1.7 Cities

[DragonofHalo Profile]

Ok, so we have established that there will be several different cities in the 1.7 reset. I'm making this post so that we can figure out what we want and polish the ideas. Now that we have some definite things to expect, we have something to go off of and I think that the community can get a real solution together. We have a lot of time and a lot of brains to work this out, so let's get a truly genius plan together.

Here's a few points that I can come up with off of the top of my head. This is not a complete list, the options that I'm listing are not the only possible options.

1. Mayors. Will there be mayors of the cities that act similar to a mod, defining rules and upholding them, answering questions, etc.? Will mayors have the same powers as a mod, the same permissions of a player or somewhere in between? Will mayors be elected on a monthly basis? Can mayors be impeached if they don't meet the standards of the citizens of the city? Will mayors be elected from the player base, or will only mods be eligible to become mayors? What would the requirements be in a player to become a mayor? Maturity, activeness?

2. Cities. How many? What will we name them? (I vote for the mod city being called NeoLeoville) How big will they be? How far apart from each other? Will the layout be a very organized, grid-like pattern, or will it be more of a more “towny” thing? Build limits? What will the basic rules be for the cities? Assuming that we go with the mayor idea and that mayors can change the rules of their designated towns, what rules cannot be changed?

3. Transport. Stargates or multiverse portals in the lobby that lead to the different cities? Whatever form of portal located within each city leading to every other city? Warp points instead of stargates/portals? Will /spawn or /mvs teleport you to the mod city, or will it teleport you to the lobby? Will the lobby be in its own separate dimension like it is now, or will it be at 0,0? How many question marks can I get into a single post?

4. Freebuild City. Obviously, I am a very strong proponent of having a Freebuild City. In my mind, it will act much like Redstone City and Acadiana were supposed to.

So, that's the suggestions that I have so far. Now for my opinions:
-Edit- Thinking over this a little longer, I don't think that mayors should have any more permissions as a normal player (with the exception of being able to build in the city's region), but I do think it would be best for mayors to pretty much have the main say on how their respective city is run/designed (with input from the residents of the city and the mods). Staying inactive on the server for more than a month would lead to a new mayor. Mayors should be elected at the beginning of the map and either A. be re-elected every few months or B. not replaced until the citizens of the city call for a new mayor or they step down. I'm leaning towards option B.
I feel that cities should be very grid-like and planned. (Look at a road map of Phoenix, Arizona for an idea of what I'm thinking.) I'd like for all of the cities (3 or 4 of them) should all be halfway to the edge of the world in the cardinal directions, with either the mod city or the lobby in the center at 0,0.
I think that /mvs should bring you to the lobby, which should be at 0,0 in the normal survival world (Maybe in the air?)
Freebuild City: I've discussed this in the What's Happening with 1.7 post already.

After reading some of the suggestions made so far, I've revised my own opinions. I appreciate the attention that this discussion is getting

[asim0v Profile]

Cities is probably still the biggest unknown for the reset. The plan is to have the mod city in the center of the map be spawn with one city at each of the cardinal directions at a specific distance away - half way between spawn and the edge of the map is what I most commonly saw discussed. The idea of themed cities had been brought up, but policing it would be a lot of work, where is where mayors come into it. So as it stands right now, there will be 5 official cities. That's not to say there won't be more. Players can start a city anywhere they like. Some yet-to-be-deterermined criteria may allow them to eventually get added to the official gate network.

The concept of mayors presents its own problems. I can state for a fact though, that mayors will not have the same powers as a moderator. Whether they will have access to more powers than the average player has yet to be determined. Largely because the role of a mayor and the mechanism for elevating a player to a mayor is still unknown. Appointment was initially discussed. In the end, there was really no way to eliminate the perception of favoritism to certain players. Elections was yet another mechanism discussed. But should the elections be run by the mods or entirely community organized? There's a very difficult balance we're trying to preserve. We want this server and world to be for the players, not a server and world for the mods.

As for transportation, all of the cities will be connected via stargates so players can easily and quickly move between them. I would also like roads to be built between them so the cities feel less like islands in the world. Warp points are not happening. The only exceptions are spawn and the player's home, just as it is now.

A free build city had also been discussed as being one of the official cities. So have 3 themed cities and 1 free build city. It's definitely something we're looking at as a strong possibility. It's also just as strong a possibility that the suburbs of the official cities could serve as the free build areas. I would like to hear thoughts on that and everything posted in this thread.

[VanteS]

Now that we are discussing cities I'd like to describe what the mods have envisioned for the basic foundation of a city as seen on launch day.

Before the new world goes public, mods will build out a town square for each city that includes a stargate, nether portal, TWiTMart and ATM. The town square and a bit of land surrounding it, acting as a greenbelt, will be region protected, outside of that will be wilderness. It wont be a complete free for all, we will set up a buffer zone surrounding the town square region with a set of rules to help prevent lag.

This means no giant shop with 1000 sign shop signs or giant mob farms and grinders near town square. The rules and the size of the buffer zone are still being discussed. Outside of this buffer zone would be wilderness with the same set of rules we have in survival today.

We anticipate a city being built up around the town square by the community, how that city looks, whether its themed or not is up for discussion.

As for mod city, it will have a town square in the center, there will probably be a grid pattern of roads with landmark buildings surrounding town square. The clock tower, the brickhouse, and a townhall building will be part of that. Outside of that will be mod property to build homes or bases on, hopefully they will be aesthetically pleasing since we wont be stuck building homes on tiny lots. We've also discussed adding fun stuff in mod city like grass growing arenas, a golf course and maybe even a PVP arena.

I imagine a little valley surrounded by rolling hills where mods build homes overlooking townsquare in the middle, all surrounded by wilderness. I'll post some pics of an "artist's miniaturized rendering" later.

These are all early ideas and hope we continue the discussion here and maybe in a future townhall meeting.

[okami04 Profile]

So with the stargates, will there still be a rail system? Especially between the cardinal cities. It would be nice, for putting smaller towns on those lines, with stops. That's where I would like to build, at least.

Something like this:

[Inertpyro Profile]

Not a bad idea but I think star gates elimite most if the need for rail. If someone wanted to build a rail system I think making stops in the NW, NE, SE and SW corners would cover more area. Basically make the rail lines around the perimeter a square instead of a <>.

[gregor1942 Profile]

Not a bad idea but I think star gates elimite most if the need for rail. If someone wanted to build a rail system I think making stops in the NW, NE, SE and SW corners would cover more area. Basically make the rail lines around the perimeter a square instead of a <>.

very well possible but at the same time people might want to go find a nice quiet place and what better way to do that than the rail system

[blendermf]

We have briefly talked about doing rails, may happen.

[Robrotheram Profile]

Although I like the idea of town centres at the cardinal directions. Some of the best cites were peoples own ideas built far away and then gathered support and help from the community. I wonder if portals could be boaught or given if a new city was built and met the mods criteria of what a city is. Ie, member base, city size etc.

[Goobler Profile]

Rails are a good suggestion if only to, like vantes said, so they aren't lonely islands. Also to Rob:

I wonder if portals could be boaught or given if a new city was built and met the mods criteria of what a city is. Ie, member base, city size etc.

So as it stands right now, there will be 5 official cities. That's not to say there won't be more. Players can start a city anywhere they like. Some yet-to-be-deterermined criteria may allow them to eventually get added to the official gate network.

[VanteS]

Just a thought, instead of making an intricate rail system that is time consuming to set up, we build a rail station in the town square that leads out to wilderness.

New players asking where they can build will be advised to take a ride on the "Wilderness Rail", the line stops in an unbuilt wilderness area. We keep extending the line 100 or so blocks every month for new players to easily find wilderness to build on.

[DragonofHalo Profile]

Yay discussion!
So, after reading a bit of input, I've edited my original post with my new opinions (this is why collaboration is awesome.)

My opinions on transport:
A rail that leads to the wilderness from each city sounds genius to me. As for city to city rails, they'd be nice to have in case the Stargate plugin breaks or something. What I think is majorly important, though, is a system of overworld roads leading from city to city (designed with horses in mind.) I speak from experience, it was annoying trying to get a horse from spawn to Airfield.

My opinions on how mayors should be chosen:
I, personally, trust the mods to appoint somebody that has some sense and can effectively run a town. They're not stupid, and, even if they do have a little bit of favoritism, it will still be towards a player that actually has some clue as to how to run a town. (And if they make a bad decision and appoint someone that has no business being a mayor, then they can kick him/her out and put someone in their place.) However, I'm not everyone else. So here's what I think would be a halfway decent compromise. Like it, don't like, discuss: The mods will pick a largish selection of players to be candidates based on some trait like maturity, community oriented, devoted, etc. (So, 5 cites, anywhere from 8 to 15 candidates.) They will list these candidates on the forums and state their reasons why they chose them to be candidates. (Hopefully eliminating the "The mods just like him more than they like me" argument.) If the community thinks that there is somebody else that should be considered a candidate, they can mention it and the mods may or may not add them to the list. Then get a nice big poll together and have the community vote on who, from that pool, should be mayor. Hopefully, this will keep Generic_eXample_n00bd00d from being elected.
Remember, this is the .5 cents of a minor. My ideas are flawed, please help polish them out

And I do have some questions on city rules. If the mods have an answer right off, awesome. If not, commence idea/opinion spitballing!
1. I think we either mentioned it in some buried post or in Town Hall, but what's the general idea for the "shop city"? Will there be one main designated city with loads of shops, or will there be a dedicated section in each city (away from the stargate) that contains the shops? (Keep in mind, the shop city doesn't have to be the only city with shops. It can just be the main market city and the rest have smaller and fewer shops.)
2. Chests. Will there be a radius from the town square that you cannot have more than X amount of chests in a something by something area?
3. Buffer zone: How does a 100 block region around town square sound? This region could possibly be filled with builds from trusted players (ngtflyer, Legida, Laustin, etc.) and the mayor could pick who is allowed to build and what the theme should be. Maybe? Yes, no?

One last thing that I'd like to suggest and then I'll be done with extremely long posts. (At least for a few hours.)
So, we've got the lobby. From what I've seen, it sounds like it will be redesigned by members of the community. Now do we want to keep it in its own separate dimension and have the various stargate portals in there, or do we want to have it in the normal, playable survival at 0,0? (The mod city could be somewhere else, like 0, -1000) I'd like it to be in survival and use it as a hub to travel to the different cities. This could also be where /mvs or /spawn takes you, instead of the mod city. Cool thing about this, it'll reduce the traffic by new players that one particular city gets. Personally, I'd rather live next to the city that's just a short command away rather than the city that's a few portals away. Laziness on my part, yes, but I'm thinking like a new player here.
Another thing about the lobby, assuming that it's in survival, I think that it should be in the air (or someplace that makes it extremely difficult to just walk out and start building.) Or region the area around it in a way that you can't leave. Or something. And maybe put the rules on signs... and implement the ban button idea that's been mentioned

[gregor1942 Profile]

i think we should keep the lobby seperate. the old saying of if it aint broke dont fix it comes to mind. the lobby should be changed and updated but i like the idea of a "NOOB" security process in which they HAVE to read the /rules to get the password and type it in granting them access to the worlds. the other idea i have is if the lobby is in the mod city then new players still have to read the /rules and enter a password but they can walk around mod city only.

i like the idea of mayors and i think dragon has the right idea of the mods giving us the choice of 8 to 10 players and the people vote for who will be the mayors (Gregor1942 2014 ;D)

[DragonofHalo Profile]

The "putting rules on signs and implementing the ban button" thing was more of a joke than anything. I like the idea, but I don't really expect it to be used.
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[adammbaker Profile]

1. Mayors — I'm not sure one way or the other on mayors, but I do believe strongly that there should be direction/rules for each city. It'd be a good idea to have some in charge of enforcing those rules but I haven't any ideas on how to pick people to do that job.

2. Cities — I love the idea of multiple cities, each with their own theme. As the owner of The Enchantorium, I'd like to know what is going to be done for fomenting/allowing shops in the world, whether in each city or in a centralized market somewhere.

3. Transport — I like the idea of Stargates, but I'd be open to a nether hub as well. And I believe that at the very least there should be rail lines between each city, preferably with an accompanying road alongside in case someone would rather live out in the wilderness but still have a means of getting back to civilization when necessary.

4. Freebuild City — No strong opinion from me.

Additional thoughts:

- The resource world should be easily accessible, ideally from each city, so that players obliterate that world instead.
- Make the new cities horse-compatible (i.e. wide enough, tall enough to not take damage, hitching posts).

[abigail Profile]

3- transport -just something about rails. if there is a cardinal-following system with a hub is it easier to intergrate additional lines for one big system, that have stations near or attached to rails to personal builds. and when i'm not feeling light sightseeing i can just bamf to whereever i want to go with a portal/stargate

1-mayors, sound like lesser mods when it comes to ruling their own city. regional managers? probably just saying who can and cannot build in the region (regional bans that dont get someone kicked frm the server) as well as maintaining the aesthetic of their theme (sounds similar to things like sky5 and so on)

2- neoleoville. i like it

4- no ideas atm