Diamonds and Voting

[Selkon_Hunter]

When I first joined the server several months ago, I was immediately struck by the cheapness of diamonds because of the voting system. I will admit, I don't mind getting free diamonds as opposed to nothing at all, but it takes away that wonderful feeling you get when you find a good vein but you know that you already have a couple stacks of blocks back home.

I believe I understand, (I actually tried using my brain for once), why it was set up this way, and the rebuttal is simple, "if we give away cash, the entire server would end up covered in protection stones." And that statement is true considering the current value of diamonds. But say instead of a diamond, we gave people a cash value of $50, or $25, or even $10. This would reward loyalty without having the whole server ending up protected and yet give people the freedom to choose how they spent the reward they earned.

They could still buy diamonds if they wished, though maybe not at the same rate as they were recieving them before. And they would have to accept that the price of freedom is high. This would probably be the most difficult part as the sense of entitlement in today's world is exceedingly strong.

Now let me make this clear. I am NOT advocating that diamonds be added as an item to sell at the market NOR am I advocating that we decrease their purchase value. This would cause the undesirable result of serverwide protection stones and it would also create a nightmare for opti and the admins as they tried to balance prices out.

I must reiterate that I am happy and thankful that we are rewarded for voting, I just don't want to sacrifice the value of diamonds in order to achieve that goal. Thank you for your time.

[☣2crzy4uall☣]

That's the most well put suggestion I've ever seen from a newbie here
I agree diamonds are cheap. The voting is an easy way to get em, I like the idea of a small amount of in game money instead, or maybe only get 1 or 2 after voting on all the sites?

[arsenic_shark]

What I see right now is that it is impossible to ever put diamonds on the market. I for one voted everyday for 2 months and racked up a stack of diamond blocks, so so that is 576 diamonds. If they was at 100 each that's 576k making me a millionaire right away, and seeing how many have more diamonds than I have then this would destroy the whole server economy, but I do like the idea of in game money.

That's the most well put suggestion I've ever seen from a newbie here

I must agree it is up in the top 5

[KillAndSurf]

I agree with this, but I have my own sugestion, that the diamonds you get from voting are only for you. They can not be  droped or taken out of chests by other players or crafted in to blocks that can be placed ect. By doing this diamonds obtained legitly as in mineing can be worth more and can be sold / traded. Just an idea to think about. 

[bigbeno37]

When I first joined the server several months ago, I was immediately struck by the cheapness of diamonds because of the voting system. I will admit, I don't mind getting free diamonds as opposed to nothing at all, but it takes away that wonderful feeling you get when you find a good vein but you know that you already have a couple stacks of blocks back home.

I believe I understand, (I actually tried using my brain for once), why it was set up this way, and the rebuttal is simple, "if we give away cash, the entire server would end up covered in protection stones." And that statement is true considering the current value of diamonds. But say instead of a diamond, we gave people a cash value of $50, or $25, or even $10. This would reward loyalty without having the whole server ending up protected and yet give people the freedom to choose how they spent the reward they earned.

They could still buy diamonds if they wished, though maybe not at the same rate as they were recieving them before. And they would have to accept that the price of freedom is high. This would probably be the most difficult part as the sense of entitlement in today's world is exceedingly strong.

Now let me make this clear. I am NOT advocating that diamonds be added as an item to sell at the market NOR am I advocating that we decrease their purchase value. This would cause the undesirable result of serverwide protection stones and it would also create a nightmare for opti and the admins as they tried to balance prices out.

I must reiterate that I am happy and thankful that we are rewarded for voting, I just don't want to sacrifice the value of diamonds in order to achieve that goal. Thank you for your time.

I totally agree with you. The one thing that kinda angers me is the fact that you don't even NEED to vote (Enter in the CAPTCHA on the website and press vote) to get the diamonds. You just simply type in your username, press vote, and then close the tab. Optical really needs to find another system of rewards, or, as some people have suggested, implement cash rewards.

[☣2crzy4uall☣]

We need an overhaul to voting. Really fixing the issue with being able to get diamonds before voting. Bet thats the biggest issue right there. I mean we are losing ground on those sites, simply because people don't finish

[SalsaInABowl]

There should be a little box you can check saying "Receive ingame money instead of diamonds" because I have enough diamonds. I don't see why we can't have another option some time. But I would like diamonds to stay as well, hence my box suggestion. As for actually voting, I'm guessing optical is just too busy with other stuff. Let's just count on the fact there are lots of loyal players who actually do vote because they like Opticraft like me and most of you readers do.

[Selkon_Hunter]

That's the most well put suggestion I've ever seen from a newbie here

Thank you for the compliment.

I for one voted everyday for 2 months and racked up a stack of diamond blocks, so so that is 576 diamonds. If they was at 100 each that's 576k making me a millionaire right away, and seeing how many have more diamonds than I have then this would destroy the whole server economy, but I do like the idea of in game money.

Thanks for the numbers, they help to validate this point.

Now let me make this clear. I am NOT advocating that diamonds be added as an item to sell at the market NOR am I advocating that we decrease their purchase value. This would cause the undesirable result of serverwide protection stones and it would also create a nightmare for opti and the admins as they tried to balance prices out.

I agree with this, but I have my own sugestion, that the diamonds you get from voting are only for you. They can not be  droped or taken out of chests by other players or crafted in to blocks that can be placed ect. By doing this diamonds obtained legitly as in mineing can be worth more and can be sold / traded. Just an idea to think about. 

Interesting, but difficult to do. I think this would be more hassle than it's worth.

I totally agree with you.

And I totally agree with you.

There should be a little box you can check saying "Receive ingame money instead of diamonds" because I have enough diamonds. I don't see why we can't have another option some time. But I would like diamonds to stay as well, hence my box suggestion. As for actually voting, I'm guessing optical is just too busy with other stuff. Let's just count on the fact there are lots of loyal players who actually do vote because they like Opticraft like me and most of you readers do.

I don't mean to be harsh, but...

They could still buy diamonds if they wished, though maybe not at the same rate as they were recieving them before. And they would have to accept that the price of freedom is high. This would probably be the most difficult part as the sense of entitlement in today's world is exceedingly strong.

[Nick3306]

We need an overhaul to voting. Really fixing the issue with being able to get diamonds before voting. Bet thats the biggest issue right there. I mean we are losing ground on those sites, simply because people don't finish

Unfortunately there is no easy way to fix this if there is a way to fix it at all, we tried and once the voting sites found out what we were doing we got shut down on those voting sites.

[☣2crzy4uall☣]

We need an overhaul to voting. Really fixing the issue with being able to get diamonds before voting. Bet thats the biggest issue right there. I mean we are losing ground on those sites, simply because people don't finish

Unfortunately there is no easy way to fix this if there is a way to fix it at all, we tried and once the voting sites found out what we were doing we got shut down on those voting sites.

Thats right, I remember the capatcha before the sites, grrrr. I know some voting sites have a way of validating with the server, but thats not up to us to implement, its them.

[mgfrake]

The only bad thing about just getting in-game money is that people wouldn't want to vote as much, unless they were a great staff member and would do anything to help it.

[Selkon_Hunter]

The only bad thing about just getting in-game money is that people wouldn't want to vote as much, unless they were a great staff member and would do anything to help it.

Please explain, I don't understand your reasoning. And please abstain from using the indefinite pronoun "it".

[tiggy26668]

I feel like the diamonds are just a byproduct of everyone trying to get the donation rewards/top voter title. Also a lot of the people that are trying to get the rewards/title probably aren't actually voting as it would mess with their timing, it takes a few minutes to type in the captcha which means your vote is slightly behind and u end up losing a few votes by the end of the month which is the difference between winning and losing.

If there was a way to validate the voting I feel like there would be a lot less votes per month as the "easy way" wouldn't exist anymore and only the devoted people would actually be doing it consistently, and that would cut down on the amount of diamonds you see in game.

just for shits n giggles look at the amount of votes the server has on any given voting site, the one i looked at had ~900 votes and was a 1/day site so ~30-35 people voted once a day this month, given that there's far more than 30-35 people on the voting list it's clear that people are cheating the system quite frequently.

Unfortunately as nick has stated there's no way to validate the votes at this time. so regardless of the award people will more than likely just "pretend vote" to get it

However your concern seems to be with the fact that diamonds are so low priced as the market is flooded with them.

This assumption is quite unfounded though. While the diamonds themselves have lost their value they can still be used to create items that are much much more valuable. for 3 diamonds ($300 worth) and a couple of sticks u create a pickaxe. should you choose to smelt a few stacks of stone and get to lvl 30 quite easily you can enchant that pickaxe and increase it's value to $5000+

while i do agree that free diamonds for "pretend voting" is quite ridiculous and floods the market, some sort of worthwhile incentive is required to encourage the "real voting" and a small amount of in game $$ just doesn't have the same allure as shiny diamonds and changing the prize will have zero affect on the underlying problem or "pretend voting"

so until the real problem can be remedied i would suggest to you, be happy with what you have and try to come up with a more strategic use of your diamonds to make their value more worthwhile to yourself.

[Xeadin]

Tools, armor, building blocks, etc. Diamonds have more uses than just stagnant economy.

Also,

just for shits n giggles look at the amount of votes the server has on any given voting site, the one i looked at had ~900 votes and was a 1/day site so ~30-35 people voted once a day this month, given that there's far more than 30-35 people on the voting list it's clear that people are cheating the system quite frequently.

Unfortunately as nick has stated there's no way to validate the votes at this time. so regardless of the award people will more than likely just "pretend vote" to get it

while i do agree that free diamonds for "pretend voting" is quite ridiculous and floods the market, some sort of worthwhile incentive is required to encourage the "real voting" and a small amount of in game $$ just doesn't have the same allure as shiny diamonds and changing the prize will have zero affect on the underlying problem or "pretend voting"

This is exactly why I put up this notice: http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,12508.0.html

Voting under other player's names is pretty unnecessary and generally rude. It does nothing but gives other people the thought that we may be just "another one of those servers." Not only that, but it's pretty rude to disrupt other people's voting schedules.

If some random player, who hasn't been on the server for quite a while, suddenly ended up being one of the top voters, that's a problem.

[tiggy26668]

(click to show/hide)

Tools, armor, building blocks, etc. Diamonds have more uses than just stagnant economy.

Also,

just for shits n giggles look at the amount of votes the server has on any given voting site, the one i looked at had ~900 votes and was a 1/day site so ~30-35 people voted once a day this month, given that there's far more than 30-35 people on the voting list it's clear that people are cheating the system quite frequently.

Unfortunately as nick has stated there's no way to validate the votes at this time. so regardless of the award people will more than likely just "pretend vote" to get it

while i do agree that free diamonds for "pretend voting" is quite ridiculous and floods the market, some sort of worthwhile incentive is required to encourage the "real voting" and a small amount of in game $$ just doesn't have the same allure as shiny diamonds and changing the prize will have zero affect on the underlying problem or "pretend voting"

This is exactly why I put up this notice: http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,12508.0.html

Voting under other player's names is pretty unnecessary and generally rude. It does nothing but gives other people the thought that we may be just "another one of those servers." Not only that, but it's pretty rude to disrupt other people's voting schedules.

If some random player, who hasn't been on the server for quite a while, suddenly ended up being one of the top voters, that's a problem.

i was more so pointing towards people that click vote for the rewards, but don't bother voting on the sites, however your point is equally as valid.