The community market is in the pipeline for upcoming projects, so it was important to us that we really think it through and try to avoid cutting corners on the most efficient way to handle stores, trading and currency. On top of this, I was actively looking for a way to evolve Command of the Week into something fresh, while simultaneously searching for a way to tie SomeAwesome.com into the group as well. As luck would have it, the simplest answer revealed itself to be the one with the most potential.
I’ve always dabbled with the idea that one day we would use a proper economy plugin on our server, and considering we are all enjoying the possibilities surrounding 1.13, I figured what the heck, let’s do this. Ergo, we turned on the Essentials Eco settings and put together a plan for how we could make this work. So far, I think it looks promising.
We did a Twitch stream the other night and I explain much of what we’re doing, along with a helpful demonstration, in that recording. But it’s two hours long so I understand if you don’t want to watch it. I did skip straight to the part where we explain it though, so if that interests you, find it below. If not, feel free to skip past and keep reading.
How Does It Work?
The “money” itself is fairly arbitrary. It’s not an item in-game, you don’t store it in your inventory, it’s basically just a number that you can see by using the /balance command.
Everybody starts with money, whether you’re new or have been playing with us for a while. There will be plenty of ways to earn additional currency (I have no idea what we should call these denominations yet) and I will outline those below. Once we start up the market, players will also be allowed to charge currency for items they are selling, but this is not mandatory. You will be free to just trade for items instead if that suits you better. Admin shops will most likely all use the currency though.
On Nunu, we used the XP bottles for the mall shops, and while I was fairly happy with this from a technical standpoint, it was just too easy to game this, and it inadvertently encouraged people to spend an overabundance of time at XP grinders. I’ve never personally been a fan of those things, although I have no intention of banning them or anything so don’t worry, but implementing a real currency has the positive side-effect (to me anyway) of reducing players’ reliance on these mob spawners, so it’s just one more reason to put it into play.
We’ve found a lot of cool ways to hook this into different facets of the server and community so let’s just jump right into it.
Behold, The Serverus Shack
I needed a place to showcase what we could do with the new system, so my lovely wife built a little hut right outside the Command Tower for me. It made sense to put it right next to the CT since we’ll be adding command blocks soon, making it easy for people to interact with it. It’s on the south side of the tower, right across from the exit.
Inside, you will see a wall with signs. The way that signs tie into all of this is really neat, and it’s what we’ll use eventually inside the market shops too, but for now I’ll just explain how it works within the context of the Serverus Shack.
You will notice that the signs start with [Enchant] and this is followed by an item ID, for example diamond_pickaxe, and this is followed by an enchant ID, a colon, and a number. The number is the level of the enchant, although 3 of the 4 enchants provided here only have one level. The last line of the sign is a cost, i.e. the amount of currency you will need.
To use these signs, hold the specified item in your hand, and right-click the sign. If you have enough currency in your balance, the item will be enchanted and the currency will be removed from your balance. Pretty simple.
Right now we are featuring the following enchants, all for $1000:
- Mending – Diamond Pickaxe
- Silk Touch – Diamond Pickaxe
- Sharpness V – Diamond Sword
- Infinity – Bow
We will rotate enchants on a weekly basis, so if these are not to your liking, let me know in the group which ones you’d like to see and I’ll take it into consideration.
The /repair Alternative
So you know by now that my uninventive alternative to /repair is…well…it’s /repair. But with the economy plugin, I can now stop having to hear the incessant griping about it going away 😉 and I achieve this by making each use of /repair cost $100. Now it’s up to you, the players, to decide how badly you need the command. Stay in the green by participating in one of the activities below to top yourself off with enough repairs to fix the Satellite of Love and you’ll never have to put your favorite sentient weapon in the rainy day box again.
We’ll be adding more commands as time goes on, but for now you can also take advantage of /heal for $50 a pop as well. Try as you might, I’m not taking suggestions for the roadmap on additions to this option any time in the near future.
To keep it as fair as possible, we will still definitely have weeks when /repair is free, but for now I want to attempt this take on things for a while. Luckily you have plenty of ways you can earn currency, and we’re rolling over ideas for more, so don’t feel like you’re getting left out here. The general rule of thumb here is: the more you participate, the more opportunities you will have. So let’s review how you can maximize your chances.
Show Me The $$$
Currently we have FOUR ways to acquire points with more lined up for at least September.
1. Event Participation / Holidays
Kind of a twofer here coming this weekend. We have Labor Day AND the Ender Dragon Fight. Get double bonus bucks for September 3rd – $2000 for participating in this event. And of course we have more upcoming soon.
We’ll also be giving books during the holidays now that can be redeemed for points. Make sure to the visit the community Holiday Area every time we have a major holiday and you’ll be swimming in silk touch picks in no time 🙂
2. Return of the Lottery
The lottery returns and it’s so nice we do it twice! Now we will run lottery for both xp and currency, once per day for each at random (but separate) times. The amount will be variable too so you never know what you’re going to get! The more you’re on, the more likely you are to win. You make your own odds on this one.
3. Extra Life: November 3rd, 2018
If you haven’t signed up for the Extra Life team yet, here’s your incentive to do so. Last time we did our Extra Life Challenge Map, participants could earn “Life Crystals” for each dollar they donated to the SAMC Team Member. These crystals could be used to purchase items during the challenge to assist them with their progress. Same thing happening this year.
Now you might be saying “Hey Chris doesn’t that give them an advantage?” and the answer would be yes. But it’s for charity so I don’t care 😉 Plus it helps people out of a bind if they lose their tools and can’t continue, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, I considered doing the same thing with the currency, but I want to encourage raising money for charity first and foremost, and not all of you will want to compete, so this year you’ll get $100 currency for each dollar you raise overall for the team as a whole towards our grand total. Raise $100 for your personal goal, your balance goes up by $10k. That easy.
CLICK THIS LINK TO SIGN UP FOR OUR EXTRA LIFE TEAM
4. Review Steam Games on SomeAwesome.com
Yes, it’s time for another episode of I Will Find A Way To Get You To Sign Up For This Site and that means we now have cross-site functionality across SomeAwesome.com
It’s nothing fancy, at least in concept. It was an interesting feature to develop, code-wise, and I’ve got more to add to it soon enough. In a nutshell, you can convert the points you earn on SomeAwesome.com into currency on a 1-to-1 basis. You pick the amount you want to convert, and that’s how much gets sent to you on the server.
Side note: You need to be on the server for this to work
Basically, If you’re interested at all in reviewing video games and getting free Steam games for your trouble (or using your points for currency) then sign up for an account and shoot me over any questions you might have.
I’ll have an article up soon over on that site on how to access and use the converter.
This Article is Too Long
I know, I tend to do that, but hey, it’s an article full of good news, so it’s not all bad.
We want to make sure we are giving people a fair shake when it comes to the currency system. At the same time, we know it’s a good way to incentivize people to participate in things too, so yeah, I’m aware it’s a balancing act. We think it’s a good trade-off at the moment, but we do want to hear your thoughts. I can’t guarantee we will implement every idea, but we will be more than happy to field questions and consider concerns. Deal?
To make sure you read this to the end, if you comment with a picture of cheese in the thread where I posted this I will add $1000 to your balance. 😛