A History of Ixnay (OOC): Difference between revisions

I had always wanted to be the Delegate of a region. I always tend to want to be in charge – I guess it’s just in my nature, some accusing me of being power hungry. I suppose that’s true, but I also want to do things in positions of power I get. My rise to the Delegacy was not one that could have been reasonably foreseen – as a 16 year old, I was expelled from Ixnay in 2010 for, among other things, foul language and a poor temperament towards other players. I loved the region, though – I enjoyed the atmosphere the most of all. I had hopped around to several regions before and after – primarily Tyrrhenia – but Ixnay stuck. I don’t know why. I had never really been in a casual roleplaying community. Many, particularly Tyrrhenia, had activity requirements, and I just couldn’t pump out material. I liked the idea of being in a region that cooperated when I had a sudden momentary burst of creativity while simultaneously being a region that would tolerate me sitting around shooting the shit for months with nothing important going on in-universe. ''In hindsight, I'm sure a lot of my failure to produce was a consequence of age; productivity comes with experience.''  

Though not Delegate, I had launched a major recruiting drive twice, both times primarily relying on roleplay connections I had made on the NationStates onsite forum, especially through a Papal Conclave roleplay. These two efforts occurred once in the fall of 2012 surrounding a plotline I introduced that brought Ixnay forward in time, and then again in 2013 when I undid those and adopted the timeline the region would use until the middle of 2015. That timeline set, as well as my becoming Delegate later in the year, were the two key events to usher in what many of what are now the older players consider the “Classic Era” of Ixnay. I would not have known at the time; not controlling the Delegacy meant any recruiting effort was doomed to fail as the Delegate could not vet potential recruits fast enough. I despaired, finally, after the second recruiting attempt. I conceded that Ixnay was doomed to dwindle and die – at eleven members following the recruiting failure – and that my dreams of a large vibrant region reminiscent of Tyrrhenia or the other great old ladies of the roleplay world were doomed to not come to pass. I guess, then, the 2013 “coup”, if it could be called that, was simply the result of boredom from being on winter break – I was a Sophomore at the '''-REDACTED-''' at the time. I didn’t fully expect it to work – I expected a telegram back from Lacus Magni saying that he just couldn’t bring himself to join the World Assembly. I would have accepted, stirred that I had failed again, and moved on. That is not what came to pass. I became Delegate and determined that I would conform Ixnay to my ideal while trying to stay true to its history and traditions – an extensive, ten year history.

===Building a Core===

If Ixnay had relied on its strong player relations, I knew I needed to build a community of roleplayers that I knew were primarily social, and so I turned to my old connections. First, those of the Conclave roleplay; Lacus Magni had joined through this, and I reached out to Kirav and Kistan next. Both players had been in the region during the 2013 effort (Kirav as a puppet), and I knew both had no real ties to their regional communities. Kirav was an older player – a veteran of the late 2000s “golden age of II” like myself, and I knew he would be a big get. It took some maneuvering and negotiation, but he came over with his primary nation soon enough. I considered this a move that improved the outward legitimacy of the region. It should be said I didn’t know if Kirav’s presence actually brought a single member to the region, but my only model for a region at the time was Tyrrhenia, which thrived on the late 2000s-type player. ''A later recollection of events by Burg confirmed that the presence of Kirav did indeed bring the region a certain pedigree of legitimacy, drawing him in.'' In my mind, getting Kirav to join meant that this effort was real. We had landed a pretty decently-sized fish, not a puppet, but the

real deal. This set the recruiting goals for the next few months that did not truly come to pass – getting disaffected, veteran players. We did acquire a few, but in hindsight it was not where our bread was buttered. My view of NationStates as that late 2000s-style place was out of date but it was the only thing I had to go on.

Soon, several other players came. Most of the Conclave players had not yet responded, but a player from 2013 I had recruited named Talion Union came back. I got two players named Canete and Blue Cross Island from a random roleplay thread, and by the fourth of the year Ixnay had about eleven players. I had already considered myself a success; after all, I had increased the region’s membership by about two hundred percent. That would pale in comparison, however to what would come next.