April Fools Day

It has been a tradition each April 1st (April Fools Day) for the NationStates game moderators to change the code of the game and play a prank on players. 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.

2004

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

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

2007

In 2007, the game moderators introduced a concept known as "Regional Moderators". Like most of the pranks, the change was advertised as a new feature:

Sun, 01 Apr 2007

NationStates 1.10: Regional Mods!

by SalusaSecondus
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.