[AC] Worldedit on Creative

[jchance]

I would like to start a discussion about implementing  world edit in a limited fashion on C for all players.

 

I welcome feedback from all admins on this topic, but I'd especially like to hear from the other creative admins, head admins, and tech admins.

 

This is my input and I'd like to discuss all of it:

 

Should we do it?

 

There is a very vocal  group of people that think C has always been a "legit" server and that world edit would break that old school C vibe.

 

My personal opinion on that is this:   I don't give a shit.

 

C is tiny.   We are losing our players to other servers that have mods.  Builds are small, nobody coordinates with anyone else anymore (with few exceptions) and our player counts are abysmal.   I don't care what c.nerd.nu used to be because that golden age of C is gone-  I care about getting more happy players and getting that player count up.   I care about giving players what they want, not nostalgia for days that are gone.  I am going to approach C like a business-  what do customers (players) want and how can we give it to them.   Customers decide your product, not your sense of nostalgia.

 

This is nothing personal against people who think C should remain "pure."  This is just my view on the matter.

 

Ideal implementation

 

I think ideally we would give players a subset of WE commands they can use within their own protected region.  The criteria I'll throw out there for discussion:

 

1.   Has to be used within their own protection.

2.   Players would get this set of commands:

 

//set

//replace

//stack

//cyl  //hcyl, etc.

//setbiome

//undo

//drain

//fixwater

 

Cut and Paste should probably not be given, it seems to be the most problematic command in terms of positioning and load on the server.

 

3.  We set logical limits on commands.   You can only change X blocks at once.  You can only //stack 3 at once, etc.  I don't know what these should be and need feedback from techs.

4.  We have to be able to log and rollback what players do.

 

 

Technical challenges

 

It is my understanding that we can accomplish limited commands for players and logging of rollback.   This might be wrong.

 

I do not know if we can limit them to their own region, or if we can stop a //stack action from exiting their region, etc.

 

I also don't know what kind of load this is going to put on the server.

 

Policy Challenges

 

If we only allow players to use world edit in their own region (region owner) this would require a policy change to how we issue protections on C- we can no longer wait until they build something.  The current "claim land by marking borders and then build, then we'll protect it" system is not going to work since they won't be able to use WE until its protected.

 

We need to decide if we're going to let region members (not owners) use world edit in regions their members of.  I'm cool with letting them because its the region owners own fault for adding a dumbass if they mess something up. 

[TheRandomnatrix]

Hit the nail on the head jchance. 

 

I've always been an advocate for WE on C. This might sound harsh, but as a player, I have zero reason to come on C. On a private server I have tons of space and can use WorldEdit freely to make whatever I want, which I need to be able to do if I'm designing something. It used to be where C had the advantage of being a public venue to be able to prototype a build so others could copy it for projects on PvE and Survival. With the advent of schematica now days people can just skip the middle man entirely. 

 

I feel the desire to build things by hand in creative is a small niche that doesn't represent the majority of people these days.

 

I can't comment too much on the technical issues, but I believe async WorldEdit is very server friendly with many options for performance such as limiting operations per second and number of blocks changed per command. IIRC, WorldEdit can also be configured to work with Logblock(correct me if I'm wrong). The other issues do seem like hurdles that need to be addressed somehow.

 

Overall, adding WorldEdit to C I feel would be a step in the right direction. But I'm just a silly PvEer and I'll defer to the techs and CAdmins' opinions :P

[schererererer]

Yes please! This would get me playing again on C - anything that allows player to make more fantastic builds is great in my view. From what I remember on the plotted lobby contest server with a controlled implementation of worldedit, the load seemed quite manageable. The whole "building things by hand is more impressive" viewpoint really loses its potency in the context of creative mode - the object should to make as amazing a work as possible, not put unnecessary walls in the way of completing a vision.

[Cyotie911]

Honestly, if its feasibly possible, im for it. The stability of the server is always of the most importance, if it were to cause issues or people find bugs that could crash the server, it would be removed. But honestly, sure, why not.

[Dumbo52]

I already spoke with jchance about this, but I'm in favor of allowing access to WorldEdit for players, if we can get some system in place that limits and logs its edits.

[Sapphric]

We could also maybe get some input from admins of other large creative servers that allow worldedit. Keralis' server springs to mind. I know they have it, but I don't think they have any real issues with grief. You do have to apply to build on there, though, so that's probably a barrier. We don't do that so we have to be careful.

[LetsBFehr]

I'm all for it.  Creative needs something like this, and not allowing WE is a big reason for our player count constantly heading down.  My only concerns are it's effect on server load. and how to make WE stuff easily rolled back in the case of a grief.  (For Example, Player 1 and 2 have a plot together, Player 2 decides to WE 1000 blocks of derp to ruin all the work player 1 has done).  A block limit should be placed as well (I forget how much it is for admins now, but something much much smaller than that).  

[marting11]

I'm all for it.  Creative needs something like this, and not allowing WE is a big reason for our player count constantly heading down.  My only concerns are it's effect on server load. and how to make WE stuff easily rolled back in the case of a grief.  (For Example, Player 1 and 2 have a plot together, Player 2 decides to WE 1000 blocks of derp to ruin all the work player 1 has done).  A block limit should be placed as well (I forget how much it is for admins now, but something much much smaller than that).  

That's pretty much what I think too. I'm wondering if that would get the map to fill up faster, resulting in shorter revs. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Is worldedit logging even possible?

[jchance]

I believe, from cursory checking, that there is a plugin or solution to all the technical issues.  

 

I'll get with slide (we looked at a couple plugins earlier, but we were waiting on a C / Head admin consensus) and we'll figure it out.  He or I will update this post with progress.

[jchance]

I talked to slide-  Evidently LogBlock and log WorldEdit.

 

This plugin is designed to do exactly what I outlined above, limiting WE to a region's owner:  http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/wrg/

 

Slide is going to get a c-dev server set up for testing when he can. I'll update when he gets it done.

[Mrloud15]

Closing and moving to the archives.