SA Minecraft server Project Chromius now live

Indie sensation Minecraft grows stronger by the day, with developer Markus ‘Notch’ Persson having recently revealed that the game has surpassed 2.5 million sales and 10 million registered users. Not bad for a game still in beta. The community is eagerly awaiting the roll out of update 1.8 – the Adventure Update – which will add numerous features to the game and offer a more rounded single player experience.

Meanwhile, multiplayer Minecraft servers are growing in popularity and becoming ever more advanced with server-side mods and customisations .

Project Chromius is a new South African Minecraft server that has just taken off and is looking to build a strong community. MyGaming got hold of the Project Chromius leaders to find out their plans going forward.

The main community leaders are Robert ‘robonit’ Bodley and Ben ‘Benjameen’ de Wet. Although the pair own and operate the server, they anticipate that people will control their own building projects. To achieve this, community members will post on the Chromius forums and ask for volunteers. “We really want a powerful South African Minecraft server,” said the duo.

The main goal for the server is a friendly community, where everybody understands and respects the rules. There are plans to use a bigger and better host in the future, as the server grows in popularity. “Right now the server has a player limit of 20, as we have just started, we do not need more at this time, we are upgrading server hardware within the next month if everything goes well,” said Bodley.

The gameplay style on the server will be that of creative build, although there will be no block and item spawning whatsoever. Everything will be built from good old fashion Minecraft labour. “We soon want to implement a PVP server that will be accessible from the Build server through a portal of some sorts,” said de Wet.

Ask to differentiate their server from the numerous international options, the duo responded “Project Chromius is 100% legit; we have never, and will never spawn items at all. Everything that is built will be built with hard earned blocks. We give players the freedom to build what they want. They can start their own town and expand it! I have yet to find an international server without lag. We do not have lag.”

Mods

In terms of player-side mods, “We allow mods such as Mini maps, Better Chat; but not mods that give you an advantage over everyone else, such as fly mod, speed hacks, and so on,” said de Wet.

On the server side, “We are currently running a plugin that stores data on all blocks placed and broken. We also have another plugin called “Lockette” which enables players to lock their doors, furnaces and chests,” added Bodley. “We are eventually going to introduce MMO style levelling in the PVP server.”

Currently, the mods Chromius uses are:

•    Lockette: allowing you to lock chests, doors and furnaces.
•    LogBlock: giving admins the ability to see who placed what block.
•    Whitelist: only whitelisted players can join.
•    SignLift: allowing players to place 2 adjoining signs and teleport from one to the other although it must be right on top or right below the other sign.
•    SignColours: allowing people to add colour to signs.
•    AutoSave: saving a backup of the server every 300 seconds
•    Essentials: allowing you to /sethome, /home, /spawn.
•    GroupManager: allowing Admins to put users into groups.

Discussing the possibility of a dynamic browser-based world map, the pair responded: “We were thinking about adding the dynamic world map but then decided not to, as it uses memory for no reason. Instead, we will use a plugin and take snapshots of the map once or twice a week.”

Chromius Project

As a means to generate income to sustain the server, “We are going to get a VIP system in place, where people can pay for certain perks. We are also going to get a donation system in place,” said de Wet.

“We have enough bandwidth to run the server holding over 100 players at a time, although we are only allowing 20 – soon to be more. By August we will be upgrading to maybe 30 or 50 slots,” added Bodley.

Discussing the funding for the server, “Right now it is coming out of our pockets. We are doing side jobs and earning the money to run the server, but it won’t go down anytime soon,” promised de Wet and Bodley.

SA gamers are invited to contact the Chromius team if they wish to offer assistance in any form.

Those who wish to join this budding community and stake out some prime real estate can head on over to the Project Chromius website.

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