How often do you visit other people's bases?

[zorn]

In my experience minecraft was less of a group game than i thought it woudl be, I was wondering if other servers/groups are more community oriented.

When i started, the guy who ran the server told everyone to live at least 1000 blocks from each other. Everyone wanted their own area, and to not be bothered by other people building things. When i started my own server with some new people, they all built pretty close to each other at first. 5 players all within 300 blocks of each other. When we reset the world though, everyone moved much further away. All it took was one guy mining into another guy's mined area, etc. Plus people realized that they didn't have to build in that boring swamp area, they could look for that nice lake near a mountain with a forest next to it...

I try to visit other peoples areas once a week or so, I like to see what people build and to get new ideas. What is it like for people here? Do you ever share a base with another player? Or do most build on their own?

 

[Henry Link]

Most of my players build on their own. But I do frequently visit them just to see some of their cool base designs. We use a mystcraft nexus and stay in communication via TS3. Overall, I'm pleased with the current group of players. They are all mature and helpfull.

 

[Yusunoha]

I like visiting other people's bases just to take a little look around, but seeing as I never really play on a server... maybe that's why I watch so much twitch minecraft streams
though the servers I did play on usually weren't really servers for a group of friends, more the kind of servers that you could apply for. which often meant that people didn't know eachother, so visiting other people's bases could lead to some problems...

 

[Henry Link]

That is one of the reasons I like the TS3. I'm getting to know these guys even though they live in different parts of the country. We even have one player join us from Britain. When I opened my server for applications I basically stated talk to me in TS3 if you want on. So far this has worked well for me.

 

[rhn]

Recently I haven't been playing multiplayer at all. But when I did I enjoyed talking/chatting to other people about stuff, but I far too scarcely actually went to see other peoples places. Mostly only if there was something they needed a hand with or I had to give an example of. Building very close to each other(maybe even intertwining each others builds) gives the best community feel, but on the other hand building further away gives you freer reigns to do what you want without worrying about infringing on someone else's base. Best you can do is to try and strike a balance between the two.

If I had the choice, one of the most important things would be to get a perfect spawn with some stunning scenery. That way you are more likely to have more people stay close by and form a little "village".

 

[xbony2]

I usually have difficulty finding other people's bases, cause most people of my server didn't use the nether hub. I guess it gives me some credit for having the biggest build, so that's nice at least.

I like to big bases when possible, though.

 

[Padfoote]

Whenever I play on a server it's normally with a very small group of friends, and we end up building within sight of each other. It's normally very rare that someone isn't hanging out at another base. Short of a reactor failure, we don't have any reason to go several thousand blocks out, much less a few hundred.

 

[Redius]

My server has a nice mix of situations. I live further out (I wanted to build in the ocean, dome-style). Most everyone else that was in from the beginning of the world lives closer...some as few as a hundred blocks from each other. I'd say about half of us build solo, the rest partnered up with others. Half are U.S. based players, the rest are from the U.K. with a few others from Eastern Europe/Asia.

All in all, a fun mix. I got very lucky, as this was my first server based experience.

**edit** oh yeah, the actual question; I visit the other bases once every week or two. I like to see what everyone does, as it's inspiring my own creations.

 

[zorn]

That is one of the reasons I like the TS3. I'm getting to know these guys even though they live in different parts of the country. We even have one player join us from Britain. When I opened my server for applications I basically stated talk to me in TS3 if you want on. So far this has worked well for me.

Yeah i just for the first time had a new player join that was someone I didnt already know. So far going well.

Whenever I play on a server it's normally with a very small group of friends, and we end up building within sight of each other. It's normally very rare that someone isn't hanging out at another base. Short of a reactor failure, we don't have any reason to go several thousand blocks out, much less a few hundred.

This sounds fun, id enjoy teaming up on a base with someone.

 

[kaiomann]

I visit peoples bases quite often, mostly to use their machines

 

[Esheon]

I try to get out to everyone's base at least once a week, both to see how they're doing and to check for inordinate stupidity.

 

[Redius]

I visit peoples bases quite often, mostly to use their machines

A lot of the new(er) players use my base as well; we keep the Mystcraft ages there (I'm an OP, and we keep Mystcraft creation limited to help TPS/Lag), as well as my smeltery, and to swipe XP berries from my farm.

I like having people visit; it's a great way to stay in touch with everyone, since I'm not geographically close.

 

[DREVL]

I tend to visit bases whenever they have something worth raiding.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I think a setup whereby everybody's close works well. If each player has something at their base that the others don't, then that's incentive for those others to visit, and that's incentive for the owner to actually work on the place.

 

[DZCreeper]

Back in 1.4.7 this was huge for me. My server ran on an SSD so chunk loading speed was not an issue. I was the most active and had pretty much everything automated but locked down. If someone wanted something, I would visit their base and drop it off. We had everything tuned to the point that I could gift someone a stack of Ultimate Hybrid solars in under 5 minutes. Modular Powersuits basically let me move insanely fast while invisible and have outstanding weapons. We used ExtraBiomes and got an amazing world, I enjoyed flying in the clouds while I traveling.

Personally, I feel that if we could get back to the point of 1.4.7 where performance was good for most and the mods all got along, it would be great.

 

[Protocurity]

Back when I was on servers... I used to visit other bases all the time. I have never been on a server that had a nether network or a train system. Most players would build far away in order to stay more well hidden, since the more well hidden you are, the less likely you are to be griefed by someone. Also, another thin is that with the highly limited nature of resources on many of these servers, when players live together, the resources in that area get consumed really quickly.

However, due to my nocturnal nature in general, I'd often find myself completely alone. So, when I've got some machine chunkloaded and am waiting for for the processes to get done, I'll just grab my gear and go on an adventure. I've seen all sorts of things, and gone all sorts of places. I've seen things that look like a gigantic glass coliseum, but the entire center just a big hole of undetermined depth. I've seen strange spiraling towers, I've seen AE systems so convoluted and advanced that they seemed inexplicable, and I've seen a bunch of beginner bases.

The fun thing was that many forms of protection couldn't stop the portable hole from getting me inside. I never stole anything, since I've had many things stolen from me and have hated it so much, but it allowed me to see all of the different setups people had. I liked to think of myself as the midnight watcher. In ur base, watchin' ur stuff, while no one is around...

 

[SatanicSanta]

I visit other peoples' bases so often that I end up making rail systems between them. This is even more so when people are doing tree breeding, I love my forestry trees but don't understand bees/trees at all.

 

[kaovalin]

Doing a server reset for 1.6.4 with a whole slew of upgraded mods and mod replacements. I am convincing everyone to live in proximity to each other, probably inside a BoP canyon valley. We all tend to build more stuff to show off that way rather than just "BUILD ALL THE MACHINES!".

I find it more rewarding to build within eye shot of someone elses base. Just have to do some mayoral plot assignments and do proper zoning for things like mining and building.

 

[Fireweaver]

It is a little more complex for our server, as we use it for recording purposes. We build everything together, meeting once or twice a week to discuss everyone's ideas for what they want to build next and we choose the best idea and build and record it together.

Players are not allowed to have their own bases, neither are they allowed to build something we did not discuss. This is to provide consistency to our audience and keep the server under control. It is only the 3 of us at the moment so it works well.

The best part for me is the discussion of ideas, because someone comes in with a cool idea, and we talk together about how to make it unusual and interesting to our audience so we try to keep away from generic builds. For example our forestry farm build is assisted with transvector interfaces and we will be adding logistic pipe liquid providing for the carpenter soon.

I have never played modded minecraft on a free-flowing server, it would be interesting but this server sucks up my free time.

 

[GreenZombie]

The issue, as it were, is twofold. Some players ARE protective of their build and don't want others interfering. But the remaining 90% of players feel that 90% of players are like that and keep their distance. I have a group of friends, we work on community builds - on a LAN, but I think that there are some core lessons to be learnt:

If you want a community oriented server:
1. make people gather resources far away from the community area. Create a mining age, allow them to create their own if the server is beefy enough.
2. The community area needs to be easy to access if people are to not simply build their base at the remote site. So a long distance 'instantaneous' transport mod is called for. dimension doors. mystcraft. I personally like the idea of nether hubs, BUT the transport time is a hassle.
3. The community area needs well defined rules. *someone* needs to break the area up into plots. Perhaps require buildings in plots stick to a theme. and then let players claim a community plot and build something in it.

But, without some kind of defined structure to the community area, players who might like a community server will find it ... easier to simply build out of sight and avoid the issues of being seen to trample on someone elses build.