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What makes a good DST world?


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After all the time we have spent playing, we should jot down some common server practices.

 

Things to consider: 

 

For World Generation -

  • World Size
  • Rock amount
  • Reed amount
  • Grass and Twigs amount
  • Beefalo amount
  • Spider amount
  • Grave amount
  • Boon amount
  • Day settings
  • Season settings

 

For Public Servers - 

  • Should public servers be dedicated?
  • Should servers be online for a minimum amount of time? ( Out of courtesy )
  • Should most public servers restart eventually?
  • Should public servers have multiple admins?
  • Should public servers shut down early for immediate updates?
  • Should public servers restrict certain character amounts?
  • Should public servers have normal closing and opening hours?

 

For Servers In General - 

  • Voting system to allow the banning, muting, or kicking of a player?
  • Voting system to allow in game players to turn a server from public to private or vice versa?
  • Should popular servers be in a "Recommended" Tab?
  • Should server rules be displayed in the player information menu?
  • Should server have the same rules in general?

 

Personally, as someone who is considering to make a dedicated server, I am most interested in map layout. Should rocky biomes and grasslands be near the portal so players always can find starter tools? Should beefalo be anywhere near the portal and pigs? Should the swamp become a dangerous short cut to important places like the beefalo? Should adventure map generations be used for the server? Like having a bridge blocked off by insanity pillars?

 

Currently, I think the forest land and the swamp land should be the core of the map. The portal and rocky biome should be near each other and touching the forest land. The beefalos should be tucked back in their land, but also while touching the swamp land. The pigs should connect to the portal and the forest. Grasslands make up the portal land and the filler spaces between all the more important land. A worm hole in the forest should take you close to the beefalo, a worm hole in the pig village should take you close to the rocky biome, and a worm home in the portal area should take you near the swamp in a grassland area.

 

All of that should space out things enough while allowing multiple and valid camp spots. 

 

As for server rules, I think players should be allowed to learn through making mistakes. However, anyone who has barely played and DST should have to survive for a bit in single player. People who think food should be eaten as soon as they go from 150 hunger to 149, should take some more time to figure out game strategies before joining a survival public server. People who never managed to make a breezy vest, normally don't understand that they should wait till winter to wear it. Wolfgang and Wx78 both require a lot resources for little team pay off. I can't even handle Wolfgang without requiring extra help. We can't teach them every aspect of the game, Klei. Nor should we teach them every minor detail. Some sort of barline would be necessary.

 

What do you think servers should generally have, fellow community and Klei. 

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For World Generation -

  • World Size
  • Rock amount
  • Reed amount
  • Grass and Twigs amount
  • Beefalo amount
  • Spider amount
  • Grave amount
  • Boon amount
  • Day settings
  • Season settings

I don't think these need to be common, these things should always be up to the host. I do hope there will be a more obvious way to display them up-front though. The "description" area isn't ginormous, and hosts don't always detail nor do people always read it. It would be nice to have a pop-up or something along those lines to show people what's occurring in the world.

 

For Public Servers - 

  • Should public servers be dedicated?

No. But as some other folks have suggested, I do think there should be some way of tagging or "favorite"-ing servers we've played on so we can find them again. If not the server, at least the host so we can find their new worlds again. 

  • Should servers be online for a minimum amount of time? ( Out of courtesy )

No, there shouldn't be a requirement for playing online. Not all of us can stream or devote multiple hours at a time. As with what I said above, others have suggested compromises in the past that I've seen, and I agree. I do think there should be some way for the host to denote how much more time they anticipate they'll be online other than chatting to each newly-joining player though.

  • Should most public servers restart eventually?

No, again, it's up to the host. If players no longer enjoy that server, they can join another one. If the host is over the werver, they can make a new one. Or players can ask the host to restart (whatever their reasoning). There shouldn't be a forced time though... there never was a timeline in SP, why would there be in MP? The only thing I can think of is that the world is depleted of resources (griefers or accidental destroys).... in which case, it's still up to the host to make the ultimate decision to restart the world, rollback, or continue on.

  • Should public servers have multiple admins?

Up to the host. I really don't care one way or the other.

  • Should public servers shut down early for immediate updates?

Depends. Will the updates be applied automatically, or will the world be forced to restart? If the updates are applied automatically, I'd like the world to be shut down and all players/host notified. If the world is forced to restart, I'd prefer messaging or a pop-up be sent to the host so they can make a choice to apply the updates or continue on as normal.

  • Should public servers restrict certain character amounts?

Not sure what you mean here. Do you mean restricting as in "only 2 Wilsons can spawn, only 1 Wickerbottoms, only 3 Wendys", etc? If that's the case, I wouldn't mind it. I'm not necessarily for- or against-it ... on the fence at this point. I don't see an issue with server hosts having this sort of choice though.

  • Should public servers have normal closing and opening hours?

No. It would be nice to display it if the host knows and provides their playing hours ahead of time, but not everyone can comply all the time. Playing DST is not our job, it's our hobby, and life gets in the way. Opening/Closing hours would be a courtesy.

 

For Servers In General - 

  • Voting system to allow the banning, muting, or kicking of a player?
  • Voting system to allow in game players to turn a server from public to private or vice versa?

For both of these, yes, but the votes would need to be reviewed and implemented by Klei, not some automated system. Otherwise it would be easily exploited by griefers and harm players. On the other hand though, implementing a vote-review system introduces new workload to Klei, and I don't know their employee workload or what the feasibility would be whatsoever.

  • Should popular servers be in a "Recommended" Tab?
  • Should server rules be displayed in the player information menu?

For both of these, yes. "Recommended" isn't essential to me, though. It would be nice, but is also dependent on player voting, once again introducing more unsure-feasability-workload for Klei. There has to be a real live human being reviewing this sort of stuff.

  • Should server have the same rules in general?

No. This game, whether SP or MP, has always offered choice. Setting up too many "rules" takes away the freedom and creativity for players, and forces them into some base strategieies to survive. Klei has always been about ensuring this game doesn't force you to play a certain way (achievements, anyone?) or strongarm you into a pre-determined strategy. I'd like to leave it that way.

 

 

EDIT:

 

As for server rules, I think players should be allowed to learn through making mistakes. However, anyone who has barely played and DST should have to survive for a bit in single player.

 

I agree people need to learn through mistakes (or at least watching videos or reading guides or something). However, we can't force other people to comply to our learning styles. If we don't want noobs, we need to host and make that clear, or take necessary precautions to secure our own survival while on other peoples servers. I, for one, feel no obligation to walk someone through how to play the game. If i have time or ability offline, sure, I'll help out... but if I'm online in a world and fending for myself or working with my team to survive, I don't have the time or ability to teach someone how to craft, find food, or the basics of what to watch out for while they explore. It's their responsibility to learn the base mechanics, just like I did.

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I'm not going to be as specific as imsomony but I do agree with what he said.

 

The placement of the portal and resources is not that much of an issue for me though I do think it would be a nice thing if the host could decide on its location.

 

the option of the host declaring how many hours are logged in the single player game in order to join the server could be a nice feature to add as well so long as this figure is clearly stated also there should be an option for the host to specify the reason for his/her decision. as for the description of the server I think that it would be a more robust system if Klei were to create an interface where a host could easily create  detailed description, maybe an interface where they can select their preferred playstyle or define their own and then specify some other information in the same manner and the description is then created from that information, this would make the descriptions more standard so that people can understand it more easily and they will probably be more willing to read it or at least speed read it to determine if it is a world they will enjoy.

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Most of these questions are purely subjective as to what you want your server to be, public/private, friends-only/random-players. But If I were to host a server, my preferences are as follows.

 

For World Generation:

  • World Size - Large, Land Branch is on Most and Land Loop is on Default.
  • Rocks - Default, since we now have meteors.
  • Reeds - If its possible that More would ONLY increase the amount of reeds ONLY in swamps.
  • Grass and Twigs - More, since the world is larger than normal, default would make it look barren.
  • Beefalo - Default on both amounts and in-heat settings.
  • Spider - Default, since they can reproduce.
  • Grave - If we could have more graves, the better. But if its about getting gears, there should be a different way to go about it to find them. Unless there is always a way, I'd like there to be more graves in a world.
  • Boon - is always on Lots, since currently its the only part of DST that is always a surprise to find.
  • Day settings - Default
  • Season settings - Default, most of the time. There are times though that I usually opt for Long Summer if I want to play more casually, but sometimes it's just too long. If we could have a summer length setting smack right between Long and Default Summer that'll be a welcomed option.

For Public Servers:

  • Should public servers be dedicated? 

If people can set up dedicated servers, that'll be great. On the other hand, not everybody has the means to set up dedicated servers on their own. Hopefully I'm not misunderstanding the question, but I'd prefer it if people can still host from their own PCs.

  • Should servers be online for a minimum amount of time? ( Out of courtesy )
​If a server has to be turned off or offline for a period of time, I'd suggest that the owner of that server should have a schedule of when he/she turns it off and publicly share that schedule so people would know when its best for them to join.
  • Should most public servers restart eventually?
​Yes and no, personally I think a mix between endless and survival mode would be a good option to have. People may want to keep a world for the time they've spent on it, so something in between endless and survival would be good for these kind of people. 
  • Should public servers have multiple admins?

I think that's up to the dedicated server owner. If Klei's public servers are the ones in question, then an admin 

  • Should public servers shut down early for immediate updates?

Yes but before a server shuts down for an update, a server bot should warn all the other players through the chat box that there will is a hotfix/update and that the server will shutdown in five minutes so it can update. A warning will help a lot.

  • Should public servers restrict certain character amounts?

Hopefully I understand the question correctly, my answer is no. Character amounts, meaning something like no more than 2 Wilsons, 2 Wickerbottoms or 2 WIllows. Right? Unless you meant player amounts, as in the amount of people that can be playing on the server. If that's what you meant then that is up to how much load can the server handle.

  • Should public servers have normal closing and opening hours?

Public Dedicated Servers are well appreciated if they stay up indefinitely but will routinely close for an update once and update is available and start up again. If a dedicated server owner wish to have a schedule, they should inform their players of it.

For Servers In General:

  • Voting system to allow the banning, muting, or kicking of a player?

Yes, but this needs a lot of work so it wouldn't be abused for groups of friends to hog a public server all to them selves by kicking/banning other players on it. Sadly, I can't figure a way to make it non-exploitable.

  • Voting system to allow in game players to turn a server from public to private or vice versa?

No, this will only allow people to hog the server to themselves. Lets say just two people come in, an they vote to make the server private. Then they'll have the server to themselves indefinitely. If a server can hold more and the owner has set it to hold more players, then the server should hold more players. The right to turn a server public or private is up to the owner or admins if any are present.

  • Should popular servers be in a "Recommended" Tab?

I'd also suggest another tab as Servers Played In History, where all the previous servers you've joined will be listed from the latest to oldest.

  • Should server rules be displayed in the player information menu?

No, but it should be displayed in the Server Details of the specific server.

  • Should server have the same rules in general?

There should be a default set of rules for servers to follow, and server owners can add to that for specific rules for that specific server.

 

For the server layout that you've mentioned, I have still yet to find the best balance. And the part about segregating newbies from experienced and veteran players, if any of the following is possible that a server can set a criteria for players that will join the server like the following:

  • You must have Don't Starve (Base Game) in your steam account.
  • You have lasted at least two winters in Don't Starve (Base Game)
  • Optional: You must have Reign of Giants in your steam account.
  • Optional: You have lasted at least one summer in Don't Starve Reign of Giants.
  • etc.

And since players are playing from steam, if its possible for the server to check these information and if they pass these criteria, they'd be let in the server. I don't know if these would be breaking any privacy rules, but I just figured I'd share my ideas.

 

So I guess this ends my post about the topic. If I have replied to this topic incorrectly in any way, I'm sorry.

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It would be nice to have a pop-up or something along those lines to show people what's occurring in the world.

 

  • Should servers be online for a minimum amount of time? ( Out of courtesy )

I do think there should be some way for the host to denote how much more time they anticipate they'll be online other than chatting to each newly-joining player though.

  • Should public servers shut down early for immediate updates?

 Will the updates be applied automatically, or will the world be forced to restart? If the updates are applied automatically, I'd like the world to be shut down and all players/host notified. If the world is forced to restart, I'd prefer messaging or a pop-up be sent to the host so they can make a choice to apply the updates or continue on as normal.

  • Should public servers have normal closing and opening hours?

No. It would be nice to display it if the host knows and provides their playing hours ahead of time, but not everyone can comply all the time. Playing DST is not our job, it's our hobby, and life gets in the way. Opening/Closing hours would be a courtesy.

 

^These were my favorite parts from a already excellent post.

 

  • "Should most public servers restart eventually?

No, again, it's up to the host. If players no longer enjoy that server, they can join another one. If the host is over the werver, they can make a new one. Or players can ask the host to restart (whatever their reasoning). There shouldn't be a forced time though... there never was a timeline in SP, why would there be in MP? The only thing I can think of is that the world is depleted of resources (griefers or accidental destroys).... in which case, it's still up to the host to make the ultimate decision to restart the world, rollback, or continue on.

 

 
When I was hosting a 200 day server, I noticed that the only people who cared about staying was the ones who had been around the whole time. Those few players and I also had a hard time coming up with new ideas of things to do. While forcing a restart on day 100 is extreme, restarting because we are bored will not make starting over any more fun. ( We nearly rotted a twinkie, for perspective.)
 
I like how the world resets after everyone is dead in survival. I think really tough late game hazards would be cool to see. I just don't want to reach that situation again where the only way to create more fun is to use my power to ruin everything. 
 
While endless is fine to go on endlessly, eventually that server would dry up too without something like mods or crazy admin powers (Glances at rezecib). 
 
"I agree people need to learn through mistakes (or at least watching videos or reading guides or something). However, we can't force other people to comply to our learning styles. If we don't want noobs, we need to host and make that clear, or take necessary precautions to secure our own survival while on other peoples servers. I, for one, feel no obligation to walk someone through how to play the game. If i have time or ability offline, sure, I'll help out... but if I'm online in a world and fending for myself or working with my team to survive, I don't have the time or ability to teach someone how to craft, find food, or the basics of what to watch out for while they explore. It's their responsibility to learn the base mechanics, just like I did."
 
I do not mind teaching players either. The problem, for me, hits in two places. I do not want to ask or force players to leave because I, or others, think they are not good enough. Yeah, I want people to get the basics down in single player before joining me. The difference is the mentality. Players asking other players to leave because they are not good enough, is a failure in my eyes. It is not my fault, their fault, the new player's fault, or Klei's fault. A excited or naive player jumped into a public server to have fun, and it failed.
 
Forcing them to play single player is not really the best idea, as the new player most likely wanted to play MP with their friends when they bought the game. Limiting them to friend hosted servers/private servers is most likely better, but still over limiting their desire to play MP. Soon there will be a flood of new players who will agitate public servers, which I desperately encourage people to have more of. Their first impression on the game and their ability to immediately play and have fun is so important, but we can't mess over the existing players. 
 
Maybe dropping strong hints to new players that they need to play endless first, and automatically showing them friend hosted and new player friendly endless servers would be a good thing. Informing them that survival is a not recommended for learning the game or something, might help as well.
 
The second thing about new players you can not leave them by themselves. They will agitate other players without walking them through on how to do things. I don't mind fixing a ghost every now and then. I ran into a problem where a new player ate all the food before winter, ate the only gear in the world, and didn't even know how to use the crafting table. He had the resources to make things, who knows what he was holding in his inventory after vacuuming items up. While I am fine with teaching him or leaving him to learn from his mistakes, this bothers other players and rightly so. However, his gluttony proved amusing. Bees are the anti-gluttony machines, as he soon learned from trying to steal from them. And dropping monster meat on the ground for his wandering eye to find, was mean, but it sure was funny to watch him eat anything.
 
These players need to build some experience before mingling with other players, because we can't simply let them run around un-monitored nor divide the community by kicking them. Teaching new players will be like using a bucket to get the water out of a boat soon. The boat being the titanic of course.
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Wow so many questions and yet they are all trivial.  You want to know what makes a good, no GREAT!, Don't Starve Together World?  Head over to Maxwell's Playground.  Thats what makes a great DST world.  I hope to see many more like it. (Not clones but inventive ideas like it)


Wow so many questions and yet they are all trivial.  You want to know what makes a good, no GREAT!, Don't Starve Together World?  Head over to Maxwell's Playground.  Thats what makes a great DST world.  I hope to see many more like it. (Not clones but inventive ideas like it)

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Wow so many questions and yet they are all trivial.  You want to know what makes a good, no GREAT!, Don't Starve Together World?  Head over to Maxwell's Playground.  Thats what makes a great DST world.  I hope to see many more like it. (Not clones but inventive ideas like it)

 

Is that rezecib's crazy server?

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For the server layout that you've mentioned, I have still yet to find the best balance. And the part about segregating newbies from experienced and veteran players, if any of the following is possible that a server can set a criteria for players that will join the server like the following: You must have Don't Starve (Base Game) in your steam account. You have lasted at least two winters in Don't Starve (Base Game) Optional: You must have Reign of Giants in your steam account. Optional: You have lasted at least one summer in Don't Starve Reign of Giants. etc. And since players are playing from steam, if its possible for the server to check these information and if they pass these criteria, they'd be let in the server. I don't know if these would be breaking any privacy rules, but I just figured I'd share my ideas.   So I guess this ends my post about the topic. If I have replied to this topic incorrectly in any way, I'm sorry.

 

While I haven't actually played on Any DST servers yet so I'm not sure about the actually gameplay/map specifications..

However this idea I do like.

 

MC servers have Whitelists, which would be more than do-able on here given the password protected servers. You could ask people to apply to servers basing your requirements on time played, age, skype/ts abilities since I'm sure that'd help with a co-op environment, surviving winter, or just simply asking for a run through of their first 4 days playing single player DS and how they get set-up.
I don't think there's going to be any rules about choosing Who you want to play with so why not? :) 

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I see everyone complaining about lack of resources and that they are turning up their spawn rates on their servers. I can't figure how everyone isn't finding enough to work with, and why the hell you'd want to make it even easier to find things that it already is when playing with multiple people. I've been avoiding jumping into many peoples servers because they are all either set to default resources or some awful, awful amount of bonus resources.

 

I make servers with scarce resources, but can never get anyone to join (though that could be due to my crappy internet). 

 

Did check out someone's Lights Out server and had a good challenge, would like to see more.

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I see everyone complaining about lack of resources and that they are turning up their spawn rates on their servers. I can't figure how everyone isn't finding enough to work with, and why the hell you'd want to make it even easier to find things that it already is when playing with multiple people. I've been avoiding jumping into many peoples servers because they are all either set to default resources or some awful, awful amount of bonus resources.

 

I think I heard that large worlds do not generate more than the default amount of resources. Meaning everything looks scarce in comparison. Bumping grass and twigs to MORE is just nice when 8 players are all trying to share the same spot.

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As I've been following the threads and watching the antics of ClownBaby and friends, I realize the following about generation:

  • World should be large
  • World should have clockworks turned up a notch or two in order to harvest gears

Everything else seems to be at the discretion of the hosts.

 

The above isn't a hurdle at all. Dealing with new people is. I still hold that the problem may get better as time goes on, especially after the beta is over. Meanwhile, servers will have to say "difficult world: no newbies" or something polite and friendly in order to create a certain atmosphere of gameplay. I personally want to make a map with the spiders cranked up to 11, a moderate number of clockworks and everything else default. Not sure if I will make it public, though. Yes, it's not anyone's fault that there's a noob influx that arrive and leave as locusts do, but that doesn't mean you can't set limitations to players. A big shiny button somewhere before the server list page saying, "click here if you're new!" with a 2 minute animation on etiquette might help. I think having some sort of silly "skit" with wolfgang eating while at 209/210 hunger and everyone shaming him with a dirty look for doing so is a start, followed up with a "right time" to eat. New players will die to hazards, and that's something we've all learnt in the crucible of single player, so there's no avoiding that. The game has always been about discovery in that sense. As I've said in another thread and have summed up here, the divide is going to be between those of us who've played long since before MP, and those who saw the free key thing and went, "oh yay! free game I've never seen or played before!".

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Gah, my own dedicated server is going to be the only way I will play soon. I hate forcing everyone off just because I am done, and I do not agree with the default settings and AFK ghosts on the Klei servers. I play for long sessions because it is fun, but I am forcing myself to log on despite my lack of energy.

 

I might consider a server that has it's password advertised on the forums, just to see how many people join.

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Gah, my own dedicated server is going to be the only way I will play soon. I hate forcing everyone off just because I am done, and I do not agree with the default settings and AFK ghosts on the Klei servers. I play for long sessions because it is fun, but I am forcing myself to log on despite my lack of energy.

 

I might consider a server that has it's password advertised on the forums, just to see how many people join.

Yeah, just closed off my first session today. I'm burnt out, tbh. I basically said, "guys, I'm the host and I'm tired. G.G." and I quit.

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I found that increasing the early, one-time starting resources, like rocks/flint, flowers, carrots, mushrooms (yes, renewable, but very slow) but leaving twigs/grass/trees/berry bushes and other constant sources alone resulted in a world that had a less rocky start more comparable to single player, but didn't disturb the long-term difficulty much.

I think there need to be enough resources for a lot of people to do a single player-esque start where we live off of found resources for a few days, but not so many that resources become completely trivial and never matter again. That was the right balance for me, just slightly more of the things I mentioned above. 


On hosting a server yourself vs dedicated.. I like the persistence of the dedicated server, but the control of the player-hosted server. I think with better admin controls for dedicateds, and the vote to kick feature that is supposed to come soon, it will fix most of the issues with the dedicated servers. I would like a way to continue to host without playing, perhaps a spectator mode that you can transfer over to. I hate making everyone stop when I'm done. If I could just spectate the game and tab out, I would leave it open for those people.

I think if you've been kicked from a high number of servers in a small time period (say, multiple times within a day) you should be temporarily banned from joining any servers unless you're a friend of the host. The ban would be temporary to allow for things like, maybe a new player just getting kicked a lot for poor performance but not griefing. Their temporary restriction would wear off but they could try again. For habitual griefers, eventually they'd be banned almost all the time and it would get less fun and they'd give up. Friend games would always be joinable so no one would ever be barred from playing the game at all.

Because currently, being kicked is hardly a deterrent, you just go find another server to grief, go on down the list, pick willow, light the base on fire, and leave.

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Yeah, maybe a system like that would work. Right now, kicking is the only punishment we have. I guess we could start a banlist.


Yeah, maybe a system like that would work. Right now, kicking is the only punishment we have. I guess we could start a banlist.

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I think an option to permit hosts to request for players to have completed at least one winter in Single Player isn't too much. However it can be a warning pop-up that people can choose to ignore with the knowledge that they might be asked to leave if they can't hold their own weight around.

Not a restriction though. A recommendation. We all have different playstyles and if we are confident enough in our experience, the player should have at least some say in their discretion.

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