Hello there! The topic title probably made you think "wtf? history project?" but that is exactly what I am working on. I am working on an essay- I suppose you could call it scholarly- examining how Minecraft SMP servers evolved from the vanilla server (by which I mean August 4, 2010, when SMP was first released for Alpha) to what it is now- essentially, a huge amount of servers offering a variety of different types of gameplay (creative/build, RPG, PvP/anarchy, etc). My research is focused on how the lawlessness of the vanilla release was rectified by mods which added property, protection, citizenship, etc. These abstract concepts have been crucial to western philosophy since the Enlightenment- what is property, for example? What makes something yours? Is it wrong for someone else to steal your stuff? That may seem a dumb question, but if you answer yes, then why is it wrong for them to do so? What I want to do is essentially use minecraft as a lens almost, to examine the evolution of and implementation of law, property, crime, punishment, and various other social constructs in human societies.
What you can provide for me to help me out:
1. Primary sources. Old forum posts, youtube videos, old mod websites, etc.
2. Secondary sources. Detailed descriptions of early mods, old forums posts relating to the discussion of mods that established permissions/property/anti-griefing technology/RPG mods as you experienced them. When did these types of servers begin springing up? What was it like before permissions mods were around, stuff like that. The more detail the better.
I am in a bit of a rush to get out to work so if this was not clear at all, please ask the appropriate questions and I will answer them ASAP. I think that this would be an interesting and useful area of research, and I would of course share the finished project with the forums :smile.gif:
At first I wondered what moron would ask about a history paper on here, but then I noticed it was actually Minecraft related. Perhaps you should change your title to clarify it's related?
I really wish I could help, as I like the way you think. However, I didn't buy until after beta, and only ever went on one server. My advice is to try to contact people who run servers, particularly those who have been doing it for a while, and ask them.
While I cannot help you with your project, I would be very interested in your eventual findings. I have often wondered, if you had a vanilla survival server with, say, 100 people who play it all the time, what would that look like? I very much like to think it would be very much like real life, if not with some different moral structuring (I imagine arson and theft would be much heftier crimes than murder).
I nmy experience just becoming a server owner. I was going to let it be justa vanilla server no mods. But my players demanded automatic rule. which makes me parallel life where we as people put cops into power, becuase we sem to like control but no responsability for the actions we take. We give up that right once there is a police force. There was a time where police were just hired tugs. Now they are hired thugs with badges and guns and cars and tazers. But we let them take the power, and most people want that power. True Anarchy will fail as soon as someone opposes someone else. that is someone making their own rule about how to enforce that new rule they made. I hope some of this helps a little.
er...try to compact all the words and... call me dumb if u like but i totally did not get what im suppose to do to help@@"
simplify it plz?
/sigh
Ok basically what were the vanilla, original servers of minecraft like? What was the griefing like? What did people do to try and protect their server from griefers? When did the first permission mods start popping up? Also how things like fly mod and xray mod evolved, and the eventual counters to try and stop that when used to grief.
Basically he is trying to study how people, in an initially lawless and rule-less situation, developed rules and such. Think- if everyone just went around and trashed everyone else's stuff you can't have a base right? But having bases is cool. Having a base that is a castle is cooler. Building a castle over a few months is also very gratifying. Then some jerk comes in and trashes it. Now there is a general code of etiquette, and nearly all public servers either have permissions set, or hide their base by teleporting and building it very far from the spawn point. The OP wants to find out how those rules and behaviours came about.
If you can say how things were and how they are now that is ok, if you know of forums topics of how people used to grief, or links to topics for the first admin mods, those are very useful to the OP. Youtube links would also help. Even if you are a griefer, or your friend is *cough*, what did they used to do, how do they grief now and why did their behaviour change (and when)?
To the OP- try looking up "minecraft hidden base lava" on youtube. A big goal of griefers is to find people's bases, empty the chests and trash the place, so people have been finding ways to hide their bases. As most xray mods show lava by default a popular way to hide bases is underneath lava. That search will give you some fairly old videos and I saw one video description that mentioned using pistons, so that is really new. Is one aspect that I can think of that can be easily seen, with videos over time :smile.gif:
http://bukkit.org/ the bukkit project is like hmod a 3rd part api for server mods. unlike hmod it has a team of around 20-50? (citation needed) people working on it. so they update much faster then hmod did.
What you can provide for me to help me out:
1. Primary sources. Old forum posts, youtube videos, old mod websites, etc.
2. Secondary sources. Detailed descriptions of early mods, old forums posts relating to the discussion of mods that established permissions/property/anti-griefing technology/RPG mods as you experienced them. When did these types of servers begin springing up? What was it like before permissions mods were around, stuff like that. The more detail the better.
I am in a bit of a rush to get out to work so if this was not clear at all, please ask the appropriate questions and I will answer them ASAP. I think that this would be an interesting and useful area of research, and I would of course share the finished project with the forums :smile.gif:
simplify it plz?
I really wish I could help, as I like the way you think. However, I didn't buy until after beta, and only ever went on one server. My advice is to try to contact people who run servers, particularly those who have been doing it for a while, and ask them.
https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.jsp
/sigh
Ok basically what were the vanilla, original servers of minecraft like? What was the griefing like? What did people do to try and protect their server from griefers? When did the first permission mods start popping up? Also how things like fly mod and xray mod evolved, and the eventual counters to try and stop that when used to grief.
Basically he is trying to study how people, in an initially lawless and rule-less situation, developed rules and such. Think- if everyone just went around and trashed everyone else's stuff you can't have a base right? But having bases is cool. Having a base that is a castle is cooler. Building a castle over a few months is also very gratifying. Then some jerk comes in and trashes it. Now there is a general code of etiquette, and nearly all public servers either have permissions set, or hide their base by teleporting and building it very far from the spawn point. The OP wants to find out how those rules and behaviours came about.
If you can say how things were and how they are now that is ok, if you know of forums topics of how people used to grief, or links to topics for the first admin mods, those are very useful to the OP. Youtube links would also help. Even if you are a griefer, or your friend is *cough*, what did they used to do, how do they grief now and why did their behaviour change (and when)?
To the OP- try looking up "minecraft hidden base lava" on youtube. A big goal of griefers is to find people's bases, empty the chests and trash the place, so people have been finding ways to hide their bases. As most xray mods show lava by default a popular way to hide bases is underneath lava. That search will give you some fairly old videos and I saw one video description that mentioned using pistons, so that is really new. Is one aspect that I can think of that can be easily seen, with videos over time :smile.gif:
www.youtube.com/user/nizzotch
Its Notch's YouTube channel.
http://bukkit.org/ the bukkit project is like hmod a 3rd part api for server mods. unlike hmod it has a team of around 20-50? (citation needed) people working on it. so they update much faster then hmod did.