[IMPORTANT] Should villager trading be against our rules?

#1

Should villager diamond trading be against the rules?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Hey folks,

I have a new rule I would like to implement regarding villager trading, and I’d like some feedback.

Recently, I have noticed a lot of players have been building villager farms. They’ve been able to get their hands on ridiculous amounts of diamond armor and tools (we’re talking double chests full) in an incredibly short amount of time because of the trading system. Although it’s completely vanilla, as it stands it feels overpowered and broken. These farms de-value the point of mining for diamonds, and give the server a very ‘creative’ feel.

I am proposing a rule to ban these farms completely - Players caught using them would simply be banned and their items would be burned.

I’m ready to go through with this rule, though I wanted to put it up as a vote first. If the majority of you guys disagree, we’ll obviously scrap it. I do think it’s for the best of the server though - What do you guys think?

#2

Would you get rid of ALL villagers or just the farms?

#3

I might be able to write a bukkit that deletes diamond trades, and then we can still have farms for other stuff, like chain mail and food

#4

There would be no changes, other than the fact that we would be banning people taking advantage of the trading.

#5

In terms of bartering, the diamond would lose its value due in part to the sheer stock size. I’m new to this server though… so I’ve no idea the methods in place set by members.

#6

Makes sense to ban this to stop people from having ridiculously quick OP diam gear. However, the server focuses on being vanilla/legitimate and I believe that if the devs allow this type of farming to occur, then the server should allow it.
Seeing as PVP is very rare on Arcane, diamond armour already has small value and a player can get fully enchanted diam armour in around one hour by mining. Skeet is correct, diamond would lose its value very quickly.

Let’s not forget in the upcoming 1.8, trading mechanics are being altered. I say wait till then. If the mechanics still allow “OP” trading, then I suppose banning it would make sense to keep the Arcane economy stable.

#7

This is just like the Iron Farms and Obsidian generators, if they didn’t intend it to be in the game they would have taken the trades out. You have to ask yourself, is this really affecting the community in a negative way?

Is this unfair to anyone?
No, simply because everyone has ability to play the game and profit from this.
It should remain your decision as a player.

#8

With villager trading, we could literally fill the starter chest to the brim with diamond, no question about it. Just think about that, diamond would be worthless, and that’s no fun - right?

#9

Touche. It only makes sense players should work for diamond armor if they want it. However given the ability to provide it would only help gameplay.

Armor is viewed as a choice by some players.

#10

Personally I hate the enderman grinder. It breaks the game and it’s not a lot of fun to unlock the best shit with no effort. If you want an xp farm, I think you should make one like I did. I at least had to put in the effort.

I typically don’t like automated things in Minecraft. I want to play the game, not watch everything happen for me. Villager trading is fine, but the diamond gear abuse I would like to see cease.

#11

I agree that this should wait until the 1.8 update.
No use spending time figuring this all out then having to scrap it if 1.8 fixes the issue.

Also, if you’re going to get rid of the overpowered villager trading, I don’t see the sense in keeping any of the other experience farms. They’re just as bad for being overpowered as having a villager farm. When you end up getting an endless amount of experience and diamonds, it starts to ruin game-play for people.

I think the things like the cow and sheep farms are alright, being you don’t get stacks upon stacks, and people share the things you get from them, like food and other common materials.

When the things that should be hard to get, become easy to obtain and devalued, that’s when it becomes an issue.

#12

I am completely and absolutly opposed to this. I find it ridiculuous to take out 1 particular concept of farming and deem it “damaging” or “breaking the economy”. Take the enderender, you could argue in the same way that it completely devalues enchanted gear. Was anyone riling up people to destroy the enderender because of it’s OPness?
No.
Take strip-mining. It’s completely vanilla, yet it’s completely stale and boring. Even so it’s the best method of getting diamonds. Is anyone arguing to ban strip-mining and only allow “legit” caving?
No.
Take iron farms. Simply by being on the server you can aquire completely ridiculous amounts of iron without any work whatsoever. Has anyone been arguing to destroy those?
No.
Take the nether roads, they allow insanely quick travelling. In about 3 minutes you can walk 5000 blocks on the overworld. Has anyone been arguing to destroy those?
No.

So I ask: Why take this one specific way of aquiring resources and ban it? It’s just completely arbitrary. Minecraft is simply a game where certain methods of aquiring resources and doing travel and conducting your buisness completely overpower other ways. And a lot of the game is based on finding these methods and using them.

Trading is a vanilla feature, if it weren’t supposed to be a feature, it wouldn’t be. On another note, people have been using trading to get diamond tools and armor for a long time on this server, only that they did it in private. Kukukimoverhere, Jacofalltrades and GTGraphics have been running a paper trader for quite some time, in private and for themselves. Only since me, ytorgonak and some others have brought this to the public and have asserted our intent to make a public trading place has this been posted. And I find it a bit unfair that certain people get to profit off this and keep their chests filled while everyone else is left behind.

To be honest I find this rule would be very unfair toward us. We have taken days to create good villagers. It is a very cumbersome task to aquire villagers that do good trades and even more so to figure out how they work. The wiki on this part is very difficult to read and doesn’t explain this in a detailed way. Me and yto have taken about an hour or so to figure out how exactly this all works. Building farms that get you a large amount of paper is also time-consuming and this rule would just smack us in the face and destroy all the work we have done. Yto has personally invested about a stack of diamonds just to unlock a blacksmith that trades everything.

Now let’s talk exactly about how powerful this trading system really is. Can you really use no diamonds whatsoever with this? The answer is no. All your silk-touch/fortune pickaxes and good diamond swords still require repairing and using diamond tools is “too expensive” on an anvil, so you will still need diamonds to do this. The argument that diamonds are useless now is just not quite right.

And even with this. What’s the point of trying to artificially keep diamonds rare? The only thing it will accomplish is that people will now be forced to strip-mine which is boring and absolutly stale. In my opinion strip-mining is the worst feature the game has ever possessed. It’s not fun, it’s just plain boring. Villager-trading is a mechanic that is much easier and less time-consuming and will not force people to sit infront of their monitor for hours just mindlessly hacking into the stone ground with their pickaxes.

What about the economy? Oh the economy. People are so concerned about not making a personal profit for themselves. Are you really so concerned about not being able to trade things for diamonds? Oh please. Money in the real world has a value, not because it is actually useful to create things, but because people believe in it as a means of exchange. Money has value because we all know that we can trade it for something else and I am of the opinion that diamonds or perhaps given the trade mechanic, emeralds could fill that role perfectly.

What’s the problem with going over to an emerald-based economy as opposed to diamond-based or quartz or any other resource? Are you really that picky and need it to be a certain way? Come on guys. You all know that’s just plain silly.

Now, do I think we should stuff the starter chest with diamond tools? No. I think doing that would kind of destroy the time you start on the server. You should have to figure out how things run on arcane and find the places where you can get stuff before being able to aquire these items.

So I ask you all VOTE NO on this rule.

And to those who don’t want to have villager trading, don’t use it and leave those who want to use it alone.

Sincerely,

#13

The issue of whether such exploitable mechanics constitute cheating or not goes beyond simply our server - and one could indeed ask the same question about existing resource farms.

When you already have already have abundant, infinite and effortless XP, iron, gold, leather, paper, and so on, is anything really OP anymore? Why would diamonds be different from the other resources we’re already farming without a second thought?

The first objection is that it devaluates diamonds for trading - well trading is neither vanilla, nor something everyone wants to do.

Making a server-wide rule to accomodate only the part of the group that’s really enthused about enforcing a capitalist system is not fair. But it wouldn’t even break the ‘economy’: it would just change it from a currency-based system (with diamonds) into a more diversified bartering system. Instead of trading for diamonds, you’ll trade for what you really need: quartz, alium, whatever. So trading still flourishes and becomes more interesting.

The second is that it’s unfair to people who can’t benefit from those villagers. Karassar & co. are taking care of that, making it accessible to everyone.

And finally, for the people who are really excited about strip mining: we can finally start pimping our bases with diamond blocks, and how cool is that?

Addendum: and for people who want a more ‘legit’ experience, you don’t have to use any farm at all. This is not a competitive server - PvP or otherwise - and you don’t have to get the best or most efficient gear or farm or whatever just because you can or because your neighbour does.

Everyone is free to choose their own experience. Some are more creative-minded, some more RP-minded, some want Teh Best Every-Item for PvP or just because. I don’t think it’s necessary to steer the rules forcefully towards a certain specific type of gameplay.

#14

I am also firmly against this rule.

Karasaar and Aljady said it all:

It would not alter the economy, it would diversify it.
It’s vanilla.
It’s not forced upon anyone.
It took some efforts to do.
People have been using it for some time now.

#15

I’ll post my two cents as well.
Like it’s been said, this is just one of the many farms that make life easier.
Since there isn’t a lot of pvp, and especially because it is not a monopolized resource, I see no issue with villager farms. The only change is that diamonds won’t be nearly as good for money.
Personally, I don’t think I have exchanged anything for diamonds on this server anyways- most things I either give for free or ask for something I need. But there are other things that are valuable to players (I’m thinking of leather for example), or houses that can be used instead. In my experience the barter system works much better than trying to convert everything to diamonds.

Any player who has played minecraft for a while knows how to quickly obtain diamonds, even without a farm. I had a stack full within two hours of joining the server. Villager trading just makes getting them easier, as does the iron farm or gold farm.

Finally, I think that most players tend to be on here to create stuff, not to get as many diamonds as possible. And while a cube out of diamonds is cool, it’s not nearly as cool or hard to do as making an awesome castle, efficient farm, or amazing redstone circuit. What draws people to minecraft is the ability to create anything, not to gather as many diamonds as possible. Those who do just try to get as “rich” as possible tend to burn out quickly (I think there is a real life metaphor in there somewhere).
Anyways, sorry for the somewhat meandering post.

#16

Thanks for taking the time to post some detailed replies here guys, it looks like villager trading will remain a part of Arcane.

#17

yay! I agree with this decision. I dig the farms.