Suggestion Rule for Excessive Destruction

[MasonMcBadbat]

At the moment, regarding builds in a town, owners are mostly uncontested in their rights to edit the terrain in their town borders. That's not a bad thing, but it created this destructive vice for challenged players. Since an owner owns all the blocks in a town tile, there is nothing to stop them from delivering excessive damage to the terrain their tile covers. One example being "Alakazam," a town on a southern peninsula of Kalros, which was destroyed without plan to reconstruct. This destruction was done out of spite and aggressively poor taste. This isn't the only time large scale greifing has been considered. Last year, there was a time during which Iblis considered destroying the Arvik, a famous landmark in Kalros, under the reasoning that they didn't want the land to be resettled and "ruined" by other players. Because blowing it up saves it somehow idk. They didn't thankfully but there was nothing in place to stop them had they decided differently.

I think we need a rule against excessive destruction in place because there is nothing to be gained from this kind of spiteful destruction of landmarks. When I started playing, I wasn't in it for conquest, I logged in to explore town ruins and search for material to help build my own holding up. Removing exploration content for tens of players over the spite of one is not an acceptable trade.

 

[Skuhoo]

Alakazam was destroyed by the player who owned the town when it was still alive, not by a town who owned the territory or a town created on the title after the initial death. If the original owners cared about the town they should have put more thought into who they were handing the town to. Also, you're wrong about the Arvik incident. The primary reason Silverhand did not want Arvik to be settled was because they didn't want an enemy to make a town in the tile next to them, which would have allowed Silverhand to be cut off from their territory in just a couple of successful attacks.

 

[OtakuBookWorm]

I think one question I need to pose is: what do you qualify as excessive distruction? Because there are people who remove a town from its tile to construct something brand new in their style. For instance, Valentia was built on the ruins of an old town, but they got rid of what was there before to make the Valentia we know today.

 

[Magpieman]

I do agree to destroy towns for the sake of destroying them is bad for the server and harms the exploration for others. However, off the top of my head, it appears difficult to make a rule that prevents it without restricting what town owners can do, are you not allowed to grief/damage your own builds? There is also, of course, a further issue this brings up, of whether people should be able to resettle ruins and whether there should be any restrictions on it. Certainly some things worth discussing, would love to hear some more peoples ideas on it.

 

[Cryptite]

Additionally, I want to bring up that Mag and I frequently scan the world for things that either need to be regenerated manually (they look just awful), vs things that look like they could become cool ruins. In the near future, our "regen" abilities will include the ability to run a gravity pass on "exploded towns" which would make the town look crumbled, as opposed to just lots of floating blocks and holes. We'd've done this with Alakazam had we had it, and it probably would've looked fairly cool.

We also encourage people to use /report to point our specifically awful areas of the world that could do with just being regenerated. This being sort of crowdsourced would help keep worlds both clean and ruined in just the right way.

 

[MasonMcBadbat]

Alakazam was destroyed by the player who owned the town when it was still alive, not by a town who owned the territory or a town created on the title after the initial death. If the original owners cared about the town they should have put more thought into who they were handing the town to. Also, you're wrong about the Arvik incident. The primary reason Silverhand did not want Arvik to be settled was because they didn't want an enemy to make a town in the tile next to them, which would have allowed Silverhand to be cut off from their territory in just a couple of successful attacks.

The majority of the structures in the town were built by a town preceding Alakazam. (Couldn't remember the name but Flameleif owned it I believe) Regardless, this rule suggestion is brought up to combat the idea that spiteful players can tear up a peice of Loka that others could enjoy. In the case of Alakazam, a town of decent architecture and infrastructure was replaced with TNT craters. Where is the utility here? Is there anything about it that helps Loka? To me there is none. It destroys builds, but it also destroys community, lore, and opportunities for players to become engaged in something better than the average factions server. We're better than this.

As for the Silverhand case, it's entirely possible that the reasoning I received was some sort of PR statement. I have no screenshots but I do seem to recall Opyc arguing the idea that Arvik would just be ruined by resettlement. For the sake of argument, say that conquest strats were the sole reason for the destruction. Does that make it better? Are we not better than that? When Camelot returned to Garama, the subject of tearing down the town before they arrived was never brought to the table. A town is worth more than that. We understood they could build a 5 high oak plank wall in a day, they can build the houses and the storage again. There is no utility in this strategy beyond causing pain to the other side, and I'd like to think we're all better than that here.

 

[MasonMcBadbat]

I think one question I need to pose is: what do you qualify as excessive distruction? Because there are people who remove a town from its tile to construct something brand new in their style. For instance, Valentia was built on the ruins of an old town, but they got rid of what was there before to make the Valentia we know today.

I'm all for improving on the tile. However, if you saw before and after pictures of Alakazam, there was no rebuilding planned. It was destruction for the sake of destruction via TNT. We demolish buildings in town all the time at DD. But we have positive intentions for what we want to do with that space.

 

[MasonMcBadbat]

I do agree to destroy towns for the sake of destroying them is bad for the server and harms the exploration for others. However, off the top of my head, it appears difficult to make a rule that prevents it without restricting what town owners can do, are you not allowed to grief/damage your own builds? There is also, of course, a further issue this brings up, of whether people should be able to resettle ruins and whether there should be any restrictions on it. Certainly some things worth discussing, would love to hear some more peoples ideas on it.

I would say the destruction of a large area of builds/terrain with no intent to rebuild or improve upon said terrain, done with a malice intent, is enough of a phrasing to perhaps catch things like the Alakazam grief within the rule while also giving towns like Lionsrock, who performed a more ceremonial farewell a little leeway if the community desired. But yes I'd love to get more thoughts on if this should be implimented, and if so, just how far it should go.

 

[Mrp]

I land more with mag on this one, some sites should be restricted for settlement just for the sake of the ruins and respect for the town that once was, Ziggify claimed Arvik with the intention of "rebuilding" it and now it looks like a train smashed through it. Some things, in my opinion, are better left untouched.

Also, just to set the record straight, no Silverhand member took part in the decision to blow the ruins up. Nick rocky, the owner of the ruins at the time, debated it for a while then decided against it.

 

[ModernMozart1787]

I think that there should be freedom to build or destroy builds if you have the intention of making a new build in the same spot.

If you have the perms of course

 

[marblesack12]

If properly implemented, a rule against excessive destruction could be a good addition to the server. Heck, I'm not much of a PvPer either, I am here for the world and what I can contribute to it. I find it hard to decide though. With all the work I have put into building Silverhand, would I rather it be left open for resettlement by some stranger a la Ziggify, or would I rather blow it to smithereens? Something I can't seem to decide.

However, with no rules about resettlement of past towns, and no way to decide where the true ownership lies (with the original creators, or with the new owners), I would think it would be hard to define a hard set line. I think the problem lies less with an excessive destruction rule, and more in town resettlement rules. Perhaps true works of art like Arvik, Auru, Tortuga or other towns of that caliber could be committed to a hall of fame. Allowed to fade peacefully into ruin as a memento of past achievement. At least, that's what I would want for Silverhand when the day finally comes...