NESing by the Numbers

Your living up to your title. :undecide:

There can be quite a bit of developments in 5 good updates, but still not quite enough to leave one satisfied.
That's a given. I'm also mostly joking. Mostly. Not totally. They are murderers.

The more development that would happen in the first 5 updates will make it harder for me to accept the death of the NES. Five is too little to feel satisfied and well fed.
 
That's just murderer illogical bla bla bla.

It's not wrong. 5 updates would be about 2-3 months. Then the NES will be dead. What's the use of a dead NES with 5 updates? Just pain.

I think a NES, as the name states, should be endless or should not be. "Better loved and lost than would have never loved at all" is utter nonsense.

My first NES was technically 10 updates, altho two or three updates were BT's. I consider it a success.
 
My first NES was technically 10 updates, altho two or three updates were BT's. I consider it a success.
My first real NES was RTOR2.I have no idea how many updates it had, but there were a LOT of them. We actually made it from stone age to the industrial area.

155 updates. Now that's a long lasting NES. Most updates were no more than a few sentences but the NES was still totally one second best memory from normal NESing (first was stJNES5... Oh stJNES5 :( :( :( :( :( it had 51 updates! too little!!!!!! :'( ) daft's lifeNESes were the first place thought, I love evolution.
 
Yeah, I've spent most of my moderating career trying to replicate the experience I had in RTOR2.

I mean, I've had my share of NES Abortions, with the zero update games there, and they hurt my stats but I don't feel particularly responsible since the reason most of them never updated was that there wasn't much interest generated and they were made in an age before prethreads were popular.

But I feel legitimately bad about games that I killed. I murdered Absolution 3 out of spite after several updates and Picking up the Pieces was, well, it started giving me a lot of lip and my ruleset apparently wasn't as well thought out as I had hoped it was, and so I murdered it.
 
I'm surprised to say I had a few NESes, but only 1 died at birth... Most had 2 updates and two had 6 updates. I'm surprised with myself :)

I need to make a new NES.
 
TheLizardKing
Starting Date of first NES: Jan 12, 2010 (The Kingdoms of Imsdan: Lizard's NES)
Ending Date of last NES: Sep 25, 2011 (LizNES6: Fortune Favors the Brutal)
Total Number of NESes: 6
Total Number of Posts in All NESes' Main Threads: 4,554*
Total Number of Updates in All NESes: 25
Average Number of Posts per Main NES Thread: 759
Average Number of Updates per NES: 4.16

*For my last NES, the pre-NES ended up also being where the first 3 BT updates occurred, for the sake of story and gameplay, so I included it in my post count for NES main threads, as the posting in it was relevant to the actual NES.
 
Terrance888-Correct as of 2/18/12
Starting Date of First NES: 11/6/08 (ChuckMRTOR: Amon's Legacy)
Ending Date of Last NES: Still Active (TerraNES: The Civil Experiment)
Total Number of NESes: 2
Total Number of Posts in All NESes' Main Threads: 1194
Total Number of Updates in all NESes: 17
Average Number of Posts per NES Main Thread: 597
Average Number of Updates per NES: 8.5

On that note, I would like to point out that you put it as Terrence in ChuckMRTOR, and Terrance in TerraNES. Just so you know. :)
 
I've moderated two NESes, one on CivFanatics and one on a web forum on another site that was for my high school English class. That NES was Spice Bust, largely inspired by Dune and Plexus Prohibition but took on some character of its own (my favorite galactic entity was the Galactic Church of Eshoertu, and I eventually wrote a short story about it). The NES had eight updates, and died mostly because I got sick of the players and their lack of activity.

Lands of Circuitria was an attempt to make a more sophisticated version of Spice Bust and not so Dune-based, but it failed because of both semester shock and players, which in many ways was my own fault since I gave them enough rope to hang me. I think it had only three updates.

These days I crave starting a new NES, and seeing as EQ has read every NES on the thread, I think it's worth asking; at the end of the day, what could a prospective moderator take away from what you've researched?
 
I think that you can gain a realistic perspective on life expectancy. I personally like to compare my Average Updates stat with other people's because it makes me feel... not good, because my 4 is pretty much average, but honestly that made me feel at least competent.

Although I'm jealous of Terrance.

Maybe what you should learn from this thread is to look into what Terrance and EQ do to keep their games going so long, since their stats are so good.

And also, maybe look into Sheep's stuff, as examples of how not to do anything.
 
Here's a dimension that I feel was overlooked (not to discredit EQ's phenomenal work): player stories. The most memorable NESes I've played had frequent player stories written outside the update. In my opinion, if there are a lot of stories, the NES improves significantly and becomes much more memorable. Any NES I would design would have a system that gives noticeable bonuses for player stories, since that's such an integral part of the quality of a NES, in my opinion.
 
Well, as much as it truly pains me to say it, stories are not essential to the NESing experience. Trust me, it REALLY hurts to say that. In fact, I feel that rewarding stories with actual gameplay mechanics may well discourage new players or those lacking confidence in their writing. They would feel that they've suffered and unfair disadvantage. Now, it could also be argued that this is hardly the problem of the good writers, who deserve reward for their skilled writing. Personally, I believe that writing should be its own reward, but don't discount this as me saying that all creativity is bad from the player side. As anyone familar with my current and recent NESes, I'm a big fan of army customization. Sure, it can make stats a bit more confusing, but I believe that such efforts of customization can make a nation feel like more of a person's own than it would otherwise. That's just my opinion anyways, which I've noted, as people who get more invested in my NESes are typically the ones who enjoy creating their very own units. I may have that wrong, it's just speculation.

Now, as for what makes an NES good, yes, I've actually read through each and every one of these, not just my own over the past few years. Regardless of what we define success, I believe that if people are saying "I'll try against with another NES, here's the link," "You should post this ruleset on _______ to get comments," or "Shame it died, it had potential," it was NOT a well moderated NES. Instead a good NES typically has comments that are calling for a revival of the NES, a surplus of after the fact stories, or were bumped by a troll/idiot sparking statements along the lines of "I remember this, a great NES." Therefore, based on what I've read, here's the following ingredients for a good NES, based on player reactions over the years, not in any particular order:

1. Moderator interest: and I can't stress this one enough. If the moderator doesn't care about the NES, it WILL show, and players will not join. Furthermore, the one thing I can say, is that regardless of whatever statements the players or moderator makes, the only person to blame for the death of an NES is the moderator. You can cry out personal reasons, lack of player interest, or "temporary" haitus as much as you want, but if the NES dies, the moderator is the only person to blame.

2. Number of updates. In the past, a NES was judged based on how frequent the updates arrived, and most of the time, if an NES didn't receive 3 updates a week or more, it was considered dead. Needless to say, this was a lot of pressure on the quality over quantity strategy. Thankfully, those expectations are long dead, and we can all move forward. Regardless, depending on the type of NES, some NESes require more frequent attention. I'll make an example of my and Milarqui's Tropico NESes or story NESes in general. If those style of NESes are not frequently updated, everyone's interest will wane, and thus we display the inherent flaw in story based NESing. With a stat heavy NES such as CIEN or most other NESes, the player bases typically become more tolerant of long updating times and waits between updates. In these cases, the longer people have to conduct diplomacy between updates the better. In other words, the key to a successful NES is balancing the correct ratio of waiting time to number of people playing in the NES.

3. Don't be Sheep. I mean that in the most literal sense. Take a look at any of Sheep's NESes, do exactly the opposite of him, and you're already 60% of the way to success.

4. Setting: Frankly, ANY setting can make a surprisingly good NES. Once again, this is another sign of how the NESing forum has evolved as a whole. Based on what I read, back in the day, if it wasn't a "Fresh Start" NES, it would die on arrival or shortly thereafter, with a few notable exceptions. I think we have The World Turned Upside Down and the Fall from Heaven NESes to thank for finally putting that expectation to bed. Based on what I've seen, NEVER do an NES where you have to expect all the players to know the background of some other fantasy game/movie series by heart. I've seen so very many DOA Star Wars, Fallout, and so forth NESes. Furthermore, never expect that a good franchise will make a good NES, at least not without a lot of tweaking.
 
Here's a dimension that I feel was overlooked (not to discredit EQ's phenomenal work): player stories. The most memorable NESes I've played had frequent player stories written outside the update. In my opinion, if there are a lot of stories, the NES improves significantly and becomes much more memorable. Any NES I would design would have a system that gives noticeable bonuses for player stories, since that's such an integral part of the quality of a NES, in my opinion.

Stories didn't save Sekai II. They may be way cool, but they don't seem to affect life-expectancy like I once thought they did.
 
I think that the parts of player contribution that are important for judging an NES is covered in the "Posts" section. Obviously this doesn't strictly include stories, it also includes diplomacy and general game questions (unless there's a prethread for such things) and I feel like diplo or rule questions can be just as telling of non-mod interest (especially since not every NES is a story game).

I've been working on my story rules for a long time so that they don't require super complicated or well written stories, so they can help boost your progress without making people overpowered, and with standardized if differentiated rewards. I am very proud of them. And, I mean, if you look at the factions they are more or less pretty level. East Cradle is ahead of West Cradle, but the difference between players who write a bunch of stories and the ones who just send in their orders becomes one of strategy rather than inherent skill.

Shang doesn't have any stories for instance, but instead of using stories to boost their production of things they invested into their economy and have the largest economy (by a lot).

Kingdom of the Heavenly Dragon has a ton of stories, they wrote themselves into the Bronze age. They also have the smallest PC economy though, because they were always spending all their gold to capitalize on their story bonuses.

Does one work better than the other? With their big economy Shang can more or less easily catch up with Heavenly Dragon without writing any stories, but at the same time you can't deny that their are advantages to the "assets" that Heavenly Dragon picked up through stories.

But if they went to war it would be a pretty even match, because each strategy has distinct payoffs.
 
You could have explained that better with the launch. I avoided you nes since I can't write stories :(
 
Yes, I could have. The launch could have been handled better. But you can still join if you want.

I never penalized The Lemon Banana Shrimp for your stories or lack thereof.

There are a lot of board game elements in there, just like the other game (in fact, there are more, it is easier to play without writing stories), but the way stories are rewarded has been reformed, stats have been simplified, update style has become more fluid, and I don't have to worry about anyone asking me about travelling to other Galaxies and "how my rule mechanics account for that possibility" for a long long time.

-

Stories won't drive an NES, not for long. It's reliable and consistent updates. Even in story games. Stories and the accompanying player enthusiasm are the result of a good NES, not the cause.

And what that means is that the rules have to promote stories (you want your enthusiastic players to "get into" the game on that level easily) without giving them too much power (because runaway storytellers can hijack and destroy an NES easily without some sort of rules to reign them in), and make it easy for the moderator to update.

The rules have to be easy and transparent so that everyone accepts the outcomes and so that the moderator can KEEP UPDATING. That is the most important part.
 
I'm not in your list but i moderated a few NESes in my time, some of which were, in my hubris-ridden mind, quite succesful.

(NES Name)(posts in thread)

ImmacuNES I: FFH NES II 2767
ImmacuNES II: Emperor of the Fading Heavens 666
ImmacuNES II B- Emperor of the Fading Heavens 3052
ImmacuNES III: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy 1600
ImmacuNES V: Blood From A Stone 420

total: 8505 posts

Theres also the discussion groups and off-site wikis or forums for secret groups; also pre-NES threads... and the failed ImmacuNES IV which never made it to thread but which had a lot of activity.


Not sure why or even how you could overlook my obvious genius.
 
Well, why do my NESes last so long? I have a few factors.
1) Moderator Participation: In both NESes I've run I always was enthusiastic and posted often. Even if a moderator cannot participate every day, he should check everytime he is one the forums for diplomacy and such.
2) Containing Ethusiasm: I start a NES usually after a month of physical and mental preparation. I preview lessons ahead to make up for the time lost when I update. I prepare a couple of "Twists" like the Plague or the Horde that I can use to spice up interest. I wait to see if the ruleset and idea holds my interest. Infact, if I count all the NESes I was hyped and made rules for, then dropped because I realized I don't like it that much, I would have 6-7 extra NESes.
3) Be Honest about Updating: I post updates on the updates at the minimum of once a week during a slow phase. When I update, I do one entire chunk at a time and then take a breather for the next chunk, and update the progress bar in thread.
4) Provide new Situations: I got this from BOTWANKI, but I used it in MRTOR as well. I would give new situations or interesting events if the player actions were bored. A hundred years of peace? Spice it up with news of slave unrest! A hundred years of war? An interseting mercy might lead to peace! An introverted nation? A neighbor is in trouble and asks you for help! I leave players some breathing room, but I offer hooks for action often.

These are things I did in both my NESes. I was ethusiastic and participated often. I gave progress of updates to my players and constantly challenged them with events which they can choose to participate in.

Also, the fact that I planned well before I set up a NES may explain why I have such good stats, but only 2 NESes seperated by 3 years!


@ Immaculate- He fears you.
 
Yes, I could have. The launch could have been handled better. But you can still join if you want.

I never penalized The Lemon Banana Shrimp for your stories or lack thereof.

There are a lot of board game elements in there, just like the other game (in fact, there are more, it is easier to play without writing stories), but the way stories are rewarded has been reformed, stats have been simplified, update style has become more fluid, and I don't have to worry about anyone asking me about travelling to other Galaxies and "how my rule mechanics account for that possibility" for a long long time.

-

Stories won't drive an NES, not for long. It's reliable and consistent updates. Even in story games. Stories and the accompanying player enthusiasm are the result of a good NES, not the cause.

And what that means is that the rules have to promote stories (you want your enthusiastic players to "get into" the game on that level easily) without giving them too much power (because runaway storytellers can hijack and destroy an NES easily without some sort of rules to reign them in), and make it easy for the moderator to update.

The rules have to be easy and transparent so that everyone accepts the outcomes and so that the moderator can KEEP UPDATING. That is the most important part.

That's part of why I still believe that the writing tournaments can work, though they aren't exactly *normal* nor are they never-ending. There are defined limits of what can be done in a story, but still leaving enough creative freedom for some quite enjoyable situations. Regular, quality updates can infuse more interest and excitement each turn. If only the rules could be modified to more of a NESing format...
 
I figured it out, you're supposed to be in the first spot marked "Imago." Typist's error there.

I'm not in your list but i moderated a few NESes in my time, some of which were, in my hubris-ridden mind, quite succesful.

(NES Name)(posts in thread)

ImmacuNES I: FFH NES II 2767
ImmacuNES II: Emperor of the Fading Heavens 666
ImmacuNES II B- Emperor of the Fading Heavens 3052
ImmacuNES III: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy 1600
ImmacuNES V: Blood From A Stone 420

total: 8505 posts

Theres also the discussion groups and off-site wikis or forums for secret groups; also pre-NES threads... and the failed ImmacuNES IV which never made it to thread but which had a lot of activity.


Not sure why or even how you could overlook my obvious genius.
 
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