February 2024 Test Session
First 2024 Play Session
ConwyMC has been closed a while, and we’ve been working hard on getting it ready for reopening. Now there’s quite a lot that’s changed so let’s dive straight in!
Contents
Test Session Details
The test session will begin at
Friday 16th February at Midnight UTC
until
Monday 19th February at Midnight UTC
There is no aim for this session, the idea is to simply show what we’ve made. There will be random chances for curses to activate as you play, all non-level kits will be unlocked. It should be great fun.
Updated Website
The website has had a complete overhaul to make it easier for developers and users to use. If you want to learn more, check out this blog post.
Ko-Fi Donations
Sadly servers cost money. When making a Minecraft server and trying to fund it, you have to follow various rules on how you can monetise the server and keep it running. So, we’re trying something a little bit different. If you’ve ever seen/heard/used Patreon before, that’s what we’re going for, except with Ko-Fi. Patreon takes 8% of every purchase. Ko-Fi takes 5%, or $6-8. One of which is significantly cheaper than the other, so we’ve chosen Ko-Fi.
We’ve setup three tiers to begin with:
- Squire - Grants access to our sneak peeks post where we (try to) post weekly detailing what’s we’ve been working on and what’s happening. There’s already some posts up on Ko-Fi for you to read.
- Knight - Grants access to everything from Squire while also grants access to the server as we develop. This is a separate server from any future test sessions we may run, you can access it at any time, but because it’s our development server we can’t promise it always works, but we will update it regularly, and you get to try out all the coolest stuff as we’re making it!
- Lord - If you want to go above and beyond the Knight tier this is for you. We haven’t been fully sure what we’d like to include here, we’ve had some ideas like more in depth posts diving into how we make stuff for Castle Siege or working with developers to design and add your own kit. We’re not completely sure, so tell us what you’d like to see from this tier.
We know this is brand new for you, the same as it is for us, so we’d love your feedback! You can contact us on Discord, Ko-Fi or email [email protected]. What perks would you like to see added? What don’t you like? Are the prices good? Let us know!
You can view the page here or click that floating button in the bottom left!
V4 Changelog
This is a full list of changes since the server closed after V3. It should contain everything that’s new for V4. Some have been discussed more in depth in Ko-Fi posts, and some present at previous test sessions.
Staff Changes
“There is only one notable staff change and an important one at that. With Greenfoot5 managing the website and doing more work for the server than ever before, we had a talk and it was decided that he should become my equal. Hence forth there will be two owners, this will also ensure the survival of ConwyMC should anything happen to me.
Go wish him congratulations he deserves it!”
~ Huntifi
Other from that the staff team remains the same so far, don’t forget that staff applications are still open. You can apply here: https://forms.gle/E5fh7qFHpQKrkbjr9
New Gamemode: Destroy The Core
We are thrilled to announce the release of our newest game mode: “Destroy the Core”! Get ready to experience a whole new level of excitement and strategy as we introduce cores into our gameplay.
In this gamemode, teams will face off against each other with one primary objective: destroy the enemy’s cores before they destroy yours. Whether you’re aiming to win the game or achieve specific objectives, you’ll have to destroy enemy cores.
Battlepoints Removal
Battlepoints were originally introduced because newer players were getting overwhelmed by older players picking just the right kit at just the right moment. Battlepoints attempted to help this by forcing the equivalent of a cooldown on players between uses of premium kits. However this didn’t do much to solve the issue and players didn’t like it. It did what we wanted, but what we wanted wasn’t the solution to the problem.
For this reason we have decided to completely remove battlepoints from Castle Siege.
Kits & Levels
So along with adding colours upon reaching certain level thresholds, we’ve also begun adding rewards for achieving certain levels:
- Spear Knight - Level 5
- Battle Medic - Level 10
- Hypaspist - Level 20
The main goal for this was to reward playtime, and we can add more kits to reward players who are truly dedicated to earning points.
We’ve also made significant changes to coin kits. Other than the usual balance changes, now each time you purchase a kit the required coins increases each time. This means experienced players who generally earn more coins take longer to unlock every kit while newer players who struggle to unlock a single kit can earn one that much easier. We’ve also added several new kits:
- Barbarian - Fast axe wielding warrior that deals more damage when they are low on health
- Priest - A support kit with the power of the holy book on their side
The following are still being worked on and may be significantly changes/removed before V4's release
- Armourer - Improves the armour of other players allowing them to take more hits
- Sorcerer - A sorcerer specialised in the arcane arts, can also slow down enemies with ice
- Warlock - A debuff kit that can curse enemies sacrifice its own health to heal teammates and obliterate enemies with hellfire
Kit GUI
With the addition of all these brand new kits, as well as a new category, we needed to sort out the KitGUI. We now have six categories a kit can fall under, it shows what kits you’ve yet to unlock (and how), along with actually having updated stats.
If you’d like to read a bit more about it, you can read this post on Ko-Fi (requires Squire tier or higher)
Maps
Pirate Ambush
Pirate Ambush has been added! Two teams battle it out over three very close flags. A quick match for sure.
Royal Crypts II
Royal Crypts have gotten a significant overhaul, enough for us to label it Royal Crypts II. We do still have the original, but mainly for special events.
Halls of Moria
Halls of Moria is our very first Destroy the Core map, mainly to test if it works. Will you go straight or sneak around the pillars?
Abrakhan
Abrakhan has had some small tweaks, most tweaks paths and walls around the roofed towers.
Annakarl
Annakarl is back again with a fresh lick of paint! Several parts of the map have been remade and a couple flags removed/added. Enjoy finding your way around!
Duels
A new donator feature has been added, Noble and above can now challenge other players to a duel.
The command is /duel
Curses
Curses were first introduced in Spooktober 2022 before we had boosters. There were several curses announced but only a few actually made it into the game:
- Curse of Greed - Coin multipliers! Both above and below 1...
- Curse of Binding - You can’t change kit for a certain amount of time!
- Curse of Possession - The kit picks you! It might be a coin kit though....
- Curse of Teamwork - You can’t switch teams. Does this really count as a curse...?
Well, we’re bringing them back with some cool additions! Curse of greed will be dropped because we have boosters now. The following curses will be available for staff to activate during the event:
- Curse of Binding - You can’t change kit for a certain amount of time
- Curse of the Dice - Up to 50% of your team is swapped
- Curse of Possession - The kit picks you! It might be a coin kit, maybe even a staff kit...
- Curse of Teleportation - Some players swap positions
- Curse of Blindness - Some player names are obfuscated
- Curse of Greater Blindness - Team colours are removed
- Curse of Healing - Max Health is multiplied by something in the range
0 < health ≤ 2 - Curse of Harming - Damage is multiplied by something in the range
0 < damage ≤ 2 - Curse of Vulnerability - Max health is set to 1
Quality of Life
There have been several smaller changes to help generally improve the experience of playing Castle Siege.
- Boss bars appear when capturing flags to show progress
- Goat sound effects on fully capturing a flag & joining the game
- Can now shoot through your teammates
- Some woolmap glowing effects