I see a lot of people on these forums talking about SMP griefing. Yes it is a serious matter, and yes, it will need to be countered by how the server works and not how people play the game itself.
Griefers are unavoidable in the context of an online game, they will always be there. So there must be a game mechanic which can work against these fiends in their quests of block destruction.
The goals of a land claim flag system is this
1. Prevent griefing
2. Prevent destruction and placing of blocks (with the exception of TNT perhaps)
3. Allow players to capture the land claim flag (important goal!)
4. Lock chests in the area to the owners of the flag, furnaces are not locked!
5. Have a fair sized area of capture, and allow multiple captures of the same area (teams sharing a flag)
5a. Perhaps to this effect, increase the size of the capture area depending on the number of players?
The land claim flag can reduce griefing of a base by preventing people from climbing over walls, and tunnelling through them. Yet who have spent enough time to amass a large quantity of TNT can easily break through, yet these people will likely be raiders and not griefers.
But what do people do when they break into a castle? They cant do anything at all! They can't steal from the chests, so they can't be rewarded for successfully entering the stronghold! Thats where capturing the flag comes in. They can find the land claim flag and stand near it (perhaps the owner of the flag can be notified, therefore a small group of people can't wipe out a huge base without a counterattack). Once they have captured the flag, they can raid the chests and destroy the castle! How can you prevent this? You can build the locking system you have always dreamed of. :smile.gif:
Locking of chests will prevent thiefs from stealing your items before capturing the area. Furnaces shouldn't be locked, to keep players on their toes.
A fair sized area of capture, well, what is fair? That is a good question for all of us here. Perhaps "fair" is the ( size of the SMP map / the number of players ) * number of owners of the flag - a certain amount.
Perhaps land claim flags may be what we really need, to make SMP fun for all players without becoming unfair for new users. Of course, I might be wrong, and this idea of how the mechanic could work is up for debate.
This is my first post, after seeing all the heated discussion about how SMP will work to stop griefers, I had to post. I hope I am welcome here. :smile.gif:
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I actually like the idea here, mate. THe only problem I see is your fomula; Such a thing would grant Absurdly large amounts of land to one flag : /
And that is why I am suggesting that you make a better one, because there must be some sort of calculation involved (after all, it is a computer game, computers can't abstract "fair" amounts of playing area without knowing how to calculate fair. :tongue.gif:).
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What if me and my 3 friends put our flags around your flag and have you completely surrounded then build giant walls around your "base" that you spent hours constructing.
Land flags which can be captured sounds fantastic so long as TNT isn't prevented. Creepers are contentious. Also, "hacking" of security doors may need to be addressed.
Land-claim flags will likely be limited. The space required to make a surrounding wall just to troll one person will be exceedingly difficult.
This is what I was thinking:
1. No placement of blocks for non-allies(Or a limit of 1-3 blocks per owner to allow TNT).
2. Increase destruction times for non-owner.
3. Prevent or lower the likelihood of mob spawns.
4. Locked chests, requiring them to be broken(still following destruction time multiplier). [This is the ONLY system I can see working without being incredibly biased towards the owner or the one breaking in. Would also give more motivation to make a better chest.]
5. Capturing should involve just destroying the flag and taking it as your own excluding special game modes.
6. It should have a 5 block radius(11x11x11 area total), requiring strategic replacement as they will probably be pretty expensive. Don't want someone putting down one or two and have an entire city covered.
7. To prevent overlapping coverage, claim flags shouldn't be able to be within 10 blocks of each other(at least with different owners).
What if me and my 3 friends put our flags around your flag and have you completely surrounded then build giant walls around your "base" that you spent hours constructing.
#6 and #7 would probably prevent this unless a group has a shitload of resources to sink into it unless the one you're surrounding doesn't have any flags. Even then, unless you're camping that wall 24/7, they'll eventually dig through it or under it.
(And yes I always gotta chuck my ideas in a listed way, it's easier)
Maybe you can only damage land while the owner is online? Otherwise, you can still interact with the objects (pull levers, press buttons, open chests) but you can't actually damage any bricks. This only counts within their land claim, not everything they place.
Edit: Perhaps a function to make multiple "allies" or "tenants" which can build and destroy while the owner is offline?
People would build their flag in the air high enough that nobody can capture it by standing near it, but low enough so that they get the land they want.
Oh my god, can we for one single day not talk about this? I mean really, we're cluttered every day with these topics about these magical beings that can detonate the world with one click and can rob everyone of all their possessions from the gigantic landscape in a single night. I've said it before and I'll say it again, any good SMP server will have a registration process at one point or another, may it be in-game or at an external website. Not only that, SMP will be about leveling up. Not with EXP, but with tools, weapons, houses, and armor. Without those you're a punching bag for mobs. You'll have to survive, thus SURVIVAL Multiplayer, get it? People will group up to survive, starting towns and cities, if enough people are on the server. Yes, a loner living in his own little castle can be robbed pretty easily, but if he's a loner he should just play normal survival. Anyone else would be living with multiple people (At least 2 others) who would have build a defense that would be strong enough to stop anyone unwanted. It's survival of the fittest, not survival of the RP wannabes. Land Claim flags will never, ever work in the public. The only place they should ever be allowed is in the "Spawn City" for servers who have them, that's it.
With the "tenants" system anyone that is added to the list can build and destroy. Maybe if one of the "tenants" is online, the land can be destroyed/built upon then? This means that there has to be at least one owner on for the land to be damaged.
Oh my god, can we for one single day not talk about this? I mean really, we're cluttered every day with these topics about these magical beings that can detonate the world with one click and can rob everyone of all their possessions from the gigantic landscape in a single night. I've said it before and I'll say it again, any good SMP server will have a registration process at one point or another, may it be in-game or at an external website. Not only that, SMP will be about leveling up. Not with EXP, but with tools, weapons, houses, and armor. Without those you're a punching bag for mobs. You'll have to survive, thus SURVIVAL Multiplayer, get it? People will group up to survive, starting towns and cities, if enough people are on the server. Yes, a loner living in his own little castle can be robbed pretty easily, but if he's a loner he should just play normal survival. Anyone else would be living with multiple people (At least 2 others) who would have build a defense that would be strong enough to stop anyone unwanted. It's survival of the fittest, not survival of the RP wannabes. Land Claim flags will never, ever work in the public. The only place they should ever be allowed is in the "Spawn City" for servers who have them, that's it.
Flaky, I know you may be frustrated by my topic of choice, yet it is an important part of gameplay that MUST be fleshed out before SMP, Notch may just implement what he decides is best though, lets help him get the right ideas.
A registration process is a bit far fetched for most servers. The majority of people are just pubbers who want to have a fun game, lets not make this some clone of some random MMO with private servers and the like.
Yes, people will group up, but what if a loner just sneaked in through a hole in the ground and stole all of your stuff? You do have a good argument that this shouldn't be some kind of RP, but RP uses abstract thought, not gameplay mechanics, to decide who gets to destroy what.
Quote from TacticsAndNiblics »
Wait, if it doesn't allow non-owners to place blocks.. how would you have citizens? You need to be able to give someone trust to build something.
Tactics, that is true. But maybe you could give varying levels of trust for varying areas of your establishment.
Quote from VIROS »
With the "tenants" system anyone that is added to the list can build and destroy. Maybe if one of the "tenants" is online, the land can be destroyed/built upon then? This means that there has to be at least one owner on for the land to be damaged.
Viros, if no one is online, restricting damage would be silly. But a workaround seems to evade my perception. I have no idea how to fix this problem, anyone else have any?
EDIT: Fixed for clarity.
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Oh my god, can we for one single day not talk about this? I mean really, we're cluttered every day with these topics about these magical beings that can detonate the world with one click and can rob everyone of all their possessions from the gigantic landscape in a single night. I've said it before and I'll say it again, any good SMP server will have a registration process at one point or another, may it be in-game or at an external website. Not only that, SMP will be about leveling up. Not with EXP, but with tools, weapons, houses, and armor. Without those you're a punching bag for mobs. You'll have to survive, thus SURVIVAL Multiplayer, get it? People will group up to survive, starting towns and cities, if enough people are on the server. Yes, a loner living in his own little castle can be robbed pretty easily, but if he's a loner he should just play normal survival. Anyone else would be living with multiple people (At least 2 others) who would have build a defense that would be strong enough to stop anyone unwanted. It's survival of the fittest, not survival of the RP wannabes. Land Claim flags will never, ever work in the public. The only place they should ever be allowed is in the "Spawn City" for servers who have them, that's it.
Really? Really? someone who finally agrees with me everything you say is true and to add to that in public games theres probably going to be around 20-40 people a server. So regular non griefers would build a great city lets say then a griefer joins the server then he starts punching your wall..... not much damage huh? so instead the griefer starts to build wooden things and does more damage to your castle but still not a lot? So the griefer makes a mine looks for iron builds a house then attacks again and you know what that means? the griefer isn't a griefer hes a raider who has put actual time into the game if you see my point so griefers cant just go into your server and destroy all your hard work in seconds it actually takes A LOT of time to do anything now there if you see my point griefers wont work all that well since they usually get bored in a couple of seconds if they dont cause destruction so the only people you have to worry about are the hackers who give them selfs limitless tnt.
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Quote from Neodymius »
I wouldn't call us an "evil" clan, all we want to do is butcher people for fun.
Neodymius on The Gentleman's Society of Wanton Massacre
Land Claim Flags could be quite good.
Land Claim Flags could be incredibly terrible.
Based on Notch's track record with MC, I would lean toward them probably being quite good, or else being removed shortly after implementation.
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I thought you'd contracted a disease that gave you the same metabolism as an oak tree - Maggarg II
It heals all of your goddamn hearts! - kittensamurai
Really? Really? someone who finally agrees with me everything you say is true and to add to that in public games theres probably going to be around 20-40 people a server. So regular non griefers would build a great city lets say then a griefer joins the server then he starts punching your wall..... not much damage huh? so instead the griefer starts to build wooden things and does more damage to your castle but still not a lot? So the griefer makes a mine looks for iron builds a house then attacks again and you know what that means? the griefer isn't a griefer hes a raider who has put actual time into the game if you see my point so griefers cant just go into your server and destroy all your hard work in seconds it actually takes A LOT of time to do anything now there if you see my point griefers wont work all that well since they usually get bored in a couple of seconds if they dont cause destruction so the only people you have to worry about are the hackers who give them selfs limitless tnt.
There is just one problem with your raider argument.
Griefer joins server
Griefer punches down tree
Griefer creates wooden pickaxe
Griefer mines wall of your base
Griefer steals everything
See, this player has not invested much time in the server, yet has still managed to cause damage, and can now leave the server with all of your goodies.
EDIT: I just realised something, this land claim flag scenario adds to the winnings if you do manage to successfully capture a building. Along with getting all the goodies in the chests, you can also steal the ENTIRE CREATION! That may be a good or bad thing, but the ability to steal someones sky fort or diamond mine adds to the gains that can be attained by capture of a flag. That could play out to be an interesting and fun mechanic, or a very bad one.
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Yeah, it takes me like, absolutely no more than 5 minutes to have stone tools galore, more than enough to mine through any wall and destroy everything you have.
Especially if you have a steel and flint somewhere I can find, then I can burn up all your items in seconds, and set everything else on fire.
If there aren't griefers, it will not be because it takes too much time.
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I thought you'd contracted a disease that gave you the same metabolism as an oak tree - Maggarg II
It heals all of your goddamn hearts! - kittensamurai
EDIT: I just realised something, this land claim flag scenario adds to the winnings if you do manage to successfully capture a building. Along with getting all the goodies in the chests, you can also steal the ENTIRE CREATION! That may be a good or bad thing, but the ability to steal someones sky fort or diamond mine adds to the gains that can be attained by capture of a flag. That could play out to be an interesting and fun mechanic, or a very bad one.
So, it's cool to let anyone take their entire base but not just the stuff inside it. What.
Can anyone tell me why this isn't in the suggestions board? Seriously.
I'm honestly tired of hearing about land claim flags. I could care less right now. How about we get SMP out, then we start worrying about fine-tuning the mechanics?
I think that either land claim flags slouldnt exist, or that they triple the time it takes to mine something, as invulnerability with restrictions is just.....
Griefers are unavoidable in the context of an online game, they will always be there. So there must be a game mechanic which can work against these fiends in their quests of block destruction.
The goals of a land claim flag system is this
1. Prevent griefing
2. Prevent destruction and placing of blocks (with the exception of TNT perhaps)
3. Allow players to capture the land claim flag (important goal!)
4. Lock chests in the area to the owners of the flag, furnaces are not locked!
5. Have a fair sized area of capture, and allow multiple captures of the same area (teams sharing a flag)
5a. Perhaps to this effect, increase the size of the capture area depending on the number of players?
The land claim flag can reduce griefing of a base by preventing people from climbing over walls, and tunnelling through them. Yet who have spent enough time to amass a large quantity of TNT can easily break through, yet these people will likely be raiders and not griefers.
But what do people do when they break into a castle? They cant do anything at all! They can't steal from the chests, so they can't be rewarded for successfully entering the stronghold! Thats where capturing the flag comes in. They can find the land claim flag and stand near it (perhaps the owner of the flag can be notified, therefore a small group of people can't wipe out a huge base without a counterattack). Once they have captured the flag, they can raid the chests and destroy the castle! How can you prevent this? You can build the locking system you have always dreamed of. :smile.gif:
Locking of chests will prevent thiefs from stealing your items before capturing the area. Furnaces shouldn't be locked, to keep players on their toes.
A fair sized area of capture, well, what is fair? That is a good question for all of us here. Perhaps "fair" is the ( size of the SMP map / the number of players ) * number of owners of the flag - a certain amount.
Perhaps land claim flags may be what we really need, to make SMP fun for all players without becoming unfair for new users. Of course, I might be wrong, and this idea of how the mechanic could work is up for debate.
This is my first post, after seeing all the heated discussion about how SMP will work to stop griefers, I had to post. I hope I am welcome here. :smile.gif:
And that is why I am suggesting that you make a better one, because there must be some sort of calculation involved (after all, it is a computer game, computers can't abstract "fair" amounts of playing area without knowing how to calculate fair. :tongue.gif:).
What if me and my 3 friends put our flags around your flag and have you completely surrounded then build giant walls around your "base" that you spent hours constructing.
Land-claim flags will likely be limited. The space required to make a surrounding wall just to troll one person will be exceedingly difficult.
1. No placement of blocks for non-allies(Or a limit of 1-3 blocks per owner to allow TNT).
2. Increase destruction times for non-owner.
3. Prevent or lower the likelihood of mob spawns.
4. Locked chests, requiring them to be broken(still following destruction time multiplier). [This is the ONLY system I can see working without being incredibly biased towards the owner or the one breaking in. Would also give more motivation to make a better chest.]
5. Capturing should involve just destroying the flag and taking it as your own excluding special game modes.
6. It should have a 5 block radius(11x11x11 area total), requiring strategic replacement as they will probably be pretty expensive. Don't want someone putting down one or two and have an entire city covered.
7. To prevent overlapping coverage, claim flags shouldn't be able to be within 10 blocks of each other(at least with different owners).
#6 and #7 would probably prevent this unless a group has a shitload of resources to sink into it unless the one you're surrounding doesn't have any flags. Even then, unless you're camping that wall 24/7, they'll eventually dig through it or under it.
(And yes I always gotta chuck my ideas in a listed way, it's easier)
Edit: Perhaps a function to make multiple "allies" or "tenants" which can build and destroy while the owner is offline?
♣♦♠♥
Former King of Alesgan
♣♦♠♥
Former King of Alesgan
Flaky, I know you may be frustrated by my topic of choice, yet it is an important part of gameplay that MUST be fleshed out before SMP, Notch may just implement what he decides is best though, lets help him get the right ideas.
A registration process is a bit far fetched for most servers. The majority of people are just pubbers who want to have a fun game, lets not make this some clone of some random MMO with private servers and the like.
Yes, people will group up, but what if a loner just sneaked in through a hole in the ground and stole all of your stuff? You do have a good argument that this shouldn't be some kind of RP, but RP uses abstract thought, not gameplay mechanics, to decide who gets to destroy what.
Tactics, that is true. But maybe you could give varying levels of trust for varying areas of your establishment.
Viros, if no one is online, restricting damage would be silly. But a workaround seems to evade my perception. I have no idea how to fix this problem, anyone else have any?
EDIT: Fixed for clarity.
Really? Really? someone who finally agrees with me everything you say is true and to add to that in public games theres probably going to be around 20-40 people a server. So regular non griefers would build a great city lets say then a griefer joins the server then he starts punching your wall..... not much damage huh? so instead the griefer starts to build wooden things and does more damage to your castle but still not a lot? So the griefer makes a mine looks for iron builds a house then attacks again and you know what that means? the griefer isn't a griefer hes a raider who has put actual time into the game if you see my point so griefers cant just go into your server and destroy all your hard work in seconds it actually takes A LOT of time to do anything now there if you see my point griefers wont work all that well since they usually get bored in a couple of seconds if they dont cause destruction so the only people you have to worry about are the hackers who give them selfs limitless tnt.
Neodymius on The Gentleman's Society of Wanton Massacre
Land Claim Flags could be incredibly terrible.
Based on Notch's track record with MC, I would lean toward them probably being quite good, or else being removed shortly after implementation.
It heals all of your goddamn hearts! - kittensamurai
There is just one problem with your raider argument.
Griefer joins server
Griefer punches down tree
Griefer creates wooden pickaxe
Griefer mines wall of your base
Griefer steals everything
See, this player has not invested much time in the server, yet has still managed to cause damage, and can now leave the server with all of your goodies.
EDIT: I just realised something, this land claim flag scenario adds to the winnings if you do manage to successfully capture a building. Along with getting all the goodies in the chests, you can also steal the ENTIRE CREATION! That may be a good or bad thing, but the ability to steal someones sky fort or diamond mine adds to the gains that can be attained by capture of a flag. That could play out to be an interesting and fun mechanic, or a very bad one.
Especially if you have a steel and flint somewhere I can find, then I can burn up all your items in seconds, and set everything else on fire.
If there aren't griefers, it will not be because it takes too much time.
It heals all of your goddamn hearts! - kittensamurai
So, it's cool to let anyone take their entire base but not just the stuff inside it. What.
I'm honestly tired of hearing about land claim flags. I could care less right now. How about we get SMP out, then we start worrying about fine-tuning the mechanics?