Category Archives: Announcements

How to kill a dragon

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Any ideas how to organize the dragon fight from now on?

Since people need glass bottles to catch the dragons breath and since there is a dragon respawn mechanic now, as well as more structures in the End, I wonder how to set it up in the future so that it remains challenging.

So far I do not delete the end anymore after a restart since the dragon respawns without that. I also found it’s interesting if people have to venture out further to get stuff and explore the area.

Any ideas welcome.

Darklands spawn protection issue

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There is an issue with the darklands spawn. I have made the area quite generous to allow for building to be built. The issue is that the protection also prevents settlers from placing boats in the area. Unfortunately I cannot change that.

Solutions:

  • Either we make a smaller protected area
  • Or we build a pier somewhere that reaches outside the protection area

The spawn protection covers the area -210/270 -> 247/568, please make a proposal accordingly.

1.9 Upgrade status

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So i just upgraded the server to 1.9.

The following things are still missing:

  • [FIXED] Whatever you say as a private message can be read on IRC, so I switched IRC off for now. Obviously I want to fix that, but not today anymore, it’s getting late, will try tomorrow.
  • User locations on the 2D map and what users are online is broken. I needed to change to a different plugin and still need to update the code to use the new data format.
  • We most likely will have an issue sooner or later with the inventories across worlds. Please test if all the inventories from one world to the other work well and let me know if there is an issue.
  • Several other small things do not work right now such as mob disguises, Bloody Mondays and Freaky Frydays. I hope to get those fixed soon, no ETA yet, but nothing critical. Full list will follow tomorrow.
  • Someone reported some chunk errors in the new darklands while it was still the temp server. If you see any chunk erros in the darklands please let me know including the coordinates.

 

Server uprage test in progess….

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The server will be offline for a short while during which I will attempt to upgrade it to 1.9…

It’s taking a while because I make a full backup. Normally that happens in the background when the server is running, but this time of course I need to shut the server down completely, backup, and can then only start it again.

Server Upgrade Announcement

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I will try to upgrade the server to 1.9 over sometime over the next 2 days (Sunday/Monday HKG time). Once the upgrade is successful, I will replace the old darklands with the normal world of the temp server. This means:

  • Whatever you have in the current darklands will be gone. Store it in another world.
  • Whatever you have in your inventory or enderchests in the temp server will be gone. Put it into a normal chest.
  • The temp server will be closed down.

It should not take a lot of time to upgrade, I just need to find a quiet moment. This here is just to give everyone a heads-up.

Upgrade to 1.9: First status update

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So we are running the temp server already on Spigot, which is great. It means we do not rely on the vanilla server, but can test plugins already. I did a test right now where I simply copied the existing version of all plugins over and started the server. The following plugins failed in one way or the other. and I did no attempts to check if I can fix them:

  • SunBurn_Lite (this is running Freaky Frydays, should be fixable)
  • DisguiseCraft (not ciritcal, mob disguises, will install it again once updated)
  • dynmap (3D map, will most likely be updated soon)
  • LogBlock (our grief-loggin, most likely just a config issue)
  • BloodMoon (Bloody Tuesdays plugin, will most likely be fixed soon)
  • bShortcut: (critical, but likely only config issue, also replaceable)
  • Herochat (critical, all chat runs through this, will likely be updated)
  • NoCheatPlus (not critical, will likely be updated soon)
  • BukkitSpeak (not ciritcal,not sure if we even still use this)
  • RateOfXray (not critical, anti-Xray)
  • Multiverse (critical, will likely be updated soon)

So from this assessment, I would think that nothing prevents us from going live on the 14th or a couple of days later. Watch this space (as usual) for further updates)

Temp 1.9 server now live on port 25564!

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According to the rules of the previous blogpost, the 1.9 temp server is live now. I chose a biome close to the water since 1.9 has actually working boats. I did not have the time unfortunately to check the world in a larger radius, so I hope the ocean stretches a bit.

I built a mock-portal around the are where the new spawn should be. Please use that small island to build a new spawn without filling in land on the water to the mainland. A bridge would be much better.

You connect to the temp server with

uncovery.me:25564

[IMPORTANT] 1.9 Upgrade process announcement

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Due to the increasing and very justified questions about the 1.9 upgrade process, a possible deletion of the darklands and a possible temporary server, I thought it’s the best to stop the “wait and see” process due to the uncertainties of the ability to upgrade quickly to 1.9 and just make some decisions and then just stick with them no matter what. So here they are:

  • When 1.9 comes out, I will do my best to setup a 1.9 temporary server on an alternative port as soon as possible. I am on a trip right now, so give me some hours time, but I will do my best.
  • The temporary server normal world (i.e. without nether and end) will become eventually the new darklands of the normal server.
  • The temporary server will be whitelisted and only accesible to whoever is whitelisted at the time we open it. I will not let in anyone who joined the server after that.
  • The temp server will stay in place at least until the 14th of March. Some day after that, depending on our ability to upgrade fully and on the time I have to do it, we will shut it down and the darklands in the normal server will be replaced by the normal world of the temp server. I will try to announce the date, but for now assume it will be the 14th.
  • I might be using the temp. server as a testing ground for the 1..9 upgrade, but this should not affect gameplay too much except for some occasional irregular restarts.

Therefore:

  • You can start taking down whatever you built in the darklands from now on. This is not a permission to grief other people’s stuff. If something is part of a community build, the best course of action will be to dismantle it and store it until we upgrade the server, then providing it in chests for other community builds in the new darklands after we upgrade.
  • We will not, under any circumstances, leave the temp server running after the upgrade. I will consider a ban for anyone who even asks for it after the upgrade. I know temp servers are fun, but if you want a vanilla no-rules, no-lots, griefer-filled server, please host it yourself.

DonatorPlus level removed!

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Along with the changeto have only one donator level going forward, I now removed the “DonatorPlus” level. All Donators now are just called “Donator” and should have the same priviledges as before when they were “DonatorPlus” level. I left the ++ in the vanity, there are just no + around anymore.

If anything broke during the change, please let me know. Also, if you find a mention of the DonatorPlus userlevel somewhere on the website, please tell me so I can remove it.

Uncovery.me fully on SSL now

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I migrated the uncovery.me website now fully to SSL / HTTPS. So all the information transmitted between you and the server is now fully encrypted, thanks to the free service over at letsencrypt.org! You should see a green lock now on the address bar of your browser (or something equivalent):

CaptureIn case that stopped anything from working, please let me know ASAP.

New features in 1.9

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I found a nice list of the New features in 1.9 and thought I’d share.

The new 128 strongholds per world are interesting and bring up the discussion of a potential darklands reset since they only appear in newly generated land. Opinions?

The new end format also raises the question if we want to have end lots?

Depositboxes are now purchasable!

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With the help of Psiber, we have now a new system for depositboxes! Similar to homes, you can now buy them in order to get more slots. The pricing is also the same as for the homes. We further gave everyone who currently owns a lot on the server for free the amount of boxes they could have before this change. So you are not disadvantaged if you did not fill all possible at this point in time.

Settlers can get a maximum of 5, Citizen 10, Architect 20, Designer 30, Master 50 and Elder 50 deposit boxes.

Everyone will be able to buy additional boxes from now on. Please see the commands in the /depositbox help menu for further details.

Changes to the donator system

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As you all know, we have 3 donator levels:

  1. Non-Donators
  2. Donators: Users who donated once (including someone who donated 1 USD 5 years ago)
  3. DonatorPlus: Users who have an active, recent donation.

With the server getting older, I think the 2. level does not make any sense anymore. I will therefore remove it. We will downgrade all “Donators” to normal users in a first step and then rename all the DonatorPlus to Donators. The privileges of DonatorPlus users will stay the same, “Donator” users will lose theirs and get the normal user rights.

Today’s development updates

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This is a daily update on the status of the work done behind the scenes.
Our webserver is completely open source, hosted on GitHub. You can help improve the server by fixing issues here.