Hello all,
Hope you all are having an amazing holiday season! This blog post was supposed to be about an actual server update, but it was unfortunately delayed due to some unforeseen events that threw off our update schedule, combined with the non-compatible nature of recent changes we made to the Place Engine meaning that we cannot release partial code changes to the server. Instead, we would like to take the chance to share what we have been working on, and what we are planning to work on that you will see in GunColony over the course of 2025.
NEW DISCORD LINKING & THE PLACE ACCOUNT SYSTEM
We are currently working on a new system for Minecraft and Discord linking. This system will use OAuth2 integration to allow you authenticate and login directly with your Minecraft and Discord accounts, instead of requiring the player to message a code to a specific Discord bot. In addition, while our previous system was based on an external plugin, the new system is entirely integrated within the Place engine’s account system, meaning that when the future standalone game releases, you will be able to login to the standalone game using the same Discord account currently linked to GunColony and retain all of your progress.
There will be two ways to link your account in the new system:
- Simply clicking a link, which will prompt you to login to your Microsoft account where you own Minecraft, followed by the Discord account. Provided that your Minecraft account has joined GunColony before, your two accounts will now be linked.
- By typing “/discord link” within GunColony, which lets you bypass the Microsoft account step and directly login to the Discord account, allowing you to link your two accounts.
We have currently completed the basic logic of OAuth2 login and account linking, but there are still several features left to support before the feature can be released: automatic Discord group syncing for linked users, front-end beautifying work, and a migration of all existing linked accounts data.
Eventually, our efforts will also allow us to bring back the server chat channel on Discord into full working order.
CROSS-SERVER MESSAGING & THE PLACE WEB FRAMEWORK
During the 9th Anniversary Update we unveiled a scoreboard feature based on Cross-Server Messaging and the Place Web Framework, two crucial pieces of the Place Engine that will be required to achieve our goals for the standalone game. Namely, we need to be able to serve web pages quickly and cheaply from the exact game server a player is connected to, and to let the player access these pages from a central web address. Looking ahead, Cross-Server Messaging will also be used for sharing server state for matchmaking and auto-balancing purposes, as well as handling cross-server chat and punishments.
In the last month we have made many improvements to Cross-Server Messaging, including switching our backend form Kafka to Redis. The Web Framework has also received enhancements such as a login session system to allow it to support the new account linking system. They will be shared in more detail in the blog post for the next update.
STAFF TOOLS
Recently, our update priority had to be switched in order to alleviate disruption of a recent change to Trello, which now limits free boards over 10 members to read-only. This is why after releasing the Discord linking system in the next update, our focus will then be to use the new infrastructure for Place accounts to allow staff accounts to login to other self-hosted software such as kanban boards that will serve as an alternative to commercial solutions like Trello. This will require a partial implementation of the server-side OpenID Connect standard, albeit it is simplified because we have control over both the Place server and self-hosted software.
We are currently planning to integrate an open source self-hosted kanban board as well as the Forgejo Git hosting solution. Once completed, the entire end-to-end Place account integrations will result in staff members being able to login to these sites directly with their Minecraft or linked Discord account, dramatically simplifying account management for our team while avoiding per-seat costs for commercial software (which are generally aimed at teams of full-time employees and thus infeasible for us to subscribe to). The Forgejo instance is especially interesting as it will allow us to apply the paradigm of open-source software development to facilitate our modding ambitions in the future. We plan to first use it to host all game content of GunColony on the Place engine, allowing any staff members to make suggestions or changes to them as well as for all hosted information such as weapon stats to be visible to the public. Eventually, the Forgejo instance will become the backbone of our modding system, with each mod being represented by a Kotlin code project that can be compiled into JSON files via automated Forgejo Actions and in turn requested by the game server on-demand.
COMPETITIVE TOURNAMENTS
We are working on new features in the Competitive Mode, such as team switching, anti-ghosting and the ability for moderators to fully control a lobby, to facilitate the creation of community-run competitive tournaments for GunColony some time in 2025. While the competitive side of the game is not our main focus, we believe that it is still an important part of GunColony, an important showcase of our advanced weapon mechanics, and a great way to retain veteran players. Keep an eye on further updates as we develop the feature over the course of next year!
COMMUNITY MAPS & NEW MINECRAFT VERSIONS
Since the release of Garisson, the first community map to be added to GunColony, we have received a lot of valuable feedback from players and have made changes to the community map submission process including giving staff members time to edit the maps before they go live in-game. We are also glad to have received several new community map submissions; however, some of the community maps used blocks from Minecraft versions newer than 1.17, the version the server is currently running on. We are currently planning to release them once we update our entire server to the latest Minecraft versions. In the spirit of transparency to our community and map-makers, we would now like to share our plans for such a Minecraft version update.
The update to Minecraft 1.21+ is complicated by a few challenges that we currently need to work through. The most important is our current reliance on the MythicMobs plugin for the Mob-Arena mode, particularly certain add-ons that have not been updated to the latest versions of the MythicMobs which are required for newer Minecraft versions. We currently plan to address this problem by developing an entirely new mob system in the Place Engine. This will take time, because the purpose of this mob rework will be to not only remove our dependency on MythicMobs, but also dramatically improve the mob system compared to before and make it compatible with the future standalone game. For example, we will integrate the Kotlin-based Place Scripting system that we have recently developed to give mobs flexible behavior that is highly customizable by modders. After the entire mob system is implemented, we will need to transition all of our current MythicMobs content into the new system before we are ready to update to the latest Minecraft versions.
The new versions of Minecraft offers several amazing new opportunities to GunColony. The new modular item model system in Minecraft 1.21.4 will allow for unprecedented visual customizations to weapons, while previously difficult-to-create features (some featured on our YouTube channel) based on vanilla shaders are now much more practical to implement into the server as an optional feature similar to our current Fabulous Mode. In addition, other new Minecraft features such as the ability to change mob size and create Display Entities will be of great help to our various gamemodes.
GUNCRAFT
A complete overhaul of GunColony’s legendary gun system is on the horizon, focusing on gameplay variety, balance, and future modding support. We plan to make it the namesake feature of our future standalone game: GunCraft.
As the name suggests, GunCraft is all about weapon customization and giving players the freedom to design a weapon that truly fits their playstyle. Through its focus on gameplay and ease of modding rather than visual customization, it is designed as a countervailing force compared to the state of the FPS game industry today, plagued with gimmicky features, balancing based on precise damage and range values, and supremacy of “optimal” weapon builds with inauthentic appearances.
Central to GunCraft’s design is the goal to create a weapon balancing paradigm that preserves the viability of many different weapons and weapon categories regardless of map, gamemode, engagement distance, player health settings, or desired weapon behavior, and have such a level of balance extend effortlessly to community-made weapons and gamemodes as well. We want a weapon system that can adapt and stay balanced from the short-range chaos of Shipment to the long-range marksman duels of Alpine Trench; from long-TTK battle royale fights with hundreds of HP to hardcore mil-sim battles where opponents go down in one or two well-placed shots; and from a competitive defusal mode with precise, hit-scan weapons to an arcade zombie shooter with retro weapon spread mechanics. All of this will serve our ultimate long-term goal to become the most community-driven online FPS game ever made, where our community can separately contribute their own gamemodes, maps, and weapons to the game and the GunCraft system will serve as the interlink that enables them to work harmoniously with each other.
GunCraft will aim to achieve this goal through a combination of several original innovations: automatic balancing, assistance to weapon creators, gradual damage modifiers, quick-swap weapon builds, and dynamic weapon behavior.
- Automatic Balancing will aim to develop fine-tuned importance ratios of different stats that varies based on the pre-existing weapon and therefore precisely balance attachment benefits and drawbacks as well as weapon Supply Costs, ensuring that players can truly customize their weapons according to their preference instead of towards an “optimal” direction, and that weapon costs automatically vary in different modes depending on the importance of various stats that the weapon possesses.
- Assistance to Weapon Creators will be provided as weapons’ base stats will be a factor of several modifiers from a basic weapon in the category, rather than having to be specified manually, allowing creators of both official and community weapons to better use the weapon’s real-life features as a guide to determining its in-game stats, and only add minor weapon-specific finishing touches as needed.
- Gradual Damage Modifiers varies damage gradually based on the body location hit rather than having a fixed modifier per body part, and therefore prevents HP threshold effects where a massive difference in weapon performance is observed at specific damage thresholds such as between 99 and 100. Combined with gamemode-specific features like armor as well as changes to close range damage dropoff, we aim to make every additional point of damage count proportionately rather than causing a large jump in effectiveness at certain thresholds, especially ensuring that weapons remain balanced even in custom gamemodes with non-standard health values for players.
- Quick-Swap Weapon Builds takes the gimmicky attachment swapping features of games like “Battlefield 2042” and “World War 3” a crucial step further so that it is no longer a gimmick. GunCraft massively ups the ante on convenience and customization by allowing players to swap between 3 entire fully-customizable weapon builds with the press of a button, superseding the current fire-mode selector. At a moderate cost to realism, the feature drastically improves gameplay balance by letting players reserve different setups of a weapon optimal for different ranges, and thus allowing players to confidently bring their favorite weapon into uncharted situations such as Community Maps, while also providing a complex, unique, and interesting challenge to optimization-minded players.
- Dynamic Weapon Behavior serves to both increase gameplay diversity and accessibility and facilitate the creation of custom gamemodes. Weapon behavior will be massively tweakable to achieve radically different gunplay styles reminiscent of popular classic FPS titles that players may be familiar with. Through weapon modifications, players could choose between aiming down sights or a shoulder-aiming stance that requires standing still for accuracy; between recoil patterns, randomized patterns, and per-shot random recoil; or between random hipfire, pattern-based hipfire, or free-aim. Interaction with our Quick-Swap Weapon Builds systems will make this mechanic especially unique and powerful, as players are encouraged to create diverse weapon builds that intermix several distinct styles of weapon handling. Plus, creators of custom gamemodes will be able to set custom settings that coerce weapons to a particular handling behavior, facilitating the creation of faithful community remakes of classic games that are no longer operational or populated.
These ambitious ideas will be very important to the future success of GunColony and of the standalone game, and as such we hope to release them at an especially memorable time. Expect the gun system overhaul, fully based on the Place Engine and implementing at least several of the novel ideas listed here, to be released to the server on its 10th Anniversary in May 2025.
