Danny

Preach it. Plus, implement it correctly and not like its been done in the past and the amount of 'ass'-builds are minimal. Practicality and roleplay value > aesthetically perfect world. Roleplay is enhanced by a dynamic environment, not by a white-glove, no-touch one. No news yet on what the 6.0 'region team' has invented for the coming map but unless it recognises the necessity of a free-build world (done with reasonable and constructive measures) we can already kiss the map, and a chunk of the playerbase (incoming and current), goodbye.

What's wrong? Continuous and repetitive mistakes and failure to recognise these mistakes (or recognition of them with a subsequent failure to act in any meaningful way) - see freebuild, Nexus crafting, professions for key examples. Failure to implement a good map change for the past five years, continuing to attempt to put in place systems we know will fail i.e. limited freebuild, partial regioning, wholly regioned. Hopefully 6.0 will see an end to this and a system of freebuild which actually works. The fact Nexus remains on the server in any shape whatsoever when it's conceded fairly widely that its contribution to roleplay is massively outweighed by its harm to roleplay, get rid of it. The fact we continue to restrict roleplay via professions and crafting plugins, effectively forcing people to grind and to focus on these systems rather than roleplay - introduce a system based on benefits which has no restrictions and revert to vanilla crafting rather than the ridiculously crap system in place right now. The playerbase right now is about 40% made up of meme'ing dicks. Sort it out, start actually encouraging (and making) people act in a manner which does LotC proud rather than embarrasses it. You come in the forum and see constant trolling, ofc you're not gonna apply. PS. Playerbase, you're chasing players away, get a grip and start acting like a community. The complete decentralisation of roleplay as a result of a thousand cities and nations and a map the size of America. Take drastic action to reduce nation sizes down to one official per nation and ensure 6.0 is small enough and nations are centralised enough that travel between them takes 10-15mins max. People won't like it but if you don't have the playerbase to sustain your sprawling cities (with five active players) then OOC action is required for server success. Skype being used as an IC tool must be dealt with via metagaming rules and not allowed in any shape whatsoever. Our external penetration to the wider Minecraft community is currently non-existent. The server has a reputation for being full of trolls and for not providing the roleplay experience it promises. Re-invigorate our marketing strategies and bring them in line with what the server will provide when it finally gets a grip. What's right? We have a dedicated staff team spending hours on the server, from admins down. They get a lot of grief, and frankly there have been many shocking decisions, but the screams of staff bias are complete bs. These teams are a credit to the server, they spend hours (unpaid) on the community seeking to improve it, and they simply need to work out a plan of action to fix the server. We have many good, active and committed players who want to see LotC succeed (some of those even being you meme'ing idiots) and this is the only reason LotC hasn't fallen in on itself yet. This is the community which needs to become more vocal and act as a welcoming party for new players and set examples of the behaviour required by the server. tl;dr: see the numerous threads written a month ago which have again (unsurprisingly) been ignored.

I didn't see this post until now but yes, yes, yes. That's exactly the kind of centralisation the server requires with the current size of the playerbase - a clear guidance for new and current players to capital hubs where roleplay is concentrated rather than the cluster**** of places with little rp right now. Keep the capitals regioned and safe havens and make the wilderness a bad place to be with a crazy-ass antagonist doing its job correctly. Wullah - a dynamic and interactive world that actively encourages areas of high roleplay densities whilst still allowing for, yet discouraging, those who seek to play outwith. And then we have a recognition of past errors but also past successes. An acceptance that neither freebuild areas or full regioning have any benefit to the server or are systems that bear any merit at all but also a realisation that just lumping freebuild on the server fails too. Rather, freebuild with regioned capitals, spawn and roads implemented in unison with a series of mechanics and processes to protect our world and to ensure roleplay does not stagnate is the solution that LOTC requires urgently. Let's not screw it up again, viva la freebuild. Would it be possible to have the system of 'controlled freebuild' that I and others are suggesting included in said poll, whereby measures are put into place to centralise roleplay and make wilderness areas difficult to survive in, benefits are granted to central capitals yet freebuild exists in almost all areas? I'm unsure as to what system you intend on proposing but I don't expect it to be that.

The Devil's Staircase is sick. I still remember it coming into sight when doing the West Highland Way and my heart breaking as my legs were already falling off.

@Malimom Might I suggest a further poll following this, unless there is a shift in numbers, to ascertain what players understand / suggest by "partial freebuild"? Whether that means a system of freebuild with capitals, etc regioned; freebuild as above with high population settlements regioned as they develop; or particular areas freebuild with the rest regioned. I can't help but feel the response is slightly tinged by the ambiguity between the two freebuild options with the first maybe being understood as solely freebuild also? Worth a thought.

Currently the poll is suggesting the highest number of votes goes to 'partial freebuild'. To those voting for this option on the idea of particular freebuild regions, please remember this has failed in the past and to repeat it is to ignore the lessons we need to learn. Total freebuild, with minimal regions on capitals, spawn and the road, implemented correctly eliminates these issues and make an for a system that works best for the community as a whole. The notion of one nation per race is an ideal that, if could be achieved, would be the best solution for the server as a whole despite the damage it may well do to particular player's egos. It may well not be possible to achieve in a way that truly works and is undamaging to roleplay and if the that's so, one staff-sponsored nation needs to be picked and be the only one entitled to regioning initially. As difficult as this may be for some to accept, it's the only solution to enable a consolidation of a very widely dispersed playerbase. If the other nations prove themselves capable of sustaining an active playerbase without being to the detriment of the rest of the server's figures and are located within the central belt of the map, then regioning should be permitted for the them. This should not be done via a charter system because this actively encourages a dispersion of players to these wilderness areas but rather via discussion with the staff team. This enables us to ensure we have a constantly active set of capital cities that act as rp hubs but that we also enable organic and dynamic settlement growth for the playerbase.

Allow me to elaborate on how a minimal-nation and freebuild map would function for those concerned. Freebuild would be in place across the entire map with the exceptions of the regioned spawn, capital cities and main roads. This (along with the other mechanics I mentioned in other posts) ensures roleplay is consolidated into these key areas but still enables the freedom for people to engage with a dynamic roleplay world. Roleplay is centralised into cities via push and pull factors implemented by the mechanics I mentioned in my last reply to this thread. Thereby we have a situation where players can still enjoy the familiarity of Minecraft but can do it in a way that ensures roleplay is not dispersed and we can protect against ****builders. An active and effective GM team and our whitelist then ensure there is no ****builds or land-scarring, along with the improved new player support I mentioned in my first post. We also need to ensure the only staff-supported nations (and thereby the only regioned ones) are one for each nation. Having more, currently, stifles roleplay because it ensures that there is constantly an insufficient concentration of players in a single area and fails to encourage players to travel to capitals for their benefits. If we introduce what I proposed in my last post we then have nation capitals familiar to the playerbase with guaranteed roleplay and effective benefits to draw people in. You've also still got the ability for towns to organically grow in the freebuild world we inhabit and for nations to take these under their wing, if they wish too. As a successful 6.0 and successful marketing campaign to new and old players increases our playerbase we are then able to look at allowing nations to gain region status but still at a lesser level and rank than the capitals. You need to have a system that enables organic growth based on playercount rather one that is based on people wanting to be kings and lords and the consequential thinning of the playerbase. It may well be an unpopular stance but sadly you must accept reality and learn from the server's mistakes.

I point you back to my original post. A systems introduced whereby the further you delve out of the central area the higher spawning and stronger mobs get, the more relaxed villainy and theft rules get and the higher chance of antagonist attack is. Make it almost unbearable to live on the outer areas of the map, but still possible. The outcome of this is a centralisation of players in the areas where they are safer and in less danger, the capital cities. Also increase some form of benefit in the centre of the map, based on the blessing of the monks, along the lines of a health buff, idk. Make the most appealing place to be the capitals via providing them with exclusive benefits for their status and ensuring particular mechanics are only available there e.g. shops etc. What this means is that the most appealing place to be is in the capital cities but that players are still provided with the familiarity and freedom of Minecraft itself. Affordable housing and nation-based roleplay in the capitals with guards, traders and bullders etc enables roleplay there to be the most active and through exclusively providing nation status to these capitals there is no wide spread across the map until there's a community large enough to sustain that.

Resistance to server-sponsored nations is inevitable but frankly it's the only feasible way to consolidate a dwindling player-base into nations sizable enough to enable them to thrive. Once player-count increases thanks to a successful 6.0 you can then begin to spread to other nations but only when the players exist to sustain that. Having multiple nations per race rn is one of the most moronic things I've ever heard. Yes it might be nice for rp politics, etc but for current and new players alike all it does is ensure rp is too widely dispersed to be successful. Learn from our mistakes and realise we can't handle a thousand bloody nations. Pls. Again I repeat, learn from our mistakes. Those opposing freebuild fail to realise that it is of course going to fail when implemented in isolation but rather that it needs to be implemented in unison with mechanisms that discourages external roleplay and centralies the playerbase.

Capital cities must be regioned, without a doubt. Also so should the main road and a radius around it, ideally 10 blocks or so. The main nations should have the option, once a short while into 6.0, to introduce regions to one or two of their other towns / settlements when the playerbase exists to sustain that, such places must be smaller than capitals and lack to appeal. Other than that, unless a player group has a very high headcount and is distinct enough to justify it, no regions should be granted to anyone else. That's the only way to secure centralised roleplay and sustain a functional approach to freebuild.

Agree on nation numbers - multiple per nation is just ridiculous when we have the playerbase we do. Freebuild wouldn't have the issues you mention if we actually did it correctly. It's not about wholly freebuild with no measures in place but rather having system that makes fringe areas of the map almost impossible to live in and provides blessings for being in central areas means that people don't end up in outer areas of the map. We enable freedom for the familiarity and Minecraft-esque experience it provides but we do it in a way that still encourages roleplay to be constantly centralised. Likewise, the issue with people randomly destroying people's work is the reason we have a whitelist in place and is protected against on the basis only players interested enough to roleplay get through, we can fully expect the majority of those players to be trustworthy and we do have staff in place if they aren't.

They should be exclusive to capital nations and no player-based group should have access. We need to centralise roleplay into the capital cities until we have a playerbase capable of sustaining larger groups or more nations. That grows organically and naturally but right now is too widely dispersed. Encourage new players to instantly move towards the official capitals rather than unofficial ones and then as these places grow roleplay dense then enable further dispersion when it doesn't hamper roleplay.

As an extra note, previous experiences of freebuild do not justify opposition to a functioning system. Limited freebuild is gonna be bad because you're squishing people too tightly. Separate freebuld islands are gonna fail as they disperse roleplay. A system with measures in place to discourage living in outer areas whilst still allowing freedom has not been attempted and will work - it's what the server needs and must have.

For those with concerns about freebuild please read below and this post here to be assured as to how an effective system could be implemented and the benefits it brings. Woo, it's fun time. I think my views on freebuild are fairly well known now so I'll be brief and outline why I feel that it is the only reasonable approach to 6.0 we can have. Freebuild: My firm belief in a freebuild system comes from two reasons: one, an appeal to the heart and mission of LotC - 'Minecraft Roleplay' and two, it's benefit to centralising and encouraging a thriving roleplay community. I'll quote from my thread to save repetition. Thread here. Fast-Travels: Removal in their entirety should be possible. They are a symptom of poor map design that fails to recognise the size of our community. Capitals must be located close enough for centralised travel and roleplay, removing need for fast travels. Nation Status & Charters: In all honesty, should be impossible to get unless you have a huge playerbase. We don't have the community to sustain many nations so make only one per race and the rest unofficial and unregioned. Too many people have their own protected areas, it's simply unworkable. People won't like it but it just needs done - only regioned or protected places should be capital cities.