NotEvilAtAll

[!] A scrap of paper is pinned to the Brandybrook Noticeboard! T’a Fif’eenth Drinkin’ Nigh’! ~Brandybrook as seen by t’a birds!~ Lo All! Us wee folks are doing real well right now! More ‘n more halflings are showin’ up in the village it seems! Oi’d consider this a blessing from Lord Knox himself! Let us celebrate our prosperity with a bunch o’ booze and a good deal of partyin’! What: A Drinking Party! Booze is provided for free, of course! Where: In Brandybrook, t’a home o’ t’a halflings! (next ter Aegrothond) When: ’round the turn o’ the Elven Week I reckon. ((4 PM EST, Sunday the 19th of January)) Long Live Brandybrook! Glory ter t’a wee! -Pervinca Driftwood, halfling reporter [!] The paper ends with the official seal of Brandybrook

Races without a racial hub usually don’t perform well. It’s culturally disruptive to not have a place for the race to do its own thing, run its own events, and have its own politics/religion without outside interference. Forcing two races to share a single settlement as their racial homeland only works well when said settlement functions as if it were divided into 2 sovereign entities, one for each race. At that point they might as well have their own settlements instead of pretending to be unified. As long as racial hubs are close enough to interact with one another, there’s no need to purposely destroy less active racial hubs, for they’ll just go be inactive somewhere else instead. If destroying them and forcing them to rebuild somehow makes them active again, they would’ve been capable of becoming active again in their current location if the rebuilding effort were instead used to improve their current settlement and population. LOTC’s community is fairly decentralized. Humans, the largest race on the server, purposely decentralize themselves for political reasons. Elves are divided into several sub-races that don’t want to live with one another. Dwarves and Orcs, while mostly living in the same settlement, have clans/families that hold lots of political power. Trying to force the server to be more centralized than its community is will only cause problems. Preventing the Humans from engaging in feudalist decentralization would destroy the politics and roleplay of the race. Forcing the Elves to live together would run contrary to their character’s desires and roleplay attitudes. Making the Dwarves and Orcs into unitary states without somewhat decentralized power dynamics would ruin the atmosphere of the races. It is impossible to prevent decentralization entirely, for decentralization is desired by all nobles, clan leaders, sub-races, and other small groups that come together to form Nations and Empires. The best we can do is fend off unnecessary decentralization that doesn’t promote RP, yet decentralization itself is unavoidable as long as there is a method for non-Nation groups to obtain land or for Nations to spread out their territory. Decentralization that helps RP: -Human Nations creating vassal settlements in order to engage in feudalist roleplay (so long as there aren’t more vassals than the Nation can keep semi-active). -Culturally unique groups/sub-races getting their own settlements so they can run events, religious activities, and politics according to their culture (so long as enough people are active to run them). -Small guilds/communities/races owning small parcels of land roughly proportional to their population size and how much they use it. Decentralization that hurts RP: -Two settlements of the exact same or very similar culture/race/community in a community that does not have the population to support two active settlements (for example, having there be two halfling settlements is a bad idea if there’s only enough halflings to support one). This leads to two dead settlements instead of one active settlement. -Pointless “settlements” that only exist to store resources and aren’t roleplayed in. -Settlements whose entire community has moved elsewhere, either creating different characters or having their current characters live outside the settlement. These settlements are dead with no hope of revival, and it’s unlikely that the community who created it would care if it’s destroyed. -Settlements that are way too large for the population contained within them. This can also affect Nations and centralized communities who either built too much or are in a long-term period of decline. How to promote Centralization without screwing over small groups/forcing incompatible cultures together: -If a settlement is much too large for its population over a long period of time, and it appears to be suffering in activity as a result, the settlement should be downsized. -If a settlement appears to be dead and does not have any active leadership that could bring it back to life, it should be given time for it to obtain active leadership who can promote activity, and if such does not happen, the settlement should be turned into ruins. If a settlement constantly fails to revive itself, it should be destroyed even if it has the theoretical potential and leadership needed to become active again. -If a culture/race/sub-race appears to be struggling, the staff should give it advice, help it out with maintaining its culture, etc. in order to get it back on its feet. If this fails, then the sub-race/culture’s settlements can be turned into ruins just like any other settlement. If one of the four main races goes completely dead, a Your View should be created to see what the community wants to be done about the situation. -Smaller communities shouldn’t be able to live on their own in the middle of nowhere. That’s a recipe for disaster. Settlements should be close enough to one another for meaningful interaction to occur. -Culturally/racially similar communities can be made to live next to one another in order to promote each other’s activity. This should prevent there from being multiple dead settlements of a certain culture/race instead of a single active one. tl;dr: Settlements should be given a chance to revive themselves before being turned into ruins due to inactivity. Prevent communities that don’t have the population to decentralize from decentralizing. Prevent people from building massive settlements 10x larger than what’s needed for their population. Give cultures and races some assistance if they go inactive before deciding whether or not to destroy them.

The least they could do is put Freebuild somewhere where people will actually use it for roleplaying instead of OOC economic operations. It’s much better to deal with the occasional new player dirt hut than a vast area of land people don’t want to live in due to the incredible distance between Freebuild and anything else. Even if the constructions in Freebuild are mostly inactive, dead Freebuild settlements have much more dynamic potential as people try to revive it, destroy it, use it as a temporary camp when traveling, etc. than Charters will ever have with their OOC Region Owner politics. Also, can the next map not have the Cloud Temple protected area be so large? I feel like far too much of Arcas is inaccessible to players with the lack of charters, nations, or Freebuild close to the CT. If y’all are worried about giving some settlements an unfair positional advantage, just spread around a handful of one-way Fast Travels from the CT and put the CT itself in a separate area like in Axios. Please include some areas of lightly forested rolling hills. It’s objectively the best terrain. Please include a desert that isn’t on an island separate from everything else. Putting a Savanna on the main landmass isn’t a proper substitute for a desert. Cold/snowy/ice areas should have more detail. Forests of frozen trees and steep mountains of ice/rock are much more interesting than a barren tundra of endless snow blocks.

o7

Only after the supply of iron is given a finite cap instead of being determined by how much time people feel like mining for.

Ask @Papa Liam he’d be able to explain it better than I. He’s actually taking a crud load of Economics classes in College whereas I’m just using Wikipedia knowledge and my observations of how Minecraft/the server operates.

If we’re going back to having a profession system, a good way to make it not grindy is by imposing limits on how much can be produced per day by a member of said profession. Just like how the Energy system of late Axios Nexus removed the grind-ness of crafting professions by making things instantaneous yet limited in quantity, a similar system could be used in a future profession system to have professions be worthwhile without having them get grinded a ton. Miners could only mine a certain amount of ores in the mining world before ores won’t drop when broken, Lumberjacks can only chop a certain number of trees before wood stops dropping, etc. If people are spending too much time gathering/crafting materials and are complaining about it, the production limit could be lowered (with the quantity of goods required for crafting modified to keep the economy in a similar situation). If people spend too little time gathering/crafting materials and want to spend more, the limit can be raised. This allows there to be resource scarcity without grinding. In Nexus, if a material was vital to PvP or production, it would be grinded a crud load no matter how difficult or time consuming it was to produce until supply was the same as demand. If production were artificially limited, grinding those materials would be impossible, supply would not meet demand, prices would be high, labor costs would be equally high, and the Developers could tweak things as needed to avoid massive amounts of high-end gear/materials making cheaper equipment/materials obsolete, materials being held in surplus instead of being sold, etc. Obviously some materials should be able to be produced infinitely. Basic foods/building materials (and maybe even basic PvP gear) should be craftable by everyone so nobody starves and building isn’t ridiculously expensive. If something provides an edge in PvP or economic activity, it should be affected by the profession production limits so that not everyone can constantly use the best armor, the best tools, etc. This also would create a pretty decent economy, since it ties production to a finite labor supply that doesn’t suddenly double as everyone grinds a ton to support a war. Since both new and old players would start out with the same production limits (maybe production limits could increase somewhat as the player uses the profession more, thus letting people who like the profession and use it a lot get more enjoyment from it?), new players would be relevant in the economy and wouldn’t be overshadowed by veteran grinders. Let’s model this type of economy: ((Sorry for using Labor Theory of Value, but since production in Minecraft (and especially LOTC) is mainly limited by labor instead of capital, it’s the most useful for describing things. Capital costs in LOTC are very small, even with a profession system)) Assume the following conditions: -Everybody who has a profession and actively uses it until they hit production cap produced 1 Labor Unit of materials. -Let’s say there are three different types of equipment, equipment A, B, and C. -Equipment A is the most expensive but most effective. (Think of Enchanted Steel items/Enchanted Iron armor in Nexus) -Equipment B is less effective/expensive than Equipment A, but more effective/expensive than equipment C. (Think of Steel items/Iron armor in Nexus) -Equipment C is the cheapest but least effective equipment. (Think of plain ol’ Iron tools and Chain armor in Nexus) -It costs 2 Labor Units for someone to constantly PvP, mine, farm, etc. using Equipment A, 1 Labor Unit for Equipment B, and .5 Labor Units for Equipment B. If everybody in a settlement of 100 people both produce and consume materials, the following distributions are possible: -50 (If tools aren’t free, less than 50) people consume Equipment A, there are not enough resources for the others to consume equipment not absolutely necessary for them to produce 1 Labor Unit. -All 100 people consume Equipment B, there is no surplus or shortage of materials. -All 100 people consume Equipment C. There is a surplus of 50 Labor Units of materials that can be exported. The different types of equipment should be balanced so that Equipment C is the most cost effective (highest performance when compared to its cost), Equipment B is best in the long term (provides the most performance with what you’re capable of producing), and Equipment A is the best in the short term (provides the most performance when you have a surplus of resources to burn) Obviously, not everyone in a community will use the same equipment. Those who own market stalls and hire others for a profit will probably have enough for Equipment A, those who don’t make such investments but have good jobs, are self employed, etc. could comfortably use Equipment B, those who are unemployed or otherwise impoverished will use Equipment C or nothing at all. Thus, I think that imposing production limits to stop grinding would still make for an interesting economy concerning the distribution of what is produced and strategies surrounding it. When there are few threats and people don’t mind feeling poor, C-level PvP gear could be used to save up a surplus of materials when it’s needed. During prolonged wars of attrition, B-level PvP gear is the most effective for what a group of people can sustain indefinitely. In short bursts of fighting that will be determined by only a few battles, A-level PvP gear is the best that can be put on the battlefield during those few battles. Similar concepts could apply to tools (although A-level tools would probably be the most cost effective, since otherwise they wouldn’t be used), food, maybe even building materials, items useful in RP (simple flavor items for everyday use vs extravagant items to impress your friends), and more. All of this is theoretically achievable whilst making grinding physically impossible without the abuse of loopholes.

[!] A newspaper is spread across Brandybrook! The Pumpkin Press ~The quality news that the people of Brandybrook DESERVE!~ Table of Contents ~Brandybrook Winter Feast is a massive success!~ ~Hearth and Blaze break up!~ ~The Spicy Shrimp has been found by Taurin Leafwalker!~ ~Anne and Jasper, the cutest couple of Brandybrook?~ ~Brandybrook Winter Feast is a massive success!~ ~The halflings of Brandybrook + Aegrothond Elves havin’ a wondrous FEAST!~ The glorious Brandybrook Winter Feast planned by the best Thain to ever exist, Micah O’Connell, has been a massive success! Large quantities of cake, pie, cookies, and meat were consumed along with enough booze to choke a horse! Afterwards, a shogging tournament was help by Rosemary, which Taurin Leafwalker was able to win! However, all was not perfectly well during the Feast. In the middle of the celebration, some no-good Sutican biggun WIZARD??? set the table on fire and caused several other explosions in the distance. The confusion caused by this TERRORIST ATTACK forced the halflings to grip their shovels tightly with righteous fury, planning their PUMPKIN RAID on Sutica for housing such villainous persons. Sadly, the Thain and my daughter didn't agree with the Pumpkin Raid proposed by the others, and the plan fell apart. We will get our revenge on this WIZARD??? on a later date! ~Heath and Blaze break up!~ ~Hearth, a Halfling? Dwarf? who has caused nothing but trouble for the people of Brandybrook!~ Hearth, by far the worst wee-folk to have ever existed, has ruined his relationship with Incadence Blazeweilder (commonly known as just “Blaze”). When Blaze asked Hearth to stop ogling other women, he refused. This unfaithful man caused Blaze such stress that she miscarried their second child. As a result of this, the two are no longer a couple. Many halflings and Suticans have warned Blaze about Hearth, telling her that he’s bound to cheat on her. It seems those warnings were correct. Hearth is the only wee-folk to have ever been SPECIFICALLY BANNED from Brandybrook Drinking Nights due to his horrid nature. There’s no doubt that he will be banned from future Drinking Nights. He corrupts the youth, ruins relationships, and is generally a terrible person. May Knox curse you, Hearth. ~The Spicy Shrimp has been found by Taurin Leafwalker!~ We’ve finally found it! It seems the ship had been relocated somewhere off the coasts of Sutica by unknown agents. Negotiations with Sutican authorities to get the Spicy Shrimp back are ongoing. May Knox bless Taurin Leafwalker for his service to Brandybrook’s navy! ~Anne and Jasper, the cutest couple in Brandybrook?~ ~The Sunbrook family burrow!~ Anne and Jasper have been dating for quite some time (or so I’ve been told). They’ve moved into a lovely burrow together, for they plan on creating a lovely family to inhabit it. They now share the same last name, Sunbrook, a combination of their previous last names. However, the question remains, are Anne and Jasper the cutest couple in Brandybrook? I shall let the readers of this newspaper decide. In order to vote on the poll, send a note with your answer to the Driftwood family mailbox, or send me a bird ((post in comments)) using the following format. Is Anne + Jasper the cutest halfling couple? -Yes -No Leave a check next to your answer! Here’s an example of a properly filled out format! Is Anne + Jasper the cutest halfling couple? -Yes -No ✓ Leave a check next to your answer! That will be all! Long Live Brandybrook! Glory ter t’a wee! (Gosh... I’ve always wanted to write that!) -Pervinca Driftwood [!] The newspaper ends with the official seal of Brandybrook

Pervinca Driftwood, a notable cake producer, prepares to face new competition!

1.15.1 won’t magically fix everything, but it will improve the chunk loading and tps by some extent. Once Korvic gets the permissions needed to test the 1.15 plugins, hopefully he’ll be able to fix (or make progress towards fixing) everything else that’s causing issues too. I hope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4lHf2N8GRw

((updated to include the other 2 Driftwood children that have since been created))