State of the Union

[Mr President]

Nation Wars Community,

It is hard to believe that it has been 5 years since we started. Seems like just yesterday Dirk and I were working all hours of the night getting the game ready to be released. We have had our ups and downs over these years, but we are still plugging along. Each year seems to get a little harder getting and keeping members due to the massive amounts of competition on the internet today, but we seem to hold our own. Granted we are not a huge community, but we are a strong and close community.

2011 brought a lot of changes to our game. More changes were made in 2011 than any other year. The attacks were changed, missiles were added, casher was adjusted, new spy ops and the list goes on and on. Some of the changes will be reversed as they are not working the way we need them too, and some will be adjusted to work even better. As a community, everyone has a say in new ideas and implements. If they don't work, we remove them. We don't just keep them and say deal with it .

2012 will also be an exciting year for our game. There will be new changes and new things added. As most of you know, my wife and I had a son, built a new house (which we are finally living in) and we also have a new baby on the way. With all of this added to my schedule, it leaves me a little less time for the game. Also, let's not forget that I now live in the country and there is no cable, DSL or any other type of high speed internet available... So I had no choice but to go with Satellite internet OMG my old *** can run faster than a page downloads .. With all of this being said, I will be stepping aside from the day to day operations of the game and focusing mainly on just doing the programming and implements of the game. A new game admin will be added and he or she will be handling the day to day functions. I will still help out as needed but will primarily focus on the game code. One of the main things I would like to do this year is "fix" many of the things in the game. We will still add a few new things, but I think we really need to spend the time fixing what we have before we add a whole lot more. In the past, I have been more energetic on adding new things rather than fixing old.. I need to change this as the foundation of our game is very solid and we need to work with what we have. One of the main things is the military strengths and networths. (like infantry) Yes Grim, we will be working hard to fix the inf hording issue in the first half of this year. Our suggestions have died off some. We need these to continue. We need fresh ideas on how to fix a lot of the issues. We need people debating these issues till the best possible solution is created.

We will also be adding some marketing positions. These people will be energetic and work on ways of boosting our games membership. They will use tools like facebook, twitter, voting sites ect ect to get our name out and about. We have talked about this for a long time, but now it's time we really work on it. A marketing budget will be implemented as well. I will pay for this out of my own pocket and not the game funds. I wanted to do this in 2011 but it never happened.. It WILL happen this year. If you are interested in working with us in the marketing area please send me a PM with some ideas on what you would do to get our name out. I will then follow up with you and begin working to get started.

Financially our game is in decent shape. Our regular premium members continue to support the game and I can't thank them enough. Our premium members are the only reason we are still here. As you all know, I take no money from the game. Every dime it makes is used to pay to keep it running on the server and other costs associated with it. This will never change!

Membership seems to continue to grow at a steady pace. Our biggest challenge is keeping them. Right now for every 15 that join, 1 sticks around. We need to increase this.. Perhaps there are new ideas on how to do this?

I would also like to thank the Nation Wars staff members. Thank you so much for helping out and doing the things you do. I know the mods are kinda bored as the forum usage has dropped off a bit and we don't have as many people bickering about things, but my hope is that soon enough you will be busy again. Tnova and Dogma, thank you both for the huge amount of time you both put into the game and helping keep things running smoothly. A game admin position is a thankless job, but yet you both continue to devote free time for the benefit of others.

Our game is one of the best on the internet today. We have HUGE possibilities and untapped potential. With your help we can make Nation Wars full of life again and one of the most popular games on the internet. Let's make 2012 the best Nation Wars year EVER!

Thank you all for playing and for your continued support. Hope you all have a happy and healthy 2012.

Sincerely,
Mr. President

[Top12Gun]

Nice post. Appreciate all you do for the game. Oh, and I nominate Xavior or Devil for the new admin position.

Have had satellite for a while. I sympathize.

[totte]

nice post and well done
sorry i'm not very active these days

[L P]

I'm glad to see that my lifetime premium is going to good use.

(insert "We Love Mr. President" emoticon here)

[blaa]

"we will be working hard to fix the inf hording issue in the first half of this year"

I'm kinda afraid of that one. I mean, without changing the values of consumption/nw/strength I don't see how you can avoid the hoarding. I don't see it as a problem anyway. At first inf is best because of low upkeep. In final days of the set, everybody hoards ships. Ships from BM give more networth than infantry from PM. Fix the final days ship hoarding then?

Or maybe something like a balanced state could come into play. Like with casher strategy. Buildings must be 40/60 for maximum income. Maybe the army should be 10/15/10/10/10/15/15/15 for maximum nw. joking

About the new players not wanting to join... It's not the easiest game to learn and reading some pages full of plaint text(manual) might not be the understanding of 'fun' these days. There is a little tutorial at the moment, if I'm not mistaken. New states get rewarded some turns right? Well, maybe it would be an idea to expand the tutorial a little. Not for 3 days of the first set, but for 3 sets!

[Ragnar]

A marketing budget will be implemented as well. I will pay for this out of my own pocket and not the game funds. I wanted to do this in 2011 but it never happened.. It WILL happen this year. If you are interested in working with us in the marketing area please send me a PM with some ideas on what you would do to get our name out. I will then follow up with you and begin working to get started.

er, you could do massive marketing for FREE!!!! I posted this last June about using EarthEmpires to get a lot of new players....

Earth Empires could *easily* be a gold mine for getting new members here. If some one got really good at the game, in the Alliance version, then had their own alliance that ranked very well, then recruited players to the alliance and then in the alliance, promoted this game every so often, you could easily get a flood of players here.

Here's an idea, if some one here played the one week speed version a few times and got good enough to end the round ranking in the top 10, they could then post their strategy here in as much detail as possible, join the alliance version and make an alliance. Then a bunch of us join the game and join the alliance. (Don't name it Nation Wars, that'll quickly give off the real reason of the alliance!!) We then play the game using your guide, and make the alliance rank pretty close to #1. Then we recruit like crazy to the alliance. And who's not going to say no to an invitation to one of the top 5 ranking alliances??!! Then every so often, we mention this game in the alliance. I think a lot of the players would like NW better.

If they have alliance forums over there like here, you simply make a 'What other games do you play' thread and we post in there. Bam! A flood of new players with a much higher odds of being active here, since they are active over there!!!! Total cost: Nothing!!

The Alliance round currently ends Feb 3. If we did this, we could start doing this in a month, if there is some one who knows how to play it well enough and can give us their strategy!


http://forums.nation-wars.com/showth...Crimson-s-Rant

[Top12Gun]

"we will be working hard to fix the inf hording issue in the first half of this year"

I'm kinda afraid of that one. I mean, without changing the values of consumption/nw/strength I don't see how you can avoid the hoarding. I don't see it as a problem anyway. At first inf is best because of low upkeep. In final days of the set, everybody hoards ships. Ships from BM give more networth than infantry from PM. Fix the final days ship hoarding then?

^This. I don't see inf hoarding as a problem, considering that if someone doesn't like it, they can AA the hoarders to hell and back. That's the consequence, so I don't get why those who dislike it don't enact their own enforcement instead of whining like babies. If those who hoard infantry can get away with it because those who do not don't care enough to kill them, then why all the fuss??

[Dogma]

Well I know I am going to continue to be here till the wheels fall off and I nominate Tnova as the admin. I don' think there is a more fair minded player in this game than he.

[Top12Gun]

Who is this Tnova you speak of?? I can't find any recent posts from him. You sure he still plays??

[Mr President]

Tnova is already and admin.. We will be adding "another" admin who will be able to help out by doing some of the day to day stuff :-)