nickrocky213

Patching time!

Yay I get to cry first!

Whats that... the sound of a train... Nope its the sound of techlock that's about to slap the hell out of this piece (I like the idea of trains for fast travel and all but uh, the line has got to get drawn in the sand. Steampower should stay at the current status quo)

Already in the works, we want to basically encompass Vortex stuff first, but want to keep it compatible with other peoples personal texture packs. I.E our textures dont change block textures, and such.

The Ashwood Tree A distant relative to the Elderwood tree, the Ashwood Tree has adapted itself to survive in areas that have become overcrowded with flora. The Ashwood Tree is native to the small continent of Vailor, although not exclusively so, they are rarer in other locations. The Ashwood Tree is considered a symbol of the Norlandic people, and as such they have seen fit to bring the original Ashwood tree from Seahelm and its descendant seeds and saplings with them whenever the descendants are forced to migrate to new lands, planting it in the middle of their settlements. The Ashwood tree is also typically depicted with empty nooses or bodies hanging from its large barren branches, as the Ashwood Tree is used quite frequently to hang criminals as its strong branches will not break under the weight of most descendant creatures. Gaining most of its nutrients for the year through its root system, the Ashwood Tree needs to maintain a nutrient strong soil. Ashwood trees usually grow near bodies of water, where tides can bring in silty soil to the tree, alternatively the tree can grow in forests, where when it ignites, it would start a forest fire causing the soil to become “supercharged” with nutrients. The Ashwood Tree sprouts leaves in spring, soaking up much needed sunlight to create its sap during the summer. The sap coats the tree during the fall, and when the winter comes it burns off its sap that covers all of the exposed parts of the bark and remaining leaves for the year. Appearance: Location: Ashwood trees prefer to live in cold arid climates, currently most of the Ashwood trees that exist are in Norlandic hands, thanks to so few being saved from their home continent of Vailor. Description: Ashwood Swell The Ashwood swell, sometimes referred to as the Ashwood seed, is a dark bulbous seed that would be large and hard enough to survive an impact -the swell falling from the branches. The impact of the seed falling from the tree would compromise part of its shell weakening it, this would render the seed weak to all further physical attacks. The swell will remain fertile for up to a year (One OOC Week) as it has a fair bit of nutrients inside the swell itself to kickstart the tree’s growth. In its homeland of Vailor the swell would often be pushed around by larger animals as its exterior has a sweet nutty flavor prized by many animals, though as the tree has been taken from its original ecosystem, it requires support from descendants to spread its swells to create new Ashwood trees. As such Norlanders took on the mantle of supporting and caring for the tree, by helping move the swell wherever they think it would have a good chance for survival. The swell’s has an awkward width of two feet, length of two feet, height of three feet and its weight is typically 50 pounds, though never more than 80 lbs, this makes the swell quite awkward to carry for one person, as such two people will be needed to carry the swell. In their adolescence (0-9 years old) Ashwood trees will not produce a swell, and as such are not likely to shed their branches as they are trying to grow. Wood, Bark, and Branches The Ashwood tree while young has easily bruise-able bark that can hinder the tree's growth, that must be hardened via Ashwood firing every year (1 OOC week). As the tree ages its bark will get progressively harder until it's adulthood (10 OOC weeks), at this point the tree will be decently resistant to most mundane attacks, though strong blunt damage - such as hitting it with a large warhammer -to the tree can break off a little bark. Further, if extreme damage is dealt -such as hitting it with a cannon shot directly-, the tree can become bruised and even break off the weaker upper branches of the tree when impacted. Ashwood bark has a chestnut color with a very coarse and abrasive texture. When a branch or some bark fall off the tree and over time dry, it becomes brittle, losing most of its hardness and strength. Harvesting: Ashwood Swell The Ashwood Tree drops a single swell every year in the spring, the tree grows a black swell in its branches during the summer, then over the course of year it will swell bigger and bigger until it drops from the branches in the next spring when it’s too heavy to continue to be supported by the tree. An Ashwood tree can also prematurely release a swell if convinced by a Druid on occasions where its life is threatened, or is ill. Spare that occasion, any premature removals of swells via mundane means from the Ashwood tree will kill the swell. Ashwood The tree is decently sturdy and is resistant to most mundane attacks, spare excessive blunt attacks. The primary means of getting Ashwood is through its discarded branches, throughout the year the tree will shed its less productive branches leaving the healthy productive ones in the canopy. Credits: @nickrocky213 @AstriaS @Spoons

^ true facts

me?

This was already taken into consideration for our next map, there is a plugin that is currently in development (though it isn't on the tech discord yet because I’ve been busy) that will allow nations to have a form of fast travel. Though, I don’t think I can say much more than that at this time.

+1 This is a LOT better than the former crater 2x over fantastic job as always. (Bacardi is also carrying me when it comes to building assets I need for Vortex)

Hey all, with this post I’m going to shed a bit of light on Surge PvP and try and answer a ton of common questions about the system. To start I’ll explain the basic concepts, and from there we can tackle some of the bigger features. Before we do anything else though... “What is Surge?” Surge is the new PvP system we are adopting for 8.0 (Almaris), it will be replacing the current 1.8 PvP system we have on Arcas. This new system implements various armor types, weapon types, and special effects to spice up PvP and make things feel a lot more fresh and fun. Weapon Classifications In Surge you have five types of weapons: Slashing - Short Sword, Longsword, Greatsword Blunt - Warhammer, Mace Piercing - Longbow, shortbow, crossbow Splintering - War Axe, Great Axe Dismount - Pike, Lance (Note these are currently disabled in the Beta) Weapon Effects Each of the weapon types have a particular effect that can affect the player they are attacking at random. This random chance is relatively low, though it scales up as better materials are used to craft the weapons. Here are those effects: Bleed - Granted by Slashing weapons and represented with a poison effect, it can bleed a max of three hearts, and can not kill alone. A metallic scraping noise is heard when the effect occurs. Stun - Granted by Blunt weapons and is represented with a Slowness III effect for two seconds. The sound of an anvil being placed is heard when the effect occurs. Piercing - Granted by Piercing weapons and deals 25 durability damage to a random piece of equipped gear. The sound for hitting a blaze is heard when the effect occurs. Splintering - Granted by Splintering weapons and deals 100 durability damage to shields when the effect is applied. The sound for hitting an iron golem is heard when the effect occurs. Dismount - Granted by Dismount weapons and deals additional damage to mounts, and will have a chance to dismount the rider from a horse. Armor Classifications In Surge PvP we have three base armor types: Gambeson - Highly resistant to Blunt Weapons, Very weak against Slashing Weapons Chainmail - Highly resistant to Slashing Weapons, Very weak against Piercing Weapons Platemail - Highly resistant to Piercing Weapons, Very weak against Blunt Weapons ... and one special armor type but we’ll tackle that later. Great, that was a ton of information, here's an example to help you try and connect the dots I just laid out above: If player A is wearing Gambeson and player B is using a mace(Blunt Weapon), it's going to be a lot harder for player B to land a stun on player A. BUT. If player C runs up to player A and hits him with a short sword (Slashing Weapon) player A has a way higher chance to get a bleed effect, since his armor is weak to slashing weapons. On the Carrying Limits of Weapons and Armor I know after hearing that a lot of players typically go down the thought process of, “Wait, so if I'm going to be weak to maces and warhammer’s from wearing gambeson, I'll just carry multiple sets then” or “If my opponent has all of the armors, I'll bring all the types of weapons so I can counter any armor type they wear”. And that is where things get interesting… In Surge, you can only carry three weapons, with a shield -if you choose to bring one- counting towards that total, further you can only carry five pieces of armor. The idea behind letting a player carry five pieces of armor is that the player can bring a spare piece of armor to sub in for the lower durability pieces in the set like helmets and boots. If you choose to break this limit, you will be granted one level of slowness for each item that breaks the limit. Ex. If player A has 9 weapons on them, they are going to get Slowness VI until they downsize the number of weapons they are holding. https://i.gyazo.com/90c7e7f06180cea383f7afbeb7ba00c9.mp4 ← Showing the carrying limits taking place Carbarum in Surge Oh yeah, and remember that ‘special’ armor from earlier, that's Carbarum, and it has some special rules that it works off of. It has a limit for carrying, of one piece, that piece can be a sword, chestplate, or even a warhammer. If you exceed this limit the same slowness system outlined above applies. Carbarum has NO weaknesses when equipped, only resistances to the weapon effects, with each piece having a different effect assigned to it. Carbarum Helmet - Highly resistant to Blunt Weapons Carbarum Chestplate - Highly resistant to Piercing Weapons Carbarum Leggings - Highly resistant to Splintering Weapons Carbarum Boots - Highly resistant to Slashing Weapons Carbarum Horse Armor* - Highly resistant to Dismount Weapons All Carbarum weapons inherit their standard effects as per their type, though the chance of the effect occurring is greatly increased in comparison to non-Carbarum weapons. I.e Carbarum Short swords are Slashing weapons and so give the bleed effect. *Carbarum Horse Armor doesn’t count to your total for Carbarum as a player when its equipped on the horse. Two Handed Weapons Two handed weapons will remove your ability to use your offhand while you have them equipped in your main hand. Two handed weapons typically have longer swing timers than their one handed counterparts. https://i.gyazo.com/4c78670c87a567a6543719f3e42a1df8.mp4 ← Showing the players offhand getting shoved into their inventory when they have a two handed weapon Large Scale PvP Testing With the new system nearly fully intact feature wise, we have run a ton of tests in 1v1, 2v2, and even 4v4 environments. Though, admittedly as the large scale test from the 17th illustrated the system needs a bit more tweaking when it comes to large engagements. That being said I would love to have a 25v25, or even a possible 50v50 to test the limits of our current system. During the fight we were able to maintain a perfect 20 tps -see the screenshot below. Something of note here is that that was the height of the first skirmish, typically the most laggy point of a fight. For reference as well, 20 TPS is the max TPS(Ticks per second) a server can have. How do I Join? To access the Beta server you just need a VIP rank of Coal or higher, and then you can just type /openbeta to access our Beta test server. Here are some useful commands once your there: /vortex kit list - This is the command to list vortex kits /clearinv - This command completely clears your inventory and equipped armor /status - This command lets you status up with friends to organize team fights /main - This command will take you back to the main server Also, a HUGE thanks to our Alpha Testers that helped us nail down all of our current values for damages, effects, etc. Without them suffering through agonizing bugs we wouldn’t have shipped our beta so soon. If you have any questions about how stuff works, the best way to answer them is by testing it out yourself on the Beta, but if you're stumped you can reach out to me on discord (nickrocky213#1380) Anyways, back to developing o7

On the tech side of things we have five dungeons planned but they are all fairly mechanical and were only really planned for Vortex use (so like as of rn keefy’s thing is separate from our stuff) , through those dungeons we were going to have neat stuff, further with 1.17 on the horizon, I was talking with some other techs about the possibility of a random rogue like dungeon as well that we could do by messing with the cave generation code. Anyways, the thing we want for vortex dungeons as of right now is basically Darksouls meets Legend of Zelda, we want hard harsh mechanics for mobs that are complicated but respectable(granted darksouls here may be a bit of an over exaggeration), and neat puzzles that require you to use various items from vortex crafting to operate. A great example of this is crafting a potion of revealing to find a hidden door, and when you walk in that room you find yourself dealing with a custom mob with custom attacks and mechanics to defeat them. Dungeons for Vortex wont come for a hot minute, we want to finish a bunch of stuff content wise in the plugin not to mention updating various plugins to actually prepare this server for our eventual port to 1.16 and beyond. Anyways, ill probably make a post regarding Tinkering, Enchanting, Alchemy, Culinarian, and the dungeon subsystems in the tech discord whenever we are ready to take on that mantle.

Hey All! I know that at this point most of you guys probably know me as Vortex man or something of the like. Though the funny thing is that without me promising DAENGIE to do the Norland build for next map, I probably wouldn't have come back. Its been a ton of fun, and after about a month of prebuild we finally get to show off our new capital Varhelm. Before everyone runs off to watch our video i’d like to give some credit where credit is due for this build. A big thanks to @DizPanda for helping out with the clan houses/a bunch of interiors while I was busy making Surge for everyone. Another huge thanks to @Knightie for his awesome boats he made for us. A massive thanks to@Sarah. for doing the whole palace interior, like seriously that thing is SEVEN FLOORS. And last but not least a great big thanks to our entire prebuild team, I know some times we were about to lose our minds, and others I was extremely picky about the build, but thanks for sticking it through, without you guys we wouldn’t have made our deadline. So without further adieu... Also just a little aside this is the first video I’ve properly done for a build I’ve worked on so I'm sure its pretty awful, but hey you get the idea. See you guys in Almaris!

((Chryssa is dead irp, iirc the ceremony has held like 2 irl weeks ago, and it had a public thing put out)) Lucien Arkin would read the document with a smile, “It’s nice to finally see it on paper”. He’d take out a fresh New Reza Tax slip before rolling himself a nice cactus green reefer, “Aye, to now and what’s yet to come!”

A big thanks to ST for letting us use some of your materials in Vortex!

Then whatever you do don't look at the subgroups under sub-forums, “The Territories” and “The Crownlands” the HOE sub-forum, “The Holy State of Vuillermoz” under the Church of Canon subforum, tisk tisk.

Lucien Arkin would look upon the document with a cheery nod “Aye, its time to remember what it means to be human”

+1 this looks really solid and I’m super impressed that you guys wrote this up so fast. edited: miss read something

… Ok I guess Ill start from the top, the war-zone's that currently exist ARE temporary, the idea is that we will move back to using the war server for conflicts after Tech team finishes reprogramming the plugin. The biggest issue with the lag on LOTC isn’t the fact that people are PvPing. Its the people those PvP events bring. In the Sutica V Oren war both sides brought 130+ people. Minecraft isn't really designed to run more than 100 people without some sort of weird optimization gimmick or sharding those players over multiple servers. The reason why servers like Hypixel and the like can function is the fact that they run on really old Minecraft versions that perform better at higher player counts AND they use sharding to distribute those high player populations across multiple servers. I know its genuinely been a long time since the war server was actually usable (iirc like 7-9 ish months now), but just know that we are actively working on getting the war server back on its feet. We opened a tech discord where people can ask questions about various projects that we are working on, and we have an entire category dedicated to answering questions about the war server. The short of it is this, the war server needed to be reprogrammed from the ground up to ensure that we can minimize lag, and various bugs from some of our messier ports to new versions. The war server plugin is currently in progress, and when its complete we will try a mock war claim on that server. If the server is A ok, then we will start using it for warclaims and fights between nations. If that server completely breaks we will look into porting the war server back to 1.12 (if possible) to try and mitigate some of our lag issues from version inefficiencies. If you have any other questions you want to ask us directly, or even want to see some of the other projects we are working on you can join the tech discord here: https://discord.gg/snEAeYx

At the end of the day people forget that really we are just volunteers just doing work to make the server a better place, the sad truth of the matter is that its a lot easier to screech about whats wrong with the server than it is to praise things that are great. At least from a tech point of view we have tried to lower that wall to try and communicate more with the community, though I think its important to stress this. Just because your voice is heard, doesn’t mean that everything you want to happen will happen. Some staff teams let people have more input than others, and its completely up to the team to decide how they use that input. Regardless of if they listen or not its on us as players and staff to actually keep things chivalrous so that useful communication CAN be heard. Edit: Nice Gemini beat me to it

Let be painfully clear about this though... No races will be receiving bonuses that can directly translate into PvP bonuses. The bonuses given to races will be only affecting game play within Vortex. That being said, you are free to view the current plans and ask questions about the professions plugin via the new Tech Team Discord https://discord.gg/snEAeYx

❤️ 8.0 Team, beautiful landscapes = beautiful builds, can’t wait to see what people do with it

I wouldn’t say entire, though I don’t think anyone enjoyed running around getting shot practically instantly because everyone pre-loaded crossbows before they went banditing. Besides they aren’t too awful.

Name of your plant/reagent: Ashwood Tree Alchemical Sign(s) (put N/A if none): N/A Alchemical Symbol(s) (Put N/A if none): N/A Appearance: A distant relative to the Elderwood tree, the Ashwood Tree has adapted itself to survive in areas that have become overcrowded with flora. The Ashwood Tree is native to the small continent of Athera, on the island of Avar, although not exclusively so, they are rarer in other locations. The Ashwood Tree is considered a symbol of the Norlandic peoples, and as such they have seen fit to bring the original Ashwood tree from Seahelm and its descendant seeds and saplings with them whenever the descendants are forced to migrate to new lands, planting it in the middle of their settlements. The Ashwood tree is also typically depicted with empty nooses or bodies hanging from its large barren branches, as the Ashwood Tree is used quite frequently to hang criminals as its strong branches will not break under the weight of even the largest descendant creature. Gaining most of its nutrients for the year through its root system, the Ashwood Tree needs to maintain a nutrient strong soil, for this reason, Ashwood trees usually grow around water, where tides can bring in silty soil to the tree, alternatively the tree will grow in forests, where it will alight, starting a forest fire causing the soil to become “supercharged” with nutrients. The Ashwood Tree sprouts leaves in spring, soaking up much needed sunlight to create its sap during the summer. The tree’s sap matures within the tree during the fall, when the winter comes it will burn off its sap and remaining leaves for the year. Location: Ashwood trees prefer temperate climates, though can survive in colder environments (although the tree may need to be manually lit in frigid conditions). At present the trees exist exclusively in Norlandic hands, thanks to so few being saved from their home continent of Athera (though could be planted elsewhere if its seeds were to be accessed). Raw effect(s) of the plant/reagent: Leaves The Ashwood tree has a palmate leaf structure, with three main veins coming from the Petiole of the leaf, similar to that of a maple tree’s. The leaf has a powerful woody, oaky smell, and is often used to make strong incense. The leaves can be ground into powder and mixed with the sap of the Ashwood tree, when the concoction is lit, the smoke becomes a powerful hallucinogen, often used by priests to aid them in vision quests. These leaves only grow in the spring, and fall off in the Autumn. Ashwood Sap The Ashwood tree produces sap year round which is highly flammable, it burns incredibly hot (1100° C), and is used up as fuel. When the tree is alight, it is not the bark burning, but the sap that has been produced over the year. The Ashwood sap is commonly used as fuel for lanterns, stoves, etc and also works as a powerful sterilizer and disinfectant, when applied to wounds, it stings. (Much like the feel of alcohol on an open wound.) Ashwood sap is typically used to brew strong drinks, as the sap is alcoholic in nature. Ashwood Seed The Ashwood Tree drops a single seed every ten years in the spring, the tree grows a black swell in it’s branches during the summer, then over the course of the years following, it will swell bigger and bigger until it drops from the branches, too heavy to continue to be supported by the tree. These seeds will remain fertile for a year, but after that, they will be dead, and will slowly decay away. The seed, on average weighs 600 pounds, it is 2 meters wide (2 blocks), and 2 meters tall(2 blocks). This seed takes multiple people to move, often taking at least six people to transport it properly, due to it’s awkward shape. During the tree’s adolescence, it will not produce Ashwood seeds, Typically an Ashwood tree takes about ten years to reach maturity, at which time, it will begin to produce seeds. Bark and wood Both the bark and wood of the Ashwood tree are incredibly strong, they are considered to be immune to all physical damage while they are still alive and attached to the actual tree itself. Though this doesn’t exempt the tree from damage via burning from magical fires. Every so often, branches will fall from the tree naturally, This is called shedding, the Ashwood Tree will shed in several cases; the tree will shed to remove branches that are low on the trunk, as they produce little energy, the Ashwood tree will also shed branches if a branch produces less energy during the spring than it uses up, for example branches that may be in the shade. This small amount of Ashwood loses it’s overwhelming protections; and instead inherits properties similar to iron. There have been no recorded ways to shape the Ashwood trees, mundane or magical. It is impossible to forcefully shape the tree, as it will grow however it wishes. It is immune to being shaped by magics, and will die if it does not get it’s basic needs, even if someone attempts to forcefully keep it alive with magic. Once the branches have fallen from the tree, they may be shaped with a secretive technique, one which is closely guarded. Harvesting: Leaves When the Ashwood tree sheds branches it also will shed leaves. These leaves become extremely flammable as they dry quickly when disconnected from the tree. If the heat from its environment doesn’t combust it’s leaves, they can be collected from the ground. Ashwood Sap The sap can be collected carefully by scraping it off of the higher parts of the tree where the sap is secreted. This can only be collected in fall months in moderation, as without the sap the tree will become unhealthy. Ashwood Seed The means in collecting an Ashwood seed is a very closely guarded secret, only known by a select few. Bark and Wood The tree is unable to be cut, shaped, or forcefully worked while living. The only workable Ashwood is of dead Ashwood trees, and branches shed off of living Ashwood trees. Though the working of Ashwood products is a closely guarded secret. Red Lines: General Ashwood Tree Redlines You cannot plant the tree underground as it requires sunlight to live Story Team signage is required for the creation of items that use the branches/bark of an Ashwood tree. The Ashwood tree may be burned by only Voidal fire. Ashwood trees can grow to a height of 50 meters(50 blocks), and about 25 meters(25 blocks) wide in their trunks. It is extremely hard commune with the tree via magical means, the Ashwood tree has a spirit indicative of the Norlandic people, it holds a tight stubborn mentality. It is extremely unwilling to change, and is even less likely to be influenced. Ashwood as a material may be flame retardant, but it holds heat well, meaning Ashwood products have the chance to burn you if exposed to hot temperatures. The means of collecting a seed from the tree is a closely guarded secret. (The collection of seeds is knowledge-based and unavailable on this lore-post) The distillation of the sap into liquor is a relatively closely guarded secret. (The distillation of the sap into liquor is knowledge-based and unavailable on this lore post) The seed for the tree requires six people to carry it. The sap holds a flame well, it can only be extinguished by completely suffocating the flame in a non-flammable material (Ex. pouring sand over it, gravel, etc.) If the sap is ignited in combat, it will remain alight for three emotes, until it has completely burned off. If the sap is thrown while in a vessel, it will start only on one block, spreading to a 3x3 after two emotes before burning out. You cannot “secretly” interact with the tree, it’s a tree, whatever you are doing to it in broad daylight, you are doing to it in broad daylight, everyone can see you. Ashwood trees must be burned annually to shed its sap, and strengthen its bark. If the tree does not burn, it will grow sickly, and will die with continued neglect. If for some reason the Ashwood tree does not light itself, it can be lit manually through means of any ordinary fire applied to the volatile sap. The first year a tree goes without burning, it will produce a noticeably thinner canopy the following spring. After the second year without burning, the tree will fail to produce viscous enough sap for the next winter and will die within the following year. (What this means, is you MUST have your tree lit in game, and not just sitting unlit. You will not be forced to extinguish and relight an Ashwood Tree every two real days.) Ashwood Bark and Branches Redlines As stated above, the protective nature of the wood and bark itself is greatly reduced once it falls from the tree, leaving it flame retardant and similar protective properties to iron. Despite having iron properties, Ashwood cannot be worked via blacksmithing. It must be worked via woodworking processes, but with much greater difficulty. Techniques of working this material is a secret kept within closely-knit groups of artisans within the Norlandic peoples. (The preparation of working Ashwood is knowledge-based and unavailable on this lorepost) Ashwood branches when exposed to extreme temperatures (1500°+ C) will degrade and weaken, till slowly turning itself to ash. Ashwood is a fairly dense material, as such it dissipates heat slowly, though Ashwood will not act as a near-perfect insulator, i.e things like Starlite/Aerogel’s in real life. Ashwood can still very capably burn someone after being exposed to heat for a duration of time. Ashwood Sap Redlines Only a certain amount of Ashwood Sap can be gathered at a time (only two buckets every day for a large tree [20 blocks or taller], and a bucket a day for a small tree[20 blocks or shorter]), as the sap is required to keep the tree burning throughout the winter. Ashwood Sap cannot be consumed raw. It must be processed into food or drink in order to be consumed. You require a non-flammable vessel to hold the extremely volatile sap, as well as a set of leather gloves and a specialized draw knife used to scrape the Ashwood. Ashwood Sap can only be gathered after the tree reaches the age of ten as it needs the sap to mature at its younger years. Ashwood Leaves Redlines Ashwood leaves are extremely brittle and crunchy, requiring a container(I.e a box, a pail, etc) to carry them Credits: @nickrocky213, @AstriaS, @Master Baiter, @Draiden Changelog: 7/28/2020: Alchemical Signs were removed due to complications with Alchemy. Sap yields of the tree were adjusted to properly scale. Removed a pointless Redline on the consumption of Ashwood Leaves. 10/5/2020 Removed a repeated reline concerning shaping disconnected Ashwood Branches. Added a clear statement on what products of the Ashwood tree need to be lore signed. Readdressed the ability for the tree to dissipate heat removing some weird wording, and added an example.

Sorry for the bit of a REALLY late response, but I’m working on a fixes for ItemEdit.