Lord of the Craft Blogs: Featured Player, Livestream Updates and more! LotC Blog #3

Drama, drama everywhere!

Everyone, just clam down! You all know what I'm talking about; and for the sake of sanity, I'm not going to talk much about it.

Now, with that out of the way, let's get to the good stuff...

Featured Player: Cmack

One of the marvelous players in our community, Cmack, did me the honor of making the new Wilven Monk skin. Here it is, for those that are curious.

It's very wonderful, if I do say so myself. Then, I also had the honor of interviewing Cmack to ask him a little about his LotC story, and what he thinks of the recent news.

Me: When did you join LotC, and what brought you to it?

Cmack: I joined the 14th of July, in 2012. A good friend of mine had heard about it from a friend of his, and he and I made applications. Well, I'd never been on an RP server before for Minecraft. It was a first for me, and I was just looking to try out some new things.

Me: What characters do you currently play?

Cmack: As of now, I play Thudrin Treebeard, the Druid of Oak. He's a forest dwarf. I also play a troll character, Godrim, who I have an accepted VA for. Lastly, I have an ancient dark elf character who's extremely religious, his name is Ravyn Nightheart.

Me: You play a troll? I mean, I've met one before, but... What's that like? Has anything interesting happened so far?

Cmack: Not an internet troll! SuperSodaPops' lore was just accepted for his troll lore, and it was put on trial period. Soda picked myself and Slic3man to RP the two other troll characters allowed in the trial.

We've had many fun RP experiences while playing our characters, including eating several halflings of Lenfarthing, quite a few delicious humans... It's been a blast so far, and we can't wait until the night cycle is extended to 30 minutes so we can stay out a bit longer each Minecraft day.

Me: Have you made skins before?

Cmack: Hrm. I've made a few crappy ones, but just recently I actually started to get into it. I used to have my skins made for me, but I think I can actually make a quality one for myself now.

Me: What do you think of all of this drama going around on the server?

Cmack: Well, I'm not sure, honestly. I'm excited about all the new plugin talk, and it sounds like fun stuff. As for the drama, I'm open-minded. I see both sides of the arguments about PvP vs. RP default in fights on the server.

Me: Anything else you'd like to say?

Cmack: Well, I just wanted to say that I had a blast doing the little monk skin competition, and the interview was fun too!

As reward for his excellent skin making, Cmack received 300 minas and a bunch of other personal bonuses! I thank him for letting me interview him, and use his skin.

You can see the other skins that were submitted here.

Livestream Updates!

Beside the drama that arose today, there were a lot of new, great things mentioned for the upcoming plugin updates. I took notes from the livestream that Telinir and Tythus held today, and I bring you guys snippets of what I thought were the coolest part of this new content! The update will come in stages, or patches. Most of it will come out during the first patch, but there will be later patches to add other stuff along the way.

You can watch the livestream here.

The original estimate for the release of this giant thing-a-ma-jig was late July to early August, but Telinir said he'll push it to try and get it out to us by early-mid July. Thanks Tele!

| New Weapons |

Many new weapons were mentioned in the livestream, including (but definitely not limited to)

• Crossbows

• Claymores

• Longbows

• Throwing Knives

• Spears/Lances (especially for use on horsies!)

Crossbows

Crossbows will be an actual in-game item, and are essentially powerful bows that require more time to load. The damage of the Crossbow is about doubled if compared to the bow, and the target of the bolt receives slowness and blindness.

The Crossbow has a 10 second reload time, and during that time, the play must remain completely still and keep the Crossbow selected on their action bar to reload.

Custom crossbow bolts will also be available to be made and crafted.

Quivers

Quivers will be craftable! Telinir said that having a quiver and opening it will give you a 1x9 space to keep your arrows and such.

| Death |

Death by Mobs

When you get killed by a zombie, skeleton, or any other mob, you won't actually die. The knockout plugin will be active for all mob deaths, and the best part is: you won't lose any of your items!

However, in certain regions or special events, the knockout plugin will be turned off for mobs, just like how we turn off the knockout plugin for wars or battles.

Death by Accident

If you die by accident -- say, you fall off of a cliff --, you will be faced with two options.

Option 1: Revive at the Cloud Temple.

Option 2: Go into soul mode, and respawn at an area (at most) 10 blocks from where you died.

In both occasions, you will lose 50% of your items (randomly).

Returning from Death after Battles/Events

The server already has a rule present where it is not allowed to return to your place of death until 30 minutes have passed if it is a major battle, event, or PvP conflict. Now, this rule will be mechanically enforced.

When you die, there will be a protected area that keeps only you out, and this protection will last for 30 minutes. The protection will have a radius of 100 blocks.

Death in PvP
In PvP, the victor will receive 10% of the victim's items. This will happen because, in your death, a random 10% of your items will pop out of you, instead of the usual 100%. The loser will respawn at the Cloud Temple; they will not be given the option to respawn 10 blocks away.

| Duels |

Two players can agree to duel, where they will partake in PvP combat, but neither person dies when there is a winner. The winner of the duel will be announced on a local chat.

This option would be for people who are just fighting for fun, or perhaps want to be able to RP after one of the characters dies in PvP.

| RP Items |

If you have a special item that is a part of your character, you can request to have a moderator tag it for safe keeping. You'll never lose this item if you die by a mob or accidental death.

Also, you will be able to rename your own items, but the only possible option they thought of to allow this is for it to put your name on the item when you rename it. More will be explained about that in the future.

| Professions |

There will be approximately 27 professions, including (but not limited to):

• Tailoring

• Blacksmithing (Armorsmithing, Toolsmithing, Weaponsmithing, etc.)

• Brewery

• Cooking

Food

When the plugin hits, there will be a big famine. All of the food will most-likely go bad, and we'll have to rely on people to level their professions to cook food. The Halflings will most definitely be a reliable source of good food.

Leveling and Proficiency Points

Leveling your first profession will be rather easy, but for every profession after that it will get progressively harder. This is to prevent grinding, and put more attention to RP.

Through some means or another, you will gain these things called proficiency points, but there will be point caps for certain professions. This is one of the topics I'm not too sure about.

| Characters and Races |

Racial Benefits

Orcs: They will have more strength, but they will be afflicted by Bloodlust. As the orc continues to hit it's target, it's vision will begin to cloud, and it will eventually not be able to see what it's hitting. Orcs will also get hungrier faster than the other races.

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Humans: Humans will be more proficient with swords.

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Elves: Elves will be more swift, and proficient with bows.

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Dwarves: They will have more defense than the other races.

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Halflings: Halflings will be more nimble and able to dodge.

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Kharajyr: The Kha, with the addition of their claws, will have higher melee damage.

Rolling your Character

Players will "roll" (enroll) a character when they first log onto the server, and that will be their character. If you have more than one character card, your professions will not be the same. If you want a new race, you will have completely re-roll your character -- professions and all.

You will be able to set that you are a child/elderly/disabled/etc. when you roll your character, so that your stats are moved accordingly to your condition.

| Misc. |

• The more things you have in your inventory, the more your hunger bar will go down.

• There will be MC events where you can trip, fall, or even fumble, dropping your weapons. There will also be possible bleeding in combat, and further exhaustion.

• Heavier armors will slow you down more.

• There will be bird roosts that actually have use in-game!

• Alec is coding a client mod that will add a bunch of features to the RP of the server! The only feature mentioned so far is that there will be chat bubbles!

Why PvP Combat?

In the livestream, Tythus and Telinir explained a bit of their reasoning on why they think a PvP default is the best thing for the server. Here is what I've laid out of what they said:

• Combat will be quick and brutal, as apposed to the (occasional) 1-2 hour RP conflict

• It will be more about having fun, instead of spending an hour or two typing

• No OOC conflict due to being in a fight for so long

• It will reduce the amount of metagaming -- while you're RP fighting, your enemy could be sending /tells to their friends to come help

• Powergaming will be reduced due to it being a mechanic

They hope that this plugin will take less time out of RP fighting, and put more time into actually roleplaying. Whatever your opinion is, take everything into mind!

Screenshot of the Day

This screenshot comes from gabriel101x1 and his screenshot thread. Everything there is absolutely amazing to look at; I bring you just one of the screenshots he posted.