Since we have more and more things that are announced on a schedule, I have now included the server time and date in the server status box on the side. I also show now the time posts were done on each post so I can make announcement what will happen when.

I will reset all lots that are currently set to “move”, “reset” or abandon. I will make backups before that, but please make sure you clean off your stuff. I do not want to revert things.

If you are not ready, now would be a good time to switch your preference in the reset page to “keep”. For time reference, please look at the time in the server status on the sidebar.

I know some people have been building roofs over their flatlands lots and with the new map renderer, which draws higher places brighter, those become much more apparent. This made me think so I finally removed the rain in the flatlands.

I thought you wanted to see a map of the darklands mesa once, so I rendered one. It stretches 1700 blocks north-south, so it would almost cover a quarter of the empire….

I have now enabled to abandon lots in the reservation system. If you abandon, you will simply lose the lot and can pick a new one anytime later.

Also, if you chose to move, new guests cannot pick the lot you chose anymore. Since you are a higher level than a guest, you should have preferred choice and got it now.

We have now, thanks to the devious maliciousness of your overlord, dictator, master torturer and all-around evil guy “Uncovery”, with the help of the code-twister, head-chopper and eye-gouger “Azkedar”, a new scheduled day for the Darklands: Freaky Frydays!

(Yeah I know, Halloween is over, but who cares?)

On Freaky Frydays, there will be sunlight in the darklands! Yay! Yay? Well we know all that sunlight is bad for you. It burns your skin. Literally. No, I mean it. It will set it on fire. Immediately. So either you carry a bucket of water with you to cool your feet, fill your inventory with fire protection potion or you carry around seeds and bonemeal to plant a tree wherever you set your foot since only standing in water, using those potions or standing in the shadow will prevent you from burning to a crispy treat for zombies.

The good news is, Zombies are also affected by the sun. Yeah, I know, they always were. Other mobs are not. Ouch. The whole thing will become active next week!

To recap, here is the complete weekly schedule for the Darklands as a reminder which can also be found in the world descriptions:

Darklands Schedule:

• Hungry Wednesdays: Autoheal is disabled. Eating will not heal you.
• Freaky Frydays: It’s daylight in the Darklands, but the sun will burn you! Seek shadow, water or a fire resistance potion!
• Bloody Sundays: PVP is ON in the Darklands!

Here are some information that might have dropped between the cracks during the upgrade to 1.7.2:

• Minecart mania is currently disabled. The plugin was not updated yet for 1.7.2
• Same for Mob disguises
• When you press TAB on your keyboard, you can see who is on IRC too.
• You can now send private messages (like /msg or /tell) between IRC and the game. In IRC, just do a .msg <user>, when you are in-game, use /irc msg <user>
• I have set the server’s time zone now to Hong Kong (where I live) timezone. That’s why the server restarts now later than before. Also, daily events (like the changing darklands settings such as PVP) now follow Hong Kong timezone.

If you have an empire lot from version 1.6.4 (or older), you should have just received an email. If not, please go to this page, read it well and fill out the form, thanks!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: If you want to reset your lot, but are not ready, please just chose “keep”. You can chose to reset it anytime in the future. From the 16th of December on, once you select “reset”, it will be reset at the next restart of the server. Only moving lots will be processed by ranks.

Also, you can see the progress of lot resets on this page.

I sat down tonight to update the mapper’s biome and blocks files. It seems I got quite far except for some tree edges and some other random rare spots, no idea why. So the majority of new blocks should now render correctly. and the new biomes should too.

If anyone is into this kind of stuff, the mapper can be found here and the files I created here.

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

• poke0523 (from CitizenDonatorPlus to ArchitectDonatorPlus)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!

• Unmute command works again
• Podzol is now in the shop
• All new blocks should trade fine in the shop. Not sure about new enchantments.
• There is a new command /ci ( = clear inventory) for the flatlands only.
• /lag is now /tps instead.

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

• XMagnumX (from MasterDonatorPlus to ElderDonatorPlus)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!

The new acacia and dark oak saplings are now in the shop!

I have now upgraded to 1.7.2. There are still some unpredictable half-crashes that I will try to fix over the coming days. Please do not try too crazy stuff. If the server acts up too much, we will have to do a complete pre-upgrade reset. We have backups of everything, so no need to worry, but I would encourage all of you not put too much effort into building the coming days since there are still some crashes possible.

On this server, you can store items in different location:

• Chests
• Ender Chests
• User inventory
• Worlds (as blocks)
• Deposit
• Shop

The safest storage places are: Chests & Worlds, Deposits and Shops. Most likely to be damaged are your own inventory and enderchests since they are managed by a plugin. In case of a hard server crash & reboot, those plugins sometimes fail to write the data to the disk and the contents of the user inventory and/or enderchests might be lost. Since I cannot track changes in those inventories, there are no refunds possible. So please do not store all your important belongings in enderchests or carry them around with you. If you need to move stuff, do so in smaller fractions to prevent a total loss in case of a crash. It’s not that we have a lot of crashes, but they happen sometimes.

(I added this text to the “lag” section of the website.)

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

• SeanB6243 (from Citizen to Architect)
• Puttmutt (from Citizen to Architect)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

• InSanCen (from CitizenDonatorPlus to ArchitectDonatorPlus)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!