[vegaskukichyo]

I'm a newbie to MineRealm, but I remember when I joined this server (recently), I was completely dismayed by the lack of available open space and resources.

I think part of maintaining a successful public Minecraft server is that it should be attractive to new users, as the point is to expand, yes? If this were not the case for MineRealm, then you guys would not be a public server, correct? So, in the context of maintaining a positive, attractive environment for new users such as myself (I tend to focus on Public Relations and Marketing in my analyses), I want to validate the point that this is very much a problem. It is terribly difficult for new users to find an area that isn't completely built, inhabited, or otherwise devoid of resources (especially animals - I haven't seen one non-monster mob yet, and I've had a hell of a time finding food beyond farming, which I couldn't do as a nomadic new user). One other thing is that it's hard for me to play well in overdeveloped areas because all the development causes a fair amount of lag.

An expansion seems like an obvious choice for resolution. It allows the server to maintain its established appeal from having a lot of ridiculously awesome structures (take a look at the server map to refresh your memory). It also allows for a good amount of new development, which is important to increasing server traffic and maintaining a positive public image as a server. Also, I have to say, as a new user, I do like the idea of a second server, but I understand why many of the vets do not like that. I know that I would be willing to donate to assisting with an expansion or the establishment of a new server, despite my current financial destitution and my "newbie" status in MineRealm.

What you guys are really facing here is the exact same thing that communities and cities face IRL in real estate. Cities must decide how to manage resources effectively so that they may expand, or they allow new cities to develop in the place of their own expansion (basic economics tells us that when there is a market to be served, that niche will always be served some way or other). So, on some level, this problem is inherently tied to your own success as a server and to your continued survival in a market of a lot of competing Minecraft servers. If you fail at adapting your server to the demand, people will go elsewhere. Keep that in mind, and keep a sense of perspective on how important this issue really is.

My point here was to help focus the conversation/debate in a productive manner. I suggest you guys take this problem seriously, actively look for real solutions, work together to make them happen, rally together to show strong leadership, and get creative - perhaps you can take cues from Real-Life communities like cities and townships. Investigate what city planners normally do in terms of zoning and expansion when faced with this basic problem. I dealt with this sort of problem a lot, having worked in the real estate market in Las Vegas, NV, which once was the fastest-expanding real estate market in the nation and also, after the housing crisis, was the worst real estate market in the nation.

Hope this helps in some way! Best of luck!

Sincerely,

vegaskukichyo

[eah]

I voted no simply because an expansion would be very ugly and asymmetrical.

If the map were expanded in some one direction, I think we can infer that less than 1/4 of the newbies would wander into the fresh land. The remaining would wander into old land or never even leave spawn city. So, even if this were implemented, the fresh land 5k blocks from spawn would have little impact on the newbs' decision to stay on the server.

The lack of suitable land to mine might be a problem, though. The wilderness could be used for mining land and periodically wiped to keep up with demand. Wiping shouldn't be a problem as nobody should be building there anyway. But nobody enjoys mining land so far from their home.

If a public realm hasn't been touched at all in 90 days it will automatically be wiped back to its original form.
What do people think?

I was about to bring this up. I like it. It might be resource-hungry, though. Intelli would have to generate a full 10k x 10k Minecraft 1.0 world and have the world readily available to be accessed. Anyway, Roob's idea here is perfect, IMO. Any land regenerated back to original form will most likely match surrounding land.

[diamond_boss]

In my opinion (as Silver said) there is near to nothing wrong that can happen if a map expansion occurs. The only thing I can imagine going wrong is Intelli spending money to expand the current map, only to have it ravaged like most of the public land we've got right now.

Now, let's think of this logically. Most of the players that join the server aren't very interested in finding clean, nice public land. Nope, they're interested in finding land they can simply build on. A new player won't walk for miles and miles from spawn to find clean public land, most of them can't even find the teleporter on their own. A lot of the new players walk just far enough so they can build, then that's it; which rules out the worry of the land being ravaged in the first place.

Another option is to build over the ocean. First of all, as many players said doing so will take far too much time and patience. Secondly, a lot of players don't want to build on a grass carpet over a giant mass of water. True, many players like to flatten land to build on because it's easier to make large buildings this way, but most of us appreciate the beauty of natural land. That's why we want a map expansion. It's basically the same option as buying public land and cleaning it up. Personally, I wouldn't mind doing so. I love terraforming and it's basically all I'm doing right now to solve the ugly land problem, but to most players it's just not a desirable option or even an option worth considering.

Map wipes aren't desirable options either, so they're practically out of the question. There's just way too much that could go wrong. IMO, I really like Roo's option: to reset all public land back to it's original state if it isn't touched for a certain amount of time; however, it should be less than 90 days. Maybe 30 days? It would practically be the same as the realm disband system.

Please consider my points here. Counter them if you can, so we can think of more solutions. We need to think of more solutions instead of thinking of ways the old ones are bad. Thanks :D

[jackavsfan]

Your 32,000x10,000 idea means that all the new land would be added to the south border of the map. Why? Spawn city would be totally off center to the north. It would take forever to travel to the south side of the map, even with a subway which would have to undergo a massive expansion.

You say water is a problem. Why do you think that? Somebody pointed out that aquatic construction is something that MineRealm is almost totally lacking, and it's a shame because it's a very cool way to build, and would make use of the masses of free space. I plan to get back into underwater building soon, like I used to. I would suggest trying it.

And I know you think there is no dry land that is uninhabited/available, but that isn't true. Maybe as you close in on Spawn City, but the far reaches of the map have tons of untouched public land. I know there's alot where I live, and that's along the north border which gets higher traffic compared to the south, east, and west borders due to the wilderness. I imagine you'd find plenty of room to build if you want to those places.

If we HAVE to have a map expansion, which we don't in my opinion, the map dimensions should be something along the lines of 17,000 (North/south, so 15,000 of which would be normal survival) x 20,000. At least that way you won't have settlements 16,000 blocks south of spawn.

EDIT: For reference, this is what a 32,000 x 10,000 map would look like. Spawn city is shown in it's current location (Obviously we can't pick it up and move it). The green box is the current map.

[The-Jack-DeCk]

Resetting plots= very exploitable and highly Un-legit

[cubeguy314]

New players have constantly flooding in and crowding the server with a whole bunch of plans and dreams for their fresh start on the server. Untouched places they can build; fresh, unexplored caves; nether glow stone and bricks to decorate their world are all in their mind. This server is flooded with players. Never before have I had to turn my chat off so frequently because of an overcrowded chat. Never before have i had to turn chat off for such a long time. Never before have I had to call staff many times in a half hour for a grief report. Never before have I seen this server exceed 100 players during its prime time. Never before have I seen this server reach its maximum player capacity.

Never before have I seen Minerealm at one of its finest moments.

This server needs this expansion. New players, new experiences, new features, all of which need new places to be in. Expand the map.

Let Minerealm grow.

[jackavsfan]

For convenience sake, another spawn could be added closer to (25,000,5000) with a teleporter between original spawn and this spawn.

I just noticed this...Problems with moving spawn:

1. Plots at the current spawn will be devalued, demand will drop, and eventually this area will start looking bad as it will not be renovated and all the amazing builds may not even be seen my new players.
2. Every time we add a teleporter, the server gets less legit.
3. Making an entirely new spawn city seems MUCH harder than just expanding the map more evenly in all directions (excluding north due to the Wild).

[mitchie151]

I'm glad this thread has created a debate. This was my intention.

The things I see with all your ideas are as such.

1. Wiping public realms every 90 days of inactivity is too difficult. According to Intelli 'merging world data with existing world data is a time consuming process' and also turns out ugly most of the time.

2. Not wanting to build on oceans is not laziness. It's incredibly difficult to teraform new land to look anything like natural, and natural places are the best to build in. Additionally, no newbie can easily do this, because they don't have a base to start with.

3. An additional warp location accessed by teleporting from spawn would not hugely devalue spawn. There might be a rush to buy the realms around the new warp but it is not 'spawn' it is t the biggest, most impressive city on Minerealm. The way spawn city works, only the richest people have access to the nearest realms anyway, as they originally costed 50k before anyone even owned them. Also, having the map at. 32x10k with a 'spawn' at either end would make an area in the middle rarely frequented by newer players, making an expansion last even longer than the original map.

4. Even if it means less legit, apparently no one here should care. A huge majority of players voted for a less legit Minerealm on the 'future of Minerealm' poll.

It takes a great deal of time to scout out an are for a project or city these days and perhaps weeks or months after that to ensure none of the public land is empty. Doesn't this alone warrant an expansion? Why should we have to wait at all to build if we have the credits!

As far as I see it, the only problem that should actually limit an expansion should be cost to the server. There is no reason to not want an expansion, you're merely trying to make a more boring time for those who do. 1.5 is the ideal time for an expansion.

I'll continue to read all the comments, it has been quite interesting, but I have yet to see a REAL reason for no, other than 'you're too lazy' or something along those lines. A fresh spawn does not have the same patience we do.

EDIT: for clarity's sake I don't care in the slightest how the map is expanded, the only problem with expanding evenly in all directions is that the wilderness will no longer be wilderness and people may lose their long time bases. But sure, go ahead, make the world 20,000x20,000 or whatever, an expansion is just that, an expansion.

[jackavsfan]

2. Not wanting to build on oceans is not laziness. It's incredibly difficult to teraform new land to look anything like natural, and natural places are the best to build in. Additionally, no newbie can easily do this, because they don't have a base to start with.

I didn't say make new land out of oceans. That isn't what aquatic construction is. I'm talking about underwater building (or settlements like sky city that make use of the open space above). I agree it is difficult at first but it is quite fun, looks amazing when finished, and is easy once you get some practice with it. If a person is new, there is still plenty of available land to make a first home on, to gather resources and to prepare for a more extensive building project.

3. An additional warp location accessed by teleporting from spawn would not hugely devalue spawn. There might be a rush to buy the realms around the new warp but it is not 'spawn' it is t the biggest, most impressive city on Minerealm.

So why make a new spawn? Expand the map evenly in 3 directions instead of 1.

The way spawn city works, only the richest people have access to the nearest realms anyway, as they originally costed 50k before anyone even owned them.

It isn't about controlling who owns the realms. The spawn city realms have some very impressive builds that also happen to be a big part of MineRealm's history.

Also, having the map at. 32x10k with a 'spawn' at either end would make an area in the middle rarely frequented by newer players, making an expansion last even longer than the original map.

How would that work? If you want this new spawn to be placed in the same spot (relative to the map borders) in the south, it would be exactly 20,000 blocks south of the current spawn (at 0, 20000). From Z=0 to 5000, there are already many settlements as that is the current map. Z=5001 to 200000 would be the new area, and it would encompass a large portion of the added public land. I foresee this land being more heavily, not more lightly, used than the other added land at the extremes of the map.

It takes a great deal of time to scout out an are for a project or city these days and perhaps weeks or months after that to ensure none of the public land is empty. Doesn't this alone warrant an expansion? Why should we have to wait at all to build if we have the credits!

Be patient. If we all make a habit of abandoning an entire area of land just because one realm in the area with a cobblestone shack is inhabited, nothing impressive will ever be built in that area. This is how the ugly public wasteland is created. Land nobody wants is overrun by people for so long that it becomes even more ugly and terribly difficult to fix if someone eventually decides to do so.

[Rokkrwolf]

Another option is to build over the ocean. First of all, as many players said doing so will take far too much time and patience. Secondly, a lot of players don't want to build on a grass carpet over a giant mass of water. True, many players like to flatten land to build on because it's easier to make large buildings this way, but most of us appreciate the beauty of natural land. That's why we want a map expansion. It's basically the same option as buying public land and cleaning it up. Personally, I wouldn't mind doing so. I love terraforming and it's basically all I'm doing right now to solve the ugly land problem, but to most players it's just not a desirable option or even an option worth considering.

If most players really felt this way then why flatten the land. Don't those two contradict each other? I've seen it on almost every map, players say they love the landscape blah blah then next thing I see them ripping it down because it's more difficult to build into the landscape.

I'm not saying you guys don't but if you guys really did you guys wouldn't rip down the landscapes to build your cities. So yes a grass carpet over water is the same as building on the flat land as I stated.

2. Not wanting to build on oceans is not laziness. It's incredibly difficult to teraform new land to look anything like natural, and natural places are the best to build in. Additionally, no newbie can easily do this, because they don't have a base to start with.

It's not that hard to terraform land into looking natural, I've done it many times. As I said how many natural places have been built on? I walk the map all the time there is very few natural landscapes with building built into them.

For the newbie comment, it was directed towards them, more towards the older players complaining there isn't land to build on. Also note I said the trade chest, which has excess supplies daily of all types of blocks. I know many of the older players have the resources to do such a task and build new land, hence why I said they are lazy.

I'm just saying if you guys have the time/patience to rip down mountain after mountain then I just don't see the argument in building over the ocean.

Jack - I agree about underwater cities ect. They just don't want to take the time/take on the difficulty of building such a thing.