New type of content: Realms (Patreon)

Hello everyone,

Earlier I teased a new type of content release in the near future. I wanted to keep the details vague until I had more to show, and now we have a bit more to show.

As you can see from the images above, Dali_ has been hard at work making an amazing map. It is not finished yet, there's a few tweaks we're going to do to make it look even nicer, but it's already one of my favorites.

Additionally, you'll notice the inclusion of screenshots of a custom model created by Black Wolf, a modeler I recently hired to work on some things, including this treasure chest design which will be added as an optional alternative to normal-looking treasure chests.

Custom model for treasure chests for Patreon and magmaguy.itch.io supporters - we have a slightly less fancy free chest model that will be free, we're testing the possibility of funding free models with paid models.

What are Realms?

Realms are an alternative type of dungeon, which can be instanced (Instanced Realms) or not instanced (Realms), where either most of all of the mobs use custom models and custom scripts.

The intention is to create a space that, while being in Minecraft, feels like the content in it is completely new to Minecraft.

In most EliteMobs dungeons, you will find the usual Minecraft zombies, skeletons, blazes and so on that exist in Minecraft. When entering a Realm, the intention will be to make it feel like the mobs you are fighting against are not Minecraft mobs, but entirely unique to EliteMobs.

Additionally, we are putting a lot of emphasis in how we're doing the game design for these mobs such that they compliment each other. Some mobs will act as tanks, some as dps, some as healers, and finally some as different kinds of support. This should mean that the difficulty of an encounter will be determined no only by the size of the group you're fighting, but also its composition, and packs will be designed in very deliberate ways.

The foot of Yggdrasil - you will fight your way up it on your way to the final boss

How are you going to display all these models?

As you might imagine, things like this are why I was so interested in getting FreeMinecraftModels working. With the way it currently works, it should mean you have a 100% free way to display the models, and these displays should work with both Bedrock and Java edition clients. I am working on the setup and pack merging experience, and am also looking into solutions for the Bedrock pack format conversion to make the process of installing this content as simple as I possibly can.

Valkyrie healer mob model

How many models? Isn't this really expensive?

Currently we have 11 custom models for bosses planned for this dungeon alone. We are also planning FreeMinecraftModels props (custom models passively used as decorative items in the map) for it, which will also be shared in other dungeons.

This, I must admit, is a fabulously expensive dungeon type to make. Between the map, the 11 order-made custom models, the props, creating the configuration files for the dungeon + bosses + items and then probably my own time to sync attack animations to scripted powers, this dungeon will cost several hundreds of dollars to create.

As of right now, I am basically paying for this out of my own pocket because I genuinely believe that this is a type of content worth making. I think the experience will be rather unique, and feel magical to most Minecraft users. Plus, I make plugins because that's what I like to do, and I would really, really like to create this experience.

References we're using for the models

Figuring out the economics of this

So, I am in a weird spot with trying to figure out how to price this. Between the models, the map, the time rigging mobs and so on, if a server was to commission content like this, and assuming they would also have to do the programming side of it (meaning not using a plugin like EliteMobs, but being generous enough to assume they'd use FMM or something akin to it), the final price for the totality of this content would almost certainly be in the low thousands of dollars.

Now, as funny as it would be to open $1337 Patreon tier, obviously that's not happening. Maybe once I get 1 million subscribers on YouTube - only 999,199 to go 😉.

It's always been among my top priorities to make the content I create as accessible as I can afford to make it. All my plugins are free and open source; an absolutely insane amount of content we publish is entirely free, you can get Primis for $1/mo on Patreon and even if you buy the content individually on itch, none of it costs more than $10, which is less than the average Minecraft model in my experience, despite the maps often times containing several such custom models.

However, for Realms, I am faced with two problems: much higher than average production costs, and the fact I can't guess just how popular they will be. I also don't think it makes much sense to price them the same as dungeons, seeing how they are, objectively, much more work-intensive to create than dungeons.

Thus, here is what I'm thinking: $15 on magmaguy.itch.io , and it will be available in the $15/mo Patreon tier (which seems to become a better deal with each passing week at this point) but I will, for the first time ever, be giving early access to the map to Partners in the $100/mo tier, on top of their other advantages when it comes to advertising their servers on my Spigot and Discord, plus on the credits of Youtube videos.

To shill for a second here, I will be working on a ton of videos in the second half of June, and if you are a Partner while I am producing these videos your server will be listed at the end of the video as a partner server. I'm not a huge fan of advertising my Patreon stuff, but I really want to be able to keep doing these higher effort Realm dungeons into the future, and even if we have just a couple of Partners we will be able to keep continuously producing these which I think would be amazing.

Details about this Realm

We are still finalizing the details for Yggrasil, which is the name of this Realm. We're not ready yet to announce what the recommended level for it will be, or if it will be instanced or not - we plan to design the mobs first and then figure out whereabouts they feel right, and whether it is practical for servers to instance such a large dungeon.

Regardless, I hope you find this project as interesting as we do. Please share your thoughts and opinion with us in the comments, as I think your feedback is essential for trying to get something like this to work.

That's all I have for you for now, we'll be back soon with more!

Happy Realm delving,

• MagmaGuy