Let the players choose their leaders and form their own groups. Admin interaction is not required for the players to advance as they need to.
ALthough, I think that it should be made harder to survive by yourself. This can be solved with my ore generation and mob health suggestions I made before.
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.
But this is what makes it interesting. From my understanding, this test has never been performed to the specifications and scale that I am exploring on minecraft. I also much prefer minecraft's game play.
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.
I completely agree with every single point, actually. I like this rather modest push for gradual civilisation that does not infringe on the player too much, thanks for your insight.
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.
Governments are not almighty figures, people form these governments and people can take them down.
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.
I appreciate the biome and land grab ideas, it would not be forced but It would be obvious that some countries would wholly exist in one biome and could churn out some interesting architecture. However, the territories would again be organic vanilla, is there some dispute over who owns what land? The war has to be revamped or resolved through diplomacy. I would like some borders going but it might be rather taxing on nations to build walls for their territories. There would be no end, theoretically. Even if a nation conquers all, whose to say it wont be overthrown and split into new multiple countries. I also agree with the X-time ban but I'm not sure as of yet because some people might not, especially if the servers time is limited for the day.
Sorry if this has already been answered, but there's a mod out there called TFC (TerraFirmaCraft) that should solve your resources problem once he makes it multiplayer compatible.
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SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
"Look at me still talking when there's science to do. When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you."
I look forward to seeing how this thread progresses.
The idea of a governing state in which the people do not simply live near each other, but as you said, are apart of a city, with such things as an economy and a hierarchy appears much easier when you put it into words. However, I think with a simple study including a few dozen individuals, you should be able to take from that whether a system like this is practical in MC.
I really like the idea of having servers that would only stay up for a few hours, but then again, i live in such timezone that when majority of the servers would go up, it would be like 2 am for me.
However, i think that this is an amazing idea.
It could be possible to run two servers at different times to cater to timezones at different ends of the spectrum. But I'm not even sure about one server.
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.
I definitely see where you are coming from and I think war planes would certainly make combat very interesting, however balancing them could be a hassle and as you said, mods are not always popular. I'm still not sure about small stacks, but you've definitely raised a valid point there, this would make transfer of material easier, giving minecarts a use and if sending minecarts on long distance trips, it would have to be guarded. Onto crime, I'm hoping guards and police forces would arise out of necessity however I will consider the ability to check ones inventory, otherwise stealing might be too easy. Sting Auer is right, governments and its branches need to evolve organically from need and necessity, to cater to the problems that are presented in minecraft and other countries in the server. No plugins would be used to emulate the countries, they would not exist in the code per say, they would simply be there, only to be known by their power and prestige, maybe a country tag added to peoples names to identify their nationality, otherwise no.
Sorry if this has already been answered, but there's a mod out there called TFC (TerraFirmaCraft) that should solve your resources problem once he makes it multiplayer compatible.
Terrafirma seems very interesting, I will be looking into it. However, a quick scan reveals it seems a little far from vanilla, but we'll see. Although I've never agreed with something so well;
In short there are far too many of them and they are far too easy to obtain. Once you’ve built some walls and a place to sleep at night, you were no longer surviving, you were merely playing Creative mode on hard.
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.
This would be absolutely amazing, but how would the combat work? Combat in Minecraft is nowhere near realistic, you can't really have one side more trained then the other because the combat really is so simple, you get good at it and you can't really get any better. Battle formations are also rendered nearly useless with how the system works, so unless very strict rules were made for battles it would be VERY hard to have realistic combat simulation.
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.
This made me come up with an absolutely wonderful idea... A tribes system. Not massive governments, not giant political parties and high player requiring cities. What if there were tons of tribes, that could be anywhere from very small groups to massive groups, simple little villages where some would hunt for food, some would gather resources, some would work on building projects. The limited resources would make this interesting because they would not be able to reach a massive size quickly. I feel like a massive government and political system truly is fated to fail, but a tribal server seems like it could be done so much easier and could be equally if not more (In my opinion) fun.
Nice thread. This is actually the main thing that consumes my attention in Minecraft these days, modelling economic/geographic/political issues. I've been developing elaborate house rules for my own solo games, designed to make towns and villages grow in a natural, organic fashion. I've also started a suggestion thread about a game mode that would probably be of interest to the kind of player who follows this thread. Here's the link.
A couple of ideas that occur to me for your project:
Resources/scarcity
I don't think the problem is the abundance of resources, exactly, but their distribution, at least for minerals, which are rather homogeneously scattered across the world; anywhere you dig has approximately the same concentration of gold, diamonds, redstone, iron, coal and lapis as anywhere else you might dig. A possible solution to this is to spawn richer deposits of various minerals here and there, so there might be an especially productive coal mine in one place, and a motherlode of iron somewhere else. Regional differences in resource availability would be a very important thing to model in your enterprise. (There's a thread suggesting just this in the suggestions forum: Link.)
Specialization
An important concept in economics is the division of labour. Minecraft doesn't really support this very well because Steve is good at everything; there's no particular reason why one player ought to specialize in crafting, and another should focus on farming, other than simple economy of scale. One way to solve this might be with a mod that kept track of skills for each tool, making you most efficient with the tool you used most and least efficient with what you used least. The mod might also put limits on how big a stack you could place in a crafting table, so someone who rarely crafted could only make one batch at a time, while a specialist could crank out 64 loaves of bread with one shift-click. And so on.
Death
A way to address this is to simply depersonalize Steve. Each player is not a single character in the world, but the currently active member of a household. If Steve gets killed, well, that's a shame and we'll all be mourning the loss of his experience levels and equipment, but life goes on and his apprentice/son/heir will have to take over (likely setting out from the bed in Steve's house).
Communication
The fact that multiplayer chat is available to everyone on the server kind of limits the potential for secret alliances and deals. The unequal availability of information plays an enormous role in economics and in politics, and if you rely on the basic chat tool, you'll distort your results.
Just some idle thoughts as they come to me.
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This would be absolutely amazing, but how would the combat work? Combat in Minecraft is nowhere near realistic, you can't really have one side more trained then the other because the combat really is so simple, you get good at it and you can't really get any better. Battle formations are also rendered nearly useless with how the system works, so unless very strict rules were made for battles it would be VERY hard to have realistic combat simulation.
Combat is extremely arbitary, true, however you are too quick to doubt battle formations, the only problem I think that could arise out of the formations is the creation of a golden, unbeatable formation that is repeated. Again, realism is not the emphasis, but would a staggered formation win against a solid formation of the same number, skill and equipment? No. The square formation is denser and would multiple players would be able to attack one.
Arrows may need to be buffed in terms of damage and nerfed in terms of knockback and could be used as well, armour would need to weigh people down to create faster, more specialised skirmish units. There are many options.
This made me come up with an absolutely wonderful idea... A tribes system. Not massive governments, not giant political parties and high player requiring cities. What if there were tons of tribes, that could be anywhere from very small groups to massive groups, simple little villages where some would hunt for food, some would gather resources, some would work on building projects. The limited resources would make this interesting because they would not be able to reach a massive size quickly. I feel like a massive government and political system truly is fated to fail, but a tribal server seems like it could be done so much easier and could be equally if not more (In my opinion) fun.
I like this idea, in addition, tribal federations and alliances could be formed to create mock countries (this isn't where it has to go though). It is much more achievable and practical. Tom Tzus idea of unequal distribution of resources would work wonders as well, one village trades with another for x resources because they can only produce y resources. We could possible work towards this, but this a great step in a different direction in terms of the thread. I have to agree with you, the large scale of the politcal simulation I proposed may be taxing on players patience with the slow build up.
I think we can work towards this and have something to show for it, excellent idea.
Resources/scarcity
I don't think the problem is the abundance of resources, exactly, but their distribution, at least for minerals, which are rather homogeneously scattered across the world; anywhere you dig has approximately the same concentration of gold, diamonds, redstone, iron, coal and lapis as anywhere else you might dig. A possible solution to this is to spawn richer deposits of various minerals here and there, so there might be an especially productive coal mine in one place, and a motherlode of iron somewhere else. Regional differences in resource availability would be a very important thing to model in your enterprise. (There's a thread suggesting just this in the suggestions forum: Link.)
Very interesting idea. I think this is brilliant and would promote trade as well. I like this idea a lot.
Specialization
An important concept in economics is the division of labour. Minecraft doesn't really support this very well because Steve is good at everything; there's no particular reason why one player ought to specialize in crafting, and another should focus on farming, other than simple economy of scale. One way to solve this might be with a mod that kept track of skills for each tool, making you most efficient with the tool you used most and least efficient with what you used least. The mod might also put limits on how big a stack you could place in a crafting table, so someone who rarely crafted could only make one batch at a time, while a specialist could crank out 64 loaves of bread with one shift-click. And so on.
This was something myself and my friend were discussing, the use of mmo-esque skills to promote specialisation, the main deterrent is the change of gameplay which may impact player numbers, also the level cap, will it be overpowered to be a maximum level in one skill? Do you lose your levels upon death? It could prove frustrating to lose all your levels and damaging to an economy.
Death
A way to address this is to simply depersonalize Steve. Each player is not a single character in the world, but the currently active member of a household. If Steve gets killed, well, that's a shame and we'll all be mourning the loss of his experience levels and equipment, but life goes on and his apprentice/son/heir will have to take over (likely setting out from the bed in Steve's house).
There was some doubt in mind about this idea, but you've clarified it. Frequent deaths would be obstacles to levelling up and advancing as a player.
Communication
The fact that multiplayer chat is available to everyone on the server kind of limits the potential for secret alliances and deals. The unequal availability of information plays an enormous role in economics and in politics, and if you rely on the basic chat tool, you'll distort your results.
I was thinking of using a local only chat. This would mean anyone can hear you if they are in limits, even if they are of an enemy nation! In addition a whisper function that could only be heard within 2-3 blocks perhaps. Problem with this a 3rd party chat client could overcome any problems associated with it.
Thank you for your words and ideas, Tom Tzu.
In conclusion, I think we can move towards creating the details of this tribal system. So,
Would we continue to have a limited server uptime?
Would we endorse modifications to the game and what modifications?
Would we use a customised, limited map?
I personally think we should continue to have a limited server uptime, using a custom map to change the distribution of ores, to add interesting geography and limit the mapsize, modifying it so that tools are less durable and so stone tools are not creatable. I cannot think of anything else that should be introduced or changed to vanilla. But I am very interested in your opinions, especially the direction you want to take this system Sir Veillance.
My thoughts on specialization were not that the skill system should be related to levelling. Rather, they'd simply reflect the proportions of your last thousand or hundred clicks or so. You could retool and specialize in something else, but in so doing you'd lose the benefit of your old specialty.
Let's say there are six basic specializations: sword, axe, shovel, pick, hoe, crafting table. Suppose there are six levels of skill/efficiency for each task. At the lowest shovel skill, breaking a block with a shovel takes a long time; at the highest skill level, it's quite fast. Steve's skill depends on how many of his last 36 actions were for the skill in question. 0-6 would put him in the lowest skill level, 7-12 in level 2, 13-18 in level 3, and so on up to 31-36 being the highest skill level.
So, if Steve's been mining with shovel and pick all day, and in his last 36 clicks he collected 12 coal (pick), 11 gravel (shovel), 3 dirt (shovel) and 10 cobble (pick), he's got current tallies of 22 in pick and 14 in shovel, which means for now he has skill level 4 in pick and 3 in shovel. He's at level 1 in everything else. So at the moment, he can mine rather efficiently with pick, and he's also reasonably quick with a shovel, but not with axe, sword, hoe or crafting. If there are other people around, they'll likely perform those tasks better than he will.
36 tasks is a very small sample set to work with, and obviously your mastery of a task will change quickly if you, say, run into a monster spawner and need to whack some zombies with your sword. But imagine if it keeps tallies for your last thousand tasks. (Might seem like this would take a lot of memory, but it needn't, if you just keep track of tallies and adding to skill A means subtracting from whatever of skills {B...X} is highest.)
Interesting implication: If someone's gearing up for war, the players of that clan are going to be spending time practicing fighting, either beating on each other or training in mob spawners to get their sword and bow skills up. It becomes worthwhile to build training facilities, archery butts, and so on. But this activity might be observed by spies for the enemy...
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My thoughts on specialization were not that the skill system should be related to levelling. Rather, they'd simply reflect the proportions of your last thousand or hundred clicks or so. You could retool and specialize in something else, but in so doing you'd lose the benefit of your old specialty.
Let's say there are six basic specializations: sword, axe, shovel, pick, hoe, crafting table. Suppose there are six levels of skill/efficiency for each task. At the lowest shovel skill, breaking a block with a shovel takes a long time; at the highest skill level, it's quite fast. Steve's skill depends on how many of his last 36 actions were for the skill in question. 0-6 would put him in the lowest skill level, 7-12 in level 2, 13-18 in level 3, and so on up to 31-36 being the highest skill level.
So, if Steve's been mining with shovel and pick all day, and in his last 36 clicks he collected 12 coal (pick), 11 gravel (shovel), 3 dirt (shovel) and 10 cobble (pick), he's got current tallies of 22 in pick and 14 in shovel, which means for now he has skill level 4 in pick and 3 in shovel. He's at level 1 in everything else. So at the moment, he can mine rather efficiently with pick, and he's also reasonably quick with a shovel, but not with axe, sword, hoe or crafting. If there are other people around, they'll likely perform those tasks better than he will.
36 tasks is a very small sample set to work with, and obviously your mastery of a task will change quickly if you, say, run into a monster spawner and need to whack some zombies with your sword. But imagine if it keeps tallies for your last thousand tasks. (Might seem like this would take a lot of memory, but it needn't, if you just keep track of tallies and adding to skill A means subtracting from whatever of skills {B...X} is highest.)
Interesting implication: If someone's gearing up for war, the players of that clan are going to be spending time practicing fighting, either beating on each other or training in mob spawners to get their sword and bow skills up. It becomes worthwhile to build training facilities, archery butts, and so on. But this activity might be observed by spies for the enemy...
Wow, this seems like a pretty impressive system. I really like the idea of only being able to build up in certain areas as opposed to mashing until you are a master of everything. This would also be very good as you were saying for giving opportunities for military training to have a use before battles and such. It would also allow different roles in battle as well, because some people might be good with bows, but when they get confronted by an enemy soldier who has broken through the lines, they will utterly defeated because his sword skill will be ready for action, yet theirs will not...
My thoughts on specialization were not that the skill system should be related to levelling. Rather, they'd simply reflect the proportions of your last thousand or hundred clicks or so. You could retool and specialize in something else, but in so doing you'd lose the benefit of your old specialty.
Let's say there are six basic specializations: sword, axe, shovel, pick, hoe, crafting table. Suppose there are six levels of skill/efficiency for each task. At the lowest shovel skill, breaking a block with a shovel takes a long time; at the highest skill level, it's quite fast. Steve's skill depends on how many of his last 36 actions were for the skill in question. 0-6 would put him in the lowest skill level, 7-12 in level 2, 13-18 in level 3, and so on up to 31-36 being the highest skill level.
So, if Steve's been mining with shovel and pick all day, and in his last 36 clicks he collected 12 coal (pick), 11 gravel (shovel), 3 dirt (shovel) and 10 cobble (pick), he's got current tallies of 22 in pick and 14 in shovel, which means for now he has skill level 4 in pick and 3 in shovel. He's at level 1 in everything else. So at the moment, he can mine rather efficiently with pick, and he's also reasonably quick with a shovel, but not with axe, sword, hoe or crafting. If there are other people around, they'll likely perform those tasks better than he will.
36 tasks is a very small sample set to work with, and obviously your mastery of a task will change quickly if you, say, run into a monster spawner and need to whack some zombies with your sword. But imagine if it keeps tallies for your last thousand tasks. (Might seem like this would take a lot of memory, but it needn't, if you just keep track of tallies and adding to skill A means subtracting from whatever of skills {B...X} is highest.)
Interesting implication: If someone's gearing up for war, the players of that clan are going to be spending time practicing fighting, either beating on each other or training in mob spawners to get their sword and bow skills up. It becomes worthwhile to build training facilities, archery butts, and so on. But this activity might be observed by spies for the enemy...
I like this a lot, I have never been introduced to such a system before, I find it hard to believe people can think of such intricate ideas! This I think would make a worthy addition, however, I am not convinced it is an existing modification as of this day. Do you have any experience in modding?
I like this a lot, I have never been introduced to such a system before, I find it hard to believe people can think of such intricate ideas! This I think would make a worthy addition, however, I am not convinced it is an existing modification as of this day. Do you have any experience in modding?
None whatsoever. The last programming language I had any ability in was Applesoft BASIC.
But it's actually a very simple system, what I'm proposing, not terribly intricate. I suppose what makes it seem unusual is that most other games buy into the gaining-levels paradigm, and think it would be terribly unfair to take away those hard-won levels from someone who didn't use a skill for a while. (It has a lot to do with the psychology that makes us weight losses more heavily than gains, I suppose.)
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None whatsoever. The last programming language I had any ability in was Applesoft BASIC.
But it's actually a very simple system, what I'm proposing, not terribly intricate. I suppose what makes it seem unusual is that most other games buy into the gaining-levels paradigm, and think it would be terribly unfair to take away those hard-won levels from someone who didn't use a skill for a while. (It has a lot to do with the psychology that makes us weight losses more heavily than gains, I suppose.)
So, just to be clear it would work like, everyone has the same maximum skill, but they vary in which skills they have it attributed in. For example, if minecraft tracked the last 1000 actions and we simplified them down into cooking, mining, farming and fighting (just for example) and you had;
Do you believe it should be based on all your actions or on a certain history? As you do more and more it would be harder to learn and would make your first few actions so very crucial (if based on every single action).
Do you believe it should be based on all your actions or on a certain history? As you do more and more it would be harder to learn and would make your first few actions so very crucial (if based on every single action).
I believe it should be based simply on your most recent 1000 actions. The first few actions should not have everlasting consequences; it should be possible always to retrain to specialize in something else. If your last 1000 actions were all chopping wood with an axe, you will be maxed out at the very best axe skill possible, but you'll be a complete novice at everything else.
The, after harvesting 1000 blocks of wood, you go to start crafting some of them into planks. (I'm assuming that crafting is a skill here). After you perform 50 crafting tasks, your axe skill has atrophied to 950 recent actions, but you've got 50 actions better at crafting. If you keep crafting, eventually you'll max out your crafting skill, and be a complete novice at axe.
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I believe it should be based simply on your most recent 1000 actions. The first few actions should not have everlasting consequences; it should be possible always to retrain to specialize in something else. If your last 1000 actions were all chopping wood with an axe, you will be maxed out at the very best axe skill possible, but you'll be a complete novice at everything else.
The, after harvesting 1000 blocks of wood, you go to start crafting some of them into planks. (I'm assuming that crafting is a skill here). After you perform 50 crafting tasks, your axe skill has atrophied to 950 recent actions, but you've got 50 actions better at crafting. If you keep crafting, eventually you'll max out your crafting skill, and be a complete novice at axe.
Something I noticed that also needs to be specified within your system. Just swinging a tool does not count as an action correct? You actually have to do something with the axe/shovel/sword? Also, if this is the case, will the tools also have to be used correctly? For instance, is slaughtering animals with an axe going to put up your axe skill or your fighting and ultimately make you better with a sword as well? Or likewise will chopping trees with a sword put up your sword/fighting or your axe skill?
Also, actions such as firing a bow should probably be made to have more of an impact on your last 1000 actions, maybe accounting for 2 or 3, because it is much easier to hit something 1000 times with a sword than it is to take 1000 shots with a bow. This system definitely needs to be ironed out and set in stone so we can work with other things that deal with it.
Something I noticed that also needs to be specified within your system. Just swinging a tool does not count as an action correct? You actually have to do something with the axe/shovel/sword? Also, if this is the case, will the tools also have to be used correctly? For instance, is slaughtering animals with an axe going to put up your axe skill or your fighting and ultimately make you better with a sword as well? Or likewise will chopping trees with a sword put up your sword/fighting or your axe skill?
Well, I haven't fleshed out what would be a skill or task yet, but since you asked, it seems to me you're right; it should be based on the function and not the tool you happen to be holding. So you can get good at mining by breaking stone and ore blocks regardless of what tool you use, but using a pick will get you the ores.
I'll try to put together a list of distinct skills.
Also, actions such as firing a bow should probably be made to have more of an impact on your last 1000 actions, maybe accounting for 2 or 3, because it is much easier to hit something 1000 times with a sword than it is to take 1000 shots with a bow. This system definitely needs to be ironed out and set in stone so we can work with other things that deal with it.
I don't think I agree that different skills should advance at different rates. You are right that it's easier to practice with sword than with bow (except that you need a live mob target to practice melee, and you can shoot arrows at a big coloured wool target), but I think the better way to address the imbalance is by adjusting the penalties and buffs for the respective skills. If archery is truly harder to advance than melee, then make the benefits of high archery skill more significant, and tone down the benefits of high sword skill.
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For philosophy, law, science, religion and other topics: A Blog of Tom
Now that all these new ideas have been proposed, it brings a bit more back into strategy and skill rather than being overruled and having to brute force your way into government. I'm a fan of the tribes and last 1000 actions system, as it puts a new turn on mindless grinding and next to no communication, but rather implies that you need people with different skills and abilities to run a successful economy, especially with what seems to be ~10 people in a tribe.
I propose a custom map which is an island about 5000x5000 with varied terrains and such that provides an environment for hidden towns and preparations for wars. If need be, there could be multiple continents with different distribution of (x) or a singular supply of (x) which makes trading a hazardous and risky job to undertake.
Just throwing my now re-evaluated thoughts out now.
I think this sounds like a good idea. I think you should see what would happen if your Civilizations waged a Civil war or there was prehaps a revolution. And when you speak of warfare. Would you take prisoners of war. And I would like to see your ideas for espionage. Since that is vital. I think that there should be tangible currency. Since in most Minecraft Iconomies the money isn't physically in your charracter. I think that Civilizations should begin with the union of several factions, much like how tribes of old formed nations under one or a council of leaders.-Those are just some ideas from a 7th grader so I might no be of much help.
I propose a custom map which is an island about 5000x5000 with varied terrains and such that provides an environment for hidden towns and preparations for wars. If need be, there could be multiple continents with different distribution of (x) or a singular supply of (x) which makes trading a hazardous and risky job to undertake.
Thanks for reconsidering, the map dimensions are proportional to the numbers of players and cannot really be determined, but its the vein of size that I think we should be going for. I was definitely thinking of some land masses surrounded by ocean, resources in different distribution.
I also just had a thought, should water settlements be enabled? As in, settlements only accessible through the ocean floor or are on the ocean floor. I don't think they should be allowed for the breaking of immersion and how artificial and how easy they would be too defend or hide. On the other hand, the moderation of it could be difficult and they do stay true with vanilla minecraft .
I'll try to put together a list of distinct skills.
I agree with all your points and I'd like to see what list of skills you come up with, there is just so many plausible skills;
mining, fishing, farming, cooking, swordsmanship, archery, alchemy, digging, crafting, (I could only think of these, but surely there is more possible)
So is there anything else we would need to consider? We have cracked the economics, although it still needs some polishing, I can't really think of anything else apart from these skills we are discussing.
ALthough, I think that it should be made harder to survive by yourself. This can be solved with my ore generation and mob health suggestions I made before.
But this is what makes it interesting. From my understanding, this test has never been performed to the specifications and scale that I am exploring on minecraft. I also much prefer minecraft's game play.
I completely agree with every single point, actually. I like this rather modest push for gradual civilisation that does not infringe on the player too much, thanks for your insight.
Governments are not almighty figures, people form these governments and people can take them down.
I appreciate the biome and land grab ideas, it would not be forced but It would be obvious that some countries would wholly exist in one biome and could churn out some interesting architecture. However, the territories would again be organic vanilla, is there some dispute over who owns what land? The war has to be revamped or resolved through diplomacy. I would like some borders going but it might be rather taxing on nations to build walls for their territories. There would be no end, theoretically. Even if a nation conquers all, whose to say it wont be overthrown and split into new multiple countries. I also agree with the X-time ban but I'm not sure as of yet because some people might not, especially if the servers time is limited for the day.
"Look at me still talking when there's science to do. When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you."
The idea of a governing state in which the people do not simply live near each other, but as you said, are apart of a city, with such things as an economy and a hierarchy appears much easier when you put it into words. However, I think with a simple study including a few dozen individuals, you should be able to take from that whether a system like this is practical in MC.
Great work so far. (:
It could be possible to run two servers at different times to cater to timezones at different ends of the spectrum. But I'm not even sure about one server.
I definitely see where you are coming from and I think war planes would certainly make combat very interesting, however balancing them could be a hassle and as you said, mods are not always popular. I'm still not sure about small stacks, but you've definitely raised a valid point there, this would make transfer of material easier, giving minecarts a use and if sending minecarts on long distance trips, it would have to be guarded. Onto crime, I'm hoping guards and police forces would arise out of necessity however I will consider the ability to check ones inventory, otherwise stealing might be too easy. Sting Auer is right, governments and its branches need to evolve organically from need and necessity, to cater to the problems that are presented in minecraft and other countries in the server. No plugins would be used to emulate the countries, they would not exist in the code per say, they would simply be there, only to be known by their power and prestige, maybe a country tag added to peoples names to identify their nationality, otherwise no.
Terrafirma seems very interesting, I will be looking into it. However, a quick scan reveals it seems a little far from vanilla, but we'll see. Although I've never agreed with something so well;
This would be absolutely amazing, but how would the combat work? Combat in Minecraft is nowhere near realistic, you can't really have one side more trained then the other because the combat really is so simple, you get good at it and you can't really get any better. Battle formations are also rendered nearly useless with how the system works, so unless very strict rules were made for battles it would be VERY hard to have realistic combat simulation.
This made me come up with an absolutely wonderful idea... A tribes system. Not massive governments, not giant political parties and high player requiring cities. What if there were tons of tribes, that could be anywhere from very small groups to massive groups, simple little villages where some would hunt for food, some would gather resources, some would work on building projects. The limited resources would make this interesting because they would not be able to reach a massive size quickly. I feel like a massive government and political system truly is fated to fail, but a tribal server seems like it could be done so much easier and could be equally if not more (In my opinion) fun.
A couple of ideas that occur to me for your project:
Resources/scarcity
I don't think the problem is the abundance of resources, exactly, but their distribution, at least for minerals, which are rather homogeneously scattered across the world; anywhere you dig has approximately the same concentration of gold, diamonds, redstone, iron, coal and lapis as anywhere else you might dig. A possible solution to this is to spawn richer deposits of various minerals here and there, so there might be an especially productive coal mine in one place, and a motherlode of iron somewhere else. Regional differences in resource availability would be a very important thing to model in your enterprise. (There's a thread suggesting just this in the suggestions forum: Link.)
Specialization
An important concept in economics is the division of labour. Minecraft doesn't really support this very well because Steve is good at everything; there's no particular reason why one player ought to specialize in crafting, and another should focus on farming, other than simple economy of scale. One way to solve this might be with a mod that kept track of skills for each tool, making you most efficient with the tool you used most and least efficient with what you used least. The mod might also put limits on how big a stack you could place in a crafting table, so someone who rarely crafted could only make one batch at a time, while a specialist could crank out 64 loaves of bread with one shift-click. And so on.
Death
A way to address this is to simply depersonalize Steve. Each player is not a single character in the world, but the currently active member of a household. If Steve gets killed, well, that's a shame and we'll all be mourning the loss of his experience levels and equipment, but life goes on and his apprentice/son/heir will have to take over (likely setting out from the bed in Steve's house).
Communication
The fact that multiplayer chat is available to everyone on the server kind of limits the potential for secret alliances and deals. The unequal availability of information plays an enormous role in economics and in politics, and if you rely on the basic chat tool, you'll distort your results.
Just some idle thoughts as they come to me.
Combat is extremely arbitary, true, however you are too quick to doubt battle formations, the only problem I think that could arise out of the formations is the creation of a golden, unbeatable formation that is repeated. Again, realism is not the emphasis, but would a staggered formation win against a solid formation of the same number, skill and equipment? No. The square formation is denser and would multiple players would be able to attack one.
Arrows may need to be buffed in terms of damage and nerfed in terms of knockback and could be used as well, armour would need to weigh people down to create faster, more specialised skirmish units. There are many options.
I like this idea, in addition, tribal federations and alliances could be formed to create mock countries (this isn't where it has to go though). It is much more achievable and practical. Tom Tzus idea of unequal distribution of resources would work wonders as well, one village trades with another for x resources because they can only produce y resources. We could possible work towards this, but this a great step in a different direction in terms of the thread. I have to agree with you, the large scale of the politcal simulation I proposed may be taxing on players patience with the slow build up.
I think we can work towards this and have something to show for it, excellent idea.
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Very interesting idea. I think this is brilliant and would promote trade as well. I like this idea a lot.
This was something myself and my friend were discussing, the use of mmo-esque skills to promote specialisation, the main deterrent is the change of gameplay which may impact player numbers, also the level cap, will it be overpowered to be a maximum level in one skill? Do you lose your levels upon death? It could prove frustrating to lose all your levels and damaging to an economy.
There was some doubt in mind about this idea, but you've clarified it. Frequent deaths would be obstacles to levelling up and advancing as a player.
I was thinking of using a local only chat. This would mean anyone can hear you if they are in limits, even if they are of an enemy nation! In addition a whisper function that could only be heard within 2-3 blocks perhaps. Problem with this a 3rd party chat client could overcome any problems associated with it.
Thank you for your words and ideas, Tom Tzu.
In conclusion, I think we can move towards creating the details of this tribal system. So,
Would we continue to have a limited server uptime?
Would we endorse modifications to the game and what modifications?
Would we use a customised, limited map?
I personally think we should continue to have a limited server uptime, using a custom map to change the distribution of ores, to add interesting geography and limit the mapsize, modifying it so that tools are less durable and so stone tools are not creatable. I cannot think of anything else that should be introduced or changed to vanilla. But I am very interested in your opinions, especially the direction you want to take this system Sir Veillance.
Let's say there are six basic specializations: sword, axe, shovel, pick, hoe, crafting table. Suppose there are six levels of skill/efficiency for each task. At the lowest shovel skill, breaking a block with a shovel takes a long time; at the highest skill level, it's quite fast. Steve's skill depends on how many of his last 36 actions were for the skill in question. 0-6 would put him in the lowest skill level, 7-12 in level 2, 13-18 in level 3, and so on up to 31-36 being the highest skill level.
So, if Steve's been mining with shovel and pick all day, and in his last 36 clicks he collected 12 coal (pick), 11 gravel (shovel), 3 dirt (shovel) and 10 cobble (pick), he's got current tallies of 22 in pick and 14 in shovel, which means for now he has skill level 4 in pick and 3 in shovel. He's at level 1 in everything else. So at the moment, he can mine rather efficiently with pick, and he's also reasonably quick with a shovel, but not with axe, sword, hoe or crafting. If there are other people around, they'll likely perform those tasks better than he will.
36 tasks is a very small sample set to work with, and obviously your mastery of a task will change quickly if you, say, run into a monster spawner and need to whack some zombies with your sword. But imagine if it keeps tallies for your last thousand tasks. (Might seem like this would take a lot of memory, but it needn't, if you just keep track of tallies and adding to skill A means subtracting from whatever of skills {B...X} is highest.)
Interesting implication: If someone's gearing up for war, the players of that clan are going to be spending time practicing fighting, either beating on each other or training in mob spawners to get their sword and bow skills up. It becomes worthwhile to build training facilities, archery butts, and so on. But this activity might be observed by spies for the enemy...
Wow, this seems like a pretty impressive system. I really like the idea of only being able to build up in certain areas as opposed to mashing until you are a master of everything. This would also be very good as you were saying for giving opportunities for military training to have a use before battles and such. It would also allow different roles in battle as well, because some people might be good with bows, but when they get confronted by an enemy soldier who has broken through the lines, they will utterly defeated because his sword skill will be ready for action, yet theirs will not...
I like this a lot, I have never been introduced to such a system before, I find it hard to believe people can think of such intricate ideas! This I think would make a worthy addition, however, I am not convinced it is an existing modification as of this day. Do you have any experience in modding?
None whatsoever. The last programming language I had any ability in was Applesoft BASIC.
But it's actually a very simple system, what I'm proposing, not terribly intricate. I suppose what makes it seem unusual is that most other games buy into the gaining-levels paradigm, and think it would be terribly unfair to take away those hard-won levels from someone who didn't use a skill for a while. (It has a lot to do with the psychology that makes us weight losses more heavily than gains, I suppose.)
So, just to be clear it would work like, everyone has the same maximum skill, but they vary in which skills they have it attributed in. For example, if minecraft tracked the last 1000 actions and we simplified them down into cooking, mining, farming and fighting (just for example) and you had;
500 fighting actions
250 mining actions
150 cooking actions
100 farming actions
and you had a maximum level of 100, your skills would be as follows
lvl 50 fighting
lvl 25 mining
lvl 15 cooking
lvl 10 farming
Do you believe it should be based on all your actions or on a certain history? As you do more and more it would be harder to learn and would make your first few actions so very crucial (if based on every single action).
I believe it should be based simply on your most recent 1000 actions. The first few actions should not have everlasting consequences; it should be possible always to retrain to specialize in something else. If your last 1000 actions were all chopping wood with an axe, you will be maxed out at the very best axe skill possible, but you'll be a complete novice at everything else.
The, after harvesting 1000 blocks of wood, you go to start crafting some of them into planks. (I'm assuming that crafting is a skill here). After you perform 50 crafting tasks, your axe skill has atrophied to 950 recent actions, but you've got 50 actions better at crafting. If you keep crafting, eventually you'll max out your crafting skill, and be a complete novice at axe.
Something I noticed that also needs to be specified within your system. Just swinging a tool does not count as an action correct? You actually have to do something with the axe/shovel/sword? Also, if this is the case, will the tools also have to be used correctly? For instance, is slaughtering animals with an axe going to put up your axe skill or your fighting and ultimately make you better with a sword as well? Or likewise will chopping trees with a sword put up your sword/fighting or your axe skill?
Also, actions such as firing a bow should probably be made to have more of an impact on your last 1000 actions, maybe accounting for 2 or 3, because it is much easier to hit something 1000 times with a sword than it is to take 1000 shots with a bow. This system definitely needs to be ironed out and set in stone so we can work with other things that deal with it.
Well, I haven't fleshed out what would be a skill or task yet, but since you asked, it seems to me you're right; it should be based on the function and not the tool you happen to be holding. So you can get good at mining by breaking stone and ore blocks regardless of what tool you use, but using a pick will get you the ores.
I'll try to put together a list of distinct skills.
I don't think I agree that different skills should advance at different rates. You are right that it's easier to practice with sword than with bow (except that you need a live mob target to practice melee, and you can shoot arrows at a big coloured wool target), but I think the better way to address the imbalance is by adjusting the penalties and buffs for the respective skills. If archery is truly harder to advance than melee, then make the benefits of high archery skill more significant, and tone down the benefits of high sword skill.
I propose a custom map which is an island about 5000x5000 with varied terrains and such that provides an environment for hidden towns and preparations for wars. If need be, there could be multiple continents with different distribution of (x) or a singular supply of (x) which makes trading a hazardous and risky job to undertake.
Just throwing my now re-evaluated thoughts out now.
Computer Specs: 4GB 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM- 320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive- Dual Core Intel Core i5 2415M @2.3 Ghz- Intel HD 3000 Graphics- Only $1200! Yeah, I got a Mac, because I'm stoopid.Scratch that: Intel i5 2500k, 1TB 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda, Gigabyte Z68-D3H-B3, 8GB 1333Mhz DDR3 RAM, Radeon HD 6850, Running OSX.Thanks for reconsidering, the map dimensions are proportional to the numbers of players and cannot really be determined, but its the vein of size that I think we should be going for. I was definitely thinking of some land masses surrounded by ocean, resources in different distribution.
I also just had a thought, should water settlements be enabled? As in, settlements only accessible through the ocean floor or are on the ocean floor. I don't think they should be allowed for the breaking of immersion and how artificial and how easy they would be too defend or hide. On the other hand, the moderation of it could be difficult and they do stay true with vanilla minecraft .
I agree with all your points and I'd like to see what list of skills you come up with, there is just so many plausible skills;
mining, fishing, farming, cooking, swordsmanship, archery, alchemy, digging, crafting, (I could only think of these, but surely there is more possible)
So is there anything else we would need to consider? We have cracked the economics, although it still needs some polishing, I can't really think of anything else apart from these skills we are discussing.