Rev 20 Mid-Rev Feedback!

Aharit · July 11, 2017

Spoiler

On 2017/7/9 at 5:59 PM, Sir_Didymus said:

Bringing the spawner costs in-game would certainly be preferable and we can look into seeing how feasible that is. I see you dislike the wither-skeleton hunting aspect of cost collection - do you have any alternatives in mind?

It’s unlikely that vanilla-esque portals will be a possibility within our set-up, but nevertheless we have noted the request from you and some others in this thread, and will discuss it along with other possibilities. If we decide to go for a custom nether again as you prefer, what sort of things would you like to see in it? Do you think the nether should be more or less difficult to traverse than this rev?

In regards to the overworld map, there are certainly options to tweak in terms of how biomes appear and in what frequency. Some of it is up to lucky random generation, and we were fairly new to the config whilst prepping Rev 20, but we will definitely be looking in more detail at what sort of things can be edited if we choose to use it again. Ore generation is definitely a major thing to get right, and you’ve given some interesting suggestions here that we’ll add to our discussions. With spawn, I think stables would be a handy addition, and I also like your ideas about tutorials being accessed by warp, and the concept of curated plots for specific purposes.

Mapworld appears a little underused at present and we’d be interested in any ideas you have for how to make it more appealing to players. An external program is something we could investigate, although it seems that none are currently updated to 1.12 that I’ve found so far.

I see you dislike the current way we approach special spawners. Assuming they make a reappearance next rev, how would you see them ideally working? You mention an ‘exploration quest’ - do you envisage them as a prize for completing a scavenger hunt, or similar?

For the maze event we wanted to ensure that PvE were represented in the upcoming fundraiser, and weren’t sure that many PvE players would participate if the building was done over on the Creative server. The cost of this decision was access to WorldEdit, although many people have built excellent mazes nevertheless. And on a more personal note, apologies for your not having received feedback yet on your maze. Though we’ve accepted it into the fundraiser and done cursory testing, we’ve not yet finished detailed testing that might warrant input from the builder. In future similar circumstances, I’ll endeavour to let people know where we’re at sooner rather than later.

Spawner Costs: The issue with wither skeletons is that their spawn rate is relatively low, and only in specific, small areas of the nether inside fortresses; also, nether spawns as a whole fluctuate even when alone, and can quickly drop off to nothing if other people are in the nether, which, just like the end grinders, has a habit of shunning builds in those areas. Spending 20 minutes on a flattened fortress circling just to see a single spawn set of zpigs is infuriating to me. Best ideas I've got are to make them spawn all nether at higher proportions (though this doesn't stop the spawn rate issue, only ameliorates it.) Alternatively, make them like regular skels in the nether, have some skels in the overworld spawn as wither skels (danger is that this will normally mess with spawners). Or, dodging the wither heads entirely, create a new essence, like the EoF, that drops extremely rarely, perhaps from all nether mobs, or from all surface mobs at specific times (new moon?)

As for the help command, I could write it with a little help with the spigot specifics from a tech admin, mainly data storage, and from the admins, for actually writing the help topics.

Nether: I liked the last custom nether, but I'd like to see it a bit more vertical, and add a few more lava rivers to spice it up. Was it done as biomes added to a normal generator? It'd be a fun side contest to design more diverse nether biomes. As for the danger / difficulty, I don't consider any part of minecraft travel to be dangerous at this point, so I'm not a good judge of things.

Overworld: Completely understand about the worldgen; just one thing if you go back to normal: FLAT BEDROCK. For spawn, my idea is more to make it a more tight-knit community affair, small center and pve members getting to build close so new players can see very quickly what the playerbase can do. (Just curate it so they see the better parts of what the playerbase can do, and nothing left unfinished) Specific plots for a rail station builder and embassy wouldn't be unwelcome either. Sorry if it seems an insult to the admin team that pours a great amount of work into the current spawns.

Mapworld: An additional point that someone already mentioned in this thread, and also applies to mazeworld: Going to spawn, stripping naked, and using a sign is a real pain. Creating an extra server and using something to pipe / mirror all text between the two would be better; as impressive as your work to have creative mode in pve areas is, I'd much rather just /pve-Mapworld. like /creative, and have worldedit.

Spawners: Scavenger hunt, puzzles found in unique places in the world, something like the quest for atlantis or the adventurer's guild stuff? (I've honestly not done any of the current or past questing stuff) Just anything that makes finding them more a test of ability and directed effort, rather than dumb luck and willpower.

Mazes: I think it should have been a choice. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but a creative build would take only a cursory check using schematica's material list to check for forbidden blocks, a worldedit save, and a batch transfer of all cleared maze saves by a tech admin from creative to PVE / Fundraiser event server.

Thank you for your time and attention to this feedback.

schererererer · July 13, 2017

Iron Grinders: No comment - wasn't directly involved in acquisition of one this rev. Support emulation of vanilla costs, or as close to equivalent as possible.

Portals: Happy with portal density this rev. Would be open to trying something like 4 hidden/claimable portals + spawn to start, then allowing portals for /places after 2? weeks into rev or when livemap revealed. Restrict minimum distance between portals. Danger of killing rail even further, but eh.

Nether: Custom nether that feels more like vanilla - more vertical, cavernous, dangerous.

Map Generation: Size is good, though I'm always up for a bigger map when technically feasible. Big YAS to second overworld appearing mid rev with extreme difficulty/hostility even for people fully kitted out. Custom biomes/terrains were great - particularly enamored with overhanging cliffs and the desert-mesa-plateaus. Large sandstone deposits in desert were a godsend. Suggest diversifying actual biome type - e.g. very little mesa biome proper even in mesa-looking terrain. Land:water ratio was fine. Prefer custom terrain to worldpainter (though throwing some WP/WE terrain on top could be interesting) and prefer WP to vanilla.

Ore Distribution: Was neat to find ores at weird y levels. Seemed to be harder to mine for materials in bulk. I missed the sponge recipe lol.

MapWorld: Gib FAWE

Misc: No to flatworld on P - that niche is nicely filled by C - perhaps can ask cadmins to carry testworlds forward?

Spawn: Multidirectional exits from the start, food was fine, size was fine for me but could be problematic for weaker computers. Odd/misc ideas: have a spawn not at the center of the map, have spawn move around the map each week (flying spawn would work best for this), have rail station within spawn itself. Themes: Ruins of a previous P spawn/build, megalomaniacal evil lair of doom, walking nuclear castle, the bovine digestive system, any single color (e.g. orange), an art nouveau or art deco style art museum, giant subterranean cavern with stalactite buildings inside (actually no, don't do this - I have a patent pending on the concept since 2011).

Special Spawners: Maybe try alternate spawners in premade protected "dungeons" with higher rates of spawns, and lower spawn rates for grinder-buildable spawners? No-danger grinding would still be an option, but underpowered compared to actually fighting the mobs in question. Custom structure spawners were nice.

Events: Hunts are cool. Holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christahanukkwanzaa, New Year's are the standards. Other possibilities include Earth Day, Labor Day, Mother's/Father's Day.

Herr_Fawkes · July 16, 2017

On 7/9/2017 at 5:07 PM, Sir_Didymus said:

Hey @Herr_Fawkes,

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Thanks for your feedback! I’m glad you felt that the method for handling golem spawners this rev was improved over last - a lot of work went into trying to come up with a fair system that would still add challenge to the gameplay.

-Agreed, the current seems much more fair than setting out pre-determined spawners. It's well balanced and encourages people to build spawners late-rev, since the costs drop as we go.

You seem like a fan of the current method generating our overworld biomes and terrain, and some of the things you’re suggesting, such as better coordinated biomes, might be possible in the new updates related to Biome Bundle (they have switched terrain generators to Open Terrain Generator, forked from Terrain Control I believe, which has some updated features).

Since you prefer a custom nether - do you have any preferences for things that might appear in the nether? Any particular biomes you enjoyed from previous revs or any structures you’d like to see?

-I'd love to see some pre-generated structures like we've got in the overworld: statues (maybe of a nether mob instead of villagers?), ruined buildings, and towers. They make exploration more interesting, and there are more opportunities for loot.

I see you’re making suggestions for custom spawners in the nether in a similar fashion to the overworld. Do you think nether ‘special’ spawners would be a good addition to the server? If so, how do you think they should be obtained?

-If we've got a creeper spawner and a shulker spawner, we may as well have a zombie pigman spawner well-hidden a thousand blocks or so away from a custom nether spawn. It'd encourage nether exploration and provide a neat way to get some gold.

In regards to mapworld, you are in support of a plugin of some kind, to save players the work of creating custom maps. Would you prefer mapworld did not exist at all, and the work was done entirely automatically? Can you see a way for mapworld to run better than its present state?

-Mapworld itself is fine to have. I like the current system, it'd just be nice to have a plugin that let you convert images to maps and create a schematic that you could either print or have to build yourself. It'd make building interesting images easier, but could be tweaked so players would have to do more or less of the work themselves, depending on admin preferences.

More player input for the community section of the blog post is certainly something I’d like to see too, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep improving our output as we go along, based on feedback such as yours.

We’ve recently introduced the Nitwit event, that takes advantage of current towns and player builds when placing down its clues, and we’d certainly be open to exploring this sort of thing further, as the opportunity arises.

Your suggestion for a new spawn build for next rev is great - I love medieval builds myself, and I too would be pleased to see a traditional castle or similar as one of our server builds. I much prefer when thematic elements are tied in well across a range of areas, such as Spawn, Adventurer’s Guild, events etc. and hope to build on this in subsequent revs.

July 16, 2017

Which costs do you feel should be the lowest we end at during a revision?

I think the original tier upgrade prices should be more than what they are now to limit the iron output a bit more during the first month. I don't think the adjustment has to be drastic, but some tweaking. Also the last price cut was a bit much, with even tiers 3 and 4 costing the same as 1 and 2. Maybe have the two last tiers to be a bit higher. I do think even tier 2 should be higher priced at the start of the game.

In general, if you're considering the golem head drops instead of the nether stars needed for the spawners, then they could be introduced as an amount to each tear needing more of them.

One suggestion we had last revision to address some of the tier X grinders being overpowered would be to limit the number of iron golem spawners permitted. For example, instead of four, there could be two. Would you like us to reconsider this approach?

I wouldn't mind just two spawners, though I'm guessing it would cause a lot of resistance. Could be interesting to try one rev.

Event dungeons in the nether seems like a really fun idea. Padmin-created dungeons are something that I would be very interested to see us introduce into the next revision as another challenge to acquire loot and explore with friends. Which elements would you like to see in an event dungeon?

When talking about dungeons placed in the world, it would basically be something that could be a combination of maze/puzzle and mob fighting. This could be a great place for some custom mobs to spawn in for people to fight. People could choose to conquer them alone geared to the teeth or go there as a group. This would also be a great opportunity to allow player submitted dungeons. At the end you'd get some rewards, mostly to show of on your wall that you've finished it. The mobs in the dungeons could have some super rare drops like the notch apple.

The vanilla nether certainly brings a different set of challenges compared with our custom nethers of the past, including some less welcome challenges which are focused around mob spawns. If we created a custom nether for next revision then aside from event dungeons, what are the top features you’d like to see included (terrain-wise)?

Troop brought up the thing about the plains, but I did like them there, simply because it fixes the problem of nether forts being so bad on multiplayer. It's not really a nice multiplayer experience, when people start sending each others messages to get out of the nether, since they're trying to farm. Nether should be a place where people are glad to see stuff being built and where several people can be at once and not somewhere where you get annoyed when someone else is there.

I don't have many preferences about the custom nether. I've liked the ones we've had, but open to others as well.

We’ll keep the blogposts up! There may be some similar community themes that we revisit in future blog posts that make sense to do (such as focuses on settlements in the early-rev). We have some interviews planned with padmins on rev building for a future blog post and a focus on individuals for this next blog post. Are there any other areas of the community you feel we should feature?

Wondering if the blog post could somehow be used to encourage people to use more of Nerd's social media aspects? Not really sure how though. I'll let you know if I come up with something. Maybe have a padmin endorsed P video contest or something.

--

On the initial feedback I gave I forgot to mention the equal exits to all sides of spawn. I realise several people have brought this up already, but I just want to mention, that I too think it's an important feature.

nxw · July 16, 2017

Copying this from Reddit. :) I had originally written out a lot more before I posted to reddit, but I was hyperaware of it being more of a wall of text than any quick direct feedback. So my apologies in advance if it comes off as short shrift. My intent was to try and cut the chaff to help get to the point, but you know what they say about putting a leash on your internal (external?) editor sometimes...

Also, my personal play mode is 'derp', I am a creeper magnet, and speaking as one who can find and fall into the smallest and most out-of-the-way-of instadeath holes before being able to find one single diamond in weeks of play, the fact that I would starve in spawn is pretty hilarious to me. I did pat myself on the back for that one. :p

Nether Portals:

* Number and distribution seems okay. Worked out fine for me. :)

Nether:

* Nilla was okay but I liked the Nether that had obsidian and stuff? (I just didn't like the psycho mobs (I just wasn't careful, or prepared... you know, any of those things average people tend to do while adventuring, is all)).

* I walked up on a random Enderman in the Nether. I felt like I should see if he needed directions home. <3

Map Gen:

* Size was good.

* Biomes were too small.

* Terrain variation would have worked better for me if the biomes were larger.

* A lot of variation + small biomes = map feels a bit frenetic.

* Water:land seems about right. I would not mind if there was a mini-ocean in the midst of the map rather than skirting the edges.

* IIRC Rev 17 was the best map (and a lot of people continuously said it was their favorite) and 18 had the great riverway/canal system. I think I used boats more than I used rail.

Ore:

* I don't mind ore being less easy to find. But it's strange finding diamonds up the Y. I just expect them lower, I guess, because of geological process-y whatnots.

Spawn & MIsc:

* I got so lost and nearly starved trying to get out of spawn. LOL excellent times.

* There was spawn lag. I wasn't sure what was going on.

* The unique buildings were weird to me (I didn't get what they were) but they were cool to look at and check out. But I didn't go about looting them. My fault for not paying attention.

* Memorable moment this rev when I stumbled upon one of the unique multi-spawner underground chamber thingers and got caught unprepared by a dozen zombos. But I got rescued by someone thankfully, because people on this server are the best. <3

Edited July 16, 2017 by nxw

nxw · July 16, 2017

On 7/13/2017 at 2:18 PM, schererererer said:

Big YAS to second overworld appearing mid rev with extreme difficulty/hostility even for people fully kitted out.

I don't get what's meant by the second overworld thing. Does it mean, literally, a second land (in the air)? Or to wipe the whole server and make a whole new Rev, as in just have a short Rev?

But I will say that if the Rev has a countdown to unleashing of extreme hostile mobs, I would love that... :)

buzzie71 · July 17, 2017

@Barlimore

On 7/9/2017 at 7:24 PM, Barlimore said:

@buzzie71

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Posted Tuesday at 07:17 AM · Report post

Iron Grinders:

If approximation of vanilla is a concern, I'm admittedly not hugely in favor of the direction that iron grinders are going in - after all, iron grinders don't become that much cheaper to build in vanilla as time goes on. A lot of the cost structure feels purely like an exercise in rebalancing the game and an attempt to restrict rate of game progression, instead of an approximation of vanilla, so in those terms it feels more artificial than natural.

That aside, it was a neat personal challenge and it did seem to succeed in restricting iron grinder output supply early on in the rev. I gave it a try but gave up after two T1 spawners though O.o felt I was spending too much time mining and less of it building.

Nether Portals:

There are more Nether portals than usual around, but I think it's a good number given how big the map is, in terms of extending access to the Nether to the entire map. in my gameplay it feels like a good alternative to elytra in terms of speed of travel, though this rev I've also been based close to portals.

I still wish for the day when portals are handled closer to the vanilla style (ie. everyone can request and get their own portal), but there are a lot of compelling arguments to how impractical that could be. For now, though, the current system feels fair.

The Nether:

One thing I am beginning to appreciate is that it is much harder to build a good zombie pigman farm platform in the vanilla Nether, even with access to the rooftop, than it was in the custom Nether. Other than constructing the platform and killing pigmen, I spent a little time collecting quartz ore - it was refreshing to negotiate across a chasm that opened to lava.

Map Generation:

Relative to old PvE maps, this map was gigantic. Even flights between adjacent portal towns felt like long-distance flying due to the time it took to glide from one to the other. Travel felt more expensive.

Exotic terrain and strange ruins are always a welcome sight, even if the map shows imperfections in other ways. It was fun to see them on the map; they looked new and different without seeming too alien to the Minecraft landscape.

Ore distributions:

This rev I didn't lay rails or maintain a horse, and I switched off to leather and wood equipment from gold the previous rev, so the relative shortage of gold didn't feel that limiting for me actually (plus getting some gold from killing pigmen). The wider spread in ore distribution makes it possible to see ores in caves or abandoned mine shafts far away from 0-11, which is fun to come across too. That said, it felt annoying to search for diamond from branch mining (mainly for the iron grinder), and harder still for emerald - but given the randomness of branch mining, maybe that is the wrong attitude to approach it.

MapWorld:

The main feedback I'd offer for the mapworld this rev is the ability to place maps in the item frames in the scale model at spawn. Other than that, I quite liked the setup of the mapworld spawn this time around.

Miscellaneous:

I like the way the blog posts are structured now - the emphasis on updating the community as well as showcasing it fosters a stronger community feel and adds that additional layer of experience to playing on the server. There isn't much I'd change about them.

Spawn:

Main thing for spawn this rev is that it lags my client a bit when it first renders ._. but otherwise I do like it.

Events:

I like the Adventurer's Guild - it's good to have quests available whenever players are ready, as well as a central launch point for them. I think it's also good that those are offered along with events that happen at a predetermined time.

Also, in terms of seasonal events - I don't think they necessarily need to coincide with or be themed around real world holidays, as long as they are short and announced ahead of time.

Closing Thoughts:

I don't have much else I want to build for the second half - when I planned for this rev I intentionally went small, thinking I wouldn't spend that much time playing on P this rev. Then I finish my tower in a month, building in my area has more or less ceased, and I find that I have a lot of time on my hands. Probably a good thing, actually.

Amazing work on the map this time around; it's been a fun map to explore.

If there was a system in place that allowed for individuals or groups to request a portal, how would you go about implementing such a procedure? While there are certainly some impractical elements involved here which I don’t have answers to address, I could envision something working on a first-come first-served basis within a range.

When you suggest being able to place maps in the plots at mapworld spawn, would you like this to be available to all? We did find that last revision where spawn was set up this way that people simply griefed the maps and we ended up having to protect the spawn area before fixing it all. What we can do is to maintain this ourselves as staff possibly and to add maps to the spawn plots as each modreq comes in maybe?

I appreciate your feedback on the blog posts! It’s good to know that we seem to be on the right tracks there. Would you happen to have any considerations to put forward for the community focus in future? So far we’ve had the focus on settlements, a server-wide project. Upcoming will be individuals and then padmin interviews. Should we look to address any other areas of the community?

I'd be hard-pressed to find a more practical vanilla-style distribution of portals - the current system I think is fair enough.

The reason I brought up the maps in mapworld spawn was that I saw iron frames and thought they were for placing maps like in previous revs - I didn't know that that had changed due to previous grief. It's not a huge issue in my mind (I kept copies of my maps elsewhere); just thought it was odd.

I think the community focus in the blog posts as it has been so far is generally pretty spot-on - there's a good mixture of builds, as well as community things auxiliary to but outside the game (eg. guides). I think there could be a stronger focus on the latter category if possible, though that partly depends on if players create that content - but things like that I think help make the community feel more alive.

Sir_Didymus · July 17, 2017

Hey @Aharit,

Spoiler

On 11/07/2017 at 2:39 AM, Aharit said:

@Sir_Didymus

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Spawner Costs: The issue with wither skeletons is that their spawn rate is relatively low, and only in specific, small areas of the nether inside fortresses; also, nether spawns as a whole fluctuate even when alone, and can quickly drop off to nothing if other people are in the nether, which, just like the end grinders, has a habit of shunning builds in those areas. Spending 20 minutes on a flattened fortress circling just to see a single spawn set of zpigs is infuriating to me. Best ideas I've got are to make them spawn all nether at higher proportions (though this doesn't stop the spawn rate issue, only ameliorates it.) Alternatively, make them like regular skels in the nether, have some skels in the overworld spawn as wither skels (danger is that this will normally mess with spawners). Or, dodging the wither heads entirely, create a new essence, like the EoF, that drops extremely rarely, perhaps from all nether mobs, or from all surface mobs at specific times (new moon?)

As for the help command, I could write it with a little help with the spigot specifics from a tech admin, mainly data storage, and from the admins, for actually writing the help topics.

Nether: I liked the last custom nether, but I'd like to see it a bit more vertical, and add a few more lava rivers to spice it up. Was it done as biomes added to a normal generator? It'd be a fun side contest to design more diverse nether biomes. As for the danger / difficulty, I don't consider any part of minecraft travel to be dangerous at this point, so I'm not a good judge of things.

Overworld: Completely understand about the worldgen; just one thing if you go back to normal: FLAT BEDROCK. For spawn, my idea is more to make it a more tight-knit community affair, small center and pve members getting to build close so new players can see very quickly what the playerbase can do. (Just curate it so they see the better parts of what the playerbase can do, and nothing left unfinished) Specific plots for a rail station builder and embassy wouldn't be unwelcome either. Sorry if it seems an insult to the admin team that pours a great amount of work into the current spawns.

Mapworld: An additional point that someone already mentioned in this thread, and also applies to mazeworld: Going to spawn, stripping naked, and using a sign is a real pain. Creating an extra server and using something to pipe / mirror all text between the two would be better; as impressive as your work to have creative mode in pve areas is, I'd much rather just /pve-Mapworld. like /creative, and have worldedit.

Spawners: Scavenger hunt, puzzles found in unique places in the world, something like the quest for atlantis or the adventurer's guild stuff? (I've honestly not done any of the current or past questing stuff) Just anything that makes finding them more a test of ability and directed effort, rather than dumb luck and willpower.

Mazes: I think it should have been a choice. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but a creative build would take only a cursory check using schematica's material list to check for forbidden blocks, a worldedit save, and a batch transfer of all cleared maze saves by a tech admin from creative to PVE / Fundraiser event server.

Thank you for your time and attention to this feedback.

Thanks for your suggestions around nether spawning and golem spawner costs - we’ll be sure to include those in our discussions.

In terms of Nether generation, we’ve heard a lot of different opinions and will collate them all together to see what sorts of things players are looking for. I would love to see some lava rivers too! Adding player generated content via a contest could be good, and it’s something we’ll talk about alongside everything else.

A lot of your suggestions for spawn have also been said elsewhere in this topic, and I can see how a strong community is the focus for many people. Hopefully we can continue to follow that focus in Rev 21.

It’s clear some of you feel mapworld could be improved, and we’ve seen a lot of suggestions around that. We have taken on board the changes that players would like to see, and we’ll see what we can come up with within our technical limitations.

You seem in favour of some additional element in the search for special spawners. We’ve noted this feedback as something to discuss when looking at how and if we want to include special spawners next rev.

Thanks for your feedback in regards to the maze project. It was very much an experiment and we’ve certainly learned a few things for next time, should this sort of event occur again.

I’d like to take this time to show our appreciation for your detailed responses to our initial and subsequent questions - engaged players really help in the initial shaping of a new rev and you have spent considerable time offering us valuable feedback. Thank you!

July 17, 2017

@schererererer,

Spoiler

Iron Grinders: No comment - wasn't directly involved in acquisition of one this rev. Support emulation of vanilla costs, or as close to equivalent as possible.

Portals: Happy with portal density this rev. Would be open to trying something like 4 hidden/claimable portals + spawn to start, then allowing portals for /places after 2? weeks into rev or when livemap revealed. Restrict minimum distance between portals. Danger of killing rail even further, but eh.

Nether: Custom nether that feels more like vanilla - more vertical, cavernous, dangerous.

Map Generation: Size is good, though I'm always up for a bigger map when technically feasible. Big YAS to second overworld appearing mid rev with extreme difficulty/hostility even for people fully kitted out. Custom biomes/terrains were great - particularly enamored with overhanging cliffs and the desert-mesa-plateaus. Large sandstone deposits in desert were a godsend. Suggest diversifying actual biome type - e.g. very little mesa biome proper even in mesa-looking terrain. Land:water ratio was fine. Prefer custom terrain to worldpainter (though throwing some WP/WE terrain on top could be interesting) and prefer WP to vanilla.

Ore Distribution: Was neat to find ores at weird y levels. Seemed to be harder to mine for materials in bulk. I missed the sponge recipe lol.

MapWorld: Gib FAWE

Misc: No to flatworld on P - that niche is nicely filled by C - perhaps can ask cadmins to carry testworlds forward?

Spawn: Multidirectional exits from the start, food was fine, size was fine for me but could be problematic for weaker computers. Odd/misc ideas: have a spawn not at the center of the map, have spawn move around the map each week (flying spawn would work best for this), have rail station within spawn itself. Themes: Ruins of a previous P spawn/build, megalomaniacal evil lair of doom, walking nuclear castle, the bovine digestive system, any single color (e.g. orange), an art nouveau or art deco style art museum, giant subterranean cavern with stalactite buildings inside (actually no, don't do this - I have a patent pending on the concept since 2011).

Special Spawners: Maybe try alternate spawners in premade protected "dungeons" with higher rates of spawns, and lower spawn rates for grinder-buildable spawners? No-danger grinding would still be an option, but underpowered compared to actually fighting the mobs in question. Custom structure spawners were nice.

Events: Hunts are cool. Holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christahanukkwanzaa, New Year's are the standards. Other possibilities include Earth Day, Labor Day, Mother's/Father's Day.

Hello Scherer! Thank you for your feedback off the bat on helping us to determine the direction we should consider for the iron golem spawner costs emulating something closer to vanilla costs.

We have had a mixture of ideas on the same notion of portals being granted through some means other than those which are hidden on the map. I like your take on a mixed solution! We’ll certainly consider this in line with the feedback presented in this area.

Make the nether more dangerous, we hear you loud and clear!

This revision has hosted the largest overworld on P ever! Where feasible, we’ll look into diversifying the biome type as we’re planning to continue using the same tool to create some of these awesome biomes! You’re right on the money with our thoughts for a second overworld appearing mid-rev, where we could potentially include some of the less-than-vanilla features such as custom mobs and lock them away in a separate multiverse as an additional challenge. This is something we’ll have to carefully consider though if we do try it.

The sponge recipe was added entirely as a countermeasure for a lack of sponge being generated into the map. In future, we would be looking to add this in naturally where possible so there may not be a need for a custom sponge recipe.

If technically feasible, we will consider some variant of world edit in mapworld as this has been requested by several people. At the very least, we will carry the current mapworld over exactly as it is by the end of the revision over into the next revision so that progress on maps won’t be tied to a single revision.

I really like your list of ideas for us to consider for future spawns! These are certainly unique or could work very well. We’ll have to fight you on that patent(!) ;-) Similar to other people, we are hearing the need for there to be less of a bias towards one exit of spawn and will factor this into our spawn planning.

We do have some admin hunts coming up again sometime soon but we can look into adding some additional events for the holidays which are less represented on P. The final months of the year tend to be a bit of an overload leading up through to Easter and then we run a bit dry.

Once more, thank you for all of your feedback, including on the spawners too! We’ll be locking this topic now to collect and consider all feedback in future when we begin revision 21 preparation in earnest.

Sir_Didymus · July 17, 2017

Hey @Herr_Fawkes,

Spoiler

Thanks for your feedback! I’m glad you felt that the method for handling golem spawners this rev was improved over last - a lot of work went into trying to come up with a fair system that would still add challenge to the gameplay.

-Agreed, the current seems much more fair than setting out pre-determined spawners. It's well balanced and encourages people to build spawners late-rev, since the costs drop as we go.

You seem like a fan of the current method generating our overworld biomes and terrain, and some of the things you’re suggesting, such as better coordinated biomes, might be possible in the new updates related to Biome Bundle (they have switched terrain generators to Open Terrain Generator, forked from Terrain Control I believe, which has some updated features).

Since you prefer a custom nether - do you have any preferences for things that might appear in the nether? Any particular biomes you enjoyed from previous revs or any structures you’d like to see?

-I'd love to see some pre-generated structures like we've got in the overworld: statues (maybe of a nether mob instead of villagers?), ruined buildings, and towers. They make exploration more interesting, and there are more opportunities for loot.

I see you’re making suggestions for custom spawners in the nether in a similar fashion to the overworld. Do you think nether ‘special’ spawners would be a good addition to the server? If so, how do you think they should be obtained?

-If we've got a creeper spawner and a shulker spawner, we may as well have a zombie pigman spawner well-hidden a thousand blocks or so away from a custom nether spawn. It'd encourage nether exploration and provide a neat way to get some gold.

In regards to mapworld, you are in support of a plugin of some kind, to save players the work of creating custom maps. Would you prefer mapworld did not exist at all, and the work was done entirely automatically? Can you see a way for mapworld to run better than its present state?

-Mapworld itself is fine to have. I like the current system, it'd just be nice to have a plugin that let you convert images to maps and create a schematic that you could either print or have to build yourself. It'd make building interesting images easier, but could be tweaked so players would have to do more or less of the work themselves, depending on admin preferences.

More player input for the community section of the blog post is certainly something I’d like to see too, and hopefully we’ll be able to keep improving our output as we go along, based on feedback such as yours.

We’ve recently introduced the Nitwit event, that takes advantage of current towns and player builds when placing down its clues, and we’d certainly be open to exploring this sort of thing further, as the opportunity arises.

Your suggestion for a new spawn build for next rev is great - I love medieval builds myself, and I too would be pleased to see a traditional castle or similar as one of our server builds. I much prefer when thematic elements are tied in well across a range of areas, such as Spawn, Adventurer’s Guild, events etc. and hope to build on this in subsequent revs.

Thanks for your additional feedback, especially around additions to the Nether, which seems quite a priority to many people during this discussion. Adding custom spawners in the Nether is an interesting idea and we’ll certainly add it to our list of things to look at during our preparatory meetings.

Mapworld is also significantly on people’s minds this time around, and there have been a few suggestions on how to improve it. Hopefully we can come up with something next rev that is a step up from what we have presently, technology permitting.

Thanks for taking the time to engage with us during this feedback window - it certainly helps to have multiple viewpoints from which to draw upon, and your opinions have been much appreciated!

July 17, 2017

@Zomise,