The bad news are: The maintainer of the following plugins has quit:

• Warp Gates
• Permissions
• iConomy

However, except for the warp gates, there are well working replacements available.

Also, both the WorldEdit and the WorldGuard plugins that are essential for the server being updated to MC 1.3 are being worked on and there are alpha/beta version available but the bugs are still too serious to install them.

So what does that mean?

• It might not take too long until we can upgrade to 1.3, probably Sunday or Monday
• I will have to transfer to a new Shop Plugin and a new Economy plugin for the money management, trying to keep everyone’s balance (should be possible)
• Some functionality like the shops will come a bit later so I have time to test them AFTER we upgrade the server.

So I still recommend to downgrade your client if you have not done so and continue playing on the server until I can make sure that the full server protection is available.

It seems that the major component needed to update the server, Craftbukkit, has been updated to work with the latest version of Minecraft. However, the Craftbukkit plugin which is managing the access rights to the lots, has not been fixed yet. Before that is done I will not update the server. So please stand by.

As you can see some posts below, I asked everyone not to update until I would announce that it is OK. Some of you however did not get the choice to update or not and now cannot get onto the server. You need to first download the most recent minecraft.exe from the server so you won’t be force-updated. The you can downgrade your according to this forum post and connect back to the server.

I am working on a new mall system. It will be more work, but the current one is just causing too much lag. I already removed the shops for the outer areas. I will build larger shops that the users can reserve. I have to find a way to get those back though when the users are not using them if we run out of them.

I would like to give you a “warning” on the update next week (presumably Tuesday). There are two choices:

1. The software will ask you if you want to update
2. The software will update itself no matter what

If the first case happens, DO NOT update until I will ask you to do so. Otherwise you will be unable to connect to the uncovery server.

In the 2nd case, well you will update the game. If this happens, I will also update the server to the latest version, since this is usually required. Otherwise nobody can get on the server. This also means that most of the plugins and the protection breaks. If this is the case, we will switch to a TEMPORARY map that will not have any protection against griefers. The new map will be up until protection can be given. Then we switch back to the current map.

I have now a statistics file which counts the blocks in the map. I want to make a pricing guideline according to this statistics. I need someone to sit down and think about a mechanism how we can price blocks according to the rarity and the complication to harvest them and assign a price. The more scientific this is, the better.

ONe can start with the rarity of a block, then add a modifier if you need a diamond pickaxe and one for the durability of the block (from the wiki). Stuff that can be automated such as reeds should be cheaper etc. The whole thing would go into a table and make a price recommendation.

Any takers? Here is a sample file.

Sorry about that, but while fixing the malls I must have shot a hole through the server map from the eastern outpost all the way to the spawn on sea level. It’s only 1 block large but it goes essentially through 7 lots. [Update] Contrary to the common belief that this happened from letting my shark with his laser eyes take his sunglasses off, it happened by myself looking in the direction for a second too long.[/Update] I hope it did not remove any chests filled of diamonds or flooded your area with Lava. If so, make a screenshot and I point and laugh at it. Yeah, sorry again, but still no refunds!

There seems to be a big with the /home command. I can fix the entries in the database manually if you tell me that you have problems.  Please post here if your home command does not place you exactly where you have set it.

I have just now relocated all the malls including their contents to the spawn. You have now a 9-storey tower there with all the lots represented. Please go and take a look. Please note that the original mall in the spawn was relocated one floor down. Look for the signs on the wall to know where your floor is.

There have been several server freezes over the last four days. The problem is that the freezes do not throw any conclusive message into the logfiles. So I need all your help on this. If you are online while the server freezes, please come to this post and tell me that it froze so I can restart it ASAP, what was the last thing you did before it happened. Did you see any odd behavior?
Thanks a lot!

Ok, I have read the comments, and thanks for those. They have given me a good perspective on the topics and I have an idea on how to move forward:

The malls

Instead of having split malls like now, I will rather combine them all at spawn. It is better to have a crowded central spawn than splitting up the people over the map. If we ever extend the map again and have a lot of people online permanently we can think about that idea again.

The /home command

I will leave the /home command as it is. If you die, you should not loose your stuff because it takes too long to get it.

The nether

This will depend how the portal making works. If making a portal from the nether does NOT make a portal in the normal world, I will make the whole nether public. If it creates a portal in the normal world, I will either make a portal command instead of people building them or split up the world in sections. Then I might also reset the nether regularly such as one a week or so.