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TheRandomnatrix

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Posts posted by TheRandomnatrix

  1. What a fun little coincidence. I've been working on something in singleplayer over the weekend that people familiar with my work on Spire may like. I was planning to let it rot in my world after/if I finished it but I'd be happy to offer it up as a lobby instead. Here are some pics of it so far for those interested

    However it's a tad bit larger than 300 by 300 as it stands, so I hope that won't be an issue.

  2. I hate iron grinders so very much. People say it's a PvE thing to "conquer the environment". It takes less than a day to "conquer the environment" on P, given minecraft's shitty tech tree. With a couple players you can have a 8-12 pod grinder up in a week or two and never have to worry about it again. If you want to never have to worry about resources play creative mode.

     

    Do you want to know what people did before iron grinders, villagers, and OP enchantments? They went out and traded for stuff, or asked for help. You know, actually collaborating with people and not pretending it's singleplayer? Some of my fondest memories from my early days of P were carefully monitoring chat, setting up trade deals, and walking half way across the map to see some town I previously had no incentive to go to. With the ever increasing self sufficiency of the average P player, I see it less and less every rev, and towns have become these isolated bubbles that barely talk to each other(which is a huge problem). I was really happy to hear Rose and a few other towns had an iron problem this rev, because there was actually scarcity to overcome, and there was actual discussion of trading which I haven't seen in a long time bar some bulk cobble/dirt trades.
     

    The iron golem spawner idea was terrible btw. Classic rich get richer which is even worse than just having normal grinders or the tiered ones of r18. It's a repeat of end of rev r10 Wellspring where they had that ridiculous amount of custom spawners.

     

    Seriously, can we just try a rev without iron grinders? We'd be so much better off. I don't care about what's "vanilla" anymore, since clearly we don't actually bother with that these days. Vanilla mechanics can be just as much a detriment to the community as it can be to the server performance. I barely considered iron grinders a vanilla mechanic anyways, since they've always been based on an exploit and the only reason they weren't removed is because /r/minecraft got in a hissy fit over having their easy mode iron removed.

    • Upvote 3
  3. Greetings PvEers! We’re about a month into rev 17 and while there is still PLENTY of time to build, we’re looking for feedback so we can start planning for the next map and make it even more awesomer.

    The things we’re mainly looking for feedback on are:

    Iron grinders:
    Did you guys like the setup we had this rev? Was it confusing to use? Should the cost:benefit ratio be adjusted? Are they too easy to get considering their benefit or are they fine the way they are?

    The nether:
    How’d you guys like this rev’s nether? Should we spend some more time making a more fleshed out nether in the future?

    Custom flora:
    Aside from the initial leaf decay issues, how’d you guys like the trees? Is it something we should continue to do in future revs?

    Portals:
    Always a hot topic. Too many? Too few? With additional increase in rail infrastructure this rev alongside easier access to iron grinders we’re curious how people have felt about them.

    Ore distributions:
    How’d you guys feel about ores distros this rev?

    MapWorld:
    Is this something we should do in future revs?

    Terrain:
    We went with mostly vanilla this rev with some WP stuff in. What kind of features would you suggest we consider for next rev? Too much ocean/too little ocean? Too flat/too hilly?

    Spawn:
    Was the flowercopter cool or not? Is silver a silly padmin?
    Was food accessible enough at the start?
    Spawn challenges. Did you guys like those this rev? Should we do more in the future?

    Custom mobs:
    How’d you guys like those? Should we try to introduce more types? Did they spawn too much/too little? Should current configurations of existing mobs be adjusted?
    Do you have any ideas for future variants?

    /help:
    How are you guys liking /help instead of rulebooks? Are we missing any sections or useful info?

    • Upvote 1
  4. The last time we visited this issue the PAdmins were quite receptive to the idea. I believe it was smiler who was working on a way to disable TNT exploding but was unable to deal with an edge case with Redstone before leaving. If the plugin was complete or another avenue was found I'm sure we'd be happy to revisit the topic.

    • Upvote 1
  5. Currently the rules seem to favor one of the smallest groups of players on P to the detriment of the majority.

    This bugs me that you say this. I've seen both ends of rules see their extremes. Towns have a tendency to strongarm independents on the outskirts of town during an expansion. I saw this many times while i worked with seneca back when it was the largest town on the server. Independents have just as much say as a town does, and saying otherwise just means that it becomes a game where the bigger group bullies the other into submission. That's not a kind of environment I wish to promote.

    However, I will admit I've also seen a few large group projects(town or otherwise) get stalled indefinitely because someone built a shack on or next to a claim.

    A problem with towns is that they are projects that expand as a rev goes on, and they constitute land that might not even get used.

    There is also difficultly in determining what constitutes terraforming. I recall a discussion amongst the padmins a while back and we had problems reaching a clear consensus.

    Survival has much fewer issues because usually the disputes are between two small groups, usually just two individuals. Towns are very rare on S and usually isolated. Building is not a central concept to S, nor do they use protection plugins like P does.

  6. If we're going to talk more specifically about portals, it's worth mentioning this thread: https://nerd.nu/forums/topic/1584-thoughts-on-portals-and-the-nether/

    It's from like a year and a half ago, but it's still pretty relevant. It touches up on a lot of different problems and suggested solutions.

    I consider portals to have massive influence over map infrastructure, and it's a very careful balance between making enough to satisfy basic travel needs, but making too many devalues building infrastructure(roads, rails, canals, etc) that both give people something to do, as well as showing off the industrial might this server has. Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this problem, as a player and now a padmin.

    A primary concern with benchmark based portals is that Minecraft is a sandbox game and resources are essentially limitless. Were it something like basic town infrastructure (farms, houses, whatever), that can lead to too many places getting portals, as well as opening up potential accusations of bias. It's a big can of worms and can lead to a lot of drama and paperwork. The reason current portals have announce signs is because it cut portal drama down to basically zero.

    Both event based portals and nether ratio(actually suggested this to the last batch of padmins. Stole it from loud) are something that can definitely be toyed with. The events would have to be considered fair, and the ratio can be implemented with a plugin. I would not co sided something as extreme as 1:1 though. Something in between 1 and 8 is reasonable. These would need to be discussed with the other padmins though(which is kinda what the thread is for I suppose :p)

    A custom nether is also not out of the question currently.

    • Upvote 2
  7. Just had a crazy thought(so normal by my standards).

    A difficulty when dealing with portals is that they tend to discourage infrastructure. What if not all portals were active at any given time? They could rotate once every <insert time span>, making them only use able every now and then. The pattern would be easily predictable to make event planning easier, but general purpose map traveling would be more difficult.

    I'm just throwing that idea out there to chew on, since I haven't heard it mentioned before.

  8. Advertising is worthless if we can't accurately gauge how useful it is.

    I know we have fortytwos thing for server pop over time, and I know we count unique visits over a rev. I propose we start recording the number of unique visits on each server with timestamps, tracking unique visits of all time(so, a veteran joining from last rev does not change anything). Then we take those timestamps and divide them up into intervals to better understand trends and growth.

    I feel this is necessary as a function of advertising(which we badly need), otherwise we're spending time, effort, and money on products we don't know the effectiveness of.

    • Upvote 1
  9. For starters, raw cash prizes are really bad. Not everyone has the ability to claim said cash. Steam gift cards/games of certain value are far better as everyone can make a steam account with relative ease.

    Second, irl prizes for general fun stuff(SAL, spleef club, whatever) are a recipe for claims of foul play and drama.

    Basically the opposite of the intended effect.

    Third, the only thing I can see justifying a prize that costs money is if we're outsourcing for something that directly helps the servers and would require semi-professional help(for example graphics design). Even then a lot of people are willing to work for free if it means helping the servers.

    And fourth, when we were raising money for the last drive we specifically mentioned that it would be primarily server cost+advertising. Using it for unnecessary stuff that wasn't mentioned is a good way to make people mad.

    • Upvote 5
  10. Suggestion:

     

    Been toying with this for a while, thought I'd share since CTF is on the way. Was thinking we could have a mumble karaoke night either this week(or for a future event) where people can donate money to have a chosen staff member sing a song of their choosing(within reason). Maybe at something like $5 a song. Ever wanted to hear scher sing gangnam style? Sort of a silly way to raise funds while showing we aren't all robots(well, *most* of us).

     

    Thoughts?

    • Upvote 1
  11. i'd be willing to put good money on the concept that "most" people don't generally come over to the forums(or merely lurk if they do), they stick to the servers themselves and/or the various subreddits associated with towns/mcpublic, so i would be concerned if we start generalizing the community based on a single forum thread.

    I played on these servers for a solid year before visiting the subreddit, let alone the forums. I can gaurentee most players don't give a crap about what goes on here so long as they can keep playing blocks with their friends.

    • Upvote 8
  12. This 'discussion' has turned into 3 pages of back and forth between UNP and others over things that I feel have little to do with the server outside of an individual level. I'm not closing the thread, but it might be a bit more productive to switch gears on to a different subject imo.

    • Upvote 11
  13. This can't be stressed enough. I get the impression that some players want the staff to behave like lawyers, doing everything down to the letter of every rule every time and always being completely and utterly professional. Then, in the same breath, they advocate for a more relaxed community. These two things are at odds; the more rigid, formal, and uniform the staff become, the more stifling the community will become, and things would wind up even more tense because it would be like playing a game under a dictatorship.

     

    I'm not saying that the staff shouldn't strive for objectivity and consistency in how they enforce the rules, but they should be friends and fellow players first, and staff second. That way, they remain part of the community instead of deepening a rift by which they isolate themselves into a staff clique, which is exactly what people keep complaining about.

    As someone who's been around nerd long enough to see the many admin iterations, and being part of that myself now, it's a difficult balance. I've seen some who handle things too strictly to the point of alienating fellow staff and players as you mention, but I've also seen some who don't take the job seriously enough and wind up being detrimental to the community. I still come on Mumble and ingame and joke around as I've been doing for years, but now I have to really watch what I say so as not to be a bad role model. I want to be everyone's friend, but I can't cut friends any slack if they don't follow the rules because if I do I'm a hypocrite and not doing my job. I don't want to be a rule lawyer, but some people try so hard to worm their way into any loophole or subjectivity they can that it's hard not to.

    • Upvote 2
  14. As a disclaimer: any changes to the map itself for next rev will most likely not be radical at this point. Just wanted to point that out.

     

    This is just my opinion, but one of the biggest problems I think is that this is a PvE Server and that the vE part is not emphasized enough....We don't fear going outside or fear the creeper next to that building over there.

    I've brought that up in the past(was around the time we were discussing hard mode) and it was an issue of contention. Some felt that PvE is more community oriented and PvE is a casual attachment, others felt that as a PvE server the E should be an aspect. Personally I feel those two are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts, and catering to both is what I hope to accomplish.

     

     

    May I just say, we should not be putting CivCraft in such a good light. If you think we have playerbase problems, it pales compared to theirs. 

    To clarify, I was using CivCraft as an example, not a model to base off of.

     

    I typically stop playing a rev when personal issues arise and I can no longer find the time to play, which leads me to find other things to do, which then makes me forget about minecraft when I do have time to play it again. For the most part I feel "left behind" in a sense when I am able to return, I see no one in my town or people I typically talk to on anymore which quickly makes me lose motivation to keep building stuff. I would start something fresh, but then I may as well wait for a new rev in my opinion.

     

    All that being said, this is what I think:

    1. What do you mean by slowing down progression? Minecraft has enough tedious mechanics in my opinion, I doubt adding more would help. However I am very interested in what you have in mind for alterations to the map. The last few P maps have been woefully boring, I think we can all agree that vanilla generation just isn't cutting it. There was a whole other thread about this so I won't talk about that. I am in favor of random custom dungeons, in fact, random custom anything would be interesting. Maybe find some cool ruins to explore and get some loot, or unique landmarks to make the map feel special, I don't know, but some thing like that would be nice.

    1. Currently I can and have on many occassions, reached end game in less than 24 hours. That's just by myself. Towns can reach a point where everything they could ever need is made within a week or two. Care would have to be taken to reduce tedium, but there are things that for example could be toned up or down to make the game less cheesy and easy: villagers, ore gen, mob spawning, and many others. Unique mechanics to gameplay could be introduced to be something to keep in mind that keeps you on your toes(maybe getting shot by a skelly blinds you, who knows). There are an incredible amount of variables that can be tweaked to lengthen things without necessarily increasing repetition.

  15. So with the rev nearing an end(SoonTM), and with several recent threads bringing up the concept of player retention on PvE, I figured I'd make a post. Please keep in mind that this does not reflect the official PAdmins' opinions as a whole, though we'll certainly pay attention to any ideas/thoughts presented. I also recognize some of these ideas could potentially be controversial, so please keep an open mind.

     

    So with that out of the way, is long term player retention over the rev something that should be looked into, and how are ways that we could possibly go about that? Or are people fine with the general status quo of huge spike at the start that then balances out to 40-60ish 'regulars'?

     

    It's no surprise that many players join for the initial rush of land, which then teeters off once infrastructure is quickly built up due to minecraft's horribly simple progression system. Would using artificial means(plugins/map design) to slow down this progression(such as is done on servers like CivCraft for example) be something that would encourage people to stick around more? This begs the question of how vanilla we wish to be. There has also been some thought towards random custom dungeons being spread out to give players incentive to explore, as well as providing challenge beyond minecraft's simple concept of PvE. 

     

    Another concept brought up here and here was that players don't have things to do as the rev goes on. 

    Would players be fine with for example admin endorsed community projects that give players something to do, or other means the PAdmins could provide more longterm stimulus other than an event like a 5k/holiday event/ect? Or would that take away from the spirit of the server in that everything outside of spawn is 100% player run?

     

    Lastly, there's the hot topic of rev ends, and whether they should be longer/shorter, or given specific dates of ending. That also ties into player retention as revs and maps can become stale for many, which is something to look out for. However on the other side of the coin making revs too short prevents the massive infrastructure and town buildup that makes our server so great. This has been discussed many times in the past, and I'm not sure if there really is a right or wrong answer, but it can certainly bear discussing.

    • Upvote 6
  16. Who cares if on the launch of PVE we had 250 people waiting in the lobby. The servers are in trouble and we are not keeping the people. HAving 250 people and putting us over capacity so everyone thinks we have shitty infra and don't come back isn't a benefit.

     

    I really don't want to see this get chalked up to another thing we drop the ball on and don't do anything to change.

    I don't think player dropoff has anything to do with that. For the last few revs(minus the DDoS fiasco) PvE revision starts seem relatively stable with only minor lag, which is to be expected with such a high pop. If anything the techs have been doing a damn good job keeping things running smoothly in recent times. Not many servers(and I'd say 0 free/non p2w) have so many people on a map as big as ours, running as many plugins as we do.

     

    It mostly has to do with vanilla survival mode minecraft being shitty for longterm goals, while having an incredibly fun short term game. As someone who's played for years it barely takes me any time at all to reach endgame and kill the dragon, as many can attest to. Once that's done and initial infrastructure is set up serverwide a lot of people have little reason to play. Though many players will also stick around to develop towns.

     

    Player retention from gameplay itself would be better in a different thread imo, since it's kinda off-topic and would require an in depth look.

    • Upvote 2
  17. r/minecraft is not driving that much traffic. If we were going to name the servers based on where we get traffic from then we should be called the unofficial AVO/youtube servers.

    Sounds good. Free icecream should attract people. :D

     

    I agree though about branding. I personally like nerd.nu and mcpublic equally as much. "nerd.nu" would probably be better if we want to start expanding to other games though. I think if we wanted to integrate it properly we'd call ourselves nerd.nu as an overarching name, then our minecraft servers, or at least our subreddit be 'mcpublic'. Dropping the reddit affiliation is in our best interest imo. Reddit is just one of many mediums we use at this point. All the other names should be rectified to 'nerd.nu' as that's where most of our domains are.

  18. To be honest here, we all know who we're going to recommend, do we generally look to the applyformod page list regardless? To match our suit for professionalism among staff and the community, i agree, remove it. however considering a majority of the people who are sent to the page are simply trolls/griefers who join the server all of once and ask for mod... I've never found it to be helpful.

     

    Now that we have the mod suggestions section of the forum as well, we don't have to worry about potentially forgetting someone as we can post a suggestion any time we see fit rather than when voting comes up.

    Then stop letting people send trolls and griefers to the page, since it's no longer a troll link. That was changed ages ago and I don't see how it's worded in a way now that could be misconstrued as such. I guess the youtube link could be removed but I don't consider it a big issue. Just encourage people to use it for its intended purpose.

     

    I like the idea of adding a field for reasons though. It would definitely help.

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