Is it time to end Atlasia?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's beyond embarrassing how inactive the "government" has become and how uncontested most elections are. As TNF pointed out, there are 2 candidates for 4 positions in the Midwest, and the only people who have voted are the 2 candidates themselves.

dead0man isn't one of the candidates. I wish he would run, but still this "only voters are the two candidates, seems false on its head".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

But mostly the people it alienates are idiots. Let's be clear here: the moronic yelping for 'REGIONAL RIGHTS' was the moment at which the game embarked upon the path that led to its decrepitude.

No, that was when this game was saved from the small exclusive vision you have for this game.

You have been treating people like crap for a decade. You as much as anyone is guilty of creating an environment where people just say "f this", I'm out.

You guys have never gave a damn about the mood on the right because frankly you have never needed or wanted a right in this game. You don't need them when there is no gov't sim or Game engine to make elections worth anything more then just personality contests.

The problem is not us Regionalists, the problem is people like you calling people you disagree with idiots all the time.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's beyond embarrassing how inactive the "government" has become and how uncontested most elections are. As TNF pointed out, there are 2 candidates for 4 positions in the Midwest, and the only people who have voted are the 2 candidates themselves.

dead0man isn't one of the candidates. I wish he would run, but still this "only voters are the two candidates, seems false on its head".

It wasn't when the post was made, you dolt.

Your original post in the "This Game Sucks donkey Dick thread" was at 6:00 PM. Dead0man voted 17 hours prior to that post. I don't stalk your fing posting so if you made another, then fine. But then it begs the question why are you repeating a statement that is no longer accurate to use a fvie day long election occuring over a Fourth of July Weekend to make a statement about the damn game being dead.

And stop with the GOD DAMN NAME CALLING!!!!

I had people retire from the SEnate because of you and your mouth.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It is so damn amazing how a bunch of burned out hasbeens have decided their bored, so they are going to destroy it for it everyone else and anyone in the future who might come and revive it. This game is not yours to destroy by some damn simple majority vote. If you trully think this game is so damn bad, if all you can think about is destroying it, then perhaps you should consider leaving and let newer more positive thinking people have their shot. Instead of coming back every fear years, treating people like crap, blowing sh**t up and then whining that the game is dead.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If people quit the Senate because of 'me and my mouth,' they have much deeper issues than holding office in a pretend politics game.

You miss the point, this is a game built on voluntary participation. Who the hell is going to participate to deal with you calling them a fascist or Al calling them an idiot, when they can just deregister at any time. And you wonder why this game struggles to get and keep good people. If we had back the people you guys have driven off, we would be in much better shape.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you North Carolina Yankee. Exhibit A for why this game is dead.

I have tried to encourage and motivate people to participate for years. How many people have you? How many people have expressed with disgust they way you interact with people. You were active and great at formulating policy, no one can doubt that. But no one realistic can deny the negative impact your tone has had either.

Take a look in the mirror TNF and accept the painful reality that you actions have had consequences. I know what I did to hurt this game, I freely admit to it and accept that it happened because of my actions.

When it comes to getting and keeping good people though, I know I wasn't making this place so nasty. I fostered a collaborative environment, tried to make it about policy differences. What do I get for my labors, stabbed in the back and lies spread about me when I was going through some of the worst personal difficulties. Anyone else would have said to hell with it, I didn't because I believe this game can be better than that, I believe that good people want to play this game with respect and build this game up as opposed to tearing it down. WE can have our differences, but at some point you have to draw a line, something you have no capability of understanding.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Would it be advisable to have a Moderator General again, even if not as an official office but in the form of one who merely volunteered to verify ips of new members?


We need new membership, but we are also at present under a massive troll/spam/hacker attack as a forum in general, which means some might get unwittingly recruited.

This could also reduce such spurious actions in the future?

Considering the low number of new members who join the game these days, it wouldn't exactly be much of a burden.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The ideological disconnect between Atlasia and the real world has become too large. This is part of the problem. My views are that of a mainstream, establishment Republican, which will constitute the views of like 20% of the new posters who come here in the run up to 2016. Additionally, another 20% of these new posters will be solidly to the right of me on the spectrum.

My views are unelectable and inapplicable to this game, now. The game hasn't been accurately moderated to make my political views applicable. That's not the fault of any particular Game Moderator, but the GM as an institution. The general attitude toward economic and social simulation has been "Don't rock the boat." The two GMs off the top of my head that did accurately portray at least once aspect of Atlasia were Simfan (the economic) and Kalwejt(the social).

Simfan basically said that our economy was exploding because we were literally becoming the Soviet Union as a result of the dozens of TNF bills. The insane tax rates, the regulations, the laws, etc. that would turn our economy into a basket case didn't until Simfan corrected the numbers, albeit in a radical way. An accurate portrayal of the economic situation would have been a huge boon for the Right. It would have made our political views viable in elections, because we have an answer. He was run out of office.

Kalwejt accurately predicted the huge social upheaval that would exist in Atlasia. Legal polygamy, incest, mass drug decriminalization, the incredible rancor of our political conversation, the dramatic reduction in police forces, etc. would have resulted in chaos. This should have been happening all along. An accurate portrayal of the cops getting run over by protestors or rioters, of families in the West and South arming up to await the Second Coming or going to shoot the protestors, all of this should have been happening all along.

All societies, yes I consider our little community a society, require mediating institutions to function. The primary ones in Atlasia are the parties, the GM, and the regions. These three things are supposed to tether Atlasia to some semblance of reality while also making it an attractive escape from that same reality. It's supposed to be organic and flexible. Those institutions, however, have failed.

The GM has been in decay for a very long time. It's completely failed to tether our game to reality and maintain that healthy balance. The party system has been unable to maintain activity and to adapt to the distorted alternate reality we've created. Conservatives, even a nice moderate center-right type, cannot win in Atlasia. Why participate in the Federalist Party?Both of these factors have trickled down to the regions, destroying regional activity.

With the decline of our game's fundamental infrastructure, we are shutting ourselves to new waves of members and lively elections. When I ran for President, I said the solution to our activity problem wasn't the redistribution of existing activity, but the creation of new activity. I stand by the belief that redistribution isn't going to work. But I no longer believe the creation of new activity is possible given our present circumstances.

I'm on board with major, significant amount of structural reform. Reboot, parliament, etc., etc. I'm all ears.

Well that's all because the two left wing parties are the largest, and actually organize quite well

The right got Lumine elected nationwide twice and got Spiral elected in a Senate special election as recently as last year. And save for a failure to cross-preference in April and defections in both June and November, the right would have selected the nation's President all three elections and won four out of four special elections.

This amount of power and influence was unseen and unheard of before 2014 for the right.

Riley twice got put in office by the Federalist Party, both times he did came under fire for being inactive whether fair or not. Many view his actions as contributing to the loss of two Senate seats to the left.

He asks why join the Federalist Party? I tell you why. When a certain poster from West Virginia decided to challenge the healthcare establishment, many said it was too risky. Napoleon said it had oppoened the door to single payer, that it was the most counterproductive and dumb move ever. Yet we took the risk, we debated the bill it was amended but it finally passed by Federalists and SEnators elected with Federalist Support and was signed into law by a President elected as a Federalist (conservative grassroots opposition notwithstanding). Our organization elected Lumine over Adam to the Senate and it made the difference in that fight, a fight Riley started. Just weeks before nationalization blew Atlasia to pieces to pieces in August, our organization delivered a libertarian back into the Senate in an At-LArge Senate election. Whilst others bitched about our imperfections and this or that, it was our efforts that put the Senators in office that blocked TNF on nationalization, that reformed healthcare and restored some sanity to the game after everything went nuts, whilst they voted for for the very people they finally realized were in fact the Socialists they said they were (no kidding. )

Had Riley been an active Governor and avoided so many public controversies, I could have gotten him elected as President or in an At-Large Senate seat. I have no doubt about that that whatsoever. Since then, the right has suffered a net loss of players, still others have resorted to a personal game and abandoned the ideological plane. Riley could have built a new Conservative organization in the Mideast or created a new one from scratch in the Pacific. He had so many opportunities, to overturn conventional wisdom and create that very activity he was talking about. IF you want your views to be electable, then you have to make your views electable. There really was a time when no matter how moderate you were, or how hard you campaigned, you were going to lose. This is not 2011 though and 2014 should illustrate clearly the potential when you consider what was accomplished and what could have been had certain folks concerend themselves more with the bigger picture and less about the distracting side shows, and worked collaboratively together instead of undercutting one another. 

You are not going to change Atlasia by waiting for others to make the moves that will make it fun, nor will you reform your way to activity unless people are committed to actually playing the game and right now that is the biggest problem. I still fail to see reform as a way to break through that barrier, reform is an important tool and a necessary one, but I believe the needed change is a change in thought and style with regards to how this game is approached.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We have also have go to come to terms with the important of a realistic, dynamic and bold GM who brings consequences for actions and we have got to stop this public lynching of the damn GM every eight months.

In five years, serious efforts to reform the post were made by people from Purple State to Averoess Nix, with me involved either directly or indirectly in every one of those efforts as far back as 2009. All those reforms came to nothing, because everytime the GM did something that did not comport with preconceived notions or people's own personal grand vision for a boring statistic manager or some other conception, they proceeded to tar and feather the poor sap.

You can reform all you want, but until we change as players change the way we act nothing will change. It will be the same no matter how radical, no matter how different the structure of the game becomes, because when you return, it the same old place with the same old people. No matter what you do, you can never run away from you. TNF said I destroyed this game, yet what about the ones who have nuked our Game Engine everytime "sh**t gets real" over and over again for Six fing years.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While I assume the usual suspects will chime in, with the usual responses... I've been thinking a lot more about this than I should of late. Fundamentally, this game used to have a few "warlords" but it seems there are too many, whose focus is on "winning", usually to the detriment of this game. The problem being no one really knows what constitutes "winning".

I've said before that TNF is someone I respect, I don't agree with him on very much, but TNF and his aggressive views are not the issue here. I do genuinely think that what made Atlasia "work" for most of its history has been needing to build coalitions and work together. Now, this isn't some kind of idealistic view of the past, a LOT of people said really nasty things about each other and still got stuff done.

I do think the collapse of the centre as a political force has hurt the game. I know the left in particular will be pained by this, but to me, this is a big deal. You didn't have as many voters in the past, but you certainly had a more engaged political element. Is it worth having lots of voters in your party, if you can't fill satisfactorily fill the roles we have. 

I do think people need to seriously look at what they want out of this game and what they have to offer. I've never before been supportive of a reset, but now... I'm feeling it might be necessary. This is not something that has emerged over the past month, so those who think so, need to really examine the course we've been travelling... this has been a long time in the making.

You contradict yourself. On the one hand you said this has been slowly building ing general, but then say "Atlasia has gotten along even whilst name calling occured" before. That is precisely my point, the loss of active players, especially on the right but not just on that side, has been building in numbers over time and a good number of people have often cited the tone. Absolving those who have caused this (it is not TNF alone by any means) ignores this very real reality and perhaps you have that luxury. You didn't have the luxury of "exit" PMs sent to you before people marched off to deregister.

It is also the easiest thing in the world to spot. Voluntary game, deregistration is immediate save for during elections. It doesn't take a lot to realize, that throwing a toxic environment into that could become catastrophic has little byl ittle players have said they have had enough.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While I assume the usual suspects will chime in, with the usual responses... I've been thinking a lot more about this than I should of late. Fundamentally, this game used to have a few "warlords" but it seems there are too many, whose focus is on "winning", usually to the detriment of this game. The problem being no one really knows what constitutes "winning".

I've said before that TNF is someone I respect, I don't agree with him on very much, but TNF and his aggressive views are not the issue here. I do genuinely think that what made Atlasia "work" for most of its history has been needing to build coalitions and work together. Now, this isn't some kind of idealistic view of the past, a LOT of people said really nasty things about each other and still got stuff done.

I do think the collapse of the centre as a political force has hurt the game. I know the left in particular will be pained by this, but to me, this is a big deal. You didn't have as many voters in the past, but you certainly had a more engaged political element. Is it worth having lots of voters in your party, if you can't fill satisfactorily fill the roles we have. 

I do think people need to seriously look at what they want out of this game and what they have to offer. I've never before been supportive of a reset, but now... I'm feeling it might be necessary. This is not something that has emerged over the past month, so those who think so, need to really examine the course we've been travelling... this has been a long time in the making.

You contradict yourself. On the one hand you said this has been slowly building ing general, but then say "Atlasia has gotten along even whilst name calling occured" before. That is precisely my point, the loss of active players, especially on the right but not just on that side, has been building in numbers over time and a good number of people have often cited the tone. Absolving those who have caused this (it is not TNF alone by any means) ignores this very real reality and perhaps you have that luxury. You didn't have the luxury of "exit" PMs sent to you before people marched off to deregister.

It is also the easiest thing in the world to spot. Voluntary game, deregistration is immediate save for during elections. It doesn't take a lot to realize, that throwing a toxic environment into that could become catastrophic has little byl ittle players have said they have had enough.

It's not contradictory at all. They are not mutually exclusive, it's addressing two different issues, well one and one side-issues. The reality is, that in the past, people have been really bitchy and nasty to each other and still got stuff done, because it was necessary to work together to do it. People are certainly much more openly antagonistic than in the past and that's representative of the issue of the lack of a central core.

The other issue is that this situation has indeed been building for a long time, and yes, it does have something to do with the personalities being larger, more bombastic, less interested in compromise etc. But it's also about the fundamental issues about what this place is, what it's about and what is left to do?

Deregistration was also not available until about two years ago. People had to fall off the rolls first and that took three and one time four elections (up to eight months) to cool off and resume paritcipation after a hiatus missing an election or two. It was annoying but present reality throughout the existance of the RPP era. Now during the Feds, they deregister and most do not return.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I still find it funny that Mr. Holds Office for 5 years and then gets voted out but decides to run again five minutes later is calling me the problem with Atlasia. The problem is that a few old bogeys become the nexus for the entire game because of its sh**t structure, and then never retire. Did I stay in the Senate for too long? Probably so. I was there for two years. But at least I had the good sense to retire. North Carolina Yankee will be in the Senate in 2025 if nothing drastic is done to fix this game now. (And hopefully if that's the case he's the only one playing, quoting the Federalist Papers and debating himself on legislation to ban immigration or whatever loony ideas he has coming down the pipe)

I am calling you a problem because your actions have caused people to litteraly not want to play the game. I welcomed a respectful debate and discussion. I welcomed challengers and enjoyed my contested races where the campaigning was active and fun. How many opponents did you call fascist? I never did that to SPC, Seatown, Hashy, Maxwell or Hagrid. You bitch about me citing Federalist Papers and stuff, but that is because you hated having someone challenge you and your extremism. In spite of that I was willing to work with you on issues where we had common ground. I think that speaks volumes.

So you want to destroy Atlasia, to get rid of me (Yet they say I am nuts )? I took a stept back from leading parties after dissolution. I watched chairmen come and ago. I considered running once because the direction looked dire after rimjob, but Maxwell and Tmth did a good job and I decided not to. Tmth resigned and no one stepped forward to take the position except for Devin. I didn't exactly have much choice.

I was twice defeated for PPT and I voluntary left the position another time, supporting Snowguy for it instead (which is probably why he hated me for a year or so after that ). I didn't run when bgwah retired and instead let Marokai have it since he did well the first time. He went inactive and few were interested. In the position, I was reluctant to step aside with such a large queue and twice decided agaisnt retiring because of that reason and as I said before, it is a thankless task and most were happy to not have to deal with it. Then you came along and I was told "I had to keep running lest you won". In hindsight, I should have ignored the queue size and let Franzl have it in November 2012. Some people approached me about being Speaker this time, I declined.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So you want to destroy Atlasia, to get rid of me

ok solarstorm

Damn I should have expropriated the volcano bit there. That would be hilarious.

Why do you want to drop Atlasia into a volcano?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Again - what has hurt this game is NOT people like TNF being melodramatic. I can trace when this game started to falter, it's a lot further back than that.

I never said it was the factor or the primary factor. I said it was a problem, not the problem. But it is undeniable the impact that people like them with their tone has had on the game.

You know the amount of time and effort I have put into this game, and I wouldn't do it, unless it was something I saw as worthwhile. We need a serious debate that puts personal views/goals/issues to one side. We all came here for one reason or another, it doesn't hurt to re-asses that.

That is not whati s happening here though. We see this mind numbing campaign for the destruction of Altasia and then maybe we get a rebirth afterwards with preactically every thread trying to wrap Atlasia and its failures around my neck. It doesn't look like they are puting their personal goals aside at all here. It looks a lot like the effort made to pin the clusterbungle Senate rules on me when 95% of them were written before I joined the game and I ended up voting to replace them last year. But it has only gotten worse, the lies bigger and the smear campaigns more aggressive with each issue. Ironically, it is the same really fing old people with their newer followers, with the same years old grudges, yet they get a pass and I am suppose to eat the bs?

Atlasia does not need issues to be put aside. It needs campaigns focused on issues to foster respectfull discourse and encourage debate and competition. It needs a legislative reboot so as to provide issues to be debated and some of them have to be left for the regions to handle exclusively. The game also needs an active GM to provide consequences for legislative actions. That makes for more sense for an elections simulator and is for more coherent then any proposal coming out of the blow it up first rimjob 2.0 crowd.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I also assisted Xahar  in attempt to end the game with AKM and destruction of inactive region's all under the nose first labor's president,

Teehehehehe. Finally public. You deserved far better Marokai then these "friends".

which could have been a catalyst to improvement of devoted legislator's lives as well as made the game easier for newbies to digest.

You know it never ceases to amaze me the depths of arrogance to which one can reach in an echo chamber. You will never understand my life or the impact this game has had on it. I am not bushie, hence why you will never know, but lets just say it hasn't been a negative.

Unlike Yankee(and to lesser degree TNF) I realized that the non-election part of the game is terrible and must be destroyed(or at least at regional level, since that's almost 6x as much work and takes a sh!tlo@d of time. Anyway I suggest you guys createa Foundation and start over with the election part of the game, and have a few devoted legislators seek therapy  and/or other pursuits in life.

It is terrible because there is no dynamic quality to it. You can legislate into the wind and nothing happens, hence why the statutes are an impenetrable thicket and no one can digest it newbie or otherwise. I will say though, that as someone who has pushing for a legislative restart for over a fing year, I cannot understand for the life of me why this is being laid at my feet.

I think the ones obsessed with destroying someone else in a fantasy game need far more therapy than anyone else here.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yankee needs a life? NEWS AT 10

I have more life then most of the people claiming I need to get one.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yankee needs a life? NEWS AT 10

Well, this has obviously not gone personal

Yankee knows I like yanking his chain

obviously it's not 100% joking but yeah

So you drawing even for this quarter?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I remember it being debated a few years back. Some actually suggested that we should get rid of the elections sim and go all government based simulator, which was foolish just as doing the opposite is.

You must have something to make the elections worthwhile. Otherwise, they are just popularity contests and typically those end up being both personal and nasty, and not the sought that will long attract and keep active players. Parties existed before anything else in Atlasia as many of the actual old timers say repeatedly. What are parties suppose to exist for if there is no ideas, or laws to be discussed, no "ideological preference for governing" to be promoted?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm sure SWE would be willing to back me up on this, but the inability of new players to get involved is greatly overstated. I joined in January of 2014 and I was quickly included by "old guard" figures Duke and Tmth. I won an election in the most populous region with the support of a huge segment of the old guard. Today, I still enjoy those relationships. Only a year and a half in. SWE has a similar story to tell.

Tmth was always looking to find new players and boost them up and support them. Cris didn't get active until 2014 but once he did, he advanced in the Midwest and then became Senator rather quickly. DC al Fine had only been here a couple of months when he was selected to succeed Spiral in the Senate. Spiral himself was also a newbie, recruited by Zuwo, another one who was big to promote newer members. Maxwell was here less than a year before he became Federalist Party Chairman.

Zuwo joined in May 2011, just five months latter, he was a critical RPP Regional Chair leading our GOTV efforts there. Cincinnatus was almost instantly made a Regional Chair and became the famous second half of the Duke/Cincy ticket in just about five to six months if memory serves me.

I remember when Tmth first told me about you, describing you as an intelligent policy guy wtih a bright future. Had you wanted to, really wanted to, we could have gotten you President. I don't know how it works on the left, but I can tell you on the right we have looked to promote promising new players and get them to a point where they can go for the big stuff.

Big Parties and old players who help and support new players are not the problem. Old players who trash, mock and ridicual new players, well that is a different matter.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Old players who trash, mock and ridicual new players, well that is a different matter.

Ridicule.

Well speak of the devil.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's a question for you now. How many posters do you think remember the Reich Protection Party? And how many of those do you think care about it?

You and your friends despised the Regional Protection Party and those who composed it from the minute it was created. You opposed its purpose, detested its existance, treated its members with contempt and longed for the end of the Atlasia that it had brought into being.

You know nothing of the community we built, or the vision for future that we had shared collectively of an Atlasia without bitterness and hatefulness of people who cannot seem to help themselves.

I think the vast majority share that vision without even realizing it. The notion of organized right continues inspite of your efforts to beat it into the ground and far more people want to build this game up rather than destroy it. The RPP's legacy is thus alive and well compared to the dismisiveness and apetite for destruction that has defined the bulk of your contributions to this game over the time that I have been here.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Here's a question for you now. How many posters do you think remember the Reich Protection Party? And how many of those do you think care about it?

You and your friends despised the Regional Protection Party and those who composed it from the minute it was created. You opposed its purpose, detested its existance, treated its members with contempt and longed for the end of the Atlasia that it had brought into being.

You know nothing of the community we built, or the vision for future that we had shared collectively of an Atlasia without bitterness and hatefulness of people who cannot seem to help themselves.

I think the vast majority share that vision without even realizing it. The notion of organized right continues inspite of your efforts to beat it into the ground and far more people want to build this game up rather than destroy it. The RPP's legacy is thus alive and well compared to the dismisiveness and apetite for destruction that has defined the bulk of your contributions to this game over the time that I have been here.

I've got no idea what the RPP was, other than the default home for mainstream conservatives. That's all it ever seemed to be to me.

You have to understand that there were two wings to the RPP. One was the moderate wing led by Duke and Cincy and the other was the more conservative one. The RPP provided a united effort for both groups to achieve their common goals. The latter wanted a chance to actually compete with the left on ideals, the former wanted to move past bitterness that defined Atlasia at the time and also past to a time where a candidate who didn't campaign could beat out two strong contenders wtih an active campaign simply because they were the beneficiary of the machine on the left.

This idealistic vision led to the formation of the The People's Party as a way to destroy Napoleon and his political aparatus and hopefully move Atlasia to a place where quality and campaigning mattered, not who could command the most votes, and one without all the nastiness and smearing that was occuring.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Man, that post almost makes me want to rescind the President Kasich curse.


Edit: For those newbies out there, who might not be familiar with it. There was a time when well Marokai and I were like in this love-hate kind of relationship and during one of the more hate sided episodes, I cursed him with not only the election of Kasich as Governor, but his reelection and utlimately the election of said Mr. Kasich as President because MArokai didn't like him. 2/3rds of the way there.