I will be on a trip for the coming 2 weeks (Half business, half holiday), but I should have time to check in for any issues there might be. So while I might not be on IRC or in the game, if you open a ticket, I will be able to fix stuff within a couple of hours at least!

Also, I installed tapatalk for the forum, so it is easier to use it from mobile devices. On top of that, I did a couple of fixes to the website. Since I updated PHP to a new version a couple of days ago, I inadvertently broke some pages that new needed changes in the code with the new version. I fixed the code and moved stuff back where it belonged. If you find any other glitches, please let me know.

I have now setup the requirement to be registered before you can type in the IRC channel. Of course, if you are in-game, anything you say will be visible in the IRC channel, no matter if you are registered there or not. Sorry that this was neccessary.

Here is again an instruction how to do that.

I got a request to make an alias for /suicide since some people did not feel like killing themselves virtually. So now you can also use /respawn instead. Same effect. Just a different command for it. You still get a message that you killed yourself though.

Since I promised it, here are the photos from my holidays. All images on page one are from this holidays, if you click “Next” you can see some older diving images. Some of these images are quite rare from my point of view, and I was really lucky for some of the animals we see, that we could see them so close or at all.

Since we had some banned people harassing players via IRC, I will set the IRC channel to require registration. You will have to be registered with the freenode network to talk in the channel. You can do so by typing:

/msg nickserv help register

and reading the manual or by typing directly

/msg nickserv REGISTER password your.email@address.com

after changing the last two items in the line above to your password and email address. So far everything works as usual, but

FYI I will make an attempt to reset the contest to the state it was on 24th Dec to fix all the damage done to the contest entries.

The latest snapshot is up and there is a new nether ore in there. The one way to get that ore would be a nether reset.

I know that we had this discussion before and I got some pretty emotional email regarding this topic. However this time I do not think there is a way around this.

There is a kickstarter project to revive the original ELITE game from 1984. If you remember this, you were part of the REAL pioneering times of PC gaming. If not, it’s basically the space combat version of Minecraft with an endless, procedurally created universe. Here is a screenshot of the 1984 version:

The original designers work on it and it is looking great so far. They are short of just a couple of percent for their funding goal, but the end is approaching fast. I backed them already. If you are into space games, you should check this out by clicking on this banner:

For those who are wondering if I am spending the funds donated for the minecraft server for this: No, I do not. I pre-paid the server already for 2 full years since there is a huge discount for that. Whatever you donate now to me only helps to pay back whatever I paid already for the server.

I have been off diving again and here are two images and also the first time a video since I bought a GoPro… So there is a Whale Shark and a Leopard (or Zebra) Shark on the second image and the video.

So as you can see I am having fun :) Will be back on the server on the 2nd…

I will be gone from tomorrow afternoon until 2nd Of January. I am sure the server will hold up just as it did over the past months. Have a nice time and see you all in the new year!

Once again, it’s happened. The new release of MC, 1.4.6, is not backwards-compatible with 1.4.5. The server is still running 1.4.5. So, if you want to continue to play on this server, either do not upgrade, or be prepared to downgrade.

As usual, we are waiting on a stable build of Bukkit for 1.4.6 before we can upgrade the server.

Some of us have been talking and came up with an idea to sort of give guidelines for how to enforce rules and encourage good behavior in a way that’s healthy for our community. We came up with this:

Suggested Code of Conduct

We hope that by giving all players suggestions to act more consistently, it’ll reduce tensions and drama and generally keep our server the great place we love. Many of us were already doing some or all of the things we recommend, and mostly it is common sense stuff, but we felt it would be helpful to lay it all out.

I now created an area around the darklands spawn that just about encompasses the buildings around spawn and a couple of blocks more. I marked some points along the border with pink wool. Feel free to make the border nicer or better visible. Settlers should not be able to build there, anyone else should. Please someone confirm.

I am tempted (as a completely different topic of the previous 2 posts) to make the darklands even harder than they are now without the torches. I have come across 2 plugins recently that allow a fine grained list of additional factors that make stuff even harder. While I do not plan to make it so hard that it becomes impossible, I am not sure that the current darklands is really that much harder than the normal game, now that we have ender chests etc. The tow plugins are Monster Apocalypse and Extra Hard Mode.

If you are interested in this topic, please reply here with a comment and name the 1-3 most interesting features that you think would make the darklands more hard, but also more fun. We can then decide if we want to do that, and what we want to change.

As always, if we change something, we are always free to learn and improve it in case it becomes too hard or otherwise not as we want it. So please keep an open mind for this.

For those unaware, it is now possible to buy the head of a vanquished opponent for 1000 uncs after you win a hunger game. See the hunger games page (scroll to bottom) for details.

IMPORTANT!

• The heads you pay for as trophies, once placed, cannot be picked up. EDIT: The heads can now be picked up! However, they do not drop. They are teleported instantly into an empty slot in your inventory. If you do not have an empty slot in your inventory when you break one, it will be gone for good.
• The heads cannot be moved through shop or deposit. Doing so will result in nothing but a regular steve head coming out.

I finally now had the time to close the open contests. So here are the results:

Settlers:

1. Underbridge  – also overall winner! Wins level upgrade and stack of diamonds & a beacon
2. stevenanthony – wins stack of diamonds!

Citizen:

1. oAlb: wins level upgrade and stack of Diamonds!
2. Kevinpowellaz: wins stack of diamonds!

Architect:

1. Aerox247: wins level upgrade & stack of diamonds!
2. Psychodrea: wins stack of diamonds!

Elders:

1. Azkedar: wins 2 stacks of diamonds!
2. Sockso: wins stack of diamonds!

Because this was the 2 year anniversary contest, I wanted to give something special as a thanks for everyone who submitted an entry. So everyone on top of this receives 1 pair of the 3 normally unavailable mob heads. Please check your inventory for the rewards!

Regarding the long, long pending parkour contest: I am really sorry that this took that long. It was partly me being busy & lazy, and partly issues with users submitting stuff improperly etc. So as a thanks for the patience I will give each of the participants a stack of diamonds.

We’ve installed a new shop update, which changes the way a couple of commands work, and introduces a couple of new commands. The idea is to make it easier to get information out of the shop’s history and about current listings. The trading page has been updated with the changes and new commands. But, to summarize:

• Improved (hopefully) in-game help text for many commands
• Shop announcements now include the shop-id of the new request or offer, if available Edit: Works all the time now.
• You can now add the word check to your command when buying, selling, offering or requesting. This will do a “dry run”, showing you what will happen with that command without actually moving any money, items, or announcements. This is useful for “checking” that you have the right command. For example: /buy 21831 check will show you what would happen if you did /buy 21831, so you can be sure your shop-id is right. If everything is okay, just hit up-arrow and delete the “check” to do it for real!
• The /history command now works on items, e.g. /history glowstone. Note: There is currently a bug with /history sell, looking into that.
• The /find command is more flexible now. You can now search for specific enchantments, or for items above or below a certain price, and you can use these in combination. For exmaple, /find diamondsword ench:sharp <1000 will find any diamondswords for sale for under 1000 uncs with a Sharpness enchantment.
• /find @new is now the default, so just do /find r to find requests.Use /find new without an at sign for new items now. Also look for enchantments now with /find ench (without an @ sign). Edit: The ability to find the item in hand was re-added as before.
• The Shop Data web page now shows the enchantments in the “History” query, so you can see why one diamondpick sold for 2000 and another only 600.
• New command: /info gives you summary of completed sales with many flexible options. By default, shows you the top 10 items sold in the past week, sorted by total value in uncs. But it can also, for example, do /info sellers diamond 90, which tells you the top 10 players who sold diamond in the past 90 days, sorted by total value of their sales. See the shop page for more details.

Note: There is a bug with the buyer: and seller: arguments, looking into that too.

• New command: /trend gives you information on price trends. Never again have to guess what an item is worth based on current shop listings! This compares the completed sales in past week with the week before to show changes in price, by default showing the 10 items with the most change. This means that if you buy someone out to repost their sales at a higher price, you are driving down the average price, so beware! You can of course ask for the price trend on a specific item, for example /trend diamond. The length of the periods and the amount of sales to require for a trend is also configurable, see the shop page for more details.

I hope these changes are useful. Any bug reports, suggestions, or complaints can be directed to me (azkedar) or to Uncovery himself. Actually, save the complaints for me exclusively. ;)

Congratz!

Congratz!