The State of WizeCraft
Hey friends and fellow banner thieves! It’s Zeronerve. I’m excited about the future of WizeCraft! I want to give you an update on our progress.
First, I need to remind myself why we are here. At WizeCraft, our goals are 1) to create a family-friendly, kid-friendly Minecraft server where Capture The Flag fans can come together as builders and players—to give ANY builder the opportunity to build maps, learn more about minigame map design, and to play Capture The Flag on their own maps with friends. And 2) to give new and competitive players the absolute best place to play in a Capture The Flag league!
What’s in the works is a fun model where community-built maps are ranked according to votes and ratings, and the best maps will rise to the top to be featured in the WizeCraft Map Pool. This will encourage each builder to make great maps and to get players on those maps—which helps all of us.
WHERE WE STAND:
We have a great start! Lots of fantastic full size maps (for 12v12) have been built over the past year. About eight are ready for prime time with 6-8 more in the pipeline. Plus we have about six mini maps for small-sided games. Over 20 of our builder friends have put tons of time into these. Some of these builders don’t really consider themselves builders, but they were willing to give it a shot! And they created something really nice for us!
We have fun new hub in the works with multiple leaderboards, /duels, build and play lobbies, and three levels of parkour.
We have a new Play Lobby (not yet live) where players can vote for the map to be played. In the future this list of maps will include: five or six maps from the official WizeCraft maps, two maps from what we call Diamond ranked maps (the best of the community-built map pool), and one “Recent Riser” or “Rising New Map”, to help give your new maps exposure. This means your new map, if it received some votes and ratings, may very well be on the list in the Play Lobbies. Also, any map in the WizeCraft Map Pool, whether ranked or not, will be able to be played using a /ctf join [mapname] command. So you can invite players to play games on your newest maps. Today, we have over 21 maps, mostly in separate worlds, where each builder has permissions to edit with WorldEdit. Some builders have invited others to collaborate on their maps.
Each lobby has map voting and a VIP+ portal to the one and only Hall of Leaders.
THE FUTURE of MAP BUILDING:
Maps will be moved from a map-per-world system to a plot system. Soon all the in-progress maps will be transferred to the plot system, keeping the current owners in place. Any of our completed maps that are chosen for the initial Map Pool will stay in their current worlds. I will tell you more about how this system works, how to find, edit and manage your map(s) later. Any ranked donor can claim a plot. To submit a plot to the WizeCraft Map Pool may require a higher rank.
THE FUTURE of RANKS:
Ranks will be kept simple. We want you focused on building great maps and kickin’ some CTF tail! Having said that, in order for us to thrive, our donor ranks need to drive our growth. Sure, eventually we may have some hub perks you can buy, pets, disguises, etc., but the donor rankings will be straightforward and simple. We’ll share more about specific ranks and perks soon. UPDATE: WizeCraft ranks are posted!
What if you’ve already been gifted a VIP rank during our BETA period? Well, first of all, thanks for being a part of it! We might rename the rank, but you’ll get to keep it along with the perks we create for that rank. During the BETA period, we hadn’t yet assigned or promised any perks to VIP or any other ranks. It was a gesture of thanks.
UPDATE:
THE FUTURE of LEADERBOARDS and STATS:
Most of the behind-the-scenes work that has gone into WizeCraft this year has been crafting a super-flexible, fast database which will help us give ranked donors advanced views of game stats. Want to know how many times you’ve recovered the flag each month over the past year? Want to know who the biggest bow spammers are? Want to know your k/d this month? Your all time k/d? Want to know who kills you the most? Who the snipe distance leaders are? Who leaves the most games? Who’s the most accurate archer? Who’s the all time cap leader? Who has the most points? Who has the highest percentage of average wins per game? Who has the highest average points per game? All these and more are possible with our new data. The database is in place…stats are being collected and tested…and the views/commands are being built. Leaders will be determined by a balanced points system, not merely on wins. Points are awarded for achievements and performance.
THE FUTURE of GAMEPLAY:
We’re focused on simple and reliable game mechanics today. But we have ideas for game modifiers and game modes that will give CTF some extra depth. Things like “one pearl” games, kit-enabled games, fists and skins, insane mode (speedy game with one-hit kills) and more.
We are also working on an all-new Ultra CTF game mode. Super excited about this! But I can’t let this lion out of his cage yet. It will be a great release for a day when player counts are higher.
What now?
So, the challenge is keeping the vision alive. As you might expect, running a gaming community of this scale requires an advanced network of multiple servers, all of which cost us (me) money each month. I’m happy to do it! The goals I’ve set for us are worthy and keep me motivated to keep pushing. I’ve invested thousands into WizeCraft over the past two years without expecting a return. The reality is that WizeCraft, with it’s Build-n-Play model, needs to be built and supported by the community in order for it to thrive.
A few months back, on a day that I hadn’t thought about WizeCraft in a week or so, I got a strange email saying I had received money from someone through an account I didn’t recognize. You know how those go…it’s probably some scammer in Nigeria trying to rob me of my bank info. Well, no. It was WizeCraft’s first donation!…from a real person…from my MC friend Victor04! I could not believe it! And I was a bit overwhelmed…how this young friend would chose to help me…and how I felt as a reasonably successful professional who just received ten bucks from Victor. And somehow it was more troubling to me than satisfying. You see, I don’t know Victor IRL, and I didn’t know what his circumstances were. I didn’t know what $10 meant to him. I thought, surely that $10 would be better served somewhere else? College savings? Food? Medicine? And what if he or his family needed money worse than WizeCraft? I couldn’t help thinking these things. It took me a few minutes to realize that somehow Victor believed in what I was doing and wanted to help. Victor, I will never forget! Thank you so much!
So I’ve decided to start a Charter Donor Appreciation tribute that, in some form, will forever be a part of WizeCraft, which acknowledges those who choose to help without expectation of a rank or reward or perk. Those who believe in the vision enough to help us keep it alive!
If you’re able to contribute to WizeCraft, please consider a Chart Donation at http://playwizecraft.buycraft.net/category/681729