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Parkour / Race proposal

Posted on by

I got some requests for more games on the server, and while we are building on a PVP arena, I thought we can start preparing the race/parkour at the same time. Since we want to have something that is not getting boring, my idea would be a multi-option race.

We would have a track where you can race in different directions, with different deviations that are selected by a lever-combination before you start. People would decide on a combination of levers (on/off/off/on/on) which would raise certain blocks and lower others or open and close passages that give access to different tracks. There would be 4-5 intersections that each make you chose between 2 different segments of the track. Together with a backward/forward direction change, this should give some different track combinations to keep races interesting. Each segment can have some different key features such as:

  • Spider web slalom
  • Slow sand climbing
  • water obstacles (diving, swimming)
  • log jumping (if you fall down, walk back to the start of the start of the segment and climb up)
  • straight line race
  • etc

One question is if the track needs to be circular or not. If the start is near the finish, of course we would be better able to switch direction.

What other obstacles can we have? Can someone take a sheet of paper with squares on it and try to draft a course with sufficient length that has those different intersections to branch out the track. For the redstone, I imagine the following process:

  1. Switch intersections
  2. There are 4 lanes, everyone picks one.
  3. Lane one user steps on a pressure plate to open a gate for runners to open the track
  4. The same plate disables the intersection switches
  5. At the goal, people step on a pressure plate in their lane. The first one hit will be the winner and be signaled.
  6. The final goal switches the intersections back on

I am not sure how we can integrate the backward/forward race here, maybe the goal and start need to be always the same, just another row of walls lead either to the one or other. I imagine that this does not have to be all on the same level but intersections can be crossing over each other etc. Any input?

 

 

Possible fix for permissions glitch

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Recently we’ve been having a permissions glitch where users suddenly lose all their permissions. They cannot even pick up items or even speak in chat. Resolving the glitch usually involves disconnecting and reconnecting, and hoping it’s fixed. Then you have to go and re join all your chat channels…

I looked at the code for the permissions plugin and I’ve made a guess as to how to fix it, however I can’t make the glitch happen in my tests. So Unc’s agreed to install my patch, and we’ll just have to wait and see if this happens again.

So, if anyone has this glitch happen again as of about an hour prior to this blog post, please reply and let us know :( … On the other hand if we go a while without another glitch, we can assume the patch works and I’ll submit it to the author of our permissions plugin.

Thanks for your help!

New Empire world invalid, please ignore it!

Posted on by

I have just found out that the world generation methods in the 1.7 alpha version of Spigot are identical to the 1.6.4 version. Worlds generated in 1.7.2 vanilla servers look completely different. That means that the work done yesterday to find a valid seed and to try to show you an early map was for nothing. We will have to wait for a better version of spigot/Bukkit after all. Sorry for the unjustified hype!

Turns out the spigot version was a 1.6.4 version made to accept 1.7.2 clients, not a 1.7 version itself.

New Empire map now properly centered!

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I went on the new map to check if it’s properly aligned with the lot grid and found that there was a mistake. I have now fixed that and the new empire map is 100% properly aligned now. Please take a new look at it because the whole map was shifted 5 lots to the north. You will have a completely different lot now on the fixed map.

Oh, and by the way I am now rendering also the current empire seed under 1.7.2. There is a very slight chance that the major coast lines look the same as currently. If that turns out to be true, I will most likely use that instead. But the chances are quite slim. In the past, when they changed the world generation, everything changed quite dramatically.

Good seed for 1.7.2 found!

Posted on by

I have found a good seed for 1.7.2 where the map does not include too much water, but some parts of wider ocean and a good balance between different biomes. Please note that the current mapper does not necessarily color all the biomes 100% since it is not a properly 1.7.2 updated version, just one that happens to work with it.

Please do take a first look at the new map with the current lots overlaid. I would strongly advise against making too quick decisions now and wait for the upgraded 1.7.2 server to be live before you decide if you want to upgrade. I will most likely put the new empire world live (w/o mining rights) so you can take a look at your world then. Like that you will be able to make a decision if you want to move to a new lot or if you want to reset your current one.

New 2D Map rendering process

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Since I am rendering test-seeds for 1.7.2, I needed to see the overall map in 2D, but had to realize that our 2D map renderer gave up on the current map format. The software has not been update since 2012 or earlier, so I went and looked for a new one that works.

I eventually found one, however that one renders in tiles and is not able to restrict the output to a certain coordinate. So what I had to do is write a code that would assemble the tiles into one image and then cut off the borders so that it stops where our lot stops.

This is now basically finished, and I now have to make the process fit for all our different sized maps and automate the new process. The advantage is that the new map is considerably better looking than the old one and that there are no more black spots for newer blocks anymore.

1.7 preparations on the way!

Posted on by

While Bukkit has not realeased any 1.7 versions yet, Bukkit‘s competitor, Spigot, has released a (buggy) pre-release version. I am using this currently to generate a new Empire world. Once that is finished, I will look at the world map to judge if the seed is appropriate to be used. If not, I will start from scratch. If it is suitable, I will publish a map image with the lots overlayed so people can get a first impression what their lot will look like in case they reset. One risk is that the current 2D renderer cannot deal with some of the new biomes like mesa etc. We will see how we deal with that.

By the way, I will allow people also to chose a DIFFERENT lot than they have today if they want to abandon their current one (provided that the target lot is unused), on a first-come-first server basis. Details will follow.

Regarding Spigot: Aparently spigot is better to deal with lag on the server and run all the plugins that bukkit can run. So I will make a try to switch to spigot, if that fails, we just stick with bukkit.

Deposit workarounds

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I have found that certain few people massively circumvent the the depositbox limits by depositing items for people who have not been on the server since more than a year. Due to that I have now coded a check that blocks users from depositing items for inactive users.

I would encourage everyone to not overstretch the deposit boxes and empty those items deposited for inactive users before they are hit harder measures…

Floating City contest winners, finally!

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So I finally got around doing the floating city contest. Here are the winners:

  • Designer/Master:
    1. aerox247 (is already Master), 192 Diamonds, Bioshock
    2. sleepystrangekid, 128 Diamonds
    3. pagreifer, 64 Diamonds
  • Architects:
    1. baronmanfred (just got upgraded), 192 Diamonds
    2. Rickard2010, 128 Diamonds
    3. Akium, 64 Diamonds
  • Citizen:
    1. XadrianZ (becomes Architect!), 192 Diamonds
    2. miloisgooddrink, 128 Diamonds
    3. wubwubthatshit, 64 Diamonds

On top of that, all users can chose from the following list of items that have been pledged by myself and other users. The preference goes from top to bottom, so aerox can chose first, wubwubthatshit can chose last:

Since the call for donations for contests was done during the last contest in March, I would understand if some users do not have the items anymore that they pledged. If so, please let me know ASAP and I take them from the list here. Winners, send me an email with what you would like to have (one item each) by email (minecraft at uncovery.me).

 

PVP Arena Process proposal

Posted on by

I have selected lot AET_N1 as the future PVP Arena lot. What I need now is:

  • A number of Elders and Masters that want to take over the role to administrate builders. I will add those as owners of the lot so that they can add members that in return will help building. DONE!
  • We need the arena to be built with a cube-shaped arena so I can enable PvP in there without the spectators being able to kill each other.
  • We need a proposal how the process would work. I would suggest something along the lines of the hunger games. If anything of the hunger games does not work for the arena, I need to know so I can adjust it. Otherwise I just try to recycle as much of the hunger games code as possible.
  • We need either several fixed locations with coordinates or a field where people can be teleported randomly to. Then I can program a command that people execute to be teleported into the arena.

Lag North-West of spawn

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I have found that whenever someone is north-west of spawn, the server lags significantly.It seems to be around the lots R15-Q16. I have no idea what is causing it. If someone could help finding the source, it would be highly appreciated.

1.7 release coming – what will happen?

Posted on by

As usual, before upgrades, here is an announcement about what will happen:

  • The server will continue to run as-is until we can upgrade to 1.7
  • We will upgrade to 1.7 as soon as Bukkit and the minimum required plugins (websend, worldguard, permissionsEX, worldborder, multiverse, essentials etc, etc) are stable enough to actually let us upgrade. This might take a long while this time, maybe 2-3 months, who knows – I don’t.
  • We will not start a temporary 1.7 server this time.
  • The Darklands will be reset on upgrade. Items left there will be deleted on upgrade. Feel free to disassemble it and store it somewhere safe so that it can be used to rebuild things in the new darklands.
  • We will create a new Empire map that will be used to reset expired and empty lots during upgrade. Occupied lots will be untouched. Users will have a 1-off option to reset some or all lots they own to the new map. I will post an image of the new empire map so that users will have a better idea how their lot will look like in case they get a reset.
  • I will do my best to upgrade deposits, shop contents and so on to the new data structure in 1.7. This might result to a closure of those functions for a certain time after upgrade, depending on how complicated it will be and how much time I have during the days the upgrade is possible.

New Contest format

Posted on by

Leading the server into new year, I would like to start a new contest format. Why?

As you know, I have been notoriously late in closing contests and announcing new ones. This has caused a lot of contest entries to be erased since users expired before the contest was closed. Further, upgrades of great people have been delayed of this and have been existing only far-and-between. I think we fixed the upgrade issue with the new voting system, the question is now how we can continue to run the contests so we do not lose it as a great thing on the server.

So the issue why it took me so long is the following: I needed to go on the server and rate 20+ entries. Since I want to take this seriously and give everyone a fair chance (my rating power is higher than normal users), I wanted to take time for this, which I usually do not have. I cannot not do it from work, since my internet connection is not fast enough there. So I stated to procrastinate it, with the outcome well known. Further, moving the contest entries back to the city took quite some time always because I had to find a location for each single building and copy-paste the items over. Only that would take me 3-4 hours.

So the proposal is to change as follows:

  • Shorter contests. The time to build something should be max 6-8 weeks. We often took 3 months from the get-go and then more due to delayed closure.
  • No more votes from me. If I do not need to vote, no issue for me to delay.
  • I will try to copy landscape to the contest area from the beginning so that people can prepare what they build to fit into the landscape from the beginning. We can build roads already during the contest. I am not sure if this works, but will try.
  • Winnings will be Steam items contributed by users as promised before. On top of that, winners will get a proposal vote from me. I usually did not vote on proposals, but for contests wins, you will get a proposal from my side which is worth 16 points – provided that you did not get promoted in the last 2 months. On top of that of course diamonds etc as we had it.

So my question is what you guys think about that. Please comment.

Misc News

Posted on by
  • PVP Arena: I occupied now the lot below the contest area in the Aether. We will make it a PVP zone and create a secure drop-in area so that people can go into any arena w/o being spawn-killed. It might take a day or two but this will be a community action. I most likely will give ownership to elders and then they can assign people to help there.
  • With Arena: The arena is too easy right now. Hiding from the wither is not hard enough. We should get together with some users and come up with a new design for the wither arena. So I created a forum post where we can discuss this.
  • Contest: I have closed the contest now and will be giving out the prices by today. People who have been recently upgraded won’t be upgraded again. Sorry again about the delay in this. I expedited the upgrade voting so more people could get upgraded ASAP instead of waiting on the contest. I will make another post about the future of the contests soon.

Help Request for 1.7 preparation

Posted on by

With 1.7, there will be one massive change in the system: IDs will become names.That means, a stone block, now called “1”, will become “stone”. Since we are running a lot of custom stuff like the shop & deposit relying on numbers, I will have to not only change the code where numbers are used in the code, but also change all the deposits, shops etc.

For example, when you check out items from your deposit, the code checks how much space you have. That depends on which blocks can stack, and how much. So I made a table that lists all the IDs that stack less than 64 items. This will have to be changed to list the new names instead.

So to fix this, I will have to make a translation table that is readable by PHP. The first step in this is that I have an excel sheet that lists all the ID’s, new names and how high they stack.

I have created a shared Excel document where I need this to be done. I would be very happy if you guys help me there and take a look at the Block IDs and the Item IDs and transfer the DEC value to the ID field, Name (without the “minecraft:”) and how high they stack into the sheet.

Having this, I can update the code to be able to accept the new names before the release of 1.7 so that we will be as ready as possible when the new version comes out.

Thanks!

New method to request a ban

Posted on by

I have now programmed the following command:

/mod banrequest <user> [reason]

If some user is massively violating rules, you can request a ban with this command. An email with the latest logfile will be sent to an admin for action. Do not abuse this! This command can be used by users level Settler and upwards.

Citizen upgrade moved from 120 to 90 days!

Posted on by

I have now changed the system so that Settlers can become Citizens after 90 days instead of 120. Why?

  • We have promotions now. I think that a user can prove in 90 days if he should be Architect or not. If he/she does not, they won’t get promoted anyhow.
  • We have the space
  • I wanted a method to engage people earlier into the levels. Before, people would be upgraded from Settler to Architect directly from time to time. If it takes 4 months now until someone can be promoted, we need to balance that.
  • This is a computer game. Things move fast. We cannot expect the majority of people to stick around for years.

Today’s upgrades

Posted on by

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

  • u28ds05 (from ArchitectDonatorPlus to DesignerDonatorPlus)
  • rocky73 (from ArchitectDonatorPlus to DesignerDonatorPlus)
  • Big__Papa (from Citizen to Architect)
  • inQuish (from ArchitectDonator to DesignerDonator)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!