Author Archives: uncovery

About uncovery

Owner & admin of this server.

New Features coming & the consequences

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I am currently waiting for the WorldGuard plugin to be updated. The new version was promised for last Friday, and I hope it will happen this week. The new version will introduce a very important new feature:

The Nether.

Actually, the nether is accessible technically already now. The problem however is that the nether is currently split up the same way as the normal world, in 100×100 lots. This is not bad as such but at the nether scales to the current world 1 – 8, this causes issues. If you walk 100 blocks in the nether, you will be 800 blocks away in the normal world. This means that if someone on the edge of the map builds a portal, he will come out on a protected lot of someone else and will have to walk again far to get to his protected lot. Building a lot there, would be miles out from the current map borders.

So the new version of said plugin will make it possible to have different (or none) lot allocations than the normal world and therefore make more sense. So once the plugin is out, we will have the following options:

  • make an equivalent reserved lot system in the nether or
  • make it one huge public area

The next topic is a consequence out of this. Once the nether is active, I can see how much load this will bring on the server, and then most probably give out the outer lots of the map. Then, we will have 30×30 lots up for grabs. Which
Brings us to the next topic:

The Outposts

Currently, the outposts merely serve as travel-points for the people going to others lots or peasants trying to get to their place for the first time. Recently, also the malls were built there. When the outer areas are given out, these will gain in importance. Once the hospitals work, I can also install smaller ones out there etc. The question right now however is about the spawn points. I can theoretically make everybody spawn where their mall is. This has a couple of consequences I want you to think about:

  • This would create 9 types of settlers. They can but do not have to be visually different (in chat for example)
  • This would give the malls in the outposts more live and therefore more money all
  • This would make the game experience different for people since the places look different
  • This would give the central spawn a much different role since there are much less lots around spawn and much more new players in the public area etc.
  • I would probably switch off the /home command since you then have to walk maximum 500 blocks to your home
  • This has a probability of bugs during the transition, since I have to update all the chat channels, user rights etc.
  • It’s a piece of work for me too!

I generally intend to do as described above. I think it would be really great and give the server more unique features. If you have opinions on that, specially LOGICAL reasons why this might not work, please tell me. Otherwise I would work on that.

Mall Oddity discovered

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Today when building the western outpost mall I discovered that two player who should be located in the northern outpost had build their store already there. I have no idea how this was possible or happened. I relocated the stores to the northern mall

Hiosa and Simmonsrb please check your mall boxes in the northern mall and place your signs. I only relocated the boxes and their content and not the signs. If you can give me a hint how your stuff ended up being there I would be happy.

Mall finalization delayed…

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Since I had to go on an urgent trip, and my internet connection is not very good, it might take a couple of days until I can finish the malls.

In the meantime, a little hint: in the finished malls you can take a wooden sword to find out who owns a box. If the box is called box_a1, the owner is the same of lot a1.

Spawn Mall Finished!

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Guys, SUCCESS! I found a nice & convenient way to make a mall in spawn. It’s not very spectacular or attractive, but it works and it’s again hands-off!

How does it work? I have created 100 places for chests in the spawn area that represent the 100 closest lots around spawn (K11-T20). Then I wrote a script that makes sure that the owner of the respective box is the same as the owner of the respective lot.

The consequences? You have a lot, you have a box. You have 2 lots, you have 2 boxes! Your lot’s members cannot access your box. And if a lot owner changes, the box owner changes with it.

What do you do? You go to the mall in spawn and bring a chest along. You place it on your location and setup the sign above according to the instructions on the “Money and Trading” page. All done.

What is missing? 800 more spaces for boxes. Yes. Remember we have 30 x 30 lots? Well. I will be finishing those over the next couple of days. The good thing is that the whole stuff is ready for copy & paste so it should not be so difficult. The bad thing is that the current outposts are much too small for this. I could not even build the one in spawn w/o declaring my own lot as spawn. Oh well. I will find a way how to fit it into the north-western tree house:-)

Anyhow I am quite happy about the solution because it means we do not need extra admins that give you a space there etc. So please go and find your box and try it out.

BIG update – Notice 2

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First of all there was a glitch in the upgrade and fire spread protection wed off for some minutes. If anything significant was burnt, sorry about that. If you feel that an extremely important piece has been lost, tell me and I can try to restore from the backup.

There is news regarding the Minecarts: You have now these options:

  • You can spawn minecarts by placing a diamond block with tracks running on top of it. When you apply a redstone charge to the diamond block one minecart will get spawn and launched. It is possible to change the direction in which the minecart launches by placing a sign next to it, containing one of the four directions (west, east, north, south).
  • When minecarts passes a diamond ore block they will get destroyed. You can disable this functionality by applying redstone power to the block.

This essentially allows you to let people ride your tracks even though they do not have the right to place a cart on your tracks because of the protection.

Also, Money is enabled now. The currency in Uncovery is called 1 “Unc” or 100 “Uncs”. Sue me for not being more creative. When you log in for the first time, you receive 50 Uncs. You get another 1 Unc for each 30 seconds you are online. You can check and deal with your money with these commands:

  • /money pay <player> <amount> – Pay a player money
  • /money rank – Show your rank
  • /money top – Shows top 5 players
  • /money help|? – Displays the help documentation

There will be more coming soon so you can trade your goods in the mall. Also expect more news on the nether this week!

BIG update – Notice 1

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I have done a BIG update now. There are tons of new features, and I want to enable them one by one. So for the start, there are some commands that you know already that have changed. Since I changed a plugin that is doing VERY VERY basic stuff like /home /spawn etc, those commands have changed:

  • you have to set home again. This is now /sethome
  • if you are architect or above, you can do /tpa which asks others if they allow to /tp to them. They have to accept with /tpaccept.
  • You can use /me to emote stuff.
  • if you are VIP, you can /tpahere to teleport people to you if they accept with /tpaccept
  • if you are VIP, you can /tp to people without their acceptance

Gameplay wise there is the following BIG CHANGE:

Creepers do damage to you now. They do not destroy your stuff, but they can kill you!

4 new Outposts finished!

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I have just created 4 more outposts. To complement the 4 in the corners, there are now 4 more straight north, south, east & west of spawn. Find the portals and take a look! please tell me if the trading chests are not accessible.