Enzer

Another thing of note is that "mods" for Bukkit are an entirely different thing. Bukkit doesn't use mods, they use "plugins". What Bukkit allows is for people to make plugins that inject basic code to into the game that modifies things in a small way. This includes giving chat based menus, being able to detect various parameters in the world and executing small changes in accordance, modifying small parameters such as block break speed and item drops. What Bukkit cannot do with plugins is: Introduce new blocks, entities (mobs and items), textures, GUIs, or pretty much anything that makes a "mod" a mod. You talked about converting TFC into a Bukkit plugin, I don't think you understand what that means. A lot of mods are not compatible with Bukkit servers (this was more a major issue during 1.2.5 and before, however it is still a major issue with any mod that uses Forge as well for the majority of them still out there). The main reason for this is that Bukkit runs on a different modified server jar and so for a vanilla mod that is SMP compatible to work on that modified jar, it has to be "converted" to Bukkit. Otherwise it is going to look at the Jar and go "What the hell is this". Now, just because it is now compatible with Bukkit does not mean it magically works how you are thinking it does, it just means you can run the server with Bukkit so you can have things running like Log Block or Essentials, etc. Now, Spout has been mentioned, and while that is a handy tool, still requires users to install Spout (it is an .exe, so there is no means to bitch there, and it installs in a separate directory then .minecraft does, so no conflicts there). However, as Spout currently stands, it isn't perfect and still requires the mod to be converted to be Bukkit compatible as well as compatible with Spout and even then it wouldn't actually work. A third option would be to use the fork of the Spout project used by Tekkit, again this would require the same running an executable issue as above and would still require the mod to be converted over to a Bukkit state. This option would work, but I do not know how the Devs feel about Tekkit (everyone is entitled to their opinions), they could just get permission to use the code for the downloader since it is open source, but still, that is a LOT of extra work for very little pay off since installing TFC is easy as hell. Another thing to consider is also how much longer Bukkit will be around. With the merger of the code bases for SSP and SMP and the upcoming API, I really don't see Bukkit lasting that long, I mean hell, their development has been stagnating since 1.3 hit, and the three Bukkit developers that now work for Mojang kind of shat on the current state of Bukkit at PAX. The fourth option, and this is going to be your best bet, is the API. What Minecraft is sorely needing is a server-client data packet transfer system that downloads the required mods or updates to the user as they log in, keeping this information in a separate folder keyed to that individual server. Jeb has mentioned this is something he wants to do multiple times in interviews and on twitter, so hopefully this will work. The best part of this is that the developers of TFC really shouldn't have to do much extra work outside making the mod compatible for the API update, whenever that comes around (and from the sounds of it at PAX, probably not 1.4 since that has a release date of this Halloween). TL;DR, Bukkit doesn't allow what you think it does, converting the mod to be Bukkit compatible doesn't do what you think it does, you'll have to wait for Mojang to push out the API or a Server-Client data packet transferring system (like in Gmod) for clients not having to install anything.

I've had cave ins occur in 2x1 tunnels as of revision 47f both in ssp and smp. They do not occur as often (only because you are not mining out as much stone to go further as you would a 2x2 or 3x3 tunnel, I think), but they do occur and when they do it sucks because there is much less room to maneuver and you are mostly likely going to get crushed at that point.

Thread moves a little fast at times, though I think I might have missed the talk about coin minting amongst the arguments over grief protection that consumed the first ten pages as well.

And by learning how to do it better you can sell your wares directly or to a middle man at a higher price since you've practiced hard and now produce gear that is less shoddy than the smith down the street! See, this is what I like about TFC where most trades are truly skill based, sure it causes some complaints on the server that things are too hard, but we just keep insisting that they either practice more or do favors for those who can do it well so they can take time out of their schedules to make you that perfect steel pick head. It is all very organic and I can't wait to see what systems Kingdoms adds to help make trading amongst villagers even more in depth. One thing I would like to see somehow pushed is that if a town goes into minting a currency instead of trading goods for goods, they have to actually have something to back that currency or else face collapse of your economy. I haven't thought of a decent method to do this yet, maybe a place where you can store cut gems and gold as your treasury and as long as the current circulated currency does not exceed the value of your towns treasury, your currency holds weight.. I'll have to come back after some more thought on this. Again, this would be a sub system that players could choose to use, but don't have to. They could come up with their own trading values for goods for goods bartering and not even deal with currency, but I think balancing a currency could be a neat thing for rulers to mess around with.

But that is the thing, there was no debate, every time you quoted me, you just responded with the same bit about pandering to laziness or stupidity or that we already have signs, or that I was over complicating the system (when I am trying to organize it or provide tools for players to do so) you never gave me a legitimate reason why there shouldn't be a centralized way to store information on the town that didn't rely on a very poor way of doing so. We haven't even been arguing. I'm trying to hold a discussion, trying to figure out why you think storing information for players at the Home Stone is such a bad decision, you are not really giving me good answers, and I've come up with counter points to show that what reasons you have given really are not all that viable. I am not failing to understand, it is really more that you are replying nothing, turning away from the debate seems really a poor way of going about it. Hell, I even just read all of your posts again since we've began talking tonight and I still only see the two or so same points repeated at me with no more backing when I make counter points. And wouldn't an easy to use, compact, clean and non server performance impacting way of storing information be a more efficient upgrade to signs? http://www.state.gov.../list/index.htm That website provides a list of countries where you can look up diplomats, vital information on the country, history of important political events and a bit on the countries relation with the U.S. It is of course not likely that you'd be able to pull up that information at your local city hall, but that is only because of the length of history for the US and mere size of the world and such. On a server where you are talking about a much smaller world and less factions to worry about, finding out this information and having it recorded in a local location is believable. -- The final bit I will say to you on this subject, is that I really do not understand your passion for pissing on those who may not pick up on things as quickly, or the stupid as you like to keep referring to them. Not everyone is able to keep up on shit, not everyone has the time. Some people just want to get on, tend to their animals, build a house, or go do some mining. Calling people who'd rather do other things lazy or people who have trouble following recent events stupid is really not that fair. hell, even players who are all in for the political play would benefit from being able to store information. Information storage is not a crutch, if it was, then we should get rid of the wiki since only the stupid and lazy need to look up the basics instead of spending hours in game trying to figure it out themselves. You have a very black and white argument, that is all I will say to you. -- Actually, I'm going to bed, it is five in the morning and I got stuff to do in three hours, where did the time go.

Ok, first off, I am going to say you need to settle down, your posts are coming off as very hostile and the one you did above the one I am quoting really proves that. I don't know what your issue is, but waving away anything you do not personal like as "pandering to the stupid and lazy" is not a debate, it is not a proper response to a debate, it does not keep up a conversation. Second, you seem to like to not read my posts, this is at the very least the second time you have done so. The first is saying that I was for computer regulated laws, which the post you quoted had nothing to do about and even admitted right off the bat, that no one was really talking about to begin with. With that said, lets go onto this. No, I never said that making a sign is "too damned hard". I said that signs are a poor method of conveying large amounts of information for the following reasons: 1) Signs are very limited on the characters they display, they are better suited for telling you what street you are on, or who owns this house. 2) Because of the limitation of character space, you need large swaths of space to plays lots and lots of signs. This looks ugly, is not organized, takes a long time to update, and fails to prevent enemies from knowing information about the town. You yourself said that placing lots of torches to cover areas in lights is ugly and were asking for light sources with larger radius. By your own arguments this isn't needed, there is no need to reinvent the torch, just use tons and tons of torches. 3) Because Notch is a bit of a hack sometimes when it comes to coding, he implemented signs in a very ass backwards way. When you are on a server and have lots and lots of signs with lots and lots of text on them, that generates an incredible amount of entity lag that affects the entire server. Even if you have all the signs deep underground with a layers upon layers of stone between you and them, they will still render their text when the chunk is open. Relying on a system that impacts server performance is not good. 4) What is the Home Stone and why do we need a block to represent the town?Added 8/13 I think a lot of you are failing to grasp why we need a stone Home Stone in the first place. First of all the name is taken from the World of Gor series of books. Secondly, I like to let things be represented in the world whenever possible. From a gameplay perspective, it offers a way for players to easily learn what they need to about a town such as laws or w/e else. I highly dislike the player having to type in commands into chat in order to play the game so they need. Also it offers something concrete in the world in which the supporting code is operated around. If I try to abstract out things such as borders of a town etc(while possible) it becomes a lot harder. When you are on a 60 slot server, information needs to be as clean cut as possible, needs to be as easily accessible as possible and needs to not bog down the game. Storing information in the Home Stone literally does not detract from the game at all, does not make it easier, does not make it more tedious, does not remove fun. It does not "needlessly complicate things". You, as a town owner, need to set a Home Stone to make your town. Why spread out all your towns information away from the thing that makes your town a town. How does having it so when a citizen right clicks the Home Stone they get an option to view the town's laws complicating things, how does being able to copy that information to a Tome complicate things. You are not giving me reasons why outside of complaining that it would make the game to easy (how?) or that it nurtures the stupid or lazy (poor excuse and as pointed at the beginning, is a bad reply for debate). You could argue back and forth about the assignment of land and what not, but it really isn't that hard to figure out, a basic beginning Home Stone grants you ownership of a grid of chunks, the owner of the town can sell those chunks to citizens. Very simple. But honestly, there is no reason to argue about this until Bioxx gives us more of his thoughts on what he means by giving players the tools to define and establish towns, though he did say on the second page: "Player A purchases/creates a Home Stone. The Home Stone is a special engraved stone encrusted with jewels and metal which acts as the founding stone for a town. Depending on the resources used, the radius is larger or smaller. Once a player places a Home Stone, they become the mayor of the town, able to sell or rent out land to other players. Players can register themselves as citizens of a town as well as pay taxes or w/e we add. A neighboring town can declare war on another town which would remove the special protections that are in place to prevent griefing for those that are citizens of each town. Towns should have a minimum number of citizens in order to prevent abuse of this system. Ideas: Players can buy land which extends from 128 to 256 where no-one may build.Players can buy mineral rights which extend from 0-128 wherein no-one may mine.Players can build outside the city limits freely but will be subject to the anarchy of the wild.Monsters will not spawn within city limits.Rarely NPC raiders may attack towns.The more things that are handled by the server and not by OPs or Admins the better as far as I'm concerned. Nothing is more lame than playing on your favorite server and no-one is online to accept you into the town or w/e."So I am just running off that. Lastly, I only mentioned revoking property rights as an example, no need to go off on a tangent about how giving the owner of a Town the ability to, you know, enforce his own rules as something bad because you disagreed with a single example I gave.

Wait wait wait wait, what? At the beginning of my post I specifically said that computer controlled law enforcement wasn't being asked for, I know that doing so would be nigh impossible. All I said was that there is still a need for laws to be recorded and the Home Stone provides that and since the Home Stone is already going to be a thing, why make the storage of a list of laws outside of the home stone since according to the OP, it would store information on the town. You give the town owner a screen where he can type in a list of laws. All that would be is words, like what I am typing now, not game play parameters, that would be just stupid. I did say that a way the Home Stone could be used to enforce laws is through the owner of the Town. The town's owner decides the sale of property in his town and who is a citizen, you break his laws, he maybe imprisons you in a designated jail, you act up again he takes away your land using the Home Stone, you doing something really stupid after that, he revokes your citizenship. That would all be player controlled, I never said it would be automated. The Home Stone would just provide a means to felicitate those actions without the need of typing chat commands which Bioxx has said is one of the reasons for the Home Stone in the OP. Right now there is no way to actually enforce anything without getting moderators involved. Giving town owners the right to revoke land, assign to jail, invoke monetary fines, or revoke citizenship is a way to enforce laws and keeps moderators out of player game play.

I don't think anyone was implying physical implications for laws. As an example, for towns on my server, the person who starts a town decides on building zones, architecture theme and material them. Players who decide that they want to build in that town have to abide by building codes, if they fail to than the town owner has several options. First option on first offense is to talk with the offending user and tell them what is wrong with their building, second offense the town owner is allowed to remove the offending building if they refuse to fix it, third offense the town owner is allowed to kick the person out of his town with enforcement by the server moderators. This is to keep arguments down and for towns to look nice and feel right. Again, signs to writing rules is a bad option for 1) Limited space, 2) Each letter on a sign is an individual entity and they have unlimited draw range, large billboards cause entity lag (which is why optifine has an option to smartly cut off letters on a sign after so many blocks depending on how many signs are in a chunk), 3) Billboards are ugly and the Home Stone is designed to store information already. Having laws stored somewhere allows for the owner of a town to set up how he wants his town run and if it is all in a place everyone knows where them to be, offending users cannot just go "well, I didn't know". Also, in my above example on how towns are run on my server currently, the fact that a town owner has to rely on moderators to enforce their town's laws right now is bad, having the Home Stone allow them to fine an offending player, remove property rights or remove citizenship removes the need for moderators to meddle in players actions. For writing laws it doesn't have to be a set of parameters a town owner has to select from, it could be a screen where he can just type out words, like how the 1.3 writable books work. Honestly, if the Home Stone has to be there to define a towns controlled area, I would say make it as useful to all citizens as possible, an information hot spot seems a reasonable thing to do.

Just make the information citizen only? I don't see why a non citizen should be allowed to access a Home Stone they don't belong to to begin with. It should just read as [Town's Name] Home Stone if a non citizen interacts with it. Otherwise you'd still just have the problem of people figuring out what is going on by in game chat unless each town has their own chat channels. From a different point of view, for political infiltration, information gathering could be an option. Kill a citizen and take their Town Tome and you could have a chance to garner one random bit of information (like maybe you get the a few of the town's rules, or maybe a few people on a noble's list, or some information on town status, all randomized and it destroys the tome. What more, if the Tome is not up to date, neither would be the information!) the downside of doing this is that that town would soon know you just killed someone for their Tome, so you would have to be creative about it. Another option would be stealing a Tome left behind in a chest.

Awesome, my player group has been bugging me to find out if that would be a future addition. Oh man, chickens are getting an update? Can we get a hint on how they will breed? Something like a nest box or will it be similar to vanilla's two breeding pair and a bit of wheat? True, but omelets are not really that bad of a food source so if you get a few chickens going, they will consistently produce for you a food supply.. Now if we could make advanced foods so we could have heartier omelets that feed you more..

Yeah, I'm just talking about having the information in a centralized location, that is all. While having the "political" tab be a means to activate certain in game protocols for a "war" mode might have its merits, it would require a lot of balancing and may not be worth the trouble for something that would be purely optional. I do think that certain things like soldiers not instantly respawning when two nations are fighting with each other or ways for nations to physical fight over territories, should be a possibility but those can be done in other ways. Personally, forums are not really the best solution for the server I moderate on since we run two forums for the same server (it is a long story). And while players can of course ask for information over chat, it still has to be stored someplace. You do bring up an interesting idea though, it would be neat if players could carry some kind of Town Tome on their person that keeps a short list of information (list of citizens, laws, borders (maybe need a map for this) and a simplified "relations" list), but you have to manually update it by revisiting the town stone and right click the Tome against it.

My first post talking about a political GUI? Wasn't angry at all, second half was talking about tools servers could use to facilitate wars. I also think that keeping that information out of game in a forums is also a bit of a bad solution, you're taking game play out of the game and sticking it someplace else, meaning people have to stop playing to look up information that should be readily available in game.

Would it be at all possible for certain animals, namely pigs, to give birth to a litter (or maybe just two) or rather may have a chance to give birth to a litter? I ask this because we how dumb MC animals tend to be (Suffocating inside a fence, suffocating inside chiseled walls, wolves somehow getting into the damn pens, people eating the wrong animals), in the 7 months it takes to get a full grown animal you may have lost your first breeding pair. This would just make it so that survivability of a heard as well as being able to create a larger amount of food to feed a larger server base is more feasible.

Sorry if I came off the wrong way with that post, that isn't what I meant. What I meant is that my support for storing a towns vital information and why I feel that political standings of a town are vital for the survival of a town and its citizens are based on Bioxx clarifying that he feels that Home Stones should contain such information. I agree with him and I agree with the guy who says that political standings are vital. I am also just debating that I cannot find a bad reason not to have this information stored this way, having the information stored outside of one centralized point makes information scattered and thus harder for players to keep up which may eventually drive them away from even caring, I don't feel that making the information non centralized adds any game play benefit, it doesn't increase difficulty of the game outside of making it tedious, and to keep information centralized without using the Home Stone would require things such as giant billboards (which I have already given my opinion on how this is a poor way to handle it in game as well as impacts the server negatively). I've yet to hear a good reason to exclude that bit of information from the rest of the information stored within the home stone outside of personal preference or saying that it would be benefit to the "lazy and/or stupid", is all.

Then I guess I am still misunderstanding what Bioxx means when he says he wants the Home Stone to be "a way for players to easily learn what they need to about a town such as laws or w/e else." For me, knowing a towns political standing with other towns is a very important thing to know, it would also allow players who haven't been on the server in a while figure out what has been going on recently if they get on and no one from their town is currently on. I, for one, would hate to log on and find out that my town might be at war with someone, but I don't know who because the enemy town isn't replying to me, what if I'm doing trades with that town? I walk over there hoping to drop off some charcoal or what have you and they gut me in the streets, or I do successfully trade with them and then my cities leader finds out and has me killed for being a traitor?

My argument is not that people are lazy and/or stupid. My argument is that an ingame system to check political alignments would allow new players to get themselves up to date easier, would allow other nations to keep tabs, and would prevent the use of signs which have a physical impact on the server and look ugly (not to mention are limited in space to provide information). By the same token I could say that having a stronger light source that covers a wider area is because players are too lazy to make a bunch of torches or are too stupid and/or lazy to aesthetically place torches.

Sure, there is really no need for a GUI if it is just two communities going through day to day politics of trading and bartering land rights until someone pisses off the other and they go to war to settle a dispute (just as an example), but on larger servers, where you have many many different communities all with different levels of political standing (allied, neutral, trading partner, bad standing, war, etc) it would be nice to have all this information stored and visible at the cities homestone rather than on a massive wall of signs that would require (depending on the size of the server and instability of the leaders) a lot of rearrangement. That is sloppy, it is also, more importantly, slow. Having it as a viewable GUI of "Political Standings and Relations" would be a nice addition that doesn't force restrictions on the playerbase and will allow new users to figure out the information on their own as well as allow city leaders to easily keep up on news in the world and think accordingly on what they should do next. Doing this would also help take a step of having all the towns information stored within the homestone. Thinking over this I really can't find a con to just having the information stored in a clean format that everyone would know how to find and the less players rely on giant walls of signs to convey information the better (or at least until Jeb decides to redo how signs and lettering work so that each letter isn't an individually rendered entity and not just, you know, a texture). It isn't forcing players into a system, if they don't want to fill in their cities standings with others, it will just now show up. I would think of this as adding tools for servers to develop how they want their kingdoms to work, not strict systems they are forced to comply by. As for an actual "war" mechanic, I think this could be worked around. Again, make it a tool for people to use if they so wish, not a strict system. A "war" mechanic can be taken a bunch of different ways. -You could go with a "capture" system where two towns going to war with each other can claim land as they conquer areas of land, by this I mean not land that is given by the default townstone, but any land that is acquired through upgrades could have their own stone that extends your bubble of influence, a few conditional rules such as the land being conquered must have at least one side designated as neutral or owned by another nation can only be conquered (so as to prevent people storming deep into enemy territory and claiming land there, doesn't make sense, you'd have to eat at them from the outside borders, this also allows for land disputes). You conquer land by damaging the enemies territory stone to a certain point and then placing your stone on top of theirs, after a certain amount of time, the land becomes yours. This would provide servers that want a high stakes political game play aspect tools to do so, if you don't want to use this system, you could simply ignore it. -You could make it so that two towns that are flagged as warring with each other have different death penalties. By this I mean you have two warring nations, if Soldier from Nation A kills Soldier from Nation B, Soldier B has a timer before he can enter the fray again. This prevents people from just respawning instantly at their beds and doing combat, creating a never ending wall of bodies to battle. It would also means that the winning combatant just got rewarded with some new gear. This would only apply with players at war attacking each other, that way if civilian from Nation A falls off his roof and dies, he doesn't have to wait because his town is under siege. I mean, there is a lot you can do with this system and still present it as tools for players to use and not just strict modes of play you MUST comply by.

I don't know why the argument is even happening. I don't think NPCs are the solution to this issue, being able to secure your shit via locks is a viable solution that wouldn't be to hard to implement (see the bukkit mod LCW), but having an in game way of locking stuff would be one the best options. To settle both sides what you do is give the admins the right to set if or if not locks can be bypassed, end of story. Some servers will prefer complete security, others will find ways of using this to facilitate game play. Check my previous posts in this thread, I've gone into detail on how this could easily be handled, just a few users are flipping out about even have the potential for such a system to be included in the mod, even if there is a way to disable it. :/

Then tell your Admin to set lock picking to off, people will be assholes one way or another, there is no changing that and as it currently stands, there is NO protection provided by TFC right now. Do you have a horrible griefing issue with lots of people stealing from you right now? On the server I play on we don't, but if it becomes an option for gameplay and is used in a creative way as such, then why the hell not? Again, make it something that can be outright turned off if the server owner feels he does not want that to be part of his server, I do not see why an interesting system has to be outright cut when you can simply just have it disabled if it doesn't jive with you.

And that is why you make it difficult to open chests that are not yours and you do not allow fellow citizens of your city or kingdom steal from you. An out of towner will stick out and if stuff starts going missing when someone is visiting, then the guards will be on their ass. Someone who isn't marked as part of your town is sneaking about, trying to find a street no one is on, hes crouched in front of a door, trying desperately to get a door to open, then he is inside the house, snooping about. People are going to notice eventually and then he will have to deal with the guards. Want better protection? Pay for more guards or fire those who fail to do their jobs, invest in better locks for you house. Here is an idea, trained attack dogs. Make it so you can train a wolf into a dog and a dog into an attack dog, the dog will be "tethered" to your property and when you leave, set him to guard your place. Someone from outside of town decides to snoop about? Guess what, hes got a dog attacking him now, make that make noise, it will attract people to see what the hell is up. Thievery just doesn't have a place for personal profit though, I think it would be neat for nation leaders to send hired cat burglars after each other to steal important documents, maps, claims to land, etc. It could provide a whole other tier of game play. Ultimately, the way to completely solve this is to give sever admins the ability to just outright disable people from lock picking, but to out right have it disabled or not even an option I think would be a worse option and would stifle a lot of creativity and game play options.

From the OP: Will I be forced to play with these rules? Added 8/10 No. If you want to play with no rules, then that's fine. Towns will never be required. I plan to give the players as much control as I can over the systems involved. As many of you have rightly noted, the players will do a much better job creating gameplay than I ever could myself. --- Sorry for the double post, thought I hit edit.

At the same time, there has to be incentives for towns or kingdoms to go to war at each other besides land and resource rights. Having it black or white on if your chests are lootable is a bad decision because you either open yourself to being completely unprotected or making it so that the average soldier looting an enemy town receives no spoils. A lockpick system would provide a middle ground, if done right, that would offer protection but also provide chances of rewards for invaders if they have the skill to pull it off. I would suggest that you would not be allowed to attempt to pick the lock of a fellow citizen, only those of other towns or people who have yet to affiliate themselves with anyone. This could lead to some interesting things like an actual thieves guild employed by the state that sneaks into others locals and steals funds to help their own nation grow.. with a payoff of course. Then if they get caught that provides chances for court investigations to be started and the offending nation the citizen comes from would have to prove innocence on their behalf or risk the nobles themselves being tried or even all out war. Thievery provides a lot of gameplay options, it just has to be balanced carefully. Actually, this makes me wonder. For a lot of scenarios, global chat would become an issue when a nation wants to handle something secretly. I suggest that each town has a Local channel that you only hear if you are a citizen of that town or within the town boarders. I would also suggest a private chat channel on top of that for war room meetings or the like. There of course would be global chat for normal day to day chatter, but an in game way of keeping important conversations secret outside of a /tell system of a private 3rd party chat system would be nice. This would also allow town guards to coordinate while tracking an invader in their town without said invader knowing what they are up to.

Thought Jeb said he was fixing BUDs since they were an unintended glitch. Though I guess instead you could eventually use tripwires for a similar effect.

Honestly I think we should stop focusing on griefers all together for now. No option is perfect and nothing will deter people who want to be assholes. This thread is beginning to lose its purpose because of the direction the conversation has gone. Discussing how land ownership and protection is great, but not when it is completely about griefing..

Lets talk Home Stone for a moment. First off, while I do kind of like the name, I think Cornerstone would be better suited. Just personal opinion. For a property system to work in SMP you are going to have to give some configuration to server Admins: Turning the whole system on or off.Whitelist option on who could place a Home Stone. Have the config file options be for Whitelist only or free placement. Whitelist should be editable from in game (/addmayorrights [name], /removemayorrights [name]). As a server moderator I have seen what happens when people are not unified and everyone goes off to make their own town. Their is little group focus in any one area and no town get fully developed, you end up with a bunch of ghost towns. A whitelist would allow towns to be only started up if the server admin feels that the guy starting a town has a good idea and has enough people backing him to get the job done, this prevents people gaming the Home Stone for personal protection and such.Ability to disable towns mob protections out right as well as while in game as an admin (/removetownprot [Town Name], /removealltownprot, /enabletownprot [Town Name], and /enablealltownprot). This allows admins to have "PvE" events, such as the "enemy" growing in strength and overcoming the towns protections, etc. It would also allow Admins to mark towns as "on the fringe of civilization", basically towns that are on the border of the wilderness and thus would be more open to attacks from the unknown.Ability to disable players from upgrading towns, making it an Admin only right.Ability to enable or disable towns needing to have a maxed population in order to upgrade.While a lot of these are very much "control freak" settings, they would allow such a system to be added to most any server without butting up against how an Admin might run his world.Next lets talk about the actually construction of the Home Stone. I like the idea that it is made from gems and metal. I think the basic Home Stone you start off with should be made from Bismuth, Tin and Zinc. These are the basic metals that everyone starts off with, by having these three metals you have shown that you have begun making progress in life. With these three metals I would also suggest three Chipped Gems of any type. You may want to add something else to this, like make the 3 metals shaped items and not just ingots and the chipped gems cut and slotted into them. Either way, this would produce the most basic Home Stone, the founding stone. The founding stone would give you a very small radius of property with a max citizen limit of 5, including the mayor. In this most basic town, mob spawn rates are dropped by 5%. The next upgrade would require copper, brass and bronze and would require 3 Flawed gems. This would create a sort of upgrade kit that can be used on the original founding stone by the mayor. This increases the citizen population to 10 players and increase the size of land owned by a town, mob spawn rates would be 15% less likely to occur. I would also maybe suggest that the town must have max population in order to upgrade at any point, this would help prevent the creation of large empty towns and everything would grow at a nice slow rate. Also at tier two, I suggest that the mayor would be able to assign at least two players as Town Guards. Town Guards would get a passive protection enchantment while within the town's property (you could use vanilla potion effects to pull this off). Tier Three of a town would require rose gold, black bronze, bismuth bronze and 3 Normal gems. This kit would increase citizen population to 15 players, town size, and mobs would be 25% less likely to spawn. At this tier the town can have five designated guards. Tier Four of a town would require wrought iron, steel, black steel and 3 Flawless gems. This kit would remove the cap on citizen population, town size would increase, mobs would be 25% less likely to spawn, designated guards increased to 10. The final tier of a town would require Blue and Red steel as well as 3 Perfect gems. Though Tier four removed population cap, you must have at least 25 citizens in a town to upgrade to this tier. This would increase town property to the maximum limit, mobs would be 50% less likely to spawn and town guards are increased to a cap of 20. While this is the basic requirements and perks of a town, there should be more added I think, maybe with certain perks not appearing until you reach certain levels of a town. Also, I want to note on the placement of Home Stones, you should limit where you can place them. I would think that once a stone is placed, another stone cannot be placed within 1.5x distance of the maximum border of a town (maybe further). This prevents people from, again, using home stones to grief players as well as prevent arguments between two towns of different aesthetics complaining about being right up against each other. And of course this prevents towns from overlapping. As a side note, town owned property should of course be done in squares and be measured in chunks with the Home Stone being "centered", regardless of placement, within whatever chunk it was placed in. Selling property could then be done in chunks and the mayor should be able to decide how the property is shaped (maybe by placing some kind of marker on each chunk to be sold.. I would also suggest some kind of button you can hit that would give some kind of overlay effect to show citizens the boundaries of town as well as their property, even if it is something like the grid line overlay that chunk loaders use).