Author Archives: uncovery

About uncovery

Owner & admin of this server.

Area reset FINALLY available

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I can now finally go around and reset area to mint-condition status. What does that mean?

  • I can ‘recycle’ lots of inactive users. I will start to do so soon, since there are quite some people that have not been online since last year. most likely I will NOT inform them beforehand since I do not want them to show up once for 5 minutes and then disappear again for 3 months.
  • I can reset the public area. I might reset only a certain portion of it to get some sand back and keep the constructions in the north. I am not sure when I will have time to do this. The mall (almost finished, testing currently) and the cleanout of old lots have priority. I rather clean out old lots and give those out than expanding into the outer lots.
  • I will NOT reset lots at every request. I do not see that I should allow people to get a lot, mine it until all good stuff is in a chest somewhere and then reset it to be able to start over. If you built such great stuff that you run out of space, you better look for people to recommend you as architect – and get a second lot. I will come up with a rule when I allow people to reset their lot. Suggestions are welcome.
  • I still have to go around and pick the reset area by the corners. I cannot just say //regen lot_3a. I have to walk there, pick each corner, and then regenerate the selected area. So it takes time and I do not have a lot of this recently.

Please test the nether & lag!

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I have updated the plugins etc to allow the nether to be there.
Please be aware that it is not possible to place portals in the nether to avoid the destruction of real-world structures with the corresponding gate that would be created. Therefore all the gates in the real world come out at the same one in the nether and there can be only one gate in nether that will always point to spawn.

Also, please tell me if you have lag while people are in the nether. Due to the updates the lag should be gone but I want to make sure.

User Webcamfiles banned!

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He was unable to keep his brother away from his account who cam on the server and maliciously killed people by using the trust people had in the account owner. Since sharing accounts is not allowed here, I had to ban him.

Misc stuff

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  • Please remove your shops from the mall INCLUDING chests!
  • I updated several plugins and the core server. Please tell me if there are problems
  • I fixed some issues with the nether, there should be less lag, you should have proper access rights now. Its still same regions as normal world, this will change once the worldguard is updated. There should be less lag now. Please report issues.
  • Minecart pressure plates are disabled. Please see this here: http://wiki.bukkit.org/Minecart_Mania-Plugin/Redstone_Sign_Sensors

Nether enabled! (well… 90%)

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Ok guys, I enabled the nether. Here is how it works:

  • You can build your own portal to get there
  • Going back will always bring you to a portal near spawn
  • Only Settlers and above can use nether portals
  • The nether has the same protection as the normal world, so you cannot just mine anywhere. I will make the nether a public area once I can do that with a bit protected starting point.
  • There is a border around the nether like the normal world but much smaller, 190 blocks to be equivalent of the normal map.
  • You can find the public area equivalent in spawn and mine there if you want.
  • Do NOT teleport people into the server since this might cause problems

If you experience bugs, crashes, lag or similar please tell me.

The new Shop system

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I am currently working on the new shop system. I want to give a general overview what it will look like. First of all, for a visual check you can go to the mall where you can see a couple of wooden structures on the left. Each of those is one shop. Once the old shops are gone, I will make more. How will it work?

  • You can “rent” a shop for a time, probably a week at first. It’s “rent” in quotes because it will be free. It’s still renting since you will have to give the shop back after that time. When you rent, you can pick one of the free locations from a web form (like the lot reservation)
  • When the week is over, the shop will be backed up with all its contents. You cannot access the shop then anymore.
  • When you rent another shop (same or different location), the backed up shop will be restored at the chosen location and you can change the contents and get your stuff out.
  • The drawback: The shops do not have chests or similar containers. All works by commands. You can load stuff from your inventory into the shop with a command and the other way round. This allows me to build shops in spawn w/o giving out build permits, which makes everything easier.

I am currently writing the web interface for this. I also need to write the automatic backup and other processes. The flexibility here is the following:

  • I can expand to more shops anytime, very quickly
  • I can change the rental time also very easily

Future Development potentials:

  • I can setup a short-term shop (1hr rental) or even a flexible rental period with a max time later
  • I can give building rights to the shop to allow customization, not sure if this will ever happen however.

I hope I can finish some of the stuff today or tomorrow. Specially the time rental is quite a big piece of work.

Multiple Lot Reservation active!

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As promised, I have now activated the multiple lot reservation. This means that Architects can reserve 2 lots and VIPs can reserve 4 lots. Please go to the “Become a settler” page and choose your additional lots if you are VIP or Architect. Please tell me if everything works fine.

[UPDATE]There was a bug that assigned Settler level to people after the additional lots are approved. Please check, once you get the approval that you have the correct user level and reply to the latest email you got if the bug still persists.[/UPDATE]

Next up: I will go through the user list and find out who has not been online this year, maybe even since end of January and remove the lots from these users. They will not be given out yet since I cannot reset them yet. Once I can do that (this might take a while as it seems), I will also reset those lots. So if you have the chance now to reserve an additional lot, but would like the lot next to you, you will have to wait until I can reset them. Otherwise, please choose any other lot on the map.

As I removed the mall shops for the outer regions, I do not want to give out the outer lots yet. I will try to change the mall system within the weekend, and then give out the outer lots.

Hacking Precautions

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I have read some reports that a group of hackers goes around servers and spawns items in masses that crash servers and do other serious mayhem. Apparently they are using some code injection that cannot be prevented by the protection plugins.

In order to pre-empt any more serious damage, I switched the reboot & backup cycle from every 12 hours to every 6 hours. So if something strange if going on, please notify me immediately. I will then try to fix the server and if that is not possible I will reset to the last backup. If this causes you to loose anything, please remember, there are no refunds.

The issue with shops

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Here a little brainstorm about the shops:

Options we have:

  1. A Global shop that can be used from anywhere?
  2. Local shops per-user
  3. A Barter system where people work via the trade-channel to offer or ask for goods

There are several advantages and disadvantages. Here are about the global shop

Global Shop

  • [NEG] Impossible to limit what people can sell. There is a risk that people become rich by selling EVERYTHING they can from the public area or from harvesters. Prices can be set to low, this will be a huge problem
  • [NEG] Spawn area will loose importance as a community gathering point
  • [POS] Easy to setup
  • [POS] Easy to determine prices
  • [NEG] Complex to setup dynamic prices. There is a plugin for a dynamic market, but it’s complicated

Local Shop

  • [POS] Goes along with supply and demand
  • [POS] Physical Mall at spawn possible
  • [NEG] One shop per lot is laggy and pushes some people to far-away spots
  • [NEG] On-Demand shops are hard to clear if un-used, shop shortage is likely. A Shop-Admin user group might be required

Barter System

  • [POS] No setup required
  • [POS] People can barter with goods AND money
  • [NEG] Risk for cheaters to steal goods w/o paying
  • [NEG] Required people to be online for trading

What do you think? What is the best way to have a working economy on the server?

 

Bugs & Future Plans

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Bugs:

  • Minecart signs seem to be buggy. I updated the plugins, please tell me if it is fixed now

Planned Features:

  • Reset the Public Area (or parts of it)
  • Remove old users.
  • Reset the lots of removed/inactive users
  • Redesign the mall.
  • Give the outer lots free. This requires the mall to be redesigned first.
  • Make the nether accessible for everyone as a public area or with private lots

Most of these things depend on the “WorldGuard” plugin to be updated to the latest version. From their bugtracker I saw that the features are already implemented, but the plugin has not been tested & released yet. If you want to help, contact the author of the plugin. [Update] I just read some forum comments that the author wanted to release the plugin last weekend. So there is a strong possibility that the plugin will be released this coming weekend finally.[/Update]

Lots of Stuff fixed

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I just updated the server and a lot of plugins. Here are the most obvious fixes:

  • Teleporting works normally now. No more cheese-grater world slices. All back to normal
  • The Chat Channels work again.
  • The Western gate warp is moved so you do not have to take a lava bath when using it.
  • TNT was not blocked. Now fixed too.
  • Probably there is a ton of smaller fixes that I overlooked. There are some in the backend which make my life a bit easier, but nothing dramatic.

Other news / plans:

  • I am still waiting to release the nether and other features. Among others the possibility to reset the public area (or parts of it). It all depends on the WorldGuard plugin being updated. It has about 5 features implemented that I requested. They normally update on the weekend, but nothing happened.
  • The market will be rebuilt I am still pondering what the ideal format for one shop would be. It depends a bit on the protection plugin and how stuff should look like. I have to test it, so do not expect something too soon.

Warp Gates work again!

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I just fixed all the warp gates. They are a bit smaller now, but still work fine. Of course there is still the Minecraft bug that reloads your area in a very strange way when you teleport. So either sit there and enjoy the show until you are standing on solid ground or logout and relogin immediately which is much faster.

AFK’ing on mob traps & harvesters

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Please note that I have re-introduced the automated AFK kick plugin. I noticed some people being AKF at the harvest point of a mob-trap. Doing this is not wanted on this server. Either you are here to participate in the community, or you log out. We do not need people to slow down the server just to be AFK. If i catch someone being non-responsive at the harvest-point of a automated system, they are likely to be demoted or banned.

[Update]There seems to be an understanding point or some magic that disables people to read in the above paragraph. Let me explain again for those who asked the questions below about if it is OK to be chatting while harvesting from a mob trap: It says AFK which means “AWAY from KEYBOARD”. Which should be hard to be if you are chatting. Also, in the last sentence I stated, for the risk of someone not knowing what AFK means, “being non-responsive”. I am not sure what more I can explain about this. Where can you still read that “Chatting” is the same as AFK or “being non-responsive”? The Plugin works along these lines.

Unless, of course you chat in a different game, or with your mom which is standing behind you. Then, you risk a kick anyhow.[/Update]

 

Earning Money

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There are two things some of you have noticed:

  1. You do not earn money anymore for simply being online on the server
  2. The mall is quite empty

I expect one of those two to change. Hint: It will not be Number 1.

To make a long story short: The plugin author of the iConomy plugin removed the feature that people can receive money from being online. And I do not regret it. There are little chances that the feature will be reintroduced into the plugin and I cannot help that. However, I do not want to use that feature again even if it would be available. The system where people would earn money just for hanging around caused them to be able to buy stuff from others who worked to mine whatever they could. This leads to a certain inflation after a time because only a few people would go through the trouble to make a shop in the mall. Once you have to make money to buy stuff, you have to make sure you also work for the goods you want to buy. And I prefer that. There is a certain risk otherwise that people get tempted too much to just run Minecraft in the background to earn money, and then basically use it as a free-build system by being able to buy what they want.

Server Updated to 1.3!

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Ok, despite the issues mentioned below here is the server on version 1.3. I have found the right combination of plugins that works together. The only things that are not working right now are

  • HeroChat for chat channels support
  • WarpGates to jumpt to the outposts
  • Stats & Achievements
  • The chest shops. Fixed!
  • You do not get Uncs over time anymore. The feature has been removed by the plugin author.
    ATTENTION:
    I am getting a bit freaked out over this. I get questions every 5 minutes from people asking me
    “Is the UNCs system broken?” – NO. IT IS NOT.  Next Question:
    “How do I then get more money” – YOU MAKE AND SELL STUFF.
    The shops still work. The money still works. You only do NOT get “Money for nothing” anymore.
  • Diamond blocks spawn a minecart but do not launch it. fixed!

I will see if I can find reliable alternatives or fixes for these. Until then, please report all bugs or missing stuff here.

Also, what changed is:

  • Warping to places takes forever. It is actually better to warp somewhere, log off and re-login.
  • Doors can be placed in protected areas.
  • Slimes are back in the game

Please note that I cannot change any of those. If I could, I would. Asking me to change that does not help this fact, either.

So go ahead and upgrade your client to 1.3 and join the game!

(just realized that I updated to 1.3 on the 1.3.2011)

All crap on the plugin front.

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To give you a bit of a perspective what is happening right now with the plugins, and to show you what situation I am in right now:

There is a recommended and stable build of the Carftbukkit, version 440, which seems to work quite well with everything.

The world-edit plugin is still in Beta-mode (v.8). It is mostly only updated on the weekends. The current version seems to work however. This plugin is required for the World-guard plugin

The WorldGuard plugin is in alpha. they only patched it up to work with minecraft 1.3. There are some great functions coming, some by my request, but the dev speed is not encouraging right now. They are finishing functions on the issue tracker but there is no workd when a new release will be out. I can only hope for this weekend. This new version will make it much easier and faster to reserve lots (and I will be able to charge for them in Unc’s if I want to :-)

Now the trouble. There are currently 3 plugins that manage permissions. The original currrently version 2.1, a replacement that advanced to 2.5, taken over from another guy because it was abandoned and then groupmanager that fakes to be the old one in version 2.0.

The Warpgates plugin was abandoned too (same guy) and replaced with something that is too alpha for me to use. It seems to allow the gates but no edit them in-game. So this is broken right now.

The Chat is messed up too. There is HeroChat that I have been using so far which is requireing the replacement permissions in version 2.4 (2.5 being the current one) and nevertheless throwing errors at me. There is iChat which is supposed to simply handle the prefix/suffix along with the original permissions plugin but also throws an error. Then there is the Chat component of the Esssentials Plugins which required the groupmanager plugin but at least works with it.

However the groupmanager switched to a different file format which is not really manageable for me. The old one was writable with the Horde:YAML component under PHP to give people permissions. So I can switch to the old permissions, loose the chat indicator who is what level and keep my web interface to give people permissions if they apply for a lot. Or I can dump the chat functions and people cannot register online for a lot anymore without me going and editing the file manually.

I have sent several messages to plugin authors to report about the issues and errors. I can only hope that stuff will get fixed. The result however is that I will keep running 1.2 until I have a clearer pictures what is working and what not.