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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 1:19 am 
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King

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 5:52 pm
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I too like this idea; I believe we want to be sure that mob-proofing be reserved for areas that are not only torched up but that are also of high quality and really lose something from having dozens of torches scattered all over. Like, sure, a serf's new build may be festooned with torches; but is there any point in mob-proofing it other than to remove the danger of a wayward zombie? While that's a bit of an extreme example, what I'm getting at is the idea that this should be reserved for builds that are already well-established both in terms of time commitment and lore; this is why areas like Concordia and the Imperial City are prime cases.

To that end, I propose that mob-proofing should be implemented on an area only once construction is complete. We have for years built under the threat of mobs, and I firmly believe that we would lose something by sacrificing that tradition in the name of preserving the aesthetic value of the area. on the other hand, I clearly see the sense of an established city being mob-free without there being torches every foot. So, I propose that implementing the plugin for an area only once construction is complete and the area has been reviewed (as per earlier suggestions, I think we should create a forum for requests similar to the old Iron Farm Declaration one) would allow for safe and lore-compatible areas - with safe villagers - that would also preserve our traditions.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 1:26 am 
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Duke

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 8:19 pm
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The time doesn't make any sense, if the other things are all checked as in the buildings and walls and guards and such are all in order + the torches blah blah blah. It just doesn't make sense to make them stare at an ugly field after working so hard..

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 1:29 am 
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King

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[quote="Nicholas"To that end, I propose that mob-proofing should be implemented on an area only once construction is complete.[/quote]

How do we know exactly when a city is complete? Do we have guidelines for establishing this? I agree that we should only allow it when the city has reached a certain completeness, but lets make sure that we define when this truly occurs. Oftentimes a city is largely "completed," but there will still be people who are tacking on odds and ends around the place, perhaps building a house or adding additional roads. Is a city truly ever complete?

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 1:31 am 
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Duke

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 6:01 pm
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I agree that construction should be complete before a mob-free zone is created. The only issue I could see arising from this (as Arjen has said) would be on massive city projects that will never truly be "complete". Maybe completed districts could be made mob-free while other parts of the city are built? But that creates the problem of determining where to draw the line.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 2:01 am 
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King

Joined: May 31st, 2015, 3:32 am
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I think we are making it a lot more difficult then it has to be. Sam's points before and possibly the time thing would be enough. I for one am only asking for it for aesthetic purposes as having to torch the entire area would take away from the biomes qualities (i.e. snow)

So we would need:
- - Proof that your area would be safe from monsters, via walls etc.
- Proof that you have snow or dont want an entire hillside (like concordia) illuminated for mobs to not attack villagers running around.
- Be prepared to show around a King in order to prove these points and claim your protected zone.
- And maybe that they have a lot become a county or above (which takes a least a month or longer).

The torches don't really prove anything if we use it as a judging quality. If the person chooses not to light the area they would most likely have a more difficult time building anyways and meeting the above quality. I would still torch the area for the time being, for example, and then remove once it has been completed and approved to be a "safe zone" to bring back the qualities of the biome.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 4:51 am 
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Duke

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I can understand the aesthetic desire to be able to remove torches, especially in snowy biomes. I also understand the inconvenience of lighting large areas with torches. As someone who loves to build and is quite focused on details, I deal with things like this all the time. These struggles are inherent to the survival experience.

However, it is for that very reason that I do not support the use of this plug-in on the server. Project Hermertia is, at its core, a vanilla survival server, and it is unique among servers of its kind because it is relatively orderly and because of its excellent community. It occupies a wonderful balance between PvP, PvE, and RP/lore. When anything non-vanilla is introduced, it is undermining to the idea of what Project Hermertia is. Admittedly, in the case of "giving" villager eggs and the /jail plug-in, non-survival and non-vanilla elements have improved our server and even proven necessary for it to function. I do not feel as though a mob-proofing plug-in would do either of these things.

I feel the same way about this plug-in that I do about a suggestion that was once raised, which would have allowed people to have mountain ranges world painted into their lands. I believe this is a workaround for convenience's sake and thus disregards a fundamental reason why we play in survival in the first place: the struggle. There is a great satisfaction in, after working hard and toughing it out, looking upon the finished product of that labor. Without the struggle, the experience is unfullfilling.

There are many things that are inconvenient: mining, cutting down trees, travelling, excavating. These are all things that could be eliminated if we did not hold so fast to vanilla survival. But we continue to hold fast because it is what makes this server what it is, instead of a PvE server, or a creative mode server, or any other server out there. It's why we didn't choose to let people edit their lands with worldpaint, why we didn't implement anti-theft plug-ins, why we haven't done so many things we could have. They would have made Project Hermertia something other than what it is and, ultimately, other than what it is meant to be.

The best case scenario if this plug-in were used, as I see it, is Nicholas's suggestion, which entails that only well-established and completed builds be given such protection, so that it could not be used as an "easy out" in the construction process. However, it is difficult to tell when something is "completed". Builds may be modified, added to, or removed with time, so the idea of completion is quite arbitrary, as it is with many creative endeavors, and thus incapable of directing our use of the plug-in.

These reasons are why I don't support the use of such a plug-in.

Long story short:
-I understand the struggle of lighting large areas
-The struggle is part of vanilla survival, even though this server isn't 100% vanilla
-The end result is more fulfilling if we have to struggle to achieve it
-It is important to preserve as much of the vanilla survival aspect as possible because it's what makes the server unique
-Nicholas's suggestions are the best ones, but due to the arbitrariness and ambiguity of what "complete" means it won't be enough
-Therefore, I don't support the plug-in

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 5:20 am 
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King

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 5:52 pm
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I have to agree with Chairman here, and to this end I have reconsidered my opinion slightly based on peoples' thoughts here. I believe that, following strict constraints and guidelines such as I have proposed above, this plugin could be used effectively. However, as it currently stands I would not support the use of this plugin.

The core of my reasoning comes down to this: I firmly believe that the introduction of any non-vanilla elements to Hermertia must only add something to our experience. Our bare-bones jail plugin allows us to handle prisoners; the use of /give for villager eggs allows us to simulate population. The introduction of a mob-proofing plugin would add something to be sure, but would also go a ways to removing something that has been integral to Hermertia since it began: the true survival aspect.

In my opinion, we have to deal with our world as one that is always in motion; we must always have to content with the survival elements that make Hermertia unique among rpg/lore servers. I don't feel that we should be able to do some work on a town or city, and, once it is established, remove the most crucial element of survival gameplay: the necessity to confront hostile mobs. This is why I believe this plugin would work only if implemented when a build is complete and players wouldn't have to deal with mobs - but, as others have rightly pointed out, this criteria is ambiguous and, unless we can define it better, shows why I believe we could not implement the plugin effectively without sacrificing a part of our long-time tradition. The vanilla experience should not end once construction on a build has been complete.

I have heard some talk of this plugin being used to control the spawning of passive mobs as well; this illustrates for me the grey area we are facing by implementing a plugin that would, for the first time, remove elements of our vanilla survival experience that has guided us for so long now. I understand opinions that this is a lore and building server, but I have to disagree: first and foremost, we are a server that creates lore out of our actions in a vanilla environment. I believe that this plugin would take something fundamental away from Hermertia, and, as bare-bones as it may be, it opens the door to other changes. I believe that what we are discussing is making a change that would allow us to better fit our lore, and that this is the wrong way to go about it; we always have, and should continue to, define our lore as the actions that occur in our vanilla game.

In short, I understand the compelling reasons in support of this. However, I hope you will consider my thoughts as to why we should reconsider.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 11:40 am 
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King

Joined: May 30th, 2015, 10:17 am
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Excellent points gentlemen, allow me to present some reasons for the plugin.

Survival is key yes. But once an area has been "Finished", which is not necessarily hard to really define in most circumstances. When was the last time you went to one of your old Counties and added things? I've not been back to any of my places for months and even then its to show people around, not to add anything.
Most of you dont build in snow areas, and it can be tough to understand just how frustrating it is to lose that immersion and feel for an area because its just a sea of flames and grass, not a cold, dark snowy place.
In order to qualify for this, it requires quite a lot of checkpoints to be reached, this wont be handed out except in very particular cases.

iId imagine that outside of snow areas, there is a lack of the understanding just as to why there is a desire for it, as lighting and such would occur without removal of your biome's blocks. Imagine putting torches up and all of the ground around it turns to a different colour block, yellow clay or . Not what you want, but you have to because there is no work around in MC's gameplay system for any alternative.

Having torches placed for lining routes is how its done in real life. You wont find the entire spaces in parks, or between roads with streetlights. Thats silly.
Immersion and world building are hard to accomplish and I believe we've done a fantastic effort with these.
I'm getting the feeling that this will kill our survival efforts. I hardly believe this to be the case.

E.g. We were talking about how we dont like the idea of magic in the other thread about Ikwe, how else would monsters find their way over town walls into towns from the wilderness? ( this particular point is a weak counter argument i've just realised).

This is probably a clusterfuck of points, apologies for terrible organisation!

To sum up: I want my snowy areas to be snowy and look as they should. Thats the only reason it'll be used for me.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 5:49 pm 
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King

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You don't see fields full of dozens of torches in real life, absolutely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be the main reason in support of adopting this plugin: to enable areas to look more normal and closer to how they would in a real medieval world (i.e without torches everywhere and snow melted in odd patterns). I absolutely understand this point, I just feel it's based on somewhat of a faulty premise.

I maintain that our goal should not be to render Hermertia closer to an accurate picture of real life because, fundamentally, Hermertia is not real life. Sure, we model it after a real medieval world almost all of the time (building shops and services for villagers in our towns, for example), and this makes it tempting to rid ourselves of pesky things like torches everywhere when they wouldn't be needed in real life. But then the real world doesn't have enchanting, it doesn't have beacons, and it doesn't have the same danger of monsters that we contend with in a Minecraft server. My point here is that we have always worked within only Minecraft's vanilla gameplay system to create a world that resembles a medieval one while being markedly different in ways that are a part of Minecraft's gameplay. If we are to say that "The real world wouldn't have to light up a whole field for fear of monsters, so let's disable mob spawning on that field and preserve the aesthetics of the snow.", how is that different from saying "The real world doesn't have enchanted armor that hurts someone when they hit you (Thorns); let's ban it from competitions to preserve a sense of reality." I doubt the latter would ever be discussed, but the former is because it provides a convenience and an advantage.

Because, fundamentally, I think it's a mistake to use plugins to bring Hermertia closer to a "real world" - because I don't think that has ever been our goal. Our goal has always been to work within Minecraft's limits to create an rpg/lore world, and we've succeed in that while keeping every element of the game that challenges us, no exceptions. Another hypothetical: in the real world, it's absurd that the supply of saddles in the world is finite. Having to find them in the bowels of nether fortresses as opposed to making them is pretty far removed from reality. Why not implement a plugin that allows us to craft saddles? Because that would be taking a fundamental and challenging aspect out of the game that has combined to make Hemertia what we are today. A mobproofing plugin does this too, just in ways that are more convenient and less noticeable.

And lastly, I do understand your point about snow, Sam. I just believe that if you chose to work with Minecraft's vanilla gameplay, you have to work with every constraint it gives you.

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PostPosted: June 18th, 2015, 6:21 pm 
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Count

Joined: June 10th, 2015, 10:03 am
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While I haven't been as involved lately (though that's about to change), I tend to side more with having the plugin in this case. I understand the resistance to add plugins to a vanilla server. However, considering the utility of this plugin and the possibly explicit guidelines to gaining the use of it in a city, I am for it.

While vanilla is awesome, I don't in any way see this program breaking the experience or the game. As it stands now, I only see a lot to be gained, and only a little given up. True, we don't want a lot of plugins, but I'm of the opinion that some should be ok after heavy discussion depending on the benefits they bring to the server.

Being mobbed in my snow city because I don't like the way torches melt my snow shouldn't be a constant concern. I have to choose between being safe and having an ugly looking city, or go for the authentic look, and constantly rebuild creeper pit explosions. I don't see why he lore couldn't explain that mobs subconsciously stay away from established cities due to merely the overwhelming presence of people, not just torches.

I feel that this is only going to bring a positive experience and I don't think it'll break down the dam holding us back from using plugins for tons of things. This is a proposal for a strictly monitored plugin that only affects places we often won't spend much time in after they are finished. I think there can be very solid lore being it. True the law needs to be worded carefully, but I'm for it.

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