I have seen larger and larger walls coming up around protected areas. There are some problems with these.

1. They are ugly – like hell
2. They are not useful. A 2-block high wall 2-3 blocks away from the actual border is a better protection against mobs and intruders. A wall right on the border does not work since your neighbor only needs to build a ladder on the back of your blocks to climb over it.
3. They block the access for other people to get to their areas.
4. You are in a protected area if you might have not noticed. People cannot steal your stuff. They cannot destroy your stuff. So stop this childish “I can build a higher wall then you” crap.

This is why I am starting a “polite request” to take down those high walls and make sure that people do have a chance to get across your territory. Make a bridge, a tunnel, whatever, but do not block it 100% and do not make high walls. If the high walls do not disappear within a reasonable time, I will make a rule instead of a “polite request”. If the rule is not kept, I will remove the walls manually, without refund of the resources you spent on it.

I have written a new registration process, that should make things quicker, easier and give a better experience to already registered users.

First of all, there will be a whitelist now. Registration on the blog will automatically whitelist the user. There will be no more interaction from my side needed. However, there is now a test included in the registration. This should make sure that people know a bit about minecraft and that they know that despite the fact that they registered, they still do not have building rights. The questionnaire is short and not very site-specific to make sure many people can stop by and take a look at the server without having to read a lot of rules etc.

As a second step, there will be the application for building rights. Also this includes a test, and the user will have to actually read the rules, the FAQ and understand how the map works before he can answer the questions properly. Once this is done, the user is automatically permitted to build in the public area, without me having to move a finger.

The third step will be as usual the application for the private area. There will be another test that is more specific than the current one to the issues of private areas.

The overall goal of this is that we can handle a larger number of people coming from the minecraft server list and that we get less stupid questions in-game and force the people to actually read the rules on the website first. The whole thing will be live within the next 12 hours.

As you might have read on Notch’s blog, there will be a beta version release on the 20th December. This will mean that the HeyMod plugin will most likely break. Then, in return, the Cuboid Plugin that does the protection, will break. It might take some time again until the whole setup as we have it right now will work again.

The issue with this is that I will be leaving for Holidays from the 22nd until the 7th of January and most of the time will not be able to access the internet. So if there is no update until I leave, the risk is high that for a couple of days the protection will not work.

On the day the update comes out, until HeyMod and Cuboid work again, I will switch to an alternative, TEMPORARY map. The old map will be restored as soon as we know that the protection works again. It is likely that we do some fun stuff during the time, such as PVP and/or free creative building (everyone gets the /item command to spawn stuff).

So if you come back on the 20th and your house is gone, don’t panic. Have fun and wait until I restore the map once protection is assured again.

To give you a bit more understanding why things are on the server as they are and where it might go to, please read the new “About this Server” page!

I just uploaded a new map for the protected area selection. It’s a 1-pixel-per-block map with a overlaid grid of the sectors. It does not show the occupied areas, but you can still better judge what is going on there. Enjoy! You still need to go to the “protected area” page and fill out the form!

As you might have read already on Notch’s blog, there will be some important bugfixes to multiplayer within the next 12 hours. Also, there will be some interesting changes on uncovery!

As you might have seen, we had a bit of a rush of new users in the recent days that died down again. The reason was that we suddenly jumped up in the online server list form place 945 to place 5. So suddenly, instead of the normal daily 2-3 users, we had 150 in a couple of hours. I could not fast enough whitelist them, I could not assign all of them a protected area, and we got a griefer in, and everybody was annoyed. So this changes all now. I took the server off the list and will put it back up only once I know we have a working system that can handle that many people at once.

First of all, I know have an email system that notifies me on the cellphone when someone registers, and I can whitelist them from there immediately. So the longest time you have to wait will be if I am sleeping, which should not be longer than 8-10 hours.

Second, we will have a map with pre-assigned fields, like a chessboard. So you can apply for field B-9, and have a 100×100 block reserved for you, without worrying about griefers and without me having to manually walk through your area and select it for you. I can do that too from my cellphone if I need to (although it’s a bit more complicated).

Third, once you have this area, I will make a backup of this and only this space. If you mess it up and want to reset it, I can do that for you.

Fourth, we will have 3600×3600 blocks large “public area” in which you can do what you want – without griefers protection though. This area will be for new joiners or people who prefer to build in larger groups. Also this area can be reset to the backup status once in a while.

Fifth, we will have a 200×200 blocks large spawn area with all the necessary features: A hospital where you can heal, an incinerator, a market place and a trading place, and of course the much beloved Jail. This time extra spooky.

Sixth, since we will have 400 allotted areas for users to be protected, we will run out of them sooner or later. So if we need one more than we have, we will reset and hand out those areas that are deserted and where the user did not log in for a reasonable time (2 weeks probably).

Seventh, there will be a process to apply for a protected area. You will have to answer a short checklist to make sure you are mentally above 3 years old etc. to weed out the noobs from the experts and make sure dedicated people are on the server.

We got notice about someone griefing the public area and leaving signs on the sites saying “LOL SUCKA LOVE LEIZ”. Obviously anyone could have done that, there was no proof that Leiz actually did it. It prompted me however to look at “Leiz”‘s stats file on the server. I started collecting new stats when we switched to the new map. So whatever anybody did on the new map was a picture of the whole behavior of this person. There was no mix with stuff they built on the old map. So this guys logfile basically went like this for 46 lines:

# stats/Leiz.txt
blockdestroy:wood:38
blockdestroy:ironore:3
blockdestroy:chest:4
blockdestroy:rock:1617
blockdestroy:leaves:24
blockdestroy:gravel:75
blockdestroy:diamondore:1
blockdestroy:stilllava:2
blockdestroy:tree:113
blockdestroy:furnace:1
blockdestroy:glass:3
blockdestroy:workbench:3

There was not ONE line of something created in the whole file. He did not craft anything, did not place ANY block. Which is what it is: a proof that he was griefing, and therefore banned.  Bye!

Well, not only good, also some bad ones first:

The server is down due to the update of the software w/o having an update for the mods & plugins. So in essence, the server will stay offline until this is fixed.

Now the good ones:

Since the mobs finally work, the server will convert to true “survival mode”. Since being able to spawn hundreds of diamond blocks is not really what survival is all about, we will drop the “creator” level, and everyone has to mine for their blocks.

To make it not too hard, all diamond tools will be for free. But since there are already thousands of diamond blocks on the map that people could use, the only logical consequence will be that we scrap the map.

Yes, you heard right, the old map will be gone. I generated a new one with lots of different landscapes, no more ridges that were created in the last update etc. Also, I will be giving the same space to everyone: a 100×100 blocks from top to bottom.

Also there will be a new user level system with guest, user, regular and VIP status, allowing different actions. So the people who come often and have been on the server in the past get real rewards.

This is the main gist, with some more details to come. So let’s all wait for the new mod to be coming and some scary nights on the server with mobs galore!