|
Post by johnboner on Nov 2, 2017 5:05:15 GMT
Out of all of those things two definitely stand out for me as important: the clarification of rules and gameplay.
Coming from a former staff member, I've been strong proponent of more concise rule wording for a long time. While general coverage rules are good for keeping the list short, it creates an issue when things fall in the gray area of interpretation. This often can lead to conflict between the player and the moderator enforcing the rule as to whether the action is justified. Point in case the growing confusion on rules surrounding redstone machines on the server. Frankly, it's a relatively simple thing to address as well, since all it requires is for Schaum (or the mod-team, or both) to sit down and revise the rules so as to really get into the meat of what is, and more importantly is not, against the rules. Clearly defined rules not only helps reduce friction between the moderators and those being moderated, but also allows for better self policing, such as a player not making a farm that is in breach of the rules thanks to a better knowledge of what is and isn't allowed.
As I said above, the other big issue currently is gameplay, specifically matters such as spawn rates and the availability of certain items. On day 300 of server uptime for Safe Survival, reduced spawn rates would not be a major issue, since for the most part those who are inclined to do heavy farming would have already done so and there would be a fair amount of items such as gunpowder, beacons, ender pearls, eleytra, and shulker boxes already in circulation. However given the reset, players do not have access to ready made stockpiles of those items, and in the case of rare items such as eleytra and beacons once someone obtains one, they are not likely to sell it unless there is surplus. Even unbreakable tools are currently more realistically attainable than eleytra and beacons. When I was building on my approx. 30 x 100 block island today for about 2 hours, I saw maybe 3 skeletons, a zombie or two, and about 50-ish squids. Now thats not accounting for those that spawned underground, but considering that I have 0 sources of light on my island I'd expect at least some hostile mobs to spawn. Now when I was playing on this server 3 years ago, back when we still had co-owners and a teamspeak, mob spawn rates were actually pretty good, so good that people would build your typical mob farms with a dark room high up that would drop them down to a collection place. And even then, with on average of 50-75 players online at a time, there wasn't any much lag to speak of. At least no more than you would expect from such a large server. Since then I would make the safe assumption that the server has received quite a bit more donations (given that back then about 5 of the top 10 donators had only donated $20). As such I would hope that the hardware used is better equipped to suit the large player base that we have along with normal spawn rates without encountering an issue. And lets be honest guys...can we really call this Minecraft when almost no one dies from hostile mobs anymore on the server? It's not like there isn't keepinv, so there is no consequence to dying other than the task of returning to where you were.
Those two things aside, most of the rest of the given items are something that should be considered much later, as things like events, new warps, and progression are really only relevant once everyone has finished rebuilding at least some of what was lost. And as for toxicity, there isn't much that can be done to address that which hasn't been tried before, since chat filters are horribly buggy to use and wind up catching more things that aren't swearing than actual swear words. It's the internet, there will always be trolls and rude people regardless of what forum you interact with the world wide web through. Nothing we do will change that.
|
|
|
Post by Shadow on Nov 2, 2017 5:47:07 GMT
Out of all of those things two definitely stand out for me as important: the clarification of rules and gameplay. Coming from a former staff member, I've been strong proponent of more concise rule wording for a long time. While general coverage rules are good for keeping the list short, it creates an issue when things fall in the gray area of interpretation. This often can lead to conflict between the player and the moderator enforcing the rule as to whether the action is justified. Point in case the growing confusion on rules surrounding redstone machines on the server. Frankly, it's a relatively simple thing to address as well, since all it requires is for Schaum (or the mod-team, or both) to sit down and revise the rules so as to really get into the meat of what is, and more importantly is not, against the rules. Clearly defined rules not only helps reduce friction between the moderators and those being moderated, but also allows for better self policing, such as a player not making a farm that is in breach of the rules thanks to a better knowledge of what is and isn't allowed. As I said above, the other big issue currently is gameplay, specifically matters such as spawn rates and the availability of certain items. On day 300 of server uptime for Safe Survival, reduced spawn rates would not be a major issue, since for the most part those who are inclined to do heavy farming would have already done so and there would be a fair amount of items such as gunpowder, beacons, ender pearls, eleytra, and shulker boxes already in circulation. However given the reset, players do not have access to ready made stockpiles of those items, and in the case of rare items such as eleytra and beacons once someone obtains one, they are not likely to sell it unless there is surplus. Even unbreakable tools are currently more realistically attainable than eleytra and beacons. When I was building on my approx. 30 x 100 block island today for about 2 hours, I saw maybe 3 skeletons, a zombie or two, and about 50-ish squids. Now thats not accounting for those that spawned underground, but considering that I have 0 sources of light on my island I'd expect at least some hostile mobs to spawn. Now when I was playing on this server 3 years ago, back when we still had co-owners and a teamspeak, mob spawn rates were actually pretty good, so good that people would build your typical mob farms with a dark room high up that would drop them down to a collection place. And even then, with on average of 50-75 players online at a time, there wasn't any much lag to speak of. At least no more than you would expect from such a large server. Since then I would make the safe assumption that the server has received quite a bit more donations (given that back then about 5 of the top 10 donators had only donated $20). As such I would hope that the hardware used is better equipped to suit the large player base that we have along with normal spawn rates without encountering an issue. And lets be honest guys...can we really call this Minecraft when almost no one dies from hostile mobs anymore on the server? It's not like there isn't keepinv, so there is no consequence to dying other than the task of returning to where you were. Those two things aside, most of the rest of the given items are something that should be considered much later, as things like events, new warps, and progression are really only relevant once everyone has finished rebuilding at least some of what was lost. And as for toxicity, there isn't much that can be done to address that which hasn't been tried before, since chat filters are horribly buggy to use and wind up catching more things that aren't swearing than actual swear words. It's the internet, there will always be trolls and rude people regardless of what forum you interact with the world wide web through. Nothing we do will change that. Regarding the rules, I've always seen them as fairly straightforward but at the same time, I can see where others may have conflicting feelings on them. Schaum has updated the Official Rules thread, which is fantastic. It was becoming a bit of a mess anyway. My biggest issue lies in what, at times, feels like having to spell out every rule to cut away any attempts to abuse loopholes. Pair that with many of them being left to, as you said, personal interpretation, it causes unnecessary conflict where say, Mod A enforces Rule 1 differently than Mod B. On the staff side, I'll be the first to admit that alone can cause issues. Now, I'm not saying we need a list of every word that isn't allowed (that wouldn't happen anyway) but being on the same page, staff and players, will make for a less stressful experience. It's a game, the point is to have fun. Not everyone is going to get along or even agree with how certain things are handled but gotta start somewhere. For gameplay, Schaum had said the spawn rate was raised post-reset but there does seem to be some issue. I've been AFK in my unlit chunk mine since I started typing this and nothin'. Players have noted not being able to find slime or wither skeletons, despite, like you, many hours in a large area, some of which were optimized for spawns (i.e. slabbed caves). Personally, I'd be fine with raising the spawn rates. It'd make things a bit more interesting, in my opinion. The other aspects, I can agree that those are more of a later-game thing to address. We're just now starting to pick back up on things to do (i.e. tempwarp, events in progress, etc) but I can understand why they're not the top priority at the moment. As far as toxicity goes, like you said, it's the internet. Can't really prevent trolls but when I was going through the survey responses, many had suggested a better method of handing them when they do get on the server or dealing with conflict between players faster. It is something I ,personally, would like to see tackled in the long-run. I've watched players be chased off the server for things like an immature (but not inappropriate) IGN, persistent one-upping, etcetc. I may just be on the server far too much for my own good but it's hard to see such a complete lack of empathy at times. Not expecting everyone to be best friends and skip over the jolly rainbow but. There had been suggestions of more build competitions, general community bonding type events, and those are something I'd like to see implemented at some point in the future.
|
|
|
Post by debatesmith on Nov 2, 2017 6:49:36 GMT
I don't think we need events yet? It's been a month. Players need time to build bases and do projects before saying we are all bored I think we need to clarify the difference between "Events" and "Progression Based Goals" In this server "Events" are mini-games, spleef, bow battles, pig battles, etc. And I agree with you, these minigames are not needed right now because the server is brand new and people have a couple months of the normal minecraft based goals. However "Progression Based Goals" are long term projects/challenges that require a long time to brainstorm/create/implement. These sort of things, Dungeon Crawler, Treasure Hunts, etc, give players goals to work towards once we pass the point of normal minecraft goals. Those should be focused on soon, if they have not already been started because they take so long to build that they would only start being ready once everybodys bases/inventory are back up to normal level. I think that the word "Events" gets thrown around on the server with too loose of a meaning and we need to differentiate between the two. One are short term, repeatable Events that offer little actual content for players, the other are gameplay systems/challenges that should feel rewarding and create content for the server past the normal minecraft goals.
|
|
|
Post by Clover on Nov 2, 2017 22:04:20 GMT
I don't think we need events yet? It's been a month. Players need time to build bases and do projects before saying we are all bored I think we need to clarify the difference between "Events" and "Progression Based Goals" In this server "Events" are mini-games, spleef, bow battles, pig battles, etc. And I agree with you, these minigames are not needed right now because the server is brand new and people have a couple months of the normal minecraft based goals. However "Progression Based Goals" are long term projects/challenges that require a long time to brainstorm/create/implement. These sort of things, Dungeon Crawler, Treasure Hunts, etc, give players goals to work towards once we pass the point of normal minecraft goals. Those should be focused on soon, if they have not already been started because they take so long to build that they would only start being ready once everybodys bases/inventory are back up to normal level. I think that the word "Events" gets thrown around on the server with too loose of a meaning and we need to differentiate between the two. One are short term, repeatable Events that offer little actual content for players, the other are gameplay systems/challenges that should feel rewarding and create content for the server past the normal minecraft goals. I do agree that there is a difference between “Events” and “progression based goals”. Since progression based goals are more content-focused, maybe call it “Content Creation”? I’ll explain more after my Dr’s appointment, but yeah progression based goals should have their own category imo.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2017 22:24:57 GMT
I don't think we need events yet? It's been a month. Players need time to build bases and do projects before saying we are all bored I think we need to clarify the difference between "Events" and "Progression Based Goals" In this server "Events" are mini-games, spleef, bow battles, pig battles, etc. And I agree with you, these minigames are not needed right now because the server is brand new and people have a couple months of the normal minecraft based goals. However "Progression Based Goals" are long term projects/challenges that require a long time to brainstorm/create/implement. These sort of things, Dungeon Crawler, Treasure Hunts, etc, give players goals to work towards once we pass the point of normal minecraft goals. Those should be focused on soon, if they have not already been started because they take so long to build that they would only start being ready once everybodys bases/inventory are back up to normal level. I think that the word "Events" gets thrown around on the server with too loose of a meaning and we need to differentiate between the two. One are short term, repeatable Events that offer little actual content for players, the other are gameplay systems/challenges that should feel rewarding and create content for the server past the normal minecraft goals. We intend on focusing more on projects that players can complete on their own time. This is something I realized should be more of a priority close to prior to the reset. However, I would like to say a bit about "long term goals": Making goals that are actually completed over a more than a day that do not come down to boring, grinding tasks (for example the fish trading quest we had) is not easy, at all. I don't know your opinion of it now, but your previous dungeon attempt wouldn't have provided much long term content; it'd be completed by players over a day, maybe two max and then they'd be done with it and they'd never be involved with it again. Same thing with treasure hunts. I'm not saying these are bad ideas, they're absolutely worthwhile and things we want to do in the future... but they're not truly long term. I refer to these things more as projects that players can "complete on the side"/"on their own time" because of this. However, my opinion on that does mean we're not going to try to make things that can be completed over somewhat longer time periods. Currently, one of the ideas is to make something that has significant value to replay, not just complete once and be done with it. Having a dungeon that gave you randomized enemies in each room, say one of three types per room, would give you a different experience each time you go through the dungeon. In addition having chances for rare enemies that drop additional incentives would could increase replay value. I think focusing on replayable events that you can complete on your own time is one of the main things we should focus on going forward. I also want to bring up how you describe the minigame type events. I feel they do add value and content, and are wanted on the server. This is portrayed by the fact that pre-reset, hosting them was very often requested and we'd get complaints if we didn't host enough. We're not going to become a minigame server, but games like spleef variants and CTP were enjoyed by many players, and so we will be still be putting some focus on them. I also feel those two aren't comparable to something like bow battles; they have far more depth and strategy involved than trying to shoot a few targets the fastest. All sorts of interesting tactics developed for build spleef, and clear advantages for teams who communicated as well as players who found ideal ways to flank were found in CTP. I respect and value your opinion on events Debate, but I feel that saying the main games we had provided little content to players is somewhat disrespectful to staff who've worked on them and spent time hosting them... as well as ignorant of how the players have played them.
|
|
|
Post by debatesmith on Nov 3, 2017 0:35:06 GMT
I think we need to clarify the difference between "Events" and "Progression Based Goals" In this server "Events" are mini-games, spleef, bow battles, pig battles, etc. And I agree with you, these minigames are not needed right now because the server is brand new and people have a couple months of the normal minecraft based goals. However "Progression Based Goals" are long term projects/challenges that require a long time to brainstorm/create/implement. These sort of things, Dungeon Crawler, Treasure Hunts, etc, give players goals to work towards once we pass the point of normal minecraft goals. Those should be focused on soon, if they have not already been started because they take so long to build that they would only start being ready once everybodys bases/inventory are back up to normal level. I think that the word "Events" gets thrown around on the server with too loose of a meaning and we need to differentiate between the two. One are short term, repeatable Events that offer little actual content for players, the other are gameplay systems/challenges that should feel rewarding and create content for the server past the normal minecraft goals. We intend on focusing more on projects that players can complete on their own time. This is something I realized should be more of a priority close to prior to the reset. However, I would like to say a bit about "long term goals": Making goals that are actually completed over a more than a day that do not come down to boring, grinding tasks (for example the fish trading quest we had) is not easy, at all. I don't know your opinion of it now, but your previous dungeon attempt wouldn't have provided much long term content; it'd be completed by players over a day, maybe two max and then they'd be done with it and they'd never be involved with it again. Same thing with treasure hunts. I'm not saying these are bad ideas, they're absolutely worthwhile and things we want to do in the future... but they're not truly long term. I refer to these things more as projects that players can "complete on the side"/"on their own time" because of this. However, my opinion on that does mean we're not going to try to make things that can be completed over somewhat longer time periods. Currently, one of the ideas is to make something that has significant value to replay, not just complete once and be done with it. Having a dungeon that gave you randomized enemies in each room, say one of three types per room, would give you a different experience each time you go through the dungeon. In addition having chances for rare enemies that drop additional incentives would could increase replay value. I think focusing on replayable events that you can complete on your own time is one of the main things we should focus on going forward. I also want to bring up how you describe the minigame type events. I feel they do add value and content, and are wanted on the server. This is portrayed by the fact that pre-reset, hosting them was very often requested and we'd get complaints if we didn't host enough. We're not going to become a minigame server, but games like spleef variants and CTP were enjoyed by many players, and so we will be still be putting some focus on them. I also feel those two aren't comparable to something like bow battles; they have far more depth and strategy involved than trying to shoot a few targets the fastest. All sorts of interesting tactics developed for build spleef, and clear advantages for teams who communicated as well as players who found ideal ways to flank were found in CTP. I respect and value your opinion on events Debate, but I feel that saying the main games we had provided little content to players is somewhat disrespectful to staff who've worked on them and spent time hosting them... as well as ignorant of how the players have played them. Im sorry if you felt that my statements were disrespectful. In the previous thread Shadow made posting the surveys I did say in my post that those type of "Games" did have a place on the server and that people do enjoy them (I don't know how to share a quote from other threads lol). The examples I used, Treasure Hunts and Dungeon Crawlers, were mostly off the top of my head and not a "Well all progression based systems should be like this" thing. The server has room for both Mini-Games and the progression based systems, but I do think that the progression based systems should be more important. I do enjoy your idea of the "Random Dungeon Crawler", though the loot tables on those would have to include tons of differing prizes to keep content going for a long time. I just think the Progression Based systems should be more focused on than the mini-games because if done correctly, they provide long term content for the players to work towards past the normal minecraft goals referenced earlier in the thread. Again, no disrespect was meant in my post, the games do add value, but should be 2nd on the priority list below progression based systems. Also, no talk has happened about incentivizing players to build their own systems for players to enjoy. Setting even 1 precedent of a players creations being implemented into the servers gameplay (through a direct warp or special custom prize), would give players things to work on once they reach the normal minecraft goals. Just something I think should be included.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2017 10:48:52 GMT
We intend on focusing more on projects that players can complete on their own time. This is something I realized should be more of a priority close to prior to the reset. However, I would like to say a bit about "long term goals": Making goals that are actually completed over a more than a day that do not come down to boring, grinding tasks (for example the fish trading quest we had) is not easy, at all. I don't know your opinion of it now, but your previous dungeon attempt wouldn't have provided much long term content; it'd be completed by players over a day, maybe two max and then they'd be done with it and they'd never be involved with it again. Same thing with treasure hunts. I'm not saying these are bad ideas, they're absolutely worthwhile and things we want to do in the future... but they're not truly long term. I refer to these things more as projects that players can "complete on the side"/"on their own time" because of this. However, my opinion on that does mean we're not going to try to make things that can be completed over somewhat longer time periods. Currently, one of the ideas is to make something that has significant value to replay, not just complete once and be done with it. Having a dungeon that gave you randomized enemies in each room, say one of three types per room, would give you a different experience each time you go through the dungeon. In addition having chances for rare enemies that drop additional incentives would could increase replay value. I think focusing on replayable events that you can complete on your own time is one of the main things we should focus on going forward. I also want to bring up how you describe the minigame type events. I feel they do add value and content, and are wanted on the server. This is portrayed by the fact that pre-reset, hosting them was very often requested and we'd get complaints if we didn't host enough. We're not going to become a minigame server, but games like spleef variants and CTP were enjoyed by many players, and so we will be still be putting some focus on them. I also feel those two aren't comparable to something like bow battles; they have far more depth and strategy involved than trying to shoot a few targets the fastest. All sorts of interesting tactics developed for build spleef, and clear advantages for teams who communicated as well as players who found ideal ways to flank were found in CTP. I respect and value your opinion on events Debate, but I feel that saying the main games we had provided little content to players is somewhat disrespectful to staff who've worked on them and spent time hosting them... as well as ignorant of how the players have played them. Im sorry if you felt that my statements were disrespectful. In the previous thread Shadow made posting the surveys I did say in my post that those type of "Games" did have a place on the server and that people do enjoy them (I don't know how to share a quote from other threads lol). The examples I used, Treasure Hunts and Dungeon Crawlers, were mostly off the top of my head and not a "Well all progression based systems should be like this" thing. The server has room for both Mini-Games and the progression based systems, but I do think that the progression based systems should be more important. I do enjoy your idea of the "Random Dungeon Crawler", though the loot tables on those would have to include tons of differing prizes to keep content going for a long time. I just think the Progression Based systems should be more focused on than the mini-games because if done correctly, they provide long term content for the players to work towards past the normal minecraft goals referenced earlier in the thread. Again, no disrespect was meant in my post, the games do add value, but should be 2nd on the priority list below progression based systems. Alright. I think activities that players can complete on their own time should be prioritized over minigames. However, we do want to get our multi spleef arena out soon.. partly due to item dispersion: the economy is lacking in heads, elytras and beacons, and spleef will help disperse those. Also, no talk has happened about incentivizing players to build their own systems for players to enjoy. Setting even 1 precedent of a players creations being implemented into the servers gameplay (through a direct warp or special custom prize), would give players things to work on once they reach the normal minecraft goals. Just something I think should be included. We haven't really replied to this request in public yet... but this has been of some significant discussion recently between myself and other event staff, especially regarding Hudson's paintball game. I would like to support player builds and event ideas more. I want to implement Hudson's paintball, we'll so how the test run goes once it's set up.
|
|
|
Post by poogan on Nov 3, 2017 12:57:34 GMT
I think we need to clarify the difference between "Events" and "Progression Based Goals" In this server "Events" are mini-games, spleef, bow battles, pig battles, etc. And I agree with you, these minigames are not needed right now because the server is brand new and people have a couple months of the normal minecraft based goals. However "Progression Based Goals" are long term projects/challenges that require a long time to brainstorm/create/implement. These sort of things, Dungeon Crawler, Treasure Hunts, etc, give players goals to work towards once we pass the point of normal minecraft goals. Those should be focused on soon, if they have not already been started because they take so long to build that they would only start being ready once everybodys bases/inventory are back up to normal level. I think that the word "Events" gets thrown around on the server with too loose of a meaning and we need to differentiate between the two. One are short term, repeatable Events that offer little actual content for players, the other are gameplay systems/challenges that should feel rewarding and create content for the server past the normal minecraft goals. We intend on focusing more on projects that players can complete on their own time. This is something I realized should be more of a priority close to prior to the reset. However, I would like to say a bit about "long term goals": Making goals that are actually completed over a more than a day that do not come down to boring, grinding tasks (for example the fish trading quest we had) is not easy, at all. I don't know your opinion of it now, but your previous dungeon attempt wouldn't have provided much long term content; it'd be completed by players over a day, maybe two max and then they'd be done with it and they'd never be involved with it again. Same thing with treasure hunts. I'm not saying these are bad ideas, they're absolutely worthwhile and things we want to do in the future... but they're not truly long term. I refer to these things more as projects that players can "complete on the side"/"on their own time" because of this. However, my opinion on that does mean we're not going to try to make things that can be completed over somewhat longer time periods. Currently, one of the ideas is to make something that has significant value to replay, not just complete once and be done with it. Having a dungeon that gave you randomized enemies in each room, say one of three types per room, would give you a different experience each time you go through the dungeon. In addition having chances for rare enemies that drop additional incentives would could increase replay value. I think focusing on replayable events that you can complete on your own time is one of the main things we should focus on going forward. I also want to bring up how you describe the minigame type events. I feel they do add value and content, and are wanted on the server. This is portrayed by the fact that pre-reset, hosting them was very often requested and we'd get complaints if we didn't host enough. We're not going to become a minigame server, but games like spleef variants and CTP were enjoyed by many players, and so we will be still be putting some focus on them. I also feel those two aren't comparable to something like bow battles; they have far more depth and strategy involved than trying to shoot a few targets the fastest. All sorts of interesting tactics developed for build spleef, and clear advantages for teams who communicated as well as players who found ideal ways to flank were found in CTP. I respect and value your opinion on events Debate, but I feel that saying the main games we had provided little content to players is somewhat disrespectful to staff who've worked on them and spent time hosting them... as well as ignorant of how the players have played them. What makes bow battles and simpler games like spleef so good was the simplistic gameplay and competitive aspect. It was taking something already simple and adding just a bit more to it. I feel that's why so many people including myself like it. When it comes to longer events that use puzzles or more complex things to do I enjoy those and they can be huge fun, but I like to keep it simple and that's why I always go to play a good round of bow battles or spleef.
|
|