My idea to keep this server fresh!

So.. I know I'm gunna get flamed a bit for this one, but its an idea to throw around. This ones going to be long, but may be worth the read. I AM NOT COMPLAINING, I am simply pointing things out, and attempting to offer a way around said things. I do infact love this server, but I want to keep her alive!

Heres the deal, as the server goes on, more and more dead cities appear on the map. Sure the tree village is going to be bustling for the next 5 days or so, but after that it will never see a player again... as has been seen in Tombstone ... and even spawn.

Its a sad truth, but lets face it, once a project is done, what happens? We move on to the next great thing we can think of... or get bored and wait for inspiration or someone to say "lets all work on this" .

IF everyone stayed in the same area while building new things, sure enough we would have one city, full of life and fun as we can all watch each other build and one up one another, but sadly this is not the case. More and more people are building wayyyy out from any "town" or "city" making the server feel damned quiet, when it really isn't.

The reason for such behavior? We have a never ending server, where the fun of starting fresh is only found by going out to the wild, far away. We have a home warp which makes said actions possible without ever being stranded or alone. We have TPA which means we can practically go anywhere aslong as someone else is there. We have warps which mean we can go to multiple locations / current "work zones". We have /spawn always taking us to the main spawn point. With such a system, I can seamlessly warp between 3 different homes of mine with close to no travel time.

Other problems we run into are exploration and mining. Is it worth it now? Not at all. Everyone has everything, just ask and you shall receive. After having had a mine / farms etc running for about 3 weeks, I can build anything as if it were creativity mode, without having to visit my mine or farms. This is the same way for alot of people. We also have extensive mining under the main cities / towns making new mines hard to work with or underground structures hard to build.

In short, building so far away from one another simply makes me ask, why aren't we all just playing singleplayer while running ventrillo to chat, and using youtube to showcase? (I am not suggesting this, I am simply comparing)

Why even build train systems / highways when we can practically warp ANYWHERE on the map? (ok, so not everywhere, but its as if we were superman)

Why go out mining when chances are, there are many people with double chests full of mats that they would pay for you to take? (you get what im trying to say)

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People seem to get most excited and pumped when a new area is being started, or a new commun build. This is how Minecraft is, we are supposed to be dropped off on an island, and try to survive. ... not thrive years later in an abandoned metropolis where creepers are unheard of and nighttime travel is about as safe as daytime travel.

Alot of servers already do this, and perhaps we need to aswell to get a spark of life back, I would like to suggest we wipe the map and restart on a regular basis, monthly or bimonthly.

Each time we do a reset, before hand we have a vote on themes to do for the next run, and once we get it all rolling again, we recreate our city, and stick to it. We stay in the location (or locations depending on the setup) and work together. Be it one month its metropolis theme, and next month its castle vs castle theme (2 teams, 2 castles to build), it could be a fun way to get this community pumped!!

(We could also store said maps somewhere so we can relive it in singleplayer or private servers for whatever reason and obviously youtube it, picture it and whatnot before removal, even have a party the day before wipe and reset!)

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE - with a restart every month, and everyone being used to it, any server issues / patch issues causing an early restart will not be anywhere near as bad as a server thats not supposed to ever be reset.

People will always have a project to do, and will never feel like stuff is getting stagnant.

New biomes and even themes to play with each month, that you may have never even have considered trying before.

Abandoned buildings no more, and cities / commun projects will be active, when people are logged on, you will feel like the server is alive!

Playing around with mods won't be so potentially damaging and in fact could be changed each month to add a new spice that month. (with a commun vote).

EVERYONE gets the chance to build a community grinder / farms / transit etc, each month people can vote to take said responsibility for the month, once again making projects feel available and even useful!

Oh... and last but not least, keeping TP commands to /spawn and thats it. This keeps people nearby and makes transport / roads useful and not optional. It keeps creativity up, and makes it 10x more fun as such!

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Sorry for the long post, and hell half my ideas still havn't been spilled, but its just a thought. What do you all think? Alot of servers do this already, and from what I have seen, it is a great way to keep it alive and keep it feeling like... minecraft!

I agree with you on this! In single player, I would stick to one map, but that's only because I'm alone and I can abandon anything without fear of the place looking ugly. In smp, I like having a server restart every once in a while as to build different things in different locations, without having to abandon the other people I play with, and without having to travel far from spawn.

Don't hate me anyone who disagrees with me, It's just how I feel.

Ive said it before, and I dont mind bringing my side of things to the table again. Im not the type of person who enjoys doing a community build, but it doesnt mean I dont like having community around. I like being able to see what others are building. Thats why I tend to stray to the edges of the build areas. I like to build things on my own, and I like to have my own resources (community mine makes me shudder). Obviously though, limiting mobility would greatly affect how far some people go out.

As far as the warping/teleporting is concerned, I agree. Being able to shoot from one point to the next prevents accidents, minimizes adventure and eliminates the time itd take just to get there. Being able to teleport makes us be able to do things quicker, and sometimes thats not a good thing (especially when it means we finish building faster and get bored again because we lose all the travel time it would have taken us without tele).

I like that youre trying to think of a way to make Minecraft fresh by suggesting things that should bring back the adventure (new start, no tele). I dont know that we'd need a new restart every month, but Id definitely be willing to try it out. It might be something we could advertise as a perk as well. "Monthly build themes", ect.

The great thing about servers is that just like our own computers, we can have multiple maps. We dont need to delete our current world to go and try out a new world (and new way of doing things). We can just have the server load up the new world and see how it goes, while our old world stays perfectly intact. Just cant run them at the same time.

Your suggestion works for me, honestly. It comes down to whether people are looking for adventure, or whether they prefer having all their mats so they can just build stuff.

Yup, and to further that point atty, if that were the case and its being able to build anything using all the mats you have stockpiled, why not just go to a creative server at that point?

But yes, I am the same way, I like to have my own things, and my own creation, but I love having other people around me while I do it! Makes the difference between single player and multiplayer!

... Surprised I ain't been flamed yet! lol

Oh come on. This isnt minecraftforums; we dont have 12 y/os here. We might have different opinions, but no one should really flame ya over the idea.

haha true, I guess I am just way too used to other forums. So far its good to see some constructive talk on said subject though!

SURPRISINGLY ... whit also agrees. I really thought she would hit me with a frying pan when she read this! lol! (she really loves her creations... like creepily loves them) xD

I like this idea as I'm one of those people who have started building in the wilderness because of boredom and it's a different theme and needed a snow biome.

Restarting the server monthly might be a bit fast... I'm a slow builder and if we were to restart every month, it could minimize the epicness of structures if there is a ticking bomb for the server every month.

I like this idea, it would keep it fresh, maybe not be a scheduled thing, but rather a group vote once play decreases and interest wanes (like now lol)


I did think about this older server I was on when reading this thread. This server was split into "factions" that started in four different areas (desert, trees, snow, underground) and those factions then built up their cities to fit the terrain/theme and it became a competition between the factions on how fast they could grow/build their respected cities, and then created "wonders" that further expanded cities/area and would grant that faction points to keep score.

Just an idea to spice things up, make gameplay interesting and create team/nations that work together and have four really active, really amazing cities. They would have rounds that would reset once a certain nation is declared the winner and each round would be a server wipe to start over, switch teams around or change themes.

I'm surprised that you guys are so willing to start over that often. I think to be fair it's something that we need everyone to speak up on. I've said all along I don't want to do anything that changes the server that makes even one person want to leave. We've all worked long and hard and put a lot of energy into the server and most of us have donated money too so I don't want to undertake any changes lightly.

A monthly or even bi-monthly reset would kind of screw those of us who play more casually and take that much time to finish even one modest-sized build. I would suggest that we find other ways to keep things fresh.

I do like the idea of factions and also the idea of building in one area so everyone can see other creations easily but a monthly server wipe would scare a lot of people away including me. I only say this because for the last week and a half I have dug out a huge mountain and attained 6 chests full of cobblestone, not sure what I want to make yet lol. But if we restarted every month all the effort some people put into doing such acts would be for nothing. If we restarted now and I lost all my resources that I have attained over the last month or 2 I wouldn't be too upset about it, I just don't want to do it all again just so in a month from now all of it would be gone.

Just a suggestion for the one large city though, people always want to build somewhat far away from city's just so they have room themselves, I have done it myself. What if we had one large city and the only way to expand said city is to build out a wall that always surrounds the city. Only way people would be able to build outside the wall is by placing a post on the thread and having a vote for it, and this would be for a somewhat large scale community project and not just a single house for someone. Also another way to build outside the wall is if they created a Community mine that would be used by everyone at the time so we don't have 10 mines randomly going in different directions, Yay for organization!

PS I do like the "Wonders" Idea, if you want to build somewhat far away but still a earshot within the city build a wonder to the gods and that small city will just start and build towards the larger one. All small city's would sooner become part of the larger one.

Personally I don't mind the abandoned city thing just because once it's built there's really nothing to do in most structures. So it's sort of like an art exhibit you can walk thru.

Ok. So it seems we are pretty well split down the line. Keep in mind that we started this server right around April 1st. So its really only been a month and a half so far. In that time, we've managed to build two different cities, go through a slower period, and now start working on a third one.

Regardless of that, Steve, what would you think about a select group (say the people who wanted to try it), took all their items dumped them in the lava (or left them in their chests in the original location), and moved to a new location a little farther out (so we'd have flowers and stuff once more). We'd be secluded for the most part, and we could swear off warps and such as well.

That way itd be an 'emulated' map reset, without losing all of our builds. As far as map size goes, I think our server is doing a great job for the time being (not that Im suggesting that we go 5k out). I havent had any issues with lag in the last few days Ive been on.

I do like the towns and cities that have been built, I go through the old west town all the time to get back to the "Forest" town. The only problem is if the town or structure is too far away or out of the way then no one sees it. All the towns we can see for the most part. Started city, old west, and now the forest village because everyone is there at this time. Maybe I am looking too much into this large city/wall idea. I just wanted the community of builders to be closer and feel more like a family then people we can talk with on the same server.

The best time I had on this server that kept me up playing until 4 in the morning was the first day. Everyone survived the first horrible nights in our makeshift dirt shack and then explored to find a new spot. After we had done that we all dug out the side of the mountain to create small rooms for everyone's stuff. Some people jumped into the mines to help get stone and other resources to put into the community chests and others went exploring the small area outside the mountain to find where to build parts of the city first. The first week went well until everyone went there different ways to create something they wanted. I can take the most blame for that, I built my ship in the water on the other side of the island and felt disconnected at that point and others did the same with there own creations only a few stayed in the first city to build it up to what it is now.

That was the best time to me having the 6-8 people on trying to pull off the same goal. I know the "wonders" and city walls was just an idea but it would have become community projects to spread out the city we all helped to create. I just want the server to be more social then it has been and if it does new people who join will stay and get there friends to start playing. Everyone may not like these ideas and that is why we have this forum for others to throw out there own ideas but somehow we need to make this server into a family server where we are all closer and working together.

Sry for the rant, this thread just struck me as a great idea.

I find myself leaning toward what Era and Cpt say on this one, I dont mind the abandon citys myself because like he said its alike an art exhibit. I know i've had fun showing people the work we've completed so far and if someone get inspired to work on them, the cities are still there and can be expanded upon. But at the same time, I understand where steve and xack are coming from as well, because until this latest project i hit a bit of a slump myself.

I won't lie tho, if we were to reset the server every month, I wouldnt be able to build a subway system like we currently have simply because of the shear amount of time it would take to gather the materials, dig out the tunnels/lay track and even above ground it would still take all of that time to get it working again(even with MM, longer w/ a vanilla server tho i could do it). I mean its possible to get a transit system up in a month, i know i could but i think it might get a little old having to rebuild it each time. Plus similar to what Jerwin said, if someone has spent all this time gathering materials for an epic build, to just lose it all could cause people to leave as well.

On a more positive note, what if we got one of the multi-map mods that would allow portals between maps? We could have one map that could be reset often for our monthly builds which we could then use world edit to save the creation on an "Art map"? Im not sure if the mod im thinking about would do it, but have it so you CANNOT transfer materials between worlds. So when we reset the build world, it would be starting fresh, and the persistant(art) world would still allow for people to continue with more long term projects / save what we've built in the monthly build level.

Hope im not stepping on anyones toes >.<

Prait

I'm not giving up my house. Uh-uh. *holds on tightly with blocky arms.

Running off of Cpt's idea... What about a growing city?

Basically start a city that is subdivided by a common style of walls, and in each subdivision group builds of many styles can be built. That way, instead of having abandoned towns littered about the map, the abandoned towns become bases or background to an ever-growing cityscape.

Those who want to participate in the build can, while those who are more isolationist can keep to thier places without worry of being wiped out. People who are indecisive, or just like resource gathering could contribute by gathering for the common things like walls, lighting and roads.

EDIT: After looking at the map some, Sara's castle area would be a good place to start such a build. It has a starting locale established, plenty of relatively flat area around it for expansion, and a warp already in place for those of us who like the fast travel.

Xacktar wrote:I'm not giving up my house. Uh-uh. *holds on tightly with blocky arms.

Running off of Cpt's idea... What about a growing city?

Basically start a city that is subdivided by a common style of walls, and in each subdivision group builds of many styles can be built. That way, instead of having abandoned towns littered about the map, the abandoned towns become bases or background to an ever-growing cityscape.

Those who want to participate in the build can, while those who are more isolationist can keep to thier places without worry of being wiped out. People who are indecisive, or just like resource gathering could contribute by gathering for the common things like walls, lighting and roads.

Seems like the best course of action, this way we don't have to start a new map and we also stay close together regardless of what kind of building we are working on because the large city will be part of every design people want, just divided by a wall or something like that.

I could go either way on the server reset issue so whatever everyone agrees on is cool with me. If we do reset, we should definitely take pics and vids of the map to remember and show off all our cool stuff. If we decide to send a group of brave explorers out to conquer new lands.....sign me up! Here's to Adventure!!!!

I'm fine with having /spawn as the only warp. Don't get me wrong, I love having the other warps but it does make it a little too easy and less adventurous.

I like the group city idea's but I also like having my own little spot to go to, out somewhere secluded, with my own mine and caves to explore.

What if started doing SMP adventure maps like Survival Island, 404 challenge, etc...? I don't know exactly how it would work, if we would have to shut down the server to switch maps or what. I think a couple of us have private servers that maybe a small group could play on maybe, I dunno. We could have a sign up sheet for anyone who wanted to go. I think it would be a fun way to keep things fresh. Also, maybe we could record the adventures and put them up on the youtubes.

Is there a way to lock in a world size? Say -1000 to 1000. some room to explore but still keeping everyone in the same area?

If so, then maybe start the server small, -250x250 with spawn at 0,0 then once a month expand the server radius by 200 blocks or so.

Everyone building in theme in the same area and a monthly land grab.

Bob

I answered my own question.

http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/mech-borderguard-v3-10-turbo-1-most-efficient-map-limiter-740.3078/

I kind of like the scattered city thing. It let's the themes be coherent within each town but with opportunities for variation. The idea was originally to have different themed towns linked by a mass transit system and then the warps would be removed. You can still use home and /tpa but the amount of work that goes into a transit system should make it the main means of transit. I have always set up warps at new builds until the train makes it to it. Which is why the frontier warp is gone and several of the others. The other night while I was on I pruned down a lot of the warps that are like that. Eventually I'd prefer there were no more warps really. Part of the problem we see with things seeming abandoned stems from the number of people online at any given time. We have enough people now that during peak times when everyone is on a minecraft high we approach our cap. If you guys think it's a good time to do so we can open limited recruitment to try to add maybe another 5 people or so. If find that with that many people on we start to run into the cap more we can consider upgrading again.

Eh, we could try the city idea... but ultimately give it a week and we will have another abandoned city and everyone still scattering guaranteed.

The biggest problem is new people enter a city, with no one around to really build with. Granted, some people will love it, but people like me will refuse to build in a city alone. So where to build? ... wait till a community project comes up? Just go find my own plot in the middle of nowhere?

I understand some people take time to make their stuff, hell my underwater stuff STILL isn't done, and it was started within a week of server start. Right now I have close to 5 double chests of bloody cobble. (to name but one mat).

I guess one thing to think about is what will happen when (yes I said when, not if) the server goes down and HAS to get reset due to a Notch fix? It will be 12 times worse when even more has been built, and its completely unexpected or no ones used to it.

Irregardless, many of the long lasting servers have adopted a setup similar to what I mentioned because it eventually will need to be done to keep interest. The first few days are always the best and most active, and I think so far everyone has agreed to that.

I am not suggesting a transit system be rebuilt every time, it really depends on the setup if say a train system all automated etc is needed. Hell we can do it old school minecarts, or make cannals for boat systems, or even highways. Depends on the flavor of that month!

As I said before, we can upload a save file of said map each month or whenever and put it on forums so for an exhibit tour, you can load it up and take a stroll through the abandoned cities / exhibits.

We can built a new city, and heck im down for it... but it will once again become abandoned or only have 1 or 2 people who still want to work on it as it goes.

Oh well, was just an idea, but I already miss building Atlantis, felt more like a community back then. :/

steveompowell wrote:
The biggest problem is new people enter a city, with no one around to really build with. Granted, some people will love it, but people like me will refuse to build in a city alone. So where to build? ... wait till a community project comes up? Just go find my own plot in the middle of nowhere?

That is a good point about new people entering the city and not having anyone around. I'm sure we can figure out a way where everyone one is happy.

When I read your post, Steve, it seems like you would look forward to doing more community projects, not necessarily having a new restart (except for losing all mats). Perhaps we should look into a system where we come up with more community project ideas.

A small problem is that some people arent on as much, and dont build as fast. So while youve already build 3 buildings, another person might only have half of their first building done. Restating the point, while you (or anyone) get bored of the project, another person might just be half way into it.

I think what youre really looking for is having a constant stream of community projects. If you want to start 'fresh' for a new project, then dont bring items along from old projects.

Regardless of the situation, we need some people to come up with some community project ideas, be it that we restart monthly or not. Maybe we can make a thread for community project ideas, and we can implement a new project every 2 - 3 weeks.

The way I see it every time we've started a community project that everyone is interested in we've had really good turn out and lots of interest. The problem is people get stalled for ideas from time to time. Based on your logic here steve the exact same thing would happen if we started a new map. We'd all band together, get started, then move on to a new project. I don't think anyone wants to see something they worked hard on destroyed. If the map is damaged by a patch or something we've been keeping back up copies and would try to revert if possible. If not possible I'm sure everyone here understands how that works. The process of getting the server updated is really not that big a deal so I don't think it's something we need to practice for. When the game is updated we will always wait for bukkit to update at the very least and probably essentials just so we can protect our work before we update the server. If it's an exciting update (pistons) I'm sure half of us will get anxious and update before the server.

I like Steve's idea cuz I get bored of things very quickly and it will keep this game interesting