Denied New spawn

So uh. Build a better one?

There was a contest. This was the winner. Barring the logistics of such a quick change... You need something to replace it with.

 

@GeorgiaMC we can't even get a real market soo. Probly won't happen even tho I agree with you lol.

 

Yep. We need a simpler spawn. Yes, spawns such as the ones we have are intended to amaze new players, but the fact is that new players are prone to quit immediately upon the first instance of frustration or confusion rather than bother with learning the ropes or figuring out where everything is. The problem with this spawn is that it's much too confusing and large, and it is frustrating for people who don't know where everything is let alone the distances required to get to each place for someone without fly.

Yes it's rather new and yes it won a competition, but it won a competition that desired an awe factor in the design much more than it did a usefulness factor. There should be another competition that specifically states that it is intended to be simple (relatively speaking) and effective, not complex and confusing. I think that jmichael should also be given a say in the new spawn simply because of how short his may last, and that his spawn should remain in legacy.

+1

And yeah, the market needs a revamp too... it's a terrible design and it's essentially dead.

 

Maybe I'm just nostalgic but I'd like to see a small homey spawn instead of another giant one. This thing is way better than the last abomination of a spawn we had (good ridance) but it still makes me feel small. There's no connection. And I can fly. I can't even imagine walking around this thing. I get annoyed it takes me so long to fly through. The ecc spawns before these were much smaller. 20 blocks between portals and you saw people walking around going places. It didn't feel overwhelming and that's one of the main reasons I stayed on ECC as opposed to the other servers I tried when I started playing minecraft.

Edit: basically what Shane said he put it a lot better than I did.

 

I prefer a smaller, more effective spawn myself as well. There can be literally dozens of players in the spawn and yet not see a single one without doing some searching. I believe newer players can be overwhelmed and possibly lose interest at times.
I know that a lot of work and effort was put into this design, but it has proven to not be very effective.
The market shop? Could you even imagine the amount of time that would have to be spent by a player without fly attempting to find an item? I have fly and still get myself lost looking for things... and have no idea if some items are for sale there or not.

 

Another problem is for some dumb reason they sold parts of spawn for IRL $$$ so now what do we do about that lmaooo

 

I was working on one of these during the spawn comp but I never got to finish it, It was like a retro 2013 era ecc spawn.

But in general, I totally see the necessity of a new spawn, no offence to jmichael, but this spawn is ginormous, the spawn shops are too big, even for someone with fly. So like others have said, a small homey spawn is what we need. They say if you don't have a lot of people coming to an event, you put them in a smaller room so it looks like its a bigger party. This is what we need to do at our spawn tbh.

 

I'm all for a different spawn. Think the current one is awful and it's accessibility is equally as bad. The spawn shop is terrible and I definitely preferred the old ones. Even with fly it's a pain to find/get what you need and I can't imagine what it's like without it. Current spawn also looks too plain and not really impressive compared to some of the other submissions. Main problem with changing it would be the fact that people paid irl money and ECD for portions of the spawn so they would somehow need to be compensated.

All in all thought I'd like a better spawn with improved accessibility and a better wow factor and not a 3 day world edit job. Additionally the market could also use a makeover but I understand something with trade signs needs to be done before that can happen.

 

@jmichael214 Built most of it by hand. I do also believe he should also comment on this and I think the current spawn is fine. I feel that people paying irl money for parts of spawns renders it difficult to change. -1

 

Make a new spawn for rising and keep the current for legacy?

 

GeorgiaMC said:
I mean, I do agree with the fact that the plain look of it does make it look world edited, as it's a very repetitive style of building. But whether it is or not, no one can know for sure, all I'm saying is, is that it does look heavily world edited.

Well, a spawn that has many different styles of building can be seen as 'ugly' and unpleasing to the eye. I also view ECC as having a better spawn than most places. Furthermore, I have noticed that every spawn that has ever been placed on ECC is complained about... Yet no-one has ever come up with a reasonable alternative? I agree with Nicit, if you think you could build an original better alternative to the current one, I say go for it! I've seen your building skills and you're pretty decent!

GeorgiaMC said:
Also about people paying irl money for parts of spawn, I had no idea this was a thing until reading this, since I haven't played much in the last year. I do think that might be a bit of a problem, however there could be a number of ways that you could sort this out, for example, if a new spawn was to be designed, there could be designated areas or rooms added that would be given to the same people that already own the current ones, and there may even be room for a couple more to be added for others to buy. Or as others have suggested, maybe some sort of compensation in the form of a store voucher, however, I see the first option as being the more popular one.

Yeah, I see option 1 as being the most reasonable and yeah, that's the logical way around it!

GeorgiaMC said:
Lastly do you think that the spawn shop is in your word's, 'fine'? As a new player or player without fly that would be very overwhelming to look at, and very inaccessible. That's 7 floors, with roughly 50 things per floor, and from what I can see, only 1 floor has signs by the stairs saying what's on that specific one.

Lastly, no I do not. Although I think spawn is bright, colourful and wonderful, I view the spawn shop as a separate part of spawn that can be changed. Every project has a few flaws and unfortunately, the spawn shop in this case, is one of them. I'm sure if it was all one floor with separate rooms (themed possibly?) or some reasonable alternative would do just nicely.

 

Lets go back to the OG spawn

 

I think ECC just needs an uplift for the main server-regulated areas. The spawn is confusing and the market is badly designed. Honestly I think even the walls outside of spawn could use a bit of a facelift with some modern blocks, but that's not nearly as important as the market or the spawn. Also should mention that the players didn't get to choose the current spawn, rather it was the owner, and that the players should have a voice in what ECC desires for its spawn in the future.

 

^ This also I still say we put the original spawn in legacy and build a new one for rising so players can tell difference.

 

Well, this is an interesting discussion. I've always said that the only way I would ever worry was if I built a spawn that everyone liked.

Some thoughts on the discussion so far:

It's a common misconception of players who don't habitually build large projects to underestimate the amount of effort that goes into them. If you want to build a VERY basic spawn, plan for it to take two to three weeks of doing nothing but that. If you want something that is only as good as what we have -- make that six weeks of consistent work.

A project that large cannot be built in any number of "hours" that couldn't be more efficiently described in terms of "weeks."

The shop is actually one of my least favorite parts of the whole design.

I'm confused by the idea that this shop is somehow less accessible to new players than its predecessors -- seven virtually unmarked buildings, where you literally had to search for tiny staircases in order even to discover the completely unmarked second or third floors. If you ever found the shop itself in the first place. Could the shop be improved? Sure. But I think we're all forgetting the confusing, fragmented maze that was the old shop level.

I am not entitled to a say. Neither, strictly speaking, are any of us...

These are all very good points, although the size of the spawn overall is predetermined. It has to be inserted exactly into the space which is presently filled by the current spawn -- which, oddly enough, is not symmetrical. The present spawn disguises the fact that the space it fits into is actually irregular. Would it have been better if the central square were smaller and cozier? Probably. I have a hard time arguing that point, and I think you guys are right about that. But it's terribly difficult to fit that many portals into a smaller square without cramming them together. I always figured the staff would be building more event stuff in the main square.

I hope this isn't your idea of how I built the current one. There was only moderate use of world-edit in the actual construction, chiefly in the replication of certain horizontal spaces which are re-used in vertical space (skyscraper construction, the shop), the placement of certain types of vertical element which are widely spread horizontally (e.g., trees), and to fill in wall surfaces once the contours were in. Aside from that, I mostly used it to play with colors. Anyone who has ever attempted to build something of this size, and actually stuck to it, can probably spot the use of Worldedit in certain areas, and would also be able to tell that the vast majority of it had to have been built by hand, because ... it simply isn't possible to have built what I built with as heavy a use of Worldedit as you seem to think. I'm not sure I can adequately explain why to anyone who hasn't actually done it themselves. This is literally the only type of comment on this thread which offends me. It reveals a striking lack of knowledge of what it would take to rebuild the thing you're criticizing so freely.

No, actually, it doesn't look like Worldedit (see above). Worldedit doesn't look like that. And if you think repetition of design elements is Worldedit and not a basic understanding of architecture, then /warp zenith and reflect on the fact that I built that entirely, 100 percent by hand. And I guarantee you that the corner of it 100x100 blocks northwest of the center is identical to the corner 100x100 southeast of the same point. All the way down to bedrock and all the way up to the sky. I just ... really like symmetry and orderly architecture. I built a 200x200 house for myself, which is about 200 blocks in height from the vault floor to top of the central tower, and it's rigidly symmetrical on two axes -- which means that every design element is repeated either 4, 8 or 16 times, depending on where it occurs. And I did that for fun ... while a staff member ... to have something to do while I monitored global chat. Without access to Worldedit, and either buying or mining every single block.

I would like to give @OlympiansAreGods credit for the most insightful comment on this thread -- since he just described my original design for the shop, which unfortunately I got sidetracked from.

The more I read on this thread, the more I agree with this general argument. The spawnshop is underground for a reason - because the previous spawn was wretchedly dark all the time, because the shops were up in the sky. Much of what I did was centered around the idea of the ground level being bright, and I sacrificed other things to get all the parts of the spawn out of the sky. I've never been in love with my shop design, though. My original design was exactly what you described in the bold/underlined part, but then I moved the shop to one side to fit the TUTORIAL underground ... and then came up with the current tutorial idea with the bridges later - and frankly, if I hadn't run out of time, I would have deleted the current shop and done exactly what you're suggesting here. You've not only made a good suggestion - it's also in harmony with the rest of the design.

Now, all that being said -- to create a new spawn of equal or better quality will take even the best builder at least a month. That person will discover just how little help Worldedit actually is (except with the color changes -- thank God for color changes). That person will get about a week and a half in and go "what the heck did I sign myself up for?" And by the end, that person will approach the subject of this thread with a great deal more humility than is exhibited in some of the comments on this thread.