MineCraft is Coming....again...

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MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:45 am

So...I know this idea has been floated before, but I guess this time it is my turn.

My brother and I are going to open up a ~80 person max server in the coming weeks/months.

Joining will be completely free and the mode will be semi-survival. The Core of the world will be non-survival/non-PVP and the outside of this Core will be Full survival.

If you are interested, post your interest, and once it happens we'll open it up and invite you to bring both yourselves and your friends.

We plan on using the Feed the Beast Mod pack (Not sure which specific one yet), which brings a crap-ton of awesome mods into the game, like technology, magic, rocket packs, nuclear generators, etc...

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by LAYF » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:49 am

That sounds awesome... I don't seem to be able to find my old Minecraft account password, but as soon as I've found it I'll post it here... I'd like to come around annoying you and anyone else from time to time :)
-Best regards LAYF

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:05 am

I'd probably be interested. Got some experience with hosting my own server and a whole lot when it comes down to modded minecraft, so if you got some questions I can probably help out.

Questions that come to mind right now... Do you intend to self-host or do paid hosting? Since I'm not sure what kind of price tag would come attached to a 80 slot server...

Secondly, what is the amount of RAM you're going to be using? Since modded minecraft eats up a LOT. So if you're really intent on being able to handle 80 players at a time, (But to be honest, even the most popular servers never reach that number...) you're either going to need a very powerful rig/paid server to run the server (as well as a proper internet connection..) or run one of the less intensive mod packs.

Thirdly, what are your plans for letting people "in"? Full public, whitelist, or whitelist only for goblinites..? All have their own advantages and disadvantages. Depending on the matter of public you want to go though, you'll want to make some safeguards.

The following isn't more questions in the sense that it's advice, rather. In the end it's your server so you make the choices. But these are some observations I've made.

Firstly... When playing modded minecraft, unless playing a survival pack, people tend to build very large bases. Depending on the modpack, the insides of said bases might be filled with intricate, and expensive machinery. So it goes without saying that if you got a machine built out of 27 nether stars, the last thing you want to see is a creeper blowing it up, or some asshole sneaking in and stealing it or a lot of your other stuff. What I want to say is, 90% of modded minecrafters will NOT play on a server where mob damage is not disabled and there isn't some form of claim protection. Additionally, most of them don't want PVP- Because once you realize that modpacks have ways to essentially become invincible, there isn't much point in it besides getting picked on when you've only just started by flying invincible douchebags with rocket launchers.

Seems you already got some ideas on the PVP part though and there's nothing a few plugins can't fix... If you want some recommendations, I can likely give you some depending on what kind of setup you hope to run.

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:18 am

Q&A:
1. We're doing paid hosting. Again, money is our concern, we both find it more fun to play with more people than just with each other.
2a.The server we have in mind is 8gb, though we could always pop up to the next tier and get 12 too.
2b. We don't expect 80 people at once, and would probably have a softcap of about half of that (40) so that the game runs smoothly.
3. Starting out, we would like to be full public, white-listing people as we get to know them, learn who is and isn't a cheat or running mods that allow them to "Cheat". If we ever got to a point that we could have enough (50-60) people whitelisted, then we may close the public access and turn into an invite-only deal.

So, My intial idea for a world containing both PVP and NON-PVP is that of a city in the center of the world which empties out North & South (Or East & West) in which Everything North of the city is PVP and Everything south of the city is Non-PVP. (The non-pvp side would have creeper booms not destroy things, as well as some protection vs. theft). The PVP side would be a giant free-for-all.

The reason for this dual world is because I know people who like PVP and don't care about Non-PVP, others who hate PVP and only want non-PVP and then some...who enjoy both.

*Note: In the modded worlds, many parallel dimensions exist..Other than the ones you make for yourselves, (Nether, Twilight Forest).
These Parallel dimensions would be split up in the same way. Everything North of a certain point would be PVP, and everything in the opposite direction would be "Safe"

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:53 am

Sorry to ask, but I'm assuming these people are mostly vanilla minecrafters..? Because it has to be said, modded minecraft is an entirely different ball-game. I know people who can enjoy modded minecraft but hate vanilla, and vice-versa. PVP can be entertaining, but when you're playing modpacks you need to realize there's an inherent imbalance- When one guy walks on that stage with a set of armor that makes him indestructible, you need to realize it would get rather hard to properly PVP since unlike vanilla there's no "real" balance. One mod will offer more powerful stuff over the other...

With that being said, with your proposal we'd get the best of both worlds, so no reason I should complain...

As for the server. 8GB is good, but... Where are you looking to host? I know of no "decent" paid hosting that gives you anywhere near 8GB for a decent prize. That should get you able to run most modpacks though- So you could very likely go for one of the more intensive modpacks. What I worry most about is the paid hosting/cost for it though...

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:19 am

I understand what you mean by nigh indestructibility..when it comes to armor and such. The lucky thing is that, when it comes to such armor, it is very very costly and very very arduous to create.

I speak from experience here...and I died and lost it several times along the way...I would say something along the lines of...we'll deal with that when we get there.

As for the Pricing, again, my brother and I will be splitting the cost, I may even bankroll the whole thing. That cost will be completely on us and not on the other players. (though we won't say no if money is thrown at us....or tucked into our waistbands, one dollar at a time. ;) )

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:26 am

Great to hear the cost isn't too big an issue- But I was mostly asking since it seems you already have your eye on a provider, so I could check if I heard bad/good things about them... :)

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:32 am

I'm imagining it to be something along the lines of, a walled central city, which is "safe", with ~7 block wide walls that run very far in all cardinal directions. With a RR service inside or on top of it so that people can travel as far out as they want before wandering out into the wilderness.

This would effectively cut the world into 4 equal pieces allowing you to set up either half to be PVP and the other half NON-PVP...or, any variation, potentially only 1/4 being PVP...I mean, options are endless.

And LAYF, we would love to have you. for your artistic talents and for you yourself. Perhaps once it gets going you could invite your twitter friends... :D

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Thu Jun 25, 2015 12:40 pm

Ambitious. I put Minecraft down in favor of Terraria (whose content is set to quadruple in about five days, so I am looking FORWARD to that; my own base is http://www.freewebs.com/ihalon/AllYourBase.png ; warning, huge image, slow load) after I ended up corrupting my game so that all blocks are solid white and all water is solid grey (was trying to tell it to use 1 GB+ of memory and it refuses, it likes 500 MB which makes it LAG and stop and start every 4 seconds now even after the world is rendered, and I can't have that).

Count me in, though. I'd love to build something at spawn for people to log into. Maybe an obsidian cathedral or something.

What I'd also like to see is a walled "village" at 100K and 250K blocks out in the four cardinal directions for people to go out to and claim. These villages would be stocked with resources beforehand. They'd be places to defend and/or ransack.

I was on a server once with a minecart service that went about 15000 blocks in all directions (I was responsible for building a track over the southern ocean, about 8000 blocks in length, this was before pyramids came into being).
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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Thu Jun 25, 2015 12:50 pm

I'll be leaving the "safezone" buildings to my brother or maybe LAYF, who both have way more artistic talent than myself.

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Thu Jun 25, 2015 12:56 pm

BadgeAddict wrote:who both have way more artistic talent than myself.
Fixed it for you ;)

But yeah, I think I may be interested. Especially if we can get the Goblins as one faction and "anyone else" as other factions in the PVP lands.

EDIT:
BadgeAddict wrote:Q&A:
1. We're doing paid hosting. Again, money is our concern, we both find it more fun to play with more people than just with each other.
2a.The server we have in mind is 8gb, though we could always pop up to the next tier and get 12 too.
2b. We don't expect 80 people at once, and would probably have a softcap of about half of that (40) so that the game runs smoothly.
3. Starting out, we would like to be full public, white-listing people as we get to know them, learn who is and isn't a cheat or running mods that allow them to "Cheat". If we ever got to a point that we could have enough (50-60) people whitelisted, then we may close the public access and turn into an invite-only deal.
Leave it full public, in case of drop-off so we get a constant flow and I think I may know a bunch of people from another area that might be interested (their server keeps flaking and the owner has NO luck with computers...). Whitelisting I think turns off a lot of people. We just have to be a bit vigilant, or somehow find or make a mod that allows us to put "YOU CHEATER" blocks into the world, disguised as diamonds on hacked clients or maps. That way we place them while observing strange behavior, and if they go right to them, boom.

Edit #2: Creeper explosions should not be disabled. That's part of the challenge of Minecraft, to defend against the explodey bastards.
Last edited by Aegis J Hyena on Thu Jun 25, 2015 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Nerre » Thu Jun 25, 2015 1:15 pm

I am rather a creative builder than a survival guy, as I had enough farming on various servers and games so far, and it is not that thrilling anymore (wow, eve, starwars online, lotro, at least 5 minecraft servers...).
If you maybe would grant me those rights I would love to build some nice stuff for the community or to represent the server in the core area (or outer areas if you would protect a specific area).
:zzz:

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Nerre » Thu Jun 25, 2015 2:39 pm

PS: Don't overdo the mod amount, it might slow down your server a lot. There is a reason most run a "only slightly above vanilla"-server, using only mostly administrative and security mods, a few games and teleport/portal mods.

Not sure how easy it became over time, but keep in mind you have to keep them up to date, run backups, etc. A lot of work already.

Do you have a server adress already? Would love to take a look onto the server. :)
:zzz:

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 3:00 pm

Aegis, I know the kind of MC you like and well, like I said earlier... There's a huge crowd difference between that kind of player and 90% of the modded community. Most minecraft mods are about automation, something which doesn't immediately seem all too interesting to your kind of gameplay. There are mods which can enchance that experience such as weapon or magic mods, but it's definitely not the core for the majority... I'm just saying that when it comes to modded minecraft, 90% of players will outright refuse to play with creeper damage, because it's just something they can't be bothered with. It doesn't matter that much in vanilla when worst case scenario chests are blown up, but an explosion wrong place wrong time can instantly erase hours of work.

Not that I'm saying there's not people who will agree with you, and there's probably servers out there who cater to that, but yeah... In the end it's all Badge's decision though, and seems he's going to try and placate all sides.

And Nerre, no disrespect meant, but are you sure you're talking about modded minecraft there? From what you're saying, I'm getting the impression you're only talking about vanilla minecraft with plugins, not actual modded minecraft. Did you try downloading the ftb launcher and using one of it's packs..?

It does raise a question though- While a 8 GB server side should be plenty to run the heavier modpacks, the question is if we'd want to do that or intentionally go for a lower pack to have it more accessible. Some of those higher modpacks do get quite intensive on pc's...

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Thu Jun 25, 2015 4:54 pm

You want intensive? Try a near 8200x8200 "atlas" of textures. When my Minecraft boots up, that's the size of mine that it says in the console (it takes about 2 minutes for Minecraft to load)
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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 5:12 pm

So... Basically a texture pack..? Because if so and it took you two minutes to load a 8200x8200 atlas texture which is supposed to increase performance, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you if you want to play modded minecraft...

(Seriously though, where did you get this supposed atlas texture? An atlas texture is for all intents and purposes just a single image that contains all other images a program should use, so only a single image needs to be loaded in, but it sounds like you got greater load times rather than shorter... What exactly were you doing with it? Was it supposed to be a HD texture pack or something along those lines?)

Honestly, I'd just urge everyone that's interested to try downloading the FTB launcher and then from there trying a few of the modpacks to see how well they perform, and then we can use that to try and determine what our best options might be. The heaviest modpack the FTB launcher provides is the "monster" pack. The easiest to run is lite, so start with that and if it runs smoothly try monster or anything in between. My computer is pretty powerful and while I can play Monster, I still stick to other modpacks since it has periodic lag too often to my taste...

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Thu Jun 25, 2015 8:05 pm

The nice thing about having a server like this is the ability to run FTB monster, but still be able to turn off some of the mods.

Also...this thread is more advertising/ inviting anyone who wanted to join... As opposed to looking for how to do it.

All suggestions and comments will be taken into consideration though.

I'll talk to my brother in the coming days/weeks and set something up. Once that happens I'll post here an opening announcement.

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:04 pm

M0rt: The textures are "some HD, some not, some huge, some tiny, some all over the place, some yanked from Second Life, others from who knows where." I know what it is (you'd think the word "atlas" would give it away). :P *re-reads things* FTB has its own launcher? Didn't know that.

I can run modded Minecraft no problem (I'm pretty sure). For a while I was on a couple of big Tekkit servers and didn't have any problems.

I still want creative mode enabled for me so I can build those villages in each of the possible directions though... heh
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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Fri Jun 26, 2015 3:23 am

Okay: Just talked to my brother.
- We should be up and running in a week or so, but in the meantime, we're having a little bit of a vote when it comes to mod-packs that will be used on the server. If you don't care, then don't worry about it and you can play with whatever you find.
- There will be very little creative in this world, if you want something built then you can sweat and bleed to create it. This, in my mind and his, tends to make both you and others appreciate what you've created, because you had to find every block yourself.
- "Central City" (or whatever) is a safezone which will limit who can build in it. Everything North of this central safe-zone will be a PVP mode and everything south will be Non-pvp. (though the environment may still kill you.)
- Somewhere within the Central City will be a Bank, contained within this bank will be personal chests, accessible by yourself only that you can keep your treasures in.
- Although this Server will be Free-To-Play, unlike other "Paid" servers, If you would like to pay "Protection Money", you can gain a plot of land to call your own and build your stuff on with the satisfaction that no one else can mess with your structure or items. This protection fee is 10$/year. (we plan to keep the server open and running for a long time).

Now, for the best part, we'll be using FTB - Monster, modpack, but, will be eliminating several of the mods that we see as pointless (mostly ones that add things meant for pretty without any usability, like extra trees, flowers, etc.) Feel free to pick out your favorite mods and tell us you can't live without them as well as Mods that sound stupid and you think we just shouldn't include. I'll be putting together a nice list.

The list is a Work In Process, a brief description will be included eventually. Mods that are automatically disabled, I have not included, unless I did.

Feed The Beast: Infinity
Last edited by BadgeAddict on Fri Jun 26, 2015 11:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:35 am

I would still advice you to look into a plugin that would allow claim protection of sorts, since on public servers there's always going to be people who will attempt to ruin stuff "just cuz they can", and like I said many modded players simply won't play on a server where that's not a standard feature... Including me if I'd have to be honest, though considering the situation I'd at least still give it a try. I can do some research and give some recommendations if you want. I know most servers use a specific one where you start with a very small claim plot, but you earn more claim blocks as you play.

Also, do you intend to enable commands such as /tpa and /home?

Concerning mods, none too strong complaints from most of the disabled mods... A few though-

Chickenchunks: I'm guessing you're doing that to prevent massive amounts of chunkloaders lagging the server? Probably a good call, though it might be worth considering enabling it and disabling the recipies so you could potentially still make use of it yourself. Keep in mind that railcraft and minefactory as well I believe have their own versions of chunk loaders. Minefactory uses loads of power while railcraft allows for chunkloaders that require fuel and only work online, so they both got their weaknesses. Most servers allow only the personal anchor that only chunkloads if the user is online.

Can't say anything from extra bees on... :P

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Aegis J Hyena » Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:19 am

I'm surprised I don't see IndustrialCraft in there... nor Mo'Creatures (though setting the spawnrates is a bitch).
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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:41 am

It's alphabetized, and industrial craft 2 is in there.
As to plots of land which are personalized...we'll look into it, though we may go ahead and start and wait till later to determine whether or not we'll need it.
As to /home....It's a good point, I'll mention it, though with portals enabled, I'm leaning towards no.

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by M0rtimer » Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:52 am

Eh, most modern modpacks stopped using mo' creatures, to the point I think the original author might not be supporting it anymore..? And yeah as Badge said, IC2 is in the list.

I'm more sad that meh precious mekanism isn't in the pack. :(

That reminds me tough, you'd probably want to disable the buildcraft quarry- That thing keeps all it's chunks loaded at once, so it's a menace to server performance. There's always alternative methods of doing mining, not the leas the extra utilities quarry which only keeps the chunk it's mining in loaded...

And fair enough on the /home. Keep in mind though that while portals might be enabled, there's only very few actual mods that allow you to get back home easily without a whole lot of work. Actually, looking at the list, I see none of the mods I know that offers something along those lines... Which actually makes me wonder if maybe another modpack would actually be better, since while monster is the most intensive it does seem to be missing out on "newer" mods...

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by Nerre » Fri Jun 26, 2015 11:04 am

I do not care much about mods and plugins, all I want is a basic minimap and coordinates, so I can find places again. And flying in the creative area/world.
I mentioned it rather cause of the server workload might increase a lot with many mods and plugins, and so does the size of save files of the world.

[quote="BadgeAddict"]
- There will be very little creative in this world, if you want something built then you can sweat and bleed to create it. This, in my mind and his, tends to make both you and others appreciate what you've created, because you had to find every block yourself.[/url]

This is almost equal to me not playing on the server. I want to build creative, not caring if I have to harvest the ressources or not. If a block fits optically, I should be able to use it in my construction. And I want to fly while doing creative building, in a protected area so nobody can mess with it. That is a huge thing on most servers.
If you want to last a while, you should really consider creative as an option and protection as not only for paying customers.
Most servers I was on so far earned most of their charm from great creative builders. You can do nice things with only basic materials like wood and stone, but the touch to perfection often comes from things you do not find on every corner. I would not mind 10Ôé¼ per year, if I would get the creative experience I wanted out of it .

Do you plan to "sell" (either ingame currency or real money) plots in the safezone?
:zzz:

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Re: MineCraft is Coming....again...

Post by BadgeAddict » Fri Jun 26, 2015 11:51 am

The Protection money that I mentioned, would be for your own individual plot with its own safezone, keyed to your player. Much like LAYF did in the game that he ran for a short while.

@Mort: I've come up with a solution to the problem of it being a public forum and people who enjoy nothing more than to shit on other peoples stuff.
Coming onto the server as a new person, you will have instant access to the Starting City and everything North of the City (PVP-Land).
Once you have been vetted as a ~Nice Person~ (or at the very least someone who doesn't go around destroying things for the fun of it) you would gain access to the NON-PVP area South of the City.

This will eliminate the majority of "not-nice" which tend to find it's way into public servers.

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