I was more looking at the problem of someone who clears out a mineshaft, or works his way through all the spawns in a cavern system and logs off for the day, only to find out that someone else came in and mined out all the veins that he worked so hard to get to.
you can't have an economy without property, and you can't have property in minecraft if you're gone for 90% of the day with no way of making sure that the mine you dug wasn't stripped bare and flooded with lava while you were gone.
If I spend all day planting trees and reeds, i do so with the understanding that when i log back on, they will all still be there for me to harvest.
without that guarantee, there is no reason for me to invest my time for someone else's profit.
That's sensible. A land claim would be a nice thing to have. A sign saying that it's your property and a lock on the door would go a long way, but some "real" land claiming ability would be ideal.
Honestly, that would break minecraft for me. It's hard to explain exactly how, but just removing the aspect of minecraft where everything can be broken down by anyone, given tools and time, is what makes minecraft so special. Anything that gets rid of that is bad in my book. If you're really worried about griefing, then get a whitelist, back your server up often, and most importantly, play with people you trust. I've got a chest full of iron and gold and diamonds sitting at the bottom of my tower, open without even so much as a door guarding it, and I don't have any fear of it being stolen from or destroyed because I trust the people on my server. If someone does end up stealing from my chest, then I'll deal with it in-game, protect my valuables more since I know someone's a thief (it's all just good fun though, I mean it's a game after all) and keep playing.
Stuff like that is a very integral part of minecraft: It sticks you in a simple world with simple rules, and then all sorts of complexity arises once you hand that to players. If someone does something you don't like, then that's part of the game, and you can deal with it in-game because the rules are so flexible. If you start messing with those rules to make things more convenient, or stop people from doing stuff you don't like (other than some specific stuff that abuses the coding, like flooding the world) then suddenly the game is much less open and interesting. The whole reason minecraft is so successful is because you can make it the game you want it to be, instead of being forced into a narrow definition of how some people think the game "should" be played, and what you "should" and "should not" be able to do.
Minecraft gives us an almost infinite world to explore, so does it really detract from your enjoyment if I want to say that this little 200x200 square chunk of it is mine? I just want a place where i can build my stuff in peace, without someone else breaking it. I also want the opportunity to meet new people, see what these people have made, and show them what I can do. the two are mutually exclusive unless i have some kind of safeguard against the morons infesting the classic servers.
and no, you can't deal with it in-game, because griefers have no attachment to anything in-game. they come in, they destroy, and they leave, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I had a big response written up after this, but then i was reminded of an article I read, i'm just going to link that. gimme a min.
They are not mutually exclusive. I don't know half the people on my server. You have a whitelist, so you won't get someone who logs in for 10 minutes, throws lava everywhere, and then leaves never to be seen again. And I don't see why you're so caught up in the building you built lasting forever. If you've really just got to keep something to remind you about it, then take a picture. I'd much rather finish it and move on to other stuff. Who cares what happens to it after that? You built it, and nothing can change that. Trying to say that what you built is so awesome that nobody should be able to touch it forever is frankly just a bit arrogant.
I've had it happen to me repeatedly that for whatever reason, the building I'd worked so hard on was destroyed or the work otherwise undone. I didn't whine or complain or ask for a server reset, I moved on and built something better with the experience I'd gotten while building the other one. It's good to start with a clean slate every once in a while.
I would straight out disagree that minecraft should NOT be a game where you don't have to worry about your sandcastle getting knocked down. That's what creative servers are for. Survival brings in risk of loss, whether it be by death or by creeper or by the hands of other players. Everyone's on even ground. Like I said, have a whitelist, even if all it takes to get on it is to post in a thread. That stops a lot of drive-by griefing in it's tracks, and the rest you can deal with.
They are not mutually exclusive. I don't know half the people on my server. You have a whitelist, so you won't get someone who logs in for 10 minutes, throws lava everywhere, and then leaves never to be seen again. And I don't see why you're so caught up in the building you built lasting forever. If you've really just got to keep something to remind you about it, then take a picture. I'd much rather finish it and move on to other stuff. Who cares what happens to it after that? You built it, and nothing can change that. Trying to say that what you built is so awesome that nobody should be able to touch it forever is frankly just a bit arrogant.
I've had it happen to me repeatedly that for whatever reason, the building I'd worked so hard on was destroyed or the work otherwise undone. I didn't whine or complain or ask for a server reset, I moved on and built something better with the experience I'd gotten while building the other one. It's good to start with a clean slate every once in a while.
I would straight out disagree that minecraft should NOT be a game where you don't have to worry about your sandcastle getting knocked down. That's what creative servers are for. Survival brings in risk of loss, whether it be by death or by creeper or by the hands of other players. Everyone's on even ground. Like I said, have a whitelist, even if all it takes to get on it is to post in a thread. That stops a lot of drive-by griefing in it's tracks, and the rest you can deal with.
It's not that it should never be touched forever, it should not be touched until i'm through with it.
and yes, we've all been griefed. and every single time it's happened to me, it has been impossible to counteract. even cooperatively, one griefer is enough to ruin the enjoyment of half a dozen others.
You make a big stink about minecraft being the game where you play by your own rules and have the freedom to act as you want, but then go on to say that I should regulate others' behavior by using server-side controls to do so. How is a whitelist any less domineering than a territory flag? At least give us the option of protecting something we've spent time and energy building. I can't be on the server 24/7 regulating who does what and keeping an active list of the people who do wrong.
do you really want this to be what minecraft is all about?:
do you really want this to be what minecraft is all about?:
No, of course not. I'm not defending griefing in general, I'm saying that the tools you use to combat it should take place out of game, not something that changes the rules of the game. If that takes place large-scale, then in my mind griefers will have won. A whitelist or possibly server rollbacks for really big events should prove to be tools enough.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to have your server where you all play with invincible sand castles and no risk of failure I'm just saying that I personally wouldn't want to play on a server with such things.
(Also, kinda beside the point, but that grief in the video was pretty pathetic. I could clean that up in 5 minutes, tops, and it would take at least that long to get enough materials for a bucket and to find a source of lava)
do you really want this to be what minecraft is all about?:
No, of course not. I'm not defending griefing in general, I'm saying that the tools you use to combat it should take place out of game, not something that changes the rules of the game. If that takes place large-scale, then in my mind griefers will have won. A whitelist or possibly server rollbacks for really big events should prove to be tools enough.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to have your server where you all play with invincible sand castles and no risk of failure I'm just saying that I personally wouldn't want to play on a server with such things.
(Also, kinda beside the point, but that grief in the video was pretty pathetic. I could clean that up in 5 minutes, tops, and it would take at least that long to get enough materials for a bucket and to find a source of lava)
And just because you don't want to play on such a server, it should not be possible? Why don't we put it in the game, and if you don't want to use it, you can make your own server with it deactivated. that way, we both get what we want.
there are a whole lot of things i would like to see implemented, and land claim is just the first step in that chain. if everyone is given a land claim of 200x200 squares, why not allow people to ally their claims with those of other players, to allow cooperative city building in a world of competing strangers? let city-states arise as people band together, and see trade flourish as necessary resources are restricted to specific biomes, and cities arise in frozen wastes and burning deserts to take advantage of the riches found there. Replace random monster spawns with npc's hired by kings and see armies grow, whose upkeep can only be maintained by a city rich in commerce. Watch nations go to war, armies of player-directed zombie minions throwing themselves against the buttresses of the city on the other side of the continent.
ok, i'm getting ahead of myself here, but until someone is allowed to say this is mine and that is yours, there will be no progress for this game.
yes, there should be the option of destroying what others have made, but not senseless destruction. destruction needs to take as much effort as construction.
The griefers already won if the first thing you want in a game is mechanics that isolate you from the (booooo!!!! awfull dangerous terrorist) strangers.
the griefers win when they get their petty little thrill after destroying something i've been working on and i go somewhere else in frustration.
the griefers lose when they can't do that anymore. I win when i'm allowed to have fun, and they're not allowed to have fun at my expense.
I've tried as much as possible to start some sort of economy in the server I play on. The biggest problem is that my organisation/group has everything you could want. We had some farm, well it started as one, and we just kind of stayed isolated. Got a tonne of stuff, we decide to do something with it so we take it to the big town known as "Hyper City." We have a shop there. Well we did as soon as we got there. We were given one. We started getting customers. "How much for a iron pickaxe" "uhh well... hm. what do you have" "<random stuff that isnt useful to us>" "uh... you know what just take it."
The problem we had was how we didn't need anything to live. We went fine without anyone else around, without buying things. I'm pretty sure the only way we can have really good economies is if a needs thing is added. Something like hunger. Then at least you have some reason to trade. That or gold coins needs to be added. But that would make gold useful...
I think that somewhere down the line, biomes will be added (ie: some parts of the map will get snow, some will be deserts, etc.) with resources available in those places that are not available in others. that should give you a reason to travel and spread out, and also encourage trade between clumps of people who live in different places.
The hunger thing would definitely be awesome, though.
On the server I play on, the economy only really exists because we've chosen to restrict ourselves to certain jobs. Other wise, I would be in a mine if I wanted ore or cutting down trees if I wanted wood, etc. I'm the sort of person who doesn't see trading goods as a necessity when I could easily get them myself.
I've tried as much as possible to start some sort of economy in the server I play on. The biggest problem is that my organisation/group has everything you could want. We had some farm, well it started as one, and we just kind of stayed isolated. Got a tonne of stuff, we decide to do something with it so we take it to the big town known as "Hyper City." We have a shop there. Well we did as soon as we got there. We were given one. We started getting customers. "How much for a iron pickaxe" "uhh well... hm. what do you have" "<random stuff that isnt useful to us>" "uh... you know what just take it."
The problem we had was how we didn't need anything to live. We went fine without anyone else around, without buying things. I'm pretty sure the only way we can have really good economies is if a needs thing is added. Something like hunger. Then at least you have some reason to trade. That or gold coins needs to be added. But that would make gold useful...
This is exactly what my original idea at the start of the thread was all about. The problem is that everyone can get everything, easily. Let's take an example, here:
Sheep A has a house and about 6 bars of gold, after mining underground for a while. However, he decides that he wants to paint it bright purple.
Sheep A goes to Pig B and asks him about where to get purple paint. Pig B says that Sheep A needs a herbalist table, and about 6 skyflue flowers to paint his house.
Herbalist tables are expensive and skyflue flowers are rare, and hard to farm right. He decides to go to the herbalist instead and just ask him.
Skellington C has just happens to have a jar of purple dye left from the last harvest, about enough to paint Sheep A's house. Sheep A trades his six bars of gold for the dye and goes to paint his house.
Skellington C has enough gold to buy the new type of fertilizer that Zomboni D is selling, which he couldn't get himself because it takes a pig farm and a large amount of chili bean casserole to harvest.
I think the previous few posters are right: as rarity and difficulty go up, things are more valuable and there is more incentive to trade. when everything isn't just lying around to be grabbed, and must be worked for, economies will develop.
so really, we just need to wait for the game to get more complicated, and the number of blocks and recipes to increase, and an economy should happen naturally
A very interesting and well thought out economic idea, but there is one very important thing to remember: this is not EVE Online. Part of the beauty of Minecraft is that anyone can do any task, and that you can create anything you want to so long as you have a bit of patience and the know-how. You don't have to spend three hours killing Creepers in strange ways to win over the blue print to learn how to make a stick of TNT, you just gather the materials and use the wiki or your common sense to construct it. The economy should stay simple just as the game should stay simple; to me, creating an enhanced and complicated trading system and economy would be almost as bad as updating the default graphics or putting gravity on all objects in the game. Would some more elusive items be neat? Absolutely. However, a player shouldn't have to go, "Oh, I need this last piece for my creation. Too bad I'm not a miner and can't realistically go get it myself; instead, I'll have to sacrifice an arm and a leg because it's too hard for me to get on my own, seeing as I'm already focused elsewhere."
In my opinion, economies will build themselves alongside communities; they'll balance themselves. We don't need to have it beaten over our heads like an MMO would do to us.
Complexity arises out of simplicity. That said, having more stuff in each area of expertise, such as additional plant types that take different conditions and more/less care, different types of lumber with different looks/properties, rarer monsters that are harder to kill drop useful stuff, and perhaps some additional tools for construction, like a rope you can use to hang off ledges.
You should never have the case where you CAN'T, say, go wandering off to find a troll to kill so you can fertilize your rare plant, but it should be set up so that if you do decide to do one thing more, you'll be rewarded with more stuff that you can trade to other people, and be able to focus the resources you have into more specialized equipment that maybe the jack of all trades just can't really afford to make all the time.
A very interesting and well thought out economic idea, but there is one very important thing to remember: this is not EVE Online. Part of the beauty of Minecraft is that anyone can do any task, and that you can create anything you want to so long as you have a bit of patience and the know-how. You don't have to spend three hours killing Creepers in strange ways to win over the blue print to learn how to make a stick of TNT, you just gather the materials and use the wiki or your common sense to construct it. The economy should stay simple just as the game should stay simple; to me, creating an enhanced and complicated trading system and economy would be almost as bad as updating the default graphics or putting gravity on all objects in the game. Would some more elusive items be neat? Absolutely. However, a player shouldn't have to go, "Oh, I need this last piece for my creation. Too bad I'm not a miner and can't realistically go get it myself; instead, I'll have to sacrifice an arm and a leg because it's too hard for me to get on my own, seeing as I'm already focused elsewhere."
In my opinion, economies will build themselves alongside communities; they'll balance themselves. We don't need to have it beaten over our heads like an MMO would do to us.
The wiki says that Notch hinted at every block except one would not be able to float with no support (not connected to the rest of the world). This is on the obsidian article.
Minecraft gives us an almost infinite world to explore, so does it really detract from your enjoyment if I want to say that this little 200x200 square chunk of it is mine? I just want a place where i can build my stuff in peace, without someone else breaking it. I also want the opportunity to meet new people, see what these people have made, and show them what I can do. the two are mutually exclusive unless i have some kind of safeguard against the morons infesting the classic servers.
and no, you can't deal with it in-game, because griefers have no attachment to anything in-game. they come in, they destroy, and they leave, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I had a big response written up after this, but then i was reminded of an article I read, i'm just going to link that. gimme a min.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1758
simply put, minecraft should be a game where you don't have to worry about your sandcastle getting knocked down.
I've had it happen to me repeatedly that for whatever reason, the building I'd worked so hard on was destroyed or the work otherwise undone. I didn't whine or complain or ask for a server reset, I moved on and built something better with the experience I'd gotten while building the other one. It's good to start with a clean slate every once in a while.
I would straight out disagree that minecraft should NOT be a game where you don't have to worry about your sandcastle getting knocked down. That's what creative servers are for. Survival brings in risk of loss, whether it be by death or by creeper or by the hands of other players. Everyone's on even ground. Like I said, have a whitelist, even if all it takes to get on it is to post in a thread. That stops a lot of drive-by griefing in it's tracks, and the rest you can deal with.
It's not that it should never be touched forever, it should not be touched until i'm through with it.
and yes, we've all been griefed. and every single time it's happened to me, it has been impossible to counteract. even cooperatively, one griefer is enough to ruin the enjoyment of half a dozen others.
You make a big stink about minecraft being the game where you play by your own rules and have the freedom to act as you want, but then go on to say that I should regulate others' behavior by using server-side controls to do so. How is a whitelist any less domineering than a territory flag? At least give us the option of protecting something we've spent time and energy building. I can't be on the server 24/7 regulating who does what and keeping an active list of the people who do wrong.
do you really want this to be what minecraft is all about?:
No, of course not. I'm not defending griefing in general, I'm saying that the tools you use to combat it should take place out of game, not something that changes the rules of the game. If that takes place large-scale, then in my mind griefers will have won. A whitelist or possibly server rollbacks for really big events should prove to be tools enough.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to have your server where you all play with invincible sand castles and no risk of failure I'm just saying that I personally wouldn't want to play on a server with such things.
(Also, kinda beside the point, but that grief in the video was pretty pathetic. I could clean that up in 5 minutes, tops, and it would take at least that long to get enough materials for a bucket and to find a source of lava)
And just because you don't want to play on such a server, it should not be possible? Why don't we put it in the game, and if you don't want to use it, you can make your own server with it deactivated. that way, we both get what we want.
there are a whole lot of things i would like to see implemented, and land claim is just the first step in that chain. if everyone is given a land claim of 200x200 squares, why not allow people to ally their claims with those of other players, to allow cooperative city building in a world of competing strangers? let city-states arise as people band together, and see trade flourish as necessary resources are restricted to specific biomes, and cities arise in frozen wastes and burning deserts to take advantage of the riches found there. Replace random monster spawns with npc's hired by kings and see armies grow, whose upkeep can only be maintained by a city rich in commerce. Watch nations go to war, armies of player-directed zombie minions throwing themselves against the buttresses of the city on the other side of the continent.
ok, i'm getting ahead of myself here, but until someone is allowed to say this is mine and that is yours, there will be no progress for this game.
yes, there should be the option of destroying what others have made, but not senseless destruction. destruction needs to take as much effort as construction.
the griefers win when they get their petty little thrill after destroying something i've been working on and i go somewhere else in frustration.
the griefers lose when they can't do that anymore. I win when i'm allowed to have fun, and they're not allowed to have fun at my expense.
The problem we had was how we didn't need anything to live. We went fine without anyone else around, without buying things. I'm pretty sure the only way we can have really good economies is if a needs thing is added. Something like hunger. Then at least you have some reason to trade. That or gold coins needs to be added. But that would make gold useful...
The hunger thing would definitely be awesome, though.
This is exactly what my original idea at the start of the thread was all about. The problem is that everyone can get everything, easily. Let's take an example, here:
Sheep A has a house and about 6 bars of gold, after mining underground for a while. However, he decides that he wants to paint it bright purple.
Sheep A goes to Pig B and asks him about where to get purple paint. Pig B says that Sheep A needs a herbalist table, and about 6 skyflue flowers to paint his house.
Herbalist tables are expensive and skyflue flowers are rare, and hard to farm right. He decides to go to the herbalist instead and just ask him.
Skellington C has just happens to have a jar of purple dye left from the last harvest, about enough to paint Sheep A's house. Sheep A trades his six bars of gold for the dye and goes to paint his house.
Skellington C has enough gold to buy the new type of fertilizer that Zomboni D is selling, which he couldn't get himself because it takes a pig farm and a large amount of chili bean casserole to harvest.
Sheep A paints his house and is gleeful.
Sheep A is no longer gleeful.
[Diamond] [Diamond]
[Diamond] [Diamond]
so really, we just need to wait for the game to get more complicated, and the number of blocks and recipes to increase, and an economy should happen naturally
In my opinion, economies will build themselves alongside communities; they'll balance themselves. We don't need to have it beaten over our heads like an MMO would do to us.
You should never have the case where you CAN'T, say, go wandering off to find a troll to kill so you can fertilize your rare plant, but it should be set up so that if you do decide to do one thing more, you'll be rewarded with more stuff that you can trade to other people, and be able to focus the resources you have into more specialized equipment that maybe the jack of all trades just can't really afford to make all the time.
"Economics" in minecraft is just convincing the other guy to give you more for your less. That's it. Begone.
The wiki says that Notch hinted at every block except one would not be able to float with no support (not connected to the rest of the world). This is on the obsidian article.