Player Towns 4.0

The Player Town Process is loosely broken down into four phases: Pre-Application, Application, Pre-Build, and Build. Be sure to pay close attention to the details below, as many parts of each of these phases are significantly different from previous player town systems.

Phase 0: Pre-Application

So you’ve decided you’d like to try to build a player town – now what? To begin the process, you will need to consider broadly what you would like your town to look, feel, sound, and smell (lol) like. Will it be a tropical vacation paradise, or a smoky village in the heart of a volcano? Will its lore stretch back thousands of years, or will this be a new settlement with an eye towards a bright future? What will the architecture be inspired by? What will it be called? What colors/pictures/ideas does this town invoke? Where on the map would it best fit? All of these are great questions to consider at this stage in the process, to ensure that staff have a good idea of where you’re aiming. Here are some things you should have organized going into your application.

Builds to Make:

1. Road Design: roads are typically 5-7 blocks wide, and composed of a repeating or randomized pattern. Be sure to show how it will handle elevation changes and turns (whether meandering or sharp is up to your town theme).
2. Mailboxes: mailboxes will house the plot purchase signs, and are typically two blocks tall.
3. Plot Borders: plot borders will define the edges of the plots. Please keep in mind that players will be able to destroy/build over these, so valuable blocks *should not* be used.
4. One or Two Town Builds: these don’t necessarily have to be on the scale of what they will be in the town itself, but demonstrating a general build style and block palette is very helpful!

People to Have:

1. Player towns will need a town council composed of 5-11 players. This is very important, so please read carefully: there will be no “presidents”, “chairmen”, “leaders”, “grand poobah de doinks”, etc. ALL council members will be on the same level!
2. At least 25% of the council must be made up of staff members (so, if there are 5 players, there will be 2 staff, if there are 9 players there will be 3 staff, etc.). The addition of staff members may put you over the 11 player limit, and that is okay, so long as staff are 25% of the council’s numbers. These staff members will be your go-to for questions, but will also participate in the decision process on an equal playing field. We highly recommend finding interested staff members well before you apply, as they may be able to help sort out red flags in your application before it is formally submitted. These staff members will also take over as the Mayor(s) once the town is complete to handle things like reclaims. 

Other Things to Have:

1. Reference Images: Any and all reference images/mood boards are super helpful to understanding your vision.
2. Rough Location and Layout: Having a rough idea of where you would like your town to sit helps ensure it won’t conflict with future staff towns, and that it fits well into the map as a whole. You may not create a whole new biome or continent for the purposes of your town. Work with the map, not against it! You can use markings on Dynmap screenshots to help us understand your vision. You may have a maximum of 50 plots, and plots may be a maximum of 25×25 in dimension.
3. Rough Lore Ideas: Why do people want to live in your town? How did it come to be? This doesn’t need to be beautiful, ready to be posted on the website lore, just give us an idea of what makes your town tick. 
4. Block Palette: These are the blocks you anticipate needing the most to complete your town. This can include up to 20 blocks that will be available in your contractor’s shop.

Phase 1: The Application

The application itself is located here. You will notice that this application seeks to understand all of the things you need to consider in Phase 1. Staff will then deliberate and either approve or reject your theme, or work with you to tweak it a bit. In general, there are a few things Staff will turn down:

• “Pet Projects.” When it’s clear only one person is interested in this and it won’t involve anyone else, it may be something better suited as just a creative build.
• Copyright Infringements. No, you can’t build Hogwarts.
• Unclear Themes. If we can’t understand your theme, it is likely that the rest of the playerbase will be confused as well, and that will hurt your building schedule.
• Similarity to Another Town/Project. Having 5 underwater coral towns leaves little place for people who don’t like the ocean. In order to have a healthy server, we need a variety of places for people to explore and experience.
• Server Strain. Lots of transparent blocks (i.e. leaves and glass) omnomnom server space and speed. Ideas HEAVILY relying on these blocks may need to be re-evaluated.

Towns will be approved or rejected on a first-come, first-served basis. A complete rejection will shuffle a town idea to the back of the line, so-to-speak, while a town idea we feel is really close might be tweaked before receiving official approval, without having to be moved back in the line. There will only be one player town happening at any one time. 

Currently off-limits themes and areas due to towns in the works staff-side:

• Fantasy/Fairytale/RPG in a medieval setting in the mushroom forest south of NT. Towns in this area or of this theme will not be approved. 

Phase 2: Pre-Build

Once your town theme has been approved, we will set up a section on the NCT Discord for planning and coordination. If you feel this section is lacking something, just politely poke a staff member and we’ll be happy to add it for you. NOTE: ALL PLAYERS will have access to all but the “town council” channel for ease of recruiting builders and communicating with others. ALL town communication MUST happen in these chats. If we find out that a town chat/server has been created elsewhere, the town idea will be rejected permanently, and any progress made will be wiped from the map. 

During Phase 2 you should provide a rough wool markout of your town build locations, roads, terraforming, etc. for approval or tweaking by staff. 

Phase 2 is limited to 2 weeks. If you are unable to complete this phase within that time, it is likely that your concept is not well defined enough to be feasible in the building phase.​

Phase 3: Building

Oh jeez, this is the exciting part! Town building will look considerably different than it has in the past. In an effort to increase the open collaborative style and cut down on the necessity for staff to constantly be monitoring players, town building will NOT involve constant creative mode. Whaaaaat?? We know, bear with us. You WILL have access to fly within the town region, so no need for giant staircases. You will also have access to a special Contractor’s Shop for your town – this is where your block palette comes into play. Your block palette will be available for purchase in bulk from the Contractor’s Shop based on the rarity of the blocks and other factors. This saves you the time of having to go out and gather the materials yourself, although you are certainly welcome to! Fundraising is encouraged for this phase, as we do not expect the entire town cost to come exclusively out of the pockets of the council. 

We will have a WorldEditing Subcontractor Service available upon request and proposal, as well as Creative Access available at $50k/6 hours for your entire team (pending staff availability). ALL Town Building must be completed WITHIN 2 MONTHS of the start date, barring extreme circumstances like Flaw breaks the entire server for a week. If you are not able to complete the town within 2 months, staff will determine whether it should be made into a staff town, or simply removed from the map for lack of interest.

ANYONE will be able to access the build region and help out at any time, but there will be signs at the entrance encouraging people to check out the planning channels. Staff are happy to help mediate discussions on what will end up in the town, but please do not abuse staff powers by reporting builds you personally don’t like as griefing. Similarly, this open build style is NOT a time for personal builds. Creating personal builds at this time will be considered griefing and handled accordingly. Your best bet in ensuring a successful build process is to clearly define your theme through many references and a few reference builds created early in the process.

IMPORTANT: ANY PLAYER FOUND TO BE USING THE CONTRACTOR SHOP FOR PERSONAL GAIN WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED FROM THE SERVER WITHOUT APPEAL. 

Please feel free to ask questions in Discord! We can’t wait to see what you create!