[q] Is it time to revisit the nation name release criteria?

[CoraSpia]

Hi,

I made my opinions regarding the new nation release criteria known when it was first up for discussion, but now we're getting to the point at which it's almost as hard to find a new nation name as it was back before the release, I think it might be time to revisit it.
In short, I'm not sure what the point is of the 500m population limit, when it's combined with the 5 year minimum elapsed time. If one of my friends who plays ns had gone for 5 years, I wouldn't be very hopeful of the chance of them returning...indeed I have only seen 4 or 5 times in which a nation has been revived after so long, aside from rarely-used puppets. It might be worth raising the limit, perhaps to 1 or even 2 billion: alternatively a sliding scale of population limits based on the time the nation last ceased to exist might be possible however I'm not sure how the code would work.

[Durm]

AFAIK there already is a thread for this.

Also nothing above 1 billion should be reused. Ever.

[CoraSpia]

AFAIK there already is a thread for this.

Also nothing above 1 billion should be reused. Ever.

Why is that? If the nation CTE'd 12 years ago, they're not coming back.

[Gandoor]

AFAIK there already is a thread for this.

Also nothing above 1 billion should be reused. Ever.

Why is that? If the nation CTE'd 12 years ago, they're not coming back.

You don't know that and you ought to stop acting like you do. Not NS, but I've literally been on communities where users come back after 10+ years of inactivity. It does happen.

[CoraSpia]

Why is that? If the nation CTE'd 12 years ago, they're not coming back.

You don't know that and you ought to stop acting like you do. Not NS, but I've literally been on communities where users come back after 10+ years of inactivity. It does happen.

And we should keep tens of thousands of names unavailable for the tiny group of people who might possibly come back?

[The New California Republic]

You don't know that and you ought to stop acting like you do. Not NS, but I've literally been on communities where users come back after 10+ years of inactivity. It does happen.

And we should keep tens of thousands of names unavailable for the tiny group of people who might possibly come back?

Yes. There are still plenty of possibilities for names.

[Gandoor]

And we should keep tens of thousands of names unavailable for the tiny group of people who might possibly come back?

Yes. There are still plenty of possibilities for names.

There's also no guarantee that a released name will actually end up used and not just hoarded.

Just look at real world nation names, those are pretty popular but what's the real difference between the NS nation of France (just the first one I searched in the boneyard) that hasn't existed since October 2007 (so over 13 years) and if they made that name available again and someone just grabs it and does literally nothing with the nation other than logging in to maintain it? In either case, a player who might genuinely want that nation name (because they wanna RP as some version of France) can't use the name.

[Flanderlion]

I think this would be an excellent improvement, 500 million population is chicken feed these days

That would just be pushing the problem down the road. As a wise person once said:

I don't think this should be a priority. At some distant point the reuse policy should be updated:

Instead of 5 years under X population, it should be 5 + number of billion population years. So if I have a 1 billion pop nation that CTEs, someone can refound it 6 years later, but if I had a 20 billion pop nation it should be 25 years later. Essentially it's approximately 5 years + double the time the nation has been alive.

As I said in the thread, eventually should change but no rush.

[Comfed]

Honestly I don’t think that this is a huge problem - coming up with names isn’t hard.

[Miravana]

I do not think there is much need in lowering the 5-year criteria, though It may be worthwhile to consider the length of time necessary to claim names of nations 500 million - 1 billion. These are players who have spent less than a year on the site, and in such there becomes a time when it is just as unlikely as a sub-500million returning after 5 years. My personal belief is after 10 years, nations between 500million and 1 billion population should be made available.

[Pluvie]

Okay, and this might be a bit of a sidetrack, but I've had an idea in my mind that could solve at least some of these problems imo. Not perhaps old antiquity nations, but at least new nations.

This is to say, I think there should be an option to delete one's nation. Would this be a full fix? No. But if it were possible (keep in mind I'm definitely no code expert), then if a user deleted their nation below 500 million population, it would automatically go back into the naming pool, and I would think if a nation was bigger than that, that person could choose whether they wanted to add their nation name back to the pool.

This would not solve the problem of nations that are 18 years old laying abandoned forever, but it could at least help to solve the problem in the future, especially because it would also solve a couple of other issues I've always had with the way NS runs. Take me for instance, atm I have a puppet region with somewhere around 450 puppets. Many of those puppets have reached the point where their names would forever be held, which is a problem because at this point I'm honestly starting to let all those puppets die and I feel rather bad letting them die and stealing their names forever. I would much prefer to just be able to delete them all and allow others to use those names in the future. In addition, this would also mean that one wouldn't be bombarded with "about to CTE!" emails every time a set of puppets dies because they would just be able to delete them.

I also thought about how this might mean that if somebody hacked your nation, they would be able to instantly delete it, but I also don't see how that couldn't be solved the same way current hacks could be so I figured that shouldn't be an issue afaik. I also have no idea how that would or wouldn't work with the nation id system or with cards or with really most of the actual code on NS, so if this is an impossible idea, I apologize for taking ya'll's time.

I know this wouldn't be a perfect fix, but what do ya'll think?

[CoraSpia]

That would just be pushing the problem down the road. As a wise person once said:

As I said in the thread, eventually should change but no rush.

That's a good suggestion. I'm not sure how the coding would work on that though.

[CoraSpia]

Okay, and this might be a bit of a sidetrack, but I've had an idea in my mind that could solve at least some of these problems imo. Not perhaps old antiquity nations, but at least new nations.

This is to say, I think there should be an option to delete one's nation. Would this be a full fix? No. But if it were possible (keep in mind I'm definitely no code expert), then if a user deleted their nation below 500 million population, it would automatically go back into the naming pool, and I would think if a nation was bigger than that, that person could choose whether they wanted to add their nation name back to the pool.

This would not solve the problem of nations that are 18 years old laying abandoned forever, but it could at least help to solve the problem in the future, especially because it would also solve a couple of other issues I've always had with the way NS runs. Take me for instance, atm I have a puppet region with somewhere around 450 puppets. Many of those puppets have reached the point where their names would forever be held, which is a problem because at this point I'm honestly starting to let all those puppets die and I feel rather bad letting them die and stealing their names forever. I would much prefer to just be able to delete them all and allow others to use those names in the future. In addition, this would also mean that one wouldn't be bombarded with "about to CTE!" emails every time a set of puppets dies because they would just be able to delete them.

I also thought about how this might mean that if somebody hacked your nation, they would be able to instantly delete it, but I also don't see how that couldn't be solved the same way current hacks could be so I figured that shouldn't be an issue afaik. I also have no idea how that would or wouldn't work with the nation id system or with cards or with really most of the actual code on NS, so if this is an impossible idea, I apologize for taking ya'll's time.

I know this wouldn't be a perfect fix, but what do ya'll think?

Max has said previously that this is never going to happen.

[Parxland]

And we should keep tens of thousands of names unavailable for the tiny group of people who might possibly come back?

Yes. There are still plenty of possibilities for names.

Yes let's give new players even less reasons to play this game! It'll be great for our longevity!

[The New California Republic]

Yes. There are still plenty of possibilities for names.

Yes let's give new players even less reasons to play this game! It'll be great for our longevity!

If someone new gets so annoyed by the fact that they can't get the exact name they want and it makes them leave then that's entirely on them. And the site seems to have done just fine so far in terms of longevity by not letting people have whatever name they want.

[Minimark]

I feel like 1 billion should be the line, but there should also be an option on the settings page to allow reuse if the user wants it, after like 5 years

[Gandoor]

Yes let's give new players even less reasons to play this game! It'll be great for our longevity!

If someone new gets so annoyed by the fact that they can't get the exact name they want and it makes them leave then that's entirely on them. And the site seems to have done just fine so far in terms of longevity by not letting people have whatever name they want.

I mean shit the game was also had no problems with gaining players before the name reuse feature was even put into place.

[Outer Sparta]

I've had many puppet nations reach 500 million with little effort of logging onto them. I feel like somewhere in the couple billions would work better.

[Parxland]

If someone new gets so annoyed by the fact that they can't get the exact name they want and it makes them leave then that's entirely on them. And the site seems to have done just fine so far in terms of longevity by not letting people have whatever name they want.

I mean shit the game was also had no problems with gaining players before the name reuse feature was even put into place.

Something about these responses seems counterintuitive.

[Disgraces]

Am I the only one who thinks 5 years is a shitton of time for a name release?

[CoraSpia]

Am I the only one who thinks 5 years is a shitton of time for a name release?

I think 5 years is okay, but only if combined with a decent population limit. If somebody played for a year between 05 and 06, they will be over 500m but they're still not very likely to be coming back are they?

[The Universal Hegemony]

I agree somewhat. You have to get REALLY creative if you want a short and snappy nation-name that is based off of somewhere in the real world. Look at the nation "France" for example. Not touched in thirteen and a half years. "Europa", not touched in sixteen years. The release policy was fine when it was introduced but so much time has elapsed that are nation names that have been used on three (maybe even four?) separate occasions now! I've been here now since 2014 or 2015 I think. So long ago that nations who had CTEd on the day the release policy was introduced still weren't available for reuse.