Dear Elders, please vote on the Adventure Contest…

I have now closed the voting for the underwater contest, and the results are in. This contest had relatively few participants, and quite different types of entries, which made it hard to compare. So here is the list:

• chrispypankake (Architect): 2.4
• parrtypus (Settler): 2.6
• patapat2211 (Citizen): 2.92
• thomas_dauber (Settler): 3.13
• Highboy (Settler): 3.4
• azkedar (Elder): 3.6
• Xecaria (Settler): 4.16

And here are the prizes:

• So the big winner is Xecaria! She wins a stack of diamonds and a level upgrade to Architect. Congratz!
• Azkedar, 2nd in ranking, gets a stack of diamonds!
• Highboy, 3rd in Ranking receives an early Citizen upgrade!

Thanks to all who participated & voted! Winners, please check your deposit boxes!

I started a new contest: Egyptian Town. Please get the details from the Contest manager.

This time, there are two contests!

First, we will build an underwater city! Here are the guidelines! Comment design questions here and I will update the entry.

Further, you can write an adventure story with the story admin!

I changed the process for contests now. First, they are open for submissions, then open for voting, then they are closed. This will prevent people voting before all entries are submitted or after the contest is closed which was possible before. I will therefore announce a week of voting after a contest is stopped from allowing submissions.

Further, I am proposing an expansion of the people who can vote and introduce weighted voting instead. So Architects, Masters, Elders and myself can vote with the following weights:

• Owner: 1.5
• Elders: 1
• Masters: 0.5
• Architects: 0.3

This weighting is currently only a draft and I am happy for suggestions.

We have closed the balloon contest and are ready to announce the winners! This was really a contest anyone could participate and also the first one where people could enter several submissions. The result is that we have 21 individual balloons that add a great scenery to the city and a lot of new stuff to explore! Thanks to all participants! Here are the winner per user levels

• Settlers: 1st Silver82, 2nd xecaria
• Architects: 1st Psiber, 2nd fingermouse
• Masters: 1st Luklukk, 2nd azkedar
• Elders: 1st Lvasold, 2nd hiosa

Settlers and Archictects 1st win a user level upgrade, 2nd win 2 enchanted items of choice! Masters & elders win a stack of diamonds and 2nd also 2 enchanted items of choice! Congratz! To get the enchanted items, please tell me what you want in a comment here and I deposit them for you. The diamonds are already deposited.

And the Grand Price winner for the overall highest score: Psiber! He wins an additional   stack of diamonds! Congratz!

The baloon contest is closed now, please vote for the winners!

This contest was again very difficult to vote. Specially since everyone built 3-4 individual houses and the whole level of detail as well as the different building styles were very hard to compare.

Stuff that specially stood out for me (in no particular order):

• The mushroom walls in azkedar’s entry really look like tapestry
• The shops downstairs in Plutmasters entry
• The ground floor gardens in skillet’s buildings
• the roof in kddk’s entry
• many small details such as glass bathtubs, funny signs, usage of space in general and all appliances, TVs etc that people stuffed into the tiny space

I think this is one of the most impressive builds we ever had, right next to the noble houses. We had 10 entries, and enough to group the participants by level. So here are the winners:

• Elders: Plutomaster (by a very thin 0.2 margin)
• Masters: Azkedar (also best ranking overall)
• Architects: kddk
• Settlers: Mochatonic

Settlers & Architects winners get a level upgrade, all 4 get a stack of diamonds, and azkedar an enchanted item of choice on top of that for having the best overall ranking! The level upgrades are already done, please come to me for the item awards!

Congrats to all the winners, thanks for all participants!
I would be glad to hear what you guys liked about the individual entries! Please comment here!

I copied the townhouses to the city, and they really look amazing! Do a /warp townhouse and take a look. If you are an elder, please rate then entries!

Here is a new fun contest that should get everyone involved: Balloon Race!

I have just closed the contest and copied the entries over to the city. The town houses are now near the sky scrapers.

If you submitted an entry, please go there and fix it (if you are a master/elder) or otherwise ask a master/elder to help you fix it. The standard stuff that breaks are:

• doors
• beds
• pictures
• pistons, dispensers & furnaces point in the wrong direction

Once that is done, we can start judging the entries. If you made other townhouses outside of the contest, please post the coordinates here so I can later add them to the others.

I finally closed the tree house contest. Sorry that it took so long. Since it was originally delayed due to the 1.0 upgrade of minecraft, I let it run longer so people have a chance to submit it. Future contest won’t be delayed as much if I can make it in any way! To compensate the submitters,  I will be a bit more generous in the prizes :)

Anyhow, the results from the voting are as such:

1. place: Luklukk! He gets a level upgrade and any 1 enchanted item (any possible combination of enchantments) of any level OR 2 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item.
2. place: Azkedar! He also gets a level upgrade and any 1 enchanted item with 1 enchantment of any level OR 1 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item (done)
3. place: fingermouse! He gets any 1 enchanted item (any possible combination of enchantments) of any level OR 2 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item.
4. 4th place KddK He gets any 1 enchanted item with 1 enchantment of any level OR 1 stack of diamonds instead of the enchanted item

Congrats to the winners and please remember the next contest ends on 31st of January!

With the enchantments in game now we have some new possibilities for rewarding contest entries. I am planning to give out custom enchanted items for the winners. So for example one price could be a tripple-enchanted item of your choice. What the exact prices are will be decided after each contest ends but brace for some nice goodies here!

I have copied the (so far) 4 entries to the tree house contest to the city and tried to integrate it as well as possible into a “natural” environment.

If you go to spawn and from there to the city-area portals you can see the “treehouse” portals. From the other side of the portal, 4 paths branch out to the individual tree houses.

If you have not submitted your tree house, please do so ASAP!

Elders, please go and take a look and rate the tree houses!

There is a new contest out, town houses! Please see the contest manager for details!

Since there are some technical issues, the contest manager is on hold right now.

Please take a look at the new Contest Manager which will be replacing the submission to contest through comments in the Blog. Please submit the entries to the Tree house contest there and tell me if there are any issues.

Here is the next contest: Tree house! The overall goal is to make a small jungle city. What are you supposed to build?

Build at least 3, max 6 man-made trees that are of similar type & height. One of them has to have a house on/in it. The house can have connections to the other trees via ladders, gangways, balconies etc but does not have to. The trees should be at least 20 blocks high and max 50 blocks high (with house). They can be as tall and thick as you think looks good and out of any log color. The reason for 3 trees is that I do not want to have simply 10 trees with houses in them. There should be rather 30 trees of which 10 have houses.The base can be as big as you think it should be for 3 trees. There should be an access to the house of course, be it a ladder, a staircase or a hole in the tree.

IMPORTANT: Please make a square box out of any material on the floor that is at least as wide as the tree. There should be no blocks sticking out over the square on the floor. This will help me to copy/paste it. Also, there should be nothing else above the box than your contest entry.

There will be a new contest submission form live until soon, so no need to post the entries here. The preliminary deadline will be the 1st of October. Since there will be some time where we have 1.8 and 1.7.3 running, I will most likely extend the contest to 15th or 1st of November though.

This time we had 10 submissions for the contest, and some really amazing stuff as usual! The main split was between warships & sailing boats, from Settlers, Architects, Citizens and Elders. Strange enough no masters submitted entries. Since there is only one Architect, I grouped it together with the Citizens.

So here are the winners (and the prices):

• Elders:
• 1st place: Riedi73 (2 stack o’ diamonds)
• 2nd place: Sockso (stack o’ diamonds)
• Settlers:
• 1st place: LukLukk (level up!)
• 2nd place: Duckyboy3210 (stack o’ diamonds)
• Architects & Citizens
• 1st place: Knowlesadam (level up!) AND
• 1st place Yorllik (level up!)
• 2nd place: Echo1608 (stack o’ diamonds)
• 2nd place: Dullahb (stack o’ diamonds)

Congratz to the winners and thanks for everyone who participated! You help making Uncovery Minecraft a better server! All contest entries have been transferred to the waters in front of the city. There might be some issues with the copy-paste such as turned dispensers and broken doors/beds/pictures. Please ask an elder or master to fix it for you.

I started working in the boat contest. Since the boats are for the city, I want to copy-paste them over, then judge them.

Since some people either did not follow the rules and some people misunderstood them, this will take a while. For example:

• Boats don’t have a frame around them. I need then to find the corners myself to make a box around it so I can copy it. That takes time.
• Whe I asked people to not put more than one block under water, I did not mean that people should lift the boat artificially out of the water. I now have to move it back down, and fill the empty space with water. That takes even more time.

So I hope I can finish it before 1.8 comes around. If you want to help, make sure that your boar has a frame at water level (not above water, not submerged) around it at the base and nothing else but the boat within that frame since I otherwise have to remove that later….