Today’s dev diary will cover our improved world edit policy.

There’s a lot of reasons to want to be able to world edit something. Maybe you’ve built something on Creative and want to have it pasted into Main. Maybe you want to move your house or vehicle across the map. There might be a mountain in the way you want removed, or there might be a giant pit you want dug out. All of these are certainly possible without world edit, but would certainly take far more time than just running one or two world edit commands.

Now, we can’t just give everyone unrestricted access to World Edit. We are a survival server after all, and even if we were a creative server I’m not sure that would be a good idea if the dozens of lag machines we have to clear out every month are anything to go by. However, we are an economy based server, and many players build structures that would be extremely cumbersome to move. This is where WE-as-a-service comes in. With this, players can request a world edit at a fee, and then a staff member with access to world edit will perform the world edit. We feel WE-as-a-service allows us to provide a reasonable balance between not having world edit at all, and having unrestricted access to world edit.

Throughout its history, Minetown has had off-and-on support for WE-as-a-service. Back in the days of Classic, world edits were something you could buy through donations. The policy back then was:

Get some land cleared for you by an admin. (ask an admin for a quote)
Small area - 5$ (area less than 30x30x30)
Medium area - 10$ (area less than 60x60x60)
Large area - 20$ (area over than 60x60x60) (maximum 100x100x100)
The surrounding areas will be smoothed to look good.

It only mentions clearing land, but considering I can distinctly remember someone buying a world edit to change the biome of their entire city to jungle, I don’t think it was a strict rule. This policy existed until sometime during 2014. World edits were then not offered until early 2019, at which point we developed a new policy, this time based around MTC instead of real money. The policy instituted at that time (and still in effect until now) was:

Base Price: 2.50 MTC per block.
Minimum Size: 10000 blocks not including air.
Entire area in the WorldEdit needs to be claimed.
Exception for moving or placing structures - costs 10k minimum, or more depending on the cost of materials.
Basic commands only: //set, //remove, //copy, //paste, along with //naturalize. No brushes.
Materials Cost (for filling in areas, not schematics) is set at 2x the price of the Mall if you do not have the materials.
If we’re pasting in a schematic, you need to have all the materials. No exceptions.
Landscaping fees depending on the size (we do not landscape often, only to make the area not look awful)
Other Notes:
You will not gain materials from //remove or //set air.
We will not accept your personal schematic files to place on Main. It needs to be built somewhere on a MT server beforehand.

This policy was an improvement over not having a policy at all, and certainly better than having to buy world edits with real money! However, it wasn’t perfect, and over the two-and-a-half years it’s been in effect there have been some notable issues that we feel need addressed. Most importantly:

• Total Cost: 2.5 MTC per block is too expensive. World edits should be expensive, but not that expensive.
• Vehicles: In recent years, many players have built vehicles, and these are sometimes moved in response to lore and server events. However, moving these ships can be expensive. We wanted to add support to register and move ships without paying an exorbitant fee.

Going into the new map, we wanted to improve our world edit policy to fix these issues. We wanted to provide support for all the ships players make. We wanted to make world edits accessible, expensive enough that they aren’t overpowered, but reasonable enough that it’s feasible to use them more than once in a blue moon. Plus, who doesn’t want another use for MTC? Our new policy is listed down below:

Our New Policy -
Global World Edit Rules:

• Any structure or vehicle being world edited has to have been built on a Minetown server at some point. It doesn’t have to be the same server you want it moved to (for example, you can build it on Creative and move it to Main) but it has to be on the Minetown network. You cannot hand us a schematic file and tell us to do something with it.

• You must have the materials ready. If you’re moving a structure from Creative to Main, you need to have all the materials needed for that structure collected. If you’re filling in a large area, you need to have all the resources used to fill in that area ready to go. The materials will be collected after the worldedit.

Class A World Edits:
Class A world edits cover non-vehicle structures. These include moving these structures to Main from other servers, and moving structures around the Main server.
General policies:
Minimum Price: 10000 MTC
Discount Eligible: Yes

Class B World Edits:
Class B world edits cover simple, non moving commands, such as //remove and //fill. For example, these cover filling areas with a block (like dirt), or removing blocks from an area (such as removing a mountain) you would be using a Class B world edit.
General policies:
Minimum Size: 10000 blocks
Discount Eligible: Yes

Class V World Edits:
Class V world edits cover moving vehicles. These include land, water, and sea based craft. All vehicles must be certified prior to being moved. There are two types of vehicles - Utility and Passenger Craft, and Military and Capital Vehicles.
General policies:
Utility and Passenger Craft: Utility and passenger craft have a maximum size of 40x20x10 and can contain at most 2000 blocks. These vehicles can be moved 6 times a month with a ticket, regardless of context.
Military and Capital Vehicles: Any vehicle larger than 40x20x10 is a military or capital vehicle and can only be moved during events. These vehicles have a maximum size of 100x50x30 and can contain at most 7500 blocks.
Price: Certifying a vehicle costs 10 MTC per block. There is not a price for moving a vehicle, as long as all other policies are followed.
Home Berth: Every vehicle needs a home berth containing an empty cuboid with only the vehicle in it.
Placement: Vehicles can only be placed in areas their size with empty air. Storage on the vehicle is NOT preserved. Additionally, you must either have permission to place your vehicle in the area, or have enough claim blocks for the destination claim. We reserve the right to place the vehicle in any orientation/position necessary. Additionally, it has to be realistic that the vehicle can travel to the new location. A water-based vehicle cannot travel to an ocean on the other side of the map if the water is not connected.
Design: vehicles need to contain recognizable signs of mobility relevant to their type, and be recognizable as vehicles of some kind. You can’t build a solid cube and call it a vehicle.
Other Restrictions: No entities, no redstone mechanisms, and no refunds.
Discount Eligible: No

Class T World Edits:
Class T World Edits are free world edits that are only offered temporarily during certain periods, often when a map is closing. For example, transfers from Vanilla to Main are classified under Class T. These are free, but the specific constraints (such as size and number allowed) vary, and will be announced prior to them opening.

Discount equation:


Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What in the world is that equation?” That equation gives a discount to Class A and Class B world edits, by decreasing the price per block of a world edit as the world edit itself gets bigger. For example, here are some prices at different block counts:

• 10,000 blocks costs 23,212 MTC (price-per-block: 2.321 MTC)
• 25,000 blocks costs 54,149 MTC (price-per-block: 2.166 MTC)
• 50,000 blocks costs 87,500 MTC (price-per-block: 1.75 MTC)
• 100,000 blocks costs 111,379 MTC (price-per-block: 1.114 MTC)
• 250,000 blocks costs 250,017 MTC (anything larger than about 210,000 blocks costs roughly 1 MTC per block)

The graph of the discount equation. The x-axis is the number of blocks and the y-axis is the price in MTC
The discount equation is based on a logistic function. A basic logistic function looks like this:

If you’ve ever taken differential equations in school, this is a differential equation. Don’t worry though, we won’t be testing you or anything. The price per block is a logistic function flipped and stretched out really far (think instead of a range of 12 between the minimum and maximum price, the range is over 200,000). The parameters here are balanced to provide a reasonable and decreasing price-per-block as the total number of blocks increases. The discount equation is then the price per block function times the total number of blocks.

This only applies to Class A and Class B world edits, and you won’t need to do the math. Staff will still be doing the quotes of the world edit size, but in case you’re wondering where our prices will come from, just know that it’s from that equation. This new policy will go into effect on the new map, and we will display it in a centralized location with our other policies (such as our land claiming policy - more on that in the coming weeks).

If you have any questions on this policy, feel free to contact a manager and we will explain it. We hope the policy allows everyone to better take advantage of world edit to move and improve their builds on Minetown.

I love new policies, improving minetown staff services a lot!!!