Here is a new fun contest that should get everyone involved: Balloon Race!
Author Archives: uncovery
Contest closed and entries copied to city!
I have just closed the contest and copied the entries over to the city. The town houses are now near the sky scrapers.
If you submitted an entry, please go there and fix it (if you are a master/elder) or otherwise ask a master/elder to help you fix it. The standard stuff that breaks are:
- doors
- beds
- pictures
- pistons, dispensers & furnaces point in the wrong direction
Once that is done, we can start judging the entries. If you made other townhouses outside of the contest, please post the coordinates here so I can later add them to the others.
Darklands are open!
The darklands are open. Everyone can get one lot. Please see the world page for details about the darklands and the application form under “Access” for the application form.
Plans for future world biome & ore updates
I have been thinking a lot how to deal with future world generator updates. We all know the issue: Minecraft updates the world generator, and the map is messed up beyond recognition once I regenerate an abandoned lot. Biomes change, snow in deserts, weird cliffs & breaks in the landscape, and still old lots do not have the new resources.
Now one significant thing has changed. Since the latest updates, I can regenerate a section of a map, even when the world generation method has changed and still there will be none of the new biomes and chunk breaks.It will look just like if the new workd generator never happened.
Why is this good? Because I can now regenerate old lots and not get disrupted landscapes.
Why is this bad? We will not get new biomes and ores in the empire.
But there is a solution to this: I will bring back an older idea we had on the server, however with a twist: The darklands! Now before those who knew the old darklands get all excited, read how this will work:
I will create another world called “darklands”, limited in size (just like the empire), with lots, 128×128 large and everyone will get at least one of those lots. Maybe higher levels can get more of them, I will have to see about that. The moment however a new biome or other feature comes out that is available only in new worlds, I will DELETE the whole world “darklands”, including all lots, chests, builds, etc. Then I will recreate a new map and new lots, and everyone will be able to choose again a lot from the newly created darklands in a biome they like.
Why this? Well, it is basically the only way people will have a chance to mine new ores & woods, get to see new biomes without having to move their whole lot to a new world like we did when 1.1 came out. And without having an additional world every time a new biome is created.
The darklands will be a mining-only world, and all you build there is made to be lost – probably every 3-6 months or so, depending how often a new biome, landscape form, ore or tree will be out.
Why is it called darklands? It will be impossible to use fire, lava or torches there. You will be only able to light up the place by using lightstone from the nether. It is supposed to be hard – an adventure.
Opinions about this are welcome.
User list now also showing active time & bans
The user list can now be sorted also by active days. This will show the days between someone registering on the website and the last login on the server. If someone once deleted and then recreated the account, he/she might have a negative number of active days.
When you open a user profile, it will now also tell you if a user has been banned from the server.
User Bio/Profile now available
If you go to your profile page and enter text in your “Biographical Info” field, it will show up on your user page.
New User Page online!
Now you we have a new user page where you can find all relevant info about a user under the “About” – “Users” Menu!
Back from Holidays!
I am back from an amazing diving holiday. I took all in all about 2000 photos, out of which 1000 were deleted (it’s not that easy to take pictures underwater, often the animals are faster than you etc) and about 140 made it into the category “memorable” and out of those about 15 were good enough to put them on a website. If anyone interested in those pictures, please see here.
Regarding future plans for the server, I will be upgrading to the latest 1.1 recommended build and check for plugin updates along with that. Also, I will be closing the contest in time and announcing a new one. If you have preferences and/or ideas, please comment.
Away for a week
I am gone for a week, back on the 29th. I should have internet during the time but not too much time to check in. If there is an issue, please post a reply here then I get an email.
Please be patient with top approvals and other requests. Have a good time!
Server upgraded to 1.1, eggs disabled!
I have just upgraded the server to 1.1 and everything seems to run fine. If you run into issues please report ASAP.
Please also note that I have disabled mob eggs. The risk for destruction and lag is too high if people spawn stuff like ghasts in the city or other places. Please have understanding for that.
Tree house contest (finally) finished!
I finally closed the tree house contest. Sorry that it took so long. Since it was originally delayed due to the 1.0 upgrade of minecraft, I let it run longer so people have a chance to submit it. Future contest won’t be delayed as much if I can make it in any way! To compensate the submitters, I will be a bit more generous in the prizes :)
Anyhow, the results from the voting are as such:
- place: Luklukk! He gets a level upgrade and any 1 enchanted item (any possible combination of enchantments) of any level OR 2 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item.
- place: Azkedar! He also gets a level upgrade and any 1 enchanted item with 1 enchantment of any level OR 1 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item (done)
- place: fingermouse! He gets any 1 enchanted item (any possible combination of enchantments) of any level OR 2 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item.
- 4th place KddK He gets any 1 enchanted item with 1 enchantment of any level OR 1 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item
Congrats to the winners and please remember the next contest ends on 31st of January!
Some guy on Reddit decided to broadly insult all people on Uncovery – because I claimed to run a server for “mature” people!
Guys, check out this guy here on a post I did to advertise for the server. Lukklukk was kind enough to chip in. If you have a reddit account, feel free to comment, this guy is the most hilarious thing since Micko888.
ATTENTION: Do NOT update to 1.1!
Please do not update to 1.1, otherwise you will not be able to play on the server anymore. There will be an announcement when the server is upgraded to 1.1
You can look here for help if you updated already.
Small server hickup, should be fixed now
The server hard disk ran out of space because I did not move out backups in time. So the database system froze, the minecraft server and the whitelist was messed up too. On top of that I am abroad since Tuesday and could not fix it immediately.
Should be all fixed now though. If you still cannot access, please tell me immediately.
2D Maps updated!
I updated the 2D maps renderer and we can finally see the proper textures for the new 1.1 blocks.
Guest User ADK2000 was banned….
… for being a help vampire, for asking the quiz-questions in game, for being stupid (according to his own judgement) and for being generally, simply, very, very annoying.
Contest rewards
With the enchantments in game now we have some new possibilities for rewarding contest entries. I am planning to give out custom enchanted items for the winners. So for example one price could be a tripple-enchanted item of your choice. What the exact prices are will be decided after each contest ends but brace for some nice goodies here!
Buy XP!
As a compensation that the Gold Exchange is gone, I quickly hacked a function where you can buy XP! Please note that you have to be logged into the game AND the website to make this work. If you are not logged into the game, your money is gone and you do not get ANY XP. Take a look!
Gold Exchange Disabled
After many iterations of trying to get it work, I have now removed the gold exchange for good. Thanks to azkedar for your work on this plugin, but the repeated issues finally did not outweigh the benefits. I will think about a new system for the economy so we do not have a runaway deflation on everything to to endless supply of goods.