Planning thread for June donation drive

[Ludeman84]

Next month, we will be hosting a donation drive for the servers, as part of our community's 4th anniversary - let's decide what we want to do and how!

 

Tentative date/time is Saturday, June 22nd starting at 4pm EDT (time conversion), for at least 24 hours. Date/time may shift depending on revision/patch schedules and other factors, but please save the date for now. We also intend to have a staff meeting one week prior - we'll let you know once that's finalized (ideally 2 weeks in advance).

 

Please do not tell your non-staff friends yet - we will make an official public announcement closer to the event, once we have more concrete plans and timing.

 

100% of funds raised will go toward the servers.  The primary need is hosting costs for the next 12-18 months. The tech admins would like to move all of our servers to a single host (Secured Servers) - while this will increase our monthly costs somewhat, it should significantly improve server latency for all users (especially those outside the US). Funds may also be used for some hardware purchases, such as a new SSD. Deaygo can field questions on financials and technical details, which have not been finalized.

 

These server-wide events (in which the regular servers are taken down) are usually a lot of fun, with special competitions, unique server formats, and hundreds of players on a single server.  But these events can't happen without your help - whether it's deciding the event we want to do, or helping with event setup, or encouraging friends to join in.  These donation drives are what allow us to keep the server viable without having to solicit donations year-round - so every bit you can do to help is important!

 

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The primary purpose of this thread is to brainstorm what type of event we would like to do for the donation drive. All suggestions are welcome!

 

Below are some examples of server-wide events we've done in the past year, with relevant links (not a comprehensive list):

 

Capture the Flag v1 (April 2012; last actual donation drive)

MCP Planning Thread

Subreddit threads: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

 

3rd Birthday Celebration (June 2012)

Subreddit threads: 1, 2

 

Creative Islands Event (September 2012)

Subreddit threads: 1, 2, 3

 

Capture the Flag v2 (November 2012)

Google Doc for planning

Subreddit threads: 1, 2, 3, 4

 

And here are some other ideas that have been tossed around before:

• Zombie survival
• Factions
• Series of team-based maps (race for the wool, break the core, etc.)
• "Hunger Games" style hardcore event
• Running old maps with chaos rules

[buzzie71]

I would be a huge fan of anything that revolves around team play.  This would include CTF for sure - was thinking also if it were possible to implement something like Payload or Control Points (from TF2) as well as allow for class differentiation (similar to TF2, how each class has a unique loadout designed for a certain gameplay style), that would be pretty awesome too.

 

BTW, if maps are needed, I volunteer P spawn spaceship for incorporation :D

[kitcatbar]

I'm 100% for another CTF and it would probably be hard to change my mind, but I'll get thoughts down on the other options.

• Zombie survival: Could be really fun, assuming we're going off of what MasterCommaThe suggested here. https://nerd.nu/forum/index.php?/topic/32-future-event-ideas/   If we don't go with CTF this would probably be my second choice.
• Factions: I played factions before joining PvE, and it is immensely fun. But it's not something you just play for 24 hours. The fun of it for me was spending time getting well built, defensible bases up with farms, grinders, and materials to supply my faction, then going on raids. 24 hours doesn't seem long enough to get much out of factions.
• Series of team-based maps: I'll add something later if someone explains that more.
• Hunger Games: I like the idea, but I'm not to sure how it would be run. In order to include everyone we would probably have to have multiple rounds, so people can't just jump in mid-game. This seems more broken up with waiting time, whereas CTF was constantly available to be played. Some people stuck around nearly the full 24 hours, and they were free to join and leave at any time they wanted to play. That type of engagement in gameplay was crazy. If we want to replicate that, an event where people can join to play at any time is important.

[buzzinbee]

The hunger games map idea had been brought up before and we actually got very far with it, I don't think it should be the main event. If we stick to the CTF theme, but add in sub events at intervals then it would really work. e.g. at a certain time in the event, players are given the opportunity to go to a hunger games zone, the same way players are brought to an arena night, maybe stick with the team idea? they are contained inside a certain area that is rigged with traps, but also full of equipment, and basically it would just be last team standing, we could have a few rounds of this and then everyone is tp'd to their base again.

 

We could have several events like that going on over the course of the CTF like the zombie survival idea.

 

I think we could have several areas set up for different events, and have a variety of things going on like; king of the hill, spleef, parkour course, zombie attack, hunger games and treasure hunts. We shouldn't limit ourselves to one basic event (if we have time to make several). This could of course be a terrible idea in which case just ignore it :P

[Tharine]

Personally speaking, i'm all for another CTF. I know that whenever i'm asked about something coming up again it's always "when's our next CTF?" as opposed to "when's our next event?" so I think there will be a lot of people looking forward to it as well :P

 

What I thought would be quite a good set up is something similar to last time where we had the CTF map with KOTH and fazaden's obstacle course providing additional buffs/items to the teams that completed them (and maybe a few more mini-events that did similar) - and in addition have something set up for the creative players that tend to miss out on doing something they enjoy during the event. The biggest limitation I could see for this is space, however, if we go with 2 teams instead of four, this would free up some map space we could dedicate to such areas. Maybe have at least one of the spare corners of the map dedicated to a creative-building zone, and we could incorporate it with the CTF by encouraging players to build themed things that we could later worldedit into the rest of the map? I'm thinking along the lines of abandoned structures, parachutes with supplies crashed in the middle of a jungle, and so on.

 

I think along similar lines, if we have the tech/time availability to do so, we could incorporate some of the other ideas (such as hunger games/zombie survival) into the map, but I worry that sounds like a bit too much for the time frame that we have.

[buzzinbee]

CTF and most other events are great as they bring all the servers together, lately there has been a lot of unwanted rivalry between servers. So if we incorporate aspects into the event from creative, survival and pve, with prizes for whatever is done there that benefit all of the team, I think that could be used to strengthen bonds between the servers a bit more. 

 

EDIT: Do we have a map open that we could start laying out some ideas on? and testing designs?

[TheRandomnatrix]

Totally up for another CTF, though I want to keep it to a regular map with bases like the past ones, as opposed to the arena style version proposed. Maybe have donators get to choose what team they get to be on? It'd be fun to toss around a few map layout ideas and start brainstorming how things are set up. I agree that the draw should be something that anyone can join/leave at any time. That'll really help with the popularity of it.

 

I also have an idea that maybe we could bring PvE into things, where the players all rush out from spawn after deciding a team and have to decide where the base gets placed, similar to the initial portal rush. This might have some issues with arguments/base placement, so I'm just throwing it out there.

 

As for the other events:

 

Zombie survival: I think this would be great to go with CTF in some sort of defend the castle scenario sub-event, but I don't think it has enough to be on its own.

 

Creative Islands: I thought it was pretty fun to do. The voting system was just broken last time and needs to be tweaked.

 

KOTH: Maybe have several large scale KOTH arenas get developed, and have people duke it out in one big fight? It could be broken up into several warp points that players could choose between after spawning.

 

Chaos on old revs: Based on what I read on the subreddit posts that were linked, I think this is a bad idea. Too many complaints of  spawn campers/griefers, too much lag. Also, if it's decided that there'll be Survival Chaos on S/PAvE on P again, it'll be pretty close to that time in the rev's cycle.

 

Really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

[Socarch26]

Totally up for another CTF, though I want to keep it to a regular map with bases like the past ones, as opposed to the arena style version proposed. Maybe have donators get to choose what team they get to be on? 

 

 

Although the main objective of this drive is money, I fear that some players would not be happy that there is a "pay to win" option, and that some may compare us to other servers with official ranks and whatnot. 

[brianherman]

Could we get warp signs fixed before the ctf if it happens last time I checked they were broken. They were a very important part of the last ctf.

[TheRandomnatrix]

Although the main objective of this drive is money, I fear that some players would not be happy that there is a "pay to win" option, and that some may compare us to other servers with official ranks and whatnot. 

 

I agree. I was hesitant to suggest that for the concerns you pointed out, but I felt it would be a good way to raise money. Given that there may be two teams and hopefully some sort of balancing system in place to add newer players to the undermanned/losing team, I was hoping that the effects of this would be minor overall while still giving players something they want while helping the servers.

[Ludeman84]

Alright, I seem to be hearing a consensus that we'd like to see CTF come back at the core event, then space out various smaller activities over the course of the event duration (24 hours? longer?)

 

I very much like the suggestion to move to 2 teams this go-round - it greatly simplifies balance between teams, simplifies map construction, and makes it a refreshing change of pace from the last two.  How does everyone feel about proceeding in that direction?

 

For the sake of visibility, I'm gonna relink the planning threads for the last two CTF events:

CTF #1 (April 2012)

CTF #2 (November 2012)

 

As far as "mini-events" during the main CTF event, here's what we've done in the past:

• Obstacle course (typically built by fazaden)
• King of the hill arena (whichever team held the KOTH got buffs map-wide)
• Spleef arena (with kit signs to facilitate running spleef)

Here are other ideas for in-drive events we could do, from this thread and the other one:

• Zombie survival - could be a map-wide event; spawn increasing numbers of zombies all over the map (or at least at team bases) at night, none during the day; come up with a way to have players act as "intelligent mobs"; involve a base defense component
• Chest rushes - have chests/locations that automatically populate with treasures/goodies - this ends up as a kind of KOTH where teams struggle to take control of the area so they can grab the loot
• Build contest - admanta suggested another go at the 10-minute build contest idea; winning builds could maybe be incorporated onto the CTF map right away
• Hide and seek
• Hunger games / battle royale - basically would be just like S arena free-for-alls, but on a larger, more elaborate arena floor with traps, equipment, etc. (maybe not allow anyone to bring in their own gear, too)
• Parkour course
• Treasure hunts

By the way, when I was talking about team-based maps earlier, I was referring to the kind of stuff they do on servers like these.

 

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Next up, I'd like to start recruiting volunteers to tackle specific aspects of this event, so that we can start getting things built now (3.5 weeks out), and figuring out what we need.  We need volunteers in the following roles:

• Map building - as we have in the past, we may choose to incorporate some builds from older maps.  Might also be fun to go with a new, totally unique theme for the map/bases (e.g. futuristic?)
• Plugin development and testing - not just tech admins! If you know what's needed, can help code it up, and work with the tech admins with lots of advance notice to test it, it would be very helpful!
• Leading up various mini-events - This includes creating any necessary builds for your mini-event, figuring out if any plugin work is needed (either using existing plugins or writing new ones) well in advance, and working with the above volunteers to test that.  Events that don't require a lot of tech work (beyond kit signs and such) are preferable.

Please let us know how you'd be willing to help out!  Continued discussion on what we want to do (including if we do want to proceed with another CTF) is also welcome.  Particularly regarding CTF mechanics and how to improve them from previous events, if we do go in that direction.

[newpnewpnewp]

• Zombie survival - could be a map-wide event; spawn increasing numbers of zombies all over the map (or at least at team bases) at night, none during the day; come up with a way to have players act as "intelligent mobs"; involve a base defense componen

 

What about a combination Zombie Survival + CTF map?  Each base gets assaulted by zombies during the night.  The two winning teams get hit harder than the losing teams, forcing them to defend much harder than those teams and limiting them on zerg rushing the other bases during the onslaught.  

[AvengerOfThings]

I volunteer for map building, specifically base building. I think incorporation of a city, such as cmdrtebok & jchances city on C, or two into the map would be cool. i know one of the old CTF maps had PVE cities in it for the post-apocolyptic feel.

[kitcatbar]

I could also help with map/base building.

[totemo]

I've been thinking this morning about plugins for CTF like stuff.  I'll be taking a shot at refactoring the CutePVP code to generalise some of the ideas in there (for example, giving different wool colours different effects).  I also have a couple of other ideas I'd like to play with like special arrows (exploding or cobweb nets, for example).  Also wondering whether it's possible for players to battle each other as mobs, with creature type determining special abilities.  I have no idea if that is even possible.

[Deaygo]

I've been thinking this morning about plugins for CTF like stuff.  I'll be taking a shot at refactoring the CutePVP code to generalise some of the ideas in there (for example, giving different wool colours different effects).  I also have a couple of other ideas I'd like to play with like special arrows (exploding or cobweb nets, for example).  Also wondering whether it's possible for players to battle each other as mobs, with creature type determining special abilities.  I have no idea if that is even possible.

 

slide and I have been discussing a rewrite of the CutePVP plugin, it has caused some issues in the past, and with our experiences from the last events we should be able to cover a lot more of the issues that were experienced.   What do you mean by giving different wool colours different effects?  Like the different teams?    It is technically possible to have players battle as mobs, there is a plugin called MobDisguise (I believe) that does this.

[MasterCommaThe]

Ok, here's an idea. Every morning, everyone who died the previous day respawns fresh. However, for the time the player is dead during the day and night, they come back as a mob, unable to place blocks, but able to cause damage in various ways depending on the type of mob they respawn as. 

 

Players spawned as Creepers will basically perform a suicide run, but be 1 hit kills. That way their tactics lead much more to sneaking up on unsuspecting players, rather than a frontal assault.

 

Players spawned as bats should be able to fly, or maybe just jump continuously, even when not in contact with the ground so they get the bobbing effect. Their damage will be minimal, and rightly so since they'll be tough to kill with anything but a bow.

 

Players spawned as zombies and zombie pigmen get normal melee abilities, except bows, and whatever armor they were wearing when they died. These will be the tanks.

 

Players spawned as skeletons get bow melee ability, but nothing else, and whatever armor they were wearing when they died.

 

Players spawned as spiders get normal melee abilities including a poison effect. I doubt you can give them the ability to climb walls...

 

Players spawned as Enderman will get normal melee abilities, no bows, and a stack of enderpearls  for teleportation. No armor.

An award for a mini-game will be that a player can spawn as a Ghast, or a Blaze, given the bow ability and the ability to fly. 

Another award for a mini-game will be the ability to spawn as a cow or sheep, with minimal melee ability. This "mob player" will act as a spy within the opposing team's base, with the ability to do melee damage.

All "mob players" will spawn at a central location in the map, giving them a fair chance to get to a team's base before respawning as a normal player the following morning.

[totemo]

slide and I have been discussing a rewrite of the CutePVP plugin, it has caused some issues in the past, and with our experiences from the last events we should be able to cover a lot more of the issues that were experienced.   What do you mean by giving different wool colours different effects?  Like the different teams?    It is technically possible to have players battle as mobs, there is a plugin called MobDisguise (I believe) that does this.

 

CutePVP makes wool of one of the three opposing team colours do damage only (IIRC).  The other, non-aligned wool colours are inert for all teams.  

 

I was thinking of allowing the wool colours to have configurable potion buffs:

• Where wool is associated with a particular team, the configuration specifies potion IDs for self team and other teams.
• Other colours of wool apply potion buffs equally to all teams.

[totemo]

Ok, here's an idea. Every morning, everyone who died the previous day respawns fresh. However, for the time the player is dead during the day and night, they come back as a mob, unable to place blocks, but able to cause damage in various ways depending on the type of mob they respawn as. 

 

...

 

 

Interesting ideas.  I was actually thinking more along the lines of mobs being teams, effectively.  So humans vs skeletons vs zombies vs cave spiders, with each group having distinct natural advantages.  Yeah, I don't know how I would go about making spiders climb, but I could certainly boost the jump height.  And I see that the MobDisguise plugin has an API, so this shouldn't be too hard.

 

Your mention of day and night makes me wonder whether different effects could be applied at different times of day, for example to make skeletons and zombies buffer at night.  Or maybe each team gets transformed into a randomly selected mob (same mob for the whole team) at night and turn back into players during the day.  The mapping between team and mob type could change over time so if a particular mob is advantageous the advantage evens out over time.

 

I was thinking about doing magic wands, but I see that there are a bunch of plugins out there that do them already.  I'm looking into this: http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-mods/magicspells/ which allows spells to be learned from books.  The books could be found around the map and dropped by mobs.  Players could spawn with a basic spellbook that teaches them a starter spell and explains what is going on.

[MasterCommaThe]

Oh, and players as mobs should not be able to dig...we don't need a herd of creepers tunneling right up next to a base. 

We should be careful with whatever abilities we grant that "mob zerging" isn't more effective than regular zerging as a team.

[Tharine]

I very much like the suggestion to move to 2 teams this go-round - it greatly simplifies balance between teams, simplifies map construction, and makes it a refreshing change of pace from the last two.  How does everyone feel about proceeding in that direction?

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• Map building - as we have in the past, we may choose to incorporate some builds from older maps.  Might also be fun to go with a new, totally unique theme for the map/bases (e.g. futuristic?)
• Leading up various mini-events - This includes creating any necessary builds for your mini-event, figuring out if any plugin work is needed (either using existing plugins or writing new ones) well in advance, and working with the above volunteers to test that.  Events that don't require a lot of tech work (beyond kit signs and such) are preferable

 

Definite yes to moving towards 2 teams only this time around. I feel that will drastically cut down on the issues we've had with mispopulated teams (be it literal numbers or what kind of abilities particular players bring to the event), as well as strengthen the sense of teamwork people will have by only having one enemy to focus on. People who have frequented Survival this revision will know how well the Carrot VS Potato war has fared, and I think having a similar setup in the CTF would do well. The only condition for this would be that we need to either:

 

a) Make it so that flag carriers will drop the wool they're holding after X amount of time

b) Make sure that flag carriers cannot re-enter their base defenses (outside of the area they will need to place the captured flag down)

 

This would be to avoid a stalemate where both teams have each other's flags, and make sure that we don't need to come down to some decisive action at the time as staff on how to resolve it when it comes up.

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As for the map building and mini-events, I would be open to helping with either/both. I really loved how we included structures from old revisions in the centre of the map on the first CTF, and if we can ensure to the best of our ability that neither team is greater benefited by the structures closest to them (iirc, one team had an iron block structure near theirs) then I would love to see this again. Kind of plays into a supposed backstory as to why the two teams are fighting, and it's pretty cool to explore these in a warzone-type setting.

 

I was thinking, if I had the time to during the event, that I would be keen on holding mini punt contests every now and then that would reward winners with prizes for their teams. I'd have to flesh the idea out a bit more, but I figured it might be nice to have something going during Australian prime time when there typically aren't any other mini events run.

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I'd also be keen to have plumped ores like we did last time, as well as include PlumpXP and the /unenchant command, if possible. I had a question for the tech admins but i've forgotten it already  so i'll return here when I remember what it is I was curious about tech-wise~

[MasterCommaThe]

I think early rewards for mini-games should be in the form of quantities of valuable ores or livestock. Buffs are much more important later in the game.

[Ludeman84]

Thanks for the continued feedback!

 

Based on the above discussion, we have the following "volunteer teams" to work on the event so far:

 

Map/Base-building: AvengerOfThings, kitcatbar, Tharine

Plugin Dev (CutePVP, etc): totemo, Deaygo, slide23

Mini-Event Planning: Tharine (punt)

 

People who have volunteered - please feel free to proceed with any tasks you signed up to help with - and recruit other mods/admins to help out!  Perhaps we should try to meet up next weekend to see what we have so far / discuss ideas / gather a big group to work on things?

 

People who haven't volunteered - please consider helping out!  This will almost certainly be the most important event we host all year.  Please let us know if you can help with any of the stuff listed above, or host your own mini-event during the donation drive (and if so, what kind) - see details here.

 

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Here's a summary of the ideas discussed since that post, and who proposed them:

• Zombie survival (muldoonaz): bases get attacked by zombies at night; winning team gets attacked harder (balancing effect)
• Incorporate old builds into map (avenger/tharine): examples include tebok/jchance city, or any builds from older revisions (presumably not those used on previous CTFs); need to make sure build placement/contents are well-balanced geographically between teams
• Players fighting as mobs (totemo/mastercommathe/deaygo): have players transform into mobs under certain conditions - can't edit blocks, but can cause damage, and have various natural advantages/disadvantages; MobDisguise plugin makes this technically possible; various ideas for how to trigger this (become random mob when you die, spawning at center of mob, turn back into human each sunrise; each team becomes random mob each night; etc.)
• Mini-game rewards (mastercommathe): valuable ores and/or livestock early in event; buffs more important later in event
• New plugin-based effects (totemo): give wool colors different effects (e.g., configurable potion buffs); special arrows; magic wands and spells (related plugin)
• Proposed configuration (tharine): flag carries drop wool flag they're holding after certain amount of time; flag carriers cannot re-enter their base defenses, only return to where the flag gets placed; use plumped ores, PlumpXP, /unenchant as before

[buzzinbee]

I'd like to help out with Map/ Base building if that's ok. Also i'd like to help out with mini events.

[MasterCommaThe]

Umm, amateur question, but, If we help build the base and such, are we still allowed to play in the event, or must we moderate?

I'd like to do both, but would rather play more than build if I had to choose. (odd for a C mod, I know.)