I have done some investigation regarding the Skyblock system. To recap: If people are supposed to do building challenges with little resources, we need to prevent cheating by a moving goods from an easy challenge to a difficult one. This means that one has to prevent people who are in a challenge to visit other lots, most of all those who are not part of a challenge.
In the darklands we have the solution that people simply cannot teleport at all. We introduced that also to enhance the survival aspect. I can understand that preventing any and all teleportation in the skyblock is a strong hammer, so I have looked for alternative solutions.
There is another feature that we so far have not used. It’s a worldguard flag that prevents entry into a lot for non-members. I have tested it and it works reliably with all teleport commands. If we block people from adding other members to their challenge lot, nobody can visit the challenge lots except the owner. To prevent the owner of a challenge lot to visit other lots, we would have to set all lots in the skyblock with this flag.
So the consequence would be that if you want someone to see your lot or cross it even, you would have to give them member status. so while before you would allow someone to use your spawner or cobble generator, you would have to give them access to your complete lot.
From my perspective this should be still an acceptable solution, but I would like to hear opinions on it. The issue is that I am REALLY reluctant to open another world for this. We have only a lot occupancy of below 25% and roughly 30 users per world. If we really needed another world for this feature, I would start downsizing the skyblock, aether and the flatlands massively since they are the least used worlds. My worry is that there are only a handful of very active users of the skyblock anyhow and I would think that the new feature I am planning would change that.
Worldguard sounds good. We can’t get to most lots without teleporting to eachother. The access also wouldn’t be an issue since that’s already part of the lot manager I assume. A whole new world just for challenges sounds like a waste,it would be all the hype in the first few weeks but it would die down with activity and not be used as much.
I don’t have a Skyblock lot and I don’t know much about them. But here are my thoughts:
In my opinion, the main purpose of playing on a server, instead of playing locally, is to share with others. We would like to interact with people, show off what we build, and help each other. That’s the beauty of multiplayer.
However, I don’t see it in this Skyblock challenge. If no one can see other people’s work, why not just play it offline? I’m not saying it’s not a good mini game or it’s not fun. It’s just not taking any advantage from being on a server.
Maybe one solutions is to have a glass wall surrounding each Skyblock lot. And outside the wall there’s the public area where people can watch what’s happening in the lot. It may feel like a zoo but at least it adds some multiplayer elements into the game.
On the other hand, I agree with downsizing the Aether. I do have an Aether lot and it’s in a similar situation. Aether lots are also highly isolated. It’s hard to visit other people’s lot. I can’t find enough incentive to build anything there, except for pure resource buildings, like mob farms or tree farms. I think it’s a good idea to make the Aether smaller and more connected.
Again, I don’t know much about these worlds so I could be very wrong.
*Replaying to Leizh’s third paragraph “Its just not taking any advantage from being on a server”*
The Chat is one of the good advantages of being on a server. Just because you are somewhat Isolated , you still have the chat to keep you company, and trust me , the chat can be pretty entretaining at times :)
You CANNOT get Uncovery’s chat on any other server , Because we are one of a kind. Thats mainly why people log on , to talk to their friends AND build on their respective lots
*Disclaimer* I don’t disagree with anything leizh said , just adding on in a sense.
Would it be possible to use the spectator mode to allow others to see your lot? I know its not till 1.8 but it may work.
Spectator mode….. we could use a plugin until 1.8 comes around?
I do have to agree with what leizh and miner22122 were saying. We are a very tight community-based server. Our chat is the main reason I and many others log in here rather than play other servers, or play single-player. If one were to analyze our worlds… we do seem to spend the most time in the worlds that are community-based (Nether, Darklands, and especially Kingdom), as opposed to the solo-based worlds (Skyblock, Empire, and especially Aether). Empire might be the overlap there, but with permissions, a great many lots are a host to many players beside the owner.
I have no use for the Aether world; at most, I’ve used it for spare storage and a tree farm in the past. I like the heavy restrictions placed on Skyblock that allow individual achievement and on Darklands, which can also be used in a community fashion. The Nether has always had its own restrictions, by design, and has many resources that draw people to it.
As it is for the Kingdom and Empire… Empire is a starting place for most, a foothold to get you involved in the community and to start your own designs. The Empire world is a necessary rock, a threshold into other parts of the community. Kingdom seems to be where the big builds either come to flourish, or to die. For as many lots as are purchased there… I wish there were more grand and epic builds. The ones that are growing are definitely worth the trip to visit. It seems that the breadth of Kingdom may be too much for some, so back to Empire.
As it stands, I enjoy the challenge we have in Skyblock. I think there are some that would like the skyblock challenge, or whatever other challenges we develop in the future. Perhaps the current Skyblock world should become the Challenge World, with Skyblock as one of many challenges a player can choose. This isn’t a typical MC-style survival world, the resources available here do not transfer back to Empire/Kingdom/Nether/etc, so it makes sense that they should be grouped together. There is only a small percentage of lots that are developed in the Skyblock Challenge, so it would seem logical to shrink the world.
My concern with Skyblock is that I would not be so interested in working on an epic build in Skyblock, if I could not share it with the other players on our server. Bringing someone over to see how well something works, or to show them how to make something happen in a remote part of an extremely hard to reach lot would be a nightmare without /tp and /home. And as a side note, it’s nice that I can get some use out of the xp that I’ve earned in Skyblock, from hunting mobs or smelting in my furnace, back in the Emp/King/Neth worlds since brewing and enchanting are not possible in Skyblock.
Addendum: My biggest concern is that there would be a lack of resource integrity for the Skyblock challenge if people have access to other, restricted items in the same world.