Below I have a few thoughts on how to fix the current system of townships, whitelist, griefing, etc. In no specific order here they are.
1. Townships: Remove DAILY taxes, set income on homes to 0. (Regardless of Direction this should be done.)
2. Townships: Have mods/admins check towns activity monthly. Even write a couple of plugins to compare timestamp data perhaps internally, and notify staff somewhere on say, a webpage that shows towns that are going to expire. Then let the mods/admins handle it when it shows up. I can think of a dozen ways to implement this. For starters. Make a /clan bb. Force mods+admins to join it. Make a plugin that posts a /clan bb msg so when mods and admins login it directly notifies them right there when they login by seeing recent clan bulletin board msgs.
3. Townships: Set weekly taxes on townships at significantly lower rates, around 15 to 250 for a capital. Similar to older systems.
4. Townships: Set up trading shops to generate lower money, but enough to pay for taxes if towns get involved in producing these goods, but also enough to help them grow a little at a time if money is factored in here. i suggest it not
5. Townships: I suggest that we setup a caravan/delivery system as you have, with regards to PVP/PVE, that allows towns to expand based on activity -- Which leads me to>
Trading: They can login, escort deliveries to obtain goods required to upgrade their regions, or pay for these goods with souls earned from producing goods.
Banking: Town banks should be used to directly purchase goods, not player-banks. Mayors and other players can donate to town banks, and town banks can net money from conquering CO's. Never, should this money be withdrawn for player-money directly. It should be translated to items which reward the player gear (which can be sold, or traded for) reward the town with resources, or pay for the towns taxes. Never anything else. Either way, the system is inflated, everything produces too much money/consumes money too fast, and once one of those factors becomes imbalanced -- the TIME factor is still "FAST" so that it quickly hurts or benefits the economy of that town -- Which leads me to>
6. Townships: Slow time down, slow down generation or null it out. (Regardless of Direction this should be done, taxes should be weekly and less.)
7. Townships: Conquest factoring / PVP Factoring - I think we should definitely do CO's to generate active incomes of money. this would be a cool trick to help revive PVP. But, I believe introducing Battlegrounds, Colliseum duels and arena matches, would be FAR SUPERIOR to this.
8. Map PVP: Constructive Learning / Helpful PVP -- People on PVE would be encouraged to enter PVP where they can learn on their own pace and PVP at will, with their own gear, and without having to travel to spawn to take a portal, off of the long cooldown for recall timers, these arenas and duels in colliseum are fantastic, and a great system we should encourage more.
we need to speed time up, in regards to THIS system, ^
9. Map PVP: Furthermore, we should probably make "Battlegrounds" similar to open world pvp, think "warsong gulch" from wow, where each side has a castle prebuilt, and has to CTF. Full LOOT pvp too! make it hardcore
10. More types of PVP styles! I would suggest Colliseum duels and arena matches (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5) these should be Kit-PVP matches where players risk no gear of their own. Battlegrounds should be custom areas the Architect teams can build monthly or every several months to add new ones, and new balance to PVP sectors, they would be areas with custom objectives and full-loot PVP which is not currently available even in open-world pvp. Open world PVP is bad as the system is currently, because people don't like being camped. Having alternative options where there is more risk and reward and where PVP can be done on each individuals own time will yield better results, and we can advertise the server as being PVP friendly.
11. Greylisting / Registration require checking your email / Reading the hc.to/rules -- Bring this back, make greylisters a thing. Force people to check their email to be able to be whitelisted, and inside the email refer them to a link to the wiki. If players cannot put in this much effort, then they're not going to pull out their debit card, EVER, for the server. They're not going to support us, and they're most likely not ever going to stick around. Cut the dead weight. Make people jump a few hoops to get in. Make the method automatic. Automatic whitelisting needs to end.
12. Give other staff positions more power. Architects or other various people who are contributing should have more say in the development of the way things are going, especially those of us with more level headed views on balance, fairness, and equality. Level-headed or not, these things should be factored or weighed against how the server can bring in money, what types of players we're fishing for, and the community (effectively "we") want to nurture.
An example of this is that I think we should bring back senior architects who can help improve the server on their own time, by granting those of us who are trusted access to make changes to areas around noble plots, bridges, plant trees, bring in more flower types than just using generic "bonemeal" on the ground which produces only red and yellows, there are things we could be doing to add finishing touches. This is more of a personal gripe, but I miss having people like Symbolite around with spawn region perms who were able to fix problems or random glitches/errors pasted in later by admins or mods.
Another problem is that Moderators would have to do some of this stuff, and they have a lot more factors to worry about with regards to whitelists and way too many people griefing one or two blocks and peing it. Moderators should have more control over rolling back damage and should have things like this on macromods. Rolling back areas of only a few blocks should take seconds if we do something or educate/train people to do these jobs. I will iterate again though, trust is required.
I would love to see newsletters from the Herocraft team talking about recent balance team changes, new staff positions people get, talk about the server, whats going on, who got promoted, towns that fall. Emails are awesome. Heralds should be a thing. Like bloggers that post about the on-goings of the community. Talk about wiki changes. Etc.
..and more. I will leave this up to discussion.
But I'm seeking opinions -- We need to be a team as a community, we need to provide input to ourselves -- Everyone should get on a logical path to improve the server that makes sense for various playstyles, fairness, and learning. Everyone's opinions should be considered sharply in regards to changes that affect us all. Consider the good, the bad, and the ugly -- and post about it!
1. Townships: Remove DAILY taxes, set income on homes to 0. (Regardless of Direction this should be done.)
2. Townships: Have mods/admins check towns activity monthly. Even write a couple of plugins to compare timestamp data perhaps internally, and notify staff somewhere on say, a webpage that shows towns that are going to expire. Then let the mods/admins handle it when it shows up. I can think of a dozen ways to implement this. For starters. Make a /clan bb. Force mods+admins to join it. Make a plugin that posts a /clan bb msg so when mods and admins login it directly notifies them right there when they login by seeing recent clan bulletin board msgs.
3. Townships: Set weekly taxes on townships at significantly lower rates, around 15 to 250 for a capital. Similar to older systems.
4. Townships: Set up trading shops to generate lower money, but enough to pay for taxes if towns get involved in producing these goods, but also enough to help them grow a little at a time if money is factored in here. i suggest it not
5. Townships: I suggest that we setup a caravan/delivery system as you have, with regards to PVP/PVE, that allows towns to expand based on activity -- Which leads me to>
Trading: They can login, escort deliveries to obtain goods required to upgrade their regions, or pay for these goods with souls earned from producing goods.
Banking: Town banks should be used to directly purchase goods, not player-banks. Mayors and other players can donate to town banks, and town banks can net money from conquering CO's. Never, should this money be withdrawn for player-money directly. It should be translated to items which reward the player gear (which can be sold, or traded for) reward the town with resources, or pay for the towns taxes. Never anything else. Either way, the system is inflated, everything produces too much money/consumes money too fast, and once one of those factors becomes imbalanced -- the TIME factor is still "FAST" so that it quickly hurts or benefits the economy of that town -- Which leads me to>
6. Townships: Slow time down, slow down generation or null it out. (Regardless of Direction this should be done, taxes should be weekly and less.)
7. Townships: Conquest factoring / PVP Factoring - I think we should definitely do CO's to generate active incomes of money. this would be a cool trick to help revive PVP. But, I believe introducing Battlegrounds, Colliseum duels and arena matches, would be FAR SUPERIOR to this.
8. Map PVP: Constructive Learning / Helpful PVP -- People on PVE would be encouraged to enter PVP where they can learn on their own pace and PVP at will, with their own gear, and without having to travel to spawn to take a portal, off of the long cooldown for recall timers, these arenas and duels in colliseum are fantastic, and a great system we should encourage more.
we need to speed time up, in regards to THIS system, ^
9. Map PVP: Furthermore, we should probably make "Battlegrounds" similar to open world pvp, think "warsong gulch" from wow, where each side has a castle prebuilt, and has to CTF. Full LOOT pvp too! make it hardcore
10. More types of PVP styles! I would suggest Colliseum duels and arena matches (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5) these should be Kit-PVP matches where players risk no gear of their own. Battlegrounds should be custom areas the Architect teams can build monthly or every several months to add new ones, and new balance to PVP sectors, they would be areas with custom objectives and full-loot PVP which is not currently available even in open-world pvp. Open world PVP is bad as the system is currently, because people don't like being camped. Having alternative options where there is more risk and reward and where PVP can be done on each individuals own time will yield better results, and we can advertise the server as being PVP friendly.
11. Greylisting / Registration require checking your email / Reading the hc.to/rules -- Bring this back, make greylisters a thing. Force people to check their email to be able to be whitelisted, and inside the email refer them to a link to the wiki. If players cannot put in this much effort, then they're not going to pull out their debit card, EVER, for the server. They're not going to support us, and they're most likely not ever going to stick around. Cut the dead weight. Make people jump a few hoops to get in. Make the method automatic. Automatic whitelisting needs to end.
12. Give other staff positions more power. Architects or other various people who are contributing should have more say in the development of the way things are going, especially those of us with more level headed views on balance, fairness, and equality. Level-headed or not, these things should be factored or weighed against how the server can bring in money, what types of players we're fishing for, and the community (effectively "we") want to nurture.
An example of this is that I think we should bring back senior architects who can help improve the server on their own time, by granting those of us who are trusted access to make changes to areas around noble plots, bridges, plant trees, bring in more flower types than just using generic "bonemeal" on the ground which produces only red and yellows, there are things we could be doing to add finishing touches. This is more of a personal gripe, but I miss having people like Symbolite around with spawn region perms who were able to fix problems or random glitches/errors pasted in later by admins or mods.
Another problem is that Moderators would have to do some of this stuff, and they have a lot more factors to worry about with regards to whitelists and way too many people griefing one or two blocks and peing it. Moderators should have more control over rolling back damage and should have things like this on macromods. Rolling back areas of only a few blocks should take seconds if we do something or educate/train people to do these jobs. I will iterate again though, trust is required.
I would love to see newsletters from the Herocraft team talking about recent balance team changes, new staff positions people get, talk about the server, whats going on, who got promoted, towns that fall. Emails are awesome. Heralds should be a thing. Like bloggers that post about the on-goings of the community. Talk about wiki changes. Etc.
..and more. I will leave this up to discussion.
But I'm seeking opinions -- We need to be a team as a community, we need to provide input to ourselves -- Everyone should get on a logical path to improve the server that makes sense for various playstyles, fairness, and learning. Everyone's opinions should be considered sharply in regards to changes that affect us all. Consider the good, the bad, and the ugly -- and post about it!
(It's not hijacking someone else's system either haha)