I have made a bunch of private plugins for my server.
In a month or so I’ll be done with my current projects which are (Events plugin, Custom spawner plugin & Abilities/Classes)
After that I want to start on a new project I planned with some friends.
The question is though if I should make this plugin public.
I know that’s up to me to decide but I have many pros and cons and can’t really decide.
Maybe some people can give some advice.
Pros (Top is highest priority)
More user input like suggestions etc.
More motivated to keep updating the plugin
Nice to have public plugin
More bug reports
More new users that join our servers know how it works
Cons (Top is highest priority)
Losing originality on server
I’m still not as experienced as most people out here
Huge project to create and maintain alone
Time consuming to manage project
Need to allow a lot customization in configs etc
Similar to Factions
Little more about the project
It will be a similar plugin to Factions but Factions has a lot of problems and I think everyone will agree with this. (Don’t get me wrong factions is a great plugin been using it since it came out but the gameplay just isn’t good)
There is not many pvp as people like to hide to not lose power
People like to betray.
Faction members just get a bunch of alts to get a lot power.
There is not much fun in raiding without pvp
Has a lot limitations
and a bunch of other small things
So we have came with a solution to fix all these things and make a whole new and different plugin.
Some of the things will be same as factions but a lot things will be unique and special.
I’m gonna make this plugin even if it will be private and I’ll first make it for bukkit and port it later to sponge.
Please just give some advice.
And if you’re an server admin/owner please let me know if you would be interested.
I might be interested. Thing is, if someone “steals” your plugin or it gets insanely popular on servers, then it had to be something good. Then the question becomes, was it worth it? Think of Essentials, it’s essentially run on every server. Makes things easier to run from an overall standpoint and they have a team working on it (I think it initially started with just one or two people).
Or do you want to go the other route and become the “premium plugin guy” and hope to work your way up using that method? Funny story regarding that one, I actually developed a WordPress plugin that I initially gave away for free, then made it premium and charged people for it. Made a couple hundred off of it, then the copycat “internet marketing guys” came in and sucked up alot more money with their similar plugins. Either way, it must have been good enough to have it be copied and sold.
My goal isn’t to make money out of it or that it has to become extremely popular.
And I don’t really wanna compete with factions it’s a good plugin but it’s just not nice for gameplay.
I study game design and development and so do some of my friends so we can come up with some really nice gameplay so that it will be actually raiding and PvP and still the feeling of factions where you build a base and defend it with a team etc. I just feel like I should share this plugin in public because it’s gonna be really big (and amazing (Hopefully xD)) and people might like it a lot.
But then there are also a lot downsides so it’s just really hard for me to decide what’s best.
Well, then test it out on your community and if it goes over really well for them then consider making it a public plugin so you can see what other people think, both from a server owner and a player perspective. +1
There is quite a big difference in coding something public and private though.
I wouldn’t need as much customization and wouldn’t have to worry about adding API functionality etc.
I would just be making exactly what I need without any extra optional things.
Like I just want xxx ranks and can just code them in but if it were to be public I would add options to customize it.
And I would need to add in more checks and stuff for things like configs and databases etc.
I mean I could make it like if it were to be a public plugin but that would be kinda a waste of time if it’s gonna be private.
Power to you if you can keep the motivation to keep a plugin updated constantly. I lost motivation to work on my orginal plugin and never felt motivated to release my others. Through the Sponge project is motivating me to maybe to port a rewrite I made but never released. For me having others wanting the plugin is not really a motivation it is a challenge for me to see if I can write something or finding out how to actually implement it.If you like/need to have people supporting you to be motivated go public.
Till now I always got my motivation from players using what I make on my own server(s).
I think knowing that people use it will give me a lot motivation to keep it updated but I never really put plugins public.
I kinda think now that it’ll be better putting it public but just not sure if I can manage to do it.
I never really focused much on performance while making plugins.
Mostly just learning and writing plugins and they became bigger and bigger.
And if it’s gonna be public it’ll have to be efficient and not too performance heavy.
(Yes it also should for private plugin but it just feels different)
It’s kinda hard to describe lol but I just don’t wanna let ppl down and put a crappy plugin online.
Even though I have made quite a lot plugins and have programming experience in like 10 languages including c++ I have the feeling I can’t make it as professional as other big plugins available including Factions.
I’m just not that good with the whole project structure and making it 100% efficient.
But if I never do it then I’ll never learn it so I’ll probably just go for making it public
More advice is always welcome of course.
I’m not gonna start on this for at least like 3 weeks anyway, because I have several other plugins to make and finish.
So plenty of time to think about it still.
Factions is a brain cell killing type of plugin. I have always thought this of the plugin. Factions is a plugin that is outdated but still used I don’t even know why, but it could be revamped making it a lot better.
If you were to go ahead with this plugin you want to make, here is an idea that you could implement if you want:
• Instead of having Faction power have dominance individually between each clan or faction. If a person in your clan were to die, your clan would loose a dominance to the other 19/21 for say if both of the clans were to start on 20/20 dominance, you can only regain dominance by killing another person in the other clan so if the dominance was at 19/21 then someone killed someone in the other clan it would go back to 20/20. Once the one clan was to be killed enough 0/40 then the clan that has the 40 dominance would be able to claim one piece of land from the other clan.
Making the Clan mechanics like that would be able to stop people just hiding in there base until they regained Faction power, and they would actually have to go out and kill the other players in the clan you’re loosing to.
This is just my idea, if you use it, don’t worry about giving me credit
About the public or private Thing :
As you said it depend on your point of view, are you ready to make sacriface for the community ?
Well as you want … About Faction Plugin
Your Right, Faction is outdated , almsot no gameplay there ! if you are thinking of making a new plugin, you should start by adding content that could make gameplay more dynamic ^^" About Starting this project
I don’t have much experiene in project( even in life ), but i know the more you are to work on it the better ! Find a good team and share roles and stuff And start working on it ! -Miodo
Ahww no multi quote.
Anyways thanks for the useful reactions
@Chubop
Factions will be ported.
Even if the author doesn’t do it there will be hundreds of others who can do it as it’s open source.
(Haven’t checked license but I assume it’d be fine)
@Sketch_
Thanks for the suggestion but we already have an awesome idea to solve this issue.
This includes pretty much what you suggested though so killing gives you “power”.
I’ll explain a little more about the concept of this plugin below.
I have always loves to do stuff with the community.
Been hosting mc servers since bukkit came out and doing it with love.
I have never cared about popularity or getting money from it I just want to give players another unique place to play on.
Yeah I have a lot awesome plans for this to be able to customize it from nearly the same as factions to completely different and everything in between (If it will be public). By playing with the hundreds of settings you can easily create your own game types. (with a limitation of what the plugin can do of course)
I think it’d be good to work as a team on it. However I kinda prefer working on it my own especially at the start so I know exactly what code is where and if there is a issue I know exactly where it could be. Maybe once the plugin is mostly done I’ll add another dev for adding features and fixing bugs etc. But I think I prefer to make the base of it alone.
Little more info about the plugin idea.
I’m just gonna describe it really quickly without much details very globally.
And to note that none of these ideas are final yet.
Guilds will have a core which can be placed and moved.
This core HAS a shield which is basically the chunk protection/claims.
The shield can be expanded etc just like factions with claiming/unclaiming.
When a enemy player is within your shield it’ll drain power.
When the shield has no more power the core will start to slowly corrupt.
This means that blocks near the core will start to break and creating a path for the enemy to your core.
If the enemy is able to get to your core it can be attacked and destroyed.
It will have like 1000 hp and you can do max 500 hp each hour (configurable stuff of course… as for everything)
So you’ll have to come back in a hour to destroy it again but as defender you can quickly rebuild defences etc.
When the core is destroyed the faction can be plundered or taken over or destroyed etc depending on config.
So it’s really important to come out of your base and kill the enemies that are on your land.
If you don’t they will be able to destroy your faction.
This is just one of the many parts of the plugin.
There will still be some sort of power which will increase when killing people and dropping when you die.
Or on any other action that you configure.
Everything will be scaled based on your power.
Your shield has more “power” so an enemy has to be longer in your land, Core will get more HP, Shield protection will increase etc etc…
Also raiding will be more like wars. You’ll have to declare war with another guild.
If no war is declared the shield wont drop power and the core can’t be destroyed.
The war will end after a certain time to set a winner of the war.
Everything will be scaled and balanced based on the amount of players and many other aspects.
And as I said before this is just one part of the plugin there will be other modes and a lot more stuff.
We’re adding a lot stuff that factions was missing for example multiple homes and stuff.
And we wanna make sure it’s easy to use for players and will focus a lot on that.
So raiding will more be like a PvP game with your own build base and with a lot pvp.
And once more none of this is final or prototype’d yet.
I have been working on a Chunk claiming Mod (rather than plugin) the premise is that you make the claim block then place the claim block in a chunk which has the effect of claiming the chunk and adding 1000 influence to the claim.
Each minecraft day the claim block generates 64 extension blocks (which can be compressed up to 10 times similar to the compressed cobblestone in extra utilities) which also when placed will add 1 influence per block, and can be placed in adjacent chunks to expand your claimed area.
If there are 2 or more people’s blocks in the same chunk, the one with the highest influence controls that chunk, and can remove the offending persons extension/claim blocks (apart from that the blocks are similar to bedrock to all but the owner) When removing another persons blocks you do not get a drop, they break like glass. But if you pick up your blocks they drop as per normal.
There is an item called the Claim Detector which displays a map similar to the map on the ICBM radar showing claimed areas around you.
This sounds like a nice idea but more for economy survival servers.
For pvp servers that use factions it’s more about raiding and pvp etc.
And this guilds plugin will do everything possible to stimulate pvp and raiding.
Yeah this is one of the issues of making it public that I’m gonna have to deal with those things.
Normally I don’t care as much about performance and customization stuff etc but if it’s gonna be public i’ll have to.
And I never made an API for plugins so not really sure how to deal with that the best way but I don’t think it’s too complicated.
It’s gonna be a big challenge making this but it will be nice.
In all honesty, it’ll help you improve. If this seems like a challenge then it will teach you things that will be invaluable in your future plugins/applications.
@worstboy
The idea here is to make factions/chunk claiming similar to Risk, you may have a strong outer border but if someone breaches the outside they can quickly devastate the whole base with fewer blocks.
Its then about strategy with defending your base. and monitoring the area… (is someone putting blocks in your chunk down at bedrock or up in the sky so you dont see it happening until its too late?
