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talon6758
25th February 2013, 00:04
Some people told me we can't go to the nether on skyblock. I would like to know why. It would make the server more fun for people. Especially if the nether was and island.:goldingot:

InsaneJ
25th February 2013, 03:19
I already explained it to you in chat, but for the people who didn't listen in on that conversation I'll post it here as well :)

The reason we don't want people going to the nether on the Skyblock server is because it will unbalance the game. Skyblock is meant to be provide a certain challenge. By going to the nether you can easily get a ton of materials that help you make you island safer. People who just want to build should go to one of our other servers instead ;)

I am working on getting a second world on the Skyblock server that works without the challenges and is therefore less strict. You'll be able to start with larger islands that have more variety. I'm thinking about cube worlds or world in a bowl that basically have all the ores in them.

talon6758
27th February 2013, 04:00
You know, I was thinking, we discussed this in chat too, but what if the nether was a skyblock version? I was watching one of DOM's livestreams, and he was coding a plugin. I was thinking, when he got good enoguh, he could code a plugin that made the nether skyblock version. That way, we could get flint and stuff from gravel in the nether.

LordBufu
21st May 2013, 19:03
I already explained it to you in chat, but for the people who didn't listen in on that conversation I'll post it here as well :)

The reason we don't want people going to the nether on the Skyblock server is because it will unbalance the game. Skyblock is meant to be provide a certain challenge. By going to the nether you can easily get a ton of materials that help you make you island safer. People who just want to build should go to one of our other servers instead ;)

I am working on getting a second world on the Skyblock server that works without the challenges and is therefore less strict. You'll be able to start with larger islands that have more variety. I'm thinking about cube worlds or world in a bowl that basically have all the ores in them.

Only down side is the nether quartz, soulsand and netherrack, but as it stands in this plugin you guys using ... its currently even more limited and dull then the SSP 2.1 version of skyblock.

I mean seriously did you even look closely at all 30 challenges on the list ??
Cause i only see 3 challenges that keep me from doing every single on that list with in 3/4 days time from the start. And yet your talking about it having to provide a certain challenge ......... that is just a bad joke tbh.

Sure netherrack soulsand and quartz can be obtained fairly easy, but does it really brake the game ?

- I mean what does it yield you in the end making a whole island out of netherrack, aside from having the most ugly island on the server ?? Thats right nothing at all people that have no life like me will just as quickly if not quicker build a whole island out of stone bricks (yes you hear it right stone bricks)
- Is it really that imba to have quartz blocks up to a certain extend ?? No its not it just pure decoration and exp gain from mining it, that is the whole reason it got added into minecraft in the first place (like the new clay block mechanics in 1.6), what else do you gain from it ? nothing i tell you nothing at all.
- Does soulsand brake the whole skyblock game ? No it does not it might make some mob traps a bit easier to manage, but lets face it its not like people are going to be short on mob drops anyways ..... so why bother nerving that side of the game ?


What does one miss out on in the nether that might possibly imballance the server you ask ?
- Netherward for potions (but really do they make skyblock that imba ?? no cause you only have 3 sand and thus no way to make potions).
- Blazerods to make potion stand and maybe even smelt stuff (again i see 0 harm in that at all, maybe a blaze farm is a bit imba in terms of EXP but then again you need to build it and thus waste resources better spend on your island or expanding the exp you already have making the balze farm rather useless again).
- Ghasttears ....... Yeah there like really super easy to get aint they .... lol
- Wither skulls, well yeah ok i can see an issue starting here, but then again server side config disable wither summon and you done for that matter. O yeah and they drop coal every once in a while omg so IMBA ...... /sarcasme
- Glowstone, its nice its cool and it gives light, yeah aint that a real game breaker .... again 100% decoration, torches are cheaper and quicker to get, risk vs rewards makes this not game breaking. (fun fact on the side the SSP 2.1 version of the nether has a 3x3x3 glowstone platform you start out on its that imba they made a nether island out of it)

Now the only negative thing i could see coming from the nether is the fact that it allows for golem farms, and thus a iron age in skyblock (not to forget it will cost 2 bottles that can never be reused again. Bringing iron armor, tools and stacks on stack of iron blocks). But it also opens up for so much more options in terms of mini games and entertainment. Cause really at the rate i normaly build, this plugin is going to bore the living daylights out of me in a couple of days, give it 2 weeks and ill be jumping in the void every 5min cause i wont know what to do anymore (in Uskyblock terms that would be close or past island level 1000).

So yeah in short only things comming from the nether that are "imba" needs sand to be produced, and i see no way to get more then the 3 peice i have atm (witch is also kind of sad tbh even SSP has a nice extra island giving you 3x9 peice of sand and your first 2 piece of catus if you dont wat to long to get there) unless i missed something obvious.

To me the point behind SMP skyblock is having something that can last for a while, some place to enjoy yourself with friends (or without) chatting and showing other people how much you know (or don't know) about the game. I played out all SSP challenges in less then 2 weeks time, these 30 (aside from 3) wont last any longer then 4 days tops if i set my mind to it.

So plz tell me what is the challenge here ?? What is going to keep me entertained if have all i need on my island and more after a week or 2 of playing it, cause all i need is done after a week and 4 days in terms of the challenges list ?

If you look at the dynmap you can see the point im trying to make, aside from the few islands that have grown a fair bit (and the one odd blue ball somewhere in the middle), there isn't much impressive going on in the skylands. And why is that ... because there is nothing to do or goal to set other then sitting behind your cobble gen until you "/yawn" and need to sleep irl, that is not what SMP is about let alone the core idea behind skyblock when it was first though up/released. To bad so many people think it is, and dont grasp what is the true idea behind it nor get the whole spirit of making a challenge for players that enjoy building above a endless void.

Sorry for the long wall of text, that is just th way i feel about it as oldschool minecrafter/skylord.
The only i thing i play survival for atm is FTB SSP, maybe a bit more vanilla after 1.6 to check out horses etc. Other then that a good skyblock is the only thing that gets me going when im bored of doing research for hours on end on plugins in FTB. And this is not what i call a good skyblock experience, im sorry i just cant.

Hope you do something with this feedback, and see it as feedback and not some page long rant witch it really isnt. There are so many skyblocks out there where you can just buy your way to the top, that its a shame seeing a server that finally got those few things right is missing the board on so many other things i just had to type this all out.

Anyways just my 2 cents hope you enjoyed the read, if not sorry can't help it :P

P.S: the second world you are talking about sound more like the Cube Plugin and something that should not be mixed up with the term skyblock. Besides all ore in a skyblock like world and no challenges is going to be boring even quicker then the current skyblock setup.

LordBufu
26th May 2013, 02:54
Just to prove my point here is a quick view of what i did so far in the past 4/5 days.

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Hope you can see it properly, but that is basically a top down view of the island, the bottom part is being made as a 99x99 platform being the max boundary's of the island. Only a few more stacks of cobble and i am done with the base and can start building up again from the center with my special project.

The point is that there is no point in doing it, if you master all trades (so to speak) one could finish it all with a really small island basically waiting for your crops to grow. All you need is a platform 23 blocks out or further with grass growing on it so you can get cows.

I could and am going to over time, build castles in the sky, but the issues with that are:



Who is going to see it or be able to wonder around it without being able to grief it ?
What does one gain for spending so much time on a island ?
What to do while gather the resources to make it all, cause that can be quite boring from time to time, especially when going for stone brick like me.
Will i ever be able to increase my farms size because i mastered all trades and moved on to making something nice instead of effectively small and potentially dangerous ?


Without the return of something useful for the effort spend on a skyblock, skyblock basically mean nothing. I could vote for diamonds, but then again cobble cant be mined faster then it generates so that is rather useless to start with. I could make diamond armor, but there is nothing i could use the armor for as my island is (and always has been) a controlled area and thus nothing spawns unless i want it to spawn in a specific place (aside from slime, but that is a matter of time before i pin points the chunks and lock them in, just my luck to land in about 3 slime chunks :( ).

I got 27 gold ingots sitting in a chest that are kind of useless, the server is on hard mode so i get plenty of gold armor even enchanted pieces, and tools are just a waste of gold just as much as golden apples etc cause there more of food for battle (giving a re-generation effect rather then a hunger effect) witch is something that is non-existent on skyblock in this configuration.

I mean i don't really need a nether to be entertained during my building process, but right now making the smallest island seems to be more profitable in time wasted and rewards gained then making something nice that you could be proud of spending so much time on.

This is what i think should be changed:



Ability to gain more dirt and or grass, even as a voting rewards that would be a good start (though when going for the voting option one should take into account the challenge for the juke box as it needs 1 diamond to make it).
Ability to gain more sand over time, this can be loads less then the dirt, but getting some sand in trade for resources gained would be nice for those wanting to make an automated cactus farm or those wanting to make potions.
Ability to gain a blaze rod, or a few, to start brewing potions and waste some resources left and right.
Ability to get netherward as its a key material for potions, and depending on how you gain it there might be a need for soulsand to keep the supply going.
Ability to get all material for making all colors of dye's, i think the only thing that is missing atm is lapis and coca beans but i haven't tried out squid spawning yet either.
Ability to get Obsidian (or lava for that matter) so we can make enderchests and enchant tables, and for me that means record farms as well cause i like to do that with out having to blow up my island.


Those few options already bring a ton of other option to make island designs with a realistic way with a wider color range. Now there are a few things that are on my want to have list but are not really needed to make it fun, and those are:



Netherbrick, one could also say netherrack but then again we all know whats going to happen if people get a steady supply going of that.
Clay, for bricks basically who doesn't want real chimney on his house ??
Other saplings simply cause oak tree are getting boring to see them all day every day.
Sandstone ? although i never really saw the point of that in skyblock its a wanted material never the less.
The option to visit others without being part of there island party to gain new idea's or just wonder around /gasping at awesome buildings and of-course only with permission from the island owner meaning they have to allow you to get on it somehow.


That is basicly how i see it, and that still leaves us with that one thing that no one mentioned so far, PvP the ability to use up the weapons and armor you stocked up on.

Point im trying to make is, at some point everyone there project is finished it be big or small, and its just going to sit there looking nice being a waste of map space really, they will move on to a another server on the list and maybe come back every so often but mainly leaving an empty server behind. In the time i spend on the skyblock server i have seen no people that played on the bigger islands, meaning they have lost interest in the gametype witch is bad cause there are a few nice islands on the map that might have taken a long time to make. Like mentioned in the previous reply skyblock should be all about building cool stuff above the void, that you can share with others and use to learn game mechanics to others. There are no ranks in this plugin so who cares how big it is, you dont get a bigger rank building a certain block type or island size.

Again just my 2 cents though.

demman8
26th May 2013, 05:31
I must agree with LordBufu. Even if the nether was added, what could it really do that affects the challenge? Glowstone? Can easily make torches. Netherrack/brick? Just a red version of cobble and stone brick if you ask me. All I really see is added lava which allows for more cobble generators. We would be able to turn off the mobs in the area, right? That would make it so only the raw materials are available, no blaze rods, ghast tears, whatever wither skeletons do, and the meat pigmen drop.

LordBufu
26th May 2013, 06:58
I must agree with LordBufu. Even if the nether was added, what could it really do that affects the challenge? Glowstone? Can easily make torches. Netherrack/brick? Just a red version of cobble and stone brick if you ask me. All I really see is added lava which allows for more cobble generators. We would be able to turn off the mobs in the area, right? That would make it so only the raw materials are available, no blaze rods, ghast tears, whatever wither skeletons do, and the meat pigmen drop.

Mob drops are not the issue, its the lava and the raw materials that are, witch in case of netherrack does make a point but since we have no ranks i don't see why that is an issue to start with. Snow is more easy to get then netherrack, and can be used in the same way to build a quick platform and is about as ugly used in those large amounts. As an alternative one can poor lava down wait for it to glitch out on bedrock level, and then poor down water besides it (also not directly besides it, needs a little trick for it to work), if seen at least 2 islands making a wall down the side of there island that way (before i got bored of scrolling around dynmap), there is no way to stop stupid people from doing stupid things is what i'm saying basically.

InsaneJ
26th May 2013, 13:09
Wow, long walls of text. Why are you doing this to me this early? It makes my head hurt :(

Ok, I am going to read all of that later in the day so I can give you an answer. I will then also answer the question regarding the challenges and lay out the plans I have for Skyblock's future.

LordBufu
26th May 2013, 15:20
Wow, long walls of text. Why are you doing this to me this early? It makes my head hurt :(

Ok, I am going to read all of that later in the day so I can give you an answer. I will then also answer the question regarding the challenges and lay out the plans I have for Skyblock's future.

Dint mean to hurt your head man, read it when ever you feel up to it, o good amount of coffee usually helps me for things like this ;)

InsaneJ
29th May 2013, 16:30
Whooops! I totally forgot to reply :B

DOM is setting up shops at spawn to address the missing items issue.

The idea of those boxes has long since been abandoned since it's only fun for an hour or so. The new idea I'm playing around with is having a world made out of randomly generated floating islands. It'll have biomes and islands in all shapes and sizes. The idea is to have some sort of protection plugin, maybe Towny, so people can claim an area for themselves and invite other players to their island if they want to.

I do not intent to have an economy where you have to pay periodic upkeep like on Towny, just to buy the initial plots and then they're yours forever. The more people that join your island/town/nation, the more plots you will be able to buy. Since Towny doesn't allow towns to be too close together, if you claim an island it's pretty much yours. Except that grief protection only works inside claimed plots of course.

Since the islands can sometimes be a considerable distance apart, bridges will have to be build. So I'm thinking about setting up a public tree farm and some cobble generators at the new world's spawn so people can get the materials they need to go out into the Floating Island world.

It's still just an idea, and if you have any thoughts please share. Right now the hard part is generating the terrain. I'll post some screenshots soon but it's slow going.

As for the nether, I guess we could open it up. But I do think it would be a good idea to remove the current nether and generate a new one so it has all the ores in it.

InsaneJ
29th May 2013, 18:56
This is what I'm talking about:

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An entire world of that^

Generating 500x500 chunks currently takes 70 minutes on my PC. I'd want the world to be at least 1500x1500 chunks. So that's about a day's worth of pre-generating worlds. Unfortunately I can't generate bigger then 500x500 maps currently. Stitching the worlds together is going to be a pain...

Also, we may want to add a 'flying machine' plugin to this world.

Marius49
29th May 2013, 19:55
Check this out might be interesting to use to fly around there. :)

http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/flightpack/

LordBufu
30th May 2013, 14:26
DOM is setting up shops at spawn to address the missing items issue.

Yeah i saw this in his live stream, he asked me to make a list of things and possible prices, witch is what im working on now but its taking bit longer then expected due to RL crap ...


The new idea I'm playing around with is having a world made out of randomly generated floating islands. It'll have biomes and islands in all shapes and sizes. The idea is to have some sort of protection plugin, maybe Towny, so people can claim an area for themselves and invite other players to their island if they want to.

Seperate from skyblock or linked up with skyblock ?
Cause if its linked the whole shop thingie isnt needed, although that can also be removed by that time or changed were neeeded.

I like the idea in general though, especially after seeing those screenshot :P



As for the nether, I guess we could open it up. But I do think it would be a good idea to remove the current nether and generate a new one so it has all the ores in it.

As the shops are being worked on, i suggest keeping it closed for now and see how the shops go, or one could open it with a world gaurd protection and border just for PvP purposes to kill time (although im not sure how that would go portal whize for each island currently on the map, sicne the cords are linked and they could potential end up outside the protectio/border ?). With the use of shops you have more controlle over how much resources people get and how "fast" they grow, so it wont be needed to to gain resources.

Just keep in mind with any costum flying aditions to the server that a lot of them are very glitchy and when servers get crowded they start being a pain rather then a solution i many cases. Id suggest doing a lot of testing before adding things like that to a world. I saw this happen on a few servers, the worst one i seen so far was a flying carpet called magic carpet, man that thing was a pain to move around and even worse when a lag spike hit you in the face.

Ill keep an eye out to see how this goes on, but for now i got my hands full mixing and matching items to get those shops going :P

*edit* small thing i noticed, people are abusing the "/island restart" function atm to gain resources, is there anything inside the plugin that can prevent this a bit more like a massivly long delay on re-use ? I have a coule of screenshot from a team restart a island over 6 times to gain sand and lava buckets, and a few more assorted once about a young player having atleast 6 water buckets ><

InsaneJ
30th May 2013, 16:18
Don't worry, there's no rush. Last thing we want is for you to stress out on anything Minecraft related so just take your time :)

The plan is to have the map run on the Skyblock server since it fits with the theme. However the islands do not have an abundance of resources, so the shops might still be needed. I'm not sure if it should be available to anyone, or if you have to rank up to before you're allowed into that world. So it's a kind of a reward thing for completing the first Skyblock island. Although the conditions for completing the first island would have to be defined.

Any custom flying mod would have to work properly before I'd include it for everyone because I don't want broken plugins on my servers. So that means testing and then testing some more, giving feedback to the dev, getting a new version, testing some more.

/island restart isn't a command that's available on our Skyblock server so I'm not sure what you mean? If you do /island delete your inventory is cleared. If you do /island leave or /island spawn (to go to spawn, not your island) your inventory is also cleared. You can no longer TP to spawn while falling(dev changed that for us on request). People would take out items, jump off the island, TP to spawn and die there from falling. After respawning at Spawn they could then collect the items and repeat the process.

So how are people getting 'free' resources now exactly? If you can explain or show it then I'll ask the dev to fix it :)

InsaneJ
31st May 2013, 01:33
Did some more work on the map. Here are a some more epic screenshots :)

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