TheRandomnatrix

I was discussing with totemo the other day on IRC about looking to other servers and bukkit plugins for minigames on the servers, particularly for use on S. Many of these minigame plugins are already made, and do not require additional work beyond a search through the source code for malicious intent. The implementation of things like these is entirely up to the discretion of the server admins and techs, but I just thought I'd bring it up. Granted, your ulterior motive is obviously seeing your zombie survival map become a thing, but upon lamenting the increased frequency of official events where all 3 servers go down, the notion that it would present a drain to staff came into play. When you look into the constant updating of usually in-house plugins, the sheer organizing it requires from a multitude of mods and admins, many of which have their respective servers to attend to, I can see it quickly becoming a chore for some. I'm all for seeing more events on the servers, but recognize that that increase comes at a cost, and one person's willingness to throw themselves at 1 or 2 events is not enough to make that happen.

Just let me know when said meeting is set to occur. Right now I have little idea what to help with.

Also, I want to throw in large biomes as a vanilla gen option. Vanilla generation just doesn't seem right anymore without it to me. (also just world paint and just TC could be options for posterity) I actually very much enjoyed revision 8 for this reason(it was world painted to create massive biomes of a single type as the option wasn't around then). Made the map much more consistent and a lot more immersive However, I guess you could also argue that it's sometimes nice to have several different biomes located near one location.

I have never considered the 'don't be a dick' rule to be an actual rule. I prefer the term guideline instead. It's not enforced as a rule, so I see zero reason to refer to it as one. It is most often confused with the no player harassment rule, which from my understanding is enforced. As for continuously toxic behaviour and what has come to be known as brinkmanship(purposely edging around rules to the detriment of moderators), I feel that's up to the staff to come to an agreement when a player is shown to have negative effects on the community at large to the point where removal may be necessary, and that we reserve the right to do so. Perhaps more clearly defining what brinkmanship and toxicity is, though subjective and possibly case-by-case based, would also be beneficial. All in all, if you find you're having trouble with a player and you can't come to an agreement, just move on. If they continue to pursue you(be it through chat of any medium or ingame) despite you making it clear you want to be left alone(also, I would like to remind players that if you go down the same road as someone in diamond armor time and time again, expect to be killed. Common sense, people.), only then should you consider contacting a staff member. Bans are not to be used as threats against a player, and we do not take sides.

I have a few things I want to address: Plumping ores: I've personally never understood why S does not have plumped ores like diamonds. The only argument I've heard against this from bringing it up is that clans would stockpile armor and tools, which imo they already do anyways. I hear the complaint that it's always the people in dia armor running around killing all the underarmed people, making them want to quit. So why not make it easier to get said equipment? Hell, P gets plumped ores and we don't even need it as bad as S does. Grinding is such a chore to the point that xp is plumped and /unenchant exists, but nothing is done about the biggest grind in minecraft: mining. Is there a specific reason I haven't heard to why this is? Changing the Survival with PvP thrown in mentality?: There's already some discussion to deviate to less than vanilla gameplay above, but at the core, S is currently "survive in the wilderness with the occasional random PvP event". I think that notion of what S is could stand to change. Advertising: As it stands, in recent times we have been trying to address this problem. With a donation drive planned for the future, hopefully we can raise some more money to where paid advertising could be considered an option. As for right now, minecraft is a game that's spread from friend to friend through word of mouth. I'd encourage people to talk to their friends about the nerd servers. Enchantments and Potions The general complaint I always hear and I'm sure everyone else has too, is that the adventure update broke PvP. From my understanding, This problem was addressed a few revs ago by removing enchants to everything but bows. A complaint in recent times was that this would have worked if enchants on bows had also been removed. As for potions, I really don't see an issue with them currently. Invisibility was a problem, but with the recent plugin to disable it upon pvp, I feel that's been dealt with. Polling: Lastly, at least for now, is that we could easily make an official poll on the common topics if it has to come to that. I've noted C is already doing that to some degree.

I'd also like to participate in the map designing/base construction. There was an idea I had for outposts that could be captured for potion buffs, similar to koth last CTF, except there'd be more of them and they could be fortified by teams. The protections for these would be minimal as it would not be vital to have them. I feel it'd create more of a campaign kind of structure where teams would be able to compete for control over areas of the map. Is this viable? I'd be more inclined to keep it to just one flag though. It'll force teams into bottlenecks that they can focus on.

I would very much agree with a redstone biome of sorts. I think trying to segregate redstone devices and forcing more subcategories will just come out annoying for redstoners. I have my own little redstone area on C(coincidentally by the garden contest area), where I build whatever I want in one place for quick access. Having to teleport/fly all over to specialized sections just to prototype something will come off more as a nuisance, and those areas will quickly become crowded with designs made by tons of other people with similar concepts. I'd like to suggest a section where finalized designs can be world-edited in for others to see, where signs can be set up showing who made it and what it does. This area would be protected from grief entirely.

I agree. I was hesitant to suggest that for the concerns you pointed out, but I felt it would be a good way to raise money. Given that there may be two teams and hopefully some sort of balancing system in place to add newer players to the undermanned/losing team, I was hoping that the effects of this would be minor overall while still giving players something they want while helping the servers.

Totally up for another CTF, though I want to keep it to a regular map with bases like the past ones, as opposed to the arena style version proposed. Maybe have donators get to choose what team they get to be on? It'd be fun to toss around a few map layout ideas and start brainstorming how things are set up. I agree that the draw should be something that anyone can join/leave at any time. That'll really help with the popularity of it. I also have an idea that maybe we could bring PvE into things, where the players all rush out from spawn after deciding a team and have to decide where the base gets placed, similar to the initial portal rush. This might have some issues with arguments/base placement, so I'm just throwing it out there. As for the other events: Zombie survival: I think this would be great to go with CTF in some sort of defend the castle scenario sub-event, but I don't think it has enough to be on its own. Creative Islands: I thought it was pretty fun to do. The voting system was just broken last time and needs to be tweaked. KOTH: Maybe have several large scale KOTH arenas get developed, and have people duke it out in one big fight? It could be broken up into several warp points that players could choose between after spawning. Chaos on old revs: Based on what I read on the subreddit posts that were linked, I think this is a bad idea. Too many complaints of spawn campers/griefers, too much lag. Also, if it's decided that there'll be Survival Chaos on S/PAvE on P again, it'll be pretty close to that time in the rev's cycle. Really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Admittedly, the mod in question was probably me. I assumed it was fairly obvious that a grinder was being built, because it's very easy to see bridges coming off the mainland, I'd heard several people discussing plans for grinders, and I'd been given 0 indication that it was a secret. I apologize for this, but I don't like the way you twist my actions into something that sounds sinister, like the mods are out with a vendetta against vinhaven. It was a simple mistake, to which I am sorry for. Honestly, I don't think the mods/admins should have a say in this in terms of limiting end grinder building, other than the rule stating that builds shouldn't be private, which is enforceable. I disagree that endermen are considered a limited resource. They spawn all across the dimension, and they spawn infinitely. The mob cap is irrelevant in my opinion because of this infinite spawning. The end portal areas are a public resource though for the record. I'd also like to point out, as outlined here: http://www.reddit.com/r/mcpublic/comments/18mmr2/pve11_endgrinder/c8g5nc8 that my views are that you cannot "grief" an end grinder by building additional grinders. It is courtesy to limit spawning to one area, but it does not fall under the being a dick rule. I find people are using that rule simply because there isn't anything better to go off of. In regards to XP plumping, I think PvE has enough going for them, but considering how much a waste of time grinding is, I'd be willing to support it. But adding more xp will just mean people grind more. Ever since enchanted books, people grind just for the sake of grinding, so I think it won't matter much even if we plump xp. I would prefer we keep it to one grinder that we all focus on as an agreement, but it isn't binding, and people are allowed to build more if they so choose. Edited for clarity

What are the missile launch codes?

Chocolate or vanilla?

I agree with world holes needing to go and everyone getting equal resources to start. You don't have to specifically give them the resources, but make them available within 100-200 blocks of bases and clearly visible. Teams: I liked having more than 2 teams, even though it got a tad unbalanced at the end. Too many people on one team and it just becomes impossible to organize anything. Plus, attacking one team meant exposing yourself to another, which was fun. Suggest some sort of autobalance feature to take into account less active teams. Command posts: I think it'd be pretty cool if teams could capture and hold secondary bases that have resources that are hard to acquire, or provide minor debuffs for their team unique to each base. Maybe pre built xp grinders to allow players to slowly grind for better equipment, which will be insanely useful early on. It would force teams to decide if they want to a resource at the cost of upkeeping it. Allow for a little more leniency with griefing: I'm not sure if this one is feasible and might make the admins' jobs harder, but I found it really annoying how I couldn't sabotage anything from the other team. It's just food for thought, I don't have any specific ideas on how to improve it. I do want to note that teams shouldn't be able to barricade their base entrances. Some teams had a serious issue with that last CTF. Shrink the map Chokepoints: Maybe have some chokepoints in the map that funnel people into one area, like a mountain pass. The wool mountains were awesome, and I'd like to keep them, but they could also be annoying as there was no viable path through them without mining or making bridges. Make enderpearls a valuable resource: I loved how valuable enderpearls became during CTF. They were incredibly hard to get, but worth it as a few well placed enderpearls could get you in and out of a base fast. Maybe disable endermen spawning and give pearls out for events/buffs, or hide chests all over the map?

That's a common problem. What I suggest doing is avoiding that as much as possible, and also binding a key to /spawn, so when you relog you quickly press it and get sent to the overworld. If all else fails, you may require a player data reset for modmode from a tech.

I think that would cause more problems than need be. Currently, only a few people know about this exploit. If word gets out and we need a quick and dirty solution, sure, but right now it's not a problem that needs an immediate and drastic course of action imo. Edit: Although I suppose it's better safe than sorry.

CTF is my favorite event as well. I got to see a lot of different play styles between players across the three servers during that event. I'd love to see more of it. Guerrilla tactics and stealth were my favorite :P

I hope i'm understanding it right, but would disabling hopper minecarts be a good, at least quick, solution to this? Banning hopper carts wouldn't even take much from the game imo. You can do almost the same exact thing with hoppers feeding into chest carts, and that approach is much more friendly to our current setup of hopper placement. I don't know how feasible this is from a tech standpoint however.

My biggest concern was seeing it in Server Discussion. I'd be perfectly fine if the AMA's were done in Off Topic, and I get the reasoning for the first AMA being done in that section to kick it off, but further AMA's are hardly discussion worthy, and as forty_two said are far too prone to circlejerk.

I feel like this also pertains to usage of mods in general. I've questioned in past the usage of mods like Rei's on P and S due to the fact that it reveals objects in a large radius of the player that wouldn't immediately be visible. This feature can be especially used to locate structures such as temples, villages, and even biomes in general, which can be a massive advantage to players in the beginning of a revision where exploration is key. The feature you're talking about specifically is the clear water feature of Optifine, which makes both lava and water(obviously) clear. This has massive benefits of not just lava based mining, but also to just travel in general, such as swimming in the ocean. Before night vision potions, and even after, you couldn't mine clay effectively in oceans without clear water. This even helps in things such as the 5k, making things like the water maze much easier to navigate. The answer I got in response last time I questioned the usage of such things was that these mods/features are simply too popular to disable. I too would like an official response.

I recall making this ban with the intent of an immediate unban after changing skins, so make sure to change it to something more appropriate before logging back on nerd.nu. This is more than enough time for a given ban length, so I've unbanned you. Note that further infractions may result in longer ban lengths in the future.