MagSchool Welcomes Its First Players

Finally! We’re launching our community!

After over a year of work, we’re ready to launch our community and private Minecraft server. Our first launch party meets on Zoom on Wed May 18. Here’s what we’ll cover (along with links to some of the stuff we’re showing).

How our community grew out of a COVID project

We started our server and website during COVID 19 as a home-school project.
Originally we were just coming up with this SciFi story set in space in the far future. We ended up with such a big story called SparkQuest, that we split it into five “books”, the first is called “Shelter the Flame” (STF) and its what we’re playing now on the current server.
We wanted to bring it into Minecraft to play out the story so we adapted our story and started building from there (but more on that later).

A Glimpse Of Our Website

Our website requires an account and login to see community content and features.
Once you log in you can access the main areas of the community using the links at the top of the main page: https://unusualkingdom.com/magschool/
The site has a group page were you can check in, post cool links (even links to videos), or post announcements of play sessions. That’s the best place to get started.
Also on the site is a link to our Discord servers. Discord is a messaging app and service and another place where you can post to the community and connect with people to set up play sessions (doesn’t have to be MagSchool related).

Our Server Backstory

As we took our story — Shelter the Flame — to Minecraft, we had to make is mesh with the stuff in the game, so we mashed up the story as a post-apocalyptic version of planet Earth, were nano-technology and AI have run amuck, along with a few other issues which we call The Triple Cataclysm:

Players start on the server as refugees arriving in New City — one of the few human settlements left on Earth. You’re coming from the Outlands — the wild and lawless country full of monsters and gangs of hostile people.

New City is a safe zone on the server: a protected WorldGuard region with no griefing, PvP, mobs, etc.
You can’t craft in New City unless:
- You “buy” land and get your own WorldGuard region all your own.
- You’re crafting as part of an “official project” were the sysops grant crafting privileges.
The Outlands (the rest of the map) is a regular survival server.
In the future, we’ll allow people to establish or buy their own WorldGuard regions.

Server Fly-through by Blackout

Blackout is going to give us a fly-through of the New City region of our map starting at Dragon’s Tower and showing some of the big-city sights.

Server Feature Demo by Etcetera

We have the Citizen’s NPC plugin that allows us to set up custom shops, set guards, create quest mob bosses, and more.
Special weapons are available thanks to the Crackshot Plus Plugin. This plugin let’s us add custom weapons as well, which we could do in the future.
We can use WorldEdit for crafting mega-projects and tedious tasks. WorldEdit lets you use commands to create things with a variety of tools.

How To Connect to Our Server and Start Playing

Our server runs Java Edition, but we have a plugin called Geyser that allows players with Bedrock edition to connect.
The reason we use Java Edition is because it has the most freedom to mod the game.
You can set up to play on our server and learn some basic parts of the map using our step-by-step tutorial “Welcome to New City”: http://unusualkingdom.com/courses/welcome-to-new-city/
The first objective for new players should be to earn some money to buy an apartment, house, or some land to build on to have a home base in New City. This is covered in the tutorial.

Community Meetings

We plan on having club meetings every other Thursday at 7:30pm starting May 26.
- Club meetings will talk about games and media we enjoy
- plan for work on the story and server
- and collaborate for IRL projects.
Thursdays in between club meetings will be play sessions.
When are people available to play (doesn’t have to MC or our server)?