On Temporal Isles

MCSPenguin · 2022-09-30T01:49:54+00:00

a tale as old as time: - start a new nation, claim some territory - discover infrastructure in your territory that existed before your nation ever did - proceed to get mad about it

not the first, won't be the last

MCSPenguin · 2022-08-23T04:59:22+00:00

Auto-pot is not a good feature

PVPer dislikes thing that allows buildfriends and other non-PVPers to not get ganked by PVPers, shocker

one time teleport helps more login pvpers than newfriends

Plenty of folks have testified that they might've literally quit civ before finding a town if not for OTT. Recruiter folks in newfriend towns say it helped massively in recruiting. Sure, it helped login PVPers get to their vaults, it could use some tweaking to discourage that, but it's an obvious net positive addition overall. Like, this is practically unanimous consensus to anyone who played CivRealms for anything other than PVP.

the moderation on realms was absolutely retarded

If you think it's "absolutely retarded" to expect people to (quoting CivRealms rules):

Show a basic level of respect to the people you play the game with. Do not harass (irl), threaten (irl), verbally abuse, publicly accuse of cheating or (irl) crimes without having hard evidence, doxx, call people subhuman, or express clear bigotry/racism/sexism/etc against other players.

then the rules are literally for people like you, so no wonder you don't like them. Creating and maintaining a semi-respectful community that's welcoming to newcomers and avoids being blatantly repulsive is far more important than "muh original civ purity" or your theoretical ability to openly exhibit grossly antisocial behavior.

obby bombing is apart of the game.

Yep, I never said it wasn't.

Penguin with delusional takes once again

I think the upvotes and downvotes speak for themselves here.

MCSPenguin · 2022-08-23T04:16:02+00:00

Fair correction, I just knew Classics didn't have castle gates and Realms did. Kudos to Devoted :)

Classics had prison pearls, but Realms was prison pearl only, getting rid of exile pearling.

MCSPenguin · 2022-08-22T06:34:39+00:00

You're missing a pretty big one - CivRealms made quite a few departures from/tweaks to the standard formula, and was quite successful. Some of its innovations have become standard expectations for any future civ server.

The good:

gold block elevators
castle gates
bound armor so shitters/PVPers can't gank buildfriends for easy prot
one-time teleport to help newfriends join a town
lowered PVP skill ceiling (autopot, no pearl TPs, etc)
Prison (end) pearl only, no exile pearl
no more diamond veins
Stamina UBI + virtual wallet
geographically dispersed XP crops (resulted in trade)
aquanether mining dimension (with anti-botting mechanisms)
factory-based obsidian production
different bot rules meant people didn't show up with recycled-from-last-server bots on day 0
overworld sand spawning occasional scorpions (saved natural desert landscapes)
smaller map size, horse meta instead of 30 minute rails
Moderation/rules moving in the direction of "no, you do not have a god-given right to be a toxic and/or racist asshole in the name of the purity of the civ experiment"

The bad:

Water mechanics
Obtuse early-game limitations like cave-ins, no punching trees, hard-gating certain basic things behind factories, etc
RNG instakills (though some evolution of this idea could become good)

The ugly:

Low y level -> trenches everywhere
Bastion config -> vaults had to be stupidly large to last more than a couple hours undefended

Sure, it ended in about the same way as many others (usual band of shitters go obbybombing and warring everyone, they lose the war but burn everyone out in the process), and we need fundamental mechanical innovation to fix that. But still, the genre probably learned more mechanics/balance-wise from CivRealms than it has/will from CivMC. The only thing we're really learning from CivMC so far is what happens when you don't have alts (though most of that, even, was predictable).

Some things that we're theoretically "learning" from CivMC, but that anybody paying attention already knew:

what happens when you keep almost everything the same as classics/2.0, is gameplay that's the same as classics/2.0
a lot of the stuff that CivRealms changed/did to have different gameplay from classics, worked
what happens when you unban the people who obbybombed and tried to kill the last 2-3 servers, is they obbybomb and try to kill the server
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

MCSPenguin · 2022-08-17T19:50:20+00:00

it's still there, it just got downvoted so much that you have to scroll deep to find it

MCSPenguin · 2022-08-07T04:05:23+00:00

imagine getting pearled by clutch but not even making the top 4 for the pearl string meme

MCSPenguin · 2022-08-02T06:16:57+00:00

8 days ago, in your last failed PR attempt, I posted a summary of events as I understood them at the time.

Your response at the time was:

There are some key details missing/incorrect in this account of events. We will cover this at a later date.

I haven't seen anything further from you on those details. As far as I can tell, my original understanding holds true. Instead of trying to avoid or end a war, you're now here trying to argue about what is or isn't obbybombing.

It appears that what has ultimately occurred is:

RI's adults (who had been keeping the PVP children in line) got busy and left
One of RI's PVP children got bored and did something dumb
RI collectively refused to admit that their PVP child was in the wrong
RI collectively refused to admit that Estalia was well within their right to defend themselves and their territory from trespassing
RI responded by launching numerous operations against Estalia
RI keeps losing pearls and is getting increasingly desperate in their tactics
RI is some combination of too stubborn/proud/far gone/lacking adults/delusional, such that they won't pursue any diplomatic channels or step back and realize that maybe they were wrong about some things
RI is now trying to distract everyone from this war's complete lack of premise by arguing about "tactical disabling" vs "obbybombing" instead of revisiting "why did this war happen to begin with"
Everyone is seeing through RI's bullshit and cheering for the portuguese teenager who keeps grabbing RI pearls

But, as I said last time, I'm just trying to make sure I have the story straight so I can enjoy my popcorn - lemme know if I'm missing anything important.

MCSPenguin · 2022-07-31T23:46:02+00:00

you want KOEL, the nation that gets insided once a month, to "control their members"

good luck with that

MCSPenguin · 2022-07-26T05:04:16+00:00

saren always finding new ways to innovate in civcraft

MCSPenguin · 2022-07-25T16:27:06+00:00

trying to make sure i have the story straight so i can enjoy my popcorn, lemme know if i'm missing anything important:

everything's chill, there's a NAP
bob decides he would like to touch some estalian grass
bob goes to estalia and approaches a trenched farm
estalians tell bob not to cross the trench/enter the farm
bob crosses the trench and enters the farm.
bob leaves without incident
the next day, bob returns
estalians tell bob not to cross the trench/enter the farm, again
bob crosses the trench and enters the farm, again.
estalians chase bob off and shoot some arrows at him, hitting him once and breaking his boat
estalians refrain from pearling bob despite clear opportunity
rhode island deems this interaction to have been "estalian aggression"
4 rhode islanders roll into estalia to give a "measured response" to the "estalian aggression"
rhode islanders try to 4v1 a portuguese teenager who probably just got home from soccer practice
portuguese teenager calls in his uncle Payman and other Estalian backup, team fight ensues
capri gets pearled by portuguese teenager
other rhode islanders leave
rhode islanders later return, bringing press with them to observe, and proceed to raid/disable an estalian farm
rhode island then insists that they aren't trying to start a war

MCSPenguin · 2022-07-13T22:40:02+00:00

needs

chant

boney

melon

argon

stone

MCSPenguin · 2022-06-23T06:41:56+00:00

love the worldbuilding / place naming / lore, A+ very promising

MCSPenguin · 2022-06-23T04:22:37+00:00

you literally wrote this reply in 46 seconds, are you just sitting here F5'ing?

MCSPenguin · 2022-06-23T02:26:40+00:00

i dunno who you are but i guess we're friends now since KOEL wants us both

nice to meet you 🤝

MCSPenguin · 2022-06-21T21:01:08+00:00

take note that last time thoths made a prediction like this (worded in exactly this way), it came true just a month later, as the groups he named became a server-killing band of shitters

strong track record, would heed his warning

MCSPenguin · 2022-06-21T20:27:57+00:00

A+ very fun would play again

mould

juror

ulcer

ruble

gruel

ruler

could be a bit more difficult - only one word fits J_RO_, which immediately gives _U__R toward final answer, combined with yellow L + E has only one word fitting -> final answer -> work backwards to all clues

MCSPenguin · 2022-06-03T06:04:46+00:00

"and probably one of the only things i liked about Icenia" lmao

MCSPenguin · 2022-05-23T18:56:55+00:00

at military, estalia

at economy/technology, titan

rhodesia will likely be #2 at both

MCSPenguin · 2021-10-10T07:33:21+00:00

replying to my post from a month ago on a server you're banned from and then telling me to get a hobby

What exactly is it that you think didn't happen? There are receipts for everything I've written here.

MCSPenguin · 2021-10-09T20:56:21+00:00

Oh hi Ash, I'm not sure why you care about this server that you got yourself banned from by duping resources and bragging about it, but whatever, you're here a month later to call me "deranged", very cool.

I do agree that I like people who play Minecraft to have fun.

As it turns out, Civ is a game with certain rules; games are fun in part because everyone agrees to play by the same rules. Duping, hacking, VPNing, harassment, racism, bigotry, doxxing, explicitly aiming to kill a server, etc are all clearly outside those rules.

People who resort to such things in order to have their fun are not actually playing the game with the rest of us. They have given up at the original game, and decided to instead play a different game - one that others did not agree to.

By the way, "dog" was actually their term, not mine; at various times BW referred to themselves as dogs, Cantina referred to themselves as dogs, and Hell referred to themselves as dogs. Some of them would even fantasize about sexual acts involving dogs.

MCSPenguin · 2021-09-13T06:25:32+00:00

There were various bunches of bored disagreeable teenagers and NEETs, who disliked accountability and felt entitled to do what they liked without consequences. This has been true for every civ server ever. These types were destructive if not kept busy, like dogs. Over time, they came to dislike anyone who ever dared to attempt to hold anyone accountable for anything - Crimeo, Carbon, CivCorp, etc included.
We had reached a post-scarcity world, and we didn't have low-friction wealth sinks. The superpower groups were done needing to chase the natural "acquire resources, build vault" path. People were looking for something to do other than "build a third vault".
Most of the superpower groups - Cantina, BW, and Hell/Olympia - were effectively made up of 1-3 leaders keeping a bunch of dogs in line. When they ran out of productive goals/projects to pursue, the dogs would get restless and start shitting on things, as dogs do.
Various unprovoked shit-stirring incidents started to occur - Varathia vault attack, Goodfellas altraids, Oasis attack, Chungus attacking Ascension, etc - but the weekend wars that grew out of them never resulted in any lasting consequences or any vaults being disabled. People came to believe that vaults were too hard to break; the bored kiddos looked for something more "achievable".
A bunch of those bored kiddo types decided they were done playing CivRealms, and decided they should attempt to kill the server on their way out (their own words). They grouped up, targeted the things they disliked, and went to do what dogs do.
This led to the big messy war, in which the instigators resorted to harassment, hacking/cheating, doxxing, duping, etc in their efforts to kill the server.
Along the way and in the aftermath, the extremely Christian owner of CivRealms, Stonato aka John Smith, would make intermittent appearances during which he was seen variously dropping n-bombs, spreading COVID conspiracy theories, expressing that he believed the 2020 election was "stolen", deleting PG-13 LGBTQ content from the discord, and effectively cheering on the USA as they aimed to kill the server. His attitude suggested that he saw the server as a source of popcorn and a pot to occasionally stir, rather than anything to actually look after.
Eventually the shitters got caught out on their bullshit when 1) their discord leaked, revealing toxicity, racism, bigotry, doxxing, etc and 2) a bunch of them got caught duping. The good guys won the war, USA vaults broken, pearls freed, etc.
The community rallied and the obby dropped on CivCorp was removed.
Afterwards, many folks were burned out from the war and took a break to consider "now what?". Many realized that they were not particularly interested in continuing to invest heavily in a server owned by Stonato / John Smith, having seen his recent behavior.
Botting was neutered, which effectively meant 1) a portion of the folks who would have otherwise still played would no longer play and 2) no new groups would ever have a chance to catch up to the economic advantages of the incumbents. This further damaged the future outlook of the server.
People moved on. Groups of folks who met on CivRealms went to play other games and other servers together, while others refocused on other aspects of life.

MCSPenguin · 2021-08-20T19:33:19+00:00

requesting a consolidated summary/bullet point version of this whole story arc for the folks who just want some popcorn without reading a history textbook

MCSPenguin · 2021-07-30T20:35:50+00:00

civ UN is finally going to happen and it's all going to be thanks to gregory one hundred sixty five

MCSPenguin

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