Now that NPO is #1...

[Fulcrum]

NPO is #1 alliance now. #1 Alliance has its responsibilities, mainly paying tribute to the true Number 1.

NPO flag but Robbie Rotten. NPO, make the right choice. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Fulcrum

[Roquentin]

 

It won't last long, but okay.

[Charlie Traveler]

Dope flag - who is Robbie Rotten? NPO member from NS?

[丂ħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™]

7 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

 

It won't last long, but okay.

TKR changed their image before

[Sketchy]

59 minutes ago, Charlie Traveler said:

Dope flag - who is Robbie Rotten? NPO member from NS?

 

[Micchan]

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

It won't last long, but okay.

So the merge with BK will happen soon

[Sir Scarfalot]

Because NPO being the #1 alliance has always meant good things for the game in which it happens ?

Well, I'd been waiting for the right time, and this occasion seems to fit the bill. This tribute is for @Nizam Adrienne

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Sir Scarfalot

[Adrienne]

26 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Because NPO being the #1 alliance has always meant good things for the game in which it happens ?

Well, I'd been waiting for the right time, and this occasion seems to fit the bill. This tribute is for @Nizam Adrienne

 

It even mentions Heralds in it!

Edited October 22, 2018 by Nizam Adrienne

[Shadowthrone]

11 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

 

Because NPO being the #1 alliance has always meant good things for the game in which it happens ?

 

Eh you seem to have a particular problem with the NPO, that seems to have nothing to do with Orbis. Care to make comparable assertions or you know stop dragging other realm stuff down here? 

[Sir Scarfalot]

2 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

Eh you seem to have a particular problem with the NPO, that seems to have nothing to do with Orbis. Care to make comparable assertions or you know stop dragging other realm stuff down here? 

I don’t have any particular problem with NPO. Rather, I have a problem with alliances, any alliances, becoming overly powerful and seeking to “win”; not a war, but the game wholesale.

I am concerned about NPO because NPO has been #1 before; not here perhaps but in a few “comparable situations” (by which I mean nation sim browser games) nonetheless. Nation sims that, be it due to NPO or not, have either died or have long since shed any semblance of vitality.

I speak out because I have been working towards the same thing for many years now: to solve the problem of unstable balance, or at least to forestall the (insofar as I can tell) inevitable final consolidation of uncontestable power that causes the end of the game in which it happens. A dozen times I’ve fought my butt off to keep a dozen games alive, and every time I have failed, to the detriment of all the players in those games... including if not especially the ones that resented and resisted my efforts the most.

In the words of a certain grey wizard: I’m not trying to rob you! I’m trying to help you.

[Shadowthrone]

1 minute ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

I don’t have any particular problem with NPO. Rather, I have a problem with alliances, any alliances, becoming overly powerful and seeking to “win”; not a war, but the game wholesale.

I am concerned about NPO because NPO has been #1 before; not here perhaps but in a few “comparable situations” (by which I mean nation sim browser games) nonetheless. Nation sims that, be it due to NPO or not, have either died or have long since shed any semblance of vitality.

 

I like how you seem to assume the motivations for our actions without ever interacting with any of us from the New Pacific Order, or heck bothering to do any research about community here in Orbis. If you ever do, I'll buy your claims of being objective about the NPO. To me it seems you either have issues with a different iteration of the community in other realms, or have received an extremely biased report on how we function from folks who have no interest to play the game here and now. 

The fact that you didn't seem to have an issue with TKR looking to win the game and remain #1 for two years yet when NPO temporarily makes it there because of a war, there are "sudden" fears of our achievement is hilarious. If you're talking about why that game thats dead, died, hit me up and I can point you to different reasons that had nothing to do with the Order, as much as world that naturally died. I mean TKR not being a problem for creating a situation where it cannot be overtaken for two years is not "scary" but NPO temporarily holding the post is "scary" is damned ridiculous at best. 

10 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

I speak out because I have been working towards the same thing for many years now: to solve the problem of unstable balance, or at least to forestall the (insofar as I can tell) inevitable final consolidation of uncontestable power that causes the end of the game in which it happens. A dozen times I’ve fought my butt off to keep a dozen games alive, and every time I have failed, to the detriment of all the players in those games... including if not especially the ones that resented and resisted my efforts the most.

 

Well good on you. Different folks have done the same thing, but the conclusion has never been a single community operating within the game is the problem as much as well the community at large failing to maintain the balance. NPO's done more things within the two year time frame of existing here than most other alliances to change things around and has taken two years for this opportunity to balance to arise is not indicative of the NPO or IQ, but the external community at large. So yeah, take a deep hard look at what folks have done in the past two years to change things around, and look to work on it, rather than falling into the old NPO's the root of all problems of Orbis nonsense. That maybe a good start at rebalancing this game. 

[Quichwe10]

Damn, I forgot his cancer came back. Rip him man. 

[Sir Scarfalot]

5 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

I like how you seem to assume the motivations for our actions without ever interacting with any of us from the New Pacific Order, or heck bothering to do any research about community here in Orbis. If you ever do, I'll buy your claims of being objective about the NPO. To me it seems you either have issues with a different iteration of the community in other realms, or have received an extremely biased report on how we function from folks who have no interest to play the game here and now. 

The fact that you didn't seem to have an issue with TKR looking to win the game and remain #1 for two years yet when NPO temporarily makes it there because of a war, there are "sudden" fears of our achievement is hilarious. If you're talking about why that game thats dead, died, hit me up and I can point you to different reasons that had nothing to do with the Order, as much as world that naturally died. I mean TKR not being a problem for creating a situation where it cannot be overtaken for two years is not "scary" but NPO temporarily holding the post is "scary" is damned ridiculous at best. 

 

Well good on you. Different folks have done the same thing, but the conclusion has never been a single community operating within the game is the problem as much as well the community at large failing to maintain the balance. NPO's done more things within the two year time frame of existing here than most other alliances to change things around and has taken two years for this opportunity to balance to arise is not indicative of the NPO or IQ, but the external community at large. So yeah, take a deep hard look at what folks have done in the past two years to change things around, and look to work on it, rather than falling into the old NPO's the root of all problems of Orbis nonsense. That maybe a good start at rebalancing this game. 

You're absolutely correct on most points, but you've still got a few things wrong. Now, I don't blame you for getting defensive since my arguments have no doubt been repeated by IQ's opponents many times for their own political (and deeply hypocritical) self-interest, but you're assuming my own motivations without interacting with me nor knowing where my arguments are coming from yourself. Yes, I do have issues with different iterations of communities from a dozen other long-dead realms; not NPO specifically but a hundred other communities that followed the same playbook, the same pattern, having the same pressures and responding in the same, objectively correct ways, resulting in the same doom. I'm not basing my concerns on any hearsay nor bias against NPO but upon years and years of failing to prevent nation sims from dying.

As for me "not seeming to have an issue with TKR", well, that's mostly true. Exactly as true as it is of me not having any issues with IQ. I don't blame either of you for taking the best options available to you. The reason I haven't been historically as outspoken against TKR is due to how much of a threat I've seen them truly represent, relative to the power and potential that I see in Syndisphere and IQ since I started. Look at it this way: TKR has and had a very high score, and also a very high score per capita. Both are indeed problems just as you describe, but they are not nor have they ever been insurmountable ones, as the last few days clearly prove. Meanwhile, IQ and Syndisphere have very high scores, yet relatively low scores per capita. These are both problems as well, but to my limited experience as a raider and guerilla fighter having a low score per capita is just as powerful as a high score per capita in different and potentially worse ways. You have more room to grow, more potential speed of growth, and a wider range of power projection than the whales of TKRsphere. Those statements are not shade nor complaints, simply facts.

Now, it must be repeated that all of this is not your fault; you're playing the game and acting in the most valid way to achieve victory over your rivals. Nor is it TKR's fault for acting in the best ways they can to achieve victory over their rivals. The problem here is that as long as victory is something that people strive for, then balance is something against everyone's self-interest since it's the exact opposite of victory. And there's no culpability, no blame; simply a pattern of the best intentions and the smartest decisions always leading up to the worst possible outcome for everyone. EMC breaking up EMC is one of the only instances I've ever seen of anyone successfully and intentionally breaking free from the pattern of unstable equilibrium, but even THAT didn't really happen until much later... and not without a lot of pressure towards that end from EMC's rivals anyway.

Look, it's getting wall of texty so I'll just end with these rhetorical questions. Can we expect IQ to break up like EMC did, if ever IQ wins a similar form of easy-mode hegemony? More importantly perhaps, would it even be fair to expect that of you?

Edited October 23, 2018 by Sir Scarfalot

[Auctor]

Nothing quite as satisfying as game balance virtue signaling.

[Shadowthrone]

10 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

As for me "not seeming to have an issue with TKR", well, that's mostly true. Exactly as true as it is of me not having any issues with IQ. I don't blame either of you for taking the best options available to you. The reason I haven't been historically as outspoken against TKR is due to how much of a threat I've seen them truly represent, relative to the power and potential that I see in Syndisphere and IQ since I started. Look at it this way: TKR has and had a very high score, and also a very high score per capita. Both are indeed problems just as you describe, but they are not nor have they ever been insurmountable ones, as the last few days clearly prove. Meanwhile, IQ and Syndisphere have very high scores, yet relatively low scores per capita. These are both problems as well, but to my limited experience as a raider and guerilla fighter having a low score per capita is just as powerful as a high score per capita in different and potentially worse ways. You have more room to grow, more potential speed of growth, and a wider range of power projection than the whales of TKRsphere. Those statements are not shade nor complaints, simply facts.

While we have potential for growth, so does any other real mass member alliance. I'd say Pantheon, TKR, TFP are fine examples of being able to become mass member alliances with some real potential for growth. So the problem then lies in the lack of mass member alliances and not any one specific groupings fault. Easier to point the gun this direction though it seems. 

 

11 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Now, it must be repeated that all of this is not your fault; you're playing the game and acting in the most valid way to achieve victory over your rivals. Nor is it TKR's fault for acting in the best ways they can to achieve victory over their rivals. The problem here is that as long as victory is something that people strive for, then balance is something against everyone's self-interest since it's the exact opposite of victory. And there's no culpability, no blame; simply a pattern of the best intentions and the smartest decisions always leading up to the worst possible outcome for everyone. EMC breaking up EMC is one of the only instances I've ever seen of anyone successfully and intentionally breaking free from the pattern of unstable equilibrium, but even THAT didn't really happen until much later... and not without a lot of pressure towards that end from EMC's rivals anyway

Wait I have a problem with this paragraph for multiple reasons. As stated in the earlier one, you never really were outspoken vs. TKR, but here we are, 12-24 hours after NPO's #1 where in three? different threads you threw shade at us for that, till I called you out here. If its not the NPO's fault, or TKR's, like you explain here, then I'm surprised you decided to consistently call us out for it, yet seemingly were inert when TKR was #1. That to me, indicates OOC bias vs a community, more than what you try to explain here. 

Now moving onto the specific paragraph, your point is that in a Politics and War game, one should not seek victory? I mean, the culture of not losing is not really something you can pin IQ with, or by a large extent the NPO, because up till this point, we've started wars knowing fully well we're going to lose, while the very folks you don't seem to mind not calling out, signifies that very behaviour, you have pointed out as problematic above. Be it Silent, Trail of Tiers or TJest and lastly Ayyslamic Crusade, we've gone in knowing the odds and still did it because well, thats our MO. Kayser pointed out earlier in the forums that TKR had plans at some point when he was still there to roll us, but was too scared. The only wars they engaged in since ToT, is some massive Arrgh raid, and two beatdowns during other global wars. So no mate, I'm not getting defensive here for trivial reasons. Its that you're holding double standards, by allowing TKR's behaviour go unabated for two years, while calling us out for not "balancing" the game, when we have never been in the position of a hegemony and still are not. You're virtue singling balance, as Auctor posted above, solely because we're the NPO, and you seem to be incapable of holding us to the same standards you hold everyone else to. I mean there's nothing we can ever do that would please you except for disbanding it seems, and well thats not happening anytime soon. I didn't know a community of folks playing different games together, is now the unhealthy for said games lol, thats some insane shit right there. 

[Auctor]

Game balance issues go much farther beyond who is in which alliance rank. It's certainly a discussion that could be had with an eye towards a political remedy but it's absurd to pretend it'd be better or worse if we had the correct 10 alliances in the top 10. There's several cultural elements extant that militate against successful sustained opposition and very few alliances are willing to embrace it when there's almost no stigma for various individuals to move between alliances for the expressed purposes of growth for growth's sake. Long term loyalty is a sucker's virtue in this game and alliances that are able to generate it on a wider scale seem a lot like monsters.

[Spaceman Thrax]

I've long ascribed to the belief that you don't need to cite crap from other games to have an opinion about what NPO (or any other alliance that may have imported a larger community) has done politically, and what it means for the game.

People may differ on the latter point, and all the more power to them, but who gives a crap about other games, exactly? We're playing this one.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Spaceman Thrax

[Queen M II]

29 minutes ago, Spaceman Thrax said:

...you don't need to cite crap from other games to have an opinion about what NPO (or any other alliance that may have imported a larger community) has done politically, and what it means for the game.

People may differ on the latter point, and all the more power to them, but who gives a crap about other games, exactly? We're playing this one.

This^^^

A large bulk of this game didn’t play CN and referencing politics that happened there seems pointless and irrelevant. It’d be best to make the case here...after NPO is number 1 here for longer than 4 days.

 

[Sans]

4 hours ago, Auctor said:

Game balance issues go much farther beyond who is in which alliance rank. It's certainly a discussion that could be had with an eye towards a political remedy but it's absurd to pretend it'd be better or worse if we had the correct 10 alliances in the top 10. There's several cultural elements extant that militate against successful sustained opposition and very few alliances are willing to embrace it when there's almost no stigma for various individuals to move between alliances for the expressed purposes of growth for growth's sake. Long term loyalty is a sucker's virtue in this game and alliances that are able to generate it on a wider scale seem a lot like monsters.

I don't think you look like a monster Auctor

 

I think condemning Pnw NPO for the sins of another game isn't the sort of mindset we should have when thinking about PnW politics. For a number of reasons NPO members have given their expressed differences between the two alliances. They are two different alliances in two different games. People are hating on the brand NPO without even pausing and talking to these people. Its a prejudice that really is uncalled for. People who do so are taking short cuts to forming an opinion to the eternal detriment of these players. And that is flat out wrong. 

You have to be able to look past past actions when present actions give you another story. People change, the people who make up organizations change, there is the possibility of taking another perspective to anything let alone a browser based game. 

Now regarding some of these IC arguments. I think it is kind of convent it started up so quick as soon as the war started.  Shit hasn't even ended yet and we're having this talk. Shit the real war hasn't even really kicked off yet. And we're having this conversation. There is an enormous conflict going on in the context of the game is freaking amazing, and we're having this conversation rather than talking about how this shit came to be. I find that amazing. 

[Shadowthrone]

2 hours ago, Hilmes said:

Now regarding some of these IC arguments. I think it is kind of convent it started up so quick as soon as the war started.  Shit hasn't even ended yet and we're having this talk. Shit the real war hasn't even really kicked off yet. And we're having this conversation. There is an enormous conflict going on in the context of the game is freaking amazing, and we're having this conversation rather than talking about how this shit came to be. I find that amazing. 

 

I mean I agree to an extent. I think its easier to deflect to know boogiemen rather than have a critical analysis of how this situation came to be tbh. If anyone wants to have that conversation, I'd be glad to participate in it.