WellWorld

WellWorld

Version 0.83

_{(sometimes there is a delay in getting the new version of the plugin through the approval process, if the above version isn't available check back in an hour or so)}

(This plug in doesn't take advantage of the new "taller" chunks yet but it should run fine in the newest Bukkit)

Now includes well generators from Codename_B and Khyperia, thx

Latest changes...

• v0.83 1.2.3-R0.2 Happy and Fixed a few string and permission issues
• v0.82 1.2.3 R0 Happy, since Bukkit doesn't support taller generated heights yet we are still stuck at 127, sorry

The story

Imagine waking up one day, in Minecraft, and finding yourself surrounded by walls. These walls are not the ones your friends griefed you with but ones that reach all the way to the sky. You are trapped, surrounded... all alone... or are you? Did you just see somebody poking their head out of one of those little doors WAY up there? I wonder if they will be friendly?

The backstory

During my recent break from CityWorld, I have been going over my collection of world generator attempts. Most of them are pretty darn unexciting.. or too weird to do anything with. In addition I have been surfing to see what my fellow world creators have been up to. There are a number of cool ideas out there but they all suffer (CityWorld included) from one little problem.. eventually the generator repeats itself and the world gets boring. It got me thinking of old notion: The WellWorld.

The mod concept is based on a science fiction series by Jack L. Chalker called WellWorld? In it the "world" divided up into a series of hexagonal regions, each with their wildly different environments for different alien civilizations... It is part zoo and part UN. A good read if you are into grand science fiction.

Anyway, in addition to the "boring" problem, one of the most difficult things about creating a world generator is making it capable of creating wildly different environments, alas all of those different environments cannot be next to each other or they look weird. Thus we have to create smoothing tech to allow deserts gradually turn into swamps and then into mountains and then into seas.

It dawned on me that dividing the world into large square regions (this is Minecraft after all) with walls of obsidian (or bedrock if you want to be "hard core"). Then populate those regions with wildly different environments. Heck, the Nether (big box with a roof) could be next door to a region that is completely filled with water, next to a crystal world made of glass ground with thin-glass trees. :-)

Poof... both the smoothing and boring problems goes away.

p.s. Not all those little doors up in the wall lead next door.. some are there just to confuse you. One other warning: Creepers (that little green speck in the wall above) love spawning in those doors. Fun eh?

Issues and possible future fixes

• Multiverse – In the long run it might be possible to have this work directly with “real” world generators but for now each generator must be compiled into the WellWorld plugin.
• Biomes – Right now, WellWorld doesn’t attempt to do anything with Biomes. Ideally each well could have its own.
• Physics – Each Well shares lighting and time-of-day with each other. This makes fully enclosed wells like caverns brighter than they should be.
• No built in commands – Like with CityWorld, I have kept this plugin simple... but I plan to impliment a few in the near future
• Needs more variety – Right now there are about a dozen generators enabled. Like with world generators themselves, it is pretty easy to add new well generators to WellWorld. In fact during the creation of WellWorld I ported some generators from s1mpl3x and Dinnerbone but since I don’t have their permission, I have left them disabled. Ok, that's not entirely true, I am including one generator loosely based on BukkitFullOfMoon

Heads up!

Like CityWorld, this plugin really "tests" MineCraft/Bukkit when it comes to complex worlds. In fact when you spawn/teleport into the world for the first time (or some wildly new location) it takes a while for all of the blocks to generate. This is especially obvious if you are flying around. Once the blocks are generated though everything works just fine. What I recommend is take a tour of your world and just walk/fly up to each "uninitialized chunk" until everything shows up.

From time to time in the Moon wells, the craters will do odd things. It seems that the block and chunk populators get out of sync and cause a glitch. When this happens, you will see a partially created crater and building in it (or digging) will cause blocks to disappear/appear on their own. I am still trying to understand this one but it doesn't seem related to WellWorld as it shows up in Dinnerbone's BukkitFullOfMoon as well.

Installing

This is purely a world generator, it does not add permissions or many options to configure. If you need permissions, teleportation or world management support there are plenty of plugins that will do that for you. The Bukkit plugin ecosystem does not need more of those puppies. This is JUST A WORLD GENERATOR. :-)

To install it you will need to do three things...

1. Download the plugin and place it in Bukkit's plugin folder. If you don't know where or what the Bukkit's plugin folder is, read this.
2. Now start up Minecraft Server via Bukkit. If you don't know how to do this, I recommend rereading this.

At this point, you may be asking yourself: How do I get to the WellWorld? There are two options...

1. Press "T", type in "/WellWorld" and press return
2. OR... you can use a multiverse plugin and use the WellWorld as the generator for one of your worlds. We use Multiverse.

If you are still confused then rereread this. :-)

YML Options

# WellWorld Global Options
Global:
    BedrockWalls: false
    WallDoorways: true
    HexishWells: true

What the global options means...

Included Well Generators

ones so far

• Knolls
  • a simple world generator that looks like MineCraft... sorta
• Alien World
  • a simple alien-esque world generator
• Alien Cavern
  • ... cavern-ish variation of the above generator
• Realistic Moon
  • loosely based on Dinnerbone's BukkitFullOfMoon (see below) but modeled after real moon/planet surfaces
• Basalt Field
  • loosely based on basalt columns
• Volcano Island
  • an erupting volcano surrounded by water
• Platform of Doom
  • a maze of platforms, watch your step
• Smooth Snowland
  • an experiment using variable high snow blocks. almost a smooth landscape, very non-Minecraft looking...

Ones from CodenameB (thx sir!)

• BananaOctave
• BananaTrig
• BananaSky
• BananaVoid
• BananaForest
• BananaIce

Ones from Khyperia's TrippyTerrain (thx sir!)

• Khyland
• Pancake

proof of concept wells, not enabled (kinda boring to look at)

• SimplexNoise plain stone sculpted SimplexNoise
• SimplexOctave plain stone sculpted SimplexOctave
• VeryEmpty Big empty box
• VerySimpleFlat ... with some stone and a sprinkle of ores
• VerySimpleWater ... with some water on top of it
• VerySimpleHilly ... sculpted with SimplexOctave

conversions of other folks world generators, not enabled as I don't have their permission

• DinnerboneMoon based on Dinnerbone's BukkitFullOfMoon
• MicroNordic based on s1mpl3x's 50 line WGEN