Difference between revisions of "Forums"

Latest revision as of 12:12, 5 May 2006

The NationStates Forums are the place to discuss anything and everything related to NationStates. The forums themselves are hosted by Jolt.

An Introduction to NS Forums Terminology

Forum Terms     Illegal Actions     Abbreviations

The Role of the Forums

NationStates

Sound & Fury

NationStates tends more towards character-based roleplaying and sports roleplaying, though wars and battles are also fought there. Each topic there is its own separate roleplaying event: some standalone, others tying to one or more other threads, some as spin-offs or continuations of previous roleplays, etc. Such is the nature of free-form role play - even time itself is a variable. Entry into these roleplays is often more formalized: check the topic title and/or first post to see if it is an Invite RP or open to anyone. There may be both IC and OOC topics for a given roleplay. Make sure you're posting in the correct topic for your type of response.

International Incidents is the home to most wars and almost all of the storefronts. It is the designated home for Declarations of War, and consequently tends to attract a disproportionate number of newb and n00b declarations. International Incidents tends more towards military "strength versus strength" conflicts, though there are alliance formation topics, nation-based roleplay, spies, catastrophes, and plenty of other opportunities to interact. The roleplay rules from NationStates apply as well

Gameplay is one of the newest forums, and its purpose is least understood. There is a thorough explanation in Tactical Grace's What the Gameplay Forum is for topic, but in essence: Gameplay is about how players manipulate their nations and regions. There is no roleplaying aspect to the Gameplay forum at all.

The United Nations contains an element of roleplay, but often there will be a mixture of OOC comments mixed in with the purely diplomatic comments made IC. The UN is only semi-RP, and posts there are subject to more mod intervention for inappropriateness than in the other two RP forums. The UN Forum is limited to UN business in the context of the General Assembly: if a UN nation is discovered to be in violation of UN resolutions, challenges to that nation should move to NationStates or International Incidents.

Nuts & Bolts: It's easy to confuse the purposes of the various Nuts & Bolts forums. Here's a clarification.

Technical is for issues relating to the game engine and coding. Suggestions for enhancements should go here. Be aware that most suggestions have been made many times before, so don't be annoyed when you get a curt response when you ask for a field for Capital City of National Leader. Bug reports go here, though they may end up being moved to a different forum for solution. Many things perceived as bugs (such as issue incongruities) are actually intentional features of the game, so again, don't be annoyed with the response.

Moderation is for issues related to player interaction. Flaming, spam, and other inappropriate behavior goes here. Moderation should be used with care, as some problems can only be identified by special mod tools. When in doubt, use the Getting Help page or #themodcave channel instead. Players often have suggestions for solutions to problems, but only moderator answers can be considered definitive. Take non-mod advice with a grain of salt.

Got Issues? is the place to discuss all things related to National Issues. Despite the name, this is not the place to gripe about how another player has treated you, or how your candidate lost the last election. It's only for discussion of existing and newly proposed issues.

Archive is a storage bin for threads considered worthy of keeping. Since the move to Jolt, there are probably not going to be any more purges of older topics, so the Archive will not be added to except by moderation staff, as they see fit. If you want to keep track of your fabulous roleplay topic, Subscribe to it or save the URL.

Anything & Everything

General is where NSer's discuss real world stuff like political issues, elections, religion, music and other out of character stuff. A lot of very heated political debates happen in General. Flaming and trolling appear to happen more often here than in the Roleplay forums, due to the extremely heated nature of some of the topics.

NationStates 2 is for speculation, whining, and pining for the much-rumored sequel to NationStates. To briefly answer the most common questions: Yes, you will have to pay monthly fees. No, nobody has said when it is coming out. Yes, it will most likely have a War engine, and No, we're not adding that to NationStates.

Jennifer Government (book, movie) is for discussion of the literary benefits of author Max Barry. This is the quietest forum and is dominated by two stickies, the main one being the JG sticky by Emperor Matthuis. Hey, NationStates itself is just one big advertisement for promoting his book. Go buy it and make the man happy.