I agree, I really don't like when a server is reliant on a client-sided mod. Additionally, I will not play on a server that will disconnect you for not having the appropriate client-sided mod.
You should experiment with using the default mini-game list for either parties or the inventory. You could also make shorter commands and/or "typo" commands, just in case a user incorrectly spells /checkinventory or something long.
I still enjoyed the server for hours without these enhancements though.
Yeah, there might be a way to put the minigame GUI to use. Just last night, actually, someone found out that you can give yourself the (invincible) standard player by starting a minigame.
Also another type of material "rot" for any meat or corpse that is left out might be nice. Carrying rot or having it around is not good over time. Keeping things cool will stop rot. Rot bricks can be placed in others' food or water supply as a form of biological warfare. Or just place it around someone's base and it messes with health. Just an idea.
This is a neat idea but I'm not sure whether I want food/hunger in this. There may still be ways to have this be impactful, though.
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A lot of players have this idea that equipment progression is supposed to take a lot longer than it currently does. While this is somewhat true, I think that making the flesh biome actually dangerous (possibly also decreasing the chance of sanguite ore) and adding in the means of creating the synthetic metals and transmuting calcite/sanguite will make the time required to craft a full set of equipment more in line with what I'm going for and also with what players are expecting. The longer it takes to get to endgame gear, the less of a fort wars we have and the more of a (survival) RPG we have. I want to strike a balance.
So regarding levels, I don't like that it's just another arbitrary hurdle that players would need to jump in order to reach endgame.
A big problem right now is that death is not sufficiently discouraged, even with item loss, as players can simply loot (and even butcher) their own corpses. Further, spawn bricks are still being abused, especially since players do not drop equipment on death (karma, when implemented, will help to address this). I think that I may have to go back on my "no durability" stance and have equipped items lose durability each time you die and eventually become unusable until repaired.
Fixing the problem with death helps to address the problems you mentioned with totems. However, I'm quite concerned that players destroyed the flesh party castle even though there is currently nothing to be gained from destroying others' forts. Karma may help address this but the problem may ultimately just be that people are richards which can't really be fixed.
The bug you mentioned about parties is not a bug. That parties ever acted that way was an unintended effect of the way they were originally coded. Tribes will behave in the way that you're talking about.
The fact that flesh has become a currency is probably my favorite part about this entire project. However, I am strongly against creating a dedicated currency item. I believe that increasing the rarity of sanguite (by making its main source - flesh biomes - more dangerous, and possibly by decreasing its spawn rate in those biomes) that it and sinnite will likely become currencies. Depending on how harsh the durability penalty on death is and how rare metals are, calcite and nithlite may even become valued commodities. Faerie dust will be very hard to obtain and obtaining it from its main source will incur a karmic penalty, so I suspect that it will likely be an item that people may trade for as well.
In short, I'm going for a barter economy.
Spawn points are definitely not in a good place. I'm strongly considering having players only be able to spawn at a totem (if not a random spot in the world).
Flesh biomes do naturally occur and are a fully-fledged biome with their own doodads. I do agree that they need to be dangerous.
I will eventually make it so that every item can be dropped, even in large quantities, using a generic 3d model for non-equipment. This would of course facilitate trade. If this proves too clunky, I will also add /commands for trading.
Horses will certainly have fall damage and will not have the ridiculous jump height that the default horse has.
Cube recombination would only save trivial amounts of bricks, and using a 256x world seems to have solved the problem. The server has been up for about 20 hours and although it hasn't been inhabited that whole time, the brick count is only just short of 300k out of 1.05M. That 1.05M limit can be exceeded (and, in fact, did over the weekend), but players cannot place bricks after the limit has been reached and there are probably some nasty side effects that start happening.
Thank you, everyone, for all of your feedback!
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