Protection stones are too expensive

[whatupguys1]

I know the title might seem overused and like nothing special... you all might be thinking of "oh its just some silly noob complaining and whining about his house getting griefed" but I am not a noob and though I am complaining I've been giving some thought to this and I have a few suggestions to make about this that may solve it all.

So I log in today after arriving from a sleep-over at a friends house. I'm thinking: I'm gonna go work a little at my house today. And what is my surprise? My house is griefed. Half of the red carpet is gone, "alternative entrances" on three different places and most of my wheat crop is gone plus a few missing torches. But I don't really mind this, even if its like the 20th time... cause I know that any moderator/operator can fix this in 30 seconds.

You wanna know what really pissed me off? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY CHICKENS AND THE ONE DOG I HAD ARE GONE! why am I so bothered by this you ask? 'cause, although the griefer will surely be banned and the blocks he deleted or messed with will be back to how they were, all the chickens will not be back after the undo. In the end the damage remains, and basically, I still got f*cked. If it had been just 5 or 10 chickens I wouldn't mind it really. But this is at least the fourth time my chickens get stolen and each and every time, the amount of chickens missing is over 20 (this time over 30). Meaning that by now, I have lost at least 80-90 chickens to these people. Not contempt with that, he goes off and kills the last of my dogs.

Just to clear this, I already had one small protection stone for my chicken coop, but since its 12x6, one of the walls is just outside the protection.

By this moment I'm already raging, wishing to find the person responsible so I can beat him myself... but I know i can't do that, that's just some candy for my thoughts. I know the ONLY thing I can do is buy some protection stones to prevent this from happening again, but given my current balance I can only afford the small ones. Even if I have a relatively high balance compared to most of the users, I can only get 3 small protection stones AT MOST. And well... I dont really think that's enough for a house that occupies a space of 60x25x40 approximately. Anyway, I buy one small protection cause I know I will need that money for more materials for my house. I go to my farm, place the protection i just bought in my coop, and then, as I try to move the other protection I had there so it works properly with the one i had just bought, it suddenly becomes coal. Turns out 2000$ just turned to coal, that is quite a sum for someone with so little money in the server.

And that was the icing of the cake. As soon as that happened I swore like a pirate and ragequit from the server. And here I am now writing this.

So the whole point of this little thread was just to say. Protection stones are TOO EXPENSIVE. All of this, and probably all of the griefing problems of the server could be prevented if only the protection stones were cheaper. It seems logical to me to multiply the price of the stones by 8 as the protection area increases, I understand the math behind that. But if you already have a high base price, you're gonna end up with stratospheric prices for the biggest protections that even the players with the highest balances can barely afford.

However, lowering the prices of the protection is not the only option. I found out since I first joined SMP that the market has some flaws that only make that problem bigger. Namely, the Buy/Sell prices ratio being a tad low, where in some cases it is below .5 . If the Sell and Buy ratio of the items is tweaked, its possible for the other users to make more money off their work, making the protection stones more accessible, if only slightly. My suggestion is making the "sell" price at least 75% of the "buy" price.

If none of these options seems viable, the last solution I can come up with is undoing absolutely EVERYTHING the banned person did, that includes crafted resources and animals. Being returned to the place where they were originally obtained from. Though this might not be possible.

That's my 2 cents on the issue and I want you to understand that I mean absolutely NO disrespect with this and I am merely trying to make things better for the vast majority of the users. I hope you understand.

If you find any flaws on my options then please point them out AND suggest other options to solve this. I really don't intend for you to do what I tell you, I just want a solution for this common problem.

[Spamarian]

Ououf..! It was a long post with the real meaning bared in the middle.
The meaning is that your protection stone that you bought for 2000$ turned into coal because you placed it into an already protected area. Right?
About that, the OPs or Admin should recover that lose because there is no such a rule. So, its a missing leading part from the side of the server to the users.

Moreover, you have low balance, and you cannot afford these prices. As the prices are subject to change, I suggest you, if you DEFENITELY want P.S. to buy the smaller for $2000. THe prices are subject to change because even the Owner cannot understand the needs it has. If he hasn't done it already, he should start with a new player the beta and to try to develop his property. Then he will understand what price would be the best.

As for the chicken you had, I have stopped feeding chicken. Make wheat, its the same.

Furthermore, about the "sell" prices, I believe that should be around to 60% and no 75%. I have said it too, before.

Now, some suggestions, that came in my mind.

You can dig a lot, to get around to 30 stacks of stone and to create furnaces. The furnaces are private and cannot be broken by others. The stones are free everywhere. Make a huge cage up/down, and all the sides with that. Make inside your farms, houses, etc. Its a good choice.
If you think that the stones are too much, then make a cage with chests one over the other to control your area.

I hope I helped you with!! Cya!

[Nick3306]

At this point, protection stones can't really get any cheaper. I will expand on this when i get home.

As for the sell price. We tried making it at least 50% of the buy price and that was just way too high. We have a few people at 100k on the server so upping the sell price would seem to be illogical.

[Your_Mine]

http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,6810.0.html
Spamarian has found that as of right now, protection stones are not working correctly. If mined, they turn into normal ore instead of an ore block.

[Complicated_Name]

You could buy just a coal ore protection stone, but i understand that your mad, and i would be too.

[clawstrider]

http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,6810.0.html
Spamarian has found that as of right now, protection stones are not working correctly. If mined, they turn into normal ore instead of an ore block.

That is one expensive misclick if you have efficiency (Whatever max is) and you hit the diamond :/

[whatupguys1]

At this point, protection stones can't really get any cheaper. I will expand on this when i get home.

As for the sell price. We tried making it at least 50% of the buy price and that was just way too high. We have a few people at 100k on the server so upping the sell price would seem to be illogical.

You say the sell price is too high already because there's 3 people in the server with 100k and over... that's like being the president of a country where 70% of the population lives in poverty and saying "I don't want to increase the minimum wage because we have the richest man in the world and that would be illogical". That just doesn't make sense and I know it because I live in such a fucked up country. But this post is not about world economics. My point is that at least 70% of the users have little to no money, 29% have a decent amount of money (which is still not enough to afford proper protection) and 1% has 70k and over (and even like that, they can barely afford the biggest protections).

I admit it. I could have worked my design to function with the protection stones. I also had thought of using a massive wall of furnaces or other lockable blocks. I too could have made my house thousands of blocks away from spawn and that would most likely prevent the grief. I already knew all those techniques to avoid grief.

But I didn't use any, why? because i shouldn't have to do that in first place. I wanted to do my house the way I wanted and make it look how I wanted without having to go through the trouble of moving so much or ruin my house's aesthetics in order to protect it. The server is supposed to have grief protection, but the operators can only do as much.

[Your_Mine]

http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,6810.0.html
Spamarian has found that as of right now, protection stones are not working correctly. If mined, they turn into normal ore instead of an ore block.

That is one expensive misclick if you have efficiency (Whatever max is) and you hit the diamond :/

Perhaps the moderators could keep a running list of people with trusted rank who have lost stones this way, to be returned when the bug is fixed.  Not all members, only trusteds, since they're, well, trusted.  Just a suggestion, as I have no pull on SMP

[optical]

I am planning on implementing grief traps on SMP in the next few weeks, provided I have time.

I also think that the stones may still be too expensive, and might reduce the price of them further. That, or increase the sell ratio on some of the raw materials such as dirt.

[Nyssa]

Increase sell, maybe lower the diamond protection price =p

[Nick3306]

The stones are all priced proportionally, so we cant just change 1 without changing the others. Even just dropping the coal by 1000 will make the lapis sell for 7000 and the diamond sell for 49000 which in my opinion is way to cheap.

[whatupguys1]

The stones are all priced proportionally, so we cant just change 1 without changing the others. Even just dropping the coal by 1000 will make the lapis sell for 7000 and the diamond sell for 49000 which in my opinion is way to cheap.

Like i said, I understand the math behind the proportional increase in the prices of the protection stones. Since the dimensions are all doubled that means the bigger protection occupies eight times as much space which equals an eight times higher price. But if you already have a high BASE price you will end up with stratospheric prices like the ones we have right now. Which will only be affordable to the majority of the players after a good 3-4 months. Also, If you think 1000, 7000 and 49000 is cheap, PLEASE tell me how the hell do you make that much money? If everyone knew I'm sure I wouldn't be complaining like this

[whatupguys1]

I am planning on implementing grief traps on SMP in the next few weeks, provided I have time.

I also think that the stones may still be too expensive, and might reduce the price of them further. That, or increase the sell ratio on some of the raw materials such as dirt.

Thanks for hearing me out Optical. I really do appreciate it.

PS do you have a final answer regarding the "Burj Khalifa" project I proposed? I would like to know whats gonna be of it. 

[Nick3306]

The stones are all priced proportionally, so we cant just change 1 without changing the others. Even just dropping the coal by 1000 will make the lapis sell for 7000 and the diamond sell for 49000 which in my opinion is way to cheap.

Like i said, I understand the math behind the proportional increase in the prices of the protection stones. Since the dimensions are all doubled that means the bigger protection occupies eight times as much space which equals an eight times higher price. But if you already have a high BASE price you will end up with stratospheric prices like the ones we have right now. Which will only be affordable to the majority of the players after a good 3-4 months. Also, If you think 1000, 7000 and 49000 is cheap, PLEASE tell me how the hell do you make that much money? If everyone knew I'm sure I wouldn't be complaining like this

We have like 4 different players with over $100k and a ton of players over $40k. It is possible to make them even cheaper but i wouldn't make the coal any cheaper. Maybe multiple by 6 instead of 7 or something. I definitely wouldn't up the sell prices of items since that will only widen the growing wealth gap on our server.

[Mr_Mr_Mr]

We have like 4 different players with over $100k and a ton of players over $40k. It is possible to make them even cheaper but i wouldn't make the coal any cheaper. Maybe multiple by 6 instead of 7 or something. I definitely wouldn't up the sell prices of items since that will only widen the growing wealth gap on our server.

Compare the people that have over 40k to the people that don't. Big difference here.
At the moment, 12 people have 40k+ out of the 490 pages (9 people each page, you do the math)