RobbyZ's Blog

Experimenting with a couple notable changes aimed at making it easier to build cool stuff for players of all levels without also breaking the bitconomy too badly (hopefully):

• Added Mystery Boxes, which allow you to randomly get a plat block (or maybe even a rare block) for a mere 1,800g.  (This might be way too low, but let me know what you think in the comments)
• Goldcap upped from 1k to 2k per gold cycle
• Mobs give more gold per kill, especially low level mobs
• Expand blocks cannot be used for the first ten seconds of their existence to prevent accidental use when opening a mystery box
• Dungeon items are much cheaper (hopefully we’ll see more player-built dungeons in future)
• 250+ and 2k expand blocks now available for direct purchase in the shop

Still experimenting with the balancing on this, so let me know what you think.

UPDATE: Based on everyone’s feedback, I’ve just made the following changes to the Mystery Box:

• Upped price, now costs 3750g
• For common items, the items given will bias towards less expensive items & dungeon items (the more expensive the item, the less likely it is)
• Rares are now more rare
• Fixed mystery box shop description in foreign languages

Today’s update brings eight new plastics:

There’s also in-game support for Spanish now thanks to Chris_Ramos!  Website translations should be uploaded soon.

After months of development and testing, the Transponder system is now available to all players to try on Primary server!

Transponders let you build & defend a base from an invading horde of monsters (and other players).  You’ll receive gold & EXP for participating in a match, and an even larger amount if you win the match.

To get started, build a base layout in your pocket that protects the transponder.  Note mobs WILL destroy blocks when the transponder is activated!  More advanced construction blocks will have higher defensive HP, so plan accordingly.  The attacking force scales to your character’s level, so it should be a challenge regardless of if you’re a new player or an old one.

Once you’re happy with your pocket fortress, use the Transponder to summon an invading force.  If you want to fight against another player, you can ask them to use the new CombatPad in root at the same time.

At the end of the match, all participants will be given gold & exp based on how the match goes.  If you want to instantly rebuild any lost blocks, type /restorelist

Transponders are now available for everyone to test on Potato server!  Please let me know about any bugs.

Changelog:

• Fixed issue where transponders wouldn’t be attacked from the left if they were on a 1×1 tile platform
• Fixed transponder permissions bug where anyone could activate transponder
• Transponder now publicly available for purchase in Dungeon category

• It is now possible to insta-rebuild destroyed blocks from a transponder match.  Via /restorelist, you can get a list of the five most recent matches and how many blocks were destroyed in each.  With /restorelimbo, you can restore destroyed blocks from a given match.  Currently the cost for this is 1 plat per instant rebuild. (Shown in the video at 4:56)
• Super fancy UI for when starting & finishing match (check it out in the video at 4:26)
• Fixed bug where mobs would attack other attackers
• Match observers should not be targeted or be able to cause damage to mobs
• Block HP now scales to its relative cost for most gold blocks & doors
• Block & Player HP heals to full HP at the beginning of a match
• Disallow changes to townpvp during a transponder battle

Some small changes to how fonts are handled:

• Non-english language: will render using entirely system TTF fonts (looks nicer & more consistent than mixing fonts within the same sentence)
• Custom texture pack authors can now dump in chatFont.ttf, questHeaderFont.ttf, and questFont.ttf files into HTMudWeb.zip to change up the in-game fonts

These changes are only currently being tested on Potato live.

Here’s some random fonts for texture pack testing: