NationStates

For all the "promising ideas" Reppy was telling us about for 2021, we got some sort of solitary voting comparison game instead. Judging from the response to that, 2022's April Fools minigame should be more popular by a canter - and we green-shirted masses have our first hints already. Noticed that that my title for this year's thread ends with "!" rather than "?" yet?

Max Himself has proclaimed that this April Fools will play host to the Global Trade Fair, where "nations are invited to view and collect a range of goods, which you may stash and display in your regions." The obvious questions are obvious: how does collection happen? What currency do you need to collect stuff? How much stuff can you collect? How is TNP going to cope with so much stuff being put on display?

Max also warns that "this will be a celebration of love and co-operation! And to keep it that way, there will be inspections and confiscations." A part of me wants to say that this is going to result in entire collections being arbitrarily wiped (in moves similar to those that have rendered around-the-clock zombie border control impossible for the past two years); a part of me wants to say this is a homage to several dozen Ukrainian tractors

All will be revealed in approximately 66 hours.

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, 2021

Here, for historical reference, are the start times in BST of the past April Fools minigames (in terms of the time they started, not the year they occurred in):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
• 2022 (Global Trade Fair): 1:02am
• 2018 (Trading Cards): 3:30am
• 2015 (C.A.N): 5am
• 2008 (World Assembly antiprank): 5am or so
• 2014 (ByteCoin): 1:30pm

How does this trade fair thing work? I know you probably don't know.

Rick Perry wrote:How does this trade fair thing work? I know you probably don't know.

there may be some more info soon.

Sounds cool nonetheless whatever its going to be like when it comes.

Ottterland wrote:

Rick Perry wrote:How does this trade fair thing work? I know you probably don't know.

there may be some more info soon.

I hate being left in the dark

The concept sounds oddly similar to one of those trading cards upgrading features that were discussed earlier in the year, specifically this one: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=511054

Maybe acquiring these items will be done by spending the 'Bank' from cards, as a way of reducing the large sums currently held by some nations...

Bears Armed wrote:Maybe acquiring these items will be done by spending the 'Bank' from cards, as a way of reducing the large sums currently held by some nations...

yeah i'll be fine with that

Anyone think this nation might have something to do with it? Fishy stats?

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=arstaria

I Look forward to this one. If there is a subforum for it should be named capitalist paradise.

Bears Armed wrote:Maybe acquiring these items will be done by spending the 'Bank' from cards, as a way of reducing the large sums currently held by some nations...

That would mean non-card farmers would be seriously disadvantaged. Then again, what's one more minigame that needs many puppets to participate significantly, when we already have so many?

Merni wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:Maybe acquiring these items will be done by spending the 'Bank' from cards, as a way of reducing the large sums currently held by some nations...

That would mean non-card farmers would be seriously disadvantaged. Then again, what's one more minigame that needs many puppets to participate significantly, when we already have so many?

Maybe only WA nations will be able to participate...

This does sound a little similar to Cards though. Very intrigued to see what's in store for this year!!

A part of me thinks it may be a parody of that NFT craze, where URLs to files are literally sold at inflated prices (source).

Land Without Shrimp wrote:

Merni wrote:That would mean non-card farmers would be seriously disadvantaged. Then again, what's one more minigame that needs many puppets to participate significantly, when we already have so many?

Maybe only WA nations will be able to participate...

This does sound a little similar to Cards though. Very intrigued to see what's in store for this year!!

If that was the case it would be added to the list of why NS is bad.

Minoa wrote:A part of me thinks it may be a parody of that NFT craze, where URLs to files are literally sold at inflated prices (source).

Agreed. It would also function as a nice bank sink. Lots of people have saved up tons of bank and really have nowhere to spend it.

Wayneactia wrote:

Minoa wrote:A part of me thinks it may be a parody of that NFT craze, where URLs to files are literally sold at inflated prices (source).

Agreed. It would also function as a nice bank sink. Lots of people have saved up tons of bank and really have nowhere to spend it.

Anything tied to cards bank will be wildly in fair as either everyone will have a crazy easy way to get bank or the rich will steam roll the event. If it does have currency I foresee it being separate.

At the top of the Global Trade Fair, there are various humourous one-liner BREAKING news updates. One of those contains a typo:


Trade Fair Stashes cannot be viewed on regional pages in Antiquity and Century themes. Why?

The trade fair log's region filter only works for the first page, after that it is global

Haganham wrote:The trade fair log's region filter only works for the first page, after that it is global

The "next" link incorrectly gives ?logfilter-entity= instead of ?logfilter-target=.

If there's a region and nation with the same name, it's not possible to view the other's trade log.

edit:
add nation: or region: to get those, ex
nation:racoda
region:racoda

I don't care how long the activity log is: I wish for a full log of the event to be uploaded as a data dump so that users can figure out the firsts, and how many of each were generated, shipped, destroyed, stashed, etc.

When you search for a nation or region in the activity log, nation: and region: disappear when you go to the next or previous page. If there is only a nation with the name you're searching for or you're searching for a region, this changes nothing, but if you're searching for a nation and a region also exists, you get the region's activity instead.

Also, the large "Global Trade Fair" text on the banner all fair pages have links to whatever page you're on: the main fair page (your goods) if you're on that page, the main activity log if you're on any activity log page, and regional stashes if you're on the regional stashes page.

I found a suspicious thing. The news page says that the fair ends in 105 minutes, but the fair page says 45. That's a hour earlier. Which page is right?

Durm wrote:I found a suspicious thing. The news page says that the fair ends in 105 minutes, but the fair page says 45. That's a hour earlier. Which page is right?

Ugh, the News page was wrong. Sorry about that.

The Fair announcement was laid on Monday. Is there any reason why the correct end time could not have been set at some point in the three days before the Fair began, or even announced before Durm pointed out the disreptancy on this thread? And why has "Daylight savings" not affected the official end times of other multi-day April Fools minigames, such as the SecGen elections, Trading Cards, and the inaugural N-Day?