I now added the last login time to each lot owner on the map so you can see when a lot might become free if the user does not return until then and discovered that some people never even logged in after registration. These lots are of course now also up for grabs.

I updated the building rules regarding lot-wide cascades. If you have huge water/lava-falls please remove them. I do not mind 1×1 or similar cascades in the center, but if your complete lot is surrounded by a 128 block high cascade, you are overdoing it. This falls under the rule of wide/high ugly structure AND under things that cause excessive lag.

I have been working for the last many days on a new game concept that is supposed to solve some issues with the current environment on the server:

– the game is quite easy. Once you have a couple of torches you only die if you accidentally fall into lava etc, but the mobs are not really a challenge
– the public area gets raided for the most valuable materials in a short time
– the whole concept of exploring new lands as in single player does not exist

In order to fix these issues, I need the ability to expand the map. On the current map this conflicts with the existing and possible future lots. If I want to make stuff harder, such as restricting certain tools or commands, I need to open a new world. These things do not work on a per region basis. Also, since the public area is quite small, I would need to reset it every 2-3 weeks. Some people build cool stuff there however, so I prefer to not reset it.

So the only solution is a new world. This new world should be as hard as possible to make sure that people do not use it to build elaborate stuff. People should go there to get stuff not because its easy but because stuff can be found there. So how dangerous will it be there?

– There will be no fire. No torches, no nether rack, no burning wood. No lava, no pumpkins. Only glowstone from the nether.

– There will be creepers that explode and destroy your buildings

– There will not be any teleport commands such as /home, spawn or else. You will have to walk, just like in single player mode. If you get lost, you better build a compass or look at your coordinates.

– There will be no map. So you will not be able to look out for places others went to and find sand there etc.

As an add-on I created a mob-fortress with a whole lot of mobspawners and treasure inside. The place will be protected so you will have to fight normally through the building to get in. You will need 2-4 people to conquer it and get out alive. I will place the building in random intervals in random places and announce it in a vague way where to find it.

When will this happen? I hope this week. I need the update to the worldguard plugins which is in the world since a month now.

The current public area will stay as it is for everyone to build in and for new players to get some basic resources, but not anymore to get sand etc.

I hope this all will ad new drive to the server. Since this all requires a lot of work from my side, I will not be install any other additions in the near future, since I want to make sure all works fine with this one.

[UPDATE]Regarding the nether, the current issue is the same why I do not open the DarkLands yet. I am unable to give different lot protection there from the normal world. Once this changes, I am happy to make the nether a huge public area, maybe with a protective shelter in the center. It can also be endless.

That said, I have to mention two things: Due to a tool that I have now that measures the CPU clock in comparison with the in-game clock I can tell that the nether and the new world do not cause any lag. But on the other hand, I do not have experience with 10 people being in each world at the same time. All lag in the past 2 weeks has been caused by the server hoster or specific actions on my side that put a heavy load on the server (resetting lots, removing the water from bigdlol’s lot yesterday etc). If I see that the use of the new worlds causes lag, the first solution would be to limit them in size and to reset them more often. If you want to help keeping the server healthy and fast, don’t run for 5 hours into the horizon just for the kicks. Mine the staff that is near the spawn points first.[/UPDATE]

We had some severe lag spikes over the last 5 hours and I once contacted the hosting support about it via web chat about 2 hours ago. I got disconnected in the middle and let it be since the lag was gone by then. What I got out of this was the best way to monitor the lag. So when the lag escalated just now I made the right records and called to the USA support this time to get a reply. While I was on the phone with the support guys I recorded these traceroute figures from my server TO my home provider. So this represents the network inside the provider that should normally reply within a bracket of 2ms, but instead I got this here:
1 ip-184-168-65-251.ip.secureserver.net (184.168.65.251) 220.524 ms 220.521 ms 220.731 ms
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 * * ip-208-109-113-169.ip.secureserver.net (208.109.113.169) 33.251 ms
5 ip-97-74-252-21.ip.secureserver.net (97.74.252.21) 31.845 ms * *
6 * scd-edge-01.inet.qwest.net (63.227.225.69) 31.792 ms *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
The stars mean that the server did not reply in time to the request.
From my home I got some replies within an acceptable 200ms, but again some severe spikes within a 2500ms frame, with 350 being considered severe.
So the support there woke up some technicians and they are working on the issue. I figured waiting until they are done is the best solution.
Given that they are in panic-mode already it does not really help to create a trouble-ticket.

On the good side, the server itself never had any delay so far. It is also very likely that some of the lag that occurred over the recent days was caused by the same issue that godaddy has now, and whatever they have to fix will also fix that.

Also, I have NO idea how long this will take. It’s their lifeblood though I would think they do that fast.

Guys if you have lag, please do the following:

Open a command prompt (in windows, click start, then enter “cmd” in the text box above) and type “tracert uncovery.net”, make a screenshot of the results and send it to me (minecraft@uncovery.net).  It should look like the one above.

I got a notice that the shops might be not restoring your property when they expire, get backed up and then get restored. Please all do me the following favor:

When the store gets closer to expiry, please fill it with something w/o value and re-rent the shop. Tell me if you get your stuff back.

If you want to help more, rent a shop for one day put in some cobble and tell me if it gets stored in there, backed up, and restored when you rent it out again.

I have the plan to create a new, parallel world as an eternal, large, public area. I am waiting for the worldguard plugin to finally be released to do that. It HAS to happen one day.

The consequence is that I have to build custom portals between dimensions and this conflicts with the normal nether gates. So from now on, all normal nether gates do not work anymore. To get to the nether, you will have to come to spawn and use the gate that was built there by me. I guess this will be a small inconvenience since coming back one had to go through the spawn anyhow. So I am looking forward to have another world with unlimited resources – but with more danger! Beware what will be coming there! Creeper explosions etc are not excluded!

Since the new mall is currently on one floor only, there is a LOT of free room up and downstairs. I am not sure what to do with it. There are several possible things:

• A huge, multi-story maze
• A dark, PvP, mob-spawning nightmare (mobs that hurt)
• Rip out the floors and make a huge hall out of the mall below
• whatever else you come up with!

Please comment!

I now removed the access to the old shops. If you still have stuff standing around in the old shops, send me a message and I will give you your stuff when I see you in-game.

I have given now free all lots on the map (now we have 900!). I also enabled the multi-day reservation for the shops. Depending on your level, you can now rent a shop longer.

Also we have a new bug to deal with, they might be removed today:

• Iron doors do not work anymore

You can see now on the 2D map which lots will be reset and then immediately given free for reservation. As I said, it can take some time since this is a manual process and I have to be careful that I do not accidentally do this even one block wrong otherwise stuff from the neighbors will be gone. I will go through them one by one and reset them. From what I have seen so far it works nice except for the one or other half-cut tree which I guess we can all live with.