Developing Culture and Communities in NationStates
The number one question players in NationStates often ask is some variation of “How do I develop my community?” or its fraternal twin, “How do I engage players in my region?” In this article, I’d like to provide some of my thoughts on the topic of developing player engagement by developing a strong culture and community.
Part 1 - Develop Your World
Provide your players with a singular or unique experience by developing a detailed world for your region. Build a cohesive culture to give players a home to rally around. This is also where you assemble your team of like-minded individuals who work towards this common goal together.
Part 2 - Know Your Players
What does your ideal community look like in terms of people and activity? What kind of players do you want to attract? Are you interested in quality or quantity or a median point between the two? Are your goals realistic based on the amount of time, effort and practical experience you have with community building?
Part 3 - Burn Out and NationStates
How many players do you know who have said something like, “Region or players of region don’t appreciate or recognize my hard work?” I’ve lost count. Building a region isn’t easy, maintaining a region isn’t easy. The Ozymandias effect sometimes obliterates everything a group of dedicated players have done. This part is about how to focus less on what other people think or do and more about what you can do for yourself to avoid or mitigate burn out.
Part 4 - Questions and Answers
I get a lot of "How do I.." kinds of questions from “How do I advertise/hype?” to “How do I make other people play this game that I created?”. This section will be devoted to answering some of the oft-repeated ones in one place. In addition, players in good standing who have questions about any of the above are welcome to DM me or post below and I will add to the list as appropriate.
Develop Your World
What is culture? It’s a set of shared values, ideas, interests, and goals. What does this mean for a region? These are the symbols, theme(s) and customs that unify your region and demarcate it as a unique place, as a space to spend time in. Building a cohesive culture gives your region and players something to rally around.
Many regions attempt to do this in some manner or form (with titles, names, flags, etc). Some regions, like Balder and Osiris, have pre-built mythological imagery to work with. Others, like The North Pacific, have cardinal directions that give them a lot of leeway. Sometimes too much choice can result in a muddled mess. If you can’t describe your region’s identity or culture in a few words, then go back and treat it like a world you are building. Look up and answer a set of
world building questions online and, with your team, plan out your community as if it were a world. Of course someone will say, “I’m creating a region not a roleplay community,” but a region is a space where people roleplay and in the case of NationStates, roleplay a political simulation of sorts.
It’s always surprising to me if a member of a region can’t explain their flag or what their region’s color scheme means, or if I ask the creator/leader of a region, “Hey, what is your region about or for?” and their response is unclear. Some people might think such details are frivolous or shallow but if you think of your community as a world, then your world building should be detailed, imaginative and recognizable. Your theme is your brand, and it’s what creates a feeling of being part of something that can’t be replicated elsewhere.
However, themes should also be adaptable and what we often see in NS is stagnant regional themes. Often regions have accumulated the debris of older players' decisions and choices clogging up the arteries of the region. One of the best ways to incorporate new players and give them a sense of being part of the fabric of the region is to run a theme/flag redesign/color scheme competition. You might articulate some things that remain the same (symbol of a lion, or a lotus, or a lyre or the colors red, white, and blue) but allow players to envision new designs and to move forward. If something hasn’t been active in a while and attempts to restart it failed, put it in a fancy mausoleum or museum section of the forums.
A bonus to doing the work of world building is that when you potentially decide to develop your roleplaying community, there will be a whole set of guidelines for roleplayers to already work with and expand upon.
First and foremost, really develop a full and engaging world (themes, symbols, customs, laws, colors, Discord bot names and commands) that players will want to live in. Words AND visuals are important. Your best bet is to co-create this with players who share your interests and imagination. This is your team or the group of people who you have enchanted (or at least inspired) with your vision and who will help you accomplish important tasks. If you can’t assemble a team at this initial stage, you need to rethink something. The reasons might be benign for why players don’t want to support you (too busy in real life, etc) or might highlight that you need more experience or planning. In addition, if you can’t put together a team now, how will you recruit players later on? Assemble a team of wonderful people you actually like to hang out with.
I’m also not advocating writing a 300 page guide on the theme (although that can be a future goal). A theme that operates on Norse mythology for example could use the nine worlds as nine houses or representatives or operate as one of the worlds (let’s say Asgard and frame their allies\enemies as the other worlds). Small details like referencing the Bifrost as the Foreign Affairs conduit would help make the theme a cohesive experience. Or political\government groups\ministries could be separated by the god or goddess they choose to revere the most (and therefore embody the values of). Does your region celebrate Loki as their esprit de corpus or does it revere Odin or Freya? Each choice gives a slightly different flavor to the region and helps provide different goals (to cause or engage in chaos\mischief vs. to lead by example through wit and wisdom, etc).
The tie-ins don’t have to simply be classic, they could be to the old deep mythology or a mixture of the classical and the modern (via the MC universe). World building is a form of play and attracts creative people which should always be encouraged. Someone might argue that a theme limits the region but taking the example of Norse mythology, there’s nothing to stop you from visiting or adopting the customs of “another realm” for a week or a month if your region wants to run a particular themed event that is inspired by let’s say Aztec myth, Spongebob or Death Note.
Any time a new region comes into existence and the creator/leader cannot explain why the region exists or what its goal or theme is, the death knell sounds. A game, like most forms of entertainment, offers an experience that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere, so offer an immersive world.
Know Your Players
When I was actively running the event planning server (instead of Gameplay magazine), many players came and continue to come to me with an idea for an event or activity and want to know how to run it or want help with how to run it.
What makes a successful event/activity? This generally depends on the goals of the event. For some, a successful event is 5-10 players active and enjoying the activities while for others it’s a much larger number, post count, time spent, or attracting players to the region to stay. There’s also the aspect of events being about regions mingling and getting to know one another. Think about your (realistic) end goals first and then work towards them. The goal may simply be, “Find you what level of activity and engagement I can get on a weekend over the summer.” Then, you track what worked, what could work better and some things you might want to change next time.
Whether you’re trying to attract new players or engage your current ones, at the end of the day you have to get to know your players to a degree. Community building requires some level of socializing and social skills. It helps to naturally find people interesting and it also means you should talk to players in public and private and get to know their interests. Then you build events or activities or festivals around their interests or the cross point between your interests and theirs.
I received a DM from someone who wanted to know how I ran Gameplay magazine interviews, but they were really asking why I used the questions I did and how they could replicate what I was doing. What I do won’t necessarily work for them because, for example, GP Magazine focuses on the personalities over the politics and they seemed far more keen on the political and historical aspects and couldn’t care less about what someone’s favorite book or music was. Emulating other people is a great way to learn but you also should figure out what speaks to you or what role you enjoy and adapt to that. While people all over the world fake it all the time, something about genuine enthusiasm and interest is infectious (whereas faked feels heavy).
For example, I am terrible at trivia and don’t enjoy partaking in trivia games. However, most NSers enjoy trivia and it can actually be quite fun to organize and host trivia games. My favorite is Harry Potter themed trivia games because it also happens to be a personal fandom (although I’ve run far more on things I don’t know as well). Using any of the planning docs that are shared on the GP magazine server is just a start; you have to adapt things to you community and yourself.
There are a whole host of things that can go wrong with trivia or activities. The questions may be too hard or esoteric, the organizer/host or the players may become fatigued, or the scheduling may not work out for all of the participants to run the event at the same time. However, activities are more likely to be successful if the organizer or host’s level of enthusiasm is high, they utilize hype (pings, all caps, advertising, suspense, competition) appropriately to boost attendance, and they provide adequate and interesting individual and group prizes/awards/recognition.
Does this mean you can never ever run an event where you share that one thing you love but no one else knows about? Nope, but think of it this way: part of running events/activities is building a reputation as someone who can help people enjoy their time in a game over the million other things they might be doing with their time instead. Build that reputation first, and then run a festival or event around 15th century bread making techniques, the secret language of flowers (hai I want in on this) or other esoteric things.
Activities/events/festivals should be:
1. Clearly branded/have a theme
2. Give players enough time to enjoy and partake in the event
3. Be accessible (on one or more platforms that players are already on such as Discord, the RMB, and sometimes forums)
4. Be advertised in the venues from which you want to attract players
5. Allow multiple ways to enjoy the event (something to engage the cerebral, artistic, competitive, strategic, etc types of players)
6. Be enjoyable for you as a host\organizer
Part 3 - Region Building, Burn Out and NS
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Burn out. It is a very real thing in NationStates. Often, a player will mention how they are ready to give up because all their effort yielded very little or nothing in terms of results, or sadly tell me about how they did so much but no one appreciates it. (*Huggles*). Here are some hard truths about NS and community building:
1. NS very much is a character driven game. When a player leaves or is pushed out or whatever the circumstance, often the things they built vanish or break down. You may call this the
Ozymandias effect. Every major region has some sort of “revive x, y, or z” project going on that has varying levels of success or failure.
2. If you’re playing the game for accolades or recognition or appreciation (whether in your region or with commends/condemns or otherwise) it will never be enough (if you even get any in the first place). Just look at the list of condemns/commends before you started playing. How many of those players do you know? How many are still active? How many new players will know the current “heavy-hitters” in five years? Think about the region you’re in and how many players are still remembered from 5-10 years ago. For me personally, at least, building culture or community is about people, creativity, and getting energy (positive) from things like doing interviews. I’m fascinated by the players I interview for example, and I also enjoy festivals and parties. If you don’t like people (or struggle socially) then think of other ways you can build community (world building, creating lore, creating laws, teaching players how to do your particular skills such as legal writing or etc).
3. Those six hours you spent making badges for a contest no one entered? It’s okay. You learned how to make badges (maybe?) and also engaged in the creative process. If you don’t feel good/happy/productive doing something, don’t keep doing it. Did the $200 you spent on stamps that yielded 0 recruits bring you joy? Did it teach you a valuable life lesson? A lot of us spend money on games or other forms of entertainment, or something like Starbucks that has a temporary value. If you’re naturally a pessimist then this is an optimist telling you, hope is the answer. Put another way, think less, worry less, do more (at least for yourself). This game (NS) is a somewhat masochistic game. Perhaps you enjoy it a little? Again, if not, then don’t repeat the same thing over and over again. That way leads to insanity.
4. You can think of region and community building in multiple ways. Sometimes you might want to choose quality over quantity. Having 10 active engaged players is better than 25 inactive or barely there players. Spend more time on developing the close relationships you already have in the game. This is probably the biggest thing that irks me. A community can sometimes become so focused on new players that they forget to engage the players who are already active and start losing them.
5. Share what you learn with others. One thing I appreciate about players like Yuno is how willing they are to share their skills or things they learned with others. That’s a form of community building in itself. Even with all the dark sides of this game, there are so many things I have learned and continue to learn from just being a semi-active player. Fedele, for a recent example, helped me work on being more concise. It’s a work in progress (as you can see here), but still valuable.
Note: This article was originally commissioned for Issue XXIX of The North Pacific’s regional newspaper, The Northern Lights (TNL). The full article will be posted in TNL and it will be cross-posted in three parts for Gameplay Magazine.
