Legundo
Hello everyone! With the subathon behind us and a bright future for the server ahead, we have a lot of work to do, but we don't want to do ALL of that work in the shadows. Over the coming weeks and months, we're going to be breaking down the different gamemodes available on the server, from Extraction, to Blowout, to the upcoming SMP+ Season 6.
So... let's start with the central part of the SMP experience, the economy, and how we're planning to greatly overhaul the system in Season 6.
In each season of the SMP we've changed around the economics of the server. From diamond-backed economies to pure digital currencies with extensive interest systems that honestly are probably more well thought out than the banks of most countries. For Season 5 we introduced Crowns, the central digital currency of the world and when Season 5 had ended, there were over 392,755,600 crowns in total circulation.
This mainly came at the expense of the "State Account", the central server "Bank" that paid out to all players for everything from fishing to interest to server-run shops such as the Art and Music shops. This left the overwhelming economy in the hands of the players, and that came with its own benefits and downfalls.
On the plus side, players were motivated to build up massive farms and create huge projects, establish trade deals, and attempt to corner the market on certain rare and hard-to-renew resources. Also, players could have most resources they would need for any building project they could imagine as players could create resources for each other and create pipelines to make mega projects like Liyue.
But let's talk about the negatives... because there were quite a few negatives. Things like Armor Trims, Pottery Sherds, and Elytra were hot items that sparked intense competition, as well as an intense amount of misinformation and negativity towards the players who were most active on the server. This occurred both on SMP+ and SMP Classic, and we had to think of things on the fly to mitigate these issues. One solution we devised involved creating brand new plugins just to fix this problem, and we did this live on stream actually!
This plugin was fun to make live, but the reasoning for us to have to make it in the first place revealed a big problem with the SMP economies. Having players be the primary pipeline for resources means that it also puts players AGAINST each other for key items, basically making a PvP economy.
While we can't control this sentiment as easily on SMP Classic since it is meant to be as close to vanilla as possible, we can completely change how the SMP+ economy functions; and all these issues pushed us to rethink and overhaul a lot of it.
Season 5, frankly, broke the team. From the constant infighting and false accusations of favoritism to the genuine manipulation, negativity, and spying conducted between many groups on the server - Season 5's PvP economy fostered the absolute worst possible outcomes and behaviors, and it's an experiment we are never going to be repeating again.
Season 6 is a PvE Server
For Season 6, we're going to be changing things up. Instead of having players focus on competing for resources and for perceived "monopolies" we're instead going to be focusing on providing most materials via several server shops to focus on a "PvE" economy.
The idea here is providing the resources at a reliable rate that can enable everyone's intense creativity while still opening a market for players to earn money from turning in almost everything in an expanded version of the Night Market system from Season 5 and other activities such as fishing and server shops.
Welcome to the Bazaar!
The Bazaar is where several different server-run shops will all be operating. Each vendor will buy different materials specific to their stall, such as Stone, Foods, Treasures, or Redstone materials. These vendors will purchase anything in your inventory that matches their wares, as well as sell those same resources for a small fee.
The big boss here though is the main person you'll want to talk to if you're looking for a big payout. The Bazaar Trader will buy items for 3-4x their normal value, and their needs will rotate every 8 hours. This will provide similar functionality to the Season 5 Night Market - but with the always-on other shops it has the freedom to rotate much more frequently, keeping events and server economy dynamic.
Our hope is that by providing a space for players to interact moreso with the server than other players on an economic level, we can eliminate the negativity and toxicity that the Season 5 economy fostered. One of the main focuses for us for Season 6 across the server is making things as welcoming as possible to all members for all playstyles for all games and activities. By turning the SMP into a PvE economy instead of a PvP focused one, we hope to make the server more inviting for all.
Can I still run a shop?
OF COURSE! Think of the server shops like the government store - if you think you can do better we're still going to be providing outlets for you to run your own businesses in Season 6! Plus, this encourages users to sell services instead of just raw items as there is a basically infinite source of supplies for people to create with, opening up a whole new host of opportunities!
(Also, not every item is provided by the server shops, as it mainly covers basic materials & goods. So there's still a decent number of things to sell in your shops.)
That's it for our first Season 6 dev diary! The next installment will be focused on Extraction Season 2 and the Season of the Subathon, as well as some big upcoming events and.... new games?!?!?
Stay tuned for more info!
