Hey guys,

What is this new blog?

I've figured the type of blog entries I want to write aren't gonna fit into the forums or either of my two blogs, so I therefore made made a new blog. I need to get these ideas out of my head anyways; I figured this would be the best place to do so.

Here's a short description of this blog:

A blog documenting, contemplating and discussing the progress JRCraft (and possibly a little bit of the forums too) is making and can make. I'll be criticising systems that don't seem to work, while discussing solutions. I'll also throw out ideas that could be implemented into the server, in survival or minigames. These ideas probably will have either to do with the economy or the server easier to be on for players. They can also either be individual (as a personal project) or server (the staff will have to work on it) project ideas.

This blog will slightly be like a brainstorm and discussion ground to go through before posting ideas in the "suggestions" area of the forums.

Current Ideas

• Shops: I think player shops should be the fuel of the JR economy. I've already suggested the "shopwarp" idea in the forums, in order to give everyone easy access to other player shops. It seems to be an idea people like, so good shops are going to have to be built. I have two main ideas for shops at the moment.

  • Bulk Shop: This shop is already built in the classic survival server. However, if only the survival server matters, then I'll have to find a way to make enough money so that people sell their materials to me (I doubt people will buy more cobble and dirt than will sell). But anyways, this is quite an easy shop to build.

  • Starters Shop: This shop is one that I'm excited to build, and will be most beneficial. It could be built at a personal level, close to spawn, but getting staff to place it as close to spawn as possible would be ideal. This shop would sell wood, cobble, minerals, basic tools, armour, food, and horses. The horses will allow people to go as far as they want in the world (assuming flying is turned off, which it might or might not be). Survival servers can be really harsh on new players if they have to scavenge for minerals and food while finding a place to start surviving, so this shop would be ideal. People could sell stuff to replenish stocks automatically too. However, this leads to another problem: New players have no money, so how could they afford anything at such a shop? In comes in the idea of jobs.

• Jobs: This is an idea that came to mind while thinking about how starters could get money. An example of how it could work is by having new players walk into a courtyard and having them chop wood, farm, or kill mobs (three ideas at the moment). Then they cash in what they got to get money in return. As a builder, I could then use the materials they get for my own projects, and also sell them to others that need them. I'd have to figure out the details of how to stop them from taking too many tools or something like that from the shop when they're sent to go work (are command blocks available?? That could make things very simple for me). Using this method, people could make money at any time in the game, which would be especially beneficial to new players.
• Minigames: As usual, I'm interested in making minigames for everyone on the minigames server. With or without command blocks, I could make fun multiplayer games where people could either make money or gamble money. I also am considering to build a casino on the survival server, where I could make a lot of money, which would then fund my sell shops. I don't know how ethical gambling is on a minecraft server though, I'd have to get some feedback from staff to decide.

So my questions to staff:

• Are command blocks usable on the server?
• Is gambling ok?
• What do you think of these ideas?