Want to playa custom map? click my the pickaxe on that top Left of this post and go down to where it says my skype ID, then add me and talk to me about playing!
Here's my two cents on the matter.
(Unfortunately last night was hazy on my thoughts due to something that came up but here goes.)
Dex is right, and most of the stuff I'll state here will just be reiterated from what the others say.
The reason I have the faction plugin is to keep more forms of powergaming from arising. Isn't it a bit powegaming if you can climb up a large wall about 30 or more feet off the ground with dirt? And I'm sure anyone can BS any form of trying to bypass going up said wall with, I dunno, an enderpearl, and claim it as them scaling the wall through RP. It could make sense for you, but where does the character get the said tools to get even up there? Have a harness, I dunno, rock climbing gear.. But that's besides the point.
The point of a faction plugin gives being in the faction somewhat a benefit, and a place where, they can lock up their stuff etc. When a guy is able to steal everything from a whole faction when they are gone, it's a bit powergaming, I know they're a thief but let's say said faction has literally, no one on. Then it's easy picking for any group/subfaction/person to take their stuff over when, there's no one who can get on or is on. If a subfaction/group is stealing from the faction for materials then yes, there could be a problem. Especially when the faction comes back and see, "Oh hey, they group is here to just spawn kill most of us or just terrorize us to no end". And I dunno about you, but being able to be spawned in your own city/faction seems nice too. Helps keep the group together, cause it makes sense, right? That they belong in the city together? The other fact is, we have factions to try to prevent subfactions from arising. I mean, we can have subfactions but honestly, we'd love to have them when we have more players.
You're right in the fact that it really makes some things impossible or not make sense. We've had problems like you stated, where factions are doing nothing but avoiding conflict by staying in their bases. Where, they have chests out in the open not be lootable, and doesn't make any RP sense. While this may be the case, we use the plugin as a bit of a benefit to a group being more powerful over another. As for the RP thing you're arguing about TCA and AIR, it's really hard to get any RP of the AIR if there's only a select few, not many, and trying to set up in the faction. Maybe Dex should have handled it better yes, but AIR is kind of in that rebuilding stage.. But anyway, building up a faction base is kind of a big nono, for points the others have stated, (I'm kind of out of it to type them up again, just woke up).
IF in an ideal world, we took the plugin away, I think there would be more chaos. People would be able to claim places and usually mess up the base to their whim. They could easily grief a whole base and then take everything out, even with or without RP reasons. Factions define where territory is and give them a direct HQ where they can be stationed at and do what they usually do. I just think the factions plugin is more organized and ensures a base that cannot be griefed, a bit of an advantage, yes, and helps players "defend" against other factions. Sure the lone, small guy can come and try to mug or rob from the faction, but really, this isn't like Fallout or any of the elder scrolls games to where, a person can just go in and steal everything and kill everyone as they wished, (I dunno, the player in that game can practically do anything, you make it sound like you can do anything as feasible as that). I guess what I'm getting at is, the factions have that plugin, even if it does restrict some RP, to have a bit of an advantage and be able to do what they can in their own bases. Sure, I don't like the f chat which is like OOC group chat, or the f home that can easily make people teleport out of roleplay or combat. We just hope faction members don't abuse that. I think if we take the plugin away, there would also be a lot more of PVP and unable to you know, defend an area legitly without some guy trying to camp the base or do something to ruin said faction. (And darn, I had another good point to add but I'm honestly too tired to think of it right now.)
But I do see your point, Dex could have handled this better. But I guess at the point he was trying to uphold the rules. You built into a base, he just was thinking of getting you out. I know you were going to RP it, but honestly, AIR is just trying to rebuild and using dirt to get in a base doesn't really make much sense. He probably just saw it as, Hey you bypassed your way into my base, through an unclaimed area and I'm just trying to enforce the rules by getting you out. If we take it to your Roleplay means, a person can't use dirt to literally scale up a wall. It would take days and a lot of dirt just to get up said wall. A dirt pile doesn't really make any sense, a person would need wheelburrows of dirt just to scale a let's say, 30 ft wall, not to mention the guy would need a big help from his friends to do so.
Edit:
Tl;dr but it sounds like you're telling us to get rid of something that entails, "powergaming" to potentially allow something else that can happen which is just as equally "powergaming"? I'm not entirely sure where we're going here with our arguments.
because i already put everything else two times in this thread here is only my back-story
by life he was the godfather of the great family of alchemiono he was the toughest around and knew (and loved) all of his family members as he also got to each and every mob war but then after 29 years of battling there rose another mafia family (known as the Boneo's) which was dangerous for the alchemiono so he firsts had a good and long talk with that particular godfather.
first the boneo said: 'my new enemy and possibly friend what is it that you seek here with my family'
alchemiono: 'good boneo I saw your rise from nothing with my own eyes you are a great godfather already and you will get better trust me but you make enemies too quickly and that is in your stage very dangerous let me help you rise to the top and when you are there blend in with my family and we will both rule this city of bandits and gullible people'
that is a very appealing offer but I don't want to rule with an iron fist like you I want to be ruler so that I could bring justice to this god forgiven land. so join me or get out of the building before I let my family hunt you down'
'that is a giant mistake you make here I will be back but then it won't be for some small talk but for burning this place down!'
boneo: ' if you don't get out right now you won't be able to come back because you won't get home'
'mark my words boneo YOU WILL REGRET THIS'
when giovanni started shouting some Boneo's came bulging in and then asked (kind of goofy) : 'is everything alright godfather we heard someone shout so we came to check'
Boneo's godfather: 'to be precise can I trust you guys to make sure that this idiotic bandit won't see his own front door again?'
the boneo family members (still goofy): 'sooo we haveto kill him?'
boneo godfather 'YES OFCOURSE YOU IDIOTS'
and the boneo family members took giovanni with them and then (when out of sight of anyone) they killed him put him in a coffin shipped him to a (then still uninhabited) far away land and buried what was left.
after a couple of eons (to be precise at a time when they wanted to expand the city of Thespianopolis) they started digging exactly where he was buried and because only his clothes and bones remained and only his first name was on the coffin the remains were then called giovanni bones. but because it was nothing worthy of displaying in a museum they just sold giovanni with his coffin to some guy which was experimenting on how to revive the death (his earlier experiments are the mobs you see roaming at night) but this time he got just the right timing from stars moon and new sera to each other and that is how giovanni got to live again many eons later on a different place with a lot more industrialization and because his clothes look a bit out of style here he got some spare clothes from the man who revived him
I've been roleplaying for ten years now, and this is honestly the first time where collectively an entire staff team agrees that any form of powergaming is acceptable in any way. Frankly, it's a little bit sad that a server of roleplayers feel like they have to control their members to the degree that a form of easily exploited powergaming is not only accepted, but encouraged.
It's the difference between having your roleplayers being trusted enough not to go on sprees of griefing, or controlling your roleplayers with powergaming plugins that can save a person's life when they should be dying or keep their items untouchable when they shouldn't feel so safe. Roleplayers are unquestionably a different kind of player. You're so much less likely to find a griefer out of ten roleplayers than out of ten PVP regulars it's unimaginable.
Oh and lastly genius, this is a world where everything is frickin' cubes! Writing so many posts criticising realism is pretty redundent. The game can't be super realistic.
Also, yes it simply ****ing is quite possible to have a realistic roleplay environment on Minecraft. That's what the point of having a roleplay server is. Your using Minecraft as a medium to create characters, write collectively and exchange scenes. You're writing one story with multiple people. That's what roleplay is, and it will never change definition simply because it's in a different form.
Tl;dr but it sounds like you're telling us to get rid of something that entails, "powergaming" to potentially allow something else that can happen which is just as equally "powergaming"? I'm not entirely sure where we're going here with our arguments.
Minecraft roleplaying is a tricky business. Unless you have an incredible plugin dev team right on hand to create plugins that allow you to accurately depict the non-vanilla actions that you need to carry out in order to visualize your writing (go join Lord Of the Craft some time), allowances have to be made.
Let's take the time to remember what roleplay is at this moment. Writing one story using multiple different people collaborating in one way or another. By creating a roleplaying server, you give writers a means to write. What it's important to note is that by putting ridiculous restrictions on your roleplayers, you are limiting them from writing, which is the point of the server in the first place. To justifying it by saying "it's how we want the server to be," you're saying that you have a greater vision than your writers and that you're going to exercise your own powergaming notions in order to do "what's best."
I would write more, but I don't think I care anymore upon realizing that some of the staff here are so arrogant to believe that they are some how justified in their beliefs of intellectual superiority when they put restrictions on the player base that supports them to the effect that they can't write to the best of their abilities. It's a roleplay server, not a Factions PVP with three or so people actually doing any scene writing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
I would write more, but I don't think I care anymore upon realizing that some of the staff here are so arrogant to believe that they are some how justified in their beliefs of intellectual superiority when they put restrictions on the player base that supports them to the effect that they can't write to the best of their abilities. It's a roleplay server, not a Factions PVP with three or so people actually doing any scene writing.
Let's break this down:
Not all players are like you.
Not all players have common sense to restrict themselves to be serious roleplayers. Some players, when roleplaying, account more PVP elements than roleplay elements which sometimes makes things unfair. When you appeal to our emotions by saying, "Let some trust in the writers" come in hand back there... Well, in the 9 or so launches I've been running servers, we have tried that and some players just can't handle only roleplaying into their abilities. Some people, abuse, bypass do whatever and then say it's Roleplay just to get what they want. See what I'm getting here? Some players aren't mature and use Roleplay as nothing more of an excuse to rob, mug, raid just so then they can collect a bunch of diamonds. When trying to bust said players they always go, "Well, I roleplayed it, so it should be fine". But constantly? Sometimes there's something a person can't do if, robbers make up any RP reason to go mugging someone, or get off the top of their head to go kill someone for X. You can easily use roleplay as an excuse to do anything and make up some ******** reason to do so. It doesn't make it so fun for another player cause you're constantly being harassed by someone.
Yes, we do trust players and their writing but there's that fine line where we have to stop them from doing something lest it conflicts with another person just trying to do what they are doing. And for factions, well the lore is pretty much centralized on what factions are going around and doing what they do. Had this been a general roleplay server, yes, maybe the individual could potentially have much more power than most of the groups out there, but what I'm saying is, a faction, is much more important in our lore. Considering, well, our lore doesn't account races or groups or small time communities. Had this be a general world like Lord of the Craft where there's diverse people out there and groups and let's say 300 people on at a time. AND unfortunately we only have one guy on dev and we could only do so much.
Why even compare us to lord of the craft? We're a small time server, and honestly, our theme is a lot more different than them. We only started up like, what? 2 weeks ago.
And yeah, I know how forum based roleplay is, I have 9 years of experience in it. You can't type seven paragraphs on minecraft per reply, lest you want creepers attacking you while you rush through to finish the world building elements. There are limits that you have to do on servers and I dunno if you've noticed, but, honestly, this is roleplaying in a game; Where you can change your "world building Elements". You're going to get roleplayers who roleplay using the game based elements and just general roleplayers who also account other things, but honestly, it's going to be damn hard to make it as realistic as I think you want it to be.
Also.
Edit:
I dunno if you've noticed, but Dave and Whitellama aren't staff.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
4/21/2011
Posts:
109
Minecraft:
Game_Geek
Member Details
You are obviously very opinionated on this matter, which isn't a bad thing per say, it shows that you do actually care about the server as a whole. However the fact is we have allowed people to minor grief in the pass, and its a line that has to be tread carefully. Yet more often than not it spirals downwards into the usual spamming of chat and complaints about stolen good and griefing.
It's the difference between having your roleplayers being trusted enough not to go on sprees of griefing, or controlling your roleplayers with powergaming plugins that can save a person's life when they should be dying or keep their items untouchable when they shouldn't feel so safe.
Yes the plugin does bring issues of power-gaming, however as aforementioned by others the lack of this plugin would be detrimental to the server. If it were not in pace there would be no safe havens for players. Everyone feels annoyance at the fact that players are invulnerable but in a game where you die every other second, it's the best solution at hand. I say this not as a member of staff but as one of the players.
You say that we should trust our fellow players, and as much as I would like to, it frankly isn't viable. This may offend people, but I don't really give a monkey's fart, there are asshats on the server there always will be asshats. People enjoy doing bad things, I'm no exception. I have griefed in the past, I enjoy it and I will do it whenever I damn well please.
However as you said it's about self control, I wouldn't grief on this server because I now the repercussions outweigh the small joy I get from it. However not everyone feels the same way. One thing that I have learned about minecraft regardless of the type of server (rp,pvp,creative) is that as soon as you provide a means to grief, it WILL be abused.
To justifying it by saying "it's how we want the server to be," you're saying that you have a greater vision than your writers and that you're going to exercise your own powergaming notions in order to do "what's best."
It's not how we want it to be, it's how it has to be. If we were to allow total freedom the server would be a mess. It's difficult to provide a realistic RP experience when a lot of the time in game is spent hitting respawn. I don't think anyone here think's that their vision of the server is any more valid than an others, it's simply that to provide the best experience for the majority of the players, we need to enforce certain rules.
TL;DR - Rules are here for the benefit of the mass, we can't trust players to make the right choice!
----------------
I'll finishing by asking you something. What would you have the server do? It's all very well to sit there and tell us how we are ruining the server. Yet all I seem to get across from this system is you don't like factions because they constrict your ability to RP.
So I'll ask again. What would you do, to improve this situation?
I don't want you to think that I'm having a dig at you, because I'm not. All I'm saying is you have to bear in mind that rules are put in place to provide the most enjoyable experience for the majority of the users. I respect your wish to let your creative juices flow, I just don't think your going to find AAA Rp'ing in a game filled with mostly 12-16 year old's that revolves around blocks, and people with the ability to flatten a mountain with a rose.
I was not aware until now that only faction members can deal damage on their territory, and admittedly that is a bit silly. I cannot fathom a reason why we would need that.
And as I stated before, Game is correct that you have not offered any sort of alternative to this plugin. I do agree that a better alternative would make for better roleplay, given that it provides equal protection against the issues raised that the factions plugin is needed to negate.
Here's what I suggest: Assuming the server has the proper hardware to handle such a plugin, we should use something like Big Brother, which logs changes in an area and allows administrators to roll back anything unwanted. Doing some looking around, the only currently available plugin for 1.2.5 is Guardian, which is a new plugin being built for the features of Big Brother, Logblock, and Hawkeye combined. It is only available at the moment in its alpha, which is disappointing, but it's still something to consider.
Assuming it works in its current state, it would make for a fantastic replacement of factions for several reasons; administrators would have access to full logs, indicating which player made what changes not only within faction territories, but everywhere. Players would be able to roleplay out situations without restriction nor worry, knowing that any negative results (accidental or intentional) could be rolled back, if deemed necessary by the administration. Essentially, the game would keep moving, and any sorts of griefing, rule-breaking, or unfit actions could be reversed at any time. Rather than taking great lengths to prevent these things before they happen, they can be undone afterwards, without restricting the actions of capable roleplayers.
I'm finished listing off the good reasons for this plugin, there are also several shortcomings worth acknowledging. First and foremost, the plugin is only in alpha; it is likely not to cover all desired features and functions until later releases. In addition, because of the large scope of gameplay this plugin is designed to integrate with, it is likely to break with updates. This sort of plugin would also require repeated admin intervention, as negative changes can only be rolled back by a user. I suggest that all players would be granted permission to check the changes in a block, so that the playerbase is better able to report griefing or needed rollbacks to the administration. Rolling back changes could also serve to be time consuming and possibly difficult to manage, but we can at least hope that the whitelisting process roots out enough poor players that there wouldn't be too many necessary rollbacks.
There you have it. Obviously it'd take a lot to get this plugin working smoothly in replacement of (or in joint with) factions, because of the technicalities involved in setting up a logging system (mySQL databases and the likes), as well as the know-how required to properly utilize a complex plugin effectively. Still, in the long run I think it'd pay off if, even in alpha.
We COULD remove the faction plugin if we add both Guardian (Like you suggested) and WorldGuard for faction bases. WorldGuard protects against greifing and Guardin (If it works) would make it easier to gather evidence against rule breakers.
What other RP experience have you had before? On various MUCKs and internet forums.
Define Metagaming: Using knowledge from outside the game to give your ingame character an advantage.
Define Powergaming: Also known as "Playing God", it's not going with the flow. Or making your character totally overpowered. IE "John shoots his gun at Rick! Rick is bulletproof and resists the gun and shoots awesome super lightning!"
Have you read the rules? No. Steamed Vegetables
IG
Name: D15CORD (Distribution Version 15 Clankers Ordnance for Rebuilding Destruction) Pronounced Discord
Gender: <ERROR>
Age: <Print> 120518711 seconds
Appearance: BIOS Version 15. The peak of technological advanc- CORRUPTION <Playback Audio> Aha! I got the little bugger working. Let's dress him up in this blue suit. Draw a happy face on him, will you! And pass me that hat!
Roleplay Example:
-At a bar-
Barkeep: So, what are you drinking?
D15CORD: Could I interest you in another glass of <STEAM>
Barkeep: Uh.. Sorry?
D15CORD: Shaken, not stirred.
Barkeep: We don't server "Steam" here. But I can make one helluva dirty martini
D15CORD: <Error>
-D15CORD Walks off only to be approached by a woman-
Woman: Hey, you have the money, I have the time.
D15CORD: Sorry, my Heart-Drive is full.
Woman: Wow, freak.
D15CORD: (Sad music comes out of ears)
Backstory(2+ GOOD paragraphs:
<LOAD: Introduction.stm>
Hello. If you are listening to this, you have discovered my creation and it has somehow left my possession I am NOT a creation! I am a human! His name is Discord. It is all he will respond to. He has a built in morality core. I would advise against fiddling around with it. SteamNet showed us a perfect example of why not to do that! I haven't had the time to program in voices. So I've downloaded a couple of audio tapes from popular culture. Please pardon the broken English on it's side. That is all. Discord, stop recording.NO. Get your filthy paws off me you god damn dirty ape!
<LOAD: Bruteforced.stm>
Hacker journal 1: I have discovered this robot. I've only allowed it to do primary functions like walk and record. But it looks like it has potential. It appears to use a steam powered battery in it's upper head. It looks like it recharges on water and hot coals. Neat! Judging by it's old owner's audio tapes, it's called Discord. I like the name, but I'm thinking of ways I can improve on it in the name of our glorious Archimedes. It has quite an interesting system of cogs. The amount of variances in the head is extraordinary. It looks almost like a human brain. There has to be millions of tiny cogs in there. And a different pulley for each situation. Even someone smart as I can never comprehend how it's built. D15CORD. Power off. I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave. AH! What are you doing! Get off of me!
<LOAD: Discovery.stm>
AH! Is that a dead body! Oh my! It looks like a suicide. I must inform the higher ups immedia- Whoa. What's that weird looking thing.
Run Forest, Run
Whoa.. I wonder where it's going.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You really need to be more self aware of your surroundings!
(Typing this as I just woke up)
WG and... Honestly we don't need guardian, we already have Hawkeye which rolls things back and then can actually check for grief.
But the reason we use factions is because it's a lot easier to put in/maintain. Unlike worldguard you can add more regions to the already allotted piece of land, have a custom spawn point, (Instead of walking a million blocks back to base) and basically keep track of the members of the group. Had this be a perfect world where we could mix plugins together, or maybe we can look into the config of factions, it'd be cool to take off the invincibility off players while they are in their base.
The reason I don't like WG is because I've seen it try to work with factions in three launches of managing a roleplay server. It's a lot more complaining than it is for the sake of roleplay. Maybe someday we could try without it, but there's just as much ways to bypass into a base, as well as it being difficult to manage. What I mean by that is, unlike factions where you can easily add in a person in or out of the regions... WG, you have to manually type them in. The permissions for this is kind of tricky because then we'd have to go through the process of grouping owners, etc. We've had a lot of problems with this in the past so I'd like to avoid it.
I dunno, the fair solution would be for me to see if there's any way I can rid of the invincibility in faction lands. Then we could really get somewhere. But I really don't wanna add any indev plugins or plugins already similar to what we already have.
I have noticed the server is awfully quiet :l
Anyone know whats going on apart from whiny players?
- Soul
I know I'm busy with a few projects. Mornings are usually quiet cause everyone's at school or something.
There's also exams and finals taking into account this week, so most likely people are hitting the books.
Denied, the Bones are dead and gone and have been replaced with a new group, I suggest you read the lore to find out about them.
You also make it seem like you invented the portable radio everyone in the server has on them
Another thing is you seem to be writing yourself into the concordium, not only that but a position of power. Pirates aren't raiders either, they're smugglers, they smuggle things, they don't wildly attack tradeships for their loot.I won't be able to get on much until my grades improve so Clankers and future-clankers need to be patient and Irish is my SiC so he can handle leading when I can't be on.
Have made amendments to my application. Regarding the radio, my character didn't invent it, I was trying to say that he salvaged parts and built his own, rather than acquiring one the regular way, which explains why it looks different to the regular ones.
Fixed
(Unfortunately last night was hazy on my thoughts due to something that came up but here goes.)
Dex is right, and most of the stuff I'll state here will just be reiterated from what the others say.
The reason I have the faction plugin is to keep more forms of powergaming from arising. Isn't it a bit powegaming if you can climb up a large wall about 30 or more feet off the ground with dirt? And I'm sure anyone can BS any form of trying to bypass going up said wall with, I dunno, an enderpearl, and claim it as them scaling the wall through RP. It could make sense for you, but where does the character get the said tools to get even up there? Have a harness, I dunno, rock climbing gear.. But that's besides the point.
The point of a faction plugin gives being in the faction somewhat a benefit, and a place where, they can lock up their stuff etc. When a guy is able to steal everything from a whole faction when they are gone, it's a bit powergaming, I know they're a thief but let's say said faction has literally, no one on. Then it's easy picking for any group/subfaction/person to take their stuff over when, there's no one who can get on or is on. If a subfaction/group is stealing from the faction for materials then yes, there could be a problem. Especially when the faction comes back and see, "Oh hey, they group is here to just spawn kill most of us or just terrorize us to no end". And I dunno about you, but being able to be spawned in your own city/faction seems nice too. Helps keep the group together, cause it makes sense, right? That they belong in the city together? The other fact is, we have factions to try to prevent subfactions from arising. I mean, we can have subfactions but honestly, we'd love to have them when we have more players.
You're right in the fact that it really makes some things impossible or not make sense. We've had problems like you stated, where factions are doing nothing but avoiding conflict by staying in their bases. Where, they have chests out in the open not be lootable, and doesn't make any RP sense. While this may be the case, we use the plugin as a bit of a benefit to a group being more powerful over another. As for the RP thing you're arguing about TCA and AIR, it's really hard to get any RP of the AIR if there's only a select few, not many, and trying to set up in the faction. Maybe Dex should have handled it better yes, but AIR is kind of in that rebuilding stage.. But anyway, building up a faction base is kind of a big nono, for points the others have stated, (I'm kind of out of it to type them up again, just woke up).
IF in an ideal world, we took the plugin away, I think there would be more chaos. People would be able to claim places and usually mess up the base to their whim. They could easily grief a whole base and then take everything out, even with or without RP reasons. Factions define where territory is and give them a direct HQ where they can be stationed at and do what they usually do. I just think the factions plugin is more organized and ensures a base that cannot be griefed, a bit of an advantage, yes, and helps players "defend" against other factions. Sure the lone, small guy can come and try to mug or rob from the faction, but really, this isn't like Fallout or any of the elder scrolls games to where, a person can just go in and steal everything and kill everyone as they wished, (I dunno, the player in that game can practically do anything, you make it sound like you can do anything as feasible as that). I guess what I'm getting at is, the factions have that plugin, even if it does restrict some RP, to have a bit of an advantage and be able to do what they can in their own bases. Sure, I don't like the f chat which is like OOC group chat, or the f home that can easily make people teleport out of roleplay or combat. We just hope faction members don't abuse that. I think if we take the plugin away, there would also be a lot more of PVP and unable to you know, defend an area legitly without some guy trying to camp the base or do something to ruin said faction. (And darn, I had another good point to add but I'm honestly too tired to think of it right now.)
But I do see your point, Dex could have handled this better. But I guess at the point he was trying to uphold the rules. You built into a base, he just was thinking of getting you out. I know you were going to RP it, but honestly, AIR is just trying to rebuild and using dirt to get in a base doesn't really make much sense. He probably just saw it as, Hey you bypassed your way into my base, through an unclaimed area and I'm just trying to enforce the rules by getting you out. If we take it to your Roleplay means, a person can't use dirt to literally scale up a wall. It would take days and a lot of dirt just to get up said wall. A dirt pile doesn't really make any sense, a person would need wheelburrows of dirt just to scale a let's say, 30 ft wall, not to mention the guy would need a big help from his friends to do so.
Edit:
Tl;dr but it sounds like you're telling us to get rid of something that entails, "powergaming" to potentially allow something else that can happen which is just as equally "powergaming"? I'm not entirely sure where we're going here with our arguments.
It's the difference between having your roleplayers being trusted enough not to go on sprees of griefing, or controlling your roleplayers with powergaming plugins that can save a person's life when they should be dying or keep their items untouchable when they shouldn't feel so safe. Roleplayers are unquestionably a different kind of player. You're so much less likely to find a griefer out of ten roleplayers than out of ten PVP regulars it's unimaginable.
Also, yes it simply ****ing is quite possible to have a realistic roleplay environment on Minecraft. That's what the point of having a roleplay server is. Your using Minecraft as a medium to create characters, write collectively and exchange scenes. You're writing one story with multiple people. That's what roleplay is, and it will never change definition simply because it's in a different form.
Minecraft roleplaying is a tricky business. Unless you have an incredible plugin dev team right on hand to create plugins that allow you to accurately depict the non-vanilla actions that you need to carry out in order to visualize your writing (go join Lord Of the Craft some time), allowances have to be made.
Let's take the time to remember what roleplay is at this moment. Writing one story using multiple different people collaborating in one way or another. By creating a roleplaying server, you give writers a means to write. What it's important to note is that by putting ridiculous restrictions on your roleplayers, you are limiting them from writing, which is the point of the server in the first place. To justifying it by saying "it's how we want the server to be," you're saying that you have a greater vision than your writers and that you're going to exercise your own powergaming notions in order to do "what's best."
I would write more, but I don't think I care anymore upon realizing that some of the staff here are so arrogant to believe that they are some how justified in their beliefs of intellectual superiority when they put restrictions on the player base that supports them to the effect that they can't write to the best of their abilities. It's a roleplay server, not a Factions PVP with three or so people actually doing any scene writing.
Let's break this down:
Not all players are like you.
Not all players have common sense to restrict themselves to be serious roleplayers. Some players, when roleplaying, account more PVP elements than roleplay elements which sometimes makes things unfair. When you appeal to our emotions by saying, "Let some trust in the writers" come in hand back there... Well, in the 9 or so launches I've been running servers, we have tried that and some players just can't handle only roleplaying into their abilities. Some people, abuse, bypass do whatever and then say it's Roleplay just to get what they want. See what I'm getting here? Some players aren't mature and use Roleplay as nothing more of an excuse to rob, mug, raid just so then they can collect a bunch of diamonds. When trying to bust said players they always go, "Well, I roleplayed it, so it should be fine". But constantly? Sometimes there's something a person can't do if, robbers make up any RP reason to go mugging someone, or get off the top of their head to go kill someone for X. You can easily use roleplay as an excuse to do anything and make up some ******** reason to do so. It doesn't make it so fun for another player cause you're constantly being harassed by someone.
Yes, we do trust players and their writing but there's that fine line where we have to stop them from doing something lest it conflicts with another person just trying to do what they are doing. And for factions, well the lore is pretty much centralized on what factions are going around and doing what they do. Had this been a general roleplay server, yes, maybe the individual could potentially have much more power than most of the groups out there, but what I'm saying is, a faction, is much more important in our lore. Considering, well, our lore doesn't account races or groups or small time communities. Had this be a general world like Lord of the Craft where there's diverse people out there and groups and let's say 300 people on at a time. AND unfortunately we only have one guy on dev and we could only do so much.
Why even compare us to lord of the craft? We're a small time server, and honestly, our theme is a lot more different than them. We only started up like, what? 2 weeks ago.
And yeah, I know how forum based roleplay is, I have 9 years of experience in it. You can't type seven paragraphs on minecraft per reply, lest you want creepers attacking you while you rush through to finish the world building elements. There are limits that you have to do on servers and I dunno if you've noticed, but, honestly, this is roleplaying in a game; Where you can change your "world building Elements". You're going to get roleplayers who roleplay using the game based elements and just general roleplayers who also account other things, but honestly, it's going to be damn hard to make it as realistic as I think you want it to be.
Also.
Edit:
I dunno if you've noticed, but Dave and Whitellama aren't staff.
Yes the plugin does bring issues of power-gaming, however as aforementioned by others the lack of this plugin would be detrimental to the server. If it were not in pace there would be no safe havens for players. Everyone feels annoyance at the fact that players are invulnerable but in a game where you die every other second, it's the best solution at hand. I say this not as a member of staff but as one of the players.
You say that we should trust our fellow players, and as much as I would like to, it frankly isn't viable. This may offend people, but I don't really give a monkey's fart, there are asshats on the server there always will be asshats. People enjoy doing bad things, I'm no exception. I have griefed in the past, I enjoy it and I will do it whenever I damn well please.
However as you said it's about self control, I wouldn't grief on this server because I now the repercussions outweigh the small joy I get from it. However not everyone feels the same way. One thing that I have learned about minecraft regardless of the type of server (rp,pvp,creative) is that as soon as you provide a means to grief, it WILL be abused.
It's not how we want it to be, it's how it has to be. If we were to allow total freedom the server would be a mess. It's difficult to provide a realistic RP experience when a lot of the time in game is spent hitting respawn. I don't think anyone here think's that their vision of the server is any more valid than an others, it's simply that to provide the best experience for the majority of the players, we need to enforce certain rules.
TL;DR - Rules are here for the benefit of the mass, we can't trust players to make the right choice!
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I'll finishing by asking you something. What would you have the server do? It's all very well to sit there and tell us how we are ruining the server. Yet all I seem to get across from this system is you don't like factions because they constrict your ability to RP.
So I'll ask again. What would you do, to improve this situation?
I don't want you to think that I'm having a dig at you, because I'm not. All I'm saying is you have to bear in mind that rules are put in place to provide the most enjoyable experience for the majority of the users. I respect your wish to let your creative juices flow, I just don't think your going to find AAA Rp'ing in a game filled with mostly 12-16 year old's that revolves around blocks, and people with the ability to flatten a mountain with a rose.
~Game
And as I stated before, Game is correct that you have not offered any sort of alternative to this plugin. I do agree that a better alternative would make for better roleplay, given that it provides equal protection against the issues raised that the factions plugin is needed to negate.
Here's what I suggest: Assuming the server has the proper hardware to handle such a plugin, we should use something like Big Brother, which logs changes in an area and allows administrators to roll back anything unwanted. Doing some looking around, the only currently available plugin for 1.2.5 is Guardian, which is a new plugin being built for the features of Big Brother, Logblock, and Hawkeye combined. It is only available at the moment in its alpha, which is disappointing, but it's still something to consider.
Assuming it works in its current state, it would make for a fantastic replacement of factions for several reasons; administrators would have access to full logs, indicating which player made what changes not only within faction territories, but everywhere. Players would be able to roleplay out situations without restriction nor worry, knowing that any negative results (accidental or intentional) could be rolled back, if deemed necessary by the administration. Essentially, the game would keep moving, and any sorts of griefing, rule-breaking, or unfit actions could be reversed at any time. Rather than taking great lengths to prevent these things before they happen, they can be undone afterwards, without restricting the actions of capable roleplayers.
I'm finished listing off the good reasons for this plugin, there are also several shortcomings worth acknowledging. First and foremost, the plugin is only in alpha; it is likely not to cover all desired features and functions until later releases. In addition, because of the large scope of gameplay this plugin is designed to integrate with, it is likely to break with updates. This sort of plugin would also require repeated admin intervention, as negative changes can only be rolled back by a user. I suggest that all players would be granted permission to check the changes in a block, so that the playerbase is better able to report griefing or needed rollbacks to the administration. Rolling back changes could also serve to be time consuming and possibly difficult to manage, but we can at least hope that the whitelisting process roots out enough poor players that there wouldn't be too many necessary rollbacks.
There you have it. Obviously it'd take a lot to get this plugin working smoothly in replacement of (or in joint with) factions, because of the technicalities involved in setting up a logging system (mySQL databases and the likes), as well as the know-how required to properly utilize a complex plugin effectively. Still, in the long run I think it'd pay off if, even in alpha.
Thoughts on the matter?
We COULD remove the faction plugin if we add both Guardian (Like you suggested) and WorldGuard for faction bases. WorldGuard protects against greifing and Guardin (If it works) would make it easier to gather evidence against rule breakers.
Define Metagaming: Using knowledge from outside the game to give your ingame character an advantage.
-At a bar-
Barkeep: We don't server "Steam" here. But I can make one helluva dirty martini
Hacker journal 1: I have discovered this robot. I've only allowed it to do primary functions like walk and record. But it looks like it has potential. It appears to use a steam powered battery in it's upper head. It looks like it recharges on water and hot coals. Neat! Judging by it's old owner's audio tapes, it's called Discord. I like the name, but I'm thinking of ways I can improve on it in the name of our glorious Archimedes. It has quite an interesting system of cogs. The amount of variances in the head is extraordinary. It looks almost like a human brain. There has to be millions of tiny cogs in there. And a different pulley for each situation. Even someone smart as I can never comprehend how it's built. D15CORD. Power off. I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave. AH! What are you doing! Get off of me!
Is that a challenge Tim !?
(Typing this as I just woke up)
WG and... Honestly we don't need guardian, we already have Hawkeye which rolls things back and then can actually check for grief.
But the reason we use factions is because it's a lot easier to put in/maintain. Unlike worldguard you can add more regions to the already allotted piece of land, have a custom spawn point, (Instead of walking a million blocks back to base) and basically keep track of the members of the group. Had this be a perfect world where we could mix plugins together, or maybe we can look into the config of factions, it'd be cool to take off the invincibility off players while they are in their base.
The reason I don't like WG is because I've seen it try to work with factions in three launches of managing a roleplay server. It's a lot more complaining than it is for the sake of roleplay. Maybe someday we could try without it, but there's just as much ways to bypass into a base, as well as it being difficult to manage. What I mean by that is, unlike factions where you can easily add in a person in or out of the regions... WG, you have to manually type them in. The permissions for this is kind of tricky because then we'd have to go through the process of grouping owners, etc. We've had a lot of problems with this in the past so I'd like to avoid it.
I dunno, the fair solution would be for me to see if there's any way I can rid of the invincibility in faction lands. Then we could really get somewhere. But I really don't wanna add any indev plugins or plugins already similar to what we already have.
I know I'm busy with a few projects. Mornings are usually quiet cause everyone's at school or something.
There's also exams and finals taking into account this week, so most likely people are hitting the books.
Interesting app, clever use of pop culture referances and making me sound like some sort of god xD
But in all seriousness, accepted!
Denied, New Sera doesn't exist anymore and improve rp example
Denied, the Bones are dead and gone and have been replaced with a new group, I suggest you read the lore to find out about them.
You also make it seem like you invented the portable radio everyone in the server has on them
Another thing is you seem to be writing yourself into the concordium, not only that but a position of power. Pirates aren't raiders either, they're smugglers, they smuggle things, they don't wildly attack tradeships for their loot.I won't be able to get on much until my grades improve so Clankers and future-clankers need to be patient and Irish is my SiC so he can handle leading when I can't be on.
Hmm... accepted