What's new?

DEV.2014.March.18.R1

Overview

Welcome to Demigods Early Access! Early access will allow server administrators to test features, find bugs, and give feedback to development versions before we release them as the official new version of the plugin.

While it is important to know that the builds uploaded here are technically 'dev builds', we will (generally) not upload any builds with huge game-breaking bugs. It should be safe to run these builds on to get the 'bleeding edge' updates if you so wish. At the same time, we'd rather you not use these builds in production--features may change, config options may be renamed, and the stability that comes with the official version is generally lost in the early access.

Versioning

This project will update in a similar way to Mojang's Minecraft snapshot schedule, whereas the version number is specified by the date of the release:

NAME.year.month.day.RELEASE

Explanation

• NAME: The feature/branch of the uploaded build. Currently 'DEV' is the name of the branch, and it will likely stay that way until the official release of version 3.0.0. After that, the name may change to something like 'SQL' or 'GIANTS'. Many different versions of the plugin may be uploaded at a time (with different names indicating what you'd be testing if you downloaded it).
• year: The year, e.g. '2014'.
• month: The name of the month, e.g. 'March'.
• day: The day of the month, e.g. '18'.
• RELEASE: The release number for that day, e.g. 'R1'.

New Features

Pretty much everything here is new compared to version 2 of Demigods. There is very little documentation to start with, so I'll list most of what you'll need to get started below:

Characters

Players in DG now are treated as 'characters'.

A player can save their inventory, location, and all of their Demigods related data to their character. A player may be allowed (by the server administration via the config) to have more than one character (this will be explained below in the 'Altars' section).

Each character is allowed to choose a unique name, and they must choose an alliance when they create their character.

Deities and Alliances

Deities and Alliances are what make up the player factions. Currently, certain deities are assigned to an alliance, and all characters that are demigods of that deity are locked into the same alliance.

Deities also decide what special abilities a character can have. If a player grows tired of playing as their chosen deity, they are free to forsake the deity (deleting their character).

When a character claims a deity (during creation), they will be asked to tribute some specific items to the deity. These should be found by the player, or provided by the server staff.

Battles

By default, Demigods will manage PvP in a new and quick round-based system. When you engage an enemy, DG will start a battle. While in the battle, you cannot leave it until any of the below number of conditions are met:

• The minimum number of kills are met (based on the number of participants), and the time limit has expired.
• Only one alliance is left in the battle (due to players leaving the game).
• An admin ends the battle (currently disabled).

Battles currently prevent death, and the only reward is a higher score on the leaderboard. We are open to suggestions as to what sorts of penalties would be fun for the losing participants in the battle, and what rewards the winners should recieve.

DG handled battles can also be disabled in the config.

Abilities

During battles, and sometimes outside of them, characters will utilize their deity abilities as they play on the server. Some abilities are passive (always enabled), while others cost Favor, a resource you can earn by Tributing (explained further down).

Cooldowns exist for certain abilities to prevent spamming and to promote fairness.

Abilities must be bound to an item. They can do so by holding an item in their hand while using the ability's command. This means that whenever a character right clicks with the item in their hand the ability is activated.

Altars

Altars are the main, and probably most important, structure in Demigods 3. These structures will spawn every so often throughout the world as new terrain is generated.

Altars will not naturally spawn in already generated chunks. However, server staff can utilize the /dg admin wand command to create an Altar wherever they want:

• Use the command '/dg admin wand'.
• Place an emerald block on the ground.
• Right click on the emerald block with the admin wand.

When a player wants to use an Altar, they must approach the enchantment table at it's center, wait until they are safe from PvP, and then right click on the enchantment table.

Players will be presented with a menu of options to choose from. Options include character creation, character management, warps, invites, notifications, etc..

It should be noted that the Altar is not the structure that characters are meant to tribute at.

An Altar creates a PvP-free zone surrounding it. A character that enters said zone must wait few seconds before they are considered safe.

Altars can not be destroyed (other than with the admin wand), but players are allowed to build in their PvP-free zones.

Obelisks

An Obelisk is hard-earned grief protection for a character, and those the character allows in.

Like Altars, Obelisks are structures handled by DG. Unlike Altars, they are created by characters, and they can be destroyed, but neither task is easy.

To create an Obelisk, a player must gather 4 cobblestone and 1 redstone block:

• Place the redstone block in the center of a cleared 3 x 3 square.
• Cover all horizontal sides of the redstone block with cobblestone to create a '+' shape.
• Right click on the redstone block with an item of the same type used to claim the deity (at the Altar).

After doing the above, the Obelisk will spring into life, protecting a sizeable area around it from griefing.

The Obelisk does not protect from battles, PvP, or damage of any kind to the character. Only the environment is protected.

An Obelisk can currently only be destroyed when players attack it with their fists, or with weapons (at the moment they do the same amount of damage). When it is destroyed, they receive a kill in their leaderboard score, and the owner if the Obelisk gains a death.

Obelisks cannot be destroyed if a character has been offline for a certain amount of time.

Shrines and Tributing

A Shrine is, like an Obelisk, a character created structure. They are destroyed in the same way as Obelisks, but are much easier to kill.

A Shrine is built in the same way as an Obelisk, but with a gold block instead of redstone.

Characters can tribute items to their deity at a Shrine:

• Right click the shrine.
• Place items in the inventory that was opened.
• Close the inventory.

After doing the above, a character's max Favor will increase, allowing them to cast more abilities in a battle.

Currently, a character can create as many Shrines as they like with no penalty--this will be changed in the future.

Commands

The commands in Demigods 3 aren't fully fleshed out yet, and are full of inconsistencies, however here are a few that are pretty much done and ready to use:

• /demigods, /demigod, /dg - The documentation (unfinished, but still useful).
• /deity - Shortcut to the current character's deity info under /dg. (/dg alliance deity)
• /obelisk - A temporary command for managing an obelisk. The obelisk menu (similar to the Altar menu) will replace this command. Usage: /obelisk add/remove player/character name will add/remove the current character related to the name entered.
• /check, /c - A self-check for the current character's stats.
• /alliance, /a - Alliance chat, e.g. /a Hello everyone!
• /leaderboard, /l - The leaderboard.
• /names, /n - List the current online characters and the players they belong to, organized by alliance.
• /skills, /s - Current skill data for the character.
• /tributes, /t, /values - Check the current tribute value of the item in hand.
• /owner, /o - Check what player owns a certain character, e.g. /o Steve

Configuration

Configuration is something we don't really have the time to discuss here. The config.yml generated in the Demigods plugin folder should be easy to understand, so try to stick to that before diving into the special config folder.

Things not quite working yet...

A number of things are unfinished, such as the deities themselves, and many abilities. As an example, Hades isn't even included in this first release. But don't fret about this--believe it or not, the deities and abilities are the easiest part to code in the entire plugin.

If you notice something not working the way you expect, please let us know below in the comments. We'd love to have any feedback you are willing to give.

Thank you for helping us with the development of Demigods!

~ The Demigods Team