TOPIC: ZARP MINECRAFT?!

So, as many of you may know, myself, hazzenator and Mix3rz have recently been working on creating a brand new Minecraft server for ZARP. We have spent a lot of time working on the server to give the best possible experience for players, and we would now like to hear what the community thinks of our ideas. Please vote on the poll above so we can see what you think, and we would appreciate it if you take the time to read the outlines that we have made below to give you a better idea of the server and how it will work.

We have some ideas for the starting Lead Team, and this is the result of our discussion so far:
Server Owners:
TheXnator
hazzenator

Head Admins:
Luan

This idea for the team is still subject to change based on any further discussion. It is mostly solid though, as myself and hazzenator started off with a lot of discussion on the team as soon as we came up with the idea, choosing people who we were sure would be good for it, and people who we are sure will not lead us into what happened before.

The Gamemodes
In terms of what gamemodes the Minecraft server will have, we plan to start with just 3: Factions, Freebuild and KitPvP. After a while, when we are sure that we have established a solid enough playerbase for it, and it would not be a complete flop and a waste of time to make, we will start to add new gamemodes which require more players, such as minigames (Survival Games, Skywars, Bedwars, etc.) and other cool gamemodes. We also have some future plans to add in a Prison gamemode if people want it.

The Plugins
We have quite a few plugins on the server to ensure that it is perfect for players. We have a completely custom coded plugin (made by me) which handles some aspects of the permissions system and ranking (alongside PEX), the custom reporting system, the custom warnings system, the chat, the prefixes (TAB menu and chat), the admin chat and much more. We also have many other plugins across the gamemodes which are not custom coded, but many of which have been configured to ensure that they work perfectly for our needs.

How it will work
The server will run off of BungeeCord as a main way to link all of the gamemodes. Each gamemode will then branch off of that BungeeCord link as its own Bukkit server. All of the servers will be running on Minecraft 1.8.9 (due to the coding being a lot easier, and it generally being a much better version than 1.9+), but it will be possible to connect with 1.8.9 or higher as your clientside version. Users will join into one hub server, with some cool cosmetic features and some server information, and then enter a portal in order to travel to the gamemode that they want to play on.

Factions
The factions gamemode will work much like any other factions server. We will have all of the necessities, using a factions plugin which easily allows you to create, edit and develop your faction to become the best on the server. The economy will be set up and altered from time to time by hazzenator to ensure that we always have the correct balances in everything, and to change the gamemode up a little every so often so you are not just always doing the exact same thing to progress all the time.

KitPvP
The KitPvP gamemode will work in a pretty nice way. Players will be able to select a kit when they join into the spawn area using either the signs or an item GUI which they will spawn with, and can then drop down into the map and fight. At first there will just be one arena in which people can fight, but once we have the playerbase for it, we will expand the gamemode to have many more arenas in different styles to change up the experience for players who want some variety. The KitPvP gamemode will have a ranking system based on the number of points each player has. The number of points that you gain from killing a player depends on the number of points which both players have. If an incredibly good player kills an incredibly bad player, they will gain very few points. If the bad player kills the good player, however, they will gain many more points. Killing people with an average amount of points will give you an average amount of points. When you gain points from killing players, the player who dies also loses those points.

Freebuild
The freebuild gamemode exists to give players a little more freedom and the ability to show off their building skills. Players will be able to claim a plot and build onto it freely using creative mode (lag machines and inappropriate / offensive builds will be punished!), and allow other players to see what they have built. Players will be able to claim only one plot to avoid overcrowding, but if strongly requested then that number may be increased to give players a chance to build more.

Booster Packs
We will have a custom booster packs system in place for the server in the future (this will not be in place from the very beginning, as it may take a while for us to set up, and will require us to see what gamemodes players enjoy most for us to decide what options to add to the booster packs). The way that this booster pack system will work is that, much like on SSRP, you will be able to buy booster packs from the ZARP forums. These booster packs will then give you a number of "booster pack points" in game. You will be able to use these booster pack points to purchase different upgrades for your favorite gamemodes. In order to follow the Minecraft EULA, the upgrades will have to be mostly cosmetic (except for a few things). These upgrades could include: more plots on Freebuild, weapons or armour skins on Factions, cosmetics in minigames, etc. If you have any other suggestions, be sure to tell us!

VIP Benefits
We will incorporate ZARP VIP into the server in a variety of ways. ZARP VIP will give you access to special cosmetic features in the lobby server (and in future, the minigames servers), and will also have some benefits in other servers. We will have special cosmetic features on most servers which will only be accessible by getting ZARP VIP. On Freebuild, we could also raise the plots limit for VIP users, or even add the ability to merge owned plots to create a larger plot (these are only ideas which we could add, no promises that they are what we will add just yet).

The Builds
Here are some of the builds which we currently have in the server:


The view when you join the server


An overview of the main spawn area


An overview of the entire spawn


There are 4 alcoves across the spawn which have some information about the server within each one.



The portals to teleport you to the gamemodes.


The first view from the factions spawn.


An overview of the main factions spawn area


An overview of the entire factions spawn


Shop areas in each corner of the spawn


Freebuild spawn. Enter the portal to get to the freebuild world


First view in the proper freebuild world


First view in KitPvP


Overview of the entire KitPvP spawn.


Current arena. Designed to be natural and give players a relatively open fighting space.


Bridges to eventually lead to new arenas

Extras
If you have any other questions or concerns regarding the server, or have any feedback / suggestions to give, then feel free to contact myself, hazzenator or Mix3rz with your question or reply to this topic, and we will happily listen to what you have to say!

If you guys want it and show an interest, we will make a little video to showcase the server.

Just a reply I made to Ap4ch3 that I think is useful to put here for people to see easily, as it answers some common questions:

Who's dedicated enough to be in the staff team?
It has been mentioned that I have just chosen people who I am friends with, and people who would not show enough dedication. For a start, you can't really know the dedication that each of the people currently chosen (yes, everyone that is in the proposed starting Lead Team has played a role in helping up to this point) until you know what they have actually done. If I were to be choosing people just based on who I am friends with, then yes, the server would be a complete flop and a failure. We have, however, chosen people who we think will get along well (incredibly important, based on the results of the past servers), and people who have shown dedication to the project and the community as a whole, and people who know what they are doing. For example, we have people like Johnler, an experienced TTT Head Admin, and a person who is dedicated to everything (he isn't known as "The Dedicated Staff Member" for nothing), people like Mix3rz, Anon and Luan who have shown a strong passion and done an insane amount to help out thus far and all have experience in Lead Team positions (Mix3rz on SSRP, Anon on Surf, and Luan on SSRP and Surf, with experience in owning a ZARP server too - Luan and Mix3rz have also been immensely helpful in keeping everything running smoothly and on track).
In short, every person that we have proposed has already proven to us that they are dedicated enough and fit the position well.

Is the game still popular?
Obviously, over time Minecraft has lost a lot of the people who once played it, but it does still have a LOT of players. If we think about it statistically in terms of how many people search, we could compare a game such as CS:GO with it. CS:GO gets a pretty solid 10 - 30 searches per day currently (this is going by google searches), with few fluctuations. Minecraft still manages to get around 100 or so daily searches, with a lot of fluctuation from time to time, going down or up by around 30 - 50, but that is still a lot of people, even if there are a lot of fluctuations. The top Minecraft servers do still get tens of thousands of players at one time, and that is because of a few areas, which I have looked into a bit:
Variety of versions - We have a system to people can play on any version they prefer from 1.8+
Variety of good gamemodes - We have a few gamemodes we want to start of with, but also a LOT more that we want to release in the future, and I have done some research into the most popular Minecraft gamemodes over time.
Uniqueness - We currently have few things that would make the server massively unique and stand out from the others bar the community itself, but I am currently working on something which will ensure that the server is immensely unique. I do not want to make any solid promises yet, as it is not yet finished and I don't want to disappoint, but I will say this much: It is a completely custom coded gamemode which we believe a lot of players will find fun, and one which very few servers have actually got, and those which do have not implemented or made it in a very good way.

Would the server realistically have a good amount of players?
If we're thinking realistically, it would probably only get around 20 - 30 players to start with, but with the right time and effort dedicated to the server by the staff and the people working on it, I think that we could massively increase that number, and with the custom gamemode that I mentioned above, I think we could hook in a lot of players from inside and outside of ZARP. Yes, the old server had very few players and lost its hype pretty quickly, but if we can give people what they want from the server and deliver our promises, I am sure that we can keep building on that hype to keep players in, but obviously we can't know until we try (yes, they tried before, but that was different people with different ways of doing things).

Is there someone that has the dedication to own the server for a long time?
Yes, there is. I can't argue with your own opinions on myself and hazzenator, but what I can say is that hazzenator is definitely trusted to some extent, as a TTT Head Admin, and both of us have already put in a lot of time and effort into creating what we have thus far, and personally, it would be an immense shame if I did have to move away from it, and a stupid idea to just move away from it without a very good reason, as I would never abandon something that I worked hard to achieve so easily. I cannot speak for hazzenator in this regard, but I can say that he is dedicated to the server as well and has devoted a lot of time to it.

Just the usual game modes that thousands of servers already have. Why choose our server?
See above about the new, custom coded gamemode that I am working on and hope to add to the server when it is finished. The rate at which I am managing to get things done for this custom gamemode is very good, and I think that we should be able to have it ready to add before long.

We had this quite a few months but it ended up with all the owners on resigning so i don't really know..

When is it up?

buy me an acc so I can hack or something

Kodi wrote:
I have spoken with some people about the old servers and why they were eventually shut down. The problem was with the Owners themselves, and we can assure you that under myself and hazzenator, nothing like the problems which arose before will ever happen again.

Third times a charm?

We'll see if this actually happens..

Luki_Guki wrote:
There is a poll for you to vote on for whether the community want it to actually happen or not!
Go vote on the poll with your opinion!

Pls no

MrPing wrote:
Would you care to give some reasoning as to why you think this?

you bloody showed of my spawn, before i put my signs showing the game modes, you bugger xD.

Let me know when it is open, and i'll finish that off lol

*cough cough* xD i helped with designing kitpvp spawn and freebuild spawn

and lol anon could you not finish?

How long as this been in the works for? If it's less than half a year I don't want this released.

Thing is that this is a gmod based community not a minecraft one and all the other servers from different games have died out.

Would be good to see the server back in action but only if the Owners can handle it correctly.

Raifster123 wrote: *cough cough* asked if they wanted help but they said no *cough cough*

Raifster123 wrote:
*cough cough* I did like 90% of it XD

I'm probably the only one that can't wait for this..

P.S. Onion, I will never forget what you did..

Goodluck guys, I was learning Js and stuff but I didnt know you guys were workin on a new zarp mc hope it goes better than the last time

Jim_Jam wrote:
hmmmmmmm..... You started it XD