[PMC] Fundraiser #2 - Development

[SwitchViewz]

Hey everyone, it's that long lost thread about the second Fundraiser I have been meaning to post.

 

Quick Note

Anything on here is subject to change based on feedback from everyone and potential plugin limits. However this is the official plan that we are rolling with and anything that changes will still closely resemble this plan. Also, please feel free to suggest things and changes!

 

Claiming Projects & Trello

Everything that needs to be completed and done are listed on the Events Trello page under "Fundraiser 2". Please claim any object you would like to work on, and use the comments and checklists to update us on your status for it. We will (mostly) not be using the forum topic for status updates this time around, as all status should be easily viewable on the Trello page.

 

Plugin Testing

To save workload on the tech admins we will be testing and configuring a variety of plugins on my personal server box. Testing will be done in 2 ways, 1: Whenever I am around I will send a message into IRC -mods saying I'm testing and looking for volunteers, 2: I will set up a official time here in the thread if I need a bunch of people at the same time. The server will not always be up and running as I turn it off at night, however I will try to leave it up as much as possible.

Server IP: minecraft.modernfps.com

 

General Event Information

This fundraiser is a CTF game in space where 2 teams fight for each other's flags off of ships in space. The map is full of a variety of different sized asteroids and minature planets that each have resources and spawners in them. Players can move around by building bridges and platforms or by flying around with a jetpack (assuming they have coal to fuel it).

Teams

• 2 Teams: Yellow VS Lime

Environment & Map

• Map Size: 1500 x 1500
• Always night (as it is space)
• Map consists of 2 medium sized space ships for each team spawn in opposite corners of the map
• Map consists of a variety of floating islands and planets. Different islands will have different ores or spawners, and be made out of different materials. The customization of these floating islands is completely up to the staff member making that island.

Other Dimensions

Dimensions are other worlds that are not the main world and contain special attributes. The idea behind these dimensions is to encourage a center point of battle as well as resource harvesting as resources will be limited on the floating islands.

 

Mining Dimension

• This dimension is made purely out of ores, glowstone, obsidian and lava. It is a resource rich world. However the world itself has the effect of Mining Fatigue 2 and Blindness 1. It is also only 500x500 (may increase to 750x750)

Dungeon Dimension

• This dimension is made out of a large staff built dungeon full if indestructible spawners. In this dimension exp drops are tripled as well as mob drops, however you have a constant negative effect of weakness 2

Other Dimensions?

• If anyone has idea's for more dimensions or how to improve the current ones then please share!

Flags 

3 flags total

• 1 Flag above your ship (meant to be easy to defend)
• 2 Flags placed somewhere in front of your ship on a floating island that you have to find (meant to be harder to defend)

The idea of multiple flags is to have different flags be worth a different amount of capture points. The harder to cap flags are worth more points then the easier to cap flags.

 

Buffs:

There are 5 buff towers total. This time around buff towers are to be much smaller, approximately half the size of the previous CTF's buff towers, but will be more difficult to get to via parkour or some challenge.

- 2 towers give 1 positive buff to your team and 1 negative buff to the enemy team. 

- 1 tower gives a super buff to your team but also a super buff to the enemy team

- 2 towers give 1 positive buff to your team

 

The idea behind multiple towers that do different things is to provide more depth to strategy. If the super buff tower gives your team Health Boost 3, but gives the enemy team Regeneration 2, is it worth that extra health?

 

Tower 1

• Friendly Positive Buff: Speed 1
• Enemy Negative Buff: Slowness 1

Tower 2

• Friendly Positive Buff: Haste 1
• Enemy Negative Buff: Mining Fatigue 1

Tower 3

• Friendly Super Buff: Health Boost 5 (Grants an addition 10 hearts of life)
• Enemy Super Buff: Regeneration 3

Tower 4

• Friendly Positive Buff: Resistance 1

Tower 5

• Friendly Positive Buff: Strength 1

Minigames

There are to be 4-5 minigames and each minigame is to be hosted by a staff member several times throughout the event. Sort of like a "mini-event". The winning team of the minigame will get a bonus for there team, such as control for Buff Tower 4 granted to them, or 5 flag captures added to there score, or in game items, or something else. The staff member that builds the minigame will get to help determine prizes for that minigame.

 

• Minigame 1: KOTH - A single large tower is in the middle and each team spawns on opposite sides of the tower. The teams must then fight to get to the top of the tower and the first player on a team to reach the top wins and gets the prize for there team. Players can start with minimal gear of the staff member running the minigame chooses so.
• Minigame 2: Parkour - A challenging parkour course around the main Event Tree Spawn that is rather large. Throughout the parkour there will be various signs for prizes, and the farther you get in the parkour the harder it gets but the more rewarding the prizes become.
• Minigame 3: Spleef - Simply put, it's spleef, but done on a team scale. The arena should be able to support up to 5v5.
• Minigame 4: Obstacle Course Race - A challenging but fun obstacle course that players race through to be the first one to win
• Minigame 5+? Think we should add more minigames? Suggest away!

 

Tech Things & Feature Requests

To make this fundraiser happen we will need several changes made to CutePvP and several features added. Please let me know how doable the following items are and if they can be achieved within a 3-4 month timeframe. I color coded the features, green means it would be a nice feature to have but is not required, red is a badly needed feature that is vital to have added.

• Scoreboard: A scoreboard on the right side of the screen displaying how many points and players on each team, as well as which team controls which buff tower
• Flag Points: The ability to set how points a player gets for capping a certain flag
• Chat: Staff members need the ability to set regular and broadcast messages to only specific teams
• Team Balance: Some sort of system to help balance the teams. Such as enabling passive buffs on a team if they are behind X points, and the further behind they get the more buffs they get. As well as having a way for players to switch teams when one side is losing badly.
• Commands: Change the owners of buff towers, and to grant points to teams
• Passive Buffs: Buffs that are always on or on for X time to one team or all teams. Such as Saturation or a buff for winning a minigame

Timeline and Deadlines

The goal for this fundraiser is to go live at the end of November or early December. The following deadlines are meant to keep us on track and make sure everything is completed in time:

 

August 24th: All builds claimed and assigned by staff members

September 21st: All plugin testing and configuration to be completed (not including changes/things done by techs in the feature requests above)

November 1st: Main map and dimensions completed

November 9th: All other major builds (minigames, buff towers, etc.) completed

November 16th: All tech work completed and testing begins

November 20th: All staff members signed up for hosting minigames and events

November 23rd: Any last minute or emergency tech work and testing to be completed

November 27th - 30th: Event goes live

[SkrapssparkS]

Excellent, the deadline for August 24th: all build claimed and assigned by staff members. Would this be leaders of the projects assigned to the individual projects e.g. player x assigned to creating planet x or is this everyone that is working on the event assigned a different task?

[Guest Former Staff]

Could we have a full list of each build, their recommended dimensions and any other instructions needed to build them in line with this event please?

[SkrapssparkS]

I believe what is going to happen is SwitchViewz and myself are going to lead the project in general, however we will have several objectives that can be claimed on trello. Once all these have been claimed if a new player joins they may approach any of the objective leaders and ask what needs to be done. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Guest Former Staff]

• Minigame 2: Parkour - A challenging parkour course around the main Event Tree Spawn that is rather large. Throughout the parkour there will be various signs for prizes, and the farther you get in the parkour the harder it gets but the more rewarding the prizes become.

 

I've been working on a parkour course for the event spawn to be used in time for the charity fundraiser. Skraps and I have been discussing the implementation.

[SwitchViewz]

Excellent, the deadline for August 24th: all build claimed and assigned by staff members. Would this be leaders of the projects assigned to the individual projects e.g. player x assigned to creating planet x or is this everyone that is working on the event assigned a different task?

My hope is to have all projects claimed by people that want to build them.

 

 

Could we have a full list of each build, their recommended dimensions and any other instructions needed to build them in line with this event please?

I have filled all the Trello cards out with basic information regarding each item. I will add dimensions in if need be but a lot of these things will be up to the builders of the item (as long as nothing is insanely massive).

[Sir_Didymus]

Hi guys,

 

I have tried to come up with a diagram of some minimal build requirements in order make the CTF space event achievable. This is a slightly reduced version of what's on trello currently, with the goal of getting something functional going (which could then be added to later, if time allows).

 

I apologize in advance for this frankly terrible MSPaint example:

 

 

The builds numbered here are listed below. I have included dimensions, to hopefully make it easier to get started.

 

1A.  Lime Team Floating Island [Approx 250 x 250] DONE (aside from gameplay adjustments)

1B.  Lime Team Spaceship [Maximum size 100 x 100] [Assigned: buzzie71] DONE (til paste)

1C.  Lime Team Moonbase Dome [Approx 120 x 120] [Assigned: schererererer]

 

2A.  Red Team Floating Island [Approx 250 x 250] DONE (aside from gameplay adjustments)

2B.  Red Team Spaceship [Maximum size 100 x 100] [Assigned: schererererer] DONE (til paste)

2C.  Red Team Moonbase Dome [Approx 120 x 120] [Assigned: schererererer]

 

3.     Lime Team Flag A on Small Floating Island [Flag Area 21 x 21, Floating Island 60 x 60] [Assigned: zomise] DONE

4.     Lime Team Flag B on Small Floating Island [Flag Area 21 x 21, Floating Island 60 x 60] [Assigned: Sir_Didymus] DONE

 

5.     Red Team Flag A on Small Floating Island [Flag Area 21 x 21, Floating Island 60 x 60] [Assigned: Sir_Didymus] DONE

6.     Red Team Flag B on Small Floating Island [Flag Area 21 x 21, Floating Island 60 x 60] [Assigned: Sir_Didymus] DONE

 

 

7.     Buff 1: Space Monster Theme [Max 150 x 150] [Assigned: stellarviking]

8.     Buff 2: Space Station Theme [Max 150 x 150] [Assigned: SwitchViewz] ONGOING

9.     Buff 3: Spaceship Wreck or 'Space Battle' Theme [Max 150 x 150] [Assigned: Narissis] ONGOING

 

10.   [Across the map] Resource Asteroids of various useful materials and sizes [Maximum 50 x 50] [Assigned: SirTacoface, Zomise, Didy] ONGOING

 

11.   [Across the map] 'Space Debris' - satellites, small spaceships etc. - maybe containing loot? [Maximum 30 x 30] [Assigned: wyndysascha, SkrapssparkS, SirTacoface, Zomise, Didy (more needed)] ONGOING

 

Other things:

 

Many of the plots for these builds are laid out already if you want to take a look to get a feel for the sizes I'm suggesting here.

 

Questions:

 

1. Does this sound workable, for a basic map, just to get us started on building?

 

2. Are there any volunteers out there who would consider taking on some of these builds?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

~Didy

[Guest]

GIFF ME lime flag. Thought I called it yesterday. :)

 

Lime for life.

[WyndySascha]

This looks like so much fun! :D

 

Can I snag space debris please?  Most of my builds are rubbish, might as well put that to good use XD

[schererererer]

I'd like to throw in for the yellow team spaceship, please.

[SkrapssparkS]

I'd like to throw in for the yellow team spaceship, please.

Buzzie has created lime team spaceship I think if you were to create one you will have to take a look at it on /mvtp admin to ensure it's fair e.g. make sure 1 spaceship doesn't come with diamond armour sets :P

[schererererer]

Will do - how close in size and/or aesthetic would you like to see them?

[buzzie71]

Just so this is more in writing somewhere: I went a little too crazy with mine and made a lot of assumptions that may or may not be in line with Eadmin plans ><.  Let me know if things need to be changed around.

[Sir_Didymus]

Will do - how close in size and/or aesthetic would you like to see them?

 

Could it be a similar size to buzzie's ship? Aesthetically, though, whatever you'd like to do is cool. I think the important thing is probably that the interiors contain broadly the same things, so that the game is balanced?

[SwitchViewz]

Will do - how close in size and/or aesthetic would you like to see them?

Pretty much what Sir_Didymus said. The design of the ship does not really matter and could be drastically different as long as the things inside are roughly the same and don't give one team an unfair advantage.

[SwitchViewz]

Some progress shots!

 

We still need people for other builds such as more floating islands and buff towers. Please come by and lend a hand!

[Guest Former Staff]

I understand there have been some requests for our tech admins to look into some of the requests here. Due to the two weekends of resets and further problems that are arising on creative / pve, it may be some time before they have had a chance to get on top of things and had some time to relax before looking into this event. For now I would recommend focusing on working through Sir_Didymus' list.

[SwitchViewz]

I understand there have been some requests for our tech admins to look into some of the requests here. Due to the two weekends of resets and further problems that are arising on creative / pve, it may be some time before they have had a chance to get on top of things and had some time to relax before looking into this event. For now I would recommend focusing on working through Sir_Didymus' list.

Indeed, I just don't want us to run out of time and not have the features make it or have us rush to do them as I am concerned that that may happen.

 

I am currently working on the ore dimension and one of the buff towers but we could really use some more help from other staff members! We have a lot of things to build yet and only a couple people on board.

[redwall_hp]

I was looking over your list, and one thing stuck out: I think team balance is a terrible idea.

 

You spend hours furthering the progress of one team, putting in time and effort toward the objective and gearing yourself up. Then suddenly, you're on another team, isolated from the people you were playing with...and now you can't access all of the gear you had. You're back to square one.

 

Couple that with the intense competitiveness (you fight one team for a long time and suddenly end up on it) of the game and you'll have no end of discontent. Outrage of being switched to another team, possibly the team being dicks since you were "the enemy."

 

Auto balance is just an all around bad idea. It sucks in a short FPS game, and it's entirely ridiculous in a game where with a persistant, alterable world. Any work you do is virtually obliterated. It's not really conducive to encouraging donations...

 

Additionally, there's just not a good way to *do* it in a game where people can log out and log in at will. If you balance off online players, that would obviously not work. And if you balance by total offline players, it would be evenly balanced already based on the plugin's normal attempt at distributing them. You'd have to log "last seen" times and use some silly algorithm to determine when a team is "unfairly disadvantaged," and then it all falls apart with differing time zones and such. Then there's the balancing itself. How do you decide who gets moved? Points scored? Randomly moving players over? Shuffling the teams in their entirety? It's an incredibly complex feature that's bound to create unfairness.

 

Resets are the same. If I hadn't been sick and barely playing anyway, I would have rage quit after the reset that happened. There's no way in hell I'm going to spend six hours mining and building only to go to bed and have it gone in the morning. No way.

 

One team is always going to win: the only thing to be done is to ensure that the map is designed in a way that gives both teams a fighting chance, and a chance to bounce back. It's happened in the past with no issues. (The biggest problem this past CTF was the lack of outer walls, which was primarily due to time constraints from building being put off.)

 

A much more equitable solution would be allowing players to switch to another team by choice, if the team has fewer players, and only allow them one switch to prevent it from being abused.

[SwitchViewz]

@redwall_hp:

 

I completely agree however I wasn't trying to suggest auto balance. I hate it just as much as the next guy and agree that it is a terrible solution. When I say team balance I just mean something to help balance things out but I'm not sure what that would be. Allowing people to switch teams once or twice and providing some sort of incentive would be the right way to go about this I feel however if anyone has any other ideas please feel free to share.

[Silversunset01]

What about something like buffs for the lagging team or some sort of negative effect for the team that's ahead. Or even a combination of the two, at either scheduled or random intervals. That may be a little easier to take than team swapping.

[yellow team ftw]

[Guest]

What about something like buffs for the lagging team or some sort of negative effect for the team that's ahead. Or even a combination of the two, at either scheduled or random intervals. That may be a little easier to take than team swapping.

[yellow team ftw]

 

How about the losing team gets another objective open, which when completed will give them something positive out of it? Like a buff or resources?

[Silversunset01]

That may be fun, have something new open up to give them an advantage.

Just have to be careful it's still beneficial to them. Like...insane parkour to the top may not be worth it? I am unsure on that part, but I do know that once we (red team) started to get dominated last CTF we sort of gave up, so whatever happens needs to start early if the event will be an extended one.

[Guest]

It could be something that opens in their base, so the opposing team can't come and kill them and run over them while doing it.

[Dumbo52]

Regarding the tech feature requests you mentioned, they all sound pretty doable within the planned time span. I'm willing to get started on these within the next week.
 
Here's my proposed specification:
 
Scoreboard support
Configuration:

• scoreboard.enable: boolean - enables/disables the scoreboard feature

Display lines:

• For each team:
  • Team heading
    • Label: team name (in team's color)
  • Team score
    • Label: "Score"
    • Value: team score
  • Team player count
    • Label: "Players"
    • Value: team player count
  • For each buff/debuff:
    • Label: buff effect

 

Example scoreboard display:

 

 Red Team
Score          15
Players        10
Speed I
 
 Blue Team
Score          10
Players        11
Slowness I
Regeneration I

I'm not too familiar with the scoreboard API yet, so there may be further enhancements that can be made to the scoreboard display (e.g. possibly using tooltips to display additional information).
 
Questions:

• Do we want to display the number off online players, or total players per team? Or both?

 

Flag point value

Configuration:

• teams.<team>.flags.<flag>.value: integer - number of points rewarded by this flag

Commands:

• /cutepvp flag set <team> <flag> [value=1] - add optional value parameter to this command

 

Team-specific alerts and broadcasts

Configuration:

• teams.<team>.alerts.period: integer - number of ticks between alerts
• teams.<team>.alerts.current: integer - index of the last alert broadcasted to the team
• teams.<team>.alerts.messages: list of strings - list of alerts to cycle through

Commands:

• /cutepvp broadcast <team> <message> - broadcast the specified message to players on the specified team

Questions:

• It'd be easier to just modify the alerts in the configuration instead of creating a bunch of commands for modifying them from in-game, so the server would need to be restarted for any changes to take effect. Is this acceptable, or do we anticipate having to add/remove alerts mid-game?

 

Passive buffs

Configuration:

• buffs.passive.<buff>.<effect>.amplifier: integer - potion effect amplifier
• buffs.passive.<buff>.<effect>.duration: integer - duration of buff in number of ticks; applied indefinitely if none specified
• teams.<team>.buffs.<buff>.start_millis: long - time at which the passive buff was applied

Commands:

• /cutepvp buff add <team> <buff>: adds the specified passive buff to the specified team
• /cutepvp buff remove <team> <buff>: removes the specified passive buff from the specified team

 

Buff tower owners

Questions:

• "Change the owners of buff towers" - what do you mean by this? Do you mean to allow admins to add/remove team buffs from each team? If so, the passive buff commands could also be made to work for team buffs.

 

Grant points to teams

Commands:

• /cutepvp score set <team> <score>: sets the specified team's score to the specified value
• /cutepvp score add <team> <score>: adds the specified value to the specified team's score (can be negative to subtract)

 

Team balance

Questions:

• Have we decided on a method of balancing teams yet?

 

 

Let me know if you have any suggestions/feedback on these proposed changes to the plugin.