Hi!
I am definitively quitting the server. I played for a few months and really enjoyed it, buy today's pigmen change announce convinced me to not come back, after having already lost interest because of the way the server is handled. I am posting this thread in the hope to explain why I really think some design choices should be reconsidered. Vulengate is a great server with a surprisingly active and lively community, and I enjoyed being part of it.
Minecraft is a sandbox. A game where the player makes his own game. Basic rules and infinite possibilities. But the rules are not the same for everyone. According to jeb, lead developer, any automatization is considered duping for him. He considers that mob farms and automated resource production is against his mindset for the game. My point here is: Minecraft is a game you play and have fun the way you want to play it.
Yet some of the server's design choices go against this mentality. It is normal for a community to agree on rules together, because in a server, actions from a member affect other players. There is two very big issues I encountered while playing on here:
■ "OP" items: Some non vanilla items available occult part of the vanilla gameplay. For example, fly vouchers. These are a straight upgrade from elytras. This is not an issue by itself, the cost of vouchers is high enough for it to be balanced. The issue is when it comes to make a firework farm, grind enchantments for mending wings, set up an xp farm to fly. Because vouchers are here, all the game content said previously is rendered obsolete. This reduces the freedom of the player as it linearize game progression. A good exemple would be the way enchantments are implemented. They still require vanilla combining to create the best in slot gear. They complement an already existing aspect of the game, they don't replace it by a less complete and more op version.
■ Shitty arbitrary rules: Let's say this straight. No one has a clue about gamedesign here. The server infrastructure is managed without thinking about in game impacts at all, and there is more community management being done than gamedesign work.
Honestly, congratulations to kureen and the moderating team for maintaining a lively and active server by providing regular updates, events, and constant support. This is well done work and is most likely the reason why the server works. But this isn't everything. At some point one needs to think: What is the goal in playing on vulengate? It doesn't need to be explicitly said, and each player will have it's own. But everyone needs to have one, or they are bound to quit quickly, as in any video game.
For me, it's technical builds. I'm not here to build a town, I'm here to create farms, terraform large areas to create impressive landscapes. Yet very little consideration is being made for anyone trying to play the way they want. The pigmen spawner changes reflect this very well. There is a lag problem (which isn't due to hosting 4 servers at once on the same machine, Kappa), and nether portal arrays are part of the problem. Instead of offering another alternative to nether portal farms (like, idk, providing a pigmen spawner for a large quantity of obsidian provided?), the farm was straight up banned. This is an answer to the lag problem, but shows no consideration to players having such a farm. This is unacceptable.
There is many other examples that should be changed:
- The soft mob cap per area implementation is complete garbage
- the nether/end frequent resets
- There is no alternative proposed after the ban of afk fishing
- Tnt dupers are banned (They don't create any resource, they just clear out areas to build in. Let me play on my plot the way I want, as long as it doesn't affect other players!) .
I hope this explains why Vulengate did not meet my expectations despite being a pretty cool server.
I wish you all good luck.
I am definitively quitting the server. I played for a few months and really enjoyed it, buy today's pigmen change announce convinced me to not come back, after having already lost interest because of the way the server is handled. I am posting this thread in the hope to explain why I really think some design choices should be reconsidered. Vulengate is a great server with a surprisingly active and lively community, and I enjoyed being part of it.
Minecraft is a sandbox. A game where the player makes his own game. Basic rules and infinite possibilities. But the rules are not the same for everyone. According to jeb, lead developer, any automatization is considered duping for him. He considers that mob farms and automated resource production is against his mindset for the game. My point here is: Minecraft is a game you play and have fun the way you want to play it.
Yet some of the server's design choices go against this mentality. It is normal for a community to agree on rules together, because in a server, actions from a member affect other players. There is two very big issues I encountered while playing on here:
■ "OP" items: Some non vanilla items available occult part of the vanilla gameplay. For example, fly vouchers. These are a straight upgrade from elytras. This is not an issue by itself, the cost of vouchers is high enough for it to be balanced. The issue is when it comes to make a firework farm, grind enchantments for mending wings, set up an xp farm to fly. Because vouchers are here, all the game content said previously is rendered obsolete. This reduces the freedom of the player as it linearize game progression. A good exemple would be the way enchantments are implemented. They still require vanilla combining to create the best in slot gear. They complement an already existing aspect of the game, they don't replace it by a less complete and more op version.
■ Shitty arbitrary rules: Let's say this straight. No one has a clue about gamedesign here. The server infrastructure is managed without thinking about in game impacts at all, and there is more community management being done than gamedesign work.
Honestly, congratulations to kureen and the moderating team for maintaining a lively and active server by providing regular updates, events, and constant support. This is well done work and is most likely the reason why the server works. But this isn't everything. At some point one needs to think: What is the goal in playing on vulengate? It doesn't need to be explicitly said, and each player will have it's own. But everyone needs to have one, or they are bound to quit quickly, as in any video game.
For me, it's technical builds. I'm not here to build a town, I'm here to create farms, terraform large areas to create impressive landscapes. Yet very little consideration is being made for anyone trying to play the way they want. The pigmen spawner changes reflect this very well. There is a lag problem (which isn't due to hosting 4 servers at once on the same machine, Kappa), and nether portal arrays are part of the problem. Instead of offering another alternative to nether portal farms (like, idk, providing a pigmen spawner for a large quantity of obsidian provided?), the farm was straight up banned. This is an answer to the lag problem, but shows no consideration to players having such a farm. This is unacceptable.
There is many other examples that should be changed:
- The soft mob cap per area implementation is complete garbage
- the nether/end frequent resets
- There is no alternative proposed after the ban of afk fishing
- Tnt dupers are banned (They don't create any resource, they just clear out areas to build in. Let me play on my plot the way I want, as long as it doesn't affect other players!) .
I hope this explains why Vulengate did not meet my expectations despite being a pretty cool server.
I wish you all good luck.