Tharine

Figured i'd finally get around to commenting on this myself :P 1) What do you want to see changed about the lag, and how should we go about it? From what i've gathered, our more recent issues seem to be on our server host's end. I believe there's been talk of this suggestion from a number of people, but heavy consideration of improving things at that level would probably go a long way. The content on the servers themselves aren't a major issue, and we've changed some plugin configuration(s) to better account for the involvement of lag recently, so things like dying from spawn as a result of lag should no longer be an issue. 2) What steps do you want to take to advertise the servers? Funded steps are probably the ones we need to take to effect real change. YouTube videos are a great way to represent our community, but they get very little traction if you simply upload them and post them to only our own forums/subreddits. Branching out and putting those videos in places that will be seen by many outside our community would be a lot better, in my opinion. Still, funded advertising is how the major servers get the most hits but it's quite expensive from what i've heard, so that's a major concern. I don't have any clue what kind of expenses we have available for this sort of thing, so I can't assess whether or not this would be profitable to do just now. 3) What do you think should be changed with staff and moderation, and how do you think we should go about it? More active moderation is probably the key to providing better moderation all around. I've found from just keeping a bit of an eye on how the ModReq queue that they tend to get handled in 'chunks' rather than in any kind of smooth continuum. Moderators shouldn't be expected to drop what they're doing and answer a modreq the moment it comes in (certainly, i'd like to discourage that, you're here to play too!), but i've seen more often than i'm comfortable with that typically one moderator will run through 20 modreqs on their own, simply because they've been left in the queue for so long without any attention. This applies to the more immediate moderation too, such as spawn camping and accusations of hacking. I've had a few players come to me recently to express that they haven't been able to contact moderators for this sort of thing as there were none available, but these are at times when i'm not awake/active, so I can't speak for how much of an issue this is. I know particular players have expressed a want to see more moderators well versed in handling particular issues (such as identifying PvP hacks), and it's on my to-do list to get some additions going to the moderator guidelines of this sort. 4) What rules would do you think should be changed, added or removed? Why? The don't be a dick rule, for sure. I pretty much refuse to moderate based on that rule because it is so open to any kind of interpretation, and it's there as a safety net for incidents that crop up that don't follow our set rules. I appreciate it's existence to an extent because of the latter, but I don't like to enforce it. Both draykhar and I have expressed (draykhar particularly :P) an interest in updating the ruleset for Survival in particular, and I think we're going to try and get the ball rolling on that sometime soon. 5) Is there anything you want to change about clans? Why? Have no particular opinion on clans, myself. I'd love to see more clan warfare/whole clan battles happen, as those are some of the best to be involved in or even just to watch. We actually have a remarkable number of clans on the server, but unfortunately most of them are not particularly active for this to happen. I'd love to see clans play a greater role in the server's community structure, even if just for nostalgic reasons :P 6) Is there anything you want to change about enchantments? Why? I have no strong opinions on enchantments, personally speaking. I think my greatest frustration is trying to get the right enchant and not the same one each time (Thorns II, anyone?), rather than the grind to get things. I'm someone who doesn't get an awful lot of time to dedicate to playing nowadays, and i've managed to get enough gear (mostly iron, couple of diamond sets) to last me what time I have available left of this revision. I still have a few stacks of diamond spare (I enjoy mining), so it's only the time spent getting the right enchants that are the major hurdle for me. I understand everyone's situation is different though, so looking into options that could accommodate most everyone would be good. I'm keeping an eye on this thread as a staff member, but I don't want to interject and say 'yes' or 'no' to ideas people have at this stage. Let's keep discussion going and see what ideas we can come up with as solutions to our problems

Bumping this in the hopes that it will earn some recognition from any of our tech admins, if not players who might be be able to provide some insight. draykhar has commented on the aforementioned NerdBugs ticket with this particular plugin: http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-mods/ignoreyou/ that we might be interested in working with. Potential technical conflicts aside, is this the sort of setup that players would be comfortable with using?

Commenting at the moment just to say I won't have time to dedicate to writing a full response until possibly later today, I have a lot of tasks to do around the house/elsewhere on the forums that i've been meaning to tend to for a while now. Your ban is being handled by both draykhar and myself, and if either of us happen to be on Mumble at some point in the day, this is a friendly reminder to please not bother either of us about your appeal, as bans are handled only in the ban appeals section of the forums and nowhere else.

Unbanned, welcome back

Unbanned

Sounds good, thank you for being open and proactive with your appeal. Unbanned, welcome back

Unbanned.

Sounds good! Welcome back, unbanned :)

Hey kle815, thank you for being open about what happened. We know you had griefed because we have a plugin that tracks block edits made by players, and your edits show that you had taken a significant number of crops from another player's farm without replanting, shown here. You additionally have a note on your account from one of our other moderators that says you have been warned for minor griefing on our PvE server, but it seems you weren't able to correctly see your mail for that warning. I'll only ask that you go ahead and make sure you're familiar with all of our rules by reading them here, and respond here once you have done so and i'll go about unbanning you.

Hey Laugh_Addax, your ban was indeed for the three anvils you griefed here in one of the end grinders. The first screenshot is from the location (block space, if you will) for one anvil, and the second screenshot is from another. You can see from the logs that you have placed no anvils in either of those positions, and yet you destroyed (not used) one on the 26th, 27th, and the 30th of this month, counting three in total. A look at the area in general shows that you've created only one anvil in that grinder, which was on the 27th. You have two notes (amongst four in total) on your account for minor griefing: Note #21790 for Laugh_Addax on c.nerd.nu: stole someone's lapis block on s by chumazing on 2012-08-17 08:02:09 Note #30777 for Laugh_Addax on c.nerd.nu: Warned for minor griefing by draykhar on 2013-05-06 21:42:52 And whilst the first one is relatively old, it's pretty clear you've been warned recently enough that you should be understanding and a little more careful with your actions. I'm going to ask that you bump your appeal by commenting here no earlier than the 5th, so as to have given yourself a five day ban (set from your ban date). After that, either myself or another moderator will go about unbanning you.

You're still fine to play As an additional question, does anyone have any good links/screenshots of the base design we had for the first CTF? I'd love to compare the designs we used for both CTFs and see how we can improve upon either of them.

Haven't had the opportunity to properly read through this thread, but HUD mods that are on the approved client mods list are allowed. graymansnel was using one the other day that included a player radar feature, so we're certainly not okay-ing all "HUD" mods without question. I asked him to start this thread so we can take a look at some suggestions and add them to the approved list if they were suitable. I'll comment back here when I have the appropriate time to.

Chiming in as a server (but not tech) admin: I've kept a good eye on Survival's TPS performance and memory usage throughout the revision, and we've never wavered from 20TPS and memory usage has been no indicator of any of the more recent issues, so it's certainly not something to do with the individual server itself. The lag's been pretty hard the past 2-3 weeks, certainly moreso the last couple of days, so i'm curious to see where the issue is specifically coming from. There's been a lot of suggestions that it's to do with our server host, or even what we're physically hosting the servers on, but i'm not technologically-inclined so I can only speculate. I'm a bit worried that at the rate things are going, the servers are going to be completely unplayable because of the lag

If someone asks specifically if someone who was just talking was banned, i'll answer honestly in general chat (no /o usage) that yes, they were, and that players are welcome to see their appeal when it's available to find out why (i've linked the mcbouncer page on some occasions in the past, but emphasised that discussion of bans in general chat is usually discouraged). Otherwise, i'll let them come to their own conclusion about what happened, because if it wasn't something affecting their conversation (such as use of hate speech; harassment), then chances are they're going to start asking more questions about why that person was banned, and we don't really need to be hassled about that sort of thing when it's best left to being answered in the appeal. I'd not be keen on announcing bans whenever they happen, or using highlighted text for greater visibility on such statements (unless the conversation surrounding their leaving got out of hand), as it makes a spectacle of something that isn't necessary. People glorify bans enough as it is, in my opinion, best not to add to that ourselves.

Having a lot of issues with players using stone tools throwing off FastBreak warnings like so. I was mining quartz ore with an efficiency IV stone pickaxe, but the speed I was mining them was of very little difference compared to the iron pick I had on me, and that one didn't throw off any warnings when I used it. Happened on almost every deposit I attempted to mine, and it similarly happened to the player who I stole the pick from when he was mining coal ore in my base, so it's certainly something with the tool and not the ore/individual player.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations for what software to use for filming? I've been keen on trying out filming some arena matches recently now that my computer's faring a bit better, and I would love to hear what others prefer using.

Definite yes to moving towards 2 teams only this time around. I feel that will drastically cut down on the issues we've had with mispopulated teams (be it literal numbers or what kind of abilities particular players bring to the event), as well as strengthen the sense of teamwork people will have by only having one enemy to focus on. People who have frequented Survival this revision will know how well the Carrot VS Potato war has fared, and I think having a similar setup in the CTF would do well. The only condition for this would be that we need to either: a) Make it so that flag carriers will drop the wool they're holding after X amount of time b) Make sure that flag carriers cannot re-enter their base defenses (outside of the area they will need to place the captured flag down) This would be to avoid a stalemate where both teams have each other's flags, and make sure that we don't need to come down to some decisive action at the time as staff on how to resolve it when it comes up. ----------------------------------------- As for the map building and mini-events, I would be open to helping with either/both. I really loved how we included structures from old revisions in the centre of the map on the first CTF, and if we can ensure to the best of our ability that neither team is greater benefited by the structures closest to them (iirc, one team had an iron block structure near theirs) then I would love to see this again. Kind of plays into a supposed backstory as to why the two teams are fighting, and it's pretty cool to explore these in a warzone-type setting. I was thinking, if I had the time to during the event, that I would be keen on holding mini punt contests every now and then that would reward winners with prizes for their teams. I'd have to flesh the idea out a bit more, but I figured it might be nice to have something going during Australian prime time when there typically aren't any other mini events run. ----------------------------------------- I'd also be keen to have plumped ores like we did last time, as well as include PlumpXP and the /unenchant command, if possible. I had a question for the tech admins but i've forgotten it already so i'll return here when I remember what it is I was curious about tech-wise~

Hey pastaman00, thank you for appealing. It's important to familiarise yourself with the rules of any new server you join, as none are exactly the same and what is considered a fair action on one server can be bannable on another. The only natural farms that exist on our Survival server that are fine to take from without replanting are those from naturally generated villages - that is, unless someone has made a claim of that village. The farm you took from was very clearly constructed by another player, and as such taking from that farm without replanting is griefing and therefore a bannable offense. I see that there was some misunderstanding on your part and that this was not malicious, so i'll only ask that you take a proper read through of our rules here and respond back here once you have done so. Following that, either myself or another moderator will go about unbanning you :)

Whilst we haven't got any solid plans for the new revision's date in mind, I figured it would help us a lot to get some things planned ahead of time so we're not rushed when an appropriate time rolls around. I feel like we're potentially waiting for the 1.6 update, but understandably the upcoming donation drive event may complicate things a little bit so it's good for us to get particular things settled whilst we still have moments to spare. As an early suggestion as well, I would be interested in seeing us move this thread over to the Private Mod Chat section of the forums as soon as possible. I feel like there was nothing we needed to keep private in the previous thread, and anything that would be better as a surprise for the mods (e.g. the locations of the hidden nether portals) we can redact or keep to ourselves. I suppose we can keep a separate thread in each if necessary, but i'd like to see ideas come from a larger group of people and for the mods to have much greater of an input this time around. I can throw out a huge spoiler tag to warn those who don't want to be spoiled for the new revision what they'd be getting into by reading such a thread Any ideas we settle before opening things up to include the moderators we don't necessarily have to consider as set in stone; I think we're all pretty open to listening to opposing ideas. To kick off some general ideas, i'm gonna steal liberate the formatting Barlimore used in his thread for Creative's next revision: Spawn Whilst not a route we usually end up taking with spawns, kiwi99 has approached us with a design he's been working on for some time that he's been building with s.nerd.nu in mind. It's currently over on another server owned by one of our moderators (so receiving a schematic won't be difficult), but I hopped over today and took a few screenshots of the build as seen here. I apologise for the fuzziness of the pictures, seems to be an issue with some of my screenshot settings, but hopefully you get a nice idea of what it looks like. It's not completed yet, and he's been brainstorming some road designs too, so it will be interesting to see what he comes up with in that department. He's also told me that he's absolutely fine with us editing anything that's necessary, should we use his design. Personally, I quite like it, and I was wondering how others felt about it too. Map/Terrain I think we'll probably end up sticking with another vanilla seed, unless someone is keen on working on a custom map at all? If we go with vanilla, we should be looking for something where the terrain around 0,0 is neither ice/snow, jungle, or an ocean biome, as in my experience those tend to not make the most appealing of starting areas (both to work with and to settle claims on). I really loved the seed from this map, as coupled with the road design, there was something for everyone. Roads / Warps Figured we'd open the question regarding roads to the playerbase when the time comes, and get a thread similar to Dumbo52's going. I'm still not keen on road warps personally, but if we have the tech to (as warp signs still appear to be unusable), I would be interested in introducing (a couple of weeks after the start of the rev, perhaps) warp signs that ported you to one of a few predetermined locations within the spawn square that could help with avoiding spawn camping when no mods are online to handle it. Something like this is what I have in mind, with all of the different coloured circles being different warp-to points. Plugin Features I think we'll have no issues keeping PlumpXP, no-leather books, and the /unenchant command. Most other ones i'd be keen to put to a poll and query how players feel about them. Ones that come to mind are enderpearl cooldown, potentially bringing back beds, /ignore command, and the 60-minute first join PvP protection timer. I know a few of them were proposed in that major thread back in January, but getting a refresher of where people stand is of no harm. Policies Gonna add some policy stuff to this when I have a chance, wanted to submit this post even if i'm not finished so as not to lose what i've written~

No worries, and thank you for being so understanding. You're unbanned, welcome back

Hope to see you back sooner than later, i'll miss you dude :(

I think draykhar's response sums up pretty well the same mentality I had when handling this last night. Being that this is an issue that hasn't come up before, and as such there is no standing definition of such an act as grief bait, i'm not going to honour or uphold the expectation that buddyweed be reprimanded for placing that block down as he was being killed. Should we consider such an act a form of grief bait in the future, absolutely, players will be reprimanded for doing such a thing. However, as it stands, i'm not going to moderate something on the basis of a policy that doesn't exist on our servers.

I'm digging this thread, this is a great way to start addressing the issues we have. I'll make sure to check in on this in a few days once the poll responses have built up a bit more. Nice work, Tornado

Hey Dinis_17, your ban was mostly so that I could pull you aside and make sure that you understood our rules on combat logging. I had sent you a mail earlier in the week in regards to this, but from the server logs it appears you did not read my mail (or at least only checked your general inbox, without reading the mail I sent specifically), so I wanted to be sure we were on the same level of understanding in regards to this. Clearly, logging to avoid direct combat is against the rules, but additionally logging out to avoid a pvp encounter (someone is pursuing you but they have not managed to get a hit in) is not allowed. This ban was sparked by an incident where you had been killing several other players and roughly 30 seconds after the last kill by yourself, you logged out and logged back in about a minute later whilst several of them were returning to attack you once more. I wouldn't have determined this as a definite instance of combat logging, for sure, but it made me aware that you might not be fully up to speed on our rules surrounding logging and PvP, hence the ban. I'll only ask that you respond here so that I know you've read what I have to say (and you're welcome to ask more questions, if you have any, either here or later on in-game) and either myself or another moderator (if they see this thread first) will unban you once you have done so :)

Not in any particular order: 1 - Running around dressed up like pkome on Survival, and later visiting duskydolphin over on PvE in our catsuits. 2 - End of revision chaos, with revision 16's being a particular favourite. 3 - Hosting KotH nights with Naughts73 (I miss you dude). 4 - Any number of aboose incidents that were brought on by barney's shenanigans. 5 - An all-inclusive fifth choice, my favourite memories tend to come from the small personal things that people bring to the server. Things such as olegnep's fascination with furnaces, the ever-present Slug eyes, and any number of silly antics that come from being in a great clan I've never fallen off a horse :P I wouldn't consider horse riding my favourite sport by any means, being that it's not something i've done since I was about 9 years old, haha. I'm not terribly sports-orientated overall, but i'm fairly decent at playing football (soccer, for you 'murricans ) and I really love going to see matches live. It's not something i've had the opportunity to do in ages, so I kind of miss it. Other than that i've been keen to try out cycling and maybe hiking for a while now, i'm not really sure what's been stopping me from either one :P I'd probably point you towards the response I gave earlier in this thread about our community, but honestly just remembering to treat each other with the most basic form of decency would go a long way and it's something i'd like to see everyone do. I know a lot of us get caught up in the atmosphere that comes with a combat environment, and I think we'd all do better just to take a step back and realise what we're saying sometimes. The server as a whole actually has a wonderful community, but this isn't quite as prominent as the few that promote and engage in the typically more destructive behaviour that has become associated with Survival. It's become in some ways more of a running joke to be unnecessarily hateful towards each other, as well, which I feel has increased somewhat as a result of the negative rep we all get. To outsiders though, a conversation between two people (e.g. myself and N00ble_6) where they're insulting each other can seem unnecessarily harsh, where in reality they're probably good friends just mucking around with each other. The toxicity certainly exists within particular players, and typically these are the more vocal of the community, but they're not restricted to just Survival. I'd love to see a change in attitude across all three of our servers, and for everyone just to remember that we're all humans at the end of the day and to treat each other as such.