WickedCoolSteve

@Sir_Didymus I just want to say I really appreciate you taking the time to give such thoughtful and detailed responses to everyone who's been posting in here. This has been a very insightful and satisfying thread to read through. There are a lot of great points in here that I hadn't considered before and find myself agreeing with, such as Herr_Fawkes thoughts on elytra and its impact on server culture and transport infrastructure. This is a great point. Even on this large map I have had some of my most memorable experiences when people happened to stop by my house or road and we got to talking. I guess the trick is to find a balance between tiny pocket maps and the vast wilderness we have in this rev. In my mind however the ideal balance still skews towards the larger end of the map spectrum. All our fast transport options really do a good job at effectively shrinking the map no matter how large we make it. For me everything about the dual-layer setup was confusing. I found it difficult to figure out how to travel between some portals and never really was able to develop a picture in my mind of where things were in relation to each other. I absolutely loved the custom terrain. In all areas of the game I support more custom terrain gen! To me it's always been one of the server's most exciting features. Vanilla is boring compared to what creative staff are able to cook up. This is a great point. Rail isn't the sole focus of the entire server like it once was, having the most critical/complicated bit of the infrastructure set up in advance really helps start things off with a little extra energy. As for the RBA who knows anything is possible I'm sure there are fun ideas that more creative people than I could come up with but the obvious thing that comes to mind is using them for traders at spawn- either to unlock them as we saw this rev or to use directly in the trades. Things like cosmetics, particle effects, spawn eggs, all that kind of stuff is fairly fun and harmless. Events that don't involve combat at all are the ones I look forward to the most. Stuff like secret santa or the horse expedition where you get to meet people and do something out of the ordinary but the atmosphere is laid back and chill. It's nice to do a mix of one-off events and things that have a little more persistence. In my estimation there has been a nice balance of that kind of stuff this rev.

1) It's nice to know the duration in advance. IMO clear set expectations are always better than uncertainty. On that note, the 6 month time frame seems just about right. 2) Stuff like outlines explaining what's upcoming in the near future is always welcome. 3) It seems to me there is a good amount of community involvement. I love the whole suggestionbox situation. I'd be curious to hear what else you guys are thinking of as far as community decision making. I also want to add that while community involvement is great there is also a lot to be said for experienced staff being able to make their own informed decisions regarding gameplay, server management, ect. Community involvement is great. Trusted, experienced, and creative staff being able to implement their vision is also great. Gotta find that elusive sweet spot between secret dev cabal and game management by committee of hundreds. I'd say we're pretty close to that sweet spot now. 1) I am strongly in favor of large maps. 9kx9k is a wonderful thing! In my opinion cramming the same number of people into a smaller space will potentially lead to an increase in friction and conflicts. On smaller maps everything becomes more scarce, and not in a fun way. There's fewer good spots to build, fewer portals to claim, fewer fun things to find, ect. 2) I'm not sure I see how a smaller map would result in more community activity. Also, what kind of community activities are we talking about? I like what we have on the large map this rev because people have as much space as they need but can still easily visit each other with all the portals, rail, horses, boats, and eletrya. Getting around is pretty easy, even for someone who just joined the server for the first time. 1) I am in love with this map. It's probably the closest I've ever seen to what in my head is the ideal map. It's a perfect combination of vanilla and creative custom stuff. It doesn't feel predictable or cookie-cutter. Everywhere I go there's fun stuff to discover. Additionally, the terrain "makes sense" to me in that it feels like a product of nature and not a bunch of random cobbled together bits. As far as I'm concerned, do it again! The only issue I've had with map-gen related stuff is custom trees in some biomes whose leaves don't despawn after chopping. 1) Ore generation seemed pretty good. Quartz and glowstone were perfect. Clay was also good. However; 2) Gold is way too rare. Sand is also way way too rare. I'd love to see sand deposits that are similar in size and shape to dirt deposits. 3) Diamonds are too easy to find. Bring F3 into the mix and it's too easy to have blocks of diamonds after a couple days. Same to a lesser extent for lapis and redstone. 4) Biome-specific ores and such would be awesome!! Anything that differentiates various areas of the map beyond cosmetic changes is good. 1) I think the layout is perfect. 2) A proportional shrinking of the number of portals would probably be fine but I really hope you reconsider the smaller map. 1) I'll be brutally honest- I've found the dual-layer nether to be confusing. I still don't really get it. It makes it hard for me to understand where I am in relation to other landmarks in the nether. I think I'd prefer a single layer nether. I think custom terrain is great, but just one layer of it. 2) The nether spawn is beautiful for sure. The rail station is also real nice. However, I like limiting as much as possible the prebuilt stuff included in the map. It's convenient and pretty but it kinda feels like cheating. 1) End size seems fine. I wouldn't mind a foray into custom end terrain. Seems like it could be real fun and different. 2) Non-vanilla dragon fight sounds awesome. Bring the pain! I'm not familiar with mapworld, so I'll leave that one. 1) I like to see a linear progression of all the stuff you need to expose people to in spawn as opposed to having it all just in a room to browse or something similar. There's always a lot going on in spawn, especially in that early rev rush, so the less people have to look around and figure stuff out the better. Point them in the right direction, expose them to what they need to see as they travel in that direction, then clear clean exit. 2) I loved the Monty Python stuff up in the towers! 3) Don't have anything on deck at the moment but who knows going forward. 4) Like I said with the nether spawn- pre-built infrastructure is nice in that it's convenient and looks good but in general I like to avoid as much pre-built stuff as possible. Having a full supercomputer station on day one is slightly less impressive/less engaging with the community than something similar being build organically in survival mode. That all being said the station is beautiful and does its job very very well 1a) I don't build iron grinder so I don't really have an informed opinion on their cost. 1b) Same ^ 1c) I LOVE finding golem souls. For some reason they make mining for iron fun. I don't do anything except put them in a box but I sure as shit love finding them. The sound. The shiny little soul-thing. The rush of wondering if the next iron block is a winner. Keep the mechanic! I'd love some more trading options or something so we can still use them even if we're not building grinders. 1) I think spawners should live in the dimension their creature comes from. Spawners for overworld mobs in overworld, nether mobs in nether, ect. 2) Do we have pigman spawners? I think that would be nice instead of the platform grinder thing. Custom spawners for all the things are fun. Keep em all, add the ones we don't have yet! Let's get a bat spawner up in here. 3) Keep them all! 4) Don't have any experience with guardians so I'll sit that one out. No offense to you guys that work hard on the blog but I'm not really interested. Haven't checked it out yet. It's a great resource for the community though, I'm glad it's there. 1) I've really enjoyed the events so far this rev. 2) I want to see more non combat related events! 3) We don't need less of anything. More events=more fun. 4) Custom/rare things. Stuff that's not necessarily useful but is super rare/not found at all in survival. If there's any way to do custom cosmetics I think that would be a lot of fun too. Things like clothes/armor/whatever or particle effects like in the lobby. 1) I haven't used it much but what I have done with it has been fun. 2) Yeah, I'd say keep it! It's the kind of thing that seems like it should already be in vanilla. 3) Not familiar with the plugin outside of what we do with it so I'm not sure. 1) I'm not sure what exactly has been changing but I find myself enjoying all the plugins I encounter while playing and haven't had any issues. 2) I'm happy with things as they stand.

Thank you very much. Unbanned. Welcome back!

Hi KRwisTy96, thank you for appealing your ban. I understand that you were in a difficult gameplay situation, however, I can not stress enough the importance of not interfering with other players' builds and animals. You've been warned about these types of behaviors multiple times in the past but you seem to continue to have trouble with this type of thing. Never break blocks placed by other players. Ever. This includes things like torches and flowers. Never kill another player's animals unless you can breed more to replace the ones you killed. Please go to http://nerd.nu/rules and read them thoroughly. Reply here confirming that you have done so and I will unban you tomorrow.

It's no secret that I'm an old fart as far as administrators around here go, and I've got another certified old man here with me, our good pal Denevien. The two of us have decided to step aside in order to enable an injection of fresh ideas, energy, and perspective into the head admin team. It's a high stress job and it demands an active and engaged set of minds to help manage and meet the needs of this amazing gaming community. We feel that we can no longer fulfill this obligation and would like to bring on some people who can. I am happy and proud to announce that Mrloud15 and Dumbo52 will be leaving their positions as server admins and will be joining thrawn21, Draykhar, and Cyotie911 as head admins. Mrloud has been helping out as a moderator since February 2013, and as an SAdmin since September 2013. Dumbo joined the moderating staff in July 2012 and has been leading as a CAdmin since November 2012. Both of these fine men bring an incredible amount of experience, ideas, patience, and varied perspectives to the table. I am confident they will serve the community well in their new positions.

First off, let me get a few obvious points out of the way. I'm not an S player, anyone who's around knows that (hell, I'm barely an anything player these days). The gameplay style of S (past or present) has never been what I personally enjoy in Minecraft. However, I've always loved and supported S as an integral and critical component of the MCPublic community. Even though I don't have a direct gameplay stake in the server and I did not have any input or influence on the current gameplay changes, I firmly believe I am a loyal and dedicated (if distant) stakeholder in its community. So, that being said- I really think that what's being tried this rev is an amazing example of a robust and healthy dialogue between the various active stakeholders in the community. As with anything as complex, controversial, and complicated as this there is no uniform consensus about the general health and condition of S. However, I think most people would agree that the server has been doing less and less well over the past couple of years. There are many reasons for this, however in my opinion the most obvious is the general movement of vanilla Minecraft gameplay in a direction that favors PvE style gameplay. For a community that prefers to implement "vanilla-style" gameplay as much as possible, this clearly presents a problem when there is a PvP intensive server in the mix. The way I see it, in general there are three broad categories of actions that could be taken in this situation: (1) do nothing and maintain the status quo, (2) remove current gameplay features to move things closer to before beta 1.8, or (3) add features to move things in a direction that is less vanilla but more accommodating to online PvP. It's worth noting that (2) and (3) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I'm sure not many people would opt for option (1), no one likes a server that is dead most of the time. The real question is how do we change things to make the situation better? The current rev should be thought of as a rough draft of ideas to answer that question. There are a lot of changes in place that put us as a community way out of our traditional comfort zone, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's not an insult to or dismissal of people (including some long term players) that prefer more vanilla gameplay. To learn how to evolve and survive we have to be willing to try new things. A strong dialogue enabled these experimental changes to happen and a similarly strong discussion is what we need in order to continue. It really does make me sad to see so many downvotes here on the forums and on the subreddit. We can't grow and get better if people are attempting to silence and shut out opinions they disagree with. Let's talk and work together as a community. We can all disagree and still accomplish great things, but only if we all as a group encourage open dialogue. We can mix and match ideas and keep trying all the new (and old) things until we get it right, and I really do firmly believe that will eventually happen. Features can be added and removed, merged and separated, whatever whatever. What we have now is not how it always will be. Change is disruptive and often upsetting, but it is also invigorating and exciting. I know I'm biased as all hell here, but I think we're the best set of Minecraft servers that exist. Let's act like it and get shit done. Free flow of ideas, respect, and open dialogue are the only things that will allow us to move forward.

I don't like the idea of having both donation options running at once on the same page. Like Dumbo says, it's entirely possible that the distribution of donation money will be uneven in such a way that does not suit our needs. There is no question that using specified "advertising money" for other general purposes would be unethical. It would be good to raise money for advertising in an account that we can easily access, but if we do so I think it should be (1) not at the same time as when we're specifically soliciting general donations and (2) should either be on a separate page or should have the donate page temporarily altered so that all money clearly is going to advertising.

Have to agree with barney on this one. The forum is great for content that for whatever reason wouldn't function well on the sub. Policy debates, long term planning, ect. Cool pics and updates on projects are perfect subreddit material.

As you all are aware the lobby has some nice spots for signs describing the individual servers outside of each portal. It would be awesome if each server admin team could agree on a blurb and then put it up in the lobby (headhams can grab event). Sell your server! Cover key gameplay points points and such.

Techs are aware of the problem, apparently it's a result of bungeeperms. They're working on a fix. edit: word on the street is that Slide has fixed it. Thank you sir!

Just a heads up, voting on the contest has started. Visit http://nerd.nu/lobby/vote/ to cast your ballot. You must be logged into the forums in order to vote. Voting ends on 2/26/14 at 5PM GMT -6. Official reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/mcpublic/comments/1ymq5h/lobby_design_contest_vote_ends_226_5pm_gmt6/

Thank you much, event is up!