Another server update! This time, it’s a big one. We’ve finally added in the ability for players to create their own shops! These shops work via chests & assigned shopkeepers. They can be traded within claims, and even when the shop owner is offline.

The chest the shopkeeper is assigned to will hold the items available, and the items player trade with. It’s actually incredibly intuitive and I highly suggest you just jump in and see if you can figure it out. You can get a shopkeeper created by putting down a chest, looking directly at it, and using the /shopkeepers trade to assign a shopkeeper to it.

Then you’ll get messages in chat explaining what to do from there. However, If you’re the technical type, and you want to know about the extensive customization you can do to your shopkeeper, we do have a new documentation page on the player shop system!

New Documentation Pages

I don’t think I’ve covered this on the blog, but we’ve got a new documentation page that links to all the individual documentation pages I’ve been working on over the past couple of months. I’ve actually been busy at work adding lots of new documentation pages, and updating old ones:

• Mob Transportation Documentation – Updated recently as we’ve removed the villager pick up plugin (It was not compatible with the new shop system). We now have a new leads system that allows us to define ANY entity to attach a lead to. We’ve already added villagers, but if you come across any others you think should be enabled (Maybe even Vanilla ones we missed) – just leave a comment on that documentation page.
• In-Game Report System Documentation – This goes over a little feature most folks don’t even know about in the server (/report). That is partially my fault as I haven’t had good documentation up to this point. The report command allows you to file several different kinds of reports, and I highly suggest you check it out.
• Mob Limiter Documentation – I highly suggest that you check this out to understand how are mob limiting system works. Ideally, this doesn’t interfere with things like vanilla farms or tamed mobs – but I’ve included our config for people to check over for issues that I may have missed.
• Full Command List Documentation – This page is still ACTIVELY being worked on. I know for a fact that I don’t have every command in there, and I would love if you folks commented on that page with commands that I’ve missed – or ones that need to be updated. There’s a lot of commands to keep track of.

There many other documentation pages available, and I am trying to keep them updated and add new content as quickly as I can. If there’s anything on the server that you think should have documentation – leave me a comment on this post!

Future Advertising Strategy

I’ve been looking at an interesting digital billboard system that’s all automated, and reasonably priced. It will allow me to set up ads for large road side digital billboards. It’s something I am considering because I’d love to see if it ended up bringing in more people.

At the same time, I am somewhat worried about how the server performs when we get enough people on. The performance issues aren’t noticeable by players usually – but I monitor the numbers, and it could definitely be a compounding issue. I am also worried about the legality of the billboard design.

However, The billboard just seems cool. I already have some reasonably large (population wise) cities chosen – with fair pricing, good billboard placement, and working out the best hours to run ads for the best price to result ratio. This is something I will continue to explore in the future.

The Roadmap Site

You’ve probably seen a new link on our website’s menu (The Roadmap). This is a sub-site which contains a “kanban” style board of things I am working on in the server. Including descriptions, tags, and “stages” of each task. The 📝︱suggestions channel in the discord has been adjusted to include a new “added to roadmap” label – if something from it gets put into a task on the roadmap site.

I am frequently updating that site, and you can see things being worked on and things that are completed. I also try to include major bugs on that site too – just so I can keep track of it and remember to work and fix stuff like that.

There are no good titles for conclusion sections…

To close out this blog, I just want to give a special shout-out to all of you. You make the server what it is. I handle the technicalities, but a server has no life if it’s just an empty computer. No matter how many hours I put in on the technical code and setup. The players are what makes it. You are the thing that brings in new people and keeps them on.

Many of you have started going AFK in the server, and this is both allowed, and encouraged. It helps tremendously for people to be on. That way other folks join. I appreciate the immense effort many of you put into doing that “seemingly” simple task (I know it’s a pain, and some of you even setup alarms and have family get your accounts on). That means a lot to me, because you don’t gain much of an advantage doing that – besides maybe letting some automated farms operate.

Thank you for everything, here’s to many more years of minecraft country – and to more growth for our community!