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A History of Ixnay (OOC): Difference between revisions
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summer 2015 through early 2016
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'''''A History Of Ixnay''''' is a recounting of events throughout the history of Ixnay as recalled by Spelf. It is noted for its considerable subjectivity and failure to meet any basic standard for what might be considered a "history". It was started in 2017 by the author but was abandoned and not recalled again until 2019, when the author began working on it. Consequently, it features several different styles of writing and arbitrarily moves between a history of the region generally and a recalling of Spelf's time in the region, specifically. A major addendum was added in 2022 which included numerous factual deficiencies, entire incidents and episodes left out, and other significant problems with narrative. | '''''A History Of Ixnay''''' is a recounting of events throughout the history of Ixnay as recalled by Spelf. It is noted for its considerable subjectivity and failure to meet any basic standard for what might be considered a "history". It was started in 2017 by the author but was abandoned and not recalled again until 2019, when the author began working on it. Consequently, it features several different styles of writing and arbitrarily moves between a history of the region generally and a recalling of Spelf's time in the region, specifically. A major addendum was added in 2022 which included numerous factual deficiencies, entire incidents and episodes left out, and other significant problems with narrative. It is generally the author's intent to provide a neutral point of view and not besmirch the character of any individual person. | ||
=Background= | =Background= | ||
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===The High Golden Age=== | ===The High Golden Age=== | ||
The High Golden Age began in very late 2014 or very early 2015. The new entrants Heku, Corumm, and Amerigo were very active, the staple LOTA members, the Audonians, and the UIF were center in the plot, and many members who would become long time members, such as Yytuskia | The High Golden Age began in very late 2014 or very early 2015. The new entrants Heku, Corumm, and Amerigo were very active, the staple LOTA members, the Audonians, and the UIF were center in the plot, and many members who would become long time members, such as Yytuskia. | ||
The first IC event of the High Golden Age was the Snowlandish Betrayal, an incident that would come to define interpersonal relationships in Ixnay for years to come. Heku was a new member, then on Crona, and neighbored a country called Snowlandish. We included Heku within LOTA and plotted to partition the country of Snowlandish. Instead of following through on our plan, however, it was designed to give Heku a false sense of security, and the country was partitioned between myself and Kirav who preemptively invaded it. This incident soiled Urc-Heku trust for many years to come, made Heku a LOTA enemy from that point onwards (forming the basis of the eventual Western League and numerous other Sarpedon-based anti-Levantine movements). | The first IC event of the High Golden Age was the Snowlandish Betrayal, an incident that would come to define interpersonal relationships in Ixnay for years to come. Heku was a new member, then on Crona, and neighbored a country called Snowlandish. We included Heku within LOTA and plotted to partition the country of Snowlandish. Instead of following through on our plan, however, it was designed to give Heku a false sense of security, and the country was partitioned between myself and Kirav who preemptively invaded it. This incident soiled Urc-Heku trust for many years to come, made Heku a LOTA enemy from that point onwards (forming the basis of the eventual Western League and numerous other Sarpedon-based anti-Levantine movements). | ||
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The major controversy of this period was over statistics. Prior to the IxStats reforms, all members of the region simply used the stats of their NationStates country, which are determined mostly as a function of how long a nation exists within game. Accordingly, Urcea and Kiravia were the largest countries as the oldest players in Ixnay. This created a bloated statistical situation as both countries were well into the high 10s, low 20s billions of population by 2015. This created a power deficiency between them and newer players and also created what some complained to be an unrealistic world population. Reform was often talked about, but the discussion was a bitter, bitter one for most of the period of the debate. Ixnay was allegedly, and I don't know to this day if this is true, one of the last semi-serious RP regions to use game stats. Latin appears to have championed significant reforms with my assistance, although the balance of who-did-what is now beyond my recollection. A poll of the region in May of 2015 approved "RP Stats" compared to "Game Stats" by a margin of 19 to 12. A subsequent amendment to the Fundamental Statute, approved 20-3, created a new RP Stat convention which set every player's population stats at 10% of their Game Stats, which I thought was a relatively fair compromise. This principle, I believe, continued on for some years after that, and Urcea and Kiravia being in the single billion plus range survives by convention today. Later in the year, a single, cohesive time scale was approved nearly unanimously, 24-1, with only Corumm voting no. The much-mocked "LatinTime" established the first ticking-clock RP time scale for Ixnay, setting it at 2024. A distant derivation of this system survives today. | The major controversy of this period was over statistics. Prior to the IxStats reforms, all members of the region simply used the stats of their NationStates country, which are determined mostly as a function of how long a nation exists within game. Accordingly, Urcea and Kiravia were the largest countries as the oldest players in Ixnay. This created a bloated statistical situation as both countries were well into the high 10s, low 20s billions of population by 2015. This created a power deficiency between them and newer players and also created what some complained to be an unrealistic world population. Reform was often talked about, but the discussion was a bitter, bitter one for most of the period of the debate. Ixnay was allegedly, and I don't know to this day if this is true, one of the last semi-serious RP regions to use game stats. Latin appears to have championed significant reforms with my assistance, although the balance of who-did-what is now beyond my recollection. A poll of the region in May of 2015 approved "RP Stats" compared to "Game Stats" by a margin of 19 to 12. A subsequent amendment to the Fundamental Statute, approved 20-3, created a new RP Stat convention which set every player's population stats at 10% of their Game Stats, which I thought was a relatively fair compromise. This principle, I believe, continued on for some years after that, and Urcea and Kiravia being in the single billion plus range survives by convention today. Later in the year, a single, cohesive time scale was approved nearly unanimously, 24-1, with only Corumm voting no. The much-mocked "LatinTime" established the first ticking-clock RP time scale for Ixnay, setting it at 2024. A distant derivation of this system survives today. | ||
In spring 2015, specific date unknown, Ghant joined Ixnay. Ghant is a player who has kicked around basically every region with a roleplay component in NationStates and draws a very polarized view based on his IC play style and OOC ideas. I was impressed by his resume and thought he might be a good addition to the region, but I actually received several telegrams from other regional delegates warning me that he was trouble. Regardless, with my eye on him, I let him stay, and he and I got along fairly well at first. | In spring 2015, specific date unknown, Ghant joined Ixnay. Ghant is a player who has kicked around basically every region with a roleplay component in NationStates and draws a very polarized view based on his IC play style and OOC ideas. I was impressed by his resume and thought he might be a good addition to the region, but I actually received several telegrams from other regional delegates warning me that he was trouble. Regardless, with my eye on him, I let him stay, and he and I got along fairly well at first. (''2023 Text Beginning''). It is generally true, and true to this day, that this player is a very accomplished person as far as roleplay is concerned. However, in the long run, his character-oriented roleplay and the things he wanted to focus on (such as the all-important and all-consuming desire for realism that consumes every new Ixnay entrant) were generally not a good fit for Ixnay. It would turn out that several other long-time members, such as Malay, Latin, and others, preferred this style of play. It would come to create division in Ixnay further down the road. For a time, however, the arrival of Ghant signaled the new era of Ixnay. As mentioned, the Darkland era had waned. Roleplay, and general OOC peace, were the order of the day for most of 2015. | ||
One could argue the end of the golden era occurred with the exit of Abs from the scene. Absurrania, the country (also called UIF), had been a central part of IC play, and the player was central to OOC politics. Eventually, the UIF's IC ambitions got the better of it. Without its Darkland allies, the UIF was drawn into a war with Amerigo and a new player called Jakee. It has always been my suspicion, though never confirmed, that Abs functionally ragequit because the country he spent a year building was out of options. It is also possible that the puppet situation was going to be exposed, ruining his OOC reputation. A long-running joke and, increasingly, theory is that Abs signed up to fight with the {{wp|Daesh}}. Whatever the case, he disappeared on July 21st, 2015 - his last words being "well I have to go to sleep". Sleep on, king. | |||
===IxReboot Era=== | ===IxReboot Era=== | ||
In August 2015, casual conversations between myself and Latin gradually emerged into a new idea - Ixnay's first full reboot. The pre-reboot canon included a very large and tangled train of events, half-lore, and functionally IC superstition. This included Darklands Cold War lore, Sarpedon (IxProp) lore entirely dependent on the UIF, half-remembered pre-Urcea era stuff dating back to the mid 2000s that I had tried to integrate, and various other sometimes contradictory or immersion breaking issues. We were dealing with events and an IC history that no player actually remembered as well as ones where the central characters were completely removed from existence. Accordingly, the casual conversations took on significantly more momentum within staff circles. Before I go on to describe what happened, my great regret - and the thing that made IxReboot so controversial - was that nearly all the planning happened behind closed doors. I generally believe IxReboot to not only be the best choice staff ever made - and the one that allowed Ixnay to survive the coming storm - but the fact it was dictated to players, rather than solicited their input, caused major problems. It also caused a semi-continuous rift between myself and Pauldustllah that was not mended until around 2020. | |||
The fundamental idea of IxReboot was not only to cast away the old lore but to rearrange the map in such a way that fostered immersion. Prior to IxReboot, new players were put anywhere on the map that looked good, regardless of culture or religion. IxReboot changed this, grouping players generally by culture. It wasn't perfect and didn't reach refinement until 2019; for example, Germans were put in both Levantia and Crona. As part of this, Pauldustllah, Amerigo, and others were shunted off to Crona. Heku was moved to more or less his present location. My recollection is that we also put Insui where she ended up on Sarpedon. I believe Palmeria basically remained where it was pre-reboot, creating a Latin/Romance corridor on Sarpedon. Other miscellaneous cultural groupings occurred. By the time the process was completed, the whole world was more or less sorted in cultural or rational roleplay reasons rather than all over the place. | |||
Getting rid of everything that came before it insulated us from further dependence on old lore and established the firm basis of Ixnay as a "Lore World" rather than a generic NationStates roleplaying region. These changes were not entirely evident at the time, but would come into play later. The post-Reboot world had its problems, though, and for a time created unrest and division among the members. This era, lasting from August 2015 through March 2016, was fraught with a lot of social problems. I also entered my first great activity recession as I began my professional career. By March 2016, I was not a daily or even weekly feature in the IRC. I was exchanging ideas with Latin over what would eventually become the [[Levantine Union]] by email, and when I received another email in that thread on the afternoon of March 9th, 2016, it was not unexpected. What was included, however, was completely unexpected and would absolutely alter the history of Ixnay going forward. | |||
===Black Thursday Collapse=== | ===Black Thursday Collapse=== | ||
I would like to clear the record for a moment. In months following what we now call "Black Thursday", in a place of anger I made claims that members who left on that day, most and especially Latin, did so without as much as an explanation or a goodbye. In hindsight, and reviewing the record, these claims were completely untrue. As indicated above, at 4:46 PM on Thursday, March 9th, 2016, I did receive an email. It was respectful, explaining that he and other members, had a difference of opinion regarding the direction of the region. It also included an updated version of the map which removed everyone who was leaving. Beyond stating that our core members - Latin, Malay, Ghant, and later Azur (in a different direction) and I think Ormata (?) - left, I don't really have much to say about them or where they ended up. This history is more focused on Ixnay, the community, and the events of 3/9/16 as it relates to the community. As Latin was serving as Delegate, this was not only a spiritual blow to the region but also totally crippled its leadership. | |||
During Black Thursday, I was obviously abscent from the community. This created a lack of leadership within the community. The sudden loss of core members, plus lack of leadership, made it seem evident to everyone that Ixnay had reached its conclusion. That Thursday, and the next 1-2 days afterward, were the period of the greatest uncertainty in the history of Ixnay. Part of the issue was that many of the players had been bit actors or peripheral players during the pre-Thursday time. To my recollection, the remaining community was myself, Kirav, Heku, Corumm, Kron, Amerigo, Jakee, Kuhlfros, Kistan, Insui and maybe a handful of others - sorry if I forgot you. A sense of malaise and people looking for a lifeboat set in - including Heku, who to his everlasting shame attempted to start Nevias. However, as IRC admin and sometimes-delegate, Heku found himself in a position to eventually take charge, to his everlasting credit. Heku basically assumed control over a hollowed-out community with Kron more or less as his second-in-command, and those two began to pick up the pieces. From that date on, Heku has essentially been a fixture in Ixnay's leadership and functionally elevated himself to my level of importance and authority within the community. | |||
Those were dark months, and I remained absent for many of them. We managed to stop the bleeding and began to pick up the pieces, ensuring no members left and that Ixnay would continue to exist. Some former members attempted to poach people, but most remained strong. The absolute worst of Black Thursday had ended by the end of March, but to this day it remains probably the worst day in Ixnay's history. | |||
===The Burg Renaissance and Silver Age=== | ===The Burg Renaissance and Silver Age=== | ||
The beginning of Lore. | |||
===Second Departure and Canadian Dark Age=== | ===Second Departure and Canadian Dark Age=== | ||
===The Spelf Renaissance and Canadian Drama=== | ===The Spelf Renaissance and Canadian Drama=== | ||
===The Pandemic and Wipe=== | ===The Pandemic and Wipe=== | ||
===The Second Golden Age=== | ===The Second Golden Age=== | ||
=== | ===Present=== | ||
[[Category:IXWB]] | [[Category:IXWB]] | ||