Rules and Other Info

The server is based around the idea of political roleplay. There are many countries that have been created, each with their own unique set of values, government styles, and ethos. These countries engage in diplomacy, trade, and, rarely, even warfare with one another. You can found your own country or join an existing one—that's entirely up to you. There are plenty of countries always looking for new members and allies, so if you need anything, just ask the community.

Server Rules
'''Please note the following rules are to be followed in spirit, not just in letter. "Lawyering" with staff about what the rule technically says or does not say will get you nowhere. Staff have the final word on the meaning of rules.''' '''Make sure that you read these rules carefully, because this list is your only warning. '''We're quite good at rooting out rule-breakers, and have many tools to help us do so. Please don't make us have to ban you—you will be found out.
 * 1) No use of third-party programs that provide an unfair advantage over other players. If you wish to use a third-party program, you must ask staff if we will allow it. Before asking though, you can find a full list of programs we do/don't allow here.
 * 2) No indiscriminate griefing. This involves going around and destroying stuff, regardless of who owns what, as well as with no political reason. You can of course grief/raid if you have an in-game RP motivation (and a designated target), but expect retaliation by the target(s) of your actions.
 * 3) Spawn is plugin-protected, but nonetheless, griefing Spawn is against the rules.
 * 4) If you want to invite people to the server (and please do!) there's a google form pinned in #important-links-and-info, the same form you used to join. Send it to the person who you want to join, and if we think they're a good fit (it's hard not to be), we'll let them on. That being said, please make sure that you only invite people who you believe will be non-toxic and follow the rules of the server—we all have friends that, great as they are, would not make good Elgeis-ers. It's best for the staff, for the community, and likely for your friendship that you think carefully about who you invite so we don't have to go through the nasty business of banning buddies. Additional notes:
 * 5) You may under no circumstances provide the person who you sent the form to with answers for questions asked in the form or by the admins once they've joined the discord. The process that we have for allowing people onto the server is in place to make sure that only those who will be a good addition actually get on. The server environment only exists because everyone understands and respects how the server works.
 * 6) Vettees must read this rules page themselves - they can't have them read aloud to them, or sent an abridged version.
 * 7) If you want to post the invite form in a public place (such as reddit, other discord servers, etc.) ask the admins first.
 * 8) You may not try to sway unvetted players to any ingame viewpoint, including joining/not joining countries and forming opinions about individuals/countries. The only exception to this is in the case of a close friend or family member, where such discussion would be unavoidable.
 * 9) The ability to speak English is required to be on the server, as virtually all discussion is conducted in English, and being unable to speak it would make participation in the community nearly impossible.
 * 10) No usage of alt accounts. One account per person. This includes logging in on someone else's account who's already on the server, such as a sibling or friend.
 * 11) In order to be on the Minecraft server, you have to be a member of the discord. If you leave the discord, you will be removed from the whitelist.
 * 12) Don’t use offensive slurs, repeatedly say “f*** you” to people, spam the chat, bring IRL into game (or vice versa), or other generally toxic stuff. Swast!kas included.
 * 13) * Not bringing real life into the game and the game into real life is especially important. Discussion and even friendly teasing outside of the game/discord is just fine, but insulting or threatening someone's real-life person over something that happened in-game, threatening to doxx them, or other nasty stuff are super not okay. We recommend for that reason you refer to people as their Minecraft username or some variant thereof, rather than their IRL name. The server, as seriously as we take it, is purely within Minecraft. Plenty of players have been brutal enemies on the server but good friends in real life. The whole point is to have fun, and it stops being fun once hostilities go into real life. The only channel in which posting IRL appearances is allowed is #the-real-world.
 * 14) * This principle of not letting IRL cross over to in-game also goes for meta discussion and channels. Discussion on meta subjects should not be based on your in-game situation (e.g. arguing against a player being banned because he's in your country). Similarly, meta subjects should not affect in-game, for example doing things you have no RP reason for just because you're about to leave and want to "go out with a bang". This type of behavior is referred to as "metagaming", and if you're unclear, just ask. Moreover, countries and other in-game entities cannot be named after well-known proper nouns IRL—no IRL religions, no countries named after real-world ones, etc. Ask staff if you're unsure.
 * 15) *The above also means that people not on the server should not seek to influence IC events, and people on the server should not base their IC actions on their interactions with people not on the server.
 * 16) * And please, for the love of god, don't chime in in the middle of an in-game argument and say something to the effect of "Guys, stop being mad! It's just Minecraft." We're all well aware it's digital Legos—we're playing the part of people living within the world. Just because our characters are getting heated doesn't mean we really are, and there's plenty of OOC and meta channels where in-game stuff is set aside that show that. It's an idiotic thing to say.
 * 17) No glitch abusing, such as TNT duping, 0-tick farms, AFK fishing, or other abuses of in-game features. If you're using something for a functional purpose other than its intended use, it's a safe bet that it's a glitch. That being said, this is a very gray area, and if you're not sure, just ask.
 * 18) Any build that has space within or storage within or on top of it must have an entrance that is accessible, without the use of any special items, from the ground of the same dimension. If the entry method uses water, the water must be contained in some kind of tube or other supporting structure.
 * 19) Use each discord channel for what it's meant for. Discussion channels don't follow this rule as strictly, but channels such as #mc-world-news have specific guidelines on what belongs there. All channels have their rules outlined at the top, so if you’re not sure what a channel is used for, check there.
 * 20) Basic common sense housekeeping applies, too—no spamming, no advertising other unaffiliated servers (minecraft and discord alike), trolling (in meta), etc.
 * 21) Players must be, at the very least, 13 years of age. Due to the complex nature of the political simulation it is very unlikely someone below this age could competently participate. Furthermore, the standard of communication in the general community ranks around PG-13.
 * We have a zero-tolerance policy for rules 1-6, and breaking them will result in a permanent IP ban.
 * Rules 7-8 are more lenient, as a lot of the time they're accidentally broken by players operating in good faith. If you do happen to break them, we'll ask you to stop/tear down what you built. However, if you refuse to or you continue to do so, you will be banned.
 * For rule 9, breaking it will result in your message being taken down and you'll be given a warning. If you continue, you'll be muted in that particular channel.
 * Encouraging rule breaking by others will be treated as if you are breaking the rule yourself.
 * Undermining admin ability to enforce rules will also be punished harshly. If you're going through all this to get into this private community, it's assumed that you want the rules to be followed so you can have the gameplay experience they're set up to create. It's therefore expected that you will help enforce the rules as a community member by letting staff know about rule-breaking or vulnerabilities for exploits.

Plugins
Factions: The factions plugin allows for protection of builds, chests, doors, etc. within "claimed" territory. Each person in a faction provides that faction with 20 "faction power". Each unit of faction power can be used to make one "faction claim", each 16x16 blocks (1 chunk). But be careful! Each time you die, you lose 4 faction power (it recovers over time), and if your faction power is beneath your faction claims, people can faction claim your claims! To see a full list of faction commands, type [/f help] on the server. Note: Lecterns and trapped chests will be accessible to all, regardless of the chunk's status.

MCMMO: An RPG-themed plugin where players can "level up" by practicing certain skills, from woodcutting to archery to fishing. As you level up skills, you unlock special abilities that let you become powerful within a certain skillset. Here's the MCMMO wiki for more: https://mcmmo.fandom.com/wiki/McMMO_Wiki

Dynmap: A real-time, in-browser, GPS-style map of the server. You can find it pinned in #important-links-and-info.

BetterWanderingTraders: Adds custom wandering trader trades. Currently, you can buy player/block heads and parrot eggs along with the normal vanilla trades from wandering traders.

Brewery: You can brew alcohol and even invent your own recipes.

CombatLog: If you get into combat with another player, this plugin kills you if you log out. Wait for the timer to run out first!

GroogePlugin: Adds a variety of random features. Currently, it adds the functionality to give armor stands arms, /hideflags, and /showflags. Type [/groogehelp] in-game to see the commands and what they do.

LittleComposter: Adds the ability to make items compostable. Currently, the following are compostable:


 * Rotten flesh at 15%
 * Poisonous potatoes, sugar, and all raw fishes at 50%
 * Cooked cod and salmon at 65%

Marriage: You can marry other players. Type [/marry] to see the commands and what they do.

PwnPlantGrowth: Changes how plants grow to be more biome specific, creating a more dynamic and specialized farming environment. The current configuration settings can be found here.

SimpleRename: You can rename items without having to use an anvil or XP. Type [/sr help] in-game to see the commands and what they do.

VillagerModifications: Allows for villager trades to be disabled or their prices changed. Currently, villager trades for food items (soups, cakes, and meat) and glass are disabled, and apples and golden carrots have been made more expensive.

Other differences from vanilla MC:
 * Arrows work as fuel in furnaces.
 * Drop two sticks on an armor stand to give it arms.
 * Putting potions in a furnace will evaporate the liquid and give you an empty bottle.
 * Holding an empty glass bottle and picking up XP gives you a Bottle o' Enchanting.
 * Zombies have a 5% chance of dropping phantom membranes.
 * Shift + right clicking on an item frame turns it invisible.
 * Creepers don't do block damage, but do health damage.
 * Insomnia is disabled; phantoms don't appear after not sleeping at night.
 * The Ender Dragon does not grief blocks.
 * Elytras are disabled in the overworld.
 * Ender chests are disabled.
 * Cobblestone can be smelted into gravel, and gravel into sand, all at a blast furnace in a 20-second process each smelt.

FAQs
''' What does Elgeis/“LGS” stand for/what is it? '''

LGS is the acronym used for the friend group that started the server back in August 2018. It stands for “Le Gaming Squad”, a dated term from when using “le” even ironically was still cool. We try not to think about that. GoatWhisperer, FlyingGMM, ClapYoThighs, 06Smg05, and AbstractEgg are founding members of the server who still play, and a few more members of LGS have joined since then.

At some point, the decision was made to change the name to Elgeis (still basically pronounced as LGS) to provide a fantasy-style slant to the name and to recognize that far more people play on the server today than the original LGS crew.

''' How did the server get started? '''

LGS had many private Minecraft servers over the years with the political roleplay theme. Most of these servers, however, died within a month or so. This happened to Elgeis as well (called the “barren period” by Elgeis historians), before the server was opened up for semi-public recruiting in late November 2018, reviving it. We decided that while we wanted more people, they needed to share our values of wanting to engage in politics, and that they needed to be conducive to building a strong server community.

''' Why is the “vetting” system so important? '''

If you’re reading this, you’ve been through our vetting system or you’re going through it right now. People often wonder why we have the vetting system, which seems a bit arbitrary at times.

The vetting system is in place to allow Elgeis to remain a public server while still ensuring that only the right people are allowed on. In addition to the necessity of being non-toxic and understanding how to RP detached from the real world, the delicate environment of the server only exists because everyone understands that each country has both physical and political boundaries, and everyone respects each other’s boundaries to ensure that their own are respected in kind. Having people on the server who either don’t care about/don't understand boundaries or who don't care about the worldbuilding and RP of the server makes the server a bad place. All of the safeguards we have in place prevent the wrong people from accessing the server—and there have been many, many saves in the past.

Channel Use Descriptions
The Elgeis discord has many channels for every type of discussion. Before writing in a channel, please read its description.

Introduction (out-of-character): Minecraft Discussion (in-character): Meta Discussion (out-of-character): Just For Fun (out-of-character): Voice Channels:
 * #lobby is for talking to unvetted without interrupting the vetting process.
 * #new-members is for vetting new members to the server. Currently only unvetted players and staff members can talk here.
 * #country-info is for information on the countries of Elgeis. No discussion is permitted here—each country's leader is permitted to post one message here showcasing the country's wiki page and a short pitch on the country's leader(s), titles, and general values/government.
 * #rules-and-other-info is for the rules and other information, currently being the list of our six staff members.
 * #important-links is for links to important server links including, but not limited to, the server address, dynmap link, and wiki.
 * #affiliated-discords is for links to each Elgeis-related discord servers.
 * #crafters-chat is for general discussion of stuff you do on the server, such as builds, boasting about your accomplishments, etc.
 * #political-discussion is for discussion of politics on the server. This includes border disputes, political declarations that don't belong in #mc-world-news, negotiations, etc. The most recent version of the political map is usually pinned here, as are different countries' discords should you wish to join them.
 * #trade is for announcing and negotiating trades. Each person gets one pinned message to advertise their trades, so let the admins know if you want to do that. You can of course edit that pinned message as your trades change.
 * #crafter-memes is for memes regarding the server, be it management, history, or contemporary politics.
 * #words-of-wisdom is for memorable quotes from people on the server.
 * #mc-kinda-news is for news announcements that isn't of concern to the international community. Any questions about announcements in this channel should be directed to #political-discussion. Posting unsuitable content for #mc-world-news will result in a mute in that channel.
 * #mc-world-news is for news announcements which concern the international community. Any questions about announcements in this channel should be directed to #political-discussion. Posting unsuitable content for #mc-world-news will result in a mute in that channel.
 * #ooc-general is for OOC commentary and discussion on in-game affairs.
 * #server-management-discussion is for discussion pertaining to the server in terms of how it's run/stuff done for the server but not stuff happening on it (such as plugins, patches, maps, etc.).
 * #wiki-discussion is for discussion of the Elgeis wiki primarily, as well as other meta records like maps.
 * #mapmaking-mania is for discussion of the Elgeis map which is pinned in #political-discussion.
 * #emojis is for any images you want to be made into emojis. Post the image and what you want it to be called, and one of the staff members will consider making it an emoji.
 * #admin-announcements is for the admins to make announcements pertaining to server management.
 * #off-topic is for non-server-related discussion.
 * #face-reveal is for any real-life images. Everyone must have clothes on.
 * #cool-memes is for non-server-related memes that you feel like sharing.
 * #inappropriate-discussion-and-content is for stuff of a sexual/graphic nature that's worth sharing but may offend some.
 * #the-bot-channel is for typing bot commands.
 * #no-mic-chat is for people who do not have a microphone but would like to still participate in voice channel conversation.

Useful Links to Know

 * Elgeis Wiki: (You're here right now!) A wiki for the server's rich and complex history. Everyone on the server is free to edit the wiki, but remember to keep things objective, accurate, and clearly written. Questions about the wiki should be directed to #wiki-discussion.
 * Compendium of Server History: An overview of the server's rich past. It currently only runs up to December of 2018, but serves as a good record of ancient Elgeis history.
 * Form for joining: Please refer to Rule #3 to find and use this form wisely.

'''Congratulations! You have now finished reading the Rules and Other Info writeup, and are now up-to-speed on the workings of Elgeis! If you're being vetted, you're now welcomed to go back to #new-members, let @Staff know you're finished and ask them any questions you still have. Good luck!'''