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 like it. Small, efficient, and humane. Maybe we should require these for all villages as a quick solution to the lag issues until a more permanent solution is found to the villager problem.