fergie

Nah don't be silly, our Teamspeak conversations rarely involve any mention of computer games, they're more like a collection of words and phrases randomly picked from a party hat by a blind scholar, they are then bashed together with a hammer to fit like a jigsaw with pieces of other jigsaws in it, we then pass the result through a brothel for added innuendo and expand on the conversation by cock slapping random pages in Haynes car manuals, old novels, and the Argos catalogue. It's all very interesting really.

I'm on holiday from today (22/06/2012) 'til next Saturday (30/06/2012) and will probably be back online on the Sunday (01/07/2012). Posting that here 'cause there are a few things that I'd like to get sorted! This sounds like work (and it is) but if we can clear this up in one big "meeting" then we can start on a lot of things.
The plan is to have this "meeting" in the Private Chat room on TeamSpeak on Sunday 1st July at 16:00 GMT. This isn't a secret; Private Chat just helps us stay on topic. If you want to be involved in the meeting please express your interest below or let me or any of the staff know on TeamSpeak before it starts. You can openly discuss this with any and all members and are encouraged to do so. Listen to what people's opinions are and share them with the rest of the community. This is about listening to the community and all pitching in on what we think is best.
Here are a few bullet points - it'd be great if you could think about them, share them with those who are interested and get ready to shout points at me in the meeting.

Minecraft
Criteria for (Consider time requirement? Clean record? Activity?):
Creators
Architects
Staff

[*]VIP Privileges
[*]Building

Full access to all materials on Creative world?
Application / Approval Process?
Must they supply a form?
Is lore required?
Will the project be built before being approved?
Build in Creative world and move to RP world?





[*]Systems

Hub
Is it used / needed at all? (If not, do we need anything of the sort?)
File Sharing - Do we just need this functionality?
What could we use it for? (Building Applications?)
Won't users simply be more comfortable using the forums?
It's unclear what it is for from both the staff and user point of view

[*]Wiki

Minecraft only?
How will it be managed? Have specific ranks for those who can create pages?
Who can edit pages?
What do we need it for?

[*]Forums

Is there anything wrong with them?
What can be improved / added?
Is there anything missing you feel is vital?

[*]Introduction of New Systems

Downloads? (Wallpapers, soundtracks, podcasts etc)
Podcasts (How will we integrate these into the site?)
Video (Is it best keeping our presence on YouTube?)



[*]Dedicated Server

Is it viable?
What will immediately run on it?
TeamSpeak 3
Minecraft
ArmA II / III

[*]Who will run it?
[*]OS

Windows Server 2003 / 2008 R2
Ubuntu Linux

[*]Is it worth purchasing now or later?
[*]Can we sustain it with donations?


[*]Aims

What should we aim to achieve?
What are we doing well right now?
What are we doing really (really (really)) shitly?
Is there anything we're not doing you feel we should be doing?
Social Media
Activity
Video





You are free and encouraged to add to this list items which you think are relevant, though they will be discussed after all of the above.
Remember, the meeting is in the Private Chat room on TeamSpeak on Sunday 1st July at 16:00 GMT!
See you all in a week.

There have been increasing enquiries as to exactly what on Earth is going on with our carefully-controlled RP Minecraft server Ahoy Minecraft! This will hopefully serve to let you all know what's happening, what we've been planning, what we've decided on and how all of this has affected and will affect you in the present and future. So let's kick off with the basics. Where have we been?
[h2]So everyone disappeared?[/h2]
Yes, a few of us did. Why? Other parts of Ahoy World and life.
The plan for Ahoy World is to be bigger and better than it is right now. Bigger, however, does not equal better, so there are a few changes and tweaks that have to be made along the way to ensure everything goes smoothly. It's mainly those changes and tweaks that we've been focusing on for the past few weeks and, though they took some time, we're confident that it will've be worth it.
[h2]What did you do?[/h2]
Planning, organising and setting things straight. Oh and a new logo too.
Especially in terms of the Minecraft RP world, everything was a mess. None of us had any illusions that the project wouldn't be a hard one, but I for one didn't realise until much later that we were only increasing the workload for ourselves by plodding on with a number of tasks and decisions that were made, to put it simply, wrongly. Some harsh decisions needed to be made with some time to think, without making constant knee-jerk reactions that, if left to continue, wouldn't produce the output that many of us have been working towards.
Other than Minecraft, we've been making plans for how to turn Ahoy World into a larger, all-inclusive community. Though you might not want to be involved in other decks of the Ahoy World ship (such as our World of Warcraft guild and ArmA II Squadron), it's important to recognise that they are there and need just as much attention as anything else. Minecraft is our priority, as that currently contains our largest active member and donation count, but the other parts need a little bit of care.
In regards to the logo, you'll be able to see it up top right now. Simple, on-topic and elegant. A masterpiece. Thanks to Dom for preliminary designs and @Fergus for the final creation, including an absolutely bad-ass animation that we'll put on the front of all of our videos. If you want to see it early, get in touch.
[h2]What decisions have been made?[/h2]
Firstly, the Minecraft server now has two worlds: the RP world and the Creative world. If you didn't know that fact, you'll be on the Creative world. The one we've all been building on for the past few months? That's now the Creative world. The reason for this was the messiness. The world was covered in structures that we just didn't want. With them being over ground, flying and underground it would've been near impossible to build the tightly-controlled RP world we wanted without having to painstakingly remove hundreds of embedded structures to another world.
The new RP world has been generated from the old world's seed, so contains much of the same landscapes as the old one. When we fully start the project, agreed buildings will be WorldEdited into the new RP world from the Creative world. This is how ALL structures will be created from now on: you build it in the Creative world, it gets approved and is moved to the RP world.
Secondly, we're branching out and four major additions are coming.
First, we're starting a weekly podcast in the near future. We'll go through recent news (in gaming, Ahoy World and our own lives) and a few interesting topics every week that'll be sure to have us all laughing. If you're interested in any way, be it taking part, how it'll work or who's currently involved, contact either me or @Fergus!
Next, plans are in place for our World of Warcraft guild to merge with another, bringing the two communities together and potentially doubling our userbase. The Guild Master of the other guild, currently named Runes of Valhalla, has been on the site for a while (say "Hi" Carl!) and plans are in place to start streaming the members over to Ahoy World shortly.
After that, much more YouTube content. We currently have a channel with ~250 subscribers that barely gets touched. There's a few videos on there but the plan is to have much more regular content being pumped into it. Once again, if you're interested in this in any way, get in touch. We're looking for people who want a little more responsibility around the place. If that's you, tell us.
Finally, a dedicated server.
[h2]A Dedicated Server?![/h2]
Yep.
Currently, our 1.5GB Minecraft Server and our 40-slot TeamSpeak server run on a single £20 monthly bill. Once we start expanding, the plan is to attain a dedicated server for ~£80/month. This will give us 8GB RAM to play with (4GB of which will go straight to the Minecraft server), a quad-core processor and an unlimited bandwidth usage. We can slap a 256-slot non-profit TeamSpeak server on there and have everything running from there. With root access, we can put up any game server we like, be it ArmA III, Battlefield 3, Race 07 or any number of others.
[h2]So there it is.[/h2]
That's the plan. That's what we've been doing and that's what we're going to do. If you want to get involved, message me and we'll discuss what you want to do. A lot of us have big plans for this place and have put a lot of work into getting it ready for those plans to commence. Take the opportunity now and help out: we're headed to the top!

With recent additions, AhoyCoin's become a little bigger and a lot more complicated. I'm looking for people to help with code (even if it's just your input on how to add features / how to make the code more efficient), provide suggestions, report bugs and test, test, test. If you're immediately interested, make sure you're registered over at GitHub and give me your username. The project will be managed from there.
Main source code can be found at https://github.com/Ahoy-World/AhoyCoin/tree/master/src/uk/co/ahoyworld
If you're at all interested in AhoyCoin I encourage you to register your interest in this thread. It's just entered beta and I need a userbase to start testing it as much as possible. Do ridiculous things with it. I want you to try and break it. If it survives a multitude of mad-men purposefully attempting to break the system, it should be fine in any other situation.
For those of you who aren't yet aware of what AhoyCoin is for and how we use it, here's the low-down.
What is AhoyCoin?
AhoyCoin is an in-house plugin developed to work alongside iConomy, allowing our playerbase to buy and sell items to and from a collection of 'towns' throughout the Minecraft world. Prices are managed dynamically through town tax rates, tax on specific items and specifically-set prices for that extra little bit of control.
To make the plugin even more like a true economy, prices are affected by stock levels for that town, which rise and fall as players buy and sell as well as scheduled deliveries that replenish stock, individually set for each item.
What does it mean for the player?
Using AhoyCoin, the player will have access to items in an ever-changing economy. Dynamic supply and demand means that a smart trader can take advantage of certain situations and, through sometimes travelling huge distances, are able make a pretty profit if they do it right.
To see the price of an item, simply punch the sign! You'll receive a message along the lines of "Buy 4 Apples from Drammar for 50 Gold?" and all you have to do to confirm the purchase is right-click! If you'd like to sell, simply punch the sign a second time. You'll be given a quote for the selling price and can, once again, confirm by right-clicking!
What does it mean for creators?
Shops are often a pain to create and, in other addons, require linking chests and even using redstone! With AhoyCoin, it's easy. Simply make a sign with the following information:

1st Line: [Vendor]
2nd Line: Town Name
3rd Line: Item Name
4th Line: Quantity[/CODE]
For example:

[CODE][Vendor]
Drammar
Bucket
1[/CODE]
Punch the sign, it'll confirm the details and you're done! Players can now buy and sell buckets using that sign and stock and pricing will be automatically managed for you!
[size=4][b]What else does AhoyCoin do?[/b][/size]
Regardless of whether or not you actually want to know the answer to that question, you're about to find out.
[b][size=3]Projects[/size][/b]
AhoyCoin also manages what we're calling 'Projects'. While this may later be moved into a seperate plugin, right now it's being managed under the AhoyCoin umbrella. So Projects are more-or-less global quests that the whole server can get behind and work towards. They're structures or improvements that cannot be built unless a certain resource and/or money requirement is met.
As an example, imagine that Drammar has a small wood chopping station. It only has a maximum stock of 20 and replenishes just 5 wood every 3 days. Using Projects, however, a creator sign could be placed proposing a new Lumber Mill to be built. One sign is placed for each resource needed, stating the project's name and the quantity of the resource needed. Players can 'donate' resources and money to each sign, contributing towards the Lumber Mill. When all the resource requirements have been met, the Lumber Mill will be built and Drammar will now have a maximum wood stock of 50, replenishing 15 wood every day.
Using this method, players can improve towns that they make their home, allowing for a greater feeling of belonging and contribution to the community as a whole.
Aside from the obvious benefits of better shops, however, the advantages of donating resources and money is still somewhat limited. Do you have an idea for how we could reward players who donate? Maybe they receive a discount of 5 or 10% when shopping at that particular Lumber Mill?
That's all for now. However, as I said, if you have any suggestions or are interested in testing and using AhoyCoin and/or its Projects feature, please get in touch by either registering your interest in this thread or PMing me.
Hope to hear from y'all soon.

Hmm an Introduction well I'm mortama or morty if you wish and for those in RL well its Ryan
I'm a huge rpg fan!! final fantasy is my main game and i used 6years of my life up in FF11 so yes im googable "Mortama" lol.
I'm quite the crafter myself I'm not nearly as skilled as i wish i could be in minecraft but my ideas are grand and I hope my talent will grow to fulfill my imagination!
Right thats enough about me im off to craft!

The server is now up to a stable level. Permissions are working fine, everyone's (from what I can tell) pretty happy with what they can do and we'll be trickling in mods such as WorldEdit and the like in the near future. But there's a game plan - a sustainable end result that's not only enjoyable for creators and survivors alike but should serve to provide exponentially growing entertainment. Here's what we're going to be working towards.
Stage 1



The Idea


Our little world is already full of incredible constructions, from the winter villages in the south to Hogwarts in the north and the sprawling underground metro stretching across the map, there's already a lot of places to go. WorldGuard will soon be introduced, allowing players to control their own segments of the map and assigning build permissions to only those they feel are worthy. You preserve your creations so that others may use them.
The principal is to introduce survival into the mix, using the already-built constructions as safe havens and places to rest and stock up on resources. If you have a castle, think about putting beds there so travellers can sleep, and providing them with farmland and crops to survive. Make your buildings accessible. They may be difficult to find (or maybe even monster-ridden, dead cities with great treasures hidden away), but finding ways rewards them. Maybe a hard-to-find mountain path or an underground tunnel. Be creative and make an experience for the survivors.

Stage 2



Who does what?


Creators will create and survivors will survive. All regulars will have the choice of switching between creative and survival; it is only ordinary players that will be locked to survival. Server settings will mean that there will be more monsters than usual and said monsters will be a lot more vicious. If you, the current regular players, think this is a good idea, there will be a few ethical ground rules. No giving survival players hundreds of pieces of steak, for example. The idea is for them to survive and for their survival to be hard, not for you to impress them with your flying abilities.
Ordinary players can, of course, become creators if seen fit. If they like creating more than they like surviving, that's fine. We'll make them a builder and they can create all they like, making the world even better for the survivors.

Stage 3



What needs doing?


We're already very close to being able to implement this system. All that's needed in a well-managed WorldGuard system and the permissions tweaking and it's done. It's then the extras we can start to worry about.
If it's supposed to be hard to survive, we have to make it harder than Minecraft is by default. As mentioned above, the number and ferocity of the monsters will be increased, but there are other variables to consider. Money, for example.
The recently-implemented metro system provides fast travel to the most significant structures in the world. Let's think of these as cities. Cities could be exciting places where a traveller could purchase weapons, armour and materials. Maybe they could buy seeds to grow on their own farmland, or better materials for defence. Minerals such as diamonds will be hard for the travellers to attain due to the increased amount of monsters, so we will apply significant value to those materials.
Outside of the city, a traveller could strive to make more money to further their homestead. Materials from monsters are highly valuable but dangerous to attain. If everything had a value, we could start implementing a full-scale trading system. A survivor may hear that a village a long travel out of a safe haven may be selling Iron Ingots for a stupidly low price. They've struck a huge vein and can afford to sell it cheap. If the survivor dares to traverse the landscape and find the village, he can buy low and head back to a city to sell high, or simply use the materials for himself.

Stage 4



Your Ideas


Thinking about a project like this gets me really excited about the possibilites. We have a great team of highly skilled builders in this community and could easily create an immersive, interesting world. You can control eco-systems, trading, create dungeons and abandoned towns and villages as well as grand castles that are safe from the outside world.
Chime in with all the ideas you have and whether you think we should go ahead with this plan. If it's a yes, I can't wait to get started.

...Oh, Nobody knows who he is? Correction: This man needs and introduction.
Shall I tell you that he once killed a leopard with his toenail clippings, or that antelope find him quite attractive?
NO OF COURSE NOT! That would be a lie, and lying is bad, everything that has the sound lie in it is bad! Lions, ligers... lionesses. It's either that they are big cats or liars, both are evil.
What I can tell you is that he once logged into facebook using both his face and a book, and can log into steam using a kettle. When he saw the title of this website he stood up and shouted it like a ships captain greeting the miserable looking land peasants and other erchins that he has the displeasure of having to stomp over to get to his lunch date with lady penelope hopplesplodge, daughter of the arch duke of flabbleberry-on-heatherplumph.
I'd like to welcome myself to this website and forum, my name is all i'll give you and you can see that so there we are. Introduction given!

I wrote a lovely bit of back story, the laptop I am forced to suffer then went and crashed.
Please proceed at your leasure to imagine how witty and funny the piece I wrote previously was.
If at any point it doesn't seem as funny as you imagine it should have been, please forgive yourself for not having a mind as briliant as mine.

...Oh, Nobody knows who he is? Correction: This man needs and introduction.
Shall I tell you that he once killed a leopard with his toenail clippings, or that antelope find him quite attractive?
NO OF COURSE NOT! That would be a lie, and lying is bad, everything that has the sound lie in it is bad! Lions, ligers... lionesses. It's either that they are big cats or liars, both are evil.
What I can tell you is that he once logged into facebook using both his face and a book, and can log into steam using a kettle. When he saw the title of this website he stood up and shouted it like a ships captain greeting the miserable looking land peasants and other erchins that he has the displeasure of having to stomp over to get to his lunch date with lady penelope hopplesplodge, daughter of the arch duke of flabbleberry-on-heatherplumph.
I'd like to welcome myself to this website and forum, my name is all i'll give you and you can see that so there we are. Introduction given!

...Oh, Nobody knows who he is? Correction: This man needs and introduction.
Shall I tell you that he once killed a leopard with his toenail clippings, or that antelope find him quite attractive?
NO OF COURSE NOT! That would be a lie, and lying is bad, everything that has the sound lie in it is bad! Lions, ligers... lionesses. It's either that they are big cats or liars, both are evil.
What I can tell you is that he once logged into facebook using both his face and a book, and can log into steam using a kettle. When he saw the title of this website he stood up and shouted it like a ships captain greeting the miserable looking land peasants and other erchins that he has the displeasure of having to stomp over to get to his lunch date with lady penelope hopplesplodge, daughter of the arch duke of flabbleberry-on-heatherplumph.
I'd like to welcome myself to this website and forum, my name is all i'll give you and you can see that so there we are. Introduction given!