NationStates

As per last week's news announcement we're introducing a limited way of pre-registering Faction names:

This year, we'll be allowing limited reservation of names for notable Factions ahead of the event, in order to avoid sniping. Because if there's one thing you don't want in a nuclear war, it's sniping. Watch this space for details.

This feature hasn't been coded yet. However, it appears likely that for this occasion it will be a manual process run by Mods; in future hopefully we will be able to set it so the same region can keep using the same Faction going forwards. Based on what we have discussed internally, and given that the clock is ticking, I want to get the process started now, so people don't miss out, and Mods have time to process requests.

We are only taking request from factions that either:

1. Finished in the Top 10 for scores last year, or
2. Had over 100 nations last year.

If your Faction doesn't meet one of those requirements, or you want a new Faction, you will need to register it yourself the normal way when N-Day starts. None of the below applies to you, so you can stop reading now

If your Faction does meet one of those requirements, please submit a Getting Help Request from the Founder nation of the region that created the Faction, with the following details:

Code: Select all

Link to last year's Faction:
Requested name for this year's Faction (must be similar to last year's):
Region the Faction is to be tied to:

So for example:

Link to last year's Faction: https://www.nationstates.net/page=faction/fid=1
Requested name for this year's Faction (must be similar to last year's): Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Region the Faction is to be tied to: Underworld

That example request would have to come from the nation Saint Lucifer, Founder nation of Underworld.

Because various names got sniped last year, you're allowed to request a variant of your previous Faction's name - e.g. 'An Alliance of Potatoes' may want to be 'The Potato Alliance' this time around.

If the Founder of the region that formed the Faction doesn't exist (e.g. for the faction Bikini Bottom, the region that created it 'South Pacific' is a historically Founderless one) then the WA Delegate, or in absence of a Delegate, Regional Officer, can make the request.

If the region that created the Faction does not exist any more, we probably cannot help. If there's some in-game proof you created the Faction (e.g. mention in last year's Faction's description) you can ask, but we may not be able to pre-register your Faction.

Final note: as mentioned above, this has not yet been coded. So you will not get an immediate response to your GHR. There's also the chance that when Violet comes to coding it, something goes awry, and it doesn't prove possible to pre-register Factions for this year's event. In that case, sorry, we tried. But hopefully it will be!

Could we please get more insight into how this process will actually work?

Will the name be locked to just one nation to be able to found it? E.g. if Stalker's wifi goes out in the morning are we just going to have to make up a new name?
Or will it be locked to a region with any of its ROs being able to found? Will you be founding these factions for us in advance?

What happens if you weren't planning on founding out of the region you founded last time? Our faction has met the criteria for the last 4 N Days, and is probably the most recognisable name after (arguably) the AA, but has been founded from a different region every time. [counting this year]

As far as I can tell, of the 6 relevant factions from last year, this reservation will only apply to 1.

Chingis wrote:Will you be founding these factions for us in advance?

That is how Violet anticipates it will likely work this time around - Game Mods process the request and set the Faction up for you in advance.

Chingis wrote:What happens if you weren't planning on founding out of the region you founded last time? Our faction has met the criteria for the last 4 N Days, and is probably the most recognisable name after (arguably) the AA, but has been founded from a different region every time. [counting this year]

If it's the Founder of the region that set it up last time who is asking for it to be registered to a different region this time around, that seems a reasonable request. I'll update the OP.

Can we please not do this? The various uppercut snipings a few years ago actually made things interesting as we had to deal with rogues in similarly-named factions firing off nukes, which created a lot of fun for various diplomatic groups.

Feels a bit strict tbh. Probably quite a few factions from last year which were large enough to qualify when they were founded, but nations might have, for example, moved away later into the event once they saw the factions being targeted.

Under this criteria some very small factions which managed to just barely get to top 10 would qualify, while some other decently sized factions with about 70~ or 80~ wouldn't.

Ultimately I don't think this will be a big deal, the name sniping mostly affects the larger factions (though honestly, those being affected is actually one of the more fun aspects of the event).

This is a bit much and I don't understand why this can't be done for everybody.

Name sniping is mainly a problem for the biggest / most significant factions, hence the cut-off points. We put cut-offs in there because this will be a manual process this year, and we didn't want to have to manually handle hundreds of requests - especially when we don't yet know how much time there will be between this being coded and N-Day starting. The hope is that in future, it won't be a manual process, which would likely mean no cut-off points.

Will the faction link be findable prior to n-day starting? It'd help me move my nations over no end.

My guess is that when this is coded, and we pre-register the Factions, we'll have a Faction ID in place then, so that can be known in advance.

But we're 2 days away, and I don't know how close to the start point this will be coded.

Sedgistan wrote:My guess is that when this is coded, and we pre-register the Factions, we'll have a Faction ID in place then, so that can be known in advance.

But we're 2 days away, and I don't know how close to the start point this will be coded.

Even if it's like half an hour it'll be a massive help. I can get it into my browsers on my various machines and join the faction instantly rather than the hour or so it always takes me.

Sedgistan wrote:But we're 2 days away, and I don't know how close to the start point this will be coded.

There's no coding; I just have to manually enter them in. And I can't do that until I close pre-registration and wipe the scoreboards, so it will happen very close to the event start, probably 30-60 minutes prior.

[violet] wrote:

Sedgistan wrote:But we're 2 days away, and I don't know how close to the start point this will be coded.

There's no coding; I just have to manually enter them in. And I can't do that until I close pre-registration and wipe the scoreboards, so it will happen very close to the event start, probably 30-60 minutes prior.

So if there is a list to be entered in, surely the first on the list would have the lowest ID, and so on? So if one faction feels strongly they want ID 0 or 1 (unsure if FacIDs start with 0 or 1), the list handed to [v] could just be ordered so that the order entered would give the factions their desired IDs. Obviously that wouldn't give a faction the ID of 69 or 420, but I don't think that matters in the scheme of things.

Why not simply pre-register all top100 from the previous times - send a form of embassy invite to each region for the owner or any delegate to accept or decline (like with embassies).

Or simply ban all the nukes, we got innocent animals here after all that could be injured in the crossfire..

Similar to movies, we trust no animals will be harmed?

Republiek van Suid Afrika wrote:Why not simply pre-register all top100 from the previous times - send a form of embassy invite to each region for the owner or any delegate to accept or decline (like with embassies).

Because -- for this year at least -- admin has to manually input all the pre-registered factions, which would be tedious if there were 100 of them.

Merni wrote:

Republiek van Suid Afrika wrote:Why not simply pre-register all top100 from the previous times - send a form of embassy invite to each region for the owner or any delegate to accept or decline (like with embassies).

Because -- for this year at least -- admin has to manually input all the pre-registered factions, which would be tedious if there were 100 of them.

Well it really only is a matter of importing the copy/pasted data - here's a quick one min tutorial as example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOo3aJef48w

If possible, it would be useful to know how many factions the technical team managed to pre-register this year.

-- Minoa

3

Sedgistan wrote:3

Thanks for the help: I take that the successful applicants were: The Potato Alliance, Crabs of the Apocalypse, and RAILGUN.

-- Minoa

Nuclear war could be more fair and fun (for everyone else) if factions had a cap/limit on the number of nations that can join, say 50 to 100 or so.