Stream Town

**Stream Town** was a major settlement in the Survival 1 world of Dogcraft. It was the scene of mass attention and building activity for a time in the community in the early-mid period of it's world and still stands as one of the biggest settlements in any dogcraft world.

## Establishment

Stream Town was founded during a livestream on the 4ᵗʰ of May 2016 by server owner and YouTuber, ReNDoG (in-game username *renthedog).* During this livestream, he began at spawn and explored the city there, before adventuring further northwest. After finding some fresh land, he proclaimed the beginning of a new town, Stream Town, with the intention that it would the site of weekly streams to monitor it's progress as a build and landmark for players.

Then headmods, *StaircaseClimber* and *victix11* quickly set about building the basic infrastructure for the town. Streets were arranged in a simple, grid-like pattern and given names relating to ReNDoG's survival series of the time or minecraft features. Each plot had a mailbox on the sidewalk and upon claiming a plot, a headmod would place that player's minecraft skin head in an item frame on the box.

An amount of land just north of the city was allocated for ReNDoG to build a castle for himself as part of the weekly streams.

## Stream Town 'Boom'

The allure of creating a build visible to ReNDoG was strong for most on the server and this led to unprecedented activity in the new town. Plots were quickly claimed and built on before the first stream, and a Town Hall was built by *StaircaseClimber*. Some of the earlier and most recognisable builds around this time included *\_edo*'s city block featuring a very tall and distinctive tower, *Scooberson*'s windmill, *victix11*'s large cake house and *baaskip*'s hobbit hole, among others.

In a short space of time, community projects appeared in Stream Town. A library was build by *ivorysnape,* where players could donate written books for other to read. Another initiative was the Stream Town Neighborhood Security Association (STNSA), started by *Kiterou*, with intention of keeping the dark town streets mob-free during streams. The SRN began construction of a rail line to Stream Town, although this would not be completed until the following month.

As the first ReNDoG stream came and went, it was apparent that expansion was needed. New players and free plots meant that the original 50 or so plots were claimed in this time-frame. It became quite clear at this time that the space chosen by ReNDoG was not particularly base-free as per his brief assessment. This posed a minor challenge for the two headmods, who now had to work with nearby base owners to expand the burgeoning city. *Naxela\_*'s large 'Caelum' base was the closest, but co-operative, and an elegant solution was found. A similar situation occurred with another base on the eventual southern boundary of the town. Combined, the somewhat awkward position of the city meant that it would expand further west than any other direction, making the city center and hall feel out of orientation as a result. Some notable builds build on the expansion were *BodhidharmaJr*'s distinctive sandstone tower, *Saidina*'s witch tree and *BigEdley*'s clock tower. However, a large amount of theses plots were claimed but never completed.

The process of livestreaming at Stream Town was chaotic and a heavy burden for both ReNDoG and moderators. Many players, eager to be known to him and his watchers, would become a nuisance and get in the way of footage often. Progress on ReNDoG's own build on the north boundary was practically non-existant. It turned out that streams in the city were not the best way to make engaging live content, and they were discontinued after four weeks.

Following this decision, the building activity and hype that defined Stream Town faded away in the following weeks. Fewer players began to speak about the town, and it left the community's consciousness soon after.

## Legacy

    Although Stream Town was a relatively short-lived phenomenon, it had a lasting impact on the server in several aspects.

The city is the only settlement away from spawn to be given it's own warp, and is one of very few warps that do not go to a farm or mall, such was it's popularity. The warp was named '/warp towncentre' and teleported players in front of the Town Hall.

The introduction of the quests plugin had some overlap with the 'boom' of Stream Town, and therefore, a handful were placed in the city. These included the *'StaircaseClimber', 'Ironboundred'* and infamous *'victix11'* quests in which the player gave purpur stairs, iron ingots and blocks, and very large amounts of cookies to their respective NPCs. In addition, another NPC, 'Filbert', ran around the city and could be 'talked to' (right-clicked on) to complete a quest of the same name.

After his experiences with livestreaming at Stream Town, ReNDoG has seemed reluctant to broadcast regular survival gameplay on the server, and saves the format for major occasions. Instead, most streams from the Dogcraft server are of minigames, although these are still a small percentage of his overall live content.

Stream Town brought a very large amount of exposure to the server in a time when it had little. At the time the city was founded in May 2016, server numbers had steadily declined and this had begun to cause slight concern among some players. Stream Town brought a wealth of new players to the server, bolstering the community, and playing some part in the continued growth the server has seen in the following years.