[Survival: The Next Revision]

Community: I think the Arena events were quite popular, and for good reason. Over many, many revisions, the arena events were able to see a lot of different people rise and fall as capable  , as the game changed and as the community changed. I think that kind of organized pvp event is perfectly suited to S. 

 

Additionally, I think it might be fun to play with the idea of clans and have clan events. While I may not have been big on clans personally (nor pvp, for that matter), it could be a great way to combine healthy competition with healthy cooperation and team building. 

 

Finally, I'd like for S to have some sort of incentive for town-building. One of the things I've been saying since revision 7 is that we don't need to only incentivise pvping, we can also tweak the revision so as to inspire players to other success, like mining or building. Towns require cooperation and leadership and can (*cough* Sanctuary *cough*) result in builds that one would never expect on a pvp server. Maybe there could be a building/town contest which has beacons as awards. 

 

Design: this often ends up being the most challenging aspect of a new revision. We've had massive, elaborate spawns, we've had warp spawns, we've had drop spawns, we've had pap-heavy spawns and zero-pvp spawns. When I think back to my favorite revisions, there's a medium-sized spawn with drops to locations far enough apart to avoid camping, but close enough together to where they're not like hundreds of blocks apart, that way spawn and the drop area still feel centered on the map. As far as the aesthetic, I'm absolutely wild about revision themes. One revision could be ancient Greece, with tall columns and white stone and a Mediterranean look. Another revision could be the Nether is leaking, where there are areas of soulsand and netherrack leaking out of nether portals. Things like that keep it fresh, and don't really have to change the function of spawn, simply the look. 

 

I also am a big, big, big fan of road systems. They incentivise building close to other people, they aid in travel, but they also make it easier to get away from others if you need to mine and gather other resources to get ready to come back to the roads to pvp. NSEW roads leading from spawn out 1000 blocks, with the end of each of those connected by a square road system to allow outside travel, or something similar. 

 

And nether portals. The speed of the nether portal system is absolutely vital to larger maps—and I do prefer larger maps—and for the quicker collection of nether resources. 

 

Features: Dragon reset. This is another thing I've been talking about for a while. While my hat is off to people who manage to kill the dragon within the first few hours of a revision so we can get to work setting up nether grinders, if there's some way to do it, it would be a blast to have a new dragon reemerge every few weeks, not announced, to provide players with a new challenge and actually make the End (which is boring once it's torched and water'd) interesting again. 

 

The second thing is taking into account balance when looking at kit. I think this has been the biggest challenge on S, finding a way to reward players who want to put in really hard work grinding for god armor but also not wanting to drive casual players away because it'd take them forever to be on the same level as the full-timers. And this is made more complicated because we get significant changes to pvp every other game update. I think we need to convene a PvP Council, elder warriors who love S for pvp and who's job it is to look at balancing pvp to optimize fairness and enjoyment for a wide range of player experience and time invested. We can tweak any number of things, like limiting enchantments or plumping diamond. We just really need to find a way to make it work, because this is a big deal. 

 

Goals: Survival allows pvp. Survival's central purpose is not necessarily pvp. Rather Survival should be able to give out what people put in, adapting to the needs of people like me who like to build and supply resources or people who like to make impressive builds or people who like mining for that ultimate loot or people who want to explore a strange new world or people who want to pvp. One of the greatest strengths of Minecraft is that it's a sandbox which leaves the point of the game up to the player. Survival is just one level freer than PvE in that it allows combat. This all needs to be taken into account when thinking about how things like rule and gameplay and map tweaks affect the revision. We need to be like the subjective naturalist philosophers in understanding that the meaning of life is subjective, and can be found by each one of us individually. 

 

Plugins: I'm hopelessly addicted to Enchantism. It's gotten so bad that I get frustrated playing single player. I need dat. Safe Buckets, LogBlock, and basically all of the current plugins are pretty great. I've been quite happy with the plugins our techs and admins have in place. 

 

Other:It seems to me that there's a much deeper, underlying issue with S that's been around since day one and which we've never really managed to figure out: pvping and asshollery. I've been moderating for I don't even remember how many revisions now, and there's a correlation between pvping and rule pushing or even breaking. While most of the people I've banned are newbies who didn't read the rules about griefing, the people I've banned who I knew by name and who were long-time players are almost exclusively the people who pvp a lot and who can be dicks about it (severely uneven fights, god armor vs. no armor, tare-killing, spawn camping, base camping, etc.). There have been many times I thought, "Fuck, I don't want to ban this person, but he or she is a complete asshole and this has to be the last straw." On the one hand, this is obviously good for the server because it makes it a better place, free of people who excessively troll or grief or X-ray. On the other hand, though, we've lost some prolific pvpers, some well-known names, and eventually we banned so many that I honestly think it affected S activity. It's a catch-22: if you allow pvp there are going to be assholes, but if you ban too many assholes, there's not going to be much pvp, which seems to translate to less activity on the server overall. Obviously, this is not to say all or even a majority of pvpers are assholes, in fact many of my best friends on the servers are assholes.... err, I mean pvpers, but it's a let in the good with the bad thing, and I don't know that there's a real solution. At the very least, I think this needs to be looked at before Revision 30: the Return. 

 

As an aside, I want to send out the biggest "thank you" humanly imaginable to everyone who's been on S, especially my fellow moderators. Being a member of the community on S and moderating, though sometimes a challenge, has always been a complete blast. There have been and still are some pretty great people on S, and I wish you nothing but the best going forward, regardless of what happens. When and if S makes its triumphant return, I look forward to seeing you. If not, may your mines me lined with diamond. 

[[PMC] Language rules]

Unfortunately, /mute isn't currently working, at least for some of us, so it's not as simple as temporarily muting and then PMing them. 

[Survival Rev 26 feedback]

Sadmins reserve the right to take poll results into advisement without necessarily following all outcomes of the polls to reach a configuration of plugins, settings, and rules that works well together.

 

Thank you for including this. While the staff is always delighted to get constructive feedback, the servers are not exactly a direct democracy meaning the results of this poll may or may not be reflected in future changes. This is more about taking the temperature of the community now that people have had a decent amount of time to get used to the changes made in the test revision. 

 

*takes off moderation staff hat* 

 

*puts on Mickey Mouse ears*

 

That said, while I know some people have really enjoyed this revision, I've never had less fun on all of my time on Nerd. At the beginning of the revision, I foolishly chose not to go to the end of the map and dig to bedrock, and as a result my base was x-rayed no less than thrice (twice resulting in bans and full rollbacks, once in an added note) within the first few days, and probably a fourth time which resulted in losing all of my valuables despite reinforcing my chests. I lost four or five days of work because I foolishly believed people who insisted that diamond protection would be adequate. 

 

Let me be perfectly clear: Citidel comes at the price of significantly increased x-raying. While we've had issues of people digging into hidden bases or collecting more precious resources than they should because of x-ray in the past, this revision stands as a testament as to just how bad x-raying can get even on a Minecraft server that's well-moderated (not to toot my own horn, but we really are good at rule enforcement relative to just about any other public server). Allowing the raiding of poorly-reinforced chests,—and that includes diamond, which is a poor reinforcement—means that we create blocks of potentially massive resources that incentivise x-raying in a way which is unprecedented on our servers. The effects have been devastating, and heavily time-consuming. As of two days ago, I believe, I've banned twice as many people for x-raying in one revision than I have for all other revisions combined. It's a problem we can generally only react to unless we're following people around in modmode constantly, and it's a huge pain in the ass to deal with both as a player and as a moderator. I've done my best, but my best isn't good enough. I'm absolutely convinced that while the staff is doing its (our) best, we're not up to the task of eliminating the impact x-raying has on gameplay. Between the volume of x-raying and the improved x-raying skills we've seen this revision, to obfuscate investigation, x-ray investigations are all I've done on S for the last few weeks and it's still not enough. I've gotten in zero gameplay time. And it's worth mentioning that I love doing moderns for things like griefing and flowing, the normal stuff, because it makes me feel helpful. The x-raying, though, is causing me to lose a lot of faith in what I'm even doing as a moderator. It's depressing. 

 

I've started on my big, beautiful farm this revision, but no one will ever see it because it's at bedrock near the edge of the map. If someone does find it, odds are it's because they're x-raying and I'll either lose all my stuff because they make it look like they've accidentally found my base, or they'll just be another ban to add to the pile and all my stuff gets rolled back minus the enchants. Yay. I don't even see the point of building on a public server if no one ever sees what I build. My test builds near the road were all destroyed, even protected with a combination of stone and iron, so I know my public wheat farm would be destroyed. 

 

I've seen almost no one the entire revision (outside of modmode), and I've never been killed. The only reason I have decent armor and weapons is for resource collection, to avoid things like falls or lava or mobs. Because I never see anyone, I've been fortunate not to be prisonpearled, but I've seen new players immediately prisonpearled, ruining the entire experience for them right off the bat. Prisonpearling is the most malicious thing we've ever added to gameplay, and it serves no purpose other than taking satisfaction from preventing other people from enjoying the game. It's not like PvP, where you can duel with people, win or die, then choose to duel again or flee. Once you're imprisoned, you just have to wait it out or, as many do, modreq it and wait for a mod to show up and explain that this is an intentional part of gameplay on Nerd. I've had to explain that several times, and I'm embarrassed doing so. 

 

That's my $0.02. 

[What happened to Chaos?]

For the time being, a dedicated Chaos server is not active. We will often do a temporary Chaos map at the end of certain revisions, so keep an eye out for that, but for the time being your best bet is likely Survival. The current Survival revision is a cross between traditional Survival and Chaos, where griefing is allowed, but a system called Citadel is in place which can offer reinforcement to blocks to make them harder to break. 

[Policy on Banning Alt Accounts]

I can be trusted with *some* accounts but not *other* accounts? Where's the evidence? What things would I do on "barneybot" that I wouldn't do on "barneygale"?

 

It's not about prevention, it's not about being trustworthy on some accounts while not on others, it's about consequences. I'll tell you what, if you want it to seem less random, we should discuss changing it to never using any alt accounts on the server, not just barneybot. That would be consistent, yes? The idea would be that as a result of having abused the privilege of using alts to bypass a ban, you no longer have any of the benefits of using alt accounts in gameplay. It's tying the punishment to the crime, and it's not at all random. 

 

The DUI analogy is incompatible too. A more apt analogy would be getting sent to prison for a few months over a DUI, and then when I got out, I'm not allowed to drive blue cars, because the car I was driving at the time was blue. All other coloured cars are fair game.

 

The DUI analogy is intended to illustrate the permanent loss of a privilege you've abused. I'm not suggesting you were drunk when you used an alt or that an alt can be used to get to the grocery store faster than walking, either. Analogies do not imply absolute direct comparisons across all factors. 

 

It is bizarre. He's allowed to play on the server, but also not allowed to play on the server? The logical solution is to unban all accounts when the main is unbanned, and if the main is banned then all other accounts are banned. The alts aren't something that you've given him, they are owned by the player, so by taking away what is theirs you are punishing the player. If 1 account is banned then all accounts should be banned.

 

The accounts are something which we allow or disallow access to the servers, so it's not as simple as ownership. What do you think about revoking the right to have any alts as punishment for using an alt to circumvent a ban? After all, that's a privilege that we can revoke, regardless of ownership of accounts. The person banned names a main account, in barney's case it's barneygale I presume, and that's the only account they can use from then on. It's about tying the punishment to the crime. If the crime is misusing an alt, the punishment is losing the ability to alt. That way there's also no monetary punishment either, just you don't get the in-game benefits of having alts as a consequence for misusing them. 

[Policy on Banning Alt Accounts]

If it's a *person* breaking the rules then it's a *person* who should be banned. Obviously alting while banned should be punished, but the punishment shouldn't be applied unevenly across their accounts. Which account was used to evade a ban is immaterial.

The current rules lead to bizarre situations, such as the one I'm in now. My alt account (barneybot) is permabanned for evasion, but my main account is unbanned and it's perfectly OK for me to register new accounts and play on them. Now am I, as a person, banned or unbanned? Common sense dictates I should fall into one category or the other, but I don't.

 

The *person* was banned. When you evaded your ban, you demonstrated that you didn't respect the authority that instituted the ban in the first place, so it was decided that the tool you used to bypass the ban was not something you could be trusted with using. That's why barneybot is off Nerd for good. You, the person, were punished additionally with that ban evasion leading to a longer ban time, if memory serves. 

 

You're not in a bizarre situation now, you're on permanent probation. You don't have the liberty of having your alt unbanned because you demonstrated that you can't be trusted with it. Think of it as being similar in principle to permanent drivers license revocation after a bad DUI—not that evading a ban is anywhere near as bad as a DUI, of course, simply that a liberty can be permanently revoked if the liberty is sufficiently abused. 

 

FTR, I fought to have to allowed back on the server. I'm not holding a grudge or anything. If I had done something worthy of a significant ban and then had an alt banned by trying to evade it, I would understand why that alt was no longer allowed on the server. I think it's a fair policy. 

[Policy on Banning Alt Accounts]

If someone uses an alt to circumvent a ban, I don't see why that should merit a punishment that could be way beyond the scope of the original ban. Sure, we can take into account cases pf people who repeatedly circumvent, but we already take into account past offenses when determining the appropriate punishment.

 

If someone has used an alt to circumvent the ban, they've demonstrated that they're not responsible enough for the privilege of using alts. They've abused their privilege, thus it must be revoked. You're not permabanning the person, you're simply taking away a toy that they've demonstrated they cannot be trusted to use responsibly. Our bans should not be a puzzle game, where banned users figure out how to not face up to the consequences of their actions by circumventing their punishment. In other words, the scope of the violation for circumventing a ban with an alt is significant, necessitating an equally significant response. 

 

Maybe allow them to appeal later if they can demonstrate true reform, but it should be default policy that using an alt to circumvent a ban means you lose the privilege of using that alt. 

[diordru [Willravel]]

You were warned once before against using homophobic language, which means using words like 'gay' as pejorative. You did it again not to refer to a friend's orientation factually but as an insult. Had you simply apologized, I would have unbanned you now, but since you decided to excuse your language with dishonesty, I'm adding three days to the ban. 

 

You will be unbanned Monday at 12 p.m. Pacific time. 

[Policy on Banning Alt Accounts]

Any alt used to circumvent a ban should be permabanned, and should be accompanied by an extension of the ban on the original account. Any alt used to X-ray, radar, use hate speech, or violate any server rule to keep the main account clean while still breaking rules should be permabanned, and the main account should get a harsher version of whatever appropriate punishment usually accompanies the violation. Using alt accounts as a way to attempt to bypass the server system of rules and justice demonstrates that a person (not an account, the human being running the account) does not respect the rules of the server on a fundamental level. In order for that to change, very real and serious consequences need to be in place, or else they should be made to leave and never come back. Repeat alt abuses should result in a full permaban for all accounts and an IP ban. 

 

That said, the use of alt accounts without any violation of server rules should be unrestricted. I don't use alts on Nerd, but anyone who does without violating server rules should be allowed to do so, but with the understanding that this is a privilege that has the potential to be revoked should they use the alt maliciously. I don't see any harm in people having several accounts on the server. It doesn't give any advantage that you can't get from having allies on the server or a clan. 

 

I believe this is fair. 

[Team xray rollback on Survival]

The standard procedure, more or less, is as follows. 

 

1) Either a modreq, a private message, accusation in chat, or moderator stumbling upon it brings a possible X-ray to our attention. 

 

2) One moderator investigates and, if it looks suspicious, brings in more moderators to corroborate. 

 

3) Second and often third moderator investigate. 

 

4) If a consensus is reached, the evidence is collected and the x-rayer is banned. If a consensus is not reached, a note is added to the account that there's suspected x-raying and we have to simply monitor the suspect. 

 

The reason this generally requires corroboration is, in theory, people are innocent until proven guilty, and because x-rays often require a clear inventory and a full rollback, it's more serious than banning for something like griefing or even hate speech. Unfortunately, this also means that x-ray moderqs can take more time—sometimes a lot more time—than traditional moderator issues.

 

This has become an even bigger problem with Citidel because it's increased the motivation to x-ray to include chests full of valuables and for the purpose of griefing. I've banned more players for x-ray this revision than I have in the past 5 or 6 revisions combined, in large part because x-raying for ore does not actively cause harm to other players, just passively removes the opportunity for finding ores and creates an unfair imbalance in the game that's basically only theoretical. I've been x-rayed three times this revision, and I've been forced to significantly change my style of play as a result, essentially adopting Chaos strategies because I know that people x-raying for chests abound and speaking from experience that not all of those caught will be dumb enough to have made it obvious. 

 

As a result, it's requiring that the staff adapt quickly to the new paradigm. As I mentioned, this is a new type and level of x-raying, which means the staff is moving to adapt to deal with it, and some of us—and I include myself in this—are not adapting as quickly as the server needs. X-rayers on previous revisions were by and large completely incompetent. They'd dig straight to diamond from far away, making no attempt to even try to hide what they were doing. The mining ratios would be completely askew. Now? We have people who have been using x-ray and related cheats for years (elsewhere) who have learned to make it look accidental using techniques that I won't discuss but that you and I can pretty easily deduce. It's added an additional layer to a process that's already not as fast as people are used to. 

[Survival Suggestions / Feedback]

While yes this is true, of the past few revs numbers barely were over twenty players throughout even the first week. So far we've hit (when I was on) at least 30 players everyday, which is an improvement from previous revs. I also want to point out that we've had 567 players join into the server after just one week. These are my arguments as to why the numbers have improved, not the server it self

 

The numbers tend to fluctuate from hour to hour, reaching peaks and lows. Near as I can tell, peaks in new revision weeks tend to be above 80 and lows around 15. That's been true of this revision, but it was also true of last revision by my memory. I don't have access to daily averages, as far as I know. 

 

We also have to consider that the number of new players has been 'plumped' by Civ players who are trying out our server since we changed it to be more like theirs, a change which is still in flux. Next revision may see a return to previous rules to bring back players who are skipping this revision, or may remain, keeping the Civ people but potentially permanently losing older players. 

[Survival Suggestions / Feedback]

Are we expecting big above-ground builds at some point? Cities? Or is that not how civcraft works?

 

I believe we will begin to see above-ground builds soon, though they will be few and far between. Because of the change in game mechanics by using individual protections for every block using significant resources to prevent griefing, it's made creative pursuits on S a significantly more challenging proposition. Not only has this significantly disincentivized building in general, but, for those of us who are stubborn SOBs (like me) who are going to build no matter what the obstacle, it means a lot of prep time before building to ensure our builds are adequately protected.

 

My farm is going to be going up before too long, on the road, but I've had to create several chests of smoothstone, several stacks of iron blocks, and about a stack of diamond in order to simply protect the ground, fences, glowstone, crafting tables, and chests. And I'm certain my crops still will be griefed constantly, and crop grief cannot be prevented, so I've had to create a huge surplus of seeds to replant and bonemeal to grow them. 

 

I'm finding it a challenge not to conclude that my style of gameplay on S, contributing via creating, is being punished out of existence this revision. I'm having to jump through hoop after hoop to accomplish what was a rewarding pursuit in previous revisions, all in the name of trying something new. 

[Survival Suggestions / Feedback]

I feel I should point out that those arguing that the revision is bringing in more players seem to be forgetting the past. Every new revision sees a huge uptick in players. I've been on Nerd since the beginning of revision 7, and every new revision since then has seen a significantly higher amount of players online at the beginning, followed by a slow reduction in that number. We're still very early in this revision, and we're already seeing a significant reduction in average players per day (by my count). Having 85 people on the first day of a revision is no indication of that revision's success. If we're still seeing 80+ people on a month from the start of the revision (or even a third of that), then we can discuss using it as a metric for success. Until then, it's indicative of nothing. 

[Survival Suggestions / Feedback]

After playing for a little while, I've had some thoughts:

 

1) Allowing griefing effectively ends any kind of real creative pursuits on the Survival server. Either you have to hide your build (in which case you might as well play single player), or your build is eventually destroyed. I've been on Chaos maps before, and even in healthy, mature communities, someone loves to break what other people created. This is an issue I've seen with past policies going back every revision since I joined (rev 7, I believe): Survival isn't just about PvP. It simply isn't. Going back the 19 revisions I've been a part of, there are incredible builds, showcasing that even in a dangerous environment people want to create something great. People like to bring civilization even in places where it's a significant challenge. I was probably killed a hundred times when I made my first gigantic farm, and that actually added to the value once I finished. Anyone can go on a creative server or a PvE server and make something nice, but to do so on Survival meant something more. Now, though, it's more akin to Chaos, where there's no point in building something nice anymore. 

 

Allowing PvP doesn't mean the singular function of the server is PvP. 

 

2) Bounties are a fun novelty, but maybe you should only be allowed to make one at a time. Allowing many provides an opportunity to spam another system. There are currently 42 pages of bounties, and, btw, "/bounty recent page 2" responds "Too Many Arguments!" so I can't see all of the bounties. 

 

3) In regards to moderators, to paraphrase a quote from Office Space, "What would you say we do here?" Aside from monitoring chat for hate speech, verify clans, and answering basic questions, there's not really much for us to do anymore. As someone in mod chat mentioned, it's our jobs to sit here and look pretty. 

 

4) I really like the zone-specific ore plumping. Conceptually it's very clever and in practice it incentivizes exploration and mining in different areas, instead of just plopping down in one spot and mining out a cavern or hallways. I settled down in a Tiaga and now I have glowstone without having to go find a Nether portal. I know that after I've had my fill of glow, I can set out for a Forest or Plains zone for iron and then a Mesa for redstone. It's fantastic, and I hope this feature sticks around. 

 

5) Enchantism, as it turns out, is like a drug. You never knew you wanted it, and you only need to try it once for you to not only get hooked, but for its absence to send you into cold sweats. Part of me wants it back as much as I've ever wanted anything, but I worry that it was so helpful in enchanting that it simply deleted an entire part of gameplay for the sake of making things too easy. This goes for Enterchests, too. They're almost too useful, making the game really easy. 

 

6) I have no clue why safe buckets were removed. It'd take me maybe 10 minutes to render half the map unusable with lava, and I wouldn't be breaking a single rule because griefing is allowed. Part of me is tempted to do this within a 50 block radius of my base to prevent people from griefing it. 

[[PMC] Lost Book Game]

World War Z: A History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks, outlines the story of a brave fungus forced to take refuge in a technologically capable species of ape in order to survive, while being pursued by an particularly handsome former UN worker who was once a figment of Edward Norton's imagination. 

 

This could include 10 stacks of zombie flesh, along with what zombies normally drop, so potatoes, iron ingots, and iron weapons. 

[Followup on My Absence and Things]

Best of luck on your dissertation, and I hope you find yourself in better health soon. Do you mind if I ask what your dissertation is on? 

[Infammo08 [Willravel]]

The problem wasn't that you took the carrots and wheat, the problem was breaking the glass to get in. If you break into someone's place, it's your responsibility to replace what you've broken, otherwise it's griefing. 

 

I'm unbanning you now, but there will be a note on your account. 

[Question regarding NoCheatPlus and Notify]

I'm under the impression that part of NoCheatPlus is the command: /ncp notify on|off

 

 

This is intended to allow moderators and administrators to enable or disable the NCP warnings that come up in chat. Today, on temporary Chaos, I found myself unable to have a simple conversation because NCP warnings were so common I only had a few seconds before a reply would disappear above where I can scroll. Clearly the NCP notification system is not communicating that people might be cheating and require my attention 99.999% of the time. 

 

Have I understood the /ncp notify off command correctly and, if so, can we have it enabled? 

[Mosmodre [Willravel]]

You're unbanned. 

[Mosmodre [Willravel]]

You're not in a Perry Como song in the 1950s. If you use the term "gay armor" in 2013 in game chat, its meaning is clear to everyone, even if it's ostensibly not clear to you. You get a 24 hour vacation, which is a lot less than most people get for this kind of thing. 

 

Edit: and in the future, should a moderator or administrator offer you a warning, the appropriate venue for discussing or debating said action is not in public chat. Send them a private message (/m [name]) or message another moderator or administrator if you want a third party.