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buzzie71

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Everything posted by buzzie71

  1. I really like the idea of skeleton horses being steeds that come from the environment once you best the skeletons riding them. In terms of the PvE social scene I think surplus skeleton horses would make nice starter horses for players (can't feed or equip armor on them, but as a faster-than-minecart transport they work), so in that sense I am not too fond of removing them. The PvE challenge that the skeleton trap horses present can be hard, but in terms of difficulty I don't think they are that close to impossible to either neutralize (kill the skeletons), eliminate (kill both them and the horses), or flee from with the proper equipment (if you can sprint anyway). However, the current mob count is a compelling argument for reducing the spawns - perhaps add in a chance for a skeleton trap to fail to spawn? I imagine it's possible to revise down the frequency to something that would allow all players to get a skeleton horse (if they choose) within maybe a month or two or some other time frame (though if this time frame is too long it might be redundant as players may reject them in favor of real live horses). But since skeleton horses are not breedable, this would probably hurt players who seek to amass skeleton horses (either for their own collection or for handing out to players or for other reasons). Maybe a method of breeding or summoning skeleton horses (maybe with a rider?) can be added in conjunction with a downward revision of the spawning frequency (maybe after an event?)? Since skeleton trap horses are relatively common, at least for right now, the cost of doing so should not be extremely high...the downside is that a summoning that was once imposed by the game without control from the player is now in the hands of the player, resulting in the environment being less dangerous, but maybe that is unavoidable. As a current measure, would it help significantly if skeleton horses were made to not collide with other skeleton horses, for ones kept in pens? Or are most of the current horses roaming freely?
  2. We used to have a jail under spawn one rev a while back because something in the usual mod tools wasn't working at the time (forgot what). I've seen this implemented on C a lot more often - I think the idea is to relocate an offending player into the jail (it is pretty much a cage of which bedrock is a major building material) as a way to get their attention, then talk to them, then release them back where they were and have them go on their way. It's not frequently used on P, and iirc has never been since I was made admin, but maybe someone familiar with its use on C can weigh in. I agree with Tharine and Silver that if it's used it is imperative that staff conduct themselves well, and I hope significant effort will be put into ensuring this is so. Timed bans might remove that possibility and make dealing with minor offenses cleaner. I have yet to issue one on PvP myself. (Also for the record I detest encasing players in bedrock on the traverseable map to get their attention.)
  3. Joining KOTH alone, upon joining the red team I am unable to jump and can't fire bow; movement is lost after a delay. Upon switching to spectator my FOV is zoomed in and I am unable to move when I am on the ground (I can still move if I fly). There was one instance where movement abilities and FOV were restored after waiting a bit. EDIT: Appears to be Optifine (B1) issue; removal of the mod eliminated the weird problems I had.
  4. Not sure if I'll end up having time in the specified time frame, but if I do I'd be happy to give it a try.
  5. I've added modreqs at the two warp signs on the top deck with destination locations contained - the y value is given with a (?) because ideally I want the warp to place the player on the ground if possible, as close as possible if not (I don't remember a good offset to achieve this, other than it's not what I used for my P17 spawn secret). When setting up warp signs back in the day I found out that setting a warp y-level to that which is given in F3 actually places the player some distance above the ground - which I guess is okay in most cases, but in this one I'd like the player to be warped so that the "EXIT is behind you" sign is squarely in their FOV. (This depends a little on which direction players are facing when they hit the sign, but I think the provided location will be enough to put that notice in their face - can test this later.) I've gone ahead and locked all LWC containers that I could find on the lime ship. For now I'd like to keep chest-access deny on the ship, though if you can pull the data easily, I'm curious to see how many LWC protections I have as well as how many LWC containers exist on the ship. I count 9 double chests (8 in the top deck storage area, 1 in the mess hall), so there should ideally be a LWC container count (as summed up in a WE distribution count) - LWC protection excess of 9. I've added hoppers and chests/trapped chests (all LWC locked) behind the droppers and filled them all to (close to) the top with melons - in total there should be 78710 extra melon slices contained inside with the extra slices missing. A flaw in the design prevents the trapped chest in the center of each of the 10 units from being filled completely; unless a hopper or tech magic is used to force the extra inside, there's going to be one slice less than capacity in them. I ask that the supply be topped up after testing just to ensure enough melons for the live event - my original intention was to supply enough melons that better food sources will be readily available once the initial supply runs out (and thus replenishing would be unnecessary), but of course more should be supplied in case melons are still in high demand. My ModMode appears to be messed up in the sense that I'm made visible when I go into it, I am unable to teleport to modreqs while in it or summon a mod kit (/kit mod). I can still fly and /i items and I get moved from moderator to modmode when I enter modmode in /list and vice versa, and I can still kick myself O.o.
  6. I guess there's still a little left to do, but I made some changes on lime ship: Rearranged inheritance so limeshipsecb is child of limeshipseca, and that limeshipseca is not a parent of limebase. Reverted flag changes to limebase so that the flags are identical to those set on redbase (I thought the limebase region was the spawn ship only ><). Added carpet line on the ground in the port corridor. Added flags mob-spawning DENY and chest-access DENY on limeshipseca (these flags are not present on limeshipsecb). This was the thing I was testing earlier, to see whether the ground carpets would be an effective subconscious indicator of the way out compared to having no carpets. Limited testing suggests that it does do this job compared to no carpets, so to quicken the pace of development I have decided to place carpets on both sides of the vessel. I anticipate this carpet indicator to only be relevant in the early game; by late game I am guessing players will know the way out by habit. Still needs testing/additions: If approved, need warp signs set up to take players from the spawn room on the top deck to the open bay on the bottom (let me know and I'll point out locations). If denied, need to remove the warp signs. Main concern that this was intended to rectify is that, even with knowledge of the exit routes at the start, it still takes a long time to leave the lime ship relative to performing the same task on the red ship. The warp sign was intended to have players skip part of the walk and leave the ship faster, so that leave times are on par with that of the red ship. (I lost my numbers on this, so may need to re-time this at some point?) Does touching the red wool on the side faces still deal debuffs to lime team? Does chest-access deny prevent players from opening/using them in gameplay? (can't test myself without someone tp-ing my non-modmode self over to the ship) Will LWC be enabled? (if yes, then chest-access can be reverted to allow on the spawn ship regions) Droppers in melon farm room are meant to dispense melons in case of shortage - will these be used? (Not sure if red ship has something similar.) If yes, need to set up chests and hoppers behind them and ensure WG flags allow button pushing. Also: I tried tp-ing to a modreq (16) made there while in modmode; /tpinfo 16 failed silently and /check 16 notified me that an internal error occurred while attempting to perform the command. Space selection tool is set to wood axe (unsure if intentional? on P it's a wood shovel).
  7. I might have more thoughts later, but wanted to bring this up: As a possible hedge against special spawners intended to be public but falling into private hands - what about seeding a second copy of the spawner on the map? It would mean trading off the uniqueness of the spawner but having more than one of the type would lessen the probability of them all being closed off to the public.
  8. buzzie71

    City titles?

    It does look pretty cool - only major policy thing I would like to see is that independents be given this option as well, so all players have something to display even if they aren't part of a town.
  9. It's possible to suppress this if the leading team that has the buffs stations players there to defend them (make the defending players harder to kill...though if it really is a jump across blocks over environmental hazards a knockback should mitigate that), and buffs are easier to reach than the enemy team flag is. I don't remember if that is a widely used tactic in previous CTFs though - closest I can think of was someone parking a logged off account close to a buff and logging in to recapture it. If it is common practice, the combat advantage given by the buff should still be surmountable by the lagging team in some way or another.
  10. Resistance (1/2?) and Speed (1?) might be good mild buffs that are directly applicable to PvP - though I am hard-pressed to find a third that also fits the bill (strength 1 is still a 2.4x attack strength buff, which might still be overkill; fire resistance might be redundant if not many weapons can ignite their victims and/or may be unbalancing if buffs contain it as an obstacle, regen was deemed too OP...and it probably is). Possible cons with those: if pearls are scarce, speed will make it easier to flee a fight on the ground (though different speed jetpacks might mitigate this if the player tries to flee by air). I haven't tested Resistance 1/2 rigorously but 3 will allow players to shrug off attacks if they're moving fast and with no armor. For buffs not directly applicable to PvP - Haste is good for block breaking, health boost increases survivability by adding some extra hearts, absorption does the same thing except the extra health buffer granted can't be regenerated (without re-applying the effect? not sure). Night vision I think is going to be valuable considering how dark the map is in general (if it can be used to spot incoming opponents coming by air, it would be a good defense buff, though I haven't actually tried to spot flying players with it yet) - it might make things annoyingly bright in well-lit areas though. Possible cons with these: they don't translate directly into PvP benefits (in the case of Haste, not at all; it's really only a buff for block destroyers), and may not be perceived as valuable enough to go after and/or defend them. Also as a side note - one thing that made the buffs feel pretty overpowered was that the losing team didn't have access to nether warts; the only potion that could be brewed was weakness, which is a moderately useful debuff, but potion options were still much more limited than what the other team was able to brew - I thought this made countering the buffs harder.
  11. Want to put this down somewhere so it's at least mod knowledge - there is one more feature that I have left to complete on the lime spawn ship (the thing I have been asking some of the mods to test - it should be a minor enough detail that it can be finished off in half an hour, an hour at most). Even with the limited sample size I have so far I know what I would like to do with it if there is very limited time left to work on it, and I am probably agonizing over a detail that will probably be relevant in the first 24 hours of the fundraiser at most - but a larger sample size would be preferable if time and volunteers permit.
  12. Please. I've played Minecraft since Beta 1.4(?). I am perfectly capable of playing Minecraft while tired or asleep...except that it often results in either me dying frequently in the game or bouncing 10 cm off my chair IRL (those old bow firing sounds were so shrill)... (Most of the time when I am awake, I'm in a position where, provided internet is working well, I can reach something of nerd's quickly if I need to. Not likely while I am away.)
  13. It's still very early, but I will be largely absent from May 4 to June 6 (my ability to access nerd services/servers during waking hours will not be guaranteed, though I anticipate still being able to check in occasionally during that time).
  14. I'm not sure that a development blog for a new rev would necessarily be a good thing, at least for server activity - I remember that when I was still an admin, a large part of why we kept new rev development under wraps was to avoid broadcasting news that would cut motivation to continue playing on the rev (and thus drop rev activity) - this was why new rev announcements were made about 2 weeks (I think? or something similar) in advance, at least for the last few revs. The impression I got was that players tend to react very strongly to news or hints of a rev's imminent end - we've had to step in and reaffirm that it wasn't a few times whenever erroneous rumors were spread about it. The obvious exception was when the rev lasted well over 5 months (oops ._.) and players had begun to express restlessness about the current rev going for too long; by that time it didn't make much sense to withhold the news that a new rev was being worked on with the implication that the current one would end soon. Regardless of effect on server activity it would be fun to read if it were kept active. I think it would be best leveraged if there are plans for a mid-rev update to 1.9, where the current map is guaranteed to not disappear immediately after update.
  15. Sounds nifty :O I'm a bit with Silver on the presentation of the server message if we do go full color (eg. should be eye-catching without being eye-bleeding). I like the idea that part of the server message can be dedicated to mentioning new updates on the server - for example, "Now updated to 1.9!", "Render distance increased!", "Bugs patched and Doppelganger restored!" or something to those effects. Not sure how often this will happen (at least during my time on P such updates were sparse enough that doing this might look a bit silly) but it would help give the impression of an active server as well as subtly remind players of what's new to check out.
  16. Quite nice. I like the current style's minimalism but your new style definitely stands apart from the typical vanilla subreddit layout and also looks rather grand. Well done :D If this does end up supplanting the old style: might I suggest including the port number into the Mumble URL sidebar header? Just to keep all the information needed to connect to Mumble visually together.
  17. Iron grinders: Haven't had a chance to really get to do much with this, so not much I can weigh in on. It is pretty nifty that iron grinder setups can now be built without full sunlight and can be stashed under roofs; I'm looking forward to this aspect myself. The nether: It's exotic and certainly a change of pace from vanilla. Compared to vanilla it's easier to traverse, but very much more dangerous with the prevalence of overworld mobs that will attempt to kill on sight (in contrast, in most of a vanilla Nether, zombie pigmen don't attack unless provoked, ghast fireballs are straightforward to dodge, and magma cubes are rare - I've gone quartz mining on S revs 20-21-ish, mid- to late-rev, and found those trips to be rather tranquil). Custom flora: Dense forests are not conducive to admin chasing! Otherwise they are rather aesthetically pleasing and make for good scenery. Portals: Going to admit that as a huge fan of fast travel, I would like to see more portals; 5 leaves a lot of fast-travel infrastructure to rails and cart speed is susceptible to lag (then again, it's only a month into the rev and this might not be a huge problem later). Otherwise I currently don't have much to make a case for either way though. Ore distributions: I've been hitting diamonds a lot more frequently this rev (yay more diamonds in storage!), but I don't have much to say here - I source precious metals mainly from elsewhere. MapWorld: Haven't used it yet, so not much opinion here. It's a cool idea and I'm looking forward to using it though. Terrain: I like this mix - the WP features make the map more interesting to look at while exploring (not to mention, the big mountains/volcano feel more like a barrier to travel just as they were in ancient times IRL, which I think is a fun change). Also the islands in the ocean are amazing. Well done. Spawn: Spawn is cool. Silver is not silly. Custom mobs: They're a nifty change in the mob distribution, and Meowingtons is pretty interesting in particular. From my own experience and stories from other players, I think Dr Cuddles could stand to be nerfed - it doesn't give enough time for the player to react before it kills the player (the other mobs that spawn naturally, custom and vanilla, do this pretty nicely), and its explosion is both insanely powerful and large (I felt an explosion from one on the ground while standing on a CARBON rail almost directly above). In terms of gameplay it's a bit frustrating to be killed suddenly by something dependent on rare random mob spawning. /help: I like the revamped /help (where was this three years ago when I started playing here??), but admittedly haven't been looking at it much myself recently. As the others mention, it's a bit less tangible compared to a rulebook item, but I think the presentation of the content is better - it is possible to jump to specific information rather than leaf through 20+ pages of a book.
  18. Some context on where the grinder access rules came from (yes, I'm telling the story with my own biases and understanding; yes, I was a Padmin both times; no, I have not operated a unique spawner grinder or iron grinder before this rev): There were two catalysts for required public access to grinders and public output for iron grinders specifically. The former has to do with a second, access-restricted End grinder going up (rev 10-ish?) and subsequent complaints about its exclusivity for certain players and impact on the existing public grinder's spawn rates. Shortly after that the Padmins (of which I was one) forced open the second grinder and enacted the new rule that grinders had to be publicly accessible. My understanding of it at the time was that players needed only be able to physically reach the grinder, without having to pass through any access restriction checks, to punch mobs and that it was not a mandate for public grinder drops other than XP. Since then I have heard stories that another Padmin had taken it to mean a mandate for other public grinder drops (eg. zombie/skeleton) and have forced those to be public for players before. The second one was regarding public output for iron grinders - a player in rev 10 had brought an iron grinder to our attention that was completely private, that is, no way to reach the golem drops at all, and argued that because the inside was sealed off from the outside, that the grinder violated the "map must be open to exploration" rule. The decision we made was to insert a new "rule" in the sense of explicitly clarifying where iron grinders stand in relation to the exploration rule - which was that the killing zone must be made accessible, but it is legal to seal that off only if a portion of the output chest was public. In practice, this meant that the public must be able to access the iron drops one way or another - either by intercepting the drops from golems before they are collected, or by accessing the collection chest itself. Since then I've heard this rule defended as an anti-lag measure, to prevent too many iron grinders from being constructed due to the colossal number of villagers (and worse, collisions) that might be required of it - which is a fair point, but to my knowledge this was not one of the reasons presented for the new rule at its inception. Now, during my time as a Padmin since then, despite the rules being ambiguous about what proportion of iron grinder drops is considered legal, the proportion open to the public was not a huge issue. Most grinders on the low side were around 50% or 25%; lowest I've heard word of was a 10%, none of which action was taken against unless the proportion was 0%. Iron grinders were also plentiful enough on any given rev that if one grinder had an extremely unfavorable public output, there almost certainly existed another somewhere on the map that was more generous. I think that for ocean monuments, unless there ends up only being one on the map (and it is probable; I am estimating the demand for prismarine to be much less than the demand for iron), the same thing would most likely pan out (unless of course the grinder operators all colluded to restrict output). Word would spread about it and the more generous grinder will probably get more traffic, a better reputation, etc., all of which would benefit the generous grinder and probably harm the less generous ones. For some, that is probably motivation enough. (Side note: from eyeballing the live map I can count 2 possible grinders on the current rev 17 map; there are several more that have not been developed yet.) For the unique spawners I am on the fence about. Mandating the output of those, or a noticeable portion, to be public would be fair to all, in that the public would be able to share in the fast resource gathering. Probably the only kind of player who would lose out on that is someone who wanted to stockpile the drops as many and as fast as possible. Alternatively, not requiring a minimum level of public outputs would not be the end of the world - it can be argued that the public can still get the drops by going out into the wild, or visiting a darkroom grinder, etc. faster than they would by afk-ing at the grinder. Staff would have less jurisdiction over the grinder build, and the private drops would discourage unwanted visitors. But the inequality between them and the grinder operators who are obtaining the drop quicker is obvious, and monopolizing unique resources like these runs counter to the openness spirit of P and tends to incite public social uneasiness directed at the operator. Again, for some, that is probably enough motivation to open up the grinder already. A cursory glance at the text above would suggest that I favor the former - less overall losses, sketchy acts, whatever else they are designated, to the server in general. This is perhaps true, but the flipside is that players would be required to incorporate a particular feature in their build, which is not something that I liked to enforce on individual players. Like I mentioned before, I'm still on the fence - not to mention that I've also not operated such a grinder before and don't have much experience on the other side of the coin.
  19. The last of the Part 4 segments (up to the real end of the story) have now been queued up for release at http://unityorigins.tumblr.com. The first of these was released at midnight Eastern time today (January 17) and the rest will continue to be released every other day at midnight Eastern time, until February 8. If you have read this far, I hope you enjoyed the story, and thank you for taking the time to read it!
  20. This would never happen in a ban appeal but I think it's still pretty funny: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/6/60/Spy_DominationMedic04.wav?t=20100625234625
  21. Providing some info here about my secret in case it breaks down/players get around some intended features during the rev. This is meant for any staff who is alerted to a problem in my secret and I happen to be unavailable at the time (or if an admin finds it). There are spoilers in here, so you may want to back out of this thread quickly if you don't want to see them. [redacted]
  22. Potentially unable to expend appreciable effort until a day or so later, but whitelist me anyway for now. Maybe I can at least start planning.
  23. Yes I know, I'm late ._. It's been about three weeks since the last story segment from Part 3 was posted - I had originally wanted to delay Part 4 (the final part) posting, but stuff happened that delayed the Part 4 release even later than intended: - I didn't want the story segment releasing to happen over Thanksgiving (intended). - Real life got a bit busy and I spent some time extinguishing fires (figuratively, unintentional) - Found some plot holes I missed in my draft (O.o) Similarly to the first point, I don't like the idea of releasing these story segments over Christmas, so the first part of Part 4 story segments are queued for release on http://unityorigins.tumblr.com every other day at midnight Eastern time (yes, back to midnight) from today, December 9, to December 21. The last half is (if all goes well) slated for release after the new year.
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