[New Survival Server Suggestions]

[Dupple]

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I purposefully created a new thread, as the other one was becoming quite excessive, and a post of this scale should(in my opinion) not be drowned out on page 7 of what would be a 20+ page discussion. Seeing as the varied posts did not have compiled ideas, I wanted to create a coupled idea thread anyways. I will edit the post as we settle on ideas. That includes fleshing out such sections such as Lore and Quests.

Below is a list of suggestions for the new server that could possibly be implemented for the players in-game. I hope this helps at least generate some inspiration or finalization in idea concepts. Please keep in mind that some of these ideas have already been addressed and I am just compiling together what I approve of/I suggest  in terms of ideas. I've tried to organize the information as best as I could, so even though it is a giant wall of text, it is at least a pretty wall of text. 
If you have any suggestions, improvements, or just plain old tweaks regarding these ideas, please feel free to list them. And Yes I do realize that these ideas should be outlined in more accurate detail, which will be worked on in the future.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

I HEAVILY INSIST on these items being discussed to as much detail as possible, and any other ideas that anyone can provide to be added as well. Even though I appreciate the feedback from the community, right now the most important would be from the "Staff" personnel. We need to know if A) There are people willing to work on these sorts of ideas, and who working on what exactly. B) If this would be a viable "exclusive" for this server C) If any of these ideas are even remotely possible in implementation.

[Last Updated: 10/27/2013]
* Integrated several suggestions
* Tweaked for more user-friendly navigation
* Added a visual map depiction suggestion

Regions[spoiler]
It would be quite a considerable feat to incorporate this feature. The consensus seems to stand that the map will be square in nature.  If this is to be true, then the map can easily be divided into a grid or rectangular chunk by chunk basis. The goal of the feature would include having these regions (that fill up the space between the main towns) to be locked or unlocked based on player activity. To my knowledge we cannot have NPCs fighting NPCs, so there is no way to automate this or set conditions for this to happen without extensive coding for new mods. Instead, the task of unlocking or locking regions would befall on the Moderators and their discretion.  Basically, we would have several types of regions as outlined below.

Protected:
[spoiler]Summary:These would have to be certain areas that are always protected(World Guard or otherwise) where no one has permission to build on them other than staff personnel. The only areas I can think of where this protection applies would be to the main towns, fast travel, and a few secret areas used for events or Easter Egg secrets players can stumble on.

Traits:
-Players can NOT build in these areas
-Passively allied regions[with possible exception for events that are mentioned later].
[/spoiler]

Allied[Unlocked]:
[spoiler]Summary:These areas are friendly areas, or "unlocked" regions.

Traits:
-Players CAN  build in these areas
-NPCs are friendly and not aggressive to players
-No hostile mobs spawn in the area[**Debatable]
-Provide bonuses to the players in the regions(whether biome specific blocks/resources, taxes, or otherwise)
-NPCs provide quest options.
[/spoiler]

Enemy[Locked]:
[spoiler]Summary:These areas are enemy areas, or "locked" regions.

Traits:
-Players can NOT build in these areas
-NPCs are hostile and aggressive to players
-Hostile mobs spawn in the area
-NPCs do not give out quests. [**Not sure if this is even possible.]
[/spoiler]

Travel:
[spoiler]Summary:These areas would be the temporary "travel time" locations for fast travel described elsewhere.

Traits:
-Players can NOT build in these areas
-NPCs may or may not be present [**Debatable]
-No mobs spawn in the area
-CAN be physically located outside of the map, under the map, or in a flat world separately.
[/spoiler]

Undiscovered:
[spoiler]Summary:These areas would be as stated "undiscovered," players cannot walk into them, and they leave us blank slates for expansion of new regions in the future.

Traits:
-Players can NOT build in these areas
-Players can NOT enter these areas
-Passively neutral regions
[/spoiler]

Map Suggestion:
[spoiler] Here is what the map can look like with the chunk regions. The maroon dots represent main town locations, and can be larger or smaller as we see fit.

[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]

Fast Travel[spoiler]
Personally, I believe we should not have teleportation in the players permissions, and instead force them to physically walk the 5 or so blocks to their neighbors house, if they plan to visit them. If that house happens to be across the map in another region, then so be it, better stock up on bread. However, if we plan to have quests, that may be a tad extreme, so instead I suggest a relatively fair fast travel system. Each main town would have a fast travel option via a certain NPC in town, and these options could be Airships, Boats, Wagons, or whatever else mode of transportation can be explained lore wise. Now, each option would scale duration with fee.  Now you may ask, what are you talking about with "duration" when it is supposed to be "fast" travel. Well you see, the duration would determine how long the player is kept in the travel zone, before "arriving" at their destination. Basically, players would get /warp'ed to a certain chunk of space where they can not do anything but wait. (Sort of like jail for 1-3 minutes or however long we decide on, but visually more appealing). This would give a more realistic feel to the travel, while still making it "fast." in comparison to walking the actual distance.

Ex. Person picks the "Boat" option, they pay $xx and board the ship with an automated /warp. They are brought to a map of a ship(and surroundings, maybe just water ) where they sit idly(or walk around the ship deck) while the duration counts down, and then they get /warp'ed to their selected town.
[/spoiler]

Economy[spoiler]
-Not much to say here so far, but I would very much so like to utilize the HyperConomy plug-in. Seeing as we are starting from scratch with the new server, there is by no means a way to abuse the system. The prices all scale dynamically, and everything from taxes to stock to limit, to currency can be adjusted. Although a bit time consuming to set up initially, the reward is the long term success. Once set up, it can be easily tweaked if such a need arises anyway.
-I would like to have event currency that could be traded in for unique items from an event shop list, and redeemable through Moderators only, or simply traded in for cash at an NPC or something.

Ex.  1 Gold Coin/Ticket = $100
OR 175 Gold Coins/Tickets = Sharp 3 Knock 1 Iron sword, or something of the sorts.
[/spoiler]

Lore [spoiler]
Too much controversy for me to even attempt to think of a coherent sequence of ideas. I am not much of a story person, since what appeals to me does not appeal to others, and may appeal to others separate entirely. I do not wish to dive deep into the content regarding this core aspect.
[Sassy voice]That is not my job!
TBA
[/spoiler]

Towns[spoiler]
Towns/cities have been mentioned earlier and I would like to address them here. These would consist mostly of the main towns(probably 7 of them, or as many as needed, maybe more with expansions.)

Main Towns:[spoiler]These towns would be the main populated(or less populated) areas that are always protected and host NPCs with the bigger quests.
-They would be the only places that have Fast Travel options.
-Would be the starting points for new players. (Most likely chosen in a cycle manner.)
-Have ample information of the town, but little of outside towns/regions.
Example Town Regions:
-Sea Port
-Jungle Tree Tops
-Tropical Beaches
- Icey Valleys
-Industrial /Civilized Town
-City in the Clouds/Skyland
-Modern Utopia
-Desert
-Plains
-Niflheim, Realm of the Dead
-Forest
[/spoiler]

Sub Towns:[spoiler]Lesser very much smaller towns, I would call them campsites really, that would just be safe protected zones as checkpoints once a player dies. I.E. A player dies, the closest campsite or main town is their spawn checkpoint, to which they spawn on. These campsites would be scattered with 1 or 2(depending on size of region chunk) per region.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]

Quests[spoiler]
I simply suggest some people work on some of them, while others work on other ones. So no single person(unless they so wish to be) are in charge of all the quests, with all of them told the same way and style. In my opinion if we have NPCs give out these quests, it only makes sense that they speak differently and offer different types of quests, therefore supporting having different people work on different quests. THIS is also a plus, because the players working on the content get to actually enjoy some of the quests they didnt work on, and enjoy them, outside of the bland experience of survival building which everyone will be subject to regardless of the quests.

Too much controversy for me to even attempt to think of a coherent sequence of ideas.
[Sassy voice]That is not my job!
TBA
[/spoiler]

Job Professions[spoiler]
I think that having job professions would give the players a sense of purpose on top of the mindless completion of quests, and feel more like an RPG, which is what it seems we are approaching with these ideas.

Titles/Achivements:[spoiler]
-Players may receive titles based on certain quest completion, as an achievement award. These titles would then be put in the tag in front of a person's name.
Ex. [Spider Slayer]zories
-Some of the titles can be parodies or downright goofy for comedic effect and good fun.
Ex. [Cross-Dresser]Jaysers
[/spoiler]

Quotas:[spoiler]
Mayors require daily quotas to be filled based on job profession of the players choice.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]

Annual Events[spoiler]
I am too bothered to flush these out at the moment, seeing as my last events post was barely glanced over, but I will outline a few in a nutshell.
-Events based on player activity and moderator availability.
Weekly:[spoiler]
-Region unlock/lock:
-Every week a certain region(or more) gets unlocked for the players to use, that is an allied region that has either been taken over by the players or won by random selection events.
-Bounty Hunts:
-Every week a few bounty lists come up from the moderators/city mayors, that provide fair rewards upon completion. These can vary from "Fetch me x amount of y items," to simple assassination or robbery missions.
-Each town may have different or identical quests as they see fit. Ex. City A and City B can have the same bounty assassination on NPC A, where the first person to complete the quest gets to turn it in.
Note: Some towns may offer better rewards than others.
-Weekly Quotas:
-Mayors issue a weekly quota required based on job profession, which may be paid at the end of each month or whenever possible.
-Mayors have the power to deal punishment as they see fit upon failure to comply.
Note: This may include raising taxes.[/spoiler]

Monthly(or bi-weekly):[spoiler]
-Raid/Invasion:
- A certain group of rogue NPCs(bandits) or monsters invade a town or region, players must band together to push the invasion back.
- Players or friendly ally NPCs are attempting to take over a new region, it is the players duty to help them out.
-Scavenger Hunt:
-Somewhere a map to a treasure is dropped/left, or the Treasure Chest plug-in is activated for a brief time. Players do their best to find the treasure, which MAY OR MAY NOT be worth the hunt.[/spoiler]

Holiday:[spoiler]
-Holiday-related events(Self-explanatory)
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]

Staffing[spoiler]
We need to decide who does what or what each person wants to contribute to the creation of this amazing new server. I've created three sections for people that want to help out, so decide if you want more sections or which you want to be a part of.

Moderator: In charge of organizing progress and content, and organizing events post server release.
Content Committee: In charge of idea synergy, new content, and incorporating new ideas suggested, both pre and post server release.
Developer: In charge of all technical aspects and actually implementing and knowing limitations of new ideas.
Builder:In charge of making things look pretty.
Annoyance Alleviator(Staff Intern/Lackey): In charge of attending to issues players may have in-game. Resolves problems to their best abilities, or redirect concerns to higher ups.[/b]

So far I know that Kidd, Jaysers, and I (Dupple) wish to be members of the Content Committee.
Juw, Glenn, and Quimby most likely would like to be Builders.

Keep in mind these groups are not static, and people can hop back and forth between them to help as needed.
[/spoiler]



Thanks go out to all the contributions.
-Dupple
-Jaysers
-Kidd

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[Juwayyid]

Well everything seems easily possible and I love the Fast Travel Idea!  I'm going to post the Lore that has been developing in a different thread so things don't get cluttered here too and I'll return with further feedback later.

[Jaysers]

A lot of useful information posted, as well as a lot of questions that come with it.

One huge, nagging thought that I have is this: Since -and this is what I'm getting so far- the server will have both survival and/or adventure aspects, how will those two factors interact with each other?
With all the idea suggestions, how will those playing simple survival be affected by those who play the adventure? Will the economy be the same?
Exactly how much free rein will these two factors each have? Should they be any different?

Lots of food for thought to go along with plethora of information already given.

[Glenn]

A lot of useful information posted, as well as a lot of questions that come with it.

One huge, nagging thought that I have is this: Since -and this is what I'm getting so far- the server will have both survival and/or adventure aspects, how will those two factors interact with each other?
With all the idea suggestions, how will those playing simple survival be affected by those who play the adventure? Will the economy be the same?
Exactly how much free rein will these two factors each have? Should they be any different?

Lots of food for thought to go along with plethora of information already given.

The basic Idea some of us appear to have right now, is that the quests will only give advantages, if you wish to not contribute in them, then no harm will be done to you.

Another possible answer to that question, would be that, if you do wish to contribute in the quests, you'll need to advance in the main survival aspect, for example: get better weapons and armor to beat mobs, get fire resistance potions to pass through lava, and so on

All in all, it'll just be a normal survival server to those who want that, or a survival server with quests to those who want that, our goal was not to simply create a new survival server, but a server that will be different and challenge new game play-elements, as well as have an interesting map, to increase interest in sticking around

[Juwayyid]

Yeah, kind of what Glenn said.  The adventure aspect will not be a 24/7 thing and so you have to look at this survival server as a world where things happen that affect everyone[or people of a certain area, etc.]

Those who are simply playing survival can still be affected by story side effects as they all live in the same world.  If the story calls for a king to come in and charge tax to those who live near his borders, anyone, story following or not, would need to pay this tax.  There wouldn't be an exception for those here "just to play survival" as there is a world they have to deal with.

And as for the idea of job professions, I was thinking of way we could incorporate IN game jobs like "knight" or "patrol" who would be players assigned to "moderate" at a player level.

[Kidd2000]

Never have I seen an idea to "re-boot" the server rather than restart it. Looking at this, we can incorporate allot of these ideas with plug-ins. Also, we would just expand the border enough to get those sexy new biomes. This wouldn't require allot of hours making the map nor the wait. Thinking of it I remember that we were to make dungeons and such on that server anyways.

   So basically juwayyid can have his adventure-map-idea-whatever-while everyone still gets thier stuff. The recently halted projects (being the dungeons) can start again. The server will get some more spice with added plug-ins that makes your play style much more dynamic.

[Krawkyz]

Methinks of ideas.

So where we've been - still fighting for this survival aspect of the game.
Well, why don't we incorporate both? Civcraft-esque style, completing quests to activate certain parts of your outpost, and ability to use certain tools as you go one. One main side quest that activates the basic iron tools, and major side-quests that unlock diamond. As well, side-quests that allow you to either gain kingmanship or get god-weapons to amass your army to attack the enemy kings.

I'd be a great "Developer" as you put it.

[Juwayyid]

What your saying krawk is that you would have to complete a quest to get materials to start mining and fighting?  You wouldn't normally be able to craft these things, but would need to quest for them? 

That does give motivation to start doing quests!


When you say attack your enemy kings, do you mean something like a faction server where groups of people will team and form kingdoms?  Cause that was a desperate idea I had way back at the start of these discussions that never got any interest.  Is it back tracking to look back to those ideas we have abandoned?

(Also dupple, if these comments are skewing from your original hope on this topic, let us know so we don't get off track again!)

[Kidd2000]

Methinks of ideas.

So where we've been - still fighting for this survival aspect of the game.
Well, why don't we incorporate both? Civcraft-esque style, completing quests to activate certain parts of your outpost, and ability to use certain tools as you go one. One main side quest that activates the basic iron tools, and major side-quests that unlock diamond. As well, side-quests that allow you to either gain kingmanship or get god-weapons to amass your army to attack the enemy kings.

I'd be a great "Developer" as you put it.

This idea me likes krawk. But will this also mean we'll have factions?

[Krawkyz]

Not exactly factions - factions provide a way to protect land.
More like just a group of people who "claim" land but can't actually protect it.

[Kidd2000]

Well I can say that idea is certainly promising if we get enough people on the server through out an entire day. As for the whole tool system where you'll need to pass a certain quest to make a certain item would be amazing. I'm actually loving it the more I think about it.

   "Hey there stranger!" says the old farmer, he continues "You thinkin' of headin' out the wilderness without tools or a weapon?! An' they say you folk get rich that way . . . I reckon i can show you how to make a wooden sword"

  "Lets make a deal, you clear those blasted bats out my ol' water tank and I'll let you keep the instructions to the sword"

   *Handed a wooden sword & Clears out water tank*

   "Heh! Not bad for a green horn! Here ya go, as promised"

   *You now have the ability to craft a wooden sword*


    Now yes that may look very simple buts that's the point. The beginning of these quests are easy and simple to learn the ropes on doing quests. Later they'll be incredibly difficult and complex that may take a few days to prepare.

[thealex447]

The idea of these quests sounds great, but how are they going to be implemented? Surely we will need a plugin, and a fairly advanced one at that, unless it is done manually by moderators. The chances of finding a plugin with quests like these and unlocking/upgrading through quests is slim. Surely there are people here with the skills to make a plugin like this, but it will no doubt take a long time.

Quests looks promising, but doesn't look like it will offer the unlocking and upgrading you guys mentioned. It also looks like it will work with Epic Bosses for sweet boss fights.

[Kidd2000]

   Some peeps around town have a NPC narration plug-in. Commands blocks too. Oh and a few other plug-ins. I don't want to go into each and every plug-in but it's possible.

[Jaysers]

What about events? I'm not suggesting that we use this as our main focus; just food for thought.

Events. Missions. Small quests. This is a good substitute in case we want to focus more on the survival aspect of the server. We can incorporate the things we worked hard on for the past few days (weeks? ... month?) as these  missions/quests/whatever you want to call them.
While a player is simply milling around doing what survivors do in a survival server, suddenly there's an announcement about "a random sighting in the woods, or a strange object fell from the sky! Teleport to /warp IAmAnExample to get started!" That, or we can actually implement the story we've been working on as these quests. Some quests might be straightforward by going "go kill these". Sometimes they could have limitations, such as "build this for these people!". Ya know. Something Minecrafty.

Idk. It just seemed that the idea of having a survival server with some adventure aspects to it never clicked in my head except for this. Dupple would know where I got this from.

[Emperor_Quimby]

What about events? I'm not suggesting that we use this as our main focus; just food for thought.

Events. Missions. Small quests. This is a good substitute in case we want to focus more on the survival aspect of the server. We can incorporate the things we worked hard on for the past few days (weeks? ... month?) as these  missions/quests/whatever you want to call them.
While a player is simply milling around doing what survivors do in a survival server, suddenly there's an announcement about "a random sighting in the woods, or a strange object fell from the sky! Teleport to /warp IAmAnExample to get started!" That, or we can actually implement the story we've been working on as these quests. Some quests might be straightforward by going "go kill these". Sometimes they could have limitations, such as "build this for these people!". Ya know. Something Minecrafty.

Idk. It just seemed that the idea of having a survival server with some adventure aspects to it never clicked in my head except for this. Dupple would know where I got this from.

I think we have already said this, except it's more "Updating the server" every months or so.

But yeah we can have christmas, halloween, summer, easter and thanks giving events, where we decorate the server in the holiday spirit.