Note: Since some people apparently refuse to read through the text below, prefer to panic and then ask me for a solution of a problem they only assumed despite the fact that it is written below that there is no reason to worry about anything, and then come running to me with fatalistic comments about their stuff in the skylands and start planning for the apocalypse, here is the TL:DR for you:

I will NOT delete the skylands.

You will NOT loose your stuff if you have a lot there.

There is no reason to worry.

We all liked and used the skylands as they were created some months ago. They were created to allow a bigger space for larger constructions. There should be little land or nothing in them. There are several issues with the skylands now however:

• I cannot regenerate them when they are abandoned. Regenerating them creates a normal word. Same if I would simply delete the save files on the server.
• It is troublesome to delete them once a lot is abandoned. I need to “delete” the contents so that it becomes a void at least. However doing so lags the server so much that all users are disconnected for some 30-60 seconds.
• When 1.2 comes out, all lots will have a 256+ building height, meaning twice as much as now.

The only solution is to simply let it ‘die’ by not giving out additional lots there and hoping that someday we will have an alternative. I have a similar issue with the flatlands by the way, but the lots are much smaller so there is no issue with deleting them. It just takes much longer for me to do it since I have to first select & delete the land above 64 blocks and then do set to soil for below 64 blocks instead of just typing //regen.

Since 1.2 will be out hopefully this or next month, I will not do anything to see what happens. However it is likely that I will in the long run deprecate the skylands just as the ‘old world’.

And it goes like this:

[10:27] unc-bot cerberus4562 has joined.
[10:27] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): help!
[10:27] unc-bot uncovery {Evil Overlord} (city): hey there
[10:27] unc-bot lvasold++ (city): Hello.
[10:27] unc-bot skilletfk++ (city): Welcome!
[10:27] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): help!
[10:28] unc-bot silver82 (city): welcome
[10:28] unc-bot Xecaria (empire): ?
[10:28] unc-bot lvasold++ (city): Welcome to the server.
[10:28] unc-bot uncovery {Evil Overlord} (city): please ask your questions
[10:28] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): cheers n all that 4 da welcome but my best server says ‘cant reach server’ how do i fix it??!
[10:28] unc-bot kddk (city): click that button at spawn
[10:28] unc-bot Xecaria (empire): no clue
[10:28] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): ?
[10:28] unc-bot skilletfk++ (city): perhaps if you deleted it from your list?
[10:29] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): nope
[10:29] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): its there
[10:29] unc-bot lvasold++ (city): your best server? what server is that?
[10:29] unc-bot skilletfk++ (city): then the problem would go away?
[10:29] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): called anticraft
[10:29] unc-bot uncovery {Evil Overlord} (city): well I am sorry I cannot help you with other servers
[10:29] unc-bot cerberus4562 (city): oh ok
[10:29] unc-bot cerberus4562 has quit.

While elders can jail abusive players to prevent them from doing physical damage in the game, abusive players can sometimes still be an issue in chat. Now I have given the elders the possibility to mute people in chats through the command

/ch mute [channel] <player>

I just finished writing the new function for goods deposit. It is integrated into the Uncovery Shop & Deposit system. Depositing is free, however the space you have available is limited, depending on the userlevel as you can see on the trading page.

Please use /ws help to see what functions there are.

Elders can now use the commands

/tptoggle

This prevents other users to telport to them until they use the command again.

You can now check your selling / buying history in-game by using

/ws history buy
and
/ws history sell

Sometimes players are stuck in the void. This is caused by a minecart bug, where the player teleports out of a minecart but the game thinks he is still in there. In this case elders can fix it by using /mm eject <playername>.

Server is back up now…

I am running several upgrades on the server so it is down for 15-20 minutes

I have created a new page that lists featured builds. If you have a description of your builds in the respective forum, I will add a link to it on that page.

I upgraded several modules on the server such as the database driver and others and this caused some email & other smaller issues. It should be all fixed now and all past requests for lots etc should now be processed. If you still have outstanding requests, please re-submit.

I have made a forum section specifically to show off your build and the story behind it.

please note you can use <img src=”http://url.com/picture.jpg”> to show pictures in your posts.

Please note that the command that has to be used to enter a hunger game is now

/warp hunger

and can be used as the old command by masters and elders to start a hunger game. The warp will now bring you to the exact center of the hunger game world unlike the old command with a rather random location.

I have now upgraded to the recommended build of Bukkit 1.1 which uses all the facilities of the 1.1 release of Bukkit, including the terrain generation. Here is how future terrain updates will affect the server, as far as I can say now:

All “normal worlds” such as empire, kingdom, darklands etc will have scenery breaks in them when a user lets his lot expire and it it regenerated by me. HOWEVER it seems that at least recently generated worlds (empire, darklands) will not change the biomes (snow in the desert etc) when there is an update, but also never get new biomes. I regenerated two abandoned lots in the empire now and it seems as if the breaks in the landscape are not a really terrible thing. They occur only in some few corners of the lot, and the landscape generally looks the same. So I guess I will leave it as is.

All non-normal worlds (skylands and flatlands) are currently non-regeneratable. This means that if someone abandons a lot, I will have to either manually create a new terrain (for flatlands, this works quite fast) or simply leave an empty void (for skylands, same effort as the old method, but no islands in the sky) behind. Both are currently manageable, but not as originally intended at least.

For the flatIands, I COULD use the new flat terrain as you know it from the single player for the flatlands, but that terrain is at level 5 and you see the void fog there as if you dig down in a normal world until that level. Since we do not have too many users for that world, I am not really sure what to do. I can either migrate everyone to a new world and have the annoyance of the void fog (people would have to build at least one layer of soil at a higher level) or leave everything as is. You opinions are welcome there.

In the end, the story is that managing the server does not get any easier. I am still running with at least 3 plugins that are essentially abandoned and half-broken and the terrain editor seems to remain an issue for some worlds at least.

Unfortunately, the currently used portal system, XCraftGate is abandoned and now so outdated that it prevents me from updating other parts of the server w/o breaking something.

I hope to be able to find another easy and compact portal plugin, so far it seems that there is no such thing.

On top of that, the current portal system is also running the multiple worlds we are using. This means that I have to change two things at the same time. While you do not care what system is running the multiple worlds, you will care if the portals stop working.

So here is the solution. First of all, I will stop all the portals. Instead, we will be temporarily use the /warp command. I created a /warp point for every existing portal. Please use the /spawn command to go back instead of going through a portal back to spawn. Use /warp by itself to see all warp points.

I will also replace the world management and hope that there will be as little interruption as possible.

I have been thinking a lot how to deal with future world generator updates. We all know the issue: Minecraft updates the world generator, and the map is messed up beyond recognition once I regenerate an abandoned lot. Biomes change, snow in deserts, weird cliffs & breaks in the landscape, and still old lots do not have the new resources.

Now one significant thing has changed. Since the latest updates, I can regenerate a section of a map, even when the world generation method has changed and still there will be none of the new biomes and chunk breaks.It will look just like if the new workd generator never happened.

Why is this good? Because I can now regenerate old lots and not get disrupted landscapes.

Why is this bad? We will not get new biomes and ores in the empire.

But there is a solution to this: I will bring back an older idea we had on the server, however with a twist: The darklands! Now before those who knew the old darklands get all excited, read how this will work:

I will create another world called “darklands”, limited in size (just like the empire), with lots, 128×128 large and everyone will get at least one of those lots. Maybe higher levels can get more of them, I will have to see about that. The moment however a new biome or other feature comes out that is available only in new worlds, I will DELETE the whole world “darklands”, including all lots, chests, builds, etc. Then I will recreate a new map and new lots, and everyone will be able to choose again a lot from the newly created darklands in a biome they like.

Why this? Well, it is basically the only way people will have a chance to mine new ores & woods, get to see new biomes without having to move their whole lot to a new world like we did when 1.1 came out. And without having an additional world every time a new biome is created.

The darklands will be a mining-only world, and all you build there is made to be lost – probably every 3-6 months or so, depending how often a new biome, landscape form, ore or tree will be out.

Why is it called darklands? It will be impossible to use fire, lava or torches there. You will be only able to light up the place by using lightstone from the nether. It is supposed to be hard – an adventure.

Opinions about this are welcome.

If you go to your profile page and enter text in your “Biographical Info” field, it will show up on your user page.

Now you we have a new user page where you can find all relevant info about a user under the “About” – “Users” Menu!