lnShane

There is a lot of individualization with all of the Quest-inspired guilds, and the magical, capitalism-like power struggle of rags to riches opens up a lot of future possibilities for anyone and everyone. Plus who doesn't love crazy weather and natural disasters to keep life interesting?

Chose Daidama even though I plan to be a Vori. Just seemed like the most complete and flushed out history. Gods, people, culture, international relations and conflicts...there was a lot of information there to go through!

I know this thread got a bit dead, but seems like a good place for my suggestion based on earlier conversation. It has to do with towns and PvP incentives. Basically the Idea involves each nation forming somewhat of a build team consisting of those who don't want PvP in addition to some PvP minded builders. They would be responsible for building each town in the nation over a few month span. Timeline would look something like this: Nation votes to decide popular new theme for a town based on player suggestions. New town is formed consisting of the build team in a non-PvP build mode. Town layout is planned and constructed over a few months, with future PvP in mind (essentially level/arena design). Town is opened up to residency with PvP turned on. RPers and such may also settle such towns at their own risk if they like the aesthetics. A new town is voted on (if population allows) and the process is repeated. Pros: PvPers frequently get a new area to do battle. Variety of player inspired towns. Builders and non-PvPers have another safe zone besides capitols. Encourages collaboration across many facets of the population. Provides a shortened timeline to building to prevent unfinished towns. Cons: Would probably have to start with 2 towns at first to provide more initial variety. Builders might not have their desired theme selected, may be discouraging to some who have their own elaborate visions. Towns are not expected to be permanent safe-havens for players who desire such places outside the capitols. No guarantees that populations will remain over time, since the builders and PvPers will likely move on to new areas as they become available. Perhaps there would be a town that becomes an RP hotspot and keeps PvP off, and maybe that could be one of the first two towns. Could be an alternate metropolis and artistic hub compared to the more commercial and noob friendly capitols. Overall, most towns would become PvP hotspots and provide fresh environments, though. Regarding the potential for town populations to vanish, perhaps the build team would visit such places occasionally to either modify or turn it into ruins. Ruins could eventually be fully removed by staff after a long enough time. Or maybe each town would be allocated a critical resource/objective to defend for national bonuses, thus promoting an active population in the region. Well that's all I've thought of so far, so let me know what you all think! I hope the PvPers appreciate the extra thought and effort. Would you be interested in map design for PvP purposes? How do my fellow builders and RPers feel about such a system? Is it too restrictive to ideas? Is this best kept to the nomadic nations? Feel free to be constructively critical! Thanks!

This is basically the answer I was expecting. More or less, the new system will be balanced according to overall population. You should come up with a percentage rather than a number if you haven't already, that way it's easy to adjust based on fluctuations in overall population. You may have thought of this with 10 being your prediction based on it, but just want to be sure. Don't think this will rule out my idea just yet, so will go ahead and post in an appropriate thread.

Mr. BdoubleO100 showed off this place in an epic building rpg tour back in June 2014. https://youtu.be/AgGlZTNMBZU Took a few maxed out days before I could finally get on, but gave me a good chance to check out the intro lore and forums. Bdubs even teamed up with the Gazamo build team for some cool modded stuff later, but unfortunately never ended up playing on the server. Stuck around to do my own thing though (still think I'm the only one of those 70k views who did). It was slightly misleading in his advertising that he said he would play, but I didn't mind. Unfortunately he and his family have been going through a really rough situation right now, which has led him completely away from YouTube and Minecraft for the foreseeable future. Gonna miss his inspirations that he makes/finds, like this server. Guess the epic builders here in this community will have to do for now.

(this post is mostly directed @Staff) Hey peeps! Been a while since I last checked in. I've been waiting for more info on this town stuff before I post some other suggestions, but this update has me a bit concerned. First of all, what is the active player base we expect? Because anything less than 200 means we'll average maybe 2-3 unique towns per nation, not including capitols or NPC destinations. In my opinion this would greatly limit the amount of variety in town styles for players to choose from. So this brings me to the next point, would the minimum merely be a necessity of populism at the start, or is this something that would be continuously enforced? It is near impossible to maintain a consistent player base from town to town in my experience. People get busy or bored and move on to other things. I know because I kept town logs for Gearwork all throughout Evo, and our town population looking at 1 month vs. 3 months activity was extremely clear. While we had nearly 40 players over winter break, our active population halved every 3 months after. Our monthly logins never made it to double digits after the winter. I assume that a few active players will be able to pick up the slack for upkeep costs, but will those consistent few be punished due to the inactivity of others and therefore lose their town? Seems like a good way to burn people out... I would definitely suggest keeping the upkeep balanced to where 5-7 players (3-5 very active players) would be able to keep a town running. This would allow for closer to 5+ player run towns per nation. I would hope at the very least that the PvP-on incentive would allow for this sort of situation. If so, then the further ideas I have might remain viable to discuss. Let me know @Staff and I hope to be able to discuss my other ideas soon!

Again "less-experienced" was in quotes for a reason; just because I have not PvPed around A'therys much, does not mean I don't know how. I have played Minecraft PvP-games much longer than A'therys. I have played PvP games in general since I was 10, and have always enjoyed being the sniper at range. I understand strategy, even if the skill mechanics and tools used are slightly different. I have also been playing team sports since I was 4, and am still coaching them now, so believe me, I know about teamwork just fine. I was focused on helping my team the best I could, by setting up our range players to be able to actually hit the enemy, to which I got noobish pushback because they didn't want to take me seriously since I don't frequently PvP around here. I trusted that the close-range fighters would be ready down below with their thing, but hey, I guess I should have just put myself in charge of all of it and taken over! (/sarcasm) See, this whole fight was thrown together on a whim, and we had maybe 3 minutes to build defenses, so it wasn't going to be a proper castle or anything, but I didn't expect the team to be so bad at building that our own structure would get us all killed in just a few minutes. And I made up excuses with the team as we flamed our way out as is the A'therys tradition (The other team doesn't know how to count! They said they had 15 people but had 20 in their party! Why not make it a fair fight next time!). As for the RP-PvP comparison. . .I don't really know how well you are defending this point. . .You seem to idealize PvP as similar to RP, but in the end say that it tends to fall short the bigger you make it. RP and PvP can both be independent or team based. . .that's what a government is for, individually helping the team complete bigger projects. Yes there are always guidelines, and yes there are times when people joke around in both situations, but being new=/=being a joke. Too often this does not translate. I commend the individual towns/nations who have made it their goal to train up the newer players by sparring and giving tips, but that same respect and camaraderie needs to make it's way into the bigger group fights when players of many different backgrounds must fight together. The thread was meant to be about optional RP mechanics with no bearing on the PvP community what-so-ever. . .we just decided to hash it out about the state of PvP as well since all the memers and trolls from said crowd came out to play (and yes, I suppose there were a few that actually wanted to be constructive here, gotta give credit where it's due). Go right ahead, contact staff about ideas/hopes/goals you have for Horizons PvP, then we can hopefully see that dedicated PvP crowd come out of the shadows to discuss.

Nah man, I kept trying to build until they had destroyed and taken every block I came with. As I said, that was the last time I joined in an organized fight. If I wanted to be their beasty, I would've been saying: "Wow! What a great bloodbath! Such fun!! We should do it again some time!" Not me.

See this. . .this right here shows the extent of your elitist attitude. You assume that a "less experienced" PvPer such as myself needed more help with strategy and fort building than the rest of my team. You assume I wanted to be in that tiny box with the other team coming in. I was just about the only one taking what few shots I could at the enemy before they got below field of view from our battlements (which is why I wanted a higher vantage point to begin with), then we were surrounded because they were against our walls with no way to hit them. The chain-lightning forced us inside (I was one of the last few up top since I had actually been taking shots) and when I came down, there was a single entrance. . .not exactly my fault our party was so inept as to only leave one escape (throwing myself from the roof and taking more damage didn't seem like a great idea in the heat of battle). I tried to go for the exit and was webbed and slaughtered in just a few seconds, so it wasn't really by choice that I got trapped in that kill-box. As I said, the fight didn't exactly last very long, there's a video of it still somewhere. 1v1 maybe you can climb the ranks, but when it comes to team play, the more experienced players have rarely taken heed of a newer player's strategy/style. Finding a way into a group and actually having a voice is a rarity unless you personally know the group or have been around long enough to prove yourself to them. If it's for fun, why not let the noobs strategize occasionally just to see what they come up with? To say RP is the same in this matter is ridiculous, having personally been apart of one of the most inclusive RP groups, the Daggerlands Government. If a player was ever scared to take up a leadership role because of stiff-competition, we made sure they were aware of the other options. No one forced decisions on the newer players because we took votes and occasionally the ideas of a newer player greatly added to decisions and were worked into the finished product. Again, this is a community mindset that needs to change. Nothing about this is flame, this is stating my experiences as they happened; no need to start with ad-hominems as well now.

I used to have fun, back during the Summer Rime after I first started I was on my own and figuring out my own play-style without anyone to tell me otherwise. Fights were extremely laggy though, but epic even so. I remember sniping from up in the riggings of the ships during the 60-man sea battle, watching things unfold below me. Something changed in the community though where raid/battle leaders and experienced PvPers seemed to decide there was a right and wrong way to PvP, they didn't let new players make their own mistakes. Ex: The one big group fight I participated in (Selukk outside the basin) I tried to run trueshot as I have always played it, building up a small tower for me to snipe off of over our hastily made battlements. My party destroyed it instantly saying that I shouldn't do that, so I ended up with almost no angle to shoot the rushing attackers. Once we were forced inside by lightning, I ended up first to die in the slaughter that followed, being a range player trapped in a tiny box. . .Point being, if I had been allowed to play how I wanted all along, perhaps I would've been knocked off the wall, but I also would have survived a lot longer that way. That was the last time I participated in "organized" PvP. The community is what made PvP elitist a long time ago. . .our player base now is the cause/result of that. If you can change my mind about these sorts of things in Horizons, then perhaps you could do the same for many others. Don't expect that will be very easy to do though as it is the community attitude you must change, not just the PvP mechanics.

Minecraft was built as a sandbox game; this server is a sandbox experience. I have played this game long enough to know what I enjoy, and what I don't enjoy. Minecraft PvP does not do it for me, there are dozens of other commercial games out that I can use to get a better competitive vibe. Only kind in MC I still enjoy is the casual mini-game sort like paintball, spleef, or other party games. I play this game/server to relax and have fun, not to get uber-competitive and stress out over. Put extra incentives, exclusive perks/gear/activities/whatever as a reason to PvP. . .just don't expect everyone to want the same experience. If everyone got the same experience, perks, and gear, they would have little value and it would be pretty boring. . .variety is a good thing, remember that.

That moment when people criticize you for listing optional aspects of the server such as exploring and call them boring. . . Honestly though, the PvPers in this thread went straight past memes and are just plain old trolls now with their strawman arguments (i.e. optional rp system=no more pvp, everything with a dice!). I get it, you think dice are cute, so just keep on dancing around each other with your little kitchen knives or roaming candles and pay us no mind. You don't have to use this system if you so choose, that's what "optional" means.

@Destruct Problem is, PvP is not for everyone, contrary to what you believe. Not everyone is a soldier, because that is more of a profession. It takes natural talent and a desire to be better than the competition. Same goes for rp, not everyone is a writer/story-teller, some people see this merely as a game and find fun in just building, pvping, or even just exploring; lore can be boring for some people who prefer more tangible aspects. Yes, people need towns and places to call home, but they do not need to necessarily build their own, that's why we have always had pre-built capitols. As for the economy, that is different because we all must buy, sell, and/or contribute to it in some way, though developing businesses is a profession of its own. I understand asking people to try out something they may have never done before, but let's be honest here. . .I don't think a single RPer here can say they never tried PvP. If they choose RP it's either because they enjoy it more, or are better at it than PvP. Most of us have been here long enough to know our own tastes. That said: new plugin, new PvP. . .perhaps some will give it a try again for Horizons.

Yeah, came down to that 50/50 guess, I also used the original storyline/character background to assume that Ahlanna would use a scepter since she had some relation to the Mages College, and they would therefore be greatly concerned about her disappearance.