April Fools Minigame 2021? (The Best Nation in the World!)

[Tinhampton]

Alas - unlike this time last year, Max is ruling nothing out when it comes to this year's April Fools minigame (obvious "assuming that it is, of course, a minigame once again" caveat)... and it can be safely assumed that the staff are ruling nothing in either. So what do you, dear reader who probably has a green name and almost certainly has no clue about what the staff have planned for April Fools 2021, think the staff are planning for April Fools 2021?

Past pin-the-tail-on-the-April-fool threads: WA Antiprank 2008, Z-Day 2013, World Assembly Whispers 2016, N-Day 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Here, for historical reference, are the start times in BST of the past April Fools minigames (in terms of the time they started, not the year they occurred in):

• 2017 (N-Day): 9pm on March 31st
• 2016 (SecGen election I): 10:30pm on March 31st
• 2021 (Best Nation in the World): 11pm on March 31st
• 2020 (SecGen election II): 11:10pm on March 31st
• 2019 (Trivia Challenge): midnight on April 1st
• 2013 (Z-Day): 12:47am
• 2012 (the IPO): 1am
• 2018 (Trading Cards): 3:30am
• 2015 (C.A.N): 5am
• 2008 (World Assembly antiprank): 5am or so
• 2014 (ByteCoin): 1:30pm

[Flanderlion]

I'm going to guess that it will be something new, and it won't be a new season of cards despite what some think.

Did the game staff actually say that or are you making it up?

What I think he's referring to.

But no news post yet doesn't mean much. Last year it was like 3 days before, but 2016 the first news post was on the day or just before.

As I said a few years back, I don't think the lack of an announcement news post means much, especially with techies being around, so I don't think it'll be needing to be a last minute rehash of a past event (although personally I would like to see some more of them coming back at other times of the year). What TZ are those starts?

[Tinhampton]

BST - thanks, Flander. Any more takers?

[Flanderlion]

BST - thanks, Flander. Any more takers?

I have a faint idea what it is (it's out despite no news post), looks good, although is somewhat dominated by puppets.

[Tinhampton]

Muchly!

I note that on Khoshkhalistan's nation page appear the words "Khoshkhalistan is the 1st Best Nation in the World." Shouldn't that read "...the Best Nation..." instead?

[Tranzoria]

BST - thanks, Flander. Any more takers?

I have a faint idea what it is (it's out despite no news post), looks good, although is somewhat dominated by puppets.

Seems to be mostly Womble and Lily.

[Drew Durrnil]

The thread for that: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=501782

[Lenlyvit]

This officially goes on my list as the worst April minigame since I came back to NS in 2016. There's so many puppets it's hard to determine anything, it's glitchy on phones, and it makes no sense. Not to be a debby downer.

[9003]

I'm just sad commends and condems don't show up on the cards

[[violet]]

it's glitchy on phones

Can you describe the problem in more detail? It's hard to fix when a report is this vague.

[Lenlyvit]

it's glitchy on phones

Can you describe the problem in more detail? It's hard to fix when a report is this vague.

I'll try my best. If you've ever played a computer game on a laptop that doesn't have a high graphics card it's kind of like that. It's laggy scrolling down the leaderboard and takes a second to load the graphics as I'm scrolling down it.

Edit: So it might just be me [v]. I have an older phone.

[[violet]]

I'm just sad commends and condems don't show up on the cards

This should be fixed now.

[[violet]]

Can you describe the problem in more detail? It's hard to fix when a report is this vague.

I'll try my best. If you've ever played a computer game on a laptop that doesn't have a high graphics card it's kind of like that. It's laggy scrolling down the leaderboard and takes a second to load the graphics as I'm scrolling down it.

Edit: So it might just be me [v]. I have an older phone.

This sounds like it's loading the flags and banners. This mostly depends on the speed of your internet connection, although having an older device probably doesn't help, either. It is quite graphics-intensive.

[Flanderlion]

Overlapping icons etc. for me, but the number of puppets is more of an issue. Honestly getting a mod to go through, and just disqualifying the puppet hordes would be <3. Womble 4576 Vs Card Farmer 387 isn't exactly a good choice. For the future, tracking whether a nation has performed a restricted action in last week would be a good way to weed out puppets.

https://i.imgur.com/pKs3uUD.png

[SherpDaWerp]

Overlapping icons etc. for me, but the number of puppets is more of an issue. Honestly getting a mod to go through, and just disqualifying the puppet hordes would be <3. Womble 4576 Vs Card Farmer 387 isn't exactly a good choice. For the future, tracking whether a nation has performed a restricted action in last week would be a good way to weed out puppets.

Every R/D puppet has moved regions in the last week, and every Cards puppet has answered an issue in the last week... maybe a different metric.

[Lumio Magika]

I really like the layout of it, especially the background of the primary banner (Ocean Nova, in my case), with two secondary banners above and below.

[Flanderlion]

Overlapping icons etc. for me, but the number of puppets is more of an issue. Honestly getting a mod to go through, and just disqualifying the puppet hordes would be <3. Womble 4576 Vs Card Farmer 387 isn't exactly a good choice. For the future, tracking whether a nation has performed a restricted action in last week would be a good way to weed out puppets.

Every R/D puppet has moved regions in the last week, and every Cards puppet has answered an issue in the last week... maybe a different metric.

Good point, although most haven't as they aren't used everyday most of them. But back to manual weeding out.

[Drawkland]

I would hope that clicking "Neither" would do something to make nations appear less often. The number of puppets is astronomical and removes most of the interest to the game.

[Altmoras]

Not sure who thought this would be a good idea given that there's over 10 featureless puppets for every real nation. There's also no element of teamplay or community in soullessly clicking through an unending tide of puppets.

[Silvedania]

Overlapping icons etc. for me, but the number of puppets is more of an issue. Honestly getting a mod to go through, and just disqualifying the puppet hordes would be <3. Womble 4576 Vs Card Farmer 387 isn't exactly a good choice. For the future, tracking whether a nation has performed a restricted action in last week would be a good way to weed out puppets.

Every R/D puppet has moved regions in the last week, and every Cards puppet has answered an issue in the last week... maybe a different metric.

Maybe a button that says: "Puppet?" and when you press it they leave the contest after a check

[SherpDaWerp]

Maybe a button that says: "Puppet?" and when you press it they leave the contest after a check

So it would be something like: After $arbitrary_threshold "puppet" votes; the game runs a WA-check with no WA, seeing if the nation has been linked to other nations.

No idea how feasible that is - I'd suspect the WA check system is pretty monolithic and inflexible given it doesn't seem to have been updated all that much. Then again, mods have tools they can use to detect "puppetwanking", which wouldn't necessarily require WA.

Y'know, now that I think about it, a system for running arbitrary WA-like "puppet checks" would be handy for basically every minigame ever (N-day comes to mind), so if the system doesn't currently allow that, it might be a worthwhile investment of Admin time.

[Agalaesia]

So, after spending 10 minutes mindlessly clicking through the game, it's clear that a lot of the choices are between obvious puppets. I was wondering if it would be possible to exclude nations which reside in regions tagged as "puppet storage" as options. I know this won't stop 100% of the puppets, but it might make the game a little better.

[[violet]]

the number of puppets is more of an issue.

This will become less of an issue as the event progresses. In the beginning, it's a purely random selection, but later on, you get more choices between nations who are already known to be pretty good (or at least not consistent losers).

[Lenlyvit]

Would it be too much to have a button on our nation pages to tell us which place we're in? Or just an icon that can change as the game progresses?

[Flanderlion]

the number of puppets is more of an issue.

This will become less of an issue as the event progresses. In the beginning, it's a purely random selection, but later on, you get more choices between nations who are already known to be pretty good (or at least not consistent losers).

Good to hear, we'll keep at it.