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Spout departing from Bukkit and becoming its own thing is going to suuuuuck. Months of stability issues and a severely split community. The Spout guys claim compatibility, but I think that's going to be buggy and adequate at best. They have a long way to go before they can convince me otherwise. Sigh.
Any chance you can publish a list of the plugins you have on your server, or at least a list of the big ones that directly affect the players and alter gameplay? Also, why don't you recommend a good common texture pack for people to use so we all don't just end up using wildly different ones? It's harder to collaborate and make things look good if you don't see the same thing your neighbours do.
Good luck with this project, guys. I'm hoping it'll be a big success, and a cool common place for TL Minecrafters to hang out.
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Once I get a chance to get back on, I'm gonna start working on a spawn city if nobody has any objections.
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On December 25 2011 07:25 Aylear wrote:
Spout departing from Bukkit and becoming its own thing is going to suuuuuck. Months of stability issues and a severely split community. The Spout guys claim compatibility, but I think that's going to be buggy and adequate at best. They have a long way to go before they can convince me otherwise. Sigh.
Any chance you can publish a list of the plugins you have on your server, or at least a list of the big ones that directly affect the players and alter gameplay? Also, why don't you recommend a good common texture pack for people to use so we all don't just end up using wildly different ones? It's harder to collaborate and make things look good if you don't see the same thing your neighbours do.
Good luck with this project, guys. I'm hoping it'll be a big success, and a cool common place for TL Minecrafters to hang out.
Spout will be infinitely better than Bukkit is; I have no doubt about that, as the Spout dev team is a thousand times more open and active than the Bukkit dev team is. The current Spout server client works almost as good as Bukkit does, but yes... it's still going to be a disaster as far as plugins go for the first month or so. It shouldn't matter, though, unless Minecraft updates to 1.1 in that same time frame - then all hell will break loose. If Minecraft doesn't update though there will be no reason to switch over to Spout before it's 100% done and existing Bukkit plugins will continue to work as they wouldn't need a patch update. Could be minimal damage or could be a complete disaster, depending on what happens at Mojang. Bracing for the worst, though, just in case.
We don't really use any plugins that alter gameplay at the moment. Pretty much all of those are still waiting to be updated to 1.0 versions, unfortunately. And even then we don't alter gameplay - just add to it. Plugins of interest for players right now would be the following:
LWC (chest protection)
SpoutCraft (a few optional visual changes)
iConomy (money)
dynmap (interactive map)
Of those, only LWC has commands available to players at the moment. iConomy also has commands but they're not working properly and thus aren't available just yet. The other two have no commands, and no other plugins on the server are available for player use unless they're automated (such as trains, boats, NPCs). Eventually players will be able to spawn their own NPCs, make their own trains, etc... but none of it has been properly updated to 1.0 yet so for now it's staff-only to prevent any issues.
As far as texture packs go, it's all opinion. From my last server I can say that the overwhelming majority of players use the standard texture pack. Of those who use other texture packs, there are vastly differing opinions. However, I am making a TL texture pack with our custom blocks so I expect a lot of people might end up using that one in the end. But for what it's worth, myself and most of the other staff on this server use default textures so if I had to recommend a texture pack... I would say stick with the default. It's not the prettiest, but it's the most used by far and so also the best choice for anyone trying to collaborate on a project together.
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How about I toss up a poll tomorrow and let people vote on texture packs. This could at least help people who are looking to choose an aftermarket one. I'm a huge fan of default style, increased resolution, though!
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I wanted to mention something here, too. I'm looking for input on the current difficulty of the game.
Long story short, Notch - being the genius that he is - decided to hardcode mob health in 1.0, meaning instead of a max HP of 200 for each mob the new max HP is anywhere from 4 to 16 depending on the mob. This basically makes it nearly impossible for me to scale difficulty the way I wanted to (diamond sword kills a mob in 4 hits, and that's the most it can take... compared to some mobs on my 1.8 test server taking as much as 50 hits to kill).
Basically I have no room to increase mob health at the moment, so all I can really do is increase damage or increase spawn rate (even that has a cap which isn't all that fast to be honest).
One option would be to disable the crafting of any gear past leather/stone and make those higher grade weapons and armor purchasable with coin. This would allow me to start the mobs off with lower health and damage and scale them up in appropriate zones (such as around dungeons) as was intended from the start. It would also give your character a bit more longevity and progression instead of having full diamond gear within an hour of starting the game. Lastly, your ore wouldn't go to waste as you would be able to sell your iron/gold/diamond bars for coin (essentially smelting your bars into coin). It would just take more than a lousy 2-3 ore to make an item. In this case the durability of the armor/weapons could be removed as well and equipment would basically function as a permanent power boost to your character.
Just looking for thoughts/suggestions, because as it currently stands I'm not sure how to implement the majority of my content (quests, dungeons, extra zones) since Notch butchered my ability to increase the difficulty of mobs.
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Since the health of the mobs is hardcoded would it be possible to lower the damage on all weapons to compensate for this, or is that hardcoded aswell?
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Is the current server size what it's going to stay at, or are there plans to increase it as we add content? 2800 radius is surprising to me.
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On December 25 2011 17:45 Antiochus wrote:
Since the health of the mobs is hardcoded would it be possible to lower the damage on all weapons to compensate for this, or is that hardcoded aswell?
From what I know (pretty sure Sere will hit me with a shovel if I'm wrong) you need a plugin that does that first and there is none so far.
I must say, despite the fact that Serejais idea sounds pretty weird and/or backwards at first (wtf lol no iron shit in my first night?!) I think it makes a whole lot of sense and would open up a lot of possibilities for more RPG-like gameplay.
Get Iron/Gold/Diamond -> Sell those for money -> use money to upgrade weapon/armor -> Use upgraded weapon/armor to get into harder dungeons/do jobs for other players -> get higher rewards -> use those to upgrade your stuff is a pretty solid concept for any PvE part of a game since it's pretty much what makes a game like D2 successfull in that regard.
I think this would make it possible so that we can:
-Improve mob scaling (right now they're incredibly dangerous in the first night, but once you get iron they're just decoration/there to be mindlessly grinded for XP) because you could create areas that are very hard to deal with low-tier equipement (unless you team up ofcourse).
-Improve long-term gameplay. What always bothered me about Minecraft is that it takes about 10h of total gameplay to have the "endgame" accessible (full diamond armor+sword) without a lot of challenges left, any dungeon or mob on the overworld is trivial at that point and the nether/end content isn't exactly well developed.
The main problem I see with this idea:
-You will probably piss off people who love their Minecraft as a game with incredibly easy PvE and who enjoy running around in the most shiny tools within 5hours. I'd assume this is most of the general Minecraft population, however, this is definitly not the general TL population. ... If you manage to give Minecraft a feel to PvE that's somewhat challenging and with more and cooler shiny tools that are harder to get (I assume as soon as the plugins for that are out you'd be the first to create custom armors/weapons =D), I'm pretty sure you make everyone on TL who loves games like D2 or Terraria curious about our sexy little private server.
-Even though you said balancing the prices would be the easy part, I still think this part is a bit tricky. Basicly you will have to find certain total hours of gameplay for which you would say it makes sense to get to the next tier. Example would be "I want my players to access T2 (iron) after 5hours, T3 (gold) after 10 hours and T4 (diamond) after 20 hours of normal gameplay." would mean that you have to balance the reward for mining (how much all the random stuff will sale for to vendors) with the reward for killing mobs (coin-/xp drops. The harder the mob, the more you will get) and maybe even with the reward for some arena-type PvP.
In an ideal game I could either mine (maybe you even find a way to reward for building), do PvE or PvP and have similar rewards for it depending on a risk/reward structure (PvP > PvE > mining).
The trick here is to find some kind of value for each "If I slaughter mobs for one hour I get x amount of coins, if I stripmine I get amount xyz of iron/gold/diamond which I can sell for amount x" and balance around that.
Also there has to be a solid reward for obtaining larger amounts of coins which can come in the form of warp/home commands (which I dislike personally), equipement (Armor/Weapon), maybemaybe the ability to buy custom enchantments and so on.
Please keep in mind that (imo) it's highly important that XP values scale as well. Someone with a full diamond armor/weapon set cleaning up "endgame custom dungeons" should have a LOT easier time leveling than someone who runs around in iron gear and kills random zombies at night.
tl;dr: I love the whole idea since it adds so many possibilites for server provided content. Custom dungeons, quests and all that stuff are WAY cooler if you have to do stuff to be able to do them and if doing them makes more custom stuff available to you.
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Also, because someone just asked about it:
#1 enchantment guide on this planet: http://pernsteiner.org/minecraft/enchant
Edit: Sere, I just found out that inifite lava pools were patched out in 1.0 ... I think that mechanic is pretty stupid and also it makes lava look like total crap whenever you remove a bucket of it somewhere. Do you see any good reason for this mechanic or would you mind checking if theres a plugin that fixes it back to pre-1.0?
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you srsly playing minecraft instead of eve revo, i h8 u
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On December 26 2011 00:46 hugitout wrote:
you srsly playing minecraft instead of eve revo, i h8 u
Sorry, bro. He's ours now.
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Weapon damage can't be tweaked much. Diamond Swords currently do 7 damage. The minimum they can really do is 6 - fists 1, wood 2, stone 3, gold 4, iron 5, diamond 6. This also leaves no room for our custom weapons to really fit in.
Map size will be increased as needed. Right now, at the current rate, it'll take months before this map even comes close to filling up. That's not even including the other worlds that I haven't turned on yet. Most of it is still unexplored at this point in time.
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Monsters weren't the sole reason Diablo and Terriaria (in it's own niche) was successful. Assuming you did, though, disregard the stories, item/leveling systems, and community and, instead, just talked about the monsters--that playstyle only works because of monster scaling. You start off easy, fighting rats and skeletons or whatever it. Gaining more and more xp, getting better gear, you continue to work your way up an self-imposed ladder, to get the best gear to fight bigger baddies. This is mostly fun (if you're into grinding) because, at any time, you can chose to go back and the beginning and totally dominate the first guys that ever gave you trouble. It's like fighting lvl 3 pokemon again with the team you just beat the Elite 4 with. Owning things just feels great. Going back requires travel, and travel is tedious in minecraft...
As compelling as tweaking the damage system to make difficult harder mobs to make Minecraft more threatening, it's no more fun than it used to be. It's just moderately more annoying. If miraculously it all came together and you were somehow able to introduce zones or different worlds with harder mobs that dropped better stuff, well, good work. The more important problem is and will be, the mobs are lacking. Only 3 mobs + .1% chance of a creeper + .01?% chance of a skeleton-rider, all with crappy AI. The Aether was successful because it introduced new mobs with unique AI (and rewarding items). Three mobs will never suffice.
From a user's perspective the most popular plug-ins are
1) role-playing based, overlaying minecraft with new goals (mcMMO)
2) building/community based (craft-book)
Why? Because at its heart Minecraft is first-most a creative building game. Anything that lets you gather faster or build in new ways is prized. Minecraft PvP partially works if you allow the worst of griefing. Alliances, backstabbing, and pillaging, etc. PvP is joke unless a server is a dedicated to it. I wouldn't bother mentioning it. I didn't mention monsters because they're a joke and always will be. Harder monsters will just be a hindrance and no more fun than before.
As it stands, there is little incentive to kill monsters. $2 dollars from killing a spider...great.
My 2 cents: I don't encourage making the server barren and terrifyingly hard. +1 for the guards though.
For priorities:
1) Temples, like good temples, not just a small room with lava pits. Temples that have boss chests that autorestock, if possible
2) Community. If the server speaks for itself, a community will follow
3) Thriving economy. So you can buy items that are otherwise unobtainable. (Blaze rods, ender pearls, etc.) An Economy, where if you say, buying coal.
And the second guy says, well, what'da wanna trade for?
The deal actually goes through and doesn't fizzle.
Also, if possible, lose X% of money if dead.
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What I like most about minecraft is building things, trying stuff out and figuring out how something works (oh, and spleef). I had the most fun building the gladiator course on the old server and seeing people race on it if someone remembers that. I don't really care about the mobs, the items and the progression in the game. That's my 2cent 
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So far, the only complaint is:
WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SHEEPS. I swear the spawn rate for sheeps is like shit
cause I don't ever see em.
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United States10328 Posts
On December 26 2011 06:03 MiyaviTeddy wrote:
So far, the only complaint is:
WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SHEEPS. I swear the spawn rate for sheeps is like shit
cause I don't ever see em.
D: yeah I only managed to get two wool in like a few hours D:
edit: and I have no clue what the guards do; if you hit them, do they go berserk on you? XD
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On December 26 2011 00:46 hugitout wrote:
you srsly playing minecraft instead of eve revo, i h8 u
lol <3 ... To be fair I mostly play DotA 2 / LoL nowadays, but I must admit that I sometimes check the EvE thread and smile that the fleetcomp the hatchery is using is basicly the same concept I stole from Darkside back in the days. =D
@topic:
It's true that I'm not sure whether more damage/more health compared to your weapons is a way of making MC more fun, however I'll give Serejai the benefit of the doubt, especially since all his talk about custom dungeons sounds pretty darn cool. =P
For a stable economy, I actually consider infrastructure the #1 thing that's needed. However, I have no clue at all if giving the players free rails & free cities is the proper approach there, since it takes a part of this away. I'll just let people who understand better how MP servers work deal with that.
2) Community. If the server speaks for itself, a community will follow
--This is huge. A big part of minecraft is that it feels like being 12 year old and playing Lego with your buddies sometimes. I'd give it like two weeks or so and see how numbers turn out, but right now I'm totally missing buddies to play Lego with. =(
(Dronebabo doesn't count, he's so Dronebabo.)
I'm not entirely sure what your temple idea is, but giving people an incentive to travel away from their homes usually makes for a good experience. Right now, I think the biggest "team" we have is like 3 people who like the idea of a Skytown and apart from that it's mostly people doing stuff solo and some very few tagteams. My GUESS is this is just the result of the low turnout overall, but, yeah. Doing stuff to secretly lure people on the server should be #1 priority atm imo. A PvE system that's more fun than vanilla (not hard eh) should help with that.
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I love the concept of having higher level weapons and armor being long term achievements. From my experience in gaming, the single most addicting thing in a game is RPG elements. Having higher tier weapons harder to get to would definitely reinforce this gameplay concept. I feel like it's worth noting, as mentioned before, that the mcMMO style is excellent in keeping players long term. While I can sympathize with a dislike towards double block drop rates and speed mining abilities, the general concept is still easily one of the most lucritive in maintaining a sizeable player base.
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On December 26 2011 04:32 h3r1n6 wrote:What I like most about minecraft is building things, trying stuff out and figuring out how something works (oh, and spleef). I had the most fun building the gladiator course on the old server and seeing people race on it if someone remembers that. I don't really care about the mobs, the items and the progression in the game. That's my 2cent
Your gladiator course was amazing, and I completely forgot about Spleef!!!
As for on this server atm I'm just getting my house built and wandering around getting a feel for the map. And anyone who hasn't checked out the forest town you should, the tree houses are amazing, plus who doesn't love one-line NPCs?? lol
Time on during the holidays is gonna be spotty for my, but so glad the server is up!
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