So today, July 28th 2016, is my 5 year anniversary on the Pokemon Server. Woot! Five years is a long time. Stalin had some five year plans. A lot can get done in five years. So much has happened over this time. I've ran a gym, built in every region, been fired from building for creating an admin throne room, been banned from building for screwing up the scaling of a grass patch, been kicked from building for crashing the build server, smuggled an official model of lugia through TeamSpeak to 1ce so I wouldn't get sued for us using it on the build server, partaken in a feud between Hoenn 1 and Voxel Hoenn, built the Mystery Dungeon town with Bespin, built in our failed attempt at a Super Smash Bros server, created a cult, created a police force, participated in KOTH at Zombie Mountain as well as many other events and PvP tournaments, sat on the throne of Admin Castle, listened to 1ce sing and Pokemon6949 whine on TeamSpeak, listened to Oddy and Para sing 'I'm a Barby Girl', written a parody song of Coldplay's Paradise called Paradox, participated in wars@Mt. Moon and wild 2, helped grief Kirpi's copy server, played with a bunch of people on Tene's server, participated in wifi tournaments during the early days of X and Y, built a sugar cane empire, feuded with rival company HoboCo, written Pokemon Gray, won 6 gym badges, spent hours chatting with other players and, of course, met a bunch of great friends over the years. The Pokemon Server is a great community that I am glad I was a part of these past five years and hope to continue to be a part of for another five (pray to Helix). Sticking with tradition, of course there is some issue arising on this day that is preventing me from celebrating and this time it's that my computer is broken. If I'm lucky I'll be able to get on tomorrow but with my luck it'll take longer. I was intending on making a photo presentation of all my screenshots over the last five years with some totes emotional music in the background like SharkySharky. Unfortunately, it looks like my whole minecraft folder is lost. If it isn't then I'll try to make the presentation when my laptop is fixed anyway. To have something to celebrate this occasion, I shall be bringing back story time with Shark/Cynder/Synder. This time I shall be covering the creation of the Pewter Police and the shenanigans it got up to. Before reading this, make sure to read the stories about my first day and the Worshippers of the Great One as this will lead on from that.
First day (3rd post):
http://www.pokemonserver.net/forum/index.php?topic=1732.0Worshippers:
http://www.pokemonserver.net/forum/index.php?topic=5627.0Okie dokie then. Here we go...
So after the whole debacle with the House of Worshippers, I was quite angry at veteran players trolling noobs, being a noob myself, and wanted to create an organisation that could help new players not get trolled into quitting, like so many had. The sign at the eastern exit of Pewter City, that mentioned the existence of a Pewter Police force, inspired me to bring that organisation to life but have it function server wide, with different users being able to join as officers under myself as the sheriff. With my newly acquired 3K, I intended to buy the house closest to the sign but it was taken. Fortunately, the owner had timed out and Miosio let me buy it before clearing the interior and putting a few basement floors of grass underneath. I immediately set to work making my dream a reality and before long I had a fully functional police station that is still around today. The ground floor has a welcome counter with a bunch of signs describing what the organisation is about. The next floor down has the officer rules and a crime board that we have never used. Because I can't get on the server I can't quite remember the order of floors but others had; a completely useless pair of prisons, a room filled with signs saying how officers should respond to different crimes, an interrogation room with redstone on the floor to look like blood, a melee combat room that is in a no-PvP zone, an archery practice range that only spanned a few blocks due to WorldGuard restrictions, a farm with branching out farm rooms that got destroyed when 1ce rebuilt Kanto, a spot for officers to store their wolves, a chest rooms for myself and other officers, a bed room so officers could set their spawn, a room filled with signs displaying users who had yet to be brought to 'justice' as well as Pewter Police's most wanted which hasn't been touched in 4 years and last I checked including Liquidfired, Megaaquachicken and Bespinben, an officer free space that included a parkour challenge and a notice board, a battle arena built by Snowbro and Tactic that Tactic originally intended to be a mob room but changed his mind when no mods spawned while he ran around in it (which of course prevents spawning...), a conference room and a pool/mine entrance. Once most of this was built I was ready to open the organisation and before it's release I spoke to other users about my idea. Firstly, I was able recruit Doomfollower, who became the staff captain, and then Snowbro, my irl friend, who became the officer trainer. Before opening, Doom suggested I get permission from an admin and pressured me to ask Mio when she was online. She said that she couldn't stop me from doing it and that I might even become a moderator if I do well and, over four years later, look how well that turned out... After the opening we got a number of users to join as officers such as; Wintergreen, LAshley, PurplePanda, Tactic_ninja, Daxcraft, Stewiegriffinha, SweatyPizza, Hobo4Chompey, Tenebraemaximus, kings_demons123 and more as the years progressed. Joining was free range when we first opened but soon we made a application system. The applicant had to have at least one gym badge and then were interviewed by me about their past, how they'd respond to certain situations and their views on what was right and wrong. Then they'd show their archery prowess before fighting either Snowbro or I in the battle arena, using a stone sword against our wooden ones. Not that it mattered considering we were both shit at PvP due to our crap internet and lack of skill.
In practice, the organisation was fairly successful. While it was difficult to prevent theft or griefing, we provided successful services such as escorts through Viridian forest and Mt. Moon and leaving recommendation signs on wild bases, that were in dangerous spots, to move their items to a safer location. I recall also placing constructions under police protection with signs saying something like 'Touch and I'll touch you.' I even built some trap houses which were wild shacks that were made to look like a house made by a new user and had a chest in side with a sign asking people to please not steal from it. The chest was of course a trapped chest linked to TNT that would blow a thief up and then drop their stuff into lava. When I showed Tene my first of these houses she told me to look in the chest. I assumed that I had screwed up the red stone and that she was showing me that it wasn't working but in fact she was just trolling me and I got blown to bits to the sound of a cursory 'lol'. Over the years we managed to stop many trolls and campers, so as a whole it was successful and also lots of fun.
The Pewter Police was not without opposition, however. Of course when you try to police people, on a PvP server, they will often be understandably annoyed. The organisation was coming from the perspective of noobs that had be trolled massively and lost their items on countless occasions, which even on a PvP server felt harsh, especially when the server rule to not kill a user more that five times a day was thrown out the window. Fortunately, now days there are restrictions in place such as the 75 mob kill rule but it used to be very tough for new players to get from town to town without being camped by veterans for the sole purpose of trolling. Regardless, some veterans were legitimately annoyed at being targeted and two users decided to tunnel into the police station and, from the no WorldGuarded regions, were able to manipulate the water in the farm to flood the station. In retaliation, Rigby turned their whole VIPs to water, which was maybe a bit overboard. I then spoke with the two on TeamSpeak and they were just upset about users names being displayed on a crime list so officers always target them, which was understandable and I immediately discontinued it. For the record, these two users were cool and we got along in the future, even becoming friends. Many trolls performed attacks on our officers over the years, stealing equipment, and sometimes it was tough to deal with, such as the time Snowbro and I tried to zerg Liquid on the route east of Pewter to get our stuff back or the time I had something akin to a mental breakdown after White_Link lured my police dog into a safe zone to kill it. Another one of these trolls was Bespinben, who the organisation had a rivalry with until Bespin and I realised how much we both loved mystery dungeon. We immediately put our differences aside and decided to build the town from the first mystery dungeon games, together, but that is a story for another time.
Eventually the concept of teams became a thing, where large groups of players would form a team, build a base in the wild and work together to achieve a goal. These teams included the likes of; The Restistance, Team Exile, Team Pyro, Team Potax, Team Gemstone, etc. Some teams had a similar role to the Pewter Police and wanted to help everyone but most simply focused on supporting those in the team which resulted in wars with other teams and exploiting the new user population to benefit themselves. If a user got into a fight with a team member, that user would get mobbed by members of that team. As much as I liked the idea of the teams and I hope they return in the new map, they were a threat to new users and, as such, an enemy of the Pewter Police. A secret police force was formed, made up of users who I won't say, and through secret intelligence we located the bases of different teams that we intended to grief. I remember we griefed and looted a huge underground base, a smaller floating one near the edge of the map that we blew out of the sky and also joined in on another base grief that involved a bunch of users. Eventually the infamous (and fun) reign of these sorts of teams came to an end, leading to the rise of the good intention ones I mentioned earlier, that we worked along side with.
The Pewter Police was around for a while and I have a lot of other random memories such as:
-The time when Pewter Police and the trainers worked together to battle a player formed Team Rocket in what was Tactic's wild arena. The crazy battle lasted for ages and the arena ended up as a hole filled with lava.
-Around the time when Dax joined the force, there was a reported criminal who climbed atop the roof of the station and four of us officers completely surrounded him, while others watched. This was back before pushing was removed so we kept him in place. It was kind of ridiculous but there was nothing else we could do.
-When Mio went crazy in the station and left a bunch of 'Mio was here' signs around as well as making the basement into a pool.
-When Wintegreen, LAshley and I went on a mission to retrieve someone's items below the S.S.Anne but repeatedly drowned in our attempt.
-When Rigby gave me a figurative police badge to further my legitimacy.
-The time Zombie told me 'Look out sheriff, I'm the real justice in town' when I was trying to persecute a camper.
-When Ali made the quote that is in my signature, involving me arresting Hobo.
Due to low activity, the police force was temporarily shut down and remains as such until the release of the new map where I had intended on making a server wide police force based out of a Castelia sky scraper, with smaller stations in each region. Maybe this dream will also come true. Only the future knows. Regardless, thank you for reading my very long story. I think next time will focus on Bespin and I's Mystery Dungeon town but I also want to do future stories on my time as a gym leader and a builder, as well as whatever crazy things happen in the future.
Finally, I'd like to once again thank everyone for the last five years. I can't wait for future fun with you all!
