Anti-Griefing Update! 8/15/16

mmm, sorry if my question sounds dumb as wood, but I laid sandstone blocks in the Nether (in Frontier) before the update. Those are listed as "uncommon", so they shouldn't be editable by another player by default. Yet they are. Why is this so? Did I miss anything? Are the default rules different in the Nether?

Note that the same blocks that I placed in the Frontier "normal" world are indeed protected. And if I destroy a sandstone block I previously laid in the Nether, then replace it, it is then properly protected.

Again, sorry if I'm totally stupid, but there is obviously something I didn't get with it.

I think you're severely overlooking the /editmode option here, at least that's the impression your comments give me. Because after you enable /editmode then every block you place gets locked. Including trivial blocks such as regular stone blocks like andesite or diorite (not the polished ones!).

Of course I agree that if you have a building already then you need to take effort to further secure it. Sure. But how is that a bad thing? I really can't follow the logic where you deem that the staff now puts all the burden on us. All they did was introduce a new way to protect our buildings, and obviously its up to us to start using it (or not).

I could agree with that argument if staff would now start saying that "unless you make sure to use /editmode you can no longer report a griefing because you could have protected your buildings". And that's exactly the thing they're not doing.

But that argument could probably go on forever.

What would you have see them change? Which aspect of this system irks you right now?

mmm, nevermind. I may have misread, and believed polished sandstone was listed as "uncommon", but it doesn't seem so. I was pretty sure it was at first, but ah well, that would explain (Strange that the stairs are in the list, but not the polished blocks for example, no?).

Which means I'll have to request protection for most of the outpost, since 95% of it is built out of "common" blocks...

You beat me to it It only lists the stairs variant, not the regular sandstone blocks.

Just to be sure: you can also protect the whole thing yourself if you want to, by replacing all the blocks while you have /buildmode turned on. With buildmode on it doesn't matter what kind of block you're placing, even the common ones will be protected.

Ok, but let's be realistic. It took me more than a year to build everything I did. I just simply cannot dismantle everything and rebuild it block by block. Not everybody has a team of a dozen mates to perform such a task.

/buildmode is definitely fine for *new* builds. But for existing ones, it is of little use, except for very small ones.

WOOT WOOT!!

I'm mainly just talking about already-built structures. That was a huge reason why people asked for anti-grief in the first place, wasn't it? They had all kinds of structures they wanted to become protected.

Having us dig up and replace all the common blocks, or having us pay rupees as the only other option, is putting the burden on us. Our common blocks used to be protected in the sense that no one knew which ones they were, and they'd get banned breaking uncommon blocks if they tried to find out. Now our common blocks are not protected at all unless we do the above. It's not a case of "same as before vs. something better"; the "same as before" option is gone.

But if you don't use it (for future builds, let's say), then you will have a hard time reporting a griefing, because there might not be any evidence under the new system. The only stuff that would be griefed isn't logged.

I guess since the list is already out there, I'd suggest that attempted griefing be logged. Then those griefers who are just breaking stuff at random to see what they can break would still leave a footprint in the logs. So when your common blocks are missing, the staff will see that someone tried to break a bunch of the uncommon blocks in the same spot.

Mmm. Another question. My outpost has several structures that are clearly separated geographically. This made sense as a basic protection against griefing and stealing, as griefers wouldn't travel between all those and would likely 'miss' part of those.

Now, the rules for requesting a protection to be applied on common block say that you can only ask a limited amount of times, and only for 'visible structures'. What would I need to do? Should I ask protection for the whole area and let staff decide what are the relevant structures? Do I need to have to ask each building separately - but in that case, how to protect more than 5 distinct structures? Also, what about closely connected, yet separate, buildings - do I need to ask for each one separately, or should I ask for both in the same area?

Actually, that's more than a single question, it seems

....*weeps tears of joy*

I wanted to post this earlier, but I kept forgetting.

Thank you Aikar, dev team, and staff for this amazing update. It will make building in the frontier much less stressful knowing I can protect my builds.

Woo! Time to get back to the wild and finish all those farms I gave up on long ago

I like the feature in the chat. You get a chat warning that a player ( you see the name) is trying to break a block and it even gives you the exact coords of the very block in which they are trying to break. It also then gives you an option to vouch for them if that is desired.

Well done Dev team, well done. I am very impressed with this whole new update and all the new ways it lets you be safe from grief.

We started building in the Frontier knowing that it wasn't protected, but that land protection might come some day. I also know of plenty of players who chose not to build yet because of the then lacking protection.

Maybe I'm too biased, quite possible, but I can't really see it this way. To me, putting the burden on us players would be more in the likes of "you can use /buildmode now, happy rebuilding!" and no SS service what so ever.

Of course that comes from someone who just spend 3 - 4 hours rebuilding an entire railroad

I can agree that we need to take action, and stuff isn't automated. I just can't see this as something negative. We started without protection, now protection got introduced, so obviously we need to take some action ourselves as well.

I think you're looking waaay too deep into this.

I've seen way too much griefing aftermath to my liking through GRIP, and I'm somewhat convinced you have had your share of that also. What I've came across with just doesn't match all this. When I look at GRIP storage then I see an excess of common blocks. Sure, this was before the 'revelation' but even so: it does give a good indication of how common griefers operate.

Now, obviously you cannot rule out directed attacks against players, where people would try to abuse all this. But honestly... If you reached that level then surely you'll agree that something else is going on entirely.. That's really beyond your common griefing, and I'm pretty sure that players most likely got a good hunch where it's all coming from.

You make it sound as if there's a griefing army just waiting to abuse all this, and that's something I can't really imagine that way.

Also....

All of this assumes that we know all the details. For all I know staff has more options for logging and backtracking but simply prefers not to talk about that. Not saying that this is so: but us normal players can't rule it out either.

Why not worry about this after the facts? Better yet: let the staff worry about it as soon as there's something to worry about?

Just my 2 cents of course

Aikar said: "Blocks placed after May 1st, 2014 will have protection built in if the block is on the following list."
So my blocks on my outpost which is being built this year will be protected? (if listed)

Much better: be sure to use /buildmode on before you start building. When that mode is active then every block you place (list or no list) will be protected. Protected from any outsiders, people on your friends list can still edit / build.

I've built a few things out at my outposts all 6 of them but never an serious projects. For some reason I have a hard time staying in one spot and always needing to stretch out and explore.
So now with /buildmode I might break that habit and finally build a full scale village or town at a single location.

Something like this already exists: residence groups.

You can create a residence group using /res gadd <groupname> <playername>. Then on your access sign simply use #groupname. So, say I have a group called 'shoped' ("shop editors") and add my friends LBoss & Aya to them, then I'd use: /res gadd shoped ayanamikun,lboss9001.

Then to give the entire group access to my chest: 'access' on the first line, '#shoped' on the second.

See the wiki page for more specific details, you can even hand out permissions based on residence groups:
https://empireminecraft.com/wiki/residence-groups/

Hope this helps, and if something is still unclear here please be sure to let me know!