Curse

Welcome to the latest Minecraft Mod Spotlight! In this issue we are featuring "MobHealth" a server mod created by SableDnah.

If you ever wondered how much damage you just inflicted on a mob, this mod is for you! It is a small but very useful plugin that shows how much damage was caused and how much is left of the mob's health. Besides mobs it works on players as well.

In order to make full use of the mod make sure your server is running Spout-Plugin, players also need to use the Spoutcraft client mod. When these requirements are met, the damage notifications will properly show up in the top right corner, just as achievements. Otherwise notifications will be displayed in the chat window, if you are fine with that you will not need any of the previously mentioned plugins.

The mod can be configured in various ways by editing the config.yml file, for example it is possible to use chat notifications even if you are using Spout. Additionaly you can enable or disable notifications for each type of entity, such as players and monsters. It's also possible to choose whether inflicted or taken damage will be shown, show RPG-style damage notifications, and more!

In addition to the previously mentioned configuration options you are also able to change the text of both the chat and achievement-style notifications. This can be achieved by editing the lang.yml file, using the specified parameters for the mob's name, damage- and health values.

In short, this may seem like a small mod, but it is very useful at that. Furthermore it is very well made; everything works as it should, configurations can be done easily and because it uses the achievement notification it even looks like it is part of the original game. The large number of customization possibilities makes it a suitable mod for many different purposes, such as role playing, arena battles and so on.

Lastly SableDnah kindly agreed to answer our questions, check out the interview below to find out more about the creation process of this mod!

What motivated you to create this mod?
I was trying to kill an EnderDragon I'd spawned during testing for my Home server (making sure it didn't destroy blocks in the overworlds) ... and I thought "this would be a lot less boring if I knew how much damage I had left to do...".

So I picked up a book on Java, installed Eclipse - and hit the Bukkit docs.

Approximately how much time went into developing your mod?
First version was out a week later. I work on it most weekends - probably about 8 hours a weekend approximately.

Have you encountered any problems while working on your mod and, if any, how did you solve them?
Yeah one problem keeps cropping up.

The MaxHealth property of entities is fixed in Bukkit. So every Plugin that changes this, to allow tougher mobs, tracks it in its own way. This is why MobHealth has a big "support" section - because I have to code support for each plugin by hand.

I've opened Bukkit feature request tickets and tried to rally support for changing it, so that plugins can play a little nicer together.

What tools did you use to make your mod possible and what purpose did each serve?
Eclipse IDE of course, for writing and compiling. Apart from that I'd have to say the Bukkit forums and other Developers. Because of the afore mentioned issues, I've had to work closely with many other Developers and they have all been really helpful.

What part of the development process of your mod did you enjoy most?
Two stages - about 3 days into that first week, when I hit something in game and "You did 6 damage!" appeared in chat ;)

Suddenly something that had been just an idea was something real. After that, I guess it was the part where it suddenly rocketed. I was getting loads of encouraging comments - and started to see my 'lil plugin out there in the wild helping make people’s games just a little more fun :)

Could you tell us about any other mods or updates you have planned for the future?
Well I'll be tinkering with extra bits for MobHealth - waiting for the new Minecraft API before I add anything Major though.
ChatFilter is getting a handful of work this weekend...

But my next 'big thing' is a plugin I'm working on for http://www.imagicraft.net and their Zombie Apocalypse RPG server. I'm very excited about it and it will be live in the next week or so.

Do you have any advice for other potential mod authors?
Don't be afraid to talk to other Plugin/Mod developers, I've found them to be really friendly and helpful. You can learn a lot from the way other people have solved problems.

 Thanks to SableDnah for participating in our interview and for creating this mod.

If you would like to suggest a plugin for one of the next spotlights, please contact me.

Thanks to MadPixel for the Minecrafter font.