The foundations of the GateCraft server are laid, and not only were all plans met—an extra-large bonus that was never originally expected has been added as well. One step back was forced by the betrayal of the CommandHelper plugin, on which we had relied heavily. But two steps forward were gained by its replacement. The only sensible solution turned out to be writing our own plugin, and the result is incomparably better, because every barrier of limited possibilities has fallen away.
Custom GateCraft plugin
Right now the plugin handles promotion to Rogue and, after passing the gate from Rogue Lands to Kingdom, automatically promotes the player to Resident and sets a new spawn—of course with no way back to Rogue Lands. It also fixes the problem of sending money between players. The original command made it impossible to prevent money transfers from Kingdom to Rogue Lands, so the feature was disabled globally. Our new plugin now lets players send money via the custom /pay [player] [amount] command, while also blocking transactions over long distances. If players want to trade coins they must stand within eight blocks of each other.
This is only the beginning. During Beta many more home-grown extensions will appear: new commands, extra compass features, even the ability to buy spells ;)
Latest fixes and tweaks
We also fine-tuned the Towny and EpicZones plugins. It is now truly impossible to mine any ore outside town borders. In Mining Colony the maximum mining height above ground was raised from 35 to 44. The Marketplace is now open, where every player can claim one stall for a personal shop in Prime City (the capital of Kingdom).
The first successful reset of Mining Colony and Rogue Lands has taken place, keeping only the basic scenery. You can once again mine in pristine caves with renewed mineral wealth.
Security
Our security measures have already been put to the test—unfortunately in a situation that ended badly for one of the testers. He broke three of the four “zero-tolerance” rules and committed two minor offences on top of that. The rules also state that lying to admins is pointless, and this case confirms it: our action logs are more than incriminating.
Sheriff WinKoneR passed with flying colors, reacting promptly and appropriately, issuing a temporary ban. After examining the logs the ban was upgraded to permanent.
Let this be a signal to everyone: we give nothing away here.
Beta continuation
Work on the server will of course not stop; there is still plenty to code, configure and polish on the road to uniqueness.
Jails will appear in the form of forced-labor camps. Convicted offenders will have to serve their sentence in-game, roaming a world similar to Rogue Lands but with a much darker twist.
Prime City (the Kingdom metropolis) will expand with new locations and NPCs.
Achievements will go live and the website will display individual player stats plus many other useful bits of info.
Expect new dungeons, events, and—once we have enough players—the first organised tournaments ;)
Now you know the essentials, so grab your friends, pick up a pickaxe, and go chase your dream ;)