"The Aquadome", A Multi-Purpose Arena for All!

[DragonofHalo Profile]

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd like to pitch in and help. Not much of a "pretty" designer, but I can make a molding dungeon like nobody's business. Assuming that you don't want a "hole to go die in" feel, I could always be the monkey with a set of directions and materials. I also have tons of building blocks just sitting around, begging to be put to use on a nice project like this. Any time after 3-ish (Eastern standard), Sunday through Saturday is a good time for me.
And Poster, you still need to make your DerpVille post.

[Goobler Profile]

Hole to die in eh? That's prolly poster's idea of a gambling pit, also I can only assume, Poster's actual closet.

[abigail Profile]

yeah, poster only needs one of those for now. no need to put a hole in the arena. everyone's got skeletons in their closet, but i dont want poster showing off his non-metaphorical skeletons all over the place

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Quick update plus commentary... Here we go!

Jokesters: Har har har!

Exchange: I will look into it and post a response here later. Sand is just going to be a temporary need for the Aquadome, but we will need a lot.

Dragon: Right now, we're clearing the space under the arena floor. If you want to dig for a few hours, feel free. Keep any minerals you find for yourself and watch out for lava. Please replace any other random blocks you encounter on the ceilings/walls with smooth stone. I don't care about the floor - Basically, try to emulate the half I've already finished and will be showing in screenshot form below. I will outline the oval from the top later today so that it's easier to know where the wall needs to be.

Update: I've finished clearing half of the space under the arena floor. I haven't decided how this area will be filled, but I kind of want to make a few buildings that we could use for admin purposes and keep the area locked for regular players. Here's a screenshot of what I've done thus far: http://i.imgur.com/XKxnezi.png

[DragonofHalo Profile]

Alrighty, Aquadome has been cleared to bedrock.
And now I'm bored.
To the Nether!

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Dude thanks!

Update: With that done, I'm going to begin moving the chests to their final resting place down below. I have a few ideas to pretty it up, including a possible admin home for meetings and such. We'll see.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Still alive. Been busy at work and home, so not a lot of time to get on the server. I'm not sure what my weekend will be like either, but we are almost at the build stage on the project.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

I need everyone who is even mildly interested's opinion on this subject: As discussed before, the Aquadome event floor is at Y=20. Void fog starts below Y=27 and progressively worsens the lower the Y value. My original plan for the Aquadome was to have the dome in its entirety submerged beneath the ocean's surface. I did not notice the fog issue earlier because I was using the OptiFine mod to turn off fog in general. For larger events (large combat events that take up the entire floor, for example), a player with an unmodified client cannot see from one side of the event floor to the other and subsequently cannot see their competitors. OptiFine removes this handicap, but it also means that we would have to insist upon requiring that everyone use OptiFine in order to compete OR they would have to expressly state beforehand that they understand the limitations of their vanilla client.

The solution I eventually came to was to expose the arena floor to direct sunlight by having at least a portion of the dome above sea-level. This would solve the issue, but it would defeat some of the purpose of having an underwater arena in addition to creating a large navigation hazard for boaters in the area.

I am now reconsidering this solution. I beginning to think, with the vast amount of walkthroughs on the subject, that it is not entirely unreasonable to ask a player to add OptiFine if they wish to not be handicapped by this limitation. I want to know what everyone else's opinion on the subject is before I complete the outer wall and begin working on the dome. Please state your case for or against and I will make a decision some time next week and let you all know.

Thanks!

[gregor1942 Profile]

I need everyone who is even mildly interested's opinion on this subject: As discussed before, the Aquadome event floor is at Y=20. Void fog starts below Y=27 and progressively worsens the lower the Y value. My original plan for the Aquadome was to have the dome in its entirety submerged beneath the ocean's surface. I did not notice the fog issue earlier because I was using the OptiFine mod to turn off fog in general. For larger events (large combat events that take up the entire floor, for example), a player with an unmodified client cannot see from one side of the event floor to the other and subsequently cannot see their competitors. OptiFine removes this handicap, but it also means that we would have to insist upon requiring that everyone use OptiFine in order to compete OR they would have to expressly state beforehand that they understand the limitations of their vanilla client.

The solution I eventually came to was to expose the arena floor to direct sunlight by having at least a portion of the dome above sea-level. This would solve the issue, but it would defeat some of the purpose of having an underwater arena in addition to creating a large navigation hazard for boaters in the area.

I am now reconsidering this solution. I beginning to think, with the vast amount of walkthroughs on the subject, that it is not entirely unreasonable to ask a player to add OptiFine if they wish to not be handicapped by this limitation. I want to know what everyone else's opinion on the subject is before I complete the outer wall and begin working on the dome. Please state your case for or against and I will make a decision some time next week and let you all know.

Thanks!

Just recommend that everyone use at least optifine standard (light doesnt control fog) it should be the solution to our problems.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Correct. "Artificial light" sources (torches, redstone, redstone torches, redstone lamps, fire, and glowstone) do not remove void fog. Direct sunlight, however, does remove void fog. In addition, exposing the top of the dome would also make having fireworks displays a lot simpler because we could remove glass from part of the dome to accommodate the higher flight paths of some fireworks.

There are pros and cons to both sides, which is why I'm posing it to everyone here.

[abigail Profile]

i could not get optifine to install with something like magic loader. so i have a separate jar just for optifine on both my minecraft computers. but it was not difficult, there were super clear youtube videos on step by step instructions on everything. and i only needed to use a backup unchanged jar file when i tried to get rei's minimap and optifine to coexist (if someone has solved this with any minimap, landmark mod, let me know).

it is quite simple and worth it if only to use optifine lite on my laptop to double ramefrate. and my desktop is good enough that i can turn everything up and make the clouds all pretty, while operating faster than the lappy.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Additionally: I will make a demo of the wall design idea I have on the event floor and snap some screenshots next time I'm on. I believe it will look nice, but it helps to be able to actually visualize it.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Here's a sample of what the stands will look like, in no particular order:

http://imgur.com/a/FtwE4

Q: Why did I fill in the space underneath?
A: I did not want players to be able to glitch under the stands with ender pearls and I wanted to use up some of the vast amount of cobble we've mined out of the pit.

Q: Do we have enough Lapis?
A: Nope.

Right now, we need as many lapis blocks as we can gather. If you're mining currently, please be on the lookout. If things get too desperate, I'll start buying stacks from the shops around the server. For now, we have plenty of sandstone/sand that can be converted to stone or glass as needed.

[Goobler Profile]

I think that void fog is the player's choice/resposibility, just state clearly that if they dont have a way to scrub void fog then they will be at a disadvantage and paying the fee means they consent to those conditions. simple. PA you need more lawyers :p

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

I have some ideas of how combatants will enter the event floor and I could easily add signs explaining the limitations of non-modified clients. Good call.

[Inertpyro Profile]

I have a few stacks of lapis I could sell for fairly cheap. I don't sell a lot of it any ways. I'll take a lot at what I have when I get home.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Sounds good - Let me know for how much. Lapis is going to be a main design element... And we haven't even begun to look into the glowstone we'll be using for lighting and décor.

:sighs: This thing is going to bankrupt me. ;p

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

OH! Here's something else I had in mind for those of us with a creative bug: The Aquadome is oval-shaped, but the pit it sits in is a rectangle. Once I drop the water, there are going to be large empty spots on all 4 corners of the rectangle. I'm wanting to have a design contest for "sculptures" that could fill these empty spots. On top of your design being used at the Aquadome, a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place prize would be awarded to the 4 winning designs. For now, just know that it will need to incorporate either glowstone or redstone lamps for lighting (glowstone preferred because it's very dark at Y=20) and that the footprint (X and Z coordinates/length and width) will be limited. An uneducated guess would be something like 7x7 blocks, but the height would be allowed to be taller. I'll post more details when I'm ready to do this.

[gregor1942 Profile]

OH! Here's something else I had in mind for those of us with a creative bug: The Aquadome is oval-shaped, but the pit it sits in is a rectangle. Once I drop the water, there are going to be large empty spots on all 4 corners of the rectangle. I'm wanting to have a design contest for "sculptures" that could fill these empty spots. On top of your design being used at the Aquadome, a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place prize would be awarded to the 4 winning designs. For now, just know that it will need to incorporate either glowstone or redstone lamps for lighting (glowstone preferred because it's very dark at Y=20) and that the footprint (X and Z coordinates/length and width) will be limited. An uneducated guess would be something like 7x7 blocks, but the height would be allowed to be taller. I'll post more details when I'm ready to do this.

I've been working on the arena and im wondering for the corners, are they going to be empty like you mentioned or "seating"

[gregor1942 Profile]

also just to let everyone who hasnt seen know i have used dirt as a placeholder for lapis until we get enough lapis to replace it