It’s just a thought on how this can be made fairer for players who want to build with other blocks and not forced to use Gems.
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I see you have a pretty hefty task on your hands, and I’m sure you’ve gone through it all. I’m just throwing out some ideas.
I’d still have faith in the community as a whole not to have their ‘votes’ bought and cast on ‘ugly builds’. No amount of resources would be enough to dictate where I’d spend mine (as anecdotal as that is), and I certainly wouldn’t praise an ugly build if I didn’t like the look of it. I don’t speak for the community, but I can certainly attest to the integrity of a large bunch of players playing at the moment.
Besides, if I’m to understand your concerns rightly - these owners of ‘ugly builds’ would have to give away a LOT of free stuff in order to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
I suppose the only other issue there would be YouTube personalities getting votes for their builds from their acolytes?
I think you’re right in saying that my proposed solution would eventually turn into a popularity contest, but isn’t that what prestige is? People sharing admiration for builds and builders?
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Yes, admiring a build not the player. 
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With a set system, admiration for builds won’t count for anything. Only the algorithm would dictate quality.
For instance, a huge sign made out of fully upgraded blocks, spanning the vastness of the world, seen from the far reaches of space, would be considered a monumental build of extreme prestige! I can see it now;
#LUKE TURBULENZ SUCKS
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Before I’m taken the wrong way (as sarcasm doesn’t always track well on forums) I meant that in the best possible way. It’s all well meaning banter.
What I’m basically trying to say is that a ‘luke turbulenz sucks’ sign, or a giant phallic statue, or swastika could potentially become the most ‘prestigious’ build going, even though nobody in the community would agree with it.
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While I understand that harder to craft or obtain blocks would indeed require for them to have a higher base prestige attached to them, to reward the effort and time dedicated to the players, it also begs the question, how to make it fair compared to other blocks.
This is a matter of subjectiveness, but gems in abundance, more than making a build nicer or accentuating some features, takes away from the build as a whole and brings the amazement at how much time he’s spend to earn something or do something. Don’t get me wrong, effort and nice looking shiny things, will always be recognized, take a look at rare crafted sets of armor in other games, sometimes they’re mere cosmetic items, but the grind alone generates praise, but that’s when the problem comes along, how “nice” are these highly prestigious builds are? I know this is an entirely subjective manner.
Take for instance the 7 wonders of the world, many will praise their beauty and architectural prowess, are they made out of the most rare materials, are they appreciated and liked by everyone. The simple answer is no. And what I’m trying to say, it’s gonna be super hard to correlate “beautiful” builds to high prestige (all a matter of opinion), I wouldn’t want to be in the dev shoes right now.
There’s a beauty to modesty and minimalistic designs, not all builds have to use gems or gleam to make them look nice, this is pretty biased, but a material so beautiful in the game like wood, can’t go without being used in a build, and I use it a lot. Will I stop building how I see things to be nicer, to get a little more prestige? No I won’t, but nobody is stopping someone from doing so.
The thing is that for every system you make, there’s gonna be people exploiting the system and looking at ways to take advantage, there’s people who enjoy doing it. What it all comes to, is how important is prestige really is, in the big scope of things, what would a capital city give me, what does the major position give me? I know we’re pretty annoying by commenting on things not yet completed and still in development like this, but we can only offer our perspectives on things we are experiencing or know about. How important prestige will be, will help determine how important it is for ways to get prestige in your favor.
Just to provide a simple example, and not to put harm in anyone, let’s look at Dragons Watch, Pharoah is the major of the town, with more than double the prestige than mine, does his build looks cool and glorious? It does. My build coming at second place, which for many represent the town, is made of simple decorative, timber and refined blocks. It holds less than the 1st position. For the eyes of many, that sculpture represents the town and is the center point of it, but it’s not the most prestigious one.
So I think prestige has a place, but deciding on the sole leader of a settlement based on it, doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe a multiple role ecosystem, with the founder having some degree of decision and maybe other roles added, depending on how big a settlement is.
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Player will for certain be reported and deal with after the fact, but it will leave a bad taste in our mouths, if that were to happen.
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There are also grey areas, not in direct violation of any rules in place, but made in bad taste non the less.
I think you need people to step in a say (with their vote or lack there of) ‘that’s not good’
Subjectivity is the missing factor.
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What about getting some prestige from visits? So bind it with footfall - you are being rewarded for having either a nice or interesting build that people want to see, or an important spot like a good shop that brings customers. It could be a nice addition to block-based prestige.
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Yeah, I was thinking also that age of build should impact prestige 
That would solve somewhat issue where players put a lot of effort in bringing up a city and than some random guys come and build straightforward ugly gleam/gem whatever high prestige mat he wants to exploit and becomes mayor over night 
hahaha
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One more idea, if high prestige blocks are put in close distance after certain threshold they start less and less affecting the prestige. Call it a Spoygg’s constant
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As a crafter, this is beautiful. You, as a builder, want to make your building look any way you want. You don’t want to be forced to make choices you deem not aesthetically pleasing just to get a higher prestige. The idea of prestige should be about the size of the build and the quality of the materials used. Having the ability to craft higher prestige versions of wood allows the builder to follow their aesthetics while also having to spend a certain amount of cost in the build. Refined stones take 8 stones each to make. Bricks take 6 blocks and spark. If there was a wood block that had the same kinds of costs, it should hold the same kind of prestige.
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(To continue the serious part of this discussion)
FYI - I don’t think this would be the case, because these beacons would be flagged and reported by players in game, we would review them, and then they would be instantly regen’d into oblivion.
From my experience on the forum, community members are quick and consistent in flagging posts. You may be interested to hear that if a post is flagged as abusive (which is extremely rare) then it’s normally flagged by a few members simultaneous, ie. the community consensus is that it’s abusive rather than just individuals. This makes moderation much easier.
(Obviously a “luke turbulenz sucks” sign should be lauded and not torn down.)
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Get your gem blocks team. I have a new project!
I am a little sceptical about the proposed system. I’d personally like the value of a city or build to be determined by the community, not by the value of certain blocks.
Not only does it put an emphasis on bigger always being better, but also allows ugly builds to be considered prestigious.
Who decides what’s good and what’s ugly? Well that’s subjective, and should be decided - I feel - by the community.
Just my two cents, though I don’t want to beat a dead horse. I’ve made my case and will stand by whatever route you decide to take!
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I have a question which relates to this topic, but with regards to Prestige and Clans/Guilds …
Within a clan/guild, I would assume that the proposed hierarchy still stands with regards to having a leader and assigned roles for officers etc. How does this work with the prestige rankings?
Is prestige still calculated individually and attributable to each player on their own, or does the clan get counted as a whole, allowing them to maintain their preexisting leadership hierarchy? So if that clan has the highest prestige on a world, would their leader then become the “High Oort” of the world, regardless of who within the clan had the highest prestige?
Also…
I’d love to see some decorative carved wood blocks! 
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Do this a few times, and make it a public spectacle and you’ll find you rarely have to do it again. Griefers hate investing loads of time in big projects just to watch it all instantly undone. You just want to make sure you have enough people to witness you dropping a ban hammer on a griefers and the word will spread through the griefers community like wild fire in a match factory.
I’d love to see some decorative carved wood blocks!
This is mahogany bro!
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The Prestige is on the beacon not the owner (either an individual player or clan).
So the Clan would have the honour.
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The current system is a first implementation - and as (a hacked version of) the saying goes “no feature survives first contact with players”.
Players characters and player builds are kind of similar at the moment.
- Players can develop their characters (via skills and stats) and also customise their characters.
- Players can develop their builds (via prestige) and also customise the design.
But I totally agree that the current prestige system doesn’t capture everything about how great a build looks. We’ve tried to implement it with enough flexibility so that players aren’t forced to stamp out some discovered max-prestige template.
I full expect the prestige system to iterate and evolve based on in game feedback.
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I’d like the possibility to give feedback to player builds.
Just yesterday I commented on Discord that I’d like to give a “like” to a build that I saw, cuz was the first time was nice to see Red Wood in a building. And I have in mind a lot of builds that I’d like to give a “like”, due to how amazing they are, or simply leave a comment like “I love how you used X block to make Y”.
I know this kind of feature is hard to balance, because will always be someone trying to exploit, but I believe right now prestige has not prestiging “right” and I believe we need some way to give other players feedback to buildings.
EDIT: I was writing down while @james replied basically all I was expecting by the development team haha.
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Ah, I have a similar saying, it goes something like; ‘no Spitter’s survives first contact with @Pseudonym84’ …or something like that.
I understand the system is an early iteration of what we’ll see on release. I just wanted to voice my concerns as early as possible. I could picture it now; countless videos on YouTube with titles like ‘How to build a 1,000,000 prestige house!’, ‘How to make the best build!’, ‘Boundless; becoming Mayor in 3 easy steps!’
I look forward to seeing the system progress - and I’ll be sure to rant and rave if you mess it up!
@james noted that they’d make short work of griefers, though it isn’t them that bothers me - more the people who just build gigantic monstrosities in the middle of well developed and nice look cities and think they’re great. They’re not breaking any rules; they’re just playing the game the way they want to (which is absolutely fine) - the issues arise when their ugly build causes the locals to get upset.
If the incentive is to build for prestige, some people will gain it through any means necessary, where as if the incentive is to impress other players, they might be more inclined to build something nice.
That said, I’ll await a further development on the current system. See what tricks this team has up their sleeves.
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