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Messages - Nick3306

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31
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 24, 2016, 03:53:07 pm »
If there is no currency of any kind, then how would players buy/sell items?
They wouldn't, that's the point.

The first post by Nick said a proposed change was "- Addition of a player trading system"  That is extremely difficult without some medium of exchange (i.e. money/points/seashells/something).  Forcing everyone to simply barter would be an incredibly bad idea and effectively destroy a lot of the cooperation & resource trading that exists.  Plus it misses out on great opportunities that could come from a player-run economy. 

The creation of currency is one of the most important human inventions.  There is a reason every nation on Earth uses currency instead of barter (and no it isn't because of evil bankers).  It is a fundamental part of economics.  See this basic presentation on the matter.

Basically, in a world you may envision where we've gotten rid of the server-run market and all the players just have to swap items, this is how it would work.  I have a lot of stone (from all my excavating in my city).  I'd like to trade it for diamonds, glowstone, iron, etc.  Let's say Lando has a lot of diamonds he'd like to give me, but none of his builds use stone, so he isn't interested in trading with me.  Let's say penguin wants lots of stone, but doesn't have any glowstone, so doesn't have anything I want.  Then what?  Then we don't trade and the whole system breaks down. 

If we had some kind of sign/chest shop, can you imagine how messy it would be?  Let's say, again, that I want to trade stone for different items.  Just to sell this one item I'd have to create 20 different shops/signs.  64 stone for 12 glowstone, 32 stone for 10 iron, 40 stone for 1 diamond, 5 stone for 10 sand, 10 stone for 1 porkchop, 20 stone for 30 glass, e tc.  Imagine if I wanted to sell more than just stone?  Imagine if other people wanted to sell things?  We'd have hundreds and hundreds of different combinations of various goods.  Matching them all up would be very difficult and time consuming.

Money is just a middle-man that makes everything easier.  If I wanted Lando's diamonds, I wouldn't have to trade him my stone, I could sell my stone to penguin for money, and then take that money to buy the diamonds from Lando.  Everyone wins and it is soooo much simpler and easier a transaction.  This is why money exists in both real and virtual worlds.  No MMO or other video game that has some way to exchange goods uses a barter system, because they are absolutely impractical.  No country or society uses it either.
Your points would all be valid if this was not a survival server, which it is. The server was never supposed to run on the economy, it just turned out that way.

If your vision for a survival server is that everyone is on their own and doesn't cooperate or share resources, then yes, eliminating the economy would achieve that.  I think that is a very big change, and a bad one.  I think the ability to easily share, trade and cooperate is an important part of this server, and was certainly a perk when I first got here.  Shutting that all down by removing money would, I feel, make it harder for new members to join and stay.

But I don't understand why you listed "addition of a player trading system" as a new proposal if you intend to eliminate player trading/exchange.
How would this reduce player cooperation at all? I honestly don't see how having money increases peoples willingness to work together. In fact, I would argue that it would increase cooperation because instead of being able to buy all the blocks and stuff that you want, you're more likely to team up with others to survive and build.

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. If players wanted, they could create a currency in game by using gold or something but having an overall currency for the server is something we want to get rid of. It turns the survival server into an economy server where its all about getting money.

32
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 24, 2016, 03:05:46 pm »
I'm going to have to kindly disagree with these points you make. I don't think a theme was ever established, maybe in your eyes, but not as a whole. The the only theme I can see Opticraft having adopted is being set too much in stone to have a fresh start. We've come accustomed to simply adding a new world every time things get messy, and it's become an unfortunate knee-jerk reaction that's caused more problems than it solved. Instead of 1 world lasting one year, we've added more and more worlds which meant more and more segregation of our players. This should also answer your question about adding worlds.

I don't understand everyone's repeated complaints about "segregation" of players.  With our teleporting system, I move from the new member world to the old guest world the exact same way that I move within any world.  Unless you are proposing we eliminate /homes or other teleporting, there is no real 'segregation'.  It isn't like anyone is going to walk from one end of the map to the other as a routine way of getting around. 

If there is no currency of any kind, then how would players buy/sell items?
They wouldn't, that's the point.

The first post by Nick said a proposed change was "- Addition of a player trading system"  That is extremely difficult without some medium of exchange (i.e. money/points/seashells/something).  Forcing everyone to simply barter would be an incredibly bad idea and effectively destroy a lot of the cooperation & resource trading that exists.  Plus it misses out on great opportunities that could come from a player-run economy. 

The creation of currency is one of the most important human inventions.  There is a reason every nation on Earth uses currency instead of barter (and no it isn't because of evil bankers).  It is a fundamental part of economics.  See this basic presentation on the matter.

Basically, in a world you may envision where we've gotten rid of the server-run market and all the players just have to swap items, this is how it would work.  I have a lot of stone (from all my excavating in my city).  I'd like to trade it for diamonds, glowstone, iron, etc.  Let's say Lando has a lot of diamonds he'd like to give me, but none of his builds use stone, so he isn't interested in trading with me.  Let's say penguin wants lots of stone, but doesn't have any glowstone, so doesn't have anything I want.  Then what?  Then we don't trade and the whole system breaks down. 

If we had some kind of sign/chest shop, can you imagine how messy it would be?  Let's say, again, that I want to trade stone for different items.  Just to sell this one item I'd have to create 20 different shops/signs.  64 stone for 12 glowstone, 32 stone for 10 iron, 40 stone for 1 diamond, 5 stone for 10 sand, 10 stone for 1 porkchop, 20 stone for 30 glass, e tc.  Imagine if I wanted to sell more than just stone?  Imagine if other people wanted to sell things?  We'd have hundreds and hundreds of different combinations of various goods.  Matching them all up would be very difficult and time consuming.

Money is just a middle-man that makes everything easier.  If I wanted Lando's diamonds, I wouldn't have to trade him my stone, I could sell my stone to penguin for money, and then take that money to buy the diamonds from Lando.  Everyone wins and it is soooo much simpler and easier a transaction.  This is why money exists in both real and virtual worlds.  No MMO or other video game that has some way to exchange goods uses a barter system, because they are absolutely impractical.  No country or society uses it either.
Your points would all be valid if this was not a survival server, which it is. The server was never supposed to run on the economy, it just turned out that way.

Some players are saying the wipe should be back on the table. I'm glad it's not.
I voted "I support some of them" as in "No Wipe but I like the other ideas." If the wipe would have been back on the table, my vote would be "No".
And I know some other people who would do the same, eg Roza would change her Yes into a No.
Don't let the result of this pol cloud your vision because the amount of No voters would be a lot bigger if the wipe was back on the table.

Some players keep mentioning a wipe because they have reached their endgame. I'd like to repeat, what's stopping you from starting over yourself? Please don't drag us all down with you by asking for a full wipe.
IF there would be a wipe and all players would be put together on a new world, how long do you think it would take before the first one is bored again? Months? Weeks? Days? Then what? A new wipe? And another? And another?
A wipe doesn't solve the fact that certain players reach their limit in MC quite fast while others can continue for many years. Some players simply lack the imagination, drive, passion, knowledge, will, (IQ?) etc. etc. to keep going.

As far as i'm aware, you cant change your vote once you have voted, so anyone who voted no is still recorded as a no in the poll. Very few people have voted since we have took the first option off. Keep in mind that even before it was removed, yes was still winning by 4 votes.

33
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 24, 2016, 02:55:14 am »
So I want to expand on our ideas for the points system. Basically the idea is for points to be taking the place of money. Everyday activities like mining and farming and whatnot will give the user points they can spend on things like protection. Voting would be the quickest way to gain points as well as any events we may run. The market would be completely gone except for the ability to buy a few items that you simply can not get in game any other way. A player trading system or a player shop system could be implemented to help players trade more easily and safely. I feel this would not only fix the broken nature of the economy, it would also encourage voting and encourage people to play more instead of afking at farms.

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea of giving points for mining/farming/whatnot. 

I think it encourages all sorts of weird behavior.  People planting huge fields, harvesting all the crops and tossing them away because they really just want to earn points.  If someone wants to earn points I'd rather they spend their time harvesting some item that other people on the server actually want than just some some inane, artificial, repetitive task to score points.  The forces of supply & demand are far more effective at properly directing people's activity than a convoluted system of rewards & punishments cooked up by staff. 

Option A: Points given for mining/farming/etc
 
Players spend their time digging giant holes for no purpose other than to get points.  They end up with tons of cobble & dirt that no one wants.  Those people who want harder to find items are out of luck, since no one is looking for them.  The economy falls apart and players get nostalgic for the old system of a market that had everything they wanted at fixed prices.

Option B: Points can be purchased with money, economy is totally player-run

Players no longer have infinite sources of glowstone & diamonds (for example), suddenly those items are super valuable (as they should be).  Players who want to score points, instead of digging big holes in the ground, will seek out all the diamonds & glowstone they can find.  They sell them to other players (who pay a good price for them, because they really need them).  The diamond miner is rewarded with lots of cash he can turn into points.
that's the thing, if there was a points system there would be no money. Like I explained to cora, we can control the points system to stop people from farming points. The main and best way to get points would be to vote by a long shot. The small amount of points you would get from everyday activities would just be to reward players who play often.

How will players buy & sell items with each other if there is no currency? 

If you just want to rename "money" to "points" then fine, I don't care what you call it.  But you need *something* besides straight barter. 

You don't need to control the point system.  That's the beauty of a player-run economy.  I can create the most massive melon farm the server has ever seen, but if no one wants to buy my melons then it won't do me any good.  The price for anything will adjust based on supply and demand.  If there are lots of iron farms the price will drop.  That's how it is supposed to work, we shouldn't try to restrict or control things.  Just let things run their course. 

If we reward people for everyday things then then the reward loses all value.  Reward people for doing things that help the server (i.e. producing resources that other people want) not for killing random zombies or digging holes in the ground. 

If we do that we'll have just as broken an economy as we currently do.
there is no renaming anything to anything. If we get rid of the market, all the money is going with it. The points system would just be a tiny system to help players afford protection because there's no more money.

34
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 24, 2016, 02:15:05 am »
So I want to expand on our ideas for the points system. Basically the idea is for points to be taking the place of money. Everyday activities like mining and farming and whatnot will give the user points they can spend on things like protection. Voting would be the quickest way to gain points as well as any events we may run. The market would be completely gone except for the ability to buy a few items that you simply can not get in game any other way. A player trading system or a player shop system could be implemented to help players trade more easily and safely. I feel this would not only fix the broken nature of the economy, it would also encourage voting and encourage people to play more instead of afking at farms.

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea of giving points for mining/farming/whatnot. 

I think it encourages all sorts of weird behavior.  People planting huge fields, harvesting all the crops and tossing them away because they really just want to earn points.  If someone wants to earn points I'd rather they spend their time harvesting some item that other people on the server actually want than just some some inane, artificial, repetitive task to score points.  The forces of supply & demand are far more effective at properly directing people's activity than a convoluted system of rewards & punishments cooked up by staff. 

Option A: Points given for mining/farming/etc
 
Players spend their time digging giant holes for no purpose other than to get points.  They end up with tons of cobble & dirt that no one wants.  Those people who want harder to find items are out of luck, since no one is looking for them.  The economy falls apart and players get nostalgic for the old system of a market that had everything they wanted at fixed prices.

Option B: Points can be purchased with money, economy is totally player-run

Players no longer have infinite sources of glowstone & diamonds (for example), suddenly those items are super valuable (as they should be).  Players who want to score points, instead of digging big holes in the ground, will seek out all the diamonds & glowstone they can find.  They sell them to other players (who pay a good price for them, because they really need them).  The diamond miner is rewarded with lots of cash he can turn into points.
that's the thing, if there was a points system there would be no money. Like I explained to cora, we can control the points system to stop people from farming points. The main and best way to get points would be to vote by a long shot. The small amount of points you would get from everyday activities would just be to reward players who play often.

35
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 21, 2016, 11:41:41 pm »
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.
I like this idea, but I think it sounds like a lot of work.  I think if all this work is done to change the general feel of the server we should make it a fresh start.  which should include moving out old worlds and cash.  I think carrying over the old worlds and farms would be a waste as most people will need to start over anyway.
That is basically one of the reasons a few of us were in favor of a complete wipe but its clear the players don't feel the same.  And if the current market gets replaced, the money will go away with it.

36
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 20, 2016, 10:56:23 pm »
That's just it, it doesn't work, it hasn't worked for a long time. The main idea behind our market and economy was that it was supposed to be a last resort for players get get a few blocks from. Unfortunately that turned into everyone building giant laggy farms and afking for hours on end to gain wealth. That is not, and has never been what we intended the economy and game play to be. It straight up doesn't work.

What about it doesn't work? Just because it's not what you intended, does not mean that it doesn't work the way it is. It just means you don't like what you've created -- I, and the people who play regularly do like it - or people like Hoax don't use it at all lol. Also you don't technically have an "economy." It's not an economy because because there's unlimited cash flow entering every time someone donates for money, and it would be the same with your "point system". There would be an unlimited number to the amount of points a player gets thus completely evolving into the same thing you don't like. Though now instead of laggy farms you have all these ugly farms everywhere people are making purely for the purpose of gaining those points. Would people gain points for killing mobs as that's a survival activity? Mob farms - bam. Would people make points for planting crops and picking them? Bam, lag farms. Would people make points for killing animals or for breeding them? Bam, animal farm. Changing the system to points won't change or fix anything - not that I think it's broke to begin with, but I really don't think it's worth implementing such a change - just to go back to where you don't seem to like being. I think if you don't like the big lag farms make it purely against the rules. Make it a banable offence - give staff the permission to roll back any farms made/found, and call it a day. When people complain as to why you've made that rule - give THIS explanation. The one where you feel it ruins the world and the game play. Again, just my thoughts.
It is not even close to the same thing as we can manage a points system to make it where no one activity can be easily abused like the market currently is. A great example would be checking if mobs are spawned from a spawner. There would also be less incentive to abuse the point system if it were possible as you cannot gain most items from it. Bottom line is, there would be no way to just afk in one spot or stand there clicking over and over to gain points. The idea of the points system is to get rid of the market but still have a way for players to buy protection, the server is not supposed to run on the points.

Sure people will still build farms, and if that's what they like to do, then more power to them. They just wont be able to get insanely rich from them by standing in one spot.

37
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 20, 2016, 08:16:16 pm »
So I want to expand on our ideas for the points system. Basically the idea is for points to be taking the place of money. Everyday activities like mining and farming and whatnot will give the user points they can spend on things like protection. Voting would be the quickest way to gain points as well as any events we may run. The market would be completely gone except for the ability to buy a few items that you simply can not get in game any other way. A player trading system or a player shop system could be implemented to help players trade more easily and safely. I feel this would not only fix the broken nature of the economy, it would also encourage voting and encourage people to play more instead of afking at farms.

I can't seem to wrap my head around what the big issue is with our current "economy." It works. People like it - it alters the game play from generic survival, and doesn't force me to flood parts of the map little farms etc. in order to get "points" for rare/hard to get blocks for builds that I'm working on. So I suppose mainly other than my extreme distaste for your point system, I'd really just like to know what everyone dislikes so much about our current "economy".
That's just it, it doesn't work, it hasn't worked for a long time. The main idea behind our market and economy was that it was supposed to be a last resort for players get get a few blocks from. Unfortunately that turned into everyone building giant laggy farms and afking for hours on end to gain wealth. That is not, and has never been what we intended the economy and game play to be. It straight up doesn't work.

Roza, it is not stupid games, it's literally points for everyday survival things. No games. The point of it is that you gradually gain points the more you regularly play. You don't have to go out of you way to get them (except voting but it's obvious why we would do that).

38
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 20, 2016, 03:44:34 pm »
one question I just donated for money, new economy it goes away, will there be compensation under the new system given to those who donated either by cash or top voter?
yes, we have been brainstorming ways to compensate if we were to go this route

And kag, it wouldn't change the server much at all. Just instead of buying protection of fixed sizes, the user would get to select the area they want protected.

39
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 20, 2016, 01:49:41 pm »
So I want to expand on our ideas for the points system. Basically the idea is for points to be taking the place of money. Everyday activities like mining and farming and whatnot will give the user points they can spend on things like protection. Voting would be the quickest way to gain points as well as any events we may run. The market would be completely gone except for the ability to buy a few items that you simply can not get in game any other way. A player trading system or a player shop system could be implemented to help players trade more easily and safely. I feel this would not only fix the broken nature of the economy, it would also encourage voting and encourage people to play more instead of afking at farms.
I like the market idea along with the idea of player shops at the market too.


I would also like to add a thought to the whole wipe thing. I already know it's off the table now, but I wonder how this would work in the eyes of the people who were against a world wipe but for a change to the economy.

I'm just curious as to what difference would that really make if the goal is to make survival more survival based, but wealthy players keep their money from the old system, and the worlds, with all their farms and all, are retained from the old system. (unless I'm misunderstanding something about all this). Ya the economy would be different, but so? If everything else is unchanged then we have older players with an advantage over newer ones (at least in terms of survivability) due to them profiting under the old system.

Not that I necessarily think the wealthy should have their money taken away, but I think and all or nothing approach would make more sense than having one or the other (between world wipe and economy revamp). At least to me it'd make more sense to either have a complete fresh start, or keep going the way it is. Buy idk, perhaps, again, I'm misunderstanding something.
you do misunderstand, the current economy would go away, that includes all the money.  Even if they kept the money it would be useless. And I do agree with you that a fresh start would make more sense to go along with changing the economy, but the players are clearly against that.

40
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 20, 2016, 01:44:31 am »
So I want to expand on our ideas for the points system. Basically the idea is for points to be taking the place of money. Everyday activities like mining and farming and whatnot will give the user points they can spend on things like protection. Voting would be the quickest way to gain points as well as any events we may run. The market would be completely gone except for the ability to buy a few items that you simply can not get in game any other way. A player trading system or a player shop system could be implemented to help players trade more easily and safely. I feel this would not only fix the broken nature of the economy, it would also encourage voting and encourage people to play more instead of afking at farms.

41
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 19, 2016, 06:41:33 pm »
advertising costs money, a lot of money actually. So no, we have not thought about it at all as optical is the only one to make the decision to advertise.

Except that Optical is always open to ideas, and if the point of this is to bring up ideas to raise your player count - then perhaps people could be coming up with advertising ideas to help. Maybe new perk ideas to help pay for advertising, fixing the voting like he mentioned etc. Point is, other people might have some golden nugget ideas. Advertising doesn't have to be on a pay-ad basis. There's social media, and all sorts of other resources that I'm sure people could come up with if we asked them about this point too. Like Roza said - what's the point in all the hard work and changes, if no one will see them?
I understand that, but it just feels weird to me to attempt to tell someone how to spend their money, maybe it's just me being weird lol

42
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 19, 2016, 05:10:50 pm »
I also believe that you can do anything you want to change the server, even a refresh and it wont make a real difference unless you have a proper promotion plan in place.  What good are all the changes if no one knows?

I have to agree with this point made by Roza - and hope that more than just Optical are thinking about it. There really is no point in making any "improvements" if no one knows to come check them out.
advertising costs money, a lot of money actually. So no, we have not thought about it at all as optical is the only one to make the decision to advertise.

43
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 19, 2016, 04:42:20 pm »
Well at this point, getting rid of the world's is off the table.

44
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 19, 2016, 01:35:37 am »
All of this makes sense, but I'm not saying anyone matters more, that's the point of the poll...... If the people who play now outweigh the players like the ones we talked to then it will reflect in the poll.
Also, when we introduced a very poor version of pvp, player numbers jumped, so saying it didn't work at all isn't correct.

Fair enough - however, if the people who have left outweighed the people who remain. Then those of us who love and adore SMP for what it is are just supposed to watch it all go away and change? I can honestly say I've seen tonight in chat, and I feel myself that it would definitely be a driving factor in a lot of peoples' departure from Opticraft - thus permanently altering or losing the current community altogether.

True the numbers did spike, but not permanently. The community that stays, that lasts is not seemingly interested in PvP.
Well if the people who want to see the change outnumber those who are left, it would be saying those who are left are more important if we didn't change wouldn't it? It just sucks to see how few players play now days, sure the community is nice, but that doesnt pay the server bills.

True. But the people who don't play won't be hurt/upset by a loss... Either way change or no change, the server is going to take or maintain a deficit, in the end you just have to decide which is the lesser of two evils, or maybe come up with alternate changes. Creative brought great numbers why not a separate PvPSMP entity thus making everyone happy? I don't know. But you asked why we voted no, so now you know.
Another smp server would just further split the current smp server leading to even less players. And I am glad you explained why you voted no.

45
Server News / Re: Proposed smp changes
« on: March 19, 2016, 01:28:27 am »
All of this makes sense, but I'm not saying anyone matters more, that's the point of the poll...... If the people who play now outweigh the players like the ones we talked to then it will reflect in the poll.
Also, when we introduced a very poor version of pvp, player numbers jumped, so saying it didn't work at all isn't correct.

Fair enough - however, if the people who have left outweighed the people who remain. Then those of us who love and adore SMP for what it is are just supposed to watch it all go away and change? I can honestly say I've seen tonight in chat, and I feel myself that it would definitely be a driving factor in a lot of peoples' departure from Opticraft - thus permanently altering or losing the current community altogether.

True the numbers did spike, but not permanently. The community that stays, that lasts is not seemingly interested in PvP.
Well if the people who want to see the change outnumber those who are left, it would be saying those who are left are more important if we didn't change wouldn't it? It just sucks to see how few players play now days, sure the community is nice, but that doesnt pay the server bills.

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