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Portal Ship Waypoints

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Tags: Suggestion Livemap dynmap Transportation Ship portalship Airship Alex_Eisenberg IndigoContinuum

October 3, 2015
3:49 pm

Alex_Eisenberg

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August 30, 2015

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Often when exploring new areas in Arda, I take a portal ship from spawn that will take me to the general area I want to explore. Unfortunately, It can be hard to know where ships' destinations are because they aren't easily visible on the live map. On a server such as ours where realistic transportation is such a defining part of the player experience, it frustrates me that the live map doesn't do more to facilitate player travel.

I suggest that waypoints be added to the live map for portal ships. With waypoints similar to those that mark key buildings in spawn, players could easily pinpoint portal ships that would allow them to get closer to where they want to go. This is analogous to the way real life maps include the locations of major ports.

A secondary benefit to the addition of portal ship markers would be increased traffic to player ports and cities, which I feel would help build our community and economy as well as contribute to server lore.

Of course, as with any new feature, there is the question of ease of implementation. According to Veteran Craft player IndigoContinuum, who in the past used the same live map on his own server, adding such waypoints is very simple, and can even be done in-game through the game console.

The only objection I can imagine anyone having to this feature is that, in the eyes of some, having more waypoints on the map would clutter it. I would like to remind such individuals that navigational markers can be turned off through the menu on the left side of the live map.

I hope that the powers that be will give my suggestion serious thought, as its implementation would benefit the server as a whole. Thank you for your time.

-Alex Eisenberg

October 3, 2015
3:59 pm

tedisvet

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I like the idea, it can be hard to tell what region you will be travelling to. And I also think - especially the new - players would love this to get around quickly to an area that is further away from spawn.

A downside of this is that people are more likely to take advantage of the portal ships of other players, since they now know exactly where they are. I suppose people can do that now too, but I have not seen that happen too often yet. Maybe the players with a portal ship don't mind, maybe they do. All I think is that people with such a ship often have larger projects in mind and would like some space.

Just sharing my thoughts, but in general I like the idea!

"Pants? You mean leg prisons."

October 3, 2015
4:13 pm

Alex_Eisenberg

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I appreciate your feedback Tedisvet and I agree, waypoints would benefit new players especially. However, I must disagree with you about the motives of players who build ships. If a player wanted an easy way to get to their area without allowing others in, I think they would simply set a home. When a player takes the time, effort, and shillings to build a portal ship, it says to me that they want other people to use the ship and/or visit them. I mean, the ship is already in the spawn harbor, its no big secret. What is harder to discern is where the ships go to.

I don't believe taking advantage of portal ships is a bad thing to do.

Of course, I can't speak for everybody. If any player who has a portal ship doesn't want its location publicized, they could simply opt out of the program.

Thanks,

Alex Eisenberg

October 17, 2015
1:05 pm

frelling

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August 18, 2011

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Hum, let me see... *cough*, *cough*... dang, this dust; gotta remember to swing a Swiffer here once in a while... wait, here, here it is, *cough* Player Activated Portals, nope not it. I know its around here somewhere? Ow, dang box. Jeez, Minecraft 1.7.4 beta notes; that's gotta be tossed into the recycling bin. Oh yes, here it is Portal Waypoints. I knew I had something in the backburner room. Laugh

Great idea, seemingly simple to do, albeit manual work. Its simple for static portals such as the Compass Ship. Then again, those will never change and are set and forgotten. Unfortunately, that does not carry over to player portals as much. While the actual placement of a waypoint is a nobrainer, making it part of an automatic process that can be reconciled isn't. Certainly, we could create yet another manual process, but we've seen too many others fall by the wayside or get out of sync in the past.

In sum, great feature we all would like to see, but it has to wait its time... We're just bringing all our plugins under a full continuous integration/deployment process. Anyone that has written unit tests for plugins can attest that it is not that ease to get reasonable code coverage within a CraftBukkit/Spigot environment. Along with all the other much needed updates (e.g. Shop, Wrench, etc.) a replacement for Multiverse Portals is in much desire.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experiences of others, are also remarkable for their disinclination to do so. - D. Adams