Author Archives: uncovery

About uncovery

Owner & admin of this server.

2 Years Anniversary Goodie No.1!

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I have just finished the first 2-year anniversary goodie! I release this one a bit ahead of time since I might be busy during November.

Skyblock!

Skyblock is a game where you start off on a small island in the air. You have very limited resources and you need to survive as long as possible. You can buy a skyblock for 5000 Uncs on the website and warp there with a command. If you think you cannot progress further (if you lost too much stuff etc), you can abandon it with another in-game command – but be careful!

  • Once you abandon your lot, you can only get a new lot after waiting for the next reboot AND paying 5000 Uncs again!
  • Everyone can have only one skyblock at a time.
  • But you can as always add other people to your lot!
  • 2D and 3D maps have been updated, too!
  • Inventory is of course seperate
  • XP is shared between the worlds
  • Shops & deposit are not accessible
  • We have 400 skyblocks so there should be enough for everyone.
  • You can die as often as you want and warp back to your lot.
  • In case your tree does not drop saplings there is a kit with one sapling and a timeout of 6 hours: /kit skyblock

Use the /skyblock command in-game for warping and abandoning!

 

IMPORTANT: 1.4 Coming – What will happen?

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We will deal with the 1.4 update (we are currently on version 1.3.2) just the same way we dealt with former updates. Here a short wrap-up for those who do not know:

  • All the new cool features of 1.4 (anvils, beacons etc) will not work until we have 1.4 installed.
  • In order to install 1.4, we need to make sure that the server software we are using (bukkit) and all the important plugins are upgraded and work fine with it. Until all the plugins are updated, it can take any time from 3 days until 4 weeks. We do not know.
  • Once we will move to 1.4, all your possessions and lots will be transferred along. You will not lose anything.
  • In the meantime, while we wait for everything to be 1.4 ready, I will start a parallel temp 1.4 server on a different port. Anyone will be able to play on the temp server, but there will be no protection (it will be similar to the darklands). The temp server will have a new map with only one world (+nether & end) and with only limited plugins (no shop etc), if any at all.
  • You can choose if you want to play 1.3.2 with all your current builds and protection OR on 1.4 with the new features, but w/o proper protection and in a new world. In order to stay on 1.3.2, it is important that you do NOT upgrade your minecraft client when asked to do so. Once you upgrade, you cannot re-download the 1.3.2 version from legal sources. You can however keep 1.3.2 on your computer with a tool and run 2 versions at the same time with a special tool. I recommend to install those BEFORE 1.4 comes out: Use MC Jar switcher or Magic launcher.
  • The world that we create for the temp 1.4 will likely become the new darklands in the future – as announced. The current darklands might be removed. Since there will be new features in the 1.4 version (such as silverfish spawning in the hills biomes along with a higher frequency of emeralds), we want to make a use of that. I also think that it would be good to reset the nether which looks more like a minefield by now.
  • Inventory of your player that you carried while playing on the 1.4 temp server will be lost when we upgrade the 1.3.2 server to 1.4. If you stashed stuff on the map, it will be in the upgraded server as the new darklands. Whatever you had on the (current) old darklands will be gone. Same for the nether.
  • Regarding the new control blocks, it is unlikely that those will be available since they allow admin-only functions.

If you have questions, please ask them ASAP so that there are no regrets for lost stuff once we upgrade.

New breeding limits!

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Instead of running around searching for large farms, we have now hardcoded breeding limits. This means that any attempt to breed more animals than configured will fail. That includes the use of spawn eggs. If you use a spawn egg to create an animal despite having reached the limit, the egg will be gone, but you will NOT get an additional animal. So please be careful what you do.

How do you know if you reached your limit? Use the /headcount command. In worlds with lots, the count goes per lot. In worlds w/o lots (darklands, nether), it goes per chunk (16×16 blocks). Here are the limits for sheep, cows, chicken & pigs:

  • Lot worlds: 10 each per lot
  • Other worlds: 5 each per chunk

That means that you can have maximal 40 animals per lot or 20 per chunk depending on the world. If there are animals spawning by themselves in your lot, they will count into that number. PLEASE do not take this as an encouragement to always have minimum 40 animals on your lot. The more animals, the more lag! If you had more animals already, they will not be automatically killed, but please reduce the animals to the limit.

Azkedar helped to modify an existing plugin to enable this, so thanks a lot to our C0dr!

Law enforcement

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Today I banned a guy called rizzoli for Xraying, another called shadyxcop for building a death trap (with invitation signs) on his lot.

I also removed the walls and fences from lots B4, C4, B8 & A8. Please note that I will remove EVERY BLOCK a fence is made off from the surface of the lot in case there are no doors or gates in the walls/fences. No refunds!

Cheat detection installed

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I have since some days a cheat detection installed. It sends me warnings about people trying to use all kings of tricks to kill or mine faster, and all kinds of other stuff.

I observed the results for a few days and talked to a couple of users that showed up on the alerts. Some of the users admitted to using some form of cheat, such as a gamer mouse that clicks faster than normal. Most however said that they do not use that or do not even know what a hacked client was. Interestingly, ALL of those that said they had no idea, stopped showing up on the alerts – magically as it seems.

So I want to give now a warning to all users that I will be enforcing bans on such cheating. So you better get a vanilla client and switch off the speed features on your mouse or it’s been the longest time you have been on the server.

What I do not like to see at 8:00am.

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I know this is a rant, but I am the admin, so yeah….

Got this email:

Ok so i just recently signed up for uncovery but i forget my email that i used to get the password but i didnt think it would matter so i just carried on but then i wanted land but i could because i need to login so can you delete my account from the website so i can start again? Also hiosa Helped me and told me you could help

Sent this answer:

1) if you want to be understood, use punctuation. I guess you do not want to be understood. Why should I read it then?
2) how shall I guess your email? I did not even get your username from you? Who are you? Are you stupid?
3) Did you try this here: http://uncovery.me/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword ? you only need your username there, not your email. You will get an email to the address you chose.

Your request is SO stupid, malformed and unhelpful that you BETTER NOT tell me your username. I would ban you otherwise for asking stupid questions, according to the rules. So you sort out your trouble by yourself, otherwise it was your last day on my server.

Update: His reply:

I was typing fast because I was talking to people… Sorry? But thanks for nothing.

My reply:

You made a mistake by forgetting your email address. Then expect me to help, but you do not give me ANY information that enables me to help you. You do it in a way that makes it even hard to read your question. Because you did not feel it was important enough to stop whatever else you are doing. But you expect me to stop whatever I am doing and guessing who you are and what you want.

And you tell ME “Thanks for nothing”?. Well you are welcome.

Halloween!

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  • As a surprise for halloween I have given all users (except guests) the power to disguise as ANY mob! Use the normal mob disguise commands to disguise!
  • On top of that you can use ANY block as a hat! (like the pumpkins) Hold a block and use /hat to disguise!

Here some detail info on the mob disguise options!

  • This includes: babies, colored sheep, sized slimes/magmacubes, tamed/aggressive wolves, tabby/tuxedo/siamese cats, saddled pigs, villager occupations, and charged creepers
    • Also unnatural slime/magmacube sizes: bigger, massive, godzilla
  • You can also set the disguise on fire and hold blocks as an Enderman

Use these commands for the extra options:

  • /dis or /disguise [mobname] – Disguise as a mob (If no mob is given, the available mobs are listed) {also gives current disguise}
  • /dis baby [mobname] – Disguise as a baby mob (If no mob is given, the current disguise is used)
  • /dis <color> [sheep] – Disguise as a colored sheep
  • /dis charged creeper – Disguise as a charged creeper
  • /dis <tiny/small/big/bigger/massive/godzilla> [slime/magmacube] – Disguise as a specifically-sized slime or magmacube
  • /dis <tamed/aggressive> [wolf] – Disguise as a tamed or aggressive wolf
  • /dis <tabby/tuxedo/siamese> [ocelot] – Disguise as a tabby, tuxedo, or siamese cat
  • /dis <saddled> [pig] – Disguise as a saddled pig
  • /dis <burning> [mobname] – Disguise as a burning form of any mob
  • /dis <librarian/priest/blacksmith/butcher> [villager] – Disguise as a villager with an occupation
  • /dis hold <block name/id #> – Hold blocks as an Enderman

 

Help Request

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I need some help to finish the contest refund system. It will allow everyone to get their contest entry back in the form of blocks into their deposit. To do that, I need to convert the blocks in everyone’s build into blocks people can hold and move them into the deposit of each person. For that, I need a list of all blocks that people cannot normally obtain in-game and the block the unavailable block should be converted to. Someone needs to go to the Minecraft wiki and make a list of all blocks that are listed in red there and find out what the appropriate conversion would be. Example format:

8=>0, 9=>0, 55=>331, …

this cannot be done in haste. For example, pistons and doors are two blocks in-game but have to convert into one air block and one door ITEM. 0 would be air so all blocks that would convert into nothing should be 0.

thanks!

Kingdom lots too cheap?

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As you all know, the original usage for the kingdom was to have a larger space for group builds. And I know some people build some cool stuff and they use the kingdom exactly for what I created it for. But we have – just by counting – 24 main lots that have not even one member apart from the owner. Do not get me wrong please – I don’t want you to just run around and search for members now or add random people to your lot. But I have somehow the impression that some people bought a lot to have it as a personal space on top of the empire lot, and not for a group build, or even to build anything larger than 128×128 either. Some might have bought one to have it “just in case” or even because it seems cool to have one.

I might be wrong about this. But I am worried that the original plan failed to a certain extent. I wanted, as you know, make a new city world that is identical to the kingdom where we can move mega-builds one-to-one over so people can see it and fly around. If most of the space in the kingdom will be given away for mining spots or to people who just throw their towel on the sun chair to occupy it, I wonder how this will work out.

But I also do not know really what to do to fix it or if I should just ignore it. One option could have been to make kingdom lots MUCH more expensive so only people can afford it if they group together. Or I could have forced people to submit a plan for a build before I give one to them. Or if kingdom lots should expire sooner than normal lots.

Suggestions are welcome. How can we make sure that the kingdom is more then a status symbol or a mining spot for people who want to avoid the darklands? How do we fix it for the future? Shall we do anything about the rules for the future? Change the price only? Make an application process? Both? Or leave everything as it is?

Exciting stuff!

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Here is a little announcement for the coming weeks. We have Halloween coming up as well as our 2 year anniversary. Also btw we just overstepped 700 days of server activities AND 700 active users!

So what is coming up? First of all I have some fun goodie for all users during the last two weeks of October in the spirit of Halloween! Announcement will follow around the 14th of October.

Second of all, some bigger news regarding userlevels and voting rewards during the month of November where we will have some long term new stuff and one surprise every single day on which I have been working on together with the elders.

I went through some ideas for trick-or-treat, most of them abandoned. Here is a list of what was abandoned:

  • Replace all Diamond ores with pumpkins
  • 1% chance for a ban for the lottery
  • Converting all of empire into a snow biome
  • 1% chance for lightning strike on any shop transaction
  • random, secret & changing word triggers 1-week channel mute

If you have ideas on how to trick-or-treat, please let me know here!

 

Kingdom Lot purchases

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Guys, it seems that some people think it is smart to buy random street lots because they suspect sections of a stronghold within them or something else. Please be aware that I consider this a pretty idiotic thing. If you want to mine some stronghold blocks, go to the darklands. Imagine some guy being able to afford only one large lot, planning to expand and someone else coming and buying all the street lots around him to lock him in. If you are building a road, to your lot, fine. Get the street lot and build a road. But do not buy those just for mining or whatever other reasons.

I made now a new rule on the kingdom lot registration page:

ATTENTION (2): Do NOT BUY random corner or street lots somewhere. Those are meant for people to be able to connect their far away lot with the spawn with a road. If you buy those lots just at random next to other people’s lots, you limit those people from expanding their builds at a later point in time.

A ban and some technical stuff

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I have banned the user LevahjAK for Xraying. In other news, I have transferred all the worlds we have maps for onto a RAMdisk in the hope to reduce lag. We will see how that works. If you have an idea about linux HD caching and java memory settings you can read this here and try help me optimize the settings for the server.

And now to something completely different: I have finally capitalized all the ranks in the same way.

Parkour Contest

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The parkour contest is now copied over and ready for voting for those who have not done so yet. There were quite some issues with this one. First of all, I got delayed several times copying the entries. Luckily, with the new system, that will not happen again. Second of all, during the contest several of the people who submitted an entry moved their lot to the empire and the lot was reset. In the end we have 3 entries of which 1 I am not even sure who built it since it does not match at all the description (himisawesome’s one). I sent an email to him but did not get an answer. On top of that one user made the surface that much bigger than the rules stated and he refused to change it, so I disqualified him.

All the entries are now in the flatlands lot K10. Please go there ASAP and vote if you have not. I will close this finally on Friday.

Classic one

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Today I got this email:

Hi this is <username> well his older brother see i was playing on his account while he was gone and it was me and a friend and i was stupid and got his account banned. i am truly sorry for acting up on your server and believe it or not i am grounded from my computer except from this because i got him banned and he got VERY angry and mom and dad found out and seen how truly mad he was. I ask from you to allow him back on the server it was completely my fault and once again i am sorry.

This was my reply:

Hi there,
thanks for your email. See, there is are several issues here:

  • He should have never let you play on his account. That alone is an insta-ban by the rule. We want to avoid people doing stupid stuff and then claim “my brother did it!”.
  • I cannot verify what you say. I do not know you or your family. I am running a community of several hundred people and cannot spend time to worry about who lies and who tells the truth. We ban people who do stupid stuff and move on.
  • I am not even supposed to send you THIS email. My principle is to spend time on the users who are NOT banned instead of those who are

The only solution is that your brother gets a new minecraft account and registers again on the server. If he does not have another email address he can delete his current account from the website (see link below) and register with the username of his new minecraft account and the same email. Maybe you want to buy him a new account then? Maybe that’s a good lesson to respect your brother’s property.
However, his lot and his inventory will be reset in any case. See this here for further explanations:

http://uncovery.me/bans-appeals-second-chances/

I post this here not to make fun at the user or to point fingers at people but to leave a message not to mess with other people’s minecraft user accounts. It’s bad for those people, bad for the server and in the end, bad for you. You are stealing someone’s identity and in every term that’s illegal. We had this issue several times before and the outcome was always more or less like that.

Lot expiry clarification

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It seems that some people who have been here for a while did not catch up on the posts that I made about how the system for the lot expiration and reset works. For the new users, I updated now the “become settler” page to include the relevant information. Since the existing users usually do not read that page anymore, I re-post that updated information now once here in the hope that everyone reads it:

LOT EXPIRY: If you do not login on the server for some time, your lot will expire. The normal lot expiry time is 1 month after your last login. If you are Architect or above level, and while you are DonatorPlus the expiry is 2 months. Also, all skylands/aether lots expire after 2 months only. Lot expiry is fully automated. During the automated restart on the day your lot expired, you will be removed from your lot and it will be reset to an untouched status. Other people can then reserve it again. If you go offline for a longer time, there is no way to extend the expiry period. You simply have to login once with the 1 or 2 months (depending on your level) to keep the lot active. To find out when a user’s lot will expire, you can look at the user list page and see their level and last login time.

This means that I strongly hope not to get any of the following questions anymore (added to FAQ):

  • I will be on holiday, will my lot reset? – YES. If you do not login within the reset time, it will reset and I will not do anyhting about it.
  • Can I keep my lot even if I do not login for a month? Yes. Become DonatorPlus.
  • I do not want to donate. Can you reserve it for me? No.
  • Do I have to tell you now that I will be offline? No.
  • When will the lot next to me reset? – Find out yourself. Go to that owner’s page on the userlist and calculate yourself when that will be according to the users level and his last login date.
  • Can I get a warning before my lot resets? No. Use a calendar.
  • My friends lot will be reset, but all my stuff is there and we built the lot together, what can I do? Go there and take what is yours before it resets. I will NOT stop the lot from resetting. If anything o your stuff is gone during a reset, it is your problem.