RaiderCon: 10 Years Down, Forever to Go

[Kyoto Noku]

Are there any groups I can hire to do a raid for me? I’ve got a WA nation of my own but practically no allies, just puppets. Consider this free advertising space.
In case you need specifics, I just want to get rid of two small regions: Black Crusaders and The Levant.

[Tinhampton]

Both of those regions have governors (one has a password) and it is exceedingly unlikely you will be able to destroy either of them.

[Vakaanva]

Are there any groups I can hire to do a raid for me? I’ve got a WA nation of my own but practically no allies, just puppets. Consider this free advertising space.
In case you need specifics, I just want to get rid of two small regions: Black Crusaders and The Levant.

Why waste your time on them when you can just allow them to CTE in the long waiting game?

[Pterodaxtyl]

Banner by Gamma Crucis

RaiderCon is an annual event held in July that highlights and celebrates raiding. It began in 2015 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Black Hawks. This year, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of RaiderCon, and 20th anniversary of The Black Hawks. In honor of these, RaiderCon will once again be featuring panels, where we have interviewed a number of past and present raiders and discuss raiderdom as a whole.

Additionally, this year marks the return of RaiderVision, whose thread can be found HERE.

Feel free to join the discord server where both of these events will be taking place. In addition to panels, RaiderCon will once again feature organization showcases, streams, game nights, a chess tournament, and of course, raiding. Come join us to celebrate!

Schedule:
Day 1: Building an Organization - What does it take to build a raiding organization in this day and age? This panel discusses the efforts put into developing younger raiding orgs featuring Chaotic Sparkles and Gamma Crucis.

Day 2: Highlight on Coding - Military gameplay has seen a lot of changes over the years. A large part of this is due to the development of new tools and scripts. We spoke with Volstrostia (Alex), Devious, Zizou, and Notanam about their history coding, and what goes into the development of raiding tools.

Day 3: TBH Anniversary - 2025 marks the twentieth anniversary of The Black Hawks. Join us for a walk down memory lane with TBH Generals CiC Red Back, Reventus Koth, Ever-Wandering Souls, and Sorenity2!

Day 4: Old Raiders Interview - A lot of history has led up to this point in Raiderdom. In this panel, Avakael, Raionitu, and Of crazed recount the past in raiding.

Day 5: New Raiders Spotlight - Talented new players are always popping up in Raiderdom. This interview highlights promising young raiders that have popped up recently, featuring Miraakya, Sateru, Barlyy, and Diskorde.

The event will start on July 6th. Hope to see you there!

[Pterodaxtyl]

Day 1 of RaiderCon is here! To kick off the event, we’ll be discussing what it takes to found and build a modern raiding organization.

Building a Raiding Org - Chaotic Sparkles

What's your organization? When was it founded?

Sparkles: In the spring of 2022, I founded Sparkalia the region. At the time I had no idea if I ever would do anything with it, but a resignation from the URA and a short lived regionbuild assist later the region of Sparkalia was formally fleshed out June 29th of 2022. There was only role play and magical girls, with the hope for more. There was only a cishet majority, not the LGBTQ majority we have today. Now we stand as a pillar of raiderdom and a more permanently established region.

What made you decide to found a raiding org? How did you decide on the theme for your org?

Sparkles: I didn’t originally intend to be Raider only. Historically and at heart, this may receive a mixture of glares, judgment and doubt, I am far more of an independent. When the roleplay and community started picking up and becoming more active, I began doing more in R/D and was approached by Lucklife while he served on the Council of Hawks. From there, we only grew a wonderful relationship between our organizations while I had difficulty finding myself able to accept defenders and their ways even if at heart I could feel the desire and wish to defend where it seemed sensible at the time.

The theme to be honest wasn’t quite so easily determined for the military. Sparkalia has gone through three different names: the Valiant Cavalry, the Sparkling Hussars, and the current Sparkling Army. These were all used within the first six months of the military operating and the one that stuck was the army as generic as it is and was better tied back to the overall theme of the region: purple magical fantasy military. The ranks demonstrate we are fantasy, and for the magical girl fanatics, you can even see an inspiration or two we drew to make the rank hierarchy what it is today.

What is your history in r/d?

Sparkles: My history in R/D probably truly starts in August of 2022, when TBH first made contact with Sparkalia and joining tag runs. It would be Luck from TBH, Vor and Altys of EPSA, and I doing minor update tagging and watching anime at one point beforehand. My first real occupation meanwhile came in the form of The Western Commonwealth, a member of The Free Bloc. Many may groan at the thought of a DND and how lacking in excitement they can be, but in truth as an RO on that one I had to date some of the most fun ever by being present in that one. I was witnessing the rise of another Raider in qekitor and got to know iota of PRAF mess with these people who chose to tolerate harmful politics. For the most part raiders treated me well and it always stuck with me. My first and only defense meanwhile was in the form of the Liberation of New Westphalia, coming some months after. Sorry, LWU, I was just trying to get a feel for the other side of the coin as someone who figured herself an indie and you just happened to be the ones at the time. It was an entirely different experience. There was a lot of energy and it really carried through, but despite how electrified the liberators were, they also spoke like snakes and it never sat well with me even as defense positive as I can be.

What successes have you found in running your org? What about roadblocks or shortcomings?

Sparkles: It never ever hurts to think outside of the box. Some of the things we did early on were things we said “well… why not?” Pulling not so cleans out of our ass posing as featured region nations joining a featured region to congratulate them in order to tag it at minor eventually turning into a small hold that survived 3 too many lib attempts was incredibly fun and formative even. The worst that can happen is someone tells you “yeah we have tried” and the best is you’ve come with a new tactic worth using once in a while.

I think one we don't talk about generally in raiding that we should talk about more is setting and communicating expectations for a raid. Having the right expectations and goals set and communicating them has been why we have had success from our perspective with our occupations. In Magna Aurea's planning, we didn't really expect much to come from our debut we thought we would simply demonstrate we now exist, too. Everything that happened in that occupation was total fucking gravy and it is a raid for the ages. Philippines was a quickly planned last second Halloween meme occupation that has its place on the Sparkalia lore iceberg that did more than most any other hold.

All that of course, understanding that there were difficulties, too. One of the hardest things about building up Sparkalia was having been locked simultaneously during moments like the aforementioned featured region hold for Malice in Greater Sahara. Even if I had originally joined Malice in order to learn more from an experienced group of raiders so I could speak with authority and know what I'm talking about, it still felt hard to not be more active in those moments beyond moral support. Being locked is limiting as you still are trying to up your numbers of new people not only to your org but especially to raiding-that’s a true marker of success. Anyone can found an org and have fellow raiders join, but introducing new people to it is the true task at hand that gains respect.

What has been most rewarding about your org? What was your first big achievement that sticks out to you?

Sparkles: The friendships and relationships forged along the way have been some of the most rewarding. I have met so many people through raiding such as the wonderful OG Trinity Command of Timiskrane and Joy who are friends for the ages, some even in person like Aristophana of Lair of the Dragon (I regret still my lack of alcohol shared with a dragon!) and Valtarre and Rigel Spectre of Malice who I had the benefit of visiting, and even strengthened some bonds I had with people like Souls who were friends before becoming a raider. I will never, ever, everrr regret founding the Sparkling Army no matter what it becomes or where it goes. It has let me meet so many wonderful people and cultivate fruitful relationships that I hope I will continue to have when I finally return to retirement, whenever that is.

I have to go with the most obvious choice here as far as the first big achievement: I think Magna Aurea is the correct answer. Everything about that occupation and operation was success even when it wasn't, it just was. We burst out onto the stage helping test a cool script and lay waste to the region while defenders jumped in the 17 Sieges of Naught and we played up propaganda and perfectly played the winning hand. The Sparkling Army helped torch and secure a region with no prior experience of ever doing so before, and did so like it knew what it was doing, like it had done so before. From the amount of new people we brought to the pile, to the amount of people we had on our jump, to all out execution. We created conditions so that Ben could finish the job. Raiders that were there felt a sense of pride even if only as pilers. Defenders were haunted by the retrospect that they had no control. If we take a prominent defender's thoughts into account, MA still impresses them.

What makes you stand out from other orgs?

Sparkles: I think the fact that we are still a newer org even though we are one that has become more established separates us. Some of the aches and pains of founding a new org are worked out and fundamentals and basics are well embedded. We have a more unique theme, but above all we are really fucking gay. Yeah, we are super gay and well, if you weren't before you will be in due time.

Is there any knowledge you know now that you wish you knew when starting out?

Sparkles: There is a middle ground between tagging and occupations that can also be fun and bring joy with others too. From Hitting Democratic Unity over and over, small holds in the form things like the Gunshine State, and another that escapes my mind at the moment during Easter last year, fun can be had and established without doing a cracked 120 target tag run or only waiting until you run an occupation.

What advice do you have for players starting new raiding orgs?

Sparkles: There is a lot of patience that is involved in founding a new org. You will probably even make a mistake here or there, that isn't the end of the world. I remember an early mistake made that felt like a lot in the moment but today I look back and brush off. But probably my biggest piece of advice is this: I recommend that you have a solid foundation for it in the form of a well cultivated community first like Sparkalia did with an RP first before moving into what more it could do. It will benefit and pay dividends later on even if you start out just being the 1e-2e org you are at the beginning in trying to focus on that. Eventually, you will have more to partake in the raiding side.

What are your plans for the future of your org?

Sparkles: My chapter is complete, if I'm being frank. I have done my very best and will be wishing it the best as the new HIgh Queen makes her mark and I permit her room to do so. I hope it will continue on being the org that it has been in its successes and learns the lessons it still has yet to learn in the best of spirits.

~☆•°.~☆~.°•☆~

Building a Raiding Org - Gamma Crucis (j)

What's your organization? When was it founded?

j: Purple Pony Club. The region was founded December 30th, 2024, but we officially launched February 12th.

What made you decide to found a raiding org? How did you decide on the theme for your org?

j: It was something I had previously wanted to do but had never taken the leap to do it. I was inspired by all the raider orgs that had developed while I was away from NS, and decided to finally go for it. Originally PPC was supposed to be a loosely firefly-inspired space cowboy themed region called The Outer Planets, but I decided to drop the space aspect and go fully cowboy after Starlight was founded. I was talking to some friends one day and said it would be funny to name the cowboy region Pink Pony Club, but Pink Pony Club already existed and purple is my favorite color so then we became Purple Pony Club.

What is your history in r/d?

j: I started raiding in 2016 and spent a few months in HYDRA Command, though my parents were pretty strict on bedtimes so I couldn’t make update that often and just ended up piling after a while. Then the summer before I went to college, I decided to join TBH and worked my way up to Council and Blade Overseer in 5 months. I quit raiding in the fall of 2019 and spent a couple months as a defender before leaving NS entirely until I returned to TBH at the end of summer of 2024.

What successes have you found in running your org? What about roadblocks or shortcomings?

j: We’ve had a few successes. My favorite was MAYhem, where we did a whole bunch of different silly raid ideas throughout the month of May. It was very chaotic and we didn’t necessarily get a whole lot of hits, but it was super fun. We also did a joint raid of Holy Boheran Empire with Starlight which was pretty fun.

The biggest challenge has definitely been with gaining members. I think a lot of that has been because raiding in general has been going through a rough patch. We found out that Henson was broken by the border patrol captchas while people were prepping for our first raid. And that definitely killed a lot of the momentum raiding had through the winter.

What has been most rewarding about your org? What was your first big achievement that sticks out to you?

j: The most rewarding part of raiding for me has always been training new raiders. So the most rewarding part of PPC so far has been training Lilith and watching her skills develop. The day she passed her basic training was my proudest moment.

What makes you stand out from other orgs?

j: We’re always ready to experiment with different wild ideas and we do a lot of fun silly things. We recently did a whole month where we did a different silly ideas, such as a raid where we didn’t prep any puppets in advance and made new puppets following a theme for each target, or a raid where we jumped off of vibes instead of actual triggers. Getting hits is nice of course, but we’re really more focused on having fun than getting lots of hits. We also allow our members a lot of freedom to pursue whatever ideas they may have, nothing is really locked behind a higher rank outside of command stuff.

Is there any knowledge you know now that you wish you knew when starting out?

j: I wish I would’ve known how slow it would be to grow the number of raiders in the region and gain new active members. Probably wouldn’t have changed my approach to things much, but would’ve helped me have more realistic hopes. I’m sure there are other things I wish I would’ve known that will reveal themselves as we continue to build.

What advice do you have for players starting new raiding orgs?

j: Make sure you have the right people helping you get started. And learn to delegate tasks. You’ll do a fair amount of fuck around and find out. And above all, have fun and enjoy the process.

What are your plans for the future of your org?

j: My main goal is just to keep having fun and doing silly stuff. We still have many silly ideas we’d like to accomplish. I’d also like to keep growing our numbers and eventually get to a place where we’re ready to lead an op. My other priority is building the org in a way that it will still function if/when I choose to step away. I still have plenty I’d like to accomplish so that day won’t come anytime soon, but it is definitely something I intend to keep in mind for the future.

[Emodea]

There was a lot of energy and it really carried through, but despite how electrified the liberators were, they also spoke like snakes and it never sat well with me even as defense positive as I can be.

Nice engagement bait.

[Rhaza]

There was a lot of energy and it really carried through, but despite how electrified the liberators were, they also spoke like snakes and it never sat well with me even as defense positive as I can be.

Nice engagement bait.

Remember kids - destroying peoples' communities/hard work with all your friends and mocking them as you do is kosher, but being happy about preventing that is quite mean.

[Chaotic Sparkles]

There was a lot of energy and it really carried through, but despite how electrified the liberators were, they also spoke like snakes and it never sat well with me even as defense positive as I can be.

Nice engagement bait.

lolno.

Remember kids - destroying peoples' communities/hard work with all your friends and mocking them as you do is kosher, but being happy about preventing that is quite mean.

theres an inherent difference between preventing/doing something about the destruction we bring with our forces and numbers with the rightful enthusiasm that comes with it and going above and forgetting that we are people no different than others who all play a game. the former is admirable and commendable, the latter is just beyond belief for a simple browser game that i dont, and neither should others, think about most of the day. im a person that plays a game, and it didnt sit well with me that people seemed to forget the fact that this fact applied to those that were repelled, not just those that were on the right side of history.

[Ostlantis]

theres an inherent difference between preventing/doing something about the destruction we bring with our forces and numbers with the rightful enthusiasm that comes with it and going above and forgetting that we are people no different than others who all play a game. the former is admirable and commendable, the latter is just beyond belief for a simple browser game that i dont, and neither should others, think about most of the day. im a person that plays a game, and it didnt sit well with me that people seemed to forget the fact that this fact applied to those that were repelled, not just those that were on the right side of history.

Could you name an example when the modern defender consensus was to dehumanize, for lack of a more concise term, raider players in the name of in-character gains?

[Emodea]

theres an inherent difference between preventing/doing something about the destruction we bring with our forces and numbers with the rightful enthusiasm that comes with it and going above and forgetting that we are people no different than others who all play a game. the former is admirable and commendable, the latter is just beyond belief for a simple browser game that i dont, and neither should others, think about most of the day. im a person that plays a game, and it didnt sit well with me that people seemed to forget the fact that this fact applied to those that were repelled, not just those that were on the right side of history.

This is extremely funny coming from a leader of a faction which sheltered and excused cancerous personalities like Syl, Sleet and Rosa for a long time, who believed that defenders were actual horrible monsters and actively engaged in harassment campaigns against them. You only threw them out when the wider community forced you to in face of overwhelming evidence.

And your apparent reasoning for believing that we're snake-like and dehumanizing (again, like Matthew said, for the lack of a better term) raiders is that we...gloat? The same thing your faction does whenever its occupations stand for a single update? Where do you draw the line? I'm really curious, because the dissonance in display here is amazing.

[Varanius]

theres an inherent difference between preventing/doing something about the destruction we bring with our forces and numbers with the rightful enthusiasm that comes with it and going above and forgetting that we are people no different than others who all play a game. the former is admirable and commendable, the latter is just beyond belief for a simple browser game that i dont, and neither should others, think about most of the day. im a person that plays a game, and it didnt sit well with me that people seemed to forget the fact that this fact applied to those that were repelled, not just those that were on the right side of history.

Could you name an example when the modern defender consensus was to dehumanize, for lack of a more concise term, raider players in the name of in-character gains?

Clarifying question from the audience, do “mean forum posts” count as dehumanization? She might be on to something if so.

[Starlit Merethin]

im a person that plays a game, and it didnt sit well with me that people seemed to forget the fact that this fact applied to those that were repelled, not just those that were on the right side of history.

For the record, I believe you're completely right. We should remind those "snake-like" defenders that we are all playing a game, and that above all, no one should ever be doxxed because of it...

Oh.

Considering that, perhaps your interview could've done without that part.

[Rhaza]

Raiders' (note: not people who engage in any form of raiding, but ideological raiders) approach to the game fundamentally is derived from the idea that natives (or really non-raiders) are playthings that serve no purpose beyond being amusement or fodder for raiders. It's not too far for them to walk into the region of some random roleplaying group, destroy it, taunt the members, make polls about banning them... etc, but if you gloat and jeer at them failing to do so, or bar them from participating in your community because of it, they cry foul. It's a completely inconsistent worldview which basically boils down to "I'm special so I can treat people how I want, but you must be nice to me". Alternatively:

Some of the most *intense* raider outrage I've ever seen on this site was during the raids of Islamic States and Solidarity. It's because raiders, or at least the BoM crowd (though there's been some sore losing elsewhere recently) cannot handle the thing they wantonly inflict on other, uninvolved players, happening to them. When they force people out of their communities or outright destroy them, it's a part of the game. If what goes around ever comes around, they spend months complaining about it, or project in silly interviews.

It's not even about "if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen." It's more like "if you can't handle the heat, don't light other people on fire first."

[Ostrovskiy]

[snip] im a person that plays a game, and it didnt sit well with me that people seemed to forget the fact that this fact applied to those that were repelled, not just those that were on the right side of history.

have you ever considered that natives play the game, or do you think that [v] added them in for GP to be more entertaining?

[Pterodaxtyl]

Day 2 is here! Let's discuss the development of raiderdom’s tools and the influence coding has over R/D.

Highlight on Coding - Volstrostia (Alex)

Why did you decide to start coding for NS?

Alex: Honestly, it just sorta happened - I've been a programmer for years, I enjoy doing it, and I entered raiderdom at a time where there were a lot of scripts that needed writing or maintaining. When the userclick rule got added a month or two after, I volunteered to patch Swarm (the premier puppet prepper python program at the time) - once that was done, I just bounced around to the next script that needed fixing, and eventually started writing my own.

What are some challenges you’ve encountered while working on an NS-related script?

Alex: Too many to name - usually, the biggest pain points come from site behavior changing unexpectedly, or the script rules being a little cryptic. There've been a couple points where moderation announced major changes to the script rules - sometimes without warning - that have been pretty serious blows to development, but luckily I haven't run afowl of the wrath of Mod yet.

How have scripts helped raiding?

Alex: In a word, universally. Prepping, tag raids, banning defenders, finding raid targets, clearing regions of inhabitants - you name it, there's a script for it. More to the point, a lot of these scripts lower the barrier to entry for a lot of players - you can do everything by hand, and some raiders do, but having tools to automate the boring or tedious parts means more of that time can be used for the parts of gameplay we enjoy.

Is there a limit to when scripts should be used?

Alex: If you ask me? No. The site has script rules for a reason - there's very hard limits on what a script can do in the first place, and they actually do a surprisingly thorough job of enforcing some level of balance and limiting how big the gap between a scripted and non-scripted player can be in the first place. There's no reason for someone not to use every tool at their disposal should they choose to.

How has the general attitude towards scripts changed since you started coding for NS?

Alex: I haven't been around for too terribly long in terms of scripting, so I can only offer my two cents here, but when I first got started with NS scripting, a lot of tools were maintained by a handful of people, were pretty limited, and only covered a small portion of site activities. In the last couple years, we've seen an explosion of scripting and scripters - not only more scripts by more people doing more things more efficiently, but more people using those scripts as a result. There's also a much stronger emphasis on peer-review than I think there used to be, which is only ever a good thing.

What task did you go into thinking it would be simple to make only to find out what a monumental undertaking it would be?

Alex: If I had to pick one, I'm gonna go with my personal favorite, the now-defunct banscript Brimstone. I started working on it in my free time as a proof-of-concept tool after my first (and frankly, dismal) attempt at learning manual banning during a practice session. Fast forward one or two years, and it'd gone two complete rewrites, gotten a fully-featured flexible configuration system, and a thousand other tweaks and efficiency improvements, and was deployed on more or less every single major occupation raiderdom conducted. None of that was in the original plan - but I'm glad that happened anyway.

What areas of the site do you think are underexplored when it comes to tool potential?

Are there any scripts you’d like to make that you haven’t done yet?

Alex: I'm going to answer these two questions as one - I mostly wrote scripts for the raider side of R/D, because that's mostly what I do on the site in the first place. As you can tell by the past tense, I've written pretty much all the scripts I feel compelled to write - I'm sure there are other parts of the site that could benefit from new scripts, but as far as raiding scripts go, I feel the well has been tapped pretty dry. I do, however, warmly invite the other scripters out there to prove me wrong.

Do you have any advice for anyone who might like to get started with coding?

Alex: Plenty - as a self-taught developer myself, the best I can say is, the only way to learn programming is by doing. Pick a project, learn what part of the error message gives helpful results when you google it, and you'll be well on your way. Finally, ChatGPT is a glorified autocomplete that I promise you has less of an idea of what it's doing than even the noobiest of programmers - if you need to ask someone for programming advice, please DM me before the plagiarism-fueled hallucinationtron.

~☆•°.~☆~.°•☆~

Highlight on Coding - Devious

Why did you decide to start coding for NS?

Devi: i wanted to trigger, and my old laptop was miserable to the point of not being able to handle the manual method of making triggering sheets. the rest followed from there.

What are some challenges you’ve encountered while working on an NS-related script?

Devi: documenting a tool in a way that the end users can easily, intuitively get things working without needing to ask about it is shockingly difficult. even with a tool like spyglass where you just run it and it does all the work for you, you often still have to explain things like how to run a python script on linux, ahaha. there'll always be something that slips through the cracks.

How have scripts helped raiding?

Devi: the biggest point, i think, is in cutting down on the busywork that you need to do to raid, but isn't really enjoyable to most. sheet generation, target finding, puppet prepping, that kind of thing. by letting people spend a greater portion of their ns-related time on actually doing things, it makes the thought of especially larger, faster-paced raids easier to stomach for many.

Is there a limit to when scripts should be used?

Devi: yeah, certainly. automatisation to the point of just mashing a button on a script and having it do all the raiding work for you is something that's technically viable, but would take the joy out of it for me. i'd even argue that fully automated triggering tools that spit out targets for you, à la miso/buzzy, are a step too far for me, but that's obviously a matter of personal preference. the only hard hard limit is in not breaking the site rules.

How has the general attitude towards scripts changed since you started coding for NS?

Devi: they're definitely a lot more pervasive than when i started, which
isn't much of a surprise since i started in the direct aftermath of a good chunk of the game being banned for script abuse haha.
more importantly, there's a lot more people making things now, which is fantastic to see. i hope that continues to be the case in future.

What task did you go into thinking it would be simple to make only to find out what a monumental undertaking it would be?

Devi: scroll, easily. my initial scope for it was purely something that could find new nations and spit them out to be pasted into a tg field. in the year or two since then, it's been rewritten twice, expanded with tons of functionality, and is - much to my dismay - due for another rewrite to account for sse endpoints being a thing now.

What areas of the site do you think are underexplored when it comes to tool potential?

Devi: easily the RMB API. sending little messages to people who join the region is about all that's been done, and i think there's a good deal of potential for things like managing regional economies, or setting up an rpg game, or whatever else. there's plenty of things that haven't been tried!

Are there any scripts you’d like to make that you haven’t done yet?

Devi: see above.
i'm also looking at a lightweight update tool that gives a running estimate of time until target now that we have new toys to play with, but whether or not i'll actually get around to it is dubious, since we already have a suite of good tools available.

Do you have any advice for anyone who might like to get started with coding?

Devi: just pick an idea and try to make it work! even if it's something that's already been done by someone else, the best way to learn is to do.

~☆•°.~☆~.°•☆~

Highlight on Coding - Zizou

Why did you decide to start coding for NS?

Zizou: I think I started coding for NS at the very beginning of 2020 or late 2019. Prior to that, I only really had surface level knowledge of anything tech related, and wouldn't have considered myself particularly tech-savvy in any real regard. If I recall, I think this was a time when I was starting to get back into NS, and I found myself really annoyed at how tedious it was to tag my hits after each raid. Because of that, I had the bright idea to try creating a browser extension that would allow me to just press a few buttons and tag my hits for me. This went... pretty terribly if I'm being completely honest. I had no clue what I was doing (I had minimal prior programming experience, and literally just googled "how to make chrome extension" and went from there), and so the final product predictably ended up being a half functioning mess of spaghetti code that was never publicly released. However, I gained a lot of valuable experience by struggling through that project, and since everything shut down due to COVID a few months later, I really had time to lock in and work on making my code not complete shit and play around with whatever pet project ideas popped into my head. I would say that it was around ~4ish months after this where I was able to start making actual useful contributions, and I publicly made my first release of Quickdraw.

What are some challenges you’ve encountered while working on an NS-related script?

Zizou: Probably one of the biggest challenges when I was starting out was trying to understand all of the HTML scripting rules. Because while all the API rules were neatly laid on one page, a lot of the rulings related to interacting with HTML pages were scattered about on the technical forum in response to people asking questions about specific cases, and there was no centralized place where these were all collected. This isn't really as much of a problem these days though, as the post detailing HTML scripting rules has been overhauled to be a lot more comprehensive, and the introduction of more API endpoints should (hopefully, fingers crossed) gradually whittle down the necessity of making HTML site requests anyhow.

While this isn’t strictly related to the development process, I’d also say that user accessibility is a major challenge that is associated with developing NS scripts. Your end user is not necessarily familiar with how to run scripts or tools locally on their computer. If you give the average person a link to a Github repo with no further instruction, they are most likely not going to have a clue what to do with it. Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that your end user is even running on a proper computer to begin with - there’s always a few odd players who are playing off of a chromebook, or a school laptop, or a phone, or probably some dude playing off their fucking Nintendo DS… really just about anything you can imagine that has a browser. Now, as a developer, you’re not necessarily obligated to provide support for all of these people, but these are things worth considering if you’re hoping for your tool to gain widespread adoption. It’s part of the reason that I focused a lot on developing web based tools. The user doesn’t need to install or run anything, and it stands to reason that most people playing NS should be able to use a tool that’s hosted online.

How have scripts helped raiding?

Zizou: Scripts have helped raiding immensely by helping to automate out the tedious bullshit that no one wants to deal with. Henson is popular because people don’t want to spend ages prepping 100+ puppets by hand and tagging things. FattKATT is popular because people don’t want to spam refresh pages of their trigger regions. Spyglass is popular because manually going through the data dump to find targets and triggers is a pain in the ass. These quality of life improvements let people focus on the funner aspects of the game, and not get bogged down in what can sometimes feel like busywork.

Is there a limit to when scripts should be used?

Zizou: Personally, I think that there’s a limit to how much scripts should automate the game for us. I mean, you don’t want it to get to the point where you’re just spamming the same button over and over again and you have some extension doing your whole raid for you. It’s one thing to automate out the tedious aspects of gameplay, but I don’t think anyone wants the game to be reduced to thoughtless button mashing. I also firmly believe that scripts don’t replace actual skill and an understanding of how update works. At least when it comes to triggering, I think that everyone should be trained manually first before using scripts to speed up the process.

How has the general attitude towards scripts changed since you started coding for NS?

Zizou: I think people have become a lot more accepting of scripts, or at least they’ve been a lot more normalized now. I started out in 2018, and so everything with Predator was fresh in people’s minds, and so I think that (understandably) contributed to a sense of wariness towards any new scripts that were being created. So I would say that that attitude has shifted quite a bit, and people now seem a lot more accepting of new scripts and tools. There’s also a lot more of a formal review process in place for new scripts now as well. Before, at least for TBH, they had their own script review process that was conducted a bit more informally, and seemed to be done on a mostly ad-hoc basis.

What task did you go into thinking it would be simple to make only to find out what a monumental undertaking it would be?

Zizou: A lot of the stuff involving Quickdraw ended up being a bit more difficult than I expected. I was actually able to pretty quickly go through and complete the original version of it, but transitioning it from a CLI program to a web app took a bit more effort than I initially realized. There were a handful of bugs that stuck around due to poor logic in the initial program design that took me quite a while to get around to fixing. In particular, I think there was a bug causing it to intermittently skip over valid targets due to a mistake in how I coded the target selection that caused me to absolutely lose my mind, and probably took me far longer to fix than it should have.

What areas of the site do you think are underexplored when it comes to tool potential?

Zizou: I remember there being some excitement when private commands for RMB posting were announced, but I don’t know if any tools were really developed to take advantage of it. I think there’s a lot of potential to possibly create some RMB based tools for use by gameside players. Something like an RMB bot could potentially help drive engagement for newer players. Or even a simple script to mirror important Discord announcements to the RMB might be nice for convenience and incentivizing people to join the Discord.

Are there any scripts you’d like to make that you haven’t done yet?

Zizou: I had a small idea for either a userscript or an extension that could pull older data from the dumps and display it on region pages. So there could be a button like “see region as it appeared on x date” and it would load the old WFEs and ROs and everything like that from that time. I ultimately didn’t end up finishing it due to general burnout and getting bored with NS around that time, but I think it’s a cool little idea that I’d definitely want to work on when I get the chance to throw some more time at it.

Do you have any advice for anyone who might like to get started with coding?

Zizou: To anyone wanting to get started, I’d say just go for it. Even if you don’t know very much, the process of slamming your head at a wall and trying to get your first project to work will teach you a lot. You can Google pretty much everything you don’t know or get stuck on, and eventually you will figure it out. I’d also recommend trying your best to steer clear of ChatGPT while you’re still learning the basics of how to code as well. You will probably learn a lot more if you do the work of Googling your problems and understanding what you’re doing wrong instead of just copying whatever the AI outputs into your project.

Another thing that can also help keep your motivation up after you’ve learned a little bit is to collaborate on a project with someone. Personally, I have a lot of trouble keeping myself focused and actually finishing some of the projects that I start, and working alongside someone else can help keep you on track. I think I probably would not have finished porting Quickdraw to a proper web app had I not been doing it for a collaboration project with Aav. It can also just be a nice way to get some feedback on the quality of the code that you are writing, as well as how you’re approaching the design of your tool more generally.

In terms of releasing your programs, I’d say that you should have a pretty thorough understanding of the NS scripting rules as well as how your own code actually works prior to posting it publicly. This is probably very common sense to most people, but I feel compelled to say this anyways because of some absolute atrocities I’ve seen posted onto the technical forum where the tool authors lacked both basic programming knowledge and any regard for NS rules. That’s not to say that a lack of experience should deter you from trying to write code - far from it - but you also don’t have to release every script or tool that you write either. Because once you release a script publicly, you are ultimately responsible for ensuring its continued functionality, as well protecting your users by ensuring its fully compliant with all NS rules.

On a more practical note, I’d also say that you should try and get into the habit of writing proper error checking and handling for your scripts early on. Even if you don’t think there should be a reason for a particular error to occur, you should still do things like checking for a 429 response to ensure you stay within the rate limit for example. I understand that these things are a bit annoying and take a few extra lines to write, they can also vastly simplify debugging and prevent unforeseen bugs from spiralling into catastrophic issues. Because even if you have tested your code and think that it is bug free, never put it past your users to do bizarre or downright stupid shit that you never accounted for.

~☆•°.~☆~.°•☆~

Highlight on Coding - Notanam

Why did you decide to start coding for NS?

Nota: I've always really been one to attempt to apply coding to whatever I'm doing, be it automating schedule making for university, making an AI to play mahjong, or, of course, NS. It just came naturally to me, since I liked coding and I liked being on NS.

What are some challenges you’ve encountered while working on an NS-related script?

Nota: Figuring my way around site scripting is definitely the hardest part of making any script. For those who aren't in the know

How have scripts helped raiding?

Nota: Scripts help get rid of the tedium that comes with certain tasks (such as prepping or tagging) and automate away areas for possible mechanical failure (ban downtimes or move misses) to keep raiders focused on the core of what makes raiding fun- achievement and community.

Is there a limit to when scripts should be used?

Nota: As before, scripts should never take the raiding out of raiding- if we could just mash a button and have our puppets fly away and autotag every region in the game, that wouldn't be very fun. Scripts should never be the focus of the experience, otherwise we've lost our touch and raiding becomes something it was never meant to be in the first place.

How has the general attitude towards scripts changed since you started coding for NS?

Nota: Using scripts have definitely become way more accepted. When I first joined, Henson's predecessor, Swarm, was a nicher tool used pretty much only by sweeze and some other techies, and while feather saw greater use, it was in no ways widespread thanks to burdensome confirmation boxes when performing certain commands. But now, we recommend (or at least recommended, lol) Henson to every new raider, and I'd wager that more raiders use something like Feather than don't.

What task did you go into thinking it would be simple to make only to find out what a monumental undertaking it would be?

Nota: Writing UI code. To this day I'm scared someone will take a magnifying glass and ruler to Henson and discover all the wacky but subtle element misalignments.

What areas of the site do you think are underexplored when it comes to tool potential?

Nota: Regional management. The APIs are all there- RMB posting and dispatch making and editing have been in the API since I've been playing- and I even took a crack at it for Ijaka when that was a thing. I wonder if a widespread open source script will ever become mainstream in that area.

Are there any scripts you’d like to make that you haven’t done yet?

Nota: To be honest, not really- I've found a niche- maintaining Henson and my own personal Feather derivative- and I don't really think I have any new ideas to contribute to any other area. There's plenty other talented coders out there that are working on way cooler things- ask them about it!

Do you have any advice for anyone who might like to get started with coding?

Nota: Never be afraid to step back or take a break. This is NS, a fake online webgame, all your deadlines or goals here are fake in the face of the real world, and your wellbeing and real life comes first. It'll make you more motivated once you get back on the grind, as well.

[Numero Capitan]

Thanks for sharing these on here dax

[Adkissa]

Day 5: New Raiders Spotlight - Talented new players are always popping up in Raiderdom. This interview highlights promising young raiders that have popped up recently, featuring Miraakya, Sateru, Barlyy, and Diskorde.

Barlyy mentioned!!! Immediate approval!!!

[Evil Wolf]

It's because raiders, or at least the BoM crowd (though there's been some sore losing elsewhere recently) cannot handle the thing they wantonly inflict on other, uninvolved players, happening to them. When they force people out of their communities or outright destroy them, it's a part of the game. If what goes around ever comes around, they spend months complaining about it, or project in silly interviews.

Since you decided to invoke me directly, let's talk about your holier-than-thou example.

You claim to be very, very concerned about native communities, but in the Lazarus example, you were absolutely delighted to see multiple non-raiders banned. You even indicated you just personally didn't like some of them for nonspecific reasons, such as Wym.

It only seems like you care about the health of communities when you can use it as a moralistic tool to slam raiders. Otherwise you don't seem to practice what you preach and would see entire swaths of neutral natives banned just so you can get one over on a single native raider.

You're just a hypocrite who uses vague OOC morality to inappropriately justify IC acts and then declare that you can do no wrong. Same old favor of Defender Moralism from the old days, brand new coat of paint.

[Rhaza]

... native raider.

Oxymoron

You're just a hypocrite who uses vague OOC morality to inappropriately justify IC acts and then declare that you can do no wrong. Same old favor of Defender Moralism from the old days, brand new coat of paint.

None of this is OOC. My opposition to raiderdom is clearly IC - the idea that regions should be free of foreign oppression, and that those who propagate that foreign oppression should be barred entry to the regions they seek to harm or manipulate, and have their own regions struck down.

[BrightonBurg]

The BB checking in.

Cheers mates..

[Ostlantis]

Echoing NuCa’s sentiment, thanks to Dax for the post. I’ve not entirely familiar with NS coding, but Zizou’s perspective in particular was very informative and insightful.

[Pterodaxtyl]

Welcome to day 3 of RaiderCon! This panel celebrates the twentieth anniversary of The Black Hawks by discussing the experience of some of the region’s generals.

TBH Anniversary Interview

What inspired you to re-found The Black Hawks, and what kind of work went into it?

Red back: Been trying to think back to this time & it was a very hectic time with TBH & in RL. Our main aim was to protect the TBH region, so defenders did not get a chance to re-found as they had been able to get a few Raider regions like the original DEN region. This took a lot of time to first defend the region from a few attacks until we could lock the region. Then it was a waiting period till we felt safe to go for the re-found.
If I remember correctly once that was completed, we sort of went our own way for awhile till we decided to rebuild TBH. For me rebuilding TBH was the best option as it already had history which we had been part of for much of its life. We also re-founded the region with a Nation that was not tied to a specific nation, so it was insulated from a single player (this helped with the fallout of the use of illegal scripts).

Sorenity2: Two main factors led to the refounding of The Black Hawks. First, the majority of the original forces were split between RedBack Island and my region, FEAR. Second, we were already collaborating on various operations. Given our existing teamwork, it was logical to return to our roots and re-establish The Black Hawks. The refounding was flawless, thanks to simple, fluid, and transparent communication.

We're proud to see the group not just surviving, but thriving today.

How has TBH changed since its founding?

Red back: It has changed massively as has the game & the mechanics it uses. An example of this is with update raiding (tagging). To run this back in 2009-10 you could only have 1 nation on an email address applying for UN (now WA) at a time. I think I had like 30 nations with different emails to do big runs. I can not recall if the acceptance email were processed at update or straight away. We worked out update times by looking a nation in different regions happenings to see when their issues were processed. This was only done when the region the nation was in at the time updated. To find targets we would need to find a nation in that region that was active answering issues so to get the update time. Having this info was also used when larger raids were planned as to when to move sleepers in & then jump at update time.

I think the use of a council as the centre of power has meant we have had a tool in keeping activity high & refreshed constantly along with the ability to keep up to date with the changers in the game.

What are some of your favorite infiltration operations from your time in TBH?

Sorenity2: My favorite experience was in The North Pacific, where I infiltrated as Galapagos Isles and eventually became their Minister of Defense.

How was TBH different at the height of your activity within the org?

Koth: When I joined TBH in August 2012, our primary method of communication was our forum, and supplemented with MSN. We made MSN group chats whenever we were raiding, but otherwise we mainly just stuck to 1 on 1 interactions.

It was a much smaller, and tighter knit group then. I was joining a core that was primarily composed of Bri, Spartz, Mall, Sev, Rawr, Jakker, and COE, just as tag raiding was beginning to take off. Things didn't feel so serious back then, it was all just goofing off and having a laugh at the expense of people like Unibot, who we thought took himself far too seriously. Kind of crazy to contrast the guy who unironically themed his org as archers-errant in green tights with today's defenders in that way, but yeah we definitely spent a lot of off-update time together riffing like that.

Souls: Height is a hard point to define. Something that comes to mind, though, is that today TBH stands as an equal partner with several other raiding orders. In various periods of "my time," that was less the case; we were either a very junior (in power) partner to TBR, looking for scraps and cool things to distinguish ourselves, or the face of raiding for quite a few years. Both came with their own stresses and benefits.


What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen over the course of TBH’s lifetime?

Koth: Jeez, where to even begin? Nothing is the same except for the flag, the Council of the Hawks existing, and the rank structure with Red Back at the top. We've moved to Discord, created the Corps, launched the Reserves and the Airborne Division, been taken over by anime culture, and archived our forum. This organization is a machine that just keeps running, adapting with the times.

Souls: It's in many ways more egalitarian as a region. During my term, a specific player was a very clear "leader" of the group, over a generally much more junior group of players, a role that I somewhat unintentionally inherited for a period and never really suited. Something I wanted to be sure as I passed the torch and moved to an advisory role was that the Councils to come would be on more equal and collaborative ground with each other. Part of that is my commitment to a purely advisorial role without a vote, rather than being an armchair general

Also, why I was a fledgling, it was a lot more... Militant. Over the course of the past decade, it got a lot jokier and queerer, and that became essential (in a good way) to the identity of TBH.

How did TBH adjust to site changes that affected raiding?

Souls: Historically, something I've always been proud of TBH for is spearheading new ways to raid. Spelling raids, streaking, shotgunning (as an improvement on "Cora's chain") etc. Not all of those related to site changes, but some certainly did; the point was that one of the things I was proudest about in my height at TBH was the creative nimbleness the region displayed.

The other big one is script rules. For many years, TBH's script development and review group led all of gameplay on ensuring scripts being used were reliable and safe, as a matter of policy following some members being caught up with the ne'er-do-well scripts distributed over in TBR/DEN.

What are some of your favorite memories in TBH?

Souls: The Kyrie/Sini era of the Nest. Big ops that scaled new types of raiding to new heights, like Blackout and Streaker. Animefest. Perpetual (but in retrospect endearing) inability to get past Stalker's combination of security and inactivity to get into Hell. So many of the RP / storytelling raid reports!!!! And doing damn good in some older April Fools events, that used to be a periodic regional staple!

What are some fun operations you recall that may be lost to time?

Souls: Not even close to a "TBH only" thing, but one of my all time favorites will always be the coup of the "native" occupation of TBR. We had little love lost for TBR itself, but having a bunch of randos build a government there was a bit insulting to raiding. So raiders from all over infiltrated the government, were involved with both leading candidates for an election (surpassing Cormac's bid), and then I won it as Harenhime (with my pedigree as regional security officer). It was short lived because when predator broke in DEN (on top of the prior recruitment violations that vacated TBR), the region was mod Nuked. But truly, a dozen people infiltrating an active region was something to behold.

Otherwise? There have been many good occupations, and I've always enjoyed those more, but much of what is more uniquely memorable to me are the true one-offs. Streaker's centuries of streaks stolen. Record setting shotgun run. The spelling raid for Swith's cat. Messing with Card values.

Who are some former hawks who contributed to the region that may be lost to time?

Souls: More than I can count, at this point. You have your once reliable old hands, like Wetwork. The spirited kids who moved on to better things with the lives, like Kyrie (he's also responsible for the mascot, Taka!) and 'ol otter Sini and the penguin Zizou. The folks who played big roles in TBH but have since become better known elsewhere, like Dak and BB and Aquila and Syb. The unfortunate ones I won't name who fell down a rabbit hole or spiral into worse places and unearned their welcome, but whose contributions prior were once a pillar of the community. Sakana's obsession with Cards and early market shenanigans we pulled there. I could name most Hawks don't know all day before even getting to the ones that most of y'all do know!

[Warden Aura]

Nice read, it’s interesting to see how regions formed before my time were.

[Araukia]

It is a common saying that practice makes perfect. Unfortunately, the raiders of today aren't practicing their spellings, leading to unspeakable crimes against the English vocabulary. Fear not, however, RaiderCon has provided new spelling classes!

Straight A Students:

The Black Hawks
COL Pterodaxtyl
CPL The pig empire
PFC Nine-Tailed Fox

Purple Pony Club
Marshall Gamma Crucis
Outrider Diskorde
Outrider Araukia (trigger)

Moral Supports
Gender Soldier Blahaj, HRT
Emotional Support Cat Iris the Criminal Cat, Cat

Sentence Spelled: RaiderCon Ten Years

Spelling Hits (17):
Roncal
Alliarzura
Islamic Indenpendent Territories
Diamond Dogs
Elvis Presley
Rlx World Conquest
Canonero Ii
Operation Tabby Cat
Nintaichikara

The Universe Of The Cookie Child
Eoustich Region
Neos

Youtube
Eastern Slavic Region
Ateohwun
Region Francophone
Script Test Zone

Extras (2):
European Economic Alliance
Den Nye Verden

[Pterodaxtyl]

Welcome to day 4 of RaiderCon. This panel looks into the past of raiderdom and discusses the experience of some older raiders.

Highlight on Older Raiders - Avakael

When and where did you start raiding?

Avakael: I started raiding in late 2008, when I first joined NS. The region I was recruited to was called the Kingdom of England, which soon became the founding member of something called the Commonwealth, which had quite a few regions under one regional government in it's day. We weren't set up to raid, but the government was curious about it and gave it the old college try with little to no prior knowledge of how it worked beyond what we could guess. We jumped 45 minutes early into 'Sparta' and had a single-digit pileoff against XKI that we won. There was less than 40,000 nations in NS at the time - I think the site was just about at it's absolute nadir for activity at that time. From there, we did a few more raids; Evil Wolf joined and taught us how to do it properly, and then in mid 2009 I was recruited by Dream Killers (now Cain of LWU) to join Unknown.

How have things changed since you started raiding?

Avakael: The most impactful change for raiding, imho, is still what happened in late 2011 and early 2012 when Halcones and others figured out how to calculate update time mathematically. We didn't have that before; we just had very stable updates with very little variance and would use the RSS feeds of nations to get exact timestamps of when their influence had changed before, and we'd jump and pray. This allowed TBR to start tagging regions with split second jumps, so admins introduced deliberate variance; which in turn forced the invention of what we'd understand as triggering to counter it. Older raiders than me would probably point to WASC liberations as well, as a password used to be a death sentence if we could get one up; and of course the oldest probably remember when raiding was still against game rules.

Is there anything you wish you would’ve done differently throughout your career?

Avakael: If I had advice for new raiders, it would be this- go out and tackle the big projects now. Don't wait to become a respected leader, go out and do big deeds and become one by force. If you have some crazy dream target or want to build your own raider org, you need to do it ASAP. The hardest commodity for you to figure out isn't region building skills or raid operation management, it's just being hungry. The enthusiasm you have in your first few years of this game fades, and most people never see it come back to full force again, no matter how long you stick around. There's a stigma against going out and trying to do your own thing, especially now when defenders have finally woken up again and raiders need every hand on deck. You need to ignore it, because you're hungry today, and you don't know if you'll be hungry next year. One or two highly motivated people going out and trying to start a new thing is going to have people think you're an idiot and that you're not going to succeed, and not everyone does, but the reality is that it is the only thing that has ever succeeded. That's the origin story of TBH, LWU, BoM, TBR, DEN, Unknown, just about every raider org you can think of that was ever the leading force in raiderdom started as a couple of assholes with a dream.

Finally, if you want an example of what happens when you wait too long, well... here I am. I can't answer most of your questions because I've spent 16 years as a follower, not a leader.

I can't give you good detailed answers about how raiding techniques have evolved over time, or brag about my proudest achievement as a raider, because I don't have one.

I loudly took lots of very unpopular positions that didn't make sense to anyone but my closest friend, and stabbed friends in the back and blabbed secrets, and just generally sat on the sidelines with my arms crossed because I didn't approve of leadership in whatever raider region was running the show.

None of that is leadership material.

Most of my time in NS is going towards issue editing now. I'm hungry for that, and I don't have the slightest fucking clue why I am, but I know better than to disregard that feeling. I might have one or two last swings at region building, but the big one in my head now isn't even vaguely related to raiding- it's building a region with a model WA general assembly, with the government plugged in. Done right, I'd hope to build a pool of talent of writing skills, but R/D would be an afterthought.

So in short, go do it now. Leadership in whatever raider region you're already in will hate me for having told you to strike out, but I'm willing to bet that the next big thing that leads raiderdom, puts blind panic in the minds of natives and has the undying hatred and respect of defenders will be a raider org that didn't exist a few years ago, and might not yet exist at all.

~☆•°.~☆~.°•☆~

Highlight on Older Raiders - Raionitu

Where did you begin your raiding career? When did you start?

Rai: Mid 2015 I joined NS after someone from school told me about it, got a recruitment TG from TBH day 1, moved there, and never left. Learned to play the game as a raider.

How have things changed since you started raiding?

Rai: I feel like the frontier/stronghold update is the easy answer, so I'm gonna ignore that. I think one of the biggest impacts on the site was discord being created and widely adopted. Before discord, most raider orgs used skype, and I know there were some regions using IRC.
With skype, you had to be added to a server by someone already in it, and servers only had one channel, you didn't have public channels with people from other regions, or these bigger community discord servers for things like got issues or trading cards (cards also didn't exist then).

With discord, NS became a lot more connected, you had newer players from different regions mingling, and when they eventually became regional leaders, those connections lead to what seems like a lot more people having membership in multiple regions, and eventually larger power blocs within the game.
Instead of a bunch of regions that occasionally interact, the leaders of big regions often are or were members of other regions, to where instead of dealing with a single region, politics and the like often involve multiple regions, and those regions tend to have more people they could call on individually.

Is there anything you wish you would’ve done differently throughout your career?

Rai: In hindsight, there's individuals I wouldn't have associated with, but broadly speaking I'm content with my raiding career.

What are you most proud of from your raiding career?

Rai: I mean, it has to be operation blackout. Bringing together all those raiders to set a tag record at what I think was the lowest point in raider morale since I've been playing, possibly since raiding started, and just everything surrounding that raid and why I did it. I never really enjoyed leading tag runs all that much, but blackout was just a very unique event.

Aside from that, probably my infiltration of communist alliance, 2 weeks after joining the region I talked the delegate into naming me vice delegate and telegramming the entire region to endorse me.

How have raiding techniques evolved during your time?

Rai: How have they not? After predator, the common tagging and triggering techniques got thrown out. That led to devi making shotgun tag raids, but also a shift in how scripts and tools were done. Instead of closely kept secrets, scripts were almost universally open source, and it seems like these days there's a script for everything.

Beyond that, I think things just became tighter, when I started defenders were almost a non-entity, ever since their resurgence post predator triggers seem to have gotten tighter, occupations are often launched with stealth, it's the endless cat and cat game of staying ahead of each other.

What do you think is the most impactful change the site has made concerning raiding?

Rai: This doesn't say during my time, and I will use that. Influence and regional founders/governors didn't exist, I'd say that was the most impactful since it was kinda the thing that legitimized raiding and gave mechanics designed around the idea of raiding/region crashing. Since I started playing, I'd say the frontier/stronghold update, but that happened after I stopped actively raiding, so I can't say too much about it

What has been the biggest change in raiders as an entity during your time as a raider?

Rai: I would say the cultural shift. After predator, the old order of raiders got shattered, with several being made DoS, and several others being blacklisted in the months and years that followed (not necessarily because of predator). There had been a mindset in some of those players that took NS way too seriously, they stopped seeing it as a game I think, and it's what led to most of the problems raiding faced at that point in time.

It's something I've seen a few times over my time on NS, people become addicted to NS in a way thats unhealthy for themselves and everyone on the site they interact with, and there was a raider purity ideology that I think fed into that, and to some degree pushed people into that.

That's no longer the dominant ideology in raiderdom, and I think discord contributed to that, since chatting with other people who aren't raiders helps combat the 'us vs them' mentality

This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer.

Do you have any advice for new raiders today?

Rai: Don't wait around for someone to make you a great raider, be proactive. If you want to do infiltrations, make some clean puppets, try to talk your way into getting a regions password. If you want to lead raids, ask someone to teach you how to be point, or how to trigger. I'm known for blackout, but honestly I don't think it was hard, I was just the one who actually took the opportunity when it was there. You don't want to have the opportunity to make a name for yourself show up, then not be able to take it because you kept waiting for someone to tell you how to do it.

~☆•°.~☆~.°•☆~

Highlight on Older Raiders - Of Crazed

Of Crazed: Hello NationStates. This is Of Crazed reporting live from the graveyard (or is it boneyard, I can't remember). Thank you for all the good memories and the years of fun. I hope everyone is having fun playing NationStates and everyone continues the amazing work of participating in the on going story that is NS. I'm flattered to have been reached out to for an interview after all these years. I'm going to make a disclaimer off the bat that some of my answers to these questions may have details in the wrong order. Some of these events were up to 20 years ago.

Where did you begin your raiding career?

Of Crazed: My first region I joined was a small defender aligned region called Abyss. I don't know how I found them, it might be that they started with the letter A. But me and my buddy from high school joined and had fun arguing about IRL politics at the time. My buddy didn't play the game long, but I was interested in exploring more of what the game had to offer.

I initially joined DEN as a spy, but I don't even know how much spying I did. I fell in love with the DEN right away. All of gameplay was very new to me, and the generals there were kind and taught me the game. The DEN was in recovery mode initially when I joined due to it being shortly after the RLA forum crashing. The generals and eventually Field Marshals there were just getting on. I think they were excited to have an eager new troop at the time. As I went on raids, I was exposed to regional friendships (The Invaders) and all of our rivals. I loved it. It was a fresh new world to me and I found it very exciting. As I stayed, I really enjoyed the swagger DEN with the excellence that was tied to it. Say you're the best and then be the best.

When did you start?

Of Crazed: I believe I started in 2005.

How have things changed since you started raiding?

Of Crazed: A lot changed. I raided pre-influence. Which I believe was a good change in the end because it took out a grey area. I don't remember all the rules but I believe we had the ability to just eject every nation in the region, but we weren't allowed to. I remember protesting to the mods a few times.

Updating raiding was fairly new when I started and a lot less precise than what it ultimately turned into. I always used puppets to raid unless I was doing a bit, but I raided with a few people who raided before puppets.

But I really was no longer an active raider by the time tag raiding and the more advanced triggering methods became more popular.

Is there anything you wish you would’ve done differently throughout your career?

Of Crazed: I was a dumb teenager for part of my raiding career, so I ask forgiveness of all of NationStates for dealing with me in that state.
I will also say the role of raiding is basically playing the heel, so I hope I didn't genuinely hurt anyone's feelings in the process. I know when we were in the thick of it, we all took it a little more personally and I will apologize if I was unkind.
I also stayed out of it when the last edition of DEN became active. I believed and still believe I wasn't the owner of the DEN brand and didn't stop them from operating under it. Which in hindsight was a mistake. I think cheating and scripting tools are lame.

What are you most proud of from your raiding career?

Of Crazed: All of it. I did it all. I rose through the ranks to lead to greatest raider army in NS. I did it my way. I'm a region and environment with a lot of strong voices, I had my own voice. I participated or led in amazing raids where we used sleepers, we raided game created regions, we did a raid with original tactics. I was part of a group that set the standard. I really enjoyed the friendships (and even the rivals) I made over the years.

Since I started with my DEN bravado, let me end with some humility and thanks. I find it mind-blowing how accepting The Black Hawks have been to me years after my time in raiding. I'm really humbled by their acceptance basically anytime I wanted to dip my toes in raiding mostly with people who never raided with me in my prime. I find it endearing that someone would not only want to hear from me, but track me down after I CTEd. Shout out to LWU and all of the OGs I raided with.

Do you have any advice for new raiders today?

Of Crazed: First I would suggest to the non-raiders to try raiding. You'll be surprised how fun it is.

To my fellow raiders, play your part and make your mark.

NationStates is a political simulator at the end of the day and embrace your role in it. In game conflict is not being mean, it is an essential part of giving the game stakes. The stakes are what make the entire game great. (I'm talking about raiding, you still have to be nice). I always felt like the best raiders combined their raiding ability with thinking about what impact they wanted. I think it's easy to get caught up in the technical and mechanics of raiding and forget about impact. Do not ignore the political elements of the game and only stay focused on a rivalry with defenders. Your options are limitless.

Of Crazed: Thank you again everyone for taking the time to read my nonsense yet again. I had so much fun playing the game with all of you and hope you find the years of fun that I did.

Yours,
OC