PLEASE READ: Major changes to Loka

[Cryptite]

After much deliberation with Mag and Asy, we've decided to implement some major changes to the culture of Loka; namely thievery. In short, we feel as though some of the rules and things that we've allowed on Loka have done little more than hurt Loka in terms of retaining new members. You may have noticed that for a few weeks, Loka enjoyed having a constant influx of new members with several new towns being founded. However, these days we're back where we were when we were waiting for 1.7 to come out, with extremely few numbers of players online and many dead towns.

The short of it is that many towns and players joined the server understanding that they could be raided or PvP'd but very very few knew to what extent, and further, did not realize that the culture of infiltration and placing insiders in towns was the main means by which they would have all their things stolen.

We've decided to put a stop to this because we feel, overall, that Loka has suffered (for some time now) and will continue to if we allow things to proceed the way they are. We have to consider the health of the server above all else, and seeing town after town be founded then be destroyed is disheartening when I think we all wish there could be more activity on the server.

So all of that said, from this point forward:

• In addition to only being able to /town at one town, you may not only have perms on one town at a time. This means that usage of /cleartown (which will become /town leave) will remove you from the town generator completely. If you wish to return to that town, you will need to be added again to the town by its owner/subowners.
  
• We are, from this point on, prohibiting being an insider/infiltrator to a town. You can no longer join a town under the guise of being a new member so that you can steal from the town once you have perms or aid in raiding/letting others in so that they may steal from otherwise inaccessible vaults. Doing so will be punishable by a ban. This means no building nether portals to let thieves in and no opening vaults for them either.
  
• TNT Cannoning is now forbidden. We feel that it should not be the first and majority priority of a town to be forced to build a giant square water wall so that they may hopefully not be cannoned into. We're not saying that walls are no longer useless, but you should be able to spend more time working on your town instead of spending vast resources being forced to create an ugly wall. We feel this also limits the "interpretation of griefing" that we have to go through to evaluate whether the cannon shot was necessary.
• A minor change to rule enforcement; Xraying won't always be a 100% permaban now depending on the situation. Several of you have made good cases for giving people second chances and in line with our making Loka a little more peaceful, we intend to be a little less brutal on our punishments. For this reason, a small, select number of players have been unbanned. Those players will of course be watched closely and if they are caught again, they will be simply re-banned.

Aside from new towns being easily dismantled with insiders, we feel another major issue with Loka is that no town wants to bring in new members because of (certainly founded) paranoia. This hurts the server in a lot of ways and also prevents those who wish to own large towns from doing so because every third new member may just turn around and make off with their stuff.

Understandably, for a few of you, this may completely change how you play on Loka, but these changes weren't made or discussed lightly. Hopefully we can add some new things in that will appeal to the thieves among you, but the brutality of Loka and the fear/paranoia that runs so deep within it is causing more harm than good and it's certainly preventing us from having a healthy and active community. We see these changes as being a step in a different direction, but we hope it will be a good one.

Happy Crafting, everyone.

 

[logturtle]

Awesome! Good to hear, I hope this expands towns and we see more new players.

 

[MasterAegon]

It certainly changes the atmosphere completely. There will be some that are crushed by the changes but it sounds like it's for the best.

EDIT: Am I reading the first one correctly in that you will now* only be able to have perms on one generator at a time?

 

[Cryptite]

Am I reading the first one correctly in that you will now* only be able to have perms on one generator at a time?

Correct.

 

[Lazuli73]

Also absolutely no TNT cannoning? I have cleaned up so many cannons and filled in so many holes it's sick. The whole nether portal thing also drove me up my own town wall so far I almost gave up on loka completely. Crypt is right, as a owner who was beat around by players joining to let raiders inside almost made me go off the deep end.

My Loka was almost ruined by raiders and I didn't let it, hopefully with these new rules that maybe no one else's loka can be shattered like mine almost was.

 

[Zor95]

And TNT carts?

 

[Cryptite]

And TNT carts?

Those are out too.

 

[Psychedelic98]

I've always been in favor of changing things up. I agree that the paranoia gets very intense, and even though I cause quite a bit of it, I feel I'm also affected the most by it. I've argued for a while that new methods should be brought in to replace cannoning and insiders. This could make things safer for builders and more interesting for thieves, but not replacing these methods doesn't seem right. Loka won't have the same mystery and excitement if raiding isn't possible, and without cannons and insiders dirt becomes bedrock. The amount of players on loka has increased recently, and while some are off-put by the idea of raiding, most have stayed despite that. Many are even in favor of it, and that doesn't even begin to account for the current players that are in favor of raiding. I understand with the reasoning behind it, and I agree that change is necessary, but I do not agree that this is the proper way to change things.

 

[Defgnww]

I really like these changes. I feel like the only thing that might not be the best of the TNT cannon rule, but time will tell how that goes. I overall feel these changes are for the better and would create a better atmosphere while keeping the raiding part of the server alive.

 

[Jedoi]

This. Is. Awesome. I mean, I don't like being able to have perms in just one town, (How will you help your allies??) but everything else is really awesome. Love it. Also, what would happen if a subowner got perms to help another town? Would they be able to re-add themselves to their gen or would the owner have to re-add them and make them a subowner again?

 

[Defgnww]

In response to what I said a little earlier ago, I do think that taking away cannons without providing an alternate method of raiding can actually kill the raiding part of the server. It makes it more of a "take what you can see" server rather than a stealing and raiding server. So like I said I am in favor of these changes but the cannon part may cause some problems.

 

[Lazuli73]

I've always been in favor of changing things up. I agree that the paranoia gets very intense, and even though I cause quite a bit of it, I feel I'm also affected the most by it. I've argued for a while that new methods should be brought in to replace cannoning and insiders. This could make things safer for builders and more interesting for thieves, but not replacing these methods doesn't seem right. Loka won't have the same mystery and excitement if raiding isn't possible, and without cannons and insiders dirt becomes bedrock. The amount of players on loka has increased recently, and while some are off-put by the idea of raiding, most have stayed despite that. Many are even in favor of it, and that doesn't even begin to account for the current players that are in favor of raiding. I understand with the reasoning behind it, and I agree that change is necessary, but I do not agree that this is the proper way to change things.

I don't know if you know this but YOU are the main cause of the paranoia on this server about letting people in your town. You always use new players to your advantage and tnt cannons are like candy to you. You have ruined a lot of players Lakan experience and almost mine, but I was not willing to throw away a year of work and a sentry rank.

This is the best possible thing for loka and I am sure that this will benefit ALL of loka, especially those who actually work hard to make their riches and wealth grow.

 

[Lazuli73]

In response to what I said a little earlier ago, I do think that taking away cannons without providing an alternate method of raiding can actually kill the raiding part of the server. It makes it more of a "take what you can see" server rather than a stealing and raiding server. So like I said I am in favor of these changes but the cannon part may cause some problems.

The whole point of a vault is to protect the valuable items from raiders. Havering some noob join a town, find the vault and letting a raider inside the vault is pure BS, a raider should not be able to get into the what should be the un-getintoable.

 

[Defgnww]

In response to what I said a little earlier ago, I do think that taking away cannons without providing an alternate method of raiding can actually kill the raiding part of the server. It makes it more of a "take what you can see" server rather than a stealing and raiding server. So like I said I am in favor of these changes but the cannon part may cause some problems.

The whole point of a vault is to protect the valuable items from raiders. Havering some noob join a town, find the vault and letting a raider inside the vault is pure BS, a raider should not be able to get into the what should be the un-getintoable.

I'm not promoting insiders and all of that, I think it's good that it is being taken away. I'm talking in specific about cannons as a way to enter a town. This means that raiding is essentially just gone if someone has a wall up.

 

[Psychedelic98]

Let's break this up

I don't know if you know this but YOU are the main cause of the paranoia on this server about letting people in your town.

If you read my post then you would know that I cause a large portion of the paranoia. This is not to say that if I were not here there would be no reason for paranoia, I'm just the only one that you know of.

You always use new players to your advantage and tnt cannons are like candy to you. You have ruined a lot of players Lakan experience and almost mine, but I was not willing to throw away a year of work and a sentry rank.

TNT cannons are my least favorite method of raiding, I've been pushing for a while to have something to replace them. While this isn't what I had in mind, Crypt is reasonable and I'm sure he'll do something so this evens out fine.

This is the best possible thing for loka and I am sure that this will benefit ALL of loka, especially those who actually work hard to make their riches and wealth grow.

I agree with you, but only partially. This could be a great step for loka, as long as we keep exploring our options for the future. If this is the final decision, then loka will become a very different place, and not for the better.

 

[Psychedelic98]

Let's break this up

I don't know if you know this but YOU are the main cause of the paranoia on this server about letting people in your town.

If you read my post then you would know that I cause a large portion of the paranoia. This is not to say that if I were not here there would be no reason for paranoia, I'm just the only one that you know of.

You always use new players to your advantage and tnt cannons are like candy to you. You have ruined a lot of players Lakan experience and almost mine, but I was not willing to throw away a year of work and a sentry rank.

TNT cannons are my least favorite method of raiding, I've been pushing for a while to have something to replace them. While this isn't what I had in mind, Crypt is reasonable and I'm sure he'll do something so this evens out fine.

This is the best possible thing for loka and I am sure that this will benefit ALL of loka, especially those who actually work hard to make their riches and wealth grow.

I agree with you, but only partially. This could be a great step for loka, as long as we keep exploring our options for the future. If this is the final decision, then loka will become a very different place, and not for the better.

The whole point of a vault is to protect the valuable items from raiders. Havering some noob join a town, find the vault and letting a raider inside the vault is pure BS, a raider should not be able to get into the what should be the un-getintoable.

Like Def, I also think that insiders are a bit too easy. That being said, putting up a few blocks of obsidian (or now any block to stop people from getting in) is a bit too easy too. Ideally, protecting a town should be only slightly easier than stealing from one, but that requires quite a bit of thought and I don't expect loka to be like that any time soon.

In response to what I said a little earlier ago, I do think that taking away cannons without providing an alternate method of raiding can actually kill the raiding part of the server. It makes it more of a "take what you can see" server rather than a stealing and raiding server. So like I said I am in favor of these changes but the cannon part may cause some problems.

Loka has never really been a raiding server. It's always been a primarily build server, and that's great. It's always interesting seeing the builds, and that's why I think that removing cannons can be a good thing, provided that it isn't left at that. The builders of loka should not be afraid of having their masterpieces blown to bits, but the raiders of loka should not be left without anything either.

 

[Cryptite]

The problem with cannons is the incredible resources required to defend against them. Those kinds of resources aren't available, let alone constructable for quite some time in the case of new towns, leaving them so much more vulnerable to raiders.

Some towns are built with the idea of being beautiful and being forced to have an effective defense against cannons requires sacrificing all aesthetics just for the water/lava/obsidian cube around your town.

Raiding is, granted, much harder now but until we can come up with some sort of replacement for the damage TNT cannons cause or figure out a way where people don't have to sacrifice everything just to create such an incredible defense for their town, then we have to get rid of them.

Cannons are used by such a minority of players on the server, that I don't agree that if TNT cannons were permanently removed, Loka would be worse off. The simple fact is the great majority of players on our server come here for the Town system. The raiding and pvp is a bonus for some players, but it does conflict with the building of towns. I don't want to get rid of thievery or raiding, but I don't want it to be the undoing of towns, which is currently the case much of the time with new towns, it seems.

The best we can try to do is come up with a viable alternative whether that be a different way to penetrate towns for thieves or some sort of scenario (a factions based control system in the nether has been tossed around by Mag) where thieves and raiders can run amok without disintegrating normal towns on the overworld.

 

[Zor95]

I agree with Def.

What you're going to see now are raiders jumping walls or simply walking into towns and massacring everyone. It will be made easier by false sense of security that will now pervade the server. This is far more detrimental to town life than the behind the scenes raiding that was more commonly seen. The goal of behind the scenes raiding was to, at the smallest cost possible, access and seize the most valuable materials and then get out. Common building materials were rarely, if ever, touched as were tools of a tier lesser than diamond.

Now all that's left to do is armor up, invade the town, then slaughter as much as you can before ender chesting drops, if any, and committing suicide if no exit is available. Alternatively, a raider will enter the town and claim anything that can be accessed and ender chesting that before committing suicide and repeating. I would guess that most people are a little more careless with their building supplies (I know I am) due to the sheer amount of them collected and stocked and the inconvenience of making a secure location for them, and so it is building supplies that will be stolen. So while towns may now have more funds for their generator, they're not going to have much to build with. And then there's the fact that you won't have an opportunity to build to begin with because you're always under the threat of invasion and death.

Trust me when I say this: A cannon to gain entry is a rare thing. We cannon so we can walk out. No one is any safer if they do not build a maximum security wall around their town. So while I do like these changes for the most part, this is going to go very poorly if no alternatives are presented in the very immediate future.

 

[Defgnww]

The problem with cannons is the incredible resources required to defend against them. Those kinds of resources aren't available, let alone constructable for quite some time in the case of new towns, leaving them so much more vulnerable to raiders.

Some towns are built with the idea of being beautiful and being forced to have an effective defense against cannons requires sacrificing all aesthetics just for the water/lava/obsidian cube around your town.

Raiding is, granted, much harder now but until we can come up with some sort of replacement for the damage TNT cannons cause or figure out a way where people don't have to sacrifice everything just to create such an incredible defense for their town, then we have to get rid of them.

Cannons are used by such a minority of players on the server, that I don't agree that if TNT cannons were permanently removed, Loka would be worse off. The simple fact is the great majority of players on our server come here for the Town system. The raiding and pvp is a bonus for some players, but it does conflict with the building of towns. I don't want to get rid of thievery or raiding, but I don't want it to be the undoing of towns, which is currently the case much of the time with new towns, it seems.

The best we can try to do is come up with a viable alternative whether that be a different way to penetrate towns for thieves or some sort of scenario (a factions based control system in the nether has been tossed around by Mag) where thieves and raiders can run amok without disintegrating normal towns on the overworld.

I'm not saying that cannons shouldn't be removed, because they really do suck for builds and nice looking towns, I'm just in support of not losing raiding in general. If cannons can be removed while working towards a solution for alternate methods that's good.
I think the example of faction control in the nether is a little confusing.. raiders would steal stuff inside the nether? I'm sure I probably just don't understand it fully but it seems like you could just not put stuff in the nether, but like you said this just an example.

 

[Zor95]

Also, how will you deal with cases in which a member of the town is tricked into letting a raider inside the town or a restricted area of the town? Or of a visitor to the town turning and killing citizens and stealing from chests? Would whoever let them inside be held responsible?

An example would be Jedi being tricked into letting a group into Der Riese which ended very poorly for its citizens.