Bukkit

What's been going on recently!? And why hasn't there been an update yes!? AGHIHATETHISPLUGINJASDHFLKJHBLEKJVW!!!

Alright, so for anyone following the project recently, you would know that I haven't posted an update in a little while. This is due to a multitude of reasons. For anyone who cares… I just finished summer school differential equations last Monday, birthday happened, got a new computer, got to spend some time with family, spent little time playin' Diablo 3 and wrote a small script for it, and I also got a job at a software consulting firm as a QA associate. So, short response: Life has been busy and thus this project hasn't been the highest priority. I've decided it is time though, to bug-fix, update, refactor, add features, and poll all of you who care for the bigger features. This will take time, so I only ask that you have a little patience as I knock this stuff out. I have the rest of the summer though to spend on this project and intend to make it hopefully to a stable version 2.0 build before summer's end. That is not to say that I won't still provide support. My intention is to provide support for as long as possible. So without boring anyone with further nonsense, here is the next update (v1.6.0): http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/xteam/files/16-v1-6-0/

So looking forward for the summer, I would like to know your thoughts/comments/concerns/questions/bugs/whatever regarding any large decisions/additions. If it is too unpopular then I will abandon it no questions asked. On the flip-side if certain features/ideas become popular I will make them higher priority additions. What I would like to do is add polls for some of these decisions/additions. The first main item on the table is whether or not to add land protection. Now hear me out: I recognize that this plugin was founded on having no land protection but in my few years experience with Minecraft on many different servers, I find the most enjoyable ones long term are the ones with land protection. This is because of a certain degree of security in the back of my mind when I know I set up my property correctly. Now having said that I have been on many servers with this and thought to myself, "this land protection is WAAAY to overpowered and WAAAY to cheap". This got me thinking that why can't we have the best of both worlds. That is, have land protection and some degree of security, BUT also have to maintain/keep the land I own - kind of like paying rent to the server. This rent would be regulated through the server owner as well as the economy, so each server owner would have to find a sweet spot between incoming money (i.e. killing monsters and mining), and outgoing money (i.e. team bank) while still having enough left over to buy/sell other items.

Here is my idea in simplest form:
1. Land protection for claimed land
2. Rent per block of land due every midnight
3. Auto-payments from team bank, which is maintained by team leader
4. One day without payment = griefable, not loot-able (griefing costs $ per block?)
5. One week without payment = loot-able/claimable for double price
6. Two weeks without payment = land becomes completely un-claimed
7. Warnings would be issued for when land is unprotected

Ideally this will prevent inactive players from buying land and then forgetting about it, a measure to keep players on their toes and active on the server… It also adds a positive correlation between the number of team members and the amount of land that a team can own. For example, more players = more income to team bank = more land that a team can claim/maintain. The auto-payments could be set up to pay every night, but each player pays to the team bank manually. Also, the concept behind the griefing here is that you never want your team bank to run out. It would be up to the team leader to request money from certain people on the team but always to keep it full, and if the land is un-maintainable, then it needs to be shrunk down to a more manageable size. Furthermore, the idea with the one/two weeks without payment where the land becomes loot-able drives players to be even more cautious when claiming and maintaining land. And obviously there would be plenty of warnings to users to make payments to the bank to keep their land and their protection.

Now this is only a very crude structure that certainly needs to be fleshed out and improved upon, so I may need input from you guys for other features that might factor in and things that I may not have thought of yet. I also posted a poll on the main page on whether or not you would even want a feature like this to hear what you guys think… Hopefully this type of protection would prevent set-it-and-forget-it type ownership so that those that ragequit the server will have their items and land returned to the game economy in time through being able to loot after 1-2 weeks. Again, this is just a crude example of what might be, so let me know what you think in the comments below.

Thanks, protocos