[Region Locking] Something needs to be changed.

[Galiantus]

I like this idea. It makes it possible to perform a refound with a guarentee of success, and bases who can become the founder on something logical, rather than influence.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Leave founders alone. There's exactly one way that a new founder should be appointed and it is through refoundation.

[Riemstagrad]

Leave founders alone. There's exactly one way that a new founder should be appointed and it is through refoundation.

i agree with this.

There should be found a way to give 'natives' an opportunity to play an active role when their region, or an allied region is under attack. Tooling with the founder-system doesn't accomplish that and it might summon some ugly monsters...

I still think a system that carries a delegate-change over to the next update, with an intermediate 'special' period where battle and politics can take place, can be a possible solution.

[Rich and Corporations]

Leave founders alone. There's exactly one way that a new founder should be appointed and it is through refoundation.

i agree with this.

There should be found a way to give 'natives' an opportunity to play an active role when their region, or an allied region is under attack. Tooling with the founder-system doesn't accomplish that and it might summon some ugly monsters...

I still think a system that carries a delegate-change over to the next update, with an intermediate 'special' period where battle and politics can take place, can be a possible solution.

Maybe embassies could support WA delegates, somehow, by recognizing a regional government?

[Kogvuron]

I do still like this idea, although I understand the chances of it being implemented are like one in a million

[Xanthal]

I still think a system that carries a delegate-change over to the next update, with an intermediate 'special' period where battle and politics can take place, can be a possible solution.

Maybe embassies could support WA delegates, somehow, by recognizing a regional government?

I must point out that neither of these ideas empower natives so much as they empower defenders and like-minded outsiders to do more to counter raiders. Maybe they're good ideas regardless, but they still put the fate of a region in the hands of nearly everyone except the common players who live there, which is precisely the sort of thinking that has led to natives being so impotent in the first place. To clarify, I'm not arguing against letting outside forces play a role in the fate of a region, just for giving residents of that region tools to compete with the outsiders.

[Unibot II]

I still think a system that carries a delegate-change over to the next update, with an intermediate 'special' period where battle and politics can take place, can be a possible solution.

Maybe embassies could support WA delegates, somehow, by recognizing a regional government?

I must point out that neither of these ideas empower natives so much as they empower defenders and like-minded outsiders to do more to counter raiders. Maybe they're good ideas regardless, but they still put the fate of a region in the hands of nearly everyone except the common players who live there, which is precisely the sort of thinking that has led to natives being so impotent in the first place. To clarify, I'm not arguing against letting outside forces play a role in the fate of a region, just for giving residents of that region tools to compete with the outsiders.

The problem is any power given to native delegates is going to give power to raider delegates -- the game only distinguishs between raiders and natives on the basis of influence. Making it increasingly harder to liberate.

[Xanthal]

The problem is any power given to native delegates is going to give power to raider delegates -- the game only distinguishs between raiders and natives on the basis of influence. Making it increasingly harder to liberate.

So stop making every tool in a Founderless region the exclusive property of the Delegate. As long as the Delegate is the only player who can do anything, we're never going to break out of the conundrum of how to design an algorithm that perfectly distinguishes between natives and non-natives. Such an algorithm is impossible. What we can do is use the system of Influence we already have- or a tweaked version of it- to establish a distribution of power: either direct (referendums) or indirect (something along the lines of a recall election for the Delegate).

[Galiantus]

The problem is any power given to native delegates is going to give power to raider delegates -- the game only distinguishs between raiders and natives on the basis of influence. Making it increasingly harder to liberate.

So stop making every tool in a Founderless region the exclusive property of the Delegate. As long as the Delegate is the only player who can do anything, we're never going to break out of the conundrum of how to design an algorithm that perfectly distinguishes between natives and non-natives. Such an algorithm is impossible. What we can do is use the system of Influence we already have- or a tweaked version of it- to establish a distribution of power: either direct (referendums) or indirect (something along the lines of a recall election for the Delegate).

Are you suggesting something along the lines of allowing members of founderless regions access to regional controls to some degree?

I am envisioning what you are saying as something along the lines of those with the most regional influence being able to use their influence to kick those with less influence out of a region or change the WFE by mutual consent, depending on how much influence they have. The difference between a delegate and a group of other high-influence nations doing this would be that it would cost many more times the amount of influence for each individual in the group to perform this kind of action, whereas the delegate could do so at only a fraction of the cost.

If this is what you are saying. I like it: This would not only make it possible for founderless regions to defend themselves, as well as make it important for raiders to prioritize who they do and don't eject from a region, but would also make it possible for well-planned invasions to massively multiply their amount of power. A major invasion could be very rewarding to raiders in this circumstance, because they could approach a "game over" result many times easier in certain instances. I would also argue that implamenting something like this would help everyone on a Gameplay scale because
1) Regional politics would matter more
2) The R/D game would be more available to non-updaters, and
3) Players could actually participate in policing their region to keep out spammers and supress RMB posts.

But it would still make the WAD position of enough political importance to fight over. Of course, in order to make this work the WAD nation would have to be directly untouchable, and SC Liberations would have to be somewhat limited in their power, but the overall effect of this would make regional politics one of the most important issues of the day.

[Unibot II]

Or what about a cap-and-trade system for influence that would require non-updaters in pile groups to at least be active and trading. There could be a limit on how much influence they could trade to someone in a day.

[Galiantus]

Or what about a cap-and-trade system for influence that would require non-updaters in pile groups to at least be active and trading. There could be a limit on how much influence they could trade to someone in a day.

Trading influence? This could be really useful for military gameplay, since it would make it harder for delegates to eject lots of people from the region, but there are some other uses for this in realms outside of the R/D game. For example, one could "Bribe" their WAD with influence, or vica versa. The only problem I see with this is its similarity to a monitary system, which could be...well...another problem to keep from getting out of hand.

(IPO shares, anyone?)

[Charlotte Ryberg]

I would like to see the game evolve in some way to include the third party of the R&D game. Without them (the nations in the regions under attack / defence) there would be no game. I hope they have a good representation at the summit. I have to wonder if given the chance to opt out of the R&D game altogether how many founderless regions would do that. Right now the only options to those players are to refound or move. Refounding involves risk and forces natives to take action in response to constant threats. Moving is also a somewhat forced action as it is due to the threat of invasions. Both of those in my opinion are forced upon Civilians as a responsive action to the R&D game. Something they already do not want to take part in but are forced to take one of three evils.
Stay and be invaded / defended constantly
Risk trying to refound
Give up and move.
Ideal would be a fourth option made open to them.

Natives hardly need more opt-outs. They have plenty of opt-outs they can; move, refound, password, and recruit more WA members. They have plenty of protections as well with influence and liberations. Natives assume the risk of R/D coming into their region when they reside in founderless regions and don't deserve any additional protections on top of everything they already have.

Only founded nations can have the ability to effectively opt out of raiding/defending with password protection. But again it raises the question about the game over move.

[The Bruce]

You already complain that too often the same regions are invaded. What is the cause of this? Too few targets. What would your suggestions do? Create even less targets. So either more regions get hit over and over and....yeah, or there are so few targets left that invading is killed off. As for Space, I've seen it raided since 2003/4, and it's still around. You worry too much.

Founderless regions like Space, with long term natives, have been destroyed in the past and will be destroyed again. Short term attention spans and the fear of losing activity often limit invaders antics in a region to a couple of weeks, but there's nothing else keeping them from holding onto a victim region for longer. GREATER ANTARCTICA (yes it was spelled in all caps) was a frequent raiding target, with Industrial London as its delegate. DEN got the idea of destroying it and they got enough influence to password protect it and squeeze the life out of the place for months before killing it. As a result a bunch more long term players have left the game, because their community was destroyed. Especially places like Hell, where defenders haven't been given the welcome carpet when coming to the rescue, are even more in danger of being destroyed.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

The problem is any power given to native delegates is going to give power to raider delegates -- the game only distinguishs between raiders and natives on the basis of influence. Making it increasingly harder to liberate.

So stop making every tool in a Founderless region the exclusive property of the Delegate. As long as the Delegate is the only player who can do anything, we're never going to break out of the conundrum of how to design an algorithm that perfectly distinguishes between natives and non-natives. Such an algorithm is impossible. What we can do is use the system of Influence we already have- or a tweaked version of it- to establish a distribution of power: either direct (referendums) or indirect (something along the lines of a recall election for the Delegate).

Something in another thread made me think of something that is an appropriate response to this, so I'll crosspost it here:

I might be in support of a way for natives to use influence to access the regional controls in a limited way, perhaps limited to removing passwords and removing nations from the ban list. Since they do not have the legitimacy that a delegate has, they would naturally have to expend influence at a MUCH higher rate to do such a thing, perhaps 50 or 75 times as much (and in the case of removing nations from the ban list, have to expend influence where a delegate would not have to at all...) Perhaps there would also be a requirement to be at a certain influence level, say, Eminence Grise.

I would definitely not support giving non-delegate natives the power to eject, ban, change the flag, WFE, embassies, tags, etc. If this were taken seriously, it would have to be limited to anti-region-destruction. In effect, this would give very high influence natives the power to prevent their region from being totally destroyed. These are defensive measures, designed to hold onto their region, not stop the actual raid. This is crucial - forcing raiders to fight a two front battle against natives and defenders would unbalance the game. I say leave liberations to the defenders, but let the natives fight against any existential threat.

This would naturally have a HUGE effect on intra-regional affairs, particularly in the feeders. If this suggestion were taken seriously, there should definitely be thought put into requiring founders to choose whether this feature will be implemented in their region upon founding. This feature effectively disrupts any kind of democratic system a region might set up. Former delegates would be able to hold onto a bit of power for long after they lose office. Perhaps game created regions should be excepted from this altogether.

In any case, I think it is definitely worth looking into giving some power to access the regional controls to non-delegate residents of a region. A flaw: this would encourage keeping multiple puppets in your region, so that you would have multiple high-influence nations to access the regional controls with. This is a kind of gameplay puppet-wanking that (on its face, at least) doesn't seem quite fair. Requiring WA membership doesn't solve the problem, as the player can transfer membership at virtually any time. If people like this idea, then we need to figure out 1) if this actually is a problem, and 2) if it is, how to solve it.

Naturally this is nowhere close to a finished idea, but I think it's a step in the right direction as concerns native power.

[The Bruce]

In May of 2003 the powers that be of NationStates instituted new anti-griefing rules against region destroying invaders. They were popular with defenders and natives, and unpopular with invaders and crazy delegates.

They limited the amount of destruction (banjections) you were able to do as a delegate, to cap delegate aggression against fellow natives or invaders against natives. It made the invader-defender battles less destructive to the regions they fought over. Not being able to destroy regions caused some invaders to quit invading or the game, while many defender groups started to get soft.

These rules were changed and when the current regional influence rules were brought out, invader activity spiked. At the same time there was a lag in defender activity since many had either left the game, stopped defending, or gotten soft. Regional influence favoured invaders and when they were able to get the update times of every region to within a second, "gameplay" was handed over to the invaders on a plate. All you need to do now is to get rid of founders and you can guarantee the death of this game within two years, from the destruction of all the regional communities.

Do we need a return to the anti-griefing rules of 2003? Certainly some form protection for natives is in order. I think a lot of native rights concerns are dismissed, with regards to the nightly wars between invaders and defenders, because the "gameplay" advocates are an extremely loud and active minority that give the impression that they're a bigger part of the NationStates experience than they actually are. This is especially true when you consider that a lot of their victims (not the ones continually victimized) are completely unaware that this part of the game even exists.

[Bundabunda]

My problem with the notion of native rights is who defines these native rights? Isn't it all a construct, as a raider's job is to kick out the natives, set a pass, and refound?

[Galiantus]

-snip-

All you need to do now is to get rid of founders and you can guarantee the death of this game within two years, from the destruction of all the regional communities.

True. Founders keep this game alive.

Do we need a return to the anti-griefing rules of 2003? Certainly some form protection for natives is in order.

That would be a bit scary, since it would essentially kill most gameplay. I am also very sure that 99% of the other gameplayers have a different definition of "native" than you.

I think a lot of native rights concerns are dismissed, with regards to the nightly wars between invaders and defenders, because the "gameplay" advocates are an extremely loud and active minority that give the impression that they're a bigger part of the NationStates experience than they actually are. This is especially true when you consider that a lot of their victims (not the ones continually victimized) are completely unaware that this part of the game even exists.

Gameplayers have a lot of power within the realm of NS. Just because other players happen to be innactive and generally don't care to participate in our games does not mean we don't effect the amount of the game we do. I agree with that conclusion.

As for the Native Rights discussion, that could go on forever. Just defining "native" could be quite a struggle. I happen to define natives as any nation who lived in the region when the Founder last logged on, but again, there are 99 different definitions out there. However, I would agree that giving long-time residents of a region some means to oppose those they see as Raiders/Defenders would help both us Gameplayers and the ambiguous group called "natives".

[Crazy girl]

We are not going back to a system where mods need to define who is a native and who is not.

[The Bruce]

You don’t actually even need to have mods playing ‘spot the native’ during every invasion to implement a more native friendly system. You would just have better weighting for influence of long term residents (6+ months of residence) and lower for short term residents.

Granted, this would result in invaders and defenders doing even more to sow potential victim regions with puppets, but it would be more protection than is currently afforded to natives in preventing region destruction.

I would also make it cost influence to shut down and start embassies. It would make it more difficult for invaders to dismantle the diplomatic efforts of a region and use this feature to instead grief the locals. It might also cut down on regions that send out bajillions of meaningless embassy requests in a single day.

[Mallorea and Riva]

You don’t actually even need to have mods playing ‘spot the native’ during every invasion to implement a more native friendly system. You would just have better weighting for influence of long term residents (6+ months of residence) and lower for short term residents.

Granted, this would result in invaders and defenders doing even more to sow potential victim regions with puppets, but it would be more protection than is currently afforded to natives in preventing region destruction.

I would also make it cost influence to shut down and start embassies. It would make it more difficult for invaders to dismantle the diplomatic efforts of a region and use this feature to instead grief the locals. It might also cut down on regions that send out bajillions of meaningless embassy requests in a single day.

Since founders can do it anyways I kind of doubt it would prevent most of the spam requests. Making it cost influence would also make it more difficult for defenders or natives to fix once they retake control of their region. It works fine the way it is now, by leaving it easy to change you take away the significance of changing it.

[Riemstagrad]

...
Making it cost influence would also make it more difficult for defenders or natives to fix once they retake control of their region. It works fine the way it is now, by leaving it easy to change you take away the significance of changing it.

it must be significant enough today, seeing how often embassies and tags are removed/spammed.

[Mallorea and Riva]

...
Making it cost influence would also make it more difficult for defenders or natives to fix once they retake control of their region. It works fine the way it is now, by leaving it easy to change you take away the significance of changing it.

it must be significant enough today, seeing how often embassies and tags are removed/spammed.

Considering how simple it is to fix it becomes trivial. We do it, but it is fixable without any trouble. If you add influence into the equation fixing it becomes more problematic.

[Galiantus]

it must be significant enough today, seeing how often embassies and tags are removed/spammed.

Considering how simple it is to fix it becomes trivial. We do it, but it is fixable without any trouble. If you add influence into the equation fixing it becomes more problematic.

Agreed. Influence is meant to be a limitation on game-changing events within regions, not a limitation on communication of those events. However, I would not mind if influence had more political use to the average player than simply as a protection against their delegate. Whatever happens to military gameplay in the next few months, I hope that regional delegates retain the power to control the RMB, WFE, tags and embassies.

[Xanthal]

Influence is meant to be a limitation on game-changing events within regions, not a limitation on communication of those events. However, I would not mind if influence had more political use to the average player than simply as a protection against their delegate. Whatever happens to military gameplay in the next few months, I hope that regional delegates retain the power to control the RMB, WFE, tags and embassies.

They almost have to. Frankly, I find the raider propensity for deleting tags and withdrawing Embassies annoying and pointless, but there are larger issues at stake in this debate and I would much rather save comparatively minor matters for future discussion than risk them distracting everyone from existential issues.

[Usual People In Life]

I just had a quick roll through the thread. (Sorry for entering this late in the discussion)

I will admit that I have never taken part in the R/D game, despite being in a region that used to do so.

I agree that, from what I have seen and read over the 3 years I've played NS for, that something does need to be changed, and that a mod or admin is most suitable for chair position.

it's difficult to say whether or not I could participate in the Summit, due to my non existent R/D experience, but what might add balance to the Summit (not sure if this was mentioned yet) is to consider requesting someone who doesn't take part in R/D or has a neutral point of view over the topic, to participate in the debate. This could be a mod or admin (Salusa might take part, although I haven't spoken to him since our 'difficult past', as from what I know, Salusa doesn't do R/D, but is an NS expert, but he might be interested.

On another thought, what are Max Barry's thoughts on this situation? The reason I say this, is that after all, MB is the founder and owner of NS, so in my eyes he is a 'God of the game' as you could put it. So I was wondering if MB might act as chairperson since I think he most likely has a more neutral view than anyone else on the game.

I would ask a few more experienced players than myself to participate, but unfortunately, almost the ones I know from my previous NS experience left the game some time ago, and I don't have contact details for them.

However, whilst I was typing this message, I remembered that NS players are organising meetups soon, is there a possibility of debating this topic during meetups, and on regional forums, regional IRCs, the official NS IRC, or possibly creating a new IRC channel on an IRC network for this purpose? I know that the official NS, NS General and modcave channels are on gamesurge, would that network allow NS to create another IRC channel for the Summit?

EDIT: spelling and grammar corrections

Any thoughts?