As someone who uses schematics, I agree with this statement.

 

I cannot stress this enough, I do not care about prestige. I built this almost half a year before prestige was a thing for towns

 

From my interpretation of the suggestion, this is just a discussion. Most people aren't trying to personally attack you. Unfortunately this situation just revolves around your town. :/ Can I ask your opinion on the suggestion itself; whether or not winners who have been found to have copied builds be revoked of the rewards (prestige, forum medal, and town of the month)?

 

Let me start this off with the requirements being debated.

Artistic merit: Speaks for itself. How creative it is and looks.
Uniqueness: Is there anything else like it on the server? If not, still qualifies completely as it is unique to the server.
Beauty: Also speaks for itself. How nice the overall build looks.
Overall Theme of ECC: This can mean a lot but we are an economy server so should loosely reflect that premise at least.

None of these requirements listed above stop a build from being a copy, or inspiration from a build, from winning TotM and absolutely shouldn't be changed to be that way.

Regarding the debate on "Prestige Levels are earned by achieving the greatest accomplishment on each of the EcoCityCraft servers,", this makes no sense to argue. Prestiges can be bought from literally the shop for mcmmo, paying someone for 25K levels on sb, to paying a player to do my vmr booklet.

For the mediocrely used "Boat" example as copying, you can only build a boat so many ways and they generally all have the same look. I understand the bigger meaning you might want out of this, but even then it still holds no ground in terms of reflecting on a city build.

I mainly see 6 people debating for this change to happen. A change that would affect all hundreds to thousands of future ECC players. If something isn't broke, don't try to fix it. Simple as that. At any rate, just because there's a small mob opinion, doesn't mean the mob opinion is right.

Also, people who post a schematica link / download world link on various schematic sites are accepting/allowing users to copy their build, and as long as they cite their sources, it should not at all be of any dispute on if they can use them. So why would this be a problem for them to be used to qualify for TotM?

 

Suggestions been up for like 7 hours dood. Of course the people who are central to the debate are going to be the ones first to respond. The amount of people weighing in doesn't inherently weaken or strengthen an argument either so the whole 6 people are not every ecc user argument strikes me in a weird spot. It's not like whoever gets the most 'yes' responses wins here, this is a discussion which staff will use to review their policies.

saying 'It's not broke, stop arguing' to the people who are saying something is broken is a bit odd too don't'cha think?

Anyway, my two cents is that the staff team should clarify their stance on using 'copied' designs, schematica and everything else in that realm when it comes to town of the month.

I'm happy either way as long as it's very clear what is and isn't permissible so we can avoid situations like this again.

 

In my honest opinion, town of the month shouldn’t have had prestige in the first place for a few reasons:
- Who’s to say that I hire someone to build (for example) a compass tower for cheap, then get town of the month. Virtually, I did nothing to get this prestige for my town [apart from get the money for the town and the builder, which I could do pay2win stuff to obtain]. That doesn’t seem fair
- Yeah, there would only be 24 winners a year, but especially with no repeat winners [at least with prestige], eventually everybody who even remotely builds something would be rewarded.


Now what I propose instead of prestige Is one of two options:
- A forum medal, the town portal, and recognition
- All that plus some sort of finite reward like 100k-300k ECD, maybe 500k-700k (or possibly nstars)

Prestige is one of those things that basically rewards you for life. These options are a one time reward and will not really boost you for life.


And I’m sorry if I’m being kind of sensitive and feel attacked. I’ve been getting, no joke, dozens of discord dms today stating that I’m a cheater regarding town of the month and I’m getting pretty pissed off.

 

I assume you're not joking with this, so.... Really? You're going to argue that "Uniqueness" doesn't apply to the build being directly taken from pmc doesn't disqualify it from the "Uniqueness" category?

Prestige is one of the most valuable things on the server and are sold for $2-4 MILLION ECD each. This is not a discussion over whether or not the server is P2W, its the fact that Prestige is worth that much money.

Yeah, because my discord messages about it were removed 5 minutes after the announcement was made. I didn't want to post or message anyone about it out of deference to the staff team, but these suggestions make that reason null and void. Additionally, the suggestions been up for 7 hours. You don't get to call 6 people a "small mob" and wipe away their opinions like that.

This is an incredibly strange thing to argue. I was not writing their entire town off by going, screenshot through screenshot, of the two different boats because the USER SAID that the TOTM was awarded NOT JUST for the building, but for the boat and other builds as well. Did you not read this whole thread?

1. No, they are not. They are sharing it to the world and hoping people give them support and recognition, not hoping that someone on some other server gets rewarded for a prestige valued at about $3mil ecd ($300 USD). See the PMC Post HERE. No where in their comment section do they give permission to copy, rip, mirror, or make "money" off the town. Just because you may not care if others rip your work doesn't mean they won't.

2. No credit to the user who posted it on PMC was given. In fact, and in some way ironic in nature, there is a sign in the front of the town demanding "credit and permission be asked" for copying the floating netherstar sprite in the town.

 

Nobody should be attacking you for this, and I certainly am not, this is simply the second time in a row this has happened. It upset people last month, and it upset people again this month. I don't believe there is a reason to be mad at you. Its not your fault you were chosen, and you had no say in the matter whatsoever! People simply want to see some change in the system. I think you should have been awarded in ECD myself.

 

I'd like to address this post because this is good use of citing. They acknowledged what was taken, where it came from, and that it's not an exact copy. Depending on how much of the design is from builds they weren't involved in should determine eligibility for prest.

This is what should be encouraged along with punishing people please who try to cheat.

 

I basically agree with Ike, but I will point out a few quick things:

Three things about this quote:
1.) To shoot my foot a little, the original builders of the original compass tower are posted on that page.
2.) the “copyright thing” I have on my star doesn’t mean I own it or can stop anyone from stealing it. It’s more just courtesy that it is an original design of mine
3.) Usually I do credit the original builder of something if I use a majority of their build for one of my own. This is usually a sign posted at the base of whatever the build is. I admit, I forgot to put one for the tower and will fix that next time I’m on.

This strengthens my idea of getting rid of TOTM Prestige. Prestige cost millions of dollars of ECD and/or dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of work. TOTM is arguably the cheapest and least time consuming one of them all (so long you are lucky for staff to pick your town)

I know what you both mean. The line in the rules does seem vague, so maybe staff could clarify it for the future.

 

I was not joking at all. Is it still unique to the server? Probably is, so yeah, gets the checkmark on "Uniqueness" requirement.

Why does the value of a certain prestige matter any? Some are easier than others to get. This is a known thing and also changes how much people pay for it if they even decide to.

I went off of your example given. Sorry you only had and used the one I suppose.

Yes, actually, they very much are unless they expressly say to not copy in any way. I did say citing them when using their build, didn't I? Going off of that, nowhere on their post does it expressly say "You are not allowed to use this build or copy in any way."

I agree with credit being needed to be given.

 

In my opinion, this is exactly why it SHOULD be a prestige. Town of the Moth gives "lower income earners" the opportunity to obtain a prestige without paying to win like it is possible to do with all the other prestiges. Additionally, amazing builders can make income off of "selling" their building services for millions just as players currently do selling prestiges for Skyblock and VMR.

 

No, they are not. Consent is not passive and you don't need to explicitly say "no" for consent to be retracted. Consent has to be given. This is why licences exist: just because you post something doesn't mean you give implicit rights for it to be used freely by anyone anywhere. This is basic copyright law lmao.

 

I see your point, and that’s why I’m still fine with a reward, just not the most expensive award ECC has to offer

 

Even if this one doesn't say it can be copied on that post, nothing should stop people from using one where permission is given to qualify for TotM.

 

The whole thing is stupid, either take prestige away from Town of the month, or make sure that people actually put in the effort to earn it, meaning they actually made their own build and didn't copy 75% of a build that anyone could do. I understand some of these builds are from before Town of the Month came to be, however that doesn't give them a free pass to say it is fine.

 

imo i do not se any issue using parts of or complete builds as part of your build.
putting up a rule saying anything similar to 60% copied would be insanse. how would u meassure that ? take logs from the 200x200 (bedrock to 256) and if 60% is the same as the alleged copy its plagerism? or what do you imagine? sounds like a really bad way to do it.

i could agree with something like do not use entire server spawn builds to cover the entier 200x200 town. But besides from something blatantly obvoius like that (which would be totally at the discretion of our server staff who anyway makes the decisions for this medal and those should be respected) i dont see a reason to restrict the players on ECC to not build great stuff because "someone else has" or "it has been made befeore" cause that is imo not even of any consequence as to the result of the build people are creating here.

the origin of these builds be it creative or from survival world i whole heartedly couldnt care less. If someon can make something beautiful and amazing and make it fit in with the surroundings, terrain and neaby builds if there are any. are no less deserving for being responsible for the creation on ECC.

this discussion seems completely out of proportions and if you dont like the competetion from other builders just show your overwhelming creative and unique skills and blow them out of the water instead of crying about it here... enough said.

 

Frail makes two good points.

Element use in unique ways is cool with credit, and the ultimate decision should be at admin discression.

For example.
I copy and paste everything in my town from other builds and use them in totally different ways. Giving credit for all the elements. I've created a unique scene but is it truly unique or just drawing on the popularity of the other builds? Mods decide.

I copy a few big items from a design and create a scene around them where they are the only center pieces. Yeah not cool... The big items are what define most scenes. All I did was take the big work and scribble in the margins.

I build my town to resemble something else, but adapt it to the landscape, my tastes, and mats available. I can think of several towns like this but this isn't the thread to make them. This is the barest thing I would call original. You get the feel, but the elements are all unique.

It's all should come down to how much effort you put into designing it, and that is always going to be a judgement call that the judges should be making.

Because let's not forget free form towns and how they embody the spirit of ecc! It isn't all about scenes guys!

 

I see the argument of "They didn't put any effort into it!" as the core of denying this user prestige.
Reality check
He had to copy it - That takes time and effort
He had to buy all the blocks for the build
He built the town square by square, block by block.
From what I understand (I haven't seen the original) bits and bobs of the build have actually been changed.
(If only minor changes)

Copied or not he put in large amounts of effort in order to make a town he probably loves.

Just for the record... Copied or not the town still looks great.

Going Forward, It would be nice if the comity who pick the TOTM would ask the users if they actually copied it or not. (Or if they paid other users to build for them)

This way it can be taken into consideration and IF they or another party did copy it and lied about copying it - But won, they should have their win revoked for lying to staff. (Maybe even a more severe punishment)
However the flip side - If they still win after telling staff its a copy for TOTM they deserve to win the prestige and everything with it.

Asking staff to do background research on each town is absurd. Just have the users tell staff and if they get found out for lying - have there be consequences.

Though- It would be nice that Once a town wins the Prestige if it was a copy of another work... It shouldn't be allowed to be part of TOTM again.

 

TBH if you're gonna run a competition, you should be willing to put the leg work in.