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Suggestion Incentivizing Building and Encouraging Creativity.

strongholdx

Moderator
Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Mar 4, 2011
Location
Earth
Preface -
I come from an age of Herocraft that is ancient history to many of you. Herocraft has changed significantly since I joined and its taken a long time for me to be ok with that. For a long time I wanted it to go back to the 'good ol' days' where pvp was shunned, cities were huge, and the politics were many. I don't think that way anymore. This is important because I want you to understand that my opinions and thoughts about Herocraft have changed greatly over my time here but despite those changes and that personal growth one prevailing thought has stuck with me, one that I can't let go of. One that I hope to talk to you about in this thread.

Towns Look Like Shit

Allow me to explain:
Towns used to be huge. Giant glowstone rings in the sky marked the floor to ceiling region in which you could build. People built structures, farms, town halls, and more - citizens were given plots to populate the streets and make the city look alive. Cities were restricted in style - nothing could be floating unless it looked like it was supposed to be flying, town's couldn't have roofs or be giant boxes, and these rules made things look cool as hell.

Much of it is gone now, but the old graveyard section of the forums used to have loads of cities with photos that blew modern towns out of the water. They were proper cities built to look cool and serve a purpose. This enhanced each city and area giving towns and kingdoms a unique feel, elevating them beyond just a collection of buildings stuck somewhere on the map. Walls and houses often had style limits enforced by mayors, which meant the Kingdom of the Rising Sun looked and felt like a feudal Japanese city while the town of Seagate was more akin to a tropical paradise on a distant island.

The Problem
Minecraft has little reason to build. The only reason you're going to build a house is because you want to. A cave in the side of a hill serves the same survival purpose as a grand mansion: Its shelter from monsters. Minecraft's core gameplay loop reflects this - it gets dark and monsters come out. In order to beat back the night you must mine for gear, make torches and armor and either fight or bring light to the darkness. As long as you have a place to store your things, aesthetics are secondary. The creative drive to build something that looks nice has to come from within.

Box Towns
At the time of writing we're in beta so its no surprise that people don't want to invest themselves in something that will be destroyed within a month. This I have no qualms with. However let me pose a question:

Are you going to build something more than a safe chest room on release?

The Townships plugin has no restrictions on roofs, and the heroes plugin makes walls hilariously easy to circumnavigate. Combine that with exploits, griefing, and planned betrayals and you will be actively punished for allowing your houses and towns to out in the open. The solution to this? Make a box with an airlock and dig down. Suddenly you have your own impenetrable vault that's only weakness is user error. And now that you have the most secure possible system in place to protect your items what is there to do? Level up and...

Kill Everything and Everyone
Its no secret that Herocraft is PvP centered. It almost always has been. Players historically have been bloodthirsty and brutal, sometimes extending to cruel and evil. Where some players looked for sport and to best other in a contest of skill for hard earned loot, others looked to dominate and rule simply spreading their dominion to all they came across. Spawn camping, toxic banter, and other downright abusive tactics were employed against any and all; even people who wanted no part in it.

I think a lot of this was propagated by the 'Hardcore Attitude' of the server, encouraging a dog-eat-dog style of play where you always have to look out for number 1. I'm not saying PvP is bad, but to a player who just wants to play the game and build something entirely by their own merit, having a screaming prepubescent teen chase you with a sword is not a great experience.

And do you know what happens to people when they're thrown into an unfamiliar PvP system that requires macros to function and they have a 13 year old screaming in OffTopic to get good as they get slain for the 10th time? They go elsewhere. I don't have the metrics but I watched a LOT of players leave the server because it simply wasn't fun to die and have your progress wiped over and over again when there was another server just a webpage away that wasn't going to have these problems.

Growing Up
The average age of the server was most likely a huge factor in this, but times have changed and I think so have we. We've alienated a lot people, but I also think we've retained a lot too. And Minecraft doesn't have a small player base, so active players aren't going to be hard to find. Not as easy to find in 2011, mind you, but I don't think they need to be. I personally have been focused on fostering the community and welcoming new players because we need them if we want Herocraft to be the best it can be. I've seen some incredible growth from players that I didn't think could change, and in turn this has changed me and the way I think about this game.

So what does this all mean? And how has talking about box towns turned into me rambling about PvP and alienating the player base?

Some of you can probably see where I'm going with this, but...

You Never Get a Second First Impression
If we want players to wonder out of spawn for the first time and fall in love with Herocraft, a strewn collection of cobblestone boxes serving as personal regions isn't going to help. At all. In the before times we used to have bedrock vaults for donors of a certain tier with a free teleport so you could afk in peace and safely store your items. The current system that we have right now is almost exactly the same, you just have to grind out 25c a day for it to stay up.
No one is going to come to Herocraft Remastered excited about all the square shapes they can see dotting the landscape in a game that is quite literally made out of boxes.

For years I've heard people tell me that this isn't Easycraft, but if I can set up an impenetrable bunker with 250c and a stack of cobblestone, I'd like to know what YOU consider Easycraft. And for the record, I don't think Easycraft is a bad thing, but that's a whole different discussion about difficulties and the experience that the server looks to provide.

TL;DR: My point is:

Herocraft Actively Discourages Building and Punishes Anything that Isn't a Box Town
As previously mentioned Minecraft's core gameplay loop doesn't even encourage building, all you need is a cave in the side of a wall and you're set as long as it can hold your things. The hardcore attitude of the server tends to drive players away, which while not detrimental, certainly doesn't help. And the PvP centric attitude encourages players to hide their belongings making classic town concepts impractical, dangerous, and high risk for the promise of absolutely zero reward. Lastly, box towns look like garbage and are a poor first impression on new players.

So I want to open the floor for discussion. How do we encourage building? What sort of rewards can we offer to incentivize and provide for the creation of sick ass builds that will draw players and make the server feel alive and stand out? Is that even something we want? I think it is. Please leave your thoughts below and lets work together to create something breathtaking and construct something worth building.
 

Plagiarizing

Stone
Joined
Aug 19, 2021
Location
United States
Yeah box towns will be the shitty part about beta rightfully so though, i do agree building glorious towns is a feelgood for your town and players want to see it. However I think most of my great builds have taken well over month(s) just to build. building is something that i tend to do for a couple hours then take a break at it for the most part and i really haven't decided what I'm going to do town wise with my town on full release I don't know if it'll be a few people or a lot of people. The problem with too many people is it lacks pvp but the problem with too few people is it lacks a community and liveliness sometimes.
 

Airbus101

Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Location
USA
He speaks the truth! As a builder and shop keeper this change is why I left 8 years ago. I came back when I heard the system was being revamped. I'm not a PVP'r never enjoyed it, but I don't begrudge those that do. its an important part of the experience. However towns use to be works of art, I would spend months building stuff in them. I truly miss the small personal regions too that allowed you to build a fancy homes that took months to build that would not be grieved in one night. sadly there will always be that element out there that just wants to smash, not just loot.
I cant say what the cureall is here, I know Kainzo wants townships to succeed to pull people together. however there are some of us whom want to build yet stand alone.
 

Irishman81

Senior Staff
Guide
Architect
Balance Team
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Apr 1, 2013
Preface -
I come from an age of Herocraft that is ancient history to many of you. Herocraft has changed significantly since I joined and its taken a long time for me to be ok with that. For a long time I wanted it to go back to the 'good ol' days' where pvp was shunned, cities were huge, and the politics were many. I don't think that way anymore. This is important because I want you to understand that my opinions and thoughts about Herocraft have changed greatly over my time here but despite those changes and that personal growth one prevailing thought has stuck with me, one that I can't let go of. One that I hope to talk to you about in this thread.

Towns Look Like Shit

Allow me to explain:
Towns used to be huge. Giant glowstone rings in the sky marked the floor to ceiling region in which you could build. People built structures, farms, town halls, and more - citizens were given plots to populate the streets and make the city look alive. Cities were restricted in style - nothing could be floating unless it looked like it was supposed to be flying, town's couldn't have roofs or be giant boxes, and these rules made things look cool as hell.

Much of it is gone now, but the old graveyard section of the forums used to have loads of cities with photos that blew modern towns out of the water. They were proper cities built to look cool and serve a purpose. This enhanced each city and area giving towns and kingdoms a unique feel, elevating them beyond just a collection of buildings stuck somewhere on the map. Walls and houses often had style limits enforced by mayors, which meant the Kingdom of the Rising Sun looked and felt like a feudal Japanese city while the town of Seagate was more akin to a tropical paradise on a distant island.

The Problem
Minecraft has little reason to build. The only reason you're going to build a house is because you want to. A cave in the side of a hill serves the same survival purpose as a grand mansion: Its shelter from monsters. Minecraft's core gameplay loop reflects this - it gets dark and monsters come out. In order to beat back the night you must mine for gear, make torches and armor and either fight or bring light to the darkness. As long as you have a place to store your things, aesthetics are secondary. The creative drive to build something that looks nice has to come from within.

Box Towns
At the time of writing we're in beta so its no surprise that people don't want to invest themselves in something that will be destroyed within a month. This I have no qualms with. However let me pose a question:

Are you going to build something more than a safe chest room on release?

The Townships plugin has no restrictions on roofs, and the heroes plugin makes walls hilariously easy to circumnavigate. Combine that with exploits, griefing, and planned betrayals and you will be actively punished for allowing your houses and towns to out in the open. The solution to this? Make a box with an airlock and dig down. Suddenly you have your own impenetrable vault that's only weakness is user error. And now that you have the most secure possible system in place to protect your items what is there to do? Level up and...

Kill Everything and Everyone
Its no secret that Herocraft is PvP centered. It almost always has been. Players historically have been bloodthirsty and brutal, sometimes extending to cruel and evil. Where some players looked for sport and to best other in a contest of skill for hard earned loot, others looked to dominate and rule simply spreading their dominion to all they came across. Spawn camping, toxic banter, and other downright abusive tactics were employed against any and all; even people who wanted no part in it.

I think a lot of this was propagated by the 'Hardcore Attitude' of the server, encouraging a dog-eat-dog style of play where you always have to look out for number 1. I'm not saying PvP is bad, but to a player who just wants to play the game and build something entirely by their own merit, having a screaming prepubescent teen chase you with a sword is not a great experience.

And do you know what happens to people when they're thrown into an unfamiliar PvP system that requires macros to function and they have a 13 year old screaming in OffTopic to get good as they get slain for the 10th time? They go elsewhere. I don't have the metrics but I watched a LOT of players leave the server because it simply wasn't fun to die and have your progress wiped over and over again when there was another server just a webpage away that wasn't going to have these problems.

Growing Up
The average age of the server was most likely a huge factor in this, but times have changed and I think so have we. We've alienated a lot people, but I also think we've retained a lot too. And Minecraft doesn't have a small player base, so active players aren't going to be hard to find. Not as easy to find in 2011, mind you, but I don't think they need to be. I personally have been focused on fostering the community and welcoming new players because we need them if we want Herocraft to be the best it can be. I've seen some incredible growth from players that I didn't think could change, and in turn this has changed me and the way I think about this game.

So what does this all mean? And how has talking about box towns turned into me rambling about PvP and alienating the player base?

Some of you can probably see where I'm going with this, but...

You Never Get a Second First Impression
If we want players to wonder out of spawn for the first time and fall in love with Herocraft, a strewn collection of cobblestone boxes serving as personal regions isn't going to help. At all. In the before times we used to have bedrock vaults for donors of a certain tier with a free teleport so you could afk in peace and safely store your items. The current system that we have right now is almost exactly the same, you just have to grind out 25c a day for it to stay up.
No one is going to come to Herocraft Remastered excited about all the square shapes they can see dotting the landscape in a game that is quite literally made out of boxes.

For years I've heard people tell me that this isn't Easycraft, but if I can set up an impenetrable bunker with 250c and a stack of cobblestone, I'd like to know what YOU consider Easycraft. And for the record, I don't think Easycraft is a bad thing, but that's a whole different discussion about difficulties and the experience that the server looks to provide.

TL;DR: My point is:

Herocraft Actively Discourages Building and Punishes Anything that Isn't a Box Town
As previously mentioned Minecraft's core gameplay loop doesn't even encourage building, all you need is a cave in the side of a wall and you're set as long as it can hold your things. The hardcore attitude of the server tends to drive players away, which while not detrimental, certainly doesn't help. And the PvP centric attitude encourages players to hide their belongings making classic town concepts impractical, dangerous, and high risk for the promise of absolutely zero reward. Lastly, box towns look like garbage and are a poor first impression on new players.

So I want to open the floor for discussion. How do we encourage building? What sort of rewards can we offer to incentivize and provide for the creation of sick ass builds that will draw players and make the server feel alive and stand out? Is that even something we want? I think it is. Please leave your thoughts below and lets work together to create something breathtaking and construct something worth building.

Very well said. I am 100% in agreement with your "but if I can set up an impenetrable bunker with 250c and a stack of cobblestone, I'd like to know what YOU consider Easycraft" argument. We haven't done a full scale evaluation of the current requirements but once we do I'd definitely like to increase the barrier to entry, but we'll have discussions about that as a team.

In terms of the main point of the post with the appearance of towns - first thoughts are to think back to what we did differently back in the day. The biggest thing is just the "culture" or mentality of the server and how much the players want to put into towns - but from a staff side we could have rules against box towns/roofs like we did in the old days - or maybe a different approach, we could reward towns by giving them some monetary credit for nice looking towns. Not really sure, just some initial thoughts.
 

werwew19

Coder
Balance Team
Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Apr 10, 2012
Location
United States
This is a great post detailing a lot of the issues I think have become strikingly apparent. I think some building rules for mayors would be the minimum we could do however I think we are missing a greater solution that would fix a lot of the prevalent issues with townships and how people play with townships nowadays.

As a PvP focused player I am not quite sure what the bigger picture to encourage a lot of the vibrant towns again, I think the community did drive most of it, outside of the building rules there was kind of an unwritten set of guidelines every mayor followed back in the day to make the towns in the format they were.

I am sure a lot of the veterans would be totally on board with avoiding box towns, however when a new player joins the server just like it was mentioned in the post. If they bring their friends and make a town just because of how minecraft plays a lot of them will make a vault or a box town because that's how a majority of them build bases on faction servers and other pvp enabled servers.

I also think Airbus brought up a good point, there may be players joining the server that need protection but might not necessarily want to join a town immediately. There really is no way for them to build a protected region for themselves personally right now which would be very discouraging if I were to join herocraft today and be unable to join a town immediately or simply wanting to play by myself for a time period.
 

Plagiarizing

Stone
Joined
Aug 19, 2021
Location
United States
I think if solo play / small group play gets easier and if there were incentives to achieve certain goals players would have more fun. Maybe having a town of the month sort of event where players could get something out of doing it. People do need the incentive to want to do things or else some people aren't going to just do it. But in terms of raising requirements I think this would banish a lot of the smaller groups and id hate to see HC turn into massive zergs because truthfully that ruins balancing and potential for people to want to strive on another class ig what im trying to mention is be creative. We were talking about hero stronghold earlier it was a take on factions / towny where in order to have a town you needed requirements such as a townhall, 3 huts etc. and in order to make a townhall the town hall had requirements, 160 wood, 60 cobblestone, 30 wool etc. you get the idea. Some people would just dig a hole and place random blocks to meet the requirements but most people would actually build the townhall and such.
 

dils1

Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 19, 2011
Location
New Zealand
Preface -
I come from an age of Herocraft that is ancient history to many of you. Herocraft has changed significantly since I joined and its taken a long time for me to be ok with that. For a long time I wanted it to go back to the 'good ol' days' where pvp was shunned, cities were huge, and the politics were many. I don't think that way anymore. This is important because I want you to understand that my opinions and thoughts about Herocraft have changed greatly over my time here but despite those changes and that personal growth one prevailing thought has stuck with me, one that I can't let go of. One that I hope to talk to you about in this thread.

Towns Look Like Shit

Allow me to explain:
Towns used to be huge. Giant glowstone rings in the sky marked the floor to ceiling region in which you could build. People built structures, farms, town halls, and more - citizens were given plots to populate the streets and make the city look alive. Cities were restricted in style - nothing could be floating unless it looked like it was supposed to be flying, town's couldn't have roofs or be giant boxes, and these rules made things look cool as hell.

Much of it is gone now, but the old graveyard section of the forums used to have loads of cities with photos that blew modern towns out of the water. They were proper cities built to look cool and serve a purpose. This enhanced each city and area giving towns and kingdoms a unique feel, elevating them beyond just a collection of buildings stuck somewhere on the map. Walls and houses often had style limits enforced by mayors, which meant the Kingdom of the Rising Sun looked and felt like a feudal Japanese city while the town of Seagate was more akin to a tropical paradise on a distant island.

The Problem
Minecraft has little reason to build. The only reason you're going to build a house is because you want to. A cave in the side of a hill serves the same survival purpose as a grand mansion: Its shelter from monsters. Minecraft's core gameplay loop reflects this - it gets dark and monsters come out. In order to beat back the night you must mine for gear, make torches and armor and either fight or bring light to the darkness. As long as you have a place to store your things, aesthetics are secondary. The creative drive to build something that looks nice has to come from within.

Box Towns
At the time of writing we're in beta so its no surprise that people don't want to invest themselves in something that will be destroyed within a month. This I have no qualms with. However let me pose a question:

Are you going to build something more than a safe chest room on release?

The Townships plugin has no restrictions on roofs, and the heroes plugin makes walls hilariously easy to circumnavigate. Combine that with exploits, griefing, and planned betrayals and you will be actively punished for allowing your houses and towns to out in the open. The solution to this? Make a box with an airlock and dig down. Suddenly you have your own impenetrable vault that's only weakness is user error. And now that you have the most secure possible system in place to protect your items what is there to do? Level up and...

Kill Everything and Everyone
Its no secret that Herocraft is PvP centered. It almost always has been. Players historically have been bloodthirsty and brutal, sometimes extending to cruel and evil. Where some players looked for sport and to best other in a contest of skill for hard earned loot, others looked to dominate and rule simply spreading their dominion to all they came across. Spawn camping, toxic banter, and other downright abusive tactics were employed against any and all; even people who wanted no part in it.

I think a lot of this was propagated by the 'Hardcore Attitude' of the server, encouraging a dog-eat-dog style of play where you always have to look out for number 1. I'm not saying PvP is bad, but to a player who just wants to play the game and build something entirely by their own merit, having a screaming prepubescent teen chase you with a sword is not a great experience.

And do you know what happens to people when they're thrown into an unfamiliar PvP system that requires macros to function and they have a 13 year old screaming in OffTopic to get good as they get slain for the 10th time? They go elsewhere. I don't have the metrics but I watched a LOT of players leave the server because it simply wasn't fun to die and have your progress wiped over and over again when there was another server just a webpage away that wasn't going to have these problems.

Growing Up
The average age of the server was most likely a huge factor in this, but times have changed and I think so have we. We've alienated a lot people, but I also think we've retained a lot too. And Minecraft doesn't have a small player base, so active players aren't going to be hard to find. Not as easy to find in 2011, mind you, but I don't think they need to be. I personally have been focused on fostering the community and welcoming new players because we need them if we want Herocraft to be the best it can be. I've seen some incredible growth from players that I didn't think could change, and in turn this has changed me and the way I think about this game.

So what does this all mean? And how has talking about box towns turned into me rambling about PvP and alienating the player base?

Some of you can probably see where I'm going with this, but...

You Never Get a Second First Impression
If we want players to wonder out of spawn for the first time and fall in love with Herocraft, a strewn collection of cobblestone boxes serving as personal regions isn't going to help. At all. In the before times we used to have bedrock vaults for donors of a certain tier with a free teleport so you could afk in peace and safely store your items. The current system that we have right now is almost exactly the same, you just have to grind out 25c a day for it to stay up.
No one is going to come to Herocraft Remastered excited about all the square shapes they can see dotting the landscape in a game that is quite literally made out of boxes.

For years I've heard people tell me that this isn't Easycraft, but if I can set up an impenetrable bunker with 250c and a stack of cobblestone, I'd like to know what YOU consider Easycraft. And for the record, I don't think Easycraft is a bad thing, but that's a whole different discussion about difficulties and the experience that the server looks to provide.

TL;DR: My point is:

Herocraft Actively Discourages Building and Punishes Anything that Isn't a Box Town
As previously mentioned Minecraft's core gameplay loop doesn't even encourage building, all you need is a cave in the side of a wall and you're set as long as it can hold your things. The hardcore attitude of the server tends to drive players away, which while not detrimental, certainly doesn't help. And the PvP centric attitude encourages players to hide their belongings making classic town concepts impractical, dangerous, and high risk for the promise of absolutely zero reward. Lastly, box towns look like garbage and are a poor first impression on new players.

So I want to open the floor for discussion. How do we encourage building? What sort of rewards can we offer to incentivize and provide for the creation of sick ass builds that will draw players and make the server feel alive and stand out? Is that even something we want? I think it is. Please leave your thoughts below and lets work together to create something breathtaking and construct something worth building.

Very good write up, the Herocraft of old was a different place. 10 years is a long time and things are bound to change. We've all grown up since then and feel like I'm less of a immature trash talker and just wanting the thrill of a game back that dominated my childhood

Unbelievably I also I started playing during that golden era of Zeal where the towns throughout the map were like stepping into a new world, especially to a 14 year old kid who hadn't played open world sandbox games before. I guess now 10 years on and slightly wiser I can look back and try decipher why the game was so fun to play and you never 'got bored'

A lot of what you've brought up leads into other areas of the server, and the flow on effects of people not building 'proper towns' has had an effect over the years which I believe has led to player decline and the state of play 'going stale' however alot of this is a consequence of many changes in the core mechanics of Minecraft, but are also due to changes in Township creation, heroes, and general server politics and other core aspects, as well as people just growing up and moving on.

I'll go into the aspects that Minecraft itself has changed, which have slowly led to discouraging the building style of play:

- It is far easier to get around the map than it used to be.
The introduction things such as sprinting, speed potions/effects, have changed how easy it is to get from one side of the map to the other. If you wanted to go raid someone on the other side of the map, it was a pretty big task.

This meant that people were less afraid to be out on the open and build their towns, because if someone wanted to raid you they would have to put alot of effort into it. It essentially made everyone far more isolated from eachother, which made the world feel much larger and it was'a journey' to go and raid someone 2000 blocks away. The map used to be 1500x1500 at one point and it felt huge.

-Enchantments
I believe enchantments are another of the main factors for the play style of play changing from above ground 'cities' to people being able to house most of their stuff underground, as back in the day the process of digging out areas underground was huge and was not practical, meaning players had to build their stuff on the surface. Enchantments have made 'undercities' far more appealing, as you can protect yourself with a simple airlock in your town and be free to do what you like.

Now for the changes within the rules and plugins on Herocraft and how they've discouraged building.

- The rules and requirements of creating a town
As Stronghold has mentioned, back in the day you had to have a 'town hall' built and visually approved by an admin before you created your town. The townhall essentially forced players to have a central, above ground structure in their town, which essentially provided the foundation of your town and a starting point for carrying on building around it. The town hall was also a No PVP area, which would probably be hated by the players of today but it provided a central safe point, and provided a reward for building something nice. People didn't have to lock themselves away to be safe, and there were rules in place to discourage PVP hopping and abuse.

The requirements were also a bit more steep, and meant you had something to work toward and play for, which encouraged trading and working together.

- The players
Back in the day, there were multiple groups who all had prominent leadership from veteran players and all were striving to 'build a kingdom' and it was essentially the main goal and the endgame. Stemming from that there would be alliances and wars, which made for more provoking gameplay. Perhaps in the maps in the years past when I originally quit in 2014 there has been some of this, but I am just recalling the old maps before then.

-The server was more 'Minecraft with Heroes on the side'
The classes of old never really had truckloads of skills, and the class you played was really just an extra with some cool skills that you can have and use while you play Minecraft
This meant that there was less of a focus on 'grinding' through your class and mastering it, and meant that you had to find other ways to fill your time, such as mining for your town, building for your town to get that next upgrade, etc. The goals were alot different.

There were server roads which led out from spawn in each direction, railroads, etc. I believe an idea with merit is at the start of the map awarding actual contracts to people to build these roads, payable in coin is an idea to encourage the economy.

-LWC's
LWC's were more of a luxury back in the day, there was a limit on how many you had, and were expensive to buy (500c I think?) which meant more banding together, spending your valuables on Town upgrades etc rather than stockpiling. Now that the Legacy donation ranks no longer apply I feel like this is an opportunity to take LWC's back to a state similar to this, being an expensive luxury that you had to work toward. Nowadays I can have multiple LWC's and stockpile everything, which discourages trade and makes for stale play.

@Plagiarizing in your other posted you mentioned LWC's and made some good points so I'll tag you in

-Herogates
Herogates make it too easy to get around the map, they either need to have a decent cost or not exist at all

-Spawnplots
Expensive spawnplots in small quantities were also a good way of stimulating the economy and gave Solo players something to work toward. They were built in cool places throughout the spawn, and were a good side option for players who didn't want to go the route of Towns. Some of the latter maps were over saturated in spawn plots, that were too easy to come by and weren't a luxury to race towards



Going back to the original point, the lack of people having something to work towards (Towns, cities, kingdoms) has left a gap in there being a common goal and a target to work towards, which means all people have to do is:

- Level their classes,
- PvP
- Repetitive things such as arenas, mob arenas etc
- Rant in O chat
- Care less about the game and exploit

Whereas if creating proper townships becomes the norm again, it means:

-People will have to split their time between leveling their classes and grinding the requirements for upgrading their towns, which means people will take longer to level their classes, and play for longer
- Pvp will become more more rewarding and the environments will change. People have more to lose with their building materials, and everyone will agree that raiding a spread out town with lots of differing terrain is more exciting than standing outside someones box that hides their underground, waiting for them to come out.
- Arenas will still have their place but can be less of a 'go to' to fill in time when you're bored
-People will have something to keep them on the server and be proud of, rather than running out of things to do within 2 weeks. Reborn is an example of where people ran out of things to do far too quickly and eventually just quit.

TLDR

The encouragement of building towns is a good idea to bring back to encourage and stimulate the economy, a way to stop play from getting stale so quickly and people quitting, as well as providing an end goal for people to strive toward. It will make people powering through leveling the classes less attractive and make for longer maps with much more exciting play and player retention.
 

Alator

Ancient Soul
Moderator
Legacy Supporter 7
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Jan 17, 2011
Way, way back in the day players could get access to a secured location that you could only warp to with a password. Storing your valuables there meant that it wasn't a big deal if your town got raided, and as mentioned before, we had very strict building rules.

Also, building towns with a prime time server population of 120 is a very different experience than a server pop of 30-50. Players are able to not just build towns, but town-sponsored road systems, rail systems, events, and more. All of this combined makes a world feel alive.

I think enforced building rules are the way to go. it was very mod-heavy tactic, but it prevented the 0-to sky-walls and made towns worth visiting (and raiding!). In combination with other comments above about spawn plots and such, we can have towns again (and raid them, too).
 

Plagiarizing

Stone
Joined
Aug 19, 2021
Location
United States
Very good write up, the Herocraft of old was a different place. 10 years is a long time and things are bound to change. We've all grown up since then and feel like I'm less of a immature trash talker and just wanting the thrill of a game back that dominated my childhood

Unbelievably I also I started playing during that golden era of Zeal where the towns throughout the map were like stepping into a new world, especially to a 14 year old kid who hadn't played open world sandbox games before. I guess now 10 years on and slightly wiser I can look back and try decipher why the game was so fun to play and you never 'got bored'

A lot of what you've brought up leads into other areas of the server, and the flow on effects of people not building 'proper towns' has had an effect over the years which I believe has led to player decline and the state of play 'going stale' however alot of this is a consequence of many changes in the core mechanics of Minecraft, but are also due to changes in Township creation, heroes, and general server politics and other core aspects, as well as people just growing up and moving on.

I'll go into the aspects that Minecraft itself has changed, which have slowly led to discouraging the building style of play:

- It is far easier to get around the map than it used to be.
The introduction things such as sprinting, speed potions/effects, have changed how easy it is to get from one side of the map to the other. If you wanted to go raid someone on the other side of the map, it was a pretty big task.

This meant that people were less afraid to be out on the open and build their towns, because if someone wanted to raid you they would have to put alot of effort into it. It essentially made everyone far more isolated from eachother, which made the world feel much larger and it was'a journey' to go and raid someone 2000 blocks away. The map used to be 1500x1500 at one point and it felt huge.

-Enchantments
I believe enchantments are another of the main factors for the play style of play changing from above ground 'cities' to people being able to house most of their stuff underground, as back in the day the process of digging out areas underground was huge and was not practical, meaning players had to build their stuff on the surface. Enchantments have made 'undercities' far more appealing, as you can protect yourself with a simple airlock in your town and be free to do what you like.

Now for the changes within the rules and plugins on Herocraft and how they've discouraged building.

- The rules and requirements of creating a town
As Stronghold has mentioned, back in the day you had to have a 'town hall' built and visually approved by an admin before you created your town. The townhall essentially forced players to have a central, above ground structure in their town, which essentially provided the foundation of your town and a starting point for carrying on building around it. The town hall was also a No PVP area, which would probably be hated by the players of today but it provided a central safe point, and provided a reward for building something nice. People didn't have to lock themselves away to be safe, and there were rules in place to discourage PVP hopping and abuse.

The requirements were also a bit more steep, and meant you had something to work toward and play for, which encouraged trading and working together.

- The players
Back in the day, there were multiple groups who all had prominent leadership from veteran players and all were striving to 'build a kingdom' and it was essentially the main goal and the endgame. Stemming from that there would be alliances and wars, which made for more provoking gameplay. Perhaps in the maps in the years past when I originally quit in 2014 there has been some of this, but I am just recalling the old maps before then.

-The server was more 'Minecraft with Heroes on the side'
The classes of old never really had truckloads of skills, and the class you played was really just an extra with some cool skills that you can have and use while you play Minecraft
This meant that there was less of a focus on 'grinding' through your class and mastering it, and meant that you had to find other ways to fill your time, such as mining for your town, building for your town to get that next upgrade, etc. The goals were alot different.

There were server roads which led out from spawn in each direction, railroads, etc. I believe an idea with merit is at the start of the map awarding actual contracts to people to build these roads, payable in coin is an idea to encourage the economy.

-LWC's
LWC's were more of a luxury back in the day, there was a limit on how many you had, and were expensive to buy (500c I think?) which meant more banding together, spending your valuables on Town upgrades etc rather than stockpiling. Now that the Legacy donation ranks no longer apply I feel like this is an opportunity to take LWC's back to a state similar to this, being an expensive luxury that you had to work toward. Nowadays I can have multiple LWC's and stockpile everything, which discourages trade and makes for stale play.

@Plagiarizing in your other posted you mentioned LWC's and made some good points so I'll tag you in

-Herogates
Herogates make it too easy to get around the map, they either need to have a decent cost or not exist at all

-Spawnplots
Expensive spawnplots in small quantities were also a good way of stimulating the economy and gave Solo players something to work toward. They were built in cool places throughout the spawn, and were a good side option for players who didn't want to go the route of Towns. Some of the latter maps were over saturated in spawn plots, that were too easy to come by and weren't a luxury to race towards



Going back to the original point, the lack of people having something to work towards (Towns, cities, kingdoms) has left a gap in there being a common goal and a target to work towards, which means all people have to do is:

- Level their classes,
- PvP
- Repetitive things such as arenas, mob arenas etc
- Rant in O chat
- Care less about the game and exploit

Whereas if creating proper townships becomes the norm again, it means:

-People will have to split their time between leveling their classes and grinding the requirements for upgrading their towns, which means people will take longer to level their classes, and play for longer
- Pvp will become more more rewarding and the environments will change. People have more to lose with their building materials, and everyone will agree that raiding a spread out town with lots of differing terrain is more exciting than standing outside someones box that hides their underground, waiting for them to come out.
- Arenas will still have their place but can be less of a 'go to' to fill in time when you're bored
-People will have something to keep them on the server and be proud of, rather than running out of things to do within 2 weeks. Reborn is an example of where people ran out of things to do far too quickly and eventually just quit.

TLDR

The encouragement of building towns is a good idea to bring back to encourage and stimulate the economy, a way to stop play from getting stale so quickly and people quitting, as well as providing an end goal for people to strive toward. It will make people powering through leveling the classes less attractive and make for longer maps with much more exciting play and player retention.


I like this well-made post man. I don't understand the enchantments part but I think enchantments add fun to the server along with the chance of getting higher tier loot in PVP, could just be my opinion though!! I do like the post none the less.
 

dils1

Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 19, 2011
Location
New Zealand
I like this well-made post man. I don't understand the enchantments part but I think enchantments add fun to the server along with the chance of getting higher tier loot in PVP, could just be my opinion though!! I do like the post none the less.

Thank you

But yeah I am not hating on enchantments, was sort of trying to relate how they've contributed to changing the style of play from what Stronghold was talking about
 

Plagiarizing

Stone
Joined
Aug 19, 2021
Location
United States
Yeah i think the overrall conclusion comes down to incentivizing things that people want to see, i think making rules would work aswell, however people are still going to want incentives to wanting to make a town and be a mayor and have a great town. Most people aren't all that into building anymore especially if they don't plan to invest a lot of time on that server. That could be an incentive in its self making the end game flow of the game better I'm sure people would be more inclined to want to stay and be more inclined to want to build something great.
 

strongholdx

Moderator
Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Mar 4, 2011
Location
Earth
I think a staff driven system is probably the key here. The promise of bypassing systems in place is going to be key to incentivize competition in the building space of Herocraft. For example (and these numbers are for the sake of example), your town makes a really neat build so this week staff grants everyone in that town a 20% EXP boost, or 50% less taxes, or lowered requirements to get to the next township tier. This boost would absolutely be temporary but would make the act of completing the build worth it.
Building has to have a practical benefit inside the systems already in place.

On a side note I think I'm going to be making this a series where I write up a few posts about a number of topics on my mind. They all involve Herocraft at large, the direction and nature of its community, as well as what we can do as the community to better enhance the experience for all. I think its all meaningful discussion that might spark some great ideas.
 

Delta788

Staff member
Community Manager
Administrator
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Joined
Aug 10, 2011
I really would like to bring back the townhall rule, and then honestly I don't have an issue with doing a competition for "Best Looking town this season" where staff vote on them with some kind of reward for all players in said town. The days of requiring a town hall did force people to build up their towns around it. We can revisit the building rules as a community if this is something that the core set of players would be interested in doing... I myself only really played back in the day to build the massive towns.
 

Jrr_

Architect
Balance Team
Adventure Team
Legacy Supporter 3
Joined
Oct 27, 2012
Location
Straya
Enable schematica / auto build mod.

I think we allowed it on reborn, enabled Freepers and my town to build a little easier.
 

strongholdx

Moderator
Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Mar 4, 2011
Location
Earth
Enable schematica / auto build mod.

I think we allowed it on reborn, enabled Freepers and my town to build a little easier.
Herocraft loves its hardcore tag, and this sure sounds like the Easycraft everyone tells me that Herocraft isn't.
I don't think making building easier is going to incentivize it. Sure it will make it more practical to make large builds, but I think that's circumnavigating the problem. I think Schematica might not be bad, but I cant think of a reason auto-build should be allowed.
 

werwew19

Coder
Balance Team
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Apr 10, 2012
Location
United States
Herocraft loves its hardcore tag, and this sure sounds like the Easycraft everyone tells me that Herocraft isn't.
I don't think making building easier is going to incentivize it. Sure it will make it more practical to make large builds, but I think that's circumnavigating the problem. I think Schematica might not be bad, but I cant think of a reason auto-build should be allowed.
Yeah i get that, I don't think there's any issue with schematica though if people want assistance building with a schematic template if it means they're going to make a nicer looking town I am for that. I was told the autobuild feature is no longer supported and there's only a forked version of schematica that has the grid where it shows you where to place blocks but you have to place them yourself.
 

strongholdx

Moderator
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Joined
Mar 4, 2011
Location
Earth
In hindsight, that's a solid argument. Being able to visualize your build probably shouldn't be a crime.
 

Jrr_

Architect
Balance Team
Adventure Team
Legacy Supporter 3
Joined
Oct 27, 2012
Location
Straya
In hindsight, that's a solid argument. Being able to visualize your build probably shouldn't be a crime.
You can do this already anyway - been able to for a long time actually. I don't think you can disable it serverside. You could however, disable the auto-build feature.
 

dils1

Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 19, 2011
Location
New Zealand
Schematica/autobuild gets a no from me

It's a reason that Reborn went so stale because it was so easy to auto build the towns and then once it was built there was no reason to log in
 

Delta788

Staff member
Community Manager
Administrator
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Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Autobuild will never be allowed, but I could see us letting schematica for viewing purposes only being allowed, but ultimately it would be @Kainzo decision.
 
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