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

[Giovanniland]

What do the two bluish newspaper-like icons mean on the page?

I believe it appears when the nation has posted Factbooks and/or Dispatches. The icons are the same you'd see on the main page of a nation who posted them, just in a blue color instead.

[Silvedania]

Since no one voted for you yet, you are currently unranked.

Ah, okay. That makes sense.

Due to randomness. But if this had been, say, a huge bracket instead of a random clicking competition, it might have worked better.

[Corindia]

I like the little splashes this generates for each country, it would be cool if we could keep those after the event or be able to see our own

[North Prarie]

This would be cooler if you could go to a nation page and give them a vote. Then regions could go against each other and it would become a fun arms race, similar to N-Day.

Instead, it's an incredibly boring, repetitive process of clicking through Wombles, card farmers, and R/D puppets.

[Kandorith]

Gotta admit, I'm a little peeved at the moment with this. None of my 3 accounts are ranked (in fact, spectacularly, one of my puppets is in a region where not a single nation is ranked[there are around 20 nations in it]). But oh, I sure as heck am seeing womble 4320 vs cardfarmer96 a fair bit.

Doubt you are the only one.

Last time I checked none of my nations were ranked...

[Land Without Shrimp]

Gotta admit, I'm a little peeved at the moment with this. None of my 3 accounts are ranked (in fact, spectacularly, one of my puppets is in a region where not a single nation is ranked[there are around 20 nations in it]). But oh, I sure as heck am seeing womble 4320 vs cardfarmer96 a fair bit.

Doubt you are the only one.

Last time I checked none of my nations were ranked...

I would vote for you if I ever saw you...

I have seen exactly one nation that I previously knew. I was so excited!!!

EDIT: And I take it back. Just now popped back into mini-game and one of my own puppets came up!! I was unreasonably excited. =D

[Kandorith]

Doubt you are the only one.

Last time I checked none of my nations were ranked...

I would vote for you if I ever saw you...

I have seen exactly one nation that I previously knew. I was so excited!!!

EDIT: And I take it back. Just now popped back into mini-game and one of my own puppets came up!! I was unreasonably excited. =D

Oof, heartbreak haha.

[Sorianora]

My card storage region Sorianora Card Storage didn’t receive any best nation candidates.
Is this a bug or intentional?

[Luna Amore]

My card storage region Sorianora Card Storage didn’t receive any best nation candidates.
Is this a bug or intentional?

It just means those 3 nations garnered zero votes so far.

[Tinhampton]

I like the little splashes this generates for each country, it would be cool if we could keep those after the event or be able to see our own

We already have that - it's called "viewing nation pages using Rift theme."

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

My card storage region Sorianora Card Storage didn’t receive any best nation candidates.
Is this a bug or intentional?

It just means those 3 nations garnered zero votes so far.

I wish we could see the total votes we got and I wish this voting would go on forever

[Chan Island]

What do the two bluish newspaper-like icons mean on the page?

Those are how many factbooks and dispatches that account has written.

My card storage region Sorianora Card Storage didn’t receive any best nation candidates.
Is this a bug or intentional?

It just means those 3 nations garnered zero votes so far.

You know, I've had a thought- why should a nation be getting a vote for it to be ranked? In fact, surely losing a vote should be grounds for getting some negative points and thus be on the rankings.

It could have perfectly set you up for a 'oh, and here's the worst nation' score as well, and people would be checking to see who is dead last as well as who's top. Not to mention get a lot more people involved to get a, you know, actual ranking in this competition.

[Palindromes]

It just means those 3 nations garnered zero votes so far.

I wish we could see the total votes we got and I wish this voting would go on forever

I doubt anybody would enjoy this longer than it’s going for. It’s even more mindless and pointless than the challenge or cards mini games.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

I wish we could see the total votes we got and I wish this voting would go on forever

I doubt anybody would enjoy this longer than it’s going for. It’s even more mindless and pointless than the challenge or cards mini games.

Those who don't want to play may not, but I really enjoyed voting and I hope it doesn't end.

[Palindromes]

I doubt anybody would enjoy this longer than it’s going for. It’s even more mindless and pointless than the challenge or cards mini games.

Those who don't want to play may not, but I really enjoyed voting and I hope it doesn't end.

It would devolve into bots choosing “neither” on every comparison except ones with a desired nation, which it will choose, completely nullifying the rankings. It would be even worse than cards.
I’m sure this mini game is already being botted as it is.

[Esthe]

That actually sounds like me.

[Palindromes]

Those who don't want to play may not, but I really enjoyed voting and I hope it doesn't end.

It would devolve into bots choosing “neither” on every comparison except ones with a desired nation, which it will choose, completely nullifying the rankings. It would be even worse than cards.
I’m sure this mini game is already being botted as it is.

And about this bottling thing, I found that there is no rate limit to how quickly votes can be placed. Not sure if this is intentional or they overlooked it, but in the case of the latter, I figured I’d mention it.

[[violet]]

But if this had been, say, a huge bracket instead of a random clicking competition,

Yes, I think that would have been good. I underestimated how much importance randomness would have, due to the truly vast numbers of nations in the game. We could have started the same way, but then gone to brackets for the end stages.

This would be cooler if you could go to a nation page and give them a vote. Then regions could go against each other and it would become a fun arms race, similar to N-Day.

This time I tried to avoid the type of contest that gets immediately dominated by players with thousands of puppets, as it's hard work fending off bots during these events. It's meant as more of an exploratory journey through parts of NationStates you might not normally see. But I understand that team-based competitive events are more fun for a lot of people.

[[violet]]

And about this bottling thing, I found that there is no rate limit to how quickly votes can be placed. Not sure if this is intentional or they overlooked it, but in the case of the latter, I figured I’d mention it.

There is an anti-bot system, which I think has worked well--but it's backend, so you can't see it working. In the past, when the block was frontend, script authors tended to experiment until they found the most efficient way to circumvent it, then pound the server at the maximum permitted rate.

[Flanderlion]

But if this had been, say, a huge bracket instead of a random clicking competition,

Yes, I think that would have been good. I underestimated how much importance randomness would have, due to the truly vast numbers of nations in the game. We could have started the same way, but then gone to brackets for the end stages.

Or being opt in. Most of the issues people bring up boil down to too little comparisons to the number of participants (because of tons of nations). Being opt in would remove the issues of too many puppet nations as not many would opt theirs in, and would increase the chances of a nation being ranked.

Codgers solution was to force more ratings over time, so eventually the requisite amount of rankings would start pushing/pulling nations up and down so it'd work as intended.

My personal view is keep it going, just make any nations from this point joining having to click opt in/make a comparison, then be removed when they CTE. Then coupled with using it for card packs, would reduce number of puppets and eventually we'd be able to get some serious idea of the ranking. I can't see that in 3 hours time the rankings will have had remotely enough votes to have made a meaningful conclusion of the best nation in NS, or even our regions.

Although tbf I can see players vastly prefer Flanderloin over Flanderlion, so I guess that is one meaningful conclusion.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

Do I have a chance to know how many people voted ?

[SDF Public Access UNIX System]

It is finished.

[Parxland]

This April Fools event was disappointing and I think it could have been a lot better by letting people manually choose who the best nation was out of the whole community pool, maybe with some mechanism for preference voting. I lost count of the times I picked 'neither' because all the choices were faceless 'r/d'/card-farm puppets. Even though "829,257 votes were cast", the RNG was frustrating and kept me from having fun with this.

[Valentine Z]

I think I will like it if the Best Nation thing is a permanent feature. More time to choose.

Along with a stats badge to go with it.

[Great Algerstonia]

This April Fools event was disappointing and I think it could have been a lot better by letting people manually choose who the best nation was out of the whole community pool, maybe with some mechanism for preference voting. I lost count of the times I picked 'neither' because all the choices were faceless 'r/d'/card-farm puppets. Even though "829,257 votes were cast", the RNG was frustrating and kept me from having fun with this.

I agree. To add to this, you shouldve been able to only vote for WA nations