Jennifer Government: NationStates
Encyclopedia
Jennifer Government: NationStates is a multiplayer nation simulation browser game
. It was created by Max Barry
and was publicly released on 13 November 2002, based loosely on his novel Jennifer Government
. The game has hosted over 3 million nations. The game is expanded by users using off-site forums to construct centres of learning, discussion and play.
in the way the player finds best. At the start of the game, the player chooses a few basic characteristics such as name, currency and style of government. Answers to the questions in the next page determine the initial ratings of the country's civil, economic and political rights. The nation's population starts at five million and increases every day automatically with play.
The player sets the frequency with which new issues arise (from five to fourteen issues per week). After the original thirty issues written by Barry were found to be too few for the game to develop satisfactorily, players with national populations of over 500 million have been allowed to propose new issues since 15 July 2003.
All issues have a peculiar characteristic, and no option is the "correct" one. Each usually has a positive and a negative aspect, although the latter is usually highlighted, and both are always exaggerated. Many issues are posed in terms of radical or extremist beliefs, and the accompanying opinions are rarely well-founded. This is for both humorous and didactic reasons: many opinions are extremely funny or ridiculous, and the player learns that there are no perfect ideas which will work in every case. As gameplay progresses, the user learns that each of the options provided for the proposed issues become more ridiculous and offer no stability to the nationstate. Although this is a simulation game of creating your own nation, the responses are often unrealistic and do not provide any middle-ground options to resolve the issues. Instead, the issues are used to drastically change your nation's economic, political, or social beliefs. As a whole, the issues do not directly relate to real-life situations but rather a more Barry-like nationstate as presented in Jennifer Government.
There are occasional "Easter Egg" issues, such as one that dealt with piracy on the high seas, released to everyone on International Talk Like a Pirate Day
.
and the strength of the Economy. Decisions can also affect other aspects of the nation, such as the crime rate, industry strength and public sector spending.
Based on the nation's personal, economic and political freedoms, the nation is assigned to one of 27 government types (see below), from Scandinavian Liberal Paradise and Capitalist Paradise to Corporate Police State and Psychotic Dictatorship. The "other variables" are used to compile the game's daily World Census Reports (formerly the "United Nations Reports"), which list every nation in the game in order of their rank in that day's chosen variable, such as Largest Manufacturing Industry, Largest Soda Pop Sector, Highest Unemployment, Safest Nations, Most Rebellious Youth, even Most Avoided Nations. The reports also group nations according to region, so a nation may be described on their main page as "1st in the region and 94th in the World for Smartest Citizens."
The nation's main page briefly describes the population, government, economy, that day's World Census ranking and latest policy decisions resulting from the player's choices. The 'National Happenings' section at the bottom of the page shows ten of the most recent events, which includes World Assembly activities and changes to the nation's characteristics (e.g. Motto, Currency, etc.).
A ranking of each attribute is as follows:
Each decision passed through legislature will eventually have an impact on each attribute. Nations tend to lean heavily on decisions that involve the country's economic status.
Unlike the benefits derived from higher Economy levels, having "Excessive" or "Frightening" Civil Rights is not necessarily a good thing, since the nation's government would be lacking control and requiring some kind of reform. World Benchmark would be considered the best ranking that can be achieved. The same applies for Political Freedoms.
As part of 2010 April's Fools joke, Max Barry finally addressed all the complaints of "bias" in the government-classification system he'd received over the years, and claimed to have "fixed" the categories so that they were more "accurate." Depending when users logged on to the site, NationStates was changed into either a decidedly slanted "Conservative
" or "Liberal
" nation simulator, with the two versions alternating throughout the day, and all government categories changed to reflect the site's new ideological leanings. For example, Inoffensive Centrist Democracies were styled "Communists" by the Conservative NS and "Fascists" by the Liberal NS. Following the prank, NS continued to host the alternate "Conservative" and "Liberal" versions on special pages.
disobedience. Discussions on draft/proposed resolutions take place on the forums, often home to all manner of political debate.
order from the actual United Nations
. Though initially believed to be an April Fools Day joke, the legal complaint was revealed to be real the next day. References to the "United Nations" or the "UN" were universally replaced on the official website, but remained in old forum posts and some fan-operated websites.
, Osiris
or Balder) and may move their nations into any other region at any time, or set up their own. Many regions have an elected leader, or Regional WA Delegate, and some participate in complex regional governments, though some contain only a handful of nations.
Many multi-regional organizations have formed - either to organize invasions or to organize those who defend against raider play.
Invading, "raiding", or "region crashing" first became prominent with a group of players calling themselves the Farkers (now referred to as invaders or raiders), who all arrived from links between the game and the website Fark.com
. Steps have been taken to reduce region-crashing and griefing while regulating the more benign invasion types. In order for one nation to eject another from the region, it must have a specific amount of "influence", which is partly derived from that nation's length of residency within the region. This helps ensure that invaders do not flood a region, install one of their own as WA Delegate, and then eject the original members from the region. These regulations have been heavily praised, although others greatly opposed it and claimed that it ruined the game experience.
, diplomacy
, and war
. Some players have even developed complex statistical calculators. Part of the appeal of NationStates lies in the ability to create an unrealistic utopia
(or dystopia
) as the subject of conversation and political philosophy
, without needing to worry about practical matters, like national defense
, that might become factors in a more comprehensive simulation. Many players do tend to play realistically and maintain at least sensibly constructed economies.
gaming company Jolt Online Gaming
would take over hosting of the site as well as the development of NationStates 2. On 28 June 2004, after several delays, the game switched to the new servers; however, continued programming issues compounded by the death of Max Barry's father caused the forums to remain down until 13 July 2004. Flag size increased from 6k to 10k around 15 August.
Two Google advertisements were added May 2008 for the first time in the game's five-year history.
On 18 June 2006, OMAC Industries purchased Jolt and assumed NationStates hosting duties. They also agreed to help develop a long-discussed NS sequel, NationStates 2.
file from the previous day. The first "Great Disk Space Disaster" occurred on 27 April 2005 with subsequent errors taking place on 27 August 2005 and 2 April 2006. The April 2 incident may have been a result of the April Fools
joke the day before, where the game had been turned into an online matchmaking
service, "NationDates".
Until 18 March 2008, Moderators could only resurrect nations deleted for inactivity (though not for rule-violations, unless circumstances warrant a repeal of the deletion) on the request of the nation's original owner. Since then, users are able to resurrect nations, by logging as usual with a valid password, and then confirming the password again.
Resurrected nations arrive in one of three specially designated resurrection regions, rather than the Pacific regions where newly made nations start out.
community. Originally, they were phpBB
forums hosted by the NationStates server, but after NationStates was acquired by Jolt
, the forums moved to Jolt's
forum site running on vBulletin
software. The off-topic / out-of-character 'General' forums are mainly used for recreational purposes and political discussion. Role-playing is done in the Diplomacy (formerly "Sound and Fury") and World Assembly forums. A dedicated team of volunteers moderates the forums; most of them also moderate the game to keep it free from spam
and objectional content.
On 29 April 2009 the phpBB
forums were reintroduced on the site's server for beta testing; on June 7 Barry declared the beta test a success and made the new forums official. But he also stated that the Jolt forums would remain.
Recently, Jolt announced the NationStates forums hosted by them would be set to read-only status, meaning users could no longer actively post on the boards.
As of October 2010 the NationStates Forums have been deleted from Jolt.
and text message. On 18 August 2008, a closed beta was announced, with 500 beta keys being given to random players from NS1. On 3 November 2008, an open beta was released to the public. However, the new game proved to be very unpopular, particularly with veterans of the original game, many of whom said that the new features had been poorly implemented. Barry and game staff blamed OMAC, opening a rift between NationStates and its Web host.
On 25 February 2009, Max Barry announced that NationStates was again becoming independently hosted, leaving the OMAC Industries servers and game system, "and doesn't have terribly much to do with NS2 any more." The precise nature of the remaining relationship has not been explained.
Soon after, on 20 May 2009, a site admin posted on the new self-hosted forums that Jolt was closing NationStates 2. Max Barry also posted on the NationState News blog that although NationStates 2 had numerous paid features, he was not receiving any money from Jolt. As of 1 July 2009, NationStates 2's domain displays a message on what happened, and contains a redirect link to the original NationStates.
Browser game
A browser game is a computer game that is played over the Internet using a web browser. Browser games can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins. Browser games include all video game genres and can be single-player or multiplayer...
. It was created by Max Barry
Max Barry
Max Barry is a contemporary Australian author. He also maintains a blog on various topics, including writing, marketing and politics...
and was publicly released on 13 November 2002, based loosely on his novel Jennifer Government
Jennifer Government
Jennifer Government is a novel written by Max Barry. Published in 2003, it is Barry's second novel, following 1999's Syrup. The novel is set in a dystopian alternate reality in which most nations are dominated by for-profit corporate entities while the government's political power is extremely...
. The game has hosted over 3 million nations. The game is expanded by users using off-site forums to construct centres of learning, discussion and play.
Beginning
The object of the game is to lead a countryCountry
A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
in the way the player finds best. At the start of the game, the player chooses a few basic characteristics such as name, currency and style of government. Answers to the questions in the next page determine the initial ratings of the country's civil, economic and political rights. The nation's population starts at five million and increases every day automatically with play.
Issues
Gameplay hinges on deciding government policies: the player is presented with automatically assigned "issues" and chooses a response from a list of options. Players can ignore issues by dismissing them, which has no effect on the nation.The player sets the frequency with which new issues arise (from five to fourteen issues per week). After the original thirty issues written by Barry were found to be too few for the game to develop satisfactorily, players with national populations of over 500 million have been allowed to propose new issues since 15 July 2003.
All issues have a peculiar characteristic, and no option is the "correct" one. Each usually has a positive and a negative aspect, although the latter is usually highlighted, and both are always exaggerated. Many issues are posed in terms of radical or extremist beliefs, and the accompanying opinions are rarely well-founded. This is for both humorous and didactic reasons: many opinions are extremely funny or ridiculous, and the player learns that there are no perfect ideas which will work in every case. As gameplay progresses, the user learns that each of the options provided for the proposed issues become more ridiculous and offer no stability to the nationstate. Although this is a simulation game of creating your own nation, the responses are often unrealistic and do not provide any middle-ground options to resolve the issues. Instead, the issues are used to drastically change your nation's economic, political, or social beliefs. As a whole, the issues do not directly relate to real-life situations but rather a more Barry-like nationstate as presented in Jennifer Government.
There are occasional "Easter Egg" issues, such as one that dealt with piracy on the high seas, released to everyone on International Talk Like a Pirate Day
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers , of Albany, Oregon, U.S., who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate...
.
Nation Descriptions and Rankings
The player's responses to issues (except for dismissals) affect the nation's status in three main factors: the level of Political Freedoms, Civil RightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and the strength of the Economy. Decisions can also affect other aspects of the nation, such as the crime rate, industry strength and public sector spending.
Based on the nation's personal, economic and political freedoms, the nation is assigned to one of 27 government types (see below), from Scandinavian Liberal Paradise and Capitalist Paradise to Corporate Police State and Psychotic Dictatorship. The "other variables" are used to compile the game's daily World Census Reports (formerly the "United Nations Reports"), which list every nation in the game in order of their rank in that day's chosen variable, such as Largest Manufacturing Industry, Largest Soda Pop Sector, Highest Unemployment, Safest Nations, Most Rebellious Youth, even Most Avoided Nations. The reports also group nations according to region, so a nation may be described on their main page as "1st in the region and 94th in the World for Smartest Citizens."
The nation's main page briefly describes the population, government, economy, that day's World Census ranking and latest policy decisions resulting from the player's choices. The 'National Happenings' section at the bottom of the page shows ten of the most recent events, which includes World Assembly activities and changes to the nation's characteristics (e.g. Motto, Currency, etc.).
A ranking of each attribute is as follows:
| Attribute Rankings in NationStates | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Civil Rights | Outlawed | Unheard Of | Rare | Few | Some | Below Average | Average | Good | Very Good | Excellent | Superb | World Benchmark | Excessive | Frightening | |
| Economy | Imploded | Basket Case | Struggling | Fragile | Weak | Developing | Fair | Reasonable | Good | Strong | Very Strong | Thriving | Powerhouse | All Consuming | Frightening |
| Political Freedoms | Outlawed | Unheard Of | Rare | Few | Some | Below Average | Average | Good | Very Good | Excellent | Superb | World Benchmark | Excessive | Widely Abused | Corrupted |
Each decision passed through legislature will eventually have an impact on each attribute. Nations tend to lean heavily on decisions that involve the country's economic status.
Unlike the benefits derived from higher Economy levels, having "Excessive" or "Frightening" Civil Rights is not necessarily a good thing, since the nation's government would be lacking control and requiring some kind of reform. World Benchmark would be considered the best ranking that can be achieved. The same applies for Political Freedoms.
Government Categories
The government Categories (formerly "UN Categories"), which are modelled according to the nation's political, civil and economic freedoms, are as follows (with the alternate titles assigned by the "Conservative" and "Liberal" slants in brackets):- Anarchy (Liberal: Post-Revolution Embryonic Society) (Conservative: Lawless Wasteland)
- Authoritarian Democracy (Liberal: Mouth-Breathing Creationists) (Conservative: Slightly Oppressive But A Little Discipline Never Hurt Anyone State)
- Benevolent Dictatorship (Liberal: Temporary Liberal State of Emergency) (Conservative: Temporary Conservative State of Emergency)
- Capitalist Paradise (Liberal: Corporate Slave State) (Conservative: Decent Hard Working Self-Starters)
- Capitalizt (Liberal: Self-Congratulatory Merchant Bankers) (Conservative: Freedom-Loving Libertarians)
- Civil Rights Lovefest (Liberal: Brave Progressives) (Conservative: Nation-Hating Hippies)
- Compulsory Consumerist State (Liberal: Consumerist Wage Drones) (Conservative: Aspirational Workers State)
- Conservative Democracy (Liberal: Conservative Hell) (Conservative: Conservative Paradise)
- Corporate Bordello (Liberal: Blood-Sucking Capitalist Leeches) (Conservative: Patriotic Business Zone)
- Corporate Police State (Liberal: Halliburton) (Conservative: Entrepreneurial Freedom Zone)
- Corrupt Dictatorship (Liberal: Well-Meaning Dictatorship) (Conservative: Corrupt Liberal Dictatorship)
- Democratic Socialists (Liberal: Ordinary Caring Intelligent World Citizens) (Conservative: Hell)
- Father/Mother Knows Best State (Liberal: Suspiciously Conservative Democracy) (Conservative: Suspiciously Liberal Dictatorship)
- Free Market Paradise (Liberal: Randriods) (Conservative: Paradise)
- Inoffensive Centrist Democracy (Liberal: Fascists) (Conservative: Communists)
- Iron Fist Consumerists (Liberal: Imperialist Pig Dog Oppressors) (Conservative: Champions of Commerce)
- Iron Fist Socialists (Liberal: Equality and Tolerance Society) (Conservative: Inevitably Bloody Results of Liberal Ideals Mugged by Reality)
- Left-Leaning College State (Liberal: Paradise) (Conservative: Deluded Tax and Spend Hypocrites)
- Left-Wing Utopia (Liberal: Utopia) (Conservative: Drugged Out Hippies)
- Liberal Democratic Socialists (Liberal: Open-Minded Education State) (Conservative: Ivory Tower Reality Disconnect Zone)
- Libertarian Police State (Liberal: Slightly Overzealous Peoples Democracy) (Conservative: Government Enforced Political Correctness Society)
- Moralistic Democracy (Liberal: Narrow-Minded Backwoodsy Bigots) (Conservative: Ordinary Decent Hard Working People)
- New York Times Democracy (Liberal: Corporate-Dominated Sham Democracy) (Conservative: New York Crimes So-Called Democracy)
- Psychotic Dictatorship (Liberal: Fascist Dictatorship) (Conservative: Communist Dictatorship)
- Right-Wing Utopia (Liberal: Corrupt Thieving Uneducated Fascist Fundamentalists) (Conservative: Utopia)
- Scandinavian Liberal Paradise (Liberal: Normal) (Conservative: Gay Marriage State)
- Tyranny By Majority (Liberal: Tyranny by Bourgeois) (Conservative: Thieves)
April Fools' category 'fix'
As part of 2010 April's Fools joke, Max Barry finally addressed all the complaints of "bias" in the government-classification system he'd received over the years, and claimed to have "fixed" the categories so that they were more "accurate." Depending when users logged on to the site, NationStates was changed into either a decidedly slanted "Conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
" or "Liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
" nation simulator, with the two versions alternating throughout the day, and all government categories changed to reflect the site's new ideological leanings. For example, Inoffensive Centrist Democracies were styled "Communists" by the Conservative NS and "Fascists" by the Liberal NS. Following the prank, NS continued to host the alternate "Conservative" and "Liberal" versions on special pages.
World Assembly
Players may voluntarily join the NationStates World Assembly (abbr. WA), making their nations automatically affected by the decisions of that body. However, various players role-playRole-playing
Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role...
disobedience. Discussions on draft/proposed resolutions take place on the forums, often home to all manner of political debate.
Renaming of the United Nations
The World Assembly was known as the United Nations before 1 April 2008. On that day, the fictional organization was renamed in response to a cease-and-desistCease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
order from the actual United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. Though initially believed to be an April Fools Day joke, the legal complaint was revealed to be real the next day. References to the "United Nations" or the "UN" were universally replaced on the official website, but remained in old forum posts and some fan-operated websites.
Commend and Condemn
Since May 2009, the World Assembly has had the power to "commend" or "condemn" specific nations or regions. The new feature, apparently intended for out-of-character recognition of players rather than the nations or regions they play, has been criticized by players for "breaking the fourth wall" and thus running contrary to current rules dictating what proposals can legally be submitted to the WA.Group play
Nations are grouped into regions. New players begin in one of five Pacific regions (and resurrected nations begin in LazarusLazarus
Lazarus may refer to:*Lazarus , a surname and given name -People:* Lazarus of Bethany, a figure in the Gospel of John, which describes him being raised by Jesus from the dead...
, Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
or Balder) and may move their nations into any other region at any time, or set up their own. Many regions have an elected leader, or Regional WA Delegate, and some participate in complex regional governments, though some contain only a handful of nations.
'Invading' or 'raiding'
Players occasionally attempt to collectively "invade" another region by entering it and seizing control of the regional Delegacy, though it may be hard to garner and coordinate support. Within the game, this process is called "raiding". Some regions have password protection to stave off such attacks, but this presents a problem of getting new members to join the region and a small risk of a spy infiltrating the region.Many multi-regional organizations have formed - either to organize invasions or to organize those who defend against raider play.
Invading, "raiding", or "region crashing" first became prominent with a group of players calling themselves the Farkers (now referred to as invaders or raiders), who all arrived from links between the game and the website Fark.com
Fark.com
Fark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. As of June 2009, the site boasts approximately four million unique visitors per month, which puts it among the top 100 English language websites...
. Steps have been taken to reduce region-crashing and griefing while regulating the more benign invasion types. In order for one nation to eject another from the region, it must have a specific amount of "influence", which is partly derived from that nation's length of residency within the region. This helps ensure that invaders do not flood a region, install one of their own as WA Delegate, and then eject the original members from the region. These regulations have been heavily praised, although others greatly opposed it and claimed that it ruined the game experience.
Roleplaying
NationStates' relatively simple simulation has given rise to more in-depth and freeform role-playing, with players using their nations' statistics to measure how their nations would fare in international tradeInternational trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...
, diplomacy
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
, and war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
. Some players have even developed complex statistical calculators. Part of the appeal of NationStates lies in the ability to create an unrealistic utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
(or dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
) as the subject of conversation and political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
, without needing to worry about practical matters, like national defense
Defense (military)
Defense has several uses in the sphere of military application.Personal defense implies measures taken by individual soldiers in protecting themselves whether by use of protective materials such as armor, or field construction of trenches or a bunker, or by using weapons that prevent the enemy...
, that might become factors in a more comprehensive simulation. Many players do tend to play realistically and maintain at least sensibly constructed economies.
Technical history
Because of the past unreliability of the NationStates server, which commonly led to slow or inaccessible forums, January 2004 saw the announcement that the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
gaming company Jolt Online Gaming
Jolt Online Gaming
Jolt Online Gaming is an online gaming company hosted in the UK. Its main site provides news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosts and publishes free-to-play browser based games...
would take over hosting of the site as well as the development of NationStates 2. On 28 June 2004, after several delays, the game switched to the new servers; however, continued programming issues compounded by the death of Max Barry's father caused the forums to remain down until 13 July 2004. Flag size increased from 6k to 10k around 15 August.
Two Google advertisements were added May 2008 for the first time in the game's five-year history.
On 18 June 2006, OMAC Industries purchased Jolt and assumed NationStates hosting duties. They also agreed to help develop a long-discussed NS sequel, NationStates 2.
Technical failures
At three points during the game's existence, the large amount of data required to hold the names and information of over one million nations exceeded the amount of space available on the game's server. Rather than shutting down, the server continued to operate, but failed to save any additional data. As a result, anyone who logged into their nation found that their nation's name had been changed to "The 0 of 0", and that their region was suddenly without a Delegate, Founder, or name. On each occurrence, game administrators loaded a backupBackup
In information technology, a backup or the process of backing up is making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup....
file from the previous day. The first "Great Disk Space Disaster" occurred on 27 April 2005 with subsequent errors taking place on 27 August 2005 and 2 April 2006. The April 2 incident may have been a result of the April Fools
April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
joke the day before, where the game had been turned into an online matchmaking
Matchmaking
Matchmaking is any process of matching two people for the purpose of marriage or a sporting contest.-Practice:In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized...
service, "NationDates".
Statistics
As of 7 December 2004, players had set up over 2,000,000 individual nations since NationStates premiered in late 2002. At any time fewer than 100,000 remain in existence because of inactivity, or as a result of deletion due to various rule infractions. Though the specific time has varied greatly over the years on-line, NationStates has a inactivity limit of 28 days (or 60 days if nation-owners enable "Vacation Mode"), after which the system automatically deletes the quiescent nation.Until 18 March 2008, Moderators could only resurrect nations deleted for inactivity (though not for rule-violations, unless circumstances warrant a repeal of the deletion) on the request of the nation's original owner. Since then, users are able to resurrect nations, by logging as usual with a valid password, and then confirming the password again.
Resurrected nations arrive in one of three specially designated resurrection regions, rather than the Pacific regions where newly made nations start out.
Forums
NationStates has a forumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
community. Originally, they were phpBB
PhpBB
phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board...
forums hosted by the NationStates server, but after NationStates was acquired by Jolt
Jolt Online Gaming
Jolt Online Gaming is an online gaming company hosted in the UK. Its main site provides news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosts and publishes free-to-play browser based games...
, the forums moved to Jolt's
Jolt Online Gaming
Jolt Online Gaming is an online gaming company hosted in the UK. Its main site provides news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosts and publishes free-to-play browser based games...
forum site running on vBulletin
VBulletin
vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions, both subsidiaries of Internet Brands. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database server.-History:...
software. The off-topic / out-of-character 'General' forums are mainly used for recreational purposes and political discussion. Role-playing is done in the Diplomacy (formerly "Sound and Fury") and World Assembly forums. A dedicated team of volunteers moderates the forums; most of them also moderate the game to keep it free from spam
Spam
Spam may refer to:* Spam , a canned pork meat product* Spam , unsolicited or undesired electronic messages* E-mail spam, unsolicited or undesired email messages* "Spam" , a comedy sketch...
and objectional content.
On 29 April 2009 the phpBB
PhpBB
phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board...
forums were reintroduced on the site's server for beta testing; on June 7 Barry declared the beta test a success and made the new forums official. But he also stated that the Jolt forums would remain.
Recently, Jolt announced the NationStates forums hosted by them would be set to read-only status, meaning users could no longer actively post on the boards.
As of October 2010 the NationStates Forums have been deleted from Jolt.
NationStates 2
On 21 April 2008, Max Barry announced the upcoming launch of NationStates 2. It included complex new functions for war, trade, diplomacy, and customization. The website predicted a launch "later in 2008" and allowed users to sign up for an alert by emailEmail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and text message. On 18 August 2008, a closed beta was announced, with 500 beta keys being given to random players from NS1. On 3 November 2008, an open beta was released to the public. However, the new game proved to be very unpopular, particularly with veterans of the original game, many of whom said that the new features had been poorly implemented. Barry and game staff blamed OMAC, opening a rift between NationStates and its Web host.
On 25 February 2009, Max Barry announced that NationStates was again becoming independently hosted, leaving the OMAC Industries servers and game system, "and doesn't have terribly much to do with NS2 any more." The precise nature of the remaining relationship has not been explained.
Soon after, on 20 May 2009, a site admin posted on the new self-hosted forums that Jolt was closing NationStates 2. Max Barry also posted on the NationState News blog that although NationStates 2 had numerous paid features, he was not receiving any money from Jolt. As of 1 July 2009, NationStates 2's domain displays a message on what happened, and contains a redirect link to the original NationStates.