Creative Creative Revision 26: Official Planning Thread

[LetsBFehr]

Welcome to the official planning thread of Creative Revision 26!!!  This thread is for you all to be updated on our progress and thoughts, and give input and feedback on how you think the next revision should be run.  Don't worry if you still have buildings unfinished, we are very early in the planning process.  We will update this list as things get implemented and added.

 

1: The Map

-Right now we are looking at a map with size 4000x4000.

-Since this map was heavily worldpainted, we would like to go with a full vanilla seed, with normal sized biomes.

-We think we have a good seed if we go vanilla terrain.

 

2: Spawn

-We have a good idea for spawn but would like to keep that a secret for all of you.

-You will be able to fly out of spawn immediately, no need to navigate tunnels or a maze.

-Spawning with a rulebook the first time logging in.

-Spawn City will be much different, not giant square wool colored plots.  Again going to keep the "theme" a little secret for now.

-Spawn City with prebuilt roads (not straight boring lines, like real roads) and different regions (houses, city, etc.)

-No CTA station prebuilt.  If someone wants to take the initiative and do a rail station and rail lines, by all means go for it.

 

3: Changes on how C are run

-Allowing arrows to work for a better PVP experience.

-We are discussing having regions be /modreqable for the region to change the biome  When it's appropriate to implement is being discussed.

-More community events.  These were a great success and brought so many players.

 

This is a short list as I have to go, by all means critique it, give me your ideas, and Dumbo marting and I will try to respond and get a discussion going.

 

-Letsbfehr

 

 

 

[EeHee2000]

1: The Map

-Right now we are looking at a map with size 4000x4000.

-Since this map was heavily worldpainted, we would like to go with a full vanilla seed, with normal sized biomes.

-We think we have a good seed if we go vanilla terrain.

4Kx4K seems like a good size for me, but: 

Will the map be expanded over time, and to what size if so? If we were to expand the map, I'd personally suggest expanding it by an extra 1K, but as Amplified land. I'm not sure how staff would go about linking up the biomes correctly, but it should be achieve-able and worth it as a result. If Amplified land is a bit of a leap, would it be possible to extend the map as End or Nether region? That's never been attempted on nerd before to my knowledge, and it could be successful if done right. Again, those would be big leaps. 

 

 

2: Spawn

-We have a good idea for spawn but would like to keep that a secret for all of you.

-You will be able to fly out of spawn immediately, no need to navigate tunnels or a maze.

-Spawning with a rulebook the first time logging in.

-Spawn City will be much different, not giant square wool colored plots.  Again going to keep the "theme" a little secret for now.

-Spawn City with prebuilt roads (not straight boring lines, like real roads) and different regions (houses, city, etc.)

-No CTA station prebuilt.  If someone wants to take the initiative and do a rail station and rail lines, by all means go for it.

Some nice changes here, primarily the prebuilt roads and exiting of spawn. It makes sense that you want most of this secret, so I won't prod you too much here: Will the CTA be supported by staff at all? The current workforce is a rather small one, and whilst efficient it will need some support to get back up on it's feet. Not many players know what the CTA even is, despite its days of glory. Understood, it isn't easy to revive, but it is possible. Another question regarding the CTA, will there be a reserved spawn plot for it? I feel that if the HQ were only to be built somewhere on the usual land it wouldn't have a chance of gaining recognition. If you'd feel very strongly against a spawn plot for the CTA, would it be possible to give it a warp in the least? 

 

 

3: Changes on how C are run

-Allowing arrows to work for a better PVP experience.

-We are discussing having regions be /modreqable for the region to change the biome  When it's appropriate to implement is being discussed.

-More community events.  These were a great success and brought so many players.

I'm very pleased with enabling arrows, that's something that's been in the minds of a few Creative/Survival players for a while and will go a long way in supporting PvP for Creative.

Could we get a little more info on the modreqable biomes by chance? Will moderators be able to change biomes, or just admins? Would there be a size restriction? Would there be ways to prevent awkward terrain messups such as a mountain of Grass sticking out of a square in the middle of a desert? Would the terrain of a /modreq-d biome be generated randomly or staff-player selected? 

 

Sorry for the poking, was curious. Some nice things I'm seeing, looking forwards to experiencing it! 

Edited February 8, 2014 by EeHee2000

[buzzinbee]

I love all the new implementations the smaller size will encourage players to build in closer proximity to each other and so hopefully encourage more community based builds such as cities or collections of art/statues ect. I like the idea of reserving a plot at spawn for the CTA although I'd ensure it's at the edge to not interfere with other player's builds. Having the world vanilla will make an excellent use of the new biomes available, although I'd like to have features world painted in such as a mountain ridge or some interesting terrain. Now for my one suggestion: Enable mobs on creative, this seems odd and kind of pointless but limit them to a set number on each chunk and it should be fine, they are useful for certain things, people like pets, people can use them for builds such as farms, it could enable for things such as pig races or horse races and jousting ect. I think it opens up a lot of possibilities but that's just my opinion. 

[Dumbo52]

Having the world vanilla will make an excellent use of the new biomes available, although I'd like to have features world painted in such as a mountain ridge or some interesting terrain.

 

I've actually heard from quite a few people a preference to have at least large areas of the map WorldPainted. While WorldPainter isn't quite as powerful a tool as many people make it out to be, I think we could consider WorldPainting only areas of the map to add in terrain that was missing from the original seed and make things a bit more interesting. Some features that have been requested which should be feasible in WorldPainter include:

• Tall mountain ridges
• Volcano
• Small Nether biome
• Mooshroom island

We should be able to generate default terrain and then edit some areas using WorldPainter, merging the changes into the finished map.

Amplified terrain has also been mentioned. While amplified terrain certainly looks neat, I'm concerned with how well suited it is to building in Creative mode. Nevertheless, I concede that it may be a neat change of pace to include small areas of amplified terrain, using WorldPainter to smooth the transition between the regular and amplified landscapes.

 

 

4Kx4K seems like a good size for me, but: 

Will the map be expanded over time, and to what size if so? If we were to expand the map, I'd personally suggest expanding it by an extra 1K, but as Amplified land.

 

Yes, we plan to expand the map as the area within the borders begins to fill up. I'm thinking that we would split up the expansion into a few different stages over time, perhaps 250 blocks on each side each time. I'm not a huge fan of making the expanded terrain only amplified land; while map expansions are meant to uncover new terrain, the primary purpose is to give players more room to build in. From what I've seen of amplified terrain, though, it's a very different experience from building in default terrain. I think I would prefer to dot areas of the entire map with amplified terrain for those interested in building there; in that case, the ratio of amplified terrain to default terrain would remain constant.

 

 

If Amplified land is a bit of a leap, would it be possible to extend the map as End or Nether region? That's never been attempted on nerd before to my knowledge, and it could be successful if done right. Again, those would be big leaps.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a Nether region, painted with a lake or two of lava. However, I don't think this needs to be contained only within the map expansions. Might as well offer this type of terrain from the get-go, instead of making players wait. As for the End biome, I'm not so sure. I don't really see End biomes as being very interesting to look at or build in, though if enough people think otherwise, it's possible to include one.

 

 Changes in how things are run...

• We can probably enable arrows, though we currently have no way of preventing flame arrows from igniting TNT. We can look into modifying our version of Bukkit, though, to prevent this. We're also looking into allowing different types of damage in PvP areas.
• We've discussed allowing ender pearls, as a substitution for the much-requested compass. I have no problem with allowing these, though if we do implement this change, I'd like to see an ender pearl cooldown on Creative as well, to prevent the spamming of ender pearls in order to get into restricted areas.
• Using WorldEdit to edit biomes upon player request does not have any effect on the terrain. It only changes the biome type in a certain area, which is generally used only for changing the color of grass, leaves, and water.

 

Now for my one suggestion: Enable mobs on creative, this seems odd and kind of pointless but limit them to a set number on each chunk and it should be fine, they are useful for certain things, people like pets, people can use them for builds such as farms, it could enable for things such as pig races or horse races and jousting ect. I think it opens up a lot of possibilities but that's just my opinion. 

 

I'd be very hesitant to allow players to spawn mobs using mob eggs, even if we do implement a mob cap. I think I had commented on this idea in a previous discussion, but in my opinion, this would introduce a plethora of new problems and responsibilities without too many benefits. I'd be fine with having animals spawned every once in a while for fun little events, but other than that, I see little practical use of having animals on a Creative server. I'd like to hear other people's takes on this idea, though.

[Difficult1]

NW: mountains and in the far NW snow capped peaks

NE: forests, deserts, and other vanilla biomes

SW: Flat land, similar to most of the land this rev.

SE: Large ocean, plains, islands, and a fairly large mushroom island

My ideas for a great map!

[Diamond_Lover123]

 

-No CTA station prebuilt.  If someone wants to take the initiative and do a rail station and rail lines, by all means go for it.

 

I'd be happy to organize CTA next rev. If possible, I'd prefer for the spawn station to not get mixed in with the regular spawn plots.

 

Edit: Looks like nickeox will also be helping.

[Andromeda4210]

I remember revs ago we had roads from spawn to the end of the world like P and S have. I think having those again would be cool, many people build near the roads and it would be nice seeing a bunch of builds in close proximity like that.

[nevastop]

I am on the fence about cardinal roads. i think they would be okay, dont make them all the way to the border.

I have some food for thought as well: if we are going vanilla consider using large biomes. A large build such as Dome, spleef, ect can dominate a entire biome, making transitions between build awkward. also, in rev 23, which was the last Rev with a vanilla map, we had WAY to much water, and not enough consistent land.  

finally, once the map is made, BUILD UP THE HYPE. post a link to a cartograph on the subreddit, and the forums, so everyone can start planning out builds with there groups of friends, and everyone gets excited and we get a day 1 land rush.

[XkinOEC]

•  terrain- regular map, but add nether biomes, volcanoes, mountains, etc. and trees MORE TREES!

spawn- Open and welcoming, no below ground maze. Spawn should be easy to exit, and display every bit of information a player needs (rules, commands, blocks, etc) AS WELL AS a rule book

CTA- spawn station not prebuilt, but for sure preplanned, with a leader. A predefined plot is not necessary, but would be nice if spawn is similar to rev 25 where the whole city is separated from spawn by a bush wall.

spawncity- FLAT ROADS, Smartcar's were made for cities, not offroad, but driving in rev 25's spawn city would have been much like the beginning of this ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCrAnybrxFU.... NO. But regardless that, we need to have the spawncity to be easy, I suggest cardinal roads, and a more city block'esk format. no restrictions on what people can build in each plot... the districts just confused people and caused us to have 2 story homes next to 80 story skyscrapers...

COMMUNITY BUILDS, have many, have them ready, keep them running from start to end.

[tobylane]

Could there be a road region, and people modreq/click a sign to be added to that? If there is any effort required to build there it should stop people building personal things there.

 

Amplified terrain has very few points where each type of builder would want to build. so one person might claim a string of hill tops while other people want the cliff faces. This could be wasteful if they don't overlap in some way. Sort of the same with mesas.

 

I would like more shallow oceans. Deep ocean is popular, but vanilla minecraft seems to prefer it almost exclusively.

[LetsBFehr]

I'm against a Nether, End, or Mushroom islands.  When these have been tried in the past they just turn derpy and very few build to the theme.  I'm all for maybe having the nether enabled (Can we do that?  S and P do), but I'm against a large biome of these in the regular world.

[Magnyus]

1. Map

2. Spawn

3. Changes

1. Map

I do not approve of the 4k by 4k size, that was the size of revision 24 for the brunt of it and most of it remained empty until we expanded to 5k by 5k. We talk about getting people to build closer to each other but four thousand blocks off space is more than enough for everyone to go to their own corner and build. Much of the challenge of creative stems from having to build within such close proximity of other players. Which is negated by people who start the map and rather than build, create an absurdly sized buffer zone that gets used and protected instantly, then end up half abandoned midway through. We end up with the hideous-ness that is revision 25, as soon as you leave the spawn plots, all you see is a bunch of protected areas that barely fill their surface area, and they're protected from sky-limit to bedrock. Large plots like that should be reserved for big builds and community projects like Spleef, we also need a system of opening up those areas that don't get used.

I am also on the fence about a completely vanilla seed due to how random the generation can be. I'd appreciate a world painted map that simply organizes the biomes to be a little more congruent with each other, so we don't end up with an ice spike biome next to a mesa. It would also be nice to incorporate some of the biomes that were discussed in the rev 25 terrain planning thread, such as the waterfall, fjord, island, glacier, canyon, etc.

2. Spawn

Pls. Give details well in advance of the rev launch, and do a good job of keeping the theme. So don't tell me the theme is "sacrifice" and then give me a bunch of butterflies and bugs on a grassy patch of the yellow brick road.

I can't say much else about the plans for spawn without knowing any details so I'll leave it at that for now.

As for the CTA, I might be shying away from that because I don't want to end up doing most of the work only to not really ever see it get used.

3. Changes

Don't really care about PvP on C but if the people demand arrows it's good that you're giving it to them.

More community events is definitely a good direction to go, there are plenty of things we have yet to try out. *cough*spleeftournie*cough*

Being able to change biomes is a wonderful idea especially when using grass and leaves in the desert, seeing a brown oasis doesn't really make you feel like you've found paradise. Only detail I'd like to add to this is if it'd be possible to make a plugin that automatically changes a blocks biome as it's placed to skip making it something that needs to be modreq'd.

[Magnyus]

1. Size

2. End/Nether Biome

3. CTA

1. Size

As I had stated above, I'm against starting the map at a 4k by 4k size, but should definitely be expanded to that size as the map is populated.

2. End/Nether Biome

I am completely against having another nether biome. It's hideous and doesn't get used, rather, I think it's about goddamn time they just give us access to the nether in general, although the end would be a better place to host events and contests. But please don't open it once and then abandon it.

3. CTA

Ideally, spawn should make the CTA easy to incorporate since it is most useful when players are new and want to explore the map prior to settling down and building. A spawn plot would be the next best thing, but, it would make it a lot easier to miss. As for warps, all the last stops at the end of the world should be given warps similar to rev 24's lighthouses, but not a random-ass lighthouse.

[Magnyus]

1. Size

2. CTA

3. Worldpainter

4. Mobs

1. Against the size of the map (see above). But, I absolutely agree that building in close proximity is what allows big cities to form, and while it may end up a little derpy looking at times, a populated map looks a hell of a lot better than an empty one. In an ideal world, being able to have builds that juxtapose a certain area's style (or just straight-up derp) be moved would greatly assist the quality of the server.

2. CTA

(see above)

3. Worldpainter

(see above)

4. Mobs

I agree with adding mobs, they definitely give certain builds a bit more life. Unfortunately, mobs are also fucking annoying, so my suggestion, rather than using a mob cap in the chunks, add a limit to the amount of entities a player can spawn, that way, it won't stress out an area. If people really want more mobs, they can easily invite others to their build to spawn some more. Its kind of obvious that having mobs opens a myriad of possibilities.

[Magnyus]

1. Worldpainter

2. Size

3. End/Nether Biome

4. Changes

5. Mobs

1. Worldpainter

Yes, agreed, see above for my thoughts on this, and please refer to the biome discussion thread that was made for rev 25.

2. Size

(see above)

3. End/Nether Biome

NO. (see above)

4. Changes

Is there no way to turn off TNT's functionality as a whole? How about just not have it explode at all? (assuming that's possible)

/give Magnyus compass

The pearls are okay but I honestly don't see any problems with being able to blink, the range isn't even that far. (if there are complications, other than potential grief, which is a stupid reason, please explain it to me)

5. Mobs

(see above)

[Magnyus]

1. Cardinal Roads

2. Large Biomes

3. Hype

1. Cardinal Roads

From what I can tell, CTA is planning cardinal subways with stations at certain milestones, but a few roads up top would be nice because most players will flock to build next to them. I'd personally like to see another, more organised system of freeways.

2. Large Biomes

Agreed, large biomes do a much better task on unifying the land and any builds that are built according to the biome.

3. Hype

I'm sad to see that this, very important post, has yet to be pinned on the forums, and should be linked on the subreddit in order to get others in on the discussion. We need to do a better job of keeping the other players informed of what is in store for the next revision of creative.

[Magnyus]

1. End/Nether Biomes

2. Spawn

3. CTA

4. Spawn City

5. Community Builds/Events

1. End/Nether Biomes

I SAID NO. (see above)

2. Spawn

I agree that rules should not be limited to the rulebook, and should be readily on display at spawn for players to see, as well as any commands and quirks about the server in either the same area or another one nearby. (see above)

3. CTA

I smell sarcasm... (see above)

4. Spawn City

All agreed, save for the bit about flat roads, just have it move with the terrain, tunnel through mountains, you can also (see "Cardinal Roads" above)

5. Community Builds/Events

A total must. We need more of them and bit frequently. I hinted earlier at using Spleef more extensively on C.

[Magnyus]

1. Road Region

2. Amplified Terrain

3. Ocean

1. Road Region

Sounds interesting for sure, but I'm a bit iffy about completely restricting where someone can build. If we do use a system of roads, it would be nice to make it easy for players to modreq that their build be incorporated to the road. Like another street leading to a town, stuff like that.

2. Amplified Terrain

While I do agree that certain types of terrain trend to end up partially occupied, that's part of what makes building in such places dynamic. Part of the challenge of building in Minecraft, is working with the terrain you're given. (even if most people end up terraforming it anyways) I think it'll just help the map look more diverse.

3. Ocean

Shallow waters would go quite nicely with an island biome or a lagoon, plus deep ocean floors all over the damn place is annoying. I would like see areas with shallow water as well.

[Magnyus]

1. End/Nether Biome

1. End/Nether Biome

LITERALLY THIS. (see above)

[WayneByNumbers]

I've got a small quibble; tpmode.  I do agree that it's nice to give players a way to manage their own teleport availability.  However, I still do occasionally see in chat players (often newer players) talking in circles as one attempts to tp to the other as advice about typing "/tpallow" is helpfully lobbed at them from all directions.  Also, I'm still not convinced this is entirely due to miscommunication; it's possible that the tprequest message isn't showing up at times.  I would suggest we simply change the default tpmode to "allow."  Anyone who finds this a problem can simply change their mode to "ask" or "deny" (maybe an alert message could be tailored to this in case nobody is available to tell them about it).

 

Another little detail; Rei's Minimap player radar has not yet been enabled.  I don't know the tech aspects of this, such as whether this is a viable option for the server as long as Rei's is still in beta.  If it's possible, tho, I think we could use this.  The Dynmap isn't a bad workaround, but doesn't quite have the same effect.

 

Oh and another detail (wonder if I'm losing sight of the big picture here ); now that grass-proof dirt is available (only via /i, with ID dirt:1 or 3:1), perhaps grass spread could be enabled, as long as it wouldn't put too much load on the server.

[GMMan]

Another little detail; Rei's Minimap player radar has not yet been enabled.  I don't know the tech aspects of this, such as whether this is a viable option for the server as long as Rei's is still in beta.  If it's possible, tho, I think we could use this.  The Dynmap isn't a bad workaround, but doesn't quite have the same effect.

For a period of time Rei's player radar was enabled (it was a popular request in rev. 24). Some time during the past two or three months it was disabled again for no reason I'm aware of (probably someone forgot when updating to 1.7.2). In any case, it's as simple as granting a WorldGuard permission through bPermissions.

[kitcatbar]

For a period of time Rei's player radar was enabled (it was a popular request in rev. 24). Some time during the past two or three months it was disabled again for no reason I'm aware of (probably someone forgot when updating to 1.7.2). In any case, it's as simple as granting a WorldGuard permission through bPermissions.

 

I thought Rei's hadn't included player radar yet? At least that's what I was told.

[Magnyus]

1. TPMode

2. Grass Spread

1. TPMode

Good call, as far as I'm aware, the only reason tpmode ask is the default is because it makes it easy for griefers to go to town. That seeks like a silly idea especially considering how easy dealing with grief is, not to mention the giant red flag that pops up when the victimised player begins exclaiming that he's being griefed.

I say we just default to allow mode and add a server message about being able to change tp permissions.

2. Grass Spread

Didn't know about the grass-proof dirt. I don't see why we should leave grass-spread turned off. Although it might not be a good idea to turn it on this rev, and just have it enabled once the next one starts

[GMMan]

I thought Rei's hadn't included player radar yet? At least that's what I was told.

I believe player radar has been a feature for a while. Players show up as blue dots on the map. Per Rei's page, under "How to Enable Cave mapping / Entities radar on SMP", "&2: entities radar (player)" is listed as an option. As I said previously, the message can be sent by granting it with bPermissions, and has been done previously, so I expect to see it enabled for next rev.

 

1. TPMode

Good call, as far as I'm aware, the only reason tpmode ask is the default is because it makes it easy for griefers to go to town. That seeks like a silly idea especially considering how easy dealing with grief is, not to mention the giant red flag that pops up when the victimised player begins exclaiming that he's being griefed.

I say we just default to allow mode and add a server message about being able to change tp permissions.

2. Grass Spread

Didn't know about the grass-proof dirt. I don't see why we should leave grass-spread turned off. Although it might not be a good idea to turn it on this rev, and just have it enabled once the next one starts

1. I'm sort of on the fence on this. Even though I allow TP by default, I still would like to know who TPs in, which is only displayed if you're in ask mode. Before I was sort of relying on player radar to tell me, but that's not really as good as a bright green message stating it explicitly. As for what mode for default, I still think ask is good, but with a message for the first few times telling the player they can change it to allow or deny if they'd like. I don't really want to see people saying "you're in my house, and I didn't invite you" at random times.

2. My observation doesn't really pertain to next rev, but reenabling grass spread means we don't have to build NerdBukkit anymore (since the only difference from regular CraftBukkit is the disabling of grass spread). It's one less thing to worry about when updating.

[kitcatbar]

I believe player radar has been a feature for a while.

 

Oh no, I meant on this version of Rei's. I've used the player radar in the past, I know Rei's used to have it. I thought it hadn't been updated for the current version of the mod.