My two cents on claiming land.

[Redcog129]

J, Admins, Mods, ect. As of right now, there is not any type of distance requirement between towns/outposts. Kingston is becoming a big town, we can't exactly act like we have complete control on who gets in and around the town.
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Our newest member "bro918" came into our town and we found him to be a cool guy. Our town spawn is a box, obviously because we don't want outsiders getting out around us. While we were offline Bro took it into his liberty to allow another user into the area. They decided to walk a good 200 blocks and claim all the land up to the very outskirt of the town. A huge flame war has erupted.
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This user decided it would be hilarious to get others to come and join in. This is nothing but a purposeful annoyance.
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Sounds a bit like griefing doesn't it? building structures surrounding an existing village is nothing but an annoyance. If somebody's motive for where they live is to infuriate other players they came to server to grief, and only to grief.

I politely asked the lot of them if they could maybe try to solve this rationally and was only met with more disrespect.
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People feel the need to be toxic. We asked him politely if he could just move and he felt nothing but the need to pour hostility into the server. I'd like my own land back.

It's like if I set up a camp in your backyard, but not exactly where it's really your land. It would be annoying seeing my tent there. I would be fine with it if his goal wasn't to enclose on our city and cut off our access to land.

[Redcog129]

UPDATE
http://i.imgur.com/2Id95it.png

[InsaneJ]

We set a really small minimum distance between towns for a reason. When we had a large minimum distance people complained that their towns couldn't be really close together. Now that they can, other problems arise like the one you reported here.

The server rules are very clear. Rule #1: respect the staff and other players. Clearly that rule was violated here.

Pernix told me he removed the offending towns. Also the following players have received a warning: parker4647, wernesgruner and MrBadboy for disruptive behaviour. If they cross the line ever again, they'll be banned.

Just in case anyone is wondering. We are keeping a list of players who have had a warning. We are being crazy lenient by giving a lot of offenders a second chance. However there will not be a third chance for anyone and bans are permanent.

[Redcog129]

people complained that their towns couldn't be really close together.

I do think it would be cool if I wanted another town right next to us, or if I was part of a nation. However in this case I was a little bugged because we were planning to build an "Uptown" over in that area and if Turtles had claimed any more land we couldn't have done it.

J, Maybe there could be a distance but the mayor could allow a town into the closer by area with some sort of command?
I don't know if that's possible but it may be a useful feature. We aren't having any problems anymore so for the meantime thank you very much for helping out Pernix and J, keep up the great work

[InsaneJ]

It's just one of those situations in which we just can't ever do it right :)

There's no way for us to give players the option to keep other towns further away from them. I think for now the smaller distance works well, you are the first to complain about another town being too close. While we had tons of complaints about people not being able to have towns right next to each other.