Hello everyone! Welcome to my thread and thank you for taking the time to read this thread! In this thread I am going to explain why I think the way map arts are currently treated is a negative thing for the server and shouldn’t be endorsed by the members of the server. A lot of you will probably disagree with me right off the bat, but I ask that you read the whole post before you make a comment or statement of your opinion on map arts currently.

Ease
A common argument used in favor of the large prices of map arts + their right to be the only seller of a map art is that they spent time and money on it. In a big thread about people reselling map arts, the original post (Don't buy art from unofficial resellers! | Skyblock Forums) includes “Some people on the server seem to believe it is ok to sell the map arts other people have spent time and money creating without their permission.” I understand the intention behind this, but it doesn’t really hold up.

• Time

With an alternative account or your own account, it is incredibly easy to set up a hacked client (fully legal as seen on this thread Acceptable Hacks/Cheats | Skyblock Forums) and let it go to work doing the entire map for you while you don’t do anything. While an argument can be made that the time the account is doing the map art could be time you could be playing on the server, if there is an alt at all, this argument falls through. If it is your own account, it’s very easy to let it run overnight while you’re asleep, meaning you’re losing no time whatsoever. I know multiple people who do this process and make tons of grass off it. I won’t say their names to protect their privacy and because I think they’re smart to capitalize off of the bad practices associated around map art.

• Effort

Effort is again thrown out if you use a hacked client, which is legal on the server. You aren’t doing anything yourself to make the map art, which means you’re not putting forth any effort. Furthermore, the map art can easily be generated on a website found with a simple google search. Not much artistic input there at all. There are two arguments I can think of that can be made that effort does go into the creation of map art. 1.) You actually physically go in and place every single block for the map art. This is some effort, but it’s wasted effort. When it’s super easy to set up auto-map art players, you’re just wasting your time and effort because someone else can do it more efficiently and in less time than you very easily. 2.) You put in effort to fill out the island to make it the right size for map art. Sure, some effort goes into this, but not enough to warrant your exclusive rights to your map. I can easily use my account or my alt and set this up on an island and within a few days be a major map artist for little to no effort. I don’t do it because I don’t want to make money in this manner and don’t think it is healthy for the economy, which I will detail below.

• Money

The argument of money can be looked at from two different angles - real life money and in-game grass/economy balance.

I’m going to address in-game currency first. Most map arts can be done through wool made into carpets. Wool can be bought super cheap by sellers like KhalDrogo Other materials aren’t the hardest thing to come by and if you make a good looking map art, people will usually come running to buy it and you’ll make up the money you spent making it very quickly. I know this from my own experience selling map arts and watching other people sell map arts. The price to make map arts in game is nothing compared to what is made off the selling of maps.

Now to address spending real life money. I believe this to be the STRONGEST argument in favor of exclusive rights, but still think it isn’t a great argument. Real life money is spent on buying the expansion in order to make a map art island. This is a fair argument as you did in fact spend real life money. But so do people who buy donor ranks and items off the store. Items acquired from donor ranks and from the store go right into the economy the moment they’re sold. There’s no “You can’t sell this legendary key I bought in the store, no resell.” Because that doesn’t make sense. Map art can be viewed the same way when you realize that it doesn’t actually take creativity, time, talent, or effort. Furthermore, people sell map art islands or expanded or max expanded islands all the time in chat. I see people advertising this every time I come on. Therefore, making map art can be accomplished without even spending any money. Someone spent money, yes, but it doesn’t have to be you.

Capitalist Society
The way the economy works on skyblock is very capitalist, though without a central government that can take taxes. There are some socialist elements, as in everyone being able to vote in order to receive a small amount of grass. The point being, the server runs on a capitalist society. Big businesses are created all around the server, you see them advertised constantly and they attempt to provide every item you could want for sale and to buy, making people reliant on their services. Since there aren’t any taxes on the server (why would there be, that would be weird), money stays in the hands of the upper class on the server, often donors, and it is not many people who hold the majority of the economy. The theory that applies here in regards to getting money down to the newer, poorer, players of the server is trickle down economics, which has the belief that the rich will invest this money back into the economy and it will end up in the hands of the lower class. Whether or not you subscribe to the theory of the trickle down effect or think it works on skyblock, there is no denying that the economy stands in the hands of the upper class on skyblock. The upper class is usually who is buying and selling these map arts and the prices for map arts is very dependent on them. If the richer members of the server changed how they approached map arts, the rest of the server would follow.

Inflation rate
The current price of map arts is way too high for the amount of grass it takes to make empty maps and copy the maps. The ratio of money into map arts compared to the amount sold is way too unbalanced. This, plus some other factors I won’t get into on this thread, cause insane inflation in the value of grass on the server. Just look at the value of grass on this server compared to what it used to be on classic and when this server first launched. The value of 1 grass has been insanely inflated and the amount of stacks tossed around is insane. Something that doesn’t take much money, time, or effort like map arts shouldn’t be sold at such a high price. Imagine if banners were sold at huge values, despite just being wool and dye. People wouldn’t pay those insane prices because everyone knows how little goes into banners and how easy it is to copy banners, by putting a blank banner in a crafting table next to the banner. Map arts are the exact same, just on a slightly larger scale. By allowing people to sell map arts and value them at unnecessary values, we allow the value of grass to be depleted and inflate the value of items on the server. Inflation is a natural thing and is done slowly by the fact grass is constantly being added to the server, but inflation shouldn’t be as impactful as map arts help make it.

Anger
Conflict over map arts and their reselling is prevalent across the server. The biggest example I could find on the forums was this thread:

Don't buy art from unofficial resellers! | Skyblock Forums

Though I have seen it a lot in game. People spread the idea of “no reselling map art, unless I give you specific permission.” It’s not hard to find, people will give you a book when they sell you map art stating you can’t resell what they sold you, though that’s how economies work. There’s also a suggestion currently to make reselling completely enforced by the staff team through adding tags to every map piece Skyblock - NBT tag for Maps, preventing reselling | Skyblock Forums This thread even has some staff support, though it is not an enforceable rule that reselling map art is a problem. Some people will make it seem as though it is enforceable and write terms in books when selling saying “mods will be contacted if I find out you are reselling my map art.” I wanted to clarify if this is actually something you can get in trouble for, so I reached out to Kerahna and wanted to see if this reselling map art is enforced by the staff, and it isn’t. There’s no real stopping someone from doing it, which some people have figured out and gone ahead and done. This has led to people getting mad and upset with one another, which is unnecessary based on what I’ve already shown. Map art isn’t worth the anger and conflict.

Loss
Say everyone subscribes to not being allowed to resell map art, there is no way to keep track of every person who buys map art and resells it. Eventually it will work its way around to being resold, not much you can do about it. It’s better to open up the economy and allow it to build upon itself rather than try to run an exclusive business where select players can dictate the way the economy moves. One might compare this to a monopoly of sorts...

Conclusion
Since people tend to compare map art creators to real artists, I want to address that comparison here at the end of this thread. When real artists sell pieces, if they sell one piece, it can often go for a lot of money and be accurately valued at that price. A one piece map art is different in regards to talent, effort and time all being less than real art. Furthermore, real art can’t have a blank piece of paper put right next to it and copy a valuable piece exactly as it is originally in seconds without a distinguishable difference. If artists do sell multiple pieces of something, it’s often a print that they sell. These prints usually aren’t that much money. My sister is an artist so I have a good idea about prints and how they’re distributed. I think if the server moved towards a more print style system of selling that would be better as prices would lower greatly and be better for the server, even though prints still take more talent and effort than map arts.


Some of you might be asking me why I care about people and their map arts. This is an easy answer for me. I care about this server, it’s economy and its longevity. The direction the server’s economy is going in due to map arts and other factors is not a good one and shouldn’t be continued and I want to see the server succeed.


That’s all I have. Everything I wrote above is why I think map art shouldn’t be valued as much as it is, should be able to be resold without issue and why you should as well. I look forward to hearing what you all have to say about this in the comments.

 

ok

1 i dont automate my maps my maps r done by hand as for time I but probaly 4 orr more hours of planning into each map.

2 this server is proof trickle down economics does not work the rich hoard their cash and dont spent it execpt on rares I am guilty of this too

3 in the world there are patents on arts an such which prohibits this reselling

4 if I just go around reselling people stuff its if nothing else scummy

5 ur leg key comparision is not valid bc i cant make more leg keys using that key people who buy my maps could resell that one copy execpt since i still sell the best they could do is their money back

6 u contradict ur self several times my 5th point u made sorta in your conclusion

 

I understand you don't automate your map arts, but one of my points I made was " 1.) You actually physically go in and place every single block for the map art. This is some effort, but it’s wasted effort. When it’s super easy to set up auto-map art players, you’re just wasting your time and effort because someone else can do it more efficiently and in less time than you very easily." I'm glad you do it yourself as that's good to hear, but that's like saying that you went through and physically made each part of a nice table yourself. The problem is, someone else spent less time because they made an identical table in a factory. They're making more money and setting the industry standard. You're missing out if you don't take advantage of the best way to create something.

Your opinion is yours to keep on trickle down economics. I never said it worked or didn't in my point, I just made the point that if you believe or don't believe that works, the money isn't getting to the poorer people on the server.

Patents aren't on every single piece of art. There are way too many artists who make way too many pieces. Furthermore, actual art is worth so much more than the in game map arts that can be done through a generator in seconds, so this doesn't really hold up.

If I bought iron from you and then resold it a better price and people buy it, idk how you see that as scummy. That's just capitalizing off of an opportunity in the economy.

The legendary key point is about how if you buy something under shop.skyblock.net, those items go straight into the economy. It has nothing to do with its ease of copying. Plus, you're copying your own map art most likely, why can't others?

Idk where I contradicted myself so if you can point those out I'd love to clarify

 

The reason map art reselling is bad is becuase people can dupe maps u can dupe leg keys so if bought a leg key from shop and sell it that person could resell that one key with map someone could buy one and sell it 100 times
ok

 

To me, making copies of maps is just how minecraft works. It takes 2 seconds, anyone can do it and it is likely that if you're selling map art, you can also copy it 100 times and sell it

 

yes exatly i can make coppies bc i made it no one else shoiuld be able to cause i paid for it

u cant copy a leg key

 

A legendary key could ruin the economy if duped, map art can’t. Literally all it is is something to look at, it’s pretty, but it’s not the be all and end all of everything if it is duped.

 

OK where do i start, i think i was one of the first to make a really nice map art, it was a replication of a Banksy piece called "love or money" quite fitting considering the conversation here.
A lot of work went into that piece and yes (stupidly in your opinion) i placed each and every block by hand, it took weeks.
I was really proud of that piece and still am to this day.
The first one i sold i got 1728g for it, which i felt was justifiable and the person i sold it to was happy to get it, and to my knowledge hasn't copied it to this day (respect).
I also find your comment about making a table rather strange too, as i am a Cabinet Maker that has made tables in a factory to very high standards to be sold in Harrods for a very high price.
My point here is that the table was not made to the best of my ability nor was it made using the best materials. I would so much have liked to make those tables with better materials considering the price payed for them by unsuspecting customers.
So saying that making one piece by piece yourself pouring talent and quality into it is a waste of time because a factory can make one the same in less time for less money is wrong.
If i were to make one myself and not for the factory, yeah it might look the same but belive me it's not. It would be of a much higher quality and i would get so much more satisfaction knowing that.
It almost feels as if your saying dont put any effort in because some others dont, and because they dont we shouldnt either nor should we take any pride in our work. Please dont discourage anyone from producing quality pieces and expecting a justifiable amount for their work.

 

I agree with 30%, but some of it - especially the part about reselling is in my opinion:
Bonkers

 

And if the maps are so easy to make as claimed then there should be no issue here, just make you own, no need to copy then huh?

 

As I am the creator of said mentioned post. I will tell you I agree with some of your points, it can be massively automated, at what cost? I will not speak for everyone, but I when making map art, will not afk in some waterway or using some hacked client movement(against the rules btw) or multiple accounts, I place the items.

I agree that this could be seen by some as some sort of monopoly, it isn't, you don't have to buy my mapart, you can go and buy someone else's or none at all. But when I bring something to the server, especially original content, not copied images. I spent my time making it, my grass buying the materials, my money expanding (yes once), my idea to make said mapart, i sure don't want someone else profiting off my idea, time, money, grass.

As JJ54KES so perfectly put it, if it's that easy, why don't you go make it yourself? go buy your own expanded island, go buy all the mats, just go do one in fact.

This doesn't compare,you didn't come up with the idea of iron, you didnt bring the iron to the server, you didnt make it, you didnt spend 4 hours placing 16,384 blocks to have that iron ingot.

 

I completely understand your point about the table/cabinets and I think you bring up a good argument regarding it. I agree that one would much rather buy a handcrafted table that is very well done, but analogy I made was that the table made by the factory was identical to the table you made. It doesn't have the artisan benefits put into it. An Ikea grade table won't be the same as a trade-made table, but if you make the same table the factory is making, there is no reason to expect someone to give you exclusive rights on a table that's easy to replicate.
There's nothing wrong with putting in effort or taking pride in your work. I never said that, in fact, I said the opposite to Ursus above. I said "I'm glad you do it yourself as that's good to hear." The same way I think one might react to someone hand-knitting something rather than factory made. They put effort into their craft, and that's appreciable. The problem is someone else can mass produce shirts with automation and while maybe in the real world someone will appreciate the hand-crafted item and pay extra for it, when it comes to minecraft and map art, you can't tell someone who auto-makes it from someone who handmade it.

That's a fair opinion to have, but I truly believe when a integral mechanic of minecraft is being able to copy maps, and it hurts the economy to try and make them exclusive, it shouldn't be frowned upon.

I do have a specific example of someone fully automating map art, but for their own privacy and the fact they asked to stay unknown, I will not share it. Take that as you will. If you want to count that as a point against me and my argument, that's alright since I can't provide that piece of evidence, but I won't violate someone's right to privacy if I promised them I wouldn't tell. Though, autobuild is something you can set up fairly easily. Set a template for the map art, use a generator in your own single player world, then set your account to do it. Autobuild is also considered legal so even if you have to go through that small process or set up multiple templates, its not enough effort to consider these things exclusive.

I don't think the comparison is that hard to understand and when I went to clarify I pretty much said the same thing. If it wasn't understood, but now it is, I don't think that calls for throwing out the whole point.

You kind of made my point for me here. "Adressing it, making players aware and giving suggestions to solve the problem is a step in the right direction." That's exactly what I did here. My solutions were to stop claiming exclusive rights to the maps as well as I mentioned in my conclusion that I think moving more towards a print style method of selling map art is better. I also opened this so we could have the discussions we're having right now. Don't know why you think I shouldn't have made a thread about an issue I saw in the server. And I agree, it will probably get cheaper over time, but it's clear from this thread that people aren't very willing to stop witch hunting for people who resell map art, which is the main issue I addressed and brought a solution to.

Don't know if you're talking about me, because I personally have no interest in making map arts. If you're not talking about me personally, some people just want to consume a product, they don't want to make it. If they see an opportunity to make money off something they bought, they shouldn't be told they can't.

I'll direct you to the same point I made to JJ as you quoted him for that part of your comment.

The other parts I disagree with. Again, I appreciate if you put in your own effort and make your own stuff, but that can't be told if you look at map art at face value. For example, I can go in game and see avengers endgame art. Then, when I look up "avengers endgame poster" on google, the first thing that comes up is the map art in game, put into a generator and created.

Your final point doesn't really resonate with me for a couple of reasons, but if you'd like to elaborate on it I can discuss it more with you. The concept of map art isn't new and the materials to make it are all on the server already. You didn't bring the materials to make it on to the server. You put it together to make an image, which if it is your own original image and you mapped out the entire map art, I think that's great. You're putting in effort and care about your end product. But I don't see how you can get so upset when you knew going into creating the map art that a mechanic of minecraft is being able to copy maps very easily. People put a lot of effort building a house, but houses get resold. You don't really tell someone after building a house "You can't ever resell this house." In fact that's a whole industry. People flip houses and there shouldn't be a player group that prevents people from flipping map art.

 

That's awesome! I'm glad you do it for your own personal enjoyment. I completely agree with you in saying that duping spawners would damage the economy and be illegal and duping map art wouldn't harm it all and I think it would actually help it. I don't think you disagree with me at all, but you rated my post disagree, is there something I'm missing you disagree with me about?

 

Please stop comparing hotdogs to blue paint. The examples you are providing, just aren’t relatable and an equal to the scenario we are discussing.

Also please stop acting high and mighty calling us angry and upset because we don’t agree with you. You are not right, we are not right, this is all opinion, stop treating your opinion as fact.

We are agreeing with some of your points and are open to the discussion but you apparently cannot see this from both points of view. Single minded belligerent babbling will not help you when you are trying to make your point.

Your point about googling the first image appearing etc is very valid but that is not the discussion at hand we didn’t invent avengers or maparts and we are not saying we did. We had the idea to make the mapart, we used our resources to do so, and we don’t think it’s fair for someone else to profit from that without our permission. If you want to take the same image make the same mapart on your purpose built expanded island I welcome it, but until you do don’t steal mine.

 

Bro I don't know why you're so angry, I'm really been trying to have a discussion here, that's why I made the thread and put it in the discussion section. I never once called someone angry or upset for disagreeing with me besides the sentence directly before this one. I said that people witchhunted people who resold art. I said people were angry at people copying their art. If I am wrong here, please correct me. I have said for people to correct me multiple times in this thread and told someone their opinion was fair. I don't see where I'm claiming to know everything or be right.
I've done my best to be polite and have a decent conversation and I don't know why you feel the need to insult me.
I haven't said I'm 100% right once in this thread, I presented my opinion, as you did yours and wanted to perhaps try to convince you that I have some legitimacy to argument, the same you did.
If you have a problem with me personally, I'd love to talk to you about it in a private conversation because this isn't a thread about me, its about map art and the economy.

 

Personally I agree with your statement sam, mapart causes a lot of anger and confusion over a simple game. Look at the anger in this thread alone, you stated your mind and now your getting attacked? I think it should still be a thing, just have more awareness of maparts.

 

Why do you believe I’m personally attacking you? Please also tell me where i insult you. Disagreeing with you is not an attack on you or your morals, values or personality. I don’t know you, I cannot judge you, I just disagree with your opinion on this topic.
But yet you don’t see it that way.

 

You called me single-minded and a babbler, which I took as an insult. I don't know if you meant it that way, but when I tried to make a discussion to see other people's thoughts, being called single-minded isn't something that I really liked.