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by Escade. . 40 reads.

Gameplay Magazine - Featured Personality: Jar Wattinree


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Featured Personality: Jar Wattinree

How did you learn about NationStates? How long have you been playing NS?

I stumbled across NationStates quite by accident in November/December of 2016. I was primarily a reddit user, decreasing my presence from Facebook at the time, and had gotten quite involved with the Destiny community (although the loss of my PS3 meant I could not play the game post-Rise of Iron in Destiny 1). I mostly hung out in /r/DestinyLore where I made a name for myself as a thorough loremaster, and with another user debunked and made silly a very prominent myth regarding some important characters in [the game]. Look up "Rasputin" and "Traveler" in the same search and it will pop up. Needless to say, when canon all but confirmed this, we were ecstatic. Anyway, I was searching for some related images when I came across The Vex Dominion, a CTE’d nation that pulled wholesale for its factbooks information from Destinypedia, which meant that it was horribly outdated.


A vectorized Titan Mark, a class-unique item worn by Titans, a class focused mostly on power and punching their enemies. It hangs from the waist on the right

What is the significance or story behind your nation's name and flag?

I wanted a cool name, but didn’t know where to look, so this FB friend suggested Xytan ‘Jar Wattinree, a Halo Sangheili Imperial Admiral. It has no relation to the lore in my nation. My original flag came from Jul ‘Mdama’s Covenant (image is located on the Halopedia article of the same name). I later replaced it with a vectorized image of some of my favorite Destiny armor, The Jovian Guard (pictured).

My current flag, made by The Solar System Scope, comes entirely from Star Fox, and there are two reasons for that. One, I started using Krystal as an avvie around the time a Star Fox Discord I administrate appeared; two, because of its appearance in the then NS NPO server, I decided to port it over to my nation because, why not?, and it became a fixture of my NS identity. Incidentally, this has made no small amount of people mistake my gender to be something else, and I have a good laugh (of disbelief) when they realize it. I like the character that much.


Krystal on an NPO flag. There's a game in the Discord where players align with the snake team or the fox team. I'd of course pick foxes :P

Tell us about your early career in NationStates and the significant things you did to lead you to where you are today?

I founded in The Pacific and spent approximately three months figuring things out. Once those three months were up, I signed up and applied for citizenship.

Most of my “early” career was spent in the Legio of the time, and developing the then nascent RMB RP of Arembia as one of the original founders, along with Emmalina and The Bible Baptist Republic (remembered affectionately as TBBR). New players joined the RMB RP, and one of them, Samasbhi, even formed a little set of rules that most of us immediately adopted. There was fun to be had for all.

I became a Praetorian sometime before October of 2017, largely because I attended the Praetorian Reporting Thread diligently, but was almost immediately demoted to the then new trainee rank of Munifex as part of protocol. I also became an Imperial Governor in November, which was bizarrely incongruent with the Discord perms, incidentally. As a Munifex, I had no power; as an IG, which was a mask above, I could kick/ban, mute, and mask people; and gameside, Governors had Border Control, so I was frequently tasked with removing 106s upon the conclusion of the courts.

Incidentally, it was exactly one year, down to the day, between my gaining Imperial Governorship and Senator. I was appointed Senator at the recommendation of Pergamon, and have remained in that office since.

Were these roleplay courts or?

Regional Courts. The Pacific has a court system for processing infractions against the Civil Code. It had been established way back and serves as an archival system for when we do mass ejections of objectionable nations, like those praising Nazism or just being plain juvenile like "smoke weed yo dawgs".

106 is the most common infraction, and is our label for those with offensive custom fields—this includes everything from flags down to even factbooks.

What region are you currently a part of? What do you like best about this region?

The Pacific, and have never left it since founding (December 2016) save for my first Legio op once.

I like it because the RP was diverse and the community was open and friendly. So many comrades, Pelagis and Riverpond, Shinganshina and Somewherica, Experentia and Rejaqym now gone. Some occasionally return for events or quietly lurk on the forums—but these were among those who inhabited the RMB back in the day. Now the RMB is filled with ever more diverse characters and nations, from The First German Order and Longweather to Haven & Sanctuary and Isilanka, plus honorable mentions Elyreia, Palm-islands, and Neuer Deutsches Reich.

I’m also involved with Forest,a good region disassociated from the politics and wars memes of GP, focusing mostly on the environment and with healthy discussion of politics.

What kind of Roleplay (tech, style, etc) does The Pacific favor or focus on?

The Pacific forums features an extensive Modern Tech community, well into its seventh iteration, with multiple nations, religions, and histories. Most of it appears to be number crunching from an outsider's perspective, like budgeting for healthcare, military, income level, and that's not going into the truly insane levels of detail some of them go into their nations. Best part many of them started out gung ho and casual and eventually evolved into serious-minded RPers that take pride in their collaborative work -- and, of course, the memes that have been spawned from their characters. I am nominally involved in MT RP, but would definitely participate if I had more time.

The other major feature is Modern Fantasy Tech -- take the MT world I described, remove all restrictions, a little less budgeting, and you get MFT. It's more relaxed than MT and has a lot of whacky magic systems in it. I'm not involved in it as much, so I wouldn't really know.

Future Tech is a struggling genre. Its first instance went well, but drama happened. The second instance is in its infancy. All its really done is show me that I overdesign my FT species and their civilization. I blame Stellaris.

Stellaris is a popular game for NSers as well! I'm still working out my roleplay but the level of detail that some players put into their nations, histories, and other factbooks is immense and both inspiring and sometimes a bit intimidating.


Stellaris is a 4X grand strategy video game where players build their space empire by engaging in space exploration, diplomacy, and space warfare. Image comes from Patch 2.3.3, Wolfe.

What are your thoughts on the various gameplay venues (forums, Discord, gameside\RMB)?

Forums are good for archives and for detailed things, like mega roleplay plots or extended discussions on weighty things that would get lost in a faster-paced avenue, like Discord. Discord, for these very same reasons, is best suited for highspeed conversation and forging friends and community.

Gameside, the RMB is best for forging community between the old and new. In fact, one of the reasons I was appointed as IG was to better moderate the RMB. Recruitment spam was never difficult, but occasionally we had a roleplayer flame out and post suppression was needed. Like Discord, the RMB is full of spontaneity, but unlike Discord this can be anything, from full-scale RP plots to discussions of cheese and “pineapples”. *wink wink*

A region with a fun and lively RMB is so lucky :)

Indeed. The best indicator of any region's activity is not Discord or the forums but the Regional Message Board. You meet new faces there, make new friends, and if something bad happens on the RMB you'd best be sure that everyone there will be highly annoyed with the person, be it a regional recruiter or someone posting the Bee Movie script.

One of the relatively recent "RP genres" to appear is the RMB RP group, called "Arembia", a semi-MT/pre-FT RP thingy. It started in mid 2017 when TBBR started posting "news snippets" of events happening in his nation, and other players spontaneously replied with their own nations' official stances on these happenings. Eventually Samasbhi created some guidelines so people could have a baseline for their NS stats, Aleisyr appointed him as "RMB RP Overseer", and it snowballed from there. Last I checked it has a tentative collaborative timeline, it has a map, (generic) names for continents, and room for more nations to appear if they want to join.

Currently everyone is either in one of three alliances, the Alexandria League, The CORPS (The COalition for Regional Prosperity and Security), and the somewhat inactive "Oblivion Concordat." The CORPS is the largest, with members from the other alliances, as it is not a military alliance, it's more of a fictional UN with actual power behind it. My nation is one of its twin founders.

The most major event on there is a semi-world war against Issues nation East Lebatuck, an obvious stand-in for the Soviet Union but different. It currently fights the local hippie nation across the sea but kickstarted the war when I had it nuke my nation's capital. So of all the nations to have grievance with it would be mine. lol

As with MT RP my attention span for it has slowed to a crawl but what little time I do spare is developing my nation's lore, and making sure I'm up to date with the latest plot advances. Because eventually I am going to RP again and I'll need to know where to begin. Thank [violet] for that RMB search feature, it is a godsend.

Posting the Bee Movie script :O The world building levels that RMBers engage in can be amazingly in-depth and span over years. [

What has been your favorite historical moment in NS?

The sequence of events that led to the rise of the Undead Dominion of Lazarus in 2017. It made me aware that the status quo can be changed, and dramatically so. My involvement was mostly in the sidelines, due to my lack of political knowledge back then. though my sympathies lay with the Celestial Union solely because an old friend had been part of it. Even hung out in “The Resistance” Discord for a good while. Such was the impact that Reppy [Reploid Productions] consolidated every single Lazarus-related thread—save for official embassies—into the first ever GCR Megathread of GP. For a short period of time, honorable mention goes to the Khanate, restarting the whole sequence of events.

What advice would you give to players who are tired of the "status quo?"

The advice or lesson I'd give is if you want something to change, you do it yourself. Moaning, whining, crying and complaining about how Gameplay is dead is not how you go about doing this. Nor does vilifying and smearing those who attempt change, either. It is difficult to separate the OOC from the IC, but Gameplay is largely an elaborate pseudo-RP that pretends to be RP. Which is to say, not at all. This is the status quo, and has been for a while—I cannot say exactly when this state of affairs came into being. It could have been for as long or longer than I had first joined the game.

And mostly this is why people avoid changing things. They fear the crowd, or just don't care about doing anything. This is fine. It takes someone with guts to pull off a coup, and those that have done so and are left have largely rendered it impossible now thanks to the "new GP" of social networking. Then again, that old saying applies to NS: "Art imitates life." Insofar as it is a "natural" thing, I think it is natural, that is to say, when people have become so entrenched in a community that they stagnant and don't care about doing anything except exist, that is the reason why a coup happens: someone with ambition steps in, quietly, and then lights off a firecracker.

Insofar as it is a "natural" thing, I think it is natural, that is to say, when people have become so entrenched in a community that they stagnant and don't care about doing anything except exist, that is the reason why a coup happens: someone with ambition steps in, quietly, and then lights off a firecracker.

Will we see it again? Yes, for as long as this game exists. This is a political game, and unlike the Real World, words are all that we use to fight or bicker with.

If you were Max Barry for a day, what would you do?

Run day to day business as usual and inform him upon the end of the day that I have little experience in raising his family. The NS moderators Discord server is definitely interesting, I’ll admit, but it is mostly a bunch of nerds pretending to be geeks roleplaying at being responsible adults.

What do you do for fun when you're not on Nation States?

Watch YouTube, play videogames, occasionally read a book, drive around town, go on reddit or Quora, and/or write fanfictions that never get completed on time.

Ooooh, what fandoms do you write for?
I started writing Star Wars fanfiction way back when The Clone Wars (2008) was at its peak. There were active RP communities on Facebook, in spite of FB's attempts to destroy them, that ran the whole gamut of history, though, understandingly, most of them focused on Clones vs Droids. Some of the great RPs of that time I helped craft.


Droids vs. Clones, Star Wars

The other major fanfiction (cough apart from Tolkien's legendarium cough) would be Star Fox. No, it is not what you're thinking of. It's the sandbox nature of the fandom that's the attraction. Don't like how screwy and wonky the games make out its lore to be? Throw it out the window and create your own version. One of the best fanfictions I've read in [the Fanfiction dot net archive] focuses not on the eponymous team but on their nemesis, Star Wolf, and makes them much more compelling.

I don't complete things because I am a perfectionist. Fortunately, I do shut up the critic from time to time and actually work on something.

Finishing things is probably the hardest thing especially if you have that inner voice that says, "Not quite done yet.." I do also agree that fan fiction that takes a new angle on things often can be better than the original sometimes.

What is your favorite movie and\or TV and\or anime show(s)?

Movies may be a difficult thing to answer. I suppose the classics would suffice—Star Wars, or otherwise known as Episode IV: A New Hope. One of the first movies I ever saw, and I’m serious, I have memories from when I was a little kid living in a cabin of Jawas and Sandtroopers.

TV would be The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Daniel Boone, Chaotic, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Star Trek TNG and VOY, and I forget if there’s anything else.

Favorite Star Wars character, event, and Jedi or Sith? Also your thoughts on the new series?

Han Solo, from the Original Trilogy. Jar Jar Binks from the Prequel Trilogy. A shame he was downplayed in later films. At least TCW made sure he shone.

Gotta say it has to be the entire climatic battle of Return of the Jedi. Best, most awesome sequence ever. Next best is The Phantom Menace.

Obi-Wan Kenobi. For all of his faults, he is a good guy.

I'm not holding my breath. Do not get me started on The Last Jedi. It has nothing redeemable about it.

Favorite book(s)?

Several. In no particular order, and owing in large part to my grandfather, who introduced them to me:

    The Heralds of Valdemar, by Mercedes Lackey
    The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey
    The Saga of Recluse, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr
    The Riftwar Cycle, by Raymond E. Feist
    The Leviathan trilogy, by Scott Westerfield
    Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling
    Children of the Red King, by Jenny Nimmo
    The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
    Theodore Boone, by John Grisham
    Any C.S. Lewis book
    Enderverse, by Orson Scott Card
    The Foundation Series, by Isaac Asimov

Favorite music?
LinkTwo Steps from Hell, LinkPowerwolf, LinkDragonforce, LinkGloryhammer. A few others, but these are my tops.

What is a game (outside of NS) that everyone should play?
Little Nightmares. No further elaboration required. Also, Little Nightmares 2 was announced August 20, so keep an eye out for that.

Can you tell us a little more about Destiny, the game that brought you to NationStates?
A big white sphere called The Traveler came to the Solar System and kickstarted humanity's technological Golden Age. Then a nebulous evil called The Darkness came and destroyed everything. Traveler fought it somehow and pushed it back, but was mortally wounded in the processes. So it sent out a lot of little robots called Ghosts to bring back dead people and turn them into superpowered warriors called Guardians. You start the game as a newly resurrected Guardian, and you quickly become "The Guardian" throughout the course of the game. (But, of course, you are just another Guardian when you bring in the multiplayer aspect.)


The Warlock, The Hunter, and the Titan in Destiny

There are three Guardian classes, the wise and wizardly Warlocks, the elite and stealthy Hunters, and then my favorite the PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH Titans. I was always a Titan, mostly because I loved punching things. They have various mechanics related to them, that again, you can read more about on Destinypedia.

The game is part RPG part MMO, and the base Destiny game is so bad it is good (lack of story for one), but its DLCs are A W E S O M E. Destiny 2 started off in the exact opposite direction, it fixed the problems of the original game, but ran into the problem of running out of story, but once again DLCs saved the day.

I like Destiny a lot because its background lore is extremely well put together—half of the major lore articles on Destinypedia are in part due to me—and for a time I could just log in, fly to Mars, and spend my time punching time-traveling robots (the Vex) to death repeatedly while avoiding the occasional space turtle (The Cabal) legionary.

So you wake up one morning and receive the delegacy of any region you choose. Which would you choose? And what would you do as delegate?

Forest, and I would do nothing except vote on Resolutions.

What is one change you would make to NationStates to help improve the game experience?

A proper war aspect to the game, tied to your Issue stats and perhaps even Cards. Nations are placed into Tiers, for example, where newer nations fight other newer nations, and as you go up in your Issue stats you can fight or war against other similar nations, like how War Thunder or World of Tanks do it. But it would require a different sort of game infrastructure to support, and it would change NS into something extremely different.

How might this work on a technical level?

All I'm saying is it would requite the base game to be reworked entirely. Issues are king in what we see now. To make any sort of war system work, you must make it part and parcel of the Issue system, or at least find a way to tie the two together to keep both parties (both warmongers and Issue players) interested. Also the Cards system and bank can be incorporated—already an idea would be to have bank also be used to buy stuff off the global market to fuel your war machine.

Like I said, a different sort of game infrastructure. It has little relation to the Factions proposal in Technical.

Thanks to Jar Wattinree for the interview and for the editing\writing help and advice!

Escade

Edited:

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