Accounts Development

[United Calanworie]

There are some fundamental questions being considered, including:
1) Are players obliged to use an account, or can they continue to login to nations individually that exist outside of an account?
2) Are players allowed multiple accounts?
3) Is there a nation limit on an account? This may be a technical requirement.
4) Do we introduce a "Primary" nation designation, limited to one per player (even if you have multiple accounts) as a way of decoupling our "this is an individual player" check from WA membership (note: that WA would remain one per player)? This would be useful for achieving balance across several areas of the site without limiting players who either don't join the WA for ideological reasons or whose WA membership is impacted by their gameplay requirements.

Some clarity around this, as we had behind the scenes misunderstandings. We're potentially looking at this:

• A player can have as many accounts as they wish.
• There is a nation limit per account, for technical reasons.
• A player can designate one account as their "Prime" account.
• Nations in a non-Prime account cannot join the World Assembly.
• A Prime account will limit the player to only having one nation within that account in the WA.
• Bonuses for minigames (e.g. as WA nations currently get in N-Day) would be allocated to a single chosen nation within a Prime account, but could be assigned to something other than your WA nation.

Or in short "Prime" is at the account level, not nation level.

With current thinking, we're not intending to force players to migrate existing nations to an account, though we want to incentivise it. A "Prime" account is likely what we'd look at for Cards pack generation.

No consideration has yet been given to whether anything would be displayed to indicate a nation is part of an account, or whether that account is a "Prime" one.

[Sedgistan]

The basic concept is that you have a single NationStates account you can log into, from which you can access and control all of your nations.

The key advantage would be switching quickly between your nations within having to log into each individually. Depending on implementation, potentially you could also easily switch your WA status too, view all your unread TGs and notices in one place, have a shared pool of Stamps, and share settings such as Vacation Mode and Ignore Lists.

[North Seedylver]

The basic concept is that you have a single NationStates account you can log into, from which you can access and control all of your nations.

The key advantage would be switching quickly between your nations within having to log into each individually. Depending on implementation, potentially you could also easily switch your WA status too, view all your unread TGs and notices in one place, have a shared pool of Stamps, and share settings such as Vacation Mode and Ignore Lists.

That's a cool idea right there.

[Improper Classifications]

Intriguingly, the master account and account switcher code already exists in NS++. The trick would be porting it over to the site, as well as all of the other features planned

[Untecna]

That sounds like a cool idea, especially for people who may want multiple nations and need easier management. But how difficult would something like this be to implement, and what benefits could it have for users and staff besides the obvious easier management?

[North Seedylver]

That sounds like a cool idea, especially for people who may want multiple nations and need easier management. But how difficult would something like this be to implement, and what benefits could it have for users and staff besides the obvious easier management?

Sweeping would be easier.

[United Calanworie]

Accounts let us do a lot of cool technical things on the backend. And by cool, I mean "less likely to have us set our hair on fire while coding features."

[Durmengrad Prime]

Asking for official responses only- please don't reply if you're not a staff member.

1. If accounts happen would everyone have to use them or would it be optional?

2. Would there be a 1 person 1 account rule or could you have multiple accounts?

I definitely don't want my sleeper nations in the same account as my official nations.

Also, if the answer to 2 is no:

3. Would it be possible to move a nation from one account to another?

[Untecna]

Accounts let us do a lot of cool technical things on the backend. And by cool, I mean "less likely to have us set our hair on fire while coding features."

Well, I suppose that's good justification lmao

[Sedgistan]

Asking for official responses only- please don't reply if you're not a staff member.

You don't get to determine that. Very little of the "Accounts" project is set in stone. We want to hear people's opinions on the questions you asked, and on other aspects of Accounts. Similarly, share your view.

[Ostalgieland]

The basic concept is that you have a single NationStates account you can log into, from which you can access and control all of your nations.

The key advantage would be switching quickly between your nations within having to log into each individually. Depending on implementation, potentially you could also easily switch your WA status too, view all your unread TGs and notices in one place, have a shared pool of Stamps, and share settings such as Vacation Mode and Ignore Lists.

I think this is cool, especially having to log in to all of my alts is annoying

[Untecna]

Asking for official responses only- please don't reply if you're not a staff member.

1. If accounts happen would everyone have to use them or would it be optional?

2. Would there be a 1 person 1 account rule or could you have multiple accounts?

I definitely don't want my sleeper nations in the same account as my official nations.

Also, if the answer to 2 is no:

3. Would it be possible to move a nation from one account to another?

1. My assumption is that it would be required, even if you only had one nation. It simply leaves the option open to make a new nation if you want to. I would further assume that current users could make accounts and assign their existing nations to said account, if this idea was implemented.

2. It would probably make more sense to have a 1 person, 1 account rule, due to the nature of the account as an aggregator for your nations.

3. This one would probably be hard to justify as a player-controlled aspect. It would likely be better if people transferred nations with the allowance of site staff, similar to thread ownership in the forums.

Just my opinions on these questions.

[Durmengrad Prime]

Asking for official responses only- please don't reply if you're not a staff member.

You don't get to determine that. Very little of the "Accounts" project is set in stone. We want to hear people's opinions on the questions you asked, and on other aspects of Accounts. Similarly, share your view.

My opinion is definitely this: it should not be required; if it is, you should be able to have multiple, but maybe not an unlimited number; and it should definitely be possible to somehow move nations to a different account or remove them from an account completely- tbh I think the easiest way to move them to a different account would be removing them from one account and adding them to another.

[Untecna]

Would an Account be attached to an email by default?

[Improper Classifications]

You don't get to determine that. Very little of the "Accounts" project is set in stone. We want to hear people's opinions on the questions you asked, and on other aspects of Accounts. Similarly, share your view.

My opinion is definitely this: it should not be required; if it is, you should be able to have multiple, but maybe not an unlimited number; and it should definitely be possible to somehow move nations to a different account or remove them from an account completely- tbh I think the easiest way to move them to a different account would be removing them from one account and adding them to another.

Trotting back to NS++ here - its puppet list has a split feature where you can simply separate into different lists - would that solve the problem?

[Refuge Isle]

The basic concept is that you have a single NationStates account you can log into, from which you can access and control all of your nations.

The key advantage would be switching quickly between your nations within having to log into each individually. Depending on implementation, potentially you could also easily switch your WA status too, view all your unread TGs and notices in one place, have a shared pool of Stamps, and share settings such as Vacation Mode and Ignore Lists.

Seems there's little concrete details around this idea right now, but it sounds like an advantageous system that makes moot the ageing and unreliable nature of NS++, which I think people used for something similar.

The hazards I can foresee would be in nation transfers, on-going shared nations, liabilities arising stamps on shared nations being inappropriately used or accessed, and whether this would prevent nations from CTEing like an autologger, adding to the nation bloat. These issues are likely solvable by firming up the details as this concept develops.

[Southglory]

1 Have the user able to give and remove access with confirmation from an another nation, much like withdrawing and accepting embassies.
2 On going shared nations, no clue.
3 Stamp Issue, no clue.
4 Nation Bloat, have the user select nations to be considered puppets which would be autologged in one day before CTE.

[Minoa]

I think that the new account system should be voluntary, and it should not be limited to one account (of x nations) per player, because such a policy reminds me of a policy of a certain disastrous sequel. According to this Wayback Machine snapshot:

How many nations can I have?
You may have one nation per world.

I am also reminded about how Patreon and many sites do allow multiple accounts for legitimate purposes.

[SherpDaWerp]

(posting completely as a player)

Realistically, what is the benefit of this system if it ends up being voluntary or allowing multiple accounts per player? That just ends up being a slightly-more-integrated puppet switcher, which can be accomplished in ~100 lines of userscript. "Minigames are thoroughly dominated by puppets" is perhaps the most common complaint I've ever seen about this game - accounts are an excellent opportunity to completely extinguish that concern, by offering e.g. per-account cards generation, per-account Trade Fair item generation, per-account N-Day abilities...

Shared nations have never been supported by the site, with a warning in the OSRS about how "this is a bad idea" for at least as long as I've been around. Frankly, if shared accounts become mechanically impossible, you can't really complain. Besides, now that regional succession is a thing, what is the actual need for shared accounts? Common editing of dispatches & forum posts? That could be something that gets added to the game. (And w/r/t sleepers, there's no reason a nation's account-ownership has to be public.)

I struggle to see the relevance of bringing up other sites as examples, given they operate on wildly different principles. Sure, you should be allowed to have different social media accounts for different things. But that's entirely separate from a game in which large swathes of users regularly complain about use of multiple nations breaking things.

[Makko Oko]

I would like to see supporter status carry over to any other confirmed nation under your control and share those benefits like the increased telegram storage

[Bears Armed]

I struggle to see the relevance of bringing up other sites as examples, given they operate on wildly different principles.

Minoa was referencing the late & unlamented NS2.

[Durmengrad Prime]

My opinion is definitely this: it should not be required; if it is, you should be able to have multiple, but maybe not an unlimited number; and it should definitely be possible to somehow move nations to a different account or remove them from an account completely- tbh I think the easiest way to move them to a different account would be removing them from one account and adding them to another.

Trotting back to NS++ here - its puppet list has a split feature where you can simply separate into different lists - would that solve the problem?

No.

[Untecna]

Trotting back to NS++ here - its puppet list has a split feature where you can simply separate into different lists - would that solve the problem?

No.

I think the idea of having a central account is that you would only have one account. If you were allowed to have multiple, the purpose of the account system becomes moot.

Thus, making groups of your nations on one account, and having a feature such as puppet listing implemented to permit this, is a far better solution than returning to square one.

[Durmengrad Prime]

No.

I think the idea of having a central account is that you would only have one account. If you were allowed to have multiple, the purpose of the account system becomes moot.

Thus, making groups of your nations on one account, and having a feature such as puppet listing implemented to permit this, is a far better solution than returning to square one.

Not for me.

[Untecna]

I think the idea of having a central account is that you would only have one account. If you were allowed to have multiple, the purpose of the account system becomes moot.

Thus, making groups of your nations on one account, and having a feature such as puppet listing implemented to permit this, is a far better solution than returning to square one.

Not for me.

You're an individual. This site has thousands of other individuals who play. Changes will reflect the best solutions for all, rather than based solely on one person's wants.

Essentially, think broadly and not only of yourself.