A political, economic and military simulation in Minecraft
The primary purpose of the scenario is to observe the interactions between player created factions. These factions will be completely organic, no modifications or code to support them, only the players making them up. We only need modifications to ensure political entities arise. Such things only come about when they are needed, so most modifications will be aimed to cripple the player in a way to gently push them towards cooperating.
If you wish to be notified when the server is almost ready for players, send myself, Ratmancer, a PM. Just confirm you wish to participate, I will not have the luxury of being able to respond.
DON'T POST ONE SENTENCE, ADD SOME DEPTH.
Approved Notions:
Concerning;
1. The map
(i) 2000^2 blocks
(ii) 3 Large continents made up of various biomes, according to geographic position eg. Desert at the equator, Tundra near the poles
(iii) A small handful of smaller islands, possibly holding rarer resources
(iv) Scarce, unequally distributed resources
(v) Contain 2 strongholds
(vi) The Nether will exist.
(vii) The end will exist.
2. The server
(i) Capable of holding 110 players, at the least
(ii) Situated in favour for use by residents of the United States
(iii) Will only be available for players 2 hours a day
(iv) It would be preferable that players stay for the entirety of the 2 hours
(v) A whitelist will be enforced
(vi) The difficulty will be hard
3. The players
(i) 110 Player capacity, at the least
(ii) 10 Administrators
(iii)100 Commited players, at the least
(iv) A large reserve of players to substitute
(v) All participants will be required to apply
4. The rules
(i) No use of cheats, modifications or exploits to gain an unfair advantage*
(ii) Do not act with intentions of seriously degrading someone elses experience in the game**
(iii) Players will experience complete freedom of speech unless in violation with 4-(ii)
(iv) Griefing without violating 4-(i) or 4-(ii) is allowed
(v) Violating any rule will result in a permanent ban from the server.
(*) This includes x-ray mods and texturepacks
(**) Administrators will act upon circumstances presented
5. Death
(i) Death will follow vanilla respawning; players will spawn at their bed unless destroyed
(ii) Players will respawn at a centralised spawning area if their bed is destroyed.
6. The modifications
(i) Local chat will be enforced for 50 blocks
(ii)
***Under Construction***
Questions we need YOUR help on:
Will the nether exist?
Outdated Original Post:
Hello, I've signed up to explore this idea of a political, economic and even military simulation taking place in minecraft. The simulation is not designed to emulate real life but to observe how the game play mechanics effect the construction of governments, although slight intervention will take place to ensure that the governments are indeed plausible at least, and of course, to enjoy the immersion and the players interactions. However, before we can get to the fun details, we need to create a list of problems that may occur and solutions to them. On a side note, I hope I am writing to the correct audience by posting here because minecraft is not known for its mature player base.
A down to earth explanation is that I am intending to design and hopefully implement a server that would host a variety of countries or political deities, each interacting with each other and their denizens. The players would occupy all positions in a country, players would create these positions, this is a rather large undertaking, however plausible, I mean, I have seen several servers with many hundreds of players on at a single time. Anyway, onto the problems.
Difficulty and economics Problem:
Minecraft is far too easy, resources are abundant and easy to gather. Grinding for resources by a nation would create a surplus, inflation and economic collapse. Since the consumption of resources usually results in the creation of capital, for example, most ores are smelted and turned into pickaxes that will in turn mine more ore, this will create a useless surplus, what is the point if you just mine to mine more?
Solution(s):
The availability of raw resources must drop, the ability to harvest them must drop, the consumption of them must increase. However the primary purpose of consumption in minecraft is to acquire more goods. A good consumer of goods is war which will not produce goods directly. War must be encouraged to chew down a countries resources and impoverish it. In addition the map could be modified (possible each uptime) to sever the surplus of goods. However a country is not always at war and so peacetime consumers must be introduced to remove this huge surplus of raw materials such as ores, stones and timber.
In exploring this idea with a friend I identified one of the main consumers in real life is the constant expansion, improvement and increasing of society. We want more, we want better. This is not easy rendered easily in minecraft since there is a technology roof and the average consumer in minecraft does not need logs, coal or ores. This is certainly an interesting problem.
Member activity Problem:
People cannot dedicate their entire lives to a server and it is fair to assume people value their real life over their commitment to a server. However, there needs to be sufficient members to govern and be governed. There needs to a minimum number of members active at all times.
Solution(s):
This may require specified server uptime in which members can play for a short period, this would mean there would be members would be entirely active for the entirety of the server however may prove frustrating in terms of time zones. Two different servers could run at different times to eliminate any upset members of specific timezones. This would also increase the degree of accuracy in terms of member numbers since people who cannot consider the specified time zones would not participate at all and remove any ambiguity.
Boredom Problem:
Grinding for resources results in obvious boredom. The increased difficulty would either increase this grind or add some stimulation depending on the way it is implemented. Either way, depending on the uptime of the server, you would not want to be mining or farming or wood chopping for the entirety of it unless you enjoyed it. Change would break monotony in the form of war, but would the prospect of war really carry people on?
Solution(s):
The implemenation of further difficulty could increase stimulation and fight boredom however and this could be furthered by limited uptime. However more needs to included. Change in the physical and politcal climate could help, I personally would enjoy contributing to a nation knowing I am helping it politically, economically and millitaristicly. Some may disagree so further elaboration is definitely required in this regard.
Acclimatisation Problem:
The beginning would be rather anarchic. Murder and stealing abundant. If previously aforementioned increased difficulty was introduced this period of the destruction could continue infinitely. This diminishes the chance of a centralised government forming.
Solution(s):
A loose set of 'countries' should be created prior and who resides in them should be decided. A very small settlement would be created for each to give the illusion of recent tribal ascension and encourage growth. In addition PvP could be turned off for the first uptime or a limited time to encourage economic and political stability and growth rather than, "lol lets kell dos gauis over der hueuhueuhue".
Summary
So after these considerations, I believe the optimum server for a political and economic simulation would simply be vanilla with the following changes.
A specified 2-5 hours of which the server would be up every fortnight, week or day. This would guarantee a high quality of interaction within the server, guarantee a large number of members and improve the over all experience.
Several changes to the game play mechanics of minecraft would be made, in general, to make it harder. Organic matter would take longer to grow with bonemeal effects either being removed or being nerfed. Cobble stone would be removed completely as a material from which to create tools. All tools will have less durability, wood will only have several uses. Stacks of any item or material would be reduced to a maximum stack of 1. This point ( is the most flexible I believe because the economic problems can be solved in several ways in regards to the modification of game play mechanics.
A customised map would be used. This map would feature sparse resources but a general minecraft terrain.
We need to get stuck into the main ideas before we tackles ideas such as dying, spawning, exiles etc, so please do not hold back. This is a process of development, nothing here is set in stone. Feedback, criticism, suggestions and ideas would be appreciated. Thankyou for reading!
This is just terrible. You are taking away from what minecraft is made from, like other servers out there. If realism and politics is what you want, play Real Life.
This is just terrible. You are taking away from what minecraft is made from, like other servers out there. If realism and politics is what you want, play Real Life.
Thankyou for taking the time to respond. By taking away from what minecraft is made from I assume you are implying that the presented server idea will focus less on the traditional single player experience, which I can understand is not pleasant for some. Realism is not something I am aiming for, the aim of the server is to create a series of governing bodies whom will interact. It would be completely vanilla if it were not for how easy minecraft is, as a friend of mine pointed out, minecraft suits the role of a sandbox rather than a survival thriller much better. The introduction of a government would vastly change things and I understand some people cannot stomach that. I want to see politics in a minecraft context really.
Death?
Death offers many options, we can have a permnanent ban, a small time ban, an instant respawn and there are other options regarding what happens to the drops.
A Permanent ban would be unpopular and the population would thin quickly. The server and its countries are going to have a constant population, minus people disconnecting and leaving. A small time ban would simply be inconvenient, so the best choice is an instant respawn at the countries capital. The player would lose everything and drop everything at location of death, just like vanilla.
Modifications?
I would like to restrict the server to the vanilla gameplay experience however, many mechanics interfer the plausibility of a functioning government and economy.
The removal of cobblestone as a tool-making material.
The durability of all tools must drop.
The stacks of items that can be collected by the player will be reduced from its previous maximum stack size to 1. Eg. A cobblestone block will fill 1 slot in your inventory rather than 64.
The growth time for all organic matter will increase dramaticly.
(Something needs to be done about how quick it is to place blocks)
TNT will take time to arm, that is, there is a delay between when you can set it off and when it will begin to explode. The explosion radius will be larger and stronger.
The map will be of the custom made variety. It will be a continent of some shape, sorrounded by water. The map will have a large limit.
What experience am I aiming for?
I can see it now. A band of ~50 settlers arrive, a little food, a couple of wooden tools, their leader organises the clearing of the land, the mining of the riches of the earth. Soon the settlers create a small makeshift town, guards secure the perimeter, a clear heirarchy is formed, it is a despotic monarchy. Now the town is a glorious city with high stone walls and guards wielding iron weapons and armor, the ruler lives in a luxurious palace. It has formed an early capitalist society, gold bars are the form of currency, however for some, they will only ever see bread in the state welfare system as they slave in the fields and mines. The ruler taxes the gold out of the peasants for the precious redstone imports to create intricate weapons of war and fill contracts with the blacksmiths and miners who build up expansive stockpiles of weapons.
An emissary from a near by country arrives, he brings a declaration of war with him. The emissary is killed and the ruler conscripts majority of the population into the armed forces. They are equipped from nothing but wooden swords to iron armored soldiers of the diamond sword. His army advances into the horizon, however his preparation is for nothing, they are met in the battlefield and promptly slaughtered by the enemies tightly packed formations and well equipped and trained army, raining arrows and splash potions. Their lose formation and lack of discipline and experience is evident. The ruler and his army respawns, they pump out weapons and armor before the enemy enroaches on their city, but it is too late, enemy siege engineers work at the base of the walls with TNT whilst enemy archers pelt the defenders. The enemies pillage, burn and destroy, they leave nothing for this new country. The ruler signs a treaty declaring his burnt city as a puppet state, having to hand over any form of income to them. As the victors trickle out of the city with the riches of battle, the survivors either leave for a new land or begin rebuilding the walls and crafting swords to take vengance.
Minecraft ALREADY has a working economy : relatively limited ressources, manpower and even some kind of environment concern. As an "economy enthusiast", I can tell you than Minecraft economics are far more advanced than in most online games (except maybe Eve Online).
On the server I'm playing right now we are forced to carefully manage all the ore we get. Big projects take big ressources. Minecraft (at least Survival) is all about economic matters: are you going to spend 2 hours in a mine or are you going to spend this 2 hours to make the mine more efficient ?
We also have politics : some members are against exploitation of the villagers in "Iron Factories" when others are promoting even more constructions of this kind.
In fact, Minecraft has an economic system, maybe too floorishing for your taste (that's OK with me). It also has politics.
What you are suggesting is more of an alternative poorer and violenter Minecraft where instead of focusing on a rising "civilization", it is all about gloom and doom. I think your idea is interesting but it won't add more economy or politics, it will just change the rules of the actual ones (and maybe make it more "gamish").
First of all, thankyou for the first truly in depth criticism. Now, let me reiterate that the idea of this is to create governing bodies interacting with each other, there needs to be a force behind this, a pushing factor. This factor would be the need for protection, resources and food by a player, however, minecraft is far too easy for this factor to even exist. As a single player you have way too much power. You can easily hop into a new world, establish a base point and plunder diamonds in the first 1-2 hours. Now, imagine if several people did this. Everything would be in surplus. Keep in mind the main aim of this server is to simulate a politics, economics and millitary. It is not to build huge wonders to Notch or create cultural references on large scale. The buildings should ideally be practical. So, we've got everything we need, there is no need to trade because, what is the point if everyone has everything?
Maximum quantity = minimum price
I want less quantity to increase the price, therefore promoting trade (and an effort by a body of players to collect resources, not just a lone wolf). Even my intended ideas will not raise the price enough I believe.
Your example of politics is barely on the scale I am aiming for. Functioning parliaments, absolute monarchies, the works. I intend for it to be organic, not forced, so I imagine much simpler forms of government would appear, however, you get the idea.
A rising civilisation would be a fantastic arrival, maybe born from the blood of other nations? You are right though, I am just changing the how it works, but this is to force politics and discourage the lone wolf.
Your idea gets more and more interesting (especially as you pounder the ups and downs of such "new rules").
If I get to the bottom point, you'd like to bring more scarcity (am I spelling it right ?) in Minecrafts economy. So, you wish to make the "prices" rise by diminishing "the quantity".
So, how do we decrzease the "quantity" ? You suggested making the tools less efficient and/or less resistant. I fear (maybe I'm wrong) it will cause more grinding. Decaying vegetal ressources, on the other hand, is great. Another idea could me the creation of a "ressource sink". Think of a kind of hole you have to pour ressources inside (war won't be enough as there isn't enough incentive to create war in the first place). A second way to decrease the amount of ressources would be a limited seze map and/or a lot of players...
Those are just some random ideas (as I'm at work right now and don't have too much time to develop... I probably even had ideas you already had). I'll come back later if you don't mind.
Regards
Brilliant! You are absolutely correct when you state that less efficient tools would increase grinding, this was a short sighted error on my part, this would need to be explored further, I myself am not sure on the efficiency and durability of tools. I think decreasing the durability would be superior to changing the efficiency. When you say decaying vegetal resources, I assume you mean the decaying plant matter, so plants would eventually die out and would need to be maintained or harvested, kept in order. In fact, I can imagine water melon stalks could be maintained using bone meal. I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but it is definitely something we can elaborate on.
I like the idea of a resource sink, however it seems to artificial. It serves the problem, but it seems to be imposing and not natural, if you follow my drift. Maybe offerings need to be made to a fictional god? This also can definitely be elaborated on, I understand these ideas are somewhat rushed.
Finally a limited size map is exactly what we are going to do, modified possibly to decrease the resources. We cannot go over the specifics yet, but I think we will need to lower the resources in a map anyway.
Thank you for taking the time out of your work to comment, don't get fired on my part though, haha.
I think your study (?) is doomed to fail from the very start simply because I highly doubt you can the get the number of players you need to implement the test server. You mention a couple hundred players - that's just a good start. In order to truly have the players organize themselves into a governing body you likely will need thousands of players. Why? Because if you have 200 people and the server is broken up into a handful of factions, you probably have only 50 people at most in a single group. With that few people, the only form of government required is maybe a faction leader and a few deputies. Nothing fancy.
It would still be an interesting experiment for small scale group dynamics, but it doesn't do anything special than you can't already find on other servers. In fact, if you're writing a thesis or something and want to get test cases, you better off asking the community about any large servers and ask if you can join as an observer. Otherwise, start using EVE Online as the focus group. It's probably much more in line with what you're looking for.
One more thing - I'm not sure manipulating the game mechanics are necessary to achieve a thriving economy (within the context of MineCraft that is). Tools already degrade, items can be destroyed forever, and construction projects take a lot of materials (think of how much gold and iron it would take to run power rails between cities a thousand blocks away). Personally, there's no way at all I'd play MC if I had to haul stone one block at a time. That's just not fun.
I really love this idea! This is something I have always been interested in and have actually thought of many times myself, unfortunately it seems like such a large and daunting task I feel like it can never truly be done... Good luck to you though! I'll try to stay active in this thread because I really like the looks of it!
I think your study (?) is doomed to fail from the very start simply because I highly doubt you can the get the number of players you need to implement the test server. You mention a couple hundred players - that's just a good start. In order to truly have the players organize themselves into a governing body you likely will need thousands of players. Why? Because if you have 200 people and the server is broken up into a handful of factions, you probably have only 50 people at most in a single group. With that few people, the only form of government required is maybe a faction leader and a few deputies. Nothing fancy.
The language in the opening of your response seems a little pessimistic, but I understand your doubt. This doubt is rather amplified when you also factor in the organisation required and cost for the server. I have no intention of starting a server, but if the opportunity arises, I would jump on it. To properly formulate governments and a population for the governments to control, we need as many players as possible. 100 I believe would be achievable, if I actively pursued it straight away, however that is 3 countries tops, with limited diplomatic options and small populations. Currently, I'm just exploring the idea.
It would still be an interesting experiment for small scale group dynamics, but it doesn't do anything special than you can't already find on other servers. In fact, if you're writing a thesis or something and want to get test cases, you better off asking the community about any large servers and ask if you can join as an observer. Otherwise, start using EVE Online as the focus group. It's probably much more in line with what you're looking for.
I am not doing a case study, although I can see how you could perceive that. I've always been fascinated by government, economics, the way of the world. To see how real people would work together in a minecraft context would be very interesting. Minecraft offers resources, mining, farming, all that jazz. It also offers a first person perspective and a consistent medieval vibe to add immersion.
One more thing - I'm not sure manipulating the game mechanics are necessary to achieve a thriving economy (within the context of MineCraft that is). Tools already degrade, items can be destroyed forever, and construction projects take a lot of materials (think of how much gold and iron it would take to run power rails between cities a thousand blocks away). Personally, there's no way at all I'd play MC if I had to haul stone one block at a time. That's just not fun.
Yeah, I'm not still 100% on the modifications to the game play, but it needs to be done somewhere, with minimal impact to to the 'fun' and to not amplify the grinding experience we are sometimes subjected to in minecraft. Thankyou for your realistic response, please check in again.
Also, Sir Veillance, I have the same feelings, it would be absolutely amazing to see this working, but the execution will be incredibly hard, the players, the server, the balancing of economics and game play. I think if we can agree on some things it may be possible in the (distant) future.
So you're not going to actually setup a server or conduct tests? Is this more of a thought experiment for your own interest?Nothing wrong with that - I'm just trying to see where you're coming from.
Overall, I think MC, while fun, is a sub-optimal test bed for any type of economic or political research. The ideal system would be 1) large, 2) complex and 3) stable. Unfortunately, I don't think MC achieves any of those on individual server basis when compare to other games such as EVE.
Seriously, for what you're talking about, it seems like EVE Online is _exactly_ the right place to look.
I'd like to give some info based on my experiences when I hosted a server.
My server was almost entirely vanilla, and ran from 7:00AM to 9:00PM Pacific Standard Time. Most of the players lived in America, but a few were in Ireland. The server averaged at around 10-15 people, and some towns and teams were formed. All resources were gained legitimately, and there was no factions, towny, or economy plugin of any kind installed on the server.
There was the town Whitewood, which was an above-ground town I created along with 5 other people. The makeup of the town was relatively simple, just a grid system with 3-tile wide roads and a wall made of wood and stone encompassing the entire thing.
Our government was a monarchy with communistic aspects. All resources were stored in the obsidian warehouse, guarded by myself and the 2 other soldiers. Nothing was ever completely stable though, there was constant jealousy because people felt that it wasn't fair for their resources to be taken from them for everyone to use.
Despite this, we were the only thriving group in the entire server. There was a raiding group of 3 people, and another town of 4 people that wasn't really going anywhere. The raiders almost constantly tried to get in, using burrowing, distractions, head-on attacks, and one time trying to blow up our warehouse (This was before we reinforced it with obsidian). There was also this one guy that ran in occasionaly and set things on fire for no apparent reason.
Now that my little story is over, here's some of my findings based on what happened in my server:
1.) There will always be raiders and anarchists, no matter what you do. Since people just respawn, they can immediately get back to work on getting weapons and armor to do more raiding.
2.) Economies are not possible without a large population of at least, by my estimate, 50 people in the economy. Any smaller than that and no economy will work.
3.) Governments and leaders come out on their own, but it takes a while without encouragement. I think that the best way to encourage group-forming is to make wheat grow a whole lot more slowly and make mobs a bit stronger (More health, not necessarily more damage).
4.) Ores are too common. To combat this, I recommend a plugin that makes ores spawn very rarely but in large, loosely-packed veins that contain hundreds, if not thousands, of ores. This also makes TNT mining more useful. (I'd also reccomend a plugin that makes TNT not destroy drops). Charcoal becomes a must-have if you don't have a coal vein.
5.) You need a border on the world. Without a border, people will just go hundreds of kilometers away from spawn and never interact with each other.
6.) DO NOT GET TOWNY OR FACTIONS. They ruin PvP. True raiding and PvP includes the destruction of enemy structures and fortifications. Just don't get any mods that add player protection.
This concludes my findings, I hope that you take these into consideration
Interesting ideas. I've wanted to see what happens with government scale Minecraft as well, but the main obstacle with doing so is server size. It would cost a fortune to buy a server large enough to support that many players, let alone run it.
Although, I think your approach to forcing the formation of governments may skew the results of the experiment substantially. Perceived scarcity tends to lead to rationing, which means you'll see governments that lord over their citizen's lives more often than you'll see free societies. That, and getting enough people to sign on when they know such restrictions are placed on them may be problematic.
It may perhaps be a better idea to arbitrarily divide the map of the immediate spawning continent (continents are large as of by the way; it may be helpful to use a third party program to generate a map of the whole continent for your own personal use) into territories (by biome would be the easiest), and allow political entities to lay claim to such territories; perhaps holding a territory for so long would earn the entity some bonus that they can't attain easily through normal work (free resources or experience, perhaps, or "points" - whatever entity holds the most points in the end "wins"). The early game would turn into an exploration fest/land grab, but suddenly they'll run out of territories to claim. Then it becomes a contest of who can hold onto their territories. This will naturally lead to wars, as greedy nations who see an unguarded adjacent territory will see an opportunity to expand their empire. Perhaps the rule for doing so would be they must eliminate all citizens of the occupying nation above sea level (to prevent hiding deep underground from being an issue), then whatever nation has the most soldiers in the territory (above sea level, again) gets it. These changes of power may have to be done at certain intervals (as you can't be everywhere at once), so they may have to hold it until the check-in time. Basically the server would become a Minecraft version of Risk, with ambiguity as to how each "player" (government) functions, and the complexities of Minecraft-based warfare, economy, etc.
Then you just need to solve the death problem. Lives in Minecraft are rather meaningless at the moment, as you can just respawn. If you had a rule stating that players who die by the hand of other players are banned from the game for X amount of time, this would make random warfare less common, and stop, to some extent, random anarchists and loners.
It certainly is. You will probably need to assemble a team of observers to keep track of goings on as well. I'd be kind of interested in seeing how it turns out should you get the chance to actually get such a thing running.
I don't have the time to respond at the moment, but thankyou all for your 2 cents on the matter, I've definitely reconsidering the modifications to the inventory and the alternatives you've presented me I believe are superior. I will get back to this later.
I know it may be frowned upon, but I believe a modded (and not vanilla) server would be great. For instance: Flan's planes and war materials. These use tons of resources for single planes, AA weapons, ect ect. This would not only make military, war, and combat more interesting, but resources would be more spent, and the reconstruction and rebuilding would also take large amounts of materials. I really like the idea of "small stacks" where you could only hold one item in one slot at a time. It makes everything more fun (EX you cant mine for hours and come up with several stacks of whatever, but are forced to use mine carts to send things to the surface, and make a profit ect ect.) Also, certain aspects would also needed to be added to make things more controllable, such as an anti-crime police force ("handcuffing" people to stop them from running or suicide to avoid capture, and guiding captured prisoners to jail areas ect ect. this implements something to keep that anarchy period you mentioned away.) Also, in the mining company example above, the employers should have a way like looking at their employee inventories to make sure they aren't smuggling things.
More points to touch on:
Is communism easier for minecraft?
(Set jobs, everything else supplied, or democracy with currency ect. What can we do to make players do what they are needed to do (not slack off in war, to actually go mining, to actually be a good builder, farmer, or whatever else the empire/city/country/civilization needs)
How will we get players to function in new societies, and to follow their leaders?
How will we decide the leaders?
I usually prefer leading, and do a darn well good job at it, but how do we decide who rules these new organizations?
Factions plugin is a good look at a server mod already set up for something similar, but not quite. Many aspects of this plugin for bukkit do not fit what would be needed for a larger sustained community. It might be possible to slightly modify this for a larger plugin, to go from Factions to Civilizations or something of the sort.
Also, I would love to join in on this project if it ever comes to fruition.
I am completely and wholly against temporary bans for death and set server up time hours.
Right now the main concern is players' hype for the project needs to accumulate completely, and the actual server running things would need to be set out.
All in all, cool concept but you are more likely to have what you want on a faction server. This idea, while awesome in the minds of few minecrafters, does not catch the interests of many of the rest of the player base. If this project were to start, it would need to start as a faction server. There is no question about that.
Concerning;
1. The map
(i) 2000^2 blocks
(ii) 3 Large continents made up of various biomes, according to geographic position eg. Desert at the equator, Tundra near the poles
(iii) A small handful of smaller islands, possibly holding rarer resources
(iv) Scarce, unequally distributed resources
(v) Contain 2 strongholds
(vi) The Nether will exist.
(vii) The end will exist.
2. The server
(i) Capable of holding 110 players, at the least
(ii) Situated in favour for use by residents of the United States
(iii) Will only be available for players 2 hours a day
(iv) It would be preferable that players stay for the entirety of the 2 hours
(v) A whitelist will be enforced
(vi) The difficulty will be hard
3. The players
(i) 110 Player capacity, at the least
(ii) 10 Administrators
(iii)100 Commited players, at the least
(iv) A large reserve of players to substitute
(v) All participants will be required to apply
4. The rules
(i) No use of cheats, modifications or exploits to gain an unfair advantage*
(ii) Do not act with intentions of seriously degrading someone elses experience in the game**
(iii) Players will experience complete freedom of speech unless in violation with 4-(ii)
(iv) Griefing without violating 4-(i) or 4-(ii) is allowed
(v) Violating any rule will result in a permanent ban from the server.
(*) This includes x-ray mods and texturepacks
(**) Administrators will act upon circumstances presented
5. Death
(i) Death will follow vanilla respawning; players will spawn at their bed unless destroyed
(ii) Players will respawn at a centralised spawning area if their bed is destroyed.
6. The modifications
(i) Local chat will be enforced for 50 blocks
(ii)
***Under Construction***
Questions we need YOUR help on:
Will the nether exist?
Outdated Original Post:
A down to earth explanation is that I am intending to design and hopefully implement a server that would host a variety of countries or political deities, each interacting with each other and their denizens. The players would occupy all positions in a country, players would create these positions, this is a rather large undertaking, however plausible, I mean, I have seen several servers with many hundreds of players on at a single time. Anyway, onto the problems.
Difficulty and economics
Problem:
Minecraft is far too easy, resources are abundant and easy to gather. Grinding for resources by a nation would create a surplus, inflation and economic collapse. Since the consumption of resources usually results in the creation of capital, for example, most ores are smelted and turned into pickaxes that will in turn mine more ore, this will create a useless surplus, what is the point if you just mine to mine more?
Solution(s):
The availability of raw resources must drop, the ability to harvest them must drop, the consumption of them must increase. However the primary purpose of consumption in minecraft is to acquire more goods. A good consumer of goods is war which will not produce goods directly. War must be encouraged to chew down a countries resources and impoverish it. In addition the map could be modified (possible each uptime) to sever the surplus of goods. However a country is not always at war and so peacetime consumers must be introduced to remove this huge surplus of raw materials such as ores, stones and timber.
In exploring this idea with a friend I identified one of the main consumers in real life is the constant expansion, improvement and increasing of society. We want more, we want better. This is not easy rendered easily in minecraft since there is a technology roof and the average consumer in minecraft does not need logs, coal or ores. This is certainly an interesting problem.
Member activity
Problem:
People cannot dedicate their entire lives to a server and it is fair to assume people value their real life over their commitment to a server. However, there needs to be sufficient members to govern and be governed. There needs to a minimum number of members active at all times.
Solution(s):
This may require specified server uptime in which members can play for a short period, this would mean there would be members would be entirely active for the entirety of the server however may prove frustrating in terms of time zones. Two different servers could run at different times to eliminate any upset members of specific timezones. This would also increase the degree of accuracy in terms of member numbers since people who cannot consider the specified time zones would not participate at all and remove any ambiguity.
Boredom
Problem:
Grinding for resources results in obvious boredom. The increased difficulty would either increase this grind or add some stimulation depending on the way it is implemented. Either way, depending on the uptime of the server, you would not want to be mining or farming or wood chopping for the entirety of it unless you enjoyed it. Change would break monotony in the form of war, but would the prospect of war really carry people on?
Solution(s):
The implemenation of further difficulty could increase stimulation and fight boredom however and this could be furthered by limited uptime. However more needs to included. Change in the physical and politcal climate could help, I personally would enjoy contributing to a nation knowing I am helping it politically, economically and millitaristicly. Some may disagree so further elaboration is definitely required in this regard.
Acclimatisation
Problem:
The beginning would be rather anarchic. Murder and stealing abundant. If previously aforementioned increased difficulty was introduced this period of the destruction could continue infinitely. This diminishes the chance of a centralised government forming.
Solution(s):
A loose set of 'countries' should be created prior and who resides in them should be decided. A very small settlement would be created for each to give the illusion of recent tribal ascension and encourage growth. In addition PvP could be turned off for the first uptime or a limited time to encourage economic and political stability and growth rather than, "lol lets kell dos gauis over der hueuhueuhue".
Summary
So after these considerations, I believe the optimum server for a political and economic simulation would simply be vanilla with the following changes.
A thanks to these people:
For showing interest and progressing discussion:
Sting_Auer
Sir_Veillance
Patday
LuciusTarkin
monkeyeyes114
Streloky
Crunkatog
Fightingbomber
EyeofTheDaev
Pikmin Red
Hybran
Asheselite
theKlois
Akorlith
BKrenz
MagicCreeper
Granack
danthonywalker
GamingDonut
Mocha2007
Kingtiger266
Pumpkin
Wahooman
Lemonmotion
and a HUGE thanks to these people for their continued support, dedication and depth of discussion;
TT2000
Tom Tzu
Delfill
Conundrumer
ChocoCraft
Poonjab1_0
Jr8
PkBlaze78
Turek
Thankyou for taking the time to respond. By taking away from what minecraft is made from I assume you are implying that the presented server idea will focus less on the traditional single player experience, which I can understand is not pleasant for some. Realism is not something I am aiming for, the aim of the server is to create a series of governing bodies whom will interact. It would be completely vanilla if it were not for how easy minecraft is, as a friend of mine pointed out, minecraft suits the role of a sandbox rather than a survival thriller much better. The introduction of a government would vastly change things and I understand some people cannot stomach that. I want to see politics in a minecraft context really.
Otherwise, thankyou guys for the replies.
Death offers many options, we can have a permnanent ban, a small time ban, an instant respawn and there are other options regarding what happens to the drops.
A Permanent ban would be unpopular and the population would thin quickly. The server and its countries are going to have a constant population, minus people disconnecting and leaving. A small time ban would simply be inconvenient, so the best choice is an instant respawn at the countries capital. The player would lose everything and drop everything at location of death, just like vanilla.
Modifications?
I would like to restrict the server to the vanilla gameplay experience however, many mechanics interfer the plausibility of a functioning government and economy.
The removal of cobblestone as a tool-making material.
The durability of all tools must drop.
The stacks of items that can be collected by the player will be reduced from its previous maximum stack size to 1. Eg. A cobblestone block will fill 1 slot in your inventory rather than 64.
The growth time for all organic matter will increase dramaticly.
(Something needs to be done about how quick it is to place blocks)
TNT will take time to arm, that is, there is a delay between when you can set it off and when it will begin to explode. The explosion radius will be larger and stronger.
The map will be of the custom made variety. It will be a continent of some shape, sorrounded by water. The map will have a large limit.
What experience am I aiming for?
I can see it now. A band of ~50 settlers arrive, a little food, a couple of wooden tools, their leader organises the clearing of the land, the mining of the riches of the earth. Soon the settlers create a small makeshift town, guards secure the perimeter, a clear heirarchy is formed, it is a despotic monarchy. Now the town is a glorious city with high stone walls and guards wielding iron weapons and armor, the ruler lives in a luxurious palace. It has formed an early capitalist society, gold bars are the form of currency, however for some, they will only ever see bread in the state welfare system as they slave in the fields and mines. The ruler taxes the gold out of the peasants for the precious redstone imports to create intricate weapons of war and fill contracts with the blacksmiths and miners who build up expansive stockpiles of weapons.
An emissary from a near by country arrives, he brings a declaration of war with him. The emissary is killed and the ruler conscripts majority of the population into the armed forces. They are equipped from nothing but wooden swords to iron armored soldiers of the diamond sword. His army advances into the horizon, however his preparation is for nothing, they are met in the battlefield and promptly slaughtered by the enemies tightly packed formations and well equipped and trained army, raining arrows and splash potions. Their lose formation and lack of discipline and experience is evident. The ruler and his army respawns, they pump out weapons and armor before the enemy enroaches on their city, but it is too late, enemy siege engineers work at the base of the walls with TNT whilst enemy archers pelt the defenders. The enemies pillage, burn and destroy, they leave nothing for this new country. The ruler signs a treaty declaring his burnt city as a puppet state, having to hand over any form of income to them. As the victors trickle out of the city with the riches of battle, the survivors either leave for a new land or begin rebuilding the walls and crafting swords to take vengance.
First of all, thankyou for the first truly in depth criticism. Now, let me reiterate that the idea of this is to create governing bodies interacting with each other, there needs to be a force behind this, a pushing factor. This factor would be the need for protection, resources and food by a player, however, minecraft is far too easy for this factor to even exist. As a single player you have way too much power. You can easily hop into a new world, establish a base point and plunder diamonds in the first 1-2 hours. Now, imagine if several people did this. Everything would be in surplus. Keep in mind the main aim of this server is to simulate a politics, economics and millitary. It is not to build huge wonders to Notch or create cultural references on large scale. The buildings should ideally be practical. So, we've got everything we need, there is no need to trade because, what is the point if everyone has everything?
Maximum quantity = minimum price
I want less quantity to increase the price, therefore promoting trade (and an effort by a body of players to collect resources, not just a lone wolf). Even my intended ideas will not raise the price enough I believe.
Your example of politics is barely on the scale I am aiming for. Functioning parliaments, absolute monarchies, the works. I intend for it to be organic, not forced, so I imagine much simpler forms of government would appear, however, you get the idea.
A rising civilisation would be a fantastic arrival, maybe born from the blood of other nations? You are right though, I am just changing the how it works, but this is to force politics and discourage the lone wolf.
I hope to see more input, thankyou =)
Brilliant! You are absolutely correct when you state that less efficient tools would increase grinding, this was a short sighted error on my part, this would need to be explored further, I myself am not sure on the efficiency and durability of tools. I think decreasing the durability would be superior to changing the efficiency. When you say decaying vegetal resources, I assume you mean the decaying plant matter, so plants would eventually die out and would need to be maintained or harvested, kept in order. In fact, I can imagine water melon stalks could be maintained using bone meal. I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but it is definitely something we can elaborate on.
I like the idea of a resource sink, however it seems to artificial. It serves the problem, but it seems to be imposing and not natural, if you follow my drift. Maybe offerings need to be made to a fictional god? This also can definitely be elaborated on, I understand these ideas are somewhat rushed.
Finally a limited size map is exactly what we are going to do, modified possibly to decrease the resources. We cannot go over the specifics yet, but I think we will need to lower the resources in a map anyway.
Thank you for taking the time out of your work to comment, don't get fired on my part though, haha.
It would still be an interesting experiment for small scale group dynamics, but it doesn't do anything special than you can't already find on other servers. In fact, if you're writing a thesis or something and want to get test cases, you better off asking the community about any large servers and ask if you can join as an observer. Otherwise, start using EVE Online as the focus group. It's probably much more in line with what you're looking for.
One more thing - I'm not sure manipulating the game mechanics are necessary to achieve a thriving economy (within the context of MineCraft that is). Tools already degrade, items can be destroyed forever, and construction projects take a lot of materials (think of how much gold and iron it would take to run power rails between cities a thousand blocks away). Personally, there's no way at all I'd play MC if I had to haul stone one block at a time. That's just not fun.
The language in the opening of your response seems a little pessimistic, but I understand your doubt. This doubt is rather amplified when you also factor in the organisation required and cost for the server. I have no intention of starting a server, but if the opportunity arises, I would jump on it. To properly formulate governments and a population for the governments to control, we need as many players as possible. 100 I believe would be achievable, if I actively pursued it straight away, however that is 3 countries tops, with limited diplomatic options and small populations. Currently, I'm just exploring the idea.
I am not doing a case study, although I can see how you could perceive that. I've always been fascinated by government, economics, the way of the world. To see how real people would work together in a minecraft context would be very interesting. Minecraft offers resources, mining, farming, all that jazz. It also offers a first person perspective and a consistent medieval vibe to add immersion.
Yeah, I'm not still 100% on the modifications to the game play, but it needs to be done somewhere, with minimal impact to to the 'fun' and to not amplify the grinding experience we are sometimes subjected to in minecraft. Thankyou for your realistic response, please check in again.
Also, Sir Veillance, I have the same feelings, it would be absolutely amazing to see this working, but the execution will be incredibly hard, the players, the server, the balancing of economics and game play. I think if we can agree on some things it may be possible in the (distant) future.
Overall, I think MC, while fun, is a sub-optimal test bed for any type of economic or political research. The ideal system would be 1) large, 2) complex and 3) stable. Unfortunately, I don't think MC achieves any of those on individual server basis when compare to other games such as EVE.
Seriously, for what you're talking about, it seems like EVE Online is _exactly_ the right place to look.
There are a lot of things that separate Minecraft from real life, a government and economic system would be about 1%...
My server was almost entirely vanilla, and ran from 7:00AM to 9:00PM Pacific Standard Time. Most of the players lived in America, but a few were in Ireland. The server averaged at around 10-15 people, and some towns and teams were formed. All resources were gained legitimately, and there was no factions, towny, or economy plugin of any kind installed on the server.
There was the town Whitewood, which was an above-ground town I created along with 5 other people. The makeup of the town was relatively simple, just a grid system with 3-tile wide roads and a wall made of wood and stone encompassing the entire thing.
Our government was a monarchy with communistic aspects. All resources were stored in the obsidian warehouse, guarded by myself and the 2 other soldiers. Nothing was ever completely stable though, there was constant jealousy because people felt that it wasn't fair for their resources to be taken from them for everyone to use.
Despite this, we were the only thriving group in the entire server. There was a raiding group of 3 people, and another town of 4 people that wasn't really going anywhere. The raiders almost constantly tried to get in, using burrowing, distractions, head-on attacks, and one time trying to blow up our warehouse (This was before we reinforced it with obsidian). There was also this one guy that ran in occasionaly and set things on fire for no apparent reason.
Now that my little story is over, here's some of my findings based on what happened in my server:
1.) There will always be raiders and anarchists, no matter what you do. Since people just respawn, they can immediately get back to work on getting weapons and armor to do more raiding.
2.) Economies are not possible without a large population of at least, by my estimate, 50 people in the economy. Any smaller than that and no economy will work.
3.) Governments and leaders come out on their own, but it takes a while without encouragement. I think that the best way to encourage group-forming is to make wheat grow a whole lot more slowly and make mobs a bit stronger (More health, not necessarily more damage).
4.) Ores are too common. To combat this, I recommend a plugin that makes ores spawn very rarely but in large, loosely-packed veins that contain hundreds, if not thousands, of ores. This also makes TNT mining more useful. (I'd also reccomend a plugin that makes TNT not destroy drops). Charcoal becomes a must-have if you don't have a coal vein.
5.) You need a border on the world. Without a border, people will just go hundreds of kilometers away from spawn and never interact with each other.
6.) DO NOT GET TOWNY OR FACTIONS. They ruin PvP. True raiding and PvP includes the destruction of enemy structures and fortifications. Just don't get any mods that add player protection.
This concludes my findings, I hope that you take these into consideration
Although, I think your approach to forcing the formation of governments may skew the results of the experiment substantially. Perceived scarcity tends to lead to rationing, which means you'll see governments that lord over their citizen's lives more often than you'll see free societies. That, and getting enough people to sign on when they know such restrictions are placed on them may be problematic.
It may perhaps be a better idea to arbitrarily divide the map of the immediate spawning continent (continents are large as of by the way; it may be helpful to use a third party program to generate a map of the whole continent for your own personal use) into territories (by biome would be the easiest), and allow political entities to lay claim to such territories; perhaps holding a territory for so long would earn the entity some bonus that they can't attain easily through normal work (free resources or experience, perhaps, or "points" - whatever entity holds the most points in the end "wins"). The early game would turn into an exploration fest/land grab, but suddenly they'll run out of territories to claim. Then it becomes a contest of who can hold onto their territories. This will naturally lead to wars, as greedy nations who see an unguarded adjacent territory will see an opportunity to expand their empire. Perhaps the rule for doing so would be they must eliminate all citizens of the occupying nation above sea level (to prevent hiding deep underground from being an issue), then whatever nation has the most soldiers in the territory (above sea level, again) gets it. These changes of power may have to be done at certain intervals (as you can't be everywhere at once), so they may have to hold it until the check-in time. Basically the server would become a Minecraft version of Risk, with ambiguity as to how each "player" (government) functions, and the complexities of Minecraft-based warfare, economy, etc.
Then you just need to solve the death problem. Lives in Minecraft are rather meaningless at the moment, as you can just respawn. If you had a rule stating that players who die by the hand of other players are banned from the game for X amount of time, this would make random warfare less common, and stop, to some extent, random anarchists and loners.
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More points to touch on:
Is communism easier for minecraft?
(Set jobs, everything else supplied, or democracy with currency ect. What can we do to make players do what they are needed to do (not slack off in war, to actually go mining, to actually be a good builder, farmer, or whatever else the empire/city/country/civilization needs)
How will we get players to function in new societies, and to follow their leaders?
How will we decide the leaders?
I usually prefer leading, and do a darn well good job at it, but how do we decide who rules these new organizations?
Factions plugin is a good look at a server mod already set up for something similar, but not quite. Many aspects of this plugin for bukkit do not fit what would be needed for a larger sustained community. It might be possible to slightly modify this for a larger plugin, to go from Factions to Civilizations or something of the sort.
Also, I would love to join in on this project if it ever comes to fruition.
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I am completely and wholly against temporary bans for death and set server up time hours.
Right now the main concern is players' hype for the project needs to accumulate completely, and the actual server running things would need to be set out.
All in all, cool concept but you are more likely to have what you want on a faction server. This idea, while awesome in the minds of few minecrafters, does not catch the interests of many of the rest of the player base. If this project were to start, it would need to start as a faction server. There is no question about that.