Dear all,

we have now upgraded to 1.14.4 but there are still bugs around. I would like to ask you to try out everything on the server and let me know what does not work.

Specially, I know that there is still a bug somewhere with inventories. There are some inventory issues where some item combinations are causing commands to malfunction for the user. So if commands stop working for you, please do the following:

1. Check if others have the same issue, if commands crashed for the whole server. If so, please send me a message.
2. If it’s only for you, please empty all your inventory into a box and try some commands, relogin.
3. If commands start working for you again, please leave the chest with your inventory as-is and send me a message with the coordinates. I will then try to replicate the issue and fix it. You’ll get your stuff back later.

I have managed to import a list of all the new items in the shop now. I did not have a chance to test all of them, but it most of them should work. If you get any errors, please let me know ASAP.

so 1.14.4 is online, and seems to be working fine.

What does NOT work is shop/deposit for the new blocks. You can put them in but cannot get them out. So please do not try. I will do my best to fix this tomorrow.

Please report here if you find anything else that does not work, thanks!

I have yesterday managed to run a test server of 14.4 and upgrade websend to work with that version. So we are on a good path to be able to upgrade. I will test additional plugins today to make sure we have core functionality before upgrading the server itself.

Dear all, just to keep you up to date, I will try to update the server to 14.3 in the course of next week.

I have fixed the /find command. It should now output reliable results. Please let me know if there are issues.

Please note that enchanted stuff along with potions etc are not yet reliable. I will have to spend some more time to work on those.

Clear?

Ok, so in other words: 1.14.1 spigot is still in development anyhow, and vanilla 1.14.1 is reported to be very laggy. So we will wait until vanilla 1.14.2, hope that that one is better, then we wait until the spigot release is reliable and then update.

Hey everyone!

given that we just upgraded the darklands to 1.13 and as there are no significant upgrades in the world generation, I have decided that there will be no temporary 1.14 server. We will upgrade the main server as soon as technically possible (as usual).

Please be patient until the first stable 1.14 spigot builds are out.

Thanks!

Uncovery

Hey all, I am right now on vacation until Monday so there will be nothing happening in terms of the 1.14 update information until then.

Once I am back home, I’ll take a look at the situation and update news then. Until then, the server is running 1.13.

Thanks for your patience!

Uncovery

I have done some research now on the item icons and found a nice way to get a 99.5% full set of all block and item icons. I am using the update item name page of the wiki and parse the data to get all the icons from there.

So the shop manager now has a full list of all icons. Yay!

As you remember, we had, in the past, often the issue that new blocks being added to incoming minecraft versions and I used to create online Excel sheets for people to help me fill in the data.

Since 1.13, I had the hope that a new project that tries to get this data straight out of the minecraft files would solve this issue. While this project made it easier to get the current item names and their proper names, the other information given is often incomplete or plain wrong. For example, there is no data about which items are creative-only, the stack size is wrong for many items, and we have the issue that there are “items” and “blocks”, blocks become items when you mine them etc. While I have been submitting bug reports, the issues have not been fixed over the last months and we are close to being forced to go back to a manual system.

What are the consequences of this?

• We cannot give out “random items” in the lottery since we would have to curate a massive list of items that should be available to make sure you don’t get something you should not.
• Deposit withdrawals are a risk if you accidentally withdraw something in a quantity that does not fit into your inventory. This only affects stuff that stacks less than 64 items, but this still can be tricky since the rest just drops to the floor. You can only hope you’re not standing near lava.
• Shop/deposit display might be broken

So here are the options:

• We keep everything as it is and just live with it – no work, all the hassle
• Someone who has the time and java knowledge gets involved in the above and helps fix it – this is the most sustainable way. No idea how complex.
• We dump the current system and move to excel files again – some hours of work now, again for every version. I need to create the excel, ask & educate people how to use it and then convert the data for use in-game
• We create a new system that let’s us crowdsource the information via a better interface. Changes would be live more or less immediately – lots of work now, then only small incremental stuff going forward. Ideally someone with PHP knowledge would help me here.

So this is just and FYI update. If you like to get involved, let me know.

Dear all,

there has been a bug in the lottery. It has been giving out items that are normally not available in the game. Those items might be mob eggs or other non-survival play items & blocks.

If you have received such an item, please destroy it ASAP. I have for now disabled the “random item” lottery winnings until I find a sustainable fix for this.

So as you might have noticed from the 2D map, we now have a new empire. All empty lots have been reset and now have full 1.13 features, ores and biomes. This includes the by now quite dated granite etc, but also underwater features such as seaweed, sunken ships and floating icebergs.

This also means that anyone who has an empire lot has now the unique opportunity to go an reset or abandon their empire lots and start from scratch with the help of the lot manager.

But we did not only do it for the beauty of it all, there is another reason for this: Our mapping programs are all unable to deal with pre-1.13 worlds. That means that every time a lot resets, those lots become black spots on the world. And that is not very nice for people who try to get a new one. While there is a workaround for this (load the “mint” worlds into the game and visit every single chunk), it’s a hassle. We’d rather review how the by now very dated maps would look like in the new format and upgrade them all. For some worlds that does not matter (e.g. flatlands), but for others this might be a game changer (e.g. the kingdom).

So what I am working on right now is to re-create all the worlds with 1.13 tech and looking where the differences are so big that we should not upgrade them. As a first step, I took a look at the kingdom, and unfortunately, despite using the same seed, it would look completely different in 1.13. The current one is using 1.3.1 version generation, too old. So upgrading here is not an option. One option here is to create another world like the kingdom with 1.13 tech as an optional environment.

I will update you all once we have some more info.

There was an issue with the lot reset process. This affected all the empty lots I wanted to reset but also all the resets that have been scheduled by users.

If you want to have your lot reset to 1.13, please schedule it in the lot manager again now, it will happen then at the next restart.

thanks!

ATTENTION! IMPORTANT: I always get panicky mails/questions from users who don’t read the blog after this type of posts: I always get asked if their lot will be reset. It won’t! We NEVER reset occupied lots. PLEASE tell that when people ask you in-game.

As you know from previous posts, I have been investigating a possible reset of the empty lots in the empire to the latest world generation method. The original purpose was to get all the current types of granite and other natural resources into the empire. Another issue that popped up now is that the 2D map cannot process the data of the old empire and every lot reset creates black areas in the 2D map until someone goes to that location.

For this to happen, I needed to make sure that the world generation from 1.13 does not look completely different than 1.9 and before (when we created the empire). I now tested that and can confirm that there are no major differences on the 2D map. Most visual differences is that there will be ice in 2 of the oceans that we have and some of the waterways will have slightly different outlines. Trees are also not in the exact same location. Otherwise, it seems to be pretty much as expected.

This means that I will replace the “mint” world that we use to reset the empire with a new version that was created after the release of 1.13, and then I will manually reset all empty lots. There is a chance that if you had a tunnel/mineshaft that enabled you to walk into a neighboring empty lot, it will be gone. There is also a high chance that your trees that overlap into neighboring empty lots will be cut off. The impacts should be minimal however.

I managed now to resolve the 2D map issues and all maps should display correctly now.

If there are black areas in the map, it’s because the place has pre-1.9 version files. This can have 2 reasons:

1. The area has not been visited since we upgraded to 1.13
2. The area has been reset recently. This is usually the case if the area is exactly along lot lines. Our “mint” maps that we use to copy regions from are pre-1.9.

In both cases, this can be resolved by visiting the area and waiting until the next reset when the maps are being updated. I will now work on 1.13 version maps to use for the reset so we don’t have to play catch-up every time a lot is reset.

Thanks for all your patience as this took quite some time to be resolved.

I just wanted to let everyone know the issues about the 2D map since I have received a number of emails recently from different people with more or less the same content.

The current software that generates the 2D map has not been fully updated to 1.13 version. The issue is that while the map is being generated, the function that allows me to map only a specific area (i.e. where we have lots) is not working. I have escalated that to the developer but I am still waiting for this to be fixed. I will contact the dev again this week to push for an update, but we will in any case have to wait until this is done.

As a consequence, the image is not aligned with the lot grid. The flatlands and the empire are shifted diagonally by an amount of lots and therefore it looks like as if the lots how the wrong owners. The lot number however is showing the correct owner, just the image is the wrong one. Here are our options:

• Keep everything as it is until the map software is updated. No work, and some confusion with the few new players that we have. New players will need to refer what they see in-game instead of what they see on the map. As a work-around, I could add a note that the lots are shifted.
• Make a working map manually once, but disable daily updates. This would create a correct map, but that map would be static. Changes would not be reflected until we fix the map system. Lots and players would be correct on the map, but not graphic representing the builds/reset lots etc.

Let me know what you prefer.

Ok, as promised, even though a bit late, I have now moved the temp server into the main server and replaced the darklands. There are still a couple of server bugs to be fixed (see comments to the previous post), but overall the migration to 1.13.2 should can be seen as completed. Please let me know if you find any additional issues.

Regarding the new darklands: I made some effort to remove non-redstone lighting from the darklands. There is likely the one or other area that I missed, specially if it’s further out. I recommend you to manually replace all the lighting yourself. If I find any areas with non-redstone lighting in the future, I will replace those myself, and that will then include lighting that is there by game design (villages for example) and also will happen outside of your control, so please don’t take this lightly (pun intended).

Everyone, I am planning to shut down the temp server in the course of next week. Please finalize whatever you need to do before the end of the coming weekend. Here is a list of things that will happen to help you prepare:

• Temp Server: All worlds except the “normal” will be deleted (end, nether etc).
• Main Server: The darklands will be deleted.
• Temp Server darklands will become Main Server Darklands.
• Torches/lit pumpkins/sea lanterns in the temp server will be removed as much as possible automatically.
• UPDATE: Your inventory & Ender chest content will be wiped on the temp server. Put your stuff in normal or shulker boxes.
  

Thanks to the notice from VixenGold, I have realized that Echantment storage has also changed from numerical IDs to text IDs. I updated the database accordingly. This means that previously deposited and stocked goods (books & items) should now be fine to buy/withdraw from the store/deposit.