CloudPirateGrief (1.19.4) — Underwater Griefing That Nobody Has Done Before Us!

Welcome to our new, remarkable article!

All the grief builds on the market look alike: the same overworld, the same cave bases, the same race for obsidian. We decided to break the map itself and sank the entire server. 93% of the world is ocean, the base is built underwater, and instead of a horse the player has a ship with cannons and a crew of gunners!

This is a next-generation build: 22 custom Cloud Delight plugins, our own sea world generator, 4 drivable ships on 3D models, 4 sea bosses each with its own element, a sunken Atlantis, 80 underwater dungeons, and 5 safe ports. If you don't want to read the whole article, here is a short (incomplete) list of the unique features in the build:

A consistent build theme: the pirate sea, turquoise and deep blue tones
Proxy system, a lobby with a choice of 5 grief servers, captcha, and authorization with two-factor protection
A custom pirate spawn with a live 3D sea map, a flying galleon, and a portal to the open sea
Our own world generator on Iris: ocean covers 93% of the map, 8 underwater biomes, and a seabed down to 180 meters
42 floating islands, with trees on them that regrow on their own
5 safe ports where you can't fight, grief, or fire cannons
A sunken Atlantis with Poseidon's temple and a treasury that refills every 6 hours
80 underwater dungeons of 11 types, from pirate stashes to deep crypts
A water pressure system and depth upgrades from the "Diver" NPC
Underwater bases: glass domes in 4 sizes that drain the water
4 drivable ships: catamaran, frigate, galleon, and albatross, with decks, a helm, and cannons
A hired crew: gunners of three levels with 10 abilities, and sailors who defend the ship from boarding
8 events with a server-wide vote every 6 hours
4 sea bosses: Ocean's Curse, the Flying Dutchman, Megalodon, and the Leviathan Serpent
Boss element: within 250 blocks of it, the water, sky, and music change
39 custom pirate items: gear, consumables, charms, and orbs
46 unique enchantments for weapons, bows, armor, and tools
77 gear skins in 4 rarities, nickname gradients, and customization
Two currencies: Doubloons and Pearls
8 donor ranks following the naval table of ranks: from Cabin Boy to Sea Devil
A battle pass with three tracks, and the elite one gives a galleon at level 70
Upgradable backpacks, an ender chest, and 5 kinds of improved furnaces
An auto mine, a resource shop, a buyer, an auction, clans, friends, duels, and crates
Daily rewards for 7 days and a /free system to keep players around
44 hand-drawn GUI menus in a single naval style

And that's only the most important and essential part!

Let's go through everything in order. The build already includes a proxy server and lobby system. Before joining the main server, a player passes a bot check, registers or logs in to an account (two-factor protection is available too), and then picks one of 5 grief servers in the lobby, with its online count shown next to each. One server is included, and the other four copies are deployed with a single script when the online count grows: the script sets up the ports, server names, and startup files by itself:

This project uses a single GUI menu style: turquoise, brass, and sea lanterns. The main menu brings together all the core game features on two pages: store, ranks, kits, battle pass, skins, crafts, buyer, events, and teleports, and on the second page the auction, ender chest, arena, diver, friends, team, settings, and help. The player doesn't have to run around spawn looking for NPCs or learn dozens of commands:

Our special pride is "Help": in 8 sections it explains all the build's mechanics in plain words: claims, free rewards, ships, cannons, crew, depth, bosses, and ports. A newcomer can figure it out alone, without googling or asking in chat.

Speaking of spawn, we rebuilt it into a real pirate harbor: tiled roofs and striped awnings, masts with skull flags, cannons and barrels, a "Shipyard" pier with a ship and hologram manuals for every vessel. A flying galleon hangs over the gorge to the east, and a portal with an anchor sends the player straight to the open sea. All the mechanics are explained by 20 holograms and 14 NPCs, from "where to start" to the rules of the ports:

The main decoration of spawn is a live sea map on the wall, our CloudSeaMap plugin. Instead of the same blue water, it shows the seabed relief, 5 ports, the ring of Atlantis, and 80 dungeons colored by depth, and on top of that players, other ships (red dots), and live bosses. The map updates once a second, so players can see where the hunt is going on right now. Next to it, holograms explain the event vote and the boss elements:

Now, the world. The generator was written for this build from scratch on Iris: the water level is 181, there is almost no land, and under the water lie 8 biomes: shallows, sand plains, coral reefs, kelp meadows, rocky seabed, silt hollows, the abyss, and volcanic rifts. Caves are turned off: underwater there should be a seabed, not holes into nowhere. The world border is 5000 × 5000:

There is little land in the build, and it is worth its weight in gold: 42 floating islands are scattered across the sea, forest, taiga, and tropical. Trees on them regrow on their own as long as the island has soil, so islands don't turn into wastelands after the first wipe:

Life is bustling underwater: sharks, rays, jellyfish, and other creatures on 3D models, and hostile monsters in the depths. Drowned with tridents and with the "Puller" that pulls its victim toward itself, guardians, Atlantean legionaries that walk in squads of up to 12, nagas and undines with 500 HP, and the Eye of Cthulhu, an invisible guardian that strikes with a beam. For each creature the player gets from 15 to 150 doubloons, and for the Eye of Cthulhu, pearls too:

The only places to catch your breath are five safe ports on a ring around the center of the sea: Tortuga, Port Royal, Nassau, San Juan, and Maracaibo. Entering a port, the player sees the title "You are entering a port — it is safe here" and hears a bell, and on leaving, "you can be attacked further on" and a horn:

In a port, PvP, building, TNT, explosions, fire, and explosive potions are banned, mobs don't spawn there, ships and crew are invulnerable, and the cannons stay silent. Events and meteorites steer clear of ports, so a port becomes a place for meetings, trade, and repairs.

Ports are not decoration but small pirate towns: each has its own lighthouse, a quay with cranes and barrels, a market row under awnings, and paved streets. At night the lights come on in the lighthouses, which makes them handy for holding your course:

As for ranks, there are 8 of them in the build, following the naval table of ranks: Cabin Boy, Sailor, Boatswain, Navigator, Quartermaster, Captain, Commodore, and Sea Devil. Each next rank inherits the permissions of the previous one, has its own hand-drawn badge in chat and TAB and its own underwater gear set: tridents, breathing potions, hearts of the sea, and netherite on the higher ranks. The kit is given once every 3 days, and home slots range from 2 for the Cabin Boy to 25 for the Sea Devil:

Cabin Boy (200 ₽) — /craft, /hat, 2 homes, a kit with iron and chainmail
Sailor (500 ₽) — /feed, /heal, /ext, an ender chest, 3 homes, and your own catamaran patent
Boatswain (850 ₽) — colored nickname, 4 homes, a kit with a trident
Navigator (1000 ₽) — /near, /tptoggle, /clear, 5 homes, and the premium branch of the battle pass
Quartermaster (1500 ₽) — /back, /top, /fix, 7 homes, and a frigate patent
Captain (2000 ₽) — /fix all, /setwarp, joining a full server, 10 homes, the elite pass, and the donor "Base Core+"
Commodore (2500 ₽) — HEX nickname, /time, /weather, 15 homes, and a galleon patent
Sea Devil (3500 ₽) — kits with no cooldown, /getpos, /skull, 25 homes, and netherite with Mending

Speaking of permissions, the build has its own staff mode for staff: with one command a moderator goes into vanish and creative, and the panel gives them tools for checking players: inspection, freeze, and a jump to the player. The world is protected from accidental edits, and staff can talk in a separate staff chat:

Going into more detail on gameplay, let's start with protection. Claims are placed not with commands but with blocks, and the more valuable the block, the bigger the territory: an iron block protects a radius of 10, a deepslate diamond ore 15, a netherite block 30, and a special "huge" claim of 90 blocks can be given out as a reward or as a donation:

One of the main custom mechanics of the build is water pressure, our CloudPressure plugin. Down to 30 meters underwater is safe, but beyond that the pressure grows every 30 meters: nausea, slowness, and damage that goes through armor. At the bottom of the screen there is an indicator with the depth and the reserve, and in the danger zone with the damage per second, and the screen edges turn red when it is time to surface:

Depth is upgraded at the "Diver" NPC: each armor level gives another 30 meters, there are 10 levels in total, and the set's protection is calculated from its weakest piece. The bottom of the map is not a place the first passerby in leather armor can swim to, but a goal you prepare for.

Since land is scarce, you have to build underwater. For that there is our CloudBaseCore plugin: the "Base Core" deploys a glass dome and pumps the water out of it. There are four sizes: a radius of 7 blocks for 25,000 doubloons, 12 for 90,000, 17 for 250,000, and a donor dome with a radius of 25 blocks for 350 pearls. Domes can be placed next to each other and used to build underwater cities, but a dome can't be placed in someone else's claim, in a port, or in Atlantis:

Ships are the main transport of the build, our CloudShips plugin on 3D models. There are four of them: the fast catamaran, the frigate with 4 cannons, the galleon with heavy guns, and the albatross, the biggest ship with two decks, a bridge, and 6 cannons:

A ship is bought as a ship patent: the catamaran for 25,000 doubloons, the frigate, galleon, and albatross for pearls, and the catamaran and galleon patents can also be crafted. A patent launches the ship on a click, and with a command the ship goes to dock, together with its crew and hull breaches. Controls are familiar: W/S for speed, A/D for the helm, space for a dash, and sparks glow over free seats, gold at the helm and white at the cannons, so you can see where to sit:

Cannons aim with your gaze: F to load, left click to fire, and a dotted line shows where the cannonball will fly. You can't shoot much alone, so you can hire a crew on board. Gunners come in three levels: regular, experienced, and master. The higher the level, the more frequent the volleys, the more accurate the fire, and the more damage. An experienced gunner gets one of 6 abilities and a master one of 10: fire, ice, chain, and armor-piercing cannonballs, grapeshot, a double volley, and more. Gunners fire on their own at enemy ships, enemy crews, sea creatures, and bosses, and don't touch their own or allies:

The crew defends the ship: if boarding starts or someone hits the ship or the captain, the sailors leave their posts and fight, and if they can't reach, they shoot with a bow. The captain's horn sends the crew to board an enemy ship. In a port the crew doesn't fight.

And of course, all of this is for sea battles: side to side, with gunner volleys and boarding. Boss damage to ships is capped, so even under a monster's attack the crew has time to turn around and strike back:

And now, to what is worth diving to the bottom for. In the center of the sea at a depth of 93 meters lies Atlantis, a sunken city with a radius of 225 blocks around an acropolis with a temple and a statue of Poseidon. It is easy to find: a huge golden trident sticks out of the water above the center:

The city is indestructible and can't be claimed, and PvP is allowed in it. In the temple it is guarded by guardians, thunderers, and hammerers, priests, hunters, and ancient keepers roam the streets, and the 12 chests of the temple treasury refill every 6 hours, so Atlantis remains a point of attraction for the whole wipe.

Besides Atlantis, 80 dungeons of 11 types stand on reef mountains across the sea: pirate stashes, sunken galleons, forts, villages, ship graveyards, Atlantis ruins, siren grottoes, leviathan skeletons, sunken lighthouses, fire rifts, and deep crypts. The small ones go to 55 meters closer to the ports, and the deep ones to 180 meters far from them, so depth upgrades pay off in loot:

Inside the dungeons are drowned and guardian spawners, and the chests don't refill: whoever finds and claims them first gets the loot.

The economy rests on two currencies: players earn Doubloons in the game, from sea creatures, from the buyer, in daily rewards, and in the battle pass, while Pearls are the donation currency. The store is organized by sections: gear, ships, shop, items, enchantments, orbs, furnaces, charms, backpacks, and base cores:

For everyday needs there is the "Shop": 45 items for doubloons, from a crafting table to a bucket of lava and obsidian, plus separate counters with crops and rarities and with spawner eggs:

Pirate items are a separate custom plugin, CloudPirateItems: 39 items, all written for this build. The old donor set from previous builds was removed entirely. Let's go through them by section:

• Unique donor gear:

Separately, we want to show the double saber: it takes both hands, and on right click its blade flies at an enemy for 12 damage, and only the owner can pick it back up. And the hand cannon fires real ship cannonballs and breaks blocks with its explosion, so you can grief even without a ship.

• Single-use donor items:

The main ones are the "Call to Arms", which summons 8 pirates and a captain with a hand cannon to help, and the mixing flask: you can pour up to 4 different potions into it and drink them in one gulp.

• Charms:

Totems that give bonuses while held in the offhand. Each gives something and takes something: the Pearl of the Depths adds 3 hearts and Resistance but halves your speed, while the Davy Jones Sign boosts speed by 150% and gives night vision.

• Unique orbs:

Orbs work from the offhand: the dash orb speeds you up, the abyss orb makes you invisible, and the kraken orb protects from fire. They can be bought for pearls or crafted: the "Orb Shell" in the center, nautilus shells on the sides, and each orb's own ingredient in the corners.

Another custom system is 46 unique enchantments: 14 for weapons, 10 for bows, 12 for armor, and 10 for tools. Among them are vampirism, whirlwind strike, headshot, homing arrows, a 5 × 5 drill, ore breaker, lumberjack, and "Safecracker", which opens doors in someone else's claim. The books are sold in the store by rarity, and also turn up in structure chests and drop from mobs:

For convenience the build has upgradable backpacks with 6 levels, from 9 to 54 slots, and items are stored right in the backpack. The ender chest also expands: 10 slots are free, the rest unlock one at a time for doubloons or pearls, and the window pages through. And 5 kinds of improved furnaces, from the fast one to the "infinite" one that needs no fuel:

A special direction in donation services is customization. Its main part is 77 gear skins: swords, bows, axes, pickaxes, shovels, shields, and 4 full armor sets: diver, reef, abyss, and leviathan. Skins come in common, rare, epic, and legendary and are equipped through the menu:

Besides skins, a player can apply one of 7 gradients to their nickname and set up the look to their taste:

For earning at spawn there is an auto mine with three fills: regular, rare, and unique, from stone and coal to diamond ore, ancient debris, and emerald blocks. The mine changes by itself every 10 minutes, and you can change it early for pearls:

The build has 5 crates standing at spawn: a donor crate with ranks from Cabin Boy to Sea Devil, a doubloon crate, a pirate item crate, a skin crate, and a title crate. Players get keys in daily rewards, in the /free system, and for events:

To keep players around even more, and as another way to monetize the server, the build has a battle pass with three tracks: free, premium (from Navigator or for pearls), and elite (from Captain or for pearls). The premium and elite tracks have 70 levels, 49 weekly quests, and 9 daily ones, and at level 70 of the elite track the player gets their own galleon:

To make players want to stay on the server as long as possible, the build has daily rewards for 7 days of logging in, from doubloons and crate keys to a "Base Core" and a donor key on the seventh day, and a three-stage /free system:

1) After 2 hours on the server and 1 kill, a player gets 31,000 doubloons

2) After 4 hours on the server and 5 kills, 4,000 doubloons and an item crate key

3) After 8 hours on the server and 20 kills, 10,000 doubloons and a donor crate key

For team players there are clans of up to 25 people with alliances, feuds, and a clan base, and for those who play in pairs there is a friends system with login notifications and teleport to a friend. You can trade at the auction and sell the surplus to the buyer, who has a permanent list of 23 items and a limited one that updates every 30 minutes:

And that's still not all: for the boldest players there are duels on a separate arena, and linking your account to VK gives the player doubloons and pearls:

Now we move on to the special part of this build that we are especially proud of, the events that people go out to sea for!

All events:

Every 6 hours the server votes on what happens next: there are 8 events to choose from, 4 sea bosses and 4 occurrences. Voting lasts 15 minutes, you can change your vote, and the previous winner doesn't take part in the next vote, so you won't get two identical events in a row. Events take place on the open sea, not at spawn: you have to get to them by ship, and you might run into something along the way:

Event — "Underwater Cargo"

A prismarine sphere appears on the seabed, with a chest of loot inside: diamonds, netherite scrap, hearts of the sea, enchanted apples, and a trident. You can't just take it: the sphere is guarded by 2 elder guardians and 10 regular ones, and after 20 minutes the cargo disappears.

Event — "Meteorite"

A meteorite falls into the sea and punches a crater with glowing magma. For 15 minutes fireballs fly around the impact site, and when the chests open, inside you'll find iron, gold, emeralds, diamonds, netherite scrap, and, if you're lucky, an enchanted apple.

Event — "Abandoned Ship"

An abandoned ship drifts in the middle of the sea: more often a galleon, less often a frigate, and very rarely an albatross. It is guarded by the ghosts of the Dutchman's crew and Atlantean legionaries, and on the albatross by Eyes of Cthulhu as well. Hold the helm for 45, 60, or 90 seconds and the ship is yours: the reward is a ship patent and 16 cannonballs.

Event — "Water Pollution"

The water in a huge zone turns swampy and poisons everyone in it, and monsters crawl up from the depths. In the center stands a source statue with a spawner: find it by the approximate coordinates and clear it out. The reward is netherite ingots, diamond blocks, hearts of the sea, and a trident.

Sea bosses:

Four bosses on 3D models appear in the sea within 2000 blocks of the center, their coordinates and depth are posted in chat, and 20 minutes are allotted for the fight. Each has its own element: within 250 blocks of a live boss, the water, sky, and music change to suit it. And bosses hit not only players but ships too:

Boss — "Ocean's Curse"

A corsair ship in a dark blue storm where lightning flashes. It carries 11 corsairs and a mortar, and the ship itself fires volleys at both players and ships. The reward is chests on the deck with cannonballs and repair kits for your own ship.

Boss — "Flying Dutchman"

A ghost ship in a green haze. A whirlpool spins around it that pulls in ships and punches holes in their hulls. The Dutchman fires volleys, wails so that players get dizzy, summons ghosts, and dives underwater when pressed.

Boss — "Megalodon"

A giant shark that turns the water and sky red while sharks gather around. The Megalodon picks its target itself, ships first and then its attacker, and rams, bites, and pulls in with a whirlpool. Its carcass drops a trophy, teeth, meat, and fins.

Boss — "Leviathan Serpent"

The scariest boss for those who rely on sight: in its zone night falls, night vision is removed, and only a torch or lantern in your hand gives light. The Serpent bites through armor, spits, spins up a whirlpool, and hits ships, and as a reward it gives netherite tools, scales, and a trophy.

To sum up briefly: this build has a huge number of unique mechanics, events, items, and more that can keep players hooked for dozens of hours. Any element can be easily replaced, removed, or added, which means you can adjust any aspect of the build to your wishes without much trouble!

Put together, all of this gives you a server build that can easily attract and hook new players, stand out in the server market, and bring in good income thanks to a well-developed, multi-channel monetization system!