So you found the perfect spot, truly your kind of place. Just the right mix of biomes, maybe some island out in a warm ocean, coral aplenty in the surrounding area, and you’re finally ready to settle down. Just plant a flag in the ground and start building right?

WELL IT AIN’T THAT SIMPLE BUB

It’s been a long time since we’ve launched a server, and with our plentiful experience dealing with property disputes we decided this time we were going to do it right. We had a decent amount of WorldGuard knowledge under our belt (Thanks Nancy!) and we knew that a better system was key to the land grab that would inevitably take place when we opened AquaNu up for the first time. So we put our heads together and came up with the following:

The Dual-Phase Claim System™

Our previous system for claiming on Nunu was a simple “fence it and forget it” deal that often fell short of the mark because some people either just didn’t feel like fencing or a person would dig up from underground inside said player’s fence. Whatever the reason or scenario, we would end up with two players vying for space, and it was never pretty. Some players would just up and quit altogether, and it was difficult for us to mediate regardless, so not a fun time for admins basically.

This time around, we had to make claims simple to initiate, but with incentive for people to stick to the old paradigm. So we made initial claims possible by allowing players to just find a temporary “center coord” where they’d want to start building, and we’d take care of the rest. Or at least, the rest of the bare minimum to get your spot marked out for other players to recognize. The real benefits would come after people fenced it in. A two-tier system was born.

Your Two (or Only) Step Process

You’re not being held to following both steps of this process, but it is important you follow at least the first step. When you find a spot that you like, tag an admin or two in the Facebook group and let them know that you are ready for a first claim by posting your central coordinate i.e. most likely the place you plan to start building. From here one of us will teleport to that coordinate, create a region with your name on it, and expand it out 500 blocks in all directions. This includes above and below as well, so people will be notified that they have crossed into your land even if they’re underground. They’ll also be notified when they leave your property.

This is all provided that your chosen plot does not overlap with another player’s already-claimed land of course. If your land does overlap, we’ll try to work with you to shift it in a direction that does not overlap while still giving you the same amount of space, but if this is not possible, then you can choose to either take a smaller claim, or look for a new spot. It’s up to you but in all cases, first claimed, first served. This should make disputes a thing of the past (or at least really easy to resolve).

You can choose to leave it at that if you want, but we definitely recommend sealing the deal with the second step, which is of course fencing off your land.

Fencing off your land offers a number of benefits, not the least of which is that you can choose to make your land bigger by fencing off more than what your current 1000×1000 region consists of. As long as you don’t wander into someone else’s property, you can go as far outside your claim as you want, but at the end of the day your original region must be contained within your fenced area.

You can use any kind of fence, or even a short wall of blocks, as long as it is a consistent line. You can use wood or stone fence, or just plain old cobble if you want, as long as that same block type is used throughout the entirety of the fence/wall (multiple types of wood are OK). This ensures that you are willing to put the effort into claiming a larger plot than initially given and reap the further benefits of WorldGuard.

Speaking of which, what this means is that you can have your property truly protected without the need for a vault (although you can still request a vault if you want). You can even choose who is allowed to break and place blocks on your property if you want. It’s pretty sweet.

Can I Request More Than One Claim?

We are now allowing multiple claims, but each claim after the first will cost $10,000 SAMCoin in-game. If you are unfamiliar with our in-game currency you can read about it here, but to prevent too much of this claiming from happening, and so we don’t have to keep track of who has moved where, the idea is you can never relinquish a claim, only purchase new ones. Plus it gives you yet another incentive to earn the currency, so it works on multiple levels.

Some Tips To Leave You With

We’ve picked up a few best practices at this point, along with some basic reminders:

• You have to be outside the initial spawn area (1000 blocks in every direction)
• Your best bet is travel at least 3,000 blocks in a direction to find a plot that won’t overlap
• When fencing, try to have no more than 20 turns since we need to put a marker at each turn.
• Try to find a center coord that is on the corner of multiple biomes for best effect
• Fencing over mountains is hard! Try going around them. Or through them.
• Don’t plan to build on either zero coordinate, that’s where we put the roads
• If you want to live next to a friend, try to find something that will work for adjacent plots

If you have more questions, you can always ask in the group, and I’ll be adding to this article as we run into more scenarios that need clarification.

Thanks!
  ~Serverus

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