do business, why don't they found their own defender org?

In my opinion, a defender organization is only one component in the activities of a healthy, well-rounded defenderist region.

again, if you are so interested in what is defending, why don't you do it yourself?

[La Navasse]

In my opinion, a defender organization is only one component in the activities of a healthy, well-rounded defenderist region.

again, if you are so interested in what is defending, why don't you do it yourself?

Critics aren't necessarily the performers.

[Malphe]

Take a shot whenever somebody says armchair. I would do the same for whenever somebody says the world moral, but that would be downright dangerous.

[Kurnugia]

again, if you are so interested in what is defending, why don't you do it yourself?

Critics aren't necessarily the performers.

No shit. That explains why I had to cringe at everything you said. You really can't crtic something if you can't immerse yourself in it.

I do think it's hypocritical of unibot to hold a sermon but atleast he knows a bit of the logistics of defending. You on the other hand are talking out of your arse. It's easy to be against something. It's damn harder to be for something and i am not talking of some cheerleading, but to be actually involved.

Walk the goddamn mile.

[Sandaoguo]

The notion that you can’t critique or even be knowledgeable about defending without being online between the hours of midnight and 2am to move from a jump point to a target, has to be the weakest excuse for bad judgement y’all can come up with.

Do you also avoid talking politics because you’ve never served in Congress? Believe that people can’t criticize a war when they’ve never been in uniform overseas?

I’ve been playing this game for a decade. I’ve been immersed in the politics of Gameplay and defending longer than quite a few of you have been playing NS altogether. Just because I valued my sleep, education, job, and personal life over being online at ridiculous times to clean up RMBs or liberate, doesn’t mean I must be completely ignorant of the politics, strategy, and tactics.

That’s an elitist excuse to brush aside legitimate criticism.

[Arcellia]

again, if you are so interested in what is defending, why don't you do it yourself?

Critics aren't necessarily the performers.

Critics who don't have personal experience are inefficient and unreliable.

However, Westphalia was a complicated knot of issues. If the natives were warned and ignored it, I don't see why the defenders are supposed to be culpable for their refusal to listen. The target clearly had sentimental value to some on the raider side, although I would have seen it as a negligible target and personally ignored it when I was raider for that reason.

[Fratt]

Griefing is against the rules, so that's no good.

"Region griefing", he said.
I refer you to this useful post.

As defenders have noted, it was deserved and they didn't want a Liberation, so a rare moment of defenders and raiders working together for the betterment of raiding.

But I did want a Liberation.

Also, I find it idiotic that a few months ago defenders liberated The Genesis Corporation, a former griefer raider region founded by a rather notorious cheater and forum destroyer, but nope, Westphalia "deserves" destruction because it didn't have a knowledgeable and quick-acting security apparatus.
One might think that it retroactively "deserved" destruction because it was piled too high for anyone to free it.

However, Westphalia was a complicated knot of issues.

Not really. It was a region that was active and sizeable, and was both defender-leaning and a clear griefing target, so it should have had the highest possible priority (or higher than any of the tiny wastelands that are defended against tags or liberated against newbie groups on a regular basis). However, there was no opportunity to liberate it (in the R/D sense of the term).

[Arcellia]

However, Westphalia was a complicated knot of issues.

Not really. It was a region that was active and sizeable, and was both defender-leaning and a clear griefing target, so it should have had the highest possible priority (or higher than any of the tiny wastelands that are defended against tags or liberated against newbie groups on a regular basis).

Raiders took Westphalia the night that defenders reclaimed Iran. Iran was also a historic region that had long been turned into a raider trophy.

What's the point of being trusted to defend NS if defenders are ignored when they warn a region about a threat that hasn't even become active yet? It could have been solved by a simple banjection long before TBH claimed Westphalia and passed it over to Unknown.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Not really. It was a region that was active and sizeable, and was both defender-leaning and a clear griefing target, so it should have had the highest possible priority (or higher than any of the tiny wastelands that are defended against tags or liberated against newbie groups on a regular basis).

Raiders took Westphalia the night that defenders reclaimed Iran. Iran was also a historic region that had long been turned into a raider trophy.

What's the point of being trusted to defend NS if defenders are ignored when they warn a region about a threat that hasn't even become active yet? It could have been solved by a simple banjection long before TBH claimed Westphalia and passed it over to Unknown.

It was a defender region. Didn't defender unity used to be a thing, or am I just getting forgetful in my old age?
*shudders* have I really been here for 8 and a half years?

[Arcellia]

Raiders took Westphalia the night that defenders reclaimed Iran. Iran was also a historic region that had long been turned into a raider trophy.

What's the point of being trusted to defend NS if defenders are ignored when they warn a region about a threat that hasn't even become active yet? It could have been solved by a simple banjection long before TBH claimed Westphalia and passed it over to Unknown.

It was a defender region. Didn't defender unity used to be a thing, or am I just getting forgetful in my old age?
*shudders* have I really been here for 8 and a half years?

What were they supposed to do? Pile in Westphalia forever? If the natives refused to banject the sleeper, how would camping out in Westphalia have prevented the inevitable?

[Drop Your Pants]

Take a shot whenever somebody says armchair. I would do the same for whenever somebody says the world moral, but that would be downright dangerous.

I've done that for an update once, you get hammered.

The situation will only get worse if people drop out of defending altogether rather than working alongside the Grey Wardens, challenging their perspective in a constructive way.

Okay, either you know for a fact that what you're describing already happened, or your knowledge of Gameplay trends has turned you into a goddamn psychic

He's speaking from memory, replace TGW with the UDL

[Greater vakolicci haven]

It was a defender region. Didn't defender unity used to be a thing, or am I just getting forgetful in my old age?
*shudders* have I really been here for 8 and a half years?

What were they supposed to do? Pile in Westphalia forever? If the natives refused to banject the sleeper, how would camping out in Westphalia have prevented the inevitable?

Not vote against a liberation proposal maybe? I don't know, but voting for a liberation proposal sounds like a really good first step.

[Fratt]

It could have been solved by a simple banjection long before TBH claimed Westphalia and passed it over to Unknown.

Or it could have been piled beforehand, if the sleeper was known with such certainty. That would've given more weight to the warning too - I don't know how strongly the point that Scrapper 142 was an invader was made, or whom it was directed to (a single person? all the ROs?), but it seems to have gone unacknowledged rather than have been openly rejected.

And the deployment in Iran is useless, imo.

What's the point of being trusted to defend NS if defenders are ignored when they warn a region about a threat that hasn't even become active yet?

It doesn't matter. Defenders did what they could, and it wasn't enough. It happened before, and will happen again.
Sometimes defenders could have done more, but were too careless: guessing that Rediar was a Raider sleeper didn't exactly need an intelligence wizard, and it still slipped through - that would be at least as humiliating as a native being slow to act on a defender warning. And that's not too mention raids involving dirty puppets, liberations that were canceled because different groups didn't understand what update "Saturday major" refers to, etc.
Defenders premoved to Westphalia on the night of the raid, because at that point in the update it was the most likely target: I don't know how many people TITO had online, but none deployed because they had already updated. No worries though - I'm not calling for 10KI's disbandment yet, even if 'not using switchers' is below what should be a minimum standard for a functioning gameplay organisation.
Sometimes natives are warned in generic terms, but don't act because they feel safe: before TPC was invaded, the native delegate was definitely keeping an eye on Eldorado Poe, but 'keeping an eye' wasn't enough.
The fuss about this was overblown. It wasn't even remotely close to "glaring native stupidity".

The only ones who should be blamed for the invasion are the invaders. Of course.

[Arcellia]

What were they supposed to do? Pile in Westphalia forever? If the natives refused to banject the sleeper, how would camping out in Westphalia have prevented the inevitable?

Not vote against a liberation proposal maybe? I don't know, but voting for a liberation proposal sounds like a really good first step.

Not having a password has never stopped raiders before. Were you around for Hogwarts back in 2014 when LWU originally took and refounded it - twice? A poor-quality liberation or a liberation where there is reasonable doubt as to the merits stands a huge chance of being insta-repealed.

I strongly and utterly disagree that Westphalia is any more deserving of protection than any other true natives because it was connected to SWORD. Is a RP region worth less than Westphalia because it doesn't identify as defender? What about another community that defender numbers are needed for? Is anyone in Gameplay genuinely qualified to state what regions of (non-fascist or raider) natives are more deserving of defender protection than others? All natives of regions that aren't able to defend themselves in the arena of R/D are deserving of assistance.

I'd rather be paranoid and remove a nation that isn't 100% certain but is strongly suspected to be a sleeper to protect my region than to let it sit.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

It could have been solved by a simple banjection long before TBH claimed Westphalia and passed it over to Unknown.

Or it could have been piled beforehand, if the sleeper was known with such certainty. That would've given more weight to the warning too - I don't know how strongly the point that Scrapper 142 was an invader was made, or whom it was directed to (a single person? all the ROs?), but it seems to have gone unacknowledged rather than have been openly rejected.

And the deployment in Iran is useless, imo.

What's the point of being trusted to defend NS if defenders are ignored when they warn a region about a threat that hasn't even become active yet?

It doesn't matter. Defenders did what they could, and it wasn't enough. It happened before, and will happen again.
Sometimes defenders could have done more, but were too careless: guessing that Rediar was a Raider sleeper didn't exactly need an intelligence wizard, and it still slipped through - that would be at least as humiliating as a native being slow to act on a defender warning. And that's not too mention raids involving dirty puppets, etc.
Sometimes natives are warned in generic terms, but don't act because they feel safe: before TPC was invaded, the native delegate was definitely keeping an eye on Eldorado Poe, but 'keeping an eye' wasn't enough.
The fuss about this was overblown. It wasn't even remotely close to "glaring native stupidity".

The only ones who should be blamed for the invasion are the invaders. Of course.

Yep, very true. If they'd not done this, we wouldn't be in this situation now of blaming one another.
So stop invading places, MK?

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Not vote against a liberation proposal maybe? I don't know, but voting for a liberation proposal sounds like a really good first step.

Not having a password has never stopped raiders before. Were you around for Hogwarts back in 2014 when LWU originally took a refounded it - twice? A poor-quality liberation or a liberation where there is reasonable doubt as to the merits stands a huge chance of being insta-repealed.

I strongly and utterly disagree that Westphalia is any more deserving of protection than any other true natives because it was connected to SWORD. Is a RP region worth less than Westphalia because it doesn't identify as defender? What about another community that defender numbers are needed for? Is anyone in Gameplay genuinely qualified to state what regions of (non-fascist or raider) natives are more deserving of defender protection than others? All natives of regions that aren't able to defend themselves in the arena of R/D are deserving of assistance.

I'd rather be paranoid and remove a nation that isn't 100% certain but is strongly suspected to be a sleeper to protect my region than to let it sit.

Not seing your fascist distinction, but I'l make it clearer:

Defenders voting against a liberation proposal does not make a great deal of sense, if the region being liberated is currently piled with raiders. I don't remember the Hogwarts raid, I was pretty much just an rper at the time. And no, an rp region should expect protection, however a defender region should be able to expect that their fellow defenders won't completely abandon them.