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[Your View] - Transition Builds, Hubs and Roads


squakhawk
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My original hope (I proposed hubs btw...) was that they would be tiny things, little more than carts or single "setting" buildings, put equidistant from every nation on a map around the size of Arcas. I thought Arcas as a map sans the wilds would be perfectly large enough. When the map expanded, run times expanded, and having three nations to a hub made their equidistant point equally a pain in the butt to get to their capitals from (especially those with larger tiles like Elvenesse or further like Nland).

 

If map was not so large, and the hubs were what they were originally meant to be (like a small ruined monastery between haense and oren or something instead of a tile-sized farming zone full of stuff and right between the point of contact of the two nations) I still believe they would have been successful. Another issue with hubs though is that they were originally supposed to be moveable based on where best made sense for RP and player movement. As we all know, they never got moved this map, so a potential advantage was erased.

 

I personally like the idea of a giant stick-shaped map with three hubs, one in the center and one on each pole of the main road - or maybe a triangle-shaped map, so long as each side of the triangle is short enough that a nation at hub A could still and easily border a nation at hub B.

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Personally, I've never been very fond of the travel hubs. They make the map feel far too fragmented and decentralized, leaving vast amounts of static and empty land. I think nations should all be connected through arteries, but not merely up and down. I believe a potential solution could be directional arteries that spread out roughly equidistant from CT to major nations/settlements. These do not all connect through a large ring, but rather only some of them connect so that roleplay isn't entirely fragmented, as illustrated in the example below. 

 

coABEPg.png

Obviously image is not to scale.

 

I believe this would allow the needed connectivity while still allowing roads to feel like they go somewhere.

 

The problem with Arcas roads was that they would simply loop back around and there was no real merit to being in a certain region of the map, not to mention the dreadfully long walks to get anywhere. Atlas roads, while still going somewhere, took forever to get from one end to another and communities in the further regions suffered as a result. With this system, you could walk to a nation (shouldn't take more than maybe 3 minutes tops), and if there's no RP there, simply make your way to the nation next door. By the time you reach the next city, and there's still no RP, you can have your SS recharged and just try going down the road in the other direction. Assuming the map is not as obnoxiously large as it has been in the last few years, ideally it should take you no more than maybe a minute of walking before you come upon a roadside settlement to roleplay in. 

 

Because nation capitals are generally equidistant, there would be no need to fight over start locations other than who wanted the region most optimal for their race (I can't think of humans wanting dwarven mountains, nor the elves wanting orcish deserts). If need be, let them talk out what kind of environment they want to be in ideally before the designing of the map begins, and then try to position those around the CT/center to the best of our ability. 

 

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1 hour ago, MCVDK said:

It is a unique concept and could work, but I’d still fear the separation of the CT from the actual continent creates this “mineman hub” feeling that I - personally - do not feel belongs on the server. And honestly, I’d argue the fault here is the WT’s former idea that CT RP or CT interactions are a removable aspect from the server, and quite frankly, I am unsure as to why that thought was ever presented from the WT. 

 

I understand the wish and idea of moving RP away from the CT - and evidently that has been successful in the current map - but it is not like 50% or even 2 - 3% RP’s actively at the CT, imo it has never been an issue that prevents nations or smaller communities to flourish outside of CT. CT was useful to teach newer players of the RP mechanics in a safe and calm environment, somewhere with no PvP or villainy, yet still a living breathing part of the server itself. It does not feel like that anymore: It feels dead and irrelevant. 

Okay so there are 2 main reasons regarding why the idea of RP in CT was disliked.

1st: In Arcas there was a lot of Spook RP taking place there abusing the whole "bubble of peace" thing cloud temple has to avoid consequences. 

2nd: There was actually a significant % of activity in CT something between 5% - 10% 

While I think Cloud Temple is a significant aspect of the server I don't think not having it on the map is necessarily a detriment. If Cloud Temple is not on the main continent it can still hold important things like the tutorial islands, the memory garden, as well as different bits & pieces of the server's history.

The current Cloud Temple is something we don't like either, cloud temple next map will learn from the issues caused by the Minigame Lobby feel it has on Almaris.

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I've expressed many of my opinions previously in threads, discord and in your dms, and a lot more sober 

 

Hubs are ****. Ct should be it. Anyone who says otherwise is incompetent and should be ignored. Banned, even. Utter shitters

 

Ringroadringroadringroad - arcas was my first map so im biased but it was gr8

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Copy athera. One road where you put playerbases that need more love and attention than others. None of this loop crap anymore. 

 

Also starting with nothing is trash. Then it's just mindless grinding and no rp. Let nations have a small build and move on to bigger and better as it continues on.

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-Do we have transition builds pasted-in on release? Is there some delayed "Colonization" period? Are they built using gathered resources & LC?

 

The map should be founded with no set builds outside of what is there to explore. The big nations/settlements should be allotted their tile/region, but for the first 30-60 days on the new map should be capped at only being able to use LC or Fly with limited blocks from gathered resource nodes. I strongly think there needs to be some sense of "struggle" implemented at the start of the map so it genuinely feels like the descendants are colonizing a new land. This sort of thing can also foster bonding and cooperation, because everyone is starting from zero and will have to work together if they want their beloved nation/settlement/community to arise. This might also serve to be a sort of litmus test for communities, checking to see if they have the RP/management capacity to build up from zero instead of riding the coattails of their predecessors or a fancy builder.

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Move CT off map. Have one way warps to the capitals and remove soulstones. Roads can then arise naturally from traffic between settlements, and be built/agreed to by invested player groups. If you want to bring about true navigation and exploration of a new land, this is the way to do it. Instead of lazily warping back to spawn to go check in on the next new map build, players would need to learn of where they are in the world and where each group had settled. Such a system also encourages nations to spread more evenly across the greater whole of the map, without fear of getting noob traffic blocked off and simultaneously preventing players from navigating via the protected CT. 

Whether it be ring road, hubs, or King's road, these designs all fall victim to a CT bias and constrain viable land to their arteries. Removing these designs from a potential map can offer a lot in terms of how the world can grow past its initial release. 

Prebuilds are fine, I will build it on a flatworld if I must, this is a threat. 

Edited by Fishy
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FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE,

Pasting a build by hand via Litematica + LC is a real pain. It's easy to suggest this, but it neglects terraforming. Although it may be faster than getting the materials by hand, a nation's builders would essentially be constructing the build twice. I'd recommend just giving people a due date for their proposed builds and not worry about spoling the new map. If they still have work to do - tough toenails - they can use the limited LC. People just want to have fun when new maps release, so forcing them to do chores just reduces fun.

As for roads, I never really felt that they played a huge difference aside from travel time. Naturally, the towns that are placed on the main highway will experience more traffic than those who are off to the side and five thousand blocks away. This can be mitigated through fast travel and ferries, and bandits can instead focus on other methods of villainy than stopping travelers. Fast travel isn't ideal, but it would be the fairest method of equal navigation.

 

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just do prebuilds

 

also ct should be in another dimension

 

big king's road from place to place, tons of available room in the center for noobs to hop between taverns, and pass into bigger nations 

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Sit down, Shut up, and listen to @EX. DERFEY.

A more complicated view of this is the idea that CT should be a separate dimension with 1 way drops. The only times you ever go to CT are when you SS there, or you die. You are dropped onto one of a few points onto the king's road and from there you should only ever use it again when going to places. (Ideally I think there would only be a drop for each cardinal direction and a central one.) Conflict begins the second you leave the CT dimension, so no more safe zones on the map that create weird rules about how conflict can go through hubs but not start in them. From there you only connect with each other through roads, and more to the point with that... Ring road. Do the ******* ring road.

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I'd like to add on to the conversation that I really do think that a transition period would be better for Roleplay, though I don't think it was idea that settlements/nations wouldn't have their tile before hand to pre-design a city- just that they'd have to do RP effort to make that city with a time frame, not start out with a massive capital.

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Setting up a build in stages can be a lot easier said than done and I wouldn't wanna see anyone fold under the circumstances.  I think it should really be by choice of the nation on how they want to pursue that sort of thing in relation to progressing through a transition period.

Builds are extremely hard work and escpeciialy at the caliber of quality LoTC demands from its nation capitals.  I think nations should 100% have the option to either fully paste in their capital at once or do it in stages/progressively

As well as put CT in different dimension and never acknowledge its existence.

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"Transition builds" or colonization rp/staged building would be a lot of work, but potentially a lot of fun, and a great way to get players involved in the worldbuilding of the next map. Beware any of the dozens of members of the shiftless minecraft noblesse, complaining about how they won't get a palace to RP in day one. These people are parasites, contributing nothing, and should be forced to labor for the commune under SquakHawk's glorious Five Year Plan.

 

As for the roads: a single linear King's Road or a Ring Road is fine. Just don't do more than one road. Remember, this is where new players are going to end up, with no map knowledge, trying to find a place to RP. You want the hub to be well-travelled, full of potentially helpful or harmful actors who can help noobs get somewhere interesting. You want the road to be a place where random encounters happen.

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Re: Iterative settlement

 

Forcing all player communities to iteratively "colonize" their capital tiles is a quaint idea, but not something worth doing unless administration is instituting a more hardcore approach to all roleplay, yo. Instead, as expressed by other players, make this phase optional. Encourage it if you will, but do not mandate it. Not every community that will get a paste-in has roleplayers who want to roleplay that, or have the chops to explore something which has traditionally been a fringe genre of roleplay on this server. 

 

All of that nonsense aside, I would hope that iterative settlement is broadly encouraged. I believe that this could be solved by creating two paths to getting paste-in: An immediate as-is path, and a cheaper and more forgiving iterative path. Ultimately, this reinforces the agency of communities by giving them the freedom to pursue the avenues of roleplay both paths open up, but also would encourage communities to pursue the iterative option by way of simply costing less mina. This can be applied to day-one paste-ins through different activity or upkeep requirements. Something like that, Mister White. 

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I think building Haelun'or's Arcas city by-hand was genuinely one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had on the server - a hell of a lot of hard work, but equally a lot of fun ! was a lovely way to bring the community together; v fond memories of grinding in resource pits and helping place block-by-block; there is something very special in knowing you had a hand personally in making this big thing. 

 

tldr; i like the idea of building-from-scratch :] i know some will disagree and that is a perfectly valid take, would be a lot of work - but i think that active grind of something to do and get started with is genuinely lovely to have in spark off of a new map ! 

 

in terms of roads; i don't like hubs.

smaller map, one CT (that can be used for rp !! i like ct having rp, we WANT new players to be met with rp in ct!!  i wanna see a return of bounty-boards etc! genuinely liked a lot of the design of atlas ct, and i think there could be a lot more done with ct to really give the server and its world some life!)

 

i want to be able to see my neighbours - i want them within viewing distance. at max render distance, i want to be able to see their walls etc. 

 

the 'ring-road' road style was pretty neat i think ! effective for the most part - you were able to get where you needed to go in a generally reasonable amount of time (with smaller map, even quicker :> )

 

>> BUT adding onto this - i think as the map progresses, there should be options to construct new paths, new roads, new means of transport ! ferries/carts currently are one of these, but i'd love to see the introduction of freshly-constructed roads more frequently.

 

also, tiles bad - more rp-friendly and flexible borders and land claims ! 'i lay claim to all land within x forest' rather than 'i own tile 51 to 55'; proper rp-friendly maps, with those organic cartographer's borders, are sick!! 

 

 

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