Minecraft

[spoodie]

I think 16x16 would be a bit too small personally, but I like the idea.

Yeah, possibly. I'll do a mock up and see how it looks. We could have large plots as well, double and quadruple the smallest size.

In our last world we had some randoms put massive structures right next to the spawn, blocking paths out and spreading lava all over. I want to avoid that.

[fabyak]

Me too, sounds like a top plan to me!

*Proposes monorail*

[buzzmong]

*Proposes monorail*

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF_yLodI1CQ[/media]

[Thompy]

Seems like enough has been added to get me interested again.

If we do a plot system for a town with construction limits, what about digging down? Something like, no expanding outside your plot until x blocks down?

[Baliame]

Fresh world, mob-safe path from spawn to town (although with beds, that doesn't quite matter so much anymore), and bigger plots (and an option to take multiple plots if you have too much free time and fill one up).

[Joose]

Seems like enough has been added to get me interested again.

If we do a plot system for a town with construction limits, what about digging down? Something like, no expanding outside your plot until x blocks down?

I would say maybe no expanding outside your plot at all, but you can go down as far as you like. Unless we want to reserve some levels for underground tracks or something? Or is that maybe a bit needlessly restrictive?

[Joose]

Good idea. Is there some kind of online drafting tool we can collaborate on, or some kind of drawing tool? And if we make the whole town the shape of a CDC there'll be no need to draw more all over it, maybe.

Dont know, but something designed for making pixelart might be handy. One block = one chunky pixel, then we just need a colour coded system for it.

[fabyak]

Seems like enough has been added to get me interested again.

If we do a plot system for a town with construction limits, what about digging down? Something like, no expanding outside your plot until x blocks down?

I would say maybe no expanding outside your plot at all, but you can go down as far as you like. Unless we want to reserve some levels for underground tracks or something? Or is that maybe a bit needlessly restrictive?

But maybe we say that you have to have an accessible tunnel going to the town train station

[Joose]

Just been having a look on the wiki, and there are a bunch of programs for designing and plotting things out. I dont think any of them are collaberative though.

[fabyak]

*Proposes monorail*

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF_yLodI1CQ[/media]

Yep, just like that!
ooooooh, how about having a few cars belting round the track all the time (track in a loop, boosters in the necessary places) so you can hop on and off as you please

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Google spreadsheet.

Adjust it to make the cells square.

[deject]

Google spreadsheet.

Adjust it to make the cells square.

I did a similar thing in Excel to map out the maze I made on the server I play on most of the time. It works pretty well, and you can even assign colors to the cells to help plan out what kind of blocks they should be.

[fabyak]

That's what Berk and I did when making our maze on the last server too.
Although I ended up printing it out and colouring it in so that Berk wouldn't get any kind of advantage

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Just because I could

[fabyak]

Good werk Berk!

[Joose]

Excellent idea Berk!

I propose colours for blocks, text comments if you want to label things, and numbers in the cells to indicate higher/lower than ground level.

EDIT: 16x16 is a bit cramped, but 20x20 seems a nice size. Bigger than that verges on hoog. Dont forget, this is to make a little town, not a collection of epic solo projects.

Im thinking the roads could be 7 wide. That way, we could run lights down the middle of them at regular intervals to prevent mob spawns without flooding the place with torches.

[spoodie]

Taking into account what people have been saying I propose the following:

- Fairly wide crossroads from the center of town; north, south, east & west. Extended as needed.
- Ideally the center of the cross roads would be the initial spawn.
- The crossroads would include a looping mine-cart system for each direction, back and forth, hence the need for fairly wide roads. These systems shouldn't be too long to avoid breaking down or being too much bother to fix when they do break. You could jump off one and get on the next, in the same direction. (I'm no minecart expert, does this sound like a good idea?)
- A grid of thinner roads around the center, 16x16 perhaps, two city blocks deep. This should allow all to have a small place in the center.
- These small buildings mustn't be too high, 32 blocks? They can go down as far as you like, but within the plot, ideally.
- Beyond that we could have larger plots, 32x32, 64x64, 1 city blocks worth perhaps. These could be split up if required.
- Once beyond that it's a free-for-all. The crossroads could be diverted to suit the terrain, but should be extended to aid navigation.

I think it's important to have a world which is easy to navigate, obvious where the good stuff is and offers inspiration to build and add to the world.

I would put something on the googlesheet, but it doesn't run well on my lappy.
The transport system could well be a raised monorail affair. It'd be slightly less accessible but less likely that players and mobs block your path.

/edit
Just to clarify the above are just suggestions. I'm not going to get all OCD or dictatorial about it.

[Thompy]

Google docs is way too slow for me so I drew this up really quickly based on what Spoodie just outlined.

Seems a bit too regular. The town idea is good but maybe make the roads a bit more free form as long as people stick to good town planning practices and aesthetics?

[Joose]

Ive started putting a rough outline based on spoodies suggestions together, as it sounds good to me. The central spawn/crossroads area is going to have to be largish. The Spawn area in SMP is 20x20, and it has a 13 block protected buffer around it. All in all, that gives a 46x46 block in the center for the crossroads type bit. Going with 16x16 blocks for the center, with a 3 block gap between for paths, two plots deep, gives us 32 small central plots. However, that makes it a PITA to work 32x32 sized blocks in, so I have upped it to 3 plots deep.

This gives us 60 16x16 sized plots, and 20 32x32 sized plots. I think that will do us for now :D

[Joose]

Seems a bit too regular. The town idea is good but maybe make the roads a bit more free form as long as people stick to good town planning practices and aesthetics?

I think its probably a good idea to stick to a regular pattern at least as a starting point. Im not sure your average 5punker knows a lot about good town planning practices (I certainly dont), and I know for a fact we all have very different ideas about aesthetics

Im sure 60 small plots is going to end up waaay more than we need, but we can always join plots together by removing roads and suchlike, if needed.

Berk has suggested we could put towny communual bits right in the middle, like an armoury, bakery etc. I also thought it would be good to have an MMO guild bank style thing: A building with lots of labelled chests where we can put things we dont need/want, and people are free to take whatever they like from it