I agree, however, I don't think anybody will be spending 1 mil on a farm town. If this rule was added, I see no problem with it.

 

I hear some peope complaining about lag at spawn.... but i dont have this issue..... im not putting a vote in either direction, just offering what I have experienced.

 

I agree I don't lag in farms but I know many people do many of my town members always complain about the lag in a big farm they go to

 

I guess I do get significant block lag in farms.

 

I lag if I am within 100 blocks of a farm. Not severely, but enough that it can be annoying. Especially when it is combined with spawn shop signs (note: spawn shops =/= spawn shop market). Even with the current spawn and the towns right by it, those with farms are quite noticeable and sometimes frustrating when I go near them.

So, I do agree with this suggestion. No farms - or, very least, no farms more than a floor or (assuming it is full 200x200 space being used). I would HIGHLY prefer seen spawn towns (1-4, and the corners) to be beautiful, built up, nice, and...well, yeah.

 

...But... staff farm...

 

Yeah, if you guys didn't know wildhaven has a huge underground farm. So there is already huge farms near spawn.....

 

Seriously tho, banning farms would hurt the staff team. I know that sounds selfish but we give up our time to moderate spawn. The staff farm allows us to do our job and still make money since we are players.

 

Not to mention, the current staff farm at spawn is really pretty (didn't realize it was the staff farm until last month, even). Whose to say a town can't be pretty and a hidden farm?

 

I do understand this, and it was the only thing that almost preventing me from agreeing with this thread's suggestion. However, there are other ways to make money with towns near spawn; selling plots / shops / etc, spending the time to build it (nice towns can take many weeks), using it to host things (I know Staff and non-Staff like to host things, like Berlin (I think) has a snipebox for people to use), fishing, mining (couple of weeks, unless power-thru with Eff7), etc.

There are a lot of Staff, too - not everyone has to be at or near spawn moderating. As well, assuming Legacy is still the "first spawn" map, Rising spawn won't need nearly as much moderating... Most of the chat in spawn that needs moderating is from people who instantly go to SGs or are just there to cause trouble anyway, and don't even move much (meaning they won't go to Rising, unless the portal is LITERALLY /right/ in front of /spawn).

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I will quote myself, though:

I would be fine with some farm "land" in towns right around spawn's border, but not... towns with many, many layers of farm.

 

When I'm around large farms I pretty much can't do anything. I can barely even type a command to teleport away. I really don't want to be stuck with excessive lag when going to a spawn. It happens in the current spawn too...

 

On a side note, they should have added those rules prior to opening bids. I know of one person who will be making a staff farm and already bid.

 

Joseph :p

 

(joseph)

I was hesitant about agreeing with this suggestion because I know that basically -all- staff are going to be against it, but what would be the point of making spawn lag-free if the towns around spawn are the source of the lag? One of the rules about the spawn building competition is to 'Find ways to get rid of as much lag as possible'. If the massive farms are what are causing the majority of the lag for the average user, then it will have to change for the sake of attracting users.

I'm sure there are other ways staff can occupy themselves next to spawn, I mean staff had been moderating spawn for a solid year before any such thing as a "staff spawn farm" was even an idea, and the first 'staff spawn farm' was a fraction of the size that the current one in Sky's town is. It still stands, in fact, in Wallstreet.

We can only imagine how many good players we've lost because the second they log into a server they're hit with lag. Lag in a spawn-zone is perhaps the single greatest deterrent to new members joining, so we should really be focused on keeping spawn as lag-free as possible. If its the farms, get rid of them. If its not, then they can stay.

 

In the event andrew adds this as a rule, I honestly feel that the current bidding should be restarted or people should be able to retract their bid for that particular reason.

 

I agree that Andrew should ban massive farms near spawn.

 

hm, maybe an interesting fix would be if the local chat around spawn could be accessed by moderators where ever they are...

 

I disagree with this. I say this, because of the fact that the users are paying out the wazoo for these towns. If I was one of the people bidding for one, I'd expect no less than to be able to build whatever I'd like as long as I am following ECC rules. About the lag, I've yet to experience lag in our current spawn.