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Good seed for 1.7.2 found!

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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!

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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  • 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

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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

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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!

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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

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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!

Today’s upgrades

Posted on by

Please see the latest upgrades from the voting system:

  • lilroc17 (from MasterDonatorPlus to ElderDonatorPlus)
  • Arielia (from Architect to Designer)
  • Psychodrea (from DesignerDonatorPlus to MasterDonatorPlus)
  • ShadowAgentStorm (from Citizen to Architect)

Congratz and thanks to all voters!

[Notes:] As you can see from this post, which looks pretty much like the other 2 before, this is automated now. When I look at the voting list, I can see which ones are “done” since they have enough +/- votes, and I can then either “succeed” or “fail” them. I do this for all the proposals in the list, and the program I wrote automatically upgrades the users and posts the text you can see above to the blog.

Since this is the first Elder to be promoted, I can see how all unfinished proposals need more vote points since the vote-requirement has gone up with the number of Elders available. So everyone who was waiting for a proposal can thank lilroc17 for being set back a bit until their proposal can be closed :). However, all the votes that the upgraded users have cast previously now count more, so there is some balance in the system :)

Recent Permissions issues

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I am getting increasing reports about permission glitches. I am afraid I do not know where theses are coming from. I can only assume that it is caused by a bug in the permissions software. I will install a dev build and see if that fixes it. If you are submitting tickets (please continue to do so) please submit the exact time (with time in the format “-4” etc) AND a screenshot so I can track down the logfile and see if there are any clues there.

Deposit limits revised

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I have realized that we never gave additional deposit slots to designers, and now amended it. So Designers get 1 slot more now and subsequently all levels above also get one slot more. Please see the table at the end of this page for more information. Thanks kidcodiwise to point this one out.