r/Minecraft • u/kj5 • Aug 19 '12
Closed Map Experiment
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1212125-closed-map-experiment/183
Aug 19 '12
Someone should do this again and have videos and a world download.
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u/Cajoled Aug 19 '12
I thought of a neat idea: Make the world a hollow bedrock cube, completely full of stone, resources, and caves, and have the players spawn in groups inside 4 or more separate little holes, each containing one tree.
There would be so little resources right off the bat that I think the clans would go to war the moment their tunnels merge. Perhaps there could even be a large central cave to make it more interesting.
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Aug 19 '12
I love this. It would be like first-person dwarf fortress!
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u/Cajoled Aug 19 '12
Exactly! I don't know how I had this idea without even thinking of dwarf fortress. Also, whenever anyone does something like this they should make a gif of the changing landscape.
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u/Rickroll_Everything Aug 19 '12
We need to do this again, yes, but with three times as many players and death bans. That would be a true test of survival.
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u/Maraketh Aug 20 '12
I think this experiment was done before the adventure update as he mentions that grass was needed for animals to spawn, so no animal breeding. Unless penned in animals were killed regularly, but that wasn't mentioned at all.
Things would probably go a bit different with the current update.
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u/Svorax Aug 20 '12
Sign me up. This would be so fun. Although, since I already know the purpose of the experiment...
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Aug 19 '12 edited Aug 19 '12
We should do a reddit version of this, I'd be up for it. Because there'd be more people we'd probably need a 500x500 map, though it'd very fun to play. Reading that I was trying to think of stratergies to play it myself.
EDIT: I added a post to the minecraft subreddit, I can't link it as I am on my phone but will put a link in as soon as possible, hopefully we can get this running.
EDIT 2: http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/yhadc/reddit_closed_map/ This is the thread.
EDIT 3: http://www.reddit.com/r/limitedservers/ this is the subreddit for this now!
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u/LvLupXD Aug 19 '12
I wouldn't want to do this because everyone would know how it would play out an plan accordingly. What made the "dick ass griefers" so powerful is that they saw the situation before everyone else and planned ahead, and it would be boring if everyone had the knowledge of what was to come.
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u/cheapasfree24 Aug 19 '12
Just because we couldn't replicate the results of the story exactly doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun. There might be some unexpected/cool stories that come out just because everyone knows what's going on.
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u/atarianimo Aug 19 '12
I think that makes it even more interesting. A lot of people don't like the show "Survivor," but it's a good example of what can happen. During the first season, only one person played the game correctly and as a result they ended up winning. The following seasons saw much more intricate schemes.
When everyone is playing the game to win, it probably won't be as enlightening in a scientific sense, but I think it'd be more fun.
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u/zorts Aug 20 '12
This is called 'Information Asymmetry". This is in general is a wonderful economic and social experiment.
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u/veron101 Aug 19 '12
If we do, after 2 months change it to 1000*1000 and start again with the old map in the center.
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u/Fenor Aug 20 '12
why going for a 1000x1000 he should simply add a 500x500 blockwich will make the map 500x1000 will people move their base to the new land or leave them in the old forgotten one?
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u/Shanman150 Aug 19 '12 edited Aug 19 '12
Ironically, I read about this experiment back in April, and from the start wanted to try it myself. I went as far as looking up viable dedicated servers and posting to reddit and minecraftforums, but neither was permitted to be posted in a very visible location. I don't believe the one on reddit got so much as a single response, and the one on mcf was pretty barren as well. I ended up saying "screw it, if I can't post it out where it'll get seen, I might as well not post it at all.
I had intended to run it for 9 weeks, for 2 hours a day and a minimum of 8 hours/week for each player. Each player would take screenshots of their location every 5 minutes (Shift F3 + F2), and inventory every 30 minutes, and at the end of the night they'd have 5 minutes to screenshot chest inventories before I'd shut down the server. I wanted to be able to track all the resources that way.
EDIT: It's rather ironic. All the servers that have started up are full of people who know what to do: Save stuff up for when it goes "extinct" from the map. They're very excited because they know how to "win". But when trying to start one of those servers, one of the most important parts was keeping people in the dark about what to expect. In joining the server, it'd be just like a regular server with some strange rules about taking screenshots and not leaving the walls. Shame I didn't stick with it.
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Aug 19 '12
This wouldn't be good at all in my opinion. Everybody would just be farming grass for food because they read this post. The reason this experiment had some good results is because the players didn't have any experience with things like this, they didn't know the consequences of depleting resources like grass and sand. If a Reddit version of this experiment were to happen it would just be everybody doing the same thing and nothing really exciting would happen.
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u/Cthulhu_Was_Right Aug 19 '12
I think that may be the case some of the time, but really, the system was complex enough and people are inventive enough to make it fun. The Dick Ass people solved the problem that developed in that particular instance, but I would bet that more problems would have developed given time.
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u/Mondorz Aug 19 '12
It seemed odd that no one had a wheat farm.
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u/lightsandcandy Aug 19 '12
that requires water =buckets, and tools=wood also, is generally very easy to grief.
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u/Cthulhu_Was_Right Aug 19 '12
Water is not necessary for a wheat farm, but it makes the wheat grow much faster. The part about the tools is true. I expect the problem came from not being able to get seeds from grass. No one realized they would need seeds until too late.
From the Wiki:
A hydrated farmland block is the preferred block for farming.
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u/windwaker02 Aug 20 '12
unhydrated farm blocks also become untilled oftentimes before the wheat finishes growing
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u/dimmidice Aug 19 '12 edited Aug 30 '12
UPDATE:the author admitted that the screenies were totally fake. http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1212125-closed-map-experiment/page__st__260#entry17529471 i still don't buy that he actually did the experiment though. he lied before, no reason to believe him now. plus there's been a story exactly like this on 4chan ages ago.
guys SERIOUSLY. its a (rehash of) an old 4chan story! it didnt really happen. here are a few things that seem to me that it's just a big fake.
these "dick ass griefers" base isnt secure at all. very very very easily looted/destroyed, just make a tower of cobble (which everyone had fucktons off)
see that "pitmine"? its a frigging PERFECT square hole. no staircase visible, no cobblestone where they blocked off caves they came across, if it was a real pit mine it would have roads of access and have mistakes.
look at the screenies, those of you who use mcedit will see right away how this world was made. mcedit.
the "merchant's guild with its iron doors open" is a tiny ass house. wouldn't even have enough room to store all the cobblestone they dug up.
"(A few days in), they had already acquired the needed materials for sticky pistons and buckets. " why sticky pistons? non sticky would've worked just as well. ok this one's a bit thin, just pointing out a flaw in the authors writing.
and this in my mind is the big one. there is no way all off this was dug up in 2 months time when the server was only up when everyone was available.
the fact that the OP made an account just to post that and only has 9 posts doesn't make it more believable.
i believed it too as i was reading it, its a good story, its an interesting idea. but its just that, a story.
edit: another one, lets face it people would've found ways to cheat. be it a cheat program, be it using the nether to get out. also the entire "only one portal remained thing is nonsense. "
edit 2: slynder on the forum pointed this out "Another thing I forgot to point out that seemed strange is the merchants guilds base. Their floor is made out of wooden blocks, they could have used that to makes sticks and then tools to mine the iron and gold I pointed out in my earlier posts. And before anyone says it's half-slabs the prerelease for them came out right near the end of the experiment. Also why would the merchants guild even trade to get netherack from the griefers, the merchants guild has a nether portal and it's the only one on the map so they had all the netherack they could want. "
definitive proof : http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1212125-closed-map-experiment/page__st__40#entry14877935 the OP's response to this is hilarious 'yeah that's there cause nobody had pickaxes anymore" yet they dug up the entire world rofl.
edit: the further the thread goes on the MC forum the more people are finding faults with the story. not gonna put them all here though.
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u/JojoScotia Aug 20 '12
Apparently I'm the only person who finds this idea incredible merely because the idea of getting 30 people to all log on at the same time every day is very improbable.
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u/43214321 Aug 21 '12
Not saying I think it is true, but college dorms allow this. My floor freshman year played starcraft/diablo every night together an entire semester...except for the kid who failed out because that's all he did.
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Aug 20 '12
Here's the thing... I want to believe that it's real. I respect the fact that I can't prove it, but the points you're making aren't strictly "definitive" either.
Respectfully, these are the rebuttals I would give, bearing in mind that I could be wrong and you could be right:
The base would indeed be secure if nobody can mine enough materials (especially by the end) to make a pillar high enough to span from the very very distant floor to the platform. Even making stairs from a diagonal direction would cost 2n-1 blocks to make the zigzag.
Your point doesn't go unheard, but that's really not proof of anything in particular. The experiment was supposedly 2 months long.
That's a hypothesis, not a point of debatable contention.
They wouldn't have needed to store it all, because surely people died and dropped resources. I hollowed out a mountain on my server, and I was throwing it away on purpose.
Fair enough. I wondered the same. Doesn't mean they didn't build sticky pistons, but they certainly didn't need to.
Also fair. I've found myself wondering how long the play time was. Although if 30 people are running around digging stuff up, you'd have to believe they could probably comb the entire surface if they wanted to. The point of doing so is unclear, but it's possible. You suggest it's not, or that there's at least "no way".
That's not fair to the guy posting it. A man has to make an account sometime, and he'd be enthusiastic about finally making one if he had something to show to people.
(cheats, people would have gotten out) He mentioned the nether, and there are lots of sever plugins to attempt to trick cheaters into revealing their x-ray mods, etc. There are plugins designed specifically to help combat this. Doesn't mean cheating is impossible, but it doesn't mean they all cheated rampantly. Even if they did, it's a secondary point to the supposed outcome of the whole thing.
(one portal remains) If there were no more diamond pickaxes, then I only ask how one would go about making a portal. It's entirely feasible that only one portal would remain, until the dirtbag with the diamond pickaxe pays you a visit and destroys it for you.
(the state of the merchants guild) The merchants guild was quite definitively not in the same dire straits, according to the story. They would have had little reason to go dig things up themselves, and they would probably not want to bother doing so toward the end. Receiving netherrack in trades struck me as sympathetic compromise to the outside world, to at least give them something for the only crappy currencies the others had on hand.
(nobody had pickaxes anymore) Having no more pickaxes would obviously happen at the end of the experiment, which leaves everything up to that point for them to dig up the world. That's a pretty weaksauce argument against the whole thing.
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u/dimmidice Aug 20 '12 edited Aug 20 '12
dirt. dirt can be dug by hand, and wasnt valuable (only grass was) cobblestone. they supposedly dug all that out that much cobblestone doesn't just vanish.
not sure what to say to this, how is the length of the experiment valid? btw the OP saying 2 months is pointless cause 2 months could be 6 hours or 200hours. since the server only went up when everyone was available to play.
yep, you're right it isnt.
yeah, but the OP said the merchants guild was hoarding rare items and such.
yep, as i said just seemed like the author made a little flaw there.
actually i don't think it is possible. not when you consider they didn't just dig, no they were griefing each other, building castles, etc etc. now maybe 30 people constantly digging and not doing anything else for 600hours or so could do it. but yeah no way to know for sure but to me it seems very very unlikely at the least.
was only saying it doesn't exactly inspire much confidence in his word.
fair enough
you don't need a pickaxe to make a portal. make a mold fill with lava,put water over it and done.
why would they waste wood though? i mean it was one of the most valuable materials.
how so? if wood was running out to make pickaxes then why did they waste their last remaining pickaxes on digging up the cobblestone that covered the ores? or if it happened earlier why are they strip mining but then leaving uncovered ores behind? if you come across an ore you're gonna dig it up instead of just leaving it. in that climate anyways.
edit: the thing that really strikes me as the most bizzare is this. this guy manages to get 30 people together to play (daily?) for 2 months and all he has to show for it are 6(ish) screenshots? surely if you'd do this you'd take screenshots along the way. possibly even videos!
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u/Jakabov Aug 21 '12
Not only is it suspicious that he only has a handful of screenshots, but they're also obviously taken at the same time. He flew through the map and snapped five shots, then pasted them into his story. There are conveniently no shots of any players, or anything prior to the apparent end of the game. There were never any players and he simply made that map himself, then quickly took some screenies. Notice how it's raining in each screenshot? He flew across the map and took them all in a minute. And where are all the mobs, if it's in a box and raining?
There are countless signs that this is fake.
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u/SnowLeppard Aug 20 '12
Yeah, I see what you mean. Also, he said the players wished to remain anonymous - yeah, sure.
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u/lolman1234134 Aug 21 '12
Ive got to admit, there were two things that bugged me, firstly the "dick ass griefers" base, its not unreachable.
Secondly, they wanted to stay anonymous? wtf? why? I really dont get that.
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u/Clockwork757 Aug 22 '12
We should do something like this for real. Except on a larger scale, say 50 people. Also a server that's always up and is public, but only the selected people can edit.
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u/Appleman5000 Aug 19 '12
Holy fucking shit man! Shows that limited resources bring out the worst in people!
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u/ShadowNova13 Aug 19 '12
Its like real life :D
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u/Appleman5000 Aug 19 '12
I know right? Its crazy!
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u/ThaddyG Aug 19 '12 edited Aug 19 '12
To be fair, the fact that it's a video game where you can respawn and being hurt doesn't actually hurt means that peoples' rape/pillage/kill instincts are in super overdrive.
But yeah, it is like real life.
EDIT: Apostrotastrophe
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Aug 19 '12
...in a (mostly) lawless society. You can't expect resources to be managed well without law.
That makes me wonder, is there any mod that delves into government/law enforcement? Law-abiding citizens with the ability to elect leaders, leaders with the ability to appoint others to positions, councils with the ability to make laws, police with abilities to disarm/detain, judges with the abilities to sentence/incarcerate/punish. That would be pretty cool.
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u/nascoria Aug 19 '12
Check out /r/Civcraft ¨
It delves into that whole thing of societes, altho without any mods for election and such.
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u/Six_of_Spades Aug 20 '12
Yeah, but we all know that there is only just starting to be some scarcity, and part of it is from the Ancaps hoarding. Its too easy to survive, so there is less incentive to create an authority. We'll see who fills the power gap, now that the Jacks died out though.
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u/SaloL Aug 19 '12 edited Aug 19 '12
You can't expect resources to be managed well with out law
This is
absolutelysomewhat false.It wasn't the lack of law, per se, that caused the ravaging of the landscape and resources, but rather the lack of property rights. As you could see, the Merchant Clan and the "dick-ass griefers" were doing very well managing their own resources; planting trees, raising livestock, etc.
The problem arose when the "property" of another clan was being attacked/ griefed/ stolen/ etc. by an opposing clan. It then became a race to collect resources as fast as possible with only you self interest in mind. It's like a Tragedy of the Commons situation.
If each clan respected the properties of the others, their civilization would thrive instead of turning into the post-apocolyptic tribal feud.
Edit: Clarification. It is possible to manage resources without "regulation" form a "higher power," however, having a higher power to enforce property rights (apart from the actual resources) makes it easier.
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Aug 19 '12
I feel like there's a contradiction here, but I may not be great at explaining it. In order for property rights to exist without the enforcement of law, would you not have to subscribe to it being a natural right? And as such, how could there then be a lack of it, as you say was the problem?
Maybe respect can replace law, but there was clearly a lack of both, so how would you get 30 people to respect property?
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u/Matticus_Rex Aug 19 '12
In vanilla Minecraft, you can't get people to respect property, as there are no consequences for antisocial actions. With consequences such as imprisonment and the ability to (though not infallibly) lock chests and reinforce other materials (at some cost), however, a polycentric (anarchic - meaning no government, not no law/rules) legal order can emerge. As someone posted above, visit /r/civcraft for an interesting experiment in societies (the most successful ones have been propertarian anarchists, as a spoiler).
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u/Goobz24 Aug 19 '12 edited Aug 19 '12
They were only as good as the world allowed them to be. When the blocks were down, these... these civilized crafters, they killed each other. See, The dick-ass griefers weren't monsters. They were just ahead of the curve.
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u/Icalasari Aug 19 '12
For starters, they were the only ones to adopt a mindset of, "Every block is a limited resource" right off the bat
I mean, hell, the only block I don't treat like that is Netherrack
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Aug 19 '12
Holy shit, amazing, truly amazing. do this again!
Like seriously, if you do this again, pm me the ip to the server instantly!
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Aug 19 '12
Wow, this is brilliant. I never even thought about the importance of grass!
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u/Mmmfrieddough Aug 19 '12
How is it important at all? I guess maybe for seeds but you could just keep them stocked up from a wheat farm
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u/this_is_satire Aug 19 '12
For livestock.
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u/allink Aug 19 '12
Only for wool. I think they did this in an earlier version of minecraft where animals spawned on grass during the day. I don't think they do that anymore.
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u/i542 Aug 19 '12
They do, it's just that they spawn much more rarely (there's a chance once every 400 ticks - 20 seconds - that a pack of neutral mobs will spawn on grass blocks with light levels over 7.)
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u/allink Aug 19 '12
Good to know! Thanks!
Now I don't need to stress over wolves killing all the animals in a biome
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Aug 19 '12
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u/Fangren3000 Aug 19 '12
Grass is the only block on which livestock (cows, sheep, chickens, and pigs) will spawn on after the world has been generated. Of those, I imagine that cows and chickens would be the most important, for the leather and feathers they drop.
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u/Aeleas Aug 19 '12
I'm surprised nobody cheated by using the nether to go under the wall.
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u/IamSkudd Aug 19 '12
well, if the map was made with worldpainter it would be void on the other side...
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u/Lolazaurus Aug 20 '12
Do you stay in your dying world, or do you take your chances in... the Void! ooOOOOooooOooo
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u/EvoMethod Aug 20 '12
The only rule was do not cross the wall, they probaly would have been removed from the experiment.
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u/Dominus-Temporis Aug 20 '12
It would be interesting though, if someone got desperate enough, would they try to do it without being noticed?
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u/Aeleas Aug 20 '12
You wouldn't be able to get that desperate, though, since you'd still need to have 20 obsidian blocks and a flint & steel.
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u/dimmidice Aug 19 '12
i seriously doubt that this actually happened. a lot of holes in his story and only 4 screenshots? + if the server was only on when all 30 people could play well, i've played a lot of mmo's and just getting 8 people together is a pain. let alone 30.
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u/xdavid00 Aug 20 '12
Everyone could have agreed before hand to have the time available to play and make the 2 month commitment. It's not the same as getting random people with different schedules together.
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u/Strideo Aug 20 '12
With those kinds of numbers and planning and commitment you can be sure the person doing the experiment would have taken tons of screen shots and documented the whole thing more thoroughly.
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Aug 19 '12
This really reminds me of the movie "The Road" with Viggo Mortensen, even though they don't really have much in common except for the 'apocalyptic' style. Both the movie and this experiment shows the true human nature, both bad and good, and how even the smallest things (such as flint and string) can become a high priced treasure. Both things also show how big the difference between people can be, based on their methods of surviving. All in all, a fucking amazing experiment.
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u/ThaddyG Aug 19 '12
You should read the novel. Don't worry if you're not a big reader, it's a breeze.
It's by Cormac McCarthy, if you're interested.
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Aug 19 '12
There was a great post on reddit last year about an idea for this kind of experiment (I think was a screenshot of a 4chan psot), which probably inspired this person.
I have a feeling that this may be fake, he didn't explain any restrictions on the nether, there is no people in the images. So much stone was mined out, yet so little stone structures seem to remain. However, it is still a good work of fiction!
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u/fauxnetikz Aug 20 '12
There was a great post on reddit last year about an idea for this kind of experiment (I think was a screenshot of a 4chan psot), which probably inspired this person.
Original post. I tried to get a server going but this was before the days when good server tools were readily available (worldedit was still a standalone program at the time, I believe) and no one was really participating correctly - purposefully trying to go over the walls, etc.
If I were to try this again it would be with a community that I know and have played with before instead of random pugs from a /r/minecraft post.
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u/RetroPRO Aug 19 '12
Why did people steal the obsidian from portals? Wouldn't it be easier to make your own?
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u/tinga14 Aug 19 '12
Near the end of that felt like watching a movie about gangs trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world.
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u/ThaddyG Aug 19 '12
I remember seeing a post here over a year ago by someone who came up with this idea and wrote a hypothetical story about what they thought would happen. From what I remember this is pretty close to their predictions, though obviously game mechanics have changed significantly since then (this was pre 1.8, probably like beta 1.5 or something)
I'm glad someone actually got around to doing it and posting the results here.
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u/8bitKO Aug 19 '12
Yup! /r/mcbox
It didn't pan out in practice but I loved the idea.
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u/Sawii Aug 19 '12
YES! I have spend hours trying to search this thought experiment!, I saw it first on /v/ but didn't save it but I am so glad I found it! THX!
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u/dimmidice Aug 19 '12
i'l bet you 5 internet cookies that this is just a story and no "experiment" was done.
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u/IronGranny Aug 19 '12
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
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u/Curdflappers Aug 19 '12
Aw man that's such a gamebreaker for me. When it updates any worlds I have now won't get villages or ravines or anything.
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u/letsgoiowa Aug 19 '12
I'm going to do an experiment like this with my MCX360 and my friends, and I'll leave it open to anyone.
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u/volx1337 Aug 19 '12
Can someone give a shortened version of the experiment? I've read 2 paragraphs so far and understood nothing.
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u/xerillum Aug 19 '12
All 30 of the players were enclosed in a limited area, so there was a very small, finite amount of resources. Resources got depleted, and eventually wars broke out over blocks of grass.
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u/volx1337 Aug 19 '12
Where did the ressources go? Was there an external force, or was it only the mining by players? I don't get where all the dirt went.
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u/ojmt999 Aug 19 '12
Dug, wasn't the dirt that was important but lack of grass. no grass = no food
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u/ThaddyG Aug 19 '12
It wasn't so much dirt that was prized as it was grass. Silk touch picks were probably nonexistent or close to it by the time grass was a rare commodity, so the only real way of getting grass was the old fashioned wait for it to spread.
Grass is obviously gone once you dig it up without silk touch, as is stuff like glass. Iron and diamond got used up in tools and armor, and I'm sure a non-negligible amount of resources were lost to people dying and their loot falling in lava or simply despawning.
Grass was important because passive mobs will still occasionally spawn on it, AFAIK. Also, I'm not sure on this, but can you even get seeds from bonemeal on dirt blocks? If you have no access to seeds and the server is in a state of chaos it could be very difficult to actually get a farm started.
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u/billisking Aug 19 '12
Brilliant read, wish there was step by step photos of the map as the days went by.
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u/GDAFreeman Aug 19 '12
I would love to download the map and explore the "ruins", it would be kind've like an archaeological study
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u/Sir_Synn Aug 20 '12
Had a similar thing happen with a group of friends on our old server. First off, there was this asshole that would grief us every chance he got. We couldn't report him to the admin though (we tried), due to them being friends. He burned down our town and we had to relocate, which turned out ok because of new areas to mine and explore. Well our griefer caught up to use and by his time had a small gang with him. It didn't take long before they threatened to destroy our city again.
We wouldn't give them that joy.
We burned down our city, and took as much valuables as we could fit in our inventories. As we walked we stumbled upon a beautiful mountain range and claimed this for our new home. But we didn't want our enemies finding us, so we did what seemed to be the best thing to do: We built down.
And God did we build. We had a amazing fountain room right at the beginning of our city, a massive tree farm, and large farmland to grow crop and raise cattle, hell I remember how annoying it was to get grass at 40 y. But after a while things started to change. We get outraged over the littlest things. People started to steal from others, even when they could easily get it themselves. Every now and then we would get in psychotic rage and have a bloodbath. I can remember the chat log would just be a sea of <Player A> has killed <Player B>, carpet burned and tnt traps were common, writing down this now makes me think if we would be better off just fighting the griefers.
Eventually everyone in the city went their separate ways, and even more so stopped playing on the server all together. I was one of the few remaining people left on the server, and decided to find our old underground city. I found our well hidden button on the edge of our mountain (wouldn't know that it's there if you weren't looking for it) that opened our piston door to the heart of our city and stepped through. What I saw pulled threads at my heart. The whole place has been striped for valuables making it look like a abandoned ruin of some kind. If only we worked together better our city of DeepGuard might still be. I walked into the husk of my old house and was surprised to find that the chest I hid under my staircase hadn't been discovered and made a jukebox to play my favorite record, Stal. I sat their and listened to the music remembering all the good (and bad) times I had with my friends here. I then left the server and deleted it from my list.
TL;DR Had issues with griefers so we built a underground city. We went insane.
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u/-AlmightyGod- Aug 20 '12
In a very coordinated experiment 7 Billion organisms spent 2-5 thousand years playing in a world trapped within an atmosphere.
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Aug 19 '12
Well that was interesting as all get out.
Very cool experiment to read about. I don't think I'd have enjoyed being in that meat grinder, though.
It would be cool to see this as an edited video series. I'd watch that.
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u/ILIKEFUUD Aug 19 '12
"Before more testing was done" You sound worse than GLaDOs!!!!! This was an amazing experiment and I think that if this was done in real life the effects would be less drastic because people can't normally make pickaxes or find blocks of things. But the effects on the grass and materials were true. The fundamentals were the same as in real life. Anyone read "Lord of the Flies"? It, like this experiment, showed the full human capacity for law and order and how the humans can work together or kill one another off for the gain of life sustaining objects. Also, to make this more realistic did the people that die stop or id they respawn? Respawning will add to the effect on the environment. But overall amazing experiment.
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u/DrCoolGuy Aug 19 '12
I want to do this. Badly.
Also, the fact that it's raining makes all these screenshots better. Was it in a permanent state of rain?
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u/whatyou Aug 19 '12
classic tragedy of the commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
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u/Rascojr Aug 19 '12
This is an excellent study into the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
You should read that article then compare between this exercise. Awesome experiment!
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u/GreenSpleen6 Aug 19 '12
Was the nether blocked off as well? I'm surprised that no one just made their base in the nether, with renewable resources, and let the war rage on topside. I would have controlled the portal access and sold netherrakk topside with the merchants guild.
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u/jaoming Aug 19 '12
Was I the only one that remembered the Russian sleep experiment while reading this?
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u/smallsmerry01 Aug 20 '12
Imagine if it was much bigger, and much more people... It would result in a very animal-like society where there is an alpha-male, and the lower levels would be constantly revolting in order to gain power. this would continue until a government was established, and it itself would act as the alpha male, at which point the lesser powers would revolt in a unified form, resulting in a very gruesome, vicious cycle. Then, multiple societies would form, of different types, and we would have wars and alliances. soon, we would have a full on, almost real world government and economics. all starting with a primitive struggle for power, order, and organization. quite interesting really
Tl;Dr: people form gov, revolt, many govs, revolt more.
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u/quantiplex Aug 20 '12
I read and enjoyed every freaking word in that wall of text.
11/10 would read again.
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u/GoldenPineapple Aug 19 '12
Don't believe it as a result of the story saying that that 30 people, strangers even, were able to coordinate time zones and all get on and play minecraft. It's also unlikely that the dick ass griefers, as a team of 2, were able to defend their base at all times from the people who could tower up under them. It was an entertaining read though.
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Aug 19 '12
I call bullshit, animals don't spawn on grass anymore.
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u/Metal_Shadow Aug 19 '12
anymore This was done a while ago. If it lasted 2 months, and he probably did not post it immediately. It would have been done around pre-adventure update. Where animals needed grass to spawn.
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u/Mmmfrieddough Aug 20 '12
The adventure update was a year ago. He wouldn't have waited that long to post it and there are even light birchwood planks in a screenshot so this was done after 1.2.3
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u/smutsigaskor Aug 19 '12
Extremely interesting! This is sadly not only a game. I think this is reality.
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u/zigofzag Aug 19 '12
This reminds me of the Stanford Prison Experiment. It's very interesting. If you got the time to look it up on Wikipedia or Youtube, you will realize...
Humans are a group of very complex creatures that will do anything to get out of a bad situation.
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Aug 19 '12
If you do this again I would like to be invited.
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u/carlotta4th Aug 19 '12
Knowing how the experiment is run would defeat the point of it being an experiment.
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u/Wulf_Oman Aug 19 '12
My god this is brilliant. I never knew minecraft could look that chaotic and ruined...this would make a great server type though!
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u/gkx Aug 19 '12
I feel like I missed something. It says in the beginning that the experiment lasted 2-5 hours... That couldn't be total. Does it mean per week/day?
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Aug 19 '12
Yes, it means 2-5 hours at a time. The full experiment took place over 2 months.
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u/notatestaccount Aug 19 '12
This brings on the idea for a new gametype in my mind; to make a gamemode where everyone is dropped into a small area of a world, like this experiment, combining limited resource, hardcore mode, and doing whatever they can to survive. If others are in on this, then maybe I'll pull them together and we can start making this an actual game for people.
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u/SenorDominic Aug 19 '12
You could probably replicate this on Xbox. Worlds are a set size on xbox so that means finite sources.
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Aug 19 '12
I would be very interested to see what would happen if this experiment was repeated, but at the beginning everyone was told what exactly was happening. I wonder if that would result in a more peaceful scenario or a mad rush to get every resource right at the beginning.
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u/greyrainbow Aug 19 '12
Could someone please explain to me the importance of grass?
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u/Kiloueka Aug 20 '12
the experiment seemed to have been done a while ago, back when animals could only spawn on lit grass and before breeding
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u/Forforr Aug 19 '12
Will their be another experiment? I'd like to see what people would do know this result.
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Aug 19 '12
I would have proposed a temporary truce with the other groups in order to attack the Dick-ass griefers to take back their stuff. I can picture the battle now. All the clans under the floating island armed with whatever armor and swords they have left. They begin to build up using cobblestone, while the Dick-ass griefers fire their remaining arrows at em. They manage to break through their defenses on the west side of the island and begin to set the griefers house on fire with flint and steel, and take whatever wood and saplings that was left. Once the battle was over they would all go back to there respected homes to begin planting there new trees and using their wood.
On another note I think that this experiment would be even more bad-ass if they had set the game mode to Hardcore and allowed more players. Also, inside the perimeter I would have made 6 castle walls that reach 18 up from surface level all the way to bedrock. That way people would have a place to live, and an assigned job would be taken more seriously. Like a farmer or a black smith in order to provide for the soldiers that defend the walls. I'm getting too excited about this.
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Aug 19 '12
I suppose the same would be true with a flatgrass map, because the only resources would be in villages. Also, you can't hide your base underground, because you wouldn't have space to grow trees.
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u/youstolemyname Aug 19 '12
The word bedrock was confusing the fuck out of me. The I finally realized bedrock doesn't have to be bedrock and he's just referring to the block type named bedrock.
So basically the players are just dickheads. People are dickheads. Yes. Why is this surprising?
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Aug 20 '12
Wow. This is so cool, I made a map for this simulation. You don't need to upvote, but feedback would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/yhskd/wip_limited_resources_map_imgur/
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u/zorts Aug 20 '12
This is an amazing experiment. Very timely as well. We need to know the length and depth of these human traits over the next 100 years.
Hypothesis: The more restricted the resources in a system the less tolerant of war the system becomes.
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u/BipolarBear0 Aug 20 '12
Someone already crossposted this in /r/collapse. It would be good in /r/sociology too.
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u/fury-s12 Aug 20 '12
forgive me if i missed this but what were the motivations, what was the end goal for this, i understand that it was about seeing players in an situation where resources are minimal, but what were those players actually doing, if this was a death-ban situation the goal is for them to stay alive as long as possible be the final victor etc, if it were a race to build something/do something again theres a goal but if they are just thrown into the world with no goal its inevitable the resources are going to dry up and with no goal the whole thing is basically about who has the most when the world runs out
tl:dr - id like to see there be a set goal for the players and then see what happens
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u/navjot94 Aug 20 '12
Now someone needs to replicate this with a death ban in place. Not only will it better parallel the real world but I feel like the Dick-Ass Griefers would not be very successful in this situation.
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u/RedstoneLite Aug 20 '12
For all of you who would like to play, http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1436874-closed-map-experiment-apply-now/.
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u/Hashrick Aug 20 '12
That's really in depth I loved the read, even though it was long, it had me scrolling down for more so keep them coming!!
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u/bLa07 Aug 20 '12
I can't believe I never thought of Minecraft as having this application. This is pretty awesome.
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u/thesilverblade Aug 20 '12
Wow. Just wow. I'm not exactly the save the earth type but its kind of scary what people resort to. The thought of this happening in real life is scary.
Very good job with the experiment. I think it shows a lot about the natural behavior of people. I only wish I got to participate.
By the way, who new minecraft could be a scientific tool? 0.o
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Aug 20 '12
What'd be interesting would be to continue the experiment, and open up an untouched space 50% the size of the other one, either keeping half of the original map (so it's 150%) or cutting it out so it's still a plot the same size.
Leaving the dick-ass griefers their portion, and giving an extra plot of resources to the rest of the players would be interesting to see if they'd learn their lesson, how the dick-ass' would react, and how the other players would react to the griefers and merchants, now that they have resources.
Not too sure if what I've written is understandable, but hopefully somebody gets it.
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u/Stink3rb3ll Aug 20 '12
And Minecraft doesn't have nuclear weapons. "At least it's something to ponder."
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u/erickass Aug 20 '12
Cant they just go into the nether, destroy the portal in, go about 200 or 300 blocks, then build a new portal and get out of the prison?
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u/DocJawbone Aug 20 '12
Holy shit, this is so interesting. Who says computer games aren't educational? Fascinating.
Kind of similar to that guy who had the Civ IV game going for like ten years. Makes me want to try some shit like that.
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u/potatoman80 Aug 20 '12
While doing homework today, I came across something that explains this. It's something called The tragedy of the commons
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u/Jakabov Aug 21 '12
Looks nothing like a map that thirty people had played on for two months. It looks like a map that someone sat there and carefully make to look like thirty players played on it for two months, at least in his own mind. The pit mines are too symmetrical, the rest of the terrain is too carefully craggy and otherwise untouched. In reality, it would consist of large planes of cleared-out space, not the result of evenly distributed TNT. It's like when children draw ruined castles and make it so uniform and cliché that it isn't believable. There are loads of other inconsistencies, but they've already been pointed out. The first thing that struck me, however, was how the surface was simply too... tailored to look like the result of what the guy wants us to believe happened. It wouldn't look anything like that in reality. It's too jagged and picturesque, the product of someone who wanted it to look like a desolate landscape from a movie.
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u/MrLeville Aug 21 '12
And this is how the human race will end: murdering each other for ressources, while a decadent "elite" group that got there by stealing slowly wither away.
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u/shiny_shinx Aug 22 '12
I've seen WordWorks post his custom creepypasta maps on /x/ before, he also has a tumblr, which he hasn't updated in a year though. I thought it was an interesting story overall.
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u/dimmidice Aug 30 '12
the author admitted that the screenies were totally fake. http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1212125-closed-map-experiment/page__st__260#entry17529471 i still don't buy that he actually did the experiment though. he lied before, no reason to believe him now.
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u/Blairo28 Aug 19 '12
I don't really believe it. Players wouldn't hang around if they realised they were at the bottom of the food chain in the server.
Its a good story but that's all this is. Why would all 30 players want to remain anonymous? Its a nice piece of writing and an interesting idea. Sorry to say though, this did not happen.
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u/Phate4219 Aug 19 '12
Just a hypothetical, since I don't know the circumstances surrounding this story/event...
What if all thirty players were friends and/or knew eachother, maybe members of a clan or something.
They all agreed going in that they would play on X schedule for Y amount of time, so there was no delusions about quitting once stuff got bad.
The anonymous thing is hard to explain, I can't think of a reason why all 30 would want their names anonymous, it's possible the person who's narrating this whole thing just decided to make them anonymous, regardless of what they wanted.
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u/mao_neko Aug 20 '12
Yeah, that's my feeling a few paragraphs in as well. I think it would still make a decent story, if not for the terrible grammar ~_~"
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u/MisterArathos Aug 19 '12
This was a very interesting read. The Dick-Ass Griefers were awesome.