VonAulus

I agree with the vast majority of the player base. I think you should allow the basketball to continue. All this stuff is made up anyway lol.

cool dunk

Former Mayor A.S.H. would delight at the news of Former Mayor O.M.d.R. joining together with his very own family. He would have to look into clearing his schedule for the event.

LMFAO

Rest in peace Garg. I am truly sorry to hear of your passing. Your death is a huge loss to the Minecraft building community. I have taken a lot of inspiration from your work with color and will continue to build in your memory. 

Thanks for the friendly conversation over the years. 

This is a tech/dev team problem. If they wanted to fix it they would have.

Ah the great Sugundese people.

49 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

Oh wow it's almost as if there was a global pandemic at the time that shut down schools and workplaces as everything moved to a remote model. It's almost as if other minecraft servers hit record high playercounts at that time as well due to this pandemic.

 

When you delete settlements with next to nobody in it, you are moving around next to nobody. If moving around just a handful of people instantly revives LOTC playercounts, then that must be some fancy magic going on right there. Do the handful of players living in those mostly dead charters duplicate themselves upon their relocation? Does transforming a server that used to be 85% within nations to a server that is instead 90-95% within nations make all of the activity cargo cult magic happen?

 

You can make other arguments for the deletion of all those charters being a good thing. Crediting their removal with the increased playercounts of 2020 during the covid lockdowns is just illogical, however, and not a valid argument. There is a blatant, obvious cause for those increased playercounts yet you still give all the credit to your cargo cult activity policies without understanding that the correlation does not necessarily equate to a causal relationship.

 

This is a causal relationship how?

 

There were no successful warclaims after your Charter Reform until very recently with the Norland vs Oren war. If you want to point at increased banditry or that one war fought exclusively in a warzone between Oren and a coalition, please credit Korvic and the other devs at that time for fixing the 1.14 lag crisis and making banditry a thing again and allowing the server to have more than 120 players on it at any given moment without kicking out half of them every hour.

 

I'm sure you're an intelligent person, VonAulus. I just question your logic at times.

You praise the tech team in one paragraph for fixing the lag and then lambast them in the next for not getting warclaims working. I wish I could have fixed that and it is a major regret of my time on staff I could not influence it. I think freebuild is atrocious and continue to argue against it. I know it is easy to dunk on me for being unintelligent or something but the truth is idgaf what you think. I have moved on from my minecraft job and am expressing my opinion as a longtime player. I do not want freebuild to return and will rely upon my experience and knowledge to argue against it. I think if we listen to freebuild screaming it will hurt the server. Take it or leave it, that is up to the admins. Forum posting about it won't change it either so write a staff application if you want to see meaningful movement on this topic. Trust me, these posts do not influence Admin discussion.

I think there is a big memory hole on free build on previous maps. We spent close to six months cleaning up the charter system last map and could never even think to tackle the freebuild areas which were choked with abandoned towns. With the last maps charter system most of the outer ring outside the nations were freebuild settlements that never had much activity outside of the initial period of founding. I understand if you are unaware of the numbers but we got rid of somewhere around 80 charters that were between 0.00 (that means no one logged in all month) and 0.2 percent activity. Player counts rose considerably to their new normal after the culling of inactive charters. There was increased conflict after the destruction of inactive charters. These are the facts of the last two years of development after the failure of the previous ring map. 

You can go to nations right now and there is nation sponsored freebuild. I am no longer on staff or world team but it appears to me they are accepting settlement applications and giving people a chance. We create a world worth rping in by interacting with other players. Freebuild allows you to create something without that rp interaction. If you think back to the freebuild settlements of Aegis or Anthos, those that continued are the extreme minority. The number that never had any longevity is incomprehensible

I saw arguments that the World Team could just clean up inactive freebuilds. This is a waste of time for those volunteers. There is already enough bureaucratic management issues to add policing freebuild to their plate. It was a lot less work to implement a rigorous settlement application process then all the hours spent wiping dozens of charters a month. I remember when we had to approve those shovel charters there being a new one almost every day. It is a crazy amount of workload for people who are not getting paid.

Think back to those 100+ charters we had to wipe last map. Can you remember the names of most of them? I spent countless hours world editing them out and they are a muddled together. I can not remember much of any relational geography last map because of the circular shape. I am much more grounded in this current map as a player. I think fast travel could possibly help with travel times on this map but that is not what is being discussed.

The only way I think you could create some freebuild opportunity is on a temporary basis. Expansion/temp map style that took people's attention to another landmass briefly and let new settlements flourish. The idea would be to incorporate those new groups back into the normal map after the end of the event or time period. A nation could even declare one of it's provinces freebuild to attract settlers.

I think Yong Ping is a perfect example of the success that can come out of cooperative roleplay being forced through the system. They were able to build up a player base and culture in relation to another nation and strike out on their own when they were ready. Their culture is now grounded to the greater reality of the server and not just a sudden creation out of the imagination.

Very interesting to see your method and thought process. Thank you for sharing!

Grool signs the petition.

I am impressed. This is a very good feature to add. @zezimus will never be on the main server again.

33 minutes ago, GMRO said:

Maric var Ruthern  shed a second tear in the matter of days. "Wheres the responsibility for those dead children on the Aristocracy's hands? Are these lords so inept that a child is dangerous to them in sword-play? Yam glad that Haeseni soldiers are taught to disarm from an early age!"

Former Mayor Alphonse Sylvester Halcourt would think long and hard about the words of this Haenseman. "Most of your kings die before age thirty due to mental health issues. You should consider investing time and effort into your own royal family's well being. Yam glad that your king will kill himself before too long. I am sure the Economist Mister Fitzpatrick would agree with upon reviewing a statistical analysis of the correlation between nu-haensian royalty and sinful behavior. I heard the current king beats Norlandic women for fun but that does not fit your 'bleeding heart' agenda you wish to sell to the Church so you can join your Rusty Accord friends."

Alphonse would remark upon reading this work, "It is true, the only place the Norland hordes find success is in their imaginations."

The Mayor, the illustrious Alphonse Sylvester Halcourt, also known as A.S.H. would hear the news of the end of the pathetic insurrection. He would ponder what next steps lay for the Empire and the capital, his beloved home of Providence. He would reach for his trusty journal and begin to write.

Dear Diary.

I am sorry to hear about the end of this affair. It made things a bit more interesting then the daily drone of the City Assembly. It is bittersweet, this victory. I am both glad that I did not have to leave the safety and warmth of the Imperial Capital but also a bit disappointed I did not get to bash these vagabonds skulls in with my Imperial State Army issued mace. The boys would have gotten some education in the art of subjugation in such an encounter with hearding these wayward sheep. I will keep this entry brief due to wanting to fold in the raw emotion of such news. Their defeat was expected but their surrender is quite the surprise. Can you imagine the shame of not even bothering to fight a battle to protect your home? I guess it is no surprise that a Johannian would surrender his home without a fight. Maybe they could not afford to pay the troops due to their inability to pay their taxes. This lines up with historical precedent. Marnans seem to be born without backbone. I assume they will slither away to Haense. Imagine that. Horen's a vassal to Carrions! History seems to be repeating itself over and over. The Sedanite babe seems to have been crushed in its crib. Infanticide. Our Emperor puts Victor in Evictor. 

It was a pleasure to work alongside you Anore! Nothing but love.

The Mayor, Mister Alphonse Sylvester Halcourt would once again read through the poetry to discern the meaning. He would reach for his trusty diary to record his response to the poem. He would have to remember to swing by the market to get some ink at the Providence Bazaar.

Dear Diary,

This demented youth continues to put out propaganda for the rebels. It is common for youth in wartime to 'play' war. A child picks up their stick and pretends for it to be a sword. The excitement of such times and events seems romantic to a young soul. War is not flowery poems or prose. It is stench. It is the smell of rotting rebel corpses in the fields and in the gutters of the capital. It is increased street cleaning costs to burden for the tax payers of Providence. It is the smell of displaced citizens flooding into the walled settlements to avoid bands of raiders and looters. Nothing smells good about war. I think this young one is caught up in the excitement and wants to express these feelings through jabs with the pen instead of the sword. I once heard it said that "Warriors do not read books." Maybe they see themselves as a word warrior as opposed to a soldier. I should amend the original saying to express something to relate to what is before me, "Poets do not swing swords." I do believe these misguided youth will have more success with their quills then swords. It would be smarter to not attach one's name to such printings at such a young age. Fantasy and day dreams always look worse with time. Likening war to a great game is only something the young could dream up. Creative metaphor it is, this is no fantasy played out with sticks. Soon they will witness when you swap out quills for swords and how very little it is like cards. 

"The People of Providence look forward to working with our partners in Talon's Port to host this event. I promised to help bring this event to other nations and this is a promise kept. Thank you to our partners down in Talon's Port and I look forward to another amazing event!"

-Mayor A.S.H.

"I will be in attendance at this great event to raise money for the ISA. I hope my fellow citizens will come to this night of fun and charity to show our support for the war effort. Our troops should want for nothing and it is our duty to invest in their success. I look forward to seeing you all at the Kovachev House!"

-Mayor A.S.H

Mayor A.S.H. would read over the missive with a frown on his face and a little quiver coming to his eye. Anxiety was very much apart of his current career but it had lower stakes then what was being suggested in this notice. He would gulp and reach for his journal to jot down some thoughts on his current feelings.

Dear Diary,

Myself being a reservist in the I.S.A. makes the notice today give me some small tremors. My duties so far in the army have involved collection of resources and attending the drinking nights at the cozy Novellen. I am sure when I have to report to the campaign to shear the sheep that I will be thinking back fondly to reading a book fireside at the Halcourt Manor. This war does personally give me some anxiety for my own safety and well being as well as future political prospects. How can I run for a third term if I am gravely wounded or killed? I do recognize our Empire needs to corral these runaway livestock back into their pen. Maybe there will be a discount at the Kebab Cart in Providence upon return. I stop by there pretty frequently for lunch. Maybe a 'buy one get one half off' kebab special will be something to look forward to. I remember the last time I was at the palace for dinner the Emperor smiled at me and asked me how I was doing. That was a good feeling to be able to engage with such a nice fellow. If he can muster up the courage to join the fight, who am I to decline his call? However, I do not think the anxiety will go away about my own personal safety. I would hate to think what they would do to me if I fell into their hands. I am much too old to be recruited into their army. Not of impressionable age.

Mayor A.S.H. would look over the prose and decide to return to this preferred method of expression, his trusty journal. He would recline in his chair in the Mayor's office and bring the light brown book closer onto his lap. 

Dear Diary,

I believe education could fix this young person's faulty disposition. There obviously is a lack of understanding of the laws, customs, cultures, and norms of the Empire. They seem capable of poetry but lack problem solving or any other developed mode of critical thinking. This young mind seems ripe to be recruited by the enemy into their child soldier detachment. I am unsure the proper wording for their military arrangements due to their propaganda as ragtag fighters and a clear influx of foreign fighters from far off lands. The similarities in stature may be why the Sedanites are entreating with the Dwed, they quite literally see eye to eye. Good one Mister Mayor! If this young one hates Oren so much she can just walk out of the lands and go elsewhere. Maybe this dips into that new fangled psychology in which we examine the unhealthy obsession with an object. They seem to have Oren on the mind and pen more then healthy and they should consider a little vacation. I heard Sutica is nice this time of year but heard a whisper it is difficult to get a house for some odd reason. Maybe they would enjoy the feudalistic lordling culture of the far south! I do pray that the mental deficiency can be fixed by some act from the City Assembly or House of Commons, they love to pass bills on education!

Very cool!

The Mayor would ponder the current state of affairs after hearing the confession of the surrendered rebels. He would scratch his chin before putting a pen to paper to journal his feelings. 

Dear Diary,

Providence is an exciting place to be in wartime. It has been quite some time since we stretched our muscles to rip away the scar tissue from our slumbering bones. We have lifted crowns up and dashed them against the rocks, the crown jewels spewing into the sea. When man turns against man it tears the world apart. However, regardless of the outcome, humanity always rises to a new height, nourished with cups of sacrificial blood and sweat of the laboring man. Both sides actions are between themselves and God. There is nothing left to do but ask for forgiveness and shove the blade deeper, heading into the abyss. I hope that child soldier can keep his head down and live to make his own decisions. It would be a shame to be drafted at such a young age. He was already wearing the uniform of the rebel at age eight. I will pray for his survival. 

Mayor A.S.H. would read the missive and consider the evident conflict to come. He would remark to those standing around him in the square of Providence.

"Today we see the true color of Horen turn coats. They could have been apart of something great but now resign themselves to be tossed aside like these cart bombers. Can you imagine the Johannians moving from settlement to settlement, asking for a room to rent!? I am sure they will find some barn to lay their heads to rest and slip into sweet dreams where they can freely imagine their cause as just. These Horrenite has-beens will be begging to turn their leash over to new-Hansetians, Suticans, or over to the Dwedmar caverns. I am sure the Grand King will love to have another King under the mountain. Either way, whether in the company of Dwarves or through the genorosity of the Imperial State Army, these buffoons will end up under the ground. I hope to read the letters they send out to Almaris claiming their persecution at the hands of our boys. It will be finally answered if goats are capable of crying."

Second Imperial House Tour

______________________________________________________________________

Mayor Halcourt and his judging partners, Fourth Member Virgil DeNurem and Alderman, and House of Common’s Otis de Rosius have made their rounds of the various properties submitted for showing to the commission. Quite a few prominent citizens accompanied those with an artistic eye to judge the properties from attic to the cellar! 

A few comments on differences in floor design between houses. Those that were favored had grander and more spacious entrances. The effect of archways and elegant windows framed by drapes was a common but welcome site. The innovation in the patterning of drapes we noticed by all and was remarked upon as being “smart” and “genius.”

Some within the part referred towards certain interiors as being too loud or being too bright of colors. Best practices and styles seem to be pointing towards more detail but less bright colors. Neutrals are always in style. 

A small tip for some properties, make sure that the level divide is not too bulky or one-dimensional. A single layer of planks does not impress the eye with no detail to break it up when viewed from below. 

Without further delay, the Judges have selected two properties to take home 100 MINAS each!

Congrats to the winners! Please contact Mayor A.S.H. for your prize money. 

Our next iteration of the Imperial House Tour plans to be a wider affair encompassing the entirety of the Empire and to focus primarily on the large estates. Keep an eye out for more information on that front. 

A pamphlet including illustrations from the properties on the tour would circulate alongside this flier. 

Pamphlet