Player's History of Particracy Classic

[Zanz]

How and when did you discover Particracy? How old were you and where were you in life around that time (to the extent you are comfortable sharing)?

I played NationStates first when I was around 11 or 12 years old, and discovered Particracy I think via online searches for similar type games. I don't remember precisely at this point, but I would have been around 13-14 or so, so between 2005 and 2006. Generally speaking I was very online at that point in my life overall - MySpace in particular was big, I was chatting a lot with RL friends online anyway, and I was interested in politics very broadly, so the community around the PT forum (no IRC or Discord until much later) felt like a natural fit. I know for certain that Greek was playing when I first joined, but otherwise I think pretty much everyone from that era is largely gone.

What country did you first play in? What was your earliest experience with the forum? What were your first impressions, generally?

I first played in Sekowo (now Seko) where another quite established player (Imperium) was playing an Aretist dictatorship and I, a 13 year old edgelord, found it fascinating. The user was OOCly not at all interested in sharing power with a noob and used several in game tricks (treaty locking, constant early elections) to keep power himself - those things were very common at the time. He was very welcoming as a player, though, and encouraged me to move to Solentia where Aretism had fallen to normal parties (ICly, OOCly they just lost elections to players not interested in RP) and play as a "normal" party that actually was a secret Aretist party set to take back power there once I could.

I moved to Solentia and played my first "real" party, the Conservative Party of Solentia (check out that bad ass party logo) with every intention of playing a secret Aretist, but I very quickly instead got engaged with the parties there in Solentia who were playing it as a normal multiparty American-ish style democracy (the Bailenist Republic of Solentia, which became the less one-player dominated Federal Republic of Solentia). Aretism and the various movements that had spawned it (Panterranism, Archonism, Nuncirism) were all still in play in a few other places (most notably Quanzar, now Istalia) but I left that general edgy-ness mostly behind.

I remember very little IC from the first forum, the Takeforum. I remember a ton OOC, where there was all the normal OOC nonsense we have today in Discord but at a slower-ish pace in dedicated OOC threads. It was very formative for me to see older kids and young adults discussing politics and talking shit to one another. My parents probably would not have approved, but I have no idea how I would have gotten that sort of political outlet without PT.

What was your most memorable RP experience or arc? Did you help shape any regions, lore, or political systems that you’re proud of?

This is quite, quite difficult for me. I have played this game way too long. Apologies if this gets very niche, many here won't have a clue what I'm referring to, but in the off chance somebody Googles this someday and finds me bringing it up to be nostalgic, I will feel happy that I wrote it out.

• Solentia
  • My entire time in the Federal Republic was absolutely some of the most fun I had in PT. There was one player there controlling the Federal Independent Party who had previously been alone in Solentia and then got mobbed by like six of us in short order. It was chaotic and all the RP was done on the actual game site - nothing on the forum whatsoever. My party's first leader was a great ally to the FIP and helped that player maintain control very briefly, but as relations with him and me soured OOC I killed off that party leader in a limo accident and turned on him, putting in power a Thatcher-inspired extremist that he absolutely hated. She was my first successful run for HoS anywhere, and it was absolutely a blast to blend IC and OOC spite in the way that I have found only possible in PT over the years.
    
  • Much later (the Federal Republic lasted like 900 in game years which was crazy long for this period of PT) I worked with another long term player in Solentia (who later rejoined me in Telamon where we played a sort of Game of Thrones style 5 kingdoms with one High King) worked out this elaborate Supreme Court system where players could nominate justices and we had full on trials in the game debate section. My Supreme President Helen Brown nominated the first Justices. It was wildly nerdy and I loved it.
    
  • Kind of cheating because it's not really Solentia but a player who was the main Nuncirist player continued playing in Quanzar just to Solentia's south and he was effectively ICly and OOCly at war with the Istalian players (a group of Italians who were friends in real life and effectively refused to speak English at ALL in game) who really wanted Quanzar to be Istalia. I worked with that player OOCly to continue support for Quanzar and we came up with an IC backstory that led to the establishment of the House of Kansar, a Quanzari noble exile family in Solentia who sought to first establish rule in Solentia and then invade Istalia, where he had fought and lost. I played the Kansars in Solentia and they were eventually banned - by my own Supreme Court :'( - as anti-Republican and I went into exile in the then-vacant Telamon. The Kansars landed on the island of Migadon, named it New Majatra, and proclaimed themselves High Kings of Telamon, and Kings in Exile of Solentia and Quanzar. This name (Kansar) was the name I later did most of my wiki work under, and the emblem of the house (a dog on a purple field with yellow cross and five stars for the five kingdoms of Telamon) was my forum avatar from then on. It was just very cool to see the way this kind of OOC/IC planning worked itself out over time into what it became.
    
• Jelbe
  • Obviously this has been the vast bulk of my efforts ICly in game. Like most, the Jelbic language drove me away at first but the player who had created it, IdioC, was very kind to me OOCly and took me under his wing and helped get my feet under me. I don't explicitly know why Jelbe spoke to me so thoroughly, but at a certain point I had found myself with IdioC gone, Kubrick in Vanuku doing Jelbic work, Polites helping with the language, Dynastia in Deltaria helping with RP ideas, and I was a pivotal player in the Terran World War where we finally took down a player who had absolutely dominated the world largely out of OOC force of will, PaleRider in Zardugal. The language ended up being the thing I most committed to in Jelbe - I would RP here and there but to be honest Reddy did much more of the actual RP over the long term - I just built lots of words. Drop vowels, ask yourself if someone could pronounce it - if so, drop consonants too, repeat. I have found that the fact that Jelbic survived even after all this, and on occasion has drawn in interested players, to be very rewarding. IdioC came back for a while (for the Inquisition) and approved of our work in years of his absence, and that was just so cool.
    
• Sbtlshjogad
  • An entirely first person, un-fixed-outcome RP that Kubrick and I did where the Jelbek H'an and the Vanukese prince undertook a series of steppe challenges to determine who would be named Protector of the Jelbic Peoples and thereby ruler of both Vanuku and Jelbe. Reddy prepared the challenges but did not tell us what they would be first, we learned as we went. There was a forum poll to let other players vote on who won - and we honored the vote. Kubrick cheated.
    
• The Great Terran War
  • As mentioned above, I played a relatively minor role ICly in the Great Terran War, but I consider myself out-and-out the primary organizer of it, and it was one of the coolest RPs I ever saw done in PT, so I really was quite proud of it. Somehow, we wrangled like 10-20 active RPers into a worldwide, multifront, entirely pre-arranged RP where everybody sorted out the details as we went but everyone knew where we were headed. The planning thread was absolutely massive, each player who was RPing had to get a consent bill passed OOCly in their respective nations so that even if they lost power in game they could still RP the story to its conclusion - it was truly amazing that it worked and it worked with almost no hitches. This was also something that several players who are still around (Kubs, Doc, Brad, I believe Max and Axxell) participated in, and some who are only recently-ish departed but whom I consider some of the best RPers we've had (LiuChe, Jalal, Polites) played a part it - it was just such a cool blend of the right players at the right moment. It led to the establishment of the World Congress (which was the whole motivation for the RP) which itself spawned some very cool RP later down the line. It was cool to be part of establishing the way that worked.
    
• Rildanor
  • I see this time as sort of the first part of my second wave of RP. James, Kubrick, and a very new Louis were doing very character driven RP in Rildanor and I joined to play Jean Badouin, a troubled, troubled man. Rest in peace, JB. Playing with James and Louis (and my old pal Kubs) was refreshing and honestly the newer style of the RP (character focused as opposed to party focused) is 100% more my speed (which came up again in Cildania). I loved experimenting with the way that personal failings and vendettas intersect with power and lead to a shit world.
    
• Cildania
  • My first real interaction with AI. James, Pragma, Wu, and Kubrick were all in together doing another character-heavy show and Greek was chiming in from abroad, others were here and there contributing as well. The squad was struggling with a player who did not want to RP and who was continuously winning enough seats in elections to block what they were trying to do ICly, so I figured I could join and try to split his electorate. I generated an AI image that became A. "Fish Hook" Azzara and couldn't not play the part. In my head canon Fish Hook never existed, he was purely an AI generated politician who his party cleverly pretended existed to win votes. The Fishermans' Faction was itself quite weak but Fish Hook was incredibly popular - he led three consecutive cabinets and was the longest serving PM in Jacobean Cildania, way longer than that wanker Alagona. This was some of the coolest RP I ever was involved in. Everybody was active, everybody was rolling with punches. Things got weird. I think this was truly the best example I've ever seen of what PT Classic could be when things fit together in one country.
    

What do you think your biggest impact/legacy has been on the game and the community (if any)?

Another tough one. I think my legacy is unfortunately quite mixed. I did a lot of positive things - I like to think I was closely involved in some of the better RP stories that emerged over the years, I have served variously as moderator and admin in both Classic and now Legacy, I created the IRC (though jury is out on if that was ultimately positive) which changed the way players interacted, and I am finding now that I serve as an important (though far from sole) source of historical knowledge for the community as a whole.

But I also was involved in some very significant negative events in the game's history. We've always had drama, but there was a particular period of acrimony where I became a mod (as TheNewGuy, we used anonymous accounts for modding at that time) and I engaged in bad behavior alongside Farsun (my co-mod, we read the private messages of other players and used that to try to gain OOC and IC advantage, and we both tolerated and engaged in what I now consider bullying of specific players on the IRC). My memory of the exact order of events is hazy, but I resigned as mod after it was found that I was TheNewGuy, and Farsun did not resign, but instead challenged the head mod at the time, Amazeroth, that wouter needed to be the one to remove mods. Wouter was (as ever) largely absent, and Farsun seized the moderation account (it was shared at the time) by changing the password so that Amazeroth was locked out. This lead to wouter acting - he unilaterally reset the mod password, locked out Amazeroth AND Farsun, and asked IdioC (a previous mod who was very well respected and who had been a mod long before) to sort out just what in the actual fuck was going on. This was the "Inquisition". I'll discuss that a bit more below. But I regret the role I played in all of that, especially the bullying (sorry to Julia).

I also regret that I could not navigate the incredibly toxic later period where Aquinas was removed as mod, accused of absolutely deplorable things with no evidence, and more-or-less left out to dry by people that he had thought he could trust. That entire affair changed my relationships with Aquinas, with Reddy, and with several other players who are fortunately for us now gone - I did my best during the time, and I do not regret how I acquitted myself, but I wish that the outcome had been different, nonetheless, and I know that my actions in that entire period are a big part of how the community is arrayed today.

Anyway - I write in Jelbic sometimes, so that evens it out I guess?

Who were some of the players or moderators who had the biggest impact on you? What were your most memorable interactions, collaborations, or rivalries?

• Players:
  • Kubrick (Brnfi)
    
  • Jalal (the single finest RPer this game ever knew).
    
  • Polites (Truly did more for culture and continuity in game than anyone, it's not close)
    
  • Dynastia (bad influence on me OOCly, but literally one of the funniest RPers)
    
  • Jim cool frosty memes (Probably the closest to me in general spirit toward the game as a game, though it pains me to admit)
    
  • Pragma (The linchpin of all of the best recent RP I engaged in, she has always got a clever story idea and is adept at rolling with all our batshit)
    
  • WiseWu (Particularly our work to try to restore Hanzen in SoDo, I have found him to be incredibly thoughtful and very funny in his RP)
    
  • Farsun (His tenure and my own overlap almost entirely, and the role he played in Dorvik over time was impactful on RP across Terra even if indirectly)
    
  • Imperium (discussed above, my first interaction w/ the community)
    
  • The player behind the FIP in Solentia (frenemy)
    
  • The OG Istalians > (literally the most frustrating players)
    
  • SiggonKristov (Siggon was an icon)
    
  • Louis (my child, my boy)
    
  • EEL (brought out the best in GreekIdiot)
    
  • GreekIdiot (go code)
    
  • PALERIDER (the closest I came to having a nemesis)
• Mods
  • IdioC (Jelbic, and also the Inquisition)
    
  • Darvian (who saw potential in me when I was very new and who started preparing me for modding even though I wouldn't become a mod until years later)
    
  • Amazeroth (right-wrong-or-otherwise probably the most relevant moderator period in the full period I played. His solo reign was years long and had terrible waits for basic admin. He made Farsun and I mods, and in so doing blew up the game - also Austrian I think?).
    
  • Farsun (see above)
    
  • Aquinas (Brought sanity back to the community almost singlehandedly with a ruleset and approach that I still maintain were the best we had)
    
  • Mbites (Austocracy!)

How did the community culture evolve during your time within it?

It's both changed dramatically and very little. It's very weird. The game has seemed to cycle through a new set of early-teens players over time, with some few lasting long enough to become middle aged with the community. This has led to a very weird community that I find very difficult to even being categorizing or describing. Some people I consider close friends are from my time in PT, though I've never met any of them in real life. I've also caused real pain to people in real life through my involvement in some of the drama this game seems to continually attract. I both love it and hate it - I think my attraction to PT is very similar to the reason people love soap operas - except I play a part in this one, too.

I do think there was a very clear delineating mark though, at least for me personally, with the Inquisition I mentioned above. I resigned as mod but lingered as Zanz and I was more or less just an OOC asshole for several years. I can't speak for others but I feel like pretty much everyone was in that mode for quite a while. IdioC investigated what had occurred, found that myself, Farsun, Amazeroth, and many players in the community at large had all been incredibly cruel to one another and really had no business interacting with one another by choice. I entirely agree with his findings. In frustration, he unilaterally rescinded the game rules that were in effect at the time (He had written them, the "Pax Cynica") and effectively declared the community un-moddable. Nevertheless, we persisted. We probably should have all stepped away. Some people did. But enough of us stayed, and with axes to grind, that later, when Aquinas served as mod and had the audacity to expect us to follow rules again, we treated him as though he were the source of our problems. He was bullied, doxxed, and accused of horrible things with no evidence. I really see all of that as the darkest time in our community. I am glad that we have moved on, but I still think about it a lot, myself.

The times thereafter were no less fraught with drama for drama's sake, though I was less active for much of it. There were intervening mods, but eventually Farsun retook the moderatorship when Vesica went AWOL (I believe, though he could probably confirm, by just trying a mod password that had previously worked and finding that it still worked, jfc), despite having been banned from the role. Eventually this solo reign ended with wouter returning and naming GreekIdiot moderator, and we entered into the period we are in now.

I have felt that this period has been notably different. There are still spats, and some of us older folks still have the occasional stab at each other, but largely the moderation has focused especially on stopping bullying much more proactively than it once did. That's not to say it's perfect, it's a work in progress, but I do think we're more welcoming to newer players now than at any point since pre-Amazeroth. I think that's something to be proud of and to continue to work at.

How did Particracy influence your interests, writing, or worldview?

Because PT has been such a long-running theme in my life, it's very difficult for me to say. I joined as an American-style 13 year old Ron Paul Libertarian. I swung wildly to flirting with outright communism, at least in some part because of the way I saw it played here. As I've aged and especially as I've become inordinately wealthy (get wrekt kids) I've moderated much to the center (center left by the American measure, probably center right by the European). It's impossible to know how much of that would have happened in this way had I never heard of PT.

I do know that my experiences on PT have made me a much more empathizing human being, though it took me a longer time to get there than I am proud of. I was an active /b/ user when I joined, and generally speaking just a troll. I learned how to be a much more mature member of an online community over time in PT, and that has served me well in a real world that is more and more moving online generally.

PT has also made me remarkably skeptical of everyone younger than me. You kids writing posts on mobile phones are insane (and you could never make a post like this) - I have never gotten it. This is a game about writing stories and reading stories - how is mobile technology conducive to that? I have the same feelings toward our expanding use of AI - I see the allure of reading posts summarized by a machine into a sentence or two, it's much faster - but I simply have never found it to be even near as good as reading the actual post. I don't really know where I'm going with this portion, yelling at clouds, but it does shape my view toward those younger than me and toward AI and technology in general, so I couldn't leave it out.

How do you feel about the end of Particracy Classic — and what do you hope remains remembered?

This part I hope wouter Googles and finds years from now: I am incredibly frustrated by the death of Particracy Classic. You could have exported the forum and shared it with us, could have stood the forum up long enough for us to archive it ourselves, could have let us save years and years of real people's passion and wit and intelligence, and you instead opted to leave us with nothing but what we had scraped together in fear that you would eventually do it. Your actions were incredibly cruel, even allowing for that we were a shit community and your name had been tied to it. If you knew you were going to kill it years ago, you should have killed it then so we could have funneled our energies elsewhere. We survive in spite of you, and I do spite you.

To me the most important thing to be remembered are the stories we wrote. Clicking buttons and documenting elections was a high, and reacting to those elections was always both a challenge and a curse, but the real value of this game is in preserving the act of writing for one another. I write to make a few specific people laugh, or to try to make newer players want to try a new way of playing. I remain in the admin team because I want to encourage a place where people can come and engage in dumb made up stories about strongmen and train crashes. I hope that sort of thing remains.

Thanks for starting this Wu. I hope others share too. I hope as well that I have not offended anyone I have named by naming them, all shared here is my (fading) memories and opinion - and is obviously potentially entirely wrong. Please feel free to correct me. I also hope I have not offended if I have left a name off - I am old, and this is long, and I am tired.

Zanz