Little background first. I am more mature that the most players on this server, so my thoughts might be a bit different than most.
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I came to this server two weeks ago or so, because my preschooler wanted to play online and he had seen a video about this server. So we both entered and I had also a role of guardian and translator as he does not read and understand English very well, yet. Greetings from Finland
In the beginning I did find the server quite confusing as there was only tidbits of information in the forums about 1) what the prison is all about 2) how you should survive the first day (food, shelter, basic items) 3) where to get things that are not in the shop 4) basic strategy
Actually I read tutorial on DIFFERENT servers forum about how things worked there and got the basics covered. The /help pages are too brief, there should be a nice tutorial with all basic commands with real life examples.
When we succeeded to get plots and start mining away things were great.
...
It was 4 day or so and then there was an incident and the server state was restored from the backup. This resulted 30% loss of value for me. But still it took only 5 evenings to get to the complete level AND I at the same time generated money to get my son to level up. Not to forget his "pvp me" adventures. He liked to collect his own heads and was generating some weird situations in the PVP area.
I personally do not do PVP (if throwing carrots around PVP line does not count and I like to play by building & developing my plot and using trading skills to rank up. I find the server way too easy to get to last level.
People who look forward to PVP must have possibility to so, but areas where this can be done should be clearly separated from the safe areas that have access to the mines etc.
Some people complain that they are bored and when people say that they are bored they quite often start to do stupid things. But why they are bored ? They most likely have already completed the prison, have all the money they ever need, have so powerful weapons and armory they there is no challenge even in PVP.
Why the prison should even have PVP, the inmates should try to help each others out and have PVP with guards for stuff
As I hit the "complete" level and I dislike the PVP there is no new goal (level) for me to look forward to. I really cannot compete with billionaire players with all the free time they have and I don't. When you get your own family you will understand and value the free time much more
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I SO MUCH LIKE that THIS SERVER has the mining and game play has been kept in the vanilla level, without "you have free diamond tools with 42 fortune" I just recently tried some other prison servers and even the non-OP Prisons are ADHD madness which have no point as the work level is similar but mining is uncontrollable mess.
Also some server had artificial rules, enchanted items are forbidden, no red stone, no farms etc. I think those rules were put to place because the server economy is already bad and shop prices are set wrongly. I would like to see the free market economy to remain. If some deflation/inflation has to be forced it should be done with shop prices, injecting or limiting the items in the market/mine. Most importantly this should be monitored, but not too much. There is always so things that are rare or hard to obtain that should have value.
This leads to the future. I would like to see this server to be nice place for others and me. I would have all the technological resources to run a server, but I lack free time to keep it running for large player base. And I like to see bunch or players doing something and most of all trading stuff.
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If the prison is to be changed these would be nice be nice:
1. There should be much more levels and the last ones should be nearly impossible without years of play.
This would eliminate the need of more levels later. Does it matter to people that they must be "complete" and then get bored. Or there will be a higher goal to achieve and this would lead to much higher regular player base.
I would use something like this.... get your Excel out... "100000 * 1,5 ^ (level - 2)" which would make level 26=Z to be 1.683.411.220 and has not too hard first levels. More user comprehensible rounding is is naturally needed.
2. The levels should be named with ASCENDING order A, B, C,...
3. The more separated PVP area as mentioned earlier.
4. Safe access to mines and anther places, separate area for PVP
The De facto PVP area in C-block should be moved a little so that there is a safe path to furnace for newbies. The same goes with the higher level mines that should have safe access from their warp.
5. Less cluttered chat.
Are all of those automated messages really important all the time ? Option for players to opt-out.
Auto muting of player who spams the same message repeatedly. 5 min or so.
6. Auction should have no starting bid limitations.
When you have managed to get bunch of rare items, it is really annoying to sell those one by one to have decent starting bid. Also people regularly cancel auction if bids are not in the right ballpark and then start the auction again.
It has been nice to play with you all and I hope this will get even better,
Tahtovuori
ps. Did you really read this far, thanks.
...
I came to this server two weeks ago or so, because my preschooler wanted to play online and he had seen a video about this server. So we both entered and I had also a role of guardian and translator as he does not read and understand English very well, yet. Greetings from Finland
In the beginning I did find the server quite confusing as there was only tidbits of information in the forums about 1) what the prison is all about 2) how you should survive the first day (food, shelter, basic items) 3) where to get things that are not in the shop 4) basic strategy
Actually I read tutorial on DIFFERENT servers forum about how things worked there and got the basics covered. The /help pages are too brief, there should be a nice tutorial with all basic commands with real life examples.
When we succeeded to get plots and start mining away things were great.
...
It was 4 day or so and then there was an incident and the server state was restored from the backup. This resulted 30% loss of value for me. But still it took only 5 evenings to get to the complete level AND I at the same time generated money to get my son to level up. Not to forget his "pvp me" adventures. He liked to collect his own heads and was generating some weird situations in the PVP area.
I personally do not do PVP (if throwing carrots around PVP line does not count
and I like to play by building & developing my plot and using trading skills to rank up. I find the server way too easy to get to last level.People who look forward to PVP must have possibility to so, but areas where this can be done should be clearly separated from the safe areas that have access to the mines etc.
Some people complain that they are bored and when people say that they are bored they quite often start to do stupid things. But why they are bored ? They most likely have already completed the prison, have all the money they ever need, have so powerful weapons and armory they there is no challenge even in PVP.
Why the prison should even have PVP, the inmates should try to help each others out and have PVP with guards for stuff
As I hit the "complete" level and I dislike the PVP there is no new goal (level) for me to look forward to. I really cannot compete with billionaire players with all the free time they have and I don't. When you get your own family you will understand and value the free time much more
...
I SO MUCH LIKE that THIS SERVER has the mining and game play has been kept in the vanilla level, without "you have free diamond tools with 42 fortune" I just recently tried some other prison servers and even the non-OP Prisons are ADHD madness which have no point as the work level is similar but mining is uncontrollable mess.
Also some server had artificial rules, enchanted items are forbidden, no red stone, no farms etc. I think those rules were put to place because the server economy is already bad and shop prices are set wrongly. I would like to see the free market economy to remain. If some deflation/inflation has to be forced it should be done with shop prices, injecting or limiting the items in the market/mine. Most importantly this should be monitored, but not too much. There is always so things that are rare or hard to obtain that should have value.
This leads to the future. I would like to see this server to be nice place for others and me. I would have all the technological resources to run a server, but I lack free time to keep it running for large player base. And I like to see bunch or players doing something and most of all trading stuff.
...
If the prison is to be changed these would be nice be nice:
1. There should be much more levels and the last ones should be nearly impossible without years of play.
This would eliminate the need of more levels later. Does it matter to people that they must be "complete" and then get bored. Or there will be a higher goal to achieve and this would lead to much higher regular player base.
I would use something like this.... get your Excel out... "100000 * 1,5 ^ (level - 2)" which would make level 26=Z to be 1.683.411.220 and has not too hard first levels. More user comprehensible rounding is is naturally needed.
2. The levels should be named with ASCENDING order A, B, C,...
3. The more separated PVP area as mentioned earlier.
4. Safe access to mines and anther places, separate area for PVP
The De facto PVP area in C-block should be moved a little so that there is a safe path to furnace for newbies. The same goes with the higher level mines that should have safe access from their warp.
5. Less cluttered chat.
Are all of those automated messages really important all the time ? Option for players to opt-out.
Auto muting of player who spams the same message repeatedly. 5 min or so.
6. Auction should have no starting bid limitations.
When you have managed to get bunch of rare items, it is really annoying to sell those one by one to have decent starting bid. Also people regularly cancel auction if bids are not in the right ballpark and then start the auction again.
It has been nice to play with you all and I hope this will get even better,
Tahtovuori
ps. Did you really read this far, thanks.
