squakhawk 7866 Popular Post Share Posted June 6, 2022 Hi everyone, I mentioned recently in a forum post that we're going to be releasing our first Your View in the coming days. With this post, I both want to establish what exactly Your View is, and how it's going to be done. Map Development has discussed Freebuild somewhat extensively already, and brought up points and counterpoints which we want to list below. With this post, we want to have responses that are unique to each player's perspective. Tell us your story, tell us your justifications and tell us your why. Tell us what makes sense to you. In the next few days after the bulk of responses have rolled in, we'll work together on coming up with a decision we're all happy with. Looking forward to some awesome blog posts, all in good spirits. Let's brainstorm on this. What is the topic of discussion? What is "Freebuild"? While some may find this redundant, there are players new to the server from Almaris, and perhaps even from Arcas, who are unfamiliar with the idea. Freebuild, put shortly, is the concept that there is open space (limited or unlimited) in the world where players can simply place and break blocks to their heart's content. This is how earlier maps functioned; the last map with an unlimited Freebuild being Atlas, 6.0. With this, the (hand-wavy) rule was that one could really build or do anything so long as it was a minimum distance from another build, akin to fifty blocks. You can visit Atlas on the Museum server (/Museum) to get an idea of how this looks! Arcas also had freebuild, but in a limited sense. With this, all freebuild was relegated to the far west portion of the map, separated by a river. This area was known as the Wildlands. You can also freely investigate how this looks, on the Museum server. What are the points and counterpoints Mapdev have discussed? While build standard is something to take into account, obviously roleplay always takes precedence first. What we discussed was that it seemed to be an issue of not only retention, but of interaction. With Arcas, we can reflect on limited freebuild and its issues. One of the main ones we found was run times. The Wildlands were far from spawn, and a large portion of the road to them did not have a speed boost attached to it. Unless a player had stowed away on a soul pillar or bought their own, there were long run times between Cloud Temple and The Wildlands. From observation and self-attestation, this would lead to burnout and players simply leaving due to sort of playing a watered down, worse version of SMP. Note that this was with Resource Pits, which for the most part eliminated resource scarcity. This led to many half-finished, incomplete, or broken builds which the World Team at the time had gone and redone many of to keep a beauty standard on the server; even if those structures would never get used again. A majority of a player's time in The Wildlands would be spent away from roleplay, and thus, is something we dislike—although this could certainly be attributed simply to the map layout of Arcas, or a fault of what a "limited freebuild" does in general. With Atlas, we can reflect on a multitude of issues with beautification, but once more, that's not our priority. There was a lack of cohesion, and an abundance of abandoned builds which would clutter land and often sit dormant for much time. With exceptions and gems like Holm or Belvitz, there certainly is merit to a naturally spawning community. We still, despite the downsides we’ve spoken of, recognize the unbeatable upside of player freedom. Freedom to build—which is something that we seem somewhat interested in as a concept, some adamant that it should certainly be included in some manner. There were suggestions, such as the old "Tents" plugin of yore or even a revamped version of the Charter plugin to permit autonomous, "limited" freebuild in a sense—however both were met with their criticisms. While interested in the prospect of introducing freedom to build in other ways, we still want to explore if Freebuild is an option that we can, or should, consider. In short; Limited Freebuild Thoughts: -Permits potentially excessive run times -Painful in tandem with resource gathering -Overall harm to player retention and activity, “Noob death trap” -Closed off, often little roleplay outside of the individual -Significant work/hassle for staff on build quality and land usage Unlimited Freebuild Thoughts: -Overall harm to player retention and activity, albeit less than Limited freebuild -Closed off, often little roleplay outside of the individual -Significant work/hassle for staff on build quality and land usage Goal: Freedom to build, which does not necessarily mean freebuild, but may include so. How should I post? What should I post? Post your full thoughts in any manner that's easy to you. Video format, google doc, or just on this forum post here- something that we can easily digest and discuss as a group. As well, feel free to discuss any alternatives or suggestions that come to mind—this is freebuild and freedom-to-build oriented, but if you have an idea such as a plugin suggestion, or a ruleset of some kind which may help, please suggest so. Any suggestion, thought or critique is a good one. We're simply looking for constructive ideas to consider for 9.0. Looking forward to your guys' responses, let's get to work. Thanks, Squak & The Map Development Team 41 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laeonathan 3949 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Horrible idea. It's time intensive and incredibly bad for player retention, just too make a few people happy. I've personally had to deal with all these things alongside some mods in the end of Arcas and even if excessive effort, it still was covered in landscars. It is, as said a noob deathtrap. For me personally, when I joined Atlas, seeing all these landscars it came close to scaring me off the server. The tent idea, however, sounds quite neat. 24 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankdh 2255 Share Posted June 6, 2022 tl;dr, as someone who wasted way too much time walking around on Atlas trying to find people, freebuild sucks massive doodoo. splits people up way too much and only feeds into the "there's too many settlements aaa!" issue. don't do it, don't try it. my hands ache just thinking about it 24 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Sug 2555 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Please no freebuild. 14 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReveredOwl 5317 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Have an island like in Anthos where this can be done, but please for the love of god actuall moderate land scars and bad builds and not put 'landscar notice' signs on them that never have any follow ups 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfruit_4 114 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Just... no 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Traveller 2155 Share Posted June 6, 2022 freebuild bad give rep 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMRO 5250 Share Posted June 6, 2022 freebuild sux we've got enough little settlements that are working fine as is with the leftovers of savoy 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimplySeo 5209 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Free the builds, Telanir 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
valecu 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2022 freebuild is not good 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronin_champloo 5951 Share Posted June 6, 2022 bring back freebuild if someone manages to dupe blocks and remake the ARCAS RESOURCE PITS YEAHHHHH in freebuild 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gambit 964 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Free Build bad. For all the reasons listed above. But a more 'laxed settlement application process? Could be cool. 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Operator_Bugman 221 Share Posted June 6, 2022 I do like the idea of a tent plugin, as of right now there is no way for nomadic people to rp properly as you can't build just anywhere on the map. 21 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unwillingly 11139 Share Posted June 6, 2022 I will say that one of my biggest concerns with freebuild is how it tends to be treated by new players. A player who joins the server was advertised that LOTC is a server where they can build their own empire, become a king, queen, whatever, but when they actually attempt to do such via freebuild, they come to realize how astronomically difficult this is. Even for some veteran players, creating (let alone maintaining) a long-term community is extremely difficult. You get new players who are under the impression they can get all of this with freebuild, which is sadly not the case. It might be something noobs want, but isn't something that they need. Freebuild doesn't keep noobs, roleplay does. also inb4 the "if you don't like freebuild you're a braindead moron" comments 15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orlanth 3525 Share Posted June 6, 2022 No. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts