Is This The End?

[Divine Intervention]

Yes, those 4am strikes, stonewalling people across the world...epic times. Coordinating 20+ WLF & co strikes to destroy LoR etc wasgreat

[MAGGIO]

good times had by all, good posts, not matter what happens they can never take that away from us.

[Divine Intervention]

yeah, my word count on these forums probably exceeds all the essays ive written to get my degree.

[Confederation]

Hello. I'm a returnee. I can't say that I'm a veteran here. I'm not particularly active in the forums. But I've been on and off here since 2008. May see a list of all the active members left so we can get a clear idea of the situation?

[blaa]

Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 34

Ace, anferny, Anilsky, BiggestGrub, blaa, boxhead, Bright, Calvin74, clm, Confederation, Crimson Shadow, defense444, diablo11633, Dogma, Dune, Fireblade, frank1285, Hedge, L P, lord goodness, MAGGIO, Margus, maverick, Missionary, Moneymaker1314, Mr President, Pelopidas, Rajoshybosh, superalex12345, Superpasha69, Swag, youngwebsolutions, zardozr, zaxZ

[Confederation]

Guys. Please bear to read this. I'll make reading this as easy as possible. This comes from an experienced online text-based war gamer.

This game is purely text based. No graphics will allure people to stay. But here's what I learned through 5 years of gaming. It's not the game itself that makes people play it again and again. It's the people you play with. That's why Call of Duty and Battlefield are so popular. They have multiplayer. People won't play weeks and weeks of the single player campaign over and over. You know why? Because humans are social beings. Games are simulations of real life.

I asked who are the players first, rather than asking what changes were made to the game. The game system itself is simple and good. Beginners like simplicity at first when they know nothing. The game is simple. Indy? Casher? Farmer? Tech? ... Casher? Good. Do this. Now what? Do that again and again and get bigger.

So number one. GAME IS GOOD.

So the game is okay. (But can still improve) What's driving people away? Is it because the game isn't fun anymore?

Well. What makes sports and war games fun? Teamwork, cooperation and taking that other guy down with a bang. War is distinct from everything else. What makes us men love it so much is because it requires teamwork and is very destructive. We like explosions and destruction. Admit it. It's a primal feeling. So far with what I've seen, I've seen a dozen nations with only one member. Only a handful have more. No teamwork can survive there because there's no one actually there.

So number two. TEAMWORK = FUN

I have an idea to make this game a little more interesting and it's not with tweaking the game itself. It's about how people interact with each other. Let's limit the number of nations. Before the set starts, nation leaders will take the nation spots. There must only be 3 or 4 for now. We're only about 30. Less than, actually.

This is to put people together and oblige them to work together. I've returned recently from many months of inactivity here. I saw that "We miss you!" email and I tried to come back. Luckily BeCoan accepted me. I saw a display of cooperation with them. There was dialogue and ideas. There was voting and stuff done. Why? There were 5 members. RO had 4. Only 2 were active. Both were killed. In this world, when you are isolated you are easily destroyed. Strength in numbers.

A " * " means that I will explain this later.

So this is how it goes. All the active players get shifted in. So players can't huddle together. Let's say there are 4 registered nations. When a member joins he will automatically be assigned a nation.*1 That will be permanent for the rest of the set. *2 There will be elections for the officers of the nations.

*1 - So people will be forced to cooperate. If they really don't want to stay they can delete their state and restart. Disadvantageous.
*2 - The nation leader won't have a monopoly and there will be democracy. (We can include other systems later like Dictatorships and Fascism but that's for later)

NOTE that this is just temporary and an effort to bring people closer. This is against traditions of nation wars and probably a radical solution. My aim here is not to bring more people closer or make the game itself more interesting. I'm training the gaming community we have left to have teamwork, or at least show it again. We can polish this in the next sets.

Number three. WE CAN ONLY DEAL WITH WHAT WE'VE GOT.

Let's make the people that are already here stay. I want to stop people from leaving. This will be a community wide experiment. I have more details about that idea but that's when we've accomplished the first step. This is a step by step process.

[Confederation]

Your opinions will be well appreciated.

[Ace]

Great post and I agree!

[Mr President]

This is a very good post and I 100% agree. Communication is the key to success. I'm not sure how forcing people into a nation would work, only because some like to lead their own but it is something we could work out. The main thing is communicating with each other.

[Confederation]

For a first, we need to identify who those people are and use diplomacy to convince them. It's likely that they would choose to bring this game back to its glory days rather than themselves being lone wolves kill the game which would make everyone, including themselves sad.

The challenge for everyone, the community we have now is to set aside differences and try to cooperate. The wars have gotten to us and have intruded with our relationships with each other. Let's promote sportsmanship. Bad gaming communities kill the game. I've seen many people quit call of duty because of the 12 year olds cussing and screaming at voice chat.

We can also include a rouge state feature. But it's status should be internationally accepted (or condemned). Remember guys this is just for fun. Like role playing. Playing the bad guy doesn't mean you actually are the bad guy. A rouge state may have advantages and disadvantages. Like -5% production/income and cannot buy from PM but +10% in attack. Also no international trades.

A good thing is making being in a big nation look great and being alone disadvantageous (like in real life).

Also a good way is international direct trades. BeCoan can exchange tech, armies and money with eleet. Then they can also impose trade embargoes.

This is on the basis that we want to make this "Nation Wars" not "State Wars"