Yes, the game is down! [update: we're back]

[Danubian Peoples]

Hey, can anyone explain the sudden influx of new nations with random names like free_nuk_gat_vevinninania, and why they're all in a region called __ghost__, which for some reason I can't access? I brought this up here specifically because an image depicting these nations was posted here earlier, and I think that's why the game temporarily shut down. If my assumption is correct, then can you tell me how all these nations came to fruition, as well as their region, and why they broke the game? If not, then tell me anyway because I don't see that everyday, or ever.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: It appears the weird name nations have been moved to the sinker regions.

EDIT 2: It appears the nations have been mass CTE'd 4 or so hours ago. Might I request how these nations were generated like this? I'm guessing there's no player connected to any of them, judging by what appears to be names generated by the name generator, as well as the answer [violet] gave me right below this post. If my assumption is true, then what created the nations?

[[violet]]

It happens when the game is half-working, like when gameside is up but the database connection is intermittent.

[Free California Republic]

It hasn't been locked yet...

[Fartsniffage]

It happens when the game is half-working, like when gameside is up but the database connection is intermittent.

So when that happens the game just creates new nations?

What kinda AI are y'all building here....

[Free California Republic]

So, this is what I saw earlier... ServerGoBOom?

[Kolm]

If it isn't too inconvienent, may I ask why the game is down?

Ehhhhhh....... (whispers) It’s the Russians.

Oh, those Russians...

[Trotterdam]

I noticed the API started responding again some time before the normal game did. Of course, with nobody being able to access the game to answer issues, the API kept reporting empty happenings until it changed its mind and threw a 403 error some quarter-hour later.

What really gave me a scare was when I tried to check the forum, and it was gone. Not down, the site worked and responded and gave a phpBB-generated page, but it acted as though the entire forum database had been deleted! Normally gameside problems don't affect forumside.

[LiberNovusAmericae]

While many of them are starting to CTE, there were a bunch of nation foundings during the outage. Nations such as: https://www.nationstates.net/nation=hirotan_colonies
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=new_liget_int

May I ask what happened to cause those foundings?

[Deutschess Kaiserreich]

We should court marshall the hamster that fell off the wheel.

Any idea for punishments?

Half rations?