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ATTENTION: Lot reset now after 1 month inactivity!

Posted on by

From now on, all lots will be reset if you do not show up on the server for one month!

I will try to send an email to all lot owner that have not been here for a month tomorrow.

[UPDATE] I have sent out an email and will most likely reset the lots on Sunday or Monday. Also, I made the decision to give the following people 2 month time until the reset:

  • All DonatorPlus levels. You need to have ++ level throughout the full two months of absence!
  • All users above and including “architect” levels, no matter if donator or not.
  • Skylands lots will not be automatically reset. Theoretically they expire on the same schedule, but in all likelihood they won’t be reset until you have been away for some longer time. No guarantee there however.

[UPDATE]

Lot resets & Map size

Posted on by

From the lot of feedback that I have received, I came to a conclusion on the issue ofmap enlargement vs. earlier Lot resets. First of all, some info however.

The issue of lot resets is a lengthy one. I want to give some background so you understand how this works currently. There are 3 different methods to reset a lot currently:

  1. The //regen command from Worldedit. This is creating working lots, broken trees and this command has a massive memory leak. So after using it 3-4 times, I have to restart the server. While I was now able to submit a proper bug report to the author, we would have to wait for a fix to get this to work, and that still leaves us with broken trees as that in return is a minecraft bug (which I also could submit now). So it will for a longer time a either broken or unusable method.
  2. The regeneration by chunk. This is using the plugin azkedar wrote. The fact that we have this plugin also helped making 2 proper bug report for the above. Chunks are sections of 16×16 blocks from bedrock to sky. This method turned out to be even more broken than the first. It places a chunk over an old one, and then starts creating structures in the lower-right corner such as trees and underground stuff like mineshafts, and then stops a couple of blocks while it works through the chunk upwards and left. So a tree has its trunk in the lower right corner, the leaves further right and down are missing and the mineshafts that start there go for a couple of blocks and end in a wall. 8×8 chunks per lot of that mess. In my opinion that is not acceptable.
  3. The copy-paste. I created another empire from scratch with lots (world “newemp”). I go to the right location in the new world, copy a whole lot, move to the empire and paste it over the existing lot. This creates a perfect world with all we need but has the disadvantage that this is quite slow.

From my perspective the 3rd method is the only really sustainable one. But also the slowest. Due to a bug however this cannot be a fluent process steered by a program. Otherwise I could write a program chain that does almost everything for the user including warping him through worlds, copy paste etc. If I try that, it crashes the server.

Enlarging the map would increase the amount of lots that have to be reset. Given the issues above this would not be a good way to go – as long as there is an alternative.

Shortening the reset time would therefore be the best alternative. If we assume that only a small group of those hat have not been here for one month will actually come back, then the actual work will not increase – except during the time I catch up with the suddenly expired lots.

Regarding the option of a reminder letter: I will not send a reminder for people to log back in before the lot expires. I want people who come here because they want to, not people who come here because they are told. We are finally not a library you have to go to to return a book.

Regarding the leave of absence, that can only work if we limit that to once a year and if we can automate it. I do not want this to be extra work for me and I do not want people to use it on a permanent base. I see this as a low priority.

Map enlargement or faster lot expiry?

Posted on by

We are running short on lots again and I have the impression that people turn around at the door when they realize that only snow or swamp lots are available on the empire map currently. There are two options here:

  • Enlarge the map again.
    Advantages: More users on the server, easy to do.
    Disadvantages: Increased workload since More lot reset required. Longer travel distances, more inactive lots on the map.
  • Shorten the lot expiry period
    Advantages: increase the amount of Active users, less half-built lots
    Disadvantages: People on holidays might get reset.

I am convinced the shortening of the expiry is the better solution. The big question is what is a too short period? I think 2 months is too long. We see this with the amount of lots where nothing happens. However, what is a “natural” break people might have to take from the game? What holidays do people have where they might be unable to connect?

[UPDATE] For a visible reference, I now colored all lots that have not been active since the last 4 weeks in yellow on this map.[/UPDATE]

[UPDATE 2] I would be happy to have a 2-months expiry for donators and people above citizen levels[/UPDATE]

[UPDATE 3] I updated the map now so that DonatorPlus Settlers & Citizens as well as Architects & above by default become yellow after 2 months. Others after 1 month. So there are less lots colored now, but still enough to tell me that the 1 month cutoff is the right thing to do.[/Update]

 

Map update

Posted on by

I now changed the 2D map so that lot members only show when you hover over a lot. Owners are always shown. This was needed because some users need to give access to so many other users that the lot below was completely hidden.

Future contest system

Posted on by

I have thought on how to change and improve the contests so that people can participate no matter where their lot is. So here is the proposal:

For every future contest, I will make regions in either the skylands or flatlands where people can become members of to make their contest entries. This way, anyone can make an entry. If you are a flatlands owner, you can still go to the darklands and mine for stuff and use it for the contest. It will also make it easier for me to copy the entries and due to the region restriction there will be no more question how large to make it, and who make which contest entry. We will also be able to rate stuff easier, no more need for screenshots etc etc etc

All will be a whole lot easier.

Uncovery 2 Year anniversary coming up!

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Our 2nd anniversary is coming up with the 1st of November! I am thinking about things to do during that week and how to make this week special for everyone, old and new users alike! I would like to ask everyone for suggestions what to do during the week and on the anniversary, and how to engage users to join and do something special!

Zombie Contest entries copied! Please all vote!

Posted on by

I have copied the zombie entries now to the city. Please go to the city, enter
/warp zombies and take a good look at all buildings! Each building should have a name somewhere near the entrance with the creator on it! Please vote!

If you have a build submitted, please ask an elder to place pictures and beds for you again since they get lost during the copy process…

Massive Java Crashes – Temp server in place

Posted on by

Guys, we had massive java crashes over the course of the day and I have no idea what is happening. I first rebooted the machine, undid some changes in the hope it would fix something, and it worked for 2 hours or so and then crashed again several times. I have upgraded a couple of things but I cannot trace the issue. I got a [Too many errors] on the console as well as the crash report from java at times:

Spoiler
#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x00000007f8327c00, pid=32641, tid=140230393620224
#
# JRE version: 6.0_22-b22
# Java VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (20.0-b11 mixed mode linux-amd64 compressed oops)
# Derivative: IcedTea6 1.10.6
# Distribution: CentOS release 6.2 (Final), package rhel-1.43.1.10.6.el6_2-x86_64
# Problematic frame:
# C  0x00000007f8327c00
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please include
# instructions how to reproduce the bug and visit:
#   http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla
#

with different contents in “Problematic frame”. This is quite a serious issue that is why I have created a new, temp bukkit server and will now see how I can add plugins one by one and see if it works. So until then the normal server will be frozen. Unfortunately this comes at the worst of times since I will be leaving for a trip tonight for 2 weeks. I will see how much I can fix during the trip, but it looks like we will have to live with a not-fully operational server for some days. If you have any ideas how to debug something like this, please let me know. All help greatly appreciated.

Zombie City contest has been closed – no need to vote yet!

Posted on by

I have closed the zombie contest today. However there is no need to vote yet. Unfortunately a significant amount of users did not submit screenshots. I want to take the time to copy the entries to the city so people can wander around and cast proper votes. I will make an announcement once all entries are copied. Unfortunately I will be traveling for the next 2 weeks so do not expect this to happen in the next 24 hours.

New command to add/remove members on your lot

Posted on by

I have no hand-written a command to add or remove members of your lot. You can use

/lotmember [lot_id] add [member]

/lotmember [lot_id] rem [member]

The nice thing of the new command is that you can use it no matter what world you are in. This is one of the biggest bug being removed that was introduced when upgrading the server. There are still a few around but most of them depend on other plugin developers so we will need to wait a bit until we are able to do all we want to.

Issue with region addmember/removemember

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There is aparently a quite severe issue with the /region addmember.. and /region removemember commands. The database engine of the worldguard plugin does not seem to be able to save changes made by this command and basically crashes the server.

I have yet to find out what the issue is. In the meantime, I have disabled that command. If you urgently need to remove someone from your lot, please leave a comment here and I will make the change in the database.

Server Migrated!

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I have just finished migrating the server to the new machine, including the website and teamspeak. So far everything seems to be smooth. I allocated now 12GB RAM to the Minecraft process, 2x the amount of before. In case we run short I could probably add 1-2 more GB but I hope this will not be needed that quickly :D

From my perspective the server runs much faster already, specially startup time and in-game when warping to a new area, the landscape builds up significantly faster.

Something else that will get you banned

Posted on by

In case you try the following while I am watching the console, you will get banned:

07:12:19 [INFO] [PLAYER_COMMAND] Hammitime: /give Hammitime 383 64 95
07:12:19 [WARNING] Hammitime was denied access to command.
07:12:21 [INFO] [PLAYER_COMMAND] Hammitime: /give Hammitime 383 64 95
07:12:21 [WARNING] Hammitime was denied access to command.
07:12:22 [INFO] [PLAYER_COMMAND] Hammitime: /give Hammitime 383 64 95
07:12:22 [WARNING] Hammitime was denied access to command.
07:12:22 [INFO] [PLAYER_COMMAND] Hammitime: /give Hammitime 383 64 95
07:12:22 [WARNING] Hammitime was denied access to command.
07:12:23 [INFO] [PLAYER_COMMAND] Hammitime: /give Hammitime 383 64 95
07:12:23 [WARNING] Hammitime was denied access to command.

and so it happened:

07:12:46 [INFO] Whitelist: Player Hammitime is trying to join…
07:12:46 [INFO] allow!
07:12:46 [INFO] Disconnecting Hammitime [/71.8.91.182:50927]: Banned: The Ban Hammer has spoken!

Hardware!

Posted on by

We are currently running a Intel Core Duo 2-Core with 2.8GHz and 8GB Ram. I had issues in the last months with the processor speed not being really able to handle all we want to do. Specially Chunk Loading and new chunk generation as well as the dynamic map are causing the most lag. You also know about the issues with too many mobs etc. Also, while the server is capped at 50 people, we would never be able to allow that many. I have 6GB allocated to the server currently (of 8 available) and with 1 user normally taking 200MB RAM, we would be able to let in a max of 30 people anyhow. But the processor already starts making some issues at 20, and you can feel it at 25 for sure. However, our active user base is increasing every day. We now have 700 active users (= lot owners) and the empire map is getting too small. There are hardly any more grass covered lots left as I wrote before in a blogpost.

So I have been evaluation the options and concluded that it is time for a hardware upgrade. We will be moving to a 16GB Intel Corei5 with 4 Cores, which will basically across different benchmarks double the processing power and of course the RAM. This should take off 100% of the load during peak time and allow more players with ease. It should also allow us to do some of the following:

  • Have several maps for group builds. One Normal (a.k.a Kingdom), and one skylands for example
  • Have multiple concurrent adventure maps where people can do quests as you know them from the Jogscast
  • Have less issues with mobs/animals etc
  • Keep more areas in RAM so they load faster
  • maybe even increase the viewing distance
  • Allow more users in at the same time, post more of the builds on reddit and increase the general standing and reputation of the player and it’s users.

So all in all we could have a more diverse and relaxed environment where I don’t have to chase down users because of their 20 sheep etc. We cover almost 2/3 of the server costs with Donations, which is quite amazing. Thanks again to all donators!  The current server costs 135 USD per month, the new one would be 200 USD. With the donations coming in as currently. I would be ready to spend the additional money for the server. if we have more users, maybe there will be more donators, too.

So standby for more info and schedule!

[Update]So I just called GoDaddy and it turns out they gave me the new server for the same price as the old server. So the additional costs for the new server is only the overlap time while I have both of them. Yay![/Update]

 

 

Log reset galore! Thanks Azkedar!

Posted on by

Azkedar wrote a plugin for me to reset chunks. Together with some coding I did, I can now warp to a lot, wipe all owners and members, snow-flags etc in one go and then reset it in another go. The really cool thing however is that I can now reset unlimited lots w/o having to restart the server. That means that I can handle now lot resets and therefore a higher user turnover much easier. Seeing that out map gets fuller and fuller (we hardly have any lots free in the empire that are 100% grass covered), it suddenly becomes an option to enlarge the map again to make space for more people….

tberrios2005 banned for Xraying

Posted on by

Pretty obvious mining pattern. Oh, yeah please stop throwing around diamonds when you Xray, it becomes a bit too obvious.

Spoiler
[Sun Aug 19 00:10:07 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -295, y=   4, z=  -107, l= 7)
[Sun Aug 19 00:10:12 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -295, y=   4, z=  -108, l= 8)
[Sun Aug 19 00:10:12 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -296, y=   4, z=  -108, l= 7)
[Sun Aug 19 00:10:12 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -296, y=   4, z=  -107, l= 6)
[Sun Aug 19 00:10:17 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -296, y=   3, z=  -108, l= 6)
[Sun Aug 19 00:10:17 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -296, y=   3, z=  -107, l= 5)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:31 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -295, y=  11, z=   -62, l=11) [t= 253sec / (d= 46 / b= 128) = r=708.4]
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:31 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -294, y=  11, z=   -62, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:31 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -294, y=  10, z=   -62, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:31 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -295, y=  10, z=   -62, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:37 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -295, y=  11, z=   -61, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:37 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -295, y=  10, z=   -61, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:52 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -300, y=   8, z=   -61, l= 2) [t=   0sec / (d=  5 / b=  11) = r=30.6] [flagged x1; ratio paranoidDiamonds]
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:52 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -300, y=   7, z=   -62, l= 0)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:57 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -300, y=   8, z=   -62, l= 1)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:57 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -299, y=   7, z=   -62, l= 1)
[Sun Aug 19 00:14:57 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -299, y=   7, z=   -61, l= 2)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:08 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -273, y=  11, z=   -65, l=10) [t= 126sec / (d= 27 / b=  75) = r=355.2]
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:08 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -273, y=  10, z=   -65, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:08 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -272, y=  10, z=   -65, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:08 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -272, y=  10, z=   -64, l=11)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:08 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -273, y=  10, z=   -64, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -274, y=  10, z=   -43, l=11) [t=  30sec / (d= 21 / b=  30) = r=42.8] [flagged x2; ratio paranoidDiamonds]
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -274, y=   9, z=   -43, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -274, y=  10, z=   -42, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -274, y=   9, z=   -42, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -275, y=  10, z=   -43, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -275, y=   9, z=   -43, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:40 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -275, y=  10, z=   -42, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:17:46 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -275, y=   9, z=   -42, l= 8)
[Sun Aug 19 00:20:59 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -320, y=  14, z=   -53, l= 4) [t= 196sec / (d= 47 / b=  56) = r=235.6] [flagged x3; ratio]
[Sun Aug 19 00:20:59 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -320, y=  13, z=   -53, l= 4)
[Sun Aug 19 00:21:05 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -321, y=  13, z=   -53, l= 4)
[Sun Aug 19 00:21:05 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -321, y=  13, z=   -54, l= 3)
[Sun Aug 19 00:21:05 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -320, y=  13, z=   -54, l= 4)
[Sun Aug 19 00:22:29 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -343, y=  10, z=   -30, l= 0) [t=  85sec / (d= 33 / b= 111) = r=282.7]
[Sun Aug 19 00:22:29 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -344, y=  10, z=   -30, l= 0)
[Sun Aug 19 00:22:34 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -344, y=   9, z=   -31, l= 0)
[Sun Aug 19 00:22:34 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -344, y=   8, z=   -31, l= 0)
[Sun Aug 19 00:22:47 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -345, y=   9, z=   -23, l= 5) [t=   0sec / (d=  8 / b=  17) = r=29.3] [flagged x4; ratio paranoidDiamonds]
[Sun Aug 19 00:22:52 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -346, y=   7, z=   -22, l= 1)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:09 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -342, y=  14, z=   -25, l= 9) [t=   0sec / (d=  9 / b=   8) = r=16.7] [flagged x5; ratio paranoidDiamonds]
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:09 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -341, y=  14, z=   -25, l= 8)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:09 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -342, y=  15, z=   -25, l= 8)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:09 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -341, y=  15, z=   -25, l= 7)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:15 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -342, y=  14, z=   -24, l= 8)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:15 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -341, y=  14, z=   -24, l= 9)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:15 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -341, y=  15, z=   -24, l= 8)
[Sun Aug 19 00:23:15 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -342, y=  15, z=   -24, l= 7)
[Sun Aug 19 00:24:09 HKT 2012] GOLD_ORE    broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -325, y=   9, z=   -59, l= 9) [t=  51sec / (d= 39 / b=  36) = r=46.6] [flagged x6; ratio]
[Sun Aug 19 00:24:09 HKT 2012] GOLD_ORE    broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -324, y=   9, z=   -59, l=10)
[Sun Aug 19 00:24:15 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -327, y=   8, z=   -60, l= 5) [t=   0sec / (d=  3 / b=   8) = r=64.7] [flagged x7; ratio paranoidDiamonds]
[Sun Aug 19 00:24:20 HKT 2012] DIAMOND_ORE broken by tberrios2005 at (x=  -328, y=   8, z=   -60, l= 4)

Building a nether portal in the nether now brings you to the darklands!

Posted on by

I have now enabled a feature that you can create a nether portal (standard with obsidian and flint & steel) when in the nether, and that portal will bring you to the darklands. The nether scales to the darklands 1:8 so you can make a portal in the nether every 100 blocks which will bring you 800 blocks further in the darklands.

HOWEVER, you cannot go back through these portals! They are a one-way street into the darklands!