Dalek348

This is not the ‘gotcha’ you think it is. There is no reason why you need systems and data for this or anything for that matter. You say you’ll speak about freebuild while simultaneously saying it will never happen, giving no reasons and telling players to just go away. It is more valid to say that if you want a nobuild doll house server then this is not the server for you, and you should go elsewhere. These are not the foundations on which the server built its success and is certainly not the future. When I saw that you posted, I thought that there would finally be some credible opposition to the debate. How disappointed I was to read such a witless and poorly considered response.

It’s terribly inconvenient that something which you so confidently stated as fact cannot be substantiated by any credible evidence. I can counter with anecdotal evidence of my own - I never saw any builds I would consider ugly in freebuild and generally regard them much more highly than most of the ones pasted into nobuild regions.

I would add that the wooden noticeboard is located at the picture above it. It was called something like the Jayamen estate, and being also a resident of the freebuild area I befriended him by trading resources and information. The Jayamen estate featured a tavern and several mini games you could play using (gasp) Minecraft mechanics. It was a really lovely place. Although perhaps I should have queried at the time whether he was up to date with his lair licence following approval of his lair application pursuant to section 3.3(b) subsection 8 with, of course, the requisite number of petition signatories.

Then it should be trivially easy for you to go and find some examples. In the interest of fairness, I also spent 5 minutes flying around the Atlas museum server in freebuild areas I frequented, and found the following:

I have been following a few feedback threads and it's impossible to tell if anything is ever being listened to - I neither see mods viewing the threads or responding, which is a little disappointing. I will repeat that freebuild is essential to a server like this, and choosing to have an entirely regioned world actively harms this server. This is something which has been recognised years ago and by hundreds if not thousands of players, and the aversion to it is only a recent development. I should add that freebuild does not mean everyone can break or place blocks wherever they like - it means that there are certain areas of the map where your character can collect resources, build, or pick a flower if they choose. It is essential because this is a dynamic world in which your characters interaction with it is a cornerstone of the whole experience. Without it, everyone is little more than a wandering soul. Currently there are 100-200 or so people who regularly log in to the server for that sort of experience. That is great for them, but I think the server should be aiming to cater for the additional 100-200 people for whom that experience is not good enough. Notice how none of the people who are against freebuild are able or willing to articulate their reasons properly or engage in a debate. I think that the debate we have would therefore benefit from explaining how the arguments against freebuild have been discredited over the years: "It decentralises RP" - freebuild in fact centralises roleplay. If people are given the opportunity, they will coalesce together. This is what people come here for. This fact is proven in every iteration. Look at the Aegis King's Road or the Belvitz crossroad in Atlas for examples. Further - the same people who argue that this decentralises roleplay will defend the current system, in which there are 11 capital cities and 114 officially-listed vassal settlements. These 125 settlements are in regions, which generally remain untouched, inactive, and spread across the map so that as much of the world can be painted in that nations colour like a Paradox game. Regions have evidently done absolutely nothing to centralise roleplay and in my view do the exact opposite. In freebuild, these would be removed and the land renewed, given that it creates a dynamic and interactive world which reacts to players actions and needs. "There will be landscars" - land-scarring is already against the rules, and the tools exist to fix those land scars and ban the player responsible. "There will be griefing" - see above. It is against the rules and can be solved within minutes. The fact that some players may break rules is not an appropriate reason to restrain rule-abiding players from playing their character how they want. "The builds will look bad" - generally, this does not happen. When given the opportunity I have almost entirely lived within freebuild and been very impressed with the quality of building. This is often because they are built in survival mode and so do not lose all sense of scale and proportion and modesty like almost all creative builds do. See the above responses to land scars and griefing as well - truly ugly buildings are probably against a rule or a rule can be made against them, and poor builds removed. I can point to a dozen builds every map built in regioned areas that are incredibly ugly. Regardless, this is not a build server, it is a roleplay server and the quality of building is only a tiny consideration in the grand scheme of things. "Mods don't want to work on fixing griefing or land scars in freebuild areas" - this is more an issue of moderator laziness than the concept of freebuild itself. It would be very simple for existing staff to police the rules that already exist against griefing and land-scarring, but you could equally recruit a small number of players who are happy to police such things. "I worked hard brown-nosing the right people and getting my regioned plot of land, why should someone else be allowed to build something without enduring the same struggle?" - this is a you problem, many of us just want to play the server and do not have access to LOTC discords to get in with the right crowd and spend long enough climbing the greasy pole for the privilege of being able to make a mark on the world we inhabit. Bear in mind that there are hundreds of new players every year that log on, with no friendships or connections made, who can't even pluck a watermelon from the ground before they die of starvation because of the world being covered in a region, who then log off and never play again. It is not a problem for players with years of friendships and connections who can get build permissions for near enough every capital or tile they fancy, it's the hundreds of new players that this server willingly loses as a result of this stale world.

This is a very insightful post which echoes what an unfortunately small minority of players actually realise. I also played in Aegis and quit at the end of the 2nd map. I am not on a LOTC discord and don't want to be. Although my life is busy now and I'm not a 15 year old with all the time in the world to play, I would actually consider logging on occasionally in my free time. The issue is that the server is boring, for many of the reasons explained in this thread. The principal reason for me is, as you put it so well, that you can do less on the server than you can do in base Minecraft. My main concern is the lack of freebuild. I would play this server if I was able to build a very modest village, recruit townsfolk, interact with travellers and my neighbours and build a personal story and history. Of course, I can't do that and the only solution would be to befriend the right people on discord and get some land, which won't happen. The server fails to see the great value in having independent, active people who answer to no one and have no master, shaping the physical and political world of the server. Is that not the essence of roleplay? The inverse of that is what the server is now - which enforces and mandates "metaplay" and acts outraged when server policy results in the very same actions that it effectively mandates and encourages. This is a metaplay server, not a roleplay server. So instead, I'm wandering around the world to all intents and purposes as a wandering soul, with the exception that I have the privilege of having inane, pointless conversations by interrupting strangers bunny-hopping in town squares. The lack of freebuild, and the lack of the basics of Minecraft like the danger of monsters, the ability to kill some time and gain resources by mining and crafting, in combination with the requirement to be on discord has effectively disenfranchised me on the server. There is no point to even logging on. The last concerted effort to implement freebuild was successful in 2018 (I don't remember the map name) and it totally discredited all the arguments against freebuild, but there is no sign of recognising that. Freebuild is an important catalyst, it makes things happen and gets people interacting with the world. Without it the server is a pool of stagnant water, what it needs is a good stir and shake-up to get things moving and to set off chains of events which are written into the history of the server. Unfortunately, this server is now so old that there are so few people that actually know what things were like before, and are therefore able to put into context the current state of the server. For instance, anyone who joined after 2015 will think that activity quotas, "nations", and the general transformation of the server into a Paradox game are how the server has always been and how it always should be, and can't recognise these features as the consumptive cancerous tumour that they really are. The only solution I see is for experienced players with the right ideas to apply for and consolidate the server's positions of power en masse. Please someone contact me when that happens.

Thanks for the video, I have likewise tried to keep my screenshots from that time. All of which are from an undead perspective, mostly of our cities or castles, and an unsurprising number of screenshots I took just after being metagamed as undead and killed. I'll only upload the most interesting ones however. In this picture we can see the 'world holes' that used to corrupt our minecraft saves, and this corruption of the world was the main reason for leaving for a new map. To rebuild the damaged buildings like-for-like I would watch the Undead trailer video and pause at key moments to work out the dimensions of the build: My rebuilding efforts: In our city in the nether, we had a rough block map of Aegis where we would record and plan our battles: In a remote part of the nether was a fairground which was a replica of the fairground in Al'khazar. This was because Charlie4vb and MrZombez, the original undead leaders, built much of Al'khazar and would build things in the privacy of the nether so that they could be copied into the world: Undead throne room: There was an area which consisted of pirate ships and giant wooden platforms, in the middle of which was a small dirt island where one person left a sign, which escalated into a large number of people wanting to leave signs on this patch of dirt: One of my favourite places in Aegis is a little known spot called World's End. Roughly, Aegis was 5000x5000, but as it was a normal minecraft world it meant that the land stretched on forever but we were simply prevented from walking further. At the very north of the world was World's End where people would leave signs to say that they have travelled there. In the final picture, under the sign 'Welcome to World's End', the grass block surrounded by wooden slabs was the furthest point in Aegis you could walk, and look out into the untouched part of the generated map: A charming interaction with everyone's favourite moderator Respiren: If people recall the terrible reign of the middle aged male english teacher catfishing as a female named Orehime as leader of the undead, which lead to us making a bakery our HQ, the result was that we would bring a lot of cake to a battle so we could camp in towers and easily heal up. This is one of the towers in a battle in Alstion: Me getting angry at the roleplay ability of Redwood Druid Boney after he kills me: Messing around with saddles at the infamous and best first undead keep: Capturing and torturing the ascended sage okonkwa, who seemed to sympathise with the undead as he was always in our teamspeak room: Associating with pugsy not ending well for me: Just behind Winterfell was a secret ruin where as part of the trials to become an undead, you would have to lead someone and then drop them into a pit activated by redstone and then kill them. In the redstone circruitry was a throne where 'The Lord of the Pumpkins' sat. I took this idea to the halfling village of branborough as a joke but through remarkable events it became a religion of the halflings: I have to say, however, that I disagree with the sentiment about the world looking bad in comparison to newer maps. When I go back to my save of the aegis world, I am astounded at how good the buildings are. Particularly when you take into account that many of the builds were purely built in survival, with blocks people gathered themselves. The simplicity and relatability of the builds result in a far more pleasing aesthetic in my view. Even so, it is much more important for a world to have the right atmosphere. Subsequent worlds have felt more like a show-home than something which is actually lived in. Even though my experience as a non-undead was incredibly limited, it was still obvious from my perspective that when you went north of Al'khazar to where Snowy Fields, Alstion, and the undead keep stood, you were taking your life in your hands. It was dark, snowy, where the guards of snowy fields and alstion treat everyone with suspicion and are hardened from near-constant battle. This was a world where the crack of lightning set everyone on edge at the thought of undead coming to their town. But even without the undead, this was a world which ebbed and flowed as though it were real. The secession of Kal'Alras from the Dwarven kingdom where driven by real, unscripted events and in-game tension. Likewise, the break-up of the Kingdom of Oren was a result of tensions under the unpopular young King Enor, after the popular reigns of Pampo, Dawn, and Edmund, amid a scandal in which the king was corrupted by the undead into devouring his own wife. From an undead perspective, even though we were the target of so many complaints, many of which were justified, we were behind so much more than just the lightning and fireball attacks people experienced. We had safehouses in many of the cities, sympathisers who acted as spies who would sabotage and gather gold for us, we even had High Priest Everard as a secret undead worshipper until we properly converted him to undead. We monitored and encouraged notable villains behind the scenes. Every subsequent antagonist has failed to capture the organic and player-driven experience that the undead created. It was a pleasure to play the server during this time, and it remains the best fun I have had on a computer game today, and the sole reason why I occasionally revisit this place. If any old player wishes to get in touch with me then please do add me on discord: jpayne348#3660.

Preface Many years ago, notable Halfling Petyr Brandybuck wrote the most famous tome telling the story of the Halfling race, ‘A History of Halflings’. Many years on, I have always put off writing this for fear of not doing justice to the influential work on our people. As I am just one Halfling, the story (of which every word is true and every event occurred to the best of my memory) shall be told from my eyes only. The reader may assume that outside of my perspective there are many stories left untold, for which more works should be created - and another tome of the history of our people will be deservedly written, for there is much more to be told. Chapter 1 – Beginnings – Years 1351-1355 The village of Dunwood was spared by the Undead, or perhaps overlooked in their destructive march south. Despite this good fortune of the Halfling people, the future of our world at large was perilous. Many Halflings took up refuge in High King Syrio’s refugee camp next to the Cloud Temple. But the crowds and the chaos of it all were generally considered a great discomfort to Halflings, being uprooted from their home and made to live amongst the outside world. With Dunwood’s comfort far behind us, Halflings stowed themselves on any boat they could find to journey to the new land. When I arrived in our new home, a land called Asulon, myself and Tibb Fairfield received a raven from Petyr Brandybuck with directions to our new village in the far south named Branborough, in a verdant land called the Vale. Petyr had been quietly industrious building up our new village as best as he could. Branborough was surrounded by lush forest, with a winding stream through the centre named the Tookwater. To the east were the imposing snowy peaks of Hanseti, but they were a welcome site to keep troublemakers out. Very quickly, The Drunken Sheep Inn became the centre of village life. Petyr had even brewed a new ale and named it Branborough Buzz. Nights spent sharing the fire and telling tales of our escapes from Aegis, with enough Buzz on our lips to sink an Alrasian galleon, kept our wandering minds away from the fearful mystery of our new land. Chapter 2 – Early Village Life – Years 1355-1361 All Halflings are naturally suspicious of tall people – particularly the urbanised Humans. This is not due to a sense of inferiority, or born out of hatred, and certainly not out of fear. No, far from it. It is said far and wide that a Halfling’s garden is his castle. However, it is also said far and wide that tall people have many actual castles made of actual stone. As such, Halflings want to know little of the world outside and those that live in it, the clash of culture is too great to overcome. Consider then our shock when the neighbouring human Kingdom of Hanseti sent inspectors to levy taxes on our fair village. Frerry Brandybuck, quick thinking as always, devised the plan that most likely saved our village just as it was in its infancy. We spread rumours of a deadly aquatic beast living in the Tookwater River, floating a sack of wheat painted red to mimic a body. When the humans arrived, myself, Tibb Fairfield, Lobo Underhill and Frerry started to dance around a huge bonfire whilst chanting whatever mumbo-jumbo we could think of, and attempting to draw their attention to the fake human sacrifice floating in the water. Considering us deranged, and fearing the rumours of an aquatic beast who has a taste for humans, we were then left alone forever. At this stage, Petyr grew a little more distant every day. Though his nephew, Frerry Brandybuck, helped shoulder much of the burden of leadership from the shoulders of the old Halfling. Soon, however, the intrusive and violent outsiders visiting the village were replaced by wandering Halflings flocking to the village looking for the peaceful quiet life which every Halfling craved. This period saw a considerable enrichment and increase of Halfling cultural activity. Halflings wrote poetry, created paintings, sang songs, brewed ales and ciders, and wrote books. Many of which became very popular with the world outside of the Vale, and the Halfling folk of Branborough received a great deal of unwanted attention as a result, and Branborough began to thrive. Chapter 3 – BranFest – Years 1361-1383 The duties of running the village had now fallen to me and Tibb, and so we took advantage of the village’s booming population by hosting a festival named BranFest. I had never seen so many Halflings in one place. Distant Underhills, Hollowmeads, Dewhursts, Herbwallows, and other families too obscure to name convened on the village. I even saw the King of the Humans taking part in the lumberjack contest, though his name now escapes my memory. I also met several wizards, whose tales of dragons and necromancers sounded too far-fetched that I suspected the Branborough Buzz was doing its work. There was a pig race, a story-telling contest, cake-eating contests, fishing contests, lumberjack competitions, and a boat race down the Tookwater won by Bili Hollowmead, who was rewarded with a specially made golden shovel. Bili’s announcement of his marriage to Lyra renewed our spirit in the evening, as relatives, friends and well-wishers already busied themselves with plans for the ceremony. When I think of Branborough, I always come back to the night of BranFest. Listening around the fire to some adventurer’s entry into the story-telling contest as the mists rolled in over the Tookwater. I’ve heard it said that little else stirs the soul of a Halfling quite like a party. That was never more true than on the night of BranFest. Chapter 4 – Interesting Times – Years 1383-1414 To wish upon your fellow Halfling ‘May you live in interesting times’ is considered a great insult and a threat. It is to my shame that in these years we all lived in fairly interesting times. The presence of our wheat-powered ship The Salty Salmon sparked debate, for it would ferry unwelcome visitors to Branborough as well as good-intentioned Halflings. It also sucked us into all manner of adventures. Hallfings, I among them, under the guidance of a wizard confronted a dragon who had kidnapped Doc Brandybuck, gate-crashed a festival of Oren’s political leaders, and had to shovel a group of goblins who had disguised themselves as Halflings to gain a burrow in a series of events too complex to be included in this volume of history. The village found a reprieve from adventure when Rupert Herbwallow detonated an explosive which felled a tree into the mouth of the Tookwater. Tibb then used this to invent the game of Shogs (shovels and logs) which consisted of two Halflings on opposite logs wearing pumpkins on their heads and trying to knock each other off. Rupert Herbwallow pioneered a (now illegal) manoeuvre known as the Herbwallow Hop as he leapt onto his opponent’s log, which earned him some scorn in the village for a solid week. To this day Shogs is a game played in every lake, river, or general body of water that a Halfling can get their hands on – and has even received great acclaim in the wider world. Though life in the village drifted by, we began to hear disturbing reports of natural disasters plaguing the outside world. When a wizard came to us imploring us to leave, we didn’t know quite what to believe. Dunwood was now a memory, and the meadows of Branborough had provided us with comfort, with homes, and with friends. Yet there we were again, cramped into the bowels of a wheat-powered barrel. Not knowing where we were going or what we would find when we arrived. Chapter 5 – Reflections – Year 1424 I write this entry in the new village of Lenfarthing in Anthos, built by Tibb and I, as the welcoming LenFest festival steadily draws to an end in the late evening. From my window on the hill I see Lobo Underhill capsizing Rupert Herbwallow from his boat on the lake, and a Dwarf asleep over the back of the pig he was so proud to have won the Lenfarthing Derby with earlier in the day. As the air warm evening air comes off of Lake Lenfarthing the moon shimmers brilliantly in its reflection on the clear water. When Petyr wrote the first volume of this history, his conclusion was sombre, the future looked dim. Whereas I have the pleasure of a brand-new world full of optimism, yet I still don’t know exactly what the future will bring. Time, as it is so apt at doing, marches on for all of us – especially this old Halfling. My eyes are going, which makes writing this history an arduous but fulfilling, worthwhile task. I hope that you have enjoyed reading this account of the history of our folk, the Halflings. As Petyr wrote in the first volume, the future will surely deserve another tome of Halfling history. To that, I sit here and raise a mug of Branborough Buzz – and to those who farm, tinker, laugh, sing, joke, drink, bake, fish, brew, borrow, or burrow, the future is bright for the Halflings.

I have the Aegis file that worked 2 years ago but I can't get to work anymore. The strange this is that no matter what I try, it always generates a fresh world - but it's the same world every single time, with the same spawn point and everything. Which makes me believe that Aegis is definitely in these files somewhere, but I don't know what I can do to make it show Aegis instead of this new world it makes. I can PM you the file I have and you can fiddle around with it. If anyone else wants a look then PM me also.

Faldo reads the poem and writes his own, pinning it to the village notice board. Beyond the Vale there was a man, By the name of Panda Dan, And though we always passed him by, 'You are so useless' he did cry, So he found the day had come, To rape and pillage just for fun. In peace and friendship we yet live, Giving all that we can give, Earth and ale are our best friends, On love and laughter life depends, Still under a great oak I will lie, And let the clouds go sailing by.

Mr Herbwallow pioneered the technique, Faldo built upon it and wrote the Herbwallow Hop into Shogs history.

Faldo reads in shock as he was never introduced to any Pimpernel Tucketbrook. How could any halfling compare to the vivacious Roxanne? The things Faldo would give for a roll in the hay with her...