Category:Settlements

A settlement is a distinct location wherein players have gathered. Typically, they comprise of various buildings, which are commonly unified in a building theme. Most buildings are either houses or perform a function for players.

Settlements as Builds

MCO rules do not differentiate between regular builds and settlements/villages/towns/cities. In all cases, they are merely builds started by a player and then added on to by other players.

On MCO, if a PlayerA starts a build and a PlayerB adds to it, PlayerA is considered to own the entire build:

• If PlayerB did not have PlayerA's permission, it's considered "Addition Grief",
  • PlayerB may be banned for it.
  • PlayerA is allowed to keep or remove the grief from his build.

• If PlayerB DID have PlayerA's permission, it's considered a contribution to PlayerA's build,
  • PlayerB will not be banned even if PlayerA doesn't like the addition.
  • PlayerA owns the entire build and may modify it at will, including changing or removing an unsatisfactory addition whether or not PlayerB agrees.
  • PlayerB may continue to modify the build until PlayerA revokes permissions.
• If PlayerA is banned, PlayerB does NOT automatically gain ownership of the build. After review by admins,
  • PlayerB may be offered ownership of the build.
  • The build may be removed
  • or the build may be left as it is with no official player owner. If so, modification of the build by anyone other than staff would be considered griefing.

Ownership

• The Town Owner is the original builder of the settlement who placed the first blocks in naturally-generated terrain.
• The Town Owner only owns player-placed blocks, and so cannot lay claim to areas of naturally generated terrain except by building or modifying the natural terrain.
  • Walling in natural terrain does not grant ownership of the natural terrain. Only the wall itself.
  • If you want to lay claim to an area, you must place all the blocks in that area. This is called "Terraforming" in MCO terms.
• The Town Owner retains ownership of the entire build even in the event that contributors end up placing more blocks than the original owner.
• Contributors cannot hijack a build by building more than the Town Owner, as all those blocks would have been grief were it not for the Town Owner having granted addition/modification permissions.
• The town owner MAY decide to relinquish ownership of a portion of the build or the entire build.
  • In order to do so, they must personally post signs stating they have done so.
  • Once the Town Owner has posted such signs, they are no longer considered the owner of that portion of the build and may not revoke permissions.
  • The new owner may modify it at will and may even revoke permissions from the original owner.
  • If the original owner and new owner now have adjacent builds, it is strongly recommended that they not get into disputes about borders.
    • It is better to completely start over in a new area of the map than waste everyone's time arguing who owns which specific block.
    • An admin may choose to resolve the argument by transplanting portions of the builds to new areas on the server so the disputing parties are no longer neighbors.

Contributions

• A Contribution is any addition or modification to the build which would be considered grief or addition grief if done without the Owner's permission.
• All contributions are considered donations to the original build, become part of the original build, and so remain owned by the Town Owner.
  • This is similar to building a statue and having a player assist by building one of the statue's arms. The contributor does not own the arm of the statue. The original builder owns the whole thing.
  • Further contributions to previous contributions extend the build and extend the Town Owner's ownership.
• Even builds which do not directly contact blocks from the original build can be considered contributions if their placement would fall under the definition of addition grief by blocking the progress of the build.

Contributors

• A contributor is someone who had made additions or modifications to the original build with the owner's permissions.

Permissions

• The Town Owner can grant and revoke permissions to contribute to the build.
• Contributors have permissions to the entire build unless revoked by the owner.
• Contributors cannot revoke permissions from the Town Owner.
• The Town Owner can set Town Rules which determine who will and will not have permissions to the build,
  • Such Town Rules only affect who will and will not be permitted to contribute, but cannot override or add to MCO rules in doing so.

• If a Town Owner revokes permissions, any further modification by the Contributor is considered grief and is bannable.

Advice

• The town owner should not grant permissions to players they are not comfortable building with.
• The Contributor should not contribute to a town if they want to retain sole ownership of their build separate from the Town Owner
• Due to the sheer size of additions to towns, which may include multiple buildings and expansions to the terraformed terrain, it is easy for a contributor to feel a sense of exclusive ownership over their contributions. However, any contributions which relied on the permissions of the original owner in order to not be considered grief are still considered contributions to the town build.

To add a page to this category, please use the Template:Infobox_settlement template.

See also

• category:Buildings
• category:Warps