The NSider Arena is a text-based RPG that has been a massive work-in-progress. The original project was a very basic "Hurt and Heal" game in which you got to attack a member, heal a member, and upgrade a stat every turn. As the game evolved, more stats were introduced, such as spy and sentry. The main set-back of the game was that once you died, you were no longer part of the game, and had to wait until the next round to play again. Also, if you wanted to play the game, you had to register during the registration period. You could not join the game while it was in progress. Thus, as the game progressed, it got slower and slower because less members were still part of the game.
After the fifth round of the Arena, I decided that it was starting to get boring and needed revamping; and so I begun my quest to completely re-code it. None of the code used in this Arena was part of the old one. Everything is fresh, and much more visually appealing than ever before. And best of all, no more registration period. Registration for the NSider Arena will always be open, unless I'm making updates between rounds.
The four basic stats that make up the Arena are attack, defense, spy, and sentry. Attack power and defense power go against each other, as do spy and sentry. Thus, if you are going to attack an enemy, you are more likely to win if your attack power is greater than the enemy's defense power. The same goes for performing a spy operation. If your spy rating is higher than the enemy's sentry rating, then the odds are greater that you will succeed. Of course, there are other factors that determine who will win, such as turns used and army size, but I'll get into all of that later.
Scheduled Tasks
The NSider Arena runs on an in-game clock that makes certain updates at certain times of the day. Every 30 minutes you will you will receive one extra turn and an income payment. The amount of money you get for your income payment is determined by your unit status. The more soldiers you have, the more money you make. Different soldiers are worth different amounts of gold per turn. You can view your income in your Control Panel. At midnight (server time), you will gain units and turns depending on your current unit production level and your current turn bonus, respectively. You can get a higher unit production level in the upgrade page.
Rankings are also updated every 30 minutes. Your rank is determined by your attack power, defense power, spy rating, and sentry rating. The better your rank, the more respected you will be, and people will be more likely to want to form an alliance with you.
In addition to the individual rankings, guild rankings will also be updated twice every hour. The rank of a guild is determined by the average overall rank of all the members, and is favored to guilds with more members. Thus, it's good to have a lot of members in your guild, but it's not good to invite lower-ranked members, as they will push your guild rank down.
Every six hours your support points will get replenished. The amount of support points you can hold can be upgraded. Feel free to support yourself and trade support with other members of the game.
Also, at random times during the day, more units will appear in the advanced unit shop. The shop is a global shop shared by all users, so it's first come, first serve. If you see units in the shop, you should try and purchase them before someone else does.
Basic Terminology
Overall Rank: How you stack up against other players. Fortification: Also known as "Defense Technology". Increases defense power. Attack Technology: Increases attack power. Unit Production: The amount of units you will receive at the end of the day. Death Resistance: The percentage of casualties you will resist. Gold: The amount of money you have. Income: The amount of gold you will receive at the start of every turn. Banked Gold: The amount of gold in your bank. Bank Deposits: The amount of times you can deposit gold per day. Turns: Used to spy, sabotage, and attack members. Daily Turn Boost: Turns you will be awarded at the end of the day. Spy / Sentry Level: Increases spy and sentry powers. Support Used: The amount of points you have to give to others. Support Value: The amount of units someone will gain when you support them. Next Turn: Time until next turn. Turns last 30 minutes. Next Support Reset: Amount of time until support gets reset. Happens every six hours. Next Day: Time until you receive soldiers based on unit production. Commander: Commanders get units when their officers get support points. Officers: People who have you as their commander. Referrer: A person who influenced another person to join the Arena. Level: Your current level. Increases once you gain enough experience. Experience: Gained from defeating enemies. You level up once you get enough. Available Points: Increases by two upon leveling up. Guild Master: Leader of the guild. Guild Rank: Rank of the guild. Updated every half hour. Prefix: A string of text that is displayed before your name. Guild masters have the power to change the prefix for the guild.
Races
It is very important to decide on a race when registering. It cannot be changed.
Hylian: +20% income bonus Goron: +25% attack power Zora: +30% defense power Deku Scrub: +20% spy and sentry bonus Mod: Mods choose a race like normal, but manually have their rank changed.
Unit Types
Workers: All units start at this rank. Adds 16 gold to your income. Trained Attack Soldiers: A unit with high attack power. Adds 4 gold to your income. Trained Defense Soldiers: A unit with high defense power. Adds 4 gold to your income. Spies: Units good at spying. Adds 4 gold to your income. Sentries: Units that have high sentry powers. Adds 4 gold to your income. Advanced Units: Units that excel in all areas of combat. Adds 32 gold to your income.
Advanced Units
The price of advanced units varies depending on your income and the income of other members that have recently viewed the page. The amount of units put into the shop also varies by the number of units that members who recently viewed the page have. It is a very complex system designed so that everyone has a fair chance of getting units. Near the beginning of the game, only one or two units may appear at a time, but as the game progresses, more and more will be put into the shops.
Level System
The level system makes the NSider Arena much more dynamic, as users are able to spend points to increase certain stats by certain amounts. When you start the game, you will be at Level 1. The only way to increase your level is by defeating enemies. Upon defeating an enemy, you will be awarded experience points. After you gain enough experience you will increase to Level 2. Every time you level up, the amount of experience required to get to the next level increases.
Several things happen upon leveling up. First off, you will gain two stat points. Each stat point can be used to raise either attack, defense, spy/sentry, or income by 1%. Let's say you choose to spend a stat point on an attack bonus. The value of every attack item you have bought and will buy in the future will be raised by 1%. Thus, it doesn't matter if you wait to spend your stat bonuses, as they will have the same affect regardless of when they are used.
The amount of gold and units you get per referral also increases when you level up. Five units per referral is a lot in the beginning, but if it stayed that way throughout the game, eventually it would become obsolete.
Attack vs. Defense
Each player will develop his or her own preference on the balance between attack power and defense power. While attack power is good, it is also equally important to maintain a high defense power. If your attack power is low and your defense power is high, then you will block most attacks against you, but you will have a hard time finding opponents you can defeat. Likewise, if your defense power is low and your attack power is high, then you will be able to defeat most enemies, but you will also be vulnerable to most attacks. Thus, it is up to you to decide which stat is most important.
Spy vs. Sentry
If you have a high sentry power, then other members will have a hard time spying and sabotaging your items. If they aren't able to spy on you, it is more likely that they won't attack you, either. Anyone with a spy power lower than your sentry power will not be able to see how much gold you have in the ranking list.
Having a spy power higher than an enemy's sentry power will result in you being able to see his or her gold in the ranking list. Also, it will be easier to spy and sabotage people, and you are likely to make better decisions when making attacks. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide which stat fits best in your strategy.
Attack Operations
When you make an attack against another member, it will compare your attack power to the enemy's defense power. There are two other factors that can affect the outcome of a battle. The amount of turns you use can change your attack power by a maximum of 15%. If you use 15 turns (the maximum amount), then your attack power will increase by 15% for the battle. If you only use one turn, then your attack power will decrease by 50%.
The other factor is army size. Army size can increase or decrease your attack power by a maximum of 25% for any given battle. If your army size is smaller than the enemy's, then you're attack will go up. If the enemy has less units than you, then your attack will go down. Thus, having a small army size is beneficial. Spies and sentries don't count towards army size, so it's good to train many of your untrained soldiers into them. Spies and sentries don't make as much gold per turn, so it's not good to have too many of them. Advanced units also do not count towards army size.
If you win the battle, you will steal gold and gain experience from the enemy. The amount of gold you steal is based on the amount of turns you used, the enemy's rank relative to yours, and how badly you defeated the enemy. Using 15 turns will reward you with the most gold, while using only 1 turn won't get you much gold at all. Sometimes it's a good idea to use only one turn to test out if you are powerful enough to defeat the enemy. Then, if you win, you can attack him or her again with all 15 turns. You won't make much gold for attacking people a lot lower than you, so it's not a good idea to attack an enemy more than ten or so ranks below you. You will gain experience according to how much gold you stole and the enemy's defense power.
If you lose the battle, you will have wasted your turns, and possibly even lost some soldiers. All battle information is logged, so the enemy WILL know that you tried to take his or her money. You have the option of leaving a short message for the enemy to read in his or her attack log.
Spy Operations
Spying is a very useful action that can help you get important information about your enemy. When you spy on the enemy, it will compare your spy power with the enemy's sentry power. Turns also affect spy power. If you use 15 turns, your spy power will be treated as if it was tripled. If you only use one turn, however, your spy power will be treated as only one-fifth it's normal value. The higher your spy power is versus the enemy's sentry power, the more information you will get about your enemy. There is even a chance that some of the enemy's sentries get killed, if you have a really high spy power. Likewise, if you fail the spy operation, you might lose some of your spies, and the enemy will be notified of your action.
You should avoid using too many turns while performing spy operations. It's not a good idea to waste too many turns just to figure out your enemy's weaknesses.
Sabotage Operations
Keep in mind that regardless of whether or not you succeed in sabotaging, the enemy will still know that you tried. The more items you attempt to sabotage, the more difficult it will be to succeed. The more turns you use, the higher your spy power will be treated. If you use 15 turns, it will be treated as normal, but if you only use 1 turn, it will be treated as one-fifteenth the normal amount. If you try to sabotage an item that the enemy doesn't even have, then you will be wasting your turns. It is always a good idea to spy on the enemy first to figure out what items he or she has.
If you fail, you might lose some of your spies. If you succeed, you have a chance at killing some of the enemy's sentries. Sabotaging your enemy is a good way to seek revenge for being attacked, and it could always be a nice thing to threaten to do.
Support Points
The Arena will keep track of the amount of support points you receive during the past support reset period (6 hours). After you hit certain tallies, you will
receive units. You receive a unit on the following support quantities: 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, 22, 29, 37, 46, 56. You can see how much support you currently have in the Control
Panel. As the game progresses, you will acquire upgrades to increase support value. Eventually, you will be able to give users 5, 6, or even 7 support points in just one support. You can also upgrade the max amount of people you can support within each support reset period.
Bank
The bank is locked until you have purchased the first upgrade, which is rather expensive. You will be able to deposit gold into the bank only a certain number of times per day, depending on how many upgrades you've gotten. There is no limit to how many times you can withdraw gold. There is no interest taken out upon making a transaction with the bank, so don't worry about losing some of your gold.
Slaughter Rule / Rule of Superiority
You cannot sabotage or attack any member that is more than 30 ranks below or above you in rank. This is to keep people from purposely dropping their rank, and to protect the newbies from being attacked by really strong members.
CAPTCHA Test
The "Completely Automated Public Test (to Tell) Computers and Humans Apart" was created so that users don't automate market purchases. Botting is against the rules and a user will get banned for doing so. Please follow the rules.
Ending the Age
All good things must come to an end. Eventually, things will have to get reset, and the Arena will shut down for a week or so while updates are being made. When it opens up again, everyone will start all over and have a fresh start at getting a high rank. A notice will be put up prior to the end of an age, so it doesn't come as a surprise.
Prizes may vary by age. The entire leaderboard will be backed up into the archives for everyone to see, and a page will be created displaying outstanding members who did extraordinary feats during the course of the game (like the member with the most minutes online, most logins, etc).
* If necessary, all five winners will optionally be able to beta test for the next age.
Advertising
Feel free to advertise in your signature at NSider, or recruit any friends of yours to join the game. The more members we get, the better the game will be. Remember, everytime you get a person to join with you as their referrer, you'll gain both soldiers and gold. You can find your referral link in the Control Panel.
