Danny
-
Posts
6617 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Personas
Wiki
Rules
War
Systems
Safety
Player Conduct
Forums
Forms
Posts posted by Danny
-
-
How are territories defined in this?
This seems extremely complicated with how humanity especially is organized, although I think Adunians may encounter a similar issue (though I'm not familiar enough with their politics to comment).
Is a territory a barony? A county? A duchy? A kingdom? A hillside?
Geographical or legal? Whose laws? What level of feudal control?
It seems as if there are some minor questions that need clearing up.
\/\/\/\
Side note: MCMMO is complete ****. Please no. That's ruined so many servers. I don't want LotC to become another OOC grind-fest.
Territories are settlements, farms, mills, etc. Actual buildings / settlements -- not defined land areas. It says that, does it not?
McMMO does the job fine if configured correctly: making it not required to be able to play, and there if you want it, is what we're doing with it if we choose to use it.
0 -
Invasions - What are the limitations, in terms of land taking? Is all land open to invasion, or are capitals safe?
Capitals should really be considered safe, in most cases. With 4.0 my bets are that we'll have the nation capitals safe -- right now, there's no real verdict on that.
0 -
Too bad you are not as cool as gronk.
I know. :|
0 -
Hello folks and womanly folks,Long post, but bear with us. There’s no TL;DR - read it, or don’t, essentially. I recommend the
latterformer.Firstly, I want to give a bit of insight into the decisions about 4.0 that the GM team made the other night, and afterwards I want to detail the war system that is from this point on now in play. If you want to read the war rules, they’re in the spoiler at the end of the post.But, that’s for later.Remaining on the present however, I just want to add in a wee note here. There’s a lot of changes coming in the very near future. A lot of them are aimed to prepare us for 4.0 - so many of the things we say will come with 4.0 (including those in this post, e.g. skills) will actually come before, but right now we don’t know exactly when: so, these things aren’t to be released actually with 4.0, but rather, before and/or nearer to it.There’s a lot of changes that we really are focusing our efforts on: streamlining new player experience, making everything more user friendly, removing restrictions and restrictions -- however, this does take time and discussion, which we’re hoping will be much quicker than the PVP-RP combat escapade we’ll all remember. Decision making has been going much quicker and more fluently recently, and hopefully that will continue, especially with the decision we’re about to make: whether to keep or kick Nexus Combat - but that’s something you’ll need to wait for another post to find out, if you can’t anticipate the answer.But, now we’re looking to the future with 4.0. We know that there’s been quite some debate about the future of the server over the past few days, so, it’s really great that I’m able to announce numerous things right now, as well as actually emphasise some of the things we’ve already said. If you haven’t seen Aislin’s fantastic experiment about the current way new player’s see the server, check it out: http://www.lordofthecraft.net/topic/100077-through-the-eyes-of-a-virgin/. It’s very insightful, and it’s really going to actually allow us to understand even more of what we need to do to streamline player experience.However, onto the actual ‘decisions’ that’ve been taken. These are things we know for definite, although the exact little details, etc haven’t been decided yet.Firstly: skills plugin. What we’re doing is returning back to what we’ve termed a ‘Vaquxine-esque’ plugin with a /skills command, assignment of skills when you first start playing and levels that go up as you build, mine, craft, etc, etc. It’s unclear whether we’ll include combat skills in this or not just now, however, I can say that it won’t actually restrict you from doing anything. It’s a plugin that will give benefits for higher skill levels, not restrictions -- e.g. you will be able to mine anything, but with a level 100 in mining, you can get a chance at a double drop, and things such as that. Exactly the plugin that we’ll go for: whether it be custom or pre-made, e.g. McMMO hasn’t been fully decided either yet, but regardless, it’ll follow the kind of idea listed above.And onto mining: we’ll be introducing vanilla style mining back into the game, but located on a separate ‘mining-only’ map so that we can reduce lag on the main one! This means that you’ll be able to simply go onto the mining world via multiverse teleports and you’ll have the freedom to mine to your heart’s content. Simple.Faaaaaaaaaaaast travelsssssss: will either be gone or very few in number in 4.0. We want to encourage everybody to be centralised into the ‘middle sector’ of the map so RP is condensed, hence distances are very small, so fast travels is really defunct. Chances are we’ll have it only for travelling to event locations, etc *coughcough* the Gauntlet *coughcough*.Mobs. We’re actually going for a bit more of a complex system that we’ve ever had, at least on the technical side: for you guys it’s fairly simple. In the middle of the map, mobs are few and far between and are pretty pathetic chaps. However, the further out you go, the more you enter into their territory. Again, aimed at keeping people in the central areas of the map, if you go too far out you’ll come across zombie pigmen laden with gold armour looking for some poor chap’s skull to pan in, but, if you’re sitting on the main roads you’ll probably just find a lonely zombie.Horses. There’s neigh chance of any more of the current system - rather, you’ll actually be able to find yourself a wee steed galloping around in the vast land of 4.0 and just hop onto him and you’ll be pals for life. That does mean, however, there will be sooome form of restrictions on them, however, not to the extent where you need to wait a week to breed them and can only find them in certain stables.The poll did have quite a few other things, but they still need more discussion because there was a pretty mixed vote, so I don’t want to say anything about them until we know more!With 4.0 - we’re not returning to Aegis - what we’re doing is taking the brilliant aspects of Aegis (nostalgia aside) and morphing them into a map and server that’s also orientated around what we’ve learned.Super-quick ‘mechanic change’ finally with regards to the War system. We’ve had a rather rubbish war system for a while now (if you could even call it a war system), so a group of Nation Leaders, players, GMs and Admins banded together and wrote up a new war system.I’ll throw in the new war rules below, and also upload them to somewhere on the site shortly.The New War SystemTypes of WarThese are the different types of war that can be ‘conducted’ on the server:Invasion: One nation invades another. This proceeds according to the War Mechanics section. A nation can only invade adjacent territory or territory they have permission to pass through, and they cannot invade by sea unless agreed on. An invasion only takes place in the nation being invaded. The invader has initiative.After the first battle, if at any time the defender owns all of their territories, they win. This means that if the invader loses the first battle, they immediately lose the invasion. The invader cannot attack that nation for three Elven months unless that nation attacks them. They can still attack other nations, however.Pillage: One nation attacks another settlement in order to sack it. This is a single battle. If won, that nation gets temporary region access to pillage the settlement. If they lose, they cannot attack that nation for one Elven month unless that nation attacks them first. They can still attack other nations, however.War of Secession: One town declares itself independent or allied to another nation. The nation that owned it can immediately declare a warclaim to retake it. This is a single battle, resulting in either the recapture of a settlement or the settlement joining another nation or becoming independent.Civil War: Any number of settlements within a nation can declare Civil War, splitting the nation into Rebel and Loyalist factions. All territories are Neutral save the rebel territories and the capital until they declare themselves Rebel or Loyalist, but they can turn their coats at any time without triggered a War of Secession. However, not siding with the winner may have consequences. This then proceeds according to the War Mechanics section until one faction is destroyed or peace is agreed (which may result in a nation split in two.) Initiative is determined by an open field battle.This means rebel groups cannot actually do anything without controlling at least one territory.Freeform War: The two factions agree on a freeform war and set the terms themselves.Mechanics of WarThe mechanics of war are how war works, and what rules must be observed during war time.When two factions are at war, they take turns to ‘warclaim’ adjacent territories (forts, outposts, towns and cities). One faction has initiative, meaning they do the attacking, and they lose initiative by losing.Warclaims are NOT done via a specific format, and nor are they required to be posted on the forums (although, it’s best if the later is done for organisation's sake). They are an agreement between the leaders involved in the war.Prior to the war, battle terms are agreed. These determine what can be used in battles. By default, everything that is mechanically possible is allowed and everything that requires GMs or ModReqs is disallowed. All allies are allowed. This default applies to anything not specified in the terms, so be clear to specify very clearly what is allowed and what is not! Naturally, if the war involves attacking settlements, then some sort of siege weapon has to be agreed. Knowingly breaching the war terms, if proven, results in a server ban.“Surprise attacks”, that is to say, attacks where one faction has allies and the other does not, are disallowed by default.After the first battle has resolved, new territories cannot be built in the war area until the war is over.When a Conquest Battle is won, the winner gets to appoint a new leader of that territory. This leader cannot lead any other territories in the warzone.A war can be ended at any time by a peace agreement between the two factions. Otherwise, it proceeds until one faction is completely under the rule of the other.If a war degenerates into OOC, then the Admin Team have the authority to stop it by majority vote, albeit in a manner incredibly unpleasant for both nation. N.B. It is extremely unlikely that this will ever occur.RaidsRaiding parties have a four man size cap for unaffiliated raids and an eight man size cap for raids from a nation (although this counts as an attack). All raiders require 1a2a, no form of siege weapon (including ladders or grappling hooks) or ModReq access may be used.This system is being put into place, and we’ll see how it goes. If it goes badly, or is detrimental to the server or to roleplay, we’ll remove it. Keep in mind however, it’s not actually us that designed this ourselves, this was designed largely (and I believe mainly) by nation leaders themselves.Cheers to all the guys who worked on the system, and let’s see how well it works!And with that, that’s this post over. Have a great day, and please, if you have any feedback for the current state of affairs or any ideas or proposals for 4.0 throw them up on the forums: 4.0 is largely designed around what you guys think, so don’t think you’re wasting your time. Thanks for reading.#Out.23 -
The entire purpose of this thread was to move on from discussion of the ban, and actually go back to doing what we're all here for. Clearly, thar hasn't worked. I'll emphasise again: head off and roleplay. I will, however, reply to the posts that caught my eye whilst reading through.
I just feel they are setting an example to everyone by banning AiiM which isn't fair and greatly effects multiple groups roleplay, but I mean, did AiiM even get a verbal warning over his trollery or anything? Or just flat out banned for name calling?, please remember the context this was in:
- AiiM was under the impression that TheForeverRuler (Vardak) was a female IRL.
- After several weeks of RPing with TheForeverRuler AiiM discovered he was a male after being told TheForeverRuler was female. Wouldn't you be a little angry also? You know someone who you developed a friendship with to discover that this person was lieing to you the entire time?
I mean this ban seems just plain stupid and a poor descision by the administrative team, however of course the admins know best right? So they get to vote. Y'know the admins that barely ever interact with the community due to them "Doing work behind the scenes." These votes should consist of EVERYONE on the GM/ADMIN team not just the admins. It is incredibly stupid for the admins to make decisions on this **** if they don't even know it. When was the last time you spoke to an admin about anything? Mine was back when Mogroka was still admin. So what? 6 months ago?
I'll say again, look at the appeal - Alan's reply - he wasn't banned solely for the Skype event.
Onto the admin point, I can't help but wonder if that's actually an issue of your own: we don't go out speaking to individual people just out of the blue, no staff member does that. If you come to us, we speak to you. If you're in OOC, we speak to you. If you're in TS with us, we'll speak to you. People speak to the admin team on a daily basis: in-game, on Skype, on TeamSpeak and on the forums. Simply go and have a look if you don't seem to think that as true. Sure, not ever admin is entirely active on the forums specifically, but they still do post.
Indeed, admin activity has increased over the past while - and that's not solely my opinion - it was acknowledged in GM chat earlier. Despite what some people like to think, we aren't 'hiding away' - we're available if you want us at almost any time, but we can't just magically assume that there's an issue and appear unless someone speaks to us about it - same as the GMs.
We reply to threads, we speak to players who come to us on a daily basis. The only votes that really are admin-domain are unbanning and the occasional decision that for some reason was decided to not be GM done. The GM team vote on the vast majority of decisions that we takes, as it's been for a very long time.
Wait up, just a quick question. Can I get an exact defenition on Genderbending? Does this mean OOC pretending you're a certain Gender opposite of what you really are, or RPing another Gender IC? Because, anyone should be able to RP whatever Gender they want IC. Their is no logical reason why not if that is the case. What, is it wrong that some people want to RP another Gender? Unless their is RP that is sexually explicate(though I really don't know what the fuss about ERP is, some Americans are just such prudes) or completely illogical/stupid/breaking the rules, it should be allowed.
The reason we totally outlaw ERP altogether is the legal implications it can bring if there are minors involved. I wouldn't say that we have any actual objection it it - although, I for one wouldn't engage in it - but, that's the simple reason. We don't want it done on our servers, because if it is, and a minor is involved, we are liable for it.
Alright, seriously? I've read this entire thread and I find it a load of absolute crap. From what I've read on this thread, it seems someone was banned for being a Troll and "Cyber-bullying" even though, from the logs that have been shown, it looks like nothing of the sort; not to mention this was on Skype...on Skype for fracks sakes. I think that's a load of crap. No one should be banned for being a "troll" unless it directly affects RP for no good reason. If you don't like how people RP, don't RP with them! If someone is spamming you over Skype, well, you see. On my Skype account, there is this little button, I like to call him IGNORE. You can ignore someone's Skype Account very easily...I mean seriously, I have no idea why this is even an issue. Now, if it was on the server or via the forums, that's different, but over a platform that is not even related to LotC? If I have an OOC dispute with a player on LotC that has nothing to do with this server specifically, why not let me/him handle it? I dislike this constant baby-sitting. Despite what some people believe, most of us are capable of acting with a moducom of self control. If their is a problem, one would think that we could talk it out like normal human beings. If not? Just ignore them. If the problem persists on the forums/server, THAN you can speak to a GM or Admin. I would also like to adress the people who make ban requests on others behalf. Don't do it. Even if you are personally asked by that specific person. If someone is uncomfortable with publically calling out someone who has been an OOC problem to them, consistently harrasing and insulting them, than it isn't much of a problem now is it? And if you report someone for something they said to another person without so much as a word to the people invovled, then that is just pitiful. Let people handle their own problems. Why the hell are you going out of your way to ruin someones ****. Some people are just so freaking sensitive. I don't think people understand the difference between a dispute, and a personal problem that someone might or might not have with you. Some people just need to realise, it's the internet, freaking deal with it. You're not going to agree with everyone, you might even flat out dislike people and/or their actions; but don't let it get in the way of your OOC judgements. Now, as for the event at hand, I think banning this Aiim person or whoever he is was wrong. While I detest trolling and people who can't act serious for more than 10 minutes, based on the evidence that has been shown, it seems that this guy was unwrongfully banned. I'm not saying this from a moral standpoint, I think morality is stupid and any desicions based on it are most often wrong, I'm simply saying this from a logical stand point. This V guy, or whatever the hell his name was, could have ignored, or de-friended, or done whatever to this Aiim kid. The fact is, he didn't. That is his fault, and only his. Not to mention, the evidence that has been shown to us so far has been far from "Cyber-bullying." It hasn't even been insulting. At the most it was light trolling. Hell, if we chose to look at it from a moral standpoint, this guy was insulting a complete jack-ass who tried to get nudes from an underage, probably insecure(I mean what chick would be playing Minecraft if they didn't have some problem right?), young girl. And if I happen to be completely wrong, and this Aiim guy turns out to be a literal jack-ass who's constantly harrased this V guy, (even though if it was on Skype it shouldn't really matter) that wouldn't be on me. It would be on the Admins and GMs for not releasing more information. The community is making a desicion based on what they've seen. You can't blame them for that, or even justify getting mad at the community about banning him, even if he completely deserved it. This is where transparency comes into play. The GMs or Admins shouldn't have to hide anything from the community; and I will admantly hold that desicion.
P.S: The chick thing was a joke. I wasn't going to add this but with the likely hood of a female player(feminazi) taking it the wrong way was just to damn high.
P.P.S: I was going to have another Post Script, adressing something controversial I said in my tangent, but I forgot what it was. So if you see anything besides the female Minecrafter joke, that's probably it.
That's not the full story: he was banned for other things also. As with other bans, however, we don't publicly post evidence and details for the world to see. If the user requests the server ban, we'll oblige and give it to them, but we aren't going to make an exception and give out one because other people are asking for it.
And like that, it's 2am. Need to be up at 7ish. Night, I'll check back in the morn.
0 -
Wait I'm not allowed to be an ass on other servers now under risk of being banned here?
dumb dumb DUMB
You can go ahead and be an ass on another server:- as long as you aren't cyber bullying another LotCr we won't ban you for it.
0 -
Take your time in responding, I do apologize for keeping you away from sleep mate.
Cracker hits the first question risen and you've said you'll be giving us an update- I await it. Im trusting you all will be releasing the other, copious logs of AiiM's bullying to disprove factually that this is not over the "genderbender" comment. Will you be punishing Freya for recently calling Jarkarll "pathetic"? Why does cyber-bullying illicit a harsher ban policy than cyber-sex, especially after the Indelwehn incident in which a below-consensual aged male was brought into cybering? Do you now recognize that Lord of the Craft should be a refuge? Are the staff cognizant that this precedent now has them as social counselors in essence, stepping past the rudimentary task of supervising the mc.lordofthecraft.net, ts.lordofthecraft.net, and www.lordofthecraft.net and prepared [mentally] to deal with social issues?
I will not be releasing screenshots, logs or anything else regarding his ban to anyone but himself. We don't just lob around screenshots and images of bans for anyone to see. If AiiM wants to see it, he can ask for it:- although, I wouldn't be able to supply it for around 20 hours as I don't actually have access to it on my iPad.
Well, cybering on the server results in an even more harsher punishment that bullying because, depending on who is involved, it can actually result in a breach of law and we're liable - that's why we're so tough on it, not because we want to be. When it comes to Skype, we are not liable:- we also don't moderate Skype, as I've said. Because somebody cybers on Skype, doesn't mean that they're a problem to the actual community. If someone cyber bullies someoneon Skype, we'd consider them to be a problem, as they're clearly willing to do that to another one of our players, which can cause huge issues.
The staff team having to deal with things like this isn't anything new. I saw it when I first became a GM last year. I wouldn't say we're now "socia counsellors" - I'd say we're still doing the same job as we've always done, except, we're having to deal with things like this a bit more often than previously (excluding the recent period).
Frankly, all that needs done for issues such as this to stop, is for people to get the idea out of their heads that we're out to 'get them'. Without players, we don't have a server to run and moderate, so of course we don't go looking for reasons to ban people and be unreasonable.
Aiim's ban justification in his ban appeal
The other incidents were referred to as minor and were not the main cause of the ban according to rittsy. Furthermore, keeping the minor incidents coated in secrecy is asking for backlash; people want to know why players are being banned and simply saying "minor past incidents" barely scratches the surface. The only incidents that are proved are pretty vague; "commenting in TS about hacking the server" "acting racist" "mass-trolling". There's no evidence to any of these claims and listing them off without proof does not help in accepting the staff's decision without inquiry. Few people will, and for the right reasons, blindly follow staff verdicts without evidence, and failing to provide evidence and justify why Aiim's actions leave him banned will only stir the pot and fail to resolve the tension between staff and player.
The post doesn't call them minor past incidents, it simply mentions that. It says the ban itself's reasons include... [insert reasons from post here]. I won't repeat them all, as typing on this iPad is laggy enough. Like I said to Aislin, however, if AiiM wants his ban screenies, etc then he can ask and do with them as he wishes - however, we won't just post them all public. He can show you if he asks, however, I'm sure he's aware of his wrongdoings. Ask him to pop me a PM if you're interested.
Thanks for the clarification, too bad I'm out of +1's for the day :/
I recall Alan saying something that trolling will be counted under this, I was wondering if it meant all trolling, or major trolling?
Major trolling, like what we saw today from people on status' and threads is what he was meaning. We wot perma ban you for having a wee laugh: we do have senses of humour, despite what some think. ;)
2 -
To assist your reading eyes Danny:
"The
AiiM ban will either require you to be fully transparent and post full
content or renege on your ban. You have failed to recognize that Vardak
hisself stated that he wanted no bans being meted out. Skype being
counted as within your jurisdiction as LotC [note: Not Skype] is a
rather broad action that I do not believe you have fully thought out.
You may mistaken the idea that "if you can supervise Teamspeak, then you
can Skype"- but notice that you have your own server on Teamspeak to
watch over, it is your property that others are using. Skype,
however used, is it's own platform in which we are using. There
is a difference and you must respect this.
There
is a term that I have studied, it is called precedent. In much
of human nature, past experience governs how we would react if such an
experience were repeated. You have set this prominent precedent: will
you be banning individuals, I will leave unnamed, [although I can supply
if you go through with this, I gathered names as a GM who I knew
participated in] who have participated in cyber-sexual acts, planning
game events and collaborative acts as metagaming, etc?"
I haven't hopped onto your thread as I was actually intending on heading off to bed, and only sticking around to reply to short posts.
With regards to the AiiM ban specifically, head on over to his appeal and you'll see all you need. We don't 'moderate' Skype: the only times that we'll even consider punishing someone for something done via skype is cyberbullying, or if they're metagaming through it when they'll get a slap on the head.
Skype is not "within our jurisdiction", nor do we consider it so, however, harassment is harassment and it doesn't matter where it's done - we'll treat it the same if it's two LotCrs.
I'm not quite understanding:
who have participated in cyber-sexual acts, planninggame events and collaborative acts as metagaming, etc?"If you mean on server, we will, yes. If you mean via Skype: the first nope, the second is not considered to be breaking the rules unless meta is directly involved and the third we'd look at, yes.
We have, as of this post, made it quite clear: any harassment or cyber-bullying will be punished regardless of where it's done, if it involves LotCrs on either side of the event. I'm not willing to debate whether or not we should be punishing cyber-bullying on Skype and other platforms, because, we will not sway from the stance that we will - indeed, I don't even feel it necessary to discuss it more than what we've done in the OP.
Thanks for the quick reply Danny
I edited this into my post after you responded so I will respost out of inquiry
"For example, AiiM's incident is not one where he used particularly belligerent terms nor did he really do anything besides probe Vardak about lying to him about playing an alternative account in a one-off incident. Apparently this makes up cyber-bullying, while it would not in the dictionary definiton, so clear boundaries are essential to prevent unneeded bans and awareness of the rule."
^ Out of these pastelogs exactly what falls under the category of cyberbullying? Especially considering that Vardak had admitted to being TheForeverRuler, the main reason of distress by a lot of the community is that staff hasn't made it clear within these logs exactly where the cyberbullying occurred and how it is measured. Sure, AiiM could have been more polite about it, but given the situation where he was lied to and had been ICly wed to a "gender-bender", something that he was not pleased about, his reaction in my eyes is warranted. Some clarification of what exactly is inappropriate in these logs would do a great deal in putting ease to a lot of people's minds in regards to this rule enforcement.
That is not what he is actually banned for currently: that's only part of it. If that were all, I can assure you, I would be fully in support of him being back asap, but it's not. His appeal lists why else he is banned.
1 -
Can you define exactly what makes up LotC's definition of cyber-bullying?
If someone calls me a genderbender can I get them permabanned? Name-calling, slurs, banter between friends, entering a TS channel and getting told to leave, cussing someone out for doing something bad, etc. Considering cyber-bullying is a repeated process and not a one-off "you are a XXX", I think LotC needs its own definition and clear examples of what is and is not acceptable.
I'll speak with the GM team tomorrow and we'll see how we can work on actually giving a proper definition. Banter between you and your pals isn't cyberbullying, just to clarify -- neither is just swearing at someone once.
0 -
Most ban reports for things said on Skype are nulled, except this one?
Untrue. Most are nulled if they're based solely on Skype logs from a single person, and if they're based on mainly a single event. The ban that has caused so much uproar was not based solely on the single Skype conversation, as you can see if you head on over to the appeal which Alan has made a final comment on.
0 -
i am ddosing the server with aiims ip through my nexus plugin
ur banned
0 -
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Well, hasn’t this been an exciting day. I come home from school, make and enjoy a delicious curry, come upstairs and come across something that I’ve thankfully not seen for quite a while - a ridiculous amount of unneeded drama and temper tantrums.However, we want to make just a few things very clear here as the post Alan made however many months ago seems to have diminished in it’s meaning somehow to some of us.We take cyber-bullying and harassment extremely seriously, regardless of where it’s being done. If it’s involving two Lord of the Craft players and it gets handed to us by one of them, we will deal with it and we’ll punish those involved.It doesn’t matter where the cyber-bullying occurs. If it happens in-game, we’ll deal with it. If it happens on the forums, we’ll deal with it. And, if it happens on Skype, we’ll deal with it.This is one of the very few things that can happen on Skype that we will ever contemplate punishing someone for. However, it’s an exception for a very good reason: if someone is happy to cyber-bully someone via Skype, is it really the kind of person we want in our community? I don’t think so, the staff don’t think so and I do think most of you don’t think so.There was a recent ban, as I’m sure we’ve all seen, that revolved around a player’s actions on Skype. Just to clarify this, the ban has been altered as we’ve taken into account that it wasn’t actually reported by one of the player’s involved who didn’t want a ban as a result of it however, we also took into account the certain player’s actions around the time. As such, the ban was changed.However, we want to make it very clear once again. We will not tolerate anyone harassing or bullying any member of our community:- we don’t accept it on our servers, and we won't accept it elsewhere. If we see it, we’ll deal with it extremely harshly. In most cases, that means a permanent ban. I can’t emphasise this enough - I hate seeing people being perma banned, but if you’re willing to push the limits this far, I can’t say I’ll be sympathetic.If you have a problem with another player, try and ignore it. Try and get along. If you have a serious problem with a player, don’t harass them or annoy them: contact a GM or Admin. We’re here to ensure you have the best experience possible, so just contact us!If you’ve got a problem with the server, an aspect of the server or a mechanic of the server, go to Feedback and make a post. Contact the staff member who can deal with it. Again, don’t cause drama or rant about it - be calm, collected and give constructive criticism.If you’ve got a problem with a staff member, contact whoever leads their team. You can see who leads what over on the Staff List page under the More option on the navigation menu of the site.Finally, if you’ve got a problem with something that happened in-game, such as an event, try and calmly speak to those involved: that doesn’t work? Contact a GM, or again, make a calm and collected Feedback post.What we - the staff - want, is a community that actually gets along. A community that’s friendly with each other, and doesn’t feel it necessary to troll and mess around with the intention of just causing bother.We want to actually log onto LotC and not have to sit for hours, wasting our time, dealing with utter nonsense, bickering and unneeded drama caused by certain people. We want to be able to log in and create events, do ModReqs and actually interact with you. However, it’s extremely difficult for us to even remotely manage to achieve this when we’ve got events such as what’s just happened going on.I don’t think I can make it any clearer to anyone: what LotC needs, is for people to get along, for OOC drama to just stop and for people to actually go along and roleplay without overly-trolling and just in general ruining other people’s experiences.We had a very good stretch (by LotC standards) where we didn’t have any OOC drama like this. I do hope that we’ve eventually managed to settle this drama, and that we can now sit back down, and get back to what we’re all here for: to roleplay.So - chin up, lighten up, drama down and roleplay. Oh, and don’t harass or cyberbully anyone.On a even less cheerier note: the onion bhajis, vegetable samosas and onion samosas that I had to go along with the curry were past their ‘Use By’ date, so I couldn’t use them. :< Oh, and also, we’ll have more 4.0 news next month.30 -
As someone who's new to Lord of the Craft, I can atest to some of these problems. I will bring up what RacingBrother said. I made my application and was accepted over a month ago. I logged on, and I spent about 2-3 hours looking for RP. I finally gave up, logged off, and forgot about the server. I went back to doing what I had been before logging on. The only reason I came back, though I don't regret my desicion, was because of an OOC issue on the server that I had been frequenting previously. The problem I see with Lord of the Craft, is how unwelcoming it is to new players. No I don't mean the player base, the community is great and welcoming, I mean the overall server. When I started off, I was very confused. The chat system is rather difficult to get, and even know I occasionally have trouble, and aside from that, short of trying to look through the forums and the wiki, knowing what channel to go to for help, and looking for specific places where RP occurs is a huge hassle. I literally had no idea, and if it wasn't for me forgetting to change my skin, having someone remind me, and than having me help me out after I logged back in, I would have been completely clueless. Even now, after about a week of playing, I still find it difficult to find Roleplay. Why? I think that there needs to be an overall hub to the server. Somewhere, where people can get teleports, or some beginning Roleplay. Possibly have us respawn in some sort of city? I've yet to find another Dwarf to Roleplay with. Also, another thing. Their needs to be more descriptions on something. I just found out what the Wild Docks were, or, at least I think I know. Yes their is plenty of info on the forums, but frankly, they are way too confusing. And I've been navigating forums for what, 3 years now? What I might also suggest, is a sub forum, or even better, a tab on the top of the screen, next to Home, Apply, and such. Have that lead to a bunch of stickied threads where people can't post on/make new threads, and/or a completely different page. Just some starter guides on where to go to find Roleplay, how to gather specific materials, and a guide to the forums; because frankly? I have no idea what to do with the forums. I've yet to find a guild and I'm not sure on how Forum RP is done? Does LotC do FRP's? Or is the forum just for specific cities, guilds, updates, etc. So, to sum it up, make navigation and explanation easier for new members, and make it so that their is a bit more of a sort of "hub" for new and old players. Just my two cents as someone new to LotC.
It's great to hear the perspective of a brand new player. The issue with the RB hubs is unfortunately down to the map itself, and we're solving that with the upcoming map we've called '4.0'. I'm gonna have a look at working on a page like what you detailed here:- it's also worth noting that we've also got a website area that lists all the Features if LotC in detail also that you'll be able to access to get assistance on things.
I'm going to see about getting them dealt with quickly, and then the other issues may have to wait for 4.0 to be solved. I'm glad that you chose to come back, and I hope you stay around with us! If you ever need any help, just pop me a message (or any other member of staff).
0 -
Almost good job Danny, but you missed several things.
Magic was not addressed. The undead were who they were because they were validated by a magic plugin, giving them enormous power and gm validation.
Please for the love of god give me some natural minecraft generated landscape. I would love to see more variations instead of 'all the hills in one area' 'all the flatlands in one area'. Or at least try to make it interesting enough that there is plenty of interesting looking landscape like what Cirdanoth has been trying to do. Traversing King's Road was only fun because of the unique structures around it.
We're still not getting that much admin activity has we would have liked. The addition of rittsy is not really enough to see a regular red tag on the forums.
What is the future of the nexus plugin? What are we even using now, where's professions? Combat can be left alone, we need professions to validate and give more importance for other people. In fact I would say profession is the most important plugin needed.
Like I said at the end of the post, that's all we have for now -- there's more to come in future! There'll be more than one '4.0 Update ##'. ;)
0 -
Who decides which human nation gets the regioned city? I only ask as regioning is going to be a coveted commodity due to the stupid amount of stereotypical lockpicking thief villains that will surely reign over the unregioned areas looting chests when the owners of offline.
The humans should be one nation by then: if they aren't, we'll have to look at somehow making them that and we'd also have to decide what to do with the city.
0 -
Looking nice, what's the call on the Antagonist? (I don't know if it had a name yet I never found out)
All we've said is what's in the OP. Nothing more.
0 -
Please, please, please, please, PLEASE, please, put the cities closer together and nearer to the Cloud Temple, without gigantic mountains in between or obstacles that are very difficult to get around/over/below.
Don't know if you've seen Native's thread, I thought most people had: http://www.lordofthecraft.net/topic/96386-40-worldpainting-livestream/#entry870753 That's the map. First image shows the base, second image shows the actual nation locations, I believe there's been a bit of moving around but it's nearly the same. He also has the time it takes to get around! And note the lack of mountains in the way.
:-)
0 -
This is going on the tumblr / Undead are coming back, I'm right don't question me. #Guess
How on earth you came to that conclusion is beyond me...
0 -
Only thing I am slightly worried about is the 'diamond-a-plenty' system, or just a wide variety of resources. Time will tell if this is good or not.
It's far from 'diamond-a-plenty', don't worry! Haha - it's just making most things more available to your average person. It worked before, so we're hoping it'll work again.
Antagonist. Surely, you aren't planning to make the same mistake as in Anthos or Asulon? I think we can all agree that the current antagonist never went according to plan, nor has it been a success. I remember a few months back, during the PvP vs RP fight
massacresdiscussions, where there was also discussion about the current antagonist, and a proposal to bring back the Undead. As far as I remember, we who disliked the current antagonist, essentially came to the conclusion to "give it a second chance", and instead propose The Undead to make a return in 4.0. Whether this is in consideration or not, no clue.2 years have passed since I first experienced the awesomeness of The Undead back in Aegis, and it was the best, unmatched and most memorable experience I've ever had on Lotc. I've been encouraging their return ever since they disappeared, and to my dislike, there has instead been numerous failed attempts to replace them, such as the current antagonist, the Asulon villagers etc.
You're not going to get back to old roots, unless you got the antagonist in the right place. Rather than again trying to develop an "awesome, original, creative super-antagonist", keep it simple and tasteful. Bring back that which actually worked. Iblees or bust.
Believe me: the antagonist we are using in 4.0 is not anything like our failed attempts. We've learnt from the past mistakes and we aren't going to throw ourselves into any of the failed antagonists or anything like it. Don't worry.
Would my ranks & residence remain?
As in, do de Stolistes get their manor in 4.0 as well? And would I keep my commander title?
All dealt with in RP my friend, all dealt with in RP.
Everything here is pretty much spot on, which is surprising because staff always wanted to make everything so realistic and neat that it made the game too hardcore and less fun. I really enjoy the ideas so far, but we can never truly go back to what it was. What made Aegis, Aegis was the people and the overall feel of it. The server was labeled as a 'Hardcore Roleplay Server', but it was truly not. It was more of a softcore rp server, which is what made it fun before. Though, we can never go back to that because today we have a lot of these hardcore perfectionist roleplayers that will want everything to be 100% roleplay. PvP default was a "decent" attempt back to a somewhat softcore type of gameplay, but as you can see, there is complaining 24/7. In Aegis, PvP was basically all there was. I barely remember RP fights existing... The extent of it was emotes and then people rolling to find out the outcome. (Want an example of how RP use to be, go watch Candle's or PotatoOrgy's videos from 2-3 years ago.)
Today, RP quality is judged by the amount of detail and fancy words you put into your emotes. RP quality used to be about how entertaining the RP was. Emotes like "attempts to swing his sword" or "throws his mug at him" were acceptable and not frowned upon. Today, every time you are about to type an emote, you are under the pressure of being judged. When I use to play, Ambros was maybe one of the only people that I saw that still RP'd like this and I really enjoyed his RP because it was fun. To get in the server, you use to have to be a good writer and have perfect grammar, but gladly you guys changed it back to a simpler and lest strict app.
So yea, I believe these ideas you guys are getting are great, but I believe it's going to be hard to try and make them fit with the new people that fill this community.
My only concern that I think should be looked into is the combat nexus plugin. I think its too tryhard. Why do we need such a system that makes fight anti-climatic. Waiting 3 minutes before your opponent's blade reaches you. I agree its a nice step back from boring text fighting that lasts 2 hour. If a large portion of the community dislikes the plugin, then I suggest removing it. If a larger portion of the community enjoys the plugin, I think it should be just used in small skirmishes. In wars, like the death plugin, I think it should be removed because it makes those wars much more boring and slow paced. Wars on lotc used to be the best pvp experience on minecraft. I know people that only got onto lotc for wars, because it was the only enjoyable part of it.
Dealing with elitism was another thing we've decided on also, but I didn't mention in the OP itself. We're going to be much more open to people actually having entertaining and light-hearted RP, rather than expecting super-duper-serious RP. That's not to mean people can run around like idiots, but in general just... cheerier.
0 -
Ehhh.. I really don't want to see another super secret antagonist again.. please release some minor details along with the launch of the new map, please I am begging here...
Question time!
Q: Is the antagnoist going to be released at launch or at least a month after it?
Q: Is there going to be a build team application up when shifts done painting?
Thanks again for the info.. good to see lotc moving in the right direction!
The antagonist will probably (although, as I said in the OP, we haven't confirmed details yet) be introduced right at the map launch.
There will not be build team applications. We'll take people directly from nations, or directly from the ET build team if we decide to take on people.
0 -
If plots return I will make it my goal to donate another £100 as thanks
You'd better raise that £100 then. :-)
I... don't know how I feel on all of these changes. I adore some, and others are just.. meh.
I feel as if completely denying someone the ability to region a nation if they get the people in game, and have the roleplay behind it is just silly. It's limiting roleplay quite a bit in that manner.
Also, if we are unregioning so much there HAS to be people wandering around and making sure everything doesn't turn into a massive shanty town as it did in Aegis.
You don't need regions to be a nation. If they want to be a nation, they're free to - but we're keeping regioning to these groups because we want to centralise the roleplay to them.
There of course will be the GM team (and the possibility of others) sprinting around keeping an eye out for land-scarring and horrible things, but we rely on you guys reporting it as well!
0 -
Hello ladies and manlyfolks,Rather than writing an actual newsletter this month, I've decided that I'm instead going to just make this ‘4.0 Update’ so you’re in the loop about our upcoming map.With 4.0, we’re aiming to actually get the server back to what it once was. In order to do that, we’re having to look at ‘What made it brilliant in the past?’ and also ‘Where did we go wrong?’. We've already made numerous final calls on different aspects of 4.0, with more to come and we’re also delighted to have Native and Freya on board for working on 4.0 with us!The aim is to make the server not only a fun place to roleplay on, but a fun place to actually play on. So, as well as the map, we're changing various mechanics and systems with the intention of doing that.When we were working on creating Anthos, we had it in our minds that we were going to create the perfect map - Anthos could've been that, but unfortunately, staff changes and also a general loss of sight of the original idea meant that it wasn't and it didn't do what we wanted it to do. We’re not going to be making that mistake again:- we’re getting our focus’ sorted before we even take it into a build server and we’re making all these decisions now so we don’t rush them in the end.But, what are these decisions?Firstly, we've obviously made the necessary call on regioning. We ain't gonna have mass regioning at all on the map. You’ll see the capitals regioned, spawn regioned, the (main) roads regioned and also perhaps some landmarks also regioned: that is it. If you set up a village, city or town it won’t be regioned - only the capital cities will. We do also intend on reintroducing some form of ‘VIP plot’ (for Diamond VIP+) where they can get a small region of their own land (as in, enough for one building at the lowest rank of VIP, and it increases the higher you are but still remains as a small VIP plot). This means that we’ll have centralised RP in the middle of the map, in the regioned capitals as that’s where people will be most safe - affordable housing and the actual RP hub of the area will also encourage centralisation. However, in addition to that, we will be introducing some form of villainous restriction gradient from the middle of the map outwards:- the further you go, the lesser the restrictions so that people don’t just go and build things in the unregioned depths of the map, as it simply won't be safe.Secondly, on to what nations we’ll really recognise. The way we've decided we’ll do this is we’ll have our four main nations (each will be considered as one nation, with one capital -- we wont have multiple nations for a race being considered ‘nations’):- Humans, Elves, Orcs and Dwarves. In addition to them, we’ll also have three other races getting land who are the: Kharajyr, High Elves and Halflings. We will not give regioned cities and recognise any other nations except one from these races. If you try and set up a second human nation, sure, but you won’t get it regioned -- simple. The four main nations will be given a larger area for their capital than the smaller nations. If any small race / minor race isn't happy that they aren't getting land in 4.0: sorry, but we can’t cater to every one of you -- these are our primary races, and that’s how it stays, we can’t have 1000 different nations. That means those Humans are gonna need to hurry up and get themselves into one Kingdom!With regards to these cities:- we will have prebuilding on the map, however, it is going to be limited to New Abresi sized / Aegisian prebuild rather than the original Anthos prebuild (e.g. original Abresi). That means there’ll be under 20 buildings in each city to start with, anyone who doesn't manage to get a home in the city will have access to the capital’s camp-site. Why are we doing this? Well, we didn't have any prebuild in Asulon and I don’t think I truly need to describe how awful that was. With Anthos we went OTT with prebuild despite initially agreeing to keep it small - so this time, we’re literally taking the middle ground, which is what Aegis had on the server’s release. We won’t be allowing large build teams onto the map, and indeed, we don’t actually know who we’ll be allowing on quiet yet -- that’s still to be decided.We’re also going to be making items actually more available to your average Joe than they are now. Back in Aegis and indeed the first part of Asulon items were easily accessible for just about everyone. You could easily get anything: diamonds for 200 minas, a load of iron for cheap prices, bread cheap - and this meant that people were less inclined to get upset about losing items, and it did really result in less OOC drama as a result of people losing things. The attempts at introducing a realistic economy to the server really have floundered, so we’re aiming to reduce these attempts in the interest of actually making the server more entertaining for you. We’re not exactly clear how we’ll do this, but we know that we’re going to do this.We have also made a decision on the antagonist that we’re going to have in 4.0. It’s going to be something (I hope) most of you are happy about, and others might not be: however it’s undoubtedly going to be a fantastic thing for the server to focus on and will definitely mean that nations will be working together rather than fighting amongst each other, so we’ll see less drama as a result of that. We’re still working on the details of this antagonist, and you’ll need to actually wait for 4.0 to find it out as we’re hardly going to tell you much about them right now...We’ve still got a giant list of decisions to make for 4.0: plugins, mines, resources, shops, horses, combat -- and so much more. I’ll release another of these ‘updates’ next time we make a group of decisions for the upcoming map, and we’ll see how things go from there.ETA for 4.0? No idea. Don’t want to guess. Don’t want to get anyone's hopes up. The release date could be anything from some point this year until a few months into next year. Of course, the later is a worst case scenario - we expect it sooner than that, but things can always go wrong.So, in essence, 4.0 is an attempt for us to ‘Return to Our Roots’ and will hopefully encourage our older players who left due to our mistakes over time to return, and also result in more new players coming onto the server as well, of course, as you guys hanging around and experiencing it with us.Remember, we’re making 4.0 so that it’s the best Realm for you guys to be in:- if you have any ideas about what should be in it, head on over to the 4.0 Ideas forum and post them! We've read them so far, and we've taken them into account when making the decisions I've said above, so go and post some more for us to have a read of.Just a couple of other things to note (un-4.0 related):
- Freya's now a Developer, yay!
- We've got an automated 'Senior Staff' list.
- That's it.
Now, something I want to hear from you guys on. If I were to give you the opportunity to name 4.0 : what would you call it? It needs to start with an ‘A’ and be Greek - can’t break tradition! Check out this page which we've used to choose names for all our other maps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_words_with_English_derivatives! I'm sure you’ll find it useful. Post your ideas below.And like that, this update is completed. Cheers for reading, and have a great day - feel free to discuss the post below and ask any questions, but if you do I expect to see a suggested name as well!Danny Out.12 -
Just as a note: We're currently looking over and deciding on a warclaim system that was written up by some players and GMs right now!
0 -
Player Whitelisted
0
War, Skills, 4.0 And The Future
in News & Announcements Archive
Posted
Seems you didn't read the OP. As it states, it doesn't have restrictions, only benefits from higher levels.