The World Assembly, or WA for short, is both something that facilitates RP, and through endorsements, something that can be used to protect a region from raiding. These two things make it a package deal.
Players often roleplay responses to certain legislation being proposed on the forums, and every WA member gets sent a telegram whenever new legislation is passed, informing them that their nation needs to adhere to that law. Players, of course, do not need to adhere to the law, so the only purpose of that TG is to provide RP. Nations who participate in the WA are roleplaying as participants in an international body that decides laws for people.
If the only purpose of the WA was to allow for RP, I would not see an issue in it. Those who want to RP within the structure of the WA could do so, and those who did not, would not feel any pressure to get involved in it. The WA, however, is not just for RP. The more endorsements important regional players receive, the more stability that region has, generally speaking. Most players stay in a region because they like it for whatever reason, and would not be happy if that region was raided. Therefore, in order to preserve the stability of their chosen home, play6ers are greatly incentivised to join the WA and endorse the relevant players in their region.
This situation means that anyone wanting to protect their region through endorsing becomes subjected to the RP element of the WA receiving WA TGs informing that their nation must adhere to whatever law has been passed. For some nations, they will just delete these TGs and move on with their day. I have found it increasingly difficult to do that, however, and I suspect that others might share my feelings.
The thing I like most about NS is being able to RP, primarily on the RMBs and dispatches. I care a lot about the RP I do, so to have some TG sent from on high, telling me that Mzeusian laws must be changed, irks me. It is obvious that the WA is an organisation that passes blanket legislation about a certain issue, and cannot look at the nuances of each individual member nation. The ban of the death penalty for example, undermined millennia of Mzeusian cultural norms, even though death is very rarely a punishment handed out by Mzeusian courts. That said, the solution cannot be to to withdraw Mzeusia from the WA because doing so jeopardises the security of the regions players call home, and with enough players leaving the WA, it could become a serious security concern.
I'm not advocating for any great reform, or saying that the WA is truly undermining player enjoyment or something like that, but one solution would be to give players the option to stop receiving the WA telegrams. I know that is something that has been argued for unsuccessfully and the typical response to this request is to tell players to ignore the TGs, but I don't see why protecting one's region needs to come with the RP element as well if it is not wanted. I'm a layman when it comes to coding but we already have a preference system for TGs, so I assume it would not be too difficult to add another option to block WA TGs.
My current solution to this issue is to have Mzeusia in the WA in reality, but in RP to have Mzeusia out of it and staunchly opposed to it. Of course, I'll live with the fact that I get silly WA TGs trying to tell me things about my nation, but I would prefer to have the option to block them.
Thanks for reading.
