Community, what do we want?

Discussion in 'Community Discussion' started by samsimx, Jul 18, 2016.

  1. Hello EMCers!

    As of returning to EMC after a few months of no gameplay here due to struggles with school and work, I return. :p I've been sort of active checking forums and claiming promos, but I haven't done anything with the community in what feels like ages. Interacting with the community will and always be my favorite thing about this server.

    But as of late I have seen tempers flare, people being condescending to others, and overall people just not treating each other in the best way. I've said this before in different ways in the past but my main message in this post is that if we, the community, want something changed, added or would like to voice our opinion we need to do it in a tame, mature manner.

    The staff and administration are more than happy to listen to what any of us have to say, Krysyy is one of my favorite people to talk to (even for real life advice :p) because she genuinely wants to help people.

    I think that through a mature discussion on topics, features, and suggestions for what we want to see in the future of EMC we can get our ideas across in a refined way that will hopefully represent a majority on EMC.

    A few topics that I have seen people complain or disagree with and my personal opinion:
    • New Player Treatment: I personally think that new players are given a lot to succeed and not much has to be done with them. My only point on this is that I think that we should welcome every new player and answer any questions they have. All of you that spend the majority of your time just running around your residence when on EMC saying you have nothing to do, I suggest you go on the default server (in server list under community tab) and welcome new players and help them with anything they need!
    • New Features / Development: With EMC updating to 1.9 we saw one of the best things, an influx in players and a surge to the economy with all the new items. I personally think that Aikar and especially Chickeneer have stepped up their game to interact more with the community and replying to people's qualms and giving detailed explanations on anything confusing. The only thing I'd like to see some discussion on is the Games Server. Last summer I was really hyped seeing the work that was done on it and would just like an update on how that progress is going. :p
    • Frontier Players: It seems like nowadays there aren't many dedicated frontier players as there used to be, and I think these players will get some love when Empires comes out, but I feel like us Frontier players could use some QoL changes. I'd like to hear your opinions on some of the additions wild players could receive besides what we already know are in the works which includes anti-grief and claiming land in the wild. My only suggestion on this one is possibly allowing access to /mail in the wild? I don't know if we can still limit it to only diamond supporters like /mail originally said due to the EULA, but maybe we can get an update on this as well? :p
    So with this I'd like the community to reply. What do you want to see on EMC? If you could please reply in a similar fashion to mine, outlined / bulleted lists that voice your ideas in a mature way.
    I'd like to see if we could revise and help each other format our ideas, especially for people like me who aren't the strongest writers but have a lot of messages to convey. :p
  2. First of all my hats off to you dear sir :)

    You said you were away a bit? I do admit that I haven't seen you in-game (reminds me to double check if we're friends or not; if we're not friends in-game then I obviously can't talk to you right now :D). Ok, lame pun ;)

    I've always had a very mixed feeling about this. Fact of the matter is that I see a lot of players disappear into the Frontier, only to end up logging off. Next I also see plenty of new players come online, say a few words and then also disappear.

    Here's the thing which I got reminded about last night: quantity does not make quality. If you get 20 new players then it's a little off to expect that you'll be pleasing all those 20 players. Most of all: not everyone is the same. Some will take their time to check the tutorial, others will go "meh" and dive right in. Yesterday SMP2 had a new player, I even jokingly introduced him to Toade when he dropped by.

    Here's the thing: it honestly surprised me how quickly he picked up the pace, and from what I can tell mostly on his own. Sure he had a few questions for us, which we helped him with. But when Aya suddenly tells me "oh, hes in waste maybe I should tell him about outposts" and a few moments later: "he thanked me 4 help", then yeah: that player obviously already found out about private messaging.

    (and he also made it back to town, having a great time overall as far as I can tell).

    Agreed. But something is definitely brewing. Last time someone had a suggestion about the Firefloor arena to which Socks said that it was planned for the games server and he already or nearly finished the code. Lessee...

    Here you go: https://empireminecraft.com/threads/firefloor.66470/#post-1206867

    So maybe we'd better not get an update. Can you imagine the surprise if suddenly the portals start working without anyone realizing it? That would be so funny :D

    But yeah, I agree that it would be nice to know more about it. But on the other hand I also really like the suspense a bit :)
    Yeah well, people are still passionate about the Frontier and I like that. Even up to a point where we're discussing how we can somehow manage a more global repair around the outposts:

    https://empireminecraft.com/threads/abandoned-or-half-destroyed-structures-not-in-use.65725/

    Frontier is a special place which has less perks so obviously it attracts a specific set of players. But I agree, it could use a few more enhancements. But obviously also without overdoing it ;) A mail command is cool and all, but it would also allow farmers to send back tons of material without ease and without risk.

    SO I'm also hoping for something to balance all that out. Maybe something in the likes of "Frontier supportership" where you can buy / activate certain features for your outpost but only running for a specified amount of time? And of course: all paid for using Tokens and not rupees ;)

    Truth be told I don't play enough in the frontier to really form an opinion here.

    But ok, I want to throw in a wee bit of a controversial topic:

    Removing item repair cap?

    Right now item repair is capped at 39. This means that if you really, really, really want to keep that special item then you can. At the cost of 39 XP levels max. No matter how much it was repaired already.

    Wouldn't it be fair for Aikar to finally remove this? (I know he wants to, or at least he mentioned something like that in the past)? I mean, now that we have mending which will only cost you approx. 500 - 700r (and some XP levels to apply it) you can actually repair your items while gaining XP.

    Aya demonstrated this to me time & time again that even after a massive fight (=heavily damaged armor) she'd be up & fixed in no time after mining plenty of "xp ores" (coal, lapis, redstone, diamonds, emeralds, nether quartz...).

    SO.... wouldn't it be fair to get rid of this?
    Patr1cV, 607, Nickblockmaster and 4 others like this.
  3. Very nice post sam. :)

    I'll edit in my list later when I am at my computer. I can't make a nice list on my phone.
  4. I def agree with the quality > quantity aspect, but the best way to fish out these quality players is to help them and acclimate them towards what we're all about on the server, community.

    Just speaking of memory when a certain player joined, I remember seeing detailed posts and the ability to dive right in. :rolleyes:

    This is one of the weirder discussions that mending brings to the table. Mending is probably one of the best features added to the game in quite some time as it massively reduces the time spend grinding XP to repair items and having to use diamonds to repair your tools. In singleplayer / vanilla this is balanced out by it being hard to get until "late game", but on EMC we bypass this through our economy system.

    But I do have to agree with you there, level cap / anvil costs should be looked at by the devs!

    And although I appreciate the likes from you guys as it shows support, I would appreciate your replies even more. :p
  5. True, but that is indeed something only the community as a whole can do.

    I hop servers (lately not as much as I want to, also because of time / projects) but I can honestly say that I've seen plenty of players get welcomed on SMP2 (duh), SMP1, SMP5 and SMP9. Something is working. Only Utopia is a place for concern, no one welcomes any new players there, guess they're all too busy being supportive :D (lame pun ;)).

    What a strange character that was ;)

    Anyway, I'm also anxious to see what other players got to share.

    One thing though: keep in mind that something is brewing right now. We might see changes in some area soonish (or after 6 months Aikar time of course :p) so that might be good to keep in mind.
  6. Heh, I am totally with you on all the details listed above! When a player joins the server other players should welcome that player to let them feel like they are at a place where they can interact with other people that are just like them! They shouldn't join the server and say hey anyone on? They should be greeted with all arms and feel warm and welcomed!

    Some small things I would love to see in emc is just the derelict system to be modified, I ran around town on my horse for a hour to see how many people were derelict and omg... Tbh it was like the whole smp was... There was people that haven't played in over 2 years and there res was still there.. What I am suggesting is that after 30 days you can claim that res by doing /res forceclaim ( which I know you already can ) but after 90 days it will delete the res. This way when players do /res open there are more spots for them to have a res on that smp. As some of you know if you do /res forceclaim it cost you 5k! A lot of players don't have that type of money and they might really want that res cause it's by their friend or what not.

    That's what I would like to see in emc! Thanks for the thread!
    JesusPower2, 607, khixan and 2 others like this.
  7. Some residences are broken in the code. Can you please send me these res numbers when you have a chance?
    607 and ShelLuser like this.
  8. Yes, would you like it in a pm? And i'm logging in right now.
    607 likes this.
  9. Big suggestion threads are fun. Here are some ideas I have so far:
    • More staff run events at consistent times. Player run events are cool but they tend to struggle with the normal player restrictions. For example, Firefloor being run by normal players tends to be a mess with massive wait times between rounds. Mob arena is impossible because of spawning, Spleef is a huge safety hazard giving out those permissions, that punching thing someone did once is impossible, the list can go on and on. It would be nice to have some more events like these that sit somewhere between automated and player run.
    • Maybe allowing more devs to work on stuff? I understand that the EMC code is probably something Aikar doesn't want to just open up to everyone, but given that many new things are put on back burners for years, it might be good to get a few more experienced people working on the server. I imagine there are people here who would be willing to work as volunteers or employees.
    • Having an economy recent activity list and an everything else recent activity list on the front page. I remember this came up a long time ago and probably won't happen for a long time because of xenforo but it would still be cool. (also, didn't we have a dedicated web developer a while ago. I think it was Just_five_fun but I could be mistaken).
    607 likes this.
    • Definitely working on that. Hoping to get some more staff involved to help spread things out more. Games server will open up a wide range of this as well where events can go much more easily. Simon and Socks are working together on this, but we had a small hiccup due to a 1.9 change that we're sorting out.
    • Developers are trusted with things far greater than a moderator. It's great when people want to help out, but they also have to be trustworthy people in order to see the code in full. Quality over quantity in that regard because if we have to worry about leaks, or if Aikar has to constantly re-code what is submitted, it's a waste of time. We've spoke about this recently when Aikar was in Texas.
    • This is something that has a lot to do with a recent suggestion put forth. While in Texas, Aikar and I worked through why this didn't work last time in xenforo set-up. He's got an idea of how to make it work and is working with someone he knows irl (that's who you are remembering) to hopefully make this happen quickly along with seeing what it would take to really get xenforo upgraded, which would open up a plethora of other options available to us. Other code, such as anti-griefing, takes priority.
    607, jkrmnj and ShelLuser like this.
  10. oh oh oh i love guessing games! is it that guy....uhhh hamtaro? hamachi? something with an h
    found it! hatorijr!!!
    ShelLuser, 607 and khixan like this.
  11. Krysyy already answered you with most of what I would have replied with, but one point I'd like to address. :p

    It could be just me but I feel like we need a "revamp" of our events. We have so many events now that I feel like some of them lost their luster. I would like to see maybe a switchup of some sort between the events run by senior staff. Krysyy does a good job with her Wacky Wednesdays,a rotation of events that changes weekly.

    But maybe Chin(or another senior staff) could do 2 firefloors / 2 creature captures a month or something of the sort. I just feel like events get stale quickly no matter how fun they are, mixing them up would add a good balance to not burn out the event. :)
    ShelLuser, 607 and Nickblockmaster like this.
  12. Hi Sam... nice to meet you. Got your head recently :)

    Nice post. I am new... so anything I say need to be with that in mind.

    Shel... new players get a lot sure... but cannot compete quickly in the economy, and some new members are welcomed and helped... others not.
    I think a welcome group could help this somehow and have thought about it as a project.

    Small players also can get very frustrated. Low variety of goods menas no traffic. No customers. No sales. Fustration may be the biggest part of member loss here.

    Im not trying to take away from the big players... but help and community may be a key need here. Not only making people welcome... but helping them get or feel involved. I am here to play on a server in order to play mc with the added angle of human interaction. Makes it more interesting. Not everyone is able to make that step of interacting without help though... an invitarion... or open event.
    Chat would be a big part of that.

    In the frontier I am new... just beginming to formulate ideas... but it appears this is a great draw for many... group activity. But it is impossible to allow newcomers in without risk... so whio does it?
    Thats one reason I voted for this as Aikars priority. The sooner owners have security... the sooner newcomers can be let in as trial members...

    On events I had a thout Kryssy... I know there are costs... but whar about an event sever? If access to coding etc is an issue would it not be possible to have wider access on a sigle server? Not everyone wants to host these types of events so I dont think it would be overwhelmed... and events are making this a real community. I have felt Much more involved with all your recent events... and spreading sone of this work to the comunity itself will in the end aid you and Aikar (lime a kind of delegation)

    On cel... so end of chat for now... or you may all heckle me line you do Shel .... :)
    ShelLuser, samsimx and 607 like this.
  13. Dragon Tombs
    ShelLuser, khixan and Nickblockmaster like this.
  14. Giant Bees. The community wants large amounts of large bees.
    bitemenow15, ShelLuser and khixan like this.
  15. I honestly think that non-supporters should be able to use Town (T) chat from the Waste/Wild worlds. Everyone else can already, and people forget that regular members can't hear them when they use Town chat. They say hi, you don't respond, they don't realize you can't hear them, they get offended. Being a regular member now, I realize just how much better it was to always be able to use it. It's grim out there now; I don't like being out of Town anymore.

    New players who jump straight to the Waste/Wild are cut off right away from anyone who could give them help/advice.

    Players in general have to give up community interaction if they want to go mining, hunting, etc.

    The reason Town chat was restricted in the Waste/Wild in the first place, as far as I can tell, was "because it adds to the going-out-on-an-adventure feeling to the game". Frankly, though, it could just be an option set in Player Settings (supporter or not), and everyone would win.

    Could go back to calling it Global (G) chat, as well; why not?
  16. Shell, I think the repair cap at 39 is good for newer or younger players. They usually don't have the resources in their first month or three (or more) to get mending on all their gear. I think having the cap keeps some of them from quitting out of sheer frustration. It's also why we've built a bunch of public grinders, and the requests for more XP grinders is always there. Having good gear lets players do more fun things outside of town, and helps them get resources if they want to start a shop or do a build.

    Speaking of newer players, the one thing I'd like to see is them to succeed more often. EMC has TONS of features, and trying to teach it all in the tutorial isn't even close to possible. The in-game book guide helps, but really, only the wiki covers everything extensively. Not all players use or even ever look at the forums though, and they're missing out on a lot. An in game information center maybe?

    Common things I've seen crop up with newer players -
    Shops
    Shops are probably the major source of frustration I see for the younger or newer players. I think there was a whole thread talking about the +shop and +mall tags being next to worthless. Finding out where you can buy stuff can be challenging, especially when looking for something specific.
    On the flip side, many new players don't know what to sell, how much to charge (heck, I can't figure that out half the time myself), or how to get rupees. Again and again, I've seen players try to start a whole mall with a "sell everything" strategy that fails every time. Yes, I know I'm smp8 and we're biased against malls in the first place, but really, when you're first starting out, I think the best bet is to pick one thing (or type of thing) and always be in stock. Learn how to advertise effectively. Then the shop can grow to include more products as it becomes successful and the player learns how to keep it stocked, how to advertise it, etc.

    Voting
    I just had someone ask me tonight in all seriousness if he had to pay to vote. --facepalm-- We also recently had an in town conversation regarding voting, how to vote, voting rewards, etc. It's like some of the newer folks, or just younger ones, don't even realize voting exists or the benefits from voting. I clearly recall I didn't know anything about voting for about the first month after I joined EMC. Voting benefits both the player and EMC itself. Get the word out :)

    Griefing
    If you didn't build it, do not touch it. Don't try to improve it. Don't try to "fix" something because you might not understand it. If you break something by accident, put it back exactly how you found it, contact the owner if you know who it is, or leave a sign apologizing and offering to fix it - "Creeper accident, contact me pls khixan". Just because it's in the waste does NOT mean it regenerates/resets. For example, the roads the players put in on the wastes don't magically regenerate the next day. One of us went out and repaired it. I think this really needs to be hammered home in the tutorial. I'm also praying for the grief protection code to get released :)
  17. Ha, it's great to see a post from you!
    Some very good points too, and with a very good attitude to go with it!


    Yeah, this is something I'd like.
    Sometimes I'd have it off, as occasionally I just want to go into the Wild to mess around a bit and am not really talking.
    Lately more often though, I'm talking in smp8 town chat and then I need to get some resources. I like getting stuff myself and hardly ever buy from shops, so I'd like to go to the Wastelands to mine what I need. However, if I do that, I'll lose contact with the chat. Sure, I could use /tell or /group, but then I'm either only talking to one person or to a selected group, while I'd like to be able to keep talking to everyone, in chat.
    Uber_Corq, samsimx and khixan like this.
  18. What do we want? Lollies! What do WE want? LOLLIES
    khixan likes this.

  19. Glad to have the perspective of a newer player even if you're a bit established already! ;)

    Thanks for the detailed post even on mobile! I quoted this part in particular just because it is something that only us as a community can do to to help new players. I do like the idea of some sort of community welcoming group but not only should we be focusing on new players and helping them get started on EMC, we should focus on retaining players who are 10, 20, 30-50 days old so they keep going on the Empire and really get involved at an early time to get captured with what captured all of us.

    Thanks so much for bringing this up, I 100% agree. I remember one of the only reasons I first got diamond and then iron supporter was just for being able to /map hide and /c t while at my wild base. Being in the wild does take away from town interaction and now that EMC will be 5? years old next week I think a good change would be allowing all town chat from the wild.

    The argument could be brought up that some newer players or unexperienced players would use this as a way to spam "I'm lost pls help" or something of the sort, which I do agree would be annoying for town-based players, but I feel like with a set of rules for using chat in wild similar to our advertising rules in town chat would make the system tolerable to town players and beneficial to frontier players.

    I feel like this is where we have to let new players off the new player nest and let them start to figure out things on their own. This may feel contradictory to my other posts but hear me out. First, I don't think a player should be even opening a shop until they are somewhat established and know a good amount of the Empire, commands, wastes, etc. Part of the learning curve of EMC is in shops and knowing how the economy is constantly fluctuating and having to keep up with prices and the demand of the people. New players shouldn't know this, most old players don't even know this as you stated. :p I feel like we should get this message out to new players, something sort of like, "We have this amazing system that lets you buy and sell goods, but you should focus more on your gameplay and getting the needed resources and knowledge to really succeed in the system." This won't stop players from selling the normal wheat, melon, pumpkin, (insert early game item here) at their shop, but it will hopefully save some stress and give players more playtime and build up that leads to more things on EMC.

    I agree with the griefing part of your post, griefing is a no-no definitely. But pretty sure people who don't vote get spammed with in-game broadcasts to vote so it'd be hard for them not to know what voting is. :p

    Thanks for all the posts everybody! Really getting some good ideas so far. :)
    TomvanWijnen, Uber_Corq, 607 and 2 others like this.