How to Spend Time on NationStates

[Nanakaland]

I am tired of countless times at countless areas with people saying that playing NationStates only takes a few minutes. That is the minimalist way of playing NationStates and many people are ignorant of other ways to spend time. Thus, it must be explained here ways to spend time in NationStates. This helps people understand the full aspect of NationStates gameplaying.

Issue Answering
Estimated Time: 2-10 minutes a day
Description: The basic NationStates aspect is basic gameplay. This is answering issues and checking up on your nation daily to see how it affects it as well as other things that are the most basic of NationStates. When you first create your nation, it will probably take ten minutes at most. Perhaps creating a custom flag or moving to/creating a region would increase the time, but it would basically take two minutes. Most nations just do this. In order to spend more time on NationStates, however, you must do more than this.

UN Membership
Estimated Time: 0-10+ minutes a day
Description: United Nations membership takes a few days to sign up, but afterwards a whole new realm of gameplay is opened up. You can vote on UN issues and endorse other nations in your region (thus allowing delegates, who usually have regional access). Another thing you can do is debate on issues in the UN forum, thus adding time to the usual ten minutes a day on UN. However, sometimes being a UN membership takes no time at all. You can only have one nation in the UN, however.

Region Invading / Defending
Estimated Time: 2-4 hours at first; afterwards 0-30+ minutes a day
Description: To invade or defend a region would take anywhere from no time to about a half hour. Basically, the invaders move to a new region and try to endorse an invader for the delegacy. This adds another aspect to the gameplay and pretty much is as far as you can go in gameplaying. However, it sometimes takes more. Hours can be spent planning, intelligence gathering, and waiting for the actual invasion.

Foruming
Estimated Time: 10+ minutes a day
Description: Going on NationStates' forums and/or offsite forums for NationStates groups such as regions or alliances adds another dimension to NationStates. You can debate things, discuss gameplay, help people, and more. This probably takes at least ten minutes a day but could last all day. If you want to take that one step further you can go roleplaying.

Roleplaying
Estimated Time: 15+ minutes a day
Description: Roleplaying is where in the NationStates and International Incidents forums you basically write forum based stories. You can have diplomatic, war, character, and other kinds of RPs. For more help on RPing, it is recommended that you read the stickies in NationStates or International Incidents.

NSwikiing
Estimated Time: 5-20+ minutes a day
Description: In the words of Goobergunchia himself, "This is a wiki (a collection of interlinked web pages, any of which can be visited and edited by anyone at any time from any place) designed to give information about NationStates in an easy-reference manner. Essentially, it's an open-source, open-content encyclopedia about NationStates." NSwiki is a place where you can make encyclopedic articles on your nation. It is increadiblly fun and a long time can be spent on it. It can be found here.

Chatting
Estimated Time: 10-25+ minutes a day
Description: Either by IMing to other NSers or using IRC channels such as #NationStates_General, chatting is a way to spend a lot of time. You could spend anywhere from ten to twenty-five minutes or all day.

Researching
Estimated Time: 20+ minutes
Description: Whether researching for making a UN proposal, another post in a general forum debate, or an RP post, researching could take all day.

Total Time That Can Be Spent on NationStates Per Day: 2 minutes - all day
Conclusion: Yes. NationStates sometimes "only takes two minutes," but not two minutes at most. If you think that only two minutes can be spent on NationStates, you are obviously uninformed of the facts. You can spend all day on NationStates if you really wanted to. In fact, there is so much you can do with NationStates that everything cannot be done in one day. Even issues could take more than two minutes.

If you find any errors in this, tell me and I will fix it. If you find more ways to spend time in NationStates, tell me and I'll try to add it. Any suggestions for a better format and I'll try to fix it.

[Hallad]

That sums it up pretty well.

[Sesquipedalianism]

wow, that's pretty interesting. I had no idea how much there was to do on nationstates. I will definitely try to log on to the chat room sometime, though I will probably miss talking to people in the East Hemispere, as I will be asleep.

[Tuesday Heights]

Region Invading / Defending
Estimated Time: 0-30 minutes a day
Description: To invade or defend a region would take anywhere from no time to about a half hour, but usually not more. Basically, the invaders move to a new region and try to endorse an invader for the delegacy. This adds another aspect to the gameplay and pretty much is as far as you can go in gameplaying. After that, to spend time on NationStates other things must be done.

I disagree with your timing. Most of us stay up 2 - 4 hours before update waiting to invade/defend. I believe your timing doesn't take into account what invading/defending is all about, respectfully. The invasion/defensive game also involves intelligence gathering - pretending to be a native of a region - as another aspect of the game revolving around this.

[Creme Brulet]

Thanks a lot for that information! I am new here, and was getting frustrated at what I saw as a lack of things to do. I figure it will still take me some time before I can get as involved in the many facets of the game that you have noted, but I will begin to at least familiarize myself with them.

Thanks again!

-Jay

[Highhills]

I agree with Tuesday Heights here - although not any good at it myself, hehe - theres a lot more to defending and invading that just suddenly moving in and endorsing people, they spend a lot of time planning and as TH (Can I call you that?) Says, Intelligence gathering. I always find role-players are slightly ignorant of what Invaders and defenders do, it kinda ticks me of.

Otherwise, absolutely excellent post!

[Nanakaland]

I improved the entry on invading/defending. If you still find any problems with it, tell me and I will fix it. This thread should be a reference to all those in need of ways to spend time on this game.

[Tuesday Heights]

Looks much better now.

[Harlesburg]

4 hours babe!

[Jjuulliiaann]

Hmmmm...
I disagree that IMing or IRC takes any time at all. I don't know about other people, but I generally do it at the same time as other NS activities, mostly while pages are loading.
I think that this guide is based on people who play NS in a linear way, but I don't think that many people do that. I sometimes have a few NS pages open, the forum, a few offsite forums, NS Wiki, AIM, and IRC open all at the same time, and I'm working on some while waiting on others. For example, it doesn't really take all that time to invade/defend, because, while waiting for the update, you don't just sit there and wait, do you? You go on forums, IM a little, and answer some issues. It's not that simple, really.

[Nanakaland]

Jjuulliiaann, I understand that people can multitask. Right now, I'm chatting, replying to this, working on my NSwiki articles, and working on four separate RP posts. So this isn't quite linear. Though I am simply expressing the fact that NationStates can take a lot longer than most people think. Many people who only do issues are merely scratching the surface.

[Jjuulliiaann]

Jjuulliiaann, I understand that people can multitask. Right now, I'm chatting, replying to this, working on my NSwiki articles, and working on four separate RP posts. So this isn't quite linear. Though I am simply expressing the fact that NationStates can take a lot longer than most people think. Many people who only do issues are merely scratching the surface.

Yes, I agree with your basic point. Most of your post seems right, except you can't really add up all of the totals to see how long you can spend on NS.

[Nanakaland]

Well, it's rough. Each time, you could spend between two minutes and all day.

[Nanakaland]

So, any more suggestions?

[Crazy girl]

how about writing issues and UN proposals? regional politicking? advertising to build your region? setting up spy missions....etc etc etc...