I tried today to enable the kingdom. However it requires a dev version of the multiverse plugin which is incompatible with other current version of multiverse parts that we depend on.

What I will try is to render a world and frame it with border and use that. If we do not generate additional land then we do not need to worry about the generation code.

I am also strongly considering using standard lots for the kingdom instead of other plugins like towny or precious stones. I could make larger lots and put them up for sale. The nice part is that this does not require a lot of work from my side and that it would be very easy to reset places. In order to enable roads to be build I could do be leaving a chunk wide space between lots for people to build. Those could be also lots that people can claim to make their own streets.

So let’s make an example:

Lots would be 256 x 256 blocks large. Around all lots would be a 16 x 256 wide chunk, and a 16×16 corner between 4 lots.

Financials: If we keep the cost per block constant, and a 256 widex 256 long x 256 high would cost 10k uncs, which is 0,0006 uncs per block, then  a street lot of 16x256x256 would cost 626 unc and a corner lot with 16x16x256 39 uncs.

To get a 4 main lots + 4 street lots + 1 corner lot you would pay 42’539 Uncs and get a 528×528 area.

Input appreciated.

From now on, all lots will be reset if you do not show up on the server for one month!

I will try to send an email to all lot owner that have not been here for a month tomorrow.

[UPDATE] I have sent out an email and will most likely reset the lots on Sunday or Monday. Also, I made the decision to give the following people 2 month time until the reset:

• All DonatorPlus levels. You need to have ++ level throughout the full two months of absence!
• All users above and including “architect” levels, no matter if donator or not.
• Skylands lots will not be automatically reset. Theoretically they expire on the same schedule, but in all likelihood they won’t be reset until you have been away for some longer time. No guarantee there however.

[UPDATE]

We are running short on lots again and I have the impression that people turn around at the door when they realize that only snow or swamp lots are available on the empire map currently. There are two options here:

• Enlarge the map again.
  Advantages: More users on the server, easy to do.
  Disadvantages: Increased workload since More lot reset required. Longer travel distances, more inactive lots on the map.
• Shorten the lot expiry period
  Advantages: increase the amount of Active users, less half-built lots
  Disadvantages: People on holidays might get reset.

I am convinced the shortening of the expiry is the better solution. The big question is what is a too short period? I think 2 months is too long. We see this with the amount of lots where nothing happens. However, what is a “natural” break people might have to take from the game? What holidays do people have where they might be unable to connect?

[UPDATE] For a visible reference, I now colored all lots that have not been active since the last 4 weeks in yellow on this map.[/UPDATE]

[UPDATE 2] I would be happy to have a 2-months expiry for donators and people above citizen levels[/UPDATE]

[UPDATE 3] I updated the map now so that DonatorPlus Settlers & Citizens as well as Architects & above by default become yellow after 2 months. Others after 1 month. So there are less lots colored now, but still enough to tell me that the 1 month cutoff is the right thing to do.[/Update]

I have now enabled a feature that you can create a nether portal (standard with obsidian and flint & steel) when in the nether, and that portal will bring you to the darklands. The nether scales to the darklands 1:8 so you can make a portal in the nether every 100 blocks which will bring you 800 blocks further in the darklands.

HOWEVER, you cannot go back through these portals! They are a one-way street into the darklands!

I have now found out that even a new skylands world has this problem. That means that there is an issue with the skylands generator or Multiverse. That also means that we most likely will be able to fix that issue. So no need to panic (yet). Keep everything as it is and we wait if there is any word from the skylands plugin team to fix that.

I finally could not find a non-broken Skylands copy in the backups of the last 2 weeks. So instead of making a month-long rollback I rather deprecate the skylands and create a new world from scratch that hopefully does not have the issues of the current one. Finally the skylands is the oldest existing world and that shows now. If I would restore an old copy the chances are high we would run into the same corruption as with the current one. I am suspecting that there is a flaw in the world file that disables importing it into 1.3.1

All of you who have stuff in the skylands can still access it. Most of the areas (if not all) that are affected by the bug have never been built on or are even empty. I would recommend however to move your chest contents out. For larger builds, I will help copy/pasting stuff out to the new skylands.

Now regarding the principle of the skylands: The current issue is that the 200×200 lots are not practical as I wrote before. They are too large to regenerate. I would have to make smaller lots. In order to compensate, I could give out several lots instead, depending on the level.

The big question however is this: Do we just want to have a “void” or do we want to have a skylands? Opinions welcome. Oh, and how to call it? We cannot have 2 skylands at the same time. The name should be something different. Ether?

I am re-rendering all 3D maps with a higher compression and lower resolution – with the exception of the city. This should reduce server lag specially when there are many people online and also reduce the time to load the map in the first place.

Everytime I regenerate a lot in the empire, there is some lag. The server also uses more memory which does not reset. If the max memory is used, I need to restart it. When I regenerate a lot in the skylands, the lag is so heavy that it might boot everyone off the server. And the memory used is so much that I need to restart the server after every two lots that I reset. You can imagine that this is not the most popular job in the world.

So first I started to reset one lot each day. I got fed up with this however and decided to try something else and started a parallel server with less memory, copied the skylands over and reset it over there. I was able to do resets without causing lag on the main server but had to restart the parallel server after every lot. After 3 hours finally I could reset all the lots in the skylands that were abandoned along with all the faulty chunks that were generated some time in the past and looked like normal world chunks. Then I shut down the main server and copied the new skylands back. Now I am running a full map-rendering process for the 3D map. The 2D map will render on schedule in about 12 hours anyhow.

If i keep up from now on with the abandoned lots there should be no more problem. I also had a new Skylands generator version installed and the new environment looks much nicer than the old one, with more trees etc. Also, we now got rid of the “absent since 300” users that were only still in the users list due to the fact that they still had a lot in the skylands.

Yay!

There was an error in the code that created the larger map and transferred the lot ownerships. It missed the top 2 rows of lots while copying the actual owners over. I re-did that now manually for those few lots on the top 2 rows (formerly W & X, now AA and AB). I did not copy the lot members, only the owners. Please add the lot members again manually, sorry for this. If you find any other access right issues on the map, please report them immediately. I have backups and can check the previous status.

I have now enlarged the map by 4 rows of lots all around totaling in 448 new lots to be reserved. I hope that this should be enough to cope with the max capacity of the server. If anyone has issues loading the 2D map, please tell me. If there is a real issue with the size of the map graphics file for people to load it, I can try making a smaller version.

Due to the recent popularity on the server, our empire lots might be getting too few to offer a wide variety of biomes to every user. We will expand the map today with another couple of hundred new lots on the borders. If you cannot find a lot that you like on the empire map today, please wait 12 hours or so and there will be plenty of new stuff to choose from.

I will soon (if I have time, today) enlarge the empire for another couple of rows. Maybe this time I do 4 right away. We have had many new users recently again and more than ever before they stick around, so we have less old lots to reset. The leftover lots right now are most in snow, water or desert and I want to make sure that new users have a decent variety of biomes to choose from.

What does it mean for you? If everything goes well, nothing. Only your lot name changes, but all the access rights and of course the location stays the same. Watch this space for an announcement that it is finished. If after that you have issues accessing your lot, please say something so we can look into it.

I will enable the kingdom next weekend as the new place for group builds. The darklands will be even more so a place for mining and resets after minecraft updates. What will change for the darklands?

• I will stop making backups of that world. If something goes wrong with those files, we have to reset that section or all. Happens very very rarely however.
• I will remove the borders so you can explore w/o limits
• I will disable all warping, /home /tp, /spawn etc there
• I will enable mob damage from endermen & creepers. So you better fortify your builds
• maybe more in case I have some mean ideas how to make the world hard and the most like single player.

So what does that mean? You can continue building. You can continue using the darklands as it was intended. No need to panic. If you think that DL is now not so good anymore for your builds, you can move to the kingdom next week. It will allow torches etc.

Remember: The darklands is meant for mining only. If you build there, your decision. The other worlds are for building. The kingdom will be for group builds.

I changed the map software to now also show the lots of banned users as red on the map. I then went ahead and reset all those abandoned lots, so we have another 5-6 lots free now.

I have put some thought into the world plans and here is the current status. Empire, skylands, flatlands, nether and the darklands seem to be working very nicely and balanced. I have followed some discussions regarding a comeback of the kingdom and I can see a merit in a more stable environment where people can build larger things together. There are 2 dynamics behind this: Initiative & Commitment

If the initiative for a group build is not big enough, we will have, like in the old kingdom, a lot of half-built, half deserted places, started by one and ripped apart by the competition created to join this or that town.

If the commitment is not big enough, any effort will sooner or later die. It risks of working like an economy, where several small companies start and in the end all flock to the largest one and the rest is bound to lie in ruins or to remain a playground for a single person. What can change those dynamics is normally money. If something is very cheap, then a lot of people join in but do not have the commitment later. So my initial thought would be that:

When this month is over, the old “world” will be deleted – as announced to those who still have a lot in it by email. I could then create a new kingdom, with limited size and towny enabled. One would NOT be able o build or mine in the wild, and lots would be quite expensive – something like 500 or even 1000 per lot. This would be to make sure people think before they do something and plan ahead. The maintenance of the lots could be cheaper in return so stuff does not get reset so quickly.

I am happy to get ideas how to prevent to have the kingdom become a building graveyeard. I also need to check how much the settings in one world can be different to another world – so no promises on any of this at all. In the worst case, I would make darklands free for all and only have towny in the kingdom to enable the group building there. Also, if we do that, we can disable backups in the darklands but make it unlimited in size. The nether is already 1GB large, I do not want to have 5GB backups… for a world that is deleted every couple of months anyhow.

The darklands are now back open, under towny management! Check the World description page for more details!

The kingdom was now closed for good. I removed the map and the wrap points leading to it.
The next step will be to finish a plan for the darklands as discussed earlier. I have a couple of things in my head on how to go forward and probably do those over the weekend.

I am currently rendering new 3D maps of all worlds. They are in the proper angle now after we turned all the maps and also in a much higher resolution. Since rendering maps takes some time, please be patient until this is done. It might take some days to finish all of them due to the high resolution. As of this moment, the city map is done and the empire map is being rendered. The not rendered areas will be blank until they are done too.