Regional Officers Rolling Out
Affecting Europeia Now
Written by Trinnien
The NationStates world was surprised to see the latest News post from NationStates founder Max Barry on Sunday, October 11th 2015, announcing a new game feature called Regional Officers. The concept of Regional Officers bore out of a discussion thread during the Raider/Defender Summit that was held back in August of 2013 on the NationStates forums. Max Barry and Site Administrator [violet] have promised that more is yet to come from that Summit, much to the happiness of many players that had begun to think no developments would be forthcoming since a long period of time had passed in relative silence.
Regional Officers (ROs) are mini versions of a Regional Founder or World Assembly Delegate (WAD) except that their powers can be either limited in scope or all-encompassing. Founders and WADs are the only officers that have the Executive Power granted to them, which allows them to create, dismiss, or modify the other ROs that work under them. The WAD is the only officer granted the power to vote in the World Assembly. From there, the Executive Officers may delegate the following powers: Appearance, Communications, Border Control, Embassies, and Polls to all, some, or none of the officers.
The initial response was cautiously optimistic, but it was also quickly met by claims that the proposed setup would be a major blow to Defenders and their liberation attempts. Due to the ability for an invader WAD to appoint new ROs immediately, the invader team would be able to immediately eject nations that arrived to defend or liberate a region. Guy, the current WAD of The Rejected Realms and a staunch Defender, and Cormac Stark, long-time notorious "Flavor of the Month" Raider/Defender icon, were both upset with the proposed changes, oftentimes questioning [violet] in her part of the decision-making process.
As the debate and dialogue continued, [violet] added to the FAQs present, tried to ease fears brought up in the thread, and repeatedly stated that while the administration team was aware of inherent risk in the system, they wanted to give ROs a fair trial before altering or removing some of the powers and capabilities of the rank. The team understood that tweaking might be required, and this brought more ire from a number of vocal players that they were using raiders and defenders as their personal beta testers to the detriment of the regions involved.
Max Barry released another News post later in the week clarifying a few points on the new RO system. Regional Message Board (RMB) control would be under the supervision of Communications instead of Border Control. They also posed a series of options to users on courses of action to take to limit the power of Raiders and ROs towards abuse. While the Administration Team hasn’t made a decision yet on such matters, discussion is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Europeia is one of the regions getting to beta test and assess ROs and the system. We not only managed to root out a few minor bugs, but the experience went smoothly overall. World Assembly Delegate Mousebumples, Speaker of the Senate Malashaan, President Writinglegend, Senator Trinnien, and Vice President Calvin Coolidge are all eager to see how ROs affect Europeia and NationStates in the future.
As the Regional Officers program is rolled out, it will be interesting to see how it affects gameplay concerning Raiders and Defenders. Right now the Europeian Senate is discussing the legal ramifications of the system and codifying aspects of ROs to limit possible disruption or confusion. In other regions, such as The Rejected Realms, the RO system is loathed. In the end, however, each region must make their own choice what works best for them. No matter the outcome of the RO system, it’s always wonderful to see new and exciting additions to NationStates. How this affects us as it continues to develop will be discussed and debated for some time and brings new activity to not only Europeia but NationStates as well.
