Minigame Update + Halloween + MCFun Building Plaza Update

Hey Guys,
It's Matt, the owner of MCFun Central.

Many things have happened since October 12th.

First off, Happy November! I swear 2013 was just a few months ago. I can't believe how much has changed!

Let's start with the minigame update. If you go on MCFun Central right now and walk to some of the minigame portals, you might see some signs that say that the minigame is going to be removed soon. Those minigames are currently Redstone Rebelling, Jailbreak, and Build It! The reason for these removals is because either the minigames have no way of working, or are just a bad idea. Let's take Jailbreak for example. In case you don't know, Jailbreak is basically a game where you are in a prison and you have to avoid all the various monsters and find the escape door. That sounds pretty fun, right? Well it is... the first time you play it. I build Jailbreak with a little bit of redstone and a minigame plugin, so that means the position of the door never changes, so once you know where the door is, the whole game just becomes a race to get to the door and avoid the monsters, since you know where the door is. It's not fun. The only good thing about Jailbreak is how well the prison was built. It was built in December by Xander, Xenlow, Calvin, and probably some other people that I forgot (I didn't make a credit list in the castle, sorry). I might keep the world somewhere in my local filesystem because of how well the castle was built, but other than that, there's no reason to keep Jailbreak in MCFun Central, because it is simply a bad game.

Let's move on to Build It! Built It! was added to MCFun Central because we thought that since people loved the game Build It!, if we added it to the server, more people would enjoy the server because it has at least one super-popular game. Unfortunately, the plugin that we have for Built It! isn't very good for these reasons: every time the server restarted or reloaded something, the plugin would also reset most of itself. That means that it would keep all the words that I had stored in it, but it would remove all of the maps. That means I would have to go to the arena and manually recreate it. Since MCFun Central restarted a lot back then as it was in beta and we were implementing new things, that wasn't very helpful. Eventually I just gave up, and now the admin commands for the new update on the plugin is very confusing and I don't have time to learn it, and neither do I want to put in some time to learn it. Creating maps used to be very simple (after you built it). All you had to do was stand on one corner, type /bmt pos1, stand in another corner, type /bmt pos2, and then /bmt create <arena name>. Now the plugin owner has removed those commands, and I don't want to spend a bunch of time on a plugin that breaks every time I restart the server. Today, restarting isn't a problem for MCFun Central, but we still have to do it sometimes.

Now, let's talk about Redstone Rebelling. Redstone Rebelling has always kind of been a favored game of mine. It was a great concept. It would be set in a big castle, but in the small corridors of the castle. Each new door that you pass would signal a new level. To open each door, you would have to go through  a series of puzzles that are very risky and that require a lot of thinking. If you die just once, you're out of the game. In the first level, you had to guess which lever to flick so that the door would open. In the second level, there were some opening and closing doors, and you had to walk through the right one. In the third level, there are password hints on the walls, and you have to find out what the password is (it's really complicated, but it doesn't make sense anymore). Then, in the last level, a random player would be teleported to a control room. You had to go through a series of puzzles to open various doors for the other player(s). You can either lead them into the right door (which you don't know either) or you can lead them into a trap. The first person to go through the right door and reach the end of the level wins $500, and the person in the control room wins $250 for opening the right door. So what's the problem with Redstone Rebelling? There are a couple of major problems. The first one was the same problem that we ran into with Jailbreak. It was a great game at first, but after you knew the door and the puzzles and the patterns in the control room, it just became a pointless race to see who would finish the game first, which made it really bad. The second problem made the game unplayable. Redstone Rebelling was built with redstone, but it also was built on the Minigames plugin, which doesn't allow people to teleport. This means that nobody would be able to teleport into the control room to open the doors for everyone else. Also, even if it had worked, the random teleportation was off of a pressure plate, so if nobody stuck together, more people would be teleported to the control room. I know there's some way to get around that with 1.7 commands, but Bukkit didn't allow 1.7 commands until the release build, which didn't come until around June, and by that time, I was already trying to make it playable. Unfortunately, that's not possible. The code inside of the Minigames plugin does not allow for a change in permissions while playing a game. So that means it's not in the config, meaning that nobody can ever teleport in-game while using the Minigames plugin. Removing the game as a minigame from the minigames plugin would result in complicated redstone that would be unnecessary and too much hard work for a game that isn't fun after the first or second time you play it.

This was a long post so far, but there's more!

Whether you went trick-or-treating last night or not, Halloween was last night! Unfortunately, where I live, the weather decided to become really mean. Snow and ice was blowing in everyone's faces and I couldn't show off my amazing Doppler Effect costume because I had to bundle up with a winter jacket. I hated that. But I'm sure all your Halloweens' were amazing, whether you decided to go trick-or-treating, or whether you decided to stay at home and do nothing. If you've been on MCFun Central lately, you've probably noticed that it was decorated for Halloween! This was great, but the decorations are going to be taken down tomorrow, so come on MCFun Central now to see the decorations for the last time!

I also have some news on MCFun Building Plaza. After the unnecessary reset, Orion decided to whitelist the server to bring it back up to where it was. That means make a new spawn and remake some of the houses. It will be off of whitelist soon, but for now, the server is whitelisted.

Ok, I'm getting bored of typing, and you're probably getting bored of reading, so I'm going to stop here. k bye

Halloween Has Come to MCFun Central! + Overhaul Update

Hey Guys,
It's Matt, the owner of MCFun Central.

If you connect to MCFun Central right now, you will notice a big change: Halloween decorations!

We have decided to start switching the server a bit every holiday to keep up with holidays while still keeping the mood of the MCFun Servers. Since Halloween is approaching at greater speed than we thought, we have decided to start decorating for Halloween.

While we want to continue to make the server especially exciting by switching the server theme every major holiday, we didn't want to make a complete change to the server. Therefore, we will only decorate the main spawn and not any of the minigame spawns. However, you can always voice your questions or concerns in the comments section or on Twitter!

Big thanks to our co-owner and decorator for every theme, sharpdomino. She knows what she's doing when she starts decorating.

Now, moving on to a bigger update: The MCFun Overhaul.

Back in August, we announced that we would be turning the MCFun Servers into a network linked with BungeeCord. Some major changes included that the servers would be connected with portals, we would be making our own plugins for our minigames and possibly our own minigames, we would hire builders to revamp our spawns to match the theme of our new name, The Extrillius Network. We announced that changes would start taking place in October, but we ran into a few problems:

1) All the plugin APIs are crumbling down due to riots involving money, so there is no way that we can get new plugins until the new Sponge API comes out.
2) Switching from Elementary school to Junior High has put weight on my shoulders that I have not learned to deal with, and as a result, is keeping my busy even during the weekends.
3) Because of the busyness and the fact that Codecademy doesn't have Java, I haven't set my mind on learning Java or the Bukkit/Spigot API.
4) In addition to me being busy, all the other staff members of the MCFun Servers have been busy as well, and since Bernard moved, it's more difficult to find a good time to talk to him.

Therefore, while we want the changes to start taking effect now, we can't have that. We are trying to plan the overhaul, which includes both ideas and money balance over the (currently) three servers. The changes might start taking effect next month or even in December, but what I know is that we will try our hardest to get the overhaul out for the MCFun Servers' 1 Year Anniversary, which is on December 9th.

We're sorry for all of this trouble, but we'll find a way to put the overhaul onto our calendars.

~ Matt

The MCFun Overhaul Project

This post is probably going to be the post with the biggest news for not only MCFun Central, but for the entire group of MCFun Servers.

Go on any of the MCFun Servers right now. Count how many players are online with you.
If you counted 0, that is about as many as we get on average, and even if we do get any players, it's usually people we know, or staff members. On top of that, we have never gotten a single donation, except for MCFun Survival, which did a great job at advertising. It was a relaxing and fun environment to play in, and it made people want to donate. The only thing MCFun Survival was missing was stability, and that was because Daniel had trouble paying the bill, and there were hacker problems on the server constantly that forced Daniel to reset the world over and over to the point where people just gave up on playing, since it was almost certain their work would be wiped away again. The player count dropped significantly, and Daniel shut the server down. Since then, the MCFun Servers rarely received players. Especially MCFun Central, which had 8 minigames, eventually just died out. It is a small server with an unoriginal spawn, and minigames that just "don't" after a while.

We want to completely redo the MCFun Servers. Don't worry, this won't affect MCFun Building Plaza, other than the name, but I'll get to that. This is mostly going to affect MCFun Central.

Here's a simple way of putting it. We want to redo EVERYTHING, including the name. When the MCFun Servers first started, I came up with the first name that popped into my head (MCFun), and it just stuck. We want a professional and original name, along with professional and original servers. No, that was not a typo. I said SERVERS. Why? We are going to become a professional network, meaning that there will be a different server for each minigame, all connected together with BungeeCord and sub-domains (e.g. KitPvP.mcfuncentral.net (we are not going to be called MCFun Central, that was just an example)).

Since we are going to turn into one big network, we will not have separate servers. This means that MCFun Building Plaza will join the network, and will be part of the nine minigames, even though it is not counted as a minigame, at least to us.

So, what is planned so far for the overhaul? Here's the list:

1) Separate all minigames into different servers linked with BungeeCord

2) Remake all spawns (minigame spawns and server spawn)

3) Change the name to something original, yet has a good theme, and draws the attention of potential players

4) Don’t download any plugins (except for Essentials, WorldEdit, and WorldGuard), and make an original plugin for each minigame

5) Make original minigames (we are not sure about this)

6) Make a donation system that complies with the Mojang rules, but that will still attract players

Any other MCFun Servers that may join in the future will be part of this network.

And finally, what are we going to be called?

Our big network is going to be renamed to The Extrillius Network.

These changes will begin to take effect starting next month and it will probably not be until the end of the year until the changes are finally finished. For now, everything is normal.

If you have any questions or concerns about the overhaul that I didn't mention in the post, don't hesitate to tweet to us @MCFunCentral, PM me on YouTube (TechBug2012), or just leave a comment on this post!

~ Matt

MCFun Central - Another Relocation, Twitter, and a New Member!

Hey guys,
It's Matt, the owner of MCFun Central (I know, shocker, but we'll talk about this further in the post).

This is a pretty late post, since MCFun Central got relocated last week (Aug. 12), but we have relocated once again. Why would we relocate twice within 2 days?
If you have experience with domains, you know that if your Minecraft port is not 25565, the default Minecraft port, you will have to connect to the server you want to connect to with the domain followed by :whateverporttheserverhas. Since MCProHosting servers come with a random port, you will have to purchase their Dedicated IP package to change your port to 25565.

Once we relocated to Chicago, I had some connection trouble with the server. Everything was fine, I was getting 20 TPS like normal, but it started with you having to wait about a second before your chat message went through. That may not seem like a lot, but go on any lag-free server, and you'll notice that your chat message goes through immediately. MCFun Central has always been that way, so I was a little bit concerned once I noticed this.

By the next day, it had reached a point where you couldn't even connect to MCFun Central, even though the server was running fine and the connection was good. I contacted MCProHosting about this, and they told me that they had screwed up when they gave my dedicated IP to me and that it overlapped with another server. If I wanted a dedicated IP again, I would have to move again. Since the server originally was started in Ashburn and things were fine there, I decided to switch back to Ashburn. However, in the time that I was in Chicago, someone had already taken our old IP, 23.235.224.10, which included both the IP and the 25565 port. Unfortunately, unless the owner of the server that took my IP decides to get another IP (or move, if they are on a server host), we will not get our old IP back.

But as I was trying to move to Ashburn, MCProHosting told me that they had run out of Dedicated IPs in Ashburn as well! Since Washington DC is fairly close, we are now in Washington DC. However, I'm trying something new. Since there were so many IP changes going on, I am not going to give out the new numerical IP. If a bunch of IP changes like these happen again, I want people to be on either the sub-domain or the domain, because I immediately point the domains to the new numerical IP after the IP gets changed, if that decided to happen again.

That being said, if you see "Can't connect to server" for MCFun Central, please edit the server on your server list and change the IP to one of the following:

play.mcfuncentral.net

mcfuncentral.mcpro.co

In other news, we have a new member to the MCFun Servers that has just gone public! Remember MCFun Survival and MCFun Building Plaza? MCFun Building Plaza has become the new MCFun Survival! As some of you may know, MCFun Building Plaza had existed for a while, and it was originally designed as a "creative plots" server, but you could build anywhere in the world. So why is it still called MCFun Building Plaza? We have a new feature to our survival server: Build to Rankup! We have 6 ranks: Beginner (default rank), Stone, Iron, Gold, Diamond, and God! The better you build, the more access to kits and commands you get! But don't get so excited yet: you've got to be an outstanding builder to earn the god rank. Start practicing now! mcfunbuildingplaza.mcpro.co

Lastly, I want to mention that MCFun Central has a Twitter! Most of you come here for updates on the MCFun Servers, but most of these blog posts are pretty long, and infrequent. If you want quick updates on MCFun Central, follow us on Twitter @MCFunCentral

For now, the only twitter account with the MCFun Servers is the MCFun Central, but we will soon add a Twitter for upcoming servers! Also, Orion, the owner of MCFun Building Plaza, will start posting updates about the new server, since MCFun Building Plaza became public.

We hope to see you on our servers!

~ Matt

MCFun Central - New IP!

Hey guys,
Once again, it's Matt, the owner of MCFun Central.
As you know, we finally got our new domain play.mcfuncentral.net to work. However, some of you still may notice "Cannot connect to server." This is because you either are connected with the long IP (23.235.224.10) or you are connected with the sub-domain of MCProHosting (mcfuncentral.mcpro.co). I have some good news and some bad news.

Bad: My server has been reloacted, and because of this, we have a new IP, meaning if you are connected with 23.235.224.10, you will never reach MCFun Central.

Good: play.mcfuncentral.net still works and is still pointed to the server.

Good: The sub-domain is still pointed at my server.

Bad: If you live in Europe, you'll have a harder time connecting to the server, since it's 400 miles further.

Good: If you live in or near Chicago, you'll have a BETTER time connecting to the server =)

Sorry for all of this,

~ Matt

The Domain Is Ready!

Yep,

Today I tried connecting with the domain, and I finally got it to work! We now have a professional domain! Check it out:

So finally, after all this BS starting in June, MCFun Central FINALLY has a domain: play.mcfuncentral.net. All this time, I've wanted a .com domain, so I might switch to that... or we could just get used to the .net domain... let us know which one you want!

Having a domain of our own provides even more benefits: I plan to have a separate server for each minigame. I could use the one "mcfuncentral.net" to connect the servers with different domains. For example, play.mcfuncentral.net, kitpvp.mcfuncentral.net, colorshuffle.mcfuncentral.net, etc. I can do all that with just the one domain, which is useful. The only reason I haven't set up separate servers yet is because right now, I pay $25/month for my server. The cheapest plan with MCProHosting that allows Bukkit (and sufficient memory for the separate minigame) is the Dirt Plan, which is 5/month, + 8 (soon to be 9) minigames. That's $40-$45/month on its own. Then I might setup some other things that take up money, which is also adds on to the price, but we'll see.

Just to clarify, I did not delete the numerical IP or the MCProHosting sub-domain, so if you still have those IPs, you won't need to type the domain just to be able to connect to the server. You can still connect to MCFun Central with these three IPs:

- 23.235.224.10

- mcfuncentral.mcpro.co

- play.mcfuncentral.net

We hope to see you there!

~ Matt

play.mcfuncentral.net + New KitPvP!

Hey guys,
Once again it's Matt, the owner of MCFun Central.

So, you know all this crap I've had with GoDaddy about my domain? It turns out, all along, the domain I was dealing with was mcFUcentral.com (that's not a typo). And even when I was trying to add mcfucentral.com to my server, it just wasn't working anyway. So I decided, screw it. I am now introducing a whole new domain: mcfuncentral.net. But this isn't going to be just a regular domain. I am going to make a website with the domain mcfuncentral.net, and you will be able to connect to my server with play.mcfuncentral.net.

Currently, if you try connecting, it will say "unknown host." This is because GoDaddy is still in the process of pointing the domain to my server. I will notify you once it's ready to connect.

On another note, KitPvP is new and better than ever! Normally, I don't like using KitPvP plugins, but this one was great! It's called KingKits, and it includes everything I've always wanted for my server:

1) Getting paid everytime you kill someone
2) Better payment system (being able to type /pvpkit (kit_name) and still have it taking the money)
3) QuickSoup (doesn't take hunger while you have a kit, but if you right-click a soup when you are missing some health bars, it will heal you, and you can also refill your bowls with /refill)
4) When you select a kit, it puts on the armor for you
5) YOU CAN'T COMBINE KITS! (finally)

We also have a new kit: Ghast! Kit Ghast is available for $250 ingame money per use. Yes, I know, it's pretty expensive, but it's worth it:

I know, it looks kinda weak when you see the enchantments, but come and try them out yourself, you'll see that it's worth $250/use!

I guess that's it for this blog post. School will be starting soon and I won't be able to focus on the blog as much, but I'll keep trying!

~ Matt