Creative - The Current State.

[Denevien]

4. I'm going to be frank, Denevien's reply to my post on the Advert thread felt as though it was brushed off. I agree with Rock that the advertisement issue should not be a contest, and rather something a bit more organised. I asked if we could be informed with the process of how we'll be advertising and was simply given a childish and silly response in return.

I tried to answer each part of your question in that thread the best I could. The last part (in which I answered "WAT?") was because I had no idea what you meant by the question. I had hoped to see you respond and clarify, but I guess that didn't come across as intended. The thread was called "Advertisements on Reddit", my first post said we were looking to do ads on reddit, I linked the relevant info from the reddit page on ads, and specified which subreddits we planned to target. If there is more specifics that you want to know, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them, but I feel that the post contains almost all plans for the ads.

[Magnyus]

1. By keeping our creative server as vanilla as possible, with the addition of some of our restrictions, our creative server offers NOTHING that players cant get out of other creative servers. we no longer have that "large" community feel that some people would come to the server to experience. alot of C dedicated would build on the server simply because there work would get to be viewed and enjoyed by a large user base.

 

2. The flying aspect while being a fantastic building tool, allows players to spread out far to much. there is no governing force outside of the world borders that keeps players congregated together, encouraging one another to get to know there neighbor. Flying. keep it, but spawn players in survival. encourage as much as possible to be done in survival, but let players switch into flying mode for building uses.

3. Lets get some moderates on C who know the server. as much as i appreciate mods form P and S coming around to help out, its still no substitute for a Mod who resides on the server, and moderates chat, and takes care of small issues on a personal level.

4. ADVERTISING! lets get some players in. this has been discussed above. what will be done about it remains yet to be seen.

5. While /randloc works, bring back /warp openspace. openspace brings new players together to a blank canvas, so they can work together or be neighbors.

6. Lets branch out and use our subreddit more often. i often overlook ALOT of things, because i don't check the forums as frequent as reddit.

 

1. I think we should just drop the "maintaining vanilla" thing, we already aren't vanilla. S has enchantism and they're constantly looking for more things to add. We've been doing the same except for us, we just get told it's not happening and leave it at that. No trial runs, nothing.

 

2. I'd still like to trial no-flying, but I can definitely agree that we should have players focus on doing everything in survival mode. (brainstorm: buildmode, like modmode, but without the mod powers, used only for building)

 

3. Again, MOAR MODS FOR C!

 

4. For you.

 

5. Sounds interesting, and I'd like to hear more about this.

 

6. I'm kinda the opposite. But I would like to see more posts that are hand-in-hand with the forums, as well as more red and blue tags on the subreddit.

[schererererer]

A trait I'm seeing is that PvE mods stop being members of the community, and rather just mods of PvE. They just abandon all other servers and flock to PvE, the other servers forgotten. PvE is the last resort for all mods, and that last resort is fast becoming the only resort.

I don't really play on C that much now, and therefore don't mod so much either, because I no longer enjoyed it. If I'm looking for ease of building, other servers have worldedit, voxelsniper, etc. If I'm looking for more socialization or more challenging/functional construction, PvE better fits the bill at this moment in time.

If I'm not mistaken our old policy used to require mods to play on all of our servers, while that was a bit extreme, since it's only natural to flock to one server. It should be a requirement to learn all of the rules and commands on each server since you are expected to assist on all the servers. I would also appreciate more moderators checking up on open modreqs regardless of the server, since it is a bit ridiculous that some can go on for more than six hours for something as simple as flowing water.

How about the server admins teach new mods on each of their servers? They'd get to know them (if they don't) and basically make sure that they know the ins and outs pertaining to the server.

If it's a problem of remembering the rules and commands, why not just make a document with the basics?

We've never in the years I've been around forced anyone to split their time between the servers. Standard training on all the servers should be the norm today, usually with server admins or else experienced head admins or mods on each server doing the training. The problem comes when tools and rules change; older mods miss updates off their preferred servers and the moderation guidelines and commands pages on the wiki quickly become out of date. Mandating retraining for everyone is an option but very tedious for all involved, especially the trainers.

I believe a cross-server modreq check is in the works, which should help for distributing moderation load.

On the subject of yes/no voting, the reason there was no "unfamiliar with" or neutral option was to mask the hard no votes from affecting interpersonal relations. I never saw the wisdom in this, since the voters who would really want to hide a hard no are generally those the nominee expects to vote yes. I'd welcome a neutral option, but expect feelings to be hurt and voters to feel socially pressured toward the neutral option.

To expand on the voting process, historically the final yes/no vote on mods holds the following connotations: yes as support, no as neutral or very slightly negative, and no alongside a pm explaining why as substantially negative. I have a feeling that some of the more recent vote summations were undertaken without knowledge of this background, reverting to a percentage cutoff or a quota. Iirc, this subject has been addressed in a review of how voting is done - the best way to get more C native mods is still to suggest names by messaging someone on staff or via nerd.nu/applyformod.

[XkinOEC]

I have quite a bit I need to reply to here, and on a few other threads about this same topic. I will be doing so later today, however as requested.  

Here are the 3M Creative Mumble meeting recordings. The "minutes" of the meetings were never officially completed so you'll likely need to find the places that reference your posts yourself. 

• Thursday meeting conducted by Magnyus & Nickeox: Meeting part 1
• Friday meeting conducted by EeHee2000 & NEVAstop: Meeting part 2

I suggest anyone who was not present for these meetings please listen to at least the first part.

[buzzinbee]

Players used to have to be active on all three servers to be considered for moderator position this enabled all mods to be familiar with the player, however now with our lower numbers this doesn't apply any more, I think that is what Mag was stating.

[schererererer]

Players used to have to be active on all three servers to be considered for moderator position this enabled all mods to be familiar with the player, however now with our lower numbers this doesn't apply any more, I think that is what Mag was stating.

 

As far as I'm aware, this has never been the case, since before pve existed as a server. New mods were always given some level of training for all servers, but not any prerequirement of activity across any more than one.

[Bardidley]

Hi Everyone,

 

These are my thoughts and observations in Creative:

 

- Moderators should be designated for one particular server, all mods should have status globally in case the need arises.

 

-The moderator vote is biased.

 

-The Admins should decide on a moderator.

 

- We need a server broadcast for the live map (I don't believe there is one?)

 

- I see many new people leave right away because they are frustrated with spawn. If we can get them interested in something right away, then they will stay and be dedicated to something.

 

- Advertising is good... but where is an effective place to advertise? that is not bringing in a "bad crowd"

 

- I agree we need a more interesting lobby. if there is a contest, I'm in.

 

 

~Bard

[Magnyus]

1. I don't really play on C that much now, and therefore don't mod so much either, because I no longer enjoyed it. If I'm looking for ease of building, other servers have worldedit, voxelsniper, etc. If I'm looking for more socialization or more challenging/functional construction, PvE better fits the bill at this moment in time.

2. I believe a cross-server modreq check is in the works, which should help for distributing moderation load.

3. On the subject of yes/no voting, the reason there was no "unfamiliar with" or neutral option was to mask the hard no votes from affecting interpersonal relations. I never saw the wisdom in this, since the voters who would really want to hide a hard no are generally those the nominee expects to vote yes. I'd welcome a neutral option, but expect feelings to be hurt and voters to feel socially pressured toward the neutral option.

4. [Or] via nerd.nu/applyformod.

 

1. Our own moderators are tired of C... And yet we still can't find ways to fix that? Just because they aren't leaving nerd and merely going to another of our servers. Personal question: you are good at building, what would you personally want to see out of creative since I can assume that you aren't a free to build on P due to restrictions of survival mode? (other than W/E)

 

2. That sounds good, considering how convenient switching between servers has become. You wouldn't happen to know who is working on that would you?

 

3. Anyone that cannot take rejection should not be who you are looking for in a moderator position. And honesty is the best policy. Worst case scenario Player A holds a minor grudge against Mod B, good, someone who does that shouldn't be a mod.

 

4. Isn't nerd.nu/applyformod a joke? Or does it actually take in names?

 

5. Moderators should be designated for one particular server, all mods should have status globally in case the need arises.

 

6. The moderator vote is biased.

 

7.The Admins should decide on a moderator.

 

8. I see many new people leave right away because they are frustrated with spawn. If we can get them interested in something right away, then they will stay and be dedicated to something.

 

9. Advertising is good... but where is an effective place to advertise? that is not bringing in a "bad crowd"

 

10. I agree we need a more interesting lobby. if there is a contest, I'm in.

 

5. That is essentially what the current system is. The problem is, no one leaves their server to help out the others.

 

6. Not so much biased as heavily unbalanced. (though like anything involving people, there is bias)

 

7. That is what they (the Head Admins) do, but we've been discussing that the Server Admins also get to be a part of the final decision.

 

8. Bardidley is referring to the way that C's spawn is set up, it's rather strange and over;y complicated and many new players log in see a bunch of dark hallways without an obvious means of escape and promptly leave. It's too late to fix Rev 25's spawn but for for future revisions, please take this into consideration.

 

9. For advertisements on Reddit, and for advertisements anywhere else.

 

10. Not an official contest, (yet) but there is a discussion involving the Hub server. Here.

[EeHee2000]

A short summary of what I've gathered so far from this thread:

 

Creative needs moderators. For that to happen, the voting process needs to change and perhaps even the training methods. We also need advertising to bring in new players to nominate / watch over in the first place, which in itself will take quite some time. If the current mod nomination is disregarded, (which it will be unless action is taken by Head Admins) we're looking at a continuous effort stretching over 4~ months just to get a few players and moderators, getting Creative back on it's feet - it never should've gotten to that in the first place. The main reasons it'd take that long is because of the time in-between nominations, as well as the time needed for the advertisements to affect anyone. This is with a continuous effort on behalf of CAdmins, Head Admins, and to-be moderators of Creative, as well as a whole bunch of Creative's current players. The way I see it, PvE is hoarding mods and should go at least one nomination cycle without getting new moderators. 

Survival needs a few mods as well, but the large majority of a mod haul should be for Creative. 

 

I believe we should also go back over the 3M recordings and see what we can revive from them. Letting that go to waste is one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made as a community. Would we let that sort of thing go to waste in the old days of C? No, because the Admins would've been pressured to keep Creative as a healthy, up-to-date community. Heck, no-one even seems to know what the 3M meetings were despite all the members attending them. I say we, as a server, go back over them and properly address what we could've done differently. It doesn't call for a vote to decide whether or no we should do this, it's just common sense to go ahead with it. 

Edited January 12, 2014 by EeHee2000

[LetsBFehr]

Just a small response for some things that have been brought up:

 

Moderators

While I do think it is nice that mods have at least tried all the other servers, it isn't and will never be a requirement.  I've played 2 revs of S, 3 revs of P, and 12 revs of C.  This is one community and mods are expected to act and behave and do what they can across all servers.  That being said, it is also important to stress that while we are the same community, servers are different.  I still only do flow requests on S because I just am not 100% comfortable making some calls.  Mods should always be there for help and assistance, but don't leave your comfort zone, ask for help, all the mods and admins are willing to help.

 

Spawn

I understand and actually was one of the people who brought up my initial problems with the C spawn.  The current confusing tunnel system will not be used next revision.

 

nerd.nu/applyformod

We had sort of a policy shift on this, if you would like your name to be considered, put in in.  This isn't a requirement, just an indication that you are interested in becoming a mod, and I hope what we get out of it is more people paying attention to those on the list and interacting with them more.

 

Mod Nominations

Time between nominations can be a problem.  Last time a C mod was not chosen, and despite our strong need for a C mods, we just now are getting into the process of MAYBE getting a couple more in. It's been over 6 months since a C mod was chosen and voted in. 

[WayneByNumbers]

I'll have to enter a guilty plea here, as one of the C mods who has drifted away a bit.

 

Just to give some of my own reasons, one is that I've been playing quite a bit on a different server and am still a bit in thrall to the "new friend is best friend" stage, but that, I expect, will wear off in time.  Another is that I actually find it difficult to play on C at the moment in terms of framerate; I'm one of those people who pretty much requires Optifine for some things, and the severe delay (srsly, it's getting ridiculous) on the MCP update has been holding a lot of common mods/plugins hostage.  A third reason, it pains me to say, is a bit of boredom with C (and MC in general).  I'm generally more of a solo builder, and I've been a bit short of ideas recently (as well as biting off more than I could chew with the Menger Sponge), I am working on it tho.  Reason number four is work.  Bleah.

 

I do intend to stick around, tho, and plan to work on the above.

 

Since the topic (a rather touchy one) of Magnyus' not getting modded has been brought up... I've been thinking I've gone too long without mentioning this, but it didn't seem to be a matter of arbitrary veto overriding anything AFAIK.  The rough percentage for appointing mods is a matter of public record, and the vote was frustratingly shy of that number.  Not to say I was at all happy with how that vote turned out, see next paragraph.

 

In that same discussion, the idea of a "neutral" option in the voting process was discussed briefly, but eventually dismissed.  Given what we've seen so far and what's been discussed here, my feelings have grown stronger on that point.  With the servers having an unevenly distributed playerbase atm, voters simply not being familiar with someone has become more of an issue than before.  The change in format after the forum move may also have slightly altered the voting culture that developed there, removing the "yes to all" response favored by many.  I am in full support of a third option.

 

Ok, enough whining from me.

 

C does need something, but what?

 

As for changing things around and such, in principle that sounds good, Minecraft isn't new anymore and a lot of things people have wanted to do have been done.  Donator perks, "trusted" status, etc. are obviously out of the question, the server community has always had "public" and "free" as core principles.  As for the "vanilla" principle, however, I think vanilla Creative mode has stagnated at Mojang a bit.  One of the attractions of Survival mode is progression and maintenance--you work to get more advanced, and you work to stay there, and updates introduce new ways to do that.  I wonder if we could somehow implement some way to achieve things in Creative in-game.  The other servers have such distinctions; people being able to say they killed this guy, or were part of that widely feared clan, or mayored this town, or built that big public grinder, or built in this big city, or won that spleef tournament, or had the dragon egg in this rev.  C has few such badges of honor besides getting a warp (which is a good one, a Creative server is all about building), it could use more.  Short minigames can get short, strong bursts of interest, but those inevitably end.  We may not want to become a roleplaying server or a modded client server, but leaving it a completely unstructured sandbox risks falling into a spiral: fewer people=less stuff on the server=even fewer people (ok, maybe the word "risk" is obsolete by this point).

 

But all that begs the rather big question; if playing on C were to have more of an ongoing purpose, even a side purpose, what would it be?

[schererererer]

...what would you personally want to see out of creative...

The difficulty of adequately answering this question is at the root of our troubles. I'd personally love to see more collaborative builds between our most notable builders, but that's really a player driven element. This could be as simple as centralizing the "megabuild" class of warp-worthy projects in a cohesive collection, or actually working together with others on the design of a build.

Another part of the problem is that I like to focus my energies on one or two things at a time; if I'm focusing on building something big on pve (tbh I've probably bit off more than I can chew already) while being pretty busy irl, it's much less likely I'll have the time to devote to a quality project on C. This is pretty much unavoidable, though it could be mitigated by the use of tools like worldedit to optimize time.

[XkinOEC]

There is far too much for me to respond to without causing myself far too much anger and taking more time than I currently have available to myself. So rather than responding, here is a list of ideas to make C better

 

Ideas for making C better

 

• Giving users access to a few of the lesser commands that belong to world edit, such as WAND for example. WAND itself can be extremely useful for determining distance between two blocks... So many times I endlessly do stupid block lines just to measure the distance from 1 block to another because visually I cannot do that any other way... simply clicking 2 blocks will tell me the distance between them. This feature can be very useful. Yet even as recently as a week ago, I was told that under no circumstances would ANY features of worldedit be made available to anyone under the level of server admin. If we want to talk about shot-down ideas and close-mindedness this is a perfect example, but i digress... Wand would be nice.
• Giving the players COMPASS as we were promised during the end of creative rev 14 fundraiser. Compass is a relatively old feature to minecraft which would allow us the ability to travel a distance quicker than before. As previously stated we were promised this feature to be permanently enabled following the rev 14 fundraiser if we met a certain goal. Which we met. When I asked Verros about it a week later he said that the Admins said it was impossible at that time due players traveling faster than normal minecraft walking, the server wouldn't be able to handle it. Now perhaps at that time the server couldn't handle 120+ people all compassing all at once, however I did not donate US$125 to nerd.nu/donate during that fund raiser only to get nothing out of it(of course it sure seems that way as of now), Since that fund raiser, we upgraded to a server that is nearly 8x more powerful, decreased our average playercount by 2/3's and shut down our chaos and war servers. I certainly don't see why I am still waiting on this feature. Of course knowing how bringing up increased movement ability in the past has gone, i'm sure you'll find yet another reason to prevent players from getting compass. 
• Flyspeed, brought it up before as I referenced at the end of compass, was shutdown for fear of enhanced griefing.
• More fun mods that don't hurt the server, minecart trains, mob disguises, any block as a hat, personalized inventory kits, text color in signs, animated signs, interactive signs, alternate titles(nickname), afk (not by command, but by idle status).
• Another novel idea would be to allow us all blocks, yes beacons can be spammy, but they only light if on a pyramid. TNT doesn't explode, why am I kicked for trying to spawn it? Why can't I use inverted redstone lamps or torches? Is it that bad that I want to play with fireworks on C every once in a while? I don't know what error you encounter on bukkit servers with item frames, but I have spawned massive walls of item frames within item frames on a personal server with no added stress. Furnace minecarts, they'll depspawn anyways after like 10 minutes... why not let us have fun making a train on the CTA for once?
• Heck, with out current player base, we might as well bring up full worldedit within owned plots, its not that hard, and is limited in its power, as well is in the confines of a protected area, if the max block spawn per command limit is 200 blocks, we wouldn't have noticeable lag. 
• This problem which REALLY needs to be addressed, is the current map. Unless some really awesome land is just beyond the border within the area of our first expansion, I think this map is far too boring to build on. Now I know what your going to say, MOUNTAINS RIVERS AND A GIANT LAKE... Yes, but those are far too vast. As the map painter, it looks great, but as a player on the map, it looks like a giant open plains with no real nature. add that to the very confusing spawn tunnels and this map really doesn't seem inviting or inspirational. I'd like to make the point of how cities and other builds would form in the past, and that would be based on what was around, Rev 24 for example, Spleef Pointe formed because of the lake, and forested area around it. The highway exit city was a combination of Marting11's highway and the snowy forest biome. rev 13 newbabylon was built right between 2 forests to make it look grandER. Natural landmarks also help make the world more familiar to people, and familiar is welcoming. Honestly if you listen to nothing that I say here, please, take in consideration making or even just generating a new map before doing any sort of advertisements to attract new people to our server.

 

I have much more to say, but I keep running out of time to write this each time... I'll likely cover my position on advertisements next. Also, feel free to ask questions about things I didn't explain well enough above.

[EeHee2000]

I agree with nearly all the points in the above post. Also, would it be possible to get word from an admin about going back over the 3M recordings? As I said here: 

 

I believe we should also go back over the 3M recordings and see what we can revive from them. Letting that go to waste is one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made as a community. Would we let that sort of thing go to waste in the old days of C? No, because the Admins would've been pressured to keep Creative as a healthy, up-to-date community. Heck, no-one even seems to know what the 3M meetings were despite all the members attending them. I say we, as a server, go back over them and properly address what we could've done differently. It doesn't call for a vote to decide whether or no we should do this, it's just common sense to go ahead with it. 

 

we really need to bring that back up. 

[XkinOEC]

Because it has been brought to my attention that few people know how to open .OGG files, which is the file type we used for the meeting. You can download VLC player because it will be simpler than installing the appropriate audio codec.

[iglidante]

I've recently returned to nerd.nu after a long time away. C was always the only server I really cared about, and it's a major letdown to see how...quiet...it has become. The builds are in general quite good, but there's just nowhere near the interaction I remember back when we were building Top Hat, or Dome, or whatever. Modrequests can go for more than a day without being fulfilled. 

 

I don't know what we need to do to fix things. I don't play as often as I used to, but I'm logging in for a bit almost every day. If we still need mods for C, I'd be happy to return to "active duty" and help keep things going.

[Magnyus]

Again, another thread that died down a little too quickly. I'd like to BUMP this thread. I'm also pretty sure we'd like to hear a bit of follow-up to the discussions that were supposedly had in the Admin Chat since it appears that absolutely nothing has come from these posts. (yet again)

[EeHee2000]

Again, another thread that died down a little too quickly. I'd like to BUMP this thread. I'm also pretty sure we'd like to hear a bit of follow-up to the discussions that were supposedly had in the Admin Chat since it appears that absolutely nothing has come from these posts. (yet again)

Indeed. Secondary BUMP.

Edited January 23, 2014 by EeHee2000

[buzzinbee]

They are still in discussion, things will take time to go through and get to a reasonable outcome. Having said that we are trying to hurry things on a bit

[Dumbo52]

Again, another thread that died down a little too quickly. I'd like to BUMP this thread. I'm also pretty sure we'd like to hear a bit of follow-up to the discussions that were supposedly had in the Admin Chat since it appears that absolutely nothing has come from these posts. (yet again)

 

Apologies if we've seemed a bit out of touch; we're doing what we can to get some of these changes implemented. The changes we're planning on making shouldn't be any secret, so to give you an update, we should be able to make the following changes to Creative this weekend, assuming there aren't any unanticipated technical problems with them:

• Allow default players to make WorldEdit selections (Feel free to use the CUI)
• Allow players to use the /hat command to put blocks on their head
• Allow all potions, aside from invisibility
• Make the TNT block inert and allow players to place it
• Allow players to place beacons

There are still more changes we're discussing which need to be evaluated further before implementing them. In addition, we have been discussing some ideas for the next revision. This time, I hope that we can keep the players more in the loop about what's going on while we make decisions. I plan to start publicly releasing updates about what next rev will look like as we come to decisions. I feel that this will allow the community to give us feedback about what their thoughts are on certain aspects of the next revision. While we're obviously going to be taking your suggestions in before we make these decisions, it can't hurt to also 'test the waters' with the outcome of our discussions to give us a chance to respond to any of your concerns before things start rolling.

 

I also plan on updating the rulebook to reflect some of these changes, as it hasn't been touched since the beginning of the revision.

[Kattalunikes]

All I have read so far in this thread said C needs

- More Players

- More Mods

 

But you have no idea why noone is interested in the server, or what could get people interested. To me that sounds pretty dead. Good luck reviving it :p

 

Maybe you'll need to find answers to these questions:

- Why would anyone want to play on the C-server?

- How will they know about it? / How have people learned about the servers in the past?

- How will you ensure that you meet what you promised?

 

See ya!

--Kattalunikes

 

Edit: Fixed linebreaks not appearing without WYSIWYG-editor

Edited January 25, 2014 by Kattalunikes

[EeHee2000]

Very, very pleased with these changes. Very. Great to see this happening!

[Difficult1]

I find that the reason more P players are picked over C players for a moderator role is because people on P only know people on P well. It makes perfect sence really, PVE players are always interacting with each other, so when mod voting comes around, they will pick people they know. Why would someone on PVE pick a C player who they have hardly (if ever) talked to? They wouldn't. My solution to this would be to have people from C vote for C mods, people from P vote for P mods, and S people vote for S mods. I consider myself a player of all servers, so where would I be listed? Maybe by the amount of time spent on a server would be my best guess to how the staff would go about that. There is hardly any server to server exposure, sure events like CTF bring us all together, but CTF doesn't happen that often. To be honest we can all agree that server to server mingling isn't as good as it should be, I think having more community events (some made by players) would help bind that gap, and in turn, solve this issue.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Difficult1

[Difficult1]

Heres how we solve creatives issue! we have a day where all the servers direct you to C for fun activitys and such! (community made games and entertainment I should add)

Edited February 8, 2014 by Difficult1

[EeHee2000]

In response to Difficult1's post above, (Sorry, I can't seem to quote on this laptop I'm using)
that would be terribly inefficient, disruptive and simply lazy. If anything, it would drive players away from the servers altogether because they may've been looking forward to finishing x build on PvE on x day, but they cannot simply because there is a event they would rather avoid attending taking place on Creative.

Sorry if I sound rude here, but that's simply a terrible idea. It wouldn't do any good for Creative except force players to join it for a short while, eventually logging off out of frustration due to being unable to access other servers.

It would require a lot of organisation, every single week, and would send nearly all the admins into an overwork.

We need a well thought out, all around passive solution, not one that forces players to do something they mightn't want to - that's not what nerd.nu wants to be.