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Hello everyone, We would like to have a meeting with everyone, staff and non-staff, about the future of survival. Survival needs to make some major changes, and we would like to hear from you guys what kind of changes should be made. Now this is going to be setup in a different way than previous suggestions threads. Instead of posting your suggestions here, I would like for you to make the suggestions here by May 9th. The reason for the is that we will be having an open meeting where anyone may participate around May16th to discuss these ideas. After May 9th, I will compile all of the responses into one list, and at the same time I will create an agenda for the meeting. The list of suggestions and agenda will be posted about a week before the meeting, so everyone has a chance to look into the suggestions and contribute to the meeting. A little information about the meeting, the specific time and date will be released with the list and agenda. It will be an open meeting in mumble where anyone may speak; however, the meeting should only be to discuss what is on the agenda, and new suggestions should try not to be brought up. If there are enough new suggestions, we can always have another meeting, but I would like to avoid the long unorganized meetings we have had in the past. Another thing that will be a little different about this meeting is that it will happen twice. I plan to hold two meetings with the same agenda, but at different times since there is not a time that will work for everyone. I hope this will allow everyone to voice their opinions. You may suggest anything and everything like new plugins, adding or removing items, changes to the rules, or a completely new style of gameplay. However, I would like ask that you try to be serious with your suggestions. Here are a few examples of what I would consider serious and not serious suggestions. Not serious: Suggesting that we give away free diamonds. Serious: Suggesting that we plump diamond ore. Not serious: Suggesting that we should give everyone access to creative mode. Serious: Suggesting that we try to emulate a play style of a x type of server. If you are having trouble coming up with suggestions, here are a few questions that might help you out. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and I will try to find you an answer.

Survival Arena Saturday at 1pm EDT, hope to see you there!

So, per comments I've heard around the servers, including here, we've spent some time discussing the idea. What we would like to do is start having Throwback Thursdays. Now, I know you may be thinking this is just some April Fools thing, but it is my off day, so I didn't have time to post it until now, this is no joke. So, the way it will work is similar to Magynus's suggestion in the linked thread. The proposed plan is for 24 hours every Thursday, the Event server will host old maps. These maps will be updated to the current version of minecraft, and will be running a post-rev style chaos. This means we will have some essentials such as world border, log block, etc. to prevent rule breakers (yes, chaos still has some rules). The best part about this: old players get the nostalgia of running around their old towns with friends, and new players get to explore how things were before their time. So, down to some details about it. The current plan is to run each map for 24 hours two Thursdays in a row. Each map will rotate from server to server (personally thinking the server order should go C -> S -> P, since that is the order they came about). We will run polls for the playerbase to choose which rev they would like to play on each time around. So, it would look something like this: 1st Thursday - C Rev 14 2nd Thursday - C Rev 14 3rd Thursday - S Rev 5 4th Thursday - S Rev 5 5th Thursday - P Rev 7 6th Thursday - P Rev 7 7th Thursday - C Rev 10 etc So, since I'm just getting this thread up, it may be a couple weeks before we get it all rolling out, but I'd like everyone to post feedback, thoughts, and suggestions regarding this.

For a bit now, enchanting on survival has been extremely easy. It started out with xp plumps, then /unenchant and now Enchantism. These are all great things, but how would everyone feel about reverting to a vanilla enchant system? This would get rid of /unenchant and Enchantism. Having these plugins allows for everyone to create perfect armor, weapons and tools much faster. This was implemented to level the playing field for all users. However, I think we have gotten to a point where it may be too level and far too easy. With the vanilla system, getting perfect gear was a challenge and took time, keeping users on the server longer. Now we are able to create "god" gear in under 10 minutes and I think this is hurting the overall game play. Any other thoughts?

I'd like us to begin having some sort of official general staff meetings for the survival server. The idea would be to provide a specific time or gathering to focus on anything and everything to do with survival, it's moderation, planning, policy, etc. in a structured format so that nothing is left unresolved, and everyone on staff has an opportunity to be involved and part of the discussion and decision-making process. I'm hoping that this thread can be used for everyone to share or discuss ideas for how such meetings or discussions could happen in a way that has the highest amount of value to everyone involved. Feel free to submit anything, wacky or conservative. The overall objective here would be to make s.nerd.nu the best it can be. The meetings would be professional, task-oriented, and aimed at serving the needs and desires of the community. All staff would be eligible to participate in these meetings. Sadmins, Moderators, Techadmins, Headadmins, Cadmins, and Padmins. Everyone should have the opportunity to be heard. Hopefully we can have general meetings later on that involved the non-staff community, but for now it would just be mods and admins - unless strong arguments could be made to the contrary. Some basic things that I think ought to be decided are as follows: Medium Agenda formation process times advertising meetings roles topics specific format publication of minutes Medium: Mumble, IRC, and Forums are things I have considered. Mumble has been used traditionally on nerd, and is the closest thing we have to traditional face-to-face meetings. One drawback is that text chat seems to sometimes be overlooked in mumble, as well trying to match up recordings and text logs can be difficult for those trying to review the meeting. In general meetings, text-chat can be off-topic at times as well - perhaps with a staff-only attendance those wouldn't be as significant problems. IRC could work as well. Tone isn't conveyed as easily, but everything is laid out in text for convenient review, and it may be easier for some to express themselves in text than in voice. Both IRC and Mumble only work if everybody is present at the same time for the meeting. This is not ideal for people on opposite sides of the planet, as not everyone will necessarily have an opportunity to be present. Using the forums is one option that resolves some of these time issues, though it would require some careful planning. We do have the forums already, but there are no threads designated to serve as general planning and discussion spaces for the survival server. It isn't as fast as using IRC or Mumble, but it would give everyone an opportunity to be involved. Some combination could work as well, possibly. Get as many in mumble as possible, not finalize anything, post recordings/minutes on the forums, and ask those who were not present specifically for their input after hearing what was said. Then having a wrap-up type deal in the forums? I guess it would depend on the issues being discussed. I'd like to hear suggestions or opinions on this. Agenda: Agenda for the meetings could be drafted through some kind of pre-planning thread, everyone can comment saying what they'd like to discuss, it gets sorted and prioritized by an individual organizer (sadmin, possibly) or by everyone on that thread through consensus. Times: If these meetings happen over mumble, IRC, or some other 'live' medium, selecting appropriate times is essential. What times work best for everyone? Weekends? Evenings? What has been used in the past to be most useful to as many as possible? Advertising meetings: Hopefully everyone checks these forums, but what would be the best way to ensure all staff who may be interested are aware of the existence of the meetings should they choose to be involved? Just going through the staff list and messaging each one? Stickying a thread here in modchat, or modchat-private? If they occur on a regular basis (which I hope they will) then perhaps this will be less of an issue. I'd just like to maximize involvement here. Roles: One person would likely be the host or facilitator of the meeting. This would be the person responsible for making sure the agenda is followed, that the meeting begins and ends at an appropriate time, and ensures that topics are either resolved or have a specific task set to resolve agenda items. This person would also be responsible for making sure everyone who wishes to speak on a matter is heard, as well as making sure the meeting stays focused and productive. It's a lot of responsibility, and would likely be an admin. Some of these tasks could be delegated, I suppose. A good host/facilitator can make a meeting or break it depending on how they conduct it. We may want to select a person to be responsible for taking notes, and compiling a summary of the meeting/minutes for later review. This is commonly referred to as a secretary or scribe position. Additionally it may help to have someone serving as a bookkeeper/historian, to keep track of past meetings and decisions in a format easily accessible by staff in the future. The secretary and historian could be the same person. This isn't required, but when it's needed it could be a valuable asset. Secretary and historian could be decided at the time the meeting begins, or beforehand. Host/facilitator would likely be selected beforehand, but a secondary could be present in case that person is unavailable. Topics: some discussion topics I can think of which would be appropriate for such meetings include: Specific S policies, history and getting everyone up to speed on certain issues, planning events, revision planning, general moderation, points of contention/disagreement, and *possibly* general nerd policies though that wouldn't be a primary focus as this is mostly about S. Things which are off-limits would be anything that jeopardizes server security, issues with personal information, and any hostile behavior or harassment. Format: This doesn't have to be complicated. Some ideas I have for a basic meeting format are: intro - make sure everyone is here, get attendance on record, note time and date review last meetings minutes, check up on unresolved issues from that, confirm with whoever was responsible for assigned tasks what their situation is go through new items on agenda from pre-planning cover any last-minute items, afford only a few minutes for each of these if there are a lot review meeting, decisions made, tasks assigned, items discussed, and unresolved issues. Possibly assign one individual or forum thread to report progress of ongoing tasks to, to have a central information hub. Confirm next meeting time. Publication of minutes: Afterward, secretary tidies up notes, puts recordings and notes together, and publishes it all for the participants to review in a forum thread. If anyone observes anything left out, they can point it out in that thread and it would be added to the minutes which then get filed with the historian, and possibly published publicly. Does this sound overly complicated? Like too much thought or structure? Or does it sound like it's just enough to provide a substantial amount of value with minimal drama and effective communication? I'm thinking that if staff meetings like this can be conducted effectively, we may model meetings with non-staff on them, though meetings with a larger group may require a different format than whatever we choose here to be effective. If you have thoughts, ideas, or opinions - please share them. I'd like to see something like this happen sooner rather than later. You're welcome to bring up specific topics you'd like to see discussed or put on an agenda if you like, and I'd most appreciate suggestions for the planning of how these meetings themselves would happen.

Survival doesn't have as many players as PvE, and I'm currently trying to figure out how this problem could be solved. I'm making a Google Forms poll on the subject, and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas. I'm currently planning to make two forms; one will be for non-players about what would make them play, and one will be for players about what would make them leave. I hope that this will reveal a possible change that will cause more people to join without alienating the existing playerbase. Once the surveys are finished, I'll post them on the forums and subreddit. After some time has been allowed for people to respond, I'll release the results so that people can look at them. Crossposted from reddit.

There has been a lot of talk about people wanting to have an arena soon and I have decided that I will run one this Saturday. I have already gotten the O.K. from Mumberthrax to hold an arena with prizes. I am looking for help in several aspects to run this arena. I would like ideas on what fights to have, what time this should be run at to have the most people playing, and any other special requests. There will be diamond and iron fights, but people must be willing to do them. Are there any clans interested in a clan battle? One idea I have is to spawn either a couple baby zombies or baby zombie pigmen and give them protection IV diamond armor and Sharp V swords and maybe do an FFA with them in the arena. I also encourage PvE players and Creative players to hop on during the arena, you won't need items to participate in some of the fights and it will be fun! Thoughts and opinions? Things needed: Players willing to fight A time that will bring the most players online at once "Out of the box" ideas for some of the fights ARENA WILL BE AT 8PM PDT ON SATURDAY 4/12/14

i submitted a modreq or two about this, but i figure i'd make a thread to make getting consecutive responses easier. so anyway, i built a little "slot machine" thing that dispenses random items when you put 1 gold bar in a hopper (or whatever cost i feel like putting at the moment). this thing got looted once, so i checked to make sure everything was locked - found a hopper that wasn't locked, called myself an idiot, fixed that, then surrounded the thing with obsidian. then it got looted again and now i'm starting to think someone's getting in and messing with the redstone inside. is something like this allowed? the first modreq i made about this, TornadoHorse got back to me and called it "a dick move".

I realize it is probably bad form to make a serious suggestion on April 1st, but here it is anyway. Would it be possible to have any modreq that has the word "grief" in the text be automatically pushed to the top of the modreq queue? This ensures that thwarting greifers is given our top level of attention even if we have multiple pages of modreqs (which is very common at the beginning of a rev).

Ok so while playing on the server today I thought that if when we hit a mob there hearts should be displayed over there heads for use to see. I have no clue if possible but, thought it would be helpful. Also, for those that say that not vanilla I like to just point out have glow in over not vilnilla and having dopplegangers is the same thing. So my thought was give the heartless, heart for a change.

On the nerd.nu front page creative and pve have new images that rotate, and I asked Mrloud15 about this and it was on his list to do (back around late December early January) and GetaFever also brought it up again in the subreddit a month or so ago, so I've been wondering is Survival ever going to get some new images instead of the same old image that wasn't even from the survival server. So I was wondering if there has been any headway on this issue, that's all.

Created in rev 22 by Mrgauthier34, this twist on the classic King of the Hill has returned with a new arena designed by Natdog! KOTV is accessible by this warp sign or this warp sign, both at spawn.

(Note: this isn't really interesting, so I wouldn't bother reading it if you're not involved. I couldn't figure out what the best medium for this was, but I'm pretty sure most admins are active on the forums.) This is an attempt to store all of the things I've found out about the tower that was built on my land, since explaining it all ingame would require either /msg-ing a mod or a ton of /modreqs. Last Friday (the 28th) I logged back in to find that a few people had built a gigantic wooden tower on my property. Either on Friday or Saturday (I'm rather bad at remembering times, sorry) I made a /modreq, /mail'd them, and put up a sign asking them to /mail me. Though I think my ownership of the land was reasonably obvious, it is true that my wall didn't quite strech around the land, though I did have a small base with a few other people. A mod checked things out and said they would bring it to the attention of an admin, since they've done a fairly large amount of building. (Note: the giant stone tower was built by one of my clan members after the fact. It wasn't there before. I'm trying to avoid building anything or working on the walls, since I think it's best for things to remain as they were.) I logged in today to find that they hadn't responded to my mail, and had taken down both my sign and the sign saying who built the tower. In addition, using the /seen command showed that while one (richcheese) hadn't been active since Friday (probably before I logged in) one had been active early Sunday. I'm certain that I sent richcheese mail, and I believe I sent the other person mail as well. I'm not 100% sure that I sent the second person mail, however. I talked with a member of my clan (mudgut), and they said that they had met one of the builders. According to them, the builder was rather irriated, but they left (?). However, others may have taken up residence of the tower. I am unsure who is at fault here. While it is true that I should've finished my walls, I think it was pretty clear that I was using the land, and they should've looked around a bit more before starting such a huge construction project. However, it is possible that they figured somebody would've interrupted them if the land wasn't abandoned, and assumed that nobody was interested in it. Unfortunately, I was absent from early Monday to Friday evening (visiting a relative with poor internet), and I am unsure of when I logged on previous to that. I have attempted to keep a mostly objective viewpoint, but this post may contain bias; if so, I apologize. I suggest that you talk to the owners of the tower to get their point of view; I know richcheese was on the sign, and some other people are named inside the tower. I hope that we can sort this all out.

As some of you have noticed, the c and p renders on nerd.nu have been updated. I'm working on getting ones for s, and I wanted to ask you guys for suggestions. If you know of a build that you think would make a good render, leave a comment below with the coords and what rev it was on.

The 1.8 minecraft update is still months away, and this post does not signifying any plans to reset S in the near future (We also just had a reset! Click here for information about it) For those who don't know, the 1.8 minecraft update will include crafting recipes for Mossy Stone Bricks, Chiseled Stone Bricks, and Mossy Cobblestone. Since we have the ability to make them available now, we decided to do so on Survival. Effective immediately you can craft these blocks using these crafting recipes.

from what i've read in the subreddit, SimpleClans was removed because people didn't like the eyesore that was clan tags. the thing that gets me is that there was a command to turn off clan tags client-side (/clan tag off or something like that). would it be possible for you guys to put SimpleClans back in, with the tags off for everyone by default? or at least tell people about the command to turn tags off? i really liked SimpleClans because i used it as a makeshift friends list and /clan roster was really useful for determining when people are usually on.

This post is to keep everyone in the loop. We would like to start rev 24 in 3-4 weeks. Spawn We have made a post asking for for submissions, but if we don't get any in time we will use one of previously submitted ones. Terrain We will be doing the same setup we did this rev with the mix between default and amplified terrain. We need to look for a 0,0 (spawn) biome that is not ice/snow, jungle or ocean. These do not make appealing starts to revs. Players often complain of one road being entirely ocean, so that's something we ought to avoid as well. The seed should also have most of the biomes within the default area. Roads Right now we have the roads setup following the cardinal directions, and it seems to work well. We don't have any plans to change the layout, but we are open to suggestions. Plugin/Features We will be reducing the experience plump from 8x to 4x. We would also like to change kill streaks. We know the players don't like the current setup, but we are not sure how we are going to change it yet. We are also looking into an alternative to safebuckets, but we have not decided on what solution to try. We will be updating this as we discuss more.

At 8pm CDT (barring accident, flubs, tragedy, or technical difficulties), s.nerd.nu revision 23 will switch over to chaos rules. This means chests are unlocked, nothing is protected (save for spawn), and you can destroy pretty much whatever you like. We still have the universal rules, so don't be a dick while you're blowing things up or burning the world down - i.e. no harassment, no bigotry or hate speech, no x-ray or hacked client mods, etc. etc. - Universal rules - Chaos Rules This period of anarchy will last until Friday March 14 around 8pm CDT (again, barring unforseen accidents, technical difficulties, etc.) at which point a brand new map will be in place for everyone to enjoy, with regular survival rules and features. I'll be posting details about revision 24 later this evening. Subreddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/mcpublic/comments/209os3/survival_rev_23_chaos_update_post_now_with_times/

Cross-post from subreddit. Click it - you know you want to. http://www.reddit.com/r/mcpublic/comments/201chw/announcing_thrax_industries_playerrun_arena/

Survival's 24 revision will start this Friday, March 14th, but the current revision will end this Wednesday, March 12th. We will be switching over to chaos rules between the end of rev 23 and the start of rev 24. We don't have any exact times yet, but we wanted to give you guys a little time to prepare. We will be making two more post over the next few days. One with the exact times will be made once we figure them out, and the other with details about revision 24.

With the one week trail period over, it's time for a new poll and discussion about the plugin. This poll will stay open for 1 week. Previous Discussions & Polls Enderpearl Cooldown: Part I Enderpearl Cooldown: Part II - A New Poll Enderpearl Cooldown: Part III - The Trial

For almost every revision that I can remember there has been some form of public arena on Survival. This map we have used it more than others due to it being more practical than the designated events arena. We received a mixed reaction at the start of the map when a public arena wasn't included but since then we've made use of the several public arenas build by Unce and Mrloud. How would you like to see Public Arenas made in the new revision?

Survival Arena: Thursday at 9:00 pm EST! This will not be part of the SAL, so comment below with any fight suggestions!

Given the results of this poll, we will be have a 1 week long trial period with an enderpearl cooldown plugin enabled. The timer for the cooldown is set at 3 seconds. This will put into effect after the next restart. After 1 week, we will disable the plugin and open a discussion about if we would like to keep the plugin or not.

We added the SimpleClans plugin this rev. For those who don't know, it adds new feature to clan fighting with things like a clan leaderboard, rivalries, and vitals. Here are a few questions to help get the discussion stated. Do you like it? Do you like the colored clan tags in chat? Do you like having the vitals?