• NationStates

NationStates

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Overview

NationStates has a rating of 3.35 stars from 18 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally satisfied with their purchases. NationStates ranks 22nd among Role Playing Games sites.

  • Service
    8
  • Value
    5
  • Shipping
    3
  • Returns
    4
  • Quality
    8
Positive reviews (last 12 months): 66.7%
Positive
2
Neutral
0
Negative
1
15
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How would you rate NationStates?
Top Positive Review

“Very cool, albeit a little gimmicky.”

Ímpös T.
12/10/22

I love the idea of a nations and war simulator; however, this takes it to the next level! The graphics are intense and the voice acting is potent. I've been a big big fan of these games for a long time. This is worth the $60 I payed! Would recommend to my friends!

Top Critical Review

“Game is fixed by mods”

Bloberta P.
2/15/23

The gameplay community is truly toxic as others have noted. The NS card game is particularly obnoxious. Bugs are built in which are exploited by the developers/mods who somehow are allowed to participate in play. This gives them great advantage. If you manage to do well, they'll eventually change the metrics and wreck your standing. Abusive tactics are commonly used against a depleted pool of competing players. Not worth it.

Reviews (18)

Rating

Timeframe

Other

Thumbnail of user blobertap
1 review
4 helpful votes
February 15th, 2023

The gameplay community is truly toxic as others have noted. The NS card game is particularly obnoxious. Bugs are built in which are exploited by the developers/mods who somehow are allowed to participate in play. This gives them great advantage. If you manage to do well, they'll eventually change the metrics and wreck your standing. Abusive tactics are commonly used against a depleted pool of competing players. Not worth it.

Thumbnail of user jesser2
79 reviews
205 helpful votes
November 13th, 2020

Banned words: "Glenn Beck, CuckingFunt, Sperglord"

I run 92 Nations based on me, tomi lahren, and otherz.

Some people are annoying, if you make a region and leave it unguarded it gets "invaded".

Tip for consumers:
make multiple puppets and defend frrom invasion

Thumbnail of user rogerp497
1 review
10 helpful votes
June 11th, 2022

The NationStates mods, despite the game itself being good, make this worth less than 1 star. They are on a never-ending power trip and will insult you and harass you for the slightest disagreement. They will threaten you and censor you. If you slightly differ from the status quo you will be punished.

Thumbnail of user sixthvapy
6 reviews
4 helpful votes
December 10th, 2022

I love the idea of a nations and war simulator; however, this takes it to the next level! The graphics are intense and the voice acting is potent. I've been a big big fan of these games for a long time. This is worth the $60 I payed!

Would recommend to my friends!

Tip for consumers:
Join The Sack region. It is a charity region for this year's christmas nationstates event.

Products used:
All of them! I used every nook and cranny of this site!

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Value
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Thumbnail of user mrt216
1 review
5 helpful votes
October 7th, 2022

Do you know that if you name a stupid nation Ding, it is garunteed to be deleted within a couple days by a karen moderator and you can protest or they will BAN YOU

Tip for consumers:
3

Products used:
3

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Thumbnail of user lukes364
1 review
5 helpful votes
November 5th, 2022

The game was okay, it is a cool idea because it allows you to simulate your own country. However, the moderation team ruined the experience. My friends and I were kicked out of the WA because we ran different states on a computer (nobody had more than 1) because they did not have a computer. I get that they can't detect the amount of people on a device, but they should use emails to see if people have more than one country. Using a device is a bad way of doing it. Lastly, the interface was awkward and it was overall hard to navigate and the WA system did not make much sense. If you are looking to play the game, I would advise not getting your hopes up very high. I hate how they kick out people and don't incentivize people to play, instead they make less people want to play. I would not recommend to most people except if you are a very big fan of wanting to 'run' a country (with weird issues).

Products used:
This is a game not a store.

Service
Quality
Thumbnail of user johnb10700
1 review
0 helpful votes
March 20th, 2023

Obviously a good game for people who dream to make a country. Its very good. Try it now and meet new people.

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Thumbnail of user lukewashington132
1 review
1 helpful vote
April 8th, 2023

Me and My Brother had 2 Separate nations on my computer I both of us signed into the WA (Voting in game) and 10 minutes of my brother signing into the WA (I had my nation long before and my brother wanted to play) we got a telegram saying we are in breach at the time I did not know they will say that we will be recognised as the same person so we appealed it then we got a telegram back saying that I am a liar and that I need to resign one of my nation (Me thinking that they are saying that I am having 2 nations under the same email) and my brother got a telegram that they emailed my "other" nation so when I ask for the name of the other nation that was under the same email and then they ejected and barred me and my brother from the WA and they responded to that appeal saying they are not gone give any Evidence of information so I don't move around the rules but what is weird about that if they present evidence that me and my brother are the "same" person then I wouldn't be able to "go" around there rules so they refused to give me any proof and called me a liar

Thumbnail of user alexisp45
33 reviews
184 helpful votes
September 12th, 2018

How it works is that you're in control of a nation. Your nation will get issues every so often (once every couple of hours early on; but once or twice a day later). You decide what the right choice is based on the options given to you and you get some consequences based on that.

For most issues, there's no clear-cut right or wrong answer. Many of the options are designed to have both positive and negative effects. While some issues will have one answer that'll clearly be disastrous, the other two or three will usually be at least somewhat reasonable choices.

The issues are written to be humourous. The results are usually written to be that way, too.

While some other users have said the game is designed to frustrate conservatives, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Everyone understands that in the real world, whatever policy choices politicians make are going to have benefits and they're going to have drawbacks, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they're on.

It's the same with Nation States. If you think otherwise, you're probably not very good at nuanced thinking. You're probably also bad at knowing the difference between a fictional game (which Nation States absolutely is) and reality.

But generally, the game's pretty good. I'd definitely recommend it to people.

Thumbnail of user ther302
1 review
6 helpful votes
July 25th, 2022

The moderators pretend they are god, never give second chances, and are extremely uppity. The game itself is overrated and still is prone to crashes and has terrible 2000s graphics.

Tip for consumers:
Avoid at all costs.

Products used:
None

Service
Quality
Thumbnail of user tospsyo
1 review
0 helpful votes
June 17th, 2022

It makes you answer complicated issues such as "should children be allowed to sell lemonade" and there are options you can agree with which usually are about a paragraph, once you have made you decision you usually will receive a satiric reply to answers depending on what of the opinions you agree with, there are hundreds of different things in youur nation every answer you do will effect! You get a new issue every 6 hours, and there are THOUSANDS of issues (i checked and there are 1519 unique issues) would reccomend! Below are some funny moments i have taken from the website so far

Thumbnail of user camerond83
1 review
7 helpful votes
August 31st, 2020

Daddy Max Barry wouldn't let me say f*ck in a dispatch, this violates my 1st amendment rights and I am frankly disgusted.

Thumbnail of user charliek55
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
November 4th, 2018

What I adore about this game is the fact that it forces you to think about a lot of complicated political ideas to which you would normally not get any exposure. Since the issues are submitted by the community they sometimes reflect current events and force you to decide. It shouldn't be taken too seriously though because it tends to satirize pretty much everything or over-exaggerate the consequences.

Thumbnail of user danm809
1 review
1 helpful vote
August 31st, 2020

Pee pee poo poo haha haha funni monke monke like banana banana banana ooh ooh aah ahh haa haaa funniiiii

Thumbnail of user ignacios22
6 reviews
10 helpful votes
May 13th, 2018

I've been playing this game for months and it's so amazongly prepared. I love considering the pro's and con's of every decision, guessing what will result from each action, and I love how you are able to add to the game if you have a good idea to submit. This game is going places! I hope, no I know that I will enjoy it for many more years!

Thumbnail of user dimetrodone
1 review
5 helpful votes
October 8th, 2022
Verified purchase

NationStates is a free browser game, so for the most part, there are no "customers" in the traditional sense. Most people there are non-paying users. That being said, if you join the site, expect to deal with incredibly toxic users who are popular amongst some segments of the user-base. The World Assembly (the site's alternative to the real world UN) has a hostility towards newbies and the nature of the Gameplay (Raiding and Defending) community is horrible. Even hard core Gameplayers labeled their own community as toxic, with personal attacks and dogpiling running rampant. It's more toxic than Twitter and moderation is less than consistent, and does nothing to mitigate it.

The way the moderation team is run leaves much to be desired. While not all moderators are bad, many act like they cannot be bothered to moderate the site. The worst one of them is Frisbeeteria, who at the best of times is snarky and rude, and at the worst, hurls insults at players. He gets away with this despite it technically being against the site rules due to his position of "Senior Game Moderator." The guy likes power and is less than competent. You also don't have to break site rules yourself to have unpleasant interactions with him. If you report something and he handles the report, expect a less than professional response. He is popular though with much of the Gameplay community though, as birds of a feather flock together.

Their servers are prone to issues and crashes, and obviously cannot handle the load of hosting a site as large as NS.

All in all, you get what you pay for. It's a crappy site but it is free.

Service
Quality
Thumbnail of user archi1
1 review
6 helpful votes
February 7th, 2021

Nationstates is a free-to-play mobile game created in 2002 by famous author Max Barry, originally intended as a marketing stunt for his novel 'Jennifer Government' and only expecting at most a few hundred or so people to play it at all, it quickly ballooned in size to twenty thousand players in the span of a few weeks. The overwhelmed writer soon found himself the developer of a successful mobile game.

In Nationstates you play as the ruler of a newly created nation of initially five million people. You start forming your nation by picking what kind of nation you want politically (Anarchy, Liberal, Centrist, Conservative, Tyrannical, etc.), answering a series of 8 questions, and choosing from 9 different "histories". It then has you choose Your starting nation's pretitle, the nation's name, national motto. National animal, and currency. From there, a series of 84 interconnected stats (determined by how you answered the questions when creating your account) is used describe your nation through your 'nation page'/home screen.

Next, is the meat of the game: Issues. This is what a great majority of people will play it for. A series of up to 5 issues will be found at one time, and each issue present you, the nation's leader, with a dilemma and a few intentionally flawed by design choices. You answer one and the game rewards your choice with a national headlines going something like "following new legislation in (your nation here), [insert event here]. Some newspaper headlines and stat changes accompany it. Some choices presented can be quite humorous, like all cars or the internet being banned, and nudity being compulsory. A subset of the nation page will show you "policies" enacted by your nation, like maintaining the right to use weapons of mass destruction, which can be changed by the issues.

Besides this there is some fun side stuff like trading cards, which are snapshots of a player's country at a single point in time and the World Assembly, the equivalent to the real life United Nations whom hilariously almost sued max barry for using it's images and name at one point, before he had to change the image and name to the present world assembly.

You'll find your nation in a 'region' a group of nations. A lot of these group have 'regional governments' and each region can have it's one unique culture and activities that can draw you into the game more. Each region has a world assembly delegate, who if you endorse can vote along with you on proposals which are possible resolutions which can FURTHER change your stats, making your vote count for two instead of just one.

Besides that stuff, there's badges you can earn for being in the top 10%, 5% & 1% of the game for any stat as well as the occasional fun event in-game like simulating a global nuclear war or a zombie apocalypse. The site has gotten a few occasional updates to it's graphics to keep up with the times.

That's most of the good stuff though. If you try to get into the game more than that, you're going to get a few unpleasant surprises.

Early in the game's history, internet trolls came along and began griefing the playerbase. They would "invade" regions, spamming message boards with vulgar, rascist slurs and other $#*!, hijacking the world assembly delegate so you can't use it, spamming telegrams or your private messages, and otherwise just being pains in the $#*!.

The Admin initially tried to ban and put anti-cheat measures in place to combat the griefing. At one point though, somewhere out of the blue, Max decided this girefing was cool and kept it on as a part of the game, even building up features around it and making it a feature of the game!.

It's evolved now into a broken meta called 'r/d' which makes it nearly impossible to play how you want beyond answering issues. Want to propose an issue to the world assembly? TOO BAD! The game mechanic makes new players land in eight regions called 'feeders' and 'sinkers', and most of those re controlled by girefers that require total obedience and you kissing their $#*! before they'd even CONSIDER supporting you (EVEN THEN THEY WILL LIKELY LAUGH AT YOU AND MOCK YOU BEFORE KICKING YO OUT).

"Oh well, I'll go join another region then and get their help!" OH REALLY, FOOL? Then maybe YOU can tell ME how you plan on outvoting the 50% of the game that sucks up to the place that kicked you out, with their ******* votes to the measly 25 people in the region you joined? OR maybe you somehow figured out how to persuade enough people to support your resolution, so surely your proposal will pass without their support? NOPE! Thanks to the BROKEN meta in this game, they can just stroll right on into any $#*!ing group they want and CANCEL a region's vote in the world assembly. Yep, that's right, CANCEL IT. You're $#*!ED being answering issues, because griefers have set themselves up as Lords over $#*!ing EVERYTHING, and the admins let them stroll around because they think it's funny, but it's not! It's just $#*!ING STUPID!

They even managed to monopolize cards somehow! They have huge farms set up so all their people that kiss their $#*! can have better stats than you ever could hope to match. The toxicity goes further, so much $#*!ing further. You get spammed by innumerable group that want to poach you and your friends into their bull$#*!, tryhard groups where they pretend to be diehard communists and nazis, or THEY'RE ACTUAL $#*!ING COMMUNISTS AND NAZIS IN A GAME PLAYED BY CHILDREN!

This is a simple game that had the potential to be a 4/5, with fun features that aren't bared behind paywalls and micro-transactions like other games. Unfortunately, the developer has let griefers come in and take over, and what we're left with is a average game with features broken by it's toxic community, that the developer refuses to fix. Maybe in the future Max will pull his head out of his $#*!, and take the time from writing to slap the mother$#*!ers ruining his product and make them stop. Until then, if you play this game, stay wary of the other players.

Tip for consumers:
If you're going to play the game beyond answering issues, be aware of the community. You'll have to suck up to some of the top-tier players in the largest regions to get the best experience out of this game, at the cost of freedom to play how you want. Be aware of political extremists which use the website to recruit and radicalize players to violent ideologies.

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Thumbnail of user thea97
1 review
0 helpful votes
July 30th, 2023

This game is amazing. It has a fantastic community, great gameplay, and the meta games (such as the cards mini game, R/D, and the WA), all make it amazing. Would play forever!

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3.4
18 reviews
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