CustomDeathMessages

📜 CHANGELOG - CustomDeathMessages v1.2

🎯 Focused on Accuracy & Stability
This update is a direct response to community feedback regarding nickname integration. We have completely overhauled how the plugin retrieves player names to ensure 100% compatibility with Essentials, alongside major internal stability improvements to eliminate hidden background errors.

🐛 Critical Bug Fixes

• ✅ Fixed: Essentials Nicknames Not Showing in Death Messages
  *Addressing user feedback: "Seeking help with CustomDeathMessage plugin. The only feature I want is to replace the normal username with the essentials nickname of all players (victim and killer) in all places. Everything I have tried config wise either doesn't work and uses default. Or uses usernames and not nicknames."
  What was wrong: The plugin was relying solely on Minecraft's base API to get names, which only returns raw usernames (e.g., Steve). It wasn't actually "talking" to Essentials to fetch the custom nicknames (e.g., [Admin] Steve).
  What we did: We built a dedicated, safe integration system (EssentialsHook) directly into the plugin's core. Now, whenever a death occurs, the plugin securely checks Essentials first. This applies to:

  • The {victim} placeholder.
  • The {killer_name} placeholder.
  • The {killer_displayname} placeholder.
  • Killers shooting from a distance (e.g., bows, crossbows).
  • Respawn messages ({player}).

• ✅ Fixed: "Uses Default" Fallback Loop
  Related to the issue above, if the plugin struggled to format a message because of a missing nickname, it would sometimes abort and print the hardcoded default message instead of your custom messages.yml text. The new hook prevents this fallback loop, ensuring your custom messages always parse correctly.

🌟 New Features & Placeholder Updates

• ✅ Added: "Raw Username" Placeholders
  Because the plugin now prioritizes Essentials nicknames by default, we added two new placeholders just in case you specifically need the underlying Minecraft username for a specific custom message format:
  • {victim_username} → Shows the raw Minecraft name (e.g., Notch).
  • {killer_username} → Shows the killer's raw Minecraft name.

🛠️ Significant Refinements & Improvements

• ✅ Improved: Core Engine Stability & Java 8 Compatibility
  We performed a deep cleanup of the plugin's internal code to guarantee it runs flawlessly on servers using Java 8. This eliminates several hidden "silent errors" that were occurring in the background, improving overall server performance and ensuring death messages trigger instantly without delay.

• ✅ Improved: Sound & Biome Detection Accuracy
  Fixed how the plugin reads server data for biomes, potion effects, and custom sounds. Values like {biome} will now format perfectly in all supported Minecraft versions without throwing hidden warnings in your console.

• ✅ Improved: Safe Plugin Loading
  If Essentials is not installed on your server, the plugin will now detect this instantly and gracefully fall back to standard Minecraft usernames without throwing any errors or lagging the startup process.

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💡 Upgrade Notes for Server Admins

• No configuration changes required: Your config.yml and messages.yml do not need to be modified. The {victim} and {killer_name} placeholders will automatically start pulling Essentials nicknames upon updating.
• Soft Dependency: Make sure Essentials is installed before CustomDeathMessages if you want to use nicknames. If Essentials is installed later, simply run /cdm reload.