I have reviewed all maps now and simplified the process of generating them. As a consequence we now have lot maps for all user lots in all worlds, including corner and street lots in the empire. Now the heatmap and the locations of users on the map is now 100% accurate, too.

I have now managed to get the creator of the 2D rendering engine to fix the last bugs and so our 2D map is now hopefully free of errors. If you ever see bright pink pixels on the map, please tell me then I can fix those.

Regarding the lot reset process, we have written this nice process now and will use it in the future. As you know, all users who have not yet reset their lot will have the possibility to still do so in the future. The interesting thing about the process is that we will be able to use it also for all future world generation updates in all worlds where lots are given out.

I am currently working on the next version of the system that we wrote to be able to deal with any lot & world we like. It will store the current version of any lot (for example, the current skyblock and flatlands is version “1”, empire upgraded from 1.2.1 to 1.7.2, skylands is still 1.2.1) and the moment I tell the system that there is a new version available, the lots of older version become upgradeable. For the flatlands we can introduce lots for example that re automatically framed with white wool, skyblock with different configuations, aether with new biomes etc etc.

Once that is done, every new feature that was brought in by 1.7.2 is finished and we can continue working on the “normal” stuff again such as the PVP/Wither arenas etc.

There was an error in the lot reset code: all lots that have been reset 30 hours ago, have been reset again. So anybody who worked on a reset lot in the 24 hours before the last restart 6 hours ago, lost that work with that last restart.

I am currently restoring the last backup that we made 6 hours ago and will restore all of those affected lots. Please stand by until this is done. I will update here again once I am finished.

[Update]

I have managed to restore all lots that have been reset twice. So the final status is this:

• All lots that have not been reset 30 hours ago are unaffected.
• All lots that have been reset 30 hours ago have been restored to the status 6 hours ago.

Sorry for those that have been working during the last 6 hours on their lots, but I think the number is VERY small. Only one person notified me of the issue in the first place. The error was on my side since I did not properly introduce a check so that lots would not reset twice. Oh well.

Thanks to all who have already now submitted the choices for their lot as reset, abandon or move. We could clean up a very large part of the empire and the whole map looks much better now.

As you know, it is never too late to reset, abandon or remove your lot even now. Just make sure that you are ready, fill out the form (you can find it later in the Access-menu) and your choice will be executed with the next server restart (daily 16:00 HKT time).

This option will be available to you indefinetely, and to everyone again when the next severe biome change comes along with a new minecraft version.

After I have figured that there were some issues with the 2D renderer not painting the 1.7.2 blocks, I tried to find out what was going on. I tried to write my own datafile to fix this, and finally managed to get some good results. However, there were still some issues left so I asked the dev of the software to show better debug info. I now managed to finish all the block information for 1.7.2 but there are still biomes not showing properly as you will realize on the empire 2D map. I am waiting for a reply of the developer to fix that. In the meantime I also got him to add the feature to limit the map in size to the renderer so that I can remove some of the code I have written to do so. So since the dev replies quite quickly to these requests, I have hope that latest by tomorrow we should have a 100% working 2D map with all blocks and biomes included and no more pink areas on the map.

I have seen some days ago on reddit a post on how to permanently trigger redstone lamps with an arrow and a pressure plate.Today a user asked me if it was OK to use that.

I won’t give instructions here but it relies on an arrow being shot so that it will never despawn and permanently sending trigger commands to the pressure plate. These contraptions create entities (the arrow) and permanent action on the server, which both create unneccessary lag.

So I am asking you to generally NOT do anything that looks like a “cool hack” but stick to standard minecraft behavior instead. If you are in doubt if what you are doing is standard minecraft stuff, please either check the minecraft wiki or post it to the forum and you will get an opinion on it. If I discover heavy abuse this might result in a ban.

Since we have more and more things that are announced on a schedule, I have now included the server time and date in the server status box on the side. I also show now the time posts were done on each post so I can make announcement what will happen when.

I will reset all lots that are currently set to “move”, “reset” or abandon. I will make backups before that, but please make sure you clean off your stuff. I do not want to revert things.

If you are not ready, now would be a good time to switch your preference in the reset page to “keep”. For time reference, please look at the time in the server status on the sidebar.

I know some people have been building roofs over their flatlands lots and with the new map renderer, which draws higher places brighter, those become much more apparent. This made me think so I finally removed the rain in the flatlands.

I thought you wanted to see a map of the darklands mesa once, so I rendered one. It stretches 1700 blocks north-south, so it would almost cover a quarter of the empire….

I have now enabled to abandon lots in the reservation system. If you abandon, you will simply lose the lot and can pick a new one anytime later.

Also, if you chose to move, new guests cannot pick the lot you chose anymore. Since you are a higher level than a guest, you should have preferred choice and got it now.

We have now, thanks to the devious maliciousness of your overlord, dictator, master torturer and all-around evil guy “Uncovery”, with the help of the code-twister, head-chopper and eye-gouger “Azkedar”, a new scheduled day for the Darklands: Freaky Frydays!

(Yeah I know, Halloween is over, but who cares?)

On Freaky Frydays, there will be sunlight in the darklands! Yay! Yay? Well we know all that sunlight is bad for you. It burns your skin. Literally. No, I mean it. It will set it on fire. Immediately. So either you carry a bucket of water with you to cool your feet, fill your inventory with fire protection potion or you carry around seeds and bonemeal to plant a tree wherever you set your foot since only standing in water, using those potions or standing in the shadow will prevent you from burning to a crispy treat for zombies.

The good news is, Zombies are also affected by the sun. Yeah, I know, they always were. Other mobs are not. Ouch. The whole thing will become active next week!

To recap, here is the complete weekly schedule for the Darklands as a reminder which can also be found in the world descriptions:

Darklands Schedule:

• Hungry Wednesdays: Autoheal is disabled. Eating will not heal you.
• Freaky Frydays: It’s daylight in the Darklands, but the sun will burn you! Seek shadow, water or a fire resistance potion!
• Bloody Sundays: PVP is ON in the Darklands!

Here are some information that might have dropped between the cracks during the upgrade to 1.7.2:

• Minecart mania is currently disabled. The plugin was not updated yet for 1.7.2
• Same for Mob disguises
• When you press TAB on your keyboard, you can see who is on IRC too.
• You can now send private messages (like /msg or /tell) between IRC and the game. In IRC, just do a .msg <user>, when you are in-game, use /irc msg <user>
• I have set the server’s time zone now to Hong Kong (where I live) timezone. That’s why the server restarts now later than before. Also, daily events (like the changing darklands settings such as PVP) now follow Hong Kong timezone.

If you have an empire lot from version 1.6.4 (or older), you should have just received an email. If not, please go to this page, read it well and fill out the form, thanks!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: If you want to reset your lot, but are not ready, please just chose “keep”. You can chose to reset it anytime in the future. From the 16th of December on, once you select “reset”, it will be reset at the next restart of the server. Only moving lots will be processed by ranks.

Also, you can see the progress of lot resets on this page.

I sat down tonight to update the mapper’s biome and blocks files. It seems I got quite far except for some tree edges and some other random rare spots, no idea why. So the majority of new blocks should now render correctly. and the new biomes should too.

If anyone is into this kind of stuff, the mapper can be found here and the files I created here.

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

• poke0523 (from CitizenDonatorPlus to ArchitectDonatorPlus)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!

• Unmute command works again
• Podzol is now in the shop
• All new blocks should trade fine in the shop. Not sure about new enchantments.
• There is a new command /ci ( = clear inventory) for the flatlands only.
• /lag is now /tps instead.

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

• XMagnumX (from MasterDonatorPlus to ElderDonatorPlus)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!

The new acacia and dark oak saplings are now in the shop!