Suggestion Above Ground vs Below Ground

[Ajaxan]

I'm going to get some hate for this one for sure, and perhaps everyone completely disagrees with me but either way I felt it was worth mentioning, haha. I'm really into the role playing aspect of the server (in terms of town building) so I've built a wall, a central keep, and am working on tons of other buildings. Only some of which even have a purpose currently.

So one day I got bored and decided to go explore and see what others had done for their towns. i thought maybe I'd get inspired and see some great builds... Welp, I didn't see anything. for completely practical reasons both the towns I had attempted to visit had been completely underground.

As much as I understand their reasoning I still find it disappointing. I want to crest a hill and see a town in the distance. The problem is, being above ground is simple worse than being below ground. Players have more protection from raiders underground which is a massive advantage. what I'm proposing is not taking away that advantage but at the very least make living below ground have some disadvantages. This would simply help encourage more towns to stay above ground or at least develop some sort of above ground anything to signify that something exist there.

So that's my long justification for my idea now please don't rip me apart for my suggestion!

1) Make industry buildings have to be on the surface. Obviously this is hard to actually "do" because how do you know where the surface is? One idea would to have the top blocks of the industry build need to have access to the sunlight to work. Still not easy and introduces problems of its own.

2) Make crops require sunlight. The idea here being to prevent players from doing all their farming underground. Unlike the industry buildings one this isn't to hard to do and I believe there are plugins that already do it.

Hopefully you get the idea I'm going for here. Just make it naturally disadvantageous to be completely underground. there is nothing wrong with having underground parts, but have something above ground too! what do you guys think? Do you have ideas on ways to encourage above ground towns? Or am I missing the point and is there nothing wrong with being completely underground?

 

[Strongeee]

There is 2 things about this that is on my mind while reading this

1. Some towns are pretty good looking while they are underground.
2. I think later on once the server gets a bit older towns will start to emerge like a flower coming from the ground

 

[Ajaxan]

Yeah, its a pretty strong role playing bias on my side. I want to feel that sense of Awe coming across a mighty city or Castle and am frustrated I've yet to come across one. Granted that partially my own fault for not exploring as much as i should.

And you don't need to tell me twice about underground builds being cool, haha. I spent a good year doing nothing but underground builds and I believe some of my most impressive stuff was for underground builds.

And hopefully you're right. I'd love to see the underground towns start to emerge. Unfortunately, I believe without some sort of incentive, players will always go for the smarter option and just avoid putting anything above ground.

 

[Strongeee]

I think most towns start underground for safety and once they get defences up they start to build up. I think it was the same in the old world

 

[Wolfegger]

I built mostly underground to start, although I made an above-ground stable/barn for horses. I just started an above-ground castle, but I'm going about it slowly. Perhaps to encourage builders, some territory points could be awarded based on town beauty/impressiveness ranking (somehow established by voting?).

I have an idea relating to the 1.9 thread concerning flying. Maybe a requirement for a town to exist, in addition to a properly fed town generator, could be to have a raidable chest in an unlocked room above ground. A raider could seek it out, after successfully flying past aerial defenses, and get a certain number of power shards from the town generator stash. Some limitation could be placed on how frequently such a chest could be raided (once a day? Once a week?). This would encourage players to make complex builds that could hide the chests (without making them inaccessible). Maybe players would make cool mazes or castles with complex hallway systems. Obviously the loot would have to be enough to encourage a raider to risk his or her life and wings and gear (maybe it's not a practical idea at all . . . hmmm?). One benefit is that it could accelerate the demise of abandoned towns that have a good number of power shards in their town generators. Perhaps territory points could be rewarded for successful raids (of this type), as well.

 

[Ajaxan]

I love that idea Wolfegger! Unfortunately its still easily abused but I'm going to think further on this idea because encouraging non-destructive raiding and encouraging defense building is a top idea to me.

 

[MrAlchemy]

As above, so below


Things always spring to the surface, but there is nothing wrong with being subterranean. I fully appose any discrimination against my underground lifestyle and the safety it provides. As a thief might spry within the confines of a dark corner, "Not all pockets are easy to pick."

I'd suggest a conversation with a long time Lokan about how raiding has changed. How it's morphed, grown and diminished, flourished and almost died. It's quite the story

 

[X_Cavator]

my town is better https://gyazo.com/2841e3155236846faaac19d27be6c5b1

 

[Ajaxan]

I knew making this suggestion that it would be the least agreed upon. Obviously I'm new and I have a different idea about things than many if the long time players.

I'm still going to stick by my thoughts on it simply based on the role playing aspect. There's no doubt building underground is much safer than building above ground but there's a reason no time in history has the human race ever taken up living below ground. It simply isn't possible in reality. And of course this is a game but the very least that could be done is to encourage above ground building and allow a world to flouish. Imagine how amazing the world of Loka would look if there were towns scattered throughout the landscape.

Again, I have nothing against living underground but for new players and role players alike, above ground builds are what make the world worth exploring.

 

[Wolfegger]

my town is better https://gyazo.com/2841e3155236846faaac19d27be6c5b1

Oh, the deadly burger exploit. Haxxor! (I kid )

 

[Strongeee]

I'm still going to stick by my thoughts on it simply based on the role playing aspect. There's no doubt building underground is much safer than building above ground but there's a reason no time in history has the human race ever taken up living below ground. It simply isn't possible in reality. And of course this is a game but the very least that could be done is to encourage above ground building and allow a world to flouish. Imagine how amazing the world of Loka would look if there were towns scattered throughout the landscape.
.

I do agree with things being above ground helps with RP and the looks of the world. But above ground will come Even with underground RP stuff. A giant entrance to the city is pretty cool to see out in the world

 

[agorednocit]

Some towns have limited space and need to have industries and farms below ground to be able to make the topside look pretty.
If you want to make towns look nicer, bring back /g industry define. Its a pain in the neck to try to put a jagged 15x13 Norse building where it needs to be without it butchering nearby blocks.
Setting too many parameters for towns to meet stifles creativity, and at the end of the day not everyone can make good builds.

 

[Cryptite]

Setting too many parameters for towns to meet stifles creativity, and at the end of the day not everyone can make good builds.

This is frankly the reality here. Towns should be free to do whatever they want provided it doesn't literally break our gameplay or give the town some sort of abusable advantage in the world somehow.

The reason we removed redefining industry zones is because people were using zone redefinition to collapse their industries down to one small 4x4 area that had functioning chests and it kinda killed the spirit of the industry building. Additionally it was confusing people and they wound up breaking their industries more often than not. It caused more problems than it solved. So I'm not sure I agree that bringing it back would make anything look nicer.

But you are correct, not everybody can make good builds and giving them industries sometimes can kick-start a town's theme in a way. That said, virtually everyone just places them and leaves them as is, or puts up doors/dirt blocks.

 

[Ajaxan]

Setting too many parameters for towns to meet stifles creativity

Yeah I didn't think of this aspect. I agree with this 100% though. I love the roleplay but now that you've brought it up I tend to agree. Being able to create whatever you want is more important than anything else. This is Minecraft after all, the ultimate sandbox game.