ATTENTION: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read this whole thing properly and think before you comment. No off-topic “when will 1.8 be out” or “Option X sucks” please. Tell me what you prefer and WHY. If you want to know more about 1.8 please read Notch’s blog. Don’t ask me. Also: When I mention below that something is a lot of work, this means that it will take time to do so. If I am in a busy month or on a trip, it can take weeks to finish stuff. Please keep that in mind when choosing an option. Thanks. So here it is:
There is an issue coming up with 1.8 and the worlds we are running in. The issue is that 1.8 will have a new algorithm to generate the world.
How does this matter?
All the current worlds are generated with the old method. When a player leaves, I reset the area and it gets regenerated with the new method. Same when we expand a currently used world (Kingdom / Nether), it will be generated with the new method.
Why is this a problem?
Since the new method does not align with/care about the old method, there will be 2 different worlds merged into each other as the complete terrain infrastructure will change. Neighboring lots will not have the same height, and strange terrain breaks will happen between biomes and land/see formations. Next to the fact that the map will look unreal, it will also become unpassable in places due to high cliffs appearing the in middle of your path. It will also be less natural and beautiful where the old areas border with the new areas. On top of it there will be new materials/ores/trees/features that only are available in newly generated worlds.
What can we do?
There are several options we have depending on what world we talk about
The World:
- Keep the world. Reset all unoccupied lots. Over time the occupied lots will be reset when they expire or the owner can ask for a reset. It will take some time but we can simply piece by piece regenerate lots and transform the map into a new world.
Advantage: Least disruption to normal gameplay. People get the opportunity to keep their lots or move to a new one.
Disadvantage: Resetting 900 lots is a lot of work. I will need help with that. The map will be really strange for some time. - Leave all as it is, create a new world in addition. New lots will be on the new world. People on the old world can choose to abandon their lot and move to a new lot in the new world. The city will be copied over to the new world. Once the old world is empty, we delete it. Copying over other buildings will be most likely not possible or only slowly over time.
Advantage: Least work. Beautiful new world, beautiful old world.
Disadvantage: Possible confusions between worlds, further spread of users over multiple worlds. Workload of copying the city, portals, recreating the railway etc which I probably have to do by myself.
The Kingdom:
- Delete everything that has not been build on so far. Regenerate it and live with a strange break in the landscape. Maybe try to smooth it out a bit afterwards.
Advantage: least work. Digging on your plot does not give new materials
Disadvantage: Can be ugly. - Create a new world. Let people reclaim the lots/nations/towns they had for free and try to copy/paste overland structures over to the new world.
Advantage: Beautiful world.
Disadvantage: Copy/pasting the current huge structures is quite complicated. Some stuff might be impossible (underground structures).
The Skylands:
Do nothing. Since there are no real borders between lots, we can simply regenerate when a lot expires and live with some few small visual breaks.
Advantage: No work. Small issues with visual effects.
Disadvantage: No new materials in the old lots.
I do not see another solution that would make any sense. For one, I refuse to build another railway system. 2nd: copy-pasting stuff of 200×200 size over a void is tricky to impossible
The Nether:
I would simply regenerate a completely new nether.
What should you do now?
Think what the individual options would mean for you. Remember that you would have to start from scratch to take advantage of new ores etc anyhow. Would you rather mine in a mint new world or in a mixed environment world? Tell me what you think is better, if you see additional possibilities and why you think the one or other option is good or bad.
NOTE: If we create a new world/skyland, I will not allow people to have a higher number of lots than before. So if you are for example a settler, you will not be able to have a lot in the old world and the new world.
in my opinion for the World, i’ll choose option two. because people can keep their lot or get a new one in the new world, there are the new minerals and that kinda stuff. and i think i won’t leave my lot in the World, because i’ve spend so much time on it. or maybe a lot in both worlds…
Nah. I will not allow you to get more lots than usual because of this. Added that info on the article above.
The world:
Another possibility that came to mind for the World is that we could make a blank world right now that has the same size and seed and instead of resetting lots we could use worldedit to copy over lots from this backup.
Advantage: Keeps the current system in place.
Disadvantage: There won’t be any new terrain features or items in the World ever. More work to reset lots.
However personally I’m greatly looking forward to the new terrain and features of 1.8 so I would prefer option #2 for The World. It may take several months for everyone to move over but it will be worth it IMO. We could also take this opportunity to revise the rail/lot/city layouts and make the city truly the center of the world rather than the old spawn. However there are a lot of people who have great stuff on the old world that they may not have the time to move/recreate ~ maybe a poll to find out what the community thinks?
Kingdom:
As a member of Plutonia ~ I really wouldn’t mind a full reset of the world. The Plutonia Megaproject is a largely artificial construct and thus very easy to copy to a new location at the moment (especially since it’s floating in the sky currently) however I can’t speak for hiosa or pinebenj.
Note to my members: Any buildings/items you would like to save I would be more than willing to help you move them up to the plate before the move, just let me know.
I do not get your idea. You want to create a new world and then overwrite new lots with old ones? Whats the difference then to the option 1? Remember that this is not a matter of seed. The same seed will create a different world in 1.8 since the method changes.
ah pardon ~ let me try to make it clear. If you made a world right now in 1.7 that had the same seed as the current world, it would be exactly the same as the current world, except empty. So if u had that world on hand (and fully explored) before the 1.8 update came around you could use it after the update to pull lots from and drop them in the current world in order to do a perfect 1.7 compatible lot reset even if the server was updated to 1.8. This would however require a fair amount of extra work to reset a lot
(1. Walk to the lot in the empty world 2. find the borders of a lot 3. save it as a .schematic file 3. travel to the location in the current world 4. load up and paste the lot over the current lot)
I hope that explains ~
Yeah got what you mean. I don’t think this is an option. People who come to the server want to have the new features. We need a new map therefore. The old map would be deserted after some time for sure. The extra work would be wasted.
Have not been on your server for all that long and can only really speak for World as I have yet to truly explore the other worlds, however these are my thoughts.
I think the simplest solution will likely be the best, not to mention being the least stressful, therefore option two does sound sensible to me. However would the addition of another extra world(s) simply put extra load on the server, thus possibly making your behind the scenes administration work on the server more time consuming and/or introducing lag on the server due to additional cpu and memory load?
Another disadvantage that you mentioned would be that of spreading the community across many worlds, which may just result in many smaller scattered projects rather than a small number of worlds with a great population of diverse projects and builds. Some may see this as a good thing as it means there is plenty of potential room to build on, however others may see the many worlds on the server as vast empty and uninteresting places, thus dissuading them from staying on or joining the server.
Lastly, another option for the entire server setup may be to create only one new v1.8 world and leave all of the existing worlds as is. This would offer the best of both options, people can continue on their current projects in the old worlds with no interruption and also explore/build a new world with all the new goodies of v1.8 (still within the current user limits of course). The real challenge with this option may be the deciding on whether the v1.8 world will be of the style of World, Skylands, Kingdom or something completely new. Having never run a multi-world server I may be overlooking some of the technical setup challenges this may present?
Of course we have to keep in mind that there might be circumstances under 1.8 which lead to a completely different decision. For now I want to assume that it will be somehow similar and therefore get player opinions on that base.
Regarding the performance, there should not be an issue. The additional work is small and the server is loaded depending on the number of users instead number of worlds.
I think that the current setup is good because it gives everyone a peaceful and protected place to build in the normal world. When 1.8 comes around, the old world will be always 2nd choice. In order to keep that protection AND give the 1.8 materials to the users, a combination of a 1.8 world with fix-sized lots is unavoidable in my opinion.
Leave all as it is, create a new world in addition. New lots will be on the new world. People on the old world can choose to abandon their lot and move to a new lot in the new world. The city will be copied over to the new world. Once the old world is empty, we delete it. Copying over other buildings will be most likely not possible or only slowly over time.
Advantage: Least work. Beautiful new world, beautiful old world.
Disadvantage: Possible confusions between worlds, further spread of users over multiple worlds. Workload of copying the city, portals, recreating the railway etc which I probably have to do by myself.
I truly do think this sounds like the most feasible of options.
Currently the playerbase is already spread so thin that you usually only meet others by choice, and this actually works rather well. It’s nice only having to focus on what others are doing when you want to be near them. Players still meet, and they still look around.
Personally i can’t see it being any more confusing than any other combination of worlds cuyrrently is to have an additional one.
Additional lots aren’t an issue either really. start settlers in the new 1.8 world, and let older players either surrender their 1.7 lots in exchange for a 1.8 lot, or use the extra lots you gain by advancement of rank.
Your workload concerns over the copying of the city are also of interest to me. Why the necessity of moving the old city all at once? Perhaps it should loiter in its current form and just being casually transferred into the new 1.8 city location at your own personal ease?
Oooh, had another thought.
Making settlers only have one lot to choose between old and new might also encourage people to work together, each getting a lot in each world.
Agh! I don’t really want to lose all the stuff I’ve done in my old lot, but would also hate to miss out on a shiny new 1.8 world with all-new exciting and sparkly things.
It sounds like creating a new world is the best way to go, but it would be a bit annoying to have to give up your old lot(s) in the 1.7 world in order to move to the new one. I’d like the opportunity to keep my old lots for a while to give me a chance to move some things over myself (by hand, one block at a time I guess).
In an ideal world, I’d be able to just drop my stuff from the old world into the new and be done with it. On a larger scale, though, that’s probably not completely feasible, as moving everybody’s structures could be a massive job.
And certainly the old world shouldn’t stay around forever. My time is already divided between the World (2 lots), Skylands and the Kingdom – which means nothing is ever really getting finished, and you can see where other people have abandoned things too… It seems like the pace of development in the World has massively slowed down since the introduction of other areas, and I’d hate to see things stagnate by adding yet another map. Having others near you build and create projects is a great incentive to make new things… building in a growing city is much more exciting than creating something in the middle of nowhere.
I have the least in terms of megaprojects so take anything i say second to the big builders. But do spend a lot of time in game and much of my time was in Darklands and Nether for more of a challenge i suppose. Any way you can have challenge and adventure of DL and Nether, protect peoples big projects and most importantly doesn’t cause you to go insane…but i am thinking World option 2 and Kingdom option 2
Concerning the ‘World’ I would speak for solution 1
I like the option 2 for the World, but it would take a lot of work, i understand that. However, I think we should leave the Skylands as it is =)
It sounds as though this would require a lot of work. Let the elders ease your burden, my evil overlord. Just allow us the super pick axe command, and all will be well.
Agreed I am busy for a bit but can make time for Minecraft to assist.
World:
When 1.8 comes out, create a second world for all. Let everybody claim their respective lots (Settler- 1 lot, Arch- 2 lots, etc). At this point, announce that you have one month (time can vary, does not matter), to move all of your belongings, to the new 1.8 world. Then simply delete the old 1.7 world after one month. Everybody had their warning. And we have to be sure to send e-mails to all the registered users so that there are no excuses of “I was away, and never checked the website!” Too bad, you were sent an e-mail.
Kingdom:
Keep it. The Kingdom is much more about groups of people working together on projects and there is not much reason to totally reset a world where people will clear land and continue to work on the same projects.
Just my two cents.
My most valuable thing in the “world” is a big hole on my snow lot. I can’t really bring that…
Would you rather have a big hole or new ores, biomes, terrain, etc?
Big Hole
My most valuable thing is my fellow elders like Sockso….
I do not think this is a good solution for the world. If you delete what people have, they have nothing left. If they are not happy about it, they might as well leave the server. On top of it people would feel that they have to work for a month to secure their treasures, where on other servers they could do more fun building during that time. I would assume that many people put most of their resources into buildings and not into chests. I rather give them the option to continue with something. Otherwise I could equally just erase everything and start from scratch.
One of the reasons why i have stayed at uncovery for so long is because the world is still here unlike alot of servers
I agree with this idea, I definitely like it, I will have to say good bye to all my buildings, Ship and spider spawner. :(
but I still agree.
Also it allows us to have time to scrap all are things that we have, like collect all the sand on are lot.
I like HenMisters idea but how would we move our stuff from one world to the other and what if uncovery copies one house for every lot?
The reason you have one month to do it is that you manually empty every single chest, and bring it to new chests in World 1.8.
Okay OSFs opinion time,
Nether:
Yes please reset however maybe improve the nether before releasing it to all users.
Examples include better pathways to public area, More distinction of the spawn area to the public area.
Skylands:
Yes, i agree just leave the skylands as is. IMO they are a creative place for building megaprojects and the like with little mining required.
Kingdom:
I would create a new world and offer kings the chance to bring items across like you stated, Only places i can think of that require it is hiotopia and rome.
World:
Option 2 at the moment i am against as i think we have enough worlds for now and the overworld is massive. I would wait till exact details are clear on this. Option 1 i am happy with. Remember the entire thing is your choice and if you dislike me speaking of it you can always delete this post.
For all of this i am happy to assist in most ways, I will use my free time in Minecraft some more and try to assist you in this matter, If it is your wish.
Hehe, I know I’m not on the server at the moment, but I still would like to be in server discussions. Note: I’ll probably be back sooner than I though. Most likely around when 1.8 or a bit after comes out. I though school was going to be a bit more hectic but things are slowing down quick.
Anyways back to the topic:
My thoughts are option 1 will take to long and will stress out everyone even more. As you said Uncovery, 900 lots being reset is alot of work. Also in that, there could be a flaw of some sort and everything could go wrong.
Option 2: If there is no other option, I would defiantly pick this. I would much rather have a brand new world with everything 1.8 comes out with other than waiting 2 months for my lots to be reset or whatever.(I don’t even have lots now though so it was just an example.) Yes copying everything over is a huge load of work. But since I’m taking a bit of a break, I would be more than happy to spend a few weeks to help you create railways, set up lots, do whatever it takes to get this 1.8 update flowing smoothly. I would much rather do this than work on my lots. As for confusion. Just make sure people know what is going on. Have a nice clear post saying “New world, please read carefully” and if they don’t choose to read that is their own fault. Also, this could be ALOT of work but maybe take people’s creations(worthy of being copied) and move them to their new lots. If it is same square 20×20 cobble box, they can easily recreate that themselves. As for underground stuff, Minecraft isn’t easy. You don’t always get what you want. Just have a base for portals and such, so players can move things back and forth.(Items, and whatnot) Just leave the original world there for now until everyone is CERTAIN they are done moving things.
So, for me it is that Option 2 is the only way to go. Option 1 would cause way more confusion in my opinion.
Let me know what you think.
HCP~
P.S. I’ll be back in a month or two~
Hello everyone! :) Here’s what I think…
World: Option 2, with a twist.
Start fresh. We could possibly lock up the current world, and have it just for people to look at. Anything big that is on a lot and that is not in the city already, could be possibly moved around the city? I would this so people dont have to walk an extreme distance just to see one persons lot.
This would be good so people only have one world to build on, creating less confusion. DJ Deadmau5 had done this, and it worked out well. You can go back and check out the cool work from the past, then go back to the original world and build.
Do I get this right? Have one “museum-“world and one “build” world?
This actually seems like a pretty cool idea.
I would also go for this option.
Exactly! :D
Think of it as a fresh new start for everything!
But my diamonds…!
You might be able to get your diamonds…just not dig for more…that would be nice
Having read all the replies up to now, and having had some time to think it over, I’d like to post my opinion. It is a bit long, but I hope it’s well-spoken.
As an Elder, I could say I have plenty of buildings, plenty in storage, plenty to show off, and plenty both in the city, the pyramid, and all around the world that I have contributed.
As a father, I have 4 boys who have played on Uncovery from time to time. They have created, I have helped, we have had fun, laughed and been distraught by losses due to ill-timed, malevolent creeper attacks.
As for Skylands, I see no reason to change it. It provides barely any resources aside from a bulk of stone and dirt for most. I would keep it the same because some like it, but it is really just for large projects since few tour around to see much there, unless invited. One of my proposals suggests removing the world for lack of necessity to our community.
As for the Nether, it is merely a location to farm for otherwise difficult or impossible to find materials. Mushroom farms are now easy to make, so gathering netherrack, soul sand, and glowstone seem to be the only reasons to go. The mobs there offer nothing yet, but it can be fun and challenging to explore. I would suggest resetting it with a small safe area that is well defined (as someone had already suggested).
As for the Kingdom world, I see no reason to change it. Perhaps to delete any chunks more than 32 blocks ( 2 chunks ) or 128 blocks ( 8 chunks ) away from any owned / built structures when 1.8 comes out so they may be regenerated with the new system would give new towns an advantage, but I see Kingdoms as just a way for our community to gather and build together, not for farming materials.
As for the over world (known as ‘World’), I have had a lot of fun, luck, help and experience with building both above and below ground. I have many structures that would not be complete were it not for their underground counterparts. I have mined, I have tunneled, I have cleared away from sky to bedrock and rebuilt parts and pieces, fought to overcome dungeons and now build farms to gather materials, mostly to compete in building our city or helping others with their buildings, structures, boats, traps, contraptions, redstone songs, or otherwise.
For me, I stay on Uncovery because of our community. When I spent almost 3 weeks crossing the continent to bring my family to our new home on the opposite coast, we stayed in contact with players, chatted via IRC, and now I am often on TeamSpeak when playing.
On the whole, I would propose option L (for LVasold, yes, it’s an ‘L’, not an ‘i’):
With the update to 1.8, I would save the current world file (making it available to download for nostalgia after the change). I would use the current world for our Gallery world and continue to build the city and it’s surrounds as we gather people, contest entries, and expand from its current location.
I would create a new world (henceforth referred to as ‘Home’) where the lots would be created and divided and strewn about the map as the world is currently, though unclaimed. Give players some set period of time to move things over to their new Home before shutting us out from building in ‘world’. During this transition, players can take with them what they have stored, or built, or spent the time between now and 1.8 gathering in preparation. The current overworld could be renamed to City, and allow us to expand anywhere, as needed. This would be our showcase, our gallery, the pride and joy of the server as our collaborative efforts have built!
Home would be our new world, under the new system. We would be as colonists on a new planet, though able to return home to help our culture and heritage spread through expansion and exploration of our city and its many districts, sending home supplies and structures made from new found materials and using new technologies.
Also, in Home, I would suggest re-implementing home invitations. With our current ranking system, it is rare anymore for people to walk the long, hard way across the continents when they can teleport or have someone else teleport them (usually free). Home invitations help people be a part of a larger community. This may also remove the need for portals, or waiting for them to be updated with new patches.
In City, I would remove the wool streets in the city reminiscent of ‘car’ roads, and replace it with a city block passage version of our minecart rail system with intersections all along and spawners between and centered in the different districts. Getting around the city, currently, can be tedious and confusing at best. With it ever expanding, that would only get more difficult.
Gigantic projects could still get approval and be designated an area within City (i.e. – giant space ships, factories, or cathedrals)
Option L1: Keep Skylands and Kingdom, Reset Nether, World becomes City, new world named Home
Option L2: Remove Skylands, Keep Kingdom, Reset Nether, World becomes City, new world named Home with 150×150 or 200×200 sized lots, thus removing one more world and making visiting people’s creations much simpler.
Please expand / comment on these suggestions. Criticism is welcome!
HenMeister supports Option L2, with “Home” still 100×100 lots. Think of it Elders/Masters- do you really need 4x 200×200 lots? I think not.
I don’t think we need that much space, but then again, I don’t build structures quite as large (horizontally) as some other dedicated members of our community *cough* Pluto *cough*. ;-) That being said, if we had 4 200×200 lots, and didn’t use the space, it wouldn’t be wasted since it’s only pixels, but if we did find use for the space, it would probably be worth the effort and a visit! ;-) As it is, we already have 3/4 that much space between the overworld (4 100×100) and skyland (2 200×200). So would it really be that much more?
I support option L1, as i like the Skylands and the freedom to build there, i’m planning to build there much more once i finish gathering materials from my World lot =). Also, having the City as an entire world would be great, as it could expand to be massive!
In my opinion option L2 would be best, but I agree with HenMeister on the lot size. I choose option L2, because the Skylands is a place where most people only go for, for example farms, or megabuilds. Almost nobody really sees it as their ‘home’. I prefer to have a kinda crowded place where everybody does his thing, because it creates more of a community feeling. After all, Uncovery is one of the few servers that are free to join, very international, AND have a not only active, but also nice community.
Look for example at some of the highest servers on the minestatus list, they all have a lot of players, great buildings, but none of them really welcomes you, other than for voting.
I concur. The few other servers I have experienced were not friendly, and were not based on community. Having also MMO’d for many years, I know that this is more important than any other facet of the gaming world.
And as Lvasold said above, if Uncovery could re-introduce home invitations it would be awesome. To those that don’t know, you could invite people (or they could teleport directly) to your /home. Let’s say someone wanted to visit my /home. They type /home henmeister .
I know Unc has previously said that teleporting too much causes 2 issues. First, it breaks the “realism” of playing a survival map, and second it causes significant lag because of sudden loading of new chunks. To this I would suggest having a limitation on how often, say once every 5 or 15 minutes, or change it depending on rank, if that’s possible. Just my 2 cents, FWIW.
Yes, this. I’d support option L1 as I’m a fan of the Skylands… I like the idea of the current World becoming City – makes a lot of sense and means some of the best stuff already there could be folded into the city proper as it expands.
Nice thinking, Lvasold!
I vote for option 2, but do what you have to do.
I vote for option 2 fro the World, i would like a new start =) Whatever you do thought, keep the Skylands! It’s awesome, and i love building there XD
just a a quick note~ i came across this in the twitter traffic.
http://www.justin.tv/oldfoxy/b/293551819?
Oceans 1000s! of blocks wide~
Downright massive biomes
Possibly no seed (no input for seed during world creation)
All meaning this is likely incomparable with our current world setup :/
You could have an ocean covering 50% of the lots ~
In light of this we should definitely leave the decision for when 1.8 actually comes out and we do some tests and see what the plugin devs do.
Additionally i would even propose a return of darklands since the “adventure” aspect of the game seems quite pronounced. With the biomes and special features so far apart its unlikely that the kingdom or a few 100×100 lots can give everyone fair access to even a small % of these features.
I would like to see that. “Adventure” is my middle name.
No, ‘rock’ is your middle name.
win
In my opinion, I think that OPTION 2 for the World is the best sollution. A fresh start in a newly generated world is great. It can really keep the server going, and give players a chance to make things different this time. I personally really want to start fresh with all my things. I also think that players can help each other move. For example, allowing other players to keep their stuff on your current lot, while they move.————————————————Now, as for the Kingdom, I think that a new world is a great idea, just current nations should maybe be copied over? For example, I think it will take too long to recreate the Colleseum.———————————————-As for the other worlds, I agree with everything.——————————————————I also think that with new terrain features, a new Darklands is a great idea.
if i would have my way i would love to start from scratch, but that isnt going to happen anytome soon :P (i just love that feeling to get stuff done or be destroyed by a creeper) . So i vote for option L2