A survival server revamp!?!

[bren4q]

For a totally custom world I would have thought that a new plugin or utility would be required. Something that can terraform much larger areas of land than the traditional methods you have used with WE/VS. Perhaps a tool that allows you to modify biomes and alter the landscape over wider areas using some clever noise algorithms or height maps. Having to terraform small areas by hand in game will be a huge undertaking and people might give up on it if there's too much to be done.

Look into something like WorldPainter for getting a skeleton layout for a world created quickly outside of Minecraft and then perform touchups in game using WE/VS or something like the Terrain Control plugin.

[Juwayyid]

Yup, that's the idea I was having.  I've been trying to avoid the topic of "how" to get back into the subject of "what."  We plan to use World Painter to get the overall layout down and then go in and do whatever is left to be done.  That's the "how."

The "what" is what we are going to put into the map and what the story and history behind the world is.  The fun stuff.  We have a good number of regions selected now.  Want anymore?  Want to change any of the current,  I'll compile a list of them when I get the time.

How about some historic figures or events?  We need some inciting incident to start off the story.  We can pull out the ol "the world is falling into the void" idea or we can use something new.  Any ideas on any of this?

[Takinomfan]

Instead of the void, why not the splitting of the world? Make an enormous canyon down through bedrock, and apon every person entering the server have them choose between the two sides.

Spawn could be in a protected area somewhere hidden that people can't find accidentally, and there are two buttons, one for each side. The buttons would teleport them to the "spawn" of their chosen side, and set their spawnpoint there. If there are any modders here, (Which there may be even though I have no idea... I've been gone a while...) a way to randomly or procedurally split new people between sides without having such an OOC thing like choosing would be great.

Sides would be more like factions, and everyone on one side is a friend. Relations between sides would be non-existant at first because there will be no way across for a while. Ambitious people, however,  can start building over the void. This would require some monitoring... 1 block wide cobble paths ain't gonna cut it. To build over the void will require a structurally sound (Minecraft Style anyway...) and solid bridge. Anyone who builds something skimpy will log back in to see that their path has crumbled under it's own weight at a distance suitable for the structure. (AKA blown up by mods)

The crack in the earth is also not a straight line, because that doesn't sound very realistic. It would be a jagged crevice, that's way too wide for the other side to be seen. (Thinking about 64 chunks... About four times what far rendering will show) Good luck building your way across! Using your own resources for this will mean a bit of time and peace before people actually get serious about bridge building.

Now, even if this is a survival server, it adds a bit extra to the game in terms of story. I expect that about 2-4 players will actually make it to the other side on their own or with others, and what they do on that other side will probably be pillaging to make their own side stronger. Bridges used in this fashion will probably be bombed, while peaceful bridges left alone or used by the other side. Or you could choose to get away from the crack and go build on your own, like I probably would. But this way there's a choice of pvp for those who want it, and an ordinary roleplaying-less building world for those who don't care for it.

[Juwayyid]

(Nice to see yah Tak!). I love that idea!  It would be tons of fun to play had we the numbed to keep a server like that alive.  Hopefully what we are doing with survival now will attract many players and eventually give us the number to make a faction-ish server designed the way you explained.  I really love the idea.

Maybe we throw a dividing crack into our current idea?  It's something mighty large to explore and live in and could help with story.  Perhaps the crack forming and ripping apart the land is what starts out story!

[Skloosh]

This sounds like its turning into a faction server with 2 main factions(each side of the canyon) and an infinite amount of sub factions am I close with this guess?

[Takinomfan]

The problem with that is that someone would have to find a place to start the crack that either doesn't mess up any one's build, or doesn't care about flamers raging about destroyed builds. Alternately, you could offer to move their house with WE in order to keep raging to a minimum. Of course, if the canyon starts slowly, people would have time to move before they get swallowed up. Some stylizing of the edges would be required, to make it scenic.

This sounds like its turning into a faction server with 2 main factions(each side of the canyon) and an infinite amount of sub factions am I close with this guess?

I'm thinking more like two optional factions, and then those who don't care for them and don't join. Does that make them sub-factions?

[Skloosh]

I'm thinking more like two optional factions, and then those who don't care for them and don't join. Does that make them sub-factions?

Nope.
What I was saying about the infinite sub-factions, is that once you join one of the factions(or you choose not to) you can create your own sub-faction or "clan" this would enable a sort of civil war mechanism where a sub-faction can attack its own faction to gain more power and control over other sub-faction, this would also allow governments to be put into place examples: monarchy(single ruler), anarchy(no ruler),republic(council of players to make decisions),democracy(elected leader).
:Edit:
The default position for each faction would be anarchy.

[sifitis]

Its all sounding like a fun idea, but it does sound like a LOT of monitoring from moderators, of which we have very few (if any) on the survival server. Destroying crap-bridges, for example, means monitoring the ENTIRE canyon. Perhaps we can think of a way to make it less demanding.

perhaps we could try adding in other features, like special map areas. I know that 1.7 includes a world generator type called "Amplified", which spawns MASSIVELY tall mountains and SUPER deep oceans. Some mountains are even up to the top of the map. The problem is that its taxing on computer resources. But things like that, where the landscape is...different.

[Takinomfan]

Nope.

What I was saying about the infinite sub-factions, is that once you join one of the factions(or you choose not to) you can create your own sub-faction or "clan" this would enable a sort of civil war mechanism where a sub-faction can attack its own faction to gain more power and control over other sub-faction, this would also allow governments to be put into place examples: monarchy(single ruler), anarchy(no ruler),republic(council of players to make decisions),democracy(elected leader).
:Edit:
The default position for each faction would be anarchy.

My head cracked upon reading this... When I said Factions in the first place, I meant like... Neighbors... I have no idea if plugins like Factions would be used, so I was ignoring that possibility.

Generally though, people close to you would be friends, because to attack/raid/loot them would anger people who are in a good position to counter-attack, if nothing else.

People across the void however would probably have no qualms about looting anything they find on the other side. If people on one side band together by themselves in order to protect themselves, that's great! Every government situation would be completely player-made and un-monitored.

If I misunderstood, please explain it in some more detail.

Its all sounding like a fun idea, but it does sound like a LOT of monitoring from moderators, of which we have very few (if any) on the survival server. Destroying crap-bridges, for example, means monitoring the ENTIRE canyon. Perhaps we can think of a way to make it less demanding.

I don't know, it would take like 10 minutes with a super-overpowered speed potion to fly on each side of the explored canyon and check each bridge they encounter. For this I would suggest using say MCEdit to generate and load a 2x2 chunk incredibly far away from both "Spawns", like a couple thousand chunks. In these four distant chunks, which ops will have the teleport coords for, there can be set up some buttons and command blocks that can help. A combination speed boost 10 and teleport to one edge of the canyon, for example, would mean a quick check from these admin chunks. You could either stop looking when you notice you're generating new land, or have a scoreboard timer that counts down the distance in seconds for the width of the player-known territory.

One other thing ops could do while performing this daily sweep is mark the coords of any bridges they do see in progress, weather they need pruning or not, and put a new command block button in the admin chunks to go there. These would most likely be used for checking on people who are on more often than others, and could be helpful in cutting down the amount of full length sweeps needed as well.

perhaps we could try adding in other features, like special map areas. I know that 1.7 includes a world generator type called "Amplified", which spawns MASSIVELY tall mountains and SUPER deep oceans. Some mountains are even up to the top of the map. The problem is that its taxing on computer resources. But things like that, where the landscape is...different.

Now this I can get behind. Small sections of an Amplified map, copied and pasted onto existing, uninhabited landscape on the survival map. That would be very cool, and allow for some terrain that wouldn't appear in either by mixing the two!

[Kidd2000]

 We don't have very many people to play with for fractions to be an enthralling plugin. Also, factions last server has spiraled the server into chaos for a few weeks. Doesn't mean we can't group up, I just don't see a plug-in to be necessary. Kinda like marriage, you can do the same things with or without it.

   The crack canyon (Not to be confused with Arizona's cocaine gang) is an interesting idea. This could be the most risk taking venture as well as the most profitable. Thinking of a back story is almost as exciting as envisioning the looks of it.

   This is gonna be long as hell so make sure you pissed before reading this, else you'll lose were you left off.

   So, for the back story, I was thinking that this is set around the age of the 1700's-1800's. All of know civilization is in a valley on the coast of the Effa sea. Protecting the colonies from the salty shore is a belt of mountainous terrain. Only the long extinct dwarves have dared to trench through the base of the rockies. Taking thier place is a pirate clan that has claimed their technology and excavation sites. Here, you can fence rare and exotic items not found anywhere else. You may also hide here. You can as well venture through the water filled tunnels and seek your way to the seas. There, it's said you'll find legends true and dreams proven.

  That was just the north. As for the  biomes being hugged by the snow capped rockies, there'll be a desert in the west, a prairie in the middle and a forest to complete the sandwich. Now, each biome will have 1 city 2 towns and 1 fort. The cities will include a bank, houses for sell and businesses to begin, city halls (This will be where you spawn after teleporting from one established area to another. (It will also cost money to teleport)). The towns are just kinda filler with shops and protection. The forts are hostile to stragglers, they have allot of loot but it's difficult to get since 1. hostiles-and 2. it's in a vault under ground.

   The desert will have the rockies north and west of it. the crack is south and the prairie is east. The prairie has the rockies north, the desert west, the crack south and the forest east. The forest has the rockies north the prairie west and the crack south and east. Notice the trend? The crack was caused by a massive flower pandemic. "What's the flower pandemic you ask, kraw?"  Well you see, there was this crazy professer that thought he could create gold (The state standard for the economy) by mixing 1 red flower and 1 slime ball. But you see, this started and evolutionary cycle that could not be stopped. It's kinda like taking 5 Viagra even though you were a woman 20 minutes ago. Yeah, that kind of unstoppable force. The super duper flowers as they would have called it (since their creativity was malnourished during this crisis) took the valley by storm. Half the valley was enveloped in the super duper flowers. 4/5's of the population kinda died too. Real shame. Anyways there was this brave (or stupid, I always mix that up) miner called Haze. He did the only thing any rational person wouldn't do and lit 10^658245656875 Tnt on one super duper flower. This destroyed the flower which weakened all the other flowers. Kinda like that crappy reboot of War of the Worlds were the main character destroyed 1 tri-pod thing that apparently lowered all the shields of the other camera tri-pods. Very stupid idea. Anyways, the blast radius was enough to wipe out all of the super duper flowers aswell as haze. The survivors remembered haze as the greatest person like ever, and them quickly forgot because they noticed a giant ass crack between the valley. Not to be confused with the ass crack that hinders your left and right butt cheek to become butt cheek supreme and rule the world. No, this crack had evil shit in it. Again, not a euphemism. As it had turned out from our brilliant professor that had made the flowers discovered that all the fallout from the flowered fell down into the crack canyon and formed baddies. The baddies also contained parts of haze which would explain the AI's. So, in the canyon theirs lots of mobs, (like hard difficulty times 5) and theres loot. There's also a cave system that includes a butt crack ton of dead ends and 3 escapes. 1 escape is behind you back to the safe towns and cities. The other is death. The last one is to the other side of the valley that beholds wilderness. No rules. All badlands. Here people can thrive and die. You can build and dig and shiz in the other side, but there's protection from the cities and you can't claim land there.

   Now, if you haven't figured out my lay out for the map yet then I explain it to you like the valley of California. Imagine that place with a giant crack in the middle, less gang violence, smog, a little bit blocky-er and 98% less impotence and you have yourself the map!

  If I missed anything (Which I'm sure of-There's only so much a man can do on the can) then reply back to me.

[Takinomfan]

Here, you can fence rare and exotic items not found anywhere else. You may also hide here. You can as well venture through the water filled tunnels and seek your way to the seas. There, it's said you'll find legends true and dreams proven.

So you're saying you want cool dungeons around the bottom of the trench? Sounds easy enough.

Just so you know, there would be no bedrock on the bottom for people to build or save themselves on, it would lead straight to the void. Moar danger!

Hmm... After reading a bit more, it sounds like you want people to start out in the canyon, and have the Highlands around filled with dangers, and only accessible through a giant under-mountain maze with only one way through? > Sounds like fun!

I kinda tuned out the Flower Lore, sorry Kidd. :3

[Kidd2000]

Here, you can fence rare and exotic items not found anywhere else. You may also hide here. You can as well venture through the water filled tunnels and seek your way to the seas. There, it's said you'll find legends true and dreams proven.

So you're saying you want cool dungeons around the bottom of the trench? Sounds easy enough.

Just so you know, there would be no bedrock on the bottom for people to build or save themselves on, it would lead straight to the void. Moar danger!

Hmm... After reading a bit more, it sounds like you want people to start out in the canyon, and have the Highlands around filled with dangers, and only accessible through a giant under-mountain maze with only one way through? > Sounds like fun!

I kinda tuned out the Flower Lore, sorry Kidd. :3

Huh? Flower lore? I wrote that? lol

[Takinomfan]

The crack was caused by a massive flower pandemic. "What's the flower pandemic you ask, kraw?"  Well you see, there was this crazy professer that thought he could create gold (The state standard for the economy) by mixing 1 red flower and 1 slime ball. But you see, this started and evolutionary cycle that could not be stopped. It's kinda like taking 5 Viagra even though you were a woman 20 minutes ago. Yeah, that kind of unstoppable force. The super duper flowers as they would have called it (since their creativity was malnourished during this crisis) took the valley by storm. Half the valley was enveloped in the super duper flowers. 4/5's of the population kinda died too. Real shame. Anyways there was this brave (or stupid, I always mix that up) miner called Haze. He did the only thing any rational person wouldn't do and lit 10^658245656875 Tnt on one super duper flower. This destroyed the flower which weakened all the other flowers.

[Emperor_Quimby]

First of all kid, we should't have a age on when this happens. Then we relate to the real world and a historical correction will be lignificated (At least if you Danish.) I like the town, city and fort idea, maybe like mineZ towns, were strongest survive.  They could also have shops or generating loot like in dungeons, tempels and strongholds. And the so called flower lore got unserious, i'm speaking of the death of haze and the California part.

And I agree in all what you said Sif btw.

[Juwayyid]

Well it's great to see this huge change and sudden interest in the idea here!  Lots of good things coming from everyone.  We need to compile these ideas into one and prepare some finalized thoughts so we can begin work on the map!

We like the giant crack through the world idea, though what caused it may need some further developing.  We have some good regions to create with some good history behind them.

Do we want to include "shops?"  These would be pre built strictures selling items with no limit of quantity. Or do we want to keep things player based trading and keep things balanced in that respect?  I'm for player trading and keeping any sort of economy mods far away from this server.