No more resets?

(note: this is not about technical stuff)

There are two things about any reset: some people leave and the population dwindles, and some other people return and bring some activity to the server. Those who leave may check back later, but they will never see their old builds again, as those have been wiped out. Those who return will stay for few weeks before finding more fun elsewhere.


Over years, we learned that no matter what we do or build, it always gets deleted. We also learned that no matter how excited we are on a fresh new map, the excitement is gone after some time and only upkeep taxes remain until the next reset. And last but not least, resets are well known for their ability to spice up arguments and mess up with communities.

Brief reminder of resets and public response (note that this may be biased by my limited view):

December 2011
before the reset: "Do we lose our stuff? what will happen to our stuff?"
after the reset: "Bigger plots? Time to build bigger and better towns than ever before."

October 2012:
before the reset: "Wut, reset, why?"
after the reset "Why did we have to lose everything again?"

December 2014:
before the reset: "Yay, it was about time."
after the reset: "But so many memories gone."


At this point we know that any next reset will bring us few months of joy, fights and glory followed by few years of boring upkeep with occasional ranting about "we need more people on the server".

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But what if instead of wiping out old world we would just get a new one, and the economy would go on further with all Dei and items available? What if there would be two or more worlds running simultaneously, interconnected through economy and item exchange? Or heck, what if there would be an auction for one or few whole worlds, giving few superior individuals some superior powers? Would they even be able to handle such powers, including the ability to reset their world any time when they would feel the need?

 

Well just a knee jerk response, if i have this right, i am fairly certain i was mostly consistent in not wanting a reset at any point.

Having dabbled with multi world servers myself recently and using wormhole xtreme worlds and stargates i have had some very interesting results.

My only 2 questions are how many woulds can be supported and how large can they be?

In an ideal setting we would have the old maps available and we can expand onto new worlds, however there would come a point where we would exceed our capacity for worlds and have to start erasing the old ones.

Personally i love the idea of us all downloading our own towns into world files and exchanging them as a community. If you can run a multi world server such as i have managed then this can be really efficient for you and a few friends to visit much like a museum.

The last part of your post sounds similar to a skyblock system xD

 

Sounds like Inception.

 

Keeping a whole server up and an 8k wide map for the memories is a bit too much to ask, imo.

Something I wanted to do before the reset was to download some of my favorite builds and export them to a memorial map, like Heinz is doing, from what I get.

I couldn't find a working world downloader that didn't require forge and other things so I ditched it. However, I was playing with the idea of turning that into some sort of competition and, instead of saving random constructions I liked, I would only save 10 builds. 10 Wonders of the Deity World, or something less tacky.

Would that be good enough? If Yogs wanted to save Doha in its entirety to remember it, that would be a lot of work, but saving one or two of its most impressive builds would be much more feasible and I'd say more effective.
It could also become a flattery to have your build remembered as one if the wonders of the previous map and could be a real incentive for players to build something nice in the main server - because since creative was implemented and Great Constructions removed, the server gives no incentives for players to do that.

 

Precisely my friend, i am in the same boat as you now though, it was working fine for pre 1.8 maps, but now i need forge or liteloader or whatever and i have tried several different ways with current versions of world downloader but i am no expert and i am clearly doing something wrong, either way i cannot currently download any chunks.

However i dont mind at all, if Deity should decide on a reset it wont be an issue if he is willing to share the map before it gets deleted.

But i do believe resets are no longer required unless we have a multitude of towns occupying space on the map, basically restricting build room, which wont happen for a long time at the current rate.

Sorry barry let me know if i am being technical xD

 

Why is this an issue? The current world has not reached the density required for a reset. Think of the 2014 reset. When it happened the world was filled with towns, and the towns were so huge that some of them (like Doha) were collapsing under their own size. This map is no where near to that level, partly because of the server population falling. I don't think that this server with its small population will ever reach the level of development needed for another reset.

 

Yeah i feel the exact same, but i don't feel thats the entire point of Barry's post, seems like he is suggesting something else like private worlds.

 

Heinz, i agree - your recent action (e.g. starting a private server with "nostalgia maps" and exchanging the stuff with others) just proves your consistent attitude of "no resets please"

However, the effort to bring memories back on completely different place means that the original place loses people. Not your fault though - if the original place with new world would be exciting enough, people would have no need to feed the hunger for nostalgia elsewhere. If the original place would be able to keep old stuff for memories, players would have less needs to look for them elsewhere.

Time to get more technical..

Driver, i am quite sure that data storage (generally cheap $/MB) or bandwidth (depends on online player limit) is not an issue for "another world". I also believe that it is possible to run multiple worlds under the same server to lower the CPU use.

Your idea of saving just top builds reminds me what MrGhoster did for Josh - and yes, such things are definitely worth doing to keep these exceptional builders happy, but we also need "average" players to see and admire these builds and to fuel the economy, and if such players lose everything, they usually quit. Or maybe we can become a true elite server with only advanced veterans playing for themselves (which already happened, just silently) and then we need no resets at all and we can rather improve our money-milking tricks on continuously dwindling playerbase.

Lego, there were vast areas of completely empty, virgin land, as you can see on old Cartography map vol.II. Collapsing towns are fault of their mayors/staff/residents, do not try to blame the map for that. Also, unlike the 2011 and 2012 resets, there was no need to reset the map for misalignment of town plot grids, and the map could be used for 1.8 update rather easily if we would get over the fact that expanding the map or fixing broken chunks would be hardly possible.

There were two reasons to reset the map in 2014. New 1.7 biomes and the ability to fix/regenerate/expand the map with continuous terrain. These reasons may be valid again in the future, but if we would have multiple worlds, we wouldn't need to reset all of them at once.

 

Haha, no need to bring up MBs and money figures into it. My words might have made it sound that way, but I wasn't thinking about that at all.

That escalated quickly lol

I see what you mean though and what I did there. My main mindset there was "more effective" rather than "too much to ask". Saving the whole map, with all the empty wilderness, abandoned dead towns and hundreds of plots owned by one time players, seemed unnecessary and exaggerated to me at first. Not because it would make the server lag or whatever, just from a logical standpoint.

After some thought though it is obvious that a town assistant would probably feel happier strolling through his old neighborhood as it was, than seeing something built by his town's top builders. That said, keeping the entire map would be the way to go.

I'm not sure about making both maps economically connected though. The reset of economy and towns serve as an equalizer that brings all players back together for a fresh start (I know, donors and all, but I mean this for the average player). Many do take the first week to gather resources and restart their 2.0 towns and others take that as a chance to try new things without having to formally quit their previous towns and friends. I probably wouldn't have left Veligrad to join Amityville if it wasn't for the reset, and I believe you wouldn't have shut down Veligrad to start your secluded small outpost (which is slowly becoming a real village lol).

Having both worlds connected like that would keep people connected and all the bonds from the previous map, the only novelty brought by it would be more area to build - which was never what driven us to a reset. The question that rises from this - and which would be answered then, would be: "Would we need a reset at all?" (What I find quite interesting tbh)

 

On a separate note, there are ways we can solve this particular issue that could help the new players. I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to participate (donations) and help coordinate a player-made event, much like the Doha Skyscraper contest we've got going now, but on a little larger and more regular scale. More events like these, perhaps some based on skill and others based on luck, might just catch the eye of some new players and give them reason to stay . So the people with too much money get to use some of it for the good of the server, and for the joy of giving (especially if you help coordinate!), and the new players have a shot at some money or other prizes! Win win! Sorry for the tangent, but it did branch from your words .

 

Moji, i tried. See how many people participated the first month. Actually, i tried before as well and even inspired others, but it was really long time ago. Honestly, i rather help with "i want a dog" than with big-scale events.
Speaking about the Doha Skyscraper Buildoff, who won? Is it tuesday 16th already? I should probably ask there.

Driver, good point about Veligrad. (Let this go to public, your anniversary post made me realise what i created and then killed.) You also know that there was another Veligrad on the same map, we had kind of the "town reset" in the middle between two world resets and i just failed to give the old town away. That "town reset" was necessary because other towns grew around us and that can happen again, even on current empty map - good places are hard to find with so many biome combinations, so the "more area to build" is quite a good reason to expand or reset the map again.

But maybe instead of expanding, which may become technically impossible, or deleting one world and creating new one, we can get "more area to build" by creating a new world without deleting the old one.

Let me advertise. There already is a true elite server with only advanced veterans playing for themselves. No Moji, not one of those that we have been to in early 2013 when you still were a member of Veligrad This server is different because its official language is Czech and because it has whitelist (for those who don't know, whitelist is an application form you have to fill in to beg to get accepted before you can even connect). There is also more focus on building and less on economy, there are no games, pvp or creative. They are not enslaved by economy or taxes, their grief protection is whitelist and rollbacks.
On the other hand, this server is also quite similar to ImDeity by the size of playerbase (20-ish or 30-ish at most, some times of the day dead empty) and the fact that "golden ages" are over.

Why do i mention it? They had a map reset recently in March 2012. Yes. 2012. This is their map:

The size is 22000x22000 blocks, more than comparable to our 2013/2014 map.

Some parts in detail? Sure.





Of course, the map is old, the newest biome there is a jungle biome. But would you throw away such map?

They didn't. Instead, there is a new world from 2015, with new biomes:

The size is "just" 8000x8000 blocks, and still quite empty after few months.

Some parts in detail? Sure, just don't be surprised by sparsely scattered buildings.




Oh, and they use Terrain Control too, but more customised.

Note how the mesa is different from vanilla MC and note the giant redwood tree - custom generated object (few others are around the map).

I haven't been there since i started first Veligrad and got more involved in other things here, but sometimes i check the map just for inspiration. They keep the old world just because... the new one will never be that good.

Sadly, the same applies for us. Is that a good reason to keep old stuff?

 

Hey Barry, just regarding maps in general, in my history here i have never once looked at the imdeity map and said "thats a pretty world" I always thought it was a hideous mess.

But if i look at a map of the globe, i think "wow thats beautiful"

Its just because on a globe there are continents and oceans, but on this server its a complete mess in my eyes. I hate the terrain and lack of ocean. xD I really wished we could have a world that felt like a globe, with climate zones instead of a hash of different biomes on top of each other.

 

I agree, oceans would be a great addition, imagine having a town all on a single island. Perfect griefer protection xD.

 

The great thing about islands is you have so many options for how to cross them, build a bridge, build a tunnel, maybe put rails on the bridge or tunnels too.

Being able to make a town as a seaside resort would be epic, you can have hotels and casino's and then a theme park and everything else you would expect at such a resort.
Which reminds me that i still want to download the seaside resort Team Sass made for a build off.

 

That sounds so awesome. (Also testing if the quote works.)

 

Speaking from experience it's really not

 

Guys, we are slipping off the main topic.

Lego, the island is perfect protection only if you can claim the whole island with town plots, and if you can do this on an island, you can do it in the middle of the continent as well. Oceans/shores are harder to protect than continents, because on the continent you can expect some general routes of exploring noobs/griefers and you can guide them with roads, but if they make a boat, they can quickly sail anywhere.

Heinz, i like the idea of climate zones, but so far i still haven't found a Holy Grail of biome placement. Vanilla MC as well as Terrain Control can put similar biomes together, thats a step in right direction, but it still doesn't prevent having a ice/snow biome next to desert/jungle biome. And small-ish oceans on the current map are result of avoiding the tricky landmass/sea coverage setting in Terrain Control (the 1% difference between 100% land and 99% land is no ocean or too much ocean coupled with maybe very uneven landmass distribution). It would need to generate many worlds to find the suitable one - just ask Vershye about his experience with recent pvp world reset.

Let's rather go back on topic:

Even if we find this Holy Grail and make the world pleasing our eyes, it cannot happen without a map reset - or without creating another world. Do we want or need it?
And if we create a new world, can we protect our carefully created wilderness from being slowly griefed?

 

That's what I had in mind when I wrote my poet's last paragraph. If we keep both maps, and allow them to have connected economies, that would divide the community as some would decide not to move on to the new map. If only a few people move to the new map, less people will find it attractive and will stay in the old map with their friends and neighbors. Which is why I've questioned if, in that scenario, we would need a reset at all.

I'm in for keeping the old map, personally, but if we have a map reset, for whatever reasons, the economies and inventories shouldn't be connected. Make it so that everyone that visits the old map is turned to Adventure Mode, where you can interact with doors and such, but cannot place or break blocks. That way players can walk around, the map would be 100% preserved, but the actual gameplay would happen in the new map.

 

I mentioned in another thread some time back that I really like exploring and randomly encountering some old build that has historical significance to the people of that server. Just to throw my simple opinion in there, that stuff is cool. If you were to do a 10-wonders-of-the-world kind of thing - my advice is to spread them out across the map and invite exploration.

Also I think continents would be cool, although not sure how to generate a world like that.

 

I really think we need to look at this through a beginner's mind. Why do people join the server? Why do they stay? Is it a community problem or a world problem?

I don't presume to know the answer, but my best guess is that community integration = retention. We have young folks, old folks, active folks, quiet folks, builders of buildings and builders of community. It does seem that if you're not on teamspeak or IRL buddies it can be a challenge to integrate with the community. Private islands, worlds, retreats can really alienate new folks, who end up essentially shouting into the void when they join the server. I'd personally prefer a smaller /main, with bigger individual plots based around smaller towns of like-minded / like-demographic builders that works with the canvas of the land (and not the creating the vast flat tracts of land in /main that now duplicate the look of /creative). I really love Doha (all three Deity worlds I've played on - cheers Yogs!), but all I see now are vast sub-communities of prebuilt houses or spaces that don't add anything to a sense of community - essentially urban sprawl. Same with many other towns.

I LOVE the idea of a map reset - it keeps me fresh and keeps pushing me to do better, more exciting things. I've invested time in builds (and heaven knows how much time in digging freaking holes in the ground) but I'm happy to start again with a blank canvas because I am not resting on my laurels.

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling. I think my main point is that community retention and the map are so closely interrelated that the Admins need to take it into consideration when (hopefully) resetting the map.