April roadmap, announcements, releases! (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

As you have probably noticed, we have begun releasing the content, starting with The Quarry Dungeon, which will be in early access until July 1st.

Further, EliteMobs & FreeMinecraftModels have updated for Minecraft 1.20.6, and FreeMinecraftModels is done being rewritten (this time for sure, I refuse to look at it again) and we are now building cool things using Custom Models for future releases.

As previously announced, the plan is to release a new dungeon weekly for at the next month.

However, that's not all that is being released!

EliteMobs updates:

On top of the weekly dungeon releases, I also plan to finally add MySQL support to EliteMobs, and integrate the custom armor and weapon models previously showcased into the plugin.

On top of that, I have already begun working with modelers to add even more custom models to EliteMobs, not only to create custom boss models, but also for props that we will be using throughout dungeons, and even for some core EliteMobs features like adding custom models to treasure chests and to wormholes and an optional alternative!

I don't quite know when all this model work will be done, but the hope is that it will all trickle into the plugin in the coming weeks.

Finally, a page has been created for the story-mode dungeons because the free downloads page was getting impossible to browse. You can find it here: https://magmaguy.itch.io/em-story-mode-dungeons .

I will be changing changing the Patreon posts for free story more dungeons to link to that page instead, like we do for the free content, to make it easier keep the versions up-to-date everywhere.

You may notice in the announcements something called a "Realm", a map we're calling Yggrasil. This is a new, very special category of dungeon, and that's all I will tease for now! All I can say is that I am certain it will be some people's favorite map and map style by the time it is done, and that it's the most ambitious project we've done in a while.

BetterStructures updates:

While I have big plans for BetterStructures, the only thing I can announce right now is that Dali, who built a lot of the previous builds, is about to finish the Realm map and will start working on BetterStructures packs again.

These usually take a while to make, and are highly reliant on how available the builder is throughout any given month, so all I can say is that they will be arriving some time in the future!

Once I am done with the video guides I have some really interesting ideas for procedurally generate BetterStructures builds, so I am looking forward to working on that!

Oh, footnote, we're doing the world conversions for schematic dungeons as well this month. This should not take long to fully do.

FreeMinecraftModels updates:

I don't even want to talk about how much time I spent working on FMM recently. It feels like it's the only thing I've done since February.

Regardless, I am done tweaking animations for it. It works perfectly well in almost every case I tested, and almost will have to be good enough for now.

I do have some exciting features I want to add to it, specifically props. Props are custom models admins (or users) would be able to put in a world to decorate it. This might be a spooky skeleton for a dungeon, or a beach umbrella for your beach-side spawn, or a tiki torch and a barbeque grill for your house's backyard.

Fortunately, since this involves basically no advanced mathematics, I should be able to blaze through adding this kind of features with no problem now that the plugin fundamentally works. However, this will happen a bit later as I want to do all the updated guides, tutorials and showcases first.

That being said, I already have a modeler working on a nice summer pack with summer-themed models for admins to put into their servers.

Youtube update:

I feel like I've been saying "this time for sure" with YouTube for years, but, guys, this time for sure. My YouTube guides on installing content are years out of date, and I want to make video guides walking people through creating items, mobs and dungeons. Honestly this should not take a massive amount of time, all things considered.

I do plan to simplify the installation process as much as possible before the release. I go to great lengths to try to create very simple processes for installing and managing the content I create, and I feel like some aspects that have been more recently added such as custom models and multiple resource packs can be further simplified, and so that is what I will be doing.

Other stuff:

I have not forgotten that I wanted to run a community contest for dungeons nor that we were doing a fundraiser for armor. The integration of the custom armor and weapons plays into that fundraiser, and the videos play into the contest. I am extending the deadlines for both of those by at least another 2 months, and I will release announcements just for them when I feel like they are fully ready to really get promoted.

I'm in a bit of a rush to work on all of these things, so that's it for now!

Happy adventuring,

• MagmaGuy