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Below are the proposed contitution for the server and the proposed rules of engagement to govern warfare. I have drawn upon many sources, including but not limited to Mazznoff's constitution and Enton's proposals, to compile this, what I believe to be comprehensive reforms for the server and most importantly to the political sphere of the server. — V1adimirr 2013/02/23 22:11
Server Constitution
Server Constitution
1. The legal system of the server falls into two categories: the Admin Law and the Autism Law. The Admin Law prevails over the Autism Law, if Admin Law doesn’t explicitly say otherwise. The staff withhold the power to make judgements relating to any player or entity and enforce said judgements, within the confines of this constitution.
2. Main definitions:
a. player – an individual registered on the server
b. non-political player – a player who doesn’t want to take part in server politics. All players, unless they desire otherwise, are non-political players.
c. political player – a player who wants to take part in server politics. He consents to be bound by the Rules of Engagement, part of Autism Law.
d. moderator – a player, who has the obligation to exercise control over other players in terms of compliance with the constitution by the latter and have the right to take steps necessary to prevent and punish the breaches by the latter
e. admin – te3 and Bragzor; a player who oversees the moderators’ conduct and has the right to take steps necessary to prevent and punish the breaches by both players and moderators. They withhold the power to judge supremely on any issue
f. griefing – a deed, which results in diminishing aesthetic value of other players’ creations, buildings and/or supporting structures, causing harm to and/or endangering a player, committed with malice aforethought consisting of:
• destruction of blocks, entities in other players’ creations, buildings and/or supporting structures
• placement of blocks on/in other players’ creations, buildings and/or supporting structures
• interruption of existing/normal flow of water/lava
g. staff - the collection of moderators and admins
h. citizen - a player who identifies as a member of a community (settlement, city-state, nation)
i. active - a player is active, as opposed to inactive, when he has played within the last 30 days.
The Admin Law
I – General Provisions
3. The players, their rights and freedoms are of supreme value. Their recognition, compliance with, defense of and enforcement are their own, moderators’ and admins’ responsibilities.
4. Players have the right to play without being unduly harassed, griefed or killed.
5. Griefing is forbidden, unless Autism Law stipulates otherwise. Cases of allowed griefing must be limited by the Autism Law.
6. If a player wishes to play alone, he shall be given that opportunity.
7. Cheating or abusing bugs to the point of breaking the game for others or the game balance is forbidden.
8. The Constitution must be amended if new legislation is passed. New legislation may be introduced by players, moderators, admins. It has to be approved by the collective decision of moderators and admins in order to be passed.
9. The official server language is English. Excessive use of any language other than English is frowned upon, and action, herein defined as warnings, kicks, and bans sequentially, shall be taken by staff if complaints by active players are received.
10. These provisions shall be interpreted and enforced by the staff.
II – Criminal Law
11. For a violation of the constitution, the moderators or admins may take one or several of following steps:
• le kick
• le confiscation of the items (only for cheating and/or bug abuse)
• le gaol (TN: goal means prison)
• le kill
• le ban
12. When determining ban longevity, staff should take into account the following factors: the player’s political status, duration of the presence on the server, amount of damage done, previous ban history.
13. Ban longevity for political players attacking / griefing non-political players shall be harsher. Ban longevity for non-political players attacking / griefing non-political or political players shall not differ from ban longevity for political players attacking / griefing political players not in course of war.
14. Grounds for being exempt from criminal responsibility: self-defence (being under attack), previous provocation by the victim.
15. The moderator should stipulate the ban reason in the language in english for the benefit of the non-banned.
16. A player may appeal a ban in the Mod Court. The Mod Court consists of the staff and a decision is passed by simple majority of mods and admins votes. Admins’ vote prevail, should there be a deuce. The server's owner’s vote prevails, should there be a deuce between admins. If the ban was unlawful, the ban is considered void. In this case the Mod Court also issues an official warning for the moderator responsible.
17. Grounds for appeal: non-existence of a breach of the constitution, excessiveness of the ban, failure to stipulate the ban reason, existence of grounds for being exempt from criminal responsibility.
18. The Mod Court may dismiss the appeal only if the grounds for the appeal are not present, may consider it and deliver its verdict. The moderator, whose ban is appealed, may not take part in Mod Court proceeding. If the claim is brought by one moderator / admin against the other moderator, they are both exempt from the proceeding. It may decide that the ban was lawful or unlawful.
III – Moderators
19. Moderators and admins shall be guided by the Constitution, justice and humanism.
20. An existing mod may be put up for impeachment on the wiki by any player, should they provide a reason, including two official warnings from the Mod Court. The final decision rests with the admins.
21. Players shall be nominated for mod elections. The final decision rests with the admins.
22. Moderators shall work in harmony to help players.
The Autism Law
IV - Unions
23. Players shall be free to form unions, be they settlements, city-states, or nations and pledge citizenship to said entity.
24. Players shall be pledged to only one entity at any given time and may not change their citizenship more than once in a calendar month.
25. A settlement is herein defined as an area claimed by between one and four citizens who have built together for their common good. The area claimed shall be negligable and may not extent beyond structures built by said settlement.
26. A city-state is herein defined as an area claimed by a collection of 5 or more active citizens who have built together for their common good. The land claimed shall be modest, though may extend beyond the immediate area of the city-state's structures. Citizens of a city-state shall be non-political.
27. A nation is herein defined as an area claimed by a collection of 5 or more active citizens who have built together for their common good and created a wiki page representing themselves as a nation. The land claimed may be reaching and extend far beyond the immediate area of the nation's structures.
28. Any land claim by any entity may be challenged and brought before a mod court as being excessive or aggressive. The power to alter claims is preserved in the staff.
29. A nation may contain multiple settlements or city-states, but shall not contain (sub-)nations.
30. The majority (and at least four) of the active citizens of a city-state must agree to change their status to a nation.
31. All citizens of nations are considered political players and therefore are required to comply with the Rules of Engagement.
V – Civil Law
32. The trade is free. The players must observe principle of good faith in their commercial relations, must perform undertaken obligations responsibly and in due time.
33. The contracts may be in written form on the wiki. Players may get a moderator to enforce the contract. In this case, upon failure to perform contractual obligations, the injured party has the right to resort to the moderator.
34. The subject matter of contract must be legal under Admin Law. Assassination contracts may exist.
35. Tournaments and totalizators may exist. These can be conducted with the help of mods (e.g. spawning mobs against a contending player)
36. Labour contracts may exist. The pay should be fair and reflect the nature of labour.
37. Contracts may be evaluated and enforced by the staff at the request of players.
Rules of Engagement
Rules of Engagement
At any time a nation may declare war on another nation (Non-nation entities may never declare war, but may voluntarily enter a war or agree to a war if they so choose. Settlements may also withdraw from any war with no penalty). The declaration must be given unequivocally from leader to leader. It is the responsibility of the declaring nation to ensure that the receiving nation's government is fully aware of their status of being warred upon. Upon this declaration, the defending nation may choose from three options:
- To immediately surrender and pay a tribute agreed to by the attacking nation.
- To refuse the declaration entirely.
- To accept the declaration of war and immediately enter into a state of war with the attacking nation.
Surrendering
In order to surrender, the defending nation must acquiese to the terms set forth by the attacking nation. These terms may be negotiated, but both nations must agree and abide by them for the surrender to be valid. If the defending nation defaults on its debt, be it by choice or poverty, the surrender is no longer valid and the defending nation is regarded as having refused the declaration entirely. If the nation is for any reason unable to refuse the declaration, their status as a nation is revoked and they must function as a settlement. They may subsequently petition a tribunal of mods to reinstate their status as a nation, but said mods are under no obligation to do so.
Refusing
Refusing a declaration of war affords the defending nation complete immunity from the perils of war with the declaring nation for a week. The nation need not pay tribute nor engage in battle- the declaration is utterly null and void. This must be explicitely made clear in the wiki in order to be a valid response [Author's Note: Perhaps a specific page would be made simply to recognize declarations of war and the responses of the other nations]. One week must pass before the attacking nation may once again declare war on the refusing nation. Upon refusing a sum of 3 declarations of war (not necessarily all from any one specific nation), any attacking nation may dispute any further refusals from the nation. In order to make null such a refusal, the attacking nation must convince a tribunal of moderators [Author's Note: Or just one moderator perhaps that has been elected to the position of wartime negotiator/Abriter] that their war is warranted and not simply an unjustified excuse to slaughter innocents. If the tribunal accepts the attacking nation's justification, the defending nation may either surrender or accept the war.
Accepting
If a nation accepts a declaration of war, the two nations are immediately said to be at war. Before accepting, both nations must agree to the stakes of the war: what each nation will gain or lose depending on the outcome of the war. This must be clearly stated in the wiki to be valid and enforced. The following otherwise unacceptable actions are lawful during a state of war:
- Players of a nation can kill members of any enemy nation on said player's territory at any time.
- Lawful Raids
- A raid is categorised as any hostile military action taken without the consent of both parties, though both sides must have agreed to be currently in a state of war.
- There may be no griefing of blocks, though non-block entities (here defined as items such as torches or bed or other non-cube-shaped placements, excluding containers, stairs, slabs, and fences) may be destroyed.
- All attackers are required to return any valuable loot at the request of the defenders.
- Defenders may lawfully keep any spoils they strip from the raiders.
- Lawful Battles
- In order for a battle to be officially and lawfully recognised, it must have the full agreement of both parties' governments and both sides must have agreed to be at a state of war. A member of the staff must oversee and regulate the battle to be sure it is in accordance with these rules
- There may be no griefing of blocks, though non-block entities (here defined as items such as torches or bed or other non-cube-shaped placements, excluding containers, stairs, slabs, and fences) may be destroyed.
- Any inventory loot attained by either side may be kept in an officially sanctioned battle as the spoils of war.
- The battle is won when one side is unequivocally absent from the battlefield.
- Violation of this treaty will result in capitulation of the battle, the war, or the status of 'nation.' Depending on the circumstances it could even warrant a ban from the server. Do not deviate from these rules.
- Lawful Assassinations
- The player to be assassinated and the contractor must be at a state of war, though the assassin may be any player so inclined.
- The player to be assassinated must be forewarned that he has a bounty on his head at least 24 hours before the assassination.
- Immediately after the assassination, the assassin must declare his act as completed.
- The assassin is, until the end of the war, considered to be a political-player who may be lawfully killed himself in retaliation.
- Any loot acquired from either the assassin or the assassinated may be kept if it was dropped by either party less than 10 minutes after the act.
After 3 lawful raids and/or lawful assassinations committed against them, the defending nation must submit to a lawful battle. Failure to comply results in automatic copitulation (see: surrender).
The first nation to win 3 battles is declared the victor of the war. The loser of the war must submit to the agreed upon punishment. Failure to comply results in the automatic revoking of their status as nation (see: surrender).
Map Concept
Map Concept
Map type:
- Normal
- Large Biomes (suggested by Sikandar)
Map Seed suggestions:
- -524847 -nice set of small continets with a large northern continent.
- 8900216311878691 -Good Cluster of Continets surrounded by seas (southern regions are almost completely frozen over, very cool)
- 7011579459964 -ditto to the last another noice island cluster with mostly ocean surrounding
- -2371212923244 - single small set of 2 continents. If we want to just use these two for the nations map thats an idea while keeping the other map for normal gameplay. This would probably be more competitive.
- 13811243779 - Similar to the last
- -58056603865669781 - Single continet about 12k takk and 3 k wide with small islands around
Map limit:
6-8 solution — a 6k block square (6^2=36k blocks) (3000k to -3000k etc.) within an 8k block square (thus 6-8). Nations can only exist and claim land within the 6k block square (other settlements can be built in here, too). Outside of the 6k square there is room for settlements that do not want to get involved in politics and like keeping their distance from this autism. Would be a way to counter the huge distances we have with the current map without hurting the little antisocial bernd who just wants to build alone but feel like he's with other people. Alternatives: 5-7 (8 square is pretty big?).
Map Design suggestions:
- We need to choose a design that does not have massive continental sprawl. We need a large biome map with multiple continents all about. hopefully one that will have 7-10 continents within an area of 10,000×10,000. If it is possible it would be cool to edit the map so the northern and southern poles are iced over (switching the biomes around) idk if thats possible or not. the most important thing though is getting a good seed before the map is even generated this can be done with map previewers like Amidst. Also i suggest we have certain outlying zones or degignate a certian continent for freebuild possibly. I like the Idea of Using Cabastards boat he built in Rhodes for a starter ship which we all get 1 or 2 chests in.If we do start a new map and we implement the mandatory shit about nationns the staff need to learn better moderation to determine when a nation(who may or may not be acting fully within the rules) is simply making the game unfun for others. At the end of the day the rules dont really amtter we are all here to have fun and if wea re not having fun then there is no point and we are just being autists.
Aesthetic Suggestions:
- I created an ebin sloop at the dock near the current spawn. I would suggest making the world portal inside the hold of the sloop and then I could create an identical sloop in the other world with another portal inside that sloop. We could make the other sloop at the beach of the new world so it would be like you took a sloop voyage in the sloop across a great sloopy ocean to get there, where the sloop is. Sloop. -vlad