Medieval Lords™

Staff Meeting Summary: January 27, 2015

[A] Azrius aVOTED posted Fri at 12:19 - Staff Meeting Summary, News, Staff Meeting Summary

Hey there, ladies and gents! Sorry this week's meeting summary went up so late. Sleep deprivation doesn't always make for the most reliable schedule.

Here's what we've got for you this week:

The 1.8 world is nearly ready for primetime, and it's going to be incredible. Seriously, you should all be excited for this.
We've been hard at work over the last few weeks stamping out a bevy of bugs and glitches - including a few persistent and prevalent ones that involved item duping. Suffice it to say, the playing field should now be a bit more level for all our legitimate players.
After some discussion on the matter, we've come to the decision that it's high time we started cracking down on AFK farms.
Our server's first dungeon is just about ready to go, as well - we're shooting to get it up and running in the next week or two.

So, yeah. Not a lot to announce this week, but we've got some pretty awesome stuff on the horizon. Stay tuned, guys; Medieval Lords is about to get a makeover.

~Azrius

Quality Assurance Lead

Staff Meeting Summary: January 20, 2015

[A] Azrius aVOTED posted Jan 21, 15 - News, Staff Meeting Summary

Hey there, ladies and gents! Long time no talk! As I'm sure you're all no doubt aware, it's been a pretty busy month for Medieval Lords.

Let's dive right in to the meeting summary, shall we?

The Long-Awaited Update

We'll start with our biggest (okay, our only) news item: Medieval Lords has officially made the leap to 1.8! What that means for you is that you'll soon have access to all the new block types, and you'll probably start seeing a few new mobs wandering about in the wild. We're going to be working on getting a 1.8 world up for everyone so you can really experience what the latest iteration of Minecraft has to offer.

More details will be available on that later.

Now, it's not all celebration and party favors here. The 1.8 update did bring a few issues with it, which I've laid out below. Make sure you're aware of them:

1.8 has changed the way rendering works in Minecraft. Rather than being placed solely on the back of the server, more of the load is handled by the host machine. While that means less server-side lag, it also means that some of you may experience some frame rate problems. To that end, I've some advice: try turning off Smooth Lighting - most of the people who've been having issues reported that as the solution.
The New Doors Don't Play Nice With Deadbolt Yet: That is to say; the new doors introduced by 1.8 can't be locked/privated yet. Use them with caution.
Some NPCs Broke: The market's borked, as are many of the NPCs in the tutorial area of the server. We're working on finding the cause of the issue - and a solution - as soon as we possibly can.
There's Probably Some Other Stuff Wrong, Too: Basically, Minecraft updates can be pretty chaotic and cause wide-ranging problems for our plugins. If any of you fine folks notice something doesn't seem to be working the way it should, ring up a staff member and we'll see what can be done about it.

A Few Last Minute Notes

We'll wrap things up with a few final tidbits:

We're aware that the server's economy's kind of in the gutter right now. We're discussing how to revitalize it; there have been some pretty decent ideas thrown around to that end.
Work on the first dungeon of Medieval Lords is underway. Although I can't offer up any details quite yet, it's shaping up to be pretty awesome; I think you guys are gonna love it.
The events team has some big plans they're going to be bringing to fruition in the next few weeks. Again, I can't tell you much about the details, but things are gonna get awesome.

That's all for this week. As always, if you guys have any questions, comments, or concerns about the server, don't be afraid to drop me a line. You know where to find me.

~Azrius

Quality Assurance Lead

A Bit Of Clarification On The Rules Of Medieval Lords

[A] Azrius aVOTED posted Dec 18, 14 - News, Rules, Urgent

Alright, guys. This post has been a long time coming - in all honesty, it's probably something we should have posted more than a month ago. We need to clarify a few things about our server's rules; I've noticed a great deal of confusion among the player-base, and I'm here to set it to rest.

Let's dive right in.

Our New Stance On Glitching

I'm sure you've heard quite a few staff members talking about how glitching is now illegal - and I'm hoping at least a few of you have made note of the periodic announcements we've been making on the server about the matter. This section is being added to make it official: from this moment forward, glitching is a punishable offense. This includes, but is not limited to...

Wall/Block Glitching
Breaking Through Locked Doors
Item Duping

Use common sense here, guys. If an action you're about to take uses the game engine in a way it wasn't originally intended to be used, then it's a glitch, and you can be punished for it.

Behavior On The Website And Plug.dj

Moving right along, I'd like to re-establish that the rules we've got in place on the website are the same as our rules on the server. No inappropriate content, profanity, or excessive harassment - and listen to staff when they ask you to do something.

You can make your point without cursing like a sailor - and if you can't, then maybe you should step away from the computer to cool off. Oh, and racism and homophobia? Never okay.

As for plug.dj, please steer away from obscene lyrics and videos. If you want to listen to that stuff on your own, that's perfectly fine - I've got no problem with it. However, we've got to make this a welcoming community for everyone, including kids. Keep it clean, guys.

Player Punishments And You

I've been hearing a lot of buzz lately that players are unhappy with the way staff has been punishing players. Believe it or not, this was actually brought up in this week's meeting. Moving forward, we're going to be establishing a clearer framework as to how punishments are meted out. What that means for you guys is that there'll be fewer first-time bans and lighter punishments for first-time offenders.

That also means that if you're a repeat, problem Player with a PPR that's a mile long, we're going to be much less lenient with you.

Dealing With Staff Abuse

Now, a lot of you have been complaining about the fact that staff members are 'elitist,' or that they have a god complex. I've heard the terms 'unfair,' 'abuse,' and 'unprofessional' being bandied about kind of liberally. This needs to stop - and I want to work with you guys to do so.

What I mean by this is that if you ever, at any point, feel that you or another player has been punished unjustly, then contact either myself or another of the senior staff. I'm not just talking about punishments, either - I'm talking about nonprofessional behavior. For all the complaints I've seen, not one player has come to me directly and requested an investigation.

Hurling public accusations only fosters ill-will, guys.

We're not here to lord our position over you. We're here to help - even when helping means taking one of our colleagues to task. Please keep that in mind; we take allegations of staff abuse seriously.

So, yeah...contact us.

Cyber-Bullying, Clarified

One more thing, guys; sorry this post has gotten long in the tooth. I'd like to take a moment to clarify our stance on cyber-bullying, and what we mean by the term. See, there have been a lot of people of late who've been grossly misusing the term, either because they don't fully understand it or because they see an opportunity to get someone they don't like punished.

That needs to stop.

In the interest of getting everyone on the same page, I've compiled a short list of what we consider to be cyber-bullying, to be updated as-necessary:

Consistent, cruel verbal harassment. Throwing jokes and good-natured insults at one another is fine if everyone's on-board. However, if you're continually putting someone down and they ask you to stop, then do so. Otherwise, that's bullying.
Telling someone to kill themselves. Suicide is not a joke.
Posting someone's personal information without their consent, regardless of where or how you found it.

And for posterity's sake, a list of what isn't considered bullying

PvP trash talk, so long as it doesn't cross the line into racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
Camping. This is a PvP server, so people are going to get camped every now and then. It's part of the experience, I'm afraid.
Calling someone a name once or twice. It's rude, sure, but it's not bullying unless it's repeated behavior.

Make sense?

Anyway, that's all I've got for you guys for now. Hopefully this post clears a few things up for you, and we can all get back to building stuff. That's what Minecraft's all about, right?

~Azrius

Quality Assurance Lead

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