Hey all! The July 2018 GSM has concluded! You can watch the public portion here on Frumple’s YouTube channel. The results are as follows.
For those planning ahead, our next GSM is Saturday, August 11, 2018 at 7:00 pm UTC. Topics must be submitted by 7pm UTC on Thursday, August 9.
New staff titles
At the June GSM we announced that some staff will be receiving additional titles to recognize them for the additional responsibilities they’ve chosen to take on, in addition to — or in replacement of — standard staff duties. These players might not be as available to assist with WorldEdits and day-to-day activities due to their extra projects, but they are still staff members nonetheless. Titled staff are not senior to staff without titles, and only full moderators and admins are eligible for titles.
We have awarded titles to two staff members:
- MinecraftYoshi26 is now Moderator and Events Coordinator.
- godzilltrain is now Administrator and City Ranks Coordinator.
Congratulations to both of these staff members, and thank you for all that you do!
Changes coming to Senator and Governor promotions
We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from players about the City Rank Promotion Batch system — most notably, that it takes quite a while to hear back on whether a promotion is successful. We’ve also noticed that many staff have not participated in the voting process.
We hear you loud and clear, so we’re making changes to the Senator and Governor promotion process, effective September 1.
While we’re still working on some details and getting our back-end set up, here are the parts that have been decided so far:
- Senator and Governor cities will move from monthly batches to a two-week rolling review system. This means staff have 14 days — starting from the date you submit your promotion request — to review your city.
- Once you have received feedback, you must wait 14 days (two weeks) before you can request another review.
- Staff will vote with a more structured template and scoring system, which is still in development. Additional comments outside of the most common issues will also be addressed.
- Batch 28, which is currently accepting submissions, will be the last batch to use the old system. We will move to two-week rolling beginning Saturday, September 1.
- Premier reviews will continue to be handled at the GSM.
We hope to have more details available at the August GSM.
United Cities and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs)
There was a discussion on the recent events involving the United Cities and how to handle similar planning organizations going forward. Given that recent events have been rather emotionally trying on a lot of players and staff, we want to make a few statements known:
- We the MRT administrators will not be dissolving the United Cities. However, Frumple is officially denouncing the United Cities as an organization going forward for directly and indirectly creating unnecessary conflicts amongst members over the past year.
- The United Cities should and will not be considered as the “de facto” MPO of the MRT Server, effective immediately. The UC may continue to exist, but we are strongly encouraging players to leave the UC and join an existing MPO or form their own MPOs.
To help ensure this transition, all MPOs including the United Cities will be subject to the following new rules:
- Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are entities created by multiple players to facilitate project development and planning between their cities.
- MPOs may be regional (defining geographic membership criteria) or at-large (accepting members from anywhere on the server).
- Players do NOT need staff approval to form an MPO.
- Any MPOs that wish to merge together must receive approval from staff to do so at a GSM.
- All MPOs are subject to the MRT server rules. These rules cover any behaviour performed on any Discord servers and other means of communication that hosts the MPOs members.
- MRT staff will not actively monitor each and every MPO, as that is an unrealistic use of staff’s time. However, we strongly encourage members of MPOs to report any rule infractions to the MRT staff immediately. Players will not be punished for making a report in good faith, especially if it turns out to be a non-issue after staff have completed their investigation.
- If an MPO is found to be suppressing players from reporting rule infractions, or has been actively covering up unacceptable behavior, MPO leadership and involved players will be severely punished. In extreme cases, the MRT administrators may take actions to forcibly dissolve the MPO.
Old World changes
The Old World is primarily a historical archive of our first two years of operations, however we do realize that some changes and maintenance are necessary to keep things working.
We want to preserve this, so going forward, Old World buildings cannot be blatantly destroyed or have large-scale remodeling. Minor changes, such as re-allocating aircraft at an airport, fixing signage, or updating the branding of a check-in area, are permitted, however you can’t tear down a building on the Old World.
We’ll be having discussions at a future GSM to handle airport renovations and similar projects, as well as how to handle incomplete projects. We have not made a final decision on these just yet.
Player-created PVP arenas coming soon
The 12 PVP arenas at Wishington on the old world will soon get some new friends — and you could help make that happen! We’ll be forming a staff committee to take charge of this project and ensure that new arenas meet common guidelines and are configured properly.
New arenas will be built on the Games world and will be set up with the PA plugin, though the details are yet to be determined. Look for an update in August.
Betting organizations are not permitted
A proposal was submitted to allow betting organizations and standards, to allow players to use in-game money to place wagers on events. This proposal has been denied due to several concerns brought up by staff, including:
- There is a potential for exposing minors to much less structured forms of gambling than a simple lottery.
- This could provide incentives for players to collude on the outcome of events, rather than participating to the best of their own ability.
- We’d rather not have betting turn into a popularity contest (for instance, if one player had significantly more bets in their favor, those without as much support would likely feel left out).
This moratorium is in effect for all member-organized gambling related to MRT events.
An update on the Minecraft update
Minecraft 1.13 has hit your launchers, and early reports suggest that this will be one of the most difficult updates to perform. There are a lot of breaking changes behind the scenes, so we expect this to take a while.
There is a Spigot build available for 1.13, but it has severe bugs that can cause irreparable damage to a server world. We certainly don’t want that to happen, so we’ll be waiting for PaperSpigot — and our plugins — to stabilize. We will provide information as soon as we can, but we don’t expect to update until 2019.
We are instating a moratorium on new plugins until we update to 1.13 (whenever that is), so FastAsyncWorldedit will not be carried over to the main server for the foreseeable future. There was a proposal to add the EasyCarts plugin, however this has been shelved until further notice.
Projects and funding proposals
- BernCow submitted a project, then asked us to pull it at the last second. As a reminder, if you need to withdraw something from the agenda, please email all staff as soon as possible so that we don’t miss it!
- Major League Spleef and Sumotori League, two sports leagues organized by jphgolf4321, were funded in full.
- The second season of the MRT Golf Association, organized by SkyjumperTalon, has been approved and will be funded per event. SkyjumperTalon will need to request funding for each event.
- The United Cities World’s Expo, proposed by Skelezomperman to occur in Central City, has been denied for now. We have some clarifying questions for Skele and would prefer this to be unaffiliated with the UC, or to use an existing convention center rather than starting from scratch. We are happy to reconsider this at a later date once additional information is provided.
Property auctions
- The InterContinental Hotel Group, previously owned by kiwirainbow, CaptainChimpy, and camelfantasy, has been transferred to time2makemymove, with the caveat that existing hotels should not be renovated without the approval of their town mayors.
- Phoenix Valley, located between Whiteley and Venceslo, has been transferred to time2makemymove.
- M19 Pellham has been transferred to tarheelscouse, pending an OK from MishkaMan.
- V21 has been (finally!) transferred to Aldranster50.
Premier City Reviews
We reviewed four cities for Premier and are proud to announce that Laclede, by jphgolf4321, has been promoted! jph was present at the meeting and gave the following speech:
I just wanted to say, thank you for all of those staff and my friends who have been there to support me in the four years since Laclede started as just a little stub of road by T13, on the first couple of days of Gamma. It’s come a long way, and I couldn’t have done it without you guys, so thank you so much.
Feedback from this set is available here.
The end!
Upcoming events are:
- The ShadowCorp Match Play Championship – the first event of the MRT Golf Association, Season 2 – is Thursday, July 26 at 5pm UTC. Players can register here.
- The Amazing Race 9, Session 4, is Saturday, July 28 at 7pm UTC.
- The next GSM is Saturday, August 11 at 7pm UTC.
Thanks all!
Chief