April Fools Day
Starting in 2004, it has been a tradition each April 1st (April Fools Day) for the NationStates moderators to change the code of the game and play a prank or two on players.[1] Though the pranks have no lasting effects, they do manage to fool many players. Even those who are aware that the changes are temporary and meant as a joke will often play along and test the new features, resulting in many good natured posts on the Jolt forums.
Contents
2004
Summary
Moderators played two tricks on players in 2004.
First was when the displayed populations of all nations was set via a real bug to 5 million (this is the starting population). The populations were not really changed, as players who looked at the XML code for their nations discovered that their population was the same. The hoax was the fact that the moderators had fixed the populations to read 5 million due to a claim that the populations of different nations were increasing at different rates. This claim was false, but still managed to fool many players. Bug or hoax the displayed population is important to many players, especially those with large populations, and thus there were many requests for the game moderators to fix this.
The forum titles were also changed. This change was possible (and intentional) because one game moderators, Reploid Productions, was also a forum administrator on the old NationStates forum. This change happened before the NationStates forums moved to Jolt.
Official Announcements
Thu, 01 Apr 2004
National populations reset
- by Max Barry
Good news! A long-running bug that allowed some nations to grow much faster than they deserved has now been fixed. This means nations can no longer benefit from abusing the so-called "population bug."
Because it's impossible to tell who exploited the population bug and who didn't, all nation's populations have been reset to 5 million. This way we can ensure a level playing field.
Just kidding
- by Max Barry
And, of course, that was an April Fools joke. Nobody's population has been changed. You can stop writing me e-mails now!
2005
Summary
In 2005, the game moderators changed the front page of NationStates to make it appear as though the entire game had been shut down by a Department of Homeworld Security. The Department was a parody of the real life US Department of Homeland Security. In addition to the Homeland Security redirect page, the daily UN rankings were changed to include a new ranking, Most Likely to Be Deleted. The ranking was not based on anything, though there was considerable discussion on the Jolt discussion forums about what formula was used to rate which nations were most likely to be deleted.
Official Announcements
Sat, 02 Apr 2005
Nothing to see here
- by Max Barry
There was no April Fool's joke. You did not see anything. Move along.
2006
Summary
In 2006, the NationStates page was redesigned to look like a dating service called NationDates. Players could use a new added feature to find their nation's ideal match within their region.
Official Announcements
Sat, 01 Apr 2006
NationDates
In an effort to keep from going broke and needing to take down the game, we've decided to change the game to NationDates. It's the same game that you know and love, except now we're moving into social networking and hoping to help you meet someone that you know and love.
The data that we've collected from your issues and play style place us in a unique position to accurately match you up with a fellow player and not need to worry about political incompatibility. We are working on effective ways to monetize NationDates in the near future.
We hope that you like this new direction.
- SalusaSecondus
- NationDates, Chief Minister of Hookups
2007
Summary
In 2007, the game moderators a new release (NationStates v1.10) that supported new Regional Moderators. The moderators announced that these new regional moderators would help them by reporting players using a special menu, called the Regional Moderation Centre, that would supposedly send warnings to the players and official moderators. Players were selected at random in their regions to be a Regional Moderator. A new icon was added in the header of their nation field, adjacent to their UN member or UN delegate icons. The new menu was viewable only to the regional moderators.
Like most of the pranks, the change was advertised as a new feature and numerous players actually tested the feature.[2] A number of players actually expressed the opinion that they liked the idea of having a regional moderator and hoped that the new feature was in fact not an April Fools prank. Though the new regional moderators were able to use the new regional moderator interface, the warnings they sent had no impact on the game (other than to stimulate hours of discussions on the forums).
Official Announcements
Sun, 01 Apr 2007
NationStates 1.10: Regional Mods!
NationStates has hit version 1.10! We've introduced some new features to the game which should hopefully improve the quality of everyone's playing experience. What are these features? Well:
- 1. Specially selected region members will have the power to personally tag and warn problem nations without the need for moderator intervention. This means that the general management of the game is more under the control of the players. Not only that but it will ease the workload for the mods. These region members will be called Regional Moderators and will get a special badge on their nations.
- 2. Well, there is no '2', really, but all regional mods will be invited to join the secret IRC channel where we discuss moderation. No-one else can join though, so if you have anything you want us to hear about you should ask your local reg mod.
The intention of this change is to bring moderation closer to the players and to experiment with grass-roots moderation. With over 90,000 accounts, this should help to keep the game managable.
Links
- Nationstates Ver. 1.10 - NEW FEATURES Jolt forum thread
- Do you think NS 1.10 is an elaborate prank? Jolt forum poll
