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Hello everyone! It's been a bit since we've last made an announcement here, so we wanted to give an update on what we've been working on the past few months.
In an effort to make the server more scalable, and allow us to host large tournaments in the future without issue, we have been reworking pretty much every backend system. This changes are going to role out slowly over time, and we still have a lot of work left before this begins, but we wanted to describe some of the big changes that are coming.
▸ Game Servers and Lobby Servers
Currently, each minigame only uses a single server for both all the games and the lobby. This is great for when no one is playing, it helps conserve resources to allow us to have more minigames. The problem with this system is that it makes it impossible to scale up if we need more servers. Minecraft servers, especially modern Minecraft servers, can only hold so many people at a time. This means we have a limit on the number of people who can play at a time, and that limit is fairly small.
To solve this, we are splitting up minigames into game servers and lobby servers. This will not only allow us to better optimize each server, such as by disabling lobby features in game servers and vice versa, but it will also allow us to create infinite copies of each as needed. You will be able to see what server you are connected to on the scoreboard.
▸ Map Storage
Splitting up games between multiple servers has a problem though. Every time we add or modify a map, we would have to go to each game server and update that one too. This might not be a big duel for modes such as Turf Wars or ElytraPvP, where there are few maps. However, Duels has upwards of 30 maps, and many more are on the way. We need a way to share maps between multiple servers.
Fortunately we have found a solution. We can store each map in a MongoDB server using GridFS. This not only lets us share each map between multiple servers, but GridFS also stores changes made to the files, so if something went wrong while editing a map we can undo it with ease. Minecraft worlds are stored as many files though, so we have to compress them into a zip file before storing.
Using this system, we can also store lobby worlds. Every time a lobby server starts up, it download's a fresh copy of the lobby it's using. This makes it easy to update the lobby if needed, and also makes our lobbies grief-proof!
▸ Private Games
The combination of these systems will allow us to do some pretty cool things. One of these are private games. You will soon be able to party up with your friends and play private and highly customizable versions of each minigame. Basically /duel on steroids! You will be able to customize everything to team size and map selection, to required points and togglable status effects! This will first be released for duels, with the introduction to "FFA" games and many other customization options. It will then later be rolled out to other games.
▸ Future Ideas With This System
These changes will open up a large door for us to add many new features! Many of these are in their early planning stages, and we can't promise they will ever be released, but here are some of our ideas of what we can do with this system:
If you have something you want to see on the server, join our discord server and come chat with us about it! Now is probably the best time to make your ideas known.
Hello everyone!
In an effort to make the server more uniform across all our game modes and better handle our recent growth, we have been hard at work overhauling many of our internal systems. Today's update is one of those overhauls!
Today we're officially releasing an overhaul to the previous achievement system, which was only available for ElytraPvP. This update has been a long time in the making, so long that most of you probably had no idea it was never announced. Earlier today we finally completed the migration process, and are ready to release it publicly!
▸ New Achievement System
Achievements now carry over across servers! You can view the achievements and rewards from anywhere, along with your completion, in the new Profile menu!
Each achievement now also has a new reward, Achievement Points. Achievement Points are intended to signify how difficult an achievement is to obtain. The harder the achievement, the more achievement points it is worth. This points will in the future be used in an official leaderboard.
You can also see your total achievements and achievement points by hovering over the "achievements" item in the profile menu.
▸ New Achievements
With this update comes many new achievements in 2 new categories!
General Achievements
General achievements are achievements you can earn anywhere on the server! Here are the current general achievements.
- A Whole New World (5 AP)
- Am I in Trouble? (5 AP)
- Better With Friends (5 AP)
- Let My Voice Be Heard! (5 AP)
- Veteran (5 AP)
Cactus Rush Achievements
Cactus Rush is also getting it's own achievements! We have a lot more planned in the coming weeks, but for now here is the current achievements.
- Chicken Chucker (10 AP)
- Desert Destroyer (10 AP)
- Genesis of a Journey (5 AP)
- Observer in Training (5 AP)
- Persistent Planter (10 AP)
- Snowball Fight! (5 AP)
- Take That! (5 AP)
Hello everyone!
Sorry for the lack of consistent updates. We've been hard at work on some major changes behind the scenes that you will be seeing fairly soon! Despite this, we have made a number of changes to Cactus Rush throughout the month of October. Here they are:
▸ Team Colors
You can now select your team color! There are currently 9 colors to chose from:
- Yellow (0 Coins)
- Purple (0 Coins)
- Red (2,500 Coins)
- Orange (5,000 Coins)
- Green (10,000 Coins)
- Aqua (15,000 Coins)
- Cyan (25,000 Coins)
- White (50,000 Coins)
- Black (100,000 Coins)
▸ New Maps
Cantaloupe: 2v2, 3x3
Pomegranate: 1v1, 2v2
Grapefruit: 3v3, 4v4
▸ Map Repository
Introducing the map repository, which you can access through a pressure plate in the spawn. Here you can view all the maps we have to offer, including some sneak peaks at some maps not currently accessible.
Talking to each NPC will also reveal a bit of history about each map.
▸ Other Changes
- Decreased Blindness cooldown from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
- Increased Phase cooldown from 40 seconds to 50 seconds.
▸ Fixes
- Fixed being able to throw deathballs between rounds.
Hello everyone!
It's officially spooky season! If you haven't noticed, we've made a variety of Halloween-themed changes to the server. Here are some of the highlights.
▸ Halloween Hub
▸ Halloween Cactus Rush Spawn
▸ ElytraPvP Cosmetics
The event shop has been updated to include a bunch of new Halloween cosmetics.
We also will continue to release more throughout the month.
October 1st, 2023 Patch Notes
These are the changes that have been made in the past week.
► New Maps
Two new maps have been added, Fig and Kiwi!
Fig: 2v3, 3v3
Kiwi: 3v3, 4v4
► Map Changes
- Walls have been placed on each map preventing you from phasing to the last island before a goal.
- The middle islands on Blueberry have been extended slightly.
► Map Changes
- Increased the number of spots on the Parkour Leaderboard from 7 to 10.
► Fixes
- Fixed various typos found throughout the server.
- Decreased time it takes to join a game.
- Fixed being able to throw Deathballs before a round starts.