[Concept] Professions

[diage]

Right, so I plan on creating a very fancy professions plugin. Inside of this plugin will be two types of professions - Military and Civilian.

So first and foremost.. EVERYTHING is still on the table. Do not assume anything (including what I've already said) is how it must be.

My current plan is that you may have 1 military profession and perhaps 2 civilian professions. But, before I get into that, I need to get the controversial stuff out of the way.

When we walk the world of minecraft, we have at our hands a multitude of options. Limited only by our own creativity. This is a strong point of minecraft as a game, however it is a weakpoint for any thing that wishes to create a truly interactive community and full fledged game. So, I need to place limits on people to force a required interaction. As of right now, the limits I hope to place are significant to say the least. By the end of it all, in order to get a single object from the ground to production will take a multitude of people working together. To form a town takes an intimate network of people working together. A war is a complicated flow of several different types of combat. No one thing is dependent upon a single person and as you form your connections and grow, the combined effort of everyone is greater than the cumulative abilities of all the individuals. That is my goal.

So, the Question here is what sort of professions would you guys like to see? I will be updating this in a couple of hours (around 6pm est 2/13) with a list of professions I already intend to implement as well as go a little deeper into just how professions will work in the grand scheme of everything.

[diage]

Alright, now to add the further discussion. First, let's discuss why limiting is important.

The primary reason that limiting a player is important is because we wish to force people to play together. Let's be honest, hours upon hours of your time playing minecraft was spent walking around in circles talking to people. To me, Minecraft is the quintessential idea of a social game. You log on, chit chat a bit, play around, get involved in the lore and log off. My profession idea is in hopes to push that concept to an extreme.

There are obvious risks in this concept, but to me the risks are well worth it. Every other minecraft server has tried to separate people into professions with either no limitations or minimal limitations and it doesn't provide a very interesting concept in the end and doesn't truly add anything. I want to push through the friction and lead us into territory others are too afraid to venture into. With the potential publicity we receive and a couple of defensive ideas, the idea should stick and catch on.

So, here it is. As you walk into the game, you choose from a multitude of industries. At this point, you have not picked your actual profession, simply an industry (this is for you civilian professions only, military is sort of similar but obviously not industries). The point here is to not penalize someone for an early decision and this stage should be easy to sort of push far into. You can choose to level and industry you wish at any time, but you may only level one at a time. At some point, you level it high enough to actually step into a profession. There will be a small list of starting professions to choose from and as you level up the will diversify further. Once you choose a profession, there will be a couple of ways to level it. Either you can level it actively, by engaging in the activity itself, or participate in it passively by purchasing a skill book and you will slowly gain experience up to the maximum of the book.

The problems this provides is obviously it adds some complications to the game. But the cost of these complications is a remarkably high skill cap increase (which is desirable.) I plan on making one profession (which is a highly profitable one mind you) is the professor profession. It would be some derivative of a scribe type or a scholar or something to that extent. Anyhow, this profession would mainly gain experience by helping people when they log in and taking them as their disciples of sort. The way they make money is that they are the source of training books (with the collaboration of a trained specialist of course.) This would help to reduce the learning curve coming into the game.

The advantages on the other hand, is that people would be drawn together. Not only that, but you play the game, PRODUCTIVELY, in the same way you play any other minecraft server while not being productive. You are, in some sense, benefited by just running around in circles.

So now for the part where the pitchforks come in.

I want to limit who can build, who can mine, where you can have towns, who owns land, how resources are distributed, who can produce goods. These would be diversified into specialized industries and then further down into specialized professions and etc.

[CandleD]

I am going to come right out and say that we do NOT want to excessively limit what players can do. Allowing only certain people to do things like enchant, brew, etc is alright, but Minecraft is all about building and mining. EVERYONE will be allowed to do those.

[diage]

Seems like it would be useless to try to convince you. Judging by the all caps.

If you were capable of trusting me however, our goal is to not make a minecraft adjustment, but an entire experience layered on top of minecraft. There is clearly a risk, but lets be honest, most people don't join to do nothing but build stuff. They look to achieve some goal they hold in their mind, that is the creativity. All of those goals are still possible,it is just a different avenue one must take to follow it. Don't let some preconceived notion rule your opinion on the matter.

[CandleD]

Alright. Tell me when you have the full concept lined up and let me take a look. I trust you on that.

[diage]

Well, I put this up in the hopes people would put forth ideas. With those, I can refine and design a stronger more cohesive concept. I have a lot of my own ideas already set up, but I would love to see what others might have an idea for.

[simplesonnet]

Oohhh diage I do love this idea. It sticks to the whole roleplay aspect very well, in real life we are not going around doing EVERYTHING so i do think this could be interesting. I also think it could be a nice way to keep peoples towns etc... alive, people will have a profession and they'll do their best by that profession.

However, one thing that worries me. grabs pitchfork

"I want to limit who can build, who can mine, where you can have towns, who owns land, how resources are distributed, who can produce goods. These would be diversified into specialized industries and then further down into specialized professions and etc. "

If i read that right....Ok, i don't like the idea of limiting a player to only be able to do certain things within their profession. I for one like to dabble in a bit of everything, however a compromise could be having a profession you excel in and not been able to skill up (get a high level?) in the other professions. So we could have a farmer who likes to grab their pitchfork once in a while and wack an enemy around the head? ok cool :P

I'm probably getting the wrong idea, but heres suggestions.... =/

Farmer Miner Hunter Forager
Miner Woodcutter Herbalist

Teacher Mage Healer Architect Designer (interiors) Baker Storage Forger Astrologer

Scout Thief Spy Assassin

..... yeah i cant really think of pvp classes.

[CandleD]

Not a bad list, Sonnet, but what would they do? When you first start off in new server, you don't want to be limited in your food and basic material gathering abilities. So, perhaps: 1.Farmer-Gets higher number of crops can be harvested from one, bone meal works faster for them (next update) 2.Miner-Has the ability to do one or several of the following: Quicker digging speed, change to obtain extra minerals or some other unique digging skill 3.Hunter-Non-hostile mob's drop rate is greater 4.Forager-I don't suggest this one, as it likely will not be used often if at all if we have herbalist, too. (Unless you had an idea for it) 5.Woodcutter-Faster tree cutting ability and higher drop rate for plants. 6.Herbalist-Ability to use shears on vines, grass, bushes, and ferns. 7.Teacher-Having one of these in town or in a party slightly increases EXP gain rate 8.Mage-Can enchant or if enchanting is a common skill, can do high level enchants 9.Healer-I think this would be more of a skill tree thing, personally. 10.Architect-I think we can skip this one. 11.Designer-No idea what this would do.... Sonnet? 12.Baker-Everyone should be able to make bread, but we could limit cake and cookies to this prof. 13.Storage-I am not big on this one. 14.Forger-I am really not big on this one. 15.What would this one do? Like Sonnet, I am in the dark with PVP, so I don't know what the last 4 would do. And there is what I think. Thoughts?

[CandleD]

So, in short, unless you have good ideas for the others, I like: Miner, Farmer, Hunter, Woodcutter, Herbalist, Teacher, Mage, and you could probably talk me into baker.

[godleydemon]

I did just want to throw my two cents into here, I'm extremely against limiting the player ability to build things. I can see people logging in, not being able to build, spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to build and leave soon after because they'd have to have a certain profession to build. I'm against basically limiting the players in the way that its been described to me.

And yes, I've had a long argument with Diage on this that we never really finished as I had to go to bed with Sheena. But yeah. That's my two cents and I don't want to go into it more because it will just get me frustrated again.

[CandleD]

A valid point. Our target audience is 12-16 (If I had to guess the average player age). They will not understand why they cannot build and will leave quickly.

[godleydemon]

I think a better way professions can add things to the game, encouraging community interaction and so on is to use, for example the Bakery concept.

Player picks Baker as a profession. He's able to make 3 types of different breads that give various stats to a player, ie longer hunger times (takes longer to get hungry), strength bread, ect. These things can be sold or consumed by other players, but other players without the bakery profession can't make it. This adds specialty items to the game that players can make and sell with there various professions. Miners could make miners helmets that create a low light, allowing players to basically have a small light radius.

Things like this is going to add different aspects to the game and allow the players to have specific businesses tailored to there specific professions. This will also encourage community interaction and push the economy forward.

[diage]

That's not really that valid of a point... This was a topic me and him discussed and he sort of just threw in his bias =P So, I suppose that means I must throw in a counter bias. Our target audience is not necessarily 12-16, and even if it was, 12-16 year olds are consistently more competent at games as time goes forward. The primary audience we will pull in (particularly at the start) will be those who watch you-tubers. This audience tends to be a little bit more informed and more capable.

Second, think about all the times you've played minecraft. People claim, o minecraft is about mining and building. But how much of that time have you actually spent mining and building? A large majority of it was spent running in circles socializing and scheming about what you'll do once your base of operations is all done. But then, no body ever finishes anything because doing nothing but building and mining gets dull fast.

Instead, imagine a world you walk in and are greeted by information. The hardest part, admittedly, will be a learning curve. But I have techniques conceptualized to help ease that. It's a foolish thing to say, "Instead of taking a tiny risk and pushing the envelope, we would rather just be like everyone else." There is a risk here, yes. But the reward is far greater than the risk. To attempt to compare them is ridiculous. And stuntman, you're fiscal minded, if the idea of risk and reward doesn't appeal to you, then I know you're just being stubborn.

I walk into a game and I see players greet me and fight to get me to be their disciple. They scream to me because in doing so, they are benefited. They teach me how to wander the world, explore, and build. As I grow into it all, I have tried my hand at several things and discovered my passion. I have fallen into a community and am working my way up the social ladder. As I work and play, I find myself buying houses created by more and more famous people. Slowly, pushing my way forward in a world that looks as if every town was made for a purpose. The terrain, still wild, grand and vast. Every aspect of the game, created by the players. The economy, ran by the players. The lore, written by the players. The classes, made by the players. This is a game layered on top of a sandbox. This is NOT minecraft, this is something else entirely, using minecraft as the game engine. This is an opportunity. Just because we are timid and confused by what we think minecraft is, don't let that timid response be the death of something that has the potential to be revolutionary....

Please :)

[diage]

Oh, and sonnet, thank you, that sort of response is exactly why I posted this :)

My first thing is to get industries out of the way. I would like to figure out which industries people can spec into and from that expand into generalized professions and then into specific professions.

But yes, some compromise might be to discover some way to let people swap professions. Although, I don't want that to be terribly easy, but giving them the option to know it's not the end of the world if they choose wrong would be nice.

I think a definite purchase to do a secure change, but something that wouldn't require money in order to swap to another profession and some associated cost to go a long with it would be nice.

I suppose I ought to also mention that I plan on making no max level for professions, so letting people swap around professions with only a mild cost might be decent..

Soren recommended that skills not being used would decay slowly over time.

[godleydemon]

I'm sorry I spend a majority of my time mining and building, mostly building. Most of us here spend most of our time on minecraft building, but that's all besides the point and its not about taking a small risk. This is a huge risk in time investment that has a large possibility of completely falling flat. It sounds nice, it looks like it could be interesting. But the problem is with the target audience being that of possibly 12 - 16 year olds. That learning curve is going to equal into people leaving.

Even if they are from youtube and have watched the youtube videos and things of that sort. This age group is impatient and don't care for to much complexity. I like what my dad always used to say, "When you make something, always assume your consumer is a complete an utter moron". It may be an extremely inelegant way of putting it, but it has a valid point.

The "game engine" may be minecraft, but the players who will be playing on it will be expecting some type of minecraft experience. Limiting a person in the ways your describing will not only drive people back, you'll end up getting some type of backlash as well in the future if you try and change it to a more open format. The profession system pretty much has to be decided now before the coding begins on it.

I said that you would be hard pressed to convince anyone of this idea and not because its a bad idea. Its actually a rather interesting idea. If only this was a completely separate game from minecraft. If I can't get my head away from the fact that this is minecraft, what makes you think a regular player from youtube that's 12 will be able to.

Professions shouldn't be about limitations, they should add things to the game, not take away the ability to do others.

[Troy8345]

I, Troy: Owner of the Fallen Fates Server, gurantee that there is a 99.9% chance you will learn or benefit from this post so even though its long, read it!

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I apologize but I will not be on this weekend until Monday but I will be on the github and therefore I might as well add my two cents into this issue...

First I would like to commemorate both sides of the coin here. They each have valid points that are well thought out and in the best interest of the server. I used to use a quote a while back stating that "everybody has a valid argument they present, nobody here is a complete lost cause intellectually. Without a valid point that is reasonable, that person would not be able to believe they are right in any situation or simply have support for their argument." I hold true to this statement, I am a man of compromise.

Let me first off start by saying that I am an advocate of social interactions ingame. I believe that having professions, where you require people to come together to make a project, is an excellent idea. The real question of this issue is: how far do we go to make these interactions happen? This is a very risky path that could, in fact, make player's interest on our server decline quite quickly. Our starting target player base is that of youtubers who watch Block_Fortress, Hipixel (sorry if I didn't spell it right), Antvenom, and anybody else Block can muster to get us. While this is subject to change, our beginning population will come on the server by seeing their favorite youtuber livestreaming our server. A majority of these people are just interested in playing on the same server as their favorite youtuber and in other words, not interested in playing the server. We've got to get these players interested in staying, and the "Event Planners" will be working on multiple strategies to ensure this.

We have many great ideas right now. We have the skill tree plugin brilliantly being produced, the town entity plugin that is also being brilliantly produced (or at least soon will) and at what point do we say: "That's enough." Believe it or not, these plugins will start to clash with each other and I've got a few right now:

• If you need to level your professions, then you will be focused on that and not your skilltree level. Say you are a builder, well then what interest would you really need in investing in your skill tree? Sure self defence but if these professions are to be profitable I'm sure people will have people protecting them... reason being: PvP is on in all towns and therefore it would be in the best interest of the town hiring the builder to protect him while he works. We see the problem of choosing one plugin over the other, I am against this.
• If you are a builder, and joined a military town for whatever reason let's say because your friends joined it, that is wasting your potential. Sure you have a military profession but I believe most people will be working on making money in non war times. This clashes as you are not in, say a market town, and we are not making switching towns such an available option.

While the point of our server is to make minecraft NOT minecraft and making a sandbox on a sandox we must keep in mind that our players are still minecraft players. We must consider the unsaid question here: What type of server are we really aiming for? A larger one with a lower skill curve for the majority of players or a potentially smaller server but with a higher skill curve. The ladder eliminates people not willing to work to be better at the server and the committed stay however with a smaller player base we will not be able to utilize our ideas as well as we would have liked to.

I stated I commemorate all people in this argument. I commemorate Diage for taking a risk and venturing into a new system that nobody has before. I commemorate the other side as well, specifically stuntman because I actually heard him speak about it, and that it is too heavy of a risk. This idea needs to be talked over in a meeting in teamspeak. I used to have weekly meetings and a lot of progress was made out of those, so I will hope to reinstate them as github is not the way to come to a successful conclusion (at least in most occasions).

If you are still reading and found anything what I am saying beneficial, I applaud you. You also would think that I am against the idea of limiting players however I am not. Diage's concept is easier to poke flaws at because it A: It is not complete B: It's a new idea compared to well, not a new idea. I've tortured you all enough with this large post and I will be here to answer any questions, critiques, or comments that anybody has (when I say cirtiques I am looking at you Diage :)). Thank you once again for reading this.

[diage]

First of all, before I jump into an extremely long post. We seem to have different ideas of who our target audience is. The audience is what you make it. If you get the appropriate advertisement out there to the appropriate locations, you will get that audience. There's a reason most rp servers cater to people who are around 12 years old, because there's nothing else to them. If you want to build in minecraft, there are plenty of servers for you to build on.

"... and at what point do we say: "That's enough." Believe it or not, these plugins will start to clash with each other..."

You realize, that these are being made together? It's not like I am taking random jobs plugin and mashing it with random heroes plugin. These are being designed in order to be cohesive.

As I have stated over and over again, professions can be leveled passively. Further, the skill system has a max level of 20 and won't be terribly hard to reach max level. The point of the game, as far as I am currently designing it and as far as I was aware, is not to create a game that forces you to grind into combat.

Further, every player has 2 civilian professions and 1 military profession. Technically speaking, the military professions will be used to gain advantages in large scale battles. They will, in nearly all cases, play an extremely minor role in say a 1 on 1 or 5 on 5 fight. The military professions are intended to convey a strategic game aspect. So, a builder who spends the smallest amount of time killing things in his free time will find it relatively easy to reach level 20. Why? because I don't want to make this about leveling up. I want to make this about playing together, forming strategies, theory crafting, all the things people love to sit in a team speak and do. That is the essence I want.

I can sit here and give you more lovely roses ( I do it because I am too lazy to directly type an argument I'd rather do verbally), but the reality is there is a lot of weight behind the idea I am painting. Think about playing a great MMO. You love playing it, then one day, you realize there are some cheats you can enter. You look both ways, think deeply, and go for it. You put all the cheats in, have a great time for about 4 days, and you walk away. You never form the same connection with the game you would of had you actually had to work. Had you played fair and gone by the limitations the game set forth. Pleasure is not intrinsically in the result of a product, it's in all the work you did to get there. My goal is to make that work truly pleasurable. I, and I know all of you too, deep down, love to struggle. At the moment of difficulty, you sit and fight with what's hard and then you finally figure it out and rise triumphant. It is the hidden crux in everything we enjoy. Minecraft in and of itself is broken. I agree there are some people who sit and can play it for years just as. But that is the true minority, and I do mean true. Most people build and mine and think of all the things they will get to do with their final product, then as they start to realize there is no real challenge in the work they're doing and they see no foreseeable challenge ahead, they accept the end game and move on.

It's at this point in time when people decide they are bored. Once you've figured it all out and you realize, ah, I understand this game completely, and although there is much more to do, there is no challenge left in it. That's the killer.

For you to sit back and say, no, people enjoy mining continually, certainly, they enjoy it for the 1 month they play it. But then they get bored and spend either 2 months running around socializing, or stop playing minecraft completely and do something else. You can argue with me all you want and say "well I am a counter example!" But the reality is, I am not concerned with one person, I am concerned with the majority.

You look at any major minecraft server. There are perhaps 2 to 5 people who are on the server constantly and always, and those people don't spend their time building and mining. The entire rest of the community fluctuates between people coming and going. Old people returning for spurts at a time and then disappearing again. It's the proverbial cycle that plagues the intrinsic qualities of the game.

See, I have my sights on something greater. I believe minecraft is broken by itself, just like if you downloaded an out of the box game engine and played all the tutorials it came with. Sure, there is some joy there, but you sense there is something missing. Some greater scheme to it all. My goal is to make a system that is COMPLEX. But, at the start it isn't. Let's truly look at this from the eyes of a beginner shall we?

His eyes open slowly as the darkness of the loading screen dissipates. The chat, colorful, invites him to some opening concepts. Assuring the player that there are some steps they must take before they can interact with anything.

At this point, this is like any and every server you've played on. You wander into it clueless, the spawn foreign and confusing. Every minecrafter has done it. To argue that someone will log in, see they can't build, and leave is the same as saying every one of these servers that start like this will fail. Continuing....

As you wander around the bend, you realize there are some messages instructing you how to communicate with everyone. Simple enough, you think to yourself. You progress, further still, and you are introduced to the skill system. It says something along the lines of an introduction to a skill tree type concept (I have plans for this too by the way.) Alright, that seems confusing you think, and at this point someone may decide to either ask a question, accept it and move on, or quit. If I were them, I would pick the second option, however, I know the majority will choose the first option. The idea is intriguing to say the least.

Continuing further, you are confronted with a question of profession. In bold letters, it discusses the particular industries one may enter. It makes no mention of professions in depth, simply the industries one may be concerned with. You may choose, at will, any and all (although not at once) of these industries to dabble into. They do not convey any choice of a profession, not just yet at least.

Now, answer me this. Is this more confusing than the skill tree? You all accept the skill tree wholeheartedly, embrace it and enjoy it. And yet, ironically, it is more complex than the profession system. Certainly, there is a lot to learn about professions. But no one ever said we were jamming reality down their throats the second they walked in.

It seems logical to me, You define yourself. You pick your race, your skills, your profession. These attributes, designed together, decide how you will interact with all the people around you.

But, in the end its all moot. If the great majority here is terrified and can't see it in themselves to trust me, fine. I will rehash a mcjobs plugin where guy x gets double coal for mining and guy b finds sword while clearing brush.

The game will go forward, people will level up, fight, and then just socialize for hours on end. Everyone will be a miner because lets be honest, who doesn't want double diamonds? The game will play like every other server with the exception of the skill tree. It will be just what you all wanted, Minecraft.

[diage]

I am posting this as a more direct discussion to Troy because I feel no one will actually read what I wrote above^^...

"if you need to level your professions, then you will be focused on that and not your skilltree level. Say you are a builder, well then what interest would you really need in investing in your skill tree? Sure self defence but if these professions are to be profitable I'm sure people will have people protecting them... reason being: PvP is on in all towns and therefore it would be in the best interest of the town hiring the builder to protect him while he works. We see the problem of choosing one plugin over the other, I am against this."

Fighting is a communal thing. The skill tree is meant to exist as an infinite source of creativity. An outlet to constantly change how you interact with the world. For a town to function, every person in the town will need a civilian job, assuming it is not a massive town. It's not as black and white as, "you build, we protect." Think of it more as the entire town is made of minutemen. Every person capable of picking up a weapon during war times and offering a hand during peace times. And in regards to the builders. The point of them is to still allow people to create constructs as they always do, however a builder is the only one who can place them. They make constructing a town orders of magnitudes faster. Towns will become more planned out as a result and people will work together to form a cohesive pallet and not spend as much time simply placing blocks.

"If you are a builder, and joined a military town for whatever reason let's say because your friends joined it, that is wasting your potential. Sure you have a military profession but I believe most people will be working on making money in non war times. This clashes as you are not in, say a market town, and we are not making switching towns such an available option."

It is absolutely not wasting your potential. Military towns need builders too. And as I already stated, almost everyone else in the town will be taking on some other action as well while still being fully capable of fighting. Why must fighters sit in shacks? They could be among the wealthiest and demand only the most high end housing.

"What type of server are we really aiming for? A larger one with a lower skill curve for the majority of players or a potentially smaller server but with a higher skill curve. The ladder eliminates people not willing to work to be better at the server and the committed stay however with a smaller player base we will not be able to utilize our ideas as well as we would have liked to."

This is a false dichotomy. No where does it say that a lower skill curve will intrinsically attract more and a high skill curve will intrinsically attract fewer. Skill caps need to be high. A high skill cap keeps people playing. The higher the skill cap, the longer a player will play the game. However, the harder it is to learn, the fewer will come in to play. The objective is to minimize complexity while maximizing skill cap. Skill cap is usually pretty easy, the hard part is minimizing complexity. The sad thing is, most people arguing against me have failed to read the places I have said I will reduce the complexity. I have plans in place to make certain it is not overwhelming upon walk in. The only risk is that people log in and realize it isn't minecraft and just wanted to build. But in my mind, that's not our audience. We don't really want the people who are solely interested in creative building, we want the people who wish to truly interact with all facets of the game.

[Troy8345]

There are a few things you fail at understanding, I hope to enlighten you on them.

Sure the plugins can be made together and aimed to work together but you simply cannot control the social aspect of it. First, the skill tree is more than just a "infinite source of creativity" it is the setup that will either, in short, help determine if you will survive or die when attacked. And there is a flaw when you say that builders are more effective and will make it faster than just placing blocks well, when only builders can build there is nothing to compare it to in your concept... lol

As for my second quote, you only had an explanation for the builder profession and even I wasn't happy that I put builder. I put it there because I wasn't sure of the other professions. If you approve baker for example, why would he be in a military town? Oh wait, here's a good question I have conjured. Your concept is very reliant others which is viewed as good but what happens when a military town does not have their farmers or food suppliers due to things such as inactiveness. What do you do then? Your military town is unable to raid and defend themselves because they don't even have food. When I said I liked compromises, implying that I wanted a compromise here (also duh) and while the social interactions are great of course, the risk and scenarios like this perhaps outweighs the risk it can cause. While it is a sacrifice, there is room for compromise.

For claiming that my statement is a false dichotomy and claim there is no proof of my statement I'll give you a perfect example. A korean MMO vs World of Warcraft. The skill cap for a Korean MMO is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than a game like WoW. Take it from me as a credible source, I've played both for reputable amounts of time. It is the mix of skill cap and being the best at you can be at THE GAME AS A WHOLE that makes WoW the most successful MMO of all time. Sure there were limitations of WoW, for example: you picked a class and a specalization in that class however because you picked a spec didn't mean you could only do Player vs Player and not Player vs Environment. You picked a spec and usually decided what you wanted to do as a player in your end game but you were allowed to be both. The professions in that game is the same that stuntman wants and that is that the limitation is that it is not essential to have a profession but it's a benefit to spend your time in to doing it, not make it mandatory for the player to level up your professions to play the game as you intend.

That's a major point, essentialness of professions or perks of professions. Do professions really need to be essential for people to play the minecraft server? Forget about interest and attraction and the player base we are targeting, to play the server do you really need to specalize in one aspect of the server or can you contribute to the server as a whole. Restrictions are innovating and interesting but with your concept we might as well call this server Profession Craft. Because that is what it is, and you may be fine with this but I know I and many others are not.

Let's take this a bit deeper and go into your thought process. You had a very identical, if not the same, concept for your minecraft server, Freelands, about these restrictions. I remember your accounts of it quite accurately and it sounds like you are trying to repeat the idea here. The main conception of your server were these professions and your trying to mirror it here and it cannot work because the servers are completely different. Your trying to put puzzle pieces that don't fit into fitting.

This Issue will need to be reviewed in a larger group via teamspeak before passing it or vetoing it. We could pick one side of the issue or the other but I'd rather tailor your idea to match our server and our goals, which I believed you should know better than anyone I knew since you were coding the essential pieces into its creation. Before you write your next paragraph trying to find flaws in my statement, which I will gladly respond to your response, remove the mindset that it has to be this way and that you are trying to sway people because according to your post, this is about ideas for professions and if it is meant for more than that than please revise your post. You told me that you would attempt to tell people of the idea over teamspeak and that using github is not reliable for these situations please stick to that. Finally, try to accept what others suggest to you instead of exclaiming that they are wrong. I'm not singling you out I'll be honest I do it sometimes too. It's for the overall benefit of the server: Fallen Fates RPG

[CandleD]

I would like to hear this discussed on TS. Please tell me when it would be.

[diage]

I want to say something about the reaction to a false dichotomy. You are isolating the skill caps and saying the korean mmo is the way it is intrinsically because of the skill cap, while WOW is how it is also intrinsically because of the skill cap. My point is that it is not the skill cap that is making those indications. Complexity is what determines a large majority of it. If a game is simple, but allows you to constantly have things to learn, you will play it longer. If it is simple and has no skill cap, you will master it quickly and quit it quickly. If it is complex and has a high skill cap, then most people won't be able to really get into it. That is why it is a false dichotomy. Its not just this or that, its a sliding scale between several variables which need to be smoothed out.

Also, I want to mention something about the builders expediting construction. It would help if you understood how a builder class would work, and I threw in a test for you. An open minded person would of seen that I was unclear on how I plan to make a builder work faster and would of asked, how might that be the case? Instead, you made assumptions as to how I did it and you already have your mind made up on the matter.

This is the problem I knew I would run into with this idea, people who have already made a decision without giving this concept the appropriate thought it deserves.

And you're right, it is very much like my freelands idea, because it is exactly my freelands idea. I said, I will be nice and give these guys the ultimate idea and merge what I always wanted my server to be with this one and create something extraordinary.

But, if that is not your desire, fine, I will produce another cookie cutter professions plugin and you can slip behind the scenes. The skill tree, while cool, will not be enough to distinguish this server, you will have people play here who play here just because it's the server they play on.

And, instead of assuming I don't know what I am doing, you might consider asking about all the hints above I left. I was intentionally ambiguous on many aspects, ie the "I have plans to level out the complexity" to see if you'd ask me about them. You didn't.

Oh, and since military towns gain money from combat, they can just buy from market towns. You know, the way an economy is supposed to work (imagine that.) If you have a problem with say a baker (mind you not a profession I ever claimed to of exist, only an idea put forth by someone else) then we can discuss the baker. Because you may be able to point out a flaw in a single profession does not in any way shape or form tear down the entire idea.

I told you this the other day, it's still true, you need to figure out your quantifiers for logical arguments and when a counter example does and doesn't work. A counter example does not always disprove a claim.

And towards your last comment. Keep in mind every single responce, minus sonnet and candles, has not provided any useful comments as to a compromise (me and stunt had a long conversation about his, I am open to certain compromises but I think his position is waaaay too far away.) All you've done so far is tell me how bad of an idea it is while trying to give a false impression of being diplomatic. It is impossible to form a compromise if you don't first ask me questions about how exactly you think it will work. Every person so far who is strongly against it has stuck to their gut reaction and instantly attacked it. You have NO idea how it will work, why don't you ask more questions about it before declaring it's intrinsically flawed? Try to understand it perhaps? Understanding something is not the same as agreeing to it, asking questions won't mean you've agreed. But I refuse to compromise until you have given my idea a fair consideration, as soon as you do that, we can discuss compromise. That is why I am so aggressive towards it, because it won't so much be a compromise as me just improving some rehashed professions plugin since all of you failed to give my idea a fair chance and try to grasp it.

If you ask WHY I haven't gone out and fully said all of, that's because there is a lot to it. I was hoping people would ask me questions, so I left intentional hints and I would respond to those questions. Instead, I get pitchforks.

[godleydemon]

I think its time for you to completely hash out exactly what your plugin is going to do Diage. Part of the problem, as you've stated, is that we have no CLEAR idea apparantly how this plugin will actually work. What we see is the negative impact it will have both on the player base and the growth of the server. I can lay out exactly what we see.

1. Unnecessary limitations that don't add much to the game.
2. Confusing and hard to understand professions that players won't take the time to learn.
3. Every player will pick Builder and Miner as there professions, because those are the things there used to.
4. The player base that decides to stay will constantly bitch about the plugin and will only stay because of famous youtubers.
5. We'll get a quick intake of players then it will drop of significantly as players learn that they don't have much freedoms and are severely restricted.

These I believe, are the top 5 things we're seeing immediatly when hearing anything about the professions plugin your telling us about. Our classic view of a professions plugin is loosly based off of WoW. As stupid as that sounds, its something that is a well thought out system that works incredibly well. Because it adds things to the game and doesn't restrict a player from playing the way they want to play.

I firmly believe if a person wants to go off on there own and build a hovel and never talk to anyone, they can. I've known a few players like this on multiplier servers before. Used to be wonderful to hang out with from time to time, they just didn't like huge big crowds or large sprawling cities where everything was already done for them.

I've seen servers before in the past that have setup player housing that can be bought and they restrict people to being able to build in certain locations. Almost always the player housing is never bought. Or if it is bought, its torn down immediately to create there own housing solution. Because that's what players like to do, they like to build there own houses and live in them; because its something they built with there own hands.

Like I've said in previous posts, I don't refute your idea completely. Its an interesting proof of concept, but I don't think it will work in a setting like Minecraft. But of course, that is my opinion. Its mostly that I believe people logging onto the server will have a specific thing in mind when logging onto the server and that its going to be a heavily modded minecraft, but its still going to be Minecraft. When they see its not going to be minecraft, people are immediately going to start being confused and will eventually leave with a headache.

[Troy8345]

Like I said, I'm glad to refute but something tells me you didn't meditate on this before firing up the old keyboard.

In your first paragraph you stated that "if the game is simple, but allows you to constantly have things to learn [people will play longer]" implying that your plugin is the embodiment of your quote. In regards to that, I ask "Are you drunk?" You also state that the simplicity of the plugin will make people play longer when, in fact, your concept is very complex and to that I ask you "How many shots have you had?" The plugin, if nothing else, is VERY complex. Sure the skill cap is significantly greater but you do not add the interests of the players into your equation. I am not saying professions has to be a simple concept and very easy to start and finish but this should explain why a compromise is in need here and your denial in its necessity.

Your next critique states that I made an assumption and completely molded my mind. Clearly you skipped a line or I don't know even know what you did but you missed when I stated that your idea was still new and obviously I understand it is subject to change but you have no intention of changing it anywhere on the scale that some are pleading for, only somewhat minor adjustments. We even talked about it on teamspeak after you and stuntman had had a quarrel how much more obvious that it could have been that I understood it is still forming. And if you state that there is a difference between saying and accepting, well, I don't know how much more obvious I could have made it that I accepted it as well.

Perhaps you label everybody who is not swayed entirely by your idea "people who have already made a decision without giving this concept the appropriate thought it deserves" -Diage. Reminds me a lot of a man named Joe Mccarthy who labeled anybody who went against him and his run for power a communist. You are falsely assuming and labeling people like myself as people with a completely made up mind. Something you miss, yet again, is that I wanted compromise and there was no exact form of where there was to be compromise so it's hard to say I am solid minded when you don't even know where I want changes. Also, might I add, we could say label you the same.

You admit that this is your freelands idea, as I had stated it was. However, you failed to acknowledge my connection the puzzle pieces and that Freelands does not equal Fallen Fates RPG and instead of taking the whole idea and putting it in another server, it needs to be reviewed and fitted because they are not the same. Unless, in fact, you do plan to make this Profession Craft as I had stated in my last post.

As to making little tests for me and stating that I fail to question you with your ambiguity, first I'm on vacation meaning I'm constantly busy at the moment but I will not make that an excuse, BOTH of our failures to recognize key aspects of our statements is because github is not the best way to explain or argue this concept. Perhaps we may address these over voice.

As for your attempt to shame my recognition of an exploit about military towns not being fed and continuing to state that "because I can point out a single flaw in a single profession does not in any way, shape, or form tear down the entire idea." And to this I refute, because you can defend a single flaw in a single profession (mind you I don't like baker either) does not in any way, shape, or form mean that there are not problems waiting to happen. Self explanatory.

As for doubting my usage of logical arguments, I claim that the source of your doubt is from your inability to accept the suggestions and critique of others. As for "the other day" you mean when I was extremely tired? Not only that you completely disregarded logical explanations for my argument for the same reason you doubt me in this thread. However, I will not go any further because I am a man of my word when we both agreed to not speak about the argument or continue it. At least I can say that I held true to my end of the deal not to shame your morale values or anything.

You must understand that critique does not always make the person giving the critique an enemy. You said it yourself: "I like arguing concepts because it helps me make a better plugin." I had believed you held true to this statement however you are the first one to jump the gun and label people as your enemy. That is why I asked you to think before typing and as I stated before, you did not (or at least gave it any effort). To say I am a fake diplomat is also shameful on your part. I work tirelessly to make the best and most player attuned server I can make. You think that the reason everybody gives you critique is because we don't understand it? We understand it enough to know the possible trouble it can cause. I believe Stuntman did an excellent job explaining our side of the story. I also believed he made an excellent point when saying that "people like to live in buildings they make." From personal experience, I know this to be true. Even though my builds are terrible, really terrible, I enjoy living in them because they are mine. To simply say that it is a combined effort to make a town that isn't breaking it down into the emotional feel of the town, what YOU make it out to be is the collaboration of blocks. I realize that this paragraph was more aggressive than the others because in my mind, you are unable to see the necessities that your peers, friends, and owner of the production are trying to tell you. Believe it or not, I am not against the idea of limitations and it needs to be discussed over teamspeak for the full of understanding of everybody involved. All I can ask of you is this time to put effort into accepting what others preach to you. Thank you to everybody who has shared their views and opinions into this thread, they will all be taken into account.

[diage]

"I also believed he made an excellent point when saying that "people like to live in buildings they make." "

Funny thing, if only you would of asked me how builder works you would of realized that people can live in their own constructions. But, you show no interest in discovering the plugin...

[Troy8345]

I've been to multiple discussions of it, in fact I believe I was the first to hear about your idea other than Soren and I know whatever you told me. This does not include whatever you choose to add in the future so I am not responsible for whatever you concoct without knowing. I know what you tell me and I take that as the truth but it is subject to change.

It fathoms me that you really view me as an enemy when I was and still am supportive of aspects of the idea. Right now I am hoping you are meditating on it before typing a long paragraph.

For the sake of being correct you do not use quotation marks inside quotation marks. It should look like: "I also believed he made an excellent point when saying that 'people like to live in buildings they make.'" Helpful hint.

[Troy8345]

Accidently closed it

[CandleD]

So, can I see if I can get this all right?

1. Diage thinks he has a wonderful and revolutionary idea that will limit the basics of MC but give you something better in return.
2. Mostly everyone else is skeptical.

Solution? Give us details, Diage.

What makes your idea a step up? What makes it better? If we advertise this, not as a Minecraft server, but something else entirely, we will get both numbers and an exciting new game. If Diage can provide some insight into exactly what we get in return for trading in elements we enjoy, I will be willing to examine it, maybe even agree with him. I am sure everyone else will, too.

[Troy8345]

Wise words, thank you Candle

[diage]

@Troy8345 Actually, if you wish to argue against stuff, it is your responsibility to know what the hell you're talking about, and I could care less about quotations -_-

[diage]

Now, @CandleD..

Everyone is skeptical, as they should be. I have no problem with skepticism. The problem is when that goes one step further to being intrinsically against it just because you had a negative gut reaction. Which is why I can safely say something like "people have already made a decsion... blahblah..." Because if someone was truly questioning an idea, they would first inquire into the concept prior to attacking it. It's like killing a spider because you completely misunderstand the thing. Your gut reaction prevented you from asking questions about it and forced you to just go straight to attacking it. Skepticism = doubt, not utter rejection. If I compromised with those who don't give the concept a fair share, we will end up with just another mcjobs plugin. Which is fine, if that's what you want, I will make it.

Typing the entire plugin in its entirety would be cumbersome and not fruitful. Allow me to explain why. The idea is quite complex, but that is only true of the aggregate idea. I plan to make it so that people are exposed to only small bits at a time. That's the main reason industries exist. Instead of someone walking in and being flooded with the ideas of professions, a profession won't even be presented to them at first, only industries. You would then pick an industry and sort of explore more deeply into it and discover more about that field of expertise prior to ever selecting a profession. This is one of a couple techniques I have to reduce the burden of learning the profession plugin.

To you guys, who must live with its entirety from day one, I am stuck with a much more complicated problem. I can't expose the concept to you as easily as I could for players, I need to show you the thing in it's entirety, and that is orders of magnitude more complicated.

My goal for this entire thing was to do what I have found was successful on many forums. Post a statement with in lined ambiguities. These cause curios people to ask questions about the matter. And from that stand point I now have a hook to start the explanation.

What I wasn't expecting was the intense negative reaction to it that I received almost immediately (admittedly, I wasn't surprised by stunts response to it, but I was surprised by Troys.)

But, at your request, I will attempt to spell it all out in the next post.

[Troy8345]

My gut reaction was approval just so we are clear here, your entire argument just fell on itself. So BEFORE you label me as anything else, do know that initially I was all for the idea. Hearing the multiple voices that pleaded, as you should too, opened my eyes on the situation and showed me where change was needed.

Second, I had believed what I was saying was the most up to date information and so it appears it updated. Go ahead, shoot me.

My negative reactions aren't entirely directed towards the plugin itself. In fact, I just poked potential flaws and issues with the plugin. My negativeness was directly related to your mindset of others including myself.

People reading must understand that the decision here will change the server's purpose completely. When Diage had designed his server, Freelands, his profession concept was the main aspect of the server. The server was to completely be based off this one plugin thus making it, as I have stated before, something along the lines of a Profession Craft. This server does not strive for the same goals as Freelands had, in fact we are completely different and unique. That is why my puzzle pieces analogy is so crucial, you see what his plugin intended for his server and now imagine what it will do to our server. I intend professions to be a major part of the game, yes, but not the most important aspect of our server. It once again begs the dieing question essential vs benefit. Diage also explains that if this plugin does not go through the plugin will be a small, and for the most part uninteresting with no significant purpose. This is a hyperbole of what it can be don't let those words fool you. Diage and Soren know what they are capable of, as do many of us know that just because it is not this idea entirely does not mean it is nothing short of innovative. Consider that praise from your so called enemy here...

So when reading over this, think of me, the guy who was first set on the idea that Diage's concept was the best idea for professions. In fact after the argument with Stuntman and Diage, I praised Diage's ideas (for the record I did not bash anything Stuntman had to say) but after seeing this thread my mind has changed and as an Owner, I listen to the voices of my staff and players so do always know you will be heard. If not by anyone else, you will be heard by me. Think that Diage is basing the cirtique of his plugin on the inital mindset and first reaction however I am here to tell you, and what Diage has failed to mention, and what I will continue to repeat: MY FIRST MINDSET WAS ABSOLUTE 100% APPROVAL OF THIS PLUGIN. Think is all I ask of those who are reading this. Thank you.

[diage]

Concept 1: Industries An industry is a globalized concept. It encompasses large swathes of professions under a single umbrella. It allows you to delve into basic aspects of many professions without committing to any one immediately. At this stage, you can freely swap industries at will and explore multiple areas. It is not until you have some levels in an industry will you be able to select a profession from that said industry.

Concept 2: Specializations Once you complete your introduction to an industry, you can progress to a specialization. Take a POTENTIAL example (NOTE: this is only an example and in no way implies an actual professional relationship to either a specialization or an industry), you level up Trade as an industry some bit, and now you may pick a particular specialization. At this stage, you may pick from being an enterpranuer or perhaps a mogul or maybe a logistics specialist. These are still relatively generalized, but they are a particular specialization within an industry.

Concept 3: Professions Now that you've fully explored a lot of concepts and specializations, you may now pick a profession. This will tend to be done after going far enough into a particular specialization. Let's take logistics for example, perhaps for this one may become a mariner and get the ability to travel easily to towns on water ways and receive bonus inventory space. Now, this is just an off the cuff example, but a definite possibility. As you progress, there is no max level (levels will go high, not take longer btw ie level 400 in something will be viable) and everything will be done in such a way to guarantee you are gaining benefits as the level goes higher and higher (albeit marginal.)

Concept 4: Passive Skill Training Players like to socialize. They don't always want to spend their time grinding and I want to benefit players who can't spend 24 hours a day grinding levels. So, for this I want to create the concept of not only actively gaining levels, but passively too. The idea here is you can have a skill book, lets say for level 100. So long you are under level 100, you will slowly gain experience in the field of the book. Once you reach level 100, it's no longer of use to you and you can sell it (or perhaps this will consume it.)

Concept 5: Military Professions These are professions that have been adapted for Fallen Fates. In the original design (ie the one for my server.) The military professions were going to be the classes. But, I have a plan I like far more for this situation. A military profession will be a profession used to gain an advantage in a war. They will do things like create defenses, artillery, wage spy wars, build towers, locate enemies, disable defenses. These will have as small an effect on actual one on one combat as possible (unless that one on one combat happens to be taking place on a battlefield.) These professions may have the same setup as civilian professions in the concept of overly generalized first, then slowly specialize it, or they could be more direct but introduced later. Either concept works for me.

Concept 6: A player built world This is a big one. This is something that Minecraft looks to be powerful in intrinsically, the problem is that the worlds tend to be constructed despite the environment around them. Buildings pop up at random, wilderness arbitrarily ruined, town pallets inconsistently produced, and towns themselves made without a purpose or concept in mind. My plan is to make it so that people are forced to build with a plan. Random designs eliminated in favor of a system that promotes an organized design process. This is done by limiting what players can do. You can't just build whatever you want where ever you want. You can't just go around and dig random holes. You must follow some scheme to it all and work your way through the world as if you were playing an actual GAME. This will make a world that is BUILT by players, not just randomly constructed.

Concept 7a: Construction Plots This is a precursor to concept 7. It is needed to explain something about them. In towns, a town leader may choose to create a special construction plot in their town. This will cost money to maintain based on the size of the plot (the larger it is the more money, it grows at a greater than linear rate). People can go into them, and build freely on these plots for a fee. These have special privileges which will be discussed fully in 7.

Concept 7: Specialized Builders I felt I ought to give this one its own concept since it is something of particular disgust for many. Yes, I will limit what you can build and how you may build. The idea is simply this. There exists builders in the world, and only they can go about constructing the towns. A builder may rent a construction plot. Upon renting it, they are guaranteed the exclusive use of this plot in that time frame. Building in this plot is how they gain levels actively. Should they enjoy a construction, they can save it. This costs money to save. At this time, they can paste it at places a town leader specifies. The pasting costs money as well as materials. As the builder gets a higher level, the materials cost can be reduced. Here's a kicker. If you are NOT a builder, you may build in a construction plot (for a fee), if you have something you like, you may hire a builder to copy it for you. From there, you can talk to the town leader to paste it where you wish if he agrees. I am open to the concept of letting players do things like place chests and certain minor blocks within their own designated plots. Keep in mind, this means that if you wanted to save stuff in a chest, you would have to do it at your home (making an actual purpose to houses.) I am also open to letting people place certain low end blocks outside of towns, like perhaps dirt blocks. I am a little more skeptical about this though just because it could result in the slow degradation of the wilderness, which takes me to concept 8.

Concept 7b: Grand builders Perhaps you don't want something as simple as a couple of buildings, but instead you want a massive library. That's fine, there is a profession for that. These specialized builders will construct massive buildings in a special area set forth by the town leader. Should the town leader not wish to use that construction, they can remove it and revert it back to how it was originally. If they approve, it will require the cost of the materials to build it plus a fee. Also, there will be builders for major infrastructure work, they will be given the ability (through a contract) to free build throughout the town.

Concept 8: Land Owners A land owner is an important role. It will hopefully be a profession that drama can start to result around. A landowner is required for a town to be built. Landowners can basically develop land for a town to be constructed on. During this development phase, CONSTRUCTION CAN BE DONE BY ANYONE and will probably last 2-3 weeks. Land owners can create space for multiple towns to live on their land and will try to expand their territory. They are a high risk high reward profession. They will also gain the ability to cause land to be more productive. Things like cause trees in some chunks to regenerate faster or perhaps recharge land with ore (give it the name prospecting.) These different options will help to distinguish the type of land owner and help to develop the land. It is their responsibility to clean up the area and make it what it eventually becomes.

Concept 9: Scribe Another specialization is the Scribe. A scribe can create books of all kinds. Books will be a quintessential portion of the plugin in many regards, skill tree, quests, towns, professions, parties etc. To best interface yourselves with these constructs, you will hope to find a scribe. Earlier, I mentioned skill books. A skill book will be constructed by some profession that derives from the scribe. The idea is that they will work with another profession and be able to create a book up to the max level of that person (the percentage of their level is determined by the scribe derivatives level.) Other derivatives will do things like copy writs, construct contracts, etc etc. All things needed for town interactions and player interactions on many levels.

Concept 10: Professor A professor is a proposed derivative of the scribe. Their levels are gained by helping new players. As a professor, you seek to create disciples in new players and at this stage, you gain an investment in them. Their levels mean you gain levels. This profession will be quite profitable since it will most likely be the ones who make skill books. Another thing either they, or another derivative of the scribe will do, is let people go backwards in the professions. Essentially, you can talk to this person and they can give you some of your experience back and reset you down to whatever previous choice you made. The higher level professor, the more experience they get back. This experience can then only be used by finding someone who specializes in the profession you want to essentially add some portion of that experience into their field. Simply put, high level professors will be highly sought after.

Concept 11: Mining Mining in this world will work a little different. My goal (which is still in extremely early phases for this portion) is to make it so that a miner can go through and mine say diamond, and find a lot of it. So in one block perhaps 20 some diamond will drop. But this won't be usable diamonds. Instead, these will be diamonds that must be refined. This gives me more room to improve miners by adjusting how much drops and gives me the potential to allow higher grade diamonds to drop. This concept can be applied to several ore types.

Concept 12: Jewelers This idea is strongly attributed to Jeff, but I rather like it. A jeweler can take gems and jewels and impart in them special powers. These can add as things that can improve the effectiveness of construction for any type of manufacturing. Jewelers will also be responsible for making totems, which are required for any non-item specific skill to function.

Concept 13: Manufacturing This is where people can learn to produce and manufacture goods. They take pieces and parts form all kinds of other professions and form it into cohesive equipment players can use. Since items are created in a DnD style (+5 and etc), a higher level manufacturer can increase their chances of creating a +5 item.

Concept 14: Baking and "Potions" Food, certainly it is a staple. Fewer people to do this means bakers will be able to produce larger quantities if they go into the appropriate specialization. However, there is another type of specialization, and this one creates specialty foods. These types of foods will impart particular benefits to whomever consumes them. Further, this allows one to create potions that aren't really potions. They are instead, objects that create a special effect upon use.

Concept 15: Town Interactions The main idea is not to reduce the net supply of everything, but to rather focus it on certain people. I would like to see only massive towns be capable of full self sustainability. Otherwise, they would require interactions with other towns. It is in my favor that a town can't produce the food they need and instead would need to purchase supplies from local towns. In a trade, perhaps their highly skilled manufacturing can sell them some weapons. Imagine a world where you can create a name for yourself in something other than killing people. That is the goal of the interactions.

Concept 16: Town Leaders As a leader, you decide how a town is created. These people are at the forefront of the town plugin. They are also the main keepers of wealth distribution throughout a town. As a town leader, you can lead a military town or a civilian town. Civilian towns gain money by gaining residents, this is what will allow you to expand and provide for your people. Military towns gain money by waging war. Fighting is what allows the expansion and ability to provide for your town. They must manage their town and can assign other people who are aspiring town leaders to help maintain the town.

Concept 17: Economy Through the town interactions, there will be a movement of money (also through money sinks.) Movement is step one in creating a viable economy. This is the thing that tends to plague most minecraft servers, there is no reliable movement of money. One of the things I need to discover is just which professions will be sources of NEW money and which will be cycling money throughout the economy. Most likely, town leaders will be the largest source of new money.

Concept 18: Three Total Professions You will have three professions, 2 civilian and 1 military. This is to help maintain some variability since I plan on making plenty of professions to choose form.

So, that is all I have for now. At least all I can remember. Breaking it down into minute concepts was the best way I could think to introduce this, this does however, leave the burden of putting it all together to the reader.

But in the end, I hope you may see that I have gone through great lengths to make sure the idea is presentable in small pieces to the players and that there is a safety net for people. You can always change your profession for a fee and some lost experience and you have a lot of time to freely explore industries (even after you've already selected your two professions.) My goal is that micro communities will start to form from these complex interactions and people will begin to rely on each other. Although, because of the existence of town markets, people need not DIRECTLY rely on others, but potentially only indirectly in many cases.

[diage]

And btw Troy, everyone I've talked to in person (minus stunt) has approved of the idea.

And you do realize troy, you were the first one to reply aggressively (Although, I do admit that quote wars do tend to result in an aggressive response.)

And as I stated earlier, these are all being designed to be cohesive. The freelands idea was not parsed out fully, neither is this one. But I have filled in many many more gaps with specific interactions to this plugin.

[Troy8345]

I'll read all of this tomorrow, I'm going to sleep but I read your last post and when one of the people who sees the problem is the Owner of the server, your not going to get far until a proper agreement is fulfilled. Good night

[diage]

Ya, well, I am inches away from just giving up on the concept and just making a basic plugin like y'all seem to want.

[diage]

Addition: (From Grim) Make it so that people have the ability to go into the wilderness and pick a place. Upon selection, a netherbrick block with fire will pop up and a small box around it will be able to be built in by the player who placed it. Something like a 16x16x16 space and only basic building blocks. IE dirt, sand, logs, cobble maybe.

[CandleD]

Well, as promised, I read it through. I must say, I really do LOVE some of these ideas. The fact that if you want to get some of the more important things done you need cooperation is something I like (like how a miner can dig extra diamonds, but they are useless without someone else to help him and then you have the jewler to make them more useful). I think much of this can be implemented fully.

However, (and you are going to hate this) I did say that if we were going to do something like you mentioned in 6 and 7, we would need something important in exchange. I didn't see anything that gave us a fair exchange. An "alright, you cant do this, but you CAN do this... Towns fall into ruin. It is a fact. So, what happens to that endlessly loyal player on our server when he spent his money on things for the town, but his town owner goes inactive? What if the town's builder goes inactive? What if someone wants to Roleplay a hermit?

This is what I was worried about. We are limiting players but not giving them the ample return on their gamble. I know you are worried about the landscape, but even if the landscape goes south, we can fix it will little hassle. The simple truth is that not everyone will find a town they get along well with. A lot of potential loyal players will leave if they can't find a town and hence, can do nothing. From a lore point of view, the world is supposed to be one in chaos. This system is far too ordered to make any sense with the current story line.

So, in short Diage, I think you are really on to something with this, but I still cannot see any reason to limit building to such a degree. Don't get too down if this doesn't get accepted, I have had a lot of my ideas shot down. It happens.

[Soren025]

@CandleD

tax the land owner for his owned land, if he cant actively pay the tax then his land goes to a pre declared member or if one does not exist, up for auction.

make it to ware a non land owner could clam the land in this case but not be able to manage it, simply the ability to hold ownership till someone they trust comes around who can manage it, pay its taxes, and declare a member of his own to replace him if the same happens. residents of the land can continue doing stuff, and everyone is still content

under the case that no one claims it under auction, not sure yet perhaps after a time the starting bid slowly decreases to free. Eventually someone is going to come around and make the quick buck of buying it and selling it to a land owner or something.

if anything is important on it though it should never remain unclaimed under auction because what ever is important has an owner and that guy is going to want to protect it.

[CandleD]

Now, if this RP server was based around a single established government with rules and taxes, I would say great. However, it isn't. This is 4 totally ruined separate civilizations with little that resembles a working government in any of them. In fact, I was going to suggest not having a money system at the start until there is actually an economy in the world, but that is an issue we can tackle after this one. The simple fact is: this is an RP server. It is supposed to emulate real life with fantasy elements. This whole concept is slowly moving way farther away from that than I feel comfortable with.

[diage]

Candle, you let the lore drive you far too much. The lore is something people read and use to get themselves into it all. Just because it says the world was ruined does not imply it must remain ruined. And you're right, it is supposed to emulate life. Life has restrictions, welcome to it =P.

And to each of your concerns, I think they are valid concerns. But instead of scrapping the concept, we can discuss how to handle them.

Notice that in my discussion of town leader, I said a town leader may have others under him. Also notice that towns will be more scarce. The idea is there will be fewer larger towns. If a leader does decide to leave, there can be a process by which either the town's writ goes up for auction or is passed down to another leader, or a vote goes on for someone to take ownership of it. Builders are supposed to not be limited to only build in THEIR town. The hope is that if you really want a good result in your town, you will seek out an expert to help you with whatever you need, this goes beyond just the builders.

And we are giving them a fantastic return on their gamble. They are given the ability to dominate certain portions of the entire game. It's not like if I need diamonds I can wander about and go find my own, I will either buy them or find myself a miner to get them, either way it benefits only the miners who spent the time with the levels.

Further, technically speaking, a town does not REQUIRE intimate interactions. You can walk into a town, buy a plot, place a few chests, walk outside, mine in a designated mine, go back into town and sell your ore. Never talk to a single person in the town. Just repeat the process, work on your second profession, and find eventually you will need some people for some stuff. No person plays minecraft to be absolutely 100% alone all of the time. If those players are here, which I know SOME exist, that honestly is not our target audience for a MULTIPLAYER game. I will do what I can to make it minimally appealing to that audience, but I will not be ok with scrapping entire ideas to appease a sub type of an audience we shouldn't even be trying to go after.

And frankly, if we followed your lore and stuck that directly into the game, the game would not last. Your lore is great and all, but it does not set up legitimate rules for how a good game would play. They are fine for a precursor, a set up, as to how the world was before people began to walk. But as does all things, people begin to try to limit the natural entropy by creating rules and systems. People can't just magically learn how to build complex structures in the wilderness from logs. Talk about RP, that is truly role-play breaking. To think that I, a brand new player, possess the ability, strength, and foresight, to chop trees, terraform land, create planks, smelt stone, and construct a mansion in a hostile and chaotic place. When chaos ensue, people come together. Why not make a game that feels like that?

Also, I added after the fact a suggestion from grim that i love, and that would be basically a free camp site one can set up. A griefable plot of land where you place a netherrack block (it would catch fire, simulating a camp fire.) in a (maybe) 16x16x16 cube, you can build to your hearts content within the confines of certain blocks. The area would be griefable and you would be able to place chests there. Once you leave, it would revert back to nature.

[CandleD]

Diage explained this to me in Teamspeak. He described it much better. I now see what it is he wants and I think this is something that deserves to be tested. When we get alpha and beta testing up we will include this system and see how it works if that is alright with you, Troy.

[CandleD]

What I am going to do is close this confusing argument and retype Diage's idea as it has been explained to me with a few of my own crowd pleasing proposals thrown in. I will do this in the most concise way possible and hopefully we can get an official vote on what to do with it from the higher ups. This will be lengthy, so expect so see it up later today.

[Troy8345]

I am dissapointed that crucial points I had presented were not appropriatly responded too but I will not dwell on it.

As I await what Candle is to say, I have some comments that need to be added.

As much as you directly and indirectly state and imply that I am your enemy I will still compliment parts of the plugin. The funny thing is, I already have complimented these parts in my past writings. I like the idea of working together and that it takes a team of different people to create however one of the problems is that the interest in the professions conflict. I asked you too look deeper into the emotional feel of the plugin not just words but I don't think it has been recognized. It has been said before that minecraft is, in short, about building and mining, hence MINEcraft. Believe it or not, throwing away age groups, our target audience is minecraft players. Hopefully we see eye to eye here. Minecraft players want to be able to participate in the main aspects of the game they play. When you make it so that only certain people can build in the wild and plot management if you are not a builder, you will see a pattern of many people fluddering to these two professions. It is what they are used to. While your idea of making the world by players and not just randomly placed blocks is admirable, it is incredibly mistaken. Why not remove that only builders can build in the wild and add a few new ideas and keep the concept that they can copy and paste for a price and as they level up the materials cost less. Perhaps people can build in the wild but for a person to have their build copied, it must be in a construction plot. I know Diage will not see sense in this but hopefully others can.

Those are a few examples of what I think should be changed however it is hard to implement change when Diage refuses to do anything substantial to the plugin outside of what he has planned. By simply changing a few things based off of compromise, the plugin will not just be made to be a small and useless plugin as Diage seems to think it will be. Terribly mistaken, oh so terribly.

For christ's sake, get it into your head I am not your enemy. And not just me, from everybody else as well. Be open to it don't throw it away. You know who does that? Gazamo. And you of all people should understand that as you presented multiple ideas to Gazamo that were never implemented. Look at the patterns, please.

In terms of the lore, the lore is specifically the guidelines for RP and RP interactions. While the lore and and its team are the base of the sever, the pillars are, yes, intertwined but they are made separatly if you get what I am saying.

A key point I wish to put emphasis on yet again is the fact of players squandering to a few professions. There is a perfect example in this in a game I played called Star Wars: The Old Repblic where literally everybody on the server chose a profession because it added benefits to the PvP experience and none of the other professions were worth jack squat. Perhaps, since a lot of our sources are coming from MMOs, many of them have main professions and gathering professions. Perhaps we can implement main professions and gathering professions, interesting idea. Nonetheless, if people all run to builder and miner since they are used to it, the other professions will be, for the most part, Desolace? Then what happens? The whole system is screwed. Look at Gazamo, how everybody ran for the most OP class. Then it was nerfed and everybody ran to the next class. Might I remind you of what people say about gazamo classes? They are ----. So then how do we react when the players run to these classes? Well we can either nerf it and promote other classes = Risky or remove the plugin and cut our losses = Risky. Don't forget that the opportunities that this plugin presents are great but there that constant risk looming over everybody's head. We fight about who our target player base and we intend to be able to make a plugin that people will divide into evenly? That is a fool's mentality. It doesn't matter how much promotion and benefits you put into a profession. Unless it completely trumps everything else it will not bring everybody that profession needs to operate. And I repeat my point, what happens when there are no bakers to supply military towns? They cannot fight for themselves and then all hell breaks loose. At the end of everything I write, I always ask you to think so once again I beg of you yet again, to think.

[diage]

Im just going to keep this open so me and troy can bikker until candle posts her thingy =P

[diage]

Troy, I have directly referenced that problem serveral times... namely the problem:

"And I repeat my point, what happens when there are no bakers to supply military towns? They cannot fight for themselves and then all hell breaks loose. At the end of everything I write, I always ask you to think so once again I beg of you yet again, to think."

The point is to make it so that few bakers can provide for far more. If a military town can't get their own baker, then they use the money they make from raiding to buy from a town that does. One baker makes a bunch of bread! not just one loaf at a time. That is the core concept for all professions actually. Make an individual player do more instead of multiple people do less. There is the problem that the said person disappears, but people can swap professions semi easily with some cost and another strong point is that it's intended to make people look elsewhere.

Also, you assume it is my desire that all professions get specced into evenly. That is not the case. It is my preference that there will be more of certain professions than others. These aren't classes, there is nothing mandating that they are all needed in the same quantities. Some have a higher risk-reward structure than others and those will have fewer people, as planned.

I mentioned in the last line of my longlonglong post that the problem with the way I did it was that it required the readers to put them all together. If you look closely, you might just find the answers to your questions hidden in there.

So far, you and stunt are the last people to be against it. You need to understand that this goal is something greater and provides something on the orders of magnitude as far as potential. The reason for this is I am using minecraft as a game engine, not a game in and of itself. Oh, and the target audience is whatever you want the audience to be, believe it or not trying to appeal to every audience is an error that creates the death of many great ideas. Entire products and marketing schemes are based off of the idea of approaching a particular audience, hell, look at pop companies... Dr Pepper ten is nothing more than diet dr pepper targeted to men.

[CandleD]

Diage, doing that will not work for you..... I'l have it up in a few, so this should be it.

[Troy8345]

We anxiously wait for your post Candle.

I'm going to explain something to you Diage. First off, your refuting needs to be improved, no offense it's the simple truth. Or perhaps its not your refuting skills but how you process information and convert it into a statement. You don't think or at least give any effort into it, it's easily said. You don't look at the emotional feel and how players will react only that your plugin classes can work in a certain way. Your lack of knowledge of our player base is testament to this. It doesn't matter if you simply want minecraft to be the game engine, our main population will be MINECRAFT PLAYERS. For christ's sake any open minded person can agree with that but no you obviously can't.

Your refutes only pretain to minor details of what I say. All you can defend is an example of a baker. I thought your strategy was to divide and conquer but in fact it's only dividing the big picture to the small picture and refuting concepts that aren't the biggest principles.

Let me explain something, I don't care if its me and stunt vs everybody. I have seen you manipulate your words as part of our recent discussion when we described it to Block. If you let me have a moment with these people I promise you the results would be different. Perhaps you left out key points as you did when refuting here.

I know I am being overly aggressive but what will it take for you to understand what I am saying? I told you that "you can show a horse to a watering hole but you can't force it to drink the water" well I can sit here and type to you and soon talk to you but it doesn't mean you will get it. I hope after we are done with this, no hard feelings will be kept and we can return to our projects if you know what I am saying. I await both of your responses.