Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:
- kzr_nvd (from ArchitectDonatorPlus to DesignerDonatorPlus)
Congratz and thanks to all voters!
Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:
Congratz and thanks to all voters!
Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:
Congratz and thanks to all voters!
The server is back online, except for some automated stuff like restarts and backups. Please check if all is as you have left it: Inventories, money, lots etc.
I had do delete a couple of nether files and one darklands file. Most of them were REALLY far out, so I do not think something got damaged. Since we do not backup the nether and the darklands, there is nothing I can do. One Kingdom file got reset by one day, here I could fallback on a backup.
Since at least one of the two HDs of the server has defects, the server is down while we fix this issue. Thanks for your patience.
In line with the latest blog posts, the server will shutdown in 7 hours from now (18:00 New York, Midnight Berlin, 7:00 Hong Kong), but not restart afterwards. This will happen at the same time when the server usually goes for daily reboot anyhow. I will then take the latest backups created, copy them to a secure location and ask the hoster to re-setup the system from scratch.
With this process the chances are the highest that the system will be back up for Thursday/Friday and that there are no unsaved changes that could be lost.
Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:
Congratz and thanks to all voters!
I just fixed a voting issue where votes were closed when they got enough support but the form would not really reflect that. Users were still able to change their votes and thus we had some closed votes without the needed support. I hope I was able now to fix this. I re-opened the votes with not enough points.
Minecarts should also be fixed (again). Azkedar kindly looked into the code and made sure that accidental loops of spawning minecarts would not crash the server so easily.
In the meantime I am still doing the backups for the server. There were some technical glitches and I had to start over. I found some better ways to manage the server in the future in the process, so at least some good came out of it.
I have now (see last post) found out that the main HD of the server is failing. The hosting company will replace both HDs (main & backup). While I am pretty sure that the second HD is fine, I had to rent a FTP server on their farm to make an additional backup.
I am currently copying all needed data to the backup FTP, then I will ask the hoster to put new HDs into the system, then will have to setup everything again and copy over the data from the backup. Normally the re-setup of the server will take 5 hours, I will most likely need another couple of hours to setup everything again. If the old HD is not too broken, there is a chance that this goes quickly. We will see.
Since it’s getting late here, I will simply let the backup run overnight while I sleep and then try to do the rest tomorrow. Since I never did that before and since I do not know if I will be very busy tomorrow with other stuff and when the hoster actually will be able to replace the HDs, there is not ETA for this yet. The server will be down sometime (including the website), and then hopefully be back up again not too much later. Please check the facebook page for updates and IRC to chat.
Recently my backup process is throwing this error:
rsync: read errors mapping "/home/minecraft/server/bukkit/nether/DIM-1/region/r.2.-1.mca": Input/output error (5)
I cannot copy the file somewhere else. I know it’s not an access rights issue. Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure what to do best. There are 2 processes available that I know of:
Any one with more linux troubleshooting experience who can help how to best approach this?
The makers of Bukkit, the main ingredient of most minecraft servers, including this one, released a statement regarding the progress for the 1.7.2 upgrade. Until this is done, we cannot upgrade too. So if you are wondering when it will happen, read this.
Please be aware that the IRC channel currently has a misconfiguration and all chat channel s are displayed. Will fix it when I get back home.All fixed now.
I have now fixed IRC, and all the messages should look like in-game. The only thing odd now is that a /me event in-game shows two messages on IRC. Will have to figure this one out.
Also, I came across an issue with minecarts. If you put a pressure plate next to a black wool spawner, it can happen that the cart is spawned, pushes you out of the way, on the pressure plate, spawns a minecart again, pushes you back on the pressure plate etc. Somehow the new limiter is triggered, but it seems still to cause an endless loop that freezes the server. I have now disabled automated spawning until we resolved that issue too.
I have found that the IRC system is quite broken, a lot of in-game messages to not arrive on the IRC channel.
I therefore am researching on other systems that are better supported than the rather old plugin we were using so far. The best maintained plugin seems to have some challenges however, so until I figure out how to make it work properly (I am in contact with the plugin author), the system might be broken.
Please stand by for further information.
Thanks to our returned-from-the-deadwork resident coder, azkedar, we have now fully re-enabled minecart spawning blocks as previously. Please refer to the respective page on the details. The reason why we could re-enable this is that azkedar changed our plugin that limits spawning of mobs to include vehicles. So you are allowed to have 10 minecarts per lot. Anything beyond that will trigger an alert and stop spawning the minecart.
For those who missed it: We disabled minecart spawning blocks because one could built a redstone contraption that would spawn hundreds in seconds.
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:
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:
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?
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!
Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:
Congratz and thanks to all voters!
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.
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.
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.