Sir_Didymus

December 18, 2017

December 18th

Suggestion: Horses should be able to rehydrate by standing in water and stopping for a second or so. don't have to dismount.

Our Response: Thank you for your suggestion. The requirement to get off your horse to rehydrate it plays a key role in preventing the AFK grinding of horse levels, and so it must remain for now, in order to ensure a fair environment for all players. If that should change in future, we would certainly consider such a change.

Suggestion: Running /rg i <placename> should highlight names of players in that region that are online.

Our Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We think this is an interesting idea, but we're not sure how technically feasible it is at present. We will talk to techs and see what they say, and update this response in the near future.

December 11, 2017

December 11th

130 golem souls were collected by the community and so, as promised, special traders have now arrived at spawn and will remain for 2 weeks.

November 13, 2017

November 13th

Knights' Quest Coins will now be received at the Adventurers' Guild, and rewards granted. https://redd.it/7cjjov

November 4, 2017

November 4th

Collection of community submitted death messages is now open here.

October 21, 2017

My note is over 2 years old, and I am not expecting a recurrence of old habits. Therefore I have removed it, and good luck to you in future.

October 19, 2017

October 19th

The Early Rev Survey has been released - please submit your responses by November 2nd!

October 17, 2017

October 17th

The nether livemap has been re-rendered at a higher light level, to increase its usability.

October 11, 2017

October 11th

The cartograph for Rev 21 is now available.
A fix has been implemented on P to try to reduce the frequent lag that players have been experiencing. We'll be watching over the next few days to gauge improvement.

October 7, 2017

October 7th

The livemap is now fully available here (including nether map).

October 2, 2017

Unbanned - welcome back!

September 26, 2017

September 25th

We're going to try a fix for the lighting issues people have been having - it's not a quick fix, and it may cause additional lag to the server for a period of time. If it causes too many issues we will re-evaluate.

September 24, 2017

September 24th

We're trialling a new maximum nether portal size of 25x9.

July 17, 2017

@nxw,

Spoiler

Copying this from Reddit. :) I had originally written out a lot more before I posted to reddit, but I was hyperaware of it being more of a wall of text than any quick direct feedback. So my apologies in advance if it comes off as short shrift. My intent was to try and cut the chaff to help get to the point, but you know what they say about putting a leash on your internal (external?) editor sometimes...

Also, my personal play mode is 'derp', I am a creeper magnet, and speaking as one who can find and fall into the smallest and most out-of-the-way-of instadeath holes before being able to find one single diamond in weeks of play, the fact that I would starve in spawn is pretty hilarious to me. I did pat myself on the back for that one. :p

Nether Portals:

* Number and distribution seems okay. Worked out fine for me. :)

Nether:

* Nilla was okay but I liked the Nether that had obsidian and stuff? (I just didn't like the psycho mobs (I just wasn't careful, or prepared... you know, any of those things average people tend to do while adventuring, is all)).

* I walked up on a random Enderman in the Nether. I felt like I should see if he needed directions home. <3

Map Gen:

* Size was good.

* Biomes were too small.

* Terrain variation would have worked better for me if the biomes were larger.

* A lot of variation + small biomes = map feels a bit frenetic.

* Water:land seems about right. I would not mind if there was a mini-ocean in the midst of the map rather than skirting the edges.

* IIRC Rev 17 was the best map (and a lot of people continuously said it was their favorite) and 18 had the great riverway/canal system. I think I used boats more than I used rail.

Ore:

* I don't mind ore being less easy to find. But it's strange finding diamonds up the Y. I just expect them lower, I guess, because of geological process-y whatnots.

Spawn & MIsc:

* I got so lost and nearly starved trying to get out of spawn. LOL excellent times.

* There was spawn lag. I wasn't sure what was going on.

* The unique buildings were weird to me (I didn't get what they were) but they were cool to look at and check out. But I didn't go about looting them. My fault for not paying attention.

* Memorable moment this rev when I stumbled upon one of the unique multi-spawner underground chamber thingers and got caught unprepared by a dozen zombos. But I got rescued by someone thankfully, because people on this server are the best. <3

I don't get what's meant by the second overworld thing. Does it mean, literally, a second land (in the air)? Or to wipe the whole server and make a whole new Rev, as in just have a short Rev?

But I will say that if the Rev has a countdown to unleashing of extreme hostile mobs, I would love that... :)

You seem to be echoing many other respondents in your support of a custom Nether, so we’ll add your feedback to that pile! I understand the need to run and hide from all the mobs in the Nether - I’m usually doing the same myself!

Larger biomes is another thing I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere. We’ll certainly take that on board and look at the best way we can generate the map to meet as many people’s expectations as possible.

We’ve had mixed responses to the differing ore generation, and we have our own experiences this rev to draw upon too. Some people have enjoyed the excitement they bring to caving etc. and others find the unpredictability a bit off-putting. These discussions will help shape our decisions around this issue for next rev.

Another thing frequently mentioned is the lag experienced by many players in and around the current spawn building. We’ll take every step possible to try to reduce any kind of lag players experience around the next spawn, although we can’t guarantee to solve all problems!

Unique buildings and multi-spawners have allowed people to create some interesting new builds this rev, such as the quint grinder near spawn. We’ll look at all the ways we can support new developments by players next rev, including thinking about how custom builds might enhance the player experience.

In terms of a secondary area to explore, we have no particular direction but were looking to gauge player interest in having some kind of additional area to explore, whether that be some kind of more difficult zone, or something with a particular purpose - we really wanted to explore any kind of open interpretation of such a concept.

For someone who dislikes ‘psycho mobs’, you seem very enthusiastic for us to unleash ‘extreme hostile mobs’ on the server! I’ll make a note that you specifically should be followed by a horde of zombies at all times. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to offer your feedback - much appreciated!

July 17, 2017

Hey @Herr_Fawkes,

Spoiler

Thanks for your feedback! I’m glad you felt that the method for handling golem spawners this rev was improved over last - a lot of work went into trying to come up with a fair system that would still add challenge to the gameplay.

-Agreed, the current seems much more fair than setting out pre-determined spawners. It's well balanced and encourages people to build spawners late-rev, since the costs drop as we go.

You seem like a fan of the current method generating our overworld biomes and terrain, and some of the things you’re suggesting, such as better coordinated biomes, might be possible in the new updates related to Biome Bundle (they have switched terrain generators to Open Terrain Generator, forked from Terrain Control I believe, which has some updated features).

Since you prefer a custom nether - do you have any preferences for things that might appear in the nether? Any particular biomes you enjoyed from previous revs or any structures you’d like to see?

-I'd love to see some pre-generated structures like we've got in the overworld: statues (maybe of a nether mob instead of villagers?), ruined buildings, and towers. They make exploration more interesting, and there are more opportunities for loot.

I see you’re making suggestions for custom spawners in the nether in a similar fashion to the overworld. Do you think nether ‘special’ spawners would be a good addition to the server? If so, how do you think they should be obtained?

-If we've got a creeper spawner and a shulker spawner, we may as well have a zombie pigman spawner well-hidden a thousand blocks or so away from a custom nether spawn. It'd encourage nether exploration and provide a neat way to get some gold.

In regards to mapworld, you are in support of a plugin of some kind, to save players the work of creating custom maps. Would you prefer mapworld did not exist at all, and the work was done entirely automatically? Can you see a way for mapworld to run better than its present state?

-Mapworld itself is fine to have. I like the current system, it'd just be nice to have a plugin that let you convert images to maps and create a schematic that you could either print or have to build yourself. It'd make building interesting images easier, but could be tweaked so players would have to do more or less of the work themselves, depending on admin preferences.

More player input for the community section of the blog post is certainly something I’d like to see too, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep improving our output as we go along, based on feedback such as yours.

We’ve recently introduced the Nitwit event, that takes advantage of current towns and player builds when placing down its clues, and we’d certainly be open to exploring this sort of thing further, as the opportunity arises.

Your suggestion for a new spawn build for next rev is great - I love medieval builds myself, and I too would be pleased to see a traditional castle or similar as one of our server builds. I much prefer when thematic elements are tied in well across a range of areas, such as Spawn, Adventurer’s Guild, events etc. and hope to build on this in subsequent revs.

Thanks for your additional feedback, especially around additions to the Nether, which seems quite a priority to many people during this discussion. Adding custom spawners in the Nether is an interesting idea and we’ll certainly add it to our list of things to look at during our preparatory meetings.

Mapworld is also significantly on people’s minds this time around, and there have been a few suggestions on how to improve it. Hopefully we can come up with something next rev that is a step up from what we have presently, technology permitting.

Thanks for taking the time to engage with us during this feedback window - it certainly helps to have multiple viewpoints from which to draw upon, and your opinions have been much appreciated!

July 17, 2017

Hey @Aharit,

Spoiler

On 11/07/2017 at 2:39 AM, Aharit said:

@Sir_Didymus

Reveal hidden contents

Spawner Costs: The issue with wither skeletons is that their spawn rate is relatively low, and only in specific, small areas of the nether inside fortresses; also, nether spawns as a whole fluctuate even when alone, and can quickly drop off to nothing if other people are in the nether, which, just like the end grinders, has a habit of shunning builds in those areas. Spending 20 minutes on a flattened fortress circling just to see a single spawn set of zpigs is infuriating to me. Best ideas I've got are to make them spawn all nether at higher proportions (though this doesn't stop the spawn rate issue, only ameliorates it.) Alternatively, make them like regular skels in the nether, have some skels in the overworld spawn as wither skels (danger is that this will normally mess with spawners). Or, dodging the wither heads entirely, create a new essence, like the EoF, that drops extremely rarely, perhaps from all nether mobs, or from all surface mobs at specific times (new moon?)

As for the help command, I could write it with a little help with the spigot specifics from a tech admin, mainly data storage, and from the admins, for actually writing the help topics.

Nether: I liked the last custom nether, but I'd like to see it a bit more vertical, and add a few more lava rivers to spice it up. Was it done as biomes added to a normal generator? It'd be a fun side contest to design more diverse nether biomes. As for the danger / difficulty, I don't consider any part of minecraft travel to be dangerous at this point, so I'm not a good judge of things.

Overworld: Completely understand about the worldgen; just one thing if you go back to normal: FLAT BEDROCK. For spawn, my idea is more to make it a more tight-knit community affair, small center and pve members getting to build close so new players can see very quickly what the playerbase can do. (Just curate it so they see the better parts of what the playerbase can do, and nothing left unfinished) Specific plots for a rail station builder and embassy wouldn't be unwelcome either. Sorry if it seems an insult to the admin team that pours a great amount of work into the current spawns.

Mapworld: An additional point that someone already mentioned in this thread, and also applies to mazeworld: Going to spawn, stripping naked, and using a sign is a real pain. Creating an extra server and using something to pipe / mirror all text between the two would be better; as impressive as your work to have creative mode in pve areas is, I'd much rather just /pve-Mapworld. like /creative, and have worldedit.

Spawners: Scavenger hunt, puzzles found in unique places in the world, something like the quest for atlantis or the adventurer's guild stuff? (I've honestly not done any of the current or past questing stuff) Just anything that makes finding them more a test of ability and directed effort, rather than dumb luck and willpower.

Mazes: I think it should have been a choice. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but a creative build would take only a cursory check using schematica's material list to check for forbidden blocks, a worldedit save, and a batch transfer of all cleared maze saves by a tech admin from creative to PVE / Fundraiser event server.

Thank you for your time and attention to this feedback.

Thanks for your suggestions around nether spawning and golem spawner costs - we’ll be sure to include those in our discussions.

In terms of Nether generation, we’ve heard a lot of different opinions and will collate them all together to see what sorts of things players are looking for. I would love to see some lava rivers too! Adding player generated content via a contest could be good, and it’s something we’ll talk about alongside everything else.

A lot of your suggestions for spawn have also been said elsewhere in this topic, and I can see how a strong community is the focus for many people. Hopefully we can continue to follow that focus in Rev 21.

It’s clear some of you feel mapworld could be improved, and we’ve seen a lot of suggestions around that. We have taken on board the changes that players would like to see, and we’ll see what we can come up with within our technical limitations.

You seem in favour of some additional element in the search for special spawners. We’ve noted this feedback as something to discuss when looking at how and if we want to include special spawners next rev.

Thanks for your feedback in regards to the maze project. It was very much an experiment and we’ve certainly learned a few things for next time, should this sort of event occur again.

I’d like to take this time to show our appreciation for your detailed responses to our initial and subsequent questions - engaged players really help in the initial shaping of a new rev and you have spent considerable time offering us valuable feedback. Thank you!

July 9, 2017

Hey @Herr_Fawkes,

Spoiler

On 02/07/2017 at 11:37 PM, Herr_Fawkes said:

Iron Grinders:

This revision we started with a higher cost for iron golem spawners and upgrades early on and decrease the cost monthly.

Did the costs of spawners and upgrades feel fair?

Yes. It should be hard to get a spawner.

Were the costs clear to you?

Yes.

Should we continue with this method of obtaining iron golem spawners?

Yes.

Is it time to find a new way of acquiring iron golem spawners?

This way works, it's much better than last rev's fixed spawners.

Nether Portals:

This rev we increased the number of portals and tried to spread out more evenly across the map.

How do you feel about the number of portals and their placement on the map?

They're far enough apart to encourage travel, which is all I ask. There are a good amount, since having this many allows individuals to get and develop portals while still ensuring that the cities have enough to go around.

Would you like to see nether portals handled differently? if so, how?

No, they're fine.

The Nether:

We decided to go back to a vanilla nether this revision. After some consideration we also allowed portal owners a 1x1 hole in the bedrock ceiling to allow nether roof access.

Would you like to see a vanilla nether again?

I prefer the custom gen, the glowstone trees and land gen made exploring fun.

Other thoughts or ideas about the nether?

Add a zombie pigman spawner for shits and giggles, maybe even a (slow) wither skelly spawner that is earned as a prize in an event.

Map Generation:

The map is a good size, and things are spread out enough to encourage a good amount of infrastructure building (or at least there'd be decent infrastructure, but more on that later). I like the biomes more than past revs, and the custom trees are fun. I'd like to see fewer dramatic changes between neighboring biomes, like having a desert bordering a dense forest, but that's a Minecraft thing. Ideally, there'd be a portion of the map dedicated to desert/mesa and other portions with their own "ecosystems," like coastal regions, mountains, plains, and forests, where similar biomes are clustered together so that traveling through the world seems smooth and realistic. Biomes seem like a good size. Keep Terrain Control, it's better than Worldpainter or vanilla generation.

Ore distributions:

More gold is necessary for the development of proper rail systems. I miss the days when I could hop on a rail and get just about anywhere. We still have cities and motivated builders, but too little gold means that development can't happen. Other oregen is fine, though diamonds feel a bit sparse.

MapWorld:

I'd love to see an image converter like Aharit suggested. I tried making a map once, and it took up all the time I'd have liked to use playing the game in the actual PvE map. ImageOnMap seems like a promising server-oriented plugin. I understand that having a mapworld is desirable because it still requires players to put in time to build a map, but the actual building detracts from time that could be spent elsewhere, and on balance I'd rather have people playing PvE than being made to take large amounts of time to make maps.

Miscellaneous:

I like the blog posts, and would love to see the "Community" section focus on builds more often. The first post had a nice section where settlements got showcased, and it'd be fun to have people submit pics of their towns to put in this section. It'd be good for advertising to new players if we could get them to read it.

Spawn:

Was there anything you felt spawn and the spawn area was missing this rev?

Lighting, it's hard to see inside with a darker RP.

Was is it easy to find food and the exit?

Yes.

Would you prefer a bigger/smaller spawn? If so, why?

The size is fine, but I'd rather it be spread out for variety's sake since this rev's is rather vertical.

Any other thoughts regarding spawn?

Nice design, and I'm glad to see the Adventurer's Guild get its own rooms.

We’ve had a number of different themes for spawns across 20 revisions, from pirate ships to airships and everything in-between! Which themes would you like to see in future spawns?

I'd love to see a classic castle, especially since we've got a modern design this rev.

Special spawners:

The revision we added some special spawners (slime, shulker, etc) in the overworld and used Biome Bundle's custom structures to include witch spawners and some special dungeons which contained multiple spawners.

Should special spawners be removed from the map?

No

To avoid rarer items being flooded into the economy early, should we look into adding these later into a revision?

No, just make them harder to find.

Did you like the added spawners from Biome Bundles custom structures?

Yes.

Are there any unique spawners you'd like to see added?

Not that I can think of, maybe a zombie pigman spawner.

Adventurers Guild --

Do you enjoy having hunts held by the Adventurers Guild?

Yes. It's a great addition to the server.

Are there ideas you would like to share for future scavenger hunts or events?

Once towns are established, it'd be fun to collab with city mayors to hide things within established builds.

Other Thoughts --

Are you missing the All the Things Challenge?

Yes

Would you like to see the return of a grand challenge next rev?

Yes

Would you prefer if we focused on more events which you can do at any time you want or for more events which bring us all together for a specific time?

Any-time events are more fun, since they're easier to complete on one's own time and they allow long-term collaboration between players attempting them. One-time events are fun, but shouldn't substitute for well-planned rev-long challenges.

Closing Thoughts:

I'm enjoying the rev, but I wish we had our old rail systems back. I'm not sure why they're no longer in vogue to build, though I'd wager it's a combination of elytra and EasyRider making wings and horses more convenient to use than rails are to build. However, with a reintroduction of proper gold spawning levels, I think rails could make a comeback to the point that they're at least useful, and not sparse and half-finished. It's nice to have several methods of transportation, and I think the gold spawning this rev has ruined a good one.