VonAulus

Processed.

Hi guys, 

Unfortunately, your application for a settlement has been unsuccessful. 

Firstly, your settlement lore section was incomplete. We expect 1000 words minimum of original lore summarizing what your settlement will be, not simply a collation of past roleplay posts. If you are going to include these posts (The key phrase in the description being ‘could include’ rather than ‘can consist of’) they need to compliment your 1000 word write-up rather than simply forming it in its entirety. This is a rule, not just a guideline. 

I also noticed that some of these posts aren’t written by your group or for your group. This is why we expect 1000 words of original content from you - any past forum posts are simply supplementary, as it isn’t fair that you be able to take credit for the work of others. 

I think that your settlement government structure definitely requires some work. What about this system is exactly theocratic? Keep in mind that King John is not a canon deity on the server - this is not an impediment, of course, by any means! - but should definitely be taken into account when considering that your stated ‘theocracy’ is based on ‘divine governance’.  How does this divine governance actually translate to your theocracy? What sort of tenets does King John actually expect his subjects to espouse? What role do his teachings have in the application of law and how will this generate roleplay in your settlement? You mention ‘five individuals of different backgrounds’ - what’s the nature of these different backgrounds? Can you elaborate on this further? Your reference to the Council of Nemok as King John’s ‘prophets on earth’ needs much more development as well.

I am satisfied with your builds and believe they fit the aesthetic fine.

I also do not accept your answer that what you are going for here fits a unique niche that can not be done anywhere else. You are talking about the tenets and will of King John himself but you have not whatsoever elaborated on how that actually practically applies to roleplay. Offering a place for ‘cults, banditry, thieves, the so-called scum of the earth’ is not exactly a unique niche, either. I can name several places like that that exist on the server currently, and I would recommend looking into roleplaying with them if you are not willing to develop your concepts further. I don’t believe that your ‘new religion’ is anywhere near as developed as it ought to be to fulfil your stated goal of offering a new religion or culture for players to adhere to. I don’t think that ‘making the defense defend better’ is particularly relevant to this section either - this question really requires a lot of work and a bit more deep thinking if you would like to get accepted. 

As for being an antagonist, I am not seeing evidence of any ways that you will actually do this besides mindless banditry. If that is the route you would like to go for, that’s fine, but you don’t need a settlement in order to do that. You also did not tie your settlement into the server’s greater lore and narrative in a satisfactory fashion - everything that you wrote about here could have existed in total isolation from every other entity or occurrence on the server. If you want to be an antagonist, you need to give considerable thought to the context for your antagonism. 

This application will need a lot more work to be considered by World Team. Remember, we take the best candidates out of the pool when a slot becomes open. Giving you this feedback now is to prepare you to either make changes to your plan and update it with better and more cohesive information to put your best foot forward.
 

Accepted, please get the 100k to me in game. 

Howdy folks,

This is pretty straightforward, after the end of the mandate from a previous approval to put in warp signs during the time of chunk trouble. Chunk troubles have been fixed by hard work from the techs. The warp signs have been removed till further notice. I understand that this was a very nice luxury but it is now time to return to those lovely roads. 

Reminder, with a return to roads there will be a rise of bandit/road roleplay, if you feel that an exchange was not a give and take as outlined in our new Roleplay Quality Standards, please compile evidence and post a report on the forums. There will definitely be some growing pains as we return to normal. 

I invite all of you to share your opinions on how we should work to bringing the server closer together and decreasing travel times. Soulstones are still a system and most Settlements should now have a Green Soulstone Pillar. I personally want to say thank you to the community for all its patience during the lag and chunk issues. Have a good evening! 

I will hit her with an investigation ban. 

I will pray for your speedy recovery. Take it easy. 

PREFACE

LotC is fundamentally meant to serve as a creative role play sandbox on the Minecraft platform. Our goal is to encourage diverse roleplay within the fantasy genre that can come together to deliver a harmonious, ever-changing story. Settlements and polities play arguably the greatest role in shifting that narrative, as they make up the many communities that give life to this server.

However, we want to make sure each settlement on the server provides a unique niche and does something that can’t be found in another to avoid mushrooming settlements that have no context to any other group or faction on the server. We want to see tested leaders with experience taking helm on new ventures, offering new brands of roleplay and adding to this dynamic world. As a result, we are introducing a rigorous application process for settlements, nationhood, nation expansion, and lairs - each to cover different facets of political models and communities on our server. These applications exist to filter through the creative chaff and determine which communities have put the most thought and effort into warranting land to manage.

_____

RULES

There are three types of player regions on LotC. They are nations, settlements, and lairs. With the current server population, we can maintain 30 distinct nations + settlements. Any apps for new nations or settlements when there exist more than 30 independent polities will automatically be denied, until there is room for more. As of the current count (6/9/2020), updated biweekly, there are 29 independent polities.

A settlement is a unique political entity that consists of a one or a few player groups that cover a niche that does not exist among its peers. If grown to encompass more players and communities, it could foreseeable grow into a nation. You can find all rules related to settlements below. 

Obtaining a Settlement
An application must be submitted to the World Team for review including any lore documents or other writings or plans. The application, above all else, will be reviewed in consideration to how the settlement would provide a niche of RP that is not found in any existing settlement above all else, with a vital secondary factor of how the settlement’s lore and narrative ties to the greater LotC world. We are not interested in granting settlements to proposals that already fill existing niches on the server, or have no connection to existing cultures on the server. The nomenclature of your settlement should reflect the scope of the polity - for example, a T2 settlement called “Kingdom of XXX” or “Principality of XXX” would not be accepted, as we would expect high royal titles to be in the scope of a nation.

Applications must include concept images for builds and plans for how the settlement will gain activity. We want to provide variety to our playerbase. We expect multiple location suggestions in case of unforeseen region drama or complications. Upon acceptance, a 25k mina fee is required to confirm the settlement. 

Settlement Activity Requirements/Regulations
World Team will review applications based on the availability of a set number of slots depending on reviews of the activity data. This can fluctuate based on player counts and what we think is a healthy number of nations/settlements. This means when a settlement fails to gain activity and is evicted, another applicant will be given the chance to take their place, while avoiding an excess of settlements. Currently, the activity checks and perks can be found below for both T1 and T2 charters. 

Level 1: 75x75, .5% requirement, 25k
Level 2: 150x150, 1% requirement, additional 25k

If a level 2 settlement fails to meet 1% for 3 weeks out of a month, it is reverted to level 1.

If a level 1 settlement fails to meet .5% for 3 weeks out of a month, it will be considered inactive and revoked.

Settlement Perks

• Access to Nation/Settlement/Lair chat in main discord.
• Green SS pillar, free.
• Banker/Auctioneer, 5000 for both.
• Subforum in Settlement’s Subforum
• Free Enderchest outside of gates/walls(limit to 1 per Nation Tile, or on a unclaimed tile, 1 for each Settlement)
• Road connector to Settlement
• Each tile is eligible to pool resources to purchase a mine for 25k minas. 
• You can relocate your settlement for half the cost of your current Settlement Tier. 

Settlement Application

Path to Nationhood

A Tier 2 Settlement, in order to be eligible to become a nation, must...

• Maintain 3% activity for two months
• Pay 100,000 minas
• Submit an application to the World Team explaining the culture and outlining settlement history since the original Settlement Application to establish how this settlement has expanded into a core LotC staple. The same qualifications in attaining a settlement will be held, but to a much higher degree. A good rule of thumb for our expectations of nations beyond charter  is that they can survive the shifting of player groups. If, for example, three of the leaders in your nation-to-be left, would that settlement still survive? Core nations such as the racial nations can answer that question as they fill a niche that players will easily feed into - any nation to be accepted should match that mark.

 
Nation Application

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A nation is defined as a core political entity with historic precedent in the conjoined LotC player narrative that consists of multiple unique player groups and communities. Nations are bound under the following parameters.

Nation perks include...

Full tile control

One free banker and auctioneer

Green ss pillar

Subforum in nation section

Mine

Nation Leader Role in Staff Chat

 

Nation Expansion
Nations can buy a neighboring tile not owned by an existing nation for 100k every 1 month. The price can be changed depending on if the region is smaller or larger then the standard tile. This new tile will be considered a nation expansion and as a result adds to the activity of the existing nation - a nation will only have 1 activity check of all their tiles combined. If a tile is already occupied by a settlement, the settlement has the choice to join the nation, fight a war, or leave the tile for another - all roleplay actions that exist for players to mediate these moments of tension. If they chose to leave, they will be given a free settlement somewhere else on the map. However, at this time, until a new set of war rules/war server is in place, nations cannot expand into tiles with existing active settlements, nor can they expand around existing active settlements unless they have a RP border with the tile they intend to expand to that isn’t blocked by said settlement.  If two nations bid on the same tile at the same time, they must negotiate a settlement or conduct warfare - some diplomacy must be made to resolve this tension.

1 Nation Tile - included for purchase w/ nation status
1 Tile - 5% (+2% from 1 tile)
2 Tiles - 8% (+3%)
3 Tiles - 12% (+4%)
4 Tiles - 17% (+5%)
etc.

 As a result of the system, some of the CT tiles will be open for nation development. Settlements or lairs will not be enabled to expand in these tiles to avoid overload in applications for those region - however, settlements working with a nation are happily enabled to move in that tile. And naturally, nations can expand beyond these tiles, and settlements are free to as well.

 These open CT tiles are - Tile 41, 36, 21, 20, 26, 25, 30, 55, 57. These tiles comprise an outer ring of the CT, and have been selected to enable a more dynamic expansion without compromising on a spawn region. CT tiles that are restricted due to their need for balancing include 44, 48, 61, 63, 64. Due to an ongoing conflict, 21, 22, and 27 are currently restricted for warzone/event purposes.

 
Nation Expansion Application

Nation Removal
If the Nation falls below 1% for five weeks out of an eight week interval, the nation can face eviction after a review by the World Team.

_____
 

A lair is a region for constructs, magical groups, or nontraditional roleplay communities to operate out of. They exist largely as player event regions for peoples or characters that could not possibly exist in another settlement. 

Obtaining and Maintaining a Lair
An application must be submitted to the World Team/Lore Team explaining the need for the lair and any documents involving the lore or group that will be using it.
Possible location options must be included due to region complications possibly arising. 

No activity requirement besides routine checks that the region is being used semi-regularly, whether through small percentage show ups on activity plugin or omni searches. Subject to eviction if being unused and opportunity for it to be turned into an event site. If it shows up under 0.01% during any period we will check with the Lair Leader to see if they need assistance or are no longer using the Lair. 

Lair Rules
A small region, between 50x50, or larger if communicated to World Team Admin and sufficient reason given. 
Groups that can apply include lore creatures, races, magical groups as well as boats or nomadic groups. 
If a lair chooses to become politically involved with nation/settlement roleplay, they will not be protected and can be forced to move or destroyed based on roleplay quality standards and story building. 
World team will help relocate lairs if roleplay dictates. 
Lairs do not possess admin protection, but routing them out without any consideration or with suspected metagaming will not be tolerated. Adjacent nations should recognize the potential RP they can create, and moderation will oversee any exchanges there. 
Lairs will not have a hard activity requirement but the activity plugin will be used to check if they are being used at all. 
Lairs can be established in unclaimed tiles, or with Nation permission, in their tile. 

Lair Application

On 3/26/2020 at 8:45 PM, LotsOfMuffins said:

There are a few different approaches to this issue. We could lessen the time it takes to complete guidance. This would mean cutting down on what we’re teaching or speeding it up. Personally, I don’t think this is a great option. We shouldn’t be rushing helping new players. The other option is to automate some of the process. As in, Tutorial Island. This is a project that has been in the works for months. Essentially, it’s an island which new players initially spawn at to get a basic overview of how to do certain, key mechanics, such as the banks, auction houses, shops, chat commands, etc. If Tutorial Island is a thing, we wouldn’t have to guide as many players as, hopefully, they’d be taught through this, and those that do need guidance, it’d be a lot shorter due to not needing to teach every mechanic. So, if there is going to be a large increase in new players, I’m banking on this Tutorial Island project to be a success. 

I like the Tutorial Island idea. I know it has been difficult to get consistent builder help but maybe I could personally help. That is something we could during this map and next. Shoot me a PM so I can move this up World Team priority list. 

On 3/26/2020 at 8:45 PM, LotsOfMuffins said:

And let’s do the friend referral system. Please. 

This sounds cool to me. I am sure Llir or Telanir would have a better understanding of how to set this up to be automated. Maybe even a stage on tutorial island which asks how do you find out about LOTC?

On 3/26/2020 at 8:58 PM, Braxis said:

Just flying around at random, which one lead to me catching players doing things they shouldn’t more often then I’d think. But it also has shown me several groups of player hashing things out OOCly or communicating with one another in a non-toxic way to resolve their issues, I hope to see more of that grow to help be a stepping stone in restoring the community to where it was before. At least when it comes to self-moderating ones self and how to interact with other players.

That is good to hear. I am glad players are taking some steps towards moderating disputes themselves. The change to relying more on reports and less on in game split-second moderation has been a positive one. As a player I noticed there have been a few less toxic ooc skirmishes in LOOC due to these changes. Moderators need to continue to pressure players to act civilly and I think you have done a good job making rulings to protect the mods on the team.

On 3/27/2020 at 12:18 AM, Llir said:

Hey Grool, I know in the past there has been a lot of issues with this. I’m hoping things can be different leading up to the next map. With the lag gone my focus is going to be focusing towards great content, and I am sure both myself and Topaz would be happy to lend support in terms of economy. A lot can be done with some simple plugins, I agree that the economy is super important and have always wanted to see more done with it.

 

I know that OOC actions can’t be the only way to generate mina, we need to think of creative RP or mechanics-based solutions to economic throughput. I also think our community has a lot of great ideas when it comes to this, just the other day I spoke with a player who wanted to create roleplay-oriented professions on the server, which I think may be an idea worth investigating. 

There is a chat in the World Section to staff discord. If you want we could put together what we see as a good plan of simple ideas to help mold the economy with the server. We can then take that to the players to see their creative suggestions and tweaks. I hope to get moving forward on this soon so we can have a plan in place for 8.0. One specific idea we had was for minas mints that I think it pretty promising. 

On 3/31/2020 at 5:13 PM, Telanir said:

Now, when it comes to dealing with ghost towns I think the biggest qualm here is evictions should not be handled by human beings. There is far too much ambiguity when it comes to it and if a moderator evicts you your first instinct is to argue and good luck convincing anyone that they shouldn’t have their land they were building and living on. (even if they are now entirely absent from it). There should be a fair and solid plugin system which handles these situations which allows players many different options (i.e. paying it off to delay it, getting a free extension one every 3 months for example, etc.). Losing a region though and gaining it have to be huge shift, like imagine going from 50 active players in X region to 2, then there is no question.

Llir and I have talked about making this a more mechanical system which would ease the burden on the Charter Team Volunteers. Something interesting would be that regions would automatically reset if they were unused for too long, so that the generic terrain would come back from an original backup. We could still intervene to turn places into event sites but would save us the trouble of lots of clean-up world edit. 

On 3/31/2020 at 5:13 PM, Telanir said:

When it comes to villain quality, that is easily detectable and evaluated in a public report. When it comes to a raid, there is not really any such thing, and it results in odd looking measures such as showing up to a settlement armed equalling a raid regardless of the consequences (there is not really any other better way to prevent settlement harassment w/ a raid-oriented system). I think we all can drop the pretense that these are ‘intimidation’ events lol and not clever ways to sidestep raid restrictions. If you attack this group then, whelp, it’s time to ‘defend’ yourself & your buds! 

 

—Unfortunately it’s not all that simple though, it’s not 100% of the time just clever loopholing as just as often it’s someone giving an honest try at generating RP. Issue is that it is nearly impossible to generate this depth of story progression from the pvp encounter, but is a different scenario in villainy. As bad as we eyeballed villainy to be in 2013 it was at the least a more personal and depth-provoking experience. The current system does allow for depth by accident, but what we really need is a text-combat system where playing to win does not fundamentally break the game. (impossible to expect everyone to play ball fairly when it comes to IRP text combat without a common pattern/system to govern these encounters to prevent them from getting longer than 15mins or breaking down into endless arguing, rolls are too simplified as you have to implicitly agree no lore/strengths/specialties have any edge over anyone/anything else)

 

I think that with the establishment of RP Quality Standards we should continue the careful and deliberate return to the roots of roleplay and its many fruits. I suggest we start a Your View on the best way to design such a combat system.

I have heard from some players a desire to return to a more RP Default system as we try to distance ourselves from our light-faction server recent past. I would be interested in looking into prioritizing dynamic villainy and removing raids altogether. I think you have stumbled on a catch-22. If you create a system to raid people, people will raid more because it has been institutionalized. So a system that was meant to limit raiding potential and destruction has brought it to new heights. Again, players can moderate themselves in most RP situations and when we run into every conflict with Moderation making rulings we get to the point we are at now. We have created a system reliant on Mods, so when that system fails (it has to) people hate the Mods in the system. We have to be careful to not put too much on Moderation as it is not their job to hold player’s hands but to help facilitate roleplay and make our server playable. 

On 3/31/2020 at 5:13 PM, Telanir said:

I think the biggest lesson to be learned in my eyes from these two threads is the best way to attain server growth is to reward the behaviour we want to see (player activity, roleplay, civility & cooperation). Tofuus (@CrazyBigSpiders) also made a great point that I want to highlight, which is that the metrics we use to identify activity should be more precise, I personally recall players loving the Nexus-Regioning system (besides the bugs lol) because it sent your activity numbers home even if you weren’t present but also contributed some activity to the current region you were roleplaying at. This isn’t too fancy in my opinion and pretty easily doable, it also scaled activity requirements based on the land that you had rather than players online, so more land = more players required was straightforward and fair since groups in Aussie & European times didn’t get fucked.

I have no problem with coming up with new ways to measure activity but for now I have to roll with the imperfect system we have. I do not subscribe to a lot of what is stated in these posts and I do not think the arguments were super compelling on why we should re-add freebuild or allow inactive settlements to sit there. They do hurt player counts and are more of a headache for Moderation and World. If you took a look over freebuild areas from last map you would see towny spread every 50 blocks that landscared the countryside with no one to enforce build standards. It did not add that many more players as most the settlements were completely empty after one week. Charter’s this map have done something similar and I have noticed as I checked the rosters of the charters, the same 5 people appear on a majority of those being evicted. The same 5-10 players pop up moving from one charter to another, not really adding much to the rp story or map. This is not their fault, the system is promoting this activity. If someone wants to code Nexus plots or w/e we can take a look but I would rather have that in front of me before I agree to it.

5 hours ago, Telanir said:

If we try to grow the server with our current methods we will find it impossible to keep up. Community Team will struggle to keep up with current projects & whitelist app flow. Story Team will find it impossible to micromanage lore for the massive player count & small-time events just won’t cut it to keep the server engaged. Moderation will find it impossible to try and micromanage every disgruntled player interaction online. World Team is probably OK with all this though might need some tools to help deal with cleaning up the world, they will find it hard to meet the demand for event builds though for sure. Tech Team will obviously be on fire if we don’t complete server zoning.

I agree, we should be aiming to scale up production of content across the board. Specifically, I have been thinking about how we can use the map to drive up activity and engage more players to stick around for the long haul. I understand people may seem my charter reforms as contrary to this stated goal, however, I think settlement health is a better attraction to the server then settlement numbers. The map needs to feel alive and when you approach a place, there needs to be a high chance of finding an interesting RP experience. I think with the upcoming Lair Proposal, Charter Reform, and Nation Expansion projects coming down the pipe we can work on settlement health and player engagement all in one swoop.

World edit is the main thing the team needs to be stable for us to get anything done. Recent hamstrings over the past few months have depleted a lot of our members patience when working on the live server. Hopefully with these optimizations we can find new solutions to fixing land scars, removing inactive builds, and other work World does everyday. 

5 hours ago, Telanir said:

Each team has to consider which systems & projects can keep up with a growing server and which systems must be remodeled or shelved before the team gets overloaded. Any lingering feelings that you need more staff right now is an indication that your team is not fit for the future and is not putting forward its best.

This is very important. More people is not normally the answer, different people is. I think members of the staff and veteran players alike get the idea in their head that they are independents who are on staff. You are on a staff “team.” This means teamwork has to be a priority and slackers are going to get cut. We have to put feelings of entitlement and reward those members who are taking initiative and doing most of the work. As you said during downsizing, more members does not necessarily mean more work is getting done. More members actually demotivates the team a lot as you feel most people are not contributing.

5 hours ago, Telanir said:

The Tech Team needs to continue optimizing for large player counts and complete the zoning project, but also realize that without a functioning economy and without an accessible grind like professions there is little reason to stay online—especially if your friends are away or if you don’t have a clear goal/storyline at the moment.

The economy is something World has been considering greatly. One frustration our team has is a lack of tech/dev support over the entire time I have been a member of staff. One small economy plugin goes a long way for that community. Economic activity on the server is in itself roleplay and will help to drive activity up if it is engaging and has server support. We need to have a way better economic plan for next map and there should probably be a subsection of World Team completely focused on economic reforms. The economy being more immersive and meaningful can only help the server grow to the numbers you are suggesting here. Please give us llama or something!

5 hours ago, Telanir said:

The World Team is a special case since mainly they are building the next map right now, but the team suffers from ‘nothing to do’-syndrome when maps are out and many members slumber for a majority of our biyearly map cycle. I like the trend of getting the team involved in charters/nations and landscarring, and I imagine better harmony with Story on storyline builds is a necessary next step.

Something I brought up to Luka during my time as manager was that we should do expansions to a map similar to how WoW or Runescape do expansions or content creations. Imagine you have the same team that designs the map stick around and work on smaller projects all together. The job of the map is not done on release, it should just be getting started. We could revamp areas of the map and work with Story to change the map and add more life/detail as the map progresses. These need to be long term plans not based on the whims of one person, but team wide efforts with a collective soul behind it. Athera is a great example of content we should be looking to do more often, with a lot of upside and little risk. 

5 hours ago, Telanir said:

As techs we of course should continue to incentivize voting, but I feel like incorporating a friend referral system with rewards for both players based on engagement & retention could be useful (and idc if it gets abused frankly, it can get punished when it’s caught.) I still believe that we should be finding novel ways to reward players for in-game activity, and there are sensible ways to, for example, make use of region activity without making LotC into a full time job.

I have talked about this before in meetings. Voting can not be the only way to advance the economy. Friend referrals is a great idea. I do not know if it is possible, but could engagement on social media be turned into a way to earn minas? I am generally not a fan of ooc things having in game benefit but that could help boost our presence, there. We should also have an Instagram account that is used to promote builds on the server. Some build accounts on Instagram get a lot of interaction and this is a possible pool we should be using resources to tap into. 

5 hours ago, Telanir said:

Building a Media team to host videos or bring back that juicy LotC-BC is always an idea but volunteer-based media solutions have rarely been a focal point here nor a reason for much growth. The LotC-BC series (in 2014 I think?) though was great for community building and really helped make us feel like one community. Also still a fan of the trailers, would be cool if our current content creators in the CT are capable of producing things like this.

We should get a PR or Media intern. I am sure some college or highschool student could use an internship for their college resume. Some might think this is a meme but people put a lot of crap on those and you could explain that you are an intern for massive gaming community that spans the planet, yada yada how ever many users you want to list. People put they are president of the math club and this is not any more or less nerdy. Times are a changing and people are learning to respect organizing and social media content creation. If at the end you could show a portfolio of work you did for the server and a social media account you helped to grow, there is massive value there.

Ban this person for leaking.

Very impressive Anore. Glad you got the ball rolling with this much needed reform. This new system is much easier to use then the old discord look up. 

1 hour ago, howard said:

 

Our current nations are chock full of inactive settlements and splinter groups. This is a consequence of the staff’s incessant demand for “activity” over roleplay, not of the charter system specifically. Nations are run as pyramid schemes where land and titles are exchanged for activity, and every player expects their own fiefdom. Roleplay suffers, as players expect importance and ego expansion without effort. 

 

Keep the amount of available land small, and those new settlements become conflicts of their own. There’s obviously no magic bullet for activity – if you want charters to work you need rigorous activity checks, if you want freebuild to work you need a well-designed map. Only one of these options (freebuild) has significantly less upkeep for the GMs/World Team. 

 

Freebuild rules can be modified so that players can reclaim or demolish unused structures, ensuring that land is not wasted. The buildable area can be kept small, and close to spawn. Nations can receive exclusive access to WorldGuard and raid rule protections, making their territory safer than the freebuild area. None of this requires players idle in activity cubes or contend with the tyranny of sleepy nation leaders.

Freebuild requires a lot more work because of the constant activity check signs and constant disputes over the 50 block rule. Part of why this is happening is put out in the post, it is a very large amount of work to keep up with all these settlements. I have had five charters in the last day with between 0% activity and 0.05% activity ask for Charter Expansions. It is way too much work for the current volunteers to keep up with and adding more people to the team is definitely not the solution. We are wasting way too much time managing the land due to the poor map design of this map which creates an imbalance in the value of certain land. The truth is about 95% of Charters fail and the 5% that succeed do not justify the hours and hours of effort players put into the build and resources to be set up for failure by the system created to give them an outlet. LOTC is not a Towny server at the end of the day, it is a Roleplay server, and the Charter system is anti-roleplay as it decentralizes and bastardizes player interaction. The fact you point out the fiefdom expectations in a nation but call for a freebuild system baffles me. Quite the mental gymnastic there. 

Charter Policy Update

March 9^th, 2020.

Why?

After an extensive review of the activity data, it has become more than clear to the World Team that the current system has failed us. While we see a rapid uptick in the number of charters that form on Arcas, we do not see an equal uptick in activity to justify these settlements springing up. 

To put into perspective just how lopsided activity distribution currently is and has been for a long while now, of all the recorded data - sixty charters make up 15% of the server activity. With the average charter contributing .25% of the recorded data for the week.

On the other hand, fourteen nations make up 85% of the server activity. With the average nation contributing just over 6% of the data for the week. This means that despite making up roughly 18% of the total player-controlled regions, the average nation contributes 24x more activity than the average charter. After the first round of cuts after the update to 1.15, we have cut the amount of regions we are tracking down to 55 regions. Those were just charters that had under 0.02% of playtime for either of the first two activity checks. 

Now on the backend of nation and charter management, seventy-four independent groups are a lot for a team of volunteers to manage. And this is especially evident when we review how over the past couple of months the system has been neglected, mismanaged, and abused.
 

Steps for Arcas:

1.  The creation of new charters will be halted until the inactive charters have been cleaned up. We will be releasing a charter system with stricter requirements, along with expanding on the system with a Lore Settlement section (which Flamboyant will be posting soon).
2. Charter tier expansion will require closer following of activity check numbers with the hope the centralization of roleplay will lead more groups to meet them. 
3. 1% is going to be the goal, there will be incremental increases on a two week schedule moving forward. March 22^nd will be the first cut off at 0.1%. April 5^th will be the second with a goal of .5%. April 19^th will be the third with a goal of 1% for each charter. After this has been put in place, we will be looking into Nation reform and the new charter/settlement system moving into the rest of this map and next map. Qualifying for one of the two weeks of the activity period is all that is required. 
4. Make sure if you are a Charter Leader or Nation Leader to stay on top of announcements in the main LOTC Discord. This is where it is best to communicate with myself or other members of the Charter Team. I am going to be personally overseeing Charter Reform moving forward till we can find a suitable candidate to be the point person for policy initiatives. 
    

23 minutes ago, ReveredOwl said:

Is this going to be the only response from admins on the matter?

No. We will respond but normally it is not a great idea to run into a fire with a can of gasoline strapped to your back. 

There is a lot of frustration about the Lore Games. Please try to remember Flam is a member of our community and criticism is welcome, but bullying or harassment is not. Please try to stay on topic and keep this about what the thread is about, the server, and away from what it is not about, insulting or piling on complaints about any person. I, as well as Braxis, or other Moderators will be keeping an eye on responses here. I completely understand the emotional response to a lot of this but lets use this as a productive conversation instead of a pinata. 

Minas or die!

Rupert dies at the hands of the Emperor. Fitting he should be convicted in the court building of his construction and murdered in the square of his design. His last thought would drift to the Golden City as he remembers it. Perhaps that is what the Seven Skies looks like those who experienced its glory. Carry on Carrion.

Thank you for all the work you did for the server, Korvic. Very glad I got to know you better over the last few months. 

What is your LOTC origin Story?

1 hour ago, Crevel said:

Why did you shut down a thread where people were roasting you then you continue to make a thread weeks later with the title “Grill Grool”? Just seems like you’re trying to do it on your own terms to stop people roasting you in a thread you can control.

I stopped the Narthok thread because it was toxic. I think if you read the forums that most criticism of me is allowed to pass through and very little is done by myself or Moderation to stop it.  You can have whatever opinion of me or my motives you want but I would rather be friends with people then deal with bullshit and bullies. I think if you got to know me Crevel you would realize I do not back down to bullies and generally deal with situations head on with my chest out. 

45 minutes ago, LotsOfMuffins said:

Why did you aspire to become the world administrator?

 

What did you find to be the most surprising about being an administrator?

 

Would you agree that being an administrator and being the lead of a team are like two different jobs? Why or why not?

 

Do you enjoy being an admin?

 

If you could change one thing about LotC, what would it be?

1. I saw a lot of problems with the current map of LOTC and thought I could help to make the server a better place. I did not join staff with the thought of being an Admin but when I saw the possibility I went for it. I really care about LOTC and it has been important during my formative years and I want to give back to the community in the way I know how. 
2. I know you get bugged a lot but it is surprising how much people will lie to you to get what they want. On the flip side some player’s kindness and support know no limit when you help them. I find the vast majority of players to be really here for the right reasons which is to build a joint narrative and community. You know me Muffins but my personality is very much of trying to help others to get their projects or goals done. 
3. They are two different jobs but I had not thought about it much before it. I see a lot of people argue we need less Admins and let the team work itself out on their own. I think this lacks a fundamental understanding of how the Staff works on LOTC. The position of Admin is basically like being on the board of governors for any organization. You are involved in joint decision and direction of the server as a whole. You need executives to run the team and to represent their interests as well as the other groups interests on the board. You really need people with a direct line to the Admin team to advocated for what the team needs. If you had this level break between Admins and the teams you would not see a lot of the requests for basic permissions and busy work getting done. The few Admins would be overwhelmed with pings for little things each team needs. Obviously this system can be improved upon and I am sure it will change with time but the removal of Admins is really not possible after having seeing how the staff runs efficiently(or not so efficiently) in different cases at different times.
4. Everything has its plus and minuses but when I help a player or see a project complete that is what I enjoy. I do not enjoy dealing with bans or toxicity but I would rather it be focused on me then on kids or innocent players on the server. I was feeling pretty down about being an Admin a few weeks ago due to a lot of constant negativity but I think that the work I do is important enough to deal with it and push past it. My parents raised my brother and I to work hard and advocate for ourselves and to engage in dialogue and teamwork with those around us so I try to bring that to the job. 
5. I would remove PVP from the server and reinstate Villain Application.

2 hours ago, ChumpChump said:

does ebs know youre admin now?

 

question for ebs: are you proud of grool?

Yes he does know that I am an admin we talk about LOTC periodically. 

@VonEbs

1 hour ago, calzium said:

please make me the lord of the craft 

Everyone is a lord of the craft.

43 minutes ago, Fishy said:

how’s new map coming

Good.

1 hour ago, Rickson said:

when will the other other admins do an ama?

You will have to ask them.

1 hour ago, rukio said:

Heard ur as hairy as a gorilla, can u confirm? 

I am pretty hairy but I feel like that is TMI and not really interesting. 

1 hour ago, Sneaky2 said:

You don’t miss us from 3.0 :(?

Wdym?

1 hour ago, Milenkhov said:

eternal ally or eternal enemy? 

Ally.

38 minutes ago, seannie said:

you plan on ever uploading a new vid about building?

I have run out of time to work on my youtube channel since taking over as Admin. Maybe one day I will not cut off the possibility. 

1 hour ago, sergisala said:

Finally you say the truth! Jk lmao

 

P.S: my question...black or white?

I need more context.

1 minute ago, erik0821 said:

Which groups would you say were the most friendly to you?

Most non-human groups are generally more friendly from my perspective as an Admin. As a player the orcs were great to me in Asulon, particularly the Azog clan. Carrion picked me up in 3.0 and I have not really looked back. I spent time with the halflings and dwarves which was fun and those communities were kind to me as well. 

1 minute ago, SoulReapingWolf said:

Are you happy with how the WT works?

What is your favorite food?

If you’d have to choose someone to represent LoTC who would it be? (Famous person, a character from a series, a character from LoTC, etc.)

Is there a secret to being a good admin?

I am happy with how the team has been functioning since we enacted a few small reforms. There is room for improvement and work will pick up soon once we update to 1.15 so I might be able to better answer that when we get there. It has been a bit of a dormant time with the stability issues.

I love chocolate chip icecream.

I am not sure I know that secret but advice I would give it to remove discord from your phone and only look at it when you have free time. LOTC can wait.