MP Motion to Start a Vote: DISCUSSION of Farm Regulation

[Akomine]

One part of the text has been cleaned up, which is that "this rule expires 15 days after VC updates to 1.16" has been changed to "this rule expires 15 days after VC updates to the next major Minecraft version". This change has been made because it was assumed our next major version would be 1.16, so the rule was written like that, but now it's unclear whether it will actually be 1.15 due to a delay in 1.16.

Thus, the final draft of the bill is as follows, and has gained Consent of the Staff to go to an official Parliament Vote.

1) Automatic or Industrialized Farms are not allowed to be used when 10 or more people are online (6 or more for farms involving nether portals).
     (a) Farms have 5 minutes to comply once 10 or more players are online.
     (b) Farms that involve nether portals have 5 minutes to comply once 6 or more players are online.
     (c) Staff may take the following actions:
          - Immediately: a notice to disable,
          - After 5 minutes: a warning and kick if AFK,
          - After 10 minutes: a second warning and a kick.
          - After 15 minutes: a final warning and a kick.
          - After 30 minutes: proceed to regular punishments, and stop the farm if necessary (such as toggling an on-off lever) without physical edits.
     (d) Staff may not take the following action:
          - Physically edit the farm without consent of the owner.

2) Automatic or Industrialized Farms are defined as follows:
     (a) Volume > 4096 (16^3) for a random tick-based farm.
     (b) Entity Count > 256 for a spawner-based farm.
     (c) Volume > 32768 (32^3) for mob spawning-based farm.
     (d) Any Farm that involves sending entities (items or mobs) through nether portals.
          - This class of farm must cease once 6 or more people are online.

3) Exemptions to rules 1 and 2:
     (a) Any farm may be considered exempt of these rules if:
          - A Staff Vote decides unanimously in favour of exemption, or;
          - A simple vote of MPs on the Parliament Board has a majority decide in favour of exemption (official Parliament vote not needed),
          and;
     (b) The farm is ostensibly for the public benefit and is freely available for use by the public.

4) This rule expires fifteen days after VillageCraft updates to the next major Minecraft version.

[Yvette]

shall we put it to a vote then?

[Akomine]

shall we put it to a vote then?

The only thing I was wondering is if we should wait for the CM election to end or not?

[Yvette]

shall we put it to a vote then?

The only thing I was wondering is if we should wait for the CM election to end or not?

i personally dont think we should but idc, it just seems like a lot of delays lol

[Akomine]

Fair, let's do it!

[OctoGamer]

kinda think we should wait but at the same time. a lot of what i've said about this is ignored so i don't care. such a fucking retarded rule anyways.

[Naomi]

kinda think we should wait but at the same time. a lot of what i've said about this is ignored so i don't care. such a fucking retarded rule anyways.

I'm sorry you feel ignored, when I was lagging so bad I couldn't move when this whole debate started I also felt very ignored when trying to find the issue with people. I understand you aren't feeling lag but unfortunately not all of us players have that luxury and if this "retarded rule" helps us a little bit I don't understand why we don't want to sacrifice a little to help the players overall. The rule is if 10 players get on you have to cease use of a farm, and even in our up rate these past few weeks it isn't always 10, usually 7-9 people.

Overall I think the rule is a great compromise, if we want to wait for after CM vote that is fine, but I don't see any reason we have to wait unless someone has a valid reason for waiting.

[Lividup64]

I feel like nobody here bothered to actually read Luis's report, or they did read it and straight up ignored it because they think that they know better. This is a stupid rule, attempts to overregulate and detracts from a minimal staff-regulation experience.

I mean, seriously, this whole proposal is damn insulting when it was found that the fluctuations do not cause any noticeable or significant lag but people decided to ignore his whole investigation. And then there's people cherrypicking what was found. What the fuck? This "bill" is a whole heap of nonsense, it won't fix anything and it seems players are just trying to scapegoat the lag on something I bet not even the proponents understand.

Let me ask you all a very, very fair question. Can any one who is actually for this analyse Luis's write-up and tell me how exactly a ban on farms would help, technically, in absolute terms? I would very much like to see it.

[PengBunny]

You all sound so whiny when the rest of the player base clearly experiences this lag when farms are in use. Luis' investigation shows proof that it causes much more fluctuation for 1.14 at these farms, which is what induces the rubber banding that is a majority of the community's complaints.

In my opinion, the regulations are very light as I would have liked to see the number of required players to regulate farms drop down lower to around 5. This is an extremely fair compromise and it only lasts till 1.16 AND punishment is very light on offenders. No farms are getting seized or broken the community is just asking these players using these large farms to think about them and quit being so self interested while we try to figure out ways to cut down lag for the time being.

The amount of crying or incessant whining over fucking minecraft farms couldn't be anymore pathetic. I get it, the mind blowing feeling of standing there AFK while you ruin everyone else's experience is just too good to pass up. But please, quit being so selfish and listen to other people's complaints about not being able to play. It's absurd that these AFK players, represented by mostly staff, have gone this long with clear favor while the other players have gotten screwed until someone decided to speak up.

Farms can still be used according to these regulations, it's just asking that large farm users do this at a time where it won't affect every other player. So please, stop whining about it ruining your player experience. We don't care, just as you are constantly ignoring the concerns about our experience being riddled with constant lag, we don't care how much it ruins your fun -- you have already lost that respect.

[Yvette]

kinda think we should wait but at the same time. a lot of what i've said about this is ignored so i don't care. such a fucking retarded rule anyways.

Please tell me this is a joke. We have compromised and discussed every facet of this proposal with you to such a degree to try and make it fair, I really can't believe you think we're ignoring you. Perhaps we should put the original proposal with none of your input to vote, since we're just ignoring you anyway. Moving on..

I feel like nobody here bothered to actually read Luis's report, or they did read it and straight up ignored it because they think that they know better.

Multiple of us discussed and replied to Luis' report, no one ignored it or thinks they "know better", however, all player's input is equally valuable.

This is a stupid rule, attempts to overregulate and detracts from a minimal staff-regulation experience.

We already regulate farms as I said, and if players deem the effects of the regulation more valuable than "minimal staff regulation" then it's fine.

I mean, seriously, this whole proposal is damn insulting when it was found that the fluctuations do not cause any noticeable or significant lag but people decided to ignore his whole investigation.

Again, no one ignored his investigation, and there was quite a bit of discussion around them. Here, let me link a few of the posts for you, since you may have missed them.
http://www.villagecraft-server.com/forum/index.php?topic=5062.msg46694#msg46694
http://www.villagecraft-server.com/forum/index.php?topic=5062.msg46740#msg46740
http://www.villagecraft-server.com/forum/index.php?topic=5062.msg46746#msg46746

And then there's people cherrypicking what was found. What the fuck?

This is kinda confusing to me. Again, let me quote directly from Luis, whom you think is 'right'

If people look at my tests and decide to interpret them as farms causing problems, then that's perfectly fine by me. That's exactly why I did them, so people can draw conclusions based on it.

You're perfectly welcome to draw your own conclusions from the data he presented as well, but truly its more people who are against the ban who didn't address the data whatsoever.

This "bill" is a whole heap of nonsense, it won't fix anything and it seems players are just trying to scapegoat the lag on something I bet not even the proponents understand.

Mildly insulting to say we don't understand what we're proposing when we've put quite a lot of work into this bill to compromise with others, to make it clear and concise, and to make sure it's subject to democratic review as soon as it should be.
I've apologised before for making it seem like I, personally, am trying to scapegoat the lag on farms, but we've all known (or, strongly suspected) that farms were the cause of quite a lot of the lag since long before this bill came around. Players have been avoiding their farms at peak hours as a courtesy for months and months. It's only become a Parliamentary issue now because "Peak hours" are now longer and have more people, as well as some players simply want to farm during them. This isn't a new issue whatsoever, its just amplified by the recent increased activity on VC.

Let me ask you all a very, very fair question. Can any one who is actually for this analyse Luis's write-up and tell me how exactly a ban on farms would help, technically, in absolute terms? I would very much like to see it.

Certainly. Though I know it won't change anything for you, I hope some undecided spectators look at it and see what they think about it.

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Deviations in TPS were, in the tests, between 4.29 and 6.35, in version 1.14.4, based on the two farms tested. These are pretty big fluctuations for one sole thing to be causing alongside everything else that is happening on the server at any given time, especially since it's not uncommon for two players to be farming at once on VillageCraft.

Even at the most conservative value of 4, a fluctuation of 4 TPS during peak hours which TPS commonly hovers around 12 - this is based on my personal observation from playing VC everyday since quarantine started - is a significant enough fluctuation to cause gameplay issues for many of the players. Go to the 6 value and the effects are obvious. And take into account what I mentioned, the fact that it isn't uncommon for two players to be at a farm during peak hours, and at those times, the server is, truly, nearly unplayable.

The removal of these fluctuations would certainly not solve all lag issues on VC, and I imagine for the next few weeks - should this pass - any moment of lag will be met with passive aggressive "wow im glad we banned farms" remarks, but in my perspective, the numbers show that regulating farms in this way will have a great impact on the quality of life on VC for the playerbase during peak hours.

Aside from numerical analysis, I'd like to point out there's no realistic reason for Cyphur, me, Legend, or any others to "scapegoat" farms. All three of us have HUGE money making farms. Why the hell would I purposely regulate a money making farm I use frequently if not because I truly believe it would benefit the server. Same deal with Cyphur and Legend. Furthermore, due to Luis' analysis and number crunching, we opted to increase the player limit from 5 to 10, given the lower TPS Fluctuation effect than we originally thought. Doesn't sound like "ignoring his analysis" to me.

We have had new players join, ask "is it always this laggy?" and leave within their first few minutes on the server. So your point about this rule "driving new players away" is entirely false, in my opinion. It seems to me the opponents of this regulation willfully ignore player's experience of lag on the server, to an extent where you see them laugh and mock them when they are lagging.

This should cover all of my points, and I, quite frankly, refuse to keep going in circles about this issue. If people have questions about my stance on this issue, direct them to this point, but I won't engage on this thread anymore.

[Akomine]

kinda think we should wait but at the same time. a lot of what i've said about this is ignored so i don't care. such a fucking retarded rule anyways.

I can directly quote you to areas where you were not ignored. Your input changed the face of this proposal. To say otherwise is bizarre.

I feel like nobody here bothered to actually read Luis's report, or they did read it and straight up ignored it because they think that they know better. This is a stupid rule, attempts to overregulate and detracts from a minimal staff-regulation experience.

I mean, seriously, this whole proposal is damn insulting when it was found that the fluctuations do not cause any noticeable or significant lag but people decided to ignore his whole investigation. And then there's people cherrypicking what was found. What the fuck? This "bill" is a whole heap of nonsense, it won't fix anything and it seems players are just trying to scapegoat the lag on something I bet not even the proponents understand.

Let me ask you all a very, very fair question. Can any one who is actually for this analyse Luis's write-up and tell me how exactly a ban on farms would help, technically, in absolute terms? I would very much like to see it.

Luis's report is helpful, but you have to consider that:
- It is not a true test of VC under load, (only implementing this rule can do that).
- He found that farms did contribute to TPS fluctuations, though personally disagreed with a rule at the time of writing. He also posited that the TPS fluctuations are likely less than what people tend to assume.

I'm sorry you feel ignored, when I was lagging so bad I couldn't move when this whole debate started I also felt very ignored when trying to find the issue with people. I understand you aren't feeling lag but unfortunately not all of us players have that luxury and if this "retarded rule" helps us a little bit I don't understand why we don't want to sacrifice a little to help the players overall. The rule is if 10 players get on you have to cease use of a farm, and even in our up rate these past few weeks it isn't always 10, usually 7-9 people.

Overall I think the rule is a great compromise, if we want to wait for after CM vote that is fine, but I don't see any reason we have to wait unless someone has a valid reason for waiting.

This is a decent reply, nicely done. I wonder if this rule passes, if you'll notice an improvement.

You all sound so whiny when the rest of the player base clearly experiences this lag when farms are in use. Luis' investigation shows proof that it causes much more fluctuation for 1.14 at these farms, which is what induces the rubber banding that a majority of the community's complaints.

In my opinion, the regulations are very light as I would have liked to see the number of required players to regulate farms drop down lower to around 5. This is an extremely fair compromise and it only lasts till 1.16 AND punishment is very light on offenders. No farms are getting seized or broken the community is just asking these players using these large farms to think about them and quit being so self interested while we try to figure out ways to cut down lag for the time being.

The amount of crying or incessant whining over fucking minecraft farms couldn't be anymore pathetic. I get it, the mind blowing feeling of standing there AFK while you ruin everyone else's experience is just too good to pass up. But please, quit being so selfish and listen to other people's complaints about not being able to play. It's absurd that these AFK players, represented by mostly staff, have gone this long with clear favor while the other players have gotten screwed until someone decided to speak up.

Farms can still be used according to these regulations, it's just asking that large farm users do this at a time where it won't affect every other player. So please, stop whining about it ruining your player experience. We don't care, just as you are constantly ignoring the concerns about our experience being riddled with constant lag, we don't care how much it ruins your fun -- you have already lost that respect.

Not gonna lie, I had a laugh at this rant

[tenretni]

While this regulation is well thought out and covers most of the issues, it is just that, a cover. It is simply a stop-gap that will mask the underlying issue without properly resolving the actual problems that are present.

I know this doesn't entirely affect me nor will it change the way I personally play, but this regulation is not only time-consuming to enforce but also piles on more that a staff member would have to do the moment they log in. If I am wrong in this regard, then please do correct me but what would your routine as staff be once this regulation is in place? If you are following it, most likely you will spend the beginning of every play session teleporting from player to player to make sure they are not using a farm. Not only this but can any player soundly estimate the size and scale of a farm without pulling out worldedit or block counting the border? I don't mean to knock anyone's abilities, those are just questions I would ask myself if I was still staff. This creates a tedious and laborious task for both players and staff, the latter who already have much to deal with outside of essentially perma-spying on random players.

Bringing back the mention of existing problems, wouldn't the previously mentioned regulation on prices have a similar effect on the use of farms?

Completely crashing the price for valuable and easily farmable items would make it worthless to create and actively farm any of these resources as they would be no better than earning pennies for the hour. And yes, that would be the pricing I would implement. Either kill the revenue of these farms to deter most of their usage or utterly flip the market and remove the ability to sell these items to the market. Both will have the same effect, I am sure. Both in regards to the immediate effect as well as the public outcry. Even so, this would either push players who farm back to actually playing the game in other ways or they will quit. It is a harsh reality and decision but something that should have been considered the moment massive scale projects were created. The player can still make money outside of creating such farms, it is simply more effort and less afk.

Of course, this is my opinion and perhaps my opinion alone but something of this magnitude is necessary to reinvigorate the worth of money on the server. There is no real economy since anything can be bought after a short moment of farming any of the publicly or privately available areas. There is no proper sense of where it should stop and it has become more about who tops the balance charts or who has the best and most efficient farms to make this money.

While this is only a single step towards a change, it doesn't have to nor should it be the only step taken to change the way things are seen, earned, and implemented.

Feel free to rip this apart,

-Random player opinion.

[protoape]

I haven't been actively participating in this thread because I thought my opinion was only mine, but I fully agree with ten here. I support the regulation because it'll appease the most people, but it's like patching a wall with paper maché. When money becomes worthless, gameplay is just too easy and monotonous. If anyone disagrees please take it to ten and not me

[PengBunny]

While this regulation is well thought out and covers most of the issues, it is just that, a cover. It is simply a stop-gap that will mask the underlying issue without properly resolving the actual problems that are present.

I know this doesn't entirely affect me nor will it change the way I personally play, but this regulation is not only time-consuming to enforce but also piles on more that a staff member would have to do the moment they log in. If I am wrong in this regard, then please do correct me but what would your routine as staff be once this regulation is in place? If you are following it, most likely you will spend the beginning of every play session teleporting from player to player to make sure they are not using a farm. Not only this but can any player soundly estimate the size and scale of a farm without pulling out worldedit or block counting the border? I don't mean to knock anyone's abilities, those are just questions I would ask myself if I was still staff. This creates a tedious and laborious task for both players and staff, the latter who already have much to deal with outside of essentially perma-spying on random players.

Bringing back the mention of existing problems, wouldn't the previously mentioned regulation on prices have a similar effect on the use of farms?

Completely crashing the price for valuable and easily farmable items would make it worthless to create and actively farm any of these resources as they would be no better than earning pennies for the hour. And yes, that would be the pricing I would implement. Either kill the revenue of these farms to deter most of their usage or utterly flip the market and remove the ability to sell these items to the market. Both will have the same effect, I am sure. Both in regards to the immediate effect as well as the public outcry. Even so, this would either push players who farm back to actually playing the game in other ways or they will quit. It is a harsh reality and decision but something that should have been considered the moment massive scale projects were created. The player can still make money outside of creating such farms, it is simply more effort and less afk.

Of course, this is my opinion and perhaps my opinion alone but something of this magnitude is necessary to reinvigorate the worth of money on the server. There is no real economy since anything can be bought after a short moment of farming any of the publicly or privately available areas. There is no proper sense of where it should stop and it has become more about who tops the balance charts or who has the best and most efficient farms to make this money.

While this is only a single step towards a change, it doesn't have to nor should it be the only step taken to change the way things are seen, earned, and implemented.

Feel free to rip this apart,

-Random player opinion.

I wholly agree with this. The economy has never been in a healthy state and has been in shambles the past several years since VC gained popularity. While this isn't the discussed topic at hand, the issues with the current system are egregious. Enforcing a regulation to the sale of these farmed items by making them economically nonviable is another direction to go with these farms. As it stands farms are causing more problems than just lag. This would solve the lag issue and also another major flaw in the VillageCraft economy. The current system promotes mindless farming while making these players untouchable as they can buy nearly everything from market while we punish our players that actively participate in the community with very little margins of profit that pale in comparison. We should move toward a discussion about reworking the economy in another thread but I definitely think it is another issue that needs to be visited in the upcoming weeks.

[OctoGamer]

PleAsE TeLl Me ThIs iS a JokE.. No.. you're the joke.

[gerrit70]

Hasnt the idea to reduce pumpkin prices been around for a while?

[Akomine]

Hasnt the idea to reduce pumpkin prices been around for a while?

Yeah some massive market revamp ideas have been around for a while.