I believe that you can keep things simple, yet complex/fun with lots of content. I have been searching for a general server like this for 2 days with not a single success story.
Some things that I dislike:
1. Any server that you have to pay to get on is crap. (Donations are different)
2. I see a lot of servers that spend a lot of time and effort into getting all kind of mod software or w/e. For example: iconomy. The mod that lets you keep track of money as if it was in a bank account or something, and you can buy/sell with other members. I may be ignorant, but at least part of this system is based on 'trust'. You either trust the player to do the right thing in the trade, or you trust an admin to help you if something goes wrong. This is way way inefficient. Do people seriously have fun sitting there all day watching to make sure people dont do something wrong? I can understand it to a degree, but its as if people set up systems so that it creates more tedious work for them. If the game had some type of trading mechanism like some mmos have that would gaurentee a safe trade, yet simple for everyone, then awesome. It seems to me thought, that people are role playing inefficient systems into the game that dont work and make it more complicated. Its also annoying to listen to 14 year olds talk about how much profit they are making, or hiring other people on the server to do something in their shop, or aruge about how a gambling game was unfair, or aruge about how "I know what im doing, I built it." (not that their wrong, but its an arrogant attitude that doesnt come accross as a fun atmosphere.)
3. Another problem that ties into the second in some ways.... When I come into a city (or spawn there) where you have tons of buildings and you walk to every shop with no owner, just taking up space. Its a waste of my time (even if they were there i wouldnt understand how the system worked (also... if everyone doesnt understand exactly how a system works, then miscommunications can happen, which is a whole set of stress/crap)). It is also very annoying to join a server that has 10miles of city structure every direction. No lie: one server, I walked for 10 minutes before i started getting away from civilization. It wouldnt be so bad, but it is also diserted. People come on to the server build these big structures, leave, and never come back. Maybe they just are not on. one problem is that these cities are not organized. Some servers are more organized than others, but i never found myself saying "wow, this is an intuitive city structure. Its both beautiful and practicle."
4. the amount of people on a server text chatting can take up 1/3 of my screen, and it doesnt help that most of it is a bunch of crap. If i want to make a friend that is right next to me, I can forget it, since a)he/she probably is ignoring the text just like i do most of the times and b)we couldnt talk for all the other people's kaos. I wish the game had a localization chat. I think there may be a way to do this on some servers with region mods, but if that is the case, then the lack of tutorial and intuitiveness on this subject is... high. (just like many other things)
5.I havent been to a single server forum that was neatly organized intuitively. When i go to a information section about the ventrilo server, I want it right there at the top. I dont want to go try it, find out it doesnt work, come back and read 5 pages of information just to figure out that a)it doesnt work anymore or b)that they changed the ip and port info without updating the initial post. What this means is that I have to read 10x the amount of information to find out two sentences of information I needed. When this is the type of organization that exist upon all the information, its really a pain/waste of time.
6. I see a lot of admins that have 'titles (color codes)' that are nothing more than brownie points. This makes the chain of command seem like a joke and it doesnt serve a practicle purpose.
7. When i actually find a server I like, I cannot do anything because it lags.
8. Rules: this topic goes on the same line of 'trust' that the money topic does, if not more. First of all, sometimes the rules are useless. They do no good. Second, the mods dont even enforce them (they probably couldnt if they wanted to, thus making the trust system useless for a public server).
9. some others have caught onto this, but some servers... you have to do things in order to build or even join the server (whitelist). You do so much work, and then find out that the server wasnt quite what you wanted.
10. The people that post 'dont come on my property' or 'dont grief' are idiots. For one, why do you build a ****ing masterpiece if you dont want other people looking at it? Two, If you dont want people griefing (and you are on a server that allows it or cant do anything about it) ,you should build some type of structure perhaps underground with hidden passages.
11. The use of signs: There is no clear rule whether to read left to right, top to bottom, and in many cases the signs dont clrearly explain something and possible are misleading or useless, hense: waste of time. I also see about 10 signs witin 10 square feet that say the same basic thing. Very inefficient time management, both on the part of the creator and readers.
Some things I would do, if i hosted:
1. I like the spawn commands. The maps can be too big without the basic /sethome and /home and /spawn commands. (regardless of whether you have big cities or not)
2. The spawn city would be very small. Maybe a few blocks. Nothing that would take over 2 min to get out of the walls. Thats another thing. have walls that clearly define the city, which would help people understand when you say "no building or mining inside city walls." Ive been on a server that said that, yet there were no walls, or if there were walls, then they were not clearly defined. For example: the wall could have a certain pattern that destinguished it from other people's properties.
4. the cities should be intuitive and not very big (newbs could get lost. everyone is a newb at some point, and it can scare them away. even if you dont want that many newcomers, many times your regulars stop coming after a while and you are left with unmanaged segments of the map, that should be managed: for example: I stumble upon 10 buildings that either are not finished, or are abandoned at the time, I need a way of knowing, is it ok to tear this peice of crap down or not.), and connected by roads. Between cities, people can build off the road however they like, etc
5. The strategies where people have to use forums to post information/rules/communication methods/etc work, but people do not utilize them efficiently. LIke i said, you read 10 pages to find one peice of info.
Some of these things are things the game could improve on, but most of the problem are suck organized servers in my opinion. I like a lot of content, but i dont like a steep learning curve. I should start having fun and understand my position in the world right away. Im not being critical of what other people like. There are tons of people out there that like these servers im talking about, but i just cant find one that i like, and ive seen others like me. It worries me that ill never play this game to its full potential. (I know its only in beta, but still)
I may be exagerating on a few points, and I may be a bit unreasonable in some areas. Maybe I need to just chill out and have fun, but... I wanted to post this, in case there were some others out there that agreed with me, and had some useful info for me.
I got this game for its general simplicity, but people seem to want to turn it into a whole different game with no clear purpose.
Please comment back if you agree, disagree, or have any usefull information or questions.
peace
ps- Anyone that likes to boast about how "I am mature"... whether young or old... loses integrity in my book. You shouldnt have to tell people that you are mature.
hmmm i agree with u. why not try my server? it dosnt meet all ur reqirements, like the spawn city is pretty big, many building s are empty, but it does meat ur other reqests. its not a perfect match for u, i know, but u never know u mughr like it. the ip is int the sig
Some things that I dislike:
1. Any server that you have to pay to get on is crap. (Donations are different)
2. I see a lot of servers that spend a lot of time and effort into getting all kind of mod software or w/e. For example: iconomy. The mod that lets you keep track of money as if it was in a bank account or something, and you can buy/sell with other members. I may be ignorant, but at least part of this system is based on 'trust'. You either trust the player to do the right thing in the trade, or you trust an admin to help you if something goes wrong. This is way way inefficient. Do people seriously have fun sitting there all day watching to make sure people dont do something wrong? I can understand it to a degree, but its as if people set up systems so that it creates more tedious work for them. If the game had some type of trading mechanism like some mmos have that would gaurentee a safe trade, yet simple for everyone, then awesome. It seems to me thought, that people are role playing inefficient systems into the game that dont work and make it more complicated. Its also annoying to listen to 14 year olds talk about how much profit they are making, or hiring other people on the server to do something in their shop, or aruge about how a gambling game was unfair, or aruge about how "I know what im doing, I built it." (not that their wrong, but its an arrogant attitude that doesnt come accross as a fun atmosphere.)
3. Another problem that ties into the second in some ways.... When I come into a city (or spawn there) where you have tons of buildings and you walk to every shop with no owner, just taking up space. Its a waste of my time (even if they were there i wouldnt understand how the system worked (also... if everyone doesnt understand exactly how a system works, then miscommunications can happen, which is a whole set of stress/crap)). It is also very annoying to join a server that has 10miles of city structure every direction. No lie: one server, I walked for 10 minutes before i started getting away from civilization. It wouldnt be so bad, but it is also diserted. People come on to the server build these big structures, leave, and never come back. Maybe they just are not on. one problem is that these cities are not organized. Some servers are more organized than others, but i never found myself saying "wow, this is an intuitive city structure. Its both beautiful and practicle."
4. the amount of people on a server text chatting can take up 1/3 of my screen, and it doesnt help that most of it is a bunch of crap. If i want to make a friend that is right next to me, I can forget it, since a)he/she probably is ignoring the text just like i do most of the times and b)we couldnt talk for all the other people's kaos. I wish the game had a localization chat. I think there may be a way to do this on some servers with region mods, but if that is the case, then the lack of tutorial and intuitiveness on this subject is... high. (just like many other things)
5.I havent been to a single server forum that was neatly organized intuitively. When i go to a information section about the ventrilo server, I want it right there at the top. I dont want to go try it, find out it doesnt work, come back and read 5 pages of information just to figure out that a)it doesnt work anymore or b)that they changed the ip and port info without updating the initial post. What this means is that I have to read 10x the amount of information to find out two sentences of information I needed. When this is the type of organization that exist upon all the information, its really a pain/waste of time.
6. I see a lot of admins that have 'titles (color codes)' that are nothing more than brownie points. This makes the chain of command seem like a joke and it doesnt serve a practicle purpose.
7. When i actually find a server I like, I cannot do anything because it lags.
8. Rules: this topic goes on the same line of 'trust' that the money topic does, if not more. First of all, sometimes the rules are useless. They do no good. Second, the mods dont even enforce them (they probably couldnt if they wanted to, thus making the trust system useless for a public server).
9. some others have caught onto this, but some servers... you have to do things in order to build or even join the server (whitelist). You do so much work, and then find out that the server wasnt quite what you wanted.
10. The people that post 'dont come on my property' or 'dont grief' are idiots. For one, why do you build a ****ing masterpiece if you dont want other people looking at it? Two, If you dont want people griefing (and you are on a server that allows it or cant do anything about it) ,you should build some type of structure perhaps underground with hidden passages.
11. The use of signs: There is no clear rule whether to read left to right, top to bottom, and in many cases the signs dont clrearly explain something and possible are misleading or useless, hense: waste of time. I also see about 10 signs witin 10 square feet that say the same basic thing. Very inefficient time management, both on the part of the creator and readers.
Some things I would do, if i hosted:
1. I like the spawn commands. The maps can be too big without the basic /sethome and /home and /spawn commands. (regardless of whether you have big cities or not)
2. The spawn city would be very small. Maybe a few blocks. Nothing that would take over 2 min to get out of the walls. Thats another thing. have walls that clearly define the city, which would help people understand when you say "no building or mining inside city walls." Ive been on a server that said that, yet there were no walls, or if there were walls, then they were not clearly defined. For example: the wall could have a certain pattern that destinguished it from other people's properties.
4. the cities should be intuitive and not very big (newbs could get lost. everyone is a newb at some point, and it can scare them away. even if you dont want that many newcomers, many times your regulars stop coming after a while and you are left with unmanaged segments of the map, that should be managed: for example: I stumble upon 10 buildings that either are not finished, or are abandoned at the time, I need a way of knowing, is it ok to tear this peice of crap down or not.), and connected by roads. Between cities, people can build off the road however they like, etc
5. The strategies where people have to use forums to post information/rules/communication methods/etc work, but people do not utilize them efficiently. LIke i said, you read 10 pages to find one peice of info.
Some of these things are things the game could improve on, but most of the problem are suck organized servers in my opinion. I like a lot of content, but i dont like a steep learning curve. I should start having fun and understand my position in the world right away. Im not being critical of what other people like. There are tons of people out there that like these servers im talking about, but i just cant find one that i like, and ive seen others like me. It worries me that ill never play this game to its full potential. (I know its only in beta, but still)
I may be exagerating on a few points, and I may be a bit unreasonable in some areas. Maybe I need to just chill out and have fun, but... I wanted to post this, in case there were some others out there that agreed with me, and had some useful info for me.
I got this game for its general simplicity, but people seem to want to turn it into a whole different game with no clear purpose.
Please comment back if you agree, disagree, or have any usefull information or questions.
peace
ps- Anyone that likes to boast about how "I am mature"... whether young or old... loses integrity in my book. You shouldnt have to tell people that you are mature.
GHzCraft IP Address: GHzCraft.no-ip.org