Proposed smp changes

[UnknownHedgehog]

Tbh, I don't know much about how this all works and all with plugins, but if you're really looking for one this isn't messy perhaps this:
http://mods.curse.com/bukkit-plugins/minecraft/chestshop

I'm not sure but that one seems to work with money. Isn't that the same as what we have now?
When the money is gone, how would it work?

I think we need to find one that does items for items. Or just build them ourselves.

I'm in favor if a money economy, but one where players strictly buy/sell things with other players at shops rather than selling things at the market. Nick asked for a plugin that would work for that that isn't complicated.

I see what you mean now, just one problem, how would we start trading when noone has any money? Where would we get the money?

Everybody would have to start off with a certain amount when they first join the server, or, for players already on Opticraft, when the economy changes. For example, everybody (including new players that would join) could start with $1,000 just to start off with. Also, perhaps give people an incentive to vote for the server by giving money too (this isn't really part of my idea for economy due to the higher inflation of money that would inevitably come, but still a thought for how to 1) Not run out of money and 2) have people vote).

[Nick3306]

I have never once proposed the idea of continuing to wipe the server over and over again, I would agree that several wipes would do nothing more than end Opticraft. I do not know what might happen after the server wipe and that concept is what excites me, that fact that anything could happen, a lot of which could be good for the server and community where as if things stay the same, I know exactly what will happen.

Sure you may have not used the market for your farms, and that is perfectly fine, but can you seriously tell me that for the majority of players that created farms, it was not for pumpkins, cacti, wheat and the most popular, melons? As far as I'm concerned, those are what kicked off automated farms in the first place for the sole purpose of getting money, not supplies. It is true that now we have more advanced farms like iron, gold, witch, and ender farms, but again, many of those are used to get money as well, if not selling the products from them, then selling access to them to players. A server wipe in conjunction with Nicks proposal of the points system and no money, the only incentive to build a farm would be either you enjoy how they work and enjoy building them, which players like you and gavin do, or for the resources which players like roza and several others use them for. I am alright with farms for the purposes of building them for the enjoyment and resources and team efforts in building them, not building them with the only incentive in mind being getting rich, but that's just me, and a wipe with the points system in place would fix that.

You want to level the playing field. In order to keep it that way you need wipe after wipe after wipe, otherwise it will turn into what we have now and that is not what you want.
If the money is removed, the whole idea of farming for money would be gone too. So removing the economy would be enough to stop the extreme farming. Actually, the items people were farming for money have been taken off the market so it has already stopped. Farming for resources would stay of course.

I think what he means by leveling the playing field is making it so that everyone is level after the numerous changes that have happened over the years that people use to profit off of that newer players can't; creating an unfair advantage. For example, one of the wealthiest players on the server still is somebody who sold melons at the market (he has long left since they were removed). Yes people would still have advantages due to the resources they would gain as time goes on depending on their dedication, but it wouldn't be an unfair advantage; everybody could be that successful if they worked hard enough.

And yes, removing money would solve the farming issue, much the same way removing a finger fixes a hang nail. It's not necessary to do to fix it, but it'd sure work. Ozzy's idea and mine for the market would just as well fix it. Supply and demand demands it pretty much. Ya, farms would still be there, but the profits would be negligible compared to the work that would be needed to make it. If nobody wants what they're farming, then it won't sell. If people do want what they're farming, it'd have to be at a fair price the players want, but the farmer wouldn't be able to sell everything quickly (thereby flooding the market), at least not without selling it at a ridiculously cheap price. Because really, who needs melons, cacti, iron, or gold that badly to where they would rather buy it at an expensive price vs simply mining it?

The whole point of getting rid of the economy is so the game goes back to being about survival and the server doesn't run on the economy.  That said, once you find a way to let players have shops that isn't messy let us know. We wanted to do player shops when we first launched the server but abandoned  that idea due the the mentioned problem.

Tbh, I don't know much about how this all works and all with plugins, but if you're really looking for one this isn't messy perhaps this:
http://mods.curse.com/bukkit-plugins/minecraft/chestshop

Again I don't know all the specifics, but from I can read and get it seems simple (it's been 4 years since survival was launched, surely there's something that would work).

And I know that's the intention of removing an economy, I get that. All I'm simply saying is that I disapprove of that idea (along with other people too as it appears) Imo, an economy makes survival more interesting than vanilla survival and plus it's 100% optional. It's not like people would have to buy from other players if they didn't want to, while people who do like an economy can still play rather than forcing people who do like an economy play only vanilla survival. Even though if this idea for the economy went through it's not like it would completely null and void the survival aspect like the current economy (I don't think it would affect the survival aspect much at all, tbh, just an addition to it).

Those have been around forever, it just turns parts of the server into a spamfest of chests, that's what I meant by messy

[UnknownHedgehog]

I have never once proposed the idea of continuing to wipe the server over and over again, I would agree that several wipes would do nothing more than end Opticraft. I do not know what might happen after the server wipe and that concept is what excites me, that fact that anything could happen, a lot of which could be good for the server and community where as if things stay the same, I know exactly what will happen.

Sure you may have not used the market for your farms, and that is perfectly fine, but can you seriously tell me that for the majority of players that created farms, it was not for pumpkins, cacti, wheat and the most popular, melons? As far as I'm concerned, those are what kicked off automated farms in the first place for the sole purpose of getting money, not supplies. It is true that now we have more advanced farms like iron, gold, witch, and ender farms, but again, many of those are used to get money as well, if not selling the products from them, then selling access to them to players. A server wipe in conjunction with Nicks proposal of the points system and no money, the only incentive to build a farm would be either you enjoy how they work and enjoy building them, which players like you and gavin do, or for the resources which players like roza and several others use them for. I am alright with farms for the purposes of building them for the enjoyment and resources and team efforts in building them, not building them with the only incentive in mind being getting rich, but that's just me, and a wipe with the points system in place would fix that.

You want to level the playing field. In order to keep it that way you need wipe after wipe after wipe, otherwise it will turn into what we have now and that is not what you want.
If the money is removed, the whole idea of farming for money would be gone too. So removing the economy would be enough to stop the extreme farming. Actually, the items people were farming for money have been taken off the market so it has already stopped. Farming for resources would stay of course.

I think what he means by leveling the playing field is making it so that everyone is level after the numerous changes that have happened over the years that people use to profit off of that newer players can't; creating an unfair advantage. For example, one of the wealthiest players on the server still is somebody who sold melons at the market (he has long left since they were removed). Yes people would still have advantages due to the resources they would gain as time goes on depending on their dedication, but it wouldn't be an unfair advantage; everybody could be that successful if they worked hard enough.

And yes, removing money would solve the farming issue, much the same way removing a finger fixes a hang nail. It's not necessary to do to fix it, but it'd sure work. Ozzy's idea and mine for the market would just as well fix it. Supply and demand demands it pretty much. Ya, farms would still be there, but the profits would be negligible compared to the work that would be needed to make it. If nobody wants what they're farming, then it won't sell. If people do want what they're farming, it'd have to be at a fair price the players want, but the farmer wouldn't be able to sell everything quickly (thereby flooding the market), at least not without selling it at a ridiculously cheap price. Because really, who needs melons, cacti, iron, or gold that badly to where they would rather buy it at an expensive price vs simply mining it?

The whole point of getting rid of the economy is so the game goes back to being about survival and the server doesn't run on the economy.  That said, once you find a way to let players have shops that isn't messy let us know. We wanted to do player shops when we first launched the server but abandoned  that idea due the the mentioned problem.

Tbh, I don't know much about how this all works and all with plugins, but if you're really looking for one this isn't messy perhaps this:
http://mods.curse.com/bukkit-plugins/minecraft/chestshop

Again I don't know all the specifics, but from I can read and get it seems simple (it's been 4 years since survival was launched, surely there's something that would work).

And I know that's the intention of removing an economy, I get that. All I'm simply saying is that I disapprove of that idea (along with other people too as it appears) Imo, an economy makes survival more interesting than vanilla survival and plus it's 100% optional. It's not like people would have to buy from other players if they didn't want to, while people who do like an economy can still play rather than forcing people who do like an economy play only vanilla survival. Even though if this idea for the economy went through it's not like it would completely null and void the survival aspect like the current economy (I don't think it would affect the survival aspect much at all, tbh, just an addition to it).

Those have been around forever, it just turns parts of the server into a spamfest of chests, that's what I meant by messy

What if chest shops could only be opened in one location? Like a market, but player oriented. Thereby allocating all the chests to one spot (possibly even a chest limit per player so that it doesn't get out of hand) Or also possibly letting players open their owns shops where the mess would be their problem to deal with if they don't make it look nice. And honestly I see that as a means to an end to have those chests if it meant that the economy would be player run (and if it was done right to where it was built in a way that doesn't look messy which I don't think would be too bad to do).

[OzzyKP]

I found a few options for an economy plugin:

http://mods.curse.com/bukkit-plugins/minecraft/gui-seller-shop
http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/gui-shop/

https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/hshop.18980/
https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/better-shops.1758/

The first two are GUI shops, the second two use signs/chests.  Unfortunately most of the ones I've found haven't yet been updated to 1.9.  Though I imagine that'll be coming soon, it hasn't been out for long.  A lot of the plugins have rather poor explanations/documentation, but I'm at work and don't have all that much time to investigate.  Plus I've never run a server so don't know precisely what I should be looking for, but there definitely seem to be options.

A GUI shop would be ideal, and it looks like there are a few options out there, but even a sign/chest shop wouldn't be so bad.  We could put limits on it to stop spam. 

It sounds like there are two concerns about sign shop mess/spam:
1. Lots of people advertising their shops in chat.
2. Lots of signs/chests placed all over the place and looking cluttered/messy.

For the first concern, it doesn't sound much different than what we have now.  We have the /t chat room for people to ask for things to buy and offer things to sell.  That happens now, and would still happen even if money were abolished and we all had to barter.  Players can leave that chat room to avoid it.

For the second concern, one option would be to have a limited number of shops that could be created in a central market (we can repurpose the current market).  And we could proscribe how they look (not placed in random places in the walkway or anything).  Further regulations, either through a tax/fee, or time limit, or just booting out vacant shops could ensure the shops in the space are active. 

Personally I wouldn't mind allowing people to set up shops in their own homes/cities.  It would be neat to set up automated shops in all the restaurants & businesses I've created in my city.  And looking through the abandoned homes of old players it looks like during Opticraft's heyday there were quite a lot of player-run shops, so it looks like players enjoy making them.  Maybe you could restrict sign shops to only be in protected areas (i.e. not in no-man's land outside of spawns).  I'm sure it could be managed.

Whether we have a GUI or signs, I think it would be an improved system.

[OzzyKP]

I see what you mean now, just one problem, how would we start trading when noone has any money? Where would we get the money?

Everybody would have to start off with a certain amount when they first join the server, or, for players already on Opticraft, when the economy changes. For example, everybody (including new players that would join) could start with $1,000 just to start off with. Also, perhaps give people an incentive to vote for the server by giving money too (this isn't really part of my idea for economy due to the higher inflation of money that would inevitably come, but still a thought for how to 1) Not run out of money and 2) have people vote).

Those have been around forever, it just turns parts of the server into a spamfest of chests, that's what I meant by messy

What if chest shops could only be opened in one location? Like a market, but player oriented. Thereby allocating all the chests to one spot (possibly even a chest limit per player so that it doesn't get out of hand) Or also possibly letting players open their owns shops where the mess would be their problem to deal with if they don't make it look nice. And honestly I see that as a means to an end to have those chests if it meant that the economy would be player run (and if it was done right to where it was built in a way that doesn't look messy which I don't think would be too bad to do).

I agree with everything Hedgehog's suggested about the money supply and avoiding a spamfest of chests.  But again, there looks to be some GUI-based economy plugins out there.

I think giving money as a voting reward would be a less disruptive reward than diamonds, and would be a good way to get money into the system.  But, as Hedgehog mentioned, could result in ever increasing inflation.  We could also make the money supply dependent on certain resources that have to be mined (i.e. nothing that could ever be farmed), like gold or iron ore.  Players could trade those in for money at a fixed rate.  I dunno, just a thought. 

[HoaxZ]

concerning the economy changes, if its points or money they are basically the same thing just different names. it is a form of currency you are using so in the long term there will be no difference if you kept with money or switched to a point system they both do the same thing and work the same way. you get money/points, you use them to buy said material. so i do not see the necessity of changing to a point system if its just going to be a new currency instead just change the way currency is used and works. if there is still to be a market of sorts then changing it to points is not really a change but the name. i just don't see the point in changing to point instead of in game money if they do a very similar thing. you can change how to get currency, how to spend it and how much value it is worth but the name of it can stay the same those who have paid real money for their currency it was said will be reimbursed to the equivalent of what they received in the new currency. its easy to do just look at what the worth of the currency is now and what you will change it to and work it out from that. i think that is a good idea for those who paid real money so they don't loose out on it. as for starting with money, i assumed we already did with a small amount but i don't see it  to be relevant as your trying to make it a survival world with the option of a market, that was the reason for its use. if people come for survival they do not need in game money and if they desperately need something and are often online usually if someone has a lot of it they give them it or trade with other items anyway. its only for things such as quarts, beacons, mob heads for some that you actually might have to go to the market for as you cant get a beacon with out doing so. i don't see any issues with what we have now but if you want it harder to use farms for getting money Ozzy is right in just making unfarmable blocks sellable to the market. if you are thinking having players sell the items then they will mine it themselves sell it in their own stores and charge their prices and if they leave then another store closes. eventually we will end up where we are now with a group who all help each other and 10-20 online at any time max.

what i would like to see is not a headline of a change that is being considered but a description of what you wish to change, why, how, and the impact you believe it will create pro's and cons. and basically what you want to achieve by the changes. this way we can all look over it understand exactly what you are thinking of and give a more constructive output to help you all decide what to do. as right now a lot has been said and some of us could have the wrong idea of what you mean and we don't have the full picture.

- "Simplification or removal of the economy system." its pretty simple already, just it works for some not others i'm still unsure of what is wrong with it.

- "Addition of pvp modes" we already have pvp arenas which are fun and your own fault if you loose stuff there. what sort of pvp do you have in mind and where?

- "Addition of a player trading system." can you explain what you want brought in as we can already trade with in game money to each other, some people have built their own shops and trade between themselves. we even have a trade chat for it, so i am unclear on what new is being looked at.

- "Points system where players accumulate points for things like voting and doing everyday survival activities. These points can be used to buy protection or rare items." if you keep the economy with a market you can already buy rare things there. this seems like just another currency to me and when voting (although broken) you gain "points/votes" and the top 3 win prizes anyway. and doing everyday survival things and getting points for it i don't see how that will work. could you explain.
and why points why not in game money. it will be silly to have 2 currency's so if done this way and a market/player trading they would all have to be the same currency.

- "Change to a player defined protection field system" what do you mean by this? the protection stones we have are good but it you mean you get a patch of land and can protect it say by 20x20 from build height to bedrock then sounds good or you build a wall and the size determines cost say a 10x10 cost 100 IGM (in game money) a 20x20 cost 200 IGM 30x30 300 IGM and so on. (its just an example to simplify what i mean) but i would like to know more.

I write all this with the utmost respect for all staff, i know it is not easy and there is a lot to do and a lot to consider that i am unaware even exists. I just like to know more in depth of all changes to help make this server great. and are we looking to make the server better for the players who play or to bring in new members? what is the overall goal?. if you want new members i would happily discuss advertising and ways to boost it that does not require any or little funds.

I apologize for the long post I feel more information is needed as i explained at the beginning what info i wanted to know, i hope i didn't bore you too much i know I've missed info lost in this thread or some of it has been spoke about so much I've lost the plot all together but i look forward to hearing in detail more on all matters.

HoaxZ

[Nick3306]

Pretty much all of that has been explained in previous posts.

[SonicHogSpeed]

I've literally read every single reply to this topic, and what all the recent discussion comes down to is the server's economy and world/space management.

For what I've read, people don't seem very keen on moving from a currency-based trading system to a "points" system, which seems to be getting a lot of misunderstanding, yet is understandable to me why it does: Nick's main point for changing to a point system sounds like a complete transfer to a Survival style of play that discourages trading (player interaction) and encourages scavenging for yourself. Of course, this isn't the whole picture, but it's a selling point.

In Singleplayer, I've gained the tendency to gather my wood then stone tools; hop in caves; stock on iron gear; then just run around 'till I lag my world jump in more caves for diamonds and etc., occasionally strip mining. All that usually for the purpose of "finishing" the game.
I've pretty much been doing the same thing on the server when I do come online. My home was set up by my cousin's friends in the Old Guest World (in the sky, probably scared of griefers, unaware of PSs and any other Opti staples). The only reason why I wouldn't want a server wipe is because of nostalgia and the fact that I've "worked" on it since I joined.
The attractiveness of a server wipe is a "fresh start" for everyone, including old time members. For some, not all, old players, it would be extremely unfair for all their hard work to just disappear but still be playing on the "same" server where they once had all of it.
If it was an established tradition to reset the server annually (or some time), then it wouldn't sound so harsh. However, it is not that way, and some people have invested a lot of their time and dedication to such projects.

The more people try to defend such an action, the more it looks like socialism; the same can be said for the currency wipe as well. Sure, people may build farms, AFK variants included, but isn't that part of the real world (standing in place for hours not included)? If you want to get places, you need to work for it. Trying to get rid of ways for people to accumulate wealth never ends well (people leaving), neither is distributing wealth equally. Socialism can only work if everyone does his part in the community, but this has never worked in the real world, either.

Excuse me if this looks out of order and confusing, because it's like 3:30 AM and I didn't record my thoughts as I read the whole thread. I was also typing at the speed of sound in molasses.

[Nick3306]

The more people try to defend such an action, the more it looks like socialism; the same can be said for the currency wipe as well. Sure, people may build farms, AFK variants included, but isn't that part of the real world (standing in place for hours not included)? If you want to get places, you need to work for it. Trying to get rid of ways for people to accumulate wealth never ends well (people leaving), neither is distributing wealth equally. Socialism can only work if everyone does his part in the community, but this has never worked in the real world, either.

Excuse me if this looks out of order and confusing, because it's like 3:30 AM and I didn't record my thoughts as I read the whole thread. I was also typing at the speed of sound in molasses.

This is a minecraft server, not the real world. All we want to do is make the survival server an actual survival server.

[Lando_V]

I see what you mean now, just one problem, how would we start trading when noone has any money? Where would we get the money?

Everybody would have to start off with a certain amount when they first join the server, or, for players already on Opticraft, when the economy changes. For example, everybody (including new players that would join) could start with $1,000 just to start off with. Also, perhaps give people an incentive to vote for the server by giving money too (this isn't really part of my idea for economy due to the higher inflation of money that would inevitably come, but still a thought for how to 1) Not run out of money and 2) have people vote).

Those have been around forever, it just turns parts of the server into a spamfest of chests, that's what I meant by messy

What if chest shops could only be opened in one location? Like a market, but player oriented. Thereby allocating all the chests to one spot (possibly even a chest limit per player so that it doesn't get out of hand) Or also possibly letting players open their owns shops where the mess would be their problem to deal with if they don't make it look nice. And honestly I see that as a means to an end to have those chests if it meant that the economy would be player run (and if it was done right to where it was built in a way that doesn't look messy which I don't think would be too bad to do).

I agree with everything Hedgehog's suggested about the money supply and avoiding a spamfest of chests.  But again, there looks to be some GUI-based economy plugins out there.

I think giving money as a voting reward would be a less disruptive reward than diamonds, and would be a good way to get money into the system.  But, as Hedgehog mentioned, could result in ever increasing inflation.  We could also make the money supply dependent on certain resources that have to be mined (i.e. nothing that could ever be farmed), like gold or iron ore.  Players could trade those in for money at a fixed rate.  I dunno, just a thought.

Looking at all Nick3306's comments the idea is not having any money. I think that was pretty clear from the start and I like it that way for a survival server.

How are diamond rewards for voting disruptive? I think that's a very reasonable alternative for the fact that the amount of land we can mine is very limited. To be honest I don't mind if it stays or goes now that we have the new end world providing us with awesome diamond gear.

The player trading system would be block for block, it creates more of a fail safe so someone doesn't take your stuff then not give you theirs.

Nick3306, could you elaborate on that trading system,  pls?
eg Would it be like a /trade command and a trade menu pops up or signs or chests?
How many stacks could be traded at once? Maybe even double chests full of...dirt or so.
And also, when will all this be implemented?

[kni0002]

I would HATE to see the economy go. Thats one of the main reasons I play Opticraft because of the Economy. Although the economy would be more realistic if there were User based shops or an auction/trade system. I also think the server is lacking some publicity. Less players = less votes = less players = less votes

[mikejones0225]

I'm a big fan of the changes, one suggestion / thing I would like to see is full PVP.  If the world was either fully pvp or had only small protected zones that would be fun.  I feel like it would make the server more interesting to play on.  Also if you got sick of people building afk farms you could always just kill them!

I'm up for some changes

[UnknownHedgehog]

Are smp changes still being considered?

[TheWholeLoaf]

Everything is in the post and following discussion, it's up to opti now if anything happens. Whether or not he' still thinking out it, I do not know.

[Tobs]

If you have any additional input feel free to add it, as for what has already been said; we've talked about it and not come to any definite decisions/future polls as of yet since we've all been kinda busy so we can still discuss stuff, but it is clear a large amount of players  (48/64 votes, 75%) want some sort of change. I don't know if Nick has attempted any sort of market/pvp replacement coding-wise yet (or if he is planning to). As said before, we don't have any idea when/if stuff will be implemented, and while we can do stuff in-game any plugin changes Optical gets the final stay in.