Author Archives: uncovery

About uncovery

Owner & admin of this server.

Bannerworks done!

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I have submitted several bug reports to the author of Websend (the plugin that does all the interface with the website, shop, deposit etc) which have all been fixed now, and a new version of Websend was released. I have installed it and I am currently working on enabling the handling of Banners in-game.

The issue is that they need to be stored in the tables and I want to use the field that is also used for enchantments so I do not have to create another field in each table that I am using. So I have to go through the code and change the way enchantments are handled and rather convert code that was specific for enchantments to a rather unspecific ‘extra data’ type of process. There are more than 370 places in the code where enchantments are handled, so there is a bit of work ahead.

On top of that I am on a business trip, so I hope I can finish it soon, but no ETA yet. I found some time tonight and finished it, so Banners can now be offered in the shop, but just display as “x-layered banner”. Deposits should also work fine (same display though). If anyone has an idea how do display banners in an easy way, please let me know (custom names won’t work).

I am planning to integrate an online banner generator like this one into the website. If anyone of you knows JavaScript to help me there, please let me know.

Region flags messy – but fixed

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Ok, so I tried today to fix the issue that one cannot use buttons & doors on other user’s lots. When I did that, suddenly everyone could access all chests. When I tried to fix that, everyone was able to break blocks everywhere.

So the current version of WorldGuard has some bugs that we have to live with. Otherwise I have to do an extremely messy downgrade to the last version which would roll back lot changes (i.e. new users etc) since the upgrade.

I managed now to fix it by assigning region flags for allowing buttons use and denying chest access for all 6700 lots individually. I was hoping to fix that with 1 flag per world, but there are currently bugs in the system that prevent that.

1.8 Update: We are live!

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Status (watch this space, I am updating it as I change stuff):

  • Disabled items (will try to re-enable as possible):
    • Minecart Mania
    • Region breed limits (don’t abuse this please)
  • Bugs that most likely need updates by someone else (e.g. plugins, spigot etc)
    • Hunger & eating seems to work sometimes, sometimes not fixed!
    • /home & /homes commands cannot be fixed, please set new homes
    • bouncing on slime blocks fixed!
    • Enchantement costs too much XP (30XP for lvl 30 enchanting instead of 3 as per 1.8 specs) was never broken
    • The 3D map fixed!
    • Log of block changes & Last login info I wrote my own last login & online time function now
    • Banners – Do not keep banners in inventory when chaning worlds, do not deposit or try to sell.  Fixed selling & buying & deposit!
  • Updating the code: Since Worldguard upgrades to UUIDs from usernames a lot of code broke:
    • The lot manager
    • The user list
    • Lot resets
    • Karma
    • The 2D map
    • User voting
    • The settler test (tested!)
    • Flying piston Engines. I tested that now and confirmed that those will not cross lot borders. I do not know how to fix abuse in the darklands however. I might block placing slime blocks there to make sure.

1.8 Update status

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1.8 Spigot/Bukkit is out since some hours now, and I have been testing our plugnis since then. It seems that most of them work (on the surface at least). I will make a test-upgrade tomorrow when I have time and see if it works. Otherwise I will have to roll back and wait until the non-working plugin is updated properly. But unless some really important plugin fails, we should be good to go. The most work to do is to upgrade Worldguard to the new version using UUIDs instead of usernames since I will have to touch a lot of code to get that done. But that should not prevent us from upgrading, just lot actions would be on hold until that work is done.

1.8 Update progress

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There are some good news from Spigot regarding the 1.8 update here. It seems that they have a version ready that is being tested now for bugs. I am hoping that there will be a release before the end of the year so that the plugin authors can work on it to update their plugins.

A whole new world?

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I have been thinking about the hardcore concept where you can never return to a server once you die. I thought it would be cool to have a world where you really want to be but it’s really easy to die, too. It could be a sort of Darklands, but with more mobs but also more of other goodies, made with a custom terrain. Instead of blocking you permanently in case you die, we can charge for entering instead.

Thoughts? What would you pay a thousand Uncs for to get in?

New skyblocks now (finally) have a sandblock!

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I went and updated all 400 skyblocks in the mint world that we use as a template to reset lots and also listed all existing, empty skyblocks for a reset. So whenever someone resets their skyblock from now on or gets a new one, they (finally) should have a sandblock in their chest.

Since there are not THAT many occupied blocks, I went around quickly and placed a sandblock somewhere near chests or crafting table manually. I hope I did not miss any lots!

Shop manager Goods page finished

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I have now started working again on the shop manager. The first thing now finalized is the “Goods” category, where you can now lookup all items in the shop, and by clicking on them you can dive into sub-items (if available) and see all requests and offers for the final block.

Currently we are structuring this according to the data hierarchy as it is programed into minecraft. Thus, different wool types are a sub-type of wool, but some of the blocks like Podzol might not be so easy to find if you do not know what they are a sub-type of. I will be working on an alternative model in the future to make it a bit more user-friendly.

First (tiny) open source project spin-off from uncovery minecraft

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I have written a lot of code so far for the server, but most of it I would consider proprietary and very much specially written for this server. Unless someone would have the exact same environment and server mechanics, it’s unusable for anyone else. It’s also not well documented enough to be used as a new setup.

However, I have created a new way to handle errors in PHP and changed the code so that it’s not a built-in part of the rest of the code anymore but rather a standalone project. I have published it on Github today as an open-source project for anyone to use.

It’s a small thing and I do not know if there is more to follow, but my hope is that other programmers will see it, try it out and find it useful, possibly propose improvements to it. If you are using PHP, I would encourage you to try it out. It has helped me a lot with my programming.

Short roll-back

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Yesterday night the mysql connection failed because of a configuration issue. That caused worldguard to stop working. I fixed the config (that happened because of the vanilla setup on the new server), but because worldguard failed, fire spread was and remained on. So whenever someone came near a location, any burnable items in the are would spread fire nearby and stuff would burn down.

So I rolled back right now from the last backup 6 hours ago. Firespread was on then already, but all places where people have not been in the last 6 hours are fine again. So sorry for people who lost stuff, but it should be only small stuff.

Several Fixes

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  • Teamspeak is up again
  • the /find command works now properly with held items and for lookup by text for exact matches with item names. If you do not know the item name use /search (as before)
  • the /search command now correctly returns item names for the above command. It will show you the item name and a list of aliases where it found your search term.
  • Places that have so far shown item ids (like the lottery) do not show those anymore.

Server move today

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I will move the server today to the new provider. This should take only a short time, something like 30 minutes or so. However, I will also have to redirect the domain name from the old server to the new, and that might not activate as fast, depending on where you are.

You will NOT lose anything. You can continue building on the current system as usual. I will shut down the current server, move all the data as-is to the new one, and then start up the new one.