Loller 1) What do you view as your greatest achievement in NationStates?
My Commendation, hands down. It is no secret in Gameplay circles that I was gunning for one for the better part of a decade. I invested too much time on this game so being internationally recognized for my efforts meant a lot.
Loller 2) What, according to you, sets TGW apart from other defender organisations?
There’s just so much. There has never been anything like TGW and I doubt there will be anything like us after we leave.
The fact that we raid invader regions drew a lot of attention to us in our earliest days, and is the only major operational difference we had from other defender groups at the time. We were also criticized for behaving too much like invaders with our frequent report writing detailing individual operations in the style of TBH/DEN/TBR.
Where we separate ourselves from everyone else on NationStates is in our attitude. Nobody shares our enthusiasm for the daily tasks of defending. For most people, gameplay is as easy as moving a WA nation where and when somebody tells you. The actual work of finding invasions in progress, setting triggers, calculating influence and gathering forces intimidates most would-be defender organizations from meeting their true potential. Wardens constantly egg each other on and compete just to see who is the best at literally anything that can be done. Every night for a Warden is the Battle of Helms Deep, with people literally calling out who made the most jumps and who was the fastest.
We shamelessly recruit, all the time. You ever join the WA? You’ve seen us. Ever had the audacity to visit the TGW server? You’ve heard my pitch. Ever hear about something called DKP and have no idea what the hell people are talking about? Join us and find out 😉 We have one of the slimmest barriers to entry of any military in NS and we want everybody we know to join us.
While many orgs maintain an air of professional decorum, TGW is an extremely laid back community. We’re not roleplaying a professional army, in spite of our regional theme. We don’t actually hate invaders and you will see them interacting with our community on a daily basis in positive ways. We’re just hanging out and enjoying our time together. Our frequent voice chats have lead to many of us becoming quite close and forming very genuine friendships.
More infamously, we like to cause trouble for our invader opponents. Examples of this include sowing discord between organizations, accepting leaks from their members and even sending in spies to try and get whatever information we can. Raiders send sleepers into founderless regions all the time, so why shouldn’t we send a nation into their midst?
We kind of just do whatever we want and have been at it for so long now that the GP community not only accept that fact, but routinely celebrates it. We’re not beholden to outside pressures or long-standing traditions of defenders before us.
Loller 3) How much longer do you think NS will continue to survive as a game with an active and commited player base?
There are 3 scenarios in which NS as we know it ends.
- The Internet dies
- Max calls it quits and shuts it down
- The most likely end to NS is that Max sells it to an obnoxious organization that somehow makes a really shitty game even shittier.
