[Suggestion] The Ecocity Railway

Minecraft Name:
AGPBiohazard

Suggestion:
A large network of rails and/or roads connecting various parts of the map.

Reason:
The current navigation system is confusing and disorganized, and I feel like we can add things to make it more efficient. For example, to find a town, you need to walk through the town directory, a gigantic room of identical portals, leading to towns no different one from the other.

Please, take the time to read this through to get a good sense of what it is exactly I am proposing.

I propose that we build a subway station at spawn. This station would have rails and/or roads heading out of it in many different directions. We could, for example, have 4 main lines going north, east, west and south, and from the main lines we could have substations that connection minor lines to it.

This could make the massive world possible to navigate once again. Imagine being able to ride along the scenery of the world which is by large majority untouched. This could give new players a good sense of where things are in the world, and a good idea of where they might want to build their town. With a system like this, location becomes relevant once again.
Existing towns (in Rising) could choose to connect to a main line, or choose not to. Completely up to them. But if towns connect to the rail system, new players can travel around and admire the builds that other players have put effort into.

A motivated builder could purchase a 200x200 plot, and on it build a massive cathedral in plain sight from the rail system. Next to it, he could have his beautiful town full of fountains and flower beds with a town that is not perfectly flat, but rather follows the contour of the geography, giving the town character. A town with stairs and streets.

Regardless of what people would choose to build, there would now be reason to build somewhat near a main line. At each intersection, you could have a smaller substation with clearly marked signs telling you which towns/attractions are in which direction.

This may seem like an ambitious endeavor, but I know for a fact it is achievable. Alone with 5 players, we once constructed a system that spanned nearly 5,000 blocks in each direction from spawn in a little over a week. With as many players as we have, his would be a community project, making use of the huge amount of players we have on this server. It would create paying jobs for new builders who are looking for work, new jobs for resource gatherers (we would need a large amount of material once we decided on the design), and once all said an done, we would have a connected world. A place where location AND design of town matters, where there is a purpose other than utility to build a town that is appealing in design and in function.

If we wanted to look more into this, we would need to appoint a committee to coordinate the various stages and aspects of the build. If we finish it, we could have the server's biggest build, made by the players, for the players.

I feel like there is tremendous value to a system such as this. Notable players who make large contributions to the project could get stations dedicated to them, for example. We of course would need staff intervention to create worldguarded areas for the rails and substations.

If there is interest, let me know! Let's talk openly about this. Players, what do you think? Staff, can we do this? Let me hear your thoughts.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. All the best!

 

Just to clarify:
This wouldn't replace warps or teleports. Of course those are faster. It would merely make the new map more friendly to NEW players. I use my one and only /sethome and /spawn to navigate. But no town means anything to me because what is one town from another? It's an arbitrary portal amongst a sea of other portals. This also wouldn't require any town to hook up to the system.... Ever. It would just be a method to direct where you are going. I tried finding a way to leave spawn without using a warp or a portal; it is difficult. You are not free to go most directions. Your best bet at this point is to use /wild land.
As far as redstone, you would need one torch per powered track every 32 tracks. Hardly a cause for lag.
And please remember this would not make towns appear, players could still easily choose where to place their plot as they currently can, right?
It only takes a few minutes at most to get to the further distances. Personally, I wouldn't advocate for an extreme length.
I'm thinking more along the lines of the first couple thousand blocks around spawn.
I realize that this is first and foremost an economy server, but that doesn't mean all players ONLY want to grind. Sometimes you want your epic build to be seen and shared. How can you do that when it's found in the distant corners of the town directory?
If I had a town, I would want more than a place to prevent grief. I want people to visit, people to build it into something impressive. Easy to let new players know "take the north track to first substation then take the blue track".

Now of course if no redstone of any kind is permitted, then this suggestion certainly has no point. But locking out all redstone use sure restricts some of the best aspects of minecraft. Also with the "if in wild then grief freely" policy, a protected zone would be required along the tracks.

Perhaps I should pose this question to the admins; is something like this technicay even possible between rules and /or mechanics of the server?
All other issues are minor and can be worked out, the biggest is if theoretically this could be allowed.

 

I suppose you make some valid points. The way the server is set up, I can see certain difficulties. Thank you for helping me see some of the other side of the coin!
I still like the idea, though I can see that it may not be the best fit for this server the way it currently is.

 

Ah like I've said, nothing wrong with portals, and this certainly wouldn't replace the portals!
I have more uses for it and would still love to see something like it one day, but as mentioned by several people there are difficulties with it that could not be surmounted, namely the redstone (I am told redstone lags the server or something like that) and the grief (unless we were to worldguard the rails)