Have we gone soft?

[morl0ck]

Obviously we all want the same thing and very different ideas of what attracts people. There seems to be a formula to it- all you need to do is look at the popular servers. They have things like kits, nice spawn areas, regular resets of the world, easy mode, etc. I just don't wish to see us going that direction too much.

[A. Pippenger]

Personally, I didn't come here for PvP exactly. I came here because this server was the closest thing I could find to real vanilla. It was also one of the only servers I could find where the mods had some restraint, only banned people for good reasons, and didn't give out random kits and stuff to get people to like them. I liked how I was just put into this giant map, with no concept of what I was or wasn't supposed to do. All I want for the server is to preserve the feeling of being a big vanilla sandbox. If people become nicer or meaner, that doesn't affect the basic appeal of the server to me. The only thing I won't budge on is my belief that the server should stay vanilla and that the mods shouldn't encourage any one playstyle over others.


Now, some players think we should be meaner to noobs than I like to be. This is a completely fair and legitimate opinion to have. On a personal level I disagree with it, and I will try to explain why, but I don't care all that much if people are convinced to agree with me or not. But I suppose I am one of the main "hugbox" players that people are talking about, so I may as well explain myself. So here are my reasons for helping noobs, fixing up spawn, and generally trying to not act like an asshole:

1) It's not always noobs's fault they they're noobs. We consider a lot of things on this server basic knowledge that are really quite obscure to someone not familiar with the game. Many people come straight on to servers after purchasing the game, and you can't blame them for wanting to get in on the action fast. Even the basic concepts of crafting can be confusing to beginners. People not familiar with survival mode understandably have a tough time adjusting. This doesn't necessarily make them idiots though. I'd played survival for years before coming here, and I still didn't quite grasp a few things, like what affect running, jumping, and taking damage had on your food bar, and what "saturation" was. This caused me to starve to death many times before I could get to trees and tall grass during my first week here. I also did not know certain online specific things, like how to use the /coords command. Keep in mind that there is no instruction manual to this game. Some people who come on just aren't familiar with all the mechanics yet. Certain players might consider people who aren't experts on all aspects of the game to be idiots, but these are the same people who think I'm an idiot or think I was an idiot at some point. This makes me disinclined to listen to their opinions.

2) The game has gotten harder. When I joined, baby zombies did not exist. To someone without a sword, meeting a baby zombie often means death, unlike with original mobs where punching them to death is reasonably easy. When I joined, zombies did not infinitely split in half if you didn't kill them immediately. Again, to someone armed only with fists, running into only a single zombie can quickly engulf them in an entire hoard that they have no hope of fighting. When I joined, there were not witches that could, from a ranged distance, reduce you to a single half heart of health. The game has gotten harder, and that is a fact.

3) It doesn't actually hurt anyone to have extra players around. You might find it infuriating to read messages in chat from someone who seems bad at the game compared to you or makes typing errors. But the truth is that it doesn't actually stop you from doing anything you want to do. The server felt a bit more crowded and idiotic this weekend with the influx of noobs, but I honestly prefer it that way to lonely nights mining by myself, or with a single tough anarchy player who never says anything in chat. Having more people means more social interaction, more PvP, more buildings being built, and more griefing happening. Personally, I hate some of the obnoxious little tweenagers who come on here acting like assholes. (I was one of the people who got mad at the noobs Morl0ck mentioned in the first post and wrote them up.) However, like he said, fights like that are fun, and more people means more fights. The best way to increase PvP might actually be to fix up spawn. I have been killed much more often by noobs who either directly used iron I gave them to make swords and stab me, or used trees and grass I planted myself to make too get farther into the world than they would have otherwise and grief my own structures, than I have by experienced players. I'm certainly not nice to everyone- I help people I like, and fight or mock people I don't. But I recognize that overall, more people on the server is better than less, whether I like them or not.

4) I enjoy planting trees for no good reason. Well, except for the reason that I find it fun. Which is really the only reason anyone plays. I just have fun trying to turn a barren landscape into a field of dirt and grass, then adding trees, then planting tall grass and exotic plants, and then trying to introduce endangered species to the habitat. I feel like a scientist terraforming Mars, or something like that. Some people might think that in some abstract way it's "bad" to have a nicer looking spawn and attract less skilled players, but honestly, I am doing what I think is fun because I'm on an anarchy server and deep down I don't give a fuck what anyone else thinks. Similarly, I enjoy being nice to noobs. I find it enjoyable to try to meet people and make friends, and I know it will benefit me to have allies and potential partners among the noobs that stick around. From a certain perspective I'm a selfish bastard doing what I want at the expense of the server, and the people who burn everything they see and kill noobs on sight are selfless heroes upholding the honor of the server. But that doesn't matter to me, cause like I said, this is anarchy and I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want.


What I'm saying is that my outlook is that people should do what they want, because that's what anarchy really means. If someone wants to help noobs, that should be fine. If someone wants to kill noobs, that's also fine. It's also fine to build houses, burn houses, live underground as a hermit, live in a giant group base, hoard resources, never make iron tools, live in one place for two years, or wander the server aimlessly. It's fine to just get on to do events and talk to friends. It's fine to spend all your time writing and selling books. What this server means to me is that anyone is allowed to do whatever they want, with the exception of cheating. This means that if you want to spend all your time killing noobs and burning my trees, then you have a right to do that, but I also have a right to help more noobs and plant more trees.

[LoneSoldier55]

1) The "Instruction Manual" that "Doesn't Exist" to this game is called MineCraftWiki.net
2) You can literally outrun every mob in the game with few exceptions.
3) I'm sure we can do without people threatening to DDOS us if we don't give them Operator so they can review us for PMC.
4) The difference between Terraforming Mars and SimPvP is that SimPvP will turn back into a barren landscape within a few weeks.

Nobody is trying to stop you from planting trees. People just don't want admins to up and revamp the entire spawn into Ponyville, where free shit is there just for you.

[morl0ck]

My main objection wasn't you pippenger. I pretty much agreed with everything you said, it's just I was against the spawn farms and admins using op powers to clean up spawn. Sometimes I burn trees and kill people, sometimes I give people food and build shelters. It's a game- people should play however they feel at the moment. That's what's great about anarchy- one day I can be the friendly barkeeper, the next day I can be the bloodthirsty barbarian.

[KennyKatsu]

I also agree, that admins shouldn't really bother with spawn. It should be the players who do it.

And, it kinda is the noob's fault he's a noob. This rarely is the first server for them. Usually they come from the free handout servers or /home and shit servers like that. They should at least try singleplayer to know what the game actually is.

The game still isn't that hard. If you punch trees at day, dig for stone, then for iron, then make some iron gear slaying spiders for a bed shouldn't be hard. You punch grass for wheat seeds and slay zombies for rotten flesh or a chance for a carrot. Once you get that carrot you plant it. Then you are set, because carrots are easy to farm and they give a good amount of food points.

Personally, I prefer killing noobs, not helping them. A lot of the noobs who join end up in jail anyway.

I guess there's nothing from with terraforming. I'd rather dig the surroundings of spawn down to bedrock and fill make a lake instead, but I guess planting trees is something too.

As long as this server stays semi-vanilla, I'm probably staying.

[deflowvesper]

We do not plan on changing the server into one of those servers that provide kits and tp commands. We simply just trying to see what could be improved to increase the number of players in the server. If all of you disagrees of having a spawn farm in spawn then we could work on it but we'd appreciate if you could also provide an idea or suggestion to improve our population. I suggest that everyone who cares and was bothered enough to post their opinions to this thread should give 1 to 2 minutes of their time to vote for the server.