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buzzie71

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Posts posted by buzzie71

  1. Ban information:

    User 0Cucumber0
    Issuer buzzie71
    Server c.nerd.nu
    Reason Crop griefing on P nerd.nu/appeal
    Time Banned Sept. 17, 2022, 2:13 a.m.

    I realize you were starving and looking for wood before replanting, but you are still responsible for replanting if you harvest from someone else's crop field.  For next time, you could consider harvesting and replanting in smaller areas or replanting as you harvest. 

    Keep in mind also that if you are not able to replant everything despite your good faith effort, you can also modreq to report this yourself.  Staff tend to fix honest mistakes without heavy penalties like a ban if they are self-reported.  

    You are now unbanned.  Play well 😄

     

    For reference:

     

     

    Spoiler

    TfVhXQa-Imgur_smaller.png.2bd21a94d2aa78c87d8471691b7fcd42.png

     

  2. The Spawn:

    • Spawn was very well done; layout was simplistic and really fit the theme.  My only complaint is that the different shopkeepers were scattered around spawn and sometimes hard to find.

     

    The Over-world:

    • I thought the map size was good.

     

    The Nether

    • The Nether was neat, and so were the custom mobs (the tiny twins were annoyingly fun!).  I would echo some of the other comments that next rev's Nether should be vanilla, given the changes made to it for 1.16.
    • EDIT: One thing I forgot to emphasize earlier was that I really enjoyed how some useful non-vanilla enchanted items only drop from custom mobs (for this rev I was thinking Estelle's high knockback coin purse in particular, though I realize the Power 6 bow qualifies too).  It would be great to see this mechanic make a comeback in some way, though I guess if the Nether is vanilla next rev, options to do that will be limited.

     

    The End:
    This revision we had a custom generated End created by cheezychicken,  (5000x5000) It featured separate islands of biomes to retain The End’s feel.
    We also redesigned the Dragon Fight- The Dragon Fight plugin was developed by totemo, and the bosses were designed by totemo and cujobear with input from all the Padmins.

    Generation:

    • I liked the feel of the End more this rev; felt more in the spirit of vanilla End with irregular islands and void drops.

    Dragon Fight:

    • The change in battle style from several weak but (potentially) powerful support mobs to fewer, tankier, mostly-ground-based boss mobs was a major shift.  
    • On the one hand I enjoyed the new style of fight - the ground-based mobs and the fewer opportunities for XP changed the fight enough to require a new strategy and it was fun to strategize for the new challenge, plus the stages had a good variety of challenges and the stage themes themselves were fun.  I liked that having elytra was not a significant advantage in this fight.  The fight is a great test of skill and strategy, more so in the solo fight.  Determining the base mobs in the fight was a lot of fun as well.  I thought it was awesome that nerd-specific callbacks (stages 1 and 10) made an appearance too.
    • Overall though, my opinion is that the dragon fight was a great PvE challenge but not necessarily a suitable cost for elytra.  I felt this custom fight is the server's most difficult to date for solo play, and think this is approaching, if not already at, the upper limit of difficulty that should be allowed for solo dragon fights - the mobs generally hit much harder and the fight lasts long enough that keeping watch on armor durability is necessary, which I feel is tangential to the main challenge of slaying the dragon.  (However, because of the fewer mobs on the field, I feel that the difficulty drops noticeably for even two players, since the hardest hitting mob tends to focus on one player at a time.  This advantage of course scales with more players.)
    • Some comments about the fight itself:
      • I didn't find the random arrow immunity intuitive; when I first noticed indications that a mob took no damage from an arrow I had mistaken it for complete arrow immunity (which for some mobs, eg. the Slime King, I think would be a fair attribute, but others, eg. the Iron Giant with its longer melee reach, would be unfair), though it is a good way to disincentivize simply sniping the mobs from a far distance.
      • Lack of a hitbox to melee for the snowball pufferfish was not too fun to deal with, though the concept of static-ish things that gave poison on touch was neat.
      • I felt there should be some more item drops unique to the fight (eg. Pollen and Hairball).

    Elytra:

    • The dragon fight this rev seemed a bit high on the difficulty side as an elytra cost.  Prize boxes from the fight were a fun collectible though.


    Custom Drops:

    • I thought the custom drops were implemented well - drop rate (at least from mobs) felt reasonable and matched the theme.

     

    Custom trades:

    • I liked the variety of trades that were available; some of it really added to the theme and made spawn feel that much cooler 😄.

     


    Events:

    • It was great seeing an event from players every week!


    Rev Theme:

    • The theme is always a nice touch to a rev, and while I don't feel events need to be tied to the theme, it helps when they do.  The roadside attractions were fun to look for.
    • The choice of theme really seemed to synergize with this rev, probably due to how accessible the theme was and the current times outside the game.  Excellent choice.
  3. The Spawn

    I think spawn could have been better signposted perhaps - while it was straightforward to find the hangar from the spawn point, it didn't seem as easy to find the lab or the commissary from outside the ship (lots of questions in chat about their locations).

    The Overworld

    I'd be interested in seeing what happens with a smaller map - from live map there still seems to be some empty space around.  Admittedly with the current size transportation doesn't feel very lacking, though as someone who is based closer to spawn and had help with rail tunnels, my immediate vicinity felt pretty lively and well-connected.

    The Nether

    I'm not sure I like the mix of custom mobs in nether/end this rev - my preference is that custom mob pools in the vein of what was in the Nether (and End?) this rev (ie. frequent occurrences of generally tougher mobs) should be in a new, separate dimension, where the intent to challenge players can be made clearer.  I think they were a good difficulty for more experienced players.  Props for thematic consistency though, they really did look and feel like aliens from another dimension in another dimension and I enjoyed that kind of atmosphere.  Now the real question is what are the Zox and Kirlids doing in both Nether and End dimensions, hmmmm.

    The End

    I thought the End layout this rev was pretty neat.  The one thing I didn't like so much was how low the original End center's ground level was relative to the dragon's flying altitude.

    Elytra

    Elytra obtaining method feels fine this rev.

    Custom Drops

    I enjoyed the variety of ways which the custom drops were obtainable and think that variety should be brought forward in later revs.  The trades have been interesting, though I have admittedly treated spesos as rare and haven't been spending much .-.

    Events

    I enjoyed the weekly events even though I'm usually late to half of them.  Participation event tokens are a good touch.  What I really liked was how much some (eg. wacky battles) were more casual/fun oriented compared to more traditional games that are more competitive/even; it's nice to take a break from controlled conditions and just roll with randomness sometimes.

    Rev Theme

    Really enjoyed the theme this rev 😄

     

    • Upvote 1
  4. Hello again, and welcome to another story serial!

    Long after the days of political squabbling (Unity: Glass Vision) and the spleef tournament (Unity: The Spleef Diamond Cup) in the golden days after the Last Chaos (Unity: Origins), civilization fell.  The Storm, who came to the homeworld in search of Spaceship Unity (Unity Retrieval Project Backstory) as foretold (Unity: Ancients), finally found it, and the ensuing space battle resulted in the scorching of the planet and the fall of the governing order.  A team from the city of Port Aperture, joined by two other survivors, journey to make one last update to the ATLUS information repository in the hopes that it will inform a future effort to repel the Storm and rebuild the map - but the barren world is not their only problem on their trek.

    This story serves as a prequel of sorts to saberfysh's CMC Starlogs (https://nerd.nu/forums/topic/3715-cmc-starlogs-a-story-serial/), particularly exploring the state of the map shortly after Unity's destruction.

    You can follow the story at https://unityfallout.tumblr.com/ .

    Part 1 of 2 will be released from today to October 25.  The first story segment is up now, while subsequent segments will be released on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 5 PM Eastern time.

    Again, the events of the story are fiction, though Port Aperture takes its name from a town that existed on PvE back in revs 8-9-ish.  It is mentioned in this story as a part of Starlogs canon.

     

    • Like 1
  5. The Spawn Building

    * It is a very thematic and detailed build.  I think the exits were marked well but maybe needed some exploration to find them (eg. boardwalks led to exits but perhaps it was not as easy to tell that they led to exits?  Then again I didn't spawn in at the right place at the start of this rev and I swam out the bay instead ._.).

    The Overworld

    * The map size felt big even with a smaller map.  I think it was a good size.

    * I appreciate the vanilla terrain.  Even without custom terrain there were some cool places to explore.  It makes me wonder what kind of custom terrain can be delivered with the new 1.13 terrain.

    The Nether

    * Custom nether was great.  Terrain was treacherous, keeping in spirit with vanilla Nether, while variation in the biomes was good and addition of more resource blocks was a welcome addition.

    * Good lineup of custom mobs in the Nether.  There are many mobs that carry exotic items and are easily identified; fighting them was exciting and potentially rewarding.

    The End

    * I really wished the End had void drops like the vanilla one did.  To me that was what makes the End stand out from the overworld, and why I think this End strayed from the original spirit of the End.  The inclusion of other blocks (clay, concrete powder, etc.) in the terrain was a nice addition though.  Having sponge there also helps with sponge distribution among players, which is nice.
    * In light of the same preserving-old-End-characteristics, the End could perhaps use better Enderman spawning too (spawner based grinder is noticeably slow compared to the previous natural spawns).  The custom spawns, while frustrating for Enderman spawns, were pretty decent too, though I felt the Nether's custom mobs were more interesting.

    * The dragon fight is quite fun after mastering it.  It is more difficult than the previous iteration from last rev, but I find it is balanced by a potentially greater reward.  Besides getting the usual dragon head and elytra, there were opportunities to get other ordinarily-harder-to-obtain items such as admin heads and totems of undying in exchange for time spent collecting them during the fight, which I appreciate.  There were a few features I didn't enjoy as much (getting damaged on hitting the dragon, the time gate on stage 1) but it was overall still fun.  The leaderboard was pretty nice too - I think another good addition to that, if possible, would be a way to call up your own best times.

    * Free range shulkers were fun too, and the guaranteed one shell drop really helped.  A lucky run in the End this rev I think would have beaten previous rev's shulker spawners in terms of collection rate.  Part of me wonders if this is also straying from original spirit of the End (to have them spawn in the End and drop shells like that), but it definitely felt nicer to fight them rather than sit in a grinder and hit them through a wall.

    Elytra

    * I enjoyed elytra being available as a drop from the dragon fight.  It's a deterministic method and is part of what makes the dragon fight satisfying in my opinion.  

    Portals

    * Current distribution feels pretty good.

    Custom Spawners

    * This rev's set was a good lineup.  I admittedly really appreciated the squid spawner as a deterministic source of ink sacs after discovering that most of the spawns around me in the ocean were tropical fish rather than squid.

    Custom Drops

    * I liked the custom drops as well as how they dropped from other sources other than just mining.  It would be cool to see them come from other actions in Minecraft perhaps (eg. random pop out of a furnace when taking things out by hand? chance to fish one up? maybe can add a check for if the player has attempted to use something while the bobber is out to prevent farming with autofishers).

    Events

    * Easter Egg hunt was a really good event 😄

    * NITWITS should make a return 😮

    * Not-vanilla-obtainable prizes are great.

  6. Hello again, and welcome to another story serial!

    In the wake of the Last Chaos (Unity Origins), many of the former allies of the warring cities Akro and Megatown, as well as independent residents, joined the newly reborn United Minecraft Cities.  Cooperation between the diverse members has transformed their ways of life for the better, and reaffirmed their commitment to unity.  A new era has dawned on the map as former enemies and rivals marched together in lockstep and looked to new heights in the future.

    Or so that's what people say.

    Set some time after the Spleef DIamond Cup hosted by Megatown, the story follows a UMC investigator as a crisis arises that tests the strength of the new unity, and struggles to come to terms with the new reality.

    You can follow the story at https://unityglass.tumblr.com/

    The sections of the first part of two have been queued for posting.  The first section is already up, and sections will continue to be posted at 5 PM Eastern time on subsequent Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays until July 3.  

    While the events of the story are fiction, the underlying exploration is not - it's been something I wanted to explore in the universe, after seeing it a few times in real life: what does it take to destroy the unity that is so easily talked about, and how easy is it to do it?

    A note to readers, especially newcomers to the universe: the story is set in a Minecraft environment whose mechanics parallel that available in rev 10/11 of PvE (around Minecraft version 1.6) - the days when iron grinders were built with pods of villagers, minecarts were slower, horses were bred for their stats, and elytra was undiscovered (though traveling by airship is rare in this world).  It is an old time, admittedly, but hopefully not one that is too alien compared to the present day.

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 1
  7. The last few revs have had pre-built spawn stations (21-23, though 21's was near spawn outside rather than inside).  There's been a long stretch of P revs where a staff-made pre-built station had been absent from in or near spawn (rev 12 to 20 I think).  In those revs there tended to be a player-built station near spawn to fill the niche.

  8. If the goal is to keep a third server called minigames open, I think whatever replaces what's on it now should be more long-term than what is usually run on the event server (so something that is intended to run for at least a few weeks), though the more popular and longer running, the better in that instance - otherwise some of the uses proposed I think would just make it effectively a second event server when we have one that is recently only used for the annual fundraiser (which is not necessarily a bad thing either, but may be a bit awkward unless the server drops the minigames name too).

    To hold player attention, or at least try to decouple player interest from the effect of declining player count, I think ideally the server would run something that does not rely exclusively on the presence of other players to enjoy it (KOTH/CTF was fun, but it requires other players present to even kick off a game - once players start dropping out it's harder to find players to play with).  An adventure map that is built to handle multiple parties moving through it would fit here, bonus points if it has features that make it worthwhile to replay (eg. branching paths).  The downside as some others have alluded to is that most adventure maps available outside of nerd are not built for multiple parties moving through at once.  I think it would be possible to create one on nerd that can support multiple parties, but it would be potentially heavy on time and effort to develop.

    On the flipside, something that does bring players together for a game and require other players to enjoy (sort of like the current minigames) would be great too - we are a community after all, and I feel game types that force players to play together have become few and far between these days (eg. the old CTF fundraisers), though having a dependence on other players for enjoyment may cause player interest to drop faster and may require more maintenance on the administration side to keep things fresh enough to attract players back.  Here, other minigames might be great too if they can be set up, bonus points if it can simply be downloaded from an external source and run on nerd - perhaps in addition to having rotating minigames, having random map ordering on server startup?  Being able to call a vote for map switch is useful, but it might also help to randomize the map ordering so the first map played is different?

    Generally I'm a bit wary of a PvP map along the lines of old S being run, even if it is a shorter duration (eg. 3 weeks to a month) - imo if any PvP kind of server/gameplay comes back, it should go through enough planning and scrutiny with confidence that it will retain players.  For a short run with no expectations of recurring though, it might be worth it as a one-off though?  There's also the moderation issue there though; this would require a lot of moderation effort based on history.

    If we are sticking with the current minigames for a while - how much effort would it take to randomize the map ordering on server startup?  I'm wondering if that, plus running regular minigame nights, might help, or perhaps an organized tournament across multiple maps - though admittedly P players having to downgrade their client to reach the server might make it less easy to access for them.

     

  9. It was a lot of fun restoring the town and running Jojamart out of it!

    I enjoyed the community oriented premise of this fundraiser - the restoration mechanic is fun and presents a clearer community-oriented objective to fulfill.  The rewards (the ones I was aware of at least) felt like they were worth the effort - they gave a noticeable leg up in mob combat and made traversing the map easier to do.  The map fit the theme while showing off some interesting terrain.  The custom mobs gave a refreshing spin on mob combat (props on the Enderman work for mixing flushing-from-cover with attack power in particular) and the effort of coming up with combat strategies was reminiscent of the old days of trying to play Minecraft for the first time.  The dungeons (at least the ones I visited and not including the one I had submitted) were varied in gameplay as well as presentation.  I enjoyed the diversity of the dungeons and thought they were fun (though admittedly I got help in figuring some of them out).

    The main thing I didn't like is that the mobs closest to the town still hit pretty hard.  While it was fun to deal with custom mobs with little equipment and have to resort to non-weapon countermeasures, I felt encounters with them were a bit on the punishing side for the easiest mobs (eg. dying in a few hits or fewer, baby zombies that run as fast as the player can sprint).  Keeping inventory on death felt at times essential to not having a hard time - while it was a useful reward to obtain, it felt a bit like a crutch.

    Iron also felt difficult to acquire underground - not sure if I was just unlucky, but I've been having more luck on the current Chaos map finding iron ore than on the fundraiser map.

    I also felt that the fundraiser gameplay was a bit too big in scope for the few days that it was up, given the speed at which buildings were restored (I felt that with the energy during the event, more could have been accomplished with a few extra days) and the variety and number of dungeons available.  Similar events could perhaps stand to run for longer, though as a fundraiser event, extending its duration past one weekend might be a harder case to make.  If there is ever a need for an interim event when all the servers are down but the plugins are updated enough to run this, this kind of map might be a good one.

    Overall it was a great fundraiser premise, and I had fun with it.  At least the general store wasn't closed on Wednesdays :D

    (I'm still fond of PvP and CTF, but given the community focused gameplay I think it makes sense that there was no PvP involved in this map.)

    • Like 3
    • Upvote 3
  10. For the next five or so weeks, there is a very likely chance that I will be missing during the weekdays each week, and I am certainly going to be away for the weekdays next week.  I expect to maintain a presence on discord and slack at least, but will definitely be missing from the game while I am out.

  11. Thinking about my things to do and I take back what I said about building a game show studio this rev on P, I'm not sure I can comfortably host one this rev without running into difficulties in other things I want to do by then.

    Skraps hit a lot of good ideas though.  Back in the day I was fond of fazaden's cross-server scavenger hunt as well as MCPublic Squares (the latter in particular was what got me into the game show type stuff on P in recent revs).  It would be cool to see events like that again.

  12. @Silversunset01 - It's less having more long-term than arena events as it is more having some more long-term events that can be completed solo at a noticeably decent pace - similar to NITWITS or the Knights' Quests or the first batch of alien scavenger hunt clues from previous revs.  (I realize I did not obtain the map showing approximate locations of the slime golems, so I don't have much to say on that this rev.)

    As for elytra - I would favor a dragon fight more like vanilla, though this rev's implementation is a decent enough difficulty as well (a fight to get unenchanted elytra should at least not be made harder than this).  If a harder fight can be implemented separately for better rewards of some sort (maybe not necessarily better elytra), that would be great to play too I think. 

    The randomness of the mining cost, as well as the arbitrariness of the delayed introduction, imo make them a bad choice for cost for an item considered a core part of the game, and I think they should be dropped for elytra - those kinds of costs are better levied on items that are purely cosmetic.

    • Upvote 3
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