User:Pious7/Cyber Nations

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Cyber Nations
‎
Developer(s)
Latest version Beta 2.0
Release date(s) January 6, 2006
Genre(s) Turn based MMORPG
Mode(s) Standard and Tournament Edition
Platform(s) Web browser
Media Internet
System requirements Web browser, Internet connection
Input Keyboard, Mouse

Cyber Nations (also known as CyberNations and CN) is a popular[1] massively multiplayer online geo-political simulator. Players assume the role of a national leader of a fictional nation they create and then run. Cyber Nations is composed of hundreds of groups, called alliances, each of which contain nations run by individual players. Cyber Nations also has one of the biggest IRC channels on EsperNet.

Contents

[edit] Origin

Cyber Nations was modeled after a game its creator and administrator, Kevin, invented as a child. In 2003, Kevin started a website for the game, although the domain sat idle for two years. On December 24, 2005, he began to code the game, and Cyber Nations was finally released to the public on January 6, 2006.[2]

[edit] Gameplay

When a player creates his or her nation, they choose a nation name, a capital city, an income tax percentage, and various other settings, some changeable after nation creation. Nations may collect taxes and pay bills daily, or wait for at least a day to gain interest. Many factors affect the happiness of a nation's citizens, which in turn directly impacts that nation's income.[3] By buying more infrastructure, a player can improve the economy and increase the population of their nation.[4] Technology is usually very expensive, but it improves one's combat odds, population happiness, and reduces infrastructure's maintenance costs.[5] Land reduces population density and can improve one's environment.[4] Nations that are inactive (not collecting taxes) for 20 days are pruned from the system.

Each nation starts with two resources, which benefit nations in many ways, that they keep for the duration of the game. Nations can trade with others to acquire other resources as long as the trade lasts, sometimes also allowing bonuses.[6] In foreign aid, nations can send others money, technology points, and soldiers.[7] Players can select a trading sphere, called teams, for their nation. Teams allow nations to trade with other nations on their team to receive a happiness bonus.[8] They also have three elected senate positions. Senators can stop trade and aid from their team to a specific nation.[9]

A major feature of Cyber Nations is its warfare, where a nation can declare war on any nation that is within its strength range. Nations can fight each other using soldiers, tanks, aircraft, nuclear weapons and Cruise Missles. In battles, one can destroy infrastructure or steal money and technology of a nation. Wars last for up to one week, during which a player can attack twice per front by land, cruise missles, and aircraft. Nuclear weaponry can also be used, but only once daily.[10]

[edit] Alliances

Alliances are player created groups managed outside the game that function similar to gaming clans. Alliances offer player protection during wars, organized strategies in game, increased player interaction, and often offsite forums and communities of their own. Many of the player created alliances identify with or even control a team. This gives the various alliances a common denominator and a happiness bonus to trade with each other. Inter- and intra-alliance communication leads to interesting forum-based politics.[8]

Alliances have caused many popular websites to play CN and establish their own alliances. Among alliances established this way are some of the most popular and successful. Some of these are the New Pacific Order and the Orange Defense Network from NationStates, LUEnited Nations from GameFAQs, the Goon Order of Neutral Shoving from SomethingAwful, and /b/ from 4chan and related websites.[citation needed]

[edit] Controversy

Due to the heavy factionalism, many alliances on Cyber Nations make recruitment and propaganda videos for Cyber Nations players and upload them on YouTube. Among these, is the German nationalist alliance called "Nordreich." One of the videos made by the Nordreich alliance used the Norwegian national anthem as background music.[11]

On January 2, 2007, Nordreich caused controversy when the mentioned recruitment video was misinterpreted as neo-Nazi propaganda. The Norwegian government and press were outraged over the Norwegian national anthem being played in the background, and requested YouTube pull the video immediately.[12] The Norwegian foreign ministry contacted YouTube about the video sometime prior to December 25, 2006, but YouTube did nothing at the time.[13] The stated reason for the removal request was the "Nazi references and symbols" present in the video.[14]

The next day, after a sarcastically driven official statement from Nordreich in which one of the leaders of Nordreich stated that they were not neo-Nazis and did not condone such behaviour, the incident was cleared up. The Norwegian papers which attacked Nordreich in print were also verbally reprimanded for their poor research and journalism.[11] The video in question was later removed by YouTube on the grounds of copyright violation.[15] The second Afterposten article's mention of Cyber Nations made Cyber Nations more popular - causing Fark to link Cyber Nations to their main page, as well as nearly doubling the amount of people who signed up for the game daily.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Alexia Stats. Alexa Internet, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-02-18.
  2. ^ CN_Early_History. Cyber Nations Wiki. Retrieved on 2007-02-25.
  3. ^ About CN. Cyber Nations. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  4. ^ a b Nation Purchases. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  5. ^ Technology. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  6. ^ Resources & Trade Agreements. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  7. ^ Foreign Aid. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  8. ^ a b Alliances & Teams. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  9. ^ Sanctions. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  10. ^ Wars And Battles. Invision Free. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
  11. ^ a b Lucas H. Weldeghebriel. "Not "real" neo-Nazis", Aftenposten, 2007-01-03. Retrieved on 2007-02-21.
  12. ^ Lucas H. Weldeghebriel. "National anthem in Nazi propaganda", Aftenposten, 2007-01-03. Retrieved on 2007-02-21.
  13. ^ "Norway objects to abuse of national anthem", Telugu Portal, 2007-01-02. Retrieved on 2007-02-25.
  14. ^ United Press International. "Norway wants anthem off Nazi video", Washington Times, 2007-01-02. Retrieved on 2007-02-25.
  15. ^ YouTube - Nordreich Anthem: Ja Vi Elsker/Yes we love. You Tube. Retrieved on 2007-02-25.

[edit] See also

[edit] External Links

[[Category:Browser-based games|Cyber Nations]] [[Category:Massively multiplayer online role-playing games|Cyber Nations]] [[Category:Economic simulation games|Cyber Nations]]

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