Jill has World of Warcraft and
Mark has City of Heroes, so if nothing else, peer pressure demanded that I start playing a
MMORPG. I dabbled a little with
SecondLife, which finally has a Mac client as well as free basic accounts, but I didn't find it very compelling and my poor little Powerbook was struggling with the graphics. But a random web-trawl turned up something that may have me hooked:
NationStates.
Novelist Max Barry set up NationStates (NS) a couple years ago to promote his book
Jennifer Government, but the connection between the two is fairly tenuous. When you join NS, you are given your own nation. A brief survey of your political opinions establishes your governmental structure from among 27 possibilities (including Civil Rights Lovefest, Compulsory Consumer State, and Inoffensive Centrist Democracy). Answers given to daily "Issues" flesh out (and sometimes transform) the political profile of your nation. You can join the
UN to debate and vote on proposals like banning executions worldwide. There's also some kind of intrigue involving "invading" other regions and usurping their UN delegacy.
That's about it for the hard-coded game. It's pretty simple, almost entirely text-based, and can be played in about 5 minutes per day. At this basic level, the primary entertainment comes from seeing the evolution of your country. The game tends to exaggerate the impact of decisions, leading to humorous results. Here's today's report on the People's Republic of Donutarians (which is classified as a Scandinavian Liberal Paradise):
The People's Republic of Donutarians is a small, socially progressive nation, notable for its compulsory military service. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 16 million enjoy extensive civil rights and enjoy a level of social equality free from the usual accompanying government corruption.
It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, liberal, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Social Welfare, Education, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 49%, but much higher for the wealthy. Private enterprise is illegal, but for those in the know there is a slick and highly efficient black market in Trout Farming.
Voting is compulsory, the tenet of free speech is held dear, a large-scale revitalization of the education system is underway, and military funding has been stripped back. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is totally unknown. Donutarians's national animal is the uroboros, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the cruller.
Donutarians is ranked 70,959th in the world for Largest Timber Woodchipping Industry.
Where NS becomes really intriguing, however, is in the fact that players have developed
unofficial aspects of the game that are considerably more involved and complex than the game itself. Players write detailed national overviews and histories and post them to the game boards or the
NS Wiki, the game's comprehensive, albeit unofficial, encyclopedia. Groups of players have set up private discussion boards where they establish regional constitutions and governmental structures, plan in-game strategy, and engage in out-of-character banter. Regions have been established to conduct historical and futuristic wargaming. A generally-accepted set of rules have been established for conducting international warfare, trade, and espionage via freeform role-playing. There's a whole subcategory of sports roleplaying, including a
recurring World Cup competition (now in its 25th iteration) in which NS players role-play international soccer matches.
I know that many online games spawn various kinds informal associations and activities, but I had not heard of a case where these aspects had grown to virtually overshadow the game itself.
