Suggestion Town Appearance Rules Rework

[Templar_James]

The rules on a Town Appearance (if there are any) need a complete rework as having huge buildings that are completely sealed off and ugly, people living underground, and dirt houses should be unacceptable for a server that I know has looked amazing with other towns in the past. There should be requirements that towns should have lore based buildings and such. I am not about building nor am I about the lore on Herocraft, but there was nothing I loved more then running into peoples towns and seeing the work they did and how it went along with the Herocraft setting. Honestly every town should be required to build a town like setting or city like setting even and living underground isn't a big deal I just wanna set more work put into towns so the server actually feels and looks nice.

 

[Jonsoon]

I loved having required buildings for upgrades; Library, Town Hall, Forge, etc. Built on the RPG aspect of the server, helped a town have purpose, gave people a place to do their craft, and every town could make them look beautiful and different!

 

[Xargun]

I would love to see some sort of cosmetic requirements for towns. Not necessarily for Upgrading, but just because. A lone player can live in a dirt shack but a town should have some sort of theme and look nice. Problem here (as in the past) is not everyone is treated the same and the rules are applied differently per town - or not applied at all. Not sure how to overcome that part, and maybe its a thing of the past now. Most of my HC time is from years ago, so maybe the favoritism is no longer and issue.

 

[Dielan9999]

I loved having required buildings for upgrades; Library, Town Hall, Forge, etc. Built on the RPG aspect of the server, helped a town have purpose, gave people a place to do their craft, and every town could make them look beautiful and different!

Oh yeah those were the good old days.

Also, the town hall had a no-pvp region. I think this is critical to getting people to consider building this way again. If a town can't protect you with what you've built you might as well live in a cave or in a personal region. Alternatively you have a pretty ghost town up top connected by secure tunnels or fully fledged undercity. We need something like the no-pvp townhall or else people will keep building fortresses instead of towns.

 

[Templar_James]

@Kainzo what do you think my man I think you would enjoy this more then anyone.

 

[Symbolite]

I agree with all mentioned comments above! Will it happen though? Probably not, to have Admins going around and policing that would be too much work. Back then it was easy because townships as a whole were handled by the admins, from expanding regions to setting up rings in the sky to even doing citizen audits. Kainzo wanted to automate the townships as much as possible which I believe started on Bastion. Ever since then the admins have been pretty hands off aside from bugs with the township plugin in place. Unfortunately this resulted from us going to massive metropolis' that could be explored by anyone to box towns.

 

[Xargun]

I agree with all mentioned comments above! Will it happen though? Probably not, to have Admins going around and policing that would be too much work. Back then it was easy because townships as a whole were handled by the admins, from expanding regions to setting up rings in the sky to even doing citizen audits. Kainzo wanted to automate the townships as much as possible which I believe started on Bastion. Ever since then the admins have been pretty hands off aside from bugs with the township plugin in place. Unfortunately this resulted from us going to massive metropolis' that could be explored by anyone to box towns.

What about some sort of voting system open to anyone on the server. If you get enough 'bad' votes then maybe a Mod or someone has to take a look ?

 

[Symbolite]

What about some sort of voting system open to anyone on the server. If you get enough 'bad' votes then maybe a Mod or someone has to take a look ?

I do like that idea, it could work but keep in mind the trolls. This map Newerth got countless PE's daily because haters gonna hate lol

 

[Templar_James]

I do like that idea, it could work but keep in mind the trolls. This map Newerth got countless PE's daily because haters gonna hate lol

Why did you guys get pe'd and I do like the voting system but honestly we could just get one person in charge of the towns appearance and rule set. Like a Head Carpenter or some other title.

 

[Symbolite]

Why did you guys get pe'd and I do like the voting system but honestly we could just get one person in charge of the towns appearance and rule set. Like a Head Carpenter or some other title.

It was related to us having a tower from ground level to skylimit. Especially because at first it was just a stonebrick box which to be fair i'll give them that one. Our main builder/designer could only work on the project 2 days a week so it was slow going in the first 2 weeks of map, and even now isn't 100% complete. We just took on a massive project and planned to do it all at once and our raiders didn't like that so PE's about everything.

I like the idea of setting someone up to be the head of policing towns. That way it's their job and they don't have to worry about other things.

 

[Xargun]

Why did you guys get pe'd and I do like the voting system but honestly we could just get one person in charge of the towns appearance and rule set. Like a Head Carpenter or some other title.

I like that idea as well. And it would be there job to look at towns and decide.. or at least bring it to the attention of staff if they feel it doesn't meet minimums.

 

[PrivateIdaho]

I remember setting up a township with all of the build requirements a few years ago, and while it was cool and gave a lot of aesthetics to the area it had taken a lot of technical detailing and maintenance to make it happen. Like the moderators and constant changes being made to the system made it hard to keep up with and somewhat glitchy. It'd be cool if we could do some sort of simplified building requirements for townships without people trolling pe's, or maybe giving a time limit from when the town is initially set up to when they can start getting violations for not having anything built. It takes a while to get all of the materials for a good build, and often towns do start underground until everyone can level a bit anyway. But I totally agree, I miss wandering around and seeing all of the cool builds!

 

[Dielan9999]

Why did you guys get pe'd and I do like the voting system but honestly we could just get one person in charge of the towns appearance and rule set. Like a Head Carpenter or some other title.

It got so bad we were given a deadline to have the top of the tower mostly completed. It was a big flat cube for a while. It has a proper topping and some texture now but progress is halted to finish the wall (it will obscure the bottom of the tower so the decoration on the bottom isn't even started) and haters are STILL gonna hate.

On the bright side we just need final touches on the top of the tower sides, and the wall cornerpieces and we can make more, shorter towers within the wall crowding around the main tower and it's pretty exciting. Though when its done i'm not going to be surprised if people continue to complain. Damned if you do damned if you don't.

 

[Yavool]

These are the current rules as they stand, @Templar_James, please discuss what you would like to see different:

Town Construction
If you are concerned whether your township design will comply with the Rules, request Admin consideration and approval.

• Exterior walls surrounding a town and town structures may not exceed 30 blocks in height in most cases.
  • Exceptions may be made for well built and integrated designs (subject to Admin approval).
• No cobble/dirt boxes. Walls/structures must be well designed and thought out.
• Walls/structures may not contain large amounts of lava and flowing water, as they cause block update lag without Admin approval.

• Towns may have a roof or a glass dome, but the roof/glass dome must conform to the following rules:
  • Must not be flat (eg no platform of glass/blocks covering the entire town)
  • Must be well designed and detailed
  • Must be stylistically integrated with the rest of the structure with believable building characteristics such as columns, towers, bracing, buttresses.

• Townships must have proper supports if they are raised off the ground.
• Floating townships must have proper "lore" that explains why the township is floating eg. airships, 'Laputa' style towns. Note: all townships of this type are subject to Admin approval.
  • Must not be too high from the ground
  • Must look like the township is meant to be flying (eg. propellers, air balloons)
  • All towns must have a method of getting from the ground to the township.

Sometimes the issue is not the rules, but the enforcement of the rules. Legislative branch makes the rules; executive branch enforces them; judicial branch identifies whether the enforcement followed the rules or not. @WitchOnaRampage was excellent at town construction enforcement last map; I am unclear who is running the town construction rules enforcement this map.

-yav

 

[Paul_Bakken]

Since we are on the subject, what about the huge sunshades scattered about the map? I'm talking about the one block thick slabs floating without plausible support way up the sky. One example is the one at about -200, 725.

I'm guessing that the purpose of these is to make a darkroom for mob spawning down on the surface. If darkrooms are legal again, in my opinion, they ought to be underground and out of sight. These floating slabs are uglier than even the the most fugly townships.

 

[Dielan9999]

Since we are on the subject, what about the huge sunshades scattered about the map? I'm talking about the one block thick slabs floating without plausible support way up the sky. One example is the one at about -200, 725.

I'm guessing that the purpose of these is to make a darkroom for mob spawning down on the surface. If darkrooms are legal again, in my opinion, they ought to be underground and out of sight. These floating slabs are uglier than even the the most fugly townships.

Last time I mentioned it someone quoted the rules at me without context. So I'm assuming they should all be /PE'd but given they are clearly visible on the dyn map I don't know if anything is or will ever be done about it.

 

[Xargun]

Last time I mentioned it someone quoted the rules at me without context. So I'm assuming they should all be /PE'd but given they are clearly visible on the dyn map I don't know if anything is or will ever be done about it.

Can always go and remove them yourself if they are not regioned... Its no longer greifing for wiping out peoples work.

 

[Paul_Bakken]

Looks like the one that I referenced is gone now. It still shows up on the isometric view map, though.

 

[LordZelkova]

Oh yeah those were the good old days.

Also, the town hall had a no-pvp region. I think this is critical to getting people to consider building this way again. If a town can't protect you with what you've built you might as well live in a cave or in a personal region. Alternatively you have a pretty ghost town up top connected by secure tunnels or fully fledged undercity. We need something like the no-pvp townhall or else people will keep building fortresses instead of towns.

This is what we usually did. Buildings up top with minimal, if any, storage/uses then a giant hole undergorund with chests, furnaces, farms, etc

The current rules don't really have much requirements, just that structures look integrated (And even then, many don't follow this) but those rules are very old and need updating. Also need clarification on what we should do with towns that break these rules, what feels like the right punishment. I personally don't think blanket deletion is a good idea, but who knows? @Rules Council @WitchOnaRampage @Admins

 

[LordZelkova]

On mobile so double post

Last time I mentioned it someone quoted the rules at me without context. So I'm assuming they should all be /PE'd but given they are clearly visible on the dyn map I don't know if anything is or will ever be done about it.

Make PE's at their location and tag me in them.

@Guides & @Proctors Assign those to me, I'll come on and clear them. Dark Rooms are to be built underground, or presented as full buildings with actual though put into them.