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| Issue #2 | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 13 2013, 02:34 AM (417 Views) | |
| Kogvuron | Feb 13 2013, 02:34 AM Post #1 |
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Dedicated
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![]() Issue II, February 12,2013 ![]() January 5th is where this news story begins. Arabalynia, the Minister of Defense of The Middle East, changed all of the flags on his nations and started to flood the Greater German Reich in order to commit suicide-by-moderator after his main nation, Jekrehnot, was warned/deleted. The FRA noticed this and began to watch over The Middle East, worried about retribution from the GGR. They noticed that most of the nations in TME had been recently created and had moved to the region in the first two weeks of November. Dhul-Qarnayn, the now famous raider lead puppet, had only existed for a few days before he had taken over the Delegate seat in TME. This, and Arabalynia's behavior, were surprisingly coincidental with the GGR's dispatches announcing that they were carrying over operations in a mid-sized region since mid/late November. And thus, the FRA moved in to protect The Middle East on the minor update of the 5th. Soon, they received intelligence not only naming that TME had been a GGR mission, but that they were calling it a failed one. The FRA occupation of The Middle East lasted until February 2nd, when they were finally able to kick out the GGR lead nation, Dhul-Qarnayn. Unfortunately for The Middle East, they were not free yet. That minor update as the FRA was moving out of the region, The Black Riders tagged the region..but decided to stay. They unbanned the GGR lead Dhul-Qarnayn which now began to fly TBR flags and The Black Riders and other raider organizations began to pile in to transfer the Delegacy. It was looking quite bleak for The Middle East and defenders began to make plans to attempt to liberate the region. As update rolled around, defenders had already began to get people in on the inside through FRA nations that had been there for the FRA occupation and other nations owned by defenders. Defenders gathered in the UDL channel to prepare to liberate the region and for once, they had the numbers. Unfortunately, however, time was not on the defenders' side. The raiders held tight to The Middle East and soon kicked all of the FRA and UDL forces from the region. The region is still under occupation with the GRR-turned-TBR Delegate standing with over 40 endorsements. When the FRA was asked for a quote, Frattastan responded back, "I can only think rude things, so no. :P" He gave us permission instead to print that. Many wonder how a GGR puppet fell into the hands of The Black Riders as well as whether this is a sign for more Nazi-Rider cooperation in the future. The fate of The Middle East is now in the raiders' hands. We'll have more for you as we get it, but this reporter sees grabbing the refound as the best possible outcome here for the natives. Opinion: Another victory for the "Get-Active-Quick" Scheme! At the time of writing, SovCon is in the process of overwhelmingly being rejected by, pardon the wordplay, The Rejected Realms. What is the significance of this? What are we as onlookers and journalists supposed to "read" into this? There were numerous different objections to SovCon in The Rejected Realms; for example, SovCon was criticized for being an organization promoting regional sovereignty (which could be accomplished better without another alliance), tying member-regions to a set of bylaws and regulations that would develop over time, the involvement of Gatesville, and also SovCon's harsh stance against the so-called "insidious creep of cosmopolitanism". In regards to this vote's significance, I would pose that this represents a new age in The Rejected Realms and NationStates abroad. We're tired of the old "get-active-quick" schemes. We've finally wised up to the fact that there is no magic bullet to fostering activity - and if we want activity, we need constructive region-building. The Neutral Territory conference in 2008 saw dozens of players trying to devise ways in which the "the death of NS" could be averted. Westwind eloquently demanded at said conference that "conflict seems to be the heart of what is needed to generate interest and [...] activity" - and so began the slew of half-baked schemes to generate activity through conflict. Cue The Crimson Order, The Empire, The Obsidian Order and any else that began with "The" and ended with general dispiritedness. Nothing outstanding for any involved party was accrued from these activities. For Equilism it meant a defeated Commendation in 2009. For the rest of NationStates? The North Pacific's old guard got incrementally more paranoid and testy (and rightfully so after their seventh-ish coup), The East Pacific became more withdrawn and recluse from Gameplay and Defenderism continued to degenerate. But before George W. Bush could say "Mission Accomplished", The _____ awoke in 2013 to propose a "fresh" idea: we'll drop the "the" and call ourselves "Sovereign Confederation", get Gatesville in on the action (okay this isn't actually a new idea - you caught me), and blame inactivity on the "younger generations". In documents first leaked by The North Pacific Wire, SovCon declared its "[dissatisfaction] with the interregional status quo", noting that the younger generations had "failed to safeguard the world from the ravages of boredom and mediocrity". Thankfully, the very sensible members of The Rejected Realms have caught on to the clever tricks of this travelling magic act. We all know (or should know) by now that if we want to safeguard the growth of activity in NationStates, we should leave it to people (newer and experienced) who actually respect sovereignty, regional identity, region-building and investment - instead of leaving the issue of activity in the hands of a segment of an older generation who were deluded into thinking the only way to generate activity was through couping everything that moves and in fact, left the issue of activity for future generations to improve upon. Beyond all of the hype regarding this failed Sov"Con" and the subsequent "Feedergate" Scandal, we have, perhaps, overlooked the incremental moves that have occurred recently to foster stronger regional identities. In "The Concord", we have an attempt to affirm a common superregional identity between Osiris, The North Pacific and The South Pacific on the basis of their shared values of liberal democracy and independence. This is an entirely different beast of an organization, which describes itself as a "multi-regional military, educational and cultural alliance". Meanwhile, The South Pacific and The Rejected Realms have ceased informal hostilities which may have its own interregional implications in the future. Overall, The North Pacific, The South Pacific, The East Pacific and (of course) The Rejected Realms have recently re-invested in media and educational areas of interest. Screw the "Get-Active-Quick" scheme; our "younger" generations are in it for the long haul and are committed to generating sustainable activity. ![]() The new telegram system has finally arrived! In a matter of moments, many nations across NationStates received their own updated telegram inbox. Modeled somewhat after the private message inbox you would find on many offsite forums, the new telegram system is designed to be more user-friendly and is intended to ease the drawbacks of the previous system. Some of the new features included in this update are: folders to keep track of telegrams, a brand new reply layout, telegram tracking for blocking recruitment or WA campaigns, and mass TGs. We here at The Rejected Times send a huge thank you to the game admins for taking the time to change and update the telegram system! The admins also added paid features like the Postmaster-General and Telegram Stamps. These features cost from $6 to $10 USD and grant special features such as larger telegram boxes, a deleted telegram folder, and more. The most controversial of these paid features has been the Telegram Stamps, granting the ability for users to pay to send huge mass telegrams all at once, whether for recruitment, to campaign for WA resolutions, or just to spam. This has led to arguments about whether this provides an unfair gameplay advantage to those willing or able to spend money on telegrams or able to create scripts and concerns that these changes will seriously harm manual recruiters who will have a tough time competing against these "paid" recruiters. There has also been controversy over allowing recruitment outside of the Feeders and Sinkers. Many feel that this is unfair to regions that have put in effort to recruit their members and gives GCRs an unfair advantage. Already, there are GCR and UCR Telegram Conferences underway to address these issues. Rumor has it that 10000 Islands, being the biggest UCR region of all, will be targeted for recruitment once the telegram stamps are released for purchase -- although The Rejected Times has learned from an anonymous source that delegates from 10000 Islands have expressed serious concerns about a treaty to prevent inter-UCR recruitment. Many also speculate that we could see a new era of warfare through telegram spam. Overall, the new telegram system has been praised by many gameplayers as a positive improvement for the game, despite these huge controversies. We await with excitement to see how this new system and the paid advantages will affect gameplay. The Rejected Times is excited to see what's next for the future of NationStates. ![]() ![]() High ranking representatives from all Game Created Regions are meeting in The Pacific. The purpose of this closed door meeting is to discuss what is described as "The Nazi Menace plaguing NationStates". The Pacifc has been one of the leading regions in a greater war on Nazism. Nazis particularly affect the GCRs due to their annoying, uncreative RMB spam; Delegates are constantly needed to suppress and ban the Nazis from disturbing their regions. The goal of this meeting is to have a unilateral declaration against Nazism by all Game Created Regions. This is an ambitous undertaking by The Pacific as very rarely in the past has such been accomplished; it is rare for them to agree on anything, perhaps, besides that they are GCR regions by definition. The Pacific and the South Pacific have previously declared war on the Greater German Reich and the greater Nazi ideology, fighting it actively through their armies. Cormac Stark, head of The Pacific's army, has been one of the loudest speakers against Nazism said this about the conference and his hopes on the anti-Nazi fight: "It's good to see Feeders and Sinkers coming together to address the problem of Nazis in NationStates. Nazis have been particularly aggressive toward GCRs, but many in this game regardless of region or ideology are opposed to a Nazi presence in NationStates and it's good to see GCRs bringing their considerable diplomatic and military power to bear against the Nazi menace." We have learned from a source inside the meetings that a draft declaration has been agreed upon in principle. World Assembly Security Council Resolutions are also being considered to fight the Nazi menace. ![]() Another Defender Awards has come and gone, but not without a tide of controversy. Nominations were fast and furious with raiders and defenders from all organizations of NS coming out to nominate their choices for the 14 awards. Two awards in particular created buzz: the invasion of the year award and the defender of the year award. Buoyed by the UDL-TITO rivalry, an uproar erupted over invasion of the year, with the coup in Osiris being nominated early by FRA Chief of Defence Frattastan. UDL members then nominated a TITO mission in Christmas as well as the FRA mission in Fluffy Bunny Town. Over on the other side of the party, the award formerly known as the EuroSoviets Award grew hostile after Mahaj nominated every single UDL member. This nomination was disallowed by the administration running the awards. On the late end of nominations, members of Westphalia came in, nominating their members for almost every award offered. This created some displeasure among other defenders, who viewed it as annoying and/or disrespectful. However, nominations closed without a hitch and the awards continued. After a week of voting, the ballots had been counted, and the winners were announced. The awards broke a new record for voters, smashing the old record by over 20. The FRA had a number of winners, taking the Anarchotopia Award as best organization, as well as rangers Frattastan and Karputsk taking Defender of the Year, the Sir Lans Award, and the Ananke Award--Karputsk taking the final one by one vote. Europeia won the Blackbird Award as the best raider organization, beating out The Black Riders, who defeated the Greater German Reich for Worst Invader Group. The huge operation in Anarchy won Operation of the Year, while the coup in Osiris took invasion of the year. New region Mordor and UDL lieutenant Sovreignry shared Newcomer of the Year while 10000 Islands took the WASC Award, beating out UDLer Mahaj. Finally, current NationStates Game Administrator and former ALL and UDL defender Free4All/Ballotonia won the Lifetime Achievement Award for Dedication to Defending, an honor that is very fitting for the man who engineered the most famous liberation in NationStates History, the "Puppetmaster" Liberation against Great Bight of The North Pacific. As a whole, the Awards were wonderful and a great time where everyone, raider or defender, could get together and have fun. We cannot wait for next year and thank the FRA for the amount of effort put into the awards! "On Flagspam: An impromptu interview with Glavcosmos" One of the talking points recently was the rise -and fall- of Flagspam. the use of [nation=noname] BBcode to manipulate flags to form descriptive words and images. Though feature was first made available last October, and demonstrated by Topid, the recent kerfuffle rose with Glavcosmos' advertising for [region]Communist Beach[/region], which led to it being widely imitated by others, including Venetia and TGGR, before a huge debate arose and consequently shutdown by [violet]. Coincidently, one of our citizens, Codger, found Glavcosmos sitting in #trr one day. Not hoping to lose a scoop, he quickly cornered him for this impromptu interview. Codger: How do you feel about causing infamy? Glavcosmos: Well, it's over now, but the lulz were good---and I'll always have the screencaps to remember it all... Codger: Was it hard in splitting the image (of Lenin in the last recruitment message) into pieces and forming them together? Seeing that was crazy for us but I note the effort required. Glavcosmos: Not at all, allow me to explain. I started with the letters, (In a previous ad) and while I was doing that, I noticed they stacked flush vertically. So, I went into preview and had the flags arranged 5x6, as the Lenin image was, with the flags in a plain color. I took a screencap, pasted it in paint, and removed the solid color. Then took the remaining grid, copied it, and pasted it over an image of Lenin. The image that was 186x133 pixels, so I removed the parts of the image that were outside of the box. The remaining image was already cut into pieces. All I had to do then was found 14 more puppets (I already had 15) and save the grid as 29 separate .png files. Codger: With all that effort, do you feel we should just have an [img] tag on the RMB? Frattastan: And would it be better or worse than a [color] tag? *Kogvuron suddenly interjects - NO!* Glavcosmos: Honestly, I don't know. [violet] probably has legitimate concerns for keeping such things out of NS. Well, I sort of screwed us all as it is, since we're probably never getting the noname tag back due to my antics...Now those Nazi idiots are bothering me for ideas. Codger: I wouldn't mind [colour]... we already abuse bold/italic/underline well enough. But probably not images. Glavcosmos: The thing about combining the flags together is it was time-consuming enough that it would probably deter most people with malicious intent. (compared to [img] tags). It's funny looking at all the puppets that were created in the last day to capitalize on this. 3 hours ago, the Illuminati region created 31 puppets with what looks like a split up picture as a flag. Earlier than that, I noticed TAO firing off a few puppets that had letters for flags. That's funny, because he was one of the first to join in with the complaining. Thanks to Glavcosmos for being kind enough to have this impromptu interview! For a greater discussion of his views, see his his recent post in defence of flag spam: http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=12701453#p12701453 The Great Despoto Speaks Editor's Note: The following was recovered from our forum archives, dated February 13, 2013. However, it appears to have been in our archives for much longer. The letter is from a post dated February 27 2004 — we have not yet been able to get a hold of Kandarin to inquire about the letter's origins. To members of the public on February 13, 2013, I have never publically revealed the existence of myself - not like this at least. I am The Great Despoto, Supreme Aboolot of NationStates. Some may call me a wizard; others may call me a meddler. But make no mistake, I have been watching over this great world from its inception till its untimely death. Whenever the world has needed me the most, I have moved the chess-pieces slightly in the right direction - never daring to interfere more than necessary. I am the first invader, the first defender ... I gave Free4All the instructions to the Puppetmaster Invasion, distracted Accelsior, refounded Gatesville and ended the war between The New Inquisition and the Founderless Regions Alliance inadvertently (it's complicated). I made tyrants from mortal men, toppled governments, reported Unibot to the moderators and stole the Flag Thief's flag (poor bastard). The Great Disk Space Disasters? Me. The United Nations? I reported the copyright violation. Regional Influence? My idea. NationStates 2? All mine - you didn't think someone could unintentionally make a game that bad did you? Everything I have done, I have done for a purpose. I have done it for you. I come to you now after having done everything I could to stall the Gameplay Summit so that I could plea to you to choose the path of greatness. This day marks a fork in time and space - you can choose to squander your potential or you can choose to buck the trend. Find your purpose and let it guide you. I have seen your future and there is certainly more to come. In the future, some of the grunts of today will claim fame and respect for having been MEMBERS of the 'great' United Defenders League or The Black Riders a long time ago. Things as simple as tag-raiding, piling or "raider unity" will be nostalgia, not deplored. You will laugh about the days when you could not remember what a telegram was responding to... or when recruitment was limited to only the feeders and sinkers. Times won't be better or worse, they'll just be different - but you will never fully understand them. You will be a member of the Old Guard, a mere obstacle facing the flow of social change, even if you may actually have a point. You will be respected more (even 'feared' in some cases), but you will want to be treated like you are now. Old friends will leave and never be replaced or forgotten - you will never know, with certainty, if you're next. Some of you may say that is cynicism, but you're wrong, that is life. You're greater and more important than you know. You all play a role in something bigger. That's all I want to say at the moment, but I know that I will write again. And no, Kogvuron, I am not. Please no more questions - answers belong solely to those who labour to discover them. ![]() The Great Despoto, Supreme Aboolot. The True Hospodar of Moldavia. Head Puddist. ![]() Declaration of War on the Pacific News Network It has been 3457 days since an invader regime led by former Spain resident Francos Spain toppled the legitimate government of Thedoc in a coup-- a coup that instituted the tyrannical regime now known as The Pacific. This "Pacifica" has taken many forms, but one constant face has always been its news network, a tabloid who publishes disgraceful stories equal to those in the National Enquirer. This propaganda has not only published lies making fun of players, but also has spread their blasphemy all through nationstates--even edited logs to represent support of the “Francoist” side. However, the PNN's day has come. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation, led by Chief Executive Officer Kogvuron, Deputy Executive Officer Earth, and Deputy Executive Officer Hileville, hereby declare war on the Pacific News Network. This "news" network's stream of falsehoods will dry up like a river in the desert against the mighty front of Corporation. Long live Democracy! Long live Truth! Chief Executive Officer Kogvuron Deputy Executive Officer Earth Deputy Executive Officer Hileville Rejected Realms Seized! "Yes I think that was the name of the region!" - Unidentified TNIAF soldier ![]() In a bold night raid at last major update, The New Inquisition Armed Forces scored yet another memorable victory against the Founderless Regions Alliance, this time striking at the heart of their weak and almost-defunct enemy. HIH OnderKelkia, Crown Prince of The New Inquisition as well as Prince of Ilum and Voivode and Hospodar of Moldavia, commented: "The invasion of the year. The New Inqusition has once again promulgated the superiority of its armed forces," leaving readers scrambling for their pocket dictionaries. Some controversy has erupted over the aftermath of the operation, although TNIAF officials are trying to calm the storm. One of the soldiers involved in the operation said: "It just kinda happened. We moved in and took it. Then somebody said we were in the wrong region, and Onder got mad." "I don't understand why he was shouting like that. He wanted us to capture a region. We did," added the soldier. His Imperial Highness, however, is telling a different story. "The non-executive delegacy is symbolic of the supremacy and the dexterity of The New Inquisition. It was our complete intention to raid Rejected Realms, and our objective was successfully accomplished. No defender organization can claim otherwise. We do not raid to change World Factbook Entries. We raid to project our power and serve the interests of The New Inquisition, beyond the strict dogmatism of raiding and defending." A new developing story has recently broken, regarding the mistreatment of TNIAF soldiers. Two soldiers who were in charge of the raid have been sent to clean North East Somerset's private toilet as punishment for problems associated with the invasion. In response to these claims, OnderKelkia said, "Why would we castigate soldiers for completing a successful raid. As stated above, we have achieved every goal that we held at the beginning of the raid." Long live The New Inquisition, the region that conquered Rejected Realms! If TNI had done something recently we would write about what they *actually* did, but alas, they have not. Political Cartoons ![]()
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| Kogvuron | Feb 13 2013, 02:34 AM Post #2 |
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Dedicated
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Is that you Mammothistan? Edit: Oh... Edited by Kogvuron, Feb 13 2013, 02:34 AM.
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| God-Emperor | Feb 13 2013, 03:30 AM Post #3 |
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Ambassador
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Nice rag. |
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TSP DoS/DoFA/Ambassador: TRR, TEP, Osiris | |
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| Grimmjow Jeagerjaques | Feb 13 2013, 05:53 AM Post #4 |
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Contributor
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Impressive! I'm also open to being interviewed btw. I enjoyed the bit about the TG Conferences. |
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| Libetarian Republics | Feb 13 2013, 11:42 PM Post #5 |
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Spammer
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Very nice article indeed. TRR MediaCorp declaring on the PNN? :O
Edited by Libetarian Republics, Feb 13 2013, 11:42 PM.
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| Grimmjow Jeagerjaques | Feb 14 2013, 12:11 AM Post #6 |
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Contributor
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Sounds good to me! TRR MediaCorp, the Truth Sayers of Justice! |
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| Libetarian Republics | Feb 14 2013, 12:17 AM Post #7 |
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Spammer
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Haha it's nice to see competition from the Big Three (NSWeekly, PNN, and TRR Media)
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| Kogvuron | Feb 14 2013, 12:20 AM Post #8 |
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Dedicated
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Long live Democracy! Long live Truth! |
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| Simon Cowell of the RR | Feb 14 2013, 12:43 AM Post #9 |
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Officer of Affairs
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This is very good. Especially the dig at Europeia at the end |
| Enjoy. This is the wisdom of the last sane man on Earth...gone mad. | |
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8:33 AM Jul 11