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The Renegade - January 2014

Happy new year! The sky's the limit as the RIA pushes forward onto bigger and better things!

New Constitution Ratified, Great Houses Introduced

The newest constitution has reformed the RIA government. Instead of electing senators to the executive Grand Council, senators will be selected from the three Great Houses. As the houses grow and gain influence over the region they will earn more representatives and a stronger voice in the Senate. So far the Houses have been met with open arms by citizens of the regions.

With the approval of the Houses comes the RIA's first Senate. House of Sauropods has selected long time members Lichto as their representative, Oxihydronia is representing House of Kittens, and Tangaroan Islands will serve as the senator for the House of the Regal Hamster. The senators have started their term by discussing the intricacies of the House Influence system and are working to create a fair ranking process.

RIA Special Forces Continues to Grow

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The RIASF is adding members and posting new missions. Our total mission count has raised to 30 missions. Sailor pins have been awarded to Tangaroan Islands, Tierra de Madre, and HumanSanity. Sailors of the RIASF are always working to push their limits and improve their skills in order to compete with the best of them. The RIASF still remains active primarily during minor update, but major activity is slowly on the rise.

Werewolves 2 Ends - Another Foreigner Wins Steam Raffle!

Werewolves 2 - Vault 48, was themed after the vaults from the Fallout video game series. As such, the winner of the WW raffle was given a choice between Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition or Fallout: New Vegas - Ultimate Edition. Congratulations to Controlitia of 10000 Islands for winning the raffle and selecting New Vegas.

Vault 48 was an interesting game that mixed new and old players in a new setting. Confusion set in pretty quickly, guiding the new players towards near destruction and causing much frustration from the seasoned veterans. Luckily, one of those veterans was Controlitia, who ended the threat by using his power to remove the last Infiltrator before more Vault Residents could be injure.

Our next Werewolves game is expected to start pretty soon. We'll be offering 2 prizes this time for a winner and a runner-up - Left 4 Dead + Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2! You're invited to come by and join in on the fun!

Population Report

After a dip to 150 nations, regional population has started to climb again. We have spent the last while hovering in the area of 190 nations, with a very slow climb upwards. The population increase is also resulting in new members on the forum.

Thanks for the update, and happy new year to the RIA as well!

I'm particularly interested about the Steam Raffle and Vault 48 game. Is that in a public area? I'd love to see more about how it was ran.

http://renegadeislands.proboards.com/thread/1382/werewolf-2-vault-48

We award one raffle ticket just for joining, and then another for 'surviving' to the end of the game.

So it's basically a themed Mafia game, but it's really well done...it definitely freshens up the game up.

The Renegade - February 2014

Another months brings exciting new changes for the RIA. We continue to see expansion in just about every facet of the region, with no indication of things slowing down!


Great House Report

The RIA's Great Houses have been working to increase their regional influence. Each house is working to define its purpose in the region, which will be sure to provide several options when new members decide to join a house.



House Hamster appears to have found its focus areas in RIASF activity and the region's commerce. They also aim to have a strong presence in the political system and are already working on a road map for the elections in March. Two businesses created by members of House Hamster, Hamster Gaming and Lottery and G & T Incorporated, have had their business licenses approved by the Commerce Committee and are open for business.


Kittens is widely regarded as the laid back, easy going house. They are currently in the process of developing the direction their house will take. They will focus on less serious aspects of the region than the other houses, concerning themselves with fun, games, and other activities for members of the RIA.


The Sauropods are quickly becoming the most active and influential of the 3 Great Houses. Their proposal to take over as the curators of the Library of Treason and Plot has been approved and they have been hard at work archiving as much of the region's history as they can get their hands on. Their house will focus on educating new members of the region as well as increasing the importance of knowledge throughout the RIA, going so far as possibly offering tutoring lessons on real world subjects. Their activity and involvement in various regional programs is setting them up as front runners in the next House ranking.

The Senate Report

The first Senate of the new RIA has been working hard to set the tone for future representatives. Several issues have already been proposed and are being discussed in the Senate Chambers, with citizens providing much input for their representatives in the Capitol Lobby.

Measurement of House Influence - The senate is working to determine a quantifiable method to measure House Influence. Each action a house commits would award it points, and the House rankings would be built from this. The goal of the quantified measurement is to move from the current subjective methods and to ensure objectivity when scoring each Great House.

Regional Animal - For nearly 10 years, the hamster has been the official regional animal of the RIA. However, recent discussions have been introduced to the senate to select a new animal that will better represent the region's culture and history. The phoenix was first proposed, but there was still a desire to stick with the hamster in order to maintain the historic link. The consensus now appears that the two will be combined. The fire hamster is likely to be the next regional animal, representing the phoenix's qualities of resurrection and while holding on to the hamster's link to our roots.

RIASF Update

The RIASF continues to grow and maintain its presence in the field. Sailors have worked with several other defender regions to assist in large liberations, as well as the passing of information between agencies to help each other prevent raids.

Tangaroan Islands has been promoted to the rank of Midshipman, making him a junior officer in the RIASF. He'll be working closely with experienced defenders from various organizations in order to further hone his skills as he begins to lead the RIASF's minor update division. Dacia has been promoted to Sailor, having clearly demonstrated that he is prepared to exceed the RIASF's expectations of professionalism and discipline in action.

RIA Prepares to Celebrate 10th Anniversary

March of 2014 will mark the Renegade Islands Alliance's 10th year of existence in NationStates. We are inviting our friends from all over NationStates to join us we celebrate our region's history. The celebrations will include several games and activities, including raffle tickets for more video games than we've ever given away before! The grand prize in the raffle will be Bioshock Infinite, and we can't wait to give it away!

Population Report

The RIA has experienced another growth spurt, surpassing 240 nations and entering the top 40 regions by size. With 60 additional members since our last update, we've been experiencing a healthy increase in Regional Message Board discussions. New nations are slowly finding their way on to our forum and getting involved in the extra programs our region has to offer.

I like your profile picture Shiz

Thanks for the update! A fire hamster sounds like a worthy likely next regional animal.

I like your profile picture Shiz

One of our members started a business on our forum where she makes dinosaur avatars for people. The beauty of it all is that she uses a trackpad for the whole thing 

Greetings, friends!

When I was the Delegate of the RIA, it was my intention to join the forum of every ally we had. Unfortunately, that didn't end up happening: now i come to you as the Foreign Affairs Officer and I'm ready to get to know everyone here. I can't wait to get to know you all!

I suppose my first order of business would be introducing myself:

Hi, I'm Timothia (also known as Tim, Timlo, Timba, Timmy, or That Guy Over There). I joined NS last fall and promptly joined the RIA after being recruited by Shizensky. As the only other active member of the region at the time, I became the Delegate for the period of the rebuild. When my term came to an end, we held disappointing elections in which no one really ran against me. Thus, I earned another term.

In my term, our region grew from a dozen or so inactive nations to a bustling region of 300 nations. When my second term came to an end, I didn't run for reelection and rather threw my support in for Lichto - a storied member of our region and past Delegate - to run instead. He eventually won the election and appointed me to the post of Foreign Affairs Officer. And that's that, you're pretty much caught up.

The RL guy behind my computer screen lives in the American Southeast. He's a multi-talented guy who spends equal time on basketball and computer games. He's a member of the rare genus "Geekikus jockia" of which there are very few other members and yes, he is homeschooled. Don't judge. He spends his time either practicing basketball, sitting the bench in a basketball game, sitting next to the computer typing, listening to Spotify, watching a bit of TV, eating, or reading. Or sleeping.

Mostly sleeping actually.

It's great to finally be here and I'd love to get to know you guys and your stories! I'll be around here as often as I can, spamming and teasing like a pro, all while making it snow just a little bit more.
 

                                                                                       
                                                               

Greetings! I apologize for the late reply...sadly I was out of town on work-related training when you posted this, but I'm ready to make up for it now.

I'm Wintermoot...the Monarch of Wintreath, and with the recent departure of Charax from NS now the Acting Jarl of Foreign Affairs. People have a lot of names for me, and I'll go by any one of them. I got my start in NS in January 2013 and was attracted to Spiritus when I was recruited by Cormac, who ended up guiding me through most of my time as a newbie and became my NS mentor and NS father for a time. I joined the new RA of the region in its first session, and from there was elected President of the region. During my term and a half Spiritus saw unprecedented growth and activity.

In time though, after some bullshit politics from some members of the region, I realized that it was no longer the region I had been initially attracted to, and I didn't find the idea of fighting off character assassins and mudslingers to be very fun...so I resigned from all my posts and left the region. While I was pondering my NS future at that point (I'd never been a part of any other region before), Charax convinced me that I should try to create a serious region, and Wintreath is the product of that effort. We were founded on values of cooperation, friendship, and respect before politics, conflict, and drama. So far we've done a good job of upholding those values, and I have to admit other than having to see friends like Charax leave NS this is probably the happiest time of my NS-life.

And now you're here, and we can all be even happier.

Greetings! I apologize for the late reply...sadly I was out of town on work-related training when you posted this, but I'm ready to make up for it now.

I'm Wintermoot...the Monarch of Wintreath, and with the recent departure of Charax from NS now the Acting Jarl of Foreign Affairs. People have a lot of names for me, and I'll go by any one of them. I got my start in NS in January 2013 and was attracted to Spiritus when I was recruited by Cormac, who ended up guiding me through most of my time as a newbie and became my NS mentor and NS father for a time. I joined the new RA of the region in its first session, and from there was elected President of the region. During my term and a half Spiritus saw unprecedented growth and activity.

In time though, after some bullshit politics from some members of the region, I realized that it was no longer the region I had been initially attracted to, and I didn't find the idea of fighting off character assassins and mudslingers to be very fun...so I resigned from all my posts and left the region. While I was pondering my NS future at that point (I'd never been a part of any other region before), Charax convinced me that I should try to create a serious region, and Wintreath is the product of that effort. We were founded on values of cooperation, friendship, and respect before politics, conflict, and drama. So far we've done a good job of upholding those values, and I have to admit other than having to see friends like Charax leave NS this is probably the happiest time of my NS-life.

And now you're here, and we can all be even happier.

That sounds so cool, a region of friends...

Luckily, our region has been spared much drama for as long as I can remember: sometimes too much so! No one has disagreed in any of the votes we've held and a lot of our politics has become just everyone saying yes to one idea ;D

But I'd take that over drama and mudslinging every time.

So far it's worked out really well, but who knows about the future? Spiritus used to be a region of friends, but that slowly eroded away as it became a more relevant gameplay region. We don't have as many cosmopolitans here and we're significantly more regionalist, but whether it remains friendly will depend on the ability of our natives to disagree respectfully.

Not having much contention in the region has helped so far too.

That's because of my secret isolationist influences.... Sssssh, 'tis the only way to keep us safe.

I was only supposed to be a supervisor here, but I like it so much that I've gone through the steps to become the official "Ambassador to Wintreath".

I guess that means that, like it or not, I will be here. Hanging out and bugging you guys... er... I mean... representing the RIA abroad.

(So yeah, basically, hanging out and bugging.)

Nice Timodactyl