Nations

At the heart of this server is the concept of Nations. Throughout the world there are Nations vying for control of resources, territory, and power. They all need players to join them. Nations play a crucial part in the gameplay of the MCON Server. Almost all the elements of the server are based around Nation gameplay. Almost every Nation will have a different ambitions, and will put emphasis on a different element of the game. You could see anything from a peaceful farming Nation to powerful empires bent on conquering the entire world. However, peaceful nations will not automatically be the weakest, as they could control vital resources, command economies and have extensive networks of alliances. That’s all up to you as the player to find out. For security reasons, all Nations are closed by default, meaning that players require an invitation in order to join.

Joining a Nation
Joining a Nation requires an invitation from a Nation Leader or Moderator. You can ask to join both on the server, or on the Forum. You can request to join a nation at any time, but you require an in-game invitation from the Nation in order to properly join. You can work independently if you choose, but there are many advantages to belonging to Nations. Still, it’s always best to scout out the different Nations to find one that matches your playing style, that the players you join up with will have similar goals and intentions. Starting a Nation is addressed later in this Wikia page.

However, receiving an invitation is really quite simple. There are a few ways to request an invitation, the most direct being to input the command:

/n join

This sends a message to the Nation Administrator that you wish to join. However, this requires that you know the Nation’s tag or name, which you can find on the wiki. However, you can also reach Nations through the Forum. Each Nation has its own subforum (referred to as an embassy) in which players can discover a Nation’s name and place formal requests to join a particular Nation. Different Nations may place certain criteria on prospective players, others will accept anyone. These will all be listed on the Forum. An advantage to requesting through the Forum is that you can reach Nation Administrators when they aren't in-game, as they can read the post whenever they are available again. Either way, they can then send you an invitation, leaving you to input the join command again. If, for any reason, you decide you want to leave your nation the command is:

/n leave

You do not need to wait for permission to leave, and you can leave at any time. There is one exception, which we'll get to in a moment.

Nation Life
Once you have joined a nation, there are many immediate advantages that will become apparent quickly. First of all, any national land is protected from everyone outside of your Nation. This creates immediate anti-griefing protection from everybody who has not been accepted by the Nation’s admin/mods. This ensures that new players cannot come onto the server and immediately grief (protected) land. You can still build in the wilderness, on land that is not claimed, but this land will not be protected until it is claimed by your Nation. It’s also entirely possible another nation could claim that chunk of land as well. You will also be barred from building in land belonging to other nations, unless they're Allied to your Nation. You can still enter other nations to use their shops or trade. You cannot use doors however. So, if you’re creating a shop that you wish to make available to everyone, you have to create a pressure plate operated entryway (or no door at all).

The other immediate benefit of joining a Nation is that you suddenly have a relatively unlimited amount (depending on the nation’s size) of players you can collaborate with on projects and who will (generally) have a group minded sense of self-preservation. Of course there are exceptions, but most Nations will help their members if they require assistance or wish to collaborate. The psychological mindset compelled by a sense of nationality usually leads players of the same nation to respect their creations and personal space. In most cases, players who grief members of their own Nation will cease to be a citizen of that Nation.

However, in a loosely affiliated “fend for yourself, anything goes” kind of Nation, you might want your creations to have an additional layer of protection. In this case, you can request that your nation’s administrator give you personal ownership of a chunk or two (or six) of land. This will protect your land, not only from members of other nations, but also from everyone in your own nation (with the exception of the national admins and other staff). This can be used to claim a personal residence with an extra layer of security. However, you always have to go through your admin and they might not always allow personal ownership of national land.

Conflicts
The other primary benefit of joining a Nation is that you will have people on your side when inevitable conflicts between nations occur. This is discussed on the Diplomacy page. For now, just know that Nations can certainly go to war with one another. In fact, players who don’t belong to any Nation are quite vulnerable as they could theoretically be attacked at any time, and they won’t have any fellow nation members to back them up. Therefore, joining a Nation provides allies; if a member of another Nation attacks you, that could lead to war. Of course, you always have to go through your national admin for a war to be formally declared. Usually a Player being attacked is reason enough to start a conflict. Or the other Nation might have declared war already. Once again, this is all discussed in Diplomacy. Just know that joining a Nation generally provides allies, protection, and security. Just keep in mind, it always depends on the Nation; some might be better in this regard than others.

The Costs of Starting a Nation
Now, there’s been a lot of talk about national admins - they can do a lot more things, and they are generally in charge of the Nation’s affairs. You might be wondering how you can become a national admin. A national admin can declare any member to be a joint admin of their Nation, or a national moderator. Moderators are second grade staff members who can still do a variety of things, but they have to be appointed by a national admin. However, getting appointed usually take time to build trust and there’s a chance that a nation’s creator will never appoint additional staff. Therefore, it’s been made possible for any player to form their own nation.

There are a number of costs involved with creating a nation, one of which is real money. This server isn’t cheap, so to provide this service we have restricted the ability for players to create nations to players who Purchase the Nation Package from our Store ($10 USD). This also helps weed out the players who are playing just to create and manage a nation. $10 is enough to keep players from creating a nation on a whim, but not so much as to prevent players who are really interested from doing so. This also stops the annoying people who will make a Nation and declare war on everyone.

The second cost involved is in-game currency. It costs 10,000 gold coins (the equivalent of 10 gold ingots) to create a Nation. This is primarily to ensure that players have spent enough time in-game to actually amass that level of currency. They either have to have mined 10 gold blocks, traded for income, or bought it from us (yes, you can purchase in-game currency; see the Store page). We accept either scenario as valid for players to create their own nation. The 10,000 gold coins is removed from your account upone purchase. If you’ve already managed to get 10,000 gold coins, it shouldn’t be hard for you to get more. The final cost is more abstract: the cost is the alienation of your previous Nation (if you had one). They might not appreciate that you created a potential rival faction, especially if you poached some members. The number of members actually plays a big role in what a nation can do (see Power), so removing yourself or any other members might not make your former comrades too happy. You should have a stable network of members who can assist you or else you might not be able to get expand your nation past its foundations. New nations without allies or a strong player base are often vulnerable to larger nations. The bottom line is that creating a nation has its trade-offs. You get a little more control at the cost of stability. If you think you’re up to the challenge, go right ahead and create your own nation. In most cases it’s totally worth it. Just bear in mind, the ability to create a Nation is not indefinite; it only lasts fourteen days. Therefore, you have two weeks to get your Nation up and running, and you have unlimited retries during that time (they all still cost 10000 gold coins though). If it collapses after fourteen days, you have to purchase the permission all over again. This ensures that players will only create nations when they’re sure they’re going to work. On this server, it’s always "the more, the merrier" in terms of nations, but players have to be sure they can sustain it.

Starting Your Own Nation
If the previous section didn't sound too daunting to you (it’s easier than it sounds, we promise!) then go ahead and create your nation. We’ll discuss purchasing the permission later, as it is its own thing with a few steps. For now, we're assuming that you already have the permission. The first thing you have to do in-game is actually create your nation. This is done using the command:

/n create

With referring to your nation’s actual name or ‘tag.’

Your full name might be too long for the actual string the game will use for your nation, such as something like “The Mighty and Invincible Empire of a Thousand Pointy Sticks.” That’s way too long. For a number of reasons, the nation tag cannot include spaces (underscores are fine) and they have to be less than 25 characters. In this example, you might call it “PointyStickEmpire” or “TMaIEoaTPS.” Hint: Acronyms are great. Something easy to remember that distinguishes your nation is preferable so you should give it some thought. You can change it later if you like though, but it has to follow the same rules. You can change your national tag with:

/n tag

There is a small penalty for changing your name (500 Gold Coins), and you won’t get refunded. This encourages you to get it right the first time and avoid future confusion. A major and unnecessary name change might invoke a higher fine. To recap, use the command /n create and try to get it right the first time. As long as you have that 10,000 gold in your account, your nation will be officially created with you as its leader. And then you get a fancy cape. Yay!

Now, the next thing you’ll want to do is claim some land. ..

Adding Members
The next thing you can do is add members to your Nation. You have to give them all invitations, but that’s not all that hard. The command is:

/n invite

With username being the target player’s username. They can then accept your invitation or decline it. You can invite whoever you want, but spamming invitations condoned by server admins. At least two players must complain before admin intervention though. To be on the safe side, you might want to confirm with them that they want to join your Nation before sending invitations.

The last major thing you’ll want to do is to set your Nation’s home. All members of your Nation including you will spawn there when they die, so that they don’t have to walk halfway across the map to get back to friendly territory. The command for this is:

/n sethome

and you can change this whenever you want.


 * Note: This feature was temporarily disabled. Players were misusing its function in ways unintended.

There are a few other important commands for admins that we’ll just cover quickly You can use them at your own discretion, but they aren’t really required. /n admin

and

/n mod

can be used to create admins and moderators for your Nation. They must include the target’s username of course. Admins can do everything you can do, and moderators can claim land, set ownership, and kick players. That brings us to the next two commands:

/n owner

with the username sets ownership, and again, mods can do that. You can also unset ownership with the same command, just don’t attach a username. No username will also set ownership for the admin or mod using the command. /n kick kicks a player from your Nation. This can be done in most circumstances with a few restrictions to be discussed shortly. Mods can do this as well.

Lastly, the one we hope you'll never have to use: /n disband This will break up your Nation completely.

Players can be given nation-specific titles that will appear when the player's actions are reported on the text board. This can make it easier to identify the nation's hierarchy. The admin or mod must use the following command:

/n title

Other than that, everything is up to you. Go have fun with your Nation!