A survival server revamp!?!

[bren4q]

Having new maps and adventures on a regular basis would mean a lot of admin effort and probably require having file level access to the server. It sounds like a lot to expect one person to keep doing so Darth would have to be willing to open up his machine to other people in order to spread the work load.

[Juwayyid]

I don't know that it's too much if a problem to give Darth the maps to upload.  We similar things now when making movies and there is never a problem.

The problem would be that many of out current members would be expected to help create the adventures and therefore would not be able to take part in the server as an adventurerer.

We can discuss possible approaches to this style of server to see if any of these ideas are remotely doable.

[pusur44017]

It seems that whatever way we do it, it's going to take a lot of time, and somehow we have to figure a genius way to stop players from reaching "endgame" I think what we are looking for are:

-A brand new gameplay that will circle around and around, thus preventing players from reaching "endgame"

-Something that doesn't require too much of admin attention. (meaning not having to reset everything on a regular basis, or having to watch out all the time)

-Something that gives a "wow" effect

I have been thinking of a game server, like blocktopia or anni, with maps going around and around, and possibility to add new maps all the time. (But offcoarse not one single idea of the games I've mentioned can be used, and if we decide to make a game, it would have to be completely Insommniac servers community's idea(someone would also be willing to code it))

-pusur

[Juwayyid]

Blocktopia does have some sort of role playing sever or something called "journey to Elysium."  It seems well received and its a quest, ranking up, dynamic type server.


If we want to ditch survival and come up with a gaming server, that's something different all together.  A server full if mini games is not a survival server.  It would also be quite difficult if not impossible without any coders.  We don't have any coders.

[Juwayyid]

Based off what Jay and I are thinking up, along with Thealex's more dynamic maps idea, we can work up something like this.

In the land of Insomnia there are 7 regions.  The Endless Islands, The Forgotten Forests, the Tall jungles, the deadly mountains, the Dark Depths, the White Desert, and the shrooms mushrooms. (These are examples.  We can add more and change names or whatever)

I think that if we really want to make the server as such, we should start here, lay down the lands, come up with the "classes" and see what we can do with that.


But again, if anyone is opposed to this idea, please let us know so we don't waste too much time!

[Butlerbandit]

Quite a few of the ideas being thrown around seem to be edging towards an RPG style server. I'm not opposed to the idea, but we need to decide if that's what we want. If it is, we should probably be working around the idea.

In the land of Insomnia there are 7 regions.  The Endless Islands, The Forgotten Forests, the Tall jungles, the deadly mountains, the Dark Depths, the White Desert, and the shrooms mushrooms. (These are examples.  We can add more and change names or whatever)

How would we go about making this map? Sounds like the order calls for something a bit bigger than we can hope to terraform, so we'll probably need a world generating mod or plugin.

The only one I have come up with so far is:
http://www.curse.com/bukkit-plugins/minecraft/terrain-control

But if anyone has any better world generators, mention them.

As I said, I don't mind the idea of an RPG server, but we do need to come to a decision on whether or not that's what we really want.

[Juwayyid]

It seems to be the only idea making any progress.

I was willing to terraform the map as well, but if there's a mod to do it then lets roll with that!



Are we decided on an RPG style server then?

[pusur44017]

Best might be to start up a poll to clarify options and results.

-pusur

[Juwayyid]

The problem is there are only a select few of us actually participating in this subject.  A poll will probably take weeks to get to a good amount of votes.


And other than when we've got going are there really any other suggested options?

If no one here disagrees with the idea, we should begin work on it.

[bren4q]

Some research into the suggestions would be a help too. Since nobody here will be coding the plugins or server software it means something will need to be downloaded and configured to suit the needs. Try to find out what plugins/software needs to be used and check that it is available to the public. No point rallying support for an idea if the software for it is not freely available to download.

[Juwayyid]

I'm not seeing any software needed.  Just command blocks and redstone.  Ingame fun.  If you guys want to add exterior elements to the game let's hear it because otherwise I'm not planning on any at the moment.

[Juwayyid]

A weekend has gone by now and no objections.  Let's dive into this thing.

We will determine the need for any plugins as the need for them comes up.  Let's start at the basics.  If this world we are creating is going to have a story and a history, let's start there.


There are many new biomes being added in the next update.  I am not familiar with them all.  I feel like knowing the land we are working with will help with the history as history revolves a lot around land and expansion and yadda yadda.

We will call each biome a region and each region can have its own history where needed.  Let's decide on the number if regions and what types of biomes each region will be.

I believe we need a nice big Forrest, desert, jungle, and oceans/islands.  I also believe there does not need to be a specified mountain biome as mountains can run throuout all regions.  Perhaps a need ravine like, canyon region.

What more would you guys like to see?  A region for all biomes?  That works too.  Just list the regions you want to see.  Name them as well if you can.  Names can always be improved on later if need be.

[Butlerbandit]

I think it may be easier to get a world generated and mapped first, and then worry about naming the various regions. Our simplest and most effective option would be to generate a large world with the "large biomes" world option, then generate a map of it so that we can set to work naming the regions and giving them their own character and lore.

As for plugins: Most of what we have on survival seems to be working fairly well. The protection stones are a good way to give people limited protection. The economic plugins seem fairly well balanced, though we may want to take the prices of the servers spawn shop into serious consideration before going live. Even the horse tools plugin seems like a good way to allow players who aren't master dungeon raiders to have horses.
However, there are a few aspects of the current survival plugins that may need to be nerfed. One example may be the number of homes and warps available to players. Personally, I don't think any player (except perhaps donators) should have more than one teleportation location available to them. With multiple homes, warps, and /spawn, exploration and travel is reduced to almost none when players can just jump across the world at will. The easiest way to solve this is to remove all teleports except for their one home, or /spawn. If they have both a home and /spawn, most travel will again be rendered useless because they can simply jump between their farms and the markets to sell their products.

The only other suggestion I have for the server at this time is: Limited Ultra Hardcore mode.

Ultra hardcore mode is when players do not naturally regenerate health (meaning they need potions or other unnatural means of healing), and they receive a temporary ban on death (often about a day).

Hardcore mode can really be fun, because it adds a new sense of danger that isn't limited to just inconvenience and the (often temporary) loss of a few items. However, hardcore mode also has the major disadvantage of being rather scary and a real turnoff for new guests. That is why I suggest we use a plugin like http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/hardcoredeathban/, so that we can give new guests a few free passes on their first deaths, and easy control of the time for which players are death-banned.

[pusur44017]

How about waiting for the next update for the biomes part, and focus on other stuff for now? As for the Ultra hardcore mode, I don't think we should put this on the normal survival server, or any of this for that sake...some people might want to play survival, and if the new server gets enough attention, then we might begin to talk about replacing it with the survival server.

-pusur

[Butlerbandit]

@pusur;
I should have made myself clearer, I was suggesting that we use the biomes and hardcore plugin if and only if we update to a completely new map.


@Darthjahona
Speaking of biomes and maps: how large of a map is the survival server capable of holding and using? If we use the large biomes of 1.7 when the update rolls around, the map would need to be significantly larger than the one we're using now. Does it strain the server to have a large map if only small areas of it are being loaded at a time? Or does the file size of a large map cause issues with the servers performance? The current map is roughly 5 kilometers in diameter, but the individual "Large Biomes" of 1.7 can be over a kilometer in rough diameter each, so we would likely require a larger map. Is this going to cause a problem in the servers daily performance, or will it just be a pain to set up and render initially?
If it would cause too much issue, let us know and we'll think of other options.