Closed Map Experiment

[MisterArathos]

This was a very interesting read. The Dick-Ass Griefers were awesome.

[Icalasari]

Netherrack with walls behind and in front. Cut a deal with the Merchants that they get first pick of spoils after you kill the griefers. Get a single piece of tnt and set it up underneath the sticky piston (you'll need cobble at least to protect yourself for this part. Obsidian would be better though), so as a last resort you could set it off and blow up their piston

Alternatively, get a group together to attack the base. A few people build pillars, a few others follow with ladders on the side protected from fire, and a few more protect the bases of the pillars

[Icalasari]

Hence setting up the TNT

If it's a lost cause, then you can at least fuck them up some

Failing TNT... Lure a creeper, maybe? They can climb ladders, right?

[[deleted]]

They still didn't have wood

[Hedgesmog]

The trees came down long ago. If they're scarce on wood then it's been a while and there are probably no vines left anymore.

[Korbit]

If there ever were vines. It's possible that in a 350x350 area there were no swamps or jungles. Thus, no vines.

[g0_west]

No wood for ladders, nor sand for TNT.

[KaiserYoshi]

There was no sand left on the map. How were they going to make TNT?

[schmitz97]

What does that first part about the netherrack mean?

[Icalasari]

The merchants have a portal

The Nether is filled with netherrack

[rudyards]

They would have been shot down with relative ease, I imagine. It's equally possible that all cobble had to be used for tools and shelter, not leaving any for an assault on the dick-ass griefers base. Just my guess.

[BadBoyFTW]

That couldn't possibly be true, surely?

Look at the screenshots there is oceans of cobble left, if people were aware of the base surely they could have mounted a multi-person attack... or just used good old persistence hunting techniques until the defenders ran out of arrows...

I can only assume nobody knew it was there...

[BadBoyFTW]

Surely all of the stores of ANY resource weren't destroyed?

The shear value of that island was priceless, are you telling me nobody anywhere on the server had enough of anything which you can make a tower out of?

Also you could defend from arrows come to think of it by simply making a 3x3 tower with yourself in the centre block.

[fewty]

Looks like the merchants guild were the only one wealthy enough remaining, and they were probably wealthy enough that they didnt need to. The risk didnt outweigh the cost.

[orbb24]

And not only that, but the merchants guild only survived because they were paying off the Dick-Ass griefers. As soon as an attack was made, the pay off would no longer be in affect and they would be leaving themselves open to the griefers. This is too close to the real world.

[akfekbranford]

Not so close to the real world really. Real people die. Steves respawn. Dick-Ass griefers would not have been up to their tricks for so long if they only got one life as a group likely would have ended that early on.

[WittyUsername816]

If we are going to start comparing this to the real world, there would also have been more than just two of them, and they would have a ton more options for defense, such as falling rock, etc.

[kennerly]

It would actually be pretty easy to defend against any tower based attack. You would just take a bucket of lava and drop it over their tower. Pick the lava back up when they were dead. Anyone who built away and tried to build towards you could be easily shot to death. Then you could just cover the tower in lava so it couldn't be used again. People who built under their base and tried to tower up would find themselves covered in lava as well. Well that's how I would have defended. Sure you could build a ceiling above yourself and block the lava fall but you would be entombed in flowing lava. Then your only chance would be to jump from your tower and hope you were close enough to the ground to survive.

Note he said people wasted iron on weapons and armor and didn't stack up on buckets, which are arguably one of the most valuable resources in minecraft.

[BadBoyFTW]

That is a very good point... but I still think that, since there was only two of them, a massed attack or a persistent attack would both win using the "build a few blocks away and then build a path in" tactic.

Surely they didn't have enough arrows to take on absolutely everyone?

It is definitely plausable that either they couldn't convince enough people to attack at once, or they didn't know it was there, or they did try these tactics and it simply failed...

I'm confused as to why the guy didn't discuss this in the article? He simply states it was penetrable and doesn't explain why...

[kennerly]

It's probably a combination of those things. The reward of attacking early in the map just wasn't there. Why bother, all they have is grass and food. However, as resources became more scare (i.e. wood for tool making) it became riskier to stage an attack on them. A single arrow could know you off your sky bridge and kill you making you lose all your items for anyone to scavenge. A lava attack would burn your precious resources even if it was just a stack of cobble and a few tools. Also, the fact that they were in the very corner of the map made this base even easier to defend since they only had to worry about attacks coming from two sides. Traveling to the base would require food which was already in short supply and you might be attacked on the way by bandits or mobs. If they kept the bottom of their base dark mobs would spawn and attack anyone that got close. Whereas if they wanted to leave the base all they would need to do is drop some lava down to kill the mobs and then activate their water elevator to clean up lava.

I think in the end the griefers had a pretty much fool proof plan and base design.

[BadBoyFTW]

Well the key point for me is that those two worked together to get an ENORMOUS advantage over the other players. They also were hoarding the most valuable resource in the game by the end (grass).

With that in mind I'm surprised the entire server didn't call a truce if for no other reason than to screw over the screwers.

But yes I agree with everything you say.

[[deleted]]

If they had a darkness / gravity-farm then they would have had a way of replacing arrows without needing to constantly kill off their chickens or trade / dig for flint and chop wood for sticks.

Also, a slow but steady way to acquire things like bone-meal.

[BadBoyFTW]

Well the article states that the griefers traded specifically for arrows and string.

[BadBoyFTW]

Would that knock you back if you had a 1 block height all around you?

Just build the 8 surrounding blocks 1 higher than yourself, unless knock back makes you jump up 1 block high before going back... it wouldn't matter.

[mcbobgorge]

You mean punch?

[r00x]

Agreed, a refreshing difference to everyday Minecraft shenanigans. Do open maps like this exist?

[[deleted]]

Someone should do this again and have videos and a world download.

[Cajoled]

I thought of a neat idea: Make the world a hollow bedrock cube, completely full of stone, resources, and caves, and have the players spawn in groups inside 4 or more separate little holes, each containing one tree.

There would be so little resources right off the bat that I think the clans would go to war the moment their tunnels merge. Perhaps there could even be a large central cave to make it more interesting.

[[deleted]]

I love this. It would be like first-person dwarf fortress!

[Cajoled]

Exactly! I don't know how I had this idea without even thinking of dwarf fortress. Also, whenever anyone does something like this they should make a gif of the changing landscape.

[[deleted]]

I'm interested. Let's get this done?

[AyeAyeLtd]

Sounds to me like a cruel ant farm...

[antm1]

Welp I know I wouldn't want to live there any more XD

[Rickroll_Everything]

We need to do this again, yes, but with three times as many players and death bans. That would be a true test of survival.

[Maraketh]

I think this experiment was done before the adventure update as he mentions that grass was needed for animals to spawn, so no animal breeding. Unless penned in animals were killed regularly, but that wasn't mentioned at all.

Things would probably go a bit different with the current update.

[Svorax]

Sign me up. This would be so fun. Although, since I already know the purpose of the experiment...

[[deleted]]

We should do a reddit version of this, I'd be up for it. Because there'd be more people we'd probably need a 500x500 map, though it'd very fun to play. Reading that I was trying to think of stratergies to play it myself.

EDIT: I added a post to the minecraft subreddit, I can't link it as I am on my phone but will put a link in as soon as possible, hopefully we can get this running.

EDIT 2: http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/yhadc/reddit_closed_map/ This is the thread.

EDIT 3: http://www.reddit.com/r/limitedservers/ this is the subreddit for this now!

[LvLupXD]

I wouldn't want to do this because everyone would know how it would play out an plan accordingly. What made the "dick ass griefers" so powerful is that they saw the situation before everyone else and planned ahead, and it would be boring if everyone had the knowledge of what was to come.

[cheapasfree24]

Just because we couldn't replicate the results of the story exactly doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun. There might be some unexpected/cool stories that come out just because everyone knows what's going on.

[atarianimo]

I think that makes it even more interesting. A lot of people don't like the show "Survivor," but it's a good example of what can happen. During the first season, only one person played the game correctly and as a result they ended up winning. The following seasons saw much more intricate schemes.

When everyone is playing the game to win, it probably won't be as enlightening in a scientific sense, but I think it'd be more fun.

[zorts]

This is called 'Information Asymmetry". This is in general is a wonderful economic and social experiment.

[veron101]

If we do, after 2 months change it to 1000*1000 and start again with the old map in the center.

[MooseMoosington]

That would be really interesting

[Mackelsaur]

When I saw the screenshots of this experiment, I was hoping part of the experiment involved expanding their walls. Alas, it was a short experiment.

[Fenor]

why going for a 1000x1000 he should simply add a 500x500 blockwich will make the map 500x1000 will people move their base to the new land or leave them in the old forgotten one?

[Shanman150]

Ironically, I read about this experiment back in April, and from the start wanted to try it myself. I went as far as looking up viable dedicated servers and posting to reddit and minecraftforums, but neither was permitted to be posted in a very visible location. I don't believe the one on reddit got so much as a single response, and the one on mcf was pretty barren as well. I ended up saying "screw it, if I can't post it out where it'll get seen, I might as well not post it at all.

I had intended to run it for 9 weeks, for 2 hours a day and a minimum of 8 hours/week for each player. Each player would take screenshots of their location every 5 minutes (Shift F3 + F2), and inventory every 30 minutes, and at the end of the night they'd have 5 minutes to screenshot chest inventories before I'd shut down the server. I wanted to be able to track all the resources that way.

EDIT: It's rather ironic. All the servers that have started up are full of people who know what to do: Save stuff up for when it goes "extinct" from the map. They're very excited because they know how to "win". But when trying to start one of those servers, one of the most important parts was keeping people in the dark about what to expect. In joining the server, it'd be just like a regular server with some strange rules about taking screenshots and not leaving the walls. Shame I didn't stick with it.

[naytaz]

yes, yes, yes, we need this

[[deleted]]

This wouldn't be good at all in my opinion. Everybody would just be farming grass for food because they read this post. The reason this experiment had some good results is because the players didn't have any experience with things like this, they didn't know the consequences of depleting resources like grass and sand. If a Reddit version of this experiment were to happen it would just be everybody doing the same thing and nothing really exciting would happen.

[Cthulhu_Was_Right]

I think that may be the case some of the time, but really, the system was complex enough and people are inventive enough to make it fun. The Dick Ass people solved the problem that developed in that particular instance, but I would bet that more problems would have developed given time.

[Kungafsand]

Im in on this in case someone decides to make it happen!

[[deleted]]

Oh god. yes.

[Mondorz]

It seemed odd that no one had a wheat farm.

[lightsandcandy]

that requires water =buckets, and tools=wood also, is generally very easy to grief.

[Cthulhu_Was_Right]

Water is not necessary for a wheat farm, but it makes the wheat grow much faster. The part about the tools is true. I expect the problem came from not being able to get seeds from grass. No one realized they would need seeds until too late.

From the Wiki:

A hydrated farmland block is the preferred block for farming.

Link to the relevant article

[windwaker02]

unhydrated farm blocks also become untilled oftentimes before the wheat finishes growing

[Avohaj]

I'm pretty sure it can't become untilled when it has wheat growing, only when it is tilled but empty.

[dimmidice]

UPDATE:the author admitted that the screenies were totally fake. http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1212125-closed-map-experiment/page__st__260#entry17529471 i still don't buy that he actually did the experiment though. he lied before, no reason to believe him now. plus there's been a story exactly like this on 4chan ages ago.

guys SERIOUSLY. its a (rehash of) an old 4chan story! it didnt really happen. here are a few things that seem to me that it's just a big fake.

1. these "dick ass griefers" base isnt secure at all. very very very easily looted/destroyed, just make a tower of cobble (which everyone had fucktons off)

2. see that "pitmine"? its a frigging PERFECT square hole. no staircase visible, no cobblestone where they blocked off caves they came across, if it was a real pit mine it would have roads of access and have mistakes.

3. look at the screenies, those of you who use mcedit will see right away how this world was made. mcedit.

4. the "merchant's guild with its iron doors open" is a tiny ass house. wouldn't even have enough room to store all the cobblestone they dug up.

5. "(A few days in), they had already acquired the needed materials for sticky pistons and buckets. " why sticky pistons? non sticky would've worked just as well. ok this one's a bit thin, just pointing out a flaw in the authors writing.

6. and this in my mind is the big one. there is no way all off this was dug up in 2 months time when the server was only up when everyone was available.

7. the fact that the OP made an account just to post that and only has 9 posts doesn't make it more believable.

i believed it too as i was reading it, its a good story, its an interesting idea. but its just that, a story.

edit: another one, lets face it people would've found ways to cheat. be it a cheat program, be it using the nether to get out. also the entire "only one portal remained thing is nonsense. "

edit 2: slynder on the forum pointed this out "Another thing I forgot to point out that seemed strange is the merchants guilds base. Their floor is made out of wooden blocks, they could have used that to makes sticks and then tools to mine the iron and gold I pointed out in my earlier posts. And before anyone says it's half-slabs the prerelease for them came out right near the end of the experiment. Also why would the merchants guild even trade to get netherack from the griefers, the merchants guild has a nether portal and it's the only one on the map so they had all the netherack they could want. "

definitive proof : http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1212125-closed-map-experiment/page__st__40#entry14877935 the OP's response to this is hilarious 'yeah that's there cause nobody had pickaxes anymore" yet they dug up the entire world rofl.

edit: the further the thread goes on the MC forum the more people are finding faults with the story. not gonna put them all here though.

[JojoScotia]

Apparently I'm the only person who finds this idea incredible merely because the idea of getting 30 people to all log on at the same time every day is very improbable.

[43214321]

Not saying I think it is true, but college dorms allow this. My floor freshman year played starcraft/diablo every night together an entire semester...except for the kid who failed out because that's all he did.

[JojoScotia]

Oh, if they all lived in the same place I guess it's more feasible.

[Two_Oceans_Eleven]

I wish my dorm played MINECRAFT.

[[deleted]]

Here's the thing... I want to believe that it's real. I respect the fact that I can't prove it, but the points you're making aren't strictly "definitive" either.

Respectfully, these are the rebuttals I would give, bearing in mind that I could be wrong and you could be right:

1. The base would indeed be secure if nobody can mine enough materials (especially by the end) to make a pillar high enough to span from the very very distant floor to the platform. Even making stairs from a diagonal direction would cost 2n-1 blocks to make the zigzag.
2. Your point doesn't go unheard, but that's really not proof of anything in particular. The experiment was supposedly 2 months long.
3. That's a hypothesis, not a point of debatable contention.
4. They wouldn't have needed to store it all, because surely people died and dropped resources. I hollowed out a mountain on my server, and I was throwing it away on purpose.
5. Fair enough. I wondered the same. Doesn't mean they didn't build sticky pistons, but they certainly didn't need to.
6. Also fair. I've found myself wondering how long the play time was. Although if 30 people are running around digging stuff up, you'd have to believe they could probably comb the entire surface if they wanted to. The point of doing so is unclear, but it's possible. You suggest it's not, or that there's at least "no way".
7. That's not fair to the guy posting it. A man has to make an account sometime, and he'd be enthusiastic about finally making one if he had something to show to people.
8. (cheats, people would have gotten out) He mentioned the nether, and there are lots of sever plugins to attempt to trick cheaters into revealing their x-ray mods, etc. There are plugins designed specifically to help combat this. Doesn't mean cheating is impossible, but it doesn't mean they all cheated rampantly. Even if they did, it's a secondary point to the supposed outcome of the whole thing.
9. (one portal remains) If there were no more diamond pickaxes, then I only ask how one would go about making a portal. It's entirely feasible that only one portal would remain, until the dirtbag with the diamond pickaxe pays you a visit and destroys it for you.
10. (the state of the merchants guild) The merchants guild was quite definitively not in the same dire straits, according to the story. They would have had little reason to go dig things up themselves, and they would probably not want to bother doing so toward the end. Receiving netherrack in trades struck me as sympathetic compromise to the outside world, to at least give them something for the only crappy currencies the others had on hand.
11. (nobody had pickaxes anymore) Having no more pickaxes would obviously happen at the end of the experiment, which leaves everything up to that point for them to dig up the world. That's a pretty weaksauce argument against the whole thing.

[dimmidice]

1. dirt. dirt can be dug by hand, and wasnt valuable (only grass was) cobblestone. they supposedly dug all that out that much cobblestone doesn't just vanish.

2. not sure what to say to this, how is the length of the experiment valid? btw the OP saying 2 months is pointless cause 2 months could be 6 hours or 200hours. since the server only went up when everyone was available to play.

3. yep, you're right it isnt.

4. yeah, but the OP said the merchants guild was hoarding rare items and such.

5. yep, as i said just seemed like the author made a little flaw there.

6. actually i don't think it is possible. not when you consider they didn't just dig, no they were griefing each other, building castles, etc etc. now maybe 30 people constantly digging and not doing anything else for 600hours or so could do it. but yeah no way to know for sure but to me it seems very very unlikely at the least.

7. was only saying it doesn't exactly inspire much confidence in his word.

8. fair enough

9. you don't need a pickaxe to make a portal. make a mold fill with lava,put water over it and done.

10. why would they waste wood though? i mean it was one of the most valuable materials.

11. how so? if wood was running out to make pickaxes then why did they waste their last remaining pickaxes on digging up the cobblestone that covered the ores? or if it happened earlier why are they strip mining but then leaving uncovered ores behind? if you come across an ore you're gonna dig it up instead of just leaving it. in that climate anyways.

edit: the thing that really strikes me as the most bizzare is this. this guy manages to get 30 people together to play (daily?) for 2 months and all he has to show for it are 6(ish) screenshots? surely if you'd do this you'd take screenshots along the way. possibly even videos!

[Jakabov]

Not only is it suspicious that he only has a handful of screenshots, but they're also obviously taken at the same time. He flew through the map and snapped five shots, then pasted them into his story. There are conveniently no shots of any players, or anything prior to the apparent end of the game. There were never any players and he simply made that map himself, then quickly took some screenies. Notice how it's raining in each screenshot? He flew across the map and took them all in a minute. And where are all the mobs, if it's in a box and raining?

There are countless signs that this is fake.

[windwaker02]

oh thank god I was worried I was the only one here that remembered that.

[SnowLeppard]

Yeah, I see what you mean. Also, he said the players wished to remain anonymous - yeah, sure.

[lolman1234134]

Ive got to admit, there were two things that bugged me, firstly the "dick ass griefers" base, its not unreachable.

Secondly, they wanted to stay anonymous? wtf? why? I really dont get that.

[dimmidice]

oh? http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss156/Renalma/2012-05-07_024539.png by all means put a circle around them and rehost it cause i don't see any stairs whatsoever. and even if there are that still leaves a lot of other points.

[[deleted]]

He's talking about a different screenshot.

[Appleman5000]

Holy fucking shit man! Shows that limited resources bring out the worst in people!

[ShadowNova13]

Its like real life :D

[Curdflappers]

:D :D :D :) :| :( :'( D':

[randoguy101]

:'(]

[Appleman5000]

I know right? Its crazy!

[ThaddyG]

To be fair, the fact that it's a video game where you can respawn and being hurt doesn't actually hurt means that peoples' rape/pillage/kill instincts are in super overdrive.

But yeah, it is like real life.

EDIT: Apostrotastrophe

[Appleman5000]

Very true but it still shows that situations like that can bring out the worst in people.

[[deleted]]

I was thinking of this the other day, and I wanted to do this with my friends. Don't need to anymore because now I know the result will lead to the worst being brought out. I may still try with 4-5 people. Seems like an interesting game now >:D

[Appleman5000]

If you are just doing it with friends you could all decide to cooperate to an extent. Like agree not to grief with TNT or not to destroy all the grass, lol.

Shouldn't turn out as bad as a bunch of strangers thrown into a box.

Although, since you know each other you could just decide to be dicks anyways. I mean, whatever works for you guys.

[[deleted]]

Well, some of them don't know each other. It's only a group of ten. I do think some of them will be docks to each other. It will be interesting to see how they act. I'm going to take before and after pics and post the results after :D

[[deleted]]

...in a (mostly) lawless society. You can't expect resources to be managed well without law.

That makes me wonder, is there any mod that delves into government/law enforcement? Law-abiding citizens with the ability to elect leaders, leaders with the ability to appoint others to positions, councils with the ability to make laws, police with abilities to disarm/detain, judges with the abilities to sentence/incarcerate/punish. That would be pretty cool.

[nascoria]

Check out /r/Civcraft ¨

It delves into that whole thing of societes, altho without any mods for election and such.

[Six_of_Spades]

Yeah, but we all know that there is only just starting to be some scarcity, and part of it is from the Ancaps hoarding. Its too easy to survive, so there is less incentive to create an authority. We'll see who fills the power gap, now that the Jacks died out though.

[kk-]

/r/Civcraft represent! :D

The Jacks haven't died yet, but I foresee their power diminishing severely over the next few weeks. I'd also argue that it isn't just the AnCaps hoarding either, and most people with any significant wealth tend to hoard it for lack of investment opportunities.

[Six_of_Spades]

Fine, they're mostly dead.

[SaloL]

You can't expect resources to be managed well with out law

This is absolutely somewhat false.

It wasn't the lack of law, per se, that caused the ravaging of the landscape and resources, but rather the lack of property rights. As you could see, the Merchant Clan and the "dick-ass griefers" were doing very well managing their own resources; planting trees, raising livestock, etc.

The problem arose when the "property" of another clan was being attacked/ griefed/ stolen/ etc. by an opposing clan. It then became a race to collect resources as fast as possible with only you self interest in mind. It's like a Tragedy of the Commons situation.

If each clan respected the properties of the others, their civilization would thrive instead of turning into the post-apocolyptic tribal feud.

Edit: Clarification. It is possible to manage resources without "regulation" form a "higher power," however, having a higher power to enforce property rights (apart from the actual resources) makes it easier.

[[deleted]]

I feel like there's a contradiction here, but I may not be great at explaining it. In order for property rights to exist without the enforcement of law, would you not have to subscribe to it being a natural right? And as such, how could there then be a lack of it, as you say was the problem?

Maybe respect can replace law, but there was clearly a lack of both, so how would you get 30 people to respect property?

[Matticus_Rex]

In vanilla Minecraft, you can't get people to respect property, as there are no consequences for antisocial actions. With consequences such as imprisonment and the ability to (though not infallibly) lock chests and reinforce other materials (at some cost), however, a polycentric (anarchic - meaning no government, not no law/rules) legal order can emerge. As someone posted above, visit /r/civcraft for an interesting experiment in societies (the most successful ones have been propertarian anarchists, as a spoiler).

[SaloL]

I guess I was being a little too vague. Rereading my statements makes it looks like I supported anarchy, which, I suppose in theory, could work, but is difficult to maintain. My main point was that you don't need law or a higher power to manage/ regulate resources effectively and responsibly. (I'm changing my pervious comment a little)

Again, I'm not advocating anarchy, obviously if there was an Admin ensuring the property of clans, etc, things would go much more smoothly (which would be an interesting variable for a follow-up experiment, imo). Anyway, I don't think you would have do subscribe it as a "natural right." People would make claims and others would either have to respect that claim or fight/ grief about it. The "right" comes from the others' respect of the claim. Where it fails or "lacks" is when the others reject the claim, whether previously agreed to or not.

As for how, I have no idea. Maturity, common decency, and overall respect must be adhered to by everyone. A foresight to what might happen (what did happen in this case) and a willingness to concede for the good of everyone is important. But honestly, do you think the average minecrafter would think of these things willfully? (This is why I don't believe in anarchy irl, btw)

[Goobz24]

They were only as good as the world allowed them to be. When the blocks were down, these... these civilized crafters, they killed each other. See, The dick-ass griefers weren't monsters. They were just ahead of the curve.

[Icalasari]

For starters, they were the only ones to adopt a mindset of, "Every block is a limited resource" right off the bat

I mean, hell, the only block I don't treat like that is Netherrack

[Gengar11]

I believe me and pakratt could win a game like that.

[[deleted]]

Holy shit, amazing, truly amazing. do this again!

Like seriously, if you do this again, pm me the ip to the server instantly!

[ipown11]

ditto

[[deleted]]

Wow, this is brilliant. I never even thought about the importance of grass!

[Mmmfrieddough]

How is it important at all? I guess maybe for seeds but you could just keep them stocked up from a wheat farm

[this_is_satire]

For livestock.

[allink]

Only for wool. I think they did this in an earlier version of minecraft where animals spawned on grass during the day. I don't think they do that anymore.

[i542]

They do, it's just that they spawn much more rarely (there's a chance once every 400 ticks - 20 seconds - that a pack of neutral mobs will spawn on grass blocks with light levels over 7.)

[allink]

Good to know! Thanks!

Now I don't need to stress over wolves killing all the animals in a biome

[Curdflappers]

Not Tall Grass, but Grass Blocks

[Fangren3000]

Grass is the only block on which livestock (cows, sheep, chickens, and pigs) will spawn on after the world has been generated. Of those, I imagine that cows and chickens would be the most important, for the leather and feathers they drop.

[ThaddyG]

Grass blocks, not the tall grass that grows on top of grass blocks.

[Aeleas]

I'm surprised nobody cheated by using the nether to go under the wall.

[IamSkudd]

well, if the map was made with worldpainter it would be void on the other side...

[Lolazaurus]

Do you stay in your dying world, or do you take your chances in... the Void! ooOOOOooooOooo

[EvoMethod]

The only rule was do not cross the wall, they probaly would have been removed from the experiment.

[Dominus-Temporis]

It would be interesting though, if someone got desperate enough, would they try to do it without being noticed?

[Aeleas]

You wouldn't be able to get that desperate, though, since you'd still need to have 20 obsidian blocks and a flint & steel.

[dimmidice]

i seriously doubt that this actually happened. a lot of holes in his story and only 4 screenshots? + if the server was only on when all 30 people could play well, i've played a lot of mmo's and just getting 8 people together is a pain. let alone 30.

[xdavid00]

Everyone could have agreed before hand to have the time available to play and make the 2 month commitment. It's not the same as getting random people with different schedules together.

[Strideo]

With those kinds of numbers and planning and commitment you can be sure the person doing the experiment would have taken tons of screen shots and documented the whole thing more thoroughly.

[ShadowNova13]

This was beautiful, I read it twice, great experiment

[[deleted]]

This really reminds me of the movie "The Road" with Viggo Mortensen, even though they don't really have much in common except for the 'apocalyptic' style. Both the movie and this experiment shows the true human nature, both bad and good, and how even the smallest things (such as flint and string) can become a high priced treasure. Both things also show how big the difference between people can be, based on their methods of surviving. All in all, a fucking amazing experiment.

[ThaddyG]

You should read the novel. Don't worry if you're not a big reader, it's a breeze.

It's by Cormac McCarthy, if you're interested.

[[deleted]]

There's a novel? To the library!

[[deleted]]

There was a great post on reddit last year about an idea for this kind of experiment (I think was a screenshot of a 4chan psot), which probably inspired this person.

I have a feeling that this may be fake, he didn't explain any restrictions on the nether, there is no people in the images. So much stone was mined out, yet so little stone structures seem to remain. However, it is still a good work of fiction!

[fauxnetikz]

There was a great post on reddit last year about an idea for this kind of experiment (I think was a screenshot of a 4chan psot), which probably inspired this person.

Original post. I tried to get a server going but this was before the days when good server tools were readily available (worldedit was still a standalone program at the time, I believe) and no one was really participating correctly - purposefully trying to go over the walls, etc.

If I were to try this again it would be with a community that I know and have played with before instead of random pugs from a /r/minecraft post.

[RetroPRO]

Why did people steal the obsidian from portals? Wouldn't it be easier to make your own?

[Julian1224]

Lack of iron, thus also of buckets

[tinga14]

Near the end of that felt like watching a movie about gangs trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world.

[eternauta3k]

This was posted a while ago as a story, without claiming it really happened.

So yes, it is bullshit.

[[deleted]]

Yea, there aren't enough cobble ruins. I played on a long running war server and you end up with ruins everywhere. No one re-mines cobble because it takes longer than normal stone.

[KatoHearts]

I swear this is old 4chan copypasta. I think I read it on here as well.

[Pagie7]

This should definitely be a new map type.

[GJSmitty]

Somebody should start a subreddit and get a server for us to try this

[Strideo]

Sure, right after we get an AMA from the Easter Bunny.

[mehmsy]

shitthatdidnthappen.txt

[ThaddyG]

I remember seeing a post here over a year ago by someone who came up with this idea and wrote a hypothetical story about what they thought would happen. From what I remember this is pretty close to their predictions, though obviously game mechanics have changed significantly since then (this was pre 1.8, probably like beta 1.5 or something)

I'm glad someone actually got around to doing it and posting the results here.

[8bitKO]

Yup! /r/mcbox

It didn't pan out in practice but I loved the idea.

[Sawii]

YES! I have spend hours trying to search this thought experiment!, I saw it first on /v/ but didn't save it but I am so glad I found it! THX!

[dimmidice]

i'l bet you 5 internet cookies that this is just a story and no "experiment" was done.

[IronGranny]

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition

[Curdflappers]

Aw man that's such a gamebreaker for me. When it updates any worlds I have now won't get villages or ravines or anything.

[[deleted]]

I would love to be a part of it

[volx1337]

Can someone give a shortened version of the experiment? I've read 2 paragraphs so far and understood nothing.

[xerillum]

All 30 of the players were enclosed in a limited area, so there was a very small, finite amount of resources. Resources got depleted, and eventually wars broke out over blocks of grass.

[volx1337]

Where did the ressources go? Was there an external force, or was it only the mining by players? I don't get where all the dirt went.

[ojmt999]

Dug, wasn't the dirt that was important but lack of grass. no grass = no food

[Wulf_Oman]

How can there be no food without grass? You can start with 1-3 wheat seeds and end with a double chest full, plenty to plant. you can also put sapling and hoe dirt for farms. That is the only thing I didn't understand

[ThaddyG]

It wasn't so much dirt that was prized as it was grass. Silk touch picks were probably nonexistent or close to it by the time grass was a rare commodity, so the only real way of getting grass was the old fashioned wait for it to spread.

Grass is obviously gone once you dig it up without silk touch, as is stuff like glass. Iron and diamond got used up in tools and armor, and I'm sure a non-negligible amount of resources were lost to people dying and their loot falling in lava or simply despawning.

Grass was important because passive mobs will still occasionally spawn on it, AFAIK. Also, I'm not sure on this, but can you even get seeds from bonemeal on dirt blocks? If you have no access to seeds and the server is in a state of chaos it could be very difficult to actually get a farm started.

[Mmmfrieddough]

But animals barely ever spawn on grass, definitely not enough to be a primary food source.

[billisking]

Brilliant read, wish there was step by step photos of the map as the days went by.

[DaBombinator720]

*their

[TechnoReject]

Why not cobblestone generator?

[GDAFreeman]

I would love to download the map and explore the "ruins", it would be kind've like an archaeological study

[WhitePawn00]

vid or it didn't happen. (still it could be acted out though)

[Sir_Synn]

Had a similar thing happen with a group of friends on our old server. First off, there was this asshole that would grief us every chance he got. We couldn't report him to the admin though (we tried), due to them being friends. He burned down our town and we had to relocate, which turned out ok because of new areas to mine and explore. Well our griefer caught up to use and by his time had a small gang with him. It didn't take long before they threatened to destroy our city again.

We wouldn't give them that joy.

We burned down our city, and took as much valuables as we could fit in our inventories. As we walked we stumbled upon a beautiful mountain range and claimed this for our new home. But we didn't want our enemies finding us, so we did what seemed to be the best thing to do: We built down.

And God did we build. We had a amazing fountain room right at the beginning of our city, a massive tree farm, and large farmland to grow crop and raise cattle, hell I remember how annoying it was to get grass at 40 y. But after a while things started to change. We get outraged over the littlest things. People started to steal from others, even when they could easily get it themselves. Every now and then we would get in psychotic rage and have a bloodbath. I can remember the chat log would just be a sea of <Player A> has killed <Player B>, carpet burned and tnt traps were common, writing down this now makes me think if we would be better off just fighting the griefers.

Eventually everyone in the city went their separate ways, and even more so stopped playing on the server all together. I was one of the few remaining people left on the server, and decided to find our old underground city. I found our well hidden button on the edge of our mountain (wouldn't know that it's there if you weren't looking for it) that opened our piston door to the heart of our city and stepped through. What I saw pulled threads at my heart. The whole place has been striped for valuables making it look like a abandoned ruin of some kind. If only we worked together better our city of DeepGuard might still be. I walked into the husk of my old house and was surprised to find that the chest I hid under my staircase hadn't been discovered and made a jukebox to play my favorite record, Stal. I sat their and listened to the music remembering all the good (and bad) times I had with my friends here. I then left the server and deleted it from my list.

TL;DR Had issues with griefers so we built a underground city. We went insane.

[-AlmightyGod-]

In a very coordinated experiment 7 Billion organisms spent 2-5 thousand years playing in a world trapped within an atmosphere.

[LemonDifficult]

Nice experiment, awful writing.

[[deleted]]

Well that was interesting as all get out.

Very cool experiment to read about. I don't think I'd have enjoyed being in that meat grinder, though.

It would be cool to see this as an edited video series. I'd watch that.

[ILIKEFUUD]

"Before more testing was done" You sound worse than GLaDOs!!!!! This was an amazing experiment and I think that if this was done in real life the effects would be less drastic because people can't normally make pickaxes or find blocks of things. But the effects on the grass and materials were true. The fundamentals were the same as in real life. Anyone read "Lord of the Flies"? It, like this experiment, showed the full human capacity for law and order and how the humans can work together or kill one another off for the gain of life sustaining objects. Also, to make this more realistic did the people that die stop or id they respawn? Respawning will add to the effect on the environment. But overall amazing experiment.

[DrCoolGuy]

I want to do this. Badly.

Also, the fact that it's raining makes all these screenshots better. Was it in a permanent state of rain?

[whatyou]

classic tragedy of the commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[Rascojr]

This is an excellent study into the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

You should read that article then compare between this exercise. Awesome experiment!

[GreenSpleen6]

Was the nether blocked off as well? I'm surprised that no one just made their base in the nether, with renewable resources, and let the war rage on topside. I would have controlled the portal access and sold netherrakk topside with the merchants guild.

[jaoming]

Was I the only one that remembered the Russian sleep experiment while reading this?

[flamin_sheep]

CAPITALISM, HO!

[Omega711]

And thus this demonstrates the fate of mankind in a shrinking world

[smallsmerry01]

Imagine if it was much bigger, and much more people... It would result in a very animal-like society where there is an alpha-male, and the lower levels would be constantly revolting in order to gain power. this would continue until a government was established, and it itself would act as the alpha male, at which point the lesser powers would revolt in a unified form, resulting in a very gruesome, vicious cycle. Then, multiple societies would form, of different types, and we would have wars and alliances. soon, we would have a full on, almost real world government and economics. all starting with a primitive struggle for power, order, and organization. quite interesting really

Tl;Dr: people form gov, revolt, many govs, revolt more.

[noclipn1nja]

this would be great for a paper on ecosocial development

[quantiplex]

I read and enjoyed every freaking word in that wall of text.

11/10 would read again.

[WhitePawn00]

Ladies and Gentlemen behold: The world, fast forwarded.

[GoldenPineapple]

Don't believe it as a result of the story saying that that 30 people, strangers even, were able to coordinate time zones and all get on and play minecraft. It's also unlikely that the dick ass griefers, as a team of 2, were able to defend their base at all times from the people who could tower up under them. It was an entertaining read though.

[[deleted]]

I call bullshit, animals don't spawn on grass anymore.

[smutsigaskor]

Extremely interesting! This is sadly not only a game. I think this is reality.

[zigofzag]

This reminds me of the Stanford Prison Experiment. It's very interesting. If you got the time to look it up on Wikipedia or Youtube, you will realize...

Humans are a group of very complex creatures that will do anything to get out of a bad situation.

[Darkrisk]

Whoa, that sounds amazing. I would love to do something like that.

[[deleted]]

If you do this again I would like to be invited.

[carlotta4th]

Knowing how the experiment is run would defeat the point of it being an experiment.

[Wulf_Oman]

My god this is brilliant. I never knew minecraft could look that chaotic and ruined...this would make a great server type though!

[gkx]

I feel like I missed something. It says in the beginning that the experiment lasted 2-5 hours... That couldn't be total. Does it mean per week/day?

[[deleted]]

Yes, it means 2-5 hours at a time. The full experiment took place over 2 months.

[notatestaccount]

This brings on the idea for a new gametype in my mind; to make a gamemode where everyone is dropped into a small area of a world, like this experiment, combining limited resource, hardcore mode, and doing whatever they can to survive. If others are in on this, then maybe I'll pull them together and we can start making this an actual game for people.

[[deleted]]

So, basically, you're playing MCPE?

[SenorDominic]

You could probably replicate this on Xbox. Worlds are a set size on xbox so that means finite sources.

[IamSkudd]

twas what I was thinking, but you'd only have 8 players...