In Discussion Mineplex Prison

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a few forum posts caught my eye about implementing a new, non-minigame gamemode, I decided to put forward a formal idea proposal. As I did with my previous game idea, Grapple Knife, I've put together a short video including some of the aspects of this game.



Hopefully you enjoyed that fun little video and also got a rough idea of what we can do with Prison. The rest of this thread will dive more in-depth to the idea and elaborate on some of the things you might've spotted in the video. However, before we get into the details I want to address the major reaction to an idea like this.
"Nani?! Mineplex is a minigame only server! This wouldn't fit in! Tyler, you're a Mod, you should know this better than anyone!"
To which my response is: Mineplex hasn't been a minigame only server since Clans became apart of the network. Also, there has previously been Gem Hunters and I won't mention our Bedrock friends. Sure, you can treat Clans as its own separate thing, but then we can treat Prison this way too. Regardless of any argument either which way, I'd like to keep discussion away from how much it fits Mineplex's theme.

And with that, let's dive in!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
​

This will be a very brief bulleted list breakdown of Mineplex Prison. Topics that need expanding on will be expanded on in their own spoiler.

• Unique Mining System
• Custom Combat System
• Bosses
• Custom Enchants
• Player Level & Item Level Systems
• Player Stats
• Custom Crafting
• Gem Hunters 2.0
• Groups
• Plots & Group Plots
• Group Leaderboard + Rewards
• PvP Arena
• Keep-Inventory
• Trade GUI
• Auction House
• Plot Mines

​

The core mechanic in a prison gamemode is mining for profit. Eventually you could afford to purchase a rankup with your earnings. Ranking up would enable you to access a higher tier mine, allowing you to make even more money than before.

This process is usually handled with mines lettered A-Z. Once you rankup from A, you would go to B, and so on. My idea for Mineplex Prison ditches the A-Z thing and titles the mines by theme. Here's the example sequence I used for my video:

1. Iron Mines | New miners arrive here hoping to strike it rich on iron and coal. A labyrinth of twisting caves filled with dangerous skeletons. At its deepest depths is the Iron Warden, a gone-wrong experiment carried out by the prison executives.
2. Gold Mines | Those who survived the Iron Warden's eagle eye end up digging for gold. This is where young miners begin to understand the wealth to be made from mining.
3. Lapiz Mines | It's lapiz, that's cool, right? But how am I supposed to make a dramatic description for this stuff?
4. Diamond Mines | The diamonds here attract large nations to these caves. Expert miners from all over the world are sent here with great expectations.
5. Frozen Peaks | The prison's best miners leave the prison entirely for more ambitious digs. Here they will climb an icy, slippery mountain while gathering any valuables frozen within. It's said that the mountain plateaus out near the peak. Multiple sighting reports claim they saw the rumored Frost Giant around this area.
6. Volcanic Mines | Old bridges hang above the magma below, connecting the walls of the volcano. Within its walls is great wealth, they say the closer you get to the magma, the more riches you'll find.
7. Hell Mines | The prison executives finally figure out how to light a mysterious portal. They send you, their best miner, to investigate what lies beyond. Inside is a hellish realm that you wouldn't hope your worst enemies to end up in.
8. The End Mines | Many stories derive from this dimension. A world of dragons and tall, frightening creatures. There are myths that some of the universes most valuable materials can be harvested here.
9. The Mansion | The mountains surrounding the estate are said to contain unimaginable riches. However, most miners are scared off by the rumors of the Pumpkin King living within the mansion.

Obviously 9 mines is a lot less than the 26 mines that A-Z provides. However, I promise, whatever is lost in mines is made up for with plenty of other things to grind. It's also important to moderate the workload for a project of this scale. If we want to get this implemented within the century, we can't really expect 26 mines. That being said, mines could of course be added in content updates post-release. As for rankup prices, I don't know that I would consider myself qualified enough to balance something like that.

If you've ever played a prison server before, you are surely no stranger to those giant squares that are flush with the ground and filled with ore. Mineplex Prison would abandon this image to create a more unique experience. As seen in the video, you would mine ores from actual caves rather than unnatural cubes of ore. For some of the mines, you won't even be mining in a cave but perhaps on a volcano! It's a big step towards making this prison server unique to Mineplex.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've also come prepared with yet another way of handling mines/rankups. This version was not featured in the video at all, simply because I didn't want to make two versions of the demonstration. This version puts an even greater twist on the original gamemode. It's a "Made in Abyss" style mining system. For those of you who have got no clue what I just said, ignore it. For those of you who do, this will be a lot easier to explain.

Basically it operates by a depth gauge rather than being in a specific mine. Meaning, the entire prison mine is contained in a single, giant hole. However, you can only access the lower depths of the mines by ranking up. For example, lets say the first 50 blocks of the mine is the first area. You can only descend into the mines down to 50 blocks until you've ranked up. After that, you can travel all the way down to a depth 100 blocks.

The problem with this is that handling it server side would be a lot more difficult. Due to Minecraft's height limit, lower depths would have to be carried out by either teleporting the player to another area, or bungee'ing them to another server. It's not a huge problem, but it is one of the reasons I've chosen the first version to represent over this one. Regardless, I'll leave both up for discussion. Either variation would be a major change from the standard prison server.

Most RPG servers have an intricate combat system; and, since Mineplex Prison is building a heavy RPG aspect, it's only proper to have modified combat mechanics. This includes a new health system, new stats, and redoing how damage works.

A new health system is basically essential. Most RPG servers utilize an action bar health/defense/mana system. I suggest ditching mana and just using cooldowns and cooldown reduction (CDR) stats. I feel that adding mana would maybe make it a little too hectic for the average player in an already advanced combat system. With this action bar system, health would be displayed in a numeric form above the actual vanilla health bar. Defense would serve as a damage resistance mechanism, similar to vanilla armor, but it will also be displayed numerically next to health. A formula would be used to calculate damage dealt to the player based on their defensive stats.

Mineplex Prison would introduce a variety of new stats that develop the combat system and allow for more creative ways to build your character. Here are some stats that I brainstormed:

1. Strength- Contributes to phsyical damage dealt
2. Sharpshooting- Contributes to ranged damage dealt
3. Health- Contributes to player health
4. Defense- Contributes to player defense
5. Haste- Mining Speed / Cooldown Reduction / Movement Speed
6. Critical- Chances of landing a critical hit
7. Pierce- Defense piercing

These stats can be obtained via tools, weapons, gear, and skill points (will touch on later).

With all these new stats, the vanilla damage formulas obviously wouldn't quite work. Weapons would have custom damage values along with strength stats needing to be accounted for. The new system would allow for cool abilities and lots of flexibility. Damage dealt on an attack should be indicated to the player. I suggest holograms for physical attacks and chat messages for ranged attacks.

I can also see a world where there is a combo system. This could also include some cool implementations like learning combos from boss drops. However, similar to a mana system, I think this might over complicate things for the average player. Regardless, I'll leave it open for discussion.

Mineplex Prison would really embrace the RPG aspect of prison. That being said, what's an RPG without cool bosses?

Mineplex Prison would feature a variety of bosses that can provide the player with cool prison loot or even network awards (ex. rank upgrade). I myself haven't fully designed a boss, but I have some rough ideas and a design for how the system could actually work. Fully designed meaning: health, stats, abilities, drops, etc.

So to kick it off, how would boss fights be initiated? In the video, there was a brief clip of myself walking onto pressure plates, which queued me up for a fight against the Iron Warden. Beyond this, the video was pretty vague on what happens after that, it just flies by some boss rooms. I left that bit out because I wanted to open it up to discussion. I've got 2 ideas for handling what happens after you queue for a boss fight:

1. You get teleported straight to the boss room with whoever you queued with and the fight is initiated. It's more boring, but it gets straight to the point and makes grinding bosses less tedious.
2. You get teleported to more of a dungeon. You and your team will traverse the dungeon fighting elite monsters and solving puzzles. At the end of the dungeon is the boss room. A dungeon system would even allow for different difficulties settings to be added if the game gets enough of a playerbase. This version would take a lot longer for each boss fight but I think it would really enhance the experience.

So I'll leave that one open for discussion for you guys, personally I favor the dungeon system.

Next thing on the menu is boss loot. It can be kind of hard to get a good system for this since a lot of players feel cheated when they do the most work but get the worst loot. That's totally understandable too. My design to try and be as fair as possible is a mix of a guaranteed drop and a loot auction. You might of caught a glimpse of it in the video.

*Boss Dies*
- All players who dealt at least 5% damage get 1 guaranteed item from the boss's drop table
- The boss drops some additional shared loot and it goes up for auction to participating players
- You have the option to add your personal guaranteed drop to the auction, and you will receive any money that is bid on it
- The person who dealt the most damage gets to claim one free item from the auction list before bidding starts
- After that, players may bid on the remaining loot

Boss drops would include prison items as well as network awards such as rank upgrades, gems, or chests.

Finally, the bosses themselves. I think challenging bosses are a lot more fun than ones you can easily just kite or create a surefire strategy without much thought. Although it might make you rage, it will be a lot more fun and satisfying. Since the bosses themselves aren't goal posts to progress (although that can certainly be arranged (:< ), I think it would be fine making them pretty difficult. Giving them awesome and unique abilities, as well as varying their strategies will make these bosses something to remember. I've got some outlines for a few potential bosses:

1. Iron Warden | A gone wrong experiment by the prison executives. A golem made of steel, giving it impeccable defense. You'll have to avoid his ground pounds and fight off his elite skeleton guards. Don't let your guard down because of his slow pace, he'll hook and pull you into his steel arms before you'll know what hit you.
2. Frost Giant | Not an actual mob, but a giant made of ice and snow, you can't even see his head! You'll have to shoot his core to slowly damage him. He'll fill the arena with all sorts of abilities that could be lethal if you're hit. Meanwhile, you'll also have to fight his deadly snowmen infamous for their bloodlust.
3. Pumpkin King | A Mineplex classic up to his old evil deeds. An incredibly difficult boss with ridiculous health and two royal guards that will stop you before you can even stare. He has no tolerance for weakness, if you show signs that you are unworthy to fight him, he'll execute you on the spot.

These are just a few fun ideas I had, feel free to discuss them below! And with that, I think that concludes the boss section. Let me know if I left anything out!

Mineplex Prison would include a leveling system for both the player and individual items.

The player level would work from 1-100 much like the network level system. Of course, it would be much easier to level up than your network level. With each level up, the player would get a small increase in base stats and also get a skill point. A skill point can be used to invest in individual stats such as strength or health.

The item level would also work from 1-100. Use of the item would give it experience and allow it to level up. Depending on the rarity of the item, some might start at an already high level. For example, an ultra-rare item might start at level 80. Leveling an item would increase the effectiveness of certain enchants and modifiers, provide extra damage and unlock enchantment slots.

Custom enchants will be touched on later. As for modifiers, these are additional bonuses on top of an item that can increase different stats depending on the modifier. For example, a strong modifier might provide extra damage. These can be rerolled at an NPC so that you can forge the perfect tools. If you've played Terraria, that modifying system is what I am talking about implementing.

Additionally, item level would provide extra damage/defense/mining speed whether it's a weapon/armor piece/pickaxe respectively.

Lastly, I've got an idea about unlocking enchant slots via level. In the video, I had it so every 20 item levels, you'd unlock 1 enchant slot. This made a maximum of 5 enchantments at level 100. I can understand how this could be a bit low considering custom enchants will be a thing, so if this system were to be implemented, perhaps 2 per 20 levels would be better. Maybe it would even be better removing this bit entirely, I just thought it would be a good way to encourage leveling your items. Feel free to discuss!

Groups are a great way to get your friends involved in your prison experience. Mineplex Prison would offer a group system that allows you to invite other miners and compete against other groups to earn prizes or just enjoy some sweet group perks. Group banners could also be customized, which would be a great addition to the Mineplex shop.

Groups would have unlockable perks that benefit all members of the group. These perks are split into two sections:

1. Bought Perks | You can buy group perks with in-game currency. An example would be increased fortune odds.
2. Achieved Perks | Perks given for achieving something. An example would be unlocking the group plot at 10 members. Some perks could possibly be dropped by bosses

The other half of being apart of a group is competition. This will be carried out through a leaderboard that ranks groups based on group value. Group value is totaled by the member's balances, member's plots value, and group plot value. At the end of a defined period of time, the top ranking groups on the leaderboard would be awarded a prize. Some examples would be store credit, forum tags, or exclusive network titles like "Prison Champion".

On the topic of leaderboards, since there would be a PvP arena, a PvP leaderboard would be a nice touch too. Not for prizes or anything, just for bragging rights and a reason to do PvP.

No prison gamemode is complete without plots. Players use plots for: general housing & storage, player shops, growing crops and private mining.

Mineplex Prison would give every player a 32x32 plot for players to use as they wish. Additionally, groups who have unlocked the perk will have a 64x64 group plot.

One of the many things you can choose to do with your plot is open a player shop. Players may set up shops where they can buy/sell materials at their own prices. This popular prison feature allows players to get rich off good shopkeeping.

Another popular part of prison plots are private mines. These are usually sold on a server's store, but I suspect the EULA would have some problems with that. That's alright though because small (3x3, 5x5) private mines could be dropped by bosses. A unique feature of Mineplex Prison could be private mine configuration. You could pay in-game currency to tier up your private mine. You could pay for things like increasing the speed at which your private mine regenerates and adding additional blocks to your private mine.

The last feature of plots would be a voting system. Player plots and group plots that are open to the public can be given a vote. Plots will be ranked by votes in a public plot browser. This will allow players/groups to showcase their amazing plots and shops.

One of the best ways to enhance the prison experience is custom enchants. Mineplex Prison would have a vast selection of enchants to make your perfect tool/weapon/armor.

The video used the following enchants:

1. Critical Striker | Doubles critical chance
2. Rapid Fire I-V | (+2%) ability cooldown reduction per level
3. Storm Bringer | Calls down lightning on ability use that does (ITEM-DMG/2) AOE damage
4. Fire Touch | Sets target ablaze for (ITEM-LEVEL/20) seconds [min. 1 sec // max. 5 sec]
5. Insta-Mine | Ignore tool speed and break blocks instantly
6. Auto-Smelt | Automatically smelt harvested ores
7. Lifesteal I-V | (+4%) lifesteal per level
8. Multishot | Shoot multiple arrows at once

These are just a few examples with some possible formulas. Feel free to share some of your own ideas for custom enchants!

Custom crafting heightens your possibilities to an entirely new level. Mineplex Prison would include custom crafting for things like custom armor, custom weapons, boost elixirs and private plot mines.

In a lot of prison servers, farming on your plot is popular. To encourage farming on Mineplex Prison, boost elixirs could be crafted from massive amounts of crops. For example, a 1 hour double ores elixir.

One of the jokes I made in the video was "Gem Hunters 2.0"; and, on a serious note, I think this would be an awesome implementation to Mineplex Prison. It would satisfy the Gem Hunters crowd while also adding an interesting aspect for everyone else.

For those of you who are not fully aware of what I'm talking about, allow me to elaborate. You would have the ability to earn network awards from playing Mineplex Prison. Gems, chests, and even rank upgrades could be found randomly in mines or from boss drops. Of course getting something like a rank upgrade would be extremely rare, but still possible. The best part is, unlike Gem Hunters, you don't get your loot stolen by a bunny hopper!

It's important that we look at a game like this from a business perspective too. So, please share some ideas on EULA-friendly shop items! I've got a few of my own and I'll add on any suggestions!

1. Customize Group Banner
2. Skill Point Reset (not actually entirely sure if this is EULA compliant, but I'll toss it out there)
3. Plot Expansion (I think this would be EULA compliant?)

Quick list of additional features:

1. Keep Inventory | Pretty self-explanatory. With the extent of the RPG aspect, this is pretty much a necessity.
   
   
2. /trade Command | Prevent scamming
   
   
3. Auction House | As I am writing this, I'm realizing that having player shops is somewhat redundant if there is an auction house. Perhaps this could replace player shops entirely? Feel free to discuss.
   
   
4. Wood Area | Harvesting wood is important for building and crafting. A wood chopping area should be available to all players.

Let me know if there is anything else that should be added!

I'd like to add here at the end that there is one very real problem with this, and that is Mineplex's ability to invest the resources into this. I don't mean to throw this disappointment on you after all that, but it is important to bring up. This is an absolutely massive project that would be a huge investment. There isn't really any easy solution to this. So I simply ask for your collective support for the project. If there's enough support for it, it will drastically help them make that investment decision. I've tried to design as much as I could within a reasonable amount of time so that the game could quickly leave the design phase if accepted. I'd also be more than willing to work closely on the project and see it through its design phase.

So, that about wraps it up. Thank you so much for taking a look! This took an absolutely ridiculous amount of time to put together for you guys, so I'm hoping I can get some of your awesome feedback and support. I wouldn't of invested so much time into this project if I didn't sincerely think it could be massive for Mineplex. It's been one of my goals on the staff team to try and make the difference that'll bring a massive crowd back to Mineplex. I'm hoping I can do that with this.

Again, thank you and please leave some feedback below!


(P.S. Please also let me know if I failed to cover anything, there was a lot to write so it is very possible I missed something!)

 

Okay, you've really worked hard on this thread, and I'll be honest, I have not read all of that.

I think this would be a fun edition to Mineplex, Prison is a game in a lot of servers and it is well liked. My only concern about this is, although it might draw in new players, and it would certainly be fun, but it might stretch Mineplex thin, with not enough people playing our "Main focus," minigames.

Overall I think this would be a good edition, and the negative is just a **might**
--- Post updated ---
Darn wish I could edit it, I thought that would make it bold but apparently not, okay

 

I applaud your effort to your idea and I think you've put a lot of work into it. I think the idea is too similar to -snip- version of skyblock. If there were some changes made to make it more original with the Mineplex feel I think it would brings loads of new players in and do very well. The effort to actually design the game may be too difficult a task without a larger group working on it though. It would be bad for Mineplex to stretch too thinly when it could be working on smaller tasks to improve Mineplex as it is.

 

For me, the server type that competes with or is right under Minigames, is prison servers. Long have I tried many of the prison servers out there but most of them don't appeal to me or fall off after the initial excitement. Mineplex already has fun minigames that keep me coming on but adding a Prison Aspect would further increase my time. I think I suggested something similar a few years back but it didn't really have a structure/plan so it didn't take off. I hope this post blows up because I really would like to see Prison come onto Mineplex. I hope this garners enough attention for a Dev/Admin to review. Your post encompasses many thought out ideas, and even has a nice, funny video(which was really great).

I have a couple of questions and suggestions.

1. While you mentioned the A-Z mines aspect wasn't good, I like to see more mines than what is just listed. Of course not the generic mines but like what you been doing- forest, underwater...etc. Along with that we may have more ranks, each with unique colors and effects like Warlord, Overlord, King...etc for ranking up. It's simple to make more of these ranks because you can easily just make the W in Warlord green, and the L yellow, and have a multitude of colors for each rank/mine to make it unique, distinguishable, cool and letting people work towards them. Achievements may not be so bad either. Perhaps each mine has mobs, or the dangerous ones has bosses/mobs/guards wandering around the mines to protect them. Occasional bosses and events are cool as well.

2. What are your thoughts on Plot Scamming/Gambling? a Casino warp could be an option, or Casino structures on player plots. By plot scamming, I mean doing a hidden sign, or one that has an S on it to make players more then they think they are paying. Plot Casinos would be cool. Hit a dispenser, and the item corresponds with a prize up to the plot owner.

3. This is something that I'm not sure on. Staff could be kept the same with Trainee's, Mod's. What about a separate division called guards or something that keep the gamemode more interesting with fighting prisoners for contraband, restricting certain areas, being bribed/corrupted. Might not have to be NPC's, could be real players each with their own set of ideals for ranking up. It would a separate system- maybe for people who finished all ranks/prestige or maybe if people could choose between prisoner/guard.

Wooo! That's a lot of text and ideas to think about. I'll be checking back with this thread often and I hope to see this garner enough support for serious consideration. I'll add more feedback as I check in later. Massive +1, really hope to see this get added. Let's hope for a lot of popularity and support so this gets noticed!

 

Honestly, I really love prison and I think that it'd be a lovely implementation here on Mineplex. I have to say, you did an amazing job showing us what it would be like and gave us various examples. I just think that a new long-term game would be great for Mineplex and attract players. Yes, this would be a large project that would possibly require a new developer, but I think it would be worth it in the long run. It would be pretty cool to have a new unique twist to a popular game on Mineplex. Good luck on your idea!

 

I'm just gunna say Mineplex is a mini games server. Gem hunters failed and clans is currently filled with glitches, hackers, and is pay to win. Unless Mineplex can make clans playable they won't be able to do anything like this.

 

Yes, just.. yes.

+1

 

This probably has lots of potential to bring players back to mineplex. It's a unique gamemode to mineplex because it goes on forever. The only other gamemode like this is clans but barely anyone plays that anyway.

 

Yes there is a reason for that. The reason is that Mineplex can't seem to handle a long term large scale game. Gem hunters got removed and clans is barely alive, and Mineplex is only keeping it to squeeze the cash out of as many players as they can.

 

I can see that you've put a lot of effort in this idea and honestly I would love to see it implemented but the chances that the server starts working on a large project like this are very low. I would change a couple of things:

-In my opinion mineplex prison wouldn't be a good name for this gamemode. The name should be unique, like they did with clans.

-Rank upgrades are already in chests, adding them as the drops of bosses would be cool but making them spawn in mines is a little exagerated.

-I think that the "bosses eggs" would fit for a good item in the shop.

That's it, I'm giving your idea only +0.5 because I can't see them implementing it into the server.

 

Prison is a fun game mode, but as many people have said long-term games aren't MP's thing. @LordOfTeeth stated that clans is dying.

My opinion on this is that more long-term games don't make sense until we can stabilize the first ones.

 

I hate to discuss the one thing you said not to discuss, but just to point out that this mode flopped horribly after a few weeks. How can you make sure this wouldn't have the same issue as gem hunters had?

 

All I'm gonna say is, it seems very out of place for a mini game server - but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have its own spin. Gotta cater to everyone, I guess

 

Wow. This is an insanely meticulous thread, excellent job on pretty much all aspects of your idea.

Personally, I love the idea of a Mineplex Prisons server. I've always been a huge fan of prison and incorporating it into Mineplex would be amazing and fun. As for the plausibility of this, I'm not too sure--If I had the means, I would definitely have this implemented despite the [most likely] insane cost to build this and maintain it(Builders, Developers, Management). However much we like it though, implementing it would require an epic amount of effort and investment by higher-ups.

Overall, the concept of a Mineplex Prison server is great and your plan/thread is outstanding. I would absolutely love to see this worked on in the future...seriously Mineplex look into this.

+1

 

Holy.. wow. This is actually amazing. Prisons is a really fun game, and I am totally on board to see mineplex prisons! If you actually coded the entire prisons server, that must’ve took days of work. So it could also give some of the developers less of a challenge.

This is kind of off topic to prisons, but that video. My, oh my, oh my, that was gold.

Anyways back to the thread, I would definitely love to see Mineplex Prisons, so this is a 100% +1 from me. This obviously took a long time of dedication to not only code and make a server and make like a whole 9 page essay thread about it, but also make a certain and detailed video about it with lots of editing. So for all the effort and the great idea, I am on board with everything.

This would actually be great for mineplex’s playerbase too, because I believe this would add a couple thousand more players to Mineplex’s already large player base. Sure this could add a little bit of lag to the server, but in my opinion, getting a larger player base is worth the fixing of the servers.

So like I said above, this is definitely a +1 from me. It’ll be really fun to play and moderate in my opinion, plus mineplex has been ready to make a huge game that would change every server in my opinion. This would take a bunch of coding and bug fixing, but if Mineplex does decide to roll with the idea, it’ll be worth it.