I just installed a new mod, the “Simpleserver” mod. It will be on until we get area protection back working with hMod, bukkit or whatever else makes it possible. It allows to have a whitelist again, a guest level for whitelisted people and a building rights level for people who applied to that too. The automated processes are also adapted so we can operate normally as before, just without the protected areas. You also get one, single, protected chest that only you can open.

The temp map is online until the mods are updated. Don’t ask me when this will be the case. I guess 2-3 days. There is no griefing protection. Hide your buildings. Building them far away will not help. People will find them eventually.

I just banned the user “Sabakyu” for lying about me/admin stuff on the server. He was already on the watch list after spreading false rumors and being highly suspected for griefing on the temp map over the holidays. He today said, after being accused of griefing:

Which got him the ban now. He never talked to me. I never said I would ban Dark. So he is banned now. Cu! Or rather not.

Please note that from today on, it is not allowed anymore @ Uncovery minecraft to give your account to someone else. You must use the account yourself only.

Why?
– In order to protect the owner of the accounts,
– to prevent that users claim that “someone else griefed, broke rules etc with my account”
– users must be reachable through their registered email address

IF you have given your login info to someone else, please go to minecraft.net and change your password to make sure that your account is only used by yourself. If there will be any logins from someone who claims he is not the owner of the account, the account will be banned from Uncovery minecraft immediately. Also, obviously, any account through which rules are broken must face the consequences regardless who was sitting behind the screen.

There is a new Dungeon Zoo & Arena near Spawn! Follow the path to the Spa and through the back door over the gravel path. You will run directly into the dungeon. You can watch the Zombies and Skeletons spawning as you approach through our special Mobsafe® Windows! Go around and see the door on the back! Step through it and have the adventure of your lifetime – but that one might be short!

Unfortunately the current chest protection is broken. Double chests are not protected. Please go as soon as possible and either lock your chests into a closed room (w/o doors) or split them into single chest. There is unfortunately no better alternative now. The other way would be to switch to another software to do that, but that would require all chests to be manually locked.

As a gift for the holidays (late I know)!

I implemented a user level change. Since the new server can handle more people jumping around on the map, I allowed everyone who has an assigned lot to use the /sethome and /home commands. Registering for a lot will automatically give you this command. This should also make it much more easy for people on the borders of the map to reach their lot safely after they died. Please see the User Levels page for the full details.

Ok, I have moved the server and the website to the new machine. We have now 64bit, 8GB Ram, 2.5Ghz Quad core. What are the consequences?

• We can let in more users. I have set the limit to 20 for now. Please also do your part in getting new users on the map. You can post reviews on the minecraftforum.net thread. The higher the post is in the thread, the more people will come. Also become fan on the facebook page if you can.
• We can have a larger map. I have removed the grey area around the center of the map. All areas from A-T and 1-20 can be requested now
• We can use more warps, redstone and minecarts. Use it, but please do not go crazy or have self-running looping mechanisms. I will come up with new user level permissions in the coming days for warps and /home etc

Regarding the resetting of areas: Since the old backups seem to be corrupt, I cannot easily reset an area. I allow people to choose a new one on the map and will blacklist the old one.

Once I have a batch of them together, I will delete the files there manually and give them out again. You can request a new area through the form on the website. I will check if you have another one already and delete your access to the old one.
Also, during the move to the new server, somehow the comments from the last 8 days got lost. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea how that happened.

Just ordered an 8GB Quad core server.
Spent a bunch of cash on it.
Will transfer within the next 24 hours. Wait for super-performance and speed. 30+ users at the same time!
Otherwise no changes. PERFORMANCE BOOST! No more LAG! WHHOOOOOOHAAAAA!

Ok. Time to calm down. Reset adrenaline levels. All back to normal. Act as if nothing happened.
No do not. Party as hell. Invite all you can – we can handle it.

Uncovery – Uncover the next.

Ok, I am back home – finally.

So thanks to all of you who have voiced their opinion regarding the future of the map, it helped me to come to an opinion what to do next.

First of all the most important thing: I got the old map back up and running with identical settings as before. It seems like everything works fine so far. Please tell me if you see any issues.

Now there are numerous other things you need to know. I want to be more explicit how I will continue with the server and why so all you understand the reasons. First of all, let me tell you the state of the server and the software, since not all of you might have been up to date what happened out there in the last two weeks:

I am running minecraft with the help of HMod. HMod is being discontinued. There is a new plugin application out there, called Bukkit. A lot of Hmod plugin programmers have switched already over and the first plugin releases are being worked on. I assume that there will be one or two more weeks until this will be usable however.

Also, there will be another server update next week. This will most likely break HMod again until it is updated. So while Hmod is being updated (and the plugins) again, the map will be not protected (again). During this time, I will switch back to the current, temporary map.

So, to sum up all the decisions I made apart from the above:

– I would like to make the current temp map downloadable, but I plan to keep it as a temp. map for the future in case minecraft plugins break. I expect this issue to end when notch makes the updates not mandatory. Then the current temp map will be downloadable. Not before, since I want to protect the current secret locations from griefers (not greifers, please…) until the map is not needed anymore

– There will be no plugins that support building or that spawn items such as runecraft. If runecraft would build only stuff where you have the material in stock and use them, I would install it. But I do not want to render mining useless by letting people spawn anything

– I will not remove the kits but replace them with iron and later with gold etc to make it gradually more difficult. I also will increase the time that you have to wait to spawn a new kit to prevent stockpiling.

– Restoring Areas from backup seems to work fine but NOT for older backups. This means that restoring a place to a condition before you started building should NOT work. I can make it work ONLY if your area is not touching any other areas that are given to someone.

– I will try to find plugins that allow PvP in a war-like manner so people can kill and be killed only by people who choose to join in. There is a plugin out there, but I will only use it once Bukkit is active.

– I will see how we use the ranks, currently everything will stay as it is.

– larger lots will most probably be only possible if the RAM issue is solved. Bukkit, coming minecraft updates and switching to a new server should solve a lot of this.

– I will write a 3-strikes check for the registration. If you want to get any access level, you have a max of 3 attempts to fill out the questionnaire correctly. At the third failed attempt, you are automatically banned and cannot request to join anymore. If someone cannot read, navigate a map or play minecraft, I do not want them here. I also don’t want to have people around whining that they cannot fill in the questions properly.

– The Jail will be discontinued since the plugin does not work properly. I have a different plugin that prevents to light fire. I hope this will be enough. I am testing how this works.

Hey there, after being off the net for some 10 days (withdrawal symptoms included), I have a connection again, but not too much time yet to start working on the server. So until then (probably next weekend), I want to ask you to tell me what you would like to have after I am able to install mods & plugins again. There are several options. What I would like to say however is that I will not necessarily pick the highest rated option. I use this as a way to get your opinion, not to take commands :-)

So here is some detailed explanation about the options that we have:

• Leave everything as it is now. No protection, PvP on, monsters on, no plugins. Advantage: no more outages after software updates.
• Go back to the old map and restore everything as it was before the update came out, but make it harder (no kits for example).
• Same as above, but with a new map, everyone has to pick a new area and restart building. Also, there would be a smaller public area.
• Something completely different. Please comment below.

Since the game was updated and the mods do not work, I moved the old map to a super-secure location and replaced it with a TEMPORARY map.

This means: Whitelisting is off for now. Building rights are on for everybody. If you apply for whitelist, or building rights, you will have them after the old map is back, too. Applying for protected areas is OFF. Whatever you did, had, were on the old map, will be back after all the updates work again!

I will be leaving for holidays on the 22nd and be back online on the 4th. Until then, there will be only vanilla SMP online, without any mods, protections, user rights, map updates etc. The server will restart and update itself every 6 hours. This means that if there is an update from Notch, it will take maximum 6 hours until the server will be running again. Please be patient.

Also: PvP is ON! Monsters are ON!

We have a new Facebook fan page! Hope you like it!

We have a new command available: /seen <playername>

It will show you when this player was last online! The command is available from member level upwards.

The hospital is finally working!

How? You need to go into one of the rooms and wait for 2 minutes in there. Then, you will be healed! It’s magic!

As you know, we have a quite decent map based on Google maps engine. The issue here is that there is no overlay of the quadrants for protected area and there are no icons for the spawn, people or other important places. I know that this is possible, but I have no idea how to do this. So if someone is able to write JS and wants to help, I would be very happy to get some support here.

I have created a page telling you how to contribute. Of course it contains the obligatory explanation how to send me the money that you saved for your further education, how to transfer your life insurance to me and how to pay off my mortgage. Take a look please, have a laugh.

While looking at the new 2 bridges we built I was thinking that they are not really the most attractive thing either. It’s not only the brigde but also the stairs and towers that lead up to them.

So here is a proposal: I will transfer them underground. We make std. “subway entrances” above ground. The tunnels would run along the borders so as not to interfere with existing underground structures. They would always be half/half in each bordering territories to make sure we do not take too much place of anyone.They would run at about 40-50block level.

I would therefore ask all of you who are willing to participate in that project to post a message there and I will try to make meaningful connections.

Thanks to the kind help of hutchison15, we have now a new header image. The original shot was taken by myself, but the refining touches as well as the font were done by him. Thanks a lot, hutch! I also changed the outer background to black to fit more with the “Build your Dream” tagline. Hope you like it!

[Update] Since apparently other people want to try to make one too, here are some guidelines:

• It has to somehow fit with the subtitle “Build your dream”. So it has to show some structure or image that represents this phrase.
• It should be elegant and not too cluttered
• The title and subtitle should be in the image in a similar way as it is now. Not too dominant and not covering the whole image
• The image has to have the exact same dimensions as the current one, namely 940px × 198px
• It should not be just some pattern but should rather evoke a feeling or emotion, at the minimum should encourage people to build something cool.
• We could also use a favicon for the site….