Suggestion Remove Griefing

I have played herocraft for a couple of years and have seen servers both with and without a griefing rule. This map i was part of a town called IronForge. We lived nearby CastleBlack, and however had very little interactions with them. This continued till my town built a road and bridge from our town to the herogate we lived by. My town and I placed signs claiming the path and the bridge for ourselves. Both stayed intact for about a week, until members of CastleBlack started to change our signs to display crude and disgusting language as well as breaking both our bridge and path in numerous spots. My town leader reported this to an admin, but was told that it was not against the rules and if you were going to build something like that we should claim it. I understand that idea, but as a tier 1 town its a little difficult to claim over 20 chunks when you only get 4. Another couple of days past and we received more signs and more griefing on both the path and the bridge. Finally, we had enough and went over to CastleBlack and asked them to stop. No one responded even though we had Prism logs to prove it.

After all this had happened we went to CastleBlack and griefed their bridge and path, digging up every single block of it for over 200 blocks. In retaliation CastleBlack not only destroyed our entire bridge and path, but dug around the entire confines of the town all the way to bedrock. Now this was just one of the many things that made me and my 4 other town mates leave the server after playing for so long.

I don't like the grief or get griefed mentality that some have displayed here. Griefing in itself is not bad, we can limit the griefing as admins said to maybe 100 blocks out. However, mindless and toxic griefing done by CastleBlack in this situation or any other players should not be tolerated. There should be no benefit nor allowance for people to participate in mindless toxic griefing.

If we want a better community that gathers more people it should be one that supports new towns and players. Regardless of the amount of people we have on release day, the server is dying. No amount of new classes or maps will fix that. People don't leave because of the grind or because of how hard the dungeons are. Anyone will tolerate a grind game (like WoW for example) because of the community surrounding it and currently our community is one of the most toxic i know of. I think if we change this no griefing rule it will be a step in a good direction to changing both Herocraft and the community for the better

Could not agree more... like I've been saying I have atleast around 10 people who can't even enjoy the game anymore and are looking for other servers or other games because of this, people don't want to get on and spend time on something simply to have toxic gamers trash talk you in signs or in chat (we had the issue in global chat for the whole server to see including new players just joining).

This will be one of the leading contributors to the fall of HC if nothing is done about it.

To people saying that grieifing and raiding are what is killing the server, you are simply wrong. Many of the top and most popular servers, specifically survival and raiding servers have significantly more people and griefing. Hell, on the first server I played on (which had easily 4-6 times on average of the population of herocraft at busy times) griefing was insaneeee, you couldn't even invite someone to your town for fear they would betray you and steal all your shit or kill you and we got camped forever. I had 3 people look at the server and watch me play in attempts to have my friends join up on herocraft and all 3 have decided not to play.

1st issue all three had was leveling, sitting online and waiting for a boost is not something many people want to do so don't even bring up boosts. Leveling should be balanced around non boost times and since you are paying money boosts should be a convenience, not something you rely on. Herocraft has the properties of an mmorpg but lets face it, it's not. it doesn't have the end game content required to be so nor does it have the gear. Runes don't work but they are still in the shop, weapons don't equally benefit every class and are the only end game thing to upgrade, and a lot of the information should be found on the wiki which is still outdated and filled with irrelevant material that doesn't exist anymore.

This is a fact, mmorpg's that are not finished and well polished with the promised content within the first 3 weeks to a month at the most after release fail, It's that simple. I've been playing them since EQ and people are simply fed up with supporting games that aren't done. I played rift for 4 or so years and people literally waited years for the promised content which was never delivered. I had a guild of over tons of people that followed me from mmo to mmo after that looking for a good game and you know how many play with me now....5-8 max depending on how well I can pitch a game to them. Nobody wants to waste their time on empty promises anymore it;s that simple. There are just to many failed games and to much money spent on supporting them only to quit before they are even released any many cases for people to sit on herocraft waiting for stuff to be fixed or added which I have seen thousands of players quit games for much less.

Boomer779 said:

I have played herocraft for a couple of years and have seen servers both with and without a griefing rule. This map i was part of a town called IronForge. We lived nearby CastleBlack, and however had very little interactions with them. This continued till my town built a road and bridge from our town to the herogate we lived by. My town and I placed signs claiming the path and the bridge for ourselves. Both stayed intact for about a week, until members of CastleBlack started to change our signs to display crude and disgusting language as well as breaking both our bridge and path in numerous spots. My town leader reported this to an admin, but was told that it was not against the rules and if you were going to build something like that we should claim it. I understand that idea, but as a tier 1 town its a little difficult to claim over 20 chunks when you only get 4. Another couple of days past and we received more signs and more griefing on both the path and the bridge. Finally, we had enough and went over to CastleBlack and asked them to stop. No one responded even though we had Prism logs to prove it.

After all this had happened we went to CastleBlack and griefed their bridge and path, digging up every single block of it for over 200 blocks. In retaliation CastleBlack not only destroyed our entire bridge and path, but dug around the entire confines of the town all the way to bedrock. Now this was just one of the many things that made me and my 4 other town mates leave the server after playing for so long.

I don't like the grief or get griefed mentality that some have displayed here. Griefing in itself is not bad, we can limit the griefing as admins said to maybe 100 blocks out. However, mindless and toxic griefing done by CastleBlack in this situation or any other players should not be tolerated. There should be no benefit nor allowance for people to participate in mindless toxic griefing.

If we want a better community that gathers more people it should be one that supports new towns and players. Regardless of the amount of people we have on release day, the server is dying. No amount of new classes or maps will fix that. People don't leave because of the grind or because of how hard the dungeons are. Anyone will tolerate a grind game (like WoW for example) because of the community surrounding it and currently our community is one of the most toxic i know of. I think if we change this no griefing rule it will be a step in a good direction to changing both Herocraft and the community for the better

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I did not take part in the griefing you are describing here, however, I believe your town griefed our road first. Our road was griefed within the first few days of the map. Trust me when I tell you, we have little issue with griefing. Hell, we grief the hell out of some towns. It all has to do with legality. We push the line as it pertains to what is and what isn't legal. BTW, placing two lava buckets is illegal, as this is "mass destruction". @joshtsai IF griefing were illegal, we would not partake. So again, I agree with a rule change. However, a hard line is risky. Even now, where griefing is "legal" you can be banned because someone gets upset. That is why I would not what griefing to be at the hands of staff discretion. Mainly because if you grief their town, you are asking to get banned. @Irishman81

w0nd3rb0y said:

I did not take part in the griefing you are describing here, however, I believe your town griefed our road first. Our road was griefed within the first few days of the map. Trust me when I tell you, we have little issue with griefing. Hell, we grief the hell out of some towns. It all has to do with legality. We push the line as it pertains to what is and what isn't legal. BTW, placing two lava buckets is illegal, as this is "mass destruction". @joshtsai IF griefing were illegal, we would not partake. So again, I agree with a rule change. However, a hard line is risky. Even now, where griefing is "legal" you can be banned because someone gets upset. That is why I would not what griefing to be at the hands of staff discretion. Mainly because if you grief their town, you are asking to get banned. @Irishman81

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You were banned because you broke a rule, not simply because 2 mods were in the town, however that probably expedited the process. Lava and water griefing has still been punished with the new griefing rules, I had basically my entire town banned last map for doing something similar to Newerth.

Agreed with Irish, as I showed Radi after the fact, the ban came from someone outside of the town. Maybe contrary to staff before I try to not get involved in staff issues; bans, mutes, etc when it involves me or my town. I do this to avoid what could seem like salt from a town that has staff, or personal vendettas. I was told to ban for lava dumping by another Admin in Pms.

Also that same night people of my town were banned for mass griefing as well. So you guys aren't the only ones who started getting banned for it. I hope the rules do change for the better so that people could better understand the line between legal and illegal.

w0nd3rb0y said:

I did not take part in the griefing you are describing here, however, I believe your town griefed our road first. Our road was griefed within the first few days of the map. Trust me when I tell you, we have little issue with griefing. Hell, we grief the hell out of some towns. It all has to do with legality. We push the line as it pertains to what is and what isn't legal. BTW, placing two lava buckets is illegal, as this is "mass destruction". @joshtsai IF griefing were illegal, we would not partake. So again, I agree with a rule change. However, a hard line is risky. Even now, where griefing is "legal" you can be banned because someone gets upset. That is why I would not what griefing to be at the hands of staff discretion. Mainly because if you grief their town, you are asking to get banned. @Irishman81

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Dont remeber if you took part i can ask my town leader he has logs. But for who griefed who first it was Icesomething that griefed out signs first and our road and bridge that was part of castleblack. We told your leader and him not to touch our stuff. We were ignored and it continued happening and then we took action

pocketemu said:

To people saying that grieifing and raiding are what is killing the server, you are simply wrong. Many of the top and most popular servers, specifically survival and raiding servers have significantly more people and griefing. Hell, on the first server I played on (which had easily 4-6 times on average of the population of herocraft at busy times) griefing was insaneeee, you couldn't even invite someone to your town for fear they would betray you and steal all your shit or kill you and we got camped forever. I had 3 people look at the server and watch me play in attempts to have my friends join up on herocraft and all 3 have decided not to play.

1st issue all three had was leveling, sitting online and waiting for a boost is not something many people want to do so don't even bring up boosts. Leveling should be balanced around non boost times and since you are paying money boosts should be a convenience, not something you rely on. Herocraft has the properties of an mmorpg but lets face it, it's not. it doesn't have the end game content required to be so nor does it have the gear. Runes don't work but they are still in the shop, weapons don't equally benefit every class and are the only end game thing to upgrade, and a lot of the information should be found on the wiki which is still outdated and filled with irrelevant material that doesn't exist anymore.

This is a fact, mmorpg's that are not finished and well polished with the promised content within the first 3 weeks to a month at the most after release fail, It's that simple. I've been playing them since EQ and people are simply with supporting games that aren't done. I played rift for 4 or so years and people literally waited years for the promised content which was never delivered. I had a guild of over 100 people that followed me from mmo to mmo after that looking for a good game and you know how many play with me now....5-8 depending on how well I can pitch a game to them. Nobody wants to waste their time on empty promises anymore it;s that simple. There are just to many failed games and to much money spent on supporting them only to quit before they are even released any many cases for people to sit on herocraft waiting for stuff to be fixed or added which I have seen thousands of players quit games for much less.

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Everything that was said here is accurate. Lack of communication and the speed of fixing bugs (or at least replacing skills to compensate for broken skills) has been pretty lackluster. As a newly appointed "scripter" (which from my understanding is just someone who does easy modification of already written code instead of writing new code) I can see that at least 'some' of these complaints have been addressed by other scripters. Smelly potatoes and an 'ol stick have been removed as drops (not sure if it's been pushed live yet though). Last I checked they would be removing the ability to buy "gems" to put in weapon sockets since they do not serve a purpose.

The fact that cauldrons were not working and it was known but nothing was said or done to compensate alchemists is inexcusable though. Herocraft profession leveling is brutal enough as it is, so to level alchemist to the point where you can use a cauldron only to find out it is disabled makes your profession very lackluster. The same can be said with Farmers not knowing that they can't level their profession through mining. It's a lack of communication that all members of staff are responsible for. (Yes this information is made clear in the wiki, but most people avoid the wiki because they know it's extremely out-dated and know not to trust it @Wiki Team)

Apex of Time is not very useful for casters/healers, nobody is arguing that. Unfortunately it is not an easy implementation to just add Wisdom and Intelligence to weapons, but that was the goal. Sadly, it seems like you're better off ignoring the purchase of Apex unless you are a rogue/warrior.

All in all, there are of course people who are upset about the griefing, but this is not the reason why "the server is dying". We went from 100 people to 50 people in a day, and now we are getting less than that. We did not shed off 50 people due to griefing, I can guarantee you that. There are a lot of factors that came into play on why people got bored so quickly, and I truly believe a large part of it was the leveling grind, but I'm sure others had different reasons. While I have always been ok with griefing, I have seen the problem arise first hand from our current state. I do believe we should revert back to the old system of being forbidden to place or maliciously destroy blocks within 100 blocks from a town/residence/herogate/spawn. That would alleviate that problem. As for the other things I listed, it's up to staff to do a better job, and that just doesn't fall on 1 person, it falls on everyone.

I've been playing Herocraft for 5 years. I have never held any sort of staff position and never really wanted to since for the most part crucial things were taken care of by other people. As our population decreases (or as old players get replaced by new players) I think it's important that active members apply for a position and at least attempt to make Herocraft a better place. I really don't 'want' to do it, but I feel like I have to do it just to stop the bleeding. I'm not ready to see Herocraft die.

Staff members, step up!

With games like World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls, they are actively participating in updates and pushing out newer content; Herocraft, unfortunately, will never live up to that standard for an MMO not because it can't or won't change but because you can't put that type of content into a Minecraft server at the rate the former games can.

However, what it can do is give out newer challenges within the world of Minecraft that we all can participate in, such as new maps every few years, arenas for massive pvp, dungeons for pve, and possibly even daily/weekly/monthly challenges that involve individuals or towns for building or collecting or PVE/P. THAT'S the direction we should be going in -- and having petty players run from town to town with the malicious intent of griefing or stealing someone's items is something that should have been behind us WELL before today.

This is stuff I'd imagine would go on in the beginning of the restart for a server -- you know, new people, new towns, nothing's really claimed yet, so just like in any grab for land and resources there'd be some squabbling. But several weeks into a refreshed map, where towns are massively growing in size and resource capacity? This is ridiculous, and goes back to a core problem: toxicity. Towns that commit to the server and actually try to make it a fun, creative, in-depth place to play is the entire point of Minecraft and what I thought HeroCraft was trying to achieve with the immersive nature of its realm.

But I guess not, if the defense ultimately comes down to "it's just what players do."

joshtsai said:

Agreed with Irish, as I showed Radi after the fact, the ban came from someone outside of the town. Maybe contrary to staff before I try to not get involved in staff issues; bans, mutes, etc when it involves me or my town. I do this to avoid what could seem like salt from a town that has staff, or personal vendettas. I was told to ban for lava dumping by another Admin in Pms.

Also that same night people of my town were banned for mass griefing as well. So you guys aren't the only ones who started getting banned for it. I hope the rules do change for the better so that people could better understand the line between legal and illegal.

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I completely understand what happened. But, lava/water is basically the only stipulation. As I understand I am responsible for reading every word of the rules, as I guess I agreed to them, it seems pretty moot. As we were doing it, I literally said to pancake that I am doing this to prove a point. I guess the point was to take my time out. However, the rules only state lava/water walls. This is where staff discretion came into play. Was it a wall? Or was it just lava poured over fence posts to look like a fountain? Who makes the judgement call? This is what I mean. Implement the 100 block rule for towns, and id say that is all that is needed. The wild is fair game.

It seems rather simple to me: You come to a town, where many people have spent many hours building to make look good and start attacking players. That's fine. They got caught in the open and paid the price. So they decide to sit in town and wait it out. Instead of the raiders getting bored and leaving, they start to tear apart the structures, that were built by said people, and even start telling them in chat they are going to continue tearing things down until they come outside. This is unacceptable and immature. I understand we play on a pvp server, do you understand that not everyone pvps? That this server is actually trying to offer other things for other people?

Some only play because they want to build and be social with their townies. They understand the consequences as well, but when you have to deal with ppl tearing down what you have built just because, then what is the point in playing? So they decide to log off for the day and not return until the next. I play this game a lot for the social aspect (in discord and my town ..def not O chat) and when my townies aren't online due to shit they had to put up with throughout the day, it makes me not want to play either. And i'm pretty sure this goes for a lot of ppl I know.

Kainzo is trying to do a lot with this server ...a crap ton. Trying to please everyone is impossible, so it's up to use as individuals to not be childish dicks. You kill someone in town, great. They don't want to come back out and fight (for whatever reason), then just leave them alone and wait for the ppl who don't care to pvp to get on. Then let the fun commence

Just my 2cents.

w0nd3rb0y said:

I completely understand what happened. But, lava/water is basically the only stipulation. As I understand I am responsible for reading every word of the rules, as I guess I agreed to them, it seems pretty moot. As we were doing it, I literally said to pancake that I am doing this to prove a point. I guess the point was to take my time out. However, the rules only state lava/water walls. This is where staff discretion came into play. Was it a wall? Or was it just lava poured over fence posts to look like a fountain? Who makes the judgement call? This is what I mean. Implement the 100 block rule for towns, and id say that is all that is needed. The wild is fair game.

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It's a well known fact that I hate wonderbread. I'm not sure I even fully grasp what he did to get banned, but anything to do with staff discretion is a no-no. There needs to be a hard line in the sand, and the 100-block rule is that hard line. The rule is that griefing is against the rules unless it is "malicious". Obviously this is a grey area. I don't know if there is anyone who would be upset if we re-implemented the 100-block rule aside from Staff members who will get a lot more /pe's for dirt pillars. The solution is to ban anyone who does not remove their dirt pillars in an orderly fashion. Simple.

Aneriel said:

It seems rather simple to me: You come to a town, where many people have spent many hours building to make look good and start attacking players. That's fine. They got caught in the open and paid the price. So they decide to sit in town and wait it out. Instead of the raiders getting bored and leaving, they start to tear apart the structures, that were built by said people, and even start telling them in chat they are going to continue tearing things down until they come outside. This is unacceptable and immature. I understand we play on a pvp server, do you understand that not everyone pvps? That this server is actually trying to offer other things for other people?

Some only play because they want to build and be social with their townies. They understand the consequences as well, but when you have to deal with ppl tearing down what you have built just because, then what is the point in playing? So they decide to log off for the day and not return until the next. I play this game a lot for the social aspect (in discord and my town ..def not O chat) and when my townies aren't online due to shit they had to put up with throughout the day, it makes me not want to play either. And i'm pretty sure this goes for a lot of ppl I know.

Kainzo is trying to do a lot with this server ...a crap ton. Trying to please everyone is impossible, so it's up to use as individuals to not be childish dicks. You kill someone in town, great. They don't want to come back out and fight (for whatever reason), then just leave them alone and wait for the ppl who don't care to pvp to get on. Then let the fun commence

Just my 2cents.

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I should note that now that TNT is enabled, the raiders have the ability to get into your town and kill your townmates if they really wanted to. I imagine they assessed the situation, realized it wasn't worth the TNT, and decided to grief instead. I do agree it was pretty childish given they had alternative options. This is exactly the reason why TNT was enabled (to fuck with people who stay in their town because they don't want to fight).

STDs4YouAnd4Me said:

I should note that now that TNT is enabled, the raiders have the ability to get into your town and kill your townmates if they really wanted to. I imagine they assessed the situation, realized it wasn't worth the TNT, and decided to grief instead. I do agree it was pretty childish given they had alternative options. This is exactly the reason why TNT was enabled (to fuck with people who stay in their town because they don't want to fight).

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Surprisingly i haven't seen anyone use TNT at all. But you are correct, right there was the answer to their problem. Unfortunately they took the lower road and brought this thread about :/

STDs4YouAnd4Me said:

It's a well known fact that I hate wonderbread. I'm not sure I even fully grasp what he did to get banned, but anything to do with staff discretion is a no-no. There needs to be a hard line in the sand, and the 100-block rule is that hard line. The rule is that griefing is against the rules unless it is "malicious". Obviously this is a grey area. I don't know if there is anyone who would be upset if we re-implemented the 100-block rule aside from Staff members who will get a lot more /pe's for dirt pillars. The solution is to ban anyone who does not remove their dirt pillars in an orderly fashion. Simple.

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That is part of the issue, how to implement something and not flood the staff with ridiculous PE's.

Dirt pillars and whatnot. We have no problem cleaning those up. The issue we have was our walls were literally destroyed and pieces moved to other spots and just placed (or used to spell someone's name out), lava placed on houses, houses destroyed, etc. Things that were really uncalled for just to try and get a rouse out of our non-pvp members.

I love griefing please dont remove griefing I enjoy destroying everyones structures because im a dick haha xd

STDs4YouAnd4Me said:

It's a well known fact that I hate wonderbread. I'm not sure I even fully grasp what he did to get banned, but anything to do with staff discretion is a no-no. There needs to be a hard line in the sand, and the 100-block rule is that hard line. The rule is that griefing is against the rules unless it is "malicious". Obviously this is a grey area. I don't know if there is anyone who would be upset if we re-implemented the 100-block rule aside from Staff members who will get a lot more /pe's for dirt pillars. The solution is to ban anyone who does not remove their dirt pillars in an orderly fashion. Simple.

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I stole two buckets of lava from Rapture. Then dumped them on three high fence posts outside their town. I understand that lava is "bannable" but to what degree. If it were any lava, shouldn't the rules clearly state all lava? The rule states this:

• Massive destruction is prohibited!
  • This includes but not limited to:
    • Server Structure/Structures
    • Biome Landscapes
      • IE. Lava/Water Walls

Does this cover what I did? Or doesn't it? Wouldn't this allow for discretion? My point is that we don't have a definable griefing rule. Would it have been better to message me telling me this is against the rules and leave it at that? Now I've lost my opportunity to get future titles. Is this a big deal? Not really. But, is it a poor call? I think so.

w0nd3rb0y said:

I stole two buckets of lava from Rapture. Then dumped them on three high fence posts outside their town. I understand that lava is "bannable" but to what degree. If it were any lava, shouldn't the rules clearly state all lava? The rule states this:

• Massive destruction is prohibited!
  • This includes but not limited to:
    • Server Structure/Structures
    • Biome Landscapes
      • IE. Lava/Water Walls

Does this cover what I did? Or doesn't it? Wouldn't this allow for discretion? My point is that we don't have a definable griefing rule. Would it have been better to message me telling me this is against the rules and leave it at that? Now I've lost my opportunity to get future titles. Is this a big deal? Not really. But, is it a poor call? I think so.

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lol.

Probably not bannable, seems minor. I got banned by an admin who comes onto Herocraft once a year for writing "recorded and reported" in chat. Shit happens I guess. Not a bug.

The rules are too vague, and those that are in power don't uphold what they're supposed to. They abuse their position and then shrug it off when it's brought up, because "they're just complaining" or "lol it's just a game."

I'm not a PVPer, and would much rather enjoy PVE. I enjoy the basics that the game gives me and I like the challenge (when I'm up for it) to PVP in dungeons, arenas, and in the open world, because that is the world HeroCraft has created. I've spent dozens of hours and much of my own money to have fun on this server, and I want to continue to do so because the server's premise is a good one; however, when it gets to the point that I'm unwilling to come on because I'm either threatened with TNT blowing up what I've helped to create or we're being camped for hours on end, it makes me want to look for other options.

Griefing should be illegal, period, and I don't know why there is an argument that there should be exceptions to this rule other than to abuse the system. There should be a community-based situation, as for the roads and graveyards, that are built by players but kept up by the staff because those areas are meant to HELP the server grow for communication, trade, and events. When people decide to camp, destroy, and abuse these player-based items, then yeah, people get turned off, especially when there are signs and boastings in /ch o with those aggressors coming on saying they don't care. They don't care because no one holds them accountable, and whenever they are it's by being muted or a quick ban, then they're at it again.

This server was and still can be fun, but for the "few bad apples" that continue to have free reign on this server without checks and balances it makes it increasingly frustrating for anyone to show up and have a good time.

Phoenix_prime said:

I'm either threatened with TNT blowing up what I've helped to create or we're being camped for hours on end, it makes me want to look for other options.

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TNT regenerates blocks after about 2 minutes. TNT does not destroy structures, it's only temporary destruction.