RaiderCon Set to Celebrate Fifth Anniversary
The Fifth Annual RaiderCon Has Begun Alongside RiderVision
Written by Lime
RaiderCon, one of the largest gameplay events of the year has begun, promising five days of exciting events celebrating the raider military ideology. RaiderCon has been held every year in July since 2015, with the first-ever RaiderCon being a celebration of The Black Hawks’ tenth anniversary. It has continued each year, with players from across NationStates gathering for discussions and debates regarding raiding as well as games and, unsurprisingly, raiding. This year’s theme, “Building the Raider”, will recognise the fifth anniversary of the annual event. Each day features a programme that will, “review a different element of how raiding reflects an aspect of development" - RaiderCon 2020 Announcement thread. As well as this daily program, each day will have a live podcast to accompany the events. Breaking with previous years where RaiderCon was primarily held on an off-site forum, much of RaiderCon will be held game-side this year on the NationStates forums as well as through dispatches while also having a dedicated Discord server for the event.
Several Europeians will be participating in this year’s RaiderCon, some even as speakers. One such speaker is Europeia’s Grand Admiral Common-Sense Politics who will speak on day one alongside a panel, discussing why players choose to raid, and will analyse some of the motivations behind raiding. Speaking to the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation, Common-Sense Politics said “While Europeians aren't "raiders" per se, we are part of the landscape and it's great to come together with a much wider world in a fun environment. I was surprised and honored to be asked by Jakker to contribute to the Day 1 festivities. Hopefully I don't say anything stupid.”
Accompanying RaiderCon this year, as in previous years, is RaiderVision, an outside-of-character cultural event heavily based off the real-life Eurovision Song Contest. Players from across NationStates can represent their region in the singing contest by submitting a song, and if they win, the player receives an individual prize while their region receives the honour of getting to host next year’s RaiderVision. The winner of 2019’s RaiderVision was Crushing Our Enemies of The North Pacific with his song "Cease" meaning that this year’s host is The North Pacific. Submissions opened on June 15 and closed on June 29, with judging due to take place from June 30 to July 5. The winner will be announced at the end of RaiderCon on July 6. There have been a total of 9 submissions in this year’s event, some just lyrics while others contain the player singing their composition. Competing this year are heavyweights such as last year’s winner Crushing our Enemies and the runner-up Roavin, with other, newer players such as FiHami also participating.
