[Lomaz]

Hello all, have not been around much partly due to school/work, partly due to IC.  i have been playing a bit on a classmate's server and i think the mod he has running is fun, simple, addicting, and not broken at all.  combined with something simple or no other mods at all it works out fantastically.  the reasons for my not wanting to join CC MC are:

1. too unstable; seems everything you do can and will break the server with combos that we've got running
2. no fun; if i join now i'd take two days just to build my first diamond tool while people have auto mines that can pull in hundreds of diamonds a day.  how can i have fun with that?
3. broken gameplay; as much as i'd love to be able to kill everything in 1 hit, never take damage, and have unlimited resources, this is survival mode, not freeplay mode.

my proposal: we strip the server from all mods back down to vanilla and try a mod i've been playing called McMMO, wich is designed to add a RPG feel to the game, with char improving, skills, and, challanges.  some interesting things you can do in this mod:

1. upgrade your mining skill to get better yeild from mining as well as an instent mine active skill with a 300s cooldown
2. repair your gear quicky and easily using the resources it generally takes to make the item, level up your repair abilities to be able to repair better quality/enchanted items
3. kill more using spasific weapons to unlock passives on those weapons like +crit on axes, and +chance of bleed on swords.

There are many other aspects of this mod, but none of wich are broken at all, or totally alter the game in the way that IC does.  the link for the wiki is http://mcmmo.wikia.com/wiki/McMMO_Wiki if anyone wants to take a look at what it's all about.

the way i see it, our server is at a point where joining up is not fun, and actively playing when established is not only near impossable but also just as pointless.  the point of minecraft is to build houses, explore mines, find rare awesome things, and have fun with friends, and all that is so much more awesome without IC.. 

What does everyone think? i mean, i'd love to be able to play with CC again, but as it stands i really just can't

feedback?

-Ian

[Sonya the fox]

Hello all, have not been around much partly due to school/work, partly due to IC.  i have been playing a bit on a classmate's server and i think the mod he has running is fun, simple, addicting, and not broken at all.  combined with something simple or no other mods at all it works out fantastically.  the reasons for my not wanting to join CC MC are:

1. too unstable; seems everything you do can and will break the server with combos that we've got running
2. no fun; if i join now i'd take two days just to build my first diamond tool while people have auto mines that can pull in hundreds of diamonds a day.  how can i have fun with that?
3. broken gameplay; as much as i'd loby to be able to kill everything in 1 hit, never take damage, and have unlimited resources, this is survival mode, not freeplay mode.

1) It seems to be more stable lately, and if anything it is related to the Mystcraft Books.  We'd have to find a way to get everyone's stuff out of those other worlds before we even considered ditching that if we didn't start a new world, and I'm not sure how much people want to do that either.
2) Dude, if you just ASK for something, someone can probably get you setup with a decent start.  I've got enough that I don't care if I give you some stuff with no hope of getting it back later.  Also, yes we have autominers, we also had to WORK to get there, had to go out and harvest resources by paw in the first place to get the machines that could do that.  Believe me, autominers were not top of the list, the one in question that I have (aka the basher lemming, planet eater, the monster) had to be assembled carefully and was a work of art when I managed to cram it all together into a tight space, it was not place a block and walk away.  That's just me, I'm pretty sure the Quarry Tre uses requires careful setup or a rather LARGE powerplant to operate.
3) Nano sabres and quantum armor, the godmode items you fear so much, are unused on the server.  Nano is just diamond on batteries, oh and the IC2 weapons and armor 'cannot be enchanted'.  The unlimited resources has two points, matter generator (okay yes I built for this) and additional worlds via mystcraft (face it, you can get just as much by travelling further out, the MC world is practically unlimited as it stands without Myst).  As for survival/freeplay: this server is both.  If we want we can very much so go down into the caves with a sword and pick, or close enough, and go mining by paw.  Mystcraft actually gives us places to go to do things like constructing massive elaborate creations without risking bumping into someone else's creation (i have a mystcraft world devoted to such pursuits, maybe you should drop by sometime and check it out)

my proposal: we strip the server from all mods back down to vanilla and try a mod i've been playing called McMMO, wich is designed to add a RPG feel to the game, with char improving, skills, and, challanges.  some interesting things you can do in this mod:

1. upgrade your mining skill to get better yeild from mining as well as an instent mine active skill with a 300s cooldown
2. repair your gear quicky and easily using the resources it generally takes to make the item, level up your repair abilities to be able to repair better quality/enchanted items
3. kill more using spasific weapons to unlock passives on those weapons like +crit on axes, and +chance of bleed on swords.

1) Okay, more yield, after 'how' much mining?
2) Only holds water with enchanted repairs, but after enough work doesn't this basically mean you spend precious few resources to keep that super diamond pick going?  Isn't that, oh say, almost as bad as the rechargable but non-enchantable mining drill?
3) Okay, so we can after a while 'still' insta-kill using axes or two-hit them, whereas right now we two or three hit things when using the best weapon (that isn't the nano-sabre).

There are many other aspects of this mod, but none of wich are broken at all, or totally alter the game in the way that IC does.  the link for the wiki is http://mcmmo.wikia.com/wiki/McMMO_Wiki if anyone wants to take a look at what it's all about.

the way i see it, our server is at a point where joining up is not fun, and actively playing when established is not only near impossable but also just as pointless.  the point of minecraft is to build houses, explore mines, find rare awesome things, and have fun with friends, and all that is so much more awesome without IC..  

"Point of MC is to build houses, explore mines, find rare awesome things, and have fun with friends".  Okay, we're building houses, exploring mines when we aren't making our own, what rare awesome things are there to find in the game anymore, and aren't we having fun when we do get together?  I tried to give Leeroy a hand, he preferred to shoot off on his own without anyone else first.  Samm is on a different scheduale than us (read that not nocturnal)...

What does everyone think? i mean, i'd loby to be able to play with CC again, but as it stands i really just can't

feedback?

-Ian

I am not prepared to, yet again, pick up and move to another world.  I have made this move atleast 4 times before because of updates, and anyone who plays on the server has creations they've placed that would have to be abandoned or re-constructed (and I'm not talking about my planet eater) on top of non-automined resources that have been dug up by paw.



Add on: after some discussion in the chat, a few other points were raised
Tools: Have a limited number of uses before they have to be recharged.  The drill is slightly faster than an iron pick and lasts 200 blocks on a full battery.  The diamond tipped one is faster than a diamond pick but only lasts for 120 blocks on a full battery.  Chainsaws, okay, those last for a little while, since you won't use them nearly as much.  Recharging methods: carry around batteries, which clog up your inventory (charged can't stack, uncharged stack to 16) and only hold as much as a tool (so one full charge), wear around a Batpack (energy backpack that holds the same as and is crafted from 6 batteries) or the upgraded version (30 batteries and is made with lots of lapis lazuli and a batpack) both of which prevent the use of your biggest piece of armor, or carry around a generator or an energy storage block and some crystals (also needs a wrench to collect these machines and to get 100% you need an electric wrench that is set to use like 3/4 of a battery per shot).  Mining lasers have a drop rate problem (think about TNT) in that they lose 10-20% of the blocks they break if I'm getting the number right, I haven't seen a hard fast one yet, and also like to make swiss cheese of your area if you use the wrong settings.  Also requires a storage unit to recharge.
Armor: bronze armor is resource intensive on new ores and is somewhere between iron and diamond.  Composite body armor seems designed to be anti-creeper.  Nano is a rechargable diamond armor, also doesn't last near as long as diamond armor on a given charge.  Quantum is pretty much overpowered once you have it and also pretty much unused on this server.  Both forms of energy armor need a large storage device to recharge with.
Weapons: chainsaw is your really good sword on a battery that will last for a while.  Nano Sabres are incredibly damaging and also unused on this server, also needs to be constantly turned on and off or it will drain out of power rapidly.  Mining Lasers  lose damage over distance and if you miss you're going to leave some deep gouges in your caves, or worse  your home if used near it.  Also requires recharging.


Also, so far the only target of debate has been IndustrialCraft2.  What about RedPower and BuildCraft?  What about Mystcrat?  I haven't heard anything for or against those yet, is IC2 the only issue?

EDIT: forgot to mention this, but I also have a world set aside (using the mystcraft mod) that is fairly normal and has a village near the entry point that I was going to place a hard rule on no high tech gadgetry or even medium would be allowed in (redstone being an exception as it is fairly low tech and vanilla too).  I've already crafted the portal into and out of the world into a well, and it's just over the hill from the village, thinking about putting some kind of structure around it.

PS. my opinion is subject to change, but as of 2:50AM EST 10/6/2012 I am against the nuking of the server as it stands.

[Trerro]

Okie, starting with the Lomaz's 3 numbered points and Sonya's replies to each...

1. I don't think it's gotten more stable, just less active. Nothng's been actually changed. I'm tabbed out automining, and Dak pretty much quit, so it's usually just Sonya playing actively... I count as maybe 1/10th of a player right now. I'm not going to claim we've ever had a perfectly stable server (even Vanilla has bugs), but I can say with pretty good certainty that this is the least stable server we've run, and most of CC quit a server that crashed less than half as often.

2. Access to resources is definitely NOT an issue, the entire point of my mine is to give basically everyone everything they could possibly want to build with. That that's possible is a whole different issue, but you definitely will not have any trouble getting started... or finished... with anything here.

3. Whether or not they'd get used is a caving run is pretty much moot - there's no reason to ever go in a cave. We actually *lose* resources on a successful run, because we were out of chunk range of our autominers. In the event that one actually occurred though, if even 1 person in the group uses them, all must, as your choice is be a demigod or baggage at that point. The inability to enchant them is actually meaningless - how would you further upgrade an instant kill or total immunity to all damage, and how can any regular gear, even with a perfect enchant roll, even begin to compete with that?

MCMMO does look like a fun mod. Probably not the only we'd want to run, but also something that should have very few conflicts with others.

Also, so far the only target of debate has been IndustrialCraft2.  What about RedPower and BuildCraft?  What about Mystcrat?  I haven't heard anything for or against those yet, is IC2 the only issue?

Most of BC is fine, it's just the autominers... but then there's the question of what else is it getting used for. I like the project table, but... not really something I'd put a mod in just for. Maybe the pipes with circuits, but... again, not huge.

RP I'm not actually sure about. Does your autominer use it exclusively, or it does it depend on IC stuff as well to function? I also don't know what gem rates look like normally. Some of the other stuff it can do is pretty interesting.

With Myst, the issue is that it has a built-in balancing mechanism (any unbalanced world is, well... literally unbalanced). Making pocket planes to own and adventure planes to explore is great... but making eternal day infinite bricks of resources with no monsters... not so much. I'm not sure if particular flags and flag combos can be blocked.

I'll have to dig through config files and see what can and can't be switched off.

EDIT: forgot to mention this, but I also have a world set aside (using the mystcraft mod) that is fairly normal and has a village near the entry point that I was going to place a hard rule on no high tech gadgetry or even medium would be allowed in (redstone being an exception as it is fairly low tech and vanilla too).  I've already crafted the portal into and out of the world into a well, and it's just over the hill from the village, thinking about putting some kind of structure around it.

We'd essentially be quarantined off from the real world.  That's fine for something that's intended to be a quick thing (like a platformer level or something), or some kind of themed side world, but this essentially makes MC itself a minor side attraction to hit when bored with being a demigod.

[Sonya the fox]

1. I don't think it's gotten more stable, just less active. Nothng's been actually changed. I'm tabbed out automining, and Dak pretty much quit, so it's usually just Sonya playing actively... I count as maybe 1/10th of a player right now. I'm not going to claim we've ever had a perfectly stable server (even Vanilla has bugs), but I can say with pretty good certainty that this is the least stable server we've run, and most of CC quit a server that crashed less than half as often.

Sam and his friend Carole still play on the server too, I believe.  I'll want to get them in on this too.

3. ...In the event that one actually occurred though, if even 1 person in the group uses them, all must, as your choice is be a demigod or baggage at that point. The inability to enchant them is actually meaningless - how would you further upgrade an instant kill or total immunity to all damage, and how can any regular gear, even with a perfect enchant roll, even begin to compete with that?

In order for this to become an issue someone has to be willing to craft and use such god-mode technology, which I think the closest we've come to that is me crafting three of the pieces of nano armor (rechargable armor basically, it's still just armor), and the biggest piece of it, the torso, can't be used without limiting tool power or not wearing the thing that saves me when I decide to miss the turn and fall into a ravine.

MCMMO does look like a fun mod. Probably not the only we'd want to run, but also something that should have very few conflicts with others.

Also, so far the only target of debate has been IndustrialCraft2.  What about RedPower and BuildCraft?  What about Mystcrat?  I haven't heard anything for or against those yet, is IC2 the only issue?

Most of BC is fine, it's just the autominers... but then there's the question of what else is it getting used for. I like the project table, but... not really something I'd put a mod in just for. Maybe the pipes with circuits, but... again, not huge.

RP I'm not actually sure about. Does your autominer use it exclusively, or it does it depend on IC stuff as well to function? I also don't know what gem rates look like normally. Some of the other stuff it can do is pretty interesting.

Project tables are in RP, not BC.
The pipes I would prefer from RP than BC as BC revolves around the RNG and spitting out anything that doesn't fit, RP is smart about where it sends stuff and has the ability to allow for unknown elements.
The autominer I have built is purely reliant on RP, the refinery I attached to it saves me the trouble of processing ores in the machine shop by having the machine shop in-line with the mining head's output.  Said machines are all IC2 and would be replaced with furnaces and a vastly different refinery setup to allow for fuel burning instead of electricity in the event that IC2 were unavailable.
On the subject of gem rates, they seem to be lower than diamonds, but that's only at the level I've been mining (y=8-13), not sure if they're more common higher up.  Seems to be sapphires>emeralds>rubies for most common of the three.
Oh, and RP is where you can get a bunch of your redstone logic gates condensed into 1 small block which can be placed on the walls or ceiling along with the wires to carry your redstone signals in tight spaces further to places thought unreachable.

EDIT: forgot to mention this, but I also have a world set aside (using the mystcraft mod) that is fairly normal and has a village near the entry point that I was going to place a hard rule on no high tech gadgetry or even medium would be allowed in (redstone being an exception as it is fairly low tech and vanilla too).  I've already crafted the portal into and out of the world into a well, and it's just over the hill from the village, thinking about putting some kind of structure around it.

We'd essentially be quarantined off from the real world.  That's fine for something that's intended to be a quick thing (like a platformer level or something), or some kind of themed side world, but this essentially makes MC itself a minor side attraction to hit when bored with being a demigod.

There would not be anything that stops us from going back and forth, I'd just restrict no high tech into there.  Think about going into the past, would you want to have any technology with you or would you try to stay at the same level as where you were going?  That's sortof where I was going with this, though minus the part about time travel.  Yes I have other plans for the platformers and such, just glance at the chaos in Age 79 (the playground), and using some of the later stuff in MC such as script blocks or a possible feature on Mystcraft's books to change a user's gamemode when using certain books you can create levels and such that go from one to another with the option to back out most any time to go back to normal survival.  Can you say Guantlet, Mario, Metroid, some other stuff inspired levels?
Also, this demigod stuff seems to still be centered around unused pieces of technology (armor and sabre), and possibly the matter generator.  Okay, we can ban the matter generator too, that would get rid of the eternal resources you don't even have to leave your home or move a miner for, but can the unusued pieces of demigod gear be left out?  And what about the improved farming (agriculture) that IC2 provides?  Has that been looked at yet?

(okay, starting to fly off in random directions, 'finishing' this post now)

[Trerro]

1. I don't think it's gotten more stable, just less active. Nothng's been actually changed. I'm tabbed out automining, and Dak pretty much quit, so it's usually just Sonya playing actively... I count as maybe 1/10th of a player right now. I'm not going to claim we've ever had a perfectly stable server (even Vanilla has bugs), but I can say with pretty good certainty that this is the least stable server we've run, and most of CC quit a server that crashed less than half as often.

Sam and his friend Carole still play on the server too, I believe.  I'll want to get them in on this too.

They do, sorry, I mean mainly during the hours we play, it's you working on your machine, and me tabbed out with the quarry running... they play during different hours from us, so we're neither experiencing nor causing crashes that the other 2 people see.

As for the opinion of what to do with this in general, we do definitely need their feedback... and to make sure the discussion runs fully. The goal is a server everyone's reasonably happy with.

3. ...In the event that one actually occurred though, if even 1 person in the group uses them, all must, as your choice is be a demigod or baggage at that point. The inability to enchant them is actually meaningless - how would you further upgrade an instant kill or total immunity to all damage, and how can any regular gear, even with a perfect enchant roll, even begin to compete with that?

In order for this to become an issue someone has to be willing to craft and use such god-mode technology, which I think the closest we've come to that is me crafting three of the pieces of nano armor (rechargable armor basically, it's still just armor), and the biggest piece of it, the torso, can't be used without limiting tool power or not wearing the thing that saves me when I decide to miss the turn and fall into a ravine.

I do agree - if it's unused, it's not an issue. I'll give a full reply to that specific point at the end of this, since it's addressed twice and I want to keep my reply as a coherent whole.

MCMMO does look like a fun mod. Probably not the only we'd want to run, but also something that should have very few conflicts with others.

Also, so far the only target of debate has been IndustrialCraft2.  What about RedPower and BuildCraft?  What about Mystcrat?  I haven't heard anything for or against those yet, is IC2 the only issue?

Most of BC is fine, it's just the autominers... but then there's the question of what else is it getting used for? I like the project table, but... not really something I'd put a mod in just for. Maybe the pipes with circuits, but... again, not huge.

RP I'm not actually sure about. Does your autominer use it exclusively, or it does it depend on IC stuff as well to function? I also don't know what gem rates look like normally. Some of the other stuff it can do is pretty interesting.

Project tables are in RP, not BC.
The pipes I would prefer from RP than BC as BC revolves around the RNG and spitting out anything that doesn't fit, RP is smart about where it sends stuff and has the ability to allow for unknown elements.
The autominer I have built is purely reliant on RP, the refinery I attached to it saves me the trouble of processing ores in the machine shop by having the machine shop in-line with the mining head's output.  Said machines are all IC2 and would be replaced with furnaces and a vastly different refinery setup to allow for fuel burning instead of electricity in the event that IC2 were unavailable.
On the subject of gem rates, they seem to be lower than diamonds, but that's only at the level I've been mining (y=8-13), not sure if they're more common higher up.  Seems to be sapphires>emeralds>rubies for most common of the three.
Oh, and RP is where you can get a bunch of your redstone logic gates condensed into 1 small block which can be placed on the walls or ceiling along with the wires to carry your redstone signals in tight spaces further to places thought unreachable.

Ok, so it sounds like BC consists of a) things we don't want and b) things RP does better... and it sounds like RP is something we're all fine with in the overwhelming majority of cases (and can likely just agree to not use those few caes). Just noting this for when the discussion moves to what we are and aren't keeping.

EDIT: forgot to mention this, but I also have a world set aside (using the mystcraft mod) that is fairly normal and has a village near the entry point that I was going to place a hard rule on no high tech gadgetry or even medium would be allowed in (redstone being an exception as it is fairly low tech and vanilla too).  I've already crafted the portal into and out of the world into a well, and it's just over the hill from the village, thinking about putting some kind of structure around it.

We'd essentially be quarantined off from the real world.  That's fine for something that's intended to be a quick thing (like a platformer level or something), or some kind of themed side world, but this essentially makes MC itself a minor side attraction to hit when bored with being a demigod.

There would not be anything that stops us from going back and forth, I'd just restrict no high tech into there.  Think about going into the past, would you want to have any technology with you or would you try to stay at the same level as where you were going?  That's sortof where I was going with this, though minus the part about time travel.  Yes I have other plans for the platformers and such, just glance at the chaos in Age 79 (the playground), and using some of the later stuff in MC such as script blocks or a possible feature on Mystcraft's books to change a user's gamemode when using certain books you can create levels and such that go from one to another with the option to back out most any time to go back to normal survival.  Can you say Guantlet, Mario, Metroid, some other stuff inspired levels?

This likewise is the main reason I *do* like the tech stuff, which brings me back to the question of: Is any of this IC or BC dependent, or is this all RP and plain old redstone & piston combos?

Also, this demigod stuff seems to still be centered around unused pieces of technology (armor and sabre), and possibly the matter generator.  Okay, we can ban the matter generator too, that would get rid of the eternal resources you don't even have to leave your home or move a miner for, but can the unusued pieces of demigod gear be left out?  And what about the improved farming (agriculture) that IC2 provides?  Has that been looked at yet?

(okay, starting to fly off in random directions, 'finishing' this post now)

You make a very important point regarding demigod status, as well as some other undesirable stuff - it doesn't matter what our server theoretically *could* do if no one will ever actually use it. My main concern in this regard is that though not a public server, we are an open one - if I invite someone who invites someone who invites someone... I can't guarentee the guy at the end of the chain is going to agree to the original conventions. At the same time, I don't want to switch to a gatekeeper model, as open invites are a part of what gives CC its whole format. This is easily dealt with however, we just need house rules on what shouldn't be used, and what should be used in a restricted format, and make sure anyone joining is aware of said rules. The more I think about it, the more I'm perfectly fine with having a mod with undesirable elements in it, we just need to have that discussion.

The side world thing I need to think more about.

Two last things I do want to bring up though: stability and compatibility. There isn't a clearly drawn "acceptable crashes per week" sort of line, but I think we all agree that our current settings crash way, way, too often. Whatever combo of mods is ultimately chosen, this needs to be addressed, possibly with a bit of trial and error. I think it's very important that we stick with supported (ideally current) versions of things, as going with a server setup that's unstable and unsupported means we have *permanent* crash issues, or at least very long-term ones.

As for compatibility, remember that every installed mod removes others as options, so when considering mods, we do have to consider how much we're planning on using it vs. what future potential are we losing, and is it worth it? IC is compatible with almost zero non-tech mods for instance, while I'm pretty sure RP is a lot safer. Myst is somewhere between the two.

Let's discuss this fully. I don't want to jump the gun, and I want to make sure everyone is in the discussion. We may not all agree on every point everyone else makes, but as long as we're all after getting a good server for all of us, and willing to make reasonable, rational compromises for the group, whatever we finish with should be a server we all like, with everyone getting most of what they want.

Edit: The quotes got borked on this... I *think* I fixed them, at least enough to make it clear what's new text if not fully.

[Dakon42]

So, here's my thoughts on the current thing. I actually don't mind IC. As yall have pointed out, the game breaking stuff isn't really being used. The stability is my main turn off, along with the fact that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of group play.

I mean, sure, there is convenience to being able to pop into your own private world and build things, and this had advantages over just playing single player because we can still share resources and go look at each other's stuff. I get that. At the same time though, Myst has sort of added this element I really don't like to the game. There was this really cool thing when I left my house on the main world and had to use the giant tower to navigate my way to Tre's castle. The first time I saw Sam's rail system, or that awesome cut away and mined out mountain.. thing. Sure, our builds might bump into each others, but the beauty of minecraft is that we have this gigantic world and we have plenty of room to do stuff in. Some of the charm of having to interact with other people is gone with Myst, and I don't really like it. Group build spots like the Nexus are essentially used as a room with teleporters to everything else, all in a safe little bubble.

There isn't really much of a sense of danger that I can see anywhere. I don't mean the sort of danger where you're hanging over a cliff building things.. that is cool too, so don't get me wrong, but I mean ... well that sprint from one house to another at night because you don't want to wait for day and would rather play dodge the creeper. The need to escape from a cave run with your inventory full of stuff and no idea where the surface is, rather than just throwing a book down at the bottom of a mine and warping out. Actually caving at all, for that matter, as opposed to making a super flat always day dense ores world or something and just stripmining to your hearts content.

More than anything though, my real issue has been with the crashes. IC has never been an especially stable mod. Myst was clearly causing problems as well. Nothing is more frustrating than taking an hour to fill up my inventory with metals only to have a server crash on the way out of the cave and lose it all. Or build a structure and have a crash take away two hours of work while also removing the items from your inventory. ( Both of these happened, by the way. ) Yeah, I could put creative on and just give myself stacks of mats, but I don't really want to have to do that. I just want the game to work.

I really think we should give something else a try. Not just for the above, but because it could be nice to get a fresh start on things and see some new stuff. We know what IC and RP and BC do. Plus, it's reasonably easy to make a backup of the server, backup our minecraft folders so we can just paste them back in to have all of our current mods reinstalled, and give something else a shot. Worst case, we put this one back in a week or two. Best case, we have fun. As is I'm not having fun on the current server. Wether that is the fault of the mods or just my own mood, meh, but there you have it.

There isn't any harm in discussing things. Throwing your arms up and refusing to have a discussion or give opinions without just dismissing the concerns of other people outright because you don't agree is no way to run a group server. If you refuse to discuss, you shouldn't have any right to decide whats going to happen either. But.. just my 2 cents.

In any case, that's how I feel about things and why. Take from it what you will. =p

[Samhayne]

IMHO, Minecraft is not RPG, even if latest version seems to take that direction; I mean there is a lot of online RPG out there, most if not all with better look and graphics than MC; but none that I knew allow players to alter the world like MC do. So I would feel sad to discard mod(s) that enhance the building aspect - which for me is its strong point - while trying to improve the RPG aspect.

I agree that the real issue is server stability, not overpowered mods; and anyway, MC is not a competition, if you do not like the stuff mods add, just do not use it, as long as the added mods do not strain the server and other player does not damage or trample what you built "the hard way", where is the problem?

About the currently added mods (in my opinion):

RedPower is a must; I am fond of redstone circuits and stopped implementing them just because of complexity; a single "T" flip-flop need 2x3x9 space for example, while in RP it is reduced to 1 block! That change everything, more complex circuitry can be more easely designed. If you add block cutting recipes and frame usage, that give a lots of possibilities for improving the look of buildings and designing moving things, like Sonya's "Beast". Also, if I am not mistaken, RP is compatible with a lot of other mods, so unless we determine it put a strain on the server, I would not remove it.

Industrial Craft contains some very interesting stuff; Jet pack make some building way easier to build when dealing with cliffs or high towers, electric drill make digging tunnels (a quite boring and repetitive task) way quicker and improved machines can save you a lot of time when building a big project in survival mode (iron or bronze for rail, stone for buildings, etc...). It also add Power management, which could be considered as a new challenge. Even if some electrical tools can be considered as overpowered, they cannot be built in a matter of minutes and you still need to have power sources (renewable if possible) to recharge them. Beside that, using the automated miner of IC in the overworld did not yet gave me "hundreds of diamonds a day", not even a hundred of them since the mod was installed.

Buildcraft I do not know it much, I did not used it a lot yet, so I cannot tell if it is redundant with RP or not.

Mystcraft I stopped using it as it seems it tend to crash the server when I use several linkbooks with short time interval in-between. On a side note, I find that creating ages is way too easy and too random, which result in creating a lot of "junk" ages until we find an age we fancy. The teleport functionality it provide is also too easy to set up, as long as you are a bit careful with what you do. I would not throw the stone to that mod, but as far as I remember I never saw a server crash before Mystcraft was installed; but after that, we started to have crash, even when soloing the server.

About McMMO:

Basically, as I understand it, it looks like turning MC into some kind of Elder Scrolls clone. I did not got hooked by MC because of its RPG content; while it could be fun, if it mean dropping all RP and IC functionalities, I would not favor McMMO.


About the nuking itself:

If the point is to make everyone start from scratch with no other excuse than "Things are too easy, let start again everything and do it the hard way", I am totally against it and would probably prefer to set up a server of my own (even if I have no experience about that) with a copy of this world if I am allowed to.

If the point is to solve the server stability problem, I am not against it, assuming we reach a compromise over which mods we keep and which one we drop; i.e. not dropping the one which cause little or no strain and let everyone decide what stuff he or she will use or not.

Personally, if it comes to dropping mods, I would prefer to keep RP, IC (maybe with some nerfing) and at least some functionalities Myst (teleport but a bit harder to set up), even if it mean using other - more compatible - mods.

That was my two cents

-Sam

Added note: In the case we do go through a fresh world creation, did anyone tested version 1.3.2? According to the release notes, it is said to be less demanding on the server.

[Trerro]

Here's the crashes mod-by-mod. Because many of the crashes are unable to log anything before the server chokes, this list involves some educated guesses and will not be 100% accurate... but should be close.

Myst:
-Very high chance to crash on world creation (I'd say at least 50/50).
-Small chance to crash on every use of a linkbook
-Linkbook crash chance increases with both player count and frequency of use (With 3 on and a book being used every 2-3 min, the server will likely crash within 15m, and almost certainly crash within an hour.)

IC:
-Very resource-demanding, in general, making all other overload crashes more likely (since we're starting closer to the threshold)
-Glitches out sometimes and crashes on its own. While these crashes are far less common than the Myst ones, they're also far less predictable, so the chances a pre-emptive /save-all will be performed are very low. At one point, we ran an IC1-only server, and had lots of issues with this. While IC2 is *less* crash-prone than the original, it's still a very, very, noticeable strain on the server, and direct source of crashes.

BC:
I don't think I've seen BC crash yet. It is, however, using server resources for a mod that does indeed appear to be redundant, and because it does alter the world (oil), it stops us from using many other mods (anything that spawning oil into is going to bork a terrain algorithm).

RP:
While not positive, I'm pretty sure all of the crashes we've had in this are due to:
A. User error: Infinite loops, stuck platforms, that sort of thing
and B. RP's marble generation algorithm clashing with Myst's biome generation and blowing up.
So in theory, if we always /save-all and warn people before testing unstable machines, and planes aren't being written, crashes *should* be rare and 100% predictable. In practice, we won't know until we try it.

Regarding McMMO:
This is a very lightweight, character-only mod. This means that:
-It doesn't modify the world or any blocks, and thus shouldn't conflict with any other mod.
-Server load should be almost nonexistant - it does nothing at all that isn't a direct player action, and most of what it does do is very, very simple. (Raise this skill, roll this drop slightly differently, DoT this monster, etc.)
-If we don't like it, it can simply be pulled. Everyone will lose all granted skills, and it will be like it was never there. (We can't do the same for something like IC, as EVERY invalid block, including all the tin and copper ore, would then bork the game.)
Also of note, mining skill IS one of the things you increase as you play this, so even if you don't care in the slightest about the combat stuff, this can be a source of more building materials for you.

Regarding the nuke:
Stability, getting a world where people play together more, and appealing to both sides of MC are all goals here. Resetting people is NOT a goal, and we're going to make sure major structures can be copypasted into the new world. Because of how Myst and IC work, it will not be possible to save *everything* of course, but the time-consuming structures should be restorable.

Regarding building vs. adventure:
The thing with MC is that it's both. There are lots of 3D modeling programs, some block-based, and there are lots of ARPGs, but it's the combination of the two that makes Minecraft be Minecraft. If we were purely, exclusively after building, then not only should we ignore the survival elements, but turn them off entirely - that is, run a creative mode server, not a survival.

Not everyone will be interested in the adventure elements of MC (beyond the bare minimum needed to build), and not everyone will be interested in the building elements (beyond the bare minimum needed to adventure), and that's fine. To cater purely to either group, however, is to drive the other from the server, and to leave the people who like both, at best, unsatisfied. The goal is a server where people on both far ends of the builder<->adventurer spectrum can enjoy the game, and that means trying to give each side fun new stuff, without trampling the other side in the process.

We can't give everyone everything they want (because some thing are mutually exclusive), but we can give every reasonable person most of what they want. That, IMO, should be the primary goal here, and it does seem like it's where we're headed.

[Dakon42]

Seems like some weird semi-political shenanigans are going on. I'm not sure why or who, but we should really all do our best to remain civil and not split into full blown factions over something like this.

I mean seriously, it's mods on a minecraft server. The group dynamic that this group can field is way more important than any of that.

[Sonya the fox]

After much debating (and possible lack thereof) between myself, Lomaz, Dakon, Trerro, and Skeeter, with Sam and Carole's input kept on mind, some ideas have been decided upon and are now here for voting.

We have decided that we are going to setup multiple worlds.  The thing that pushed this was some of us wanting to use TFCraft as something we can do for fun (ultimate survival in the stone age), http://wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Main_Page  It would of course be done on a brand new world and would also force us to cooperate a lot, too. 
With multiple worlds we'd have the ability to swap between them, but only by stopping the server and starting it back up with it pointed at another world.  We can only have one 'active' at a time, but we could do things like scenarios and events with this.  What those are are to be determined later and only happen if there is interest in them when they are announced.

World suggestions:
TFCraft (MC 1.3.2)
RP + McMMO
Tekkit + McMMO
Tekkit

Personally I'm for 1 and 3 on that list.

Another issue is the ban list.  This has been an issue from the moment we even discussed IC2 back when it didn't have the 2.  There are quite a few items in Tekkit that could possibly be considered to be overpowered, and now is your chance to voice your opinion on that by coming up with a list of things that you feel would be something noone should be allowed to have.  Quantum Armor and Nano Sabres from IC2 and the Gem Armor from Equivalent Exchange are ones that I believe head this list, but we will leave it for the community to decide and not just one or two of us saying 'it should be THIS way'.  The mods involved can be found here: http://thetekkit.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tekkit_Wiki  Note that MAtmos is being disabled as a whole, anyone with flying castles or sky towers will having howling winds all day and night, just ask Dakon.

One more issue is the debate about world nuking.  IF, and I emphasize the IF, IF we nuked the world, why should we do it and how should we do it?  My suggestion if we do do a nuking would be to preserve a all or atleast a large portion of players' resources and restore the structures with an editor, along with reusing the same seed so that said structures can be put back where they are.  Purpose of this nuking I laid out would be to refresh the world's resources and ensure that the resources given by mods are fit in 'everywhere' and not just out in east hell and gone.  This applies to the Nether too if we impliment Nether Ores (Tekkit).  If this is deemed to be too much work then we can just establish rail lines (courtesy of the rail baron Sammhayne i'm sure) to beyond explored territories to gain access to the new stuff just the same.

[Trerro]

I'm for either 1 + 2 + 4 with light ban lists on 2 and 4, or 1 + 3 with a heavier ban list on 3. I think we should decide what we're going with mod-wise and then discuss bans.
My logic on these 2+4 vs 3:
2+4: Here we have the adventure/challenge level/fun machines server (2) and the all-out tech, no adventure server (4)
3: We essentially try to combine 2+4 into one server, with the advantage of having 2 rotating servers instead of 3, at the cost of the bigger compromise requiring a more substantial ban list.

As far as nuking goes, it depends on:
1. Is our world still usable? We're assuming pulling a mod will simply poof anything that mod made, rather than crashing the server. We should confirm this. If it's not, then we have to nuke, there simply aren't other options.
2. Is our seed still usable? If it isn't, the "light nuke" becomes harder.
3. Just how hard is it to paste existing structures into a new world? Things like the floating castle and the giant tower aren't terribly location-dependent, but things like the carved-out mountain are. We'll have the combination of copypasta and creative mode to work with - hopefully that's enough, but if it isn't, that makes things harder.
The bottom line: I'm leaning nuke with structure recovery, but I think we should get more data before making a final decision on how to proceeed with this.

All of the above, of course, assumes there even is still a discussion, and this entire thing isn't moot. Last night I went to bed after reading Sonya's post above this one and agreeing that was the plan, today I wake up and there's already an external server finalized without any vote or input accounted for. The whole group decision thing is meaningless if the group splits 3 ways. 7 people split into 3 servers = 3 dead servers.

Edit: To clarify the above paragraph...
[17:20] Skeeter Melviden (skeetermelviden): I had the idea of a second server for TFC, but that keeps getting shot down even though I plan to do it anyway, at least to get it off of my home machine
[17:20] sonyathefox: It's simply an alternate world when the rest of us want to do that, the building world would be up when you were around
[17:21] sonyathefox: It just gives us someplace 'public' to have the world, not on someone's home computer where that person absolutely has to be around for us to poke it.
[17:26] Skeeter Melviden (skeetermelviden): I am not whoever it was that ran the Rising Alliance forums; I do not forget to pay my bills[/quote]

[Samhayne]

About the choice:

Taking Trerro point into account (7 peoples on 3 servers = 3 dead servers), I would favor a solution with 2 servers at most.

My preference would go to choice 3, any combination of server including that one would suit me (1+3 would be the more logical). For me, choice 3 offer the most freedom to everyone: If I understand both mods correctly (Tekkit & McMMO), efficiency can be attained either by technology or by XP.

Choice 1 would be interesting, although I am not sure I would spend a lot of time there (it looks very complex to survive only); nevertheless, I would admit other players can enjoy it and would join them with pleasure during server rotation. So that would be my second choice if we do server rotations.

I discard choice 2 in favor of choice 3 as it offer more possibilities and freedom than choice 2, assuming the server is stable enough to use Tekkit and McMMO.

I discard choice 4 in favor of choice 3 as choice 4 does not address the initial demand of this thread (adding McMMO). Also, McMMO does not seems to be a server resources eater and can be removed easily if we do not want it anymore later.


About server nuking:

I do not pretend to be a MC guru, but it seems some parts of the current world cannot be regenerated with matching terrain using the current seed. Sonya and I tried to regenerate the world from scratch on a local session and while most parts looks very similar to current world (Trerro castle and lands south of it for example) others are completely different (Carole carved-out mountain is replaced by a desert, while the coastline looks similar).

This would mean - even if we find an easy & bug-free way to transfer parts of the world - that some parts will not be transferable unless taking a significant amount of time and efforts to do it. Knowing that, if the final decision is to restart from scratch, I would not oppose it as I probably could not transfer stuff myself and it would not be honest to force someone else to do what I would not or cannot do. As I said before, I am far more concerned by a stable server with mods I enjoy than by conserving all that I built.

If we do try a "property" transfer, the best solution would probably be to (in-game) remove non-vanilla stuff from transferred parts, and add them back later using creative mode if they cannot be easily rebuild.

-Sam

[Sonya the fox]

Quickie towards Sam: I believe that if it's necessary we can transpose entire chunks to get those mountains back, I haven't taken a closer look but I believe that the seams line up with the surrounding chunks (old and new) so it 'should' work, theoretically...
As for the railline, if that becomes too great to restore for some reason, I'll bring my monster up from the deep and refurbish it as a builder/tunneler to drive through and lay down new track for you.  It'll atleast take out the tedius not so fun part of digging all of those holes again, and can be programmed to put down a new tunnel as well.  The redstore can then be pasted over on its own, unless you'd rather rework it using the new mods.  Just my two cents worth on that.

[Sonya the fox]

Okay, I have three votes in favor of 1 and 3, and of possibly attempting to nuke the world and pasting things over to effectively 'refresh the world' and get all the ores in the ground all over the place and not just out in the middle of nowhere far from home.  And I have no other votes or anything, so as far as I can tell the compromise is working.  I'm shocked at there not even being half as many voters as there were people in the debate and stuff, and this was something that nearly caused fights!

[Trerro]

Ok, it looks like 1 and 3 are indeed the clear winners, though I'd like to make sure everyone's gotten a chance to view the options (and suggest others if desired). From there, it's just a matter of settings for each. I don't think #1 needs any modification (or really can have any), but the discussion of the ban list on #3 becomes important once the vote is finished.

Hopefully we still have enough people for this. If the side fragment gains too much traction, it may kill both servers. At this point though... let's just see where it goes.