Posts by Miwojedk

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    @wild1145#4072

    Quote

    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.

    Quote

    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.

    Quote

    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.

    Quote

    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.

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    @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.

    Quote

    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.

    Quote

    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.

    Quote

    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.

    Quote

    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.

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    @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.

  • i hate totalfreedom (and by extension, minecraft)

    forgive english, i am Russia.


    i come to study Mechanical Engineering at American university. i am here little time and i am very hard stress. i am gay also and this very difficult for me, i am very religion person. i never act to be gay with other men before. but after i am in america 6 weeks i am my friend together he is gay also. He was show me American video game and then we are kiss.


    We sex together. I never before now am tell my mother about gay because i am very shame. As i **** this American boy it is very good to me but also i am feel so guilty. I feel extreme guilty as I begin orgasm. I feel so guilty that I pick up my telephone and call Mother in Russia. I awaken her. It too late for stopping so I am cumming sex. I am very upset and guilty and crying, so I yell her, "I AM CUM FROM SEX" (in Russia). She say what? I say "I AM CUM FROM SEX" and she say you boy, do not marry American girl, and I say "NO I AM CUM FROM SEX WITH MAN, I AM IN ASS, I CUM IN ASS" and my mother very angry me. She not get scared though.


    I hang up phone and am very embarrass. My friend also he is very embarrass. I am guilt and feel very stupid. I wonder, why do I gay with man? But I continue because when it spurt it feel very good in

    Neo's ass.

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    @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.

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    @square#3987 Great point. Overall, I think the creative aspect of the server should be pointed in a more community-oriented direction. Encourage group projects; make players inspired by other players (e.g. plot world suggestion).

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    @StevenNL2000#3980 If the main factor for us having poor World Edit capabilities alongside lack of building tools such as Voxel Sniper and Gobrush is because it’s hard for developers to program, or because they seemingly do not want to then that is utterly dissapointing, especially when the server is now owned by an, apparently, professional corporation. But I am aware that tools such as Voxel Sniper been implemented in the past, as this caused the grief of the MB World (due to either a rogue Admin, exploit or rogue Master Builder).

  • Total Freedom is a Shitty Server.

    I implore You to read it all. If not, here is the TLDR:

    • Total Freedom is a terrible creative server with lack of building tools, lack of griefer protection, limited WE-usage overall a shitty experience to play on, even for the average player with the amount of crashing.
    • Solutions to these problems are to either remove the plotworld or shrink the size of plots; community-driven projects (e.g. build battle), re-add Voxel-Sniper and add GoBrush (responsibily), completely overhaul WorldEdit – rethink blocked/banned commands and blocks, give players more leeway in regards to edit size. Fix the ridiculous amount of time it takes for World Edit to perform a single edit.
    • These are what I see as the primary factors in TF’s decline.

    The Elephant in the Room

    For the past several years on TF, or perhaps even for the majority of its lifetime, there has been a constant underlying problem with a core aspect of the server. Perhaps this was not as noticeable 5-8 years ago as it is now, but I can certainly attest that it has dampened the enjoyment I get out of playing on TF.
    Total Freedom is a piece of shit creative server, which has become even more evident with the revival of the game, but a clear stagnation, or perhaps even decrease, in players. With the (increasing) amount of (good) creative servers avaliable to players, the issue has only been exacerbated – why would an average builder, or just player for that matter, choose to play on Total Freedom over other creative servers such as Builder’s Refuge, or pretty much any other creative server wherein you are granted access to tools such as Voxel Sniper, World Edit and Gobrush. TF is too restrictive on World Edit usage for the average player: actually, World Edit is just terrible. Other tools such as Voxel Sniper or GoBrush are non-existent. Blocks such as sand, gravel, concrete powder are banned from WE usage; World Edit takes five minutes to simply do a medium-sized edit, and the other factor of the looming threat of griefers – even if you’re in a supposedly “safe” area all help to provide a shitty experience on a shitty server.

    The Average Player

    Just to exemplify how the average player experiences this firsthand: I join the server because it attracted me with the title “Total Freedom” and the “all-op” aspect. I enter the Freedom server via the hub, and I begin to build. I want to make a tudor-style house, and thus I want to use white concrete powder, and because I have a big wall to fill, I use //set White_Concrete_Powder and; nothing happens. I look to my chat, and see the message: “Invalid value for (you are not allowed to use 'White Concrete Powder'), […]".
    I think to myself, okay, that’s reasonable enough to block blocks affected by gravity, (although you could simply disable gravity). Minutes later, I now wish to make a pond. I make a hole with //brush (_are ops even allowed to use this command?). I place a solitary block of water on the edge of the hole and type //fixwater 30. Again, nothing happens, because water is blocked. I again shrug, and decide to instead use stained glass for water.
    I select a big area encompassing the hole and type //replace air blue_stained_glass. It works! But nothing’s happening? I now notice there’s a bar slowly filling up at the top of my screen. I wait for two minutes until the bar is halfway, and I think to myself. This server is a shitty false advertisement and leave dissapointed.


    Two days go by, and I’m bored. I decide to give Total Freedom another chance, because I still have yet to finish my build. I click join and I walk over to the Freedom server portal. I find the spot where my build was… and it’s griefed.


    I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a very common tale.
    Now granted, we now have coreprotect and worldguard to help mitigate the issue of grief – I just thought to point out the fact that the average player is not aware of this: they are not aware that flatlands and the overworld is a battlefield; they are not aware there exists a plotworld (because it is not mentioned anywhere); they are not aware that they are supposed to save their builds as schematics whilst in flatlands/overworld (again, because it is not mentioned anywhere). This is not to mention other factors such as server crashes (granted, this does not happen so frequently any longer).
    Total Freedom used to at least live up to the “All-op” aspect, and certainly in its infancy, it lived up to the name as well. Of course restrictions are to be made in order to have a playable server (which TF barely was in alpha/beta MC days), but this is too much – too dissapointing. Total Freedom is a false advertisement.

    Total Freedom is a Stinking Pile of Feces.

    I mentioned previously that I could also attest to this. Here’s an example from earlier today. I want to continue building on my mansion in the Master Builder World (MBW), but for the past three days World Edit has been blocked for me in the MBW. I’ve notified nearly all executives (incl. Wild) of this issue, and still nothing has happened. I realize that our developers are busy with keeping the server stable and all, but this is not the first time.
    I then travel to my personal plot in the plotworld, and I decide I want to make a Greek city district. I run in to several issues along the way.
    1) Concrete Powder is blocked (even for Master Builders)
    2) Water is blocked (even for Master Builders)
    3) WE is dogshit with the time it takes to perform.


    The fact that the rank “Master Builder”, which is supposed to be a prestigious title with associated perks given to the best builders on Total Freedom, still have these limitations clearly exemplifies, once again, why Total Freedom is a terrible creative server. There is literally not a single reason, other than the community, as to why I would choose to play on Total Freedom over any other creative server, even though I have the highest-attainable builder-title on the server. But there are a plethora of reasons for me to choose others over Total Freedom.


    I recently saw a message on the Discord server which prompted me to create this thread. It read something akin to:
    “Congratulations to Lykhant for being the first ECD in TF history to actually complete a build (TF HUB) that ends up being used”
    Now, the following is not to throw shade at Lykhant, I think they are a great ECD, and I am very pleased with the hub: especially the christmas theme. But I have two overarching issues with the above quote:
    1) It’s a falsehood to say that Lykhant is the only ECD in TF history to complete a build that ends up being used. (Literally ask anyone before 17’ of any builds/spawns I supplied.)
    2) That it completely glosses over the fact that I, alongside the MB team, made – three – different spawns to be used for the server. Two got ruined in two different MBW griefs, and the last is basically stood finished in MBW, but was interupted by a (nonsensical) ECD voteoff to remove me from the position. These are the images I have in my screenshots folder from different time periods (unsorted). Keep in mind, these are far from the finished versions which were present in the MBW prior to the grief:


    The island spawn:
    https://imgur.com/a/oyl9uT5


    The forest spawn:
    https://imgur.com/a/D72eg7g


    The Mansion:
    https://imgur.com/a/Tsmsy7c


    The Valley spawn can be seen in the MBW at present date.


    The MBW has been griefed at least on three different occassions. A world that is given to Master Builders to have a permanent place to hold their builds. We did not even have a recent backup of the world. This is an utter tragedy in my eyes. Many hours lost because of poor server management. The only reason why I continue to play here is because I have a great deal of friends, whom I have amassed over the years. But instead of whining, I think it is only appropriate to give some suggestions on how to move forward.

    Amendments

    Since the idea of a plotworld ever came up, I have always been against it. It simply does not fit the server.
    (As I am writing this: I just went on the server to count the size of the plots in the Plotworld. But as I enter the command //count I am once again met with “You are not permitted to do that”. This is a joke. )
    Anyways, I still have ten fingers able to help me count the plot size on Total Freedom and it is 100x100. This is actually an increase since Seth managed the server as far as I am aware. The point of a plot world is to give the player a – small – plot of land to display their builds on. Thus, when you fly over the plotworld, you are met with a great deal of plots within view, so you can easily catch some inspiration from other players. Now, if you fly over the plot world, you can at max see four plots at a time in view – completely ruining one major aspect of the plugin. And again, a plot world is not a good fit for a server named Total Freedom, which entirely depends on being community-driven. 100X100 plots give players the ability to seclude themselves on their little plot of land away from other players – completely removing the “community” aspect of the server. You cannot see anybody building near you. You are alone on your very own plot of land instead of building near spawn in the flatlands or the overworld creating friendsships or screaming “griefer!” and quickly seeing a strike of lightning meet the offender head on. Plot Worlds is a multiplayer plugin for single-player play. Total Freedom is a community.
    Therefore, I have two proposals to consider:
    1) Remove the plot world entirely.
    2) 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.


    The other glaring issue are the building-tools on the server. I suggest that we, in a responsible manner to prevent abuse, re-add Voxel Sniper and add GoBrush to the building arsenal. Will they need to be restricted? Perhaps, but they should certainly be avaliable to – every – player on their own plot, where they can not ruin another player’s build. And of course I also say that they should be fully avaliable to all MB’s on the server, if they are too be restricted for the average player. And lastly (this might be controversial): if they are to be limited: give the exact same limitations to Admins, because if the average player does not need it, then I do not see why an Admin would need it as well.
    World Edit should be far less restrictive. Commands such as //count, //brush should be avaliable to the average player (certainly in the plotworld, and perhaps in an almost unlimited manner in other worlds). Sand, concrete powder etc. should – not – be banned. If they are such a big nuisance, make them non-gravity in all other worlds except the plot world, where they should keep their gravity.
    Fix the ludicrous time it takes to perform a single edit with World Edit. A huge overhaul is needed to fix the sorry state that World Edit is in. All banned blocks should be reviewed, every blocked command should be reviewed, every restriction should be discussed.


    One thing that I welcomed with open arms are the build battles arranged periodically. In general, - any community-driven project is immensely welcome -, so we can once again foster a thriving community on the server. And the fact that build battles give the players the prospect of winning a prize is even better (although I am on the fence on coins and the associated perks, but that’s for another thread). Systems such as the schematic repository, wherein players can download their own schematic from the server and also upload an outside schematic to the server, however, once again this is too limited. The average player should be able to upload their own schematic to the server without an Admin’s help. If the schematic is crude, too big, or used to crash the server, then this should be handled – ingame – not by blocking the function entirely. (is the schematic repository even avaliable anymore?)


    If this is not happening already: make periodic (daily) backups of both the plot world and MBW so we never have the issue of a grief occuring slowing down, or entirely destroying, a project. It really is dissapointing that I have to list this as a solution.


    Finally, I also advice that we implement a way to inform players A) to save their builds, B) of the plot world, C) of community events, and D) of any other significant information that almost seems privy at the moment. Rules should be clearly listed in the hub (or at least have a sign givin a summarized version or simply informing of /rules).


    The overarching message of this entire thread is for Total Freedom to live up to its name. We cannot advertise ourselves as a Freedom server where everybody gets op, when “op” has lost all meaning pertained to it. This, to me, is the most pressing issue causing TF’s stagnation in players.


    I chose not to put a poll on this thread because of the amount of proposals within it. I look forward to seeing your comments, disagreements or your own suggestions on how to improve.

  • Executives shouldn't be appointed by the owner

    Good luck voting off any executive who was appointed by the owner, when now note offs are merely at the owner's discretion. Good luck also removing the owner, when the executives who are to make this choice, were instated by the the person who needs to be removed (owner) per the new policies.


    Textbook corruption?

  • What's everyones opinion on duping on pay to win servers?

    @Darth#3782 You make the choice to pay for a rank/title/item, because you know that it will benefit you in this manner. It isn't even a debate about whether or not they are taking advantage of gullible people, because the server's core is literally "pay-to-win", therefore it clearly gives the player the clear options of
    A) not joining
    B) joining and not paying or
    C) joining, paying because you know it will benefit you.


    There are no coherent arguments wherein you would call this server-model evil. It's not even a question if they are tricking dumb people or not, because they aren't. Are they illegal? Sure, but that's not what this discussion is centered about.
    I don't get why these servers would attract any players if the model is so obscenely and obviously pay-to-win that there is no way to advance in the game.


    Now to answer the OP: you do you - I seeit the same way as I would see you griefing on Total Freedom.