[just grumble]Too Many Protection?

[uind_w]

When MineTesters enter new server, What is the first thing to do?
"Find some Tree"? No. It's slightly collect. but not enough.

Answer: "Find some Unprotected Tree."

In many case, its pretty hard work. Position 0,0,0 is surrounded by Many Protection Blocks.
Newbies cannot put torches or make any landmarks.
Even if they has Initial pickaxe, they cannot dig protected cobble.

Finally, when I find unprotected tree, it's too far from 0,0,0point , and I forgot way.
When I found tree, I lost other players.
I was almost singleplayer, without many privs.

Of course, I know "Protection is essential".
But too much protection, it may kick out new comer.

Now, I suggest "Anti-Protection Area".
In this Area, Nobody can make protection. (except Admin)
(Of course, "Anti-Protection Block" need protection itself.)

I Imaged...
Near 0,0,0 : Protected by Admin. Make Welcome Sign and something.
about 100 distance : "Anti-Protection Area". Anyone can do about these area. Free mine, Cut Tree.
(and may build house, but others may break it.)
more distance: Normal. Anyone can make Protection.

I'm not sure about this suggestion. Is 100 distances enough?
But I'm sure, "I feel there are too much Protection."

[Dragonop]

100 distance it's too much maybe. Newbies might fall back because of their houses getting griefed.

[maikerumine]

Lag made a mod called spawn_sanitizer it does just this.

[firefox]

on the Xanadu server, there are various teleporters that connect to the 4 main roads.
you can find unprotected land by following the roads. also each road has 1 Stargate that brings you to another location far away.
for trees, there is a tree farm very close to the spawn area.
it is build so that the ground itself is protected, but the trees that grow on it are not.
moderators and dedicated players keep it clean and make sure that trees are replanted.
in addition to that farm, additional tree farms with different trees were build in other places as well.
the Palm and Jungle tree farm in the Newbie Area also have climbable vines wrapped around so that players can easy chop the large jungle trees.

[Casimir]

Yes this is what annoys me too. Some time ago I had a server that hat no protection at all. The main problem was not griefing as a conscious act but people gathering all resources they could get their hands on, including building. The usual was this: A new player joined, looked around, dug all the wood from the streets, then disconnected and was never seen again. This way all the resources where lost over time and it took constant effort to rebuild things.

Griefing really is not the issue. There are very few players that grief with destruction in mind. There are many more who are willing to work together to build something nice. It is just that the game makes it somewhat hard to do. Firefox made a good example with replanting trees, It's a constant effort dedicated player have to bring up, just to have the trees replanted. In my subgame I therefore made the trees replant them self. On the server I mentioned it really payed of, the forests grew instead of dying, and the dedicated players had more time rebuilding other things.

But this is one of the main issues: resources being looked up in the inventories of people that never join again. I therefore wrote a mod that makes everyone leave their inventory as bones as they log out. But then they would go far a way or to a secret place, and hide the resources there. Another idea would be to disincentivise a filled inventory. The fuller it is the more "wight" a player carries, and the slower they are.

[Sokomine]

New players are often clueless as to how to interact with the game. Some griefing may very well be unintentional - accidental digs by insufficient control over the newly downloaded program.

If the spawn area is not protected, it will soon grow into a mess. That's not very nice to look at. It doesn't really help anyone except perhaps those that love chaos on its own.

For my villages, I've protected them against griefing but added an option to "buy" a house from the village. That's of course a diffrent scenario. Without protection, people griefed the houses and made the village look a mess pretty soon. With other protection mods, soon the entire village was protected. But even that buying plots didn't work out so well - at least not on the AdventureTest server: There just wasn't enough space close to "spawn" to do any safe tree-digging or farming. The villages now come with an allmende where everyone can build. It's not big but hopefully sufficient.

A way out of this mess might be a mod that adds a special kind of protection - one where you can place saplings and dig trees and leaves but nothing else. Tree farms could then be placed close to spawn and provide new players with basic ressources. There'd still need to be a way to generate new saplings if players forgot to replant. Replanting could be rewarded in some way (get a free seel axe after placing 20 saplings?). As trees might not be the only ressource shared (think about cobble or pumice generators in some worlds), maybe a way to set up the nodes that can be digged or placed in one particular region would be best.

[Samson1]

I think the answer is to go on to a well run server, Try mine when it's up.
keep checking the server list on minetest.net and the server list in the main menu :)

[ArguablySane]

I think the griefing problem (both intentional and unintentional) is caused by the simple fact that it's easier to destroy something than to create it. Almost any conceivable structure in "vanilla" minetest can be destroyed with a pick and a bucket of lava, and it takes a fraction of the time to destroy it than it does to create it.

I'd like to see mods which, rather than adding magic nodes which make entire sections of the world indestructible, instead add ways of building structures which are extremely difficult to destroy. I'd also like to see tools made less effective, especially when used against artificial structures. It shouldn't take less than a second to smash a hole in someone's metre-thick brick wall using only a sharp sledgehammer. If a person wants to start destroying someone's home that they've spent a month building, they should need to spend at least a few days gathering resources and preparing for their attack. The ideas that I've had are as follows:

Armour plating - These would be some kind of block or panel which could be attached to the outside of a structure to make it extremely difficult to break into. They would be directional though, so if someone managed to get to the other side they could remove the armour in a few seconds with a wrench. Think of it like panels of hardened steel bolted onto scaffolding with no gaps in between. Obviously there would be ways to paint this to make it look less ugly, for those people who want bright pink bunkers.

Armoured doors and electronics - Normal doors are far too easy to break. These would work the same as the plating, only they could be opened by providing an electronic signal. To prevent someone just laying their own wire, the signal would only be accepted from the side and the wires could be hidden behind armour plating. There could also be various other electronic devices to detect and identify authorised players, or read some kind of in-game security cards.

Auto-defences - Even if it takes an hour to smash through a wall someone could still steal your stuff while you were offline, and you can't exactly build a roof over your tree farm. That's where auto-defences come in. Set up a few armoured turrets, hook them up to your base's power supply and computer network, give them some ammo, and enjoy watching would-be griefers get cut to pieces as they try to reach your base over flat ground with no cover.

This should all be balanced so that it takes significantly more effort to mount a successful assault on a well defended base than it took to build the base in the first place. Griefing shouldn't just be something funny to do in the first minute after you join a server. If you want to grief someone, you should have to work for it.

Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of noobs turning the spawn into an uninhabitable wasteland, but I think that could be solved by simply letting people spawn randomly over a ~3x3 km area. That way the devastation would at least be spread out, and occasionally you'd have the fun of watching someone spawn in front of an auto-turret outside someone's base.

[Casimir]

Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of noobs turning the spawn into an uninhabitable wasteland, but I think that could be solved by simply letting people spawn randomly over a ~3x3 km area.

I have a spawnarea mod for you.

[Sokomine]

I'd like to see mods which, rather than adding magic nodes which make entire sections of the world indestructible, instead add ways of building structures which are extremely difficult to destroy.

That doesn't work well. When you're building something, you'll frequently place a node somewhere where you'll later on decide was the wrong place. Having to mine that node again slowly would be very annoying. And you'll also want to include nodes into your house which are less resistant - but which look just about right at that place.

Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of noobs turning the spawn into an uninhabitable wasteland, but I think that could be solved by simply letting people spawn randomly over a ~3x3 km area. That way the devastation would at least be spread out, and occasionally you'd have the fun of watching someone spawn in front of an auto-turret outside someone's base.

Your idea of how a server ought to work is considerably differnt than mine. I want other players to be able to see other buildings - to enter them, take a look, get inspired, offer ideas for improvements, have a nice time doing sightseeing. All the valuables will be stored in locked chests anyway, so there's no need to be afraid of your neighbour. Yet people have diffrent opinions. Your ideas might work on a server that focusses on PvP.

[ArguablySane]

When you're building something, you'll frequently place a node somewhere where you'll later on decide was the wrong place.

That's why I suggested adding nodes which can be dismantled easily from one side using the right tool, but are very difficult to break from the other side. You'd just have to be careful not to accidentally build an entirely sealed structure, leaving yourself outside it.

Your idea of how a server ought to work is considerably differnt than mine. I want other players to be able to see other buildings - to enter them, take a look, get inspired, offer ideas for improvements, have a nice time doing sightseeing. All the valuables will be stored in locked chests anyway, so there's no need to be afraid of your neighbour. Yet people have diffrent opinions. Your ideas might work on a server that focusses on PvP.

I was definitely thinking of PvP servers with those ideas. Honestly the idea of a server where all the players just build nice houses and admire other people's nice houses sounds very boring to me. I can look at other people's buildings on youtube without having to mess around with multiplayer or permissions. Also, I just don't think a game with a spatial resolution of 1m is a particularly great tool for purely artistic projects. If I wanted to make great works of art, I'd use Blender or something so I didn't have to deal with the limitations of voxels.
It is a sandbox game though, so use it in whatever way you enjoy.

[Sokomine]

I was definitely thinking of PvP servers with those ideas. Honestly the idea of a server where all the players just build nice houses and admire other people's nice houses sounds very boring to me.

For me, that's what I love about the game. Whereas PvP is extremly boring and not enjoyable :-)

Also, I just don't think a game with a spatial resolution of 1m is a particularly great tool for purely artistic projects. If I wanted to make great works of art, I'd use Blender or something so I didn't have to deal with the limitations of voxels.

Sometimes limitations are good and make it easier. Creativity is sometimes higher when there are fewer blocks around and details can just be hinted at. It does get more complicated when building with moreblocks (but I love it :-)).

It is a sandbox game though, so use it in whatever way you enjoy.

Exactly! It's great that everyone can play as he/she likes :-) Just not on the same server usually.