March 2020 GSM Results

Hello everyone! Our first GSM of the Zeta server series has concluded, and we have quite a bit to share. Thanks as always to MBS for broadcasting the live stream (which you can find here) and to everyone who was online to take part in the discussions.

COVID-19

We first would like to acknowledge the real-world, worldwide COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and the real-world impact it is beginning to have on MRT members and guests. As countries around the world continue to change their health recommendations, travel restrictions, and closures of schools and workplaces, we recognize that this can be an incredibly stressful time for many of you.

We are not making any changes to policies, events, or rules in response to COVID-19, however we would like to request the following of all MRT members:

• Please be respectful and considerate of other members, who may be experiencing much more stressful situations than you.
• If you choose to create a COVID response in your own town, please log it on this wiki page, and be considerate of how such a response will be perceived by others visiting your town. While we currently have no plans to do so, we may need to intervene if we find that COVID-19 is being used as an excuse for personal or targeted attacks.
• Please be patient when requesting assistance from staff. With traffic expected to increase over the coming weeks, staff may need additional time to serve everyone asking for help.
• Many of you have been asked or mandated to work or continue coursework from home as a result of COVID-19. Your real-life obligations are a priority, so if you believe that a short-term ban would help you maintain focus, please contact the admins by email. Note that if you choose to pursue this option:
  • You will need to tell us how long you want the temporary ban to be in effect for. We generally will accept requests for temporary bans between 7 and 30 days in length.
  • We will aim to process bans within 24 hours. As such, you may not request a delay for when the ban will start.
  • Your Discord and Mumble accounts will temporarily have all permissions removed. You will be able to connect, but you will not be able to do anything.
  • You may not flip-flop between banned and unbanned status. Once a temporary ban is accepted and issued, we will not remove it from your account for any reason.
• If you know that you will be away from the server for an extended period of time for any reason (including if you need to care for yourself or others in your real-world community), please contact the admins by email to request an asset transfer hold.

With that being said, let’s go through the GSM results!

Rule changes and clarifications

The following rule changes have been approved, and unless noted otherwise take effect immediately:

• The franchise rules will apply to ALL franchises following the GSM on May 9, 2020. Currently, there are some rules that franchises do not have to follow if they were built on or before February 9, 2020, but for simplicity we will apply the rules to all franchises beginning on May 9. This means that, starting on that date, franchisors (the people or companies who design and own a franchise) are the only ones who can modify the interior of a franchise. This rule may be waived by mutual agreement between the franchisor and franchisee (the town mayor or third party who controls the building a franchise is located in).
• We have clarified that the 300- and 500-block rules are measured and enforced using chessboard distance (also known as Chebyshev distance). You can learn what this means here or here.
• Two Senator-ranked cities in close proximity to each other may elect to combine their airfield allocations. Such an airfield must be approved by staff by email prior to construction.
• Ownership breakdowns must be declared to staff as a part of airport proposals. You must include the list of players and companies that own the airport and what percentage of ownership each entity holds in the airport. Remember that proposals are required for:
  • New airports over 7,500 blocks in size,
  • New airports or airfields of any size with multiple owners, and
  • Expansions of airports and airfields, if such expansion would cause the town’s airports to use a combined total of more than 7,500 blocks worth of space.
• Staff will be asked to enforce General Rule 13 (“Speak English in public chat”) with more frequency and consistency. While we value the backgrounds everyone brings to our community, including your first language, we ask that everyone speak English in all public channels so that everyone can understand the conversation and be able to participate. Conversations in other languages should occur in private messages, party chats, or other Discord servers.

We also discussed and approved a few smaller policy and technical changes:

• Policy change: Staff are asked to not run biome changes or regenerations for the time being as they can cause severe enough server lag that players can lose connections. Please do not ask staff for these as they will be refused.
• Zeta postmortem: Dynmap 3D is on hold. Due to the increases of traffic and occasional drops in TPS, we are holding off on a full-world 3D Dynmap render for the time being. 3D renders will occur in local areas when staff do a local render. We are asking staff to limit the radius of local renders to 300 blocks.
• uCars: Cyan blocks are now drivable. You can now drive on cyan terracotta, wool, concrete, and concrete powder.

Survival world

We first would like to thank LDShadowLord and Vulpicula for all of the time, energy, and resources they invested in running a trial survival server. We spent the entirety of the private portion discussing the feedback and data we’ve received from participants and our own observations, as we know a survival server has gained varying amounts of interest among members over the years.

We did make some decisions related to survival mode:

• We will not be implementing a survival world in the immediate future. Our top priority is to maintain the creative experience, hopefully with performance improvements brought by future Minecraft updates. If and when resources allow and community demand warrants it, we may add Survival at a later date.
• Surveys will be sent out regarding your experience on Survival. Whether you participated in Survival or not, please let us know what your thoughts are, as these will help inform our decision on when and how Survival can be brought to the MRT in a more official capacity.
• We will be investigating some tweaks to the experience based on player feedback and our experience. Notably, we will continue to try to determine what an optimal mob spawn rate would look like, and we are considering a number of changes to how the economy system would work.

Please continue to share your feedback with any staff member of either server. We appreciate it and we will do our best to take it into account if and when Survival becomes an official component of the MRT.

Roads, Rails, Seaplanes, and Canals, Oh My!

• The second extension of the Eastern South Line (ESX2) from Pearl Coast to Arcadia via Juhwa, organized by Vulpicula, has been approved in full. Stations will be built in the following locations, and as such new towns can’t be started here:

• The B970, running from Holtville to Thurso and built by TechsMinecraft54, has been approved. Update: this road has since been re-numbered B870 to account for the wards it passes through.
• Carnoustie has been conditionally granted a seaplane base exemption, provided that:
  • The terminal for the seaplane base is relocated west, closer to the proposed runway, and
  • The lake is dredged deeper than it is now.
• We have approved three canals:
  • A very short canal from Lake 33 to the Northern Ocean, to be built by VickiTori_.
  • Canals from Lake 53 to Lakes 52 and 54, both built by RacCort.

Miscellaneous

• Funding for Survivor: Vakayawa, organized by daltdisneyland, has been approved in full. Best of luck to this season’s participants!
• Echohue has been granted permission to remove icebergs in the Coral Sea, between the Bay of Thanos and the nearby mesa.
• The town of Otakiri has been transferred to EspiDev, on the condition that it remains a separate town and does not become integrated into Espil (we generally aren’t fans of exclaves).
• The MRT stations of F15-P17 and P18 have been transferred to decorminecraft.
• We reviewed a transfer request for the town of Glenbrook (M14). This request was denied because callumjk has been active enough to preserve ownership. We will be asking Kenoi to attempt contact with callum, either via /mail or by asking the admins for assistance, before re-submitting.
• MRT members are now encouraged to vote us up on server lists! There are no in-game reminders or incentives to do so, but we hope that with increased visibility, additional people can find and join our community.

That’s all this time around (though if I missed something, please yell at me in Discord). Stay healthy and safe, and we’ll see you around!

<3, Chief