TheXraptor
Well-Known Member
Welcome everyone, Republicans and Democrats, to this weeks episode of- wait a minute, the server doesn't have any real cities yet! Shit, looks like I have to talk about old cities........again.
Yes, after hackers destroyed the previous world, Cities of the Server: Maridia was cancelled. Bummer. With the new world containing nothing but construction sites and condos, this edition of Cities of the Server will feature a city that is lost in the void, gone, part of the past. Although I stated it to be one of the worst cities in Team 9000 history, this was because of the terrible trends it started (namely city themes and taxes). However, it will forever be my favorite, and first, Team 9000 city.
I joined Team 9000 well after OxyTown permissions were no longer being given out. However, my primary interest in OxyTown was Los Angeloxy (A.K.A. Tower Bay). This was, to my knowledge, the first city owned by Cydonia (at the time, Cydonian Empire). For reasons I'm not sure of to this day, the Cydonian Empire was given complete power over the new city, Eagle Pass (back in the day, admins were the only people who could make safe, whitelisted cities. Building in the Outlands, the Wilderness of the 1.6.6 world, meant risking your buildings being griefed or wiped). It was a massive success.
(I don't have a welcome sign for Eagle Pass. This was my signature waaaaaay back in the day, you know, WHEN WE FUCKING HAD THEM).
Eagle Pass was a massive city, located far southeast of the Spawn Region (prior to the 1.7 world, you could build directly next to the spawn tower, making for a massive, ugly, disorganized "city". It was the server's ghetto, and it was wiped multiple times by Wooty simply because of how ugly it was. In the end, this is the reason we hear "why can't i build" in the chat now).
LOCATION: How the fuck should I remember?
MAYOR: HawkeTech
I first set foot in Eagle Pass when it was nothing but an incomplete train station (the MCC HQ, ask Gurw about it), and a bunch of sugar cane. At the time, only Cydonian Ministers and the MCC could build in the city, so everyone else, including me, sat and watched from the sidelines (similar to what happened with the spawn recently, but on a much larger scale). I watched as the city's first buildings were erected, and continued to watch until the city opened. When the city opened, I was uberly excited, and I picked out a plot. One problem. I still couldn't build. I soon found out my whitelisting application had been denied. This was the most angry I ever was with Team 9000, and it almost caused me to quit entirely. It was only until weeks later, that my third whitelist application was accepted. I guess they finally realized I wasn't a fucking griefer. Long story short, I got whitelisted, built a house, and joined the Cydonian Empire. Much shenanigans in-sued, including but are not limited to: A massive PvP event in the Eagle Pass Arena, the war with Waffleville (which inevitably resulted in our victory, and Waffleville heavily damaged), and everything that happened in HoboTown.
Anyways, enough story time.......for now. Since I like to end every episode on a positive note, I'll talk about the negatives first, which you've probably heard already.
For one, there was the strictness. If the Cydonian Empire did not approve of your home, it was either altered or destroyed. While there was good reasoning behind this (OxyTown was a mess), some freedom would have been much appreciated. Eagle Pass was beautiful for the time period (Team 9000's build skills were still evolving to what they are today), however, it was logs and wood planks. Other materials were allowed and encouraged, but only in certain quantities. Certain members of the community refused to build in Eagle Pass, stating that their building freedom had been encroached, and that the taxes were ridiculous. Which brings us to major problem number 2.
Taxes. The only thing as certain as death. When you play a video game, you'd expect to be getting away from them, right? Not in this city. In order to have a larger, more acceptable plot size, you had to pay ass-loads of diamonds. I personally was just fine with the 20x20 plot size, as this was the first time I had built a normal house in Minecraft (usually I just built a wooden plank box or a network of boxes which went upwards). However, other members of the community were furious. If this uberly-strict city theme was not enough, this is what pushed them over the edge. Again, I did not have to worry about taxes, as I was just happy to finally be building on the Team 9000 server.
Although there were some other things in Eagle Pass that were controversial (namely the god awful railway system, I mean really, NO FUCKING BREAKS? HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO STOP AT ONE OF THE TRAIN STATIONS? WHAT WAS THE MCC THINKING?), but not enough to be considered a strike against the city.
Now for the positives of the city. So that some things will make sense for newer players, story time will have to resume for a short amount of time to explain things.
The Cydonian Empire owned practically the entire southwest. Most Outlands cities in that section of the globe were affiliated with or ruled by the Cydonian Empire. While some cities only benefited from this, namely HoboTown, other cities.....not so much. As mentioned above, a war broke out between the Cydonian Empire and a small town called Waffleville. When ienjoywaffles murdered one of our leaders and took his possessions in a massive misunderstanding, the Cydonian Empire's military branch, under the command of ThaProfessor and your's truly fought back. Since few members of the Cydonian Empire were online at the time, the Imperial Coalition Elite was formed. Basically a spec. ops squad which was open to anyone for joining (even non-members of the Cydonian Empire), we stormed Waffleville, killed ienjoywaffles, re-claimed Prof's possessions, booby-trapped Waffle's home, and flew an eagle over the city. In the end, both parties committed bannable offenses, so in the end, nobody was banned and the Cydonian Empire kept control over Waffleville, turning it into a thriving metropolis in the process.
Now, this was one of the MASSIVE positives of Eagle Pass. Citizenship in Eagle Pass meant you were part of the empire. I'm still part of the Cydonia to this day, now Minister of Defense. Operations as an Empire may resume in this new world, depending on how well our new city, New Venice, goes. Anyways, being part of the empire was great. It gave you a great home and a ticket to practically everywhere in the southwest. The Cydonian Empire then was pretty much what Haven/Bastion is now. If you're not part of them, you either love em' or hate em'. On the subject of things were good for the time period......
Eagle Pass was also, for the time period, beautiful. Especially compared to its predecessor, OxyTown. While this beauty came with a massive sacrifice, it was well worth it for those who could tolerate it. By today's standards, the city is nothing special, but back then, it didn't get much prettier. Its closest competition was probably Squad 9001, a great, if not a bit forgotten city. The Outlands Cycle eventually overshadowed it, but it was definitely a pretty city (HEY, DAT RHYMES, HURRR). Back on the subject of Eagle Pass, my oh my, it was a sight to look at back then. Beautiful housing, a majestic capitol building (it is fucking disgusting by today's standards), and wonderfully designed public buildings (FOR THE TIME) to be specific.
During the time that this city was alive, most facilities were not necessary, or were completely impossible to have. Hunger was not part of the game yet, the Nether was not in multiplayer, potions were not part of the game yet, and workshops were generally on players' own private property. However, there was NO public storage. The town storage could be accessed and used ONLY by Cydonian ministers. This was a giant pain in the ass, because if you absolutely needed something, you had to get it yourself. This was especially a pain when you needed something as simple as iron to make a tool or minecart. You didn't need a massive quantity of it, only a little, to craft the desired item or build a small project. Instead of public storage, you had to go all the way across town to the portal to the Outlands (mining was not allowed in the city), go to your mining area, hope to fuck the area hasn't been mined clean of minerals, and search for iron. This happened CONSTANTLY. However, this is classified as "not controversial enough" to be considered a negative to the city.
The overall layout and planning of this city was great (it is generally considered to be the first planned out city on Team 9000's Survival Server). Getting around the city was a bit of a pain sometimes, not because of the layout, but because of the god damn railway system. This city was massive. Far larger than any of the towny cities in the previous world (except for maybe Haven, but Haven had a functional railway). The railway system in this city was atrocious, horrible, terrible, because at the time, there was a glitch where breaking the minecart from underneath you resulted in you falling through the blocks below you. In some instances, this was merely a pain in the ass, but in most other instances, especially later in the city's life when a lake you traveled over was covered to make more land, would be fatal. There was also a glitch where breaking the cart from underneath you would teleport you back to where you placed the cart, but that was more a pain in the ass, and that never cost me a stack of diamonds. This was bad because the railways had no fucking breaks, so you either risked dying (or teleporting back to where you started), or kissing that hard earned 5 iron goodbye. Other than the god forsaken railway, travelling the city was easy (although took a while at times due to the reason just listed) and it was layed out great. The city was made up of the Capitol District and Pryo District, the latter of the two being the ghetto of the city. In all, I have nothing further to say about the layout of the city. It was great, despite the almost useless railway.
WHO WAS BEST SUITED FOR THIS CITY?
If you could build to the theme and not make an ugly mess, you would be suited just fine to this city. During this time period, the community was not segregated by "Elite Veterans", "Promising Newcomers" and "Idiots" like it is now. Okay, everybody still hated the idiots, but that is not the point.
THE VERDICT
Overall Build Quality (for the time): 9 (by today's standards, it would probably be a 6,7, or maybe 8)
Activeness: 6 (It was very active at first, but around midway through its life the Outlands Cycle and "Server that shall not be named" happened, turning this place into a ghost town)
Redstone Technology: During this time period, it was impossible to easily make decent redstone contraptions. I really can't rate it based on this, mainly because there was not really much that was possible back then. Redstone still made some cool shit, but most of it was not practical for all the effort.
Housing (for the time): 9
OVERALL: 8
This city is a classic. It will forever go down in my heart as my favorite city of all time. Many good times were to be had in this city, and I still remember them as the best time I have ever had on Team 9000. Nothing in the 1.7 or previous world can compare to it. Despite having an 8, I still think it was and still is an amazing city. Phoenix Peak was not a worthy successor. Neither was Old Cydonia. I'm truly hoping New Venice will be the successor I hope for.
I have not had screenshots of Eagle Pass in ages, and even then, they would not work for Cities of the Server.
NEXT EPISODE: HOBOTOWN
Yes, after hackers destroyed the previous world, Cities of the Server: Maridia was cancelled. Bummer. With the new world containing nothing but construction sites and condos, this edition of Cities of the Server will feature a city that is lost in the void, gone, part of the past. Although I stated it to be one of the worst cities in Team 9000 history, this was because of the terrible trends it started (namely city themes and taxes). However, it will forever be my favorite, and first, Team 9000 city.
I joined Team 9000 well after OxyTown permissions were no longer being given out. However, my primary interest in OxyTown was Los Angeloxy (A.K.A. Tower Bay). This was, to my knowledge, the first city owned by Cydonia (at the time, Cydonian Empire). For reasons I'm not sure of to this day, the Cydonian Empire was given complete power over the new city, Eagle Pass (back in the day, admins were the only people who could make safe, whitelisted cities. Building in the Outlands, the Wilderness of the 1.6.6 world, meant risking your buildings being griefed or wiped). It was a massive success.
(I don't have a welcome sign for Eagle Pass. This was my signature waaaaaay back in the day, you know, WHEN WE FUCKING HAD THEM).
Eagle Pass was a massive city, located far southeast of the Spawn Region (prior to the 1.7 world, you could build directly next to the spawn tower, making for a massive, ugly, disorganized "city". It was the server's ghetto, and it was wiped multiple times by Wooty simply because of how ugly it was. In the end, this is the reason we hear "why can't i build" in the chat now).
LOCATION: How the fuck should I remember?
MAYOR: HawkeTech
I first set foot in Eagle Pass when it was nothing but an incomplete train station (the MCC HQ, ask Gurw about it), and a bunch of sugar cane. At the time, only Cydonian Ministers and the MCC could build in the city, so everyone else, including me, sat and watched from the sidelines (similar to what happened with the spawn recently, but on a much larger scale). I watched as the city's first buildings were erected, and continued to watch until the city opened. When the city opened, I was uberly excited, and I picked out a plot. One problem. I still couldn't build. I soon found out my whitelisting application had been denied. This was the most angry I ever was with Team 9000, and it almost caused me to quit entirely. It was only until weeks later, that my third whitelist application was accepted. I guess they finally realized I wasn't a fucking griefer. Long story short, I got whitelisted, built a house, and joined the Cydonian Empire. Much shenanigans in-sued, including but are not limited to: A massive PvP event in the Eagle Pass Arena, the war with Waffleville (which inevitably resulted in our victory, and Waffleville heavily damaged), and everything that happened in HoboTown.
Anyways, enough story time.......for now. Since I like to end every episode on a positive note, I'll talk about the negatives first, which you've probably heard already.
For one, there was the strictness. If the Cydonian Empire did not approve of your home, it was either altered or destroyed. While there was good reasoning behind this (OxyTown was a mess), some freedom would have been much appreciated. Eagle Pass was beautiful for the time period (Team 9000's build skills were still evolving to what they are today), however, it was logs and wood planks. Other materials were allowed and encouraged, but only in certain quantities. Certain members of the community refused to build in Eagle Pass, stating that their building freedom had been encroached, and that the taxes were ridiculous. Which brings us to major problem number 2.
Taxes. The only thing as certain as death. When you play a video game, you'd expect to be getting away from them, right? Not in this city. In order to have a larger, more acceptable plot size, you had to pay ass-loads of diamonds. I personally was just fine with the 20x20 plot size, as this was the first time I had built a normal house in Minecraft (usually I just built a wooden plank box or a network of boxes which went upwards). However, other members of the community were furious. If this uberly-strict city theme was not enough, this is what pushed them over the edge. Again, I did not have to worry about taxes, as I was just happy to finally be building on the Team 9000 server.
Although there were some other things in Eagle Pass that were controversial (namely the god awful railway system, I mean really, NO FUCKING BREAKS? HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO STOP AT ONE OF THE TRAIN STATIONS? WHAT WAS THE MCC THINKING?), but not enough to be considered a strike against the city.
Now for the positives of the city. So that some things will make sense for newer players, story time will have to resume for a short amount of time to explain things.
The Cydonian Empire owned practically the entire southwest. Most Outlands cities in that section of the globe were affiliated with or ruled by the Cydonian Empire. While some cities only benefited from this, namely HoboTown, other cities.....not so much. As mentioned above, a war broke out between the Cydonian Empire and a small town called Waffleville. When ienjoywaffles murdered one of our leaders and took his possessions in a massive misunderstanding, the Cydonian Empire's military branch, under the command of ThaProfessor and your's truly fought back. Since few members of the Cydonian Empire were online at the time, the Imperial Coalition Elite was formed. Basically a spec. ops squad which was open to anyone for joining (even non-members of the Cydonian Empire), we stormed Waffleville, killed ienjoywaffles, re-claimed Prof's possessions, booby-trapped Waffle's home, and flew an eagle over the city. In the end, both parties committed bannable offenses, so in the end, nobody was banned and the Cydonian Empire kept control over Waffleville, turning it into a thriving metropolis in the process.
Now, this was one of the MASSIVE positives of Eagle Pass. Citizenship in Eagle Pass meant you were part of the empire. I'm still part of the Cydonia to this day, now Minister of Defense. Operations as an Empire may resume in this new world, depending on how well our new city, New Venice, goes. Anyways, being part of the empire was great. It gave you a great home and a ticket to practically everywhere in the southwest. The Cydonian Empire then was pretty much what Haven/Bastion is now. If you're not part of them, you either love em' or hate em'. On the subject of things were good for the time period......
Eagle Pass was also, for the time period, beautiful. Especially compared to its predecessor, OxyTown. While this beauty came with a massive sacrifice, it was well worth it for those who could tolerate it. By today's standards, the city is nothing special, but back then, it didn't get much prettier. Its closest competition was probably Squad 9001, a great, if not a bit forgotten city. The Outlands Cycle eventually overshadowed it, but it was definitely a pretty city (HEY, DAT RHYMES, HURRR). Back on the subject of Eagle Pass, my oh my, it was a sight to look at back then. Beautiful housing, a majestic capitol building (it is fucking disgusting by today's standards), and wonderfully designed public buildings (FOR THE TIME) to be specific.
During the time that this city was alive, most facilities were not necessary, or were completely impossible to have. Hunger was not part of the game yet, the Nether was not in multiplayer, potions were not part of the game yet, and workshops were generally on players' own private property. However, there was NO public storage. The town storage could be accessed and used ONLY by Cydonian ministers. This was a giant pain in the ass, because if you absolutely needed something, you had to get it yourself. This was especially a pain when you needed something as simple as iron to make a tool or minecart. You didn't need a massive quantity of it, only a little, to craft the desired item or build a small project. Instead of public storage, you had to go all the way across town to the portal to the Outlands (mining was not allowed in the city), go to your mining area, hope to fuck the area hasn't been mined clean of minerals, and search for iron. This happened CONSTANTLY. However, this is classified as "not controversial enough" to be considered a negative to the city.
The overall layout and planning of this city was great (it is generally considered to be the first planned out city on Team 9000's Survival Server). Getting around the city was a bit of a pain sometimes, not because of the layout, but because of the god damn railway system. This city was massive. Far larger than any of the towny cities in the previous world (except for maybe Haven, but Haven had a functional railway). The railway system in this city was atrocious, horrible, terrible, because at the time, there was a glitch where breaking the minecart from underneath you resulted in you falling through the blocks below you. In some instances, this was merely a pain in the ass, but in most other instances, especially later in the city's life when a lake you traveled over was covered to make more land, would be fatal. There was also a glitch where breaking the cart from underneath you would teleport you back to where you placed the cart, but that was more a pain in the ass, and that never cost me a stack of diamonds. This was bad because the railways had no fucking breaks, so you either risked dying (or teleporting back to where you started), or kissing that hard earned 5 iron goodbye. Other than the god forsaken railway, travelling the city was easy (although took a while at times due to the reason just listed) and it was layed out great. The city was made up of the Capitol District and Pryo District, the latter of the two being the ghetto of the city. In all, I have nothing further to say about the layout of the city. It was great, despite the almost useless railway.
WHO WAS BEST SUITED FOR THIS CITY?
If you could build to the theme and not make an ugly mess, you would be suited just fine to this city. During this time period, the community was not segregated by "Elite Veterans", "Promising Newcomers" and "Idiots" like it is now. Okay, everybody still hated the idiots, but that is not the point.
THE VERDICT
Overall Build Quality (for the time): 9 (by today's standards, it would probably be a 6,7, or maybe 8)
Activeness: 6 (It was very active at first, but around midway through its life the Outlands Cycle and "Server that shall not be named" happened, turning this place into a ghost town)
Redstone Technology: During this time period, it was impossible to easily make decent redstone contraptions. I really can't rate it based on this, mainly because there was not really much that was possible back then. Redstone still made some cool shit, but most of it was not practical for all the effort.
Housing (for the time): 9
OVERALL: 8
This city is a classic. It will forever go down in my heart as my favorite city of all time. Many good times were to be had in this city, and I still remember them as the best time I have ever had on Team 9000. Nothing in the 1.7 or previous world can compare to it. Despite having an 8, I still think it was and still is an amazing city. Phoenix Peak was not a worthy successor. Neither was Old Cydonia. I'm truly hoping New Venice will be the successor I hope for.
I have not had screenshots of Eagle Pass in ages, and even then, they would not work for Cities of the Server.
NEXT EPISODE: HOBOTOWN
)