The server and its future

[Pri]

As I'm sure many of you have noticed the server this year has been on quite a player decline. I think it's mostly due to us playing things too safe.

For example, PVP is off by default, builds are protected too much and staff punish people who grief anything whether it's in a town or not. Our games only threatening aspect are the monsters. But even if you are killed you don't lose any items and if you have a supporter rank you don't lose XP either.

We don't even allow Towns to dismantle anymore if their taxes aren't paid. There's no risk and that is not exciting. I feel that by playing it too safe we have created a server that is boring to play on. It's a good place to be creative but many players aren't looking for that. They want risk and excitement, it makes the rewards more gratifying.

So what I am proposing is that we change to becoming a more risky server. Griefing and stealing from unprotected buildings (meaning not in protected towns) will be allowed. Stealing from all chests that you can physically open will be allowed. PVP will be on by default. And your inventory will drop on the floor when you are killed, same with XP.

Finally we will allow Towns to fall if the taxes aren't paid. So what are your thoughts on this? - It's very important that you air your opinion because this is a huge game altering change, I want everyone to have an opportunity to discuss it before any decisions are made.

And please feel free to offer alternative ideas or other changes you think should happen instead of this or accompanying this idea. I'll be making a decision about what we're doing by early October.

[TheLenore]

I like the PVP on by default, but maybe it would be good to let new players have it off for 4 hours or so when they first join so they can get settled.

Keep inventory on is a neat option - would be cool if we could pay to keep certain items

The rest I'm okay with, it would encourage players to build traps and such which I find really cool
I'm sure most current players would be ok with living in peace, but this could be really fun ^^

[iNook]

I'm all for the server becoming more difficult, I agree that once a player is established with a basic town, basic weapons and basic armour, the danger aspect of the game just falls completely, which ruins the fun.

I feel flight is also the largest contributor to making the game too easy. Obviously from a creativity standpoint, it's perfect for helping build etc but for a survival server I feel it removes the survival aspect. My suggestion would be some way of either taxing it, or relying on elytras from now on as they in conjunction with fireworks do pretty much the same thing.

[PlumPudding71]

I agree with the disbanding of towns and turning off keepInventory, but here's where I differ:

How will griefing be controlled to a reasonable level? I feel like if 'anything goes', people's bases are going to become wrecks overnight left with only looted chests and farms. Not everyone wants to or can build within a town. At the very least, a period of time for current players to fortify or relocate their baes would be nice.

RENMX is not exclusively for builders, but at the same time, building is a keystone in the community of the server. The landscape is sprinkled with builds and bases unique and beautiful in their own ways. From spawling castles to seaside villages. Suddenly allowing griefing might halt the creation of these altogether in favour of hidden, practical, subterranean constructs that exist exclusively for utility and are easy to protect. One of the reasons I was so attracted to the server in the beginning was the freedom from having to create 'plots' and safe zones for me to build without fear of it being lost.

One more point; Would griefing on the creative server be allowed then? How then, would one teach newcomers that griefing is allowed on the survival server but not allowed on the creative server?

Don't get me wrong, I understand perfectly why these kinds of changes might benefit the server, but I am also concerned about unforseen consequences that might be very difficult to revert or fix.

[Daigle]

I've been grumbling about these issues for years, but I love the server so much I adapted to it as it changed over the years.

I'm a little on the fence about these:
-Legalizing griefing in the wilderness could be fun, but the no-grief policy has always stood as long as I've been here... it might be a bit extreme, but I'm game!
-No flying? I didn't even think of that angle. Hmm I think flying is just too integral to the way we play.

I'm definitely on board with bringing back these:
-expiring deadbolts
-towns falling due to tax default which causes all doors and signs to break
-Mandatory PvP
-Dropping inventory on death (this would make the PvP worthwhile)

Of course this is all very easy for me to say as a wealthy active veteran on the server and the Mayor of a large town... I'll still play whether or not any of these are implemented or abolished.

[ModernPromethea]

I've been playing purely vanilla survival lately, so this idea is pretty interesting to me. I can't say I have any major objections to anything you've listed. As long as deadbolts are still a thing, I'm good.

I mean, I've been pretty spoiled by some of the fancy expensive tools I've collected and will be hella butthurt if I lose them permanently... but I'll live.

Personally, though, what I would really really really like, is a fully new map for 1.13. I realize that's a loooot to ask but biomes have changed so much and it would be nice to restart with the whole map being up-to-date and with no annoying circles. But obviously there's people with massive builds and years worth of projects to consider. I don't know what all the server can support in terms of number and size of maps.

[Pri]

Some interesting ideas so far here are some of my thoughts.

1. Flying - I don't think we can take this away at this point it's too used for all kinds of things from building to just having fun.

2. Not allowing griefing - I should have been more clear when I said we should allow griefing what I really mean is looting which would include taking blocks and items that are placed. I don't mean people going to someone's build and just fucking it up for no reason, we would only allow people to take stuff, stealing basically but from more than just chests this time.

3. As for resetting the map - I don't think we can do this I mean we would lose all our easter eggs, some amazing builds etc - Also if we do reset we'll just be back in this situation when 1.14 or 1.15 drops and they add or alter the biomes.

[mjw8441]

The ideas so far for changes sound great and should hopefully encourage new players to look around the server more before judging, the amount of new players leaving within the first few minutes of joining is rather frustrating :/

Flying is obviously something a lot of players on here have gotten used to and require for big builds, however I agree with iNook that it could be taxed rather than taken away completely, perhaps remove perm flying from the shop and have players purchase temp fly (with increased price depending on how much money the player has) every 24hrs. Another option I thought of is move perm fly to a later rank such as Architect, currently it feels way too easy for a player to get their hands on all the interesting upgrades so this may be a good way to make players feel they have something worth achieving on survival, as most of the rank perks are creative based.

Don't want to ramble on too much about flying, but it's worth noting you can gain perm flying in a little over a month of playing (quicker via referrals) so new players don't need to put a whole lot of dedication to the server. There's probably not many servers out there offering flying on survival with in-game currency rather than real money and younger players especially would love having that ability, so the longer it takes to get the more dedication they put in and are more likely to stay.

[steve3536]

i think something has to change to get the people back on and playing . i joined this server do to there is a lot more options far as flying and doing things you cant do on other servers. i think fly should be grandfathered to the ones whom already have it do to the people who already have it paid real money to have it or did a lot of voting to get perm fly. far as new people getting perm fly could be talked about maybe earn it some other way. i dont like the idea of your inventory droping on the floor if you die . maybe we can earn more things that we cant have rite now. it could be talked about that around the holidays Christmas thanksgiving Halloween that instead of doing the build off that people can help decorate spawn or maybe give a choice to whom wants to do the build offs they get a choice of helping decorate spawn or build off but one choice just during the holidays . or doing the build offs one of the rewards can be if you win the build off you can help decorate spawn for the holidays . im thinking maybe giving more to players of certain ranks to get more involved in the server far as doing things or helping out mods do things if they need help at that time but not a full perm thing all the time the perms get turned off when you are done with the mod person from day to day when needed .

[TheLenore]

Another thing that we're missing perhaps: we should try to update to 1.13 before making any changes, saves Pri a lot of hassle with things breaking and what not.

Also the arena: we have the mini games in it for now, but what if we were to add some sort of PvP tournament? Slightly bigger map, with obstacles and chests (sort of like Hunger games with a map from Ice Drift).