Suggestion: Rework 200 Block Rule/Private Cities/Government Cities

4K606 · February 10, 2024, 5:55am

This is a really diffifcult conversation for me to start because I want to touch on so many aspects of the server that I have issues with. Obviously for most of 2023 I was not entirely active, but as I have come back this past month, I see many of the issues for why I went inactive still here, and I try to keep my mouth shut, but this is 4K, and we all know I love to talk.

Private Cities
They are such a cliche, cities with roads, buildings, but no people. There are a few cities that exceed that exception but it is not favorable to live in them anymore. I have seen players give out their plots for free, because they value the person living there more than the money. Private cities are only valuable because of the power a player gets from owning one., and I find it amusing that they are so unregulated but hold some of the most power for a player on this server. The power I’m discussing is being able to lay claim to all land within 200 blocks of your city, being able to purchase land for 50% off, and lastly having first dibs on other private cities that you boarder, which is almost a gaurente due to most being built close to each other.

My suggestion is that private cities have to maintain a standard, otherwise, their status will be revoked, and if a change of sale happens they will have to reapply to become a private city again.

Have plots for sale (with a forsale sign) & show they actually advertise their city/show that they do have sales.
The 200 block rule will not apply to cities where all owners are over 4 months inactive. Instead it will decrease to 80 blocks.
Have to have 500k land value at 10f a block.
City owners cannot be added to over 5 cities (merged is fine) because 1 it is monopolistic and 2 you are basically using them as symbols and completly draining the origional purpose of them.
If a city does not have plots for sale or is not 500k land value, it will be eyesored and unless it is deemed historical, will have its status as private city revoked if it does not comply with the eyesore. I understand people may still own plots there, you will keep your plot, the owner just cannot sell any more real-estate in the city.

Inactive Regions/Claiming
Inactive regions should be able to be purchased anywhere on the server, and cities should not own claim to them if they are within 200 blocks. I only see an exception to this if cities reserve the land/specically state that they will buy that land. I petioned very hard a few years back for chest contents not to be burned and I am very happy they are not anymore, however, purchasing inactive land at 10f a block is a sin, it is not new land, it is used, and I know hellominers wants to reuse and recycle its land and it should be treated as such and be sold at 5f a block.

Government Cities
Its my understanding that staff do not want to manage government cities/want to sell plots anymore on them to promote private city growth which I do not understand. In my opinion West Helloclan was the biggest success story in terms of city growth on Hellominers since Archendale, and now they are refusing the sell any plots there or any government owned city for that manner. Swamp City has been demolished for years and is waiting for an auction to happen, same with vc, rc, c, cb, etc… People will not like this statement, but government cities are far superior than any private city, and is what this server was founded on, so the concept that we are trying to remove them is a joke. Government city plots have sold for millions, the most expensive private city plot sold for 250k. I dont like this statement because I enjoy the creativity many players bring to their private cities but in truth, we need to centralize our economy, and the best way is to bring back a government city with a warp. Warps were the only reason plots have ever been useful on this server, let alone cities.

4K606 · February 10, 2024, 6:10am

Here are areas of the server you cannot claim a region without asking anyone. (Obviously this is a rough example- because of cities

Heres a map of areas where you could not claim because of cities under my new suggestion. Obviously this does not take into account for old city regions and private regions but supposed areas.

Green checkmarks mean active cities in my opinion - orange x means inactive.

What im trying to highlight here is how inactive cities take up so much extra land

Cekko · February 10, 2024, 1:16pm

why don’t you put all this effort towards advertising the server so we can have a decent playerbase again? Also why is this a problem?

Kili · February 10, 2024, 4:49pm

City owners can’t claim whatever land within 200 blocks of the city at F5/block, it has to part of their city expansion which has rules regarding them.

Current rules regarding having plots for sale (granted haven’t really been enforced):
· At least half of the plots are sold or available to rent or buy, through areashop signs or signs to contact an active city owner (<1 month inactive).
· A city with less than half of its plot regions sold/rented or for sale/rent is at risk of being unapproved (3 month eyesore notice).

I assume you mean for all cities including those which were approved before rule changes as it is already a requirement for new private cities to have a minimum size of 50,000 block. Private cities approved before this rule won’t have to abide by it unless the city gets unapproved and needs approving again.

I somewhat agree to this. Cities should only be able to claim inactive regions within 200 blocks of the city if it is part of an expansion, otherwise it should either be left as is or unregioned.

Albinary · February 10, 2024, 5:45pm

theres quite a bit of a tradeoff with gov city warps, centralisation is something that i think is important to the server and leads to compounding playerbase growth but it comes at the expense of low income players having little opportunity to enter a megastore/apartment market

well thoughtout post tho, discussion should be held on matters like these because advertising alone doesnt get us too far, although a contributor. still 687 people joined in 2023, so clearly new player retention is very low if most of the playerbase is from around before 2018. we truly should be looking into next steps and approaches but most of the community is concerned with their own personal interests and the server is dictated by pretty indecisive, slow oligarchs (who undoubtedly have real lifes to live). it’s more (potentially wasted) effort to try and bring player numbers at the expense of our pleasures, than it is to keep enjoying this single/multiplayer hybrid at the expense of tedde

i fear and predict more and more division for this server, as has been proven to be doing so since ~2016

Thendil · February 10, 2024, 7:08pm

There’s plenty of space around the server to start a new city/base. Sorry 4k but that plot near Ashford is within 200 blocks. You appear to be either hunting for rares or trying to buy plots to restrict the development of cities. The rules are going to favour cities as it is a city server.

4K606 · February 10, 2024, 10:22pm

Thanks for the reply, for the point I made about cities being able to claim anything within a 200 block radius, I was trying to speak about how no one else can region within 200, so basically they have full domain (unless someone was there before obviously). City expansions are a very useful tool, however, can be used very manipulative manners as all you need to make one is basically 10k and it needs to be attached to your city. They dont need to develop the land at all and can just be used in a fashion to bully owners of land nearby/force them to be unable to expand. This one is personal, so I am based, because it has happened to me.

For the plots for sale topic, I was still in the department when it started and yea i dont think it has ever been enforced. I think cities should be required to make some sort of official topic on the forums as advertisement, and I know there is a /ad feature and maybe we can use it on a timer, lets say every 5 hours to advert a city.

Yes the 500k rule I want to apply to all cities, none will be grandfathered in. Obviously I think it would be inappropriate to just strip the owners of their cities if they cannot comply, so they should be given the option to sell to the government for 150% land value. Then then government can auction them off or demolish them, or remodel them.

For claiming inactive regions within 200 blocks, maybe players can just ask for the region to be removed, and it becomes wild land. Obviously this is looting, but none of the chests will be unlocked (if they have locks) and then the owner can still benefit.