16-11-2025, 12:02 AM
I'm going to be extremely lazy and will simply continue the trend of answering the offered questions by Wu (thanks for initiating this) and will just copy Zanz' format.
Something that is going to come up a lot is that Zanz and my story with this game have strong similarities in some parts. It starts with age, even though he started even younger than me. Back in May? April? Something along those lines in 2015, when I was 14, I started playing this game after looking endlessly for a political simulation game that tickled that sweet spot about leading a party. The "mechanics" of the game intrigued me together with the aspects of Roleplay (which I ironically discovered quite a bit later, I was one of those non Roleplayers for the first two months of playing and havent even created a Forum account before my first good ol' reactivation request.) Anyways, I also came here by someone on NationStates suggesting it, seems like there is a dangerous pipeline there. I expect foul play. In any case, I was just some weirdo kid with deficits in social skills and with isle-talents in history, geography and other stuff that makes you really like politics as a field. Additionally like many of the past two generations 1990-2000, I was an Edgelord with too much internet access for my own good and I too was roaming the infamous /b/ during highschool classes. Retrospectively, it was a funny coincidence that I also joined Austria's (where I am from) Socialist Youth, the social-democratic party of austria's "forward" organization in the same month as I joined Particracy.
I think like most player's I was drawn to the country that had my native language (in my case german) as its primary culture, which for me led to Dundorf which at that point was in one of its eternal "Dundorfian Democratic Republic" phases with the GDR original gangster "Berlioz" being an absolute ignorant chad and ignoring RP left and right. It also was were I dabbled in my first few forum posts mostly *indirectly* supported by another german-speaking (iirc) user called Revionx. I rp'd my first few rounds of domestic politics with him, which mostly consisted of our politicians verbally slapping each other via the respective media. Since I started my Particracy journey with a friend of mine which I originally got to know by my even earlier Roleplay experiences in World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3 (the guy who is playing in Zardugal) I usually stuck with him and we limited ourselves mostly to Dundorf. We thought that the even by 2015 standards old forum was clanky, the community odd to navigate because of years of knowledge transfer and summarily speaking it was very overwhelming for us at first.
My first experience with Particracy concludes here when I started to realize that Berlioz was being extremely gaming and abusing mechanics to always win elections, meaning we always stuck with a borderline socialist dictatorship which got boring very quickly. This caused me to look outward and take my first steps out of Dundorf, which made me end up in Narikaton & Darnussia, a step which would ultimately lead to Thallerism and my feared return in 2023.
Hmn, this is actually a tough question. I think many experiences during 2015 - because they were my first- were very memorable. I especially appreciate many instances where I actually created a lot of bad RP and older players helped me out. It was a weird situation because despite being quite experienced when it came to Roleplay for my age, I totally sucked rping with the forum style and my stories were very short and not thought-through at all, they were more vehicles to troll around and be edgy; this led to older players warning me/approaching me with a certain degree of passive-aggressiveness; this very quickly turned into me sucking up all knowledge they've offered me when they realized that I am actually a reasonable person that really didnt want to destroy their immersion or stories. This marks the point where I slowly start to become someone who cares about this world and this community.
So to actually answer this question and get specific: When I joined Narikaton & Darnussia it barely had 8 pages of articles, when I left classic for a longer hiatus in 2020 it had like ~20 ish pages, many of those posts were mine, and my consistent presence there in Roleplay and In-game very likely shaped the nation by 1) attracting others and 2) *sigh* inventing Thallerism. I can't say I am proud of Thallerism, but at the end of the day I hold many good memories of it. There was a lot of Ingame-RP and forum RP tied to it, A LOT of players - even oldies like Polites and Reddy participated, fuck you Zanz - went along with it and just embraced its absolute silly edgyness. Both Domesticly in ND and around the world player's have tried to mantle the sillyness in actually good Roleplay, especially mentioned oldies and due to my inherent connectedness to the "ideology" I've observed and read a lot of storylines which shaped my modern roleplay style of today, a style I do consider creative (without wanting to push my own ego too much). In this time we've had invasions, wars, very exciting and interesting election cycles which decided fates of entire nations within one election and the state-form. Foreign relations were tied to the victory or defeat of Thallerism and it had - despite the explicit scepticism and wishes of some - quite the impact of this game. Many critics of my person and my Roleplay of the time have admitted publicly or to me in DM's that the rise of Thallerism and its consistent threat to the status-quo caused them to have fun and that in retrospect "Thallerism reminds them of a time when the game was more fun." (It was said at a dying stage of Classic.) Honestly while I am writing memories of the time keep coming back to me and I'd like to endlessly tell you guys what kind of shit we did during the days when Thallerism was promoted/rp'd by like 15 players at the same time but we need to move on.
Aside of Thallerism; I think my early days werent really impactful for the community.
Though, I did create the first "classic" Discord back in the day (2016) and chatted hours on end with the players back then. I think since I am at the end of the day a sociable person, I tended to spark some activity, at least socially. I'd also like to say that this is were my darkest days as a part of the community were occuring; I was trolling around like crazy and I had a lot of negative run-ins with Aquinas in which I treated them quite unfairly. I've let bad elements within the community fester and freely roam around which led to a space in which borderline-bullying attitude was the norm. I've tried to take these experiences and learn from them as one should generally do. The reflection on those events influences my style of Moderation/Administration and this ties perfectly into what my biggest impact on the community is: I'm simply there for it, people can approach me when they have issues and that I will have an open ear.
For this I'm going to interpret "impact" very broadly.
(In no particular order)
-Revionx
Most of you dont know the guy, neither do I really, but he showed me the forums and took the time/had the patience to explain lots to me. Thanks for that pal; If you're around under a different pseudonym: I hope you're doing well.
-Lelder1 (Louis/Luis/Lewis??? Cant remember)
This legend and I had a lot of engaging times with each other playing in N&D, they fought me for every centimeter of Thallerism I established and I thank them for it, it was so much fun.
-Pragma
Trolled me lots.
-Maxington/Imp
One of my first international encounters in Roleplay, taught me a lot about how shit works, exploring different perspectives and effects of events for roleplay purposes and how to build them into a story. He also was a powerplayer but the uboat destroying my prisoner camps in Narikaton was pretty amusing.
-Farsun
Taught me enormous amounts about ingame (Dundorfian) Lore, the community and military-stuff. We've had some good stories, we've had disagreements and negative encounters but I damn it I respect your dedication.
-Zanz
When I played this game as a teen Zanz and I rarely had any actual Roleplay-situation with each other but he chatted loads on the discord and so did I, we've had annoyingly long debates about political topics which back in the day also often revolved around "Wokeness" or back then we said "SJW" but they were very productive and gave me stuff to think about or rather stuff I reflected and connected to years later, stuff that as I already said resonated with me, he's been an influence to me about "not being a total douchebag." Thanks for that.
-Vesica
Idk, I remember him from my beginner-days and he's been incredibly kind and patient in the past, that really stuck with me.
-Polites
OG Knowledge fountain
-Jalal
Awesome Roleplayer, creative mastermind
And honestly probably ten more people I cant really remember right now.
It feels a little weird, the game accompanied me for a lot of very trying but also very exciting times of life, I've spent lots of time on it and I've grown due to it/with it/parallel to it. It's somewhat part of my childhood and I'll treasure the memories of it probably well into my even balder years. Thanks Particracy for being what you are, it's been a very fun ride but all things have to end someday my dear Classic. Can't pinpoint what should be remembered, but I hope that everyone tries to embrace the most fun memories of Classic or the most thoughtful ones.
I'm getting tired no more writey in this post for me, this is getting zanz level sermon length and thats bad.
Quote: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)?
Something that is going to come up a lot is that Zanz and my story with this game have strong similarities in some parts. It starts with age, even though he started even younger than me. Back in May? April? Something along those lines in 2015, when I was 14, I started playing this game after looking endlessly for a political simulation game that tickled that sweet spot about leading a party. The "mechanics" of the game intrigued me together with the aspects of Roleplay (which I ironically discovered quite a bit later, I was one of those non Roleplayers for the first two months of playing and havent even created a Forum account before my first good ol' reactivation request.) Anyways, I also came here by someone on NationStates suggesting it, seems like there is a dangerous pipeline there. I expect foul play. In any case, I was just some weirdo kid with deficits in social skills and with isle-talents in history, geography and other stuff that makes you really like politics as a field. Additionally like many of the past two generations 1990-2000, I was an Edgelord with too much internet access for my own good and I too was roaming the infamous /b/ during highschool classes. Retrospectively, it was a funny coincidence that I also joined Austria's (where I am from) Socialist Youth, the social-democratic party of austria's "forward" organization in the same month as I joined Particracy.
Quote:What country did you first play in? What was your earliest experience with the forum? What were your first impressions, generally?
I think like most player's I was drawn to the country that had my native language (in my case german) as its primary culture, which for me led to Dundorf which at that point was in one of its eternal "Dundorfian Democratic Republic" phases with the GDR original gangster "Berlioz" being an absolute ignorant chad and ignoring RP left and right. It also was were I dabbled in my first few forum posts mostly *indirectly* supported by another german-speaking (iirc) user called Revionx. I rp'd my first few rounds of domestic politics with him, which mostly consisted of our politicians verbally slapping each other via the respective media. Since I started my Particracy journey with a friend of mine which I originally got to know by my even earlier Roleplay experiences in World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3 (the guy who is playing in Zardugal) I usually stuck with him and we limited ourselves mostly to Dundorf. We thought that the even by 2015 standards old forum was clanky, the community odd to navigate because of years of knowledge transfer and summarily speaking it was very overwhelming for us at first.
My first experience with Particracy concludes here when I started to realize that Berlioz was being extremely gaming and abusing mechanics to always win elections, meaning we always stuck with a borderline socialist dictatorship which got boring very quickly. This caused me to look outward and take my first steps out of Dundorf, which made me end up in Narikaton & Darnussia, a step which would ultimately lead to Thallerism and my feared return in 2023.
Quote:What was your most memorable RP experience or arc? Did you help shape any regions, lore, or political systems that you’re proud of?
Hmn, this is actually a tough question. I think many experiences during 2015 - because they were my first- were very memorable. I especially appreciate many instances where I actually created a lot of bad RP and older players helped me out. It was a weird situation because despite being quite experienced when it came to Roleplay for my age, I totally sucked rping with the forum style and my stories were very short and not thought-through at all, they were more vehicles to troll around and be edgy; this led to older players warning me/approaching me with a certain degree of passive-aggressiveness; this very quickly turned into me sucking up all knowledge they've offered me when they realized that I am actually a reasonable person that really didnt want to destroy their immersion or stories. This marks the point where I slowly start to become someone who cares about this world and this community.
So to actually answer this question and get specific: When I joined Narikaton & Darnussia it barely had 8 pages of articles, when I left classic for a longer hiatus in 2020 it had like ~20 ish pages, many of those posts were mine, and my consistent presence there in Roleplay and In-game very likely shaped the nation by 1) attracting others and 2) *sigh* inventing Thallerism. I can't say I am proud of Thallerism, but at the end of the day I hold many good memories of it. There was a lot of Ingame-RP and forum RP tied to it, A LOT of players - even oldies like Polites and Reddy participated, fuck you Zanz - went along with it and just embraced its absolute silly edgyness. Both Domesticly in ND and around the world player's have tried to mantle the sillyness in actually good Roleplay, especially mentioned oldies and due to my inherent connectedness to the "ideology" I've observed and read a lot of storylines which shaped my modern roleplay style of today, a style I do consider creative (without wanting to push my own ego too much). In this time we've had invasions, wars, very exciting and interesting election cycles which decided fates of entire nations within one election and the state-form. Foreign relations were tied to the victory or defeat of Thallerism and it had - despite the explicit scepticism and wishes of some - quite the impact of this game. Many critics of my person and my Roleplay of the time have admitted publicly or to me in DM's that the rise of Thallerism and its consistent threat to the status-quo caused them to have fun and that in retrospect "Thallerism reminds them of a time when the game was more fun." (It was said at a dying stage of Classic.) Honestly while I am writing memories of the time keep coming back to me and I'd like to endlessly tell you guys what kind of shit we did during the days when Thallerism was promoted/rp'd by like 15 players at the same time but we need to move on.
Quote:What do you think your biggest impact/legacy has been on the game and the community (if any)?
Aside of Thallerism; I think my early days werent really impactful for the community.
Though, I did create the first "classic" Discord back in the day (2016) and chatted hours on end with the players back then. I think since I am at the end of the day a sociable person, I tended to spark some activity, at least socially. I'd also like to say that this is were my darkest days as a part of the community were occuring; I was trolling around like crazy and I had a lot of negative run-ins with Aquinas in which I treated them quite unfairly. I've let bad elements within the community fester and freely roam around which led to a space in which borderline-bullying attitude was the norm. I've tried to take these experiences and learn from them as one should generally do. The reflection on those events influences my style of Moderation/Administration and this ties perfectly into what my biggest impact on the community is: I'm simply there for it, people can approach me when they have issues and that I will have an open ear.
Quote:Who were some of the players or moderators who had the biggest impact on you? What were your most memorable interactions, collaborations, or rivalries?
For this I'm going to interpret "impact" very broadly.
(In no particular order)
-Revionx
Most of you dont know the guy, neither do I really, but he showed me the forums and took the time/had the patience to explain lots to me. Thanks for that pal; If you're around under a different pseudonym: I hope you're doing well.
-Lelder1 (Louis/Luis/Lewis??? Cant remember)
This legend and I had a lot of engaging times with each other playing in N&D, they fought me for every centimeter of Thallerism I established and I thank them for it, it was so much fun.
-Pragma
Trolled me lots.
-Maxington/Imp
One of my first international encounters in Roleplay, taught me a lot about how shit works, exploring different perspectives and effects of events for roleplay purposes and how to build them into a story. He also was a powerplayer but the uboat destroying my prisoner camps in Narikaton was pretty amusing.
-Farsun
Taught me enormous amounts about ingame (Dundorfian) Lore, the community and military-stuff. We've had some good stories, we've had disagreements and negative encounters but I damn it I respect your dedication.
-Zanz
When I played this game as a teen Zanz and I rarely had any actual Roleplay-situation with each other but he chatted loads on the discord and so did I, we've had annoyingly long debates about political topics which back in the day also often revolved around "Wokeness" or back then we said "SJW" but they were very productive and gave me stuff to think about or rather stuff I reflected and connected to years later, stuff that as I already said resonated with me, he's been an influence to me about "not being a total douchebag." Thanks for that.
-Vesica
Idk, I remember him from my beginner-days and he's been incredibly kind and patient in the past, that really stuck with me.
-Polites
OG Knowledge fountain
-Jalal
Awesome Roleplayer, creative mastermind
And honestly probably ten more people I cant really remember right now.
Quote:How did the community culture evolve during your time within it?Well, honestly, It got immensely better. It still has its toxic sides sometimes especially when the oldies start to throw shit or are trying to be smug but at the end of the day when I played as a teen this place was a dickhead-sandbox as I've already mentioned before the times were rougher and the language was too, I dont really miss those aspects but I miss the larger playerbase of course, back then with a hundred active players it was a very different time. Legacy and Classic are hard to compare otherwise as the game aspect did make a fundamental difference back in the day. I can't really speak about "recent" changes so much due to the fact that I've not been active around 2020 to 2023 aside of a few joke-ish turn-ups for two days.
Quote:How did Particracy influence your interests, writing, or worldview?Particracy was more of a strengthening of the interests I already had; My writing got incomparable better due to Particracy, just due to practice as well as critical and positive inputs from members of the community. My worldview has probably been influenced to a degree, it made me less ignorant on issues I've not connection with due to my material reality but at the end of the day this question isn't as strong a deal for me as others.
Quote:How do you feel about the end of Particracy Classic — and what do you hope remains remembered?
It feels a little weird, the game accompanied me for a lot of very trying but also very exciting times of life, I've spent lots of time on it and I've grown due to it/with it/parallel to it. It's somewhat part of my childhood and I'll treasure the memories of it probably well into my even balder years. Thanks Particracy for being what you are, it's been a very fun ride but all things have to end someday my dear Classic. Can't pinpoint what should be remembered, but I hope that everyone tries to embrace the most fun memories of Classic or the most thoughtful ones.
I'm getting tired no more writey in this post for me, this is getting zanz level sermon length and thats bad.