Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

Please Note: The TotalFreedom Forum has now been put into a read-only mode. Total Freedom has now closed down and will not be returning in any way, shape or form. It has been a pleasure to lead this community and I wish you all the best for your futures.
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    @wild1145#4021 It's certainly something to look into, I want to re-jig schematics in general along with the HTTPD setup for the server. Upload needs some thinking out for various reasons (Virus's and stuff being one) but something I'm open to discussing as part of the overall HTTPD review.

    I personally believe in adopting more graceful methods of handling file uploads/downloads on behalf of users as opposed to "reviewing" the current HTTPD implementation.

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    I am sure that any original discussion regarding the matter has been lost to time, however this server's development team should consider if running a server program executed from within a Minecraft "server" is the best way to go about invoking schematics.

    I've seen some clever methods of pushing server files to the end user as deployed by various servers.

    TFM's method of serving files involves a crude list including links to each file, which makes it impossible to download a group of schematics, or efficiently download a group of schematics. The current "upload" page does nothing to check the validity of a schematic; you can give any file the extension of ".schematic" and it will be accepted.

    Here is my server's method of using wget to import schematic files. No thought was put into security, and this syntax assumes that the schematic file has already been uploaded to a remote web server.

    If there is an overall review of TFM's HTTPD, hopefully the reviewers will discover CSS.

    @StevenNL2000#3980
    “I am not in favor of restricting commands where there is an alternative solution. However, there is an argument to be made that by giving admins access to these restricted commands, OPs can indirectly make use of them by asking an admin, which is better than having no options at all.”

    I some-what agree, however I sadly don’t think our Admins always have the server’s interests in mind over their own. This has been a dissapointing tendency for the last many years to simply restrict freedom for the average player, but keep it the same for Admins, therefore I would propose that Admins should at least put up with the same as Ops do, because it’s not always they have the mental aptitude to look at how certain changes would affect the average player experience, before they simply vote “yes” to another asinine World Edit restriction.
    At least MB’s actually requrie these tools in order to perform their duties; the same cannot be said for Admins.

    wild1145
    “I'm heavily against creating Master Builder as a weird inter-rank between Op's and admins. If it's usable by an Mb I'd like it to be issued to Op's as well unless there is a really good reason that can't be the case…”

    I don’t seem to understand this sentiment. If you’re against Master Builder as a rank, not just a title, then certainly you are also going to remove the MB world, when that is one of the main features of the rank? I also subscribe to the notion that if MB’s (or Admins for that matter) have access to certain creative tools, then of course the rest of the server should also have this toolset. I was merely pointing out that, historically, we tend to give full WE access to Admins, whilst Ops (and Mbs) get restricted access. If we were to continue this route for the time-being, then at least switch it around, so that the ones who actually need the tools the most (MB’s) also get full access to them.
    Thus, if Admins have to suffer the same Ops do in terms of limitations for plugins such as WorldEdit, Voxel Sniper etc, then perhaps they’ll realize why this is a brainless route to follow. Our Admins tend to have a hard time looking further than their own interests to the overall interests of the server.

    “And I think it does highlight a rather interesting point from my perspective because I has never seen TF as a creative server until I took over as owner, I had always been attracted to TF because fo the all-op and more anarchy side of the server rather than the creative side. But I think your right, there is a large creative community, and the server as you say is not a great experience for those who are interested purely in the creative side of things.
    Some of this has been covered directly / indirectly in my other thread here - https://forum.totalfreedom.me/d/458-an-update-plans-for-2021”

    It’s certainly quite hard not to see Total Freedom as a creative server, when the “all-op”-aspect entails unlimited freedom. Before beta 1.8, creative mode didn’t exist, and thus we used /item to get blocks. (used to be unlimited) World Edit, a staple feature of the server. Of course Total Freedom is not purely a creative server, but its hard to neglect the fact that the vast majority of our playerbase has treated it as such for its entire existence, which is why I repeatedly say that when this core aspect of the server is shit, the server falters as a hollistic unit.

    “There is a balance to be had between enabling these tools, and working on other aspects for the server.”

    Sure there is, but we should always view it from a liberty/freedom standpoint – the less restrictions the merrier, even if it requires additional development work or more moderation. The user experience should always be in the forefront.

    “but ultimately my view is that we should be unlocking as much access is viable, without enabling those who want to destroy things with tools that can't be tracked back.”

    This way of looking at things is what brought us to this point in the firstplace. Instead, you should look to freedom, and make sure that who wish to abuse this liberty are dealt with via Adminstration or coding. Just because we have a few bad apples – should not – impact or degrade the user experience of the rest of the bunch. As Wilee has mentioned countless of times prior: why the fuk don’t we have some sort of quality assurance in this bitch?

    “I'm aware that the dev team are looking at viability to disable gravity (Something we did have before but I think the community felt they'd rather have gravity over the blocks)”

    Or we could make the player able to toggle gravity in a certain region. I’m sure this would be feasible. Blocks affected by gravity are a mixed back, in that they are a perfect way to terraform with tools such as WorldEdit and VoxelSniper, or as components in a redstone contraption (e.g. traps), but can also certainly be used to lag the server. But again, we shouldn’t err on the side of caution – give the player the option of somehow switching between gravity/non-gravity instead of solely fixating it on one setting.

    "PlotWorld: The current intent for this I've covered off elsewhere, however unfortunately if we remove it entirely or shrink them, it's the same result. Everyone's builds would be lost. You can't (At least from what I've seen) re-size the plots without having to regenerate the world entirely, which would be less than ideal. My hope is once we've moved it to it's own server it'll be better known (As it'll have an easy way to be signposted to new players) and we can make other quality of life improvements such as increasing the render distance and other things like I mentioned on that thread."

    This is such a cheap cop out. I highly doubt that it’s impossible to resize plots without retaining the builds whilst doing so. Or simply notifying players a month prior that their builds will be deleted, and that a save file will be uploaded for them to download. The fact of the matter is that the current plot sizes completely twist the point of the plot world in the first place. Not everybody has the option of increasing render distance, and even so: there you can’t see a detailed build from 1,000 blocks away properly.
    Sorry, but even if we have to delete the plot world entirely (which sounds ridiculous considering we have a dedicated dev team), this would be a more than nessecary sacrifice to at least have a world which isn’t utterly pointless. Community is just as important to TF as the all-op feature, and the plot world currently fosters a single-player experience.

    “On this specific point, that's because (As I understand) they're not supposed to need to anymore... The entire point of not doing map resets and having CoreProtect and such was to stop players needing to save their stuff in schematics.”

    You want me to believe that I shouldn’t be afraid to leave my build unattended for a month in flatlands / overworld, because we don’t do map resets anymore and have CoreProtect? My dude, you know this is ridiculous. This was exactly the argument for plots, so even if I grant you that you don’t need to save your builds as schematics, you then lose the point of having a plotworld entirely.

    “It's [WE unusable in MBW] been flagged with the development team, I'll chase it up and work out what's going on with this...”

    I’ve been notified by another MB that this issue has persisted before Seth rage quit. This is unacceptable and screams unprofessionalism. Of course, if you haven’t been aware of this issue until now, there’s not much you could’ve done.

    “I will say there are complexities in getting the server backed up, when you have a server that's growing as large as this is, the standard backups that I've got for example means the server freezes for quite a while during the backup process. That's less of a concern now we have 2 Freedom servers, but with the size of the worlds and all that, I will say there is some decent complexity involved and why it's not a clear cut thing all the time.”

    Sure, but if you won’t do this, then I can tell you that I won’t actively build on this pile of shit creative server.

    “Was it on your plot? If not then that would be why I'm guessing.”
    “Think they [//count, //brush]should already work most of the time?”

    I literally don’t have permission to use //count on my own plot in the plotworld. And no, ops don’t have access to either as far as I’m aware.

    @fssp#4031 There are a few ways of doing it, and I'm not in a position to design the solution right here right now, but I have thought of a few ways of doing it, and once we come to actually looking at how we want to be re-designing the system then I'm sure the developers and myself will be able to explain the proposed solution in some sane way for community peer review.

    There will likely be two separate aspects to how we tackle this, one around how we're publishing the artefacts we care about, and one around how users can feed in data to the server(s) going forward.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

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    @Miwojedk#4033 I don’t seem to understand this sentiment. If you’re against Master Builder as a rank, not just a title, then certainly you are also going to remove the MB world, when that is one of the main features of the rank? I also subscribe to the notion that if MB’s (or Admins for that matter) have access to certain creative tools, then of course the rest of the server should also have this toolset. I was merely pointing out that, historically, we tend to give full WE access to Admins, whilst Ops (and Mbs) get restricted access. If we were to continue this route for the time-being, then at least switch it around, so that the ones who actually need the tools the most (MB’s) also get full access to them.
    Thus, if Admins have to suffer the same Ops do in terms of limitations for plugins such as WorldEdit, Voxel Sniper etc, then perhaps they’ll realize why this is a brainless route to follow. Our Admins tend to have a hard time looking further than their own interests to the overall interests of the server.

    I'm not sure that I really see the value in creating a rank on the freedom server which will just incentivise players to join, when the bar of entry to such rank is variable at best. In terms of the freedom server longer term, I think MB's should be nothing more than a title, in the same way the Developers are for example.

    In the longer term the master builder world I intend to move again out of the freedom server and into either it's own server, or find an appropriate other solution, but either way I don't see it being fair to grant additional access on the FreeOP server when if we can grant that access to "random" people, we should surely be able to give that access to OP's as well?

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    @Miwojedk#4033 It’s certainly quite hard not to see Total Freedom as a creative server, when the “all-op”-aspect entails unlimited freedom. Before beta 1.8, creative mode didn’t exist, and thus we used /item to get blocks. (used to be unlimited) World Edit, a staple feature of the server. Of course Total Freedom is not purely a creative server, but its hard to neglect the fact that the vast majority of our playerbase has treated it as such for its entire existence, which is why I repeatedly say that when this core aspect of the server is shit, the server falters as a hollistic unit.

    I was more highlighting the fact different people will have different perceptions of the server, especially for a server running so long. The server ultimately has gone in a range of directions over it's existence and I just wanted to explain what my own perspective was and that which may be shared with others.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 Sure there is, but we should always view it from a liberty/freedom standpoint – the less restrictions the merrier, even if it requires additional development work or more moderation. The user experience should always be in the forefront.

    I agree, but again there is a balance. We can enable all the shit on the server but if it creates a worse player experience because the server crashes more / lags the clients out more... I'm still catching up on everything that needs to be done, so change can be made, but I want to make sure we're doing it sustainably and without destroying the experience.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 This way of looking at things is what brought us to this point in the firstplace. Instead, you should look to freedom, and make sure that who wish to abuse this liberty are dealt with via Adminstration or coding

    That's a lot easier said than done, but there are other concerns beyond just "administrating" as we've discovered more recently. Also, to "just code it" is a lot easier said than done...

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    @Miwojedk#4033 ust because we have a few bad apples – should not – impact or degrade the user experience of the rest of the bunch.

    The difference is when the majority of the server will often take the piss and try to break these things and then we just end up getting more people joining because they tell their friends, and we end up in an utter shit show... I've unfortunately seen that more than once on here and other servers.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 As Wilee has mentioned countless of times prior: why the fuk don’t we have some sort of quality assurance in this bitch?

    The honest answer is because this has been run as a hobby for a number of years, and the QA is done on a best endeavours basis for the most part... We're working to improve the code quality and ensuring more testing goes into things, which is why we end up using a clone of the freedom server we currently run where we can test plugins.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 Or we could make the player able to toggle gravity in a certain region. I’m sure this would be feasible. Blocks affected by gravity are a mixed back, in that they are a perfect way to terraform with tools such as WorldEdit and VoxelSniper, or as components in a redstone contraption (e.g. traps), but can also certainly be used to lag the server. But again, we shouldn’t err on the side of caution – give the player the option of somehow switching between gravity/non-gravity instead of solely fixating it on one setting.

    You refer to regions, but that's not something we really have. There is WorldGuard but it's for admins only, and certainly is not something we want to be opening up to everyone because it just ends up in a massive mess. Unfortunately I can't see a viable way at the moment of setting this other than at the server level on the main FreeOP Server and potentially plot based, but that'll depend on the plot server and how that ends up implemented.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 This is such a cheap cop out. I highly doubt that it’s impossible to resize plots without retaining the builds whilst doing so.

    It's the honest answer from what I've found when I tried to do this myself on a test server previously with this same plugin. It's either wipe everything or leave it as it is...

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    @Miwojedk#4033 Or simply notifying players a month prior that their builds will be deleted, and that a save file will be uploaded for them to download.

    Which would be great but the last time I suggested wiping anything people rioted... You can't have it both ways here.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 The fact of the matter is that the current plot sizes completely twist the point of the plot world in the first place. Not everybody has the option of increasing render distance, and even so: there you can’t see a detailed build from 1,000 blocks away properly.

    I guess it depends on what you're looking to achieve... Plots were always setup to allow large areas of building in a safe and secure environment... I appreciate it's not ideal, but I'm not sure it's a bad way to do things..?

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    @Miwojedk#4033 Sorry, but even if we have to delete the plot world entirely (which sounds ridiculous considering we have a dedicated dev team)

    It's not about having a development team, it's about being realistic. How do you shrink those plots down? What happens if we shrink to 30 x 30 and someone has a 31x30 build? Just delete it? It's just not a viable thing to do at all... I can't see why anyone thinks it's technically viable from the get go..

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    @Miwojedk#4033 this would be a more than nessecary sacrifice to at least have a world which isn’t utterly pointless. Community is just as important to TF as the all-op feature, and the plot world currently fosters a single-player experience.

    Given most people I've spoken to want to do big builds anyway you'd just end up merging those plots... I'm not sure there ends up being a real net benefit either way.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 You want me to believe that I shouldn’t be afraid to leave my build unattended for a month in flatlands / overworld, because we don’t do map resets anymore and have CoreProtect? My dude, you know this is ridiculous.

    I agree it's a silly idea, but it's what the community have told me they want, and I've had to work out ways to try to make that happen... I'd much rather go back to wiping everything multiple times a day and the server being more like a sandbox but that's not what our players want.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 This was exactly the argument for plots, so even if I grant you that you don’t need to save your builds as schematics, you then lose the point of having a plotworld entirely.

    Not sure I get your point? Well, I sort of do but I'm not sure having a permanent world and a plot server are mutually exclusive?

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    @Miwojedk#4033 I’ve been notified by another MB that this issue has persisted before Seth rage quit. This is unacceptable and screams unprofessionalism. Of course, if you haven’t been aware of this issue until now, there’s not much you could’ve done.

    You telling me was the first I knew about it... As I've said I have raised it with the dev team because I honestly don't know enough about how MBW works to actually diagnose the fault myself at 3AM...

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    @Miwojedk#4033 Sure, but if you won’t do this, then I can tell you that I won’t actively build on this pile of shit creative server.

    Your attitude throughout this hasn't been super useful, and to be honest it's getting really quite frustrating. I'm doing my best to juggle things, and just calling the server shit / whatever else because you're not loving things isn't productive in the least.

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    @Miwojedk#4033 I literally don’t have permission to use //count on my own plot in the plotworld. And no, ops don’t have access to either as far as I’m aware.

    That doesn't sound intentional... I'll check that with the development team as I don't know why count is blocked either way...

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    @wild1145#4039

    "Your attitude throughout this hasn't been super useful, and to be honest it's getting really quite frustrating. I'm doing my best to juggle things, and just calling the server shit / whatever else because you're not loving things isn't productive in the least."
    I haven't attacked you nor anybody else. I merely want to make it clear that Total Freedom is a shit creative server, which is why I keep reiterating this notion.

    “In the longer term the master builder world I intend to move again out of the freedom server and into either it's own server, or find an appropriate other solution, but either way I don't see it being fair to grant additional access on the FreeOP server when if we can grant that access to "random" people, we should surely be able to give that access to OP's as well?”

    Going by this logic – do you also intend to “move” the Admin World off the freedom server, or just remove it entirely? At least MB’s have a some-what “need” for a dedicated world to build in, whereas the same cannot be said for Admins.

    “I agree, but again there is a balance. We can enable all the shit on the server but if it creates a worse player experience because the server crashes more / lags the clients out more... I'm still catching up on everything that needs to be done, so change can be made, but I want to make sure we're doing it sustainably and without destroying the experience.”
    “That's a lot easier said than done, but there are other concerns beyond just "administrating" as we've discovered more recently. Also, to "just code it" is a lot easier said than done...”

    But from this point onwards I expect you to still weigh freedom over anything else. It would be preposterous to enable everthing on the server, which is why I never suggested it. Instead, I want us to tread carefully, and instead of immediatedly blocking a certain abused command/block, we instead confer on a non-restrictive solution to the issue at hand. If brush is used to grief, then A) simply have coreprotect log it and ban the griefer B) make brushes non-usable in a protected area (which is already the case) or C) give unlimited access to brushes in the plotworld, whilst giving slighty-limited access in the normal world (talking brush sizes 1-10).
    Outright banning a command or block should always be the last resort, or – only – used in an emergency, until a viable solution is found. Sand, water, rails etc should – not – be banned in World Edit for average players. Actually having a constructive discussion on good solutions is hard indeed, and I would never claim it is to develop these nessecary changes in the plugins or management, but it is evidently clear that this is what’s required to re-popularize Total Freedom. If we already surrender by saying “easier said that done”, then there is no point in trying to revive the server, because clearly the will is not there.
    You say it needs to be done “sustainably” (no shit), but this is what we’ve done until now, which has left us with this sad excuse of an “all-op” server, where the title “operator” has lost all connotation. I don’t doubt that our development team (incl. You) alongside our management are more than capable of putting these nessecary changes in to action. The will just has to be there.

    “The difference is when the majority of the server will often take the piss and try to break these things and then we just end up getting more people joining because they tell their friends, and we end up in an utter shit show... I've unfortunately seen that more than once on here and other servers.”

    Okay. I can certainly say that in my 10 years on this server I have never seen the majority of the server do this.

    “You refer to regions, but that's not something we really have. There is WorldGuard but it's for admins only, and certainly is not something we want to be opening up to everyone because it just ends up in a massive mess. Unfortunately I can't see a viable way at the moment of setting this other than at the server level on the main FreeOP Server and potentially plot based, but that'll depend on the plot server and how that ends up implemented.”

    I only mentioned regions because that’s the thing I came up with within ten seconds of thinking. Obviously we need more discussion on this topic. My comment was merely an example, and if that example is not viable, then of course we need to find another solution other than restricting a certain’s block usage to a dichotomy.

    “Which would be great but the last time I suggested wiping anything people rioted... You can't have it both ways here.”

    Except you clearly displayed you can? In your manifesto earlier this year, you clearly stated how you would run the server this manner. As long as you don’t attempt to give off the impression of democracy, then implement a major change without community input, like our previous owner did, then I’m more than satisfied. Consistency is key, and it’s ridiculous to flail between Democracy and Autocracy. You’re the owner, you can certainly make these changes if you see them as nessecary for the betterment of the server.

    “It's the honest answer from what I've found when I tried to do this myself on a test server previously with this same plugin. It's either wipe everything or leave it as it is...”
    “I guess it depends on what you're looking to achieve... Plots were always setup to allow large areas of building in a safe and secure environment... I appreciate it's not ideal, but I'm not sure it's a bad way to do things..?”
    "It's not about having a development team, it's about being realistic. How do you shrink those plots down? What happens if we shrink to 30 x 30 and someone has a 31x30 build? Just delete it? It's just not a viable thing to do at all... I can't see why anyone thinks it's technically viable from the get go..”

    If the only solution is this (have you discussed this with the dev team?), then wipe the plot world the fuck out and start over, put up the world file for download. It’s ridiculous to have this feature actively ruin a major aspect of the server, and then say we can’t change it because it’s a minor nuisance. If a has a previous build that doesn’t fit in a smaller plot, then tough luck – they still have it avaliable in schematic format, and can easily paste it in to the flatlands, or they can modify it to fit in to a smaller plot. Another viable option would be, as @lyDDSADSADSAND suggested, to merge several plots in to a bigger one, but I think this should only be reserved to preserve older plots in the new plot world, and not an option henceforth. It’s a blatant falsehood to say that this issue does not have a viable solution.

    Seth originally implemented the plots to be something in the range of 250x250 or 500x500, and I bitched at him for this. I met him halfway, and he decreased it to 100x100. Just because this is how it’s always been is not an argument for it being a good thing. And clearly, the community agrees with me, as is evident in all the replies in this thread.
    Feel free to re-read my argument:
    “Make the plots far smaller (15x15, or max 30x30), this making it easy to browse a variety of different plots, and hopefully having some players near each other as they build on their own respective plot. Right now, the Plot world is boring as shit to look at. A shitty spawn, shitty plots scattered about. I have suggested this before: Make a grand spawn with MB plots located near the spawn in order to inspire and entice the average player to build.”

    IF we’re going to point TF towards a community-oriented direction, then I don’t see the point in keeping the most single-player-like aspect of the server, which is why I am willing to merely decrease the plot sizes further, as this would also massively help the predicament this server is in.
    By your comments, it honestly sounds like you merely don’t want these changes implemented because it’s a tad complicated or controversial to do (which it clearly isn’t). I say this, because you didn’t give any rebuttal to any of my points.

    “I agree it's a silly idea, but it's what the community have told me they want, and I've had to work out ways to try to make that happen... I'd much rather go back to wiping everything multiple times a day and the server being more like a sandbox but that's not what our players want.”

    You didn’t respond to my question. Do you want players to be able to save their builds in the flatlands/overworld without having to worry about it getting griefed a week, a month or a year after? This is something you need to make clear.

    “Not sure I get your point? Well, I sort of do but I'm not sure having a permanent world and a plot server are mutually exclusive?”

    Of course they aren’t mutually excluse, but I don’t see any point in having a plotworld, when the reason for implementing the plot world was to have a permanent safe haven for player’s builds. If you already have a permanent world, then there is literally no point in having a plot world with – big – plots, when these big builds can just be built in the normal world. See, even now, it would make a lot more sense to scale the plots down to 20x20 or 30x30.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Going by this logic – do you also intend to “move” the Admin World off the freedom server, or just remove it entirely? At least MB’s have a some-what “need” for a dedicated world to build in, whereas the same cannot be said for Admins.

    Yes, I think I put that on the other thread I wrote, but the intention will be the FreeOP Server will at least by my current plans just have the overworld, nether, end and flatlands. Everything else will be on dedicated servers separate from the FreeOP Experience, because frankly it's a poor use of resources when we have the capacity we have available now.

    My current guess is MB's will have some sort of dedicated space to do add-hoc building they want to do, along with then having access to dedicated "Project Servers" for larger scale map projects for the server. Rather than the current MBServer which is a bit of a mess and I think just has a multi-world plugin which doesn't seem to be working well.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 But from this point onwards I expect you to still weigh freedom over anything else. It would be preposterous to enable everthing on the server, which is why I never suggested it. Instead, I want us to tread carefully, and instead of immediatedly blocking a certain abused command/block, we instead confer on a non-restrictive solution to the issue at hand. If brush is used to grief, then A) simply have coreprotect log it and ban the griefer B) make brushes non-usable in a protected area (which is already the case) or C) give unlimited access to brushes in the plotworld, whilst giving slighty-limited access in the normal world (talking brush sizes 1-10).

    So for me these are the sort of factors that I look at when I'm reviewing suggestions like this, and help me work out if it's viable and where it should sit on the overall priorities

    • What's the likely impact of doing / not doing it. To server performance, player count and all that normal stuff
    • Can I just throw the switch with no dev effort / other work required other than config? If so it's a easy win as far as I'm concerned
    • Can we make sure that we can track things and have we thought through as many implications as we reasonably can to enabling functionality.
    • Are more people gonna be pissed off for turning something on/off than off/on.

    So yes, my view will always be on the FreeOP Server to go with "Enable by default" going forward, because I agree, that's the server we should be building. Certainly no arguments from me as long as there is an understanding that a lot of it will likely require dev effort and therefore take time to do properly.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Outright banning a command or block should always be the last resort, or – only – used in an emergency, until a viable solution is found.

    Absolutely agree for most things. There are (IMO) commands that will always need to be blocked for various reasons, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here anyway, but yes in general terms we should enable by default where we can and blocking / restricting to admins only should be done as a latter resort.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Sand, water, rails etc should – not – be banned in World Edit for average players.

    I would think if we can disable Gravity to stop these causing lag, or if we can find a way through something like AWE to load these in and have them do their gravity logic in smaller chunks then I would agree. I know for a while we only disabled stuff like flowing water / lava but suspect that's not the case now.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Actually having a constructive discussion on good solutions is hard indeed, and I would never claim it is to develop these nessecary changes in the plugins or management, but it is evidently clear that this is what’s required to re-popularize Total Freedom.

    I agree. That combined with stable infrastructure and unique offerings to the server is what will attract more players in and help sustain the server.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 If we already surrender by saying “easier said that done”, then there is no point in trying to revive the server, because clearly the will is not there.

    I think it's important to highlight that a lot of this just isn't trivial... A lot of the time it is easier to say than do and we do have to be careful not to over-commit our development effort, but that's a problem for me to juggle with the dev team and is something I'm optimistic we can strike a rational balance with.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 You say it needs to be done “sustainably” (no shit), but this is what we’ve done until now, which has left us with this sad excuse of an “all-op” server, where the title “operator” has lost all connotation

    I'm not sure what all of the historic decisions are that have got us to where we are today, but I agree that we need to be re-visiting what we're offering players, and making sure there is something attractive there to get players involved in the community, because right now I agree that we're not best positioned compared to where we should be.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 I don’t doubt that our development team (incl. You) alongside our management are more than capable of putting these nessecary changes in to action. The will just has to be there.

    There is certainly a will to get things moving, and I'm sure as I continue to find my feet and our new development team start to work better together as a team after being relatively newly formed, that we will start to make this good solid progress. It's just taking a bit of time with everything else that's been hitting me and the teams to get through all the suggestions already approved and on to other things.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Okay. I can certainly say that in my 10 years on this server I have never seen the majority of the server do this.

    Maybe I'm more pessimistic / have just had bad luck. I've just seen on more than one occasion as soon as there is something to break / exploit, they tend to tell their friends and it turns into a shit show fast!!

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    @Miwojedk#4046 I only mentioned regions because that’s the thing I came up with within ten seconds of thinking. Obviously we need more discussion on this topic. My comment was merely an example, and if that example is not viable, then of course we need to find another solution other than restricting a certain’s block usage to a dichotomy.

    It's a valid point, and I'm not sure I have a good solution off the top of my head to work out how to do that, I think initially if we can set it globally at the server level that would be a good start and would at least let us start unblocking some of these blocks that we currently don't allow due to fear of the server shitting it's pants if someone abuses it like has happened a lot historically.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Except you clearly displayed you can? In your manifesto earlier this year, you clearly stated how you would run the server this manner. As long as you don’t attempt to give off the impression of democracy, then implement a major change without community input, like our previous owner did, then I’m more than satisfied. Consistency is key, and it’s ridiculous to flail between Democracy and Autocracy. You’re the owner, you can certainly make these changes if you see them as nessecary for the betterment of the server.

    I get the point, but there is also a fine line. While I can certainly do whatever I want if I alienate the entire player base and they all fuck off to another server, being able to sit on my high horse claiming I'm the owner isn't really worth squat. I'm looking to find ways to meet everyone in the middle, and find a way we can keep the worlds for as long as we can while not fucking ourselves over and a part of that is expanding into the other game modes and splitting worlds out like I've said previously.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 If the only solution is this (have you discussed this with the dev team?), then wipe the plot world the fuck out and start over, put up the world file for download. It’s ridiculous to have this feature actively ruin a major aspect of the server, and then say we can’t change it because it’s a minor nuisance. If a has a previous build that doesn’t fit in a smaller plot, then tough luck – they still have it avaliable in schematic format, and can easily paste it in to the flatlands, or they can modify it to fit in to a smaller plot. Another viable option would be, as @lyDDSADSADSAND suggested, to merge several plots in to a bigger one, but I think this should only be reserved to preserve older plots in the new plot world, and not an option henceforth. It’s a blatant falsehood to say that this issue does not have a viable solution.

    Seth originally implemented the plots to be something in the range of 250x250 or 500x500, and I bitched at him for this. I met him halfway, and he decreased it to 100x100. Just because this is how it’s always been is not an argument for it being a good thing. And clearly, the community agrees with me, as is evident in all the replies in this thread.
    Feel free to re-read my argument:
    “Make the plots far smaller (15x15, or max 30x30), this making it easy to browse a variety of different plots, and hopefully having some players near each other as they build on their own respective plot. Right now, the Plot world is boring as shit to look at. A shitty spawn, shitty plots scattered about. I have suggested this before: Make a grand spawn with MB plots located near the spawn in order to inspire and entice the average player to build.”

    IF we’re going to point TF towards a community-oriented direction, then I don’t see the point in keeping the most single-player-like aspect of the server, which is why I am willing to merely decrease the plot sizes further, as this would also massively help the predicament this server is in.
    By your comments, it honestly sounds like you merely don’t want these changes implemented because it’s a tad complicated or controversial to do (which it clearly isn’t). I say this, because you didn’t give any rebuttal to any of my points.

    Leave this one with me, while it will be impossible (As it's world gen and that's not something to be fucked with) effectively impossible to re-size what we currently have, I need to weigh up the argument more. I've certainly not said we're not gonna do it, I'm just challenging if shrinking the plots is going to create more problems than it solves by forcing people to merge more plots to create their larger grander builds that they want to work on, or if the pro's outweigh the conn's. I'm not decided either way, it was more a conversation point. I've not played a lot of plots servers but I always assumed people would rather have larger plots to build on than having to try to claim smaller ones and struggling potentially to expand and merge them.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 You didn’t respond to my question. Do you want players to be able to save their builds in the flatlands/overworld without having to worry about it getting griefed a week, a month or a year after? This is something you need to make clear.

    That's the goal, at least from my perspective. For as long as the world is running, we should have life-time or as close to life-time history of every block that's been fucked with so it can be rolled back if any amount of time later it is discovered that actually there was a grief / similar. Some of this may be limited by technical constraints in the future, and we may decide that actually every 6 months we do need to wipe everything and offer it up for download, but we're still investigating if there are better / more sustainable alternatives to CoreProtect and tbh the outcome of that will determine the answer to your question.

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    @Miwojedk#4046 Of course they aren’t mutually excluse, but I don’t see any point in having a plotworld, when the reason for implementing the plot world was to have a permanent safe haven for player’s builds. If you already have a permanent world, then there is literally no point in having a plot world with – big – plots, when these big builds can just be built in the normal world. See, even now, it would make a lot more sense to scale the plots down to 20x20 or 30x30.

    And that's fair, I see your point. As I said on your earlier point, I'm not sure I have my mind made up either way on plot sizes. I'd be curious to see how other servers do it and the pro's / conns of having larger plot sizes. You've covered a lot of the conns of the 100 x 100 plot sizes but I've not seen a lot of the pro's to which I'd hope there are at least some.

    Just to highlight, I'm not making yay / nay decisions in these replies, just giving you my personal thoughts. I'd much rather everyone get a say in this and we can work from there on what action we need to be taking to improve things.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    @wild1145#4047
    Do you intend on removing the Admin World, or what are you plans on it in the future? And in regards to the MBW – The only reason why I build there is because it’s a safehaven from griefers, but if we’re going to treat the overworld/flatlands as a safehaven as well, then I think we should just abolish the MBW entirely, and merely rely on the MB server for team builds like spawns, theme builds etc. The removal of the MB world would thus mean that Master Builder once again merely becomes a prestige-title, and not a rank on the server, which I see as appropriate considering the direction the server is going.
    On the same note, we should really be going through each and every banned command/block consecutively instead of us having to put up sixty different suggestions to have x block unbanned. I’d say we just allowed all commands (except for the obvious /ban etc.), and go from there.

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    I think it's important to highlight that a lot of this just isn't trivial... A lot of the time it is easier to say than do and we do have to be careful not to over-commit our development effort, but that's a problem for me to juggle with the dev team and is something I'm optimistic we can strike a rational balance with.

    At the same time you do have to be careful not to be an incrementalist. It’s clear that server requries an overhaul. I don’t think any of my suggestions are particularly hard to implement other than the bureaucracy aspect. Changes can obviously be made, but that’s for the dev team and the server (ops, admins, executives) to discuss.

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    Maybe I'm more pessimistic / have just had bad luck. I've just seen on more than one occasion as soon as there is something to break / exploit, they tend to tell their friends and it turns into a shit show fast!!

    Which is why we have a dedicated Admin team to mitigate this (rare) issue.

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    Leave this one with me, while it will be impossible (As it's world gen and that's not something to be fucked with) effectively impossible to re-size what we currently have, I need to weigh up the argument more. I've certainly not said we're not gonna do it, I'm just challenging if shrinking the plots is going to create more problems than it solves by forcing people to merge more plots to create their larger grander builds that they want to work on, or if the pro's outweigh the conn's. I'm not decided either way, it was more a conversation point. I've not played a lot of plots servers but I always assumed people would rather have larger plots to build on than having to try to claim smaller ones and struggling potentially to expand and merge them.

    If you need time to weigh the options or to discuss the issue, then that’s fine. But I think it’s a moot point if you’re trying to claim that it would be highly unpopular to resize the plots, which is (again) evident by the community’s reaction to this thread.

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    You've covered a lot of the conns of the 100 x 100 plot sizes but I've not seen a lot of the pro's to which I'd hope there are at least some.

    That’s because there are none.

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    @Miwojedk#4048 Do you intend on removing the Admin World, or what are you plans on it in the future? And in regards to the MBW – The only reason why I build there is because it’s a safehaven from griefers, but if we’re going to treat the overworld/flatlands as a safehaven as well, then I think we should just abolish the MBW entirely, and merely rely on the MB server for team builds like spawns, theme builds etc. The removal of the MB world would thus mean that Master Builder once again merely becomes a prestige-title, and not a rank on the server, which I see as appropriate considering the direction the server is going.

    Probably worth reading through https://forum.totalfreedom.me/d/458-an-update-plans-for-2021 if you haven't already, as I have touched on all of those points there (Some of which like MB as a rank indirectly).

    But in short yes, I would expect to remove the MBW entirely from the freedom server, and to either have it on a separate server instance where we don't need to OP everyone anyway and can do rational permissions, or to spin up project specific servers. I've not had a chance to think this through very far, and haven't had a chance to speak to the ECD around this yet so that's why it's all a bit fluffy because the detail hasn't yet been worked out.

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    @Miwojedk#4048 On the same note, we should really be going through each and every banned command/block consecutively instead of us having to put up sixty different suggestions to have x block unbanned. I’d say we just allowed all commands (except for the obvious /ban etc.), and go from there.

    I'm not sure un-blocking everything and going back through to block things is really the best way to do this... The suggestion I would have is let's do an initial review to see what commands are blocked which just don't need to be / serve no value to be blocked because they don't exist or things like that. Then let's start working through the rest in an ordered rational way rather than turning TF into anarchy for the sake of rushing things through...

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    @Miwojedk#4048 At the same time you do have to be careful not to be an incrementalist. It’s clear that server requries an overhaul. I don’t think any of my suggestions are particularly hard to implement other than the bureaucracy aspect. Changes can obviously be made, but that’s for the dev team and the server (ops, admins, executives) to discuss.

    I'm trying to adopt agile methodologies for the dev team here, so we will incrementally build and improve things, because to just "Overhaul" tends to end up not really getting the end result anyone wants, because the goal posts will move.

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    @Miwojedk#4048 Which is why we have a dedicated Admin team to mitigate this (rare) issue.

    Not saying we don't, I'm just highlighting that we need to be able to prevent things that can damage the server from happening where it's sane to do so... We don't have admins on 24/7/365 and we have many times before had people work out when admins are never on, just to come crash the server. It's bad reputationally if the server is down, probably more so than having things slightly restrictive compared to total chaos.

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    @Miwojedk#4048 If you need time to weigh the options or to discuss the issue, then that’s fine. But I think it’s a moot point if you’re trying to claim that it would be highly unpopular to resize the plots, which is (again) evident by the community’s reaction to this thread.

    I think people may be very happy with the idea of re-sizing the plots, my concern comes with if people are happy with the implementation of how that is going to be done... Most people are fine until you go "Well I'm wiping all your builds then"...

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    @Miwojedk#4048 That’s because there are none.

    Not sure that's accurate... Which is my concern with taking a JFDI approach. Larger plots allow for larger builds, less admin involvement potentially to increase plot limits / merge plots. Reduce the risk of you accidentality running out of room and having to move your entire build miles away just so you can find somewhere with enough un-claimed plots to then continue the build they want to do.

    I'm not sure I've ever seen plots the way you've described them where it's "community building" like sure it's nice to see what other people are building, but I question how big of a problem it is..?

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    @wild1145#4072

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    I'm not sure un-blocking everything and going back through to block things is really the best way to do this... The suggestion I would have is let's do an initial review to see what commands are blocked which just don't need to be / serve no value to be blocked because they don't exist or things like that. Then let's start working through the rest in an ordered rational way rather than turning TF into anarchy for the sake of rushing things through…

    We already have (more than) an excess of blocked commands and blocks on the server that the only real viable option would to re-enable everything besides the obvious like ban or crash blocks. You have yet to actually argue against my point. We’ve done “initial reviews” for the past 3-5 years, and look where that’s left us. A massive overhaul is the only way forward. And I have yet to argue for a total anarchy, but when more than two thirds of all blocked options on the server are redundant, then I see it more than fit to entirely scrap it all and start over. We have over 10 years of experience, so we already know what things cause problems, and ultimately have to be blocked for the average player. Incrementalism is the enemy, because the server will be dead before you finish enacting all nessecary changes.

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    Not sure that's [no good reasons for large plots] accurate... Which is my concern with taking a JFDI approach. Larger plots allow for larger builds, less admin involvement potentially to increase plot limits / merge plots. Reduce the risk of you accidentality running out of room and having to move your entire build miles away just so you can find somewhere with enough un-claimed plots to then continue the build they want to do.

    I already made clear that I am opposed to the idea of merigng plots or increasing plot limits, as that, once again, entirely defeats the purpose of my proposed plot world in the first place. Small plots encourage multiplayer-play; larger plots encourage singleplayer-play. If you want to build big, then your option is the flatlands / overworld, which, according to you, should already be a safe option.

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    We don't have admins on 24/7/365 and we have many times before had people work out when admins are never on, just to come crash the server.

    Then the clear answer to this issue is to re-adopt Markbyron's viewpoint of the more Admins the merrier, or you make it so that when a player types “grief” or report Admins get a notification on the Discord / forum. You are making this out to be harder to solve than it realistically is.

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    I'm not sure I've ever seen plots the way you've described them where it's "community building" like sure it's nice to see what other people are building, but I question how big of a problem it is..?

    Take a gander at Builder’s Refuge or just about any other fairly popular creative server with plots. They always implement smaller plots first, and since our server’s size is smaller than of servers like Builder’s Refuge, I certainly think this should be the priority. What I mean when I say it enhances the community-aspect of the server is that you can easily stroll through 10-20 plots at a time and get inspriation for your build. The plot world looks so empty right now because each individual plot takes up 100x100 blocks, which is a total shame considering the fact that so many people actively build in the plot world. Bring the people together by scaling plot sizes down, thus you can look to your neighbor for inspiration / advice, and the plot world no longer looks so dead. This issue is two-fold in that it portrays a dead part of the server, which in reality is the opposite, and at the same time is a pointless addition, because we already have a flatlands area for larger-scale creations.

    I agree, there definitely needs to be grief protection. There's way too many builds that are destroyed not long after built (the same spot of a world look like trash just after three or so hours) and if this is done, people can keep their builds on the map and potentially allow for much fewer resets of the world.