I spent the last three days rewriting the backend functions for map generation, whitelisting, building rights application and reserved lot application. I just finished everything. The process did not change big time, but there are several improvements for the users and for myself.

• The new 2D area map is now, as written before, instantly updated with the lot ownerships. I also changed colors and removed the excel sheet which is now redundant.
• The whitelist application has a new location for the code but is otherwise the same as before
• The building rights application will check now first if you have rights already and won’t let you apply twice. Once you applied, I still have to reload the rights on the server manually due to the limitations of the plugin, unless the scheduled server restart happens earlier
• The lot application now checks if you are already owner of a lot. In that case, it will tell you which lot you own instead showing you the questionnaire. If you fill out the questionnaire correctly, it will check automatically if the lot you chose is available (=has no owner). If so, it will automatically make you the owner and give you “homeowner” rank. I still have to reload the permissions or you have to wait for a server restart. But otherwise there are no actions from my side required anymore.
• The lots have been renamed to lot_a1 instead of lota1. It should be easier to read.

I hope there are no bugs in the system. I tested everything so it should be fine. If you see that there is something wrong, please tell me immediately.

I have been working a lot on the system recently and updated plugins on a daily basis. The result is:

• The 2D map is now updating the image daily, but the lot allocation is instantly updated. If you add people to your lot, they should show up on it immediately. If you build something, it shows latest after 24 hours
• The 3D map was broken for a day or two, and is also fixed now. It’s not slanted 45 degrees anymore.
• Creepers should not make any more craters. I am not sure if they still do damage.
• Fire is allowed to use, but disabled from spreading
• TnT is not making any craters
• Lava use is allowed. You should not be able to use it outside of your area anyhow. It should not put stuff on fire either
• Kits are removed and won’t come back
• Building rights are NOT granted instantly. I have to manually reload the permissions, or one has to wait until the server reboots (once every 24 hours). If that is bothering you (it’s bothering me) drop a note for this guy to have the permissions plugin reload the permissions every time a user joins.
• I switched the region info tool from the string to a wooden sword again. It should be active after the next server restart.

If you see other stuff that does not work as expected please tell me. I am today working on getting protected area half-way automated.

From now on, you can add users to your lot yourself. The info can be found on the “User levels” page and I copy it here for reference:

How to handle your lot.
You can add people to your lot. Those cannot add others. You are the owner. If you add someone they can build on your lot as they whish and take things from chests. The lots are named “lota1” if it is A-1. You can add groups to your lot with g:groupname and users with just the username:

/region addmember [lotid] [member] – Adds a member to your lot
/region removemember [lotid] [member] – removes a member from your lot

Example:
Adding the user “uncovery” to your lot C15:
/region addmember lotc15 uncovery
Adding the group “bears” to your lot F2:
/region addmember lotf2 g:bears

The whole plugin system is in heavy flow. There is no final or even beta version of the Bukkit system that manages all the plugins. There are however daily releases of snapshots out there. Along with this, there are daily releases of plugins with fixes, new functions etc. Some of the plugins interefere with each other, some do not when they should. So here a short list of issues:

• /help does not interact with other plugins. It does not list what you actually can do, it’s just a text file I have to edit manually. If you are able to /tp as a VIP, try it out, there is no help for this currently.
• /spawn has issues. While i can do it, no one else seems to be able to. I am completely lost why this is since I manage to assign other user commands to users without problems.
• To see which lot you are in, use a piece of spider string instead of a wooden sword. Yeah, I know.

Otherwise everything seems to work. I am planning to install further plugins. I am considering Minecart Mania (place a gold brick below a track to accelerate etc), iConomy (a basic trading system with a currency) and others. However, while the plugins are changing so quickly, I have enough to do to keep the server basics alive. So these are plans, but no actions there yet.

I have reset the public area. There are now all the new trees available and hopefully also plenty of the new types of ore! Please note that we might keep reseting the area to get new types of ore that are added to the game! As you can see from this map screenshot, I did not reset the area all to its borders. So if you built a bit over the border, your construction should still be fine.

I am revamping the way the users are managed to allow a better automation and a more secure storage for the user rights. This will allow users to administer themselves who can access their area. In this process, we also got a new map that shows the complete world with the sectors overlaid in HTML/CSS, together with all the names of people who have permissions there. Use this to find your sector or to check who has rights on your sector. Also, if you are lost this can help a lot. You will find a link to this on the map page as well as the “protected area” page.

Guys, the old map is back, yay! Please make sure that your plot works for you. The lots are now called lotA1 instead of block_A1 but otherwise all should be the same. If there are any issues, please tell me!

Please note that the plugins release new versions every day now. So there will be restarts of the server and things that break because of interference between two plugins. So please be patient.

Also, please vote for us! You can do so once ever 24 hours!

What works:

• Area protection,
• chest protection
• whitelist access
• building rights
• /home is now set with /home set (details here)
• IRC
• fire cannot spread
  

What does NOT work:

• the borders of your lot might be off by one block on the borders. Please check and tell me if they are not OK.
• Kits
• wodden sword for area identification,
• Creepers make holes,
• Spawn area is NOT safe from mobs
• the hospital, the trading post
• the PvP areas
• /list /who etc
• /tp
• when someone adds themselves to the whitelist or the edit rights, a relogin is not enough. the plugin has to be reloaded manually.

What got lost:
The multiple owners per plot. If you allowed someone else to be on your lot, please tell me. You can leave a comment here and I will add them for you.

I will try to add more stuff in the coming days.

I have just now tested the new Bukkit version, which is not finalized yet, but there are already several plugins for it, and it is looking good. I tested a plugin that allows us to setup regional protection just like we had it before, and it looks promising. I will be testing the whole thing over the coming days further to make sure everything works and then switch back to the old map as soon as I am confident enough to do so.

We now have a teamspeak server running on uncovery! Just connect to uncovery.net and use the password “dream”!

If you have steam, you can now join @ http://steamcommunity.com/groups/uncovery!

I just installed a new mod, the “Simpleserver” mod. It will be on until we get area protection back working with hMod, bukkit or whatever else makes it possible. It allows to have a whitelist again, a guest level for whitelisted people and a building rights level for people who applied to that too. The automated processes are also adapted so we can operate normally as before, just without the protected areas. You also get one, single, protected chest that only you can open.

The temp map is online until the mods are updated. Don’t ask me when this will be the case. I guess 2-3 days. There is no griefing protection. Hide your buildings. Building them far away will not help. People will find them eventually.

I just banned the user “Sabakyu” for lying about me/admin stuff on the server. He was already on the watch list after spreading false rumors and being highly suspected for griefing on the temp map over the holidays. He today said, after being accused of griefing:

Which got him the ban now. He never talked to me. I never said I would ban Dark. So he is banned now. Cu! Or rather not.

Please note that from today on, it is not allowed anymore @ Uncovery minecraft to give your account to someone else. You must use the account yourself only.

Why?
– In order to protect the owner of the accounts,
– to prevent that users claim that “someone else griefed, broke rules etc with my account”
– users must be reachable through their registered email address

IF you have given your login info to someone else, please go to minecraft.net and change your password to make sure that your account is only used by yourself. If there will be any logins from someone who claims he is not the owner of the account, the account will be banned from Uncovery minecraft immediately. Also, obviously, any account through which rules are broken must face the consequences regardless who was sitting behind the screen.

There is a new Dungeon Zoo & Arena near Spawn! Follow the path to the Spa and through the back door over the gravel path. You will run directly into the dungeon. You can watch the Zombies and Skeletons spawning as you approach through our special Mobsafe® Windows! Go around and see the door on the back! Step through it and have the adventure of your lifetime – but that one might be short!

Unfortunately the current chest protection is broken. Double chests are not protected. Please go as soon as possible and either lock your chests into a closed room (w/o doors) or split them into single chest. There is unfortunately no better alternative now. The other way would be to switch to another software to do that, but that would require all chests to be manually locked.

As a gift for the holidays (late I know)!

I implemented a user level change. Since the new server can handle more people jumping around on the map, I allowed everyone who has an assigned lot to use the /sethome and /home commands. Registering for a lot will automatically give you this command. This should also make it much more easy for people on the borders of the map to reach their lot safely after they died. Please see the User Levels page for the full details.

Ok, I have moved the server and the website to the new machine. We have now 64bit, 8GB Ram, 2.5Ghz Quad core. What are the consequences?

• We can let in more users. I have set the limit to 20 for now. Please also do your part in getting new users on the map. You can post reviews on the minecraftforum.net thread. The higher the post is in the thread, the more people will come. Also become fan on the facebook page if you can.
• We can have a larger map. I have removed the grey area around the center of the map. All areas from A-T and 1-20 can be requested now
• We can use more warps, redstone and minecarts. Use it, but please do not go crazy or have self-running looping mechanisms. I will come up with new user level permissions in the coming days for warps and /home etc

Regarding the resetting of areas: Since the old backups seem to be corrupt, I cannot easily reset an area. I allow people to choose a new one on the map and will blacklist the old one.

Once I have a batch of them together, I will delete the files there manually and give them out again. You can request a new area through the form on the website. I will check if you have another one already and delete your access to the old one.
Also, during the move to the new server, somehow the comments from the last 8 days got lost. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea how that happened.

Just ordered an 8GB Quad core server.
Spent a bunch of cash on it.
Will transfer within the next 24 hours. Wait for super-performance and speed. 30+ users at the same time!
Otherwise no changes. PERFORMANCE BOOST! No more LAG! WHHOOOOOOHAAAAA!

Ok. Time to calm down. Reset adrenaline levels. All back to normal. Act as if nothing happened.
No do not. Party as hell. Invite all you can – we can handle it.

Uncovery – Uncover the next.

Ok, I am back home – finally.

So thanks to all of you who have voiced their opinion regarding the future of the map, it helped me to come to an opinion what to do next.

First of all the most important thing: I got the old map back up and running with identical settings as before. It seems like everything works fine so far. Please tell me if you see any issues.

Now there are numerous other things you need to know. I want to be more explicit how I will continue with the server and why so all you understand the reasons. First of all, let me tell you the state of the server and the software, since not all of you might have been up to date what happened out there in the last two weeks:

I am running minecraft with the help of HMod. HMod is being discontinued. There is a new plugin application out there, called Bukkit. A lot of Hmod plugin programmers have switched already over and the first plugin releases are being worked on. I assume that there will be one or two more weeks until this will be usable however.

Also, there will be another server update next week. This will most likely break HMod again until it is updated. So while Hmod is being updated (and the plugins) again, the map will be not protected (again). During this time, I will switch back to the current, temporary map.

So, to sum up all the decisions I made apart from the above:

– I would like to make the current temp map downloadable, but I plan to keep it as a temp. map for the future in case minecraft plugins break. I expect this issue to end when notch makes the updates not mandatory. Then the current temp map will be downloadable. Not before, since I want to protect the current secret locations from griefers (not greifers, please…) until the map is not needed anymore

– There will be no plugins that support building or that spawn items such as runecraft. If runecraft would build only stuff where you have the material in stock and use them, I would install it. But I do not want to render mining useless by letting people spawn anything

– I will not remove the kits but replace them with iron and later with gold etc to make it gradually more difficult. I also will increase the time that you have to wait to spawn a new kit to prevent stockpiling.

– Restoring Areas from backup seems to work fine but NOT for older backups. This means that restoring a place to a condition before you started building should NOT work. I can make it work ONLY if your area is not touching any other areas that are given to someone.

– I will try to find plugins that allow PvP in a war-like manner so people can kill and be killed only by people who choose to join in. There is a plugin out there, but I will only use it once Bukkit is active.

– I will see how we use the ranks, currently everything will stay as it is.

– larger lots will most probably be only possible if the RAM issue is solved. Bukkit, coming minecraft updates and switching to a new server should solve a lot of this.

– I will write a 3-strikes check for the registration. If you want to get any access level, you have a max of 3 attempts to fill out the questionnaire correctly. At the third failed attempt, you are automatically banned and cannot request to join anymore. If someone cannot read, navigate a map or play minecraft, I do not want them here. I also don’t want to have people around whining that they cannot fill in the questions properly.

– The Jail will be discontinued since the plugin does not work properly. I have a different plugin that prevents to light fire. I hope this will be enough. I am testing how this works.

Hey there, after being off the net for some 10 days (withdrawal symptoms included), I have a connection again, but not too much time yet to start working on the server. So until then (probably next weekend), I want to ask you to tell me what you would like to have after I am able to install mods & plugins again. There are several options. What I would like to say however is that I will not necessarily pick the highest rated option. I use this as a way to get your opinion, not to take commands :-)

So here is some detailed explanation about the options that we have:

• Leave everything as it is now. No protection, PvP on, monsters on, no plugins. Advantage: no more outages after software updates.
• Go back to the old map and restore everything as it was before the update came out, but make it harder (no kits for example).
• Same as above, but with a new map, everyone has to pick a new area and restart building. Also, there would be a smaller public area.
• Something completely different. Please comment below.