I have an idea for a portal network plugin. Wondering about the name? I'll get to that later. So, you start with a basic unactivated economy portal, the one without any obsidian on the corners. The genius of this is that you can, with colored wool placed in the corners, create a pair of linked portals. If there are more than two, then a random destination will be chosen by the server. With 16 colors of wool (plus white, which is null) and 4 corners for them to be placed, there are definitely enough combinations of colored wool that there shouldn't be a conflict, and if your combo is the same as another portal, you'll get a confirmation when the conflicting block is placed. The reason that white is null is for specification. As mentioned above, if there are more than two portals that have the same combination of white blocks - on the same "route" - a random destination will be chosen. This isn't efficient for traveling now, is it? The convention would be that the top two wool blocks would represent a broader channel, while the bottom two blocks would represent the specific route, to keep things organized. By putting a [Lock] sign on a portal, it could be made private to a specific person or friend list. Now, to the naming of this system. It might not make sense to anyone else, but I like it. The whole system is based on wool blocks. "Wool" is in the name of the Wholly Mammoth. like the mammoth, the possible combinations of portals make it monstrous in size. Check out some concept pictures below. The word "net" comes from the current transportation system, NetherNet. From left to right: (1)The most simple combination of wool, which all are set to null. This portal leads to the nether. (2) A more complex combo of blocks, one which most people won't accidentally link to. (3) A portal which links to the 2nd one. This is just a concept, and I do not develop mods. I don't know if this would make the server lag or what. This is meant to be looked at by someone who knows how to write mods/plugins and might be interested in making it.
Like, with your scheme, there would be no way for two portals to go to one I imagine. Making a "hub" would therefore be difficult.
Well, a "hub" isn't really a goal, even though the MammothNet was inspired by the Nexus. If you had four portals on the same channel and then two routes, you could make a "hub," but what I'm getting at is a way to circumvent the math and clumsiness of going to the nether and walking however far you need to walk and going through another portal to get to the place you want to go. The whole point is that you shouldn't have 3 or more portals on the exact same route, so when you do go through one, it choses a random one for you to turn out in, to make people want to make their portal combos more specific.... Reading your comment once again, I see what you meant. This concept doesn't affect regular nether portals, or economy portals with no wool on the corners or all white wool. It only applies to economy nether portals with colored wool in the corners, so the Nethernet would function normally alongside the MammothNet.
No, with different people making portals and using clashing colors, it could be a problem. People will prefer cheaper colors. Also, a downside with this is that you might have to keep trying to find working combinations that don't conflict (if I don't let you make portals that conflict with other peoples').
I see what you mean, and with [Lock] signs it could get confusing for making the portals. But, the plugin can update a webpage through php or something to show the available combos, from the cheapest to the most expensive combos.
In my opinion, needing to check a webpage kind of breaks the experience. Some people also can't both play Minecraft and browse webpages at the same time.
I guess. Mhm... This could be a tough one... I got an idea! What about when you put a [Lock] sign on the portal, it doesn't conflict if another portal has the same combo but different people on the [Lock], or no lock at all! That way different people can have the same combo with out a conflict. But with friend lists that might get complicated...
Well, if you want to ask a friend to make a corresponding portal, you couldn't. That's not a major deal. I'd a more straightforward way to make portals rather than through nether, but combinations require memorization.
You wouldn't really have to memorize the portal combos, since you only need to build two portals but... If you ditch the wool combos altogether, you could use portals made out of something that's not too expensive, yet not too cheap (primary wool color?) and put a sign with [portalroute] on the first sign of it. You make a portalroute with the /portalroute command, the same way you would make a friendlist, adding to the people who can travel through the portal with `/portalroute route1 add sk89q`. Friendlists usually don't conflict, so portalroute names shouldn't either.
mmm might i point you in the direction of an older concept/plugin called stargate. it had fully working portal networks both private and public. i have a backup of it somewhere if you want to play with it as it no longer exists.
