Embassy of The West Pacific | Dusk and Dawn

[Rhaza]

About 9 months ago I sent Vara a message. Since I left my previous gig, I never really stopped actively following gameplay, but I wanted to actually do something again. I had changed ideologically and I needed a new adventure. Ever since the Frontier/Stronghold update I haven't really felt the same about NS. I no longer feel any sympathy toward the natives I pretended to care about when it was politically convenient to do so. There is simply no excuse anymore for not securing your region. If you get raided, I'm pretty much of the opinion that it is one hundred percent your fault. I enjoy being a defender for the challenge, but I've also really come to love torching regions to the ground when they deserve it. So yeah, it didn't really make much sense to go back to defenders.

lol

I mean I guess W&S might count in a way, he's snapped and doesn't even know why he hates raiders anymore but he doesn't do anything about it like a proper Joker

me, april 2024

Don't worry he's still giving your boys belt through TWPAF

[Applebania]

If I understand correctly, a lot of the early independents were former defenders who became disillusioned with moralism after Influence was brought in and the old Griefing rules went the way of the dodo. It only makes sense that F/S would inspire a similar ideological shift in some people, especially given that it's the closest we'll ever get to the "R/D opt-out" that people have wanted for so long. It just happened slower, because GP is slower now than it was in 2006.

[Logical Stimulus]

bruh koth. you were still thinking about me when i barely touched the game? i thought i at least had to do something, i didn't know my general existence was that offensive.

i haven't cared about natives in years. i think i made it pretty clear a long time ago that moralism is a means to an end. now i not only get to still kick your ass, i also get to do your job better than you :>

god i love winning.

[Ostlantis]

must’ve been the wind

[Emodea]

About 9 months ago I sent Vara a message. Since I left my previous gig, I never really stopped actively following gameplay, but I wanted to actually do something again. I had changed ideologically and I needed a new adventure. Ever since the Frontier/Stronghold update I haven't really felt the same about NS. I no longer feel any sympathy toward the natives I pretended to care about when it was politically convenient to do so. There is simply no excuse anymore for not securing your region. If you get raided, I'm pretty much of the opinion that it is one hundred percent your fault. I enjoy being a defender for the challenge, but I've also really come to love torching regions to the ground when they deserve it. So yeah, it didn't really make much sense to go back to defenders.

lol

I mean I guess W&S might count in a way, he's snapped and doesn't even know why he hates raiders anymore but he doesn't do anything about it like a proper Joker

me, april 2024

Do you really get to complain about your enemies' motivations if the said enemies are beating you in pretty much everything?

[Ambroscus Koth]

Do you really get to complain about your enemies' motivations if the said enemies are beating you in pretty much everything?

No idea what this post is supposed to mean, sorry lol. I'm not complaining about anything, I have no enemies as a retiree, and nobody here is beating me at anything besides fantasy football.

In case you misunderstood the point of my post: I was merely finding it very funny how W&S took the mask off given I was expecting him to do that a year ago.

[Sedgistan]

It just happened slower, because GP is slower now than it was in 2006.

Mid-2006 (post influence) to mid-2009 (move from Jolt) were the dark ages for gameplay. The R/D scene may not be so competitive at this exact moment, but the activity levels over the last 2.5 years are still far higher than they were back then, and there are vastly more people involved.

The earlier part of your post is spot on in that a lot of the independents of that era were people that had moved on from old defending orgs like the ADN and RLA.

[Rhaza]

If I understand correctly, a lot of the early independents were former defenders who became disillusioned with moralism after Influence was brought in and the old Griefing rules went the way of the dodo. It only makes sense that F/S would inspire a similar ideological shift in some people, especially given that it's the closest we'll ever get to the "R/D opt-out" that people have wanted for so long. It just happened slower, because GP is slower now than it was in 2006.

We've seen military records break themselves successively, some of the biggest shifts politically of the decade, and that was all this year. Less than a week ago we had a 40+ person cultural event hosted by the Outback. How is Gameplay slow at all, let alone compared to 2006?

Do you really get to complain about your enemies' motivations if the said enemies are beating you in pretty much everything?

No idea what this post is supposed to mean, sorry lol. I'm not complaining about anything, I have no enemies as a retiree, and nobody here is beating me at anything besides fantasy football.

Actually we were still beating you at R/D less than two months ago. This "I'm retired and have no enemies" schtick is cute but you clearly still have the time/will to lazily pile for your inept successors. The door is that-a-way if you're serious about retirement and " no enemies."

[Ambroscus Koth]

Actually we were still beating you at R/D less than two months ago. This "I'm retired and have no enemies" schtick is cute but you clearly still have the time/will to lazily pile for your inept successors. The door is that-a-way if you're serious about retirement and " no enemies."

Relaaaax, brother. I saw something interesting in an article nobody had responded to and just said "lol", that doesn't mean I'm interested in debating the state of R/D with you anymore. If you want to talk about anyone being washed, I'm starting Drake Maye over Josh Allen this week.

[Rhaza]

Actually we were still beating you at R/D less than two months ago. This "I'm retired and have no enemies" schtick is cute but you clearly still have the time/will to lazily pile for your inept successors. The door is that-a-way if you're serious about retirement and " no enemies."

Relaaaax, brother. I saw something interesting in an article nobody had responded to and just said "lol", that doesn't mean I'm interested in debating the state of R/D with you anymore. If you want to talk about anyone being washed, I'm starting Drake Maye over Josh Allen this week.

Fitting thing to bring up, because both your and Allen's windows are closed and we're back over here.

The more someone posts about how retired they are (on the place they're retired from) the less retired they actually are, in my experience.

[Applebania]

If I understand correctly, a lot of the early independents were former defenders who became disillusioned with moralism after Influence was brought in and the old Griefing rules went the way of the dodo. It only makes sense that F/S would inspire a similar ideological shift in some people, especially given that it's the closest we'll ever get to the "R/D opt-out" that people have wanted for so long. It just happened slower, because GP is slower now than it was in 2006.

We've seen military records break themselves successively, some of the biggest shifts politically of the decade, and that was all this year. Less than a week ago we had a 40+ person cultural event hosted by the Outback. How is Gameplay slow at all, let alone compared to 2006?

I worded that post poorly, allow me to rephrase a bit. Gameplay is a lot more entrenched than it was 20 years ago. It used to be possible to go from never having heard of NS to being a GCR delegate within a year, something that would be almost unthinkable today. Most of the really prominent regions have been around for at least half a decade, and have put down roots to match. These aren't flimsy governments that could be blown down by a stiff breeze, these are proper, established institutions, and like any proper, established institution, they can be slow to adapt to changing circumstances or accept new blood. There are also, as you mention, a lot more people involved, and a group of 100 people is going to be slower to change its mind on things than a group of 10 people. So if an individual experiences a major ideological shift, they have three options. They can try to convince the rest of their region of their new ideology (very difficult and slow), they can start a new region (catching up to the big boys is gonna take a while, we're not in the era where a region could go from nothing to a superpower and back to nothing within a year anymore), or they could join a different region (climbing the cursus honorum is usually not a quick process). All this adds up to the ideological implications of F/S only really becoming apparent now, almost three years after frontiers were introduced.

EDIT - The new sinkers, while certainly catalysing a major diplomatic realignment, were quickly integrated into the existing interregional political order rather than being left to develop on their own. They're led by players who've been around for years and years, rather than noobs figuring everything out as they go on, because NS isn't a game where regions that important are led by noobs figuring everything out as they go on anymore.

EDIT 2 - I say this, but then I go check a list of GCR delegates and it turns out that the only example I could find of someone becoming a GCR delegate less than a year after being founded (from 2006 to 2009) was Harmoneia in Lazarus. Gnidrah in TEP and Blackadder in TP both got pretty close though. This of course assumes none of these players have earlier nations I don't know about though.

[Rhaza]

No kidding the game is more entrenched than it was when it was 4 years old. Don't be silly now. The idea that new Sinkers were going to be seized by noobs and built in isolation is absurd dreaming at best - it wasn't the case for Osiris and Balder either.

[Heavens Reach]

-snip-

If the sinkers had been left to the wolves, they would have been taken by them.

Ostensibly, though you don't like that the sinker regions did not become regional development projects for new players, you do prefer that to them immediately falling to the active raiders that were operating at the time.

Had that happened, one of three outcomes would have been possible: either independents and defenders took the sinker regions from the raiders, returned them to the newcomers developing them, and became an external military that constantly needed to pour resources into defending the regional natives; the raiders held onto the sinkers and used them as feeding grounds for updaters and pilers; or more experienced regional leaders took over and you wind up with the same exact situation as now, with extra steps.

There was no possible future in which those regions were held by newcomers to the game and still had the numbers and the know-how to hold onto regions that cannot, by design, be strongholds.

[Applebania]

No kidding the game is more entrenched than it was when it was 4 years old. Don't be silly now. The idea that new Sinkers were going to be seized by noobs and built in isolation is absurd dreaming at best - it wasn't the case for Osiris and Balder either.

Well yeah I wasn't trying to make any value judgements, it's just part of the natural process of people getting better at the game over the years. Things get more stable. I might find it a bit less interesting, but I'm not going to demand that everyone stop being good at the game, that would be stupid.

If the sinkers had been left to the wolves, they would have been taken by them.

Ostensibly, though you don't like that the sinker regions did not become regional development projects for new players, you do prefer that to them immediately falling to the active raiders that were operating at the time.

Had that happened, one of three outcomes would have been possible: either independents and defenders took the sinker regions from the raiders, returned them to the newcomers developing them, and became an external military that constantly needed to pour resources into defending the regional natives; the raiders held onto the sinkers and used them as feeding grounds for updaters and pilers; or more experienced regional leaders took over and you wind up with the same exact situation as now, with extra steps.

There was no possible future in which those regions were held by newcomers to the game and still had the numbers and the know-how to hold onto regions that cannot, by design, be strongholds.

Everything you say here is correct, and obviously so. I just kinda wish it wasn't.

[Goobergunchia]

It just happened slower, because GP is slower now than it was in 2006.

Mid-2006 (post influence) to mid-2009 (move from Jolt) were the dark ages for gameplay. The R/D scene may not be so competitive at this exact moment, but the activity levels over the last 2.5 years are still far higher than they were back then, and there are vastly more people involved.

The earlier part of your post is spot on in that a lot of the independents of that era were people that had moved on from old defending orgs like the ADN and RLA.

I would just add that at least some of that shift was spurred by a view that promoting activity of any sort was necessary given the overall quiescence of the game. (Notably in particular expounded by people important to Equilism and TWP's history -- it's been a long time and my memory's a bit hazy, but I think this was when TWP shifted away from being the most stalwart defender region of the feeders.)

[Bhang Bhang Duc]

Mid-2006 (post influence) to mid-2009 (move from Jolt) were the dark ages for gameplay. The R/D scene may not be so competitive at this exact moment, but the activity levels over the last 2.5 years are still far higher than they were back then, and there are vastly more people involved.

The earlier part of your post is spot on in that a lot of the independents of that era were people that had moved on from old defending orgs like the ADN and RLA.

I would just add that at least some of that shift was spurred by a view that promoting activity of any sort was necessary given the overall quiescence of the game. (Notably in particular expounded by people important to Equilism and TWP's history -- it's been a long time and my memory's a bit hazy, but I think this was when TWP shifted away from being the most stalwart defender region of the feeders.)

During TAO’s term as Delegate he formed the Black Sheep Squadron, a TWP raider group. We were still primarily defenders, but the BSS showed we were moving away from being a pure defender region.

[The West Pacific Master Dispatch]

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The Western Post - December 2025 Issue

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The December edition of The Western Post is live!

Yes, it's technically still December everywhere that matters. In this issue, an old person talks about old people, a young person talks about pens, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs crashes out about the University of Nebraska.

Read.

[The West Pacific Master Dispatch]

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The Western Post - February 2026 Issue

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The February edition of The Western Post is live!

Just don't think too hard about this one. The first publication since the Great Reset! This edition features a lot of rejects from the cutting room floor, a very Western Connections, and also *checks notes* Gespenster?

get.rand('callToAction')

[The West Pacific Master Dispatch]

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The Western Post - March 2026 Issue

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The March edition of The Western Post is live!

It may almost be April Fools, but this is no joke! The Western Post is here!

In this issue, we welcome our new CityGuessr Editor Democratic Wer! Also, OT takes a trip down memory lane, LS takes a trip to the slop trough, and Vara takes a trip to the principal's (editor's?) office.

Read and upvote or all your server icons will be changed to have fake notification pings tomorrow!!

[The West Pacific Master Dispatch]

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The Western Post - April 2026 Issue

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The April edition of The Western Post is live!

In which raiderdom is skewered, music is enjoyed, and a scolding has been thoroughly effective.

Partake joyously of words!!

[The West Pacific Master Dispatch]

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The West Pacifc Armed Forces - Operation Shadow Play

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The Gl0be, a nondescript kind of region, found lacking and sentenced to the West Pacific Armed Force’s trophy hub.

The West eagerly reasserts our position at the forefront of military gameplay in a visceral execution of The Gl0be, sister frontier of the already disestablished Virelia and general nuisance. Our double digit jumper count interwoven in a near 40 attendee design may to some seem excessive to empty out a three-endorsement backwater, but that is the way of the game these days. The raider “faction” passed on without elegy, and the New Pacifican Affliction has long since been contained. Only the competent and true remain. A global meritocracy.

This is the second time this particular cohort have lost an ill-thought and poorly-managed frontier to the modern machine of independence, and the second time no aid will avail itself to them. Those who can not uphold the standards of polite society will find themselves punished by that society, over and over.

Pirates in attendance:
Pirate King Varanius
Captain of the Fleet United Adaikes
Sailing Master Giovanniland
Sailing Master Witchcraft and Sorcery
Bombardier Noton Mast
Rum Runner Staneburg
Striker The Perfection Isles
Deckhand Aethenstaff
Greenhorn Kickingandscreaming
Greenhorn The Theeserrasland
Powder Monkey Blue Bubble

And friends:
the Outback Bushrangers
Radiant Inquisition of Perdition
The Europeian Republican Navy
The Land of Kings and Emperors Imperial Army
Balder Jomsvikings
Frontierist Special Brigade
The East Pacific Sovereign Army
and The North Pacific Army

[Witchcraft and Sorcery]

Surgical destruction. Can’t say anything except it was thoroughly deserved.

Nice way to get my triggering chops back after a minute. Awesome showing from TWPAF and thanks to our friends for joining the party!

[Bhang Bhang Duc]

Very nice work all. Good to see our recently returned veteran KAS sailing with the crew.

[Heavens Reach]

Surgical op, as expected of TWPAF

[Dengist China]

I've been eagerly awaiting this one. There's not many to go until all the active problematic frontiers are gone.