So, you've just been founded or have moved into the East Pacific and you are looking to get more involved with this community. Or maybe you have seen me and other users roleplaying on the map with giant walls of text. That is a huge part of TEP's community, and what you are looking at is its most vibrant RMB roleplay map. So, without further ado...
Welcome, fledgling, to the world of Valsora!
What is VALSORA? Valsora
Valsora is a roleplay set ten years from now whenever you are reading this. The RP's technology is a mix of modern technology and fantasy, but more or less is like the Earth we live on, with distinct cultures, identities and people very similar to ours. As it is an RMB RP map, it uses the chatroom for the East Pacific (called the Regional Message Board or RMB) as a medium for its participants to interact with one another.
Sounds cool, right?
How do I join? Valsora
I, [YOUR NATION NAME], would like to submit a request to join Valsora,
• On-Map Nation Name: (What is the name of your country on the map? Your NS name and map name can be different or the same.)
But wait!
So, what is an overview?
The first question the telegram will ask you is an overview of your country. It is generally a quick history of your country and how it came to be.
This is important, as establishing your country's history will help you figure out the "who" of your country - its identity. For example, some questions you can ask yourself about your country's history can be:
Is your country a war-ravaged country?
If you are able to demonstrate your ability to competently establish your nation's historical identity to the Cartographers, it shows to them that you know what you want your country to be and signals that you are ready to join the map and interact with its bustling community.
Note how I said competently. That means that you and everyone else who can read it can understand its general storyline easily. A good example of this could be as simple as this:
A country that has existed since 1910. Has a history of political extremism. In recent times it was subject to a separatist movement that resulted in the country collapsing for a period of a year, before returning to functioning order this year.
A bad one though, could be something like this:
westmore is a country that is really awesome and cool. we are the best on earth and nobody can say otherwise.
In your overview, your history should establish your nation's personality traits as a character on the map and show what your society is or was like. If it does neither of these or only one of these, then it is not a good overview and you should spend some more time rewriting it to reflect these standards.
What about the cultural base?
A cultural base is basically what your country's cultural identity has been inspired by. This is an important one, since if you have created a really unique identity you will need to figure out which real-life culture it aligns with the most.
The main reason you need to figure out your cultural base is this: Valsora's map has continents with identities that closely resemble those of the real world you and I live in . For example, Orientalis (the big amogus-shaped continent to the right of the map) is based on Asia, while Araseos (the continent in the lower-left corner of the map with the giant country called "Kampf Empire") is based on Germanic culture.
But New Westmore, that's so hard! I can't be bothered looking up cultural identities and stuff... Then too bad. If you are really unable to answer that question you may find it more difficult to fit your country into Valsora's community without having issues along the way. You don't really have to answer this question, but it may make the Cartographers question as to whether you are fit to join the map.
A helpful guide to culture approximations on Valsora What is this business of a "GDP?" and "Population?"
All countries on Valsora, like the ones in the real world, have a finite amount of money called their GDP. The GDP basically determines how much moolah your nation can spend away to its heart's content. Like a counter as to how rich you are. As with your population, your population basically determines how many people really live in your country on Valsora. Most people usually say their country has at least 20 to 30 million people depending on how big their country is, but you do you.
Before you type in a random arbitrary number, you need to know this: You can only find your GDP when you determine your on-map population. And if you are figuring out your population, you cannot use your NS stats because Valsora doesn't use those stats to determine your nation's wealth and population.
Since it can be difficult to find a GDP based on a population number, a good tip I can recommend is this: When you are figuring out your population, find a real-life country with a population number similar to yours and then steal their GDP and GDP per capita information. I actually used this trick to determine New Westmore's economic information - my population on Valsora averages out at 26 million and since I'm based on Australia, I also used its GDP as my GDP.
This is not foolproof, and sometimes it will result in the Cartographers saying your GDP and/or population is way too high, but it is a good starting point to figuring out your stats for your country on the map.
Hey, I'm on Valsora now!
That's awesome! That means your application got through and now you are a member of one of the best roleplay communities in all of NationStates! But, now that you are on, you are also in a world full of hostile neighbours and belligerents everywhere around you. So, here's a few tips to surviving Valsora while you are here with us.
1. Understand your continent's political landscape. When you join Valsora, you will be dropped onto a continent with multiple other countries near or around you. As such, before you start allying with everyone under the sun, understand what the dynamics in your continent are. Some questions you can ask yourself when looking around your continent can be:
- Are there extremely tense relations with two countries on the continent?
2. Be careful with who you ally with. Basically, be careful with your alliances. For example, you don't want to be allied with too many nations, because this can cause problems such as two of your allies going to war or having allies who are enemies of one another. This isn't to say that these situations can happen with smaller alliance numbers, but it tends to be more common in nations who have a lot of ties with other people on the map.
3. Don't immediately go to war with everyone under the sun. This is self-explanatory. Going to war with everyone, and I mean everyone, often results in the premature death of a lot of nations who join Valsora. You can only go to war so many times before it either goes stale or you pick a fight with the wrong person, such as the Kampfian Empire or Dabiristan. Seriously.
If you plan to be a warmonger, the general rule of thumb to avoid conflict with a political superpower is this: If you can very clearly see their countries on a small version of a map of Valsora, then you are probably going to want to not pick a fight with them since this often indicates they have been around for a long time and know very well how to fight like a man. Real warmongers always pick on the little guy.
If you know what is good for you, avoid this man at all costs. He will not hesitate to crush you into red powder.
4. Keep your IC persona separate to your OOC persona. Valsora is a roleplay community. That means that the things a lot of people do around here are just roleplay. What they say and what they do does not necessarily represent their real personality. Thus, this is the concept of In-Character (IC) and Out-of-Character (OOC).
When you are on Valsora, you are playing a character, be it your country or a person from your country. Since you will interact with a lot of other people, you need to keep your character's actions and mannerisms (IC) separate to your real self (OOC.) In simple terms, that means if your character gets killed by someone else on Valsora, do not take the conflict to a personal level and start roasting their mother and their entire family lineage.
Swearing and flaming when you are playing a character is generally alright, but keep it PG-13 and within reason. Don't flame someone though OOC and then claim to the mods it was just a character. You have to make it clear when you are IC and when you are OOC.
Valsora is a game. Keep it as that.
5. Have fun, accept criticism and respect everyone. Valsora is a bustling hub of interaction. If you are a good player, you can make friendships that may last a lifetime after you leave the game. You can also learn extremely good tips about storywriting, since this community is basically a little storywriter's guild. However, all of this will only come if you have fun and treat everyone you meet as a human being.
In simple terms: Don't be an asshole. Don't be annoying or violent when someone tries to give you constructive criticism - keep your ego in check. Don't get upset when your country gets annexed by your neighbours - it's just a game,
You are part of a huge community. It isn't hard to be a decent member of that community.
6. The word of the Cartos is final. The Cartographers are the people who manage Valsora as a community. That means that they get to dictate what goes and what doesn't. If they tell you that you can't do something, don't bother trying to push against their word unless you absolutely believe and can competently prove to them that their judgement on a certain ruling is wrong. And this is the important part: competently. You cannot be a whiny bitch and force them to change their mind. You need to show them through logical and levelheaded reasoning why they are wrong. But I digress.
Bottom line, they have administrative powers, you don't. If you are unable to listen to their advice or what the cartographers tell you to change in your country's statistics or lore, you will only cause more unwanted problems and will only harm your relationship with them and other people in the community.
7. Plan out your wars and collaborative stories with others beforehand. This one sounds a little odd to newcomers on Valsora, but trust me, you will want to plan out your wars and collab stories OOC before actually doing it. Unlike games like War Thunder, where conflicts happen in the spur of the moment, Valsora's idea of war is literally just another form of story you can tell through your nation, and like all good stories, you must have a planned out storyline for you and other belligerents to follow. By doing this, you reduce the likelihood of petty OOC conflicts and disputes ruining the fun, and trust me, your roleplay will be really, really good too.
Does it mean you have to follow the original plan down to a t? No! You're free to change the story you tell on a whim however you want, but you should always run your plans past other roleplayers you're interacting with to make sure it doesn't cause issues later down the track.
Help me! I don't know what to write about on Valsora!
A lot of newcomers and OGs face this problem every now and again, and honestly, I can't blame you. Writing stories, however long or short they can be, can be quite a daunting task if you are doing it for the first time or if you have run straight out of ideas to pen down as a story. If you are hit with a bout of "writer's 'flu" or writer's block, here are a few things you can do to get out of it:
Read another book or a piece of media to get your mind jogging! It can be either creative or non-fiction, but the general idea is that by reading, you can find an idea in those books to use as your RP post. For example, you can read about Project MKUltra and by using it as a base for your ideas, your RP posts can be about clandestine government activities of dubious moral ethic.
Listen to music! Music can be a powerful tool in getting your mind's creative juices flowing. It can be rap, it can be orchestra, but if you listen to music while thinking of what you want to write about I promise you, something will click and all of a sudden your ideas will start flowing out the way they should.
Brainstorm! Make a mind map and write ideas for RP posts on it, no matter how dumb, silly or stupid they may be.
Write dispatches about your country's inner workings! This is a really good one, and very often while you worldbuild your country an idea will come along and give you your saving grace for an RP post. If you are out of ideas to worldbuild as well, you can write about how your people perceive hygiene, how your government works, what the history of your country looks like... you can basically write anything about your country, and sooner or later it will just click.
Practice your writing skills and be open to critiques! Don't be afraid to display your writing skill, even if you believe you're terrible at writing stories. You are in a bustling community of budding storywriters, and lucky for you many of them would be more than happy to give you advice on how to improve your writing! But again, part of taking that advice means you need to be open to criticism. Your ego should never inhibit you from getting better at being a storyteller.
Ask other people on the RMB! Don't be afraid to get ideas from other people around the RMB. Many of us often give each other ideas for new stories to tell, and many of us often ask one another for ideas to pen down. If you ask nicely and if you don't shoot down every idea that comes your way, we'd be more than happy to help you out of your writer's block!
Hope to see you soon on Valsora! I promise you, it will be the most fun you have ever had in your life. But only if you're into writing stories. And even if you don't like it that much, don't be afraid to interact with us and make friends through it. We are always happy to help you and we are always happy to have newcomers join and make their mark on one of the best roleplays in all of NationStates.
From all of us at Valsora, if you want to be our friend, we would love to be your friend.
