NationStates

Creating thread to split off debate prompted by announcement that recruitment TGs will be permitted to nations outside of GCRs.

(Spawned from this thread.)

Speaking as someone NOT involved with the R/D game (for the moment) and as a member of a region that does (Europeia), I'm not thrilled at the idea of myself or my fellow regionmates being bombarded by recruitment TGs, especially if the TGs also serve as propaganda to sway us one way or another on the R/D game.

I would think it's reasonable for a new nation to expect that moving to a UCR = no more regional TGs, and if they're new, I doubt that they'd know that they could block the recruitment TGs. Removing this rule seems to do more bad than good in that respect.

This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

Repost:

On principle I have no problems if nations residing in UCRs to receive recruitment TGs if they want to. However it really should be an opt-in thing for them, rather than opt out. If a nation specifically wants to look elsewhere, fine, but by default the 'benefit of inertia' should be the reward for the region that put so much effort into recruiting them.

Taking a step back for a moment...the current situation is that nations spawn in feeders / sinks so those naturally form the recruitment pool.
Changing the rule to open up user created regions to recruitment gives those regions a significant disadvantage to the feeders and sinks. If you change the recruitment pool it stands to reason that you will also change the spawn pool.

Cormac Stark wrote:Absolutely not. There shouldn't be a player in this game who will put up with it. Get rid of the recruit from UCRs change and then maybe this is acceptable, but otherwise regional gameplay just became completely pay-to-play.

Nah, as I see it, stamps are a tax on ignorance/stupid players. If you can program a telegrammer to use the API, you can avoid paying anything. If you can't, you pay the stupid tax.

Cormac Stark wrote:

Afforess wrote:Your logic here is really flawed. You seem to think that these changes will take away from your hard work, but then you also say that people are ALREADY using auto-telegrammers. The auto-telegrammers for illegal recruiting are already "shitting on your work", so all violet is doing is making the playing field level.

No, because the really remarkable change here is that the admins are now going to allow people to recruit from user-created regions. So, I can spend hours recruiting and with the click of a few buttons and a cash deposit someone can send a recruitment TG to everyone in my region and take more people from it than I can keep up with by recruiting without paying.

Absolutely not. There shouldn't be a player in this game who will put up with it. Get rid of the recruit from UCRs change and then maybe this is acceptable, but otherwise regional gameplay just became completely pay-to-play.

I do support legalized recruiting in the user-created regions. Why? Regions should have to work to retain the players whom they have.

Weed wrote:This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

This.

Afforess wrote:

Individuality-ness wrote:Two points. With one of them being a huge difference in both the rules and the game.

Still not a trend:

At risk of using the slippery slope logical fallacy, I don't want NS to take a bite out of the apple, to use [v]'s words, and then be so delighted at the taste of said apple that they go the full hog.

Christian Democrats wrote:

Cormac Stark wrote:No, because the really remarkable change here is that the admins are now going to allow people to recruit from user-created regions. So, I can spend hours recruiting and with the click of a few buttons and a cash deposit someone can send a recruitment TG to everyone in my region and take more people from it than I can keep up with by recruiting without paying.

Absolutely not. There shouldn't be a player in this game who will put up with it. Get rid of the recruit from UCRs change and then maybe this is acceptable, but otherwise regional gameplay just became completely pay-to-play.

I do support legalized recruiting in the user-created regions. Why? Regions should have to work to retain the players whom they have.

I don't think his point is really that so much as that if he spent hours recruiting manually because he doesn't have the money to recruit with the new system, why should someone with money get to just pay a couple of dollars and pretty much no time to take away what he did work hard for?

Support. Regions should have to work to retain their members.

If you do not want players to leave, offer them a high-quality region.

Weed wrote:This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

If that's all it takes to wreck your region, then you clearly have a really pathetic regional community. You might want to consider fixing that instead of blaming it on the system.

Saying that it's a horrible idea is probably the most polite way I can say it.

For one, what actual reason is there to allow this? Not to just make the game interesting, but an actual reason that proves that this adds some sort of positive benefit to NS. I don't see this reason. From what we've seen in the reaction to this, I'm not the only one.

Coupled with the new P2P AutoTelegram system, which I also find horrible, this basically makes UCRs yet another recruiting ground for anyone that's bored and wants to grab nations. Insert 0.50$. Recieve 500 Stamps. Spam the shit out of two fairly large UCRs.

Please reconsider adding this in. It's not going to do anything but make it even harder for those of us who run UCRs to do anything. Unless we have money, of course, in which case we can pay a few dollars to recruit from most of the UCRs around us instead of having to put any real work into making the region grow in population.

Cormac Stark wrote:No, because the really remarkable change here is that the admins are now going to allow people to recruit from user-created regions. So, I can spend hours recruiting and with the click of a few buttons and a cash deposit someone can send a recruitment TG to everyone in my region and take more people from it than I can keep up with by recruiting without paying.

Absolutely not. There shouldn't be a player in this game who will put up with it. Get rid of the recruit from UCRs change and then maybe this is acceptable, but otherwise regional gameplay just became completely pay-to-play.

I'm so so sad there was decision made to charge for telegrams. That just breaks my heart, and will probably end my involvement in this game.

You may be right, in this instance recruitment in the UCRs may suck worse for some players, but the fact that we've now crossed the line that paying for something improves your ability to play the game, that is a line game-makers rarely cross just once. It'll never be the same again.

I don't care if it becomes legal in this new TG system, if I get a recruitment TG in my region, I'm reporting it for illegal recruiting. Quite frankly, if we can be TG spammed with recruiting TGs and we lose people for it, it's just as wrong in the new system as the old.

Weed wrote:This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

This too. That counts just as much as my statement.

The Republic of Lanos wrote:I don't care if it becomes legal in this new TG system, if I get a recruitment TG in my region, I'm reporting it for illegal recruiting

Intentionally harassing the mods is a great way to get perma-banned.

Afforess wrote:

Weed wrote:This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

If that's all it takes to wreck your region, then you clearly have a really pathetic regional community. You might want to consider fixing that instead of blaming it on the system.

Perhaps we should test this by sending a telegram to all the nations of Capitalist Paradise and seeing how many leave? You seem to be alright with calling other communities pathetic, so why not put yours to the test?

The Republic of Lanos wrote:I don't care if it becomes legal in this new TG system, if I get a recruitment TG in my region, I'm reporting it for illegal recruiting. Quite frankly, if we can be TG spammed with recruiting TGs and we lose people for it, it's just as wrong in the new system as the old.

Weed wrote:This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

This too. That counts just as much as my statement.

You'll be able to opt out.

Tim-Opolis wrote:

Afforess wrote:If that's all it takes to wreck your region, then you clearly have a really pathetic regional community. You might want to consider fixing that instead of blaming it on the system.

Perhaps we should test this by sending a telegram to all the nations of Capitalist Paradise and seeing how many leave? You seem to be alright with calling other communities pathetic, so why not put yours to the test?

Go ahead. You won't have many leave, most of the Capitalist Paradise members are very old nations, > 1 year.

The Republic of Lanos wrote:I don't care if it becomes legal in this new TG system, if I get a recruitment TG in my region, I'm reporting it for illegal recruiting.

You can block them so you don't receive them at all.

Sichuan Pepper wrote:Taking a step back for a moment...the current situation is that nations spawn in feeders / sinks so those naturally form the recruitment pool.
Changing the rule to open up user created regions to recruitment gives those regions a significant disadvantage to the feeders and sinks. If you change the recruitment pool it stands to reason that you will also change the spawn pool.

Fair point. If the spawn rules were changed...somehow...but then how? Its a cluster-mess. The simplest solution would be to not life the ban on recruitment from UCRs

@Afforess: His problem isn't so much the existence of stamps as the ability of people to recruit from UCRs.

@CD & Aff: 1 in one hundred TGs sent get you a guy in your region. 1 in ten join your forums. 2 in five become active/ish on your forums. The rest of the people in the region are untapped potential you need to mine. Allowing people to pull them out before you've had the time to mine that potential (as this would allow) doesn't allow for you to show them how awesome your region is before they get bombared with new TGs soon after moving in.

Wrong thread

Christian Democrats wrote:

The Republic of Lanos wrote:I don't care if it becomes legal in this new TG system, if I get a recruitment TG in my region, I'm reporting it for illegal recruiting. Quite frankly, if we can be TG spammed with recruiting TGs and we lose people for it, it's just as wrong in the new system as the old.


This too. That counts just as much as my statement.

You'll be able to opt out.

Now tell me how many people who don't pay attention to the News posts or the forums will know that they can opt out? How many new players will know that they can opt out of recruitment spam?

I think it is fundamentally bad that you can now spend money to target a region's members.

Certainly they can block such messages, but many players aren't going to know to block the stuff until it begins arriving.

People who have put thousands of hours into their region should not suddenly be open to mass marketting attacks on their members because someone is willing to pay a few bucks to get ahead.

It's just wrong and a complete change in game policy.

Afforess wrote:

Weed wrote:This is horrible. Please reconsider! It's hard enough building up regions, it'll be even more annoying when the very first random nation you annoy moves off to his own region and sends a telegram to all your members about how you've wronged him and they should come with him instead of you.

If that's all it takes to wreck your region, then you clearly have a really pathetic regional community. You might want to consider fixing that instead of blaming it on the system.

That is not at all what he is implying. We are not worried about keeping our members, it is about preventing our region-mates from getting loads of spam from a disgruntled nation.