Somerset ~ Of Simpler Times

Somerset is lonely these days.

 

Indeed

 

I'm moving somewhere with better net this week, so I should be able to get on again soon.

 

First, let me begin by formally thanking Scoutly for the promotion to town staff. I will continue working to keep Somerset bright.

I was a captive audience at work today so I did some brainstorming and finally listed on a paper all the things I thought it would be cool to work on in town. I'll go ahead and post it so the rest of the town members can comment on it. Some of the ideas are not originally mine, but made it onto my list anyway.

• prefab one plot houses (two kinds: primarily wood one stories, and primarily stone two stories). I can build a bunch of these in one day, so not a big deal. I was thinking to group them like neighborhoods.
• prefab two plot hobbit hole neighborhood? I really like the hobbit hole next to my tower, although I'm not sure it meshes well. Maybe in the mountains across the river would be a better place? I'm planning to redecorate my flat stone plot and make it a bit more... common medieval and less cathedral courtyard... so maybe after that there won't be such a disparity.
• "town bank" or "church", maybe even a tavern -- basically some kind of visitor/new resident center, a little ways away from spawn, that would present free low-end items and more detailed information in a thorough fashion. Right now we have a single chest half-buried in the grass on the east side of spawn. XD
• minigames - I played an archery game some time ago that I absolutely adored, and so I'd like to set up an archery range. I could wire it to automatically dispense prizes - or possibly set off fireworks - when you hit certain targets.
• geocaching - this might be more of a server-wide thing, but like I said earlier I was brainstorming.
• mob grinders - the plains north of spawn are inundated with passive mobs most of the time, but a convenient location to spawn and safely hunt creepers in particular would be nice. I was thinking about cleaning up that awesome cave complex under the jungle island to the southwest... or building a dedicated spawn location that would flush all mobs into a killbox for even easier and pain-free hunting. Maybe we could even do both, use the jungle island for more exciting "Hunts" and perhaps attach a redstone-enabled mob trap to a staff location. (Speaking of staff locations, I was playing with the fish grinder, and I think it might be broken? The door kept opening, but I don't know where the fish went )

These things might encourage new residents, but are essentially just beautifications. An important note is that I'm not planning to claim any plots until someone expresses interest in joining Somerset, and I don't think that any associated costs of any building I do would be enough to trouble the town budget with, since I have a policy of only building if it is of interest to me (basically I request payment proportional to how bored I get).

Also, I mentioned to Scouty in chat yesterday that next month, when I move to Hawaii, I will start a new phase at work -- and I'm not sure how my time schedule will be changed due to that. That makes me extremely leery of inviting new players to Somerset, given that the recent flux has been of relatively new minecraft players who are still learning many things, and may require significant hand-holding longer than I can guarantee to provide it.

Were there to be new residents, however, I am also leery of leaving chests of materials open in the wilderness. Some appear to belong - or have belonged - to valued players in our town, and although value of contents is low, I think removing temptation to break server policy would be the best action to support newer players (reference the broken window effect, if you're curious). Basically I'm proposing to move the chests to a safe, non-visible location and label them with information like original location and owner (if known) and date moved, if it is not preferred to just absorb the materials into the town's collection.

After some consideration, I decided to make my alt a noble, so that I can get access to logblocking if I need it - and to satisfy my curiousity.

EDITS: added tavern to possibilities for newbie center; automated fireworks require dispensers, but they can still be given as prizes; I totally spelled that name right the first time...

 

Congrats on Promotion!

 

I'll be glad to get a alt for this town

 

I shot some footage of Somerset using my new computer. It makes me think we should change the name to "Somerset - The Glittering Hamlet" or some such frippery.



EDIT: Whups, need to do it again. My settings weren't COMPLETELY maxed out.