[Joseph3114]

SEX
Now that I have your attention,

Dear MineRealm Community and Intelli,

Introduction

Over the last 2 weeks, we have acquired three realms, two of which have been made into a carefully sculpted town for show. The other, located over five hundred blocks away from the first two, is connected by a large minecart track, complete with boosters farmed by hand. The purpose of this realm, which contains auto cactus farms, auto wheat farms, and an auto skeleton farmer, was to increase our monetary value, and thus we built a second minecart track as a transport rail. However, immense server lag is experienced at almost all times, causing interruptions and hindrances in almost all of our attempts to create an efficient and functional base, as we have on every other server we have played on.

Our Ambitions

As you can see from this image gallery , we’ve put quite a bit of work into all three of realms, and have really become attached to the server. After the switch to the new server hardware, which we thought was intended to decrease survival lag, not host an additional server (Zelda) I donated to help out with server fees. My mistake. The lag was back within a few hours and the game was back to an unplayable lag-fest.

In this picture, you can see our next major project. Hollowing out a good portion of the underbelly of our realm to turn it into a dark area based mob spawner. This is nearly impossible when blocks respawn on top of you, damage you, and in some cases use two durability from the pick-axe, as well as the delayed server clock inhibiting mob spawn rates.

Lag and Automated Machinery

Server lag causes the server clock to lag and reset every 5-10 seconds, as evidenced by the sun’s erratic movement through the sky during sunset and sunrise. This issue, although not immediately noticed when placing blocks or mining, is very apparent while depending on server-side timers to, for example, grow wheat and cacti. This results in farms taking almost double the normal amount of time to grow, and mobs, such as skeletons being farmed in a lava trap, to reset their positions constantly1, greatly decreasing efficiency and yield of all automated farms.

In addition, minecarts that have no player entity associated with them lag incessantly, causing them to reset their positions on tracks, and even vanish with items inside. This problem we hoped to fix by allowing a player to ride behind an unoccupied cart, keeping the chunk loaded in and allowing safe transport. Nope, hours of work (and hundreds of iron and gold) were wasted because carts lag too much to allow a player to ride with them, rendering our entire track system useless.


Lettuce be realistic here, Intelli is entirely aware of the lag issue. Be it his plugin logging every block place or just the sheer amount of players online, he has to be aware. Now then, picture this: You are a successful bukkit plugin developer who runs your own server with custom software. For the sake of his ego, he would like to say he runs a survival server with 130+ players on at any time rather than a restricted, whitelisted server that may have 50 - 70 people online. With as much respect as possible to Intelli for the amazing Realms plugin - he is sacrificing quality for quantity of players.

There are two main reasons we are writing this post:
1. It has gotten to the point we are unable to enjoy MineRealm because of block lag.
2. A mod, Ohmsen93, banned a member of our party (he deserved it) and in the process of the rollback destroyed our entire second realm. As the banned person had built most of our automated farms, they all disappeared in the rollback, leaving us clueless as to how weeks of work could be unwound by a server moderator. He partially fixed it, but water and lava source blocks spilled all over, leaving a lengthy cleanup, and we received 0 sympathy for the trouble caused nor items returned for the chests destroyed.

Savedthedazed, the forum moderator gave me two options in an earlier post concerned with lag. I was told I could either :

1) Convince all the new players to move elsewhere
2) Donate to the server and convince others to do so as well. Otherwise, you'll just have to deal with it like the rest of us.2

Here’s what I’ve done:
1. Petitioned for stricter rules regarding newbies on the server.
2. I donated! I was thrilled to have donor status after Intelli upgraded to a new box to “fix lag”.

Here’s what’s been done for me:
1. Intelli has yet to acknowledge my first post, even though he posted in the thread.3
2. All mods and admins have ignored the issue of lag as they’ve been given no news regarding it either.

How we are so sure it’s lag:
1. We use multiple ISPs, different gaming computers, and live in different parts of the country. We also have three different realms in different areas located at least 1000 blocks from spawn, and thus are not affected by area lag.
2. Log on at 9 a.m. EST (~40 people online) - crops will grow in the proper day/night cycle4, cactus farms will have produced a decent stack, mob spawners are spawning mobs at a constant rate of at least 12 per minute5, and trees decay properly.
3. Log on at 9 p.m. EST ( ~140 people online) - crops won’t grow until the next morning real time, the cactus collection pit is empty, and it takes exactly 2:29 for a single mob to be processed1. In addition, items dropped by the mobs are not guaranteed to make it past the lava, as lag delays the items from falling into water, causing the server to check a block in lava for two ticks instead of one, burning it. Lastly, tree decay barely functions. The canopy portion of a tree will hang a around for quite some time because it decays at random intervals based on the server clock, much like crop growth.

Conclusion
In closing, we like MineRealm. We both want to continue playing on it well into 1.7 for pistons and 1.8 for adventure. However, the lag is a serious issue and it is truly affecting game play in more than one way. We bring this issue to the community, in a very direct way, in hopes of getting this issue both acknowledged and ideas circulated as to how we can combat the influx of players. IE stop advertising the server, vote on stricter rules, or worst case scenario, implement a whitelist.

Sincerely,

Joseph3114 and Heanthor of Fort Emanon

Works Cited
1. Our Personal Spawner:

2. Minerealm Forums: http://minerealm.com/community/viewtopi ... 512#p17512
3. Minerealm Forums: http://minerealm.com/community/viewtopi ... 672#p17672
4. Minecraft Wiki Farms: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Farmi ... land_Tiles
5. Minecraft Wiki on Spawners: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Spawner

[Heanthor]

bamp

[Lightbulbs]

I love how you idiots think that somewhere out there is a switch that turns lag on and off, and that Intelli is making sure there is lag purely from shits and giggles. What do you want Intelli to say? He's not a God who can just wave his hands and make lag disappear. This is an issue that he is very much aware of, and constantly whining about it and offering inane suggestions despite having no experience is just as bad as a 12 year old ginger telling Intelli how to spend his money. Do you not understand this?

Intelli is smarter than you. He doesn't need your help. Stop ordering him around.

[ramien123]

You had my attention until I read your first word. Then, you had my attention until I saw "let us" become "Lettuce". My attention was held for a bit more, until the bit about someone in your party being banned and the trouble that caused, which deviates from your original purpose and, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with lag at all. Other then that, and some tone issues, I liked this post, except I don't agree in a few cases.

While the lag has been a hinderance of late, and I have been killed by magical blocks of smoothstone, it is generally not as bad as you describe. The technical aspects of your argument hold true, at least in my case, as I have noticed the "sun's" erratic behavior and crop cycle insanity firsthand. Hell, lag sometimes gets so bad mobs can't attack(the only good thing about it in my opinion). However, the lag can usually be bearable.

Then comes the part I really, really don't like. When I started trying to find a decent server to play on nothing put me off more then a nice "Whitelisted" tag. I started playing on this server awhile ago, and now I am a fairly active member of the community(maybe even liked?). What I am trying to say is that new players are the lifeblood of any server, sure, we get the obvious griefers who have just seen Youtube vids, but then we also get articulate people like you and I, and I think that's a fair tradeoff. Limiting the number of players would reduce the chance of these good players ever arriving on Minerealm.


I hope that you choose to remain on the server, as you seem like more literate, educated people rather then the general rabbble that comes along...

[Joseph3114]

@Lightbulbs The metaphorical lag switch is the advertising about the server. All I want Intelli to do is acknowledge the severity.


@ramien123 Thanks The lettuce is a joke to check and see if you kept reading.

[smithsps]

@Lightbulbs The metaphorical lag switch is the advertising about the server. All I want Intelli to do is acknowledge the severity.

No not really? Advertising does not simply just turn off, and "turning it off" will not make new players just go away. Not posting does not mean no acknowledgment. Not communicating with you does not mean no acknowledgment. In fact, I guarantee that he would acknowledgedthe issue even if you didn't exist.

2. A mod, Ohmsen93, banned a member of our party (he deserved it) and in the process of the rollback destroyed our entire second realm. As the banned person had built most of our automated farms, they all disappeared in the rollback, leaving us clueless as to how weeks of work could be unwound by a server moderator. He partially fixed it, but water and lava source blocks spilled all over, leaving a lengthy cleanup, and we received 0 sympathy for the trouble caused nor items returned for the chests destroyed.

This has nothing to do with the lag? Pick better realm members or do it all yourself.

1. Petitioned for stricter rules regarding newbies on the server.

You joined the forums a little more than a week ago. Which means you joined the server a little before that. You are petitioning for stricter rules regarding yourself, in a sense?

2. I donated! I was thrilled to have donor status after Intelli upgraded to a new box to “fix lag”.

Donations mostly do not help pay for new servers, but rather the $300+ monthly fee. Also it is a donation it does not give you extra privileges or power. (You're lucky you get a tag even.)

1. Intelli has yet to acknowledge my first post, even though he posted in the thread.

Not posting does not mean no acknowledgment, and I am guessing since he is posted in the thread he probably read your first post.

2. All mods and admins have ignored the issue of lag as they’ve been given no news regarding it either.

Oh whats this? A mod not ignoring the issue of lag? :o It is even in your own post!

Savedthedazed, the forum moderator gave me two options in an earlier post concerned with lag. I was told I could either :
Savethedazed wrote:
1) Convince all the new players to move elsewhere
2) Donate to the server and convince others to do so as well. Otherwise, you'll just have to deal with it like the rest of us.2

In my opinion.
It is not that bad.
The lag in the server is more than bearable, but for others it may be worse. Minecarts lag too much? Don't use them. Farms lag too much? Make them big enough for one harvest a day is good enough. Mob Grinders have trouble? Don't use them, there are many other ways to get those items. Server Lags too much at 9PM, Go to sleep early and play at 9AM and or earlier.

And if all else fails. HAVE Patience. For it is a quality you seemingly lack.
And this post if anything is aimed at the community, and much less at Intelli, himself.

[panthers17nfl]

Well I guess I'll be the first staff member to post here.

Every two weeks or so, I come across a post that is constructed with an effective, or at least bearable, grasp of the English language. This miracle being delivered to me, it must come with a price. The price is what I see in this post: a horrid misunderstanding of what is truly at work on the server.

The tone of the OP here seems to be that he is disgruntled, neigh, upset with lag to a great degree. I agree. Lag is annoying, everybody hates it. And yes, the crops are messed with so that they are brought to a level of almost infertility (I like this personally though, hooray for massive wheat farms! ).

I appreciate the numbers and the interesting footnotes about the various effects of the lag. None of this is new to me, but I'm glad to see it being addressed properly, and you clearly have a grasp of how this lag is created. What you don't seem to have a grasp for is our opinions on this lag.


We have 110-140 players on at most times of the day. This is an incredible achievement. What is even more astonishing is that even with this amount of players, which is on average about 5-6 times as much as the next most popular server, we see only a decent amount of lag. Anywhere else, you can expect to see server crashes left and right, or otherwise horrid, hideous lag. You know what this means? It means Intelli has devoted upwards of god-knows-how-much money to making sure that his server is the best one out there. This means server hardware upgrades, software upgrades, custom plugins he made himself built to tailor exactly to the wants and desires of the people of MineRealm, as well as outside advertising for this server. So if you think he cares little about this server or its community, you are sadly mistaken.

Furthermore, you talk about a white list like it's a godsend. You know what a whitelist does? It neuters the server's player count. Not only that, but it scares away even some of the best players we've got here. I'm not saying I'm among them, but I certainly wouldn't have come here if I saw that the server was whitelisted. Do you know why?

Because whitelisting demonstrates that the server staff is so reclusive and unfriendly that it won't put up with anybody that doesn't tailor exactly to the kind of player it wants to have. Not only this, but it also means that us admins and mods will spend upwards of multiple hours per day sorting through god-awful white-list submissions.


I could name ten great players that have showed up here simply because it wasn't whitelisted (inb4 "name them"). I know I'm not the only one that respects a server willing to welcome new players with open arms, not shut them out like we're some sort of creepy cult.

Moving right along, we don't ignore the issue of lag. We know it exists. We'd be fools to think it doesn't. What do you want us to do about it? *sarcasm* Actually, it seems I left the Lag Generator switch activated, let me turn that off for you.


You speak of a whitelist again at the end, acknowledging that it is a horrible, horrible idea. Good. I'm glad you're on my side. But if no whitelist, how will we achieve "stricter newbie rules?"




I will speak to you as an Admin and as a player. I can handle new players asking questions. Yes, it's very frustrating, but it's nothing to neuter both the personality and the popularity of the server for.

Now that you've read my super-long response. Read it again. Please make sure you address everything if you respond to me. Thanks for your time and for your insight.

[Lightbulbs]

I have an idea.
White list the server. Hire me to accept/reject applicants. You'll not only have the most intelligent server known to man, but the 5 people that make it past me will have to deal with almost no lag.

[Joseph3114]

I will address it all.

The tone of the OP here seems to be that he is disgruntled, neigh, upset with lag to a great degree. I agree. Lag is annoying, everybody hates it. And yes, the crops are messed with so that they are brought to a level of almost infertility (I like this personally though, hooray for massive wheat farms! ).

All of this is true. I have more than enough food to feed myself, but farms make a great example of how the lag interferes.

I appreciate the numbers and the interesting footnotes about the various effects of the lag. None of this is new to me, but I'm glad to see it being addressed properly, and you clearly have a grasp of how this lag is created. What you don't seem to have a grasp for is our opinions on this lag.

I tried to avoid a response like Lightbulbs.

We have 110-140 players on at most times of the day. This is an incredible achievement. What is even more astonishing is that even with this amount of players, which is on average about 5-6 times as much as the next most popular server, we see only a decent amount of lag. Anywhere else, you can expect to see server crashes left and right, or otherwise horrid, hideous lag. You know what this means? It means Intelli has devoted upwards of god-knows-how-much money to making sure that his server is the best one out there. This means server hardware upgrades, software upgrades, custom plugins he made himself built to tailor exactly to the wants and desires of the people of MineRealm, as well as outside advertising for this server. So if you think he cares little about this server or its community, you are sadly mistaken.
I realize what an achievement this is - the large community is the reason I picked this server over the reddit survival server.

I also realize Intelli has invested a large amount and money into this server. I wish to see it prosper as much as him, which is why the lag concerns me.

I work with the same type of server Intelli has rented, and am aware of its capabilities as well as its price tag.

I could name ten great players that have showed up here simply because it wasn't whitelisted (inb4 "name them"). I know I'm not the only one that respects a server willing to welcome new players with open arms, not shut them out like we're some sort of creepy cult.

I am also here because these server isn't whitelisted. I hate applications as well.
I'm not going to ask you name them, as all of the players logged on their first time because of the no whitelist.

You speak of a whitelist again at the end, acknowledging that it is a horrible, horrible idea. Good. I'm glad you're on my side. But if no whitelist, how will we achieve "stricter newbie rules?"

That would be open for suggestions.
I realize you may not mind putting up with them, but it is hard to carry on a conversation in chat when half of it is "How I make sign !?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!????????!!!!???" or the like.

Quite frankly, I'd like to see zero tolerance in place for every rule posted on a sign at spawn.
Today, someone with a Hitler skin poured lava at spawn 3 times (killing you as you went down the water slide) before he was banned.
One - Don't do it again.
Two - Final warning.
Three - Banned.

When he died, he burst into tons of buckets of lava.

Now, all players aren't inclined to grief. But isn't that what an appeal process is for?

Zero tolerance would keep undesirable players off of the server without effecting noobs, assuming they read the rules.

[panthers17nfl]

I will respond with the same style.

All of this is true. I have more than enough food to feed myself, but farms make a great example of how the lag interferes.

Okay, so you admit that lag exists. Good. I don't see the argument here.

I also realize Intelli has invested a large amount and money into this server. I wish to see it prosper as much as him, which is why the lag concerns me.

You two share different definitions of "propser". It is in our best interests and also our goals to be as accepting and inviting to the majority of the minecraft community as possible. Whitelisting, or instituting some crazy proto-nazi oppression rules would not fix this. Players will keep coming.

For the record, I and some other staff members already carry a zero-tolerance policy for certain things. If you are tearing up the road at spawn, there is no justification for that: banned. Setting people on fire at spawn? No justification. Flying in front of my face? No justification. Also, stupid. So what you dream of having is already here, but the effects you expect them to have simply don't happen. Did you know we can often get upwards of 100 unique new players every single day? That is 100 new players every day that need to be observed, determine whether they have griefed, and then of course, just like the rest of the playerbase, need to be looked after for their entire time spent on this server. I'm not starting a rally for "hire 10 more mods lololol", I'm saying that this is how it is, and we have to learn to deal with the newcomers and their confusing, often annoying attitudes.


You'll just have to trust me on this. Intelli does care about the server, he doesn't like lag either. What is important to keep in mind is that we are constantly working to chase perfection, and in that pursuit nowhere does it say "whitelist the server" (I know, you hate them too) or "ban for being a little obnoxious". The way things are run moderation-wise seem to be great. Under-staffed a little? Maybe. Tons of new players with questions that could be answered by people other than the fella with a red tag? For sure.

But why can't you fix this problem?

If you want to see this server prosper, don't let the blue and red tags mean you can't help. If someone asks a question to an Admin or Mod that you very easily know the answer to, answer it for him. Saves us a bunch of time so we can focus on the real troubles.