How to become well-known in NS?

[Tosican Empire]

I am a new nation and I want to get more involved with the community outside my own region. How do you make connections with other nations? How do you become known by other users? Are there any people or groups of people I should know about?

Thank you for any advice.

[Araznan]

be nice, helpful, be active, and just be yourself.

Also being on the forums is a good way for people to get to know you.

[Tosican Empire]

be nice, helpful, be active, and just be yourself.

Also being on the forums is a good way for people to get to know you.

Alright, thanks for the tips.

[Orlesian States]

As Araznan said, just be yourself. Be polite and respectful to others, do not debate with vitriol if you like political debates, and especially, make sure you're aware of forum etiquette! Try to post with effort rather than not, even for the less effort required threads, it can go a long way with defining your image!

But most importantly, don't follow what people say on this post to a T, just do whatever you feel is right, and at the end of the day, just have fun. NS is a welcoming place with a wonderful community, and once you get to know them, you'll be happier than ever to be here and stick around the forums, getting more known just through time and exposure!

[Tosican Empire]

As Araznan said, just be yourself. Be polite and respectful to others, do not debate with vitriol if you like political debates, and especially, make sure you're aware of forum etiquette! Try to post with effort rather than not, even for the less effort required threads, it can go a long way with defining your image!

But most importantly, don't follow what people say on this post to a T, just do whatever you feel is right, and at the end of the day, just have fun. NS is a welcoming place with a wonderful community, and once you get to know them, you'll be happier than ever to be here and stick around the forums, getting more known just through time and exposure!

Thanks for the advice! I’ll make sure to look into how to properly use the forums.

[The Blaatschapen]

I've moved this to Gameplay. General wasn't the best choice.

Technical is also an option I guess, in a way, so if another mod feels that technical is a better fit, feel free to move.

[The Church of Satan]

You'll wanna get involved in other regions too. You get your name out there, gain some skills, different insights and perspectives, and at the same time, the other regions get a new person to help out. You can take those new skills and ideas back to your home region—everybody wins.

You benefit most from this right now, while you're a total unknown, unencumbered by pre-existing allegiances.

[Kingdom of Intermaria]

If you become: Active, cheerful, respectful, so that people can respect you. You should also try to become active in some forums instead of 1, so your popularity will grow, since not everyone is in F7 or General.

[Bears Armed]

You could get involved in drafting new issues, or in one or both of the WA chambers' forums. If you do this then it's extremely useful to read the stickied threads at the tops of the first page of the relevant forum, and -- especially in the WA -- to "lurk" reading other people's posts for a while before you actually start posting there yourself. Post your first drafts of potential issues or WA proposals in the relevant forum, and be prepared to talke advice from more experienced players into account.

Also, if you think that your nation would like to become involved in international sports and that you yourself could write 'roleplay' material that some other players might like to read, you could participate in events in the 'NS Sports' forum. The results of contests there are determined by the organisers using computer programmes that certain members developed, but in some competitions -- including the "official" NS versions of the[Association Football] World Cup and the Olympics --writing well enough about your teams & nation means that the organisers will give you a better chance of success... and in the World Cup (and two associated series of tournaments) winning games gives your national team points that improve their chances in the next few cycles as well. Unfortunately you're just too late to sign up for the next World Cup (the 92nd! We manage 3 or 4 per real-life year), which starts in less than a week's time, but if you watch how that goes it will give you a better idea of what to do if you decide to participate in the one after that. Sign-ups for the next Winter Olympics haven't opened yet, but those Games will probably begin in January or February next RL year (and we hold both Summer and Winter Games once each per RL year).

[American Rockies]

You could raid a ton of regions and invoke the almighty wrath of strongly-written words from the World Assembly.

[Tinhampton]

You appear to have an insanely good Religiousness stat off the bat: if you answer issues, you might want to answer them in a way that improves that stat. This is what I'm doing for Themagicflute (Welfare) and Thebarberofseville (Inclusiveness); I tried to optimise Rudeness on this nation for a while but I've mostly given up on that now.

Whenever you get an issue, there is a newspaper-style banner. That banner will have some text in the top-right which says "VOL. 32 NO. XXX." That XXX is the issue number: you might want to find (Windows: use Ctrl+F) that number or the name of the issue itself on this page, click on that issue, and then find Religiousness to see - for instance - which option will result in your Religiousness stat increasing the most on average.

[Raionitu]

One thing to realize is that describing NS as a single community isn't entirely accurate. NS is composed of a lot of smaller groups, various RP groups (both in regions and on the forums), world assembly authors, card farmers, raiders and defenders, etc. etc. etc.

You'll have to spend some time looking around to find which things you're interested in. As for being well-known, as others have said, being active and contributing in a positive way to a larger group will get you more attention, but there is no one path to 'the top'. A while back someone asked about how to get commended or condemned, and one response basically said 'there can't be a guide to that sort of thing, because the way to become someone that highly regarded/well known is to do something unique'

[Big Bad Badger]

Feet pics....lots of feet pics.

[Minskiev]

My advice will be very Gameplay-centric. That is, region-building, raiding, defending, foreign affairs stuff, etc. You have more to learn if you don't know what these mean.

Join an established region, get citizenship, apply to be staff in its ministries, and gain skills. I suggest the Rejected Realms since it's easy to work your way up there. The skills are useful throughout your career - how to conduct diplomacy, how to run cultural events, how to maintain endorsements, knowledge of the WA, etc. Oh, and join the regional Discord and all that. This is important.

This is also important - make a plan. Short-term, medium-term, long-term. My plan was short term become active and become Speaker, medium term was serve as Officer a few times and make friends, long term was Delegate. And in my 2-year stint in Gameplay, I've done just that.

Join that region's military. Going off of my TRR example, you could join the Rejected Realms Army, which defends regions from raiders all the time. Here you will meet many people, some unknown and some very well known, where you can make friends. Making friends is incredibly important early on because these friends will not only make the game enjoyable but also support you. You will need support in Gameplay. Regardless, you can make friends while defending and also learn how to defend. If you get very good at it or do it a lot, you'll become more well known by defenders, and maybe even raiders and indies. This is good because you can make friends with them too.

Eventually, you'll garner enough skills and friends to get elected to a government position you will hopefully run for. This makes you more well-known and is the best way to gain experience since you're leading a ministry! Presumably. From here, you should probably join Discord servers like NSGP or IRC to talk to more people and be more knowledgeable of current GP happenings.

You might also want to dabble in other interests like cards or the WA and gain experience/clout/friends/skills there.

Congrats, you're pretty well-known. But if you want to climb to the top, you'll have to do just that and become influential. Aim for Delegate, or excel as Minister of Foreign Affairs, make your region's recommendations ubiquitous as Minister of World Assembly Affairs, etc. Accomplish things so you can build credibility, confidence, or clout. Then, your achievements can speak for themselves, and climbing the Gameplay ranks becomes easier.

Hope this helps <3

[Chef Big Dog]

play nationstates good

[Fourth Jellian Republic]

Post regularly, have a presence in as many niches as possible, make connections, both public and private.

[One Small Island]

I have simple advice for being well known.

Have fun.

Find what makes this game fun for you, and do that. If that's Role Play, then play away. If it's R/D, then go forth and do battle. If it's hanging in General, then dust off your thesaurus. If you're more of a region builder and government player, then I wish you all the success in the world.

There are endless ways to get well known on NationStates, the best way to do it is to just have fun with whatever it is you do.

[Albrook]

Break your status quo and take risks. Others above have already shared specific opportunities you can perform well in terms of GP, WA, Issues writing - but at the end of the day I perceive this as a top-level requirement: you’re not going to become any more known doing exactly what you’re doing now and nothing else.

With previous advice, if you see an opportunity you think would be fun, or an opportunity to deal some damage to something you know you’d gain notoriety for doing if you swing more on the evil end, do it.

Take your time if you’re not yet ready - I didn’t make my boldest move until 8 long years of playtime: moving my main nation to a new region and seeking to become its Delegate. And I did. I’m no celebrity - but at least my name isn’t only searchable just in WA election reports anymore. Little steps. We’re not all going to become Testlandia overnight. xD

[A Bloodred Moon]

I am a new nation and I want to get more involved with the community outside my own region. How do you make connections with other nations? How do you become known by other users? Are there any people or groups of people I should know about?

Thank you for any advice.

Depends on what you aim to achieve. A place to start might be joining some established regions' discords, read up on the various sub-communities of the game (raiding, defending, WA, RP, etc.) and pick one (or several) which interest you, like Rai said. Give them a try, see what you'd like to do. I can't really speak about achieving fame (or infamy), but finding out what you enjoy and pouring in time and effort would be my advice.