About Jottonia

Jottonia (pronounced Yottonia) is a browser-based, multi-faceted, multiplayer, nation simulation game. To all intents and purposes, Jottonia IS a nation. It has it’s own national flag, a President, a Government and an elected Parliament. Law and order in Jottonia is policed in part by the Governmental Secret Police (GSP) and by hired protection agencies. There are options to steal money from other players, you can sabotage their businesses or maybe you would just want to give your enemies a kicking. During Jottonia’s 8 year history it has seen several organised crime gangs come and go, the most notable of these was the Barzini family.

Jottonia also has a University, primarily to train new Lawyers and Journalists, but new courses are being considered all the time. Judge’s are appointed from the current practising Lawyers, and could even get to the pinnacle of their Law career by being appointed Chief Justice (a Government position). Journalists write articles for the national newspaper, the Jottonian Times. These articles are crucial to the economy of Jottonia which is based around a realistic stock trading simulation.

The stock trading part of the game is round based, players compete against each other to win the Winner’s Tropy (WT). Purchasing the WT from any round will give you a permanent blue gem next to your name. Status is everything in Jottonia, blue gems and aristocracy are the main forms of status symbols, however every position of employment has its own instantly recognisable icon. Government members have rotating stars, classic aristocrats have rotating pennies, super aristocrats have a spinning gold bar. GSP officers have a badge, Journalists have a pen symbol, Judges have a gavel, etc.

Everybody wants a blue gem, but not everybody is good at investing. The employment positions mean that players can supplement their stock trading incomes. Another way to earn money is from the local casino, Las Jegas. There, all the games are free but they pay out prizes in Jottonian $penn, the local currency. The games in Las Jegas are ‘Government supported’ meaning that the Govt pay the prizes to the players. Of course, if you wanted to take the risk, you could just try and steal someone else’s $penn, but if you get caught then you could be sent to Jail.

Jottonia, despite being 8 years old, has had it’s fair share of problems. Lack of development or any real promotion has reduced the population from a high of around 2000 in it’s heyday to around 275-300 now. Most of those players are old-timers and have been around a long time. Jottonian’s have dreams of a population in the thousands and now, under the new ownership of the Holy Owner Neo, those dreams have a very real possibility of happening.

Currently development is ongoing with many minor bug fixes and other major improvments happening on a regular basis. The head programmer has a list of suggestions and recommendations to implement and is steadily working through that list. A new GUI is planned for some time in 2008 along with a revamp of the website as a whole. Players have the opportunity to actively influence the way this game evolves and they are, generally, listened to. After all, it’s the players that make the game what it is, they know what they want to see introduced.

Jottonia was created in May 2000 by Norwegian programmer Jahn Otto Andersen and was originally called Mida$. The hardcore community have, in the main, been there many years and have endured the highs and lows. Now Jottonia has a bright future and many of those current players are eagerly anticipating the realisation of a dream.

The game itself becomes pretty addictive after a time, especially if you get involved with all of the game’s aspects. The more active players are the most likely to have several ’status symbols’ next to their nicks, ranging from blue gems (WT’s), pink gems (Limited Goods aka LG’s), Aristocracy and then any number of employment icons. Judges automatically get a GSP badge, Lawyers can be Parliament members and Journalists, GSP officers can be Journalists.

Winning the game for each individual player differs; some will be satisfied with having a career in Politics or Law; others desperately want to win the WT and will spend vast amounts of time online watching and studying the stocks; still others are happy to just be a part of a fantastic community and a wonderful game.