Archived Factions Resource Pack

[twinCatalysts]

Resource packs are great. They're used to raise the look of the game above that of Vanilla to one's preferences. Server packs are the same, except they serve another purpose; to have everyone on the same page, to be building in the same style, the same palette. The only problem is that not everyone always uses it, whether they prefer default, or perhaps have performance issues with more detailed textures. For most texture packs, that's fine. For Massivecraft's, it is not. And there is a very simple explanation for that, there are major differences, not only in texture but in colour and style, between the texture packs. Red Nether brick is green, for instance. It even has it's normal colour in its name. The reason for this is a good and understandable one; the staff use their server's packs for their server's builds. That's fine if you're only ever spending time in the server's builds, but for people in factions, 99% of your time will not be spent in a staff build, it will be in player's builds. And as previously stated, not all people are able to use texture packs. This means that about half of the server will be building with blocks looking one colour, and the other half will be building with them looking another, which leads to the half using the other pack thinking the first half's builds look like trash. Now, you might say "Well, if you don't like the texture pack use another" but that is just ignoring the issue. Whether you use it or not, it is the server's official, endorsed pack. People on this server are always going to be using it, as long as it is advertised as that, and there is no reason to not advertise it like that, as it is. So, how do we fix this problem? Simple; two packs, with the same core, but different details. Namely; the colours of the pack are closer to vanilla, and the blocks look more standard to what they are in vanilla, in keeping with the normal Massivecraft pack style. For instance, the colour of nether brick in Vanilla is red, which while not the best, works in some builds. It in the massive pack is black. In very few of builds will it look good on both packs, even if it looks incredible on the one it was built in. But, the texture itself, does, for the most part, look like bricks. Some colour changes would be all that is needed to make it transferable between vanilla and the server pack, just making it red instead of black. This is the case for many blocks, and would close the gap considerably. Now, of course, changing the colours would make regalia less unique, and less beautiful, two things that having its own pack helps with. Hence why I proposed a two pack system. The one we have now for staff build beauty (could be called something like The Regalia pack, or the Staff pack) the other one with edited colours for player build consistency (The factions pack, or the Player pack, as examples for the name). It should, hopefully, not be /too/ difficult to create the pack, as it's mostly only edited colours (with only a few needing to be changed drastically) and many blocks won't need to be changed very much at all.

Having this pack would also have the benefit of player input. As it is right now, players have next to no say in what the server pack looks like, what they like for it to look like, etc. because it is a pack that belongs to the staff, and their build projects. Having a pack "For the people" would mean that people could discuss what they'd like in the pack, which would make regular users more content with it, even if it's not implemented, because it wouldn't feel as if they have no say (which, no matter what is not a pleasant feeling to have in something you enjoy doing)

That is all for now. Thank you very much for reading, and I hope for your consideration for this to be implemented.

 

[BittaBoBittoBa]

Do you not get how much work goes into texturepacks, even when borrowing assets from other packs?

Its a tremendous undertaking and I think it wouldn't be worth for factions.

Faction worlds are more-or-less OOC and so its not really a priority have a pack for it.

Plus it'd be inconvenient for people who actually participate in both survival and Regalia.

I'm sorry to chop you down, but its just not that beneficial for the work involved.

 

[twinCatalysts]

Do you not get how much work goes into texturepacks, even when borrowing assets from other packs?

Its a tremendous undertaking and I think it wouldn't be worth for factions.

Faction worlds are more-or-less OOC and so its not really a priority have a pack for it.

Plus it'd be inconvenient for people who actually participate in both survival and Regalia.

I'm sorry to chop you down, but its just not that beneficial for the work involved.

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Yes, I am aware a lot of work goes into texture packs, but as stated, most of the work has already been completed by our wonderful PR Staff in the current pack. The amount of work to complete this would be akin to an update to the pack. Not a non-existent undertaking, but nor one that is not worth the huge organization of building on the server it would bring about. Building is a big part of Massivecraft, and a good part of the fun for building, at least for me, is to have other people see and hopefully enjoy it, and it is much harder for people to do that when to them it looks entirely different.
And, what do you mean..? Just because something is not roleplayed in, that does not make it useless to have a pack for it. Many factions like their factions to look nice, whether they roleplay there or not.
Furthermore, for people who do both (if they do not want to switch, that is),, they can just pick the one with things they like more since the packs will be, for the most part, the same, except for some blocks that stray from Vanilla colour schemes. It would be more or less how it is now, which according to you, is fine.

 

[twinCatalysts]

To make my point; here are two edits I just did of Netherbrick and Red Netherbrick. It probably took longer for me to download and extract the pack than it did to edit it, and I am someone who doesn't know their way around art programs. They're not perfect (the regular netherbrick one especially) and definitely not good enough for the server, as I am inexperienced and wasn't taking my time, but it shows that it is not that difficult to do colour changes.
Original Red Netherbrick:

My quick edit:

Original Netherbrick:

My quick edit:

 

[BittaBoBittoBa]

Yes, I am aware a lot of work goes into texture packs, but as stated, most of the work has already been completed by our wonderful PR Staff in the current pack. The amount of work to complete this would be akin to an update to the pack.

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Recoloring items and compiling them into a pack is still work, if you really respect the staff, don't undermine their efforts by acting like its a simple matter of doing 1, 2, 3.

You have to go to individual blocks and edit them.

And then you can't just click the "Color balance" button and be done with it.

A large part of making texture packs is editing maybe 1 or 2 textures at a time and cross referencing them to make sure they look good to one another.

Then you have to hand-correct the shading and coloring because the filter tends to overshoot it.

Just to put things in perspective: There's roughly 550+ for only blocks , that doesn't include things like the necessary color maps, items, or 2D items, Misc textures, or the several hundred extra textures that McPatcher uses to make stuff like Connected textures work.

Having to fish out which blocks out of that pool to arbitrarily edit is tedious, especially if you can only edit 2 or 3 at a time.

Plus you have to keep up the fact, that after it releases, you'll still have to occasional go back to work on it to retweak the lighting and shading to make it work again.

And then after that you still have to update it along with the main pack.

I know this, because I've actually dabbled with making texturepacks in the past, as well as being aquainted with people who actually do make packs.

Just because something is not roleplayed in, that does not make it useless to have a pack for it. Many factions like their factions to look nice, whether they roleplay there or not..

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1. If they weren't already using Massive's pack to begin with, they're definitely not gonna get a separate Factions pack.

2. Factions still like to use their own personal packs, not everyone likes Massive's pack and it'd be totalitarian to force them to adhere to it outside of Roleplay situations. I personally don't even like massive's pack that much for building, I like it for roleplay. But for building, my go-to pack is Pixel Perfection. I got some pictures of it if you wanna see.

3. Again, this is useless. People can still use Massive's regular pack for Faction building. Having a second pack won't make people wanna download it any more.

To make my point; here are two edits I just did of Netherbrick and Red Netherbrick. It probably took longer for me to download and extract the pack than it did to edit it, and I am someone who doesn't know their way around art programs. They're not perfect (the regular netherbrick one especially) and definitely not good enough for the server, as I am inexperienced and wasn't taking my time, but it shows that it is not that difficult to do colour changes.
Original Red Netherbrick:

My quick edit:

Original Netherbrick:

My quick edit:

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"Quick Edits" shouldn't be desired for in texture packs. Its not hard to recolor things, whats hard is making them actually look good and have synergy with other blocks. Its not a crime for things to not match their vanilla colors, Vanilla's color scheme can be bland and boring.

 

[twinCatalysts]

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You.. continue to act like I want them to make an entirely new pack for some reason. I don't want them to edit 550 textures. And no, my quick, 3-minute edit isn't server-quality, I wasn't trying to state that it was. Of course there have to be hand edits to fix things and make it look nice, and those do take time. But it is not the end of the world. The staff have shown they are able to create packs, and really good ones, and keep them up to date, and that is for a pack that is dedicated to only 1% of builds (Even builds that work in massive texture pack suddenly don't work half the time whenever it updates, so I do not consider them dedicated)
And to dispute that people not using it won't use it because of this, I no longer use Massivecraft's texture pack, even though I love many parts of it. Why? Because if I do, many of my faction's builds will look like trash, even if they were originally designed in an older version of the pack.
And finally. No. If a server has an official pack, people are going to use it. It'd be much harder to convince a faction of anywhere from 30 people to upwards of one, or even two hundred to use a pack you cannot even link them to in-game than the one the staff plaster on the website, and even if you managed to do so, I wish you luck in convincing everyone who wanders by your faction and sees it, or all your allies who come to defend it, to use that specific pack so it doesn't look like garbage.

What I feel is happening with the current pack is that the Staff have their own pack for their "faction" as it were. They use it for all their builds and such. But they advertise it as the official pack for all parts of the server, when it isn't, because even if you say people can use it, they have no say in what it is like. If there is a sudden update to the pack that ruins every build you've ever built, there is nothing you can do about it, because the staff changed it for themselves. Your options now are to switch to a different pack, or tear down everything and rebuild it, knowing now that there is a chance you'll have to do that again when they edit another block. Now, there are a few solutions to the problem:
One: You can stop advertising it as the server's pack, and have many people not install it and miss out in Regalia.
Two: The textures of the pack can no longer be drastically changed, unless they are new blocks, severely limiting staff's builds.
Or Three: A new, less drastically changing/changed pack can be made for builders other than staff (my suggestion), putting a bit more workload on PR staff between major game updates.

 

[BittaBoBittoBa]

And to dispute that people not using it won't use it because of this, I no longer use Massivecraft's texture pack, even though I love many parts of it. Why? Because if I do, many of my faction's builds will look like trash, even if they were originally designed in an older version of the pack................If there is a sudden update to the pack that ruins every build you've ever built, there is nothing you can do about it, because the staff changed it for themselves. Your options now are to switch to a different pack.

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Sounds like you solved your own issue, honestly.

If a server has an official pack, people are going to use it. It'd be much harder to convince a faction of anywhere from 30 people to upwards of one, or even two hundred to use a pack you cannot even link them to in-game than the one the staff plaster on the website, and even if you managed to do so, I wish you luck in convincing everyone who wanders by your faction and sees it, or all your allies who come to defend it, to use that specific pack so it doesn't look like garbage.

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Yes people are gonna use it, but not everyone will use it, you proved it yourself. I only care what my build looks like to people I care about, being my faction members. If I'm using a different pack, I tell them what pack I'm using. If they don't wanna use it, and it looks garbage, and they tell me it looks garbage, I tell them its their own damn fault for not using the pack I said to. I suggest you doing the same unless you hate the idea of raiders dissing your interior design.

If there is a sudden update to the pack that ruins every build you've ever built, there is nothing you can do about it, because the staff changed it for themselves. Your options now are to switch to a different pack, or tear down everything and rebuild it, knowing now that there is a chance you'll have to do that again when they edit another block.

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Actually, that's false If your build looked good before, you just keep using the same pack you've been using. Again, tell people to use the same texturepack if they wanna talk trash unless its like your regalian home. Contemporary minecraft even lets you layer packs on top of eachother, so you put the newest version of the pack on bottom so you still get the new items while retaining the look.

The texturepack is designed with regalia in mind because thats the fore front of the server, making a new texture pack won't help fix the dissonance between players. Hell, that dissonance will become institutionalized if the server has two separate versions of the same pack. Honestly, staff should be allowed to make whatever changes they please to the pack they use to build the server with.

If it reallly bothers you, nothing stopping you from making your desired edits on the massive pack and releasing it for people to use. Massive's pack is primarily borrowed/edited resources so its not even like you'd get in trouble. If you wanna complain because not everyone will use the pack, of course they won't. Its something you gotta get over because you'll get driven crazy trying to please everyone.

I'm going to cease posting here, but feel free to shoot me a private message if you wanna talk.

 

[Tokuu]

I build in the massive pack, but 99% of the time I'm in a PvP pack. Blocks have different textures and colours, sure, but that doesn't necessarily make the builds look bad. Most packs that are made to use for building will use similar colours and patterns for the blocks. You can't ever please everyone, but a large amount of the player base uses the massive pack or many variations of it, ergo it makes sense for most of the builds to look good in said pack. If you want to be a special snowflake and not use the massive pack, that's fine, but don't complain when blocks look different

 

[65jes89]

I build in the massive pack, but 99% of the time I'm in a PvP pack. Blocks have different textures and colours, sure, but that doesn't necessarily make the builds look bad. Most packs that are made to use for building will use similar colours and patterns for the blocks. You can't ever please everyone, but a large amount of the player base uses the massive pack or many variations of it, ergo it makes sense for most of the builds to look good in said pack. If you want to be a special snowflake and not use the massive pack, that's fine, but don't complain when blocks look different

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#DefaultEditFTW

 

[Zacatero]

@twinCatalysts perhaps make a post suggesting changes to the current resource pack. That is a lot more tangible than an entire new pack.

 

[twinCatalysts]

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Since you won't be replying won't give a full response.
1: Not sure if it would be allowed to redistribute the original textures' work without permission from the author of the textures; even if staff has it, it doesn't mean I do.
2: I did overlay the old pack over the new pack for a while. Problem is, as soon as the pack updates the old version is no longer available unless I redistribute it which as I said before, is likely not allowed.
3: Even if I did redistribute it, I would not be able to send it in any chat because it would not be on a massivecraft website, making it hard for the majority of people to get ahold of it, unless I put it on the forums, which might be frowned upon by staff.

I build in the massive pack, but 99% of the time I'm in a PvP pack. Blocks have different textures and colours, sure, but that doesn't necessarily make the builds look bad. Most packs that are made to use for building will use similar colours and patterns for the blocks. You can't ever please everyone, but a large amount of the player base uses the massive pack or many variations of it, ergo it makes sense for most of the builds to look good in said pack. If you want to be a special snowflake and not use the massive pack, that's fine, but don't complain when blocks look different

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I design, (or at least used to) massivecraft texture pack. 3 times since I began seriously building (which was only a few months ago, with a large gap of inactivity in between) has the texture pack updated, making the build drastically different, and ruining it. TL;DR: The rate, and relative randomness of the changes to the pack (due to them being determined by staff building, not anyone elses) means that even if you build in it, it won't stay looking good for long.

@twinCatalysts perhaps make a post suggesting changes to the current resource pack. That is a lot more tangible than an entire new pack.

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I did a while ago. I was told "The texture pack is essentially made to showcase Regalia, Regalia being the first advertisement sign of the city, regardless of gameplay style. The texture pack is mostly made with the wishes of the world staff in mind since it is our "view" of how Minecraft should be seen. Fast forward to (The block I was speaking about), it is one of the most unused textures in Regalia. I'm practically opposed to dumping up the texture color to resemble it and then dumping down the lightness value to turn it back into (The block I was speaking about), in terms of server builds that will revert the block back to a "dead" block for us."
TL;DR: The staff will change the server pack to remove blocks they don't use in Regalia, even if it does damage other builds on the server.

I do not want staff to have these dead blocks, however, so suggesting more changes to the pack seemed like a poor idea to me. The best of both worlds, to me, is to have a pack that staff could use and change as they like, and still advertise for regalia in their PR, and one that the factions playerbase could be more content with because it would be less prone to changes that, while making sense for staff builds, do not make sense for player builds.

 

[Zacatero]

I was told "The texture pack is essentially made to showcase Regalia, Regalia being the first advertisement sign of the city, regardless of gameplay style. The texture pack is mostly made with the wishes of the world staff in mind since it is our "view" of how Minecraft should be seen.

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if you were actually told this by a staff then im a bit disappointed in whoever said that... but at the same time i understand. I mean regalia is the showcase of Massivecraft... but its not everything. And those blocks u brought up look gross in the current rpack. So it makes sense. Make a new thread highlighting that what you suggest to be edited that it wouldnt screw up regalia, and it would make the rpack better.

 

[twinCatalysts]

if you were actually told this by a staff then im a bit disappointed in whoever said that... but at the same time i understand. I mean regalia is the showcase of Massivecraft... but its not everything. And those blocks u brought up look gross in the current rpack. So it makes sense. Make a new thread highlighting that what you suggest to be edited that it wouldnt screw up regalia, and it would make the rpack better.

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I don't know how it would affect regalia personally so I would not be able to effectively make the post, I'm afraid. And yes, it was by a PR staff (meaning the ones who do the pack)

 

[Zacatero]

I don't know how it would affect regalia personally so I would not be able to effectively make the post, I'm afraid. And yes, it was by a PR staff (meaning the ones who do the pack)

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PR staff dont.. make the pack exclusively

 

[twinCatalysts]

PR staff dont.. make the pack exclusively

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"
PR Department
Responsible for the MassiveCraft Image and Brand

• Write news for the Website, Forums, Social Media outlets, etc.
• Perform marketing and create new advertisements.
• Write guides and content on the Website and Wiki.
• Manage conversations on the forums.
• Maintain and improve upon the graphic profile for MassiveCraft.
• Create images for news posts and guides.
• Create informative videos and trailers.
• Maintain the Official Texture Pack."

 

[Zacatero]

Maintain... okay well it's MonMarty who is the lead whether hes pr or not. Thats what im saying.

 

[Walrusaur_]

The official RPack is endorsed so heavily for not only its outstanding quality, but also because it is so heavily and consistently updated. The issue (in my opinion) with the "By the People, For the People" RPack is that since you want it to be handled by players, it will likely be updated far less than the server's official pack. This will lead to frustration and likely the pack will eventually be abandoned as the game itself keeps updating. This is of course, just my opinion, but still I feel there is some truth behind it.

 

[BittaBoBittoBa]

1: Not sure if it would be allowed to redistribute the original textures' work without permission from the author of the textures; even if staff has it, it doesn't mean I do.
2: I did overlay the old pack over the new pack for a while. Problem is, as soon as the pack updates the old version is no longer available unless I redistribute it which as I said before, is likely not allowed.
3: Even if I did redistribute it, I would not be able to send it in any chat because it would not be on a massivecraft website, making it hard for the majority of people to get ahold of it, unless I put it on the forums, which might be frowned upon by staff.

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I'm just breaking my rules this once because I thought you'd just give another wordwall but:

Point 1. There's nothing on the Read Me or main download page stating not to redistribute it: its mostly borrowed textures, you'll be fine as long as you don't pretend its an entirely different pack. Name it something like "Massivecraft Survival Edits" or something. If it really bothers you just ask MonMarty as I believe he's the one mostly messing with the pack.

The pack is mostly borrowed textures that get edited, you'll likey get a yes since they can make proprietary claims in the same way one would if the pack was made from scratch. Again, just make sure to make it clear what the pack is derived from.

Point 2. Refer to point 1.

Point 3. Refer to point 2. Putting massivecraft things on the massivecraft forum wouldn't make the massivecraft staff frown, you won't get in trouble, don't be scared of breaking rules that don't exist.

Just don't do something dickish like putting the download link on Ad.Fly or another Money making link. Make sure the pack is clearly stated to be derived from massive. There's seriously nothing stopping you now unless you just want the staff to do the unneeded work for you. You have no excuses preventing you from simply asking Mon or other staff if its okay to do yourself.

If all else fails, you can still showcase your work on the forum. If even that bothers you because not everyone will see it in game that way by using the same pack, you'll just have to get over it.