The town is growing!

I'm in no way suggesting this for everyone and I am not suggesting that it be forever. You've already put a time limit on the discount. I am suggesting that you limit it to only those directly affected and remove the fee.

Judging by this thread there are only five or ten people that are likely to do this at most and it is likely they can afford to do it with or without help. Moving under normal circumstances is privilege so we should pay for it. In this case it seems like more of a punishment to those affected as they are having to pay the fee through no fault of their own other than wanting to keep the easthetics of their lot. It is your choice to either allow them to do it in a way that lets them feel good about it or not.

In my post I stated that I got all that and you know I've been around long enough to know it. I understand you probably used it as a way to explain it for other people, but you didn't have to say it twice.

The motivation to move in this case is different from the motivation in your example. If it were not, reducing the fee was unfair. By doing that you are acknowledging that you understand that this is different. All I am asking is that it be done in a way that doesn't leave hard feelings. C'mon Krysyy, you're moving them anyway. I know you got it in you

I know it's been voiced before by Pab10s, but why couldn't the moves be free for people who are affected by the change. A change could state:

Res-to-res Moves will be free until April 9, under the following circumstances:

• The player must have previously owned a corner or edge residence
• The player contacts senior staff prior to the expansion to reserve the residence.
• All normal limitations apply.

This would stop the "spam requests" seniors would get. It'd solve all the problems! From reading this thread, I've gathered that the problems associated with the expansion are:

• (1) People with corner residences want to stay on the corners
• (2) People on the edges want to stay on the edges
• (3) The people mentioned believe the Staff isn't being fair and respecting their wishes to stay on the edges.*
• (4) The 50k discount is a lot, but doesn't solve the problems mentioned above. It just cuts them down a bit.
• (5) The 50k discount can be used outside of its intended plan of compensation

Now I will solve the following problems using the method mentioned above:

• (1) Players will still be able to stay on the corners with no penalty to themselves
• (2) Players will still be able to stay on the edges with no penalty to themselves
• (3) The Staff will appear to listen and acknowledge their beliefs*
• (4) Free is better than 50k
• (5) This new method can only be used to help those angered or distressed about the expansion.

*Belief stated is not necessarily my own.
You (krysyy) also mentioned senior staff spam requests. Those may not happen because:

• The only moves being made for free are moves from corner-to-corner.
  • You won't be giving away free moves because they'd just be compensation.
• If someone does request a free move, it will only take a few moments to realize the false request.

If anyone can find any problems with this, please let me know. I'm not saying it's flaw-free, but in my opinion it's pretty good.

Unless you edited it, you posted the same thing twice, so I was poking you about it.

You are going to be bugged to do these things in the future no matter what you do in this situation. Being nice now isn't going to open up any floodgates that aren't already open, but it will make some sad people happy.

Can't wait till it is done cause i am totally gonna claim /v 5480.

Fair enough.

I'd like to offer a free move to anyone that is affected by this change. Here are my terms:

- You will contact me in a PM to let me know your lot number and server to accept my offer. Once I have verified your location, I will add Staff to the conversation to set up the move. You'll need to make sure to check the box that allows others to add more people to the conversation so I can add them when it is time. If approved, I will pay 50k Rupees to Staff to have your regular Residence moved or half the cost of a Utopia Residence move.
- You must already have an edge or corner residence and be moving to the same on one of the new plots once they are available.
- The offer is good until June 1st, or whenever the EMC move discount expires.
- I'll pay for one lot move per person. If I catch you trying to sneak an alt past me, I'll find out and I won't do a thing to help you. I will probably hold a grudge too so be nice and don't try it.
- I also reserve the right to not help anyone trying to use this offer to make trouble by doing something I haven't thought of yet. I'll know it when I see it. I also know most of you are better than that.
- I'm going to limit it to the first 96 people to contact me. I doubt if there are nearly that many who will accept, but Mathematics restricts me from offering more.

Reasonable questions. Polite replies to the staff when they answer. You sir are a valuable member of the community.

You rock man!

I know I'm a bit late on this one. But here I go anyway:

--- synopsis ---

So the long and short of it is, if you want the conveniences and safety of being in town, you give up control over many things. If you want the control of being in the frontier, you give up the conveniences and safety of being in town. This is inevitable. It's the way the world works, even offline.

Everything costs you one way or another. In town costs rupees. In the frontier costs time.

------ long meandering message follows -------

If I were to design a town from scratch where I could place any residence anywhere, I would start by placing random "hobbit holes" everywhere, but spaced out quite a lot with tons of "natural terrain" in between. Then I would make people go visit them individually before claiming. Nobody would be allowed to build structures I found offensive or an eyesore. Then I would... Hey wait I already did this...

It's called claiming a settlement in the frontier!
With my settlement I get to pick my neighbors (settlement members) much larger plots than 60x60. We get to actually MINE under our residences. We get to choose and change any aspect of the settlement that we want to. We are a microcosm of the town.

So why choose a town residence over/as well as a frontier settlement?
1) Town is safe. No hostile mobs.
2) Close to other people and shops. That means you will get new neighbors periodically, no matter where you are! This is just like in real life sometimes construction will happen where you don't want it to.
3) EMC staff maintains the landscape in town. You never have to get your hands dirty outside of your own plot. You can even be moved by paying a modest fee in rupees. No getting your hands dirty here either!
4) Other reasons that I've not mentioned which aren't important to me personally, but are to other readers of this post.

So why choose a frontier settlement over/as well as a town residence?
1) Hostile mob drops. You can't get these in town!
2) Close proximity mining, coupled with Iron, Gold, and XP Farms.
3) As the settlement owner you have the ultimate control over your domain, which is way larger than 60x60. You are king of this land, literally. You're also its maintainer.
4) Other reasons that I've not mentioned which aren't important to me personally, but are to other readers of this post.

As you can see there are things each has that the other does not. For me the biggest trade-offs are between control, and time spent maintaining things. As you cavort about in the frontier creepers will damage the landscape. If, like me, you hate creeper holes and have an endless ability to rant about the subject, you will spend a good amount of time fixing them. If you want to relocate your home, you will have to move everything yourself. If someone goes derelict you will have to manually remove the old property... assuming you want it gone. Of course with all of this work comes the XP, mob drops, farms ...etc. These are quite enjoyable to me, so I rather like the frontier.

I do, however, sometimes tire of the work involved. Those times are when I head to town where I don't have to worry about any of the work I just mentioned. I also don't get to decide anything about who my neighbors are, nor do I get to rework anything on their res, unless they specifically grant me the ability. With that said, I do get to set up a shop that can't be robbed. I get to teleport to other shops to sell and buy. I get to see tons of neat builds all very close to each other. I like doing all of that too. And to do that I'm willing to give up the control I have in the frontier.

And of course being part of a multi-person settlement means compromise. So unless it's a one person settlement there will be a give and take, even if you're its leader. If you show unfair treatment (either punative or by favoritism) you run the risk of offending members. The trick is trying to keep the most people, possible, happy.

Hey wait, that last part sounds very much like what Krysyy, Aikar, and various staff and moderators have been saying all along... It would seem by my description that running a settlement is almost a microcosm of running a town. And well, it is. With fewer people to please it's easier to reach consensus. So that alone makes it easier in many regards. And still, it's not trivial even when people are in agreement on most questions.

Yes, but it does not really matter, because especially at difficulty 1 it takes minimum of knowledge and effort to be almost as safe in the wild.

You're really much closer to other people in a frontier town, there is more interaction, more community. A frontier town is much more a town than just a grid of residences.

But shops!
That you can exchange stuff with others in a fast, convenient and cheap way is a huge thing. The restriction of shops to "town" only is constraining and braking development of EMC. I hope this will soon change.

Landscape? Where's landscape?
I see only trivial repetition in a grid.
This "town" is just a minimum effort town and a "don't trust others" town.
It's "grief free" with a constant grief because of lack of community.

Freedom!

But these are topics for other threads
(It's still good to mention this aspects here in this thread, to take a step back and look at the whole picture.)

Just saying quite late, that the corner res market went kablook far back. I remember bidding a dirt block in a residence chat auction and winning the very res you are on today, before I went derelict.

Start the discussion / call for comments early enough. This will reduce the stress for everyone and improve quality of decisions. IIUC, it is needed right now only for Utopia.

Yes! This is (IMO) a logical and a very good decision.

Who is against one green / park / landscape residence frame?
It would be size of just one residence. Who would feel separated by a nice park?
This "separation" would add value, not reduce. Those residences near the greenbelt would have more value, not less.
There is also no real separation when you use /v 12345 all the same from any point.
I'd call for vote here.

It's not about me directly. My 4 residences are next to each other within the smp6 town.

I just think that a nice greenbelt would add value to the town and so add value to EMC and the community. Just repeating a grid is boring and actually a bad "minimum effort" design, it's not pleasant. This was done in the history and so we live with it, but it doesn't mean that we have to continue it.

What upsets me is the late bringing up of the topic and the rush to a decision in less than 2 days.

If the town is about community, then the people actually using that town should have a vote and form it. Then it will be "their" town. Until then it is more just a grid of residences.

Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes. Should this have been discussed publicly, prior to the announcement? Absolutely. There's not much that can be done about that now, however. The decision was made in the first post - this was notification, not invitation for discourse. And as has already been noted, staff are making some concessions to those most heavily affected.

Now personally? I think it'd be nice to redesign town completely, get rid of the boring grids, add some landscape, set up an expandable numbering system that makes sense, and make Town worth exploring, rather than just /v'ing about. But that's a monstrous amount of work and would require breaking and gutting the whole system, plus who knows what kind of issues it would cause with existing residences.

So as it stands, we're left with the foundation that was given to us, and while it's not as pretty or as interesting as it could be, it's functional and proven to work. It'd be nice if folks could take a deep breath and a step back, gain a little perspective, and maybe even thank the staff for their work in helping the Empire grow a bit more... but then again, I guess that's asking too much.