Saturday, September 19, 2015

GeoCraft 1.20 Introducton

Do you want to join, build, or destroy civilizations in Minecraft? Yearn for a 'hands-off' ruleset that encourages economy and town-development without forcing it into existence?  GeoCraft affords this, and much more.

GeoCraft is a server running both a highly sculpted custom map and a set of in-house and third-party mods.  This combination is tuned to provide not just mechanisms for the formation of towns and markets -- thus civilzation -- instead, GeoCraft is balanced to encourage group-play and cooperation.

Come join us! We currently have two groups vying for early-stage development, engaging in trade and competition with each other.  This map hasn't seen a war yet, although the last map saw raiders which kept our townies on their toes.  The world is still wide open, the opportunity for fresh development beyond each mountain, in each productive valley.
Town of Silent Valley




Basic in-game rules
  1. Non-whitelist.
  2. In-game anarchy. This means griefing and destruction are permitted. Players themselves are expected to deal with the problem with the prison mod GeoCraft provides (more later).
  3. Rule 3 does not allow for meta-game attacks, so be aware that such will be punished.
  4. No personal attacks, in or out of game.
We have a Mumble server!

Mumble server will always be the same IP as the server, port 64738.
Currently: 52.22.8.75:64738

Philosophy of "economic mods"

Some mods such as Tekkit help the users build economy from the perspective of individual-economics and automation; a single player can climb the entire tech-tree effectively and build up a large productive outfit all on their own.  GeoCraft's philosophy of economic mods is different: we focus on providing incentive for social play.  Thus, our mods are tweaked specifically to give players reason for being in the same high-value zones at the same time.  This prevents everybody's ability to spread out and get by passably on their own.

This is addressed both in terms of altering what players can do (mood and encumbrance mechanics), but also in terms of altering the properties of capital (making it harder to move about without serious effort).

List of in-house mods

For more information about any of these mods, please visit our subreddit at /r/Geocraft_MC which has information about each.  For a comprehensive post on the original mod mechanics: geocraft-mc.blogspot.com/2015/08/intro-to-geocraft-010.html

Here I will provide a brief description of each major change to the mechanics.


Mood

Mood is a new meter, similar to health or stamina.  To view your mood, punch at the air with an empty hand.  Mood is depleted by 1 for each block you break.  The lower your mood, the lower the durability of tools you craft.

The only way to replenish  mood is to sleep in a bed.

Multi-break

Many blocks require multiple breaks to destroy.  This is to help represent the durability and difficulty to move capital.  This griefing will require more effort, as will moving one's operations overnight.  (In fact we're hoping to encourage historical ruins with this.)

Some blocks, such as ORE, will yield their drop on each break!  If such blocks are not completely broken before the server reset, their number of potential breaks goes back to full!  This means that towns can develop on top of ore veins.  If they are prudent, they can sustain the vein indefinitely.

Encumbrance

Players can only carry a certain amount of blocks.  When they fill up, the game will switch off their ability to carry more until they sort out their inventory.  Once they do, they can type "/lug" or "/l" to switch item pick-up back on.  (It can also be used to disable it temporarily if on.)

This has led to all sorts of innovations on the part of players.  Not only does it encourage minecarts, but since these can be expensive early-game, players have tried other devices such as log floats.   

Farming and ecosystem

Crop growth now requires animals to be nearby.  When a crop grows to any stage, it may flip its own biome to DESERT.  If this happens, the crop will remain there, but will not continue to grow until the biome is restored to normal.

The way to do this currently is either to let a sheep feed on grass in an adjacent tile or to feed a cow/pig in an adjacent tile.  Doing so will "re-fertilize" the tile and restore its biome, allowing growth to continue.

Prison mod

Players can effectively chain another player to a post if they get too unruly.  For more detailed information, check out the comprehensive mod rules posted above.  Players remain chained to the post until a friend comes and springs them (by destroying the post).  This allows players to police each other, and deal with griefers (or prisoners of war) accordingly. 

Animal and mob camps

Like MMO's, GeoCraft has mob camps and animal camps.  Every day, these restock with critters.  Knowing where they are is important in case one loses their animals to catastrophe or war, allowing players to recover in the unlikely event of a map-wide wipeout. It also provides towns with the incentive to control these areas, to corner various markets.

Custom ore generation

Ores don't spawn normally in GeoCraft.  Currently ores appear in veins, or clumps of the same ore.  These veins are visible from the surface, so prospecting means exploring the map.  Be on the lookout for neat geological formations!  Ore may well be there.

Keep in mind ores are multi-break, and if left undestroyed, persist to the next day.  (Server resets will replenish each ore that remains, affording it maximum number of breaks again.)  This means careful players can keep the ore rolling in once they find and defend a vein.

Locks and shop chests

Players can lock doors and chests with a combination-lock, and share this combination with other players.

Any chest that a player has the combination for can be turned into a shop!  Much like other Minecraft shop mods, this allows other players to interact with a chest and execute a transaction automatically.  For more information: https://www.reddit.com/r/geocraft_mc/comments/3kjzbq/shopmod_version_1_released_today_please_help_test/

This allows players to build marketplaces and helps to oil trade.




Thursday, September 10, 2015

Repurposing the blog a bit

Given the presence of the subreddit (and its usefulness for interacting with the player base), I will switch this blog over to larger update-posts.  This means that, for the most part, this blog will be used to announce large releases (which will be linked to from the subreddit, of course).  For information about our faster iterations and discussion / feedback / bug reporting, please visit reddit.com/r/geocraft_mc.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

On vacation this weekend

Folks,

I'm seeing some friends this weekend!  Been having a great time so far.  Will be back to bug fixing and updates in a day or two.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Tweaked multi-break parameters a bit (to make building less painful)

After building for a while, people are reporting that misplacing blocks is a bit painful.  So for now, I've halved the following parameters:
  1. # of breaks required for lockables, such as chests
  2. the construction-grade modifier; now stone bricks, for instance, will be easier to break
This entire process is going to require a lot of back-and-forth, as we wish to strike a balance between creation and destruction.  But for now it seems that this change will make play more enjoyable without impacting how challenging it is too much.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Official Mumble server up and running!

The current IP is always listed up above in the title.  For now we're using the same machine as the standard MC server (if this ends up causing undue load, we will use a separate machine). I'm going to make that IP address static soon (whenever I get ElasticIP sorted through AWS ... shouldn't take long, I've just never used the service before).
Same code of conduct applies here as on the server. No abuse, no harassment tolerated. Have fun folks!

Encumbrance changes! Now XP improves your carrying capacity!

Simple first-pass rule implemented today... I plan on tweaking this (as everything) as more feedback rolls in.  As it stands, 1 level of XP = 1 additional unit you can carry (e.g. 1 stone, or 2 wood).

This is meant to provide disincentive to dying in general, especially suiciding to restore hunger.  Now keeping your XP is more important, as it alleviates one of the major constraints (carry capacity).  I am planning on adding more things that XP adjusts in the future, so stay tuned!

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Adjusted break mod and locks


  1. I updated some of the multi-break mod code today, to have it keyed off of the general material model that the lug/weight mechanics are based on. This means that lockables are more durable, as are "construction materials"; this includes wooden planks.  That means planks' weight has gone up a bit, but now they provide much more protection than before (they were only 1-break before).
  2. Locks now properly destroy when the block holding them is destroyed.  Before breaking a locked chest and then placing a new chest in the same location would inherit the same lock.  Now that's no longer true (the lock is tethered to the specific block in the spot).