The state of things - October Update

[Towelie]

I'd like to point out some things we're dealing with so you can better understand why we do what we do.


Bukkit Info
- Our server runs on Spigot. Which is a mod of Bukkit. Which is what allows us to have plugins and commands on the server. Bukkit has recently been "suspended" following a DMCA takedown request by an old contributor of Bukkit's source code (I won't get into detail, you can find that stuff on the internet). Because of that, It is currently uncertain if Bukkit will continue existing. A lot of developers bailed out and it's mostly dormant at the moment. Spigot is still continuing to issue small updates / bugfixes but it is uncertain whether they will be able to continue without Bukkit.
A new "guy" has appeared -> Sponge. Sponge aims to be the replacement of Bukkit. A way to have plugins/commands on a vanilla server, without requiring custom clients. However, it's just started and there's no telling when it would be ready. A few months at best, ~1 year at worse. The team is working as hard as they can.
When we will switch to Sponge, we will not be able to use our current plugins with Sponge, at least not without serious hours spent at making these plugins compatible.
Which is why currently, we've put a halt (or at least a slowdown) to making new plugins because we don't know when Sponge will be released and we already have a lot of plugins to update which will burden our Developers for basically months. This means that we will limit to fixing the bugs in our proprietary plugins but we will not be making new ones until Sponge is implemented, with the exception of a few things that are currently being worked on:

- Tic Tac Toe
- Town of Salem Minecraft (will be a server in its own)
- The Purge (will be a server in its own)
- Might be another thing or two that I'm forgetting now


Developer Info
We currently have 3 plugin developers (in alphabetical order):
- ColesyM
- FearThe1337
- a**hole

One plugin developer in "recruitment phase" (which means he's working to prove to us that he's suitable for the job):
- darknuju

And a website developer, who everyone knows -> Mordalthunder.

Playerbase Info
Like expected, our playerbase has taken a hit with the school/college starting. This was something we anticipated. You will see less players online, this is somewhat normal, however the weekends seem to be boosting our playerbase a bit.
Normally we'd resolve this by placing paid advertisements but due to the relatively low revenue we've received in this last month we are unable to. It seems like things are picking up, these last two days we've seen an increase in donations/purchases.


Infrastructure/Expense Info
We currently have 6 server machines hosted around the world:
- Webserver (Dell Poweredge R210 II)
- RO Server (Where Survival was hosted before: i7, 32GB RAM Currently on it: Tekkit, Parkour, Event Host Server, UHC Vanilla, Vanilla )
- Survival Machine (Where Survival and bTeam are hosted now : Xeon 1650v2, 64GB RAM)
- Pixelmon Machine (Where Pixelmon and the Pixelmon Modpack downloads are hosted: Xeon 1650v2, 64GB)
- Games Machine (Where Factions, B&B, Pocketmine and Vanilla (/vanilla) are hosted. Xeon E3-1245V2, 32GB)
- Unturned Machine (Where Unturned and 7 Days To Die are hosted Core i5 2500k, 16GB RAM)

Servers are located in:
- Webserver and RO server -> Romania Datacenter
- Survival Machine, Pixelmon Machine and Games Machine -> Canada Datacenter
- Unturned Machine -> At my house. I don't take any money for hosting it even though it uses my power

Current total monthly cost, after cutting the costs:
- Approx. 450 EUR
NOTE: This does not include any other expenses than just the hosting of the servers. If we want to advertise our servers that will run us an aditional ~3-400$ per month for ad campaigns. If something breaks, we will need money to fix it. This is just the barebones minimum to keep SFT alive


I hope this post has been informative for you and I made it so it adresses  SFT's situation so you all know.

[Adam_Sawg]

so there will be new things, sponge will replace bukkit, we need to wait like 3months+ - 1 year, and we need 450 euros for something again.. and we about to have 4 developers, and 1 website developer, is that all the important stuff we need to know in this update for SFT?

[Towelie]

so there will be new things, sponge will replace bukkit, we need to wait like 3months+ - 1 year, and we need 450 euros for something again.. and we about to have 4 developers, and 1 website developer, is that all the important stuff we need to know in this update for SFT?

Re-read what I posted. I don't know how someone can read what i said and understand as little as you did.

[Adam_Sawg]

so there will be new things, sponge will replace bukkit, we need to wait like 3months+ - 1 year, and we need 450 euros for something again.. and we about to have 4 developers, and 1 website developer, is that all the important stuff we need to know in this update for SFT?

Re-read what I posted. I don't know how someone can read what i said and understand as little as you did.

dude i read it in 30sec, what did you expect?

[Narcotex]

dude i read it in 30sec, what did you expect?

Well, take more than 30 seconds next time and you'll understand everything that Tow posted.

[emm10]

- Town of Salem Minecraft (will be a server in its own)
- The Purge (will be a server in its own)

YES YES YES!!!

[TheGoldenKibby]

Thanks Tow!

[Cesspitsid]

Thanks for posting this

[onionboys]

Yay dark!


Sent from TapaSwag

[BluetigerESW]

:O The Purge! Sounds awesome! Can't wait!

Thanks for letting us know what's happening tow

[mewbow]

- Town of Salem Minecraft (will be a server in its own)
- The Purge (will be a server in its own)

YES YES YES!!!

YES INDEED

[Adam_Sawg]

The purge? wat is that?

[Vertigo2014]

The purge? wat is that?

http://bit.ly/XtJhZg

[Jyncs]

Let me know when you need my developmental help

[8snowy11]

Thanks for the info

[Towelie]

Let me know when you need my developmental help

About that, I wanted to talk to you in private but might as well say it here since i can't reach you.
I'm sorry for turning you down as a developer, it was my biggest mistake. I mean i turned down a guy who has real development experience just because he doesn't work with java on  a daily basis. That was idiotic of me and I'd love to reconsider you as a dev if you are still interested. Get to me on Skype. PS: Yes, this is an apology

[BattleAxium]

When we will switch to Sponge, we will not be able to use our current plugins with Sponge, at least not without serious hours spent at making these plugins compatible.
Which is why currently, we've put a halt (or at least a slowdown) to making new plugins because we don't know when Sponge will be released and we already have a lot of plugins to update which will burden our Developers for basically months. This means that we will limit to fixing the bugs in our proprietary plugins but we will not be making new ones until Sponge is implemented, with the exception of a few things that are currently being worked on:

- Tic Tac Toe
- Town of Salem Minecraft (will be a server in its own)
- The Purge (will be a server in its own)
- Might be another thing or two that I'm forgetting now

You may want to look over here in order to keep updated with Sponge related development.

This is the planned support for the Sponge API once it's released:


Important quotes:

While Sponge will not be directly supporting Bukkit, community projects have been started that aim to provide complete support for existing Bukkit plugins on top of Sponge.

Will I be able to keep my Bukkit worlds and data?
Yes, at least for worlds.
Plugin data may not carry over, but it depends on the developers of Sponge plugins/mods.

For Bukkit plugin developers

Sponge should be as easy to develop in as with Bukkit.
You will also be able to access something like "NMS" as well, however, this will be discouraged unless you are also writing a Forge mod. If you need something that the Sponge API does not provide, we plan to be a lot more open about accepting (well-written) implementations of well-requested features so that you don't have to rely on hacky code.
If/when the Mojang modding API comes out, we will build the Sponge API on top of Mojang's API so your plugins/mods continue to work with minimal changes.

[onionboys]

Will the purge be like Mianites purge


Sent from TapaSwag

[donnydoom604]

Will the purge be like Mianites purge

Sent from TapaSwag

From a quick look at a video of whatever the hell that is, no, it won't.