theclefe

Do you really want people to ask you questions, or is this just a marketing campaign?

That would be cool. I think like the rails, it's on each town to design their own stations and ports, so I imagine the designs will be varied.

I really think they should be underground. Having no perm issues and no terrain issues is great in terms of making it an effective mode of transportation. Plus, we'll be able to add to any network late into the rev with minimal issues. If there are turns, I don't see it being effective.

Rose City built a 1000 block canal over the last two days as a test. The canal stretches from the Center of Rose (entrances is just NW) to East Road near Port 80. With Perms being a mjor concern this late in the rev, it was build underground just below the common depth of surface permissions. Placing the water was an issue, and I wish I had seen some of these suggestions prior. Fortunatly, we got a team together and completed the project. Come check it out.

Yes, it all needs to be flushed out, but I think the concept of large towns being given the ability to acquire portals in combination with other portals available should be an option. If the mods and admins set the requirements such that only 1 or 2 towns can accomplish it then that's fine. As I said, we can tweak the formula so that it allows a town that is active and connected to be a regional hub. I would be opposed to a cap or to making a requirement something that a late rev town couldn't accomplish. Will it be difficult to set the standard? Sure. Like WickedCoolSteve said, there is no easy way to do portals in multiplayer. If our overarching goal is to promote activity and transport infrastructure, this is a favorable alternative to what the current system is.

Well, speculate who would be granted a portal with those hypothetical conditions. Seneca, Port 80, Alias, Rose, Pico, Manta, Whiteoak, Argoth? That would be a good list of portal towns. Now say a town like Kowloon, New Market or Edgestone got their stuff together late rev, they would still have an opportunity to join these ranks. Or, with the above list, there would be no portal in the SW part of the current map, so a bunch of folks get together and build a new town or alliance to accommodate that region. Whose to say what is too many or too few? If there is a sweet spot, then tweak the formula. It would be a different experience, but I doubt a negative one. I don't disagree with the strategy of using portals to disperse the population. This could lessen that. But at the same time, I'd imagine most big towns want space to work with anyway so we'd still get portals and towns on the outer half of the map.

I don't disagree about resource collect being a chore in some respects, but if the concern is bias, then this absolves us of that. Is digging rail tunnels a chore? Is building grinders a chore? PvE is a chore if you choose to look at it that way. If Minecraft is only about building pretty things to a person then he pr she can go to creative. I view PvE as a serious of challenges to accomplish what one wants to accomplish. Lord knows I don't want to cut down 100 trees to make a house, but I do. This would fall in line with that. If my town collectively wants a portal, we do the work for it. I do think that a town should have active members to be deemed portal worthy. Activity is the probably the most important characteristic we are looking for in a player. We can bring in 5,000 players, but if none of them play more than 10 hours, they really aren't a great benefit to the server. Sure, there are qualities that make people even more valuable, but it all starts with activity.

I think we should also try to give towns the ability to build portals, setting the ingame price at a point where it takes a combined effort of a town while not using limited resources like diamonds or gold. To qualify for a portal, a town must have the following things: 1000 Iron Blocks 30,000 Wool Blocks 10,000 Wood Trunks 50 Bane of Arthropods books *must have two way rail connections with three towns or Carbon Station. * Must have rail or road access to at least one End Portal. *Must have at least 5 players in the top 100 most active players (player can only represent one town) Basically, make the portals difficult to get but still available to the big towns who will support it with infrastructure if they want one. This is on top of 3-4 Mad dash portals and 2 mid rev hidden portals. The numbers and resources above can change, but that standard is pretty high, and it should be. I can only think of a few that would be able to accomplish it at this point. If the big towns can eventually earn their portals, it makes more available to smaller upstart towns too.

Determining the criteria for what makes a town active is difficult. Diversifying the way towns can get a portal and setting a firm standard will make it a bit easier. If one portal is awarded by play hours and one is awarded by resources accumulation, towns will pursue different strategies so there likely won't be 10 towns trying the same method. Worst case, if a town is only the most active on the server for the short window when a portal is being awarded, at the very least they should have the infrastructure in place to support it. That's still more preferable than a Driftwood situation. I'm all for discussing and vetting different methods, but it still needs to be determined if the admins are considering changing the the way portals are distributed.

I do think there should be more consistent events. If it's in the form of mini-games, holiday invasions, etc., that's fine. The speedbuild, spleef club and other events fit the bill, but it would be nice to have some more, and then advertise them.

Kitcat, I think a decentralized location also caused some issues. We were able to get the SEA station up early enough for decent real estate, but even now people have trouble finding it much like they do with the CARBON station. I know Marcus and I requested to use the "closed station" space for rails. I'm all for a player-run station, but I do prefer it be centralized with appropriate access and signage at spawn. If we can make a super carbon/carts station underneath spawn that is player-run, I think that's the best of both worlds.

oh oh, me too. With a Rose. An old rose, not a bush. You're the best.

Where is this? I can't seem to find it?

This was going to come up. While this needs to be taken into account, we shouldn't delay or alter initiatives that could make the server more enjoyable simply because of perceived bias. If it happens, we call it out and correct it. We have a pretty stellar group of admin at the moment so I don't see it being an issue on P.

Regarding the SEA Carts station, that was built as a result of many towns concerned about spawn access. All of us had lines to spawn that popped out in hidden caverns and entryways. The station was just a way to consolidate that and make it more manageable. I wasn't aware that there was never a plan to have a Carbon spawn station. I think that is a mistake. I think the primary goal of every town at the start of a rev is to get a rail link to spawn. It seems inefficient to build the network in a way that doesn't capitalize on that desire and effort. I spoke a bit with Random about ways to make the process a bit more user friendly and ways to enlist town support. Hopefully he can implement them next rev. I'm lost on a lot of the technical aspects of it at the moment, but I could certainly help design a simple checklist for towns looking to link up. In terms of workforce, if we agree to go with Carbon again next rev then I've spoken with Tyrangiels about forgoing Rose's Carts network next rev and fully supporting it. Carbon is one of those projects where we need everyone on board to make it work. I do think there needs to be a spawn rail station and I'll happily take up the charge if no one else wants to run it. I was very disappointed in Rev 11 when Rose couldn't connect to spawn, so building a large, inclusive station is something I really enjoy (As you can see from Rose station). This rev was a bit wild, wild west. To compliment a massive server-wide project like Carbon, I think we do need a well maintained spawn station. There should be no politics involved. If you dig the tunnel and lay the rail, then you should have a connection. If Random wants it to start as a carts station and transfer over to carbon, I think that would work wonderfully. Ideally we'd like it to be part of spawn in some way, but if that's not possible, I'm sure we can work with Zuz to find an ideal spot.