The tail end of beta was hard mode GregTech starting (everything needed steel so you'd have gone through GT bronze age before you could get into IC2/TE) and no vendors. It was challenging but rewarding since once you got RTGs and Reactors you were finally able to "function". It felt good. Then we went live with steel required turned off, vendors with everything and reactors disabled because they were broken entirely by IC2 and RTGs disabled as well. Compound that with GregTech getting more and more tedious, slow loading, invasive and bloated with every update and you get where we are.
Bitching at the MPT in this situation is not only wrong, but dishonest. If you want to change things, join the MPT. If you don't, then don't complain.
I would make some comments on that list, but they would just end up insulting one or more people in some way. While I would love to disagree with you on this, I can't. Initial 1.6 was a mess.
Game balancing is hard. Like, really hard. Because it requires a complete understanding of all the systems in the game, and how they interact. When you are working with new versions for 30 different mods, it's very difficult to be aware of all the changes each one makes, and how that will interact with every other system. All it took to destabilize this map was a couple people not being aware of the changes to Gendustry, and a couple others not realizing the effect of so much being sold at spawn. I am never going to blame someone for poor game balance when so much of the system is external to the devs, and so poorly documented. It's not like mods come with resource flowcharts you can just skim to see how easy it is to acquire. My point is that blaming anyone for the balance issues is stupid. Instead, discuss solutions for the future. Solutions like 'I will create a resource overview for every mod so we can see how easy it is' or 'I volunteer to edit the mod configs to improve interactions'.
Well shit happens, no harm no foul. All you can do is learn from your mistakes. To be honest, I would love to say that it might have been different if I was still on the MPT; But it probably wouldn't have been
1.5 did it was never used partly because Buttons was gone, and glitch didn't want to do it without some form of currency. Point is this bazaar is not the first one in spawn. @Kylania maybe lazy was the wrong word to describe the current situation with the mod pack, and it's been said before if it was not for Gendustry this mod pack would generally be as good as the previous ones. Also I'm guessing that the reason hard mode was disabled is because the majority of people don't want to be forced to play GregTech. One of SK's sticking points for not restarting vincent was that you could play on Alice and simply not use the mods. However, as I said before; When you need a plate bender and a lathe to make a file, which you need to make chiseled stone that's the line. I don't really think Alice can be called an Industrial Server when you have mods like Thaumcraft and DecoCraft. As for the venders I think they were added to fill up spawn so that i wasn't so empty which is good, however the price of the items was just too cheap.
Wut Cromy, there's more wrong with balancing than just Gendustry. Pay attention to the discussion, please. As to items at spawn being cheap... they're a static price and not adjusted very often. As such, what is expensive at the beginning of the server rapidly becomes cheap, regardless of the price, and is therefore exploited. They need to not be available for sale.
We had bazaars in spawn back in vanilla -- in both Summerhold and Welwyn. I'm sure @MyrddinE remembers, especially as he had an utterly massive mall. The main bazaar area was entirely player built and no resources were spawned in. However, gretar, I, and few others did the planning and enforced style guidelines, so it looked considerably better than 1.4's Bazaar (in my opinion, at least). Alice is not meant to be an industrial server, specifically. It's supposed to be an all-around server. If you like to build, then we provide as many stable build/decoration mods as possible. If you like building factories, then we provide a balanced set of tech mods. If you like adventure, then we try to add adventure/exploration mods (though these tend to be lacking). If you like to mine, then we try to make it as fun as possible. I personally don't think that many people enjoy hard mode. The only people that really get into it already know the mods pretty well, so it's just them that enjoy it, but even then, it just becomes busy work to complete as many recipes as you can. Everyone else who does not know the mods as well, who does not want to deal with all the tedium, and/or does not have time to figure it out, lose out. On Alice 1.4, Jon, Pyro, and I set up the shops to fit the needs of the server at that point in time, and only after the map had been up for a few weeks/months. This time around, we pretty much stole all the shops from 1.4 (they are literally the same shops), with possibly even cheaper prices. While there were people that were somewhat responsible for checking all of that, I don't think much of that happened at all. Even for the shops where the prices were checked, they ended up being wildly cheap.
How soon before we can expect some definitive information regarding a reset? I'd like to know whether one is coming or not before I expend more effort on a base that could vanish shortly...
I'm sorry Kirazy, I'll be sure to re list the reasons from the three ring cirucs of threads that have been active on this one issue every time I make a post. items in spawn, over-powered pickaxes, automated resource gathering (laser drills and quarries. I wont list farms because you can automate crops with vanilla mechanics), and Gendustry. Did I get them all? I might not be paying attention.
On the subject of a reset, I don't think there should be a reset until the end of March or so. There's still a lot of people making things and many would be upset and leave for a while if we had the reset in the next few weeks. It wouldn't be fun to have the second 1.6 map be a dead map.
. . . . The whole point of a reset is that it happens sooner rather then later. Postponing it won't do jack-shit, if anything it'll make it worse because people will stop playing until the such time that the map is reset. Regardless, the map'll never be "dead", since there will always be people playing whether it be new players or old players.
The main issue in this state is that if you guys decide to reset the map its a double edged sword in regards of timing. On one hand, you will want to be careful and thorough with balancing, on the other, people will cease to play largely until the reset is done, so its better to happen sooner rather then later.
Sooner the better. Already many have stopped playing since they assume a reset is imminent. Others aren't starting anything and just idling since they believe the same. Mornings usually have 20-30 people on. This morning there was 9.
Maybe it's testing time for some people? I don't know there are 28 people on as of this post, but I gotta say the server feels dead. If we're keeping buildings I'd like to know so I can keep working on my base or if I should just wait and start from scratch on reset.
Ever hear the story of the tortoise and the hare? Fastest is in most cases the worst approach. In this case since we have already made a major mess of 1.6 this time we want to get it right. Fair enough it should be done promptly but we want it to be as close to perfect as we can! This is our chance to make it up to the community.
