During the Saturday 11PM mod meeting, a few topics of concern to change the server's gameplay mechanics arose as GlitchyBat would not shut up about /home and shopkeepers. His thoughts on some matters are presented here, including some matters that may only reduce the quality of the 1.7.3 world and its experience.

First change address; the removal of /home. I understand completely the argument of removing at least /spawn or /home warps. The best argument is so that places of interest may be connected and traveling would be necessary for trading and socializing. This is acceptable. However, the decision has leaned towards removing /home rather than /spawn, which is not the best choice.

I propose to keep /home and remove /spawn. When people want to build in their own settlement or nation, they want to go home, not to Spawn and walk home. Additionally, it will partially reduce the point of having a homely place to begin with. It is (should be) the safe place a player spawns at after they got what they left home for in the first place. Forcing players to only be able to warp back to spawn leaves them running along the roads, which will not make the server any more enjoyable and is unnecessarily wasting the player's time. Players will most likely warp to /home far more than they will warp to /spawn, which means a lot of time is being wasted.

Grievers and mobs may ambush darker roads as well, and getting killed unexpectedly while trying to get back home with stuff is only going to frustrate players further, especially new ones. An argument is to stuff items into an Ender Chest, /kill, and land at home to grab stuff out of their own Ender Chest. This forces extra unnecessary work, which is simply solved by /home. Additionally, it assumes every player is ready to die and always has an Ender Chest in hand. This is a clunky dynamic which will only waste more time and effort.

In addition to all the flaws better dealt with /home, /home also allows the same dynamics attempting to be achieved with only leaving /spawn. Roads will still be built and used because players have to travel to trade. Overworld roads and rails are in my full support, and can be used to make a lot of otherwise unused land look interesting and clean. For this, I am accepting of the loss of one of the two convenient warps as they will simply render pretty roads nearly obsolete. However, leaving /spawn and cutting out /home will only lead to complicating people living in the very places they built.

Pro vote: ✔
Anti vote: ✘
Conspicuous non-vote: ⚜

As far as I am aware, shops for players are still not in plans of implementation. I strongly urge chest shop mods, understanding that Oceania's invasion of illegal yevmigrants lead to high lag. Chest mods, however, remove illegal yevmigrants and give player shop buildings a practical reason, which is a more immersible experience. They will also assure that products known to be sold at a particular settlement may be obtained whether or not the holder/s is/are online. Shop chests will help resources circulate, and both sides will benefit in ways that cannot always be done because either may be offline. Shop chests promote building structures to serve as hosts of those products, and players may even feel inclined to go visit other settlements to see if they may trade with that settlement's shops, supporting the dynamic of travel. Promoting travel and building appear to be target design goals, and shop chests help reach those goals.

Pro vote: ✔
Anti vote: ✘
Conspicuous non-vote: ⚜

Awaiting proposed changes from staff.

Pro vote: ✔
Anti vote: ✘
Conspicuous non-vote: ⚜

The plans for IRC upgrade involving multiple chat rooms for mass non-English dialogue is in full support. On the removal of door locks being disabled, this is trivial. People break and replace blocks to get around locked doors, nullifying the mechanic almost completely. Thus, it does not seem worth investing effort into fighting.

Pro vote: ✔
Anti vote: ✘
Conspicuous non-vote: ⚜

I address all of the points above in hopes they may be passed enough to be implemented. Changes may be made to this proposal as further developments arise.