Regarding Cities vs. Villages; or, How to Revive a Dying Sector

Discussion in 'Digiex Minecraft Server' started by Strategia, Jul 20, 2011.

  1. Strategia

    Strategia Well-Known Member

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    I would like to open this post with some useful notes and basic information.
    First off, I will likely refer to this post/thread as a "petition"; however, it is not intended to be put to a vote (yet), rather it is intended as a discussion platform for interested parties. It's not a "staff only" thread either, feel free to give your opinion (see next statement).
    Second, this will likely be a very unpopular proposition; however, I feel that it would, in the long run, benefit Cityworld, and through that the server as a whole. Please don't put useless "I don't like this proposal so you can suck it" posts in this thread, if you feel you have a valid counterpoint please elaborate.
    Third, understand that I am writing this from the perspective of a former city leader, someone with a hand in crafting the concept of Cityworld, and thus a vested interest in its continued existence. I will try to present a balanced argument, but I do have (sometimes rather strong) opinions of my own. Please don't take anything I say out of context as a supposed "fact", rather unless otherwise obvious everything I write is my opinion only.
    Fourth, I am not proposing this out of the blue. The basic issue has been recognised by people other than myself already; Skeven acknowledges its existence, and I know WildStyle agrees with most of what I am going to write here, at least.

    Now that this block of disclaimers is over, let's get down to the nuts, bolts and brass tacks of the issue.



    Cityworld is dying.

    Well, that's putting it strongly. More accurately, Cityworld is anemic. There are only a handful of people who spend any kind of time there. When the cities were (relatively) new, everyone wanted to move there, and many people did. However, after a while, the influx of new people tapered off, and now new people join a city only very rarely. Those who already own land in a city generally don't spend much time there. This has been going on since at least before my absence, which I estimate at at least a month, probably two, perhaps more. What this has led to is a situation where maybe half a dozen, maybe a full dozen, people have pretty much free rein over Cityworld, while most of the server rarely, if ever, goes there.

    There are many causes to this problem, most of which I will not go into here (especially the ones that are in the past, and thus irreversible). As I understand it, the process of making Cityworld more attractive for players is already underway; however, this will take some time. I can't speak for City 17, but Mykenai is still under construction (although it's getting closer and closer to finishing). When the cities no longer need any major construction work, it should be possible to organise what we were talking about, a rivalry of sorts with city-vs.-city PvP events every so often, and perhaps other competitions e.g. a footrace over rough terrain, a(nother) mining competition or a treasure hunt in the Wilderness.

    One reason why people are reluctant to join cities is because of the restrictions they impose. The plots cost money, and come with a preset size and other rules (e.g. no cobblestone in C17 or the old 15-block height limit in Mykenai) that further curb possibilities when building a house. This could be mitigated by planning larger, cheaper plots, and perhaps easing the rule restrictions. However, in the meantime these issues have led to the (distressingly, to me) widespread phenomenon of villages in Freebuild.

    While Freebuild is, of course, Freebuild, these villages do present a problem. There are by my count at least half a dozen of them, quite possibly many more. They are smaller, but more active. They are not allowed to charge for their plots, which draws in many people. Some of them impose similar restrictions as the real cities do, setting down rules for people's houses, while some of them are an assembly of pre-built houses that people can move into. They do not have warps or a separate world or any other perks, but this - pure speculation on my part, mind - creates the image of a handful of small breakaway communities from the larger cities, which can be another draw for people to move there.

    I recognise that the villages are but one problem the cities are facing, and not the first which needs to be addressed. However, once the other major issues are being worked out, something does need to be done about them. I am not advocating a prohibition on living in Freebuild, or on banding together outside the cities, or the immediate shutdown of existing villages. My proposition is that, in due time, restrictions be imposed on creating them. Building a castle shared with a few people is fine, of course, but organising a village with plots should IMO, in the long run, no longer be allowed, as this defeats the purpose of having Cityworld in the first place.

    Please note that I emphasise that this will be a longer-term process, not something that should be done by this time next week. The cities themselves need to sort their shit out, so to speak, before we should start discouraging villages, and even when we do it shouldn't be a rapid eviction. Wild's suggestion of moving villages to Cityworld sounds like a good idea, attaching them to the cities as suburbs or creating a "village zone" that could serve as an introduction to Cityworld, where new players could get a temporary house before moving to one of the larger cities.

    Also note that I started writing this post last night but didn't finish it, which is why it contains some of the same points as Wild's. However, I prefer a gentler, longer-term approach, rather than Wild's IMO rash solutions. What I have outlined here would be a gradual process rather than a one-time revolution.

    If you have an opinion on this issue, and/or my proposed solution, please drop a reply in here detailing what you think and why. Thank you for reading.

    Tl;dr: read the whole damn post please.
     
  2. Skeven

    Skeven Elite Member

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    I like the idea of having a starter village in CityWorld, and especially like the idea that had been suggested a while back we reboot Atlantis (for the 3/4th? time). I was thinking that maybe we could start another Atlantis between City17 and Mykenai and allow players to transfer citizenship from Atlantis to the other cities if they wish (according to their standards).

    As for villages though, I could have sworn that in some iteration of the rules, that they were banned from being built in freebuild. However, nobody enforced this and so they sprouted and we just had to enforce that they couldn't sell plots. Now we have these player shops in freebuild to contend with...
     
  3. Nimrod

    Nimrod Exotic Vendor

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    The biggest cause and problem, which we need to address. Is the building regulations. Its a very difficult situation. City Owners and most residents want a nice attractive city with city like buildings and designs. Sadly some players want to build castles, or messy houses. Mykenai vs City 17 was a perfect example of this until Mykenai got tieded up. the houses in Mykenai were of such a disgusting quality. you have period homes, you had nether houses on fire, you had tree houses and other disgusting buildings which hardly look city like. then you have nice houses like Alle's, Nit's and Punkys in C17 which show what nice city buildings should look like. However there isnt enough of those players.

    Also another factor is the cost, It use to be City17 was expensive (200+ for a plot) and Mykenai was the peoples city which was much cheaper (which does explain the house quality between the two). I should say perhaps we drop prices altogeather for first time players, but then the question opens up on how to keep build quality.

    The problem with this, is this is a debate iv had in my head so many times and tried different solutions. I just dont know the answer. How do we keep citys looking like actual cities, while making them appeal to mass players, including a large % who can't build for the life of them?
     
  4. WildStyleZx89

    WildStyleZx89 Active Member

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    Once Mykenai cityhall is done. Ill be setting up strict building rules.

    - No use of netherack and fire
    - no castle like buildings
    - no dirt, sand or cobble
    - cobble can be used only as trimming not as actual structural use
    - if you player hasnt been active for over a month in the city his house will be auctioned off.

    and so on. Ill be removing more houses probably aswell and just start fresh with just the inner part of the city the Scraper district and move on from there.
     
  5. Strategia

    Strategia Well-Known Member

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    Those building rules are even stricter than the ones I put in place, that's one reason why many people don't go to Cityworld. Although he kept harping on and on, Head_Kills did have a point when he said that cities are too restrictive for most people's taste.

    Incidentally, in my very first plan for Mykenai, the basic plot size was to be 20x20, with roads 10 blocks wide. The problem with that was that I'd have needed an area about 1000x1000 just to get roughly the amount of plots the city has now. That's why I shrunk it to 10x10 for a basic plot. It didn't seem as restrictive as it does now, partly because my house in Old Atlantis (in Mainworld) was roughly that size, and my house in Old Old Atlantis (waaay back when, on the old map) was even smaller.

    Returning to a 20x20 base plot size would be a step in the right direction, methinks. The Skyscraper District would have to be re-planned, or the area might be entirely nationalised and turned into an administrative district, but for residential plots that is a good base size I think.

    The height limit of 15 blocks was imposed because I wanted my walls to be about 20 blocks tall, and provide a view over the entire city as far as the render distance could see. Now that the walls will be built a lot lower, the height restriction can be relaxed - many people can work well with 15 blocks of headspace, but I think allowing them to go up to 20 or so would be well-received. That'd give them at least three or four generous floors, or a really tall ceiling (or a rooftop garden, like I had in Old Old Atlantis - ahh, nostalgia). This would probably combine well with the increase in plot size, giving people a whole lot more space to work with.

    As for the other rules, I don't know, but if people get this much more room it might compensate for the harsher restrictions. However, the "one month idle = auctioning off the house" feels a little too strong, though it's probably justified.
     
  6. Skeven

    Skeven Elite Member

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    Though Head_Kills did have some points, I didn't like how he was only doing it in attempt to keep his "Cloud City" legitimate. We denied him incorporation, we denied him charges, and now have denied him shops.

    Anyhow, as much as I hate to throw restrictions into freebuild, it needs to be regulated and hopefully we'll get some players back into CityWorld with the upcoming updates to the cities as well as plans behind the scenes.

    Whose call was it to take down the wall by the way? I thought that was looking rather nice...
     
  7. AlleOpsO

    AlleOpsO Member

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    perhaps the lack of interest could be that there are no benefits of living in a city. Most people live in a Village in Freebuild now, but if there were some cool benefit of living in a city that would attract players to join a city and make their number one home in a city...

    For example, maybe there could be some city events that only members of a city would be able to participate in, or something like that...

    and as Strategia wrote
    "a rivalry of sorts with city-vs.-city PvP events every so often, and perhaps other competitions e.g. a footrace over rough terrain, a(nother) mining competition or a treasure hunt in the Wilderness."

    We promised to host those events when the citys first started, wich we havnt been able to keep.

    Lots of people seem to like PvP, since there are some PvP villages with 7-8citizens in each village (I think), It would most likely increase the interest of joining a city if we hosted 2-3 events each week with prices to the winning team (if PvP) and to the best player in the team.

    Also we could host individual event - with only one winner, like running on rough terrain and events like this.

    Also another thing with cityworld is, when youre done with your house there aint so much to do. Then you most likely just wander around looking for something to do, if there always was something to do people would also get more interested in spending more time in cityworld, but I know its hard to always have something going on in the city that regular players can help you with, and I have no good ideas on how there always should be something to do in Cityworld.
    Maybe try to add some possible jobs to players to keep em busy... I dont know really :P

    Now the both citys are really good looking to, wich adds more restrictions to the citys to keep em look nicer, and everyone aint blessed to build nice. Maybe their new to minecraft or they just have no creative mind, and when they do their best and it still looks ugly, their house will most likely be removed due to the high restrictions in both citys.

    Well this is just what I think could be a problem with cityworld - the lack of interest, perhaps you could try to do anything of this before going going to change freebuild...

    //AlleOpsO
     
  8. WildStyleZx89

    WildStyleZx89 Active Member

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    OK granted ive been harsh on the rules id want to implement. But some of the houses that where build in mykenai just were butt ugly. Some had layers of dirt, cobble, sand, planks and glass. Others looked like castles, pyramids or any of the sort. Its supposed to be a city not a collaboration of weird looking structures.

    My plan right now is to finish the City hall. Then start working on Trainstation. Once those are finished ill start re-plotting the plots and such areas. The only area i want to keep as it is right now is the skyscraper district and the rest around it all regenerated. The mega scraper will be temporarily moved to my freebuild private island (aka Citworld junkyard)
     
  9. Flamzorz

    Flamzorz Addict

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    Wow, all this talk of the server makes me wish I could come back. How much is minecraft now?
     
  10. Nimrod

    Nimrod Exotic Vendor

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    15 euros now. Was 10 when you had the option before ;)
     
  11. Skeven

    Skeven Elite Member

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    Before they bump it to 20 euros. :]
     
  12. Flamzorz

    Flamzorz Addict

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    Haha.
    You guys will be seeing my return shortly. I just have to wait for my step dad to come in so he can use his paypal then I shall request for the whitelist. I hope you guys didn't miss me too much :3

    EDIT: Apparently my parents don't have any money in their account so I won't get it until next week :'(
     

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