We had some severe lag spikes over the last 5 hours and I once contacted the hosting support about it via web chat about 2 hours ago. I got disconnected in the middle and let it be since the lag was gone by then. What I got out of this was the best way to monitor the lag. So when the lag escalated just now I made the right records and called to the USA support this time to get a reply. While I was on the phone with the support guys I recorded these traceroute figures from my server TO my home provider. So this represents the network inside the provider that should normally reply within a bracket of 2ms, but instead I got this here:
1 ip-184-168-65-251.ip.secureserver.net (184.168.65.251) 220.524 ms 220.521 ms 220.731 ms
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 * * ip-208-109-113-169.ip.secureserver.net (208.109.113.169) 33.251 ms
5 ip-97-74-252-21.ip.secureserver.net (97.74.252.21) 31.845 ms * *
6 * scd-edge-01.inet.qwest.net (63.227.225.69) 31.792 ms *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
The stars mean that the server did not reply in time to the request.
From my home I got some replies within an acceptable 200ms, but again some severe spikes within a 2500ms frame, with 350 being considered severe.
So the support there woke up some technicians and they are working on the issue. I figured waiting until they are done is the best solution.
Given that they are in panic-mode already it does not really help to create a trouble-ticket.

On the good side, the server itself never had any delay so far. It is also very likely that some of the lag that occurred over the recent days was caused by the same issue that godaddy has now, and whatever they have to fix will also fix that.

Also, I have NO idea how long this will take. It’s their lifeblood though I would think they do that fast.

Guys if you have lag, please do the following:

Open a command prompt (in windows, click start, then enter “cmd” in the text box above) and type “tracert uncovery.net”, make a screenshot of the results and send it to me (minecraft@uncovery.net).  It should look like the one above.

I got a notice that the shops might be not restoring your property when they expire, get backed up and then get restored. Please all do me the following favor:

When the store gets closer to expiry, please fill it with something w/o value and re-rent the shop. Tell me if you get your stuff back.

If you want to help more, rent a shop for one day put in some cobble and tell me if it gets stored in there, backed up, and restored when you rent it out again.

I have the plan to create a new, parallel world as an eternal, large, public area. I am waiting for the worldguard plugin to finally be released to do that. It HAS to happen one day.

The consequence is that I have to build custom portals between dimensions and this conflicts with the normal nether gates. So from now on, all normal nether gates do not work anymore. To get to the nether, you will have to come to spawn and use the gate that was built there by me. I guess this will be a small inconvenience since coming back one had to go through the spawn anyhow. So I am looking forward to have another world with unlimited resources – but with more danger! Beware what will be coming there! Creeper explosions etc are not excluded!

Since the new mall is currently on one floor only, there is a LOT of free room up and downstairs. I am not sure what to do with it. There are several possible things:

• A huge, multi-story maze
• A dark, PvP, mob-spawning nightmare (mobs that hurt)
• Rip out the floors and make a huge hall out of the mall below
• whatever else you come up with!

Please comment!

I now removed the access to the old shops. If you still have stuff standing around in the old shops, send me a message and I will give you your stuff when I see you in-game.

I have given now free all lots on the map (now we have 900!). I also enabled the multi-day reservation for the shops. Depending on your level, you can now rent a shop longer.

Also we have a new bug to deal with, they might be removed today:

• Iron doors do not work anymore

You can see now on the 2D map which lots will be reset and then immediately given free for reservation. As I said, it can take some time since this is a manual process and I have to be careful that I do not accidentally do this even one block wrong otherwise stuff from the neighbors will be gone. I will go through them one by one and reset them. From what I have seen so far it works nice except for the one or other half-cut tree which I guess we can all live with.

I have updated the plugins etc to allow the nether to be there.
Please be aware that it is not possible to place portals in the nether to avoid the destruction of real-world structures with the corresponding gate that would be created. Therefore all the gates in the real world come out at the same one in the nether and there can be only one gate in nether that will always point to spawn.

Also, please tell me if you have lag while people are in the nether. Due to the updates the lag should be gone but I want to make sure.

He was unable to keep his brother away from his account who cam on the server and maliciously killed people by using the trust people had in the account owner. Since sharing accounts is not allowed here, I had to ban him.

• Please remove your shops from the mall INCLUDING chests!
• I updated several plugins and the core server. Please tell me if there are problems
• I fixed some issues with the nether, there should be less lag, you should have proper access rights now. Its still same regions as normal world, this will change once the worldguard is updated. There should be less lag now. Please report issues.
• Minecart pressure plates are disabled. Please see this here: http://wiki.bukkit.org/Minecart_Mania-Plugin/Redstone_Sign_Sensors

Ok guys, I enabled the nether. Here is how it works:

• You can build your own portal to get there
• Going back will always bring you to a portal near spawn
• Only Settlers and above can use nether portals
• The nether has the same protection as the normal world, so you cannot just mine anywhere. I will make the nether a public area once I can do that with a bit protected starting point.
• There is a border around the nether like the normal world but much smaller, 190 blocks to be equivalent of the normal map.
• You can find the public area equivalent in spawn and mine there if you want.
• Do NOT teleport people into the server since this might cause problems

If you experience bugs, crashes, lag or similar please tell me.

I am currently working on the new shop system. I want to give a general overview what it will look like. First of all, for a visual check you can go to the mall where you can see a couple of wooden structures on the left. Each of those is one shop. Once the old shops are gone, I will make more. How will it work?

• You can “rent” a shop for a time, probably a week at first. It’s “rent” in quotes because it will be free. It’s still renting since you will have to give the shop back after that time. When you rent, you can pick one of the free locations from a web form (like the lot reservation)
• When the week is over, the shop will be backed up with all its contents. You cannot access the shop then anymore.
• When you rent another shop (same or different location), the backed up shop will be restored at the chosen location and you can change the contents and get your stuff out.
• The drawback: The shops do not have chests or similar containers. All works by commands. You can load stuff from your inventory into the shop with a command and the other way round. This allows me to build shops in spawn w/o giving out build permits, which makes everything easier.

I am currently writing the web interface for this. I also need to write the automatic backup and other processes. The flexibility here is the following:

• I can expand to more shops anytime, very quickly
• I can change the rental time also very easily

Future Development potentials:

• I can setup a short-term shop (1hr rental) or even a flexible rental period with a max time later
• I can give building rights to the shop to allow customization, not sure if this will ever happen however.

I hope I can finish some of the stuff today or tomorrow. Specially the time rental is quite a big piece of work.

As promised, I have now activated the multiple lot reservation. This means that Architects can reserve 2 lots and VIPs can reserve 4 lots. Please go to the “Become a settler” page and choose your additional lots if you are VIP or Architect. Please tell me if everything works fine.

[UPDATE]There was a bug that assigned Settler level to people after the additional lots are approved. Please check, once you get the approval that you have the correct user level and reply to the latest email you got if the bug still persists.[/UPDATE]

Next up: I will go through the user list and find out who has not been online this year, maybe even since end of January and remove the lots from these users. They will not be given out yet since I cannot reset them yet. Once I can do that (this might take a while as it seems), I will also reset those lots. So if you have the chance now to reserve an additional lot, but would like the lot next to you, you will have to wait until I can reset them. Otherwise, please choose any other lot on the map.

As I removed the mall shops for the outer regions, I do not want to give out the outer lots yet. I will try to change the mall system within the weekend, and then give out the outer lots.

I have read some reports that a group of hackers goes around servers and spawns items in masses that crash servers and do other serious mayhem. Apparently they are using some code injection that cannot be prevented by the protection plugins.

In order to pre-empt any more serious damage, I switched the reboot & backup cycle from every 12 hours to every 6 hours. So if something strange if going on, please notify me immediately. I will then try to fix the server and if that is not possible I will reset to the last backup. If this causes you to loose anything, please remember, there are no refunds.