I changed the reboot cycle from 8:00 & 20:00 to 16:00 HKG time. this means that we will have one less reboot & backup per day. The 2 reboots a day were originally introduced since older versions of the software got into issues after running too long. I now changed the reboot time to the moment when the server is most empty.

So less interruptions and less backup space used. We use the backups so seldom that this will not be an issue. There are also methods to backup maps w/o a reboot, I will look into that just to make sure.

I wanted to move the darklands on the weekend to use towny. However I found out that thee is an issue with the permissions system to make it work properly. Sicne the permissions system has not been updated recently, I would have to migrate the whole permssions over to a new system. I am not sure what it currently the best way. I am trying to get in touch with the author of the system and see if there is a patch available.

I want to remember everyone that industrial farming is causing massive lag. If you set up a farm that gives you more than a chest of goods per harvest, you’re overdoing it. The issue is that the growth of a huge area needs processor time and causes issues.

So take down those farms.

The plugin that manages XP & inventory exchanges was fixed by azkedar. So I could open the end again. Happy dragon-fighting!

I found out now that regenerating lots will in some cases create different landscapes and biomes. While the general coastlines, rivers etc will stay the same, expect some half-mountains, biome breaks and other oddities. It is not as bad as it was in the old days where mountains would start rising in the middle of an ocean, but still quite visible at instances. Unfortunately there is not a lot I can do about that.

The only good thing is that it will not start snowing in places where the lot was not reset.

This is NOT a decision but a discussion. People who start panicking about consequences at this moment will be shot or something like that.

After discussing with some people I thought it would be good to merge the kingdom and the darklands. This would mean that the darklands lots would disappear, I would reset the whole map to start off clean and install towny on it. This would allow people to use it just as the kingdom. Now here are the hard consequences out of that:

• Getting a darklands space would cost money. I am not sure how much it will be, but something like 50 uncs per plot or so. A standard plot is 16×16 only.
• the darklands would still have to be reset after a minecraft update to benefit from the new biomes, materials etc. So it would not be something where you create amazing builds. I would be happy to accept builds from there for contests or if you manage to finish something great before the map is reset, I can copy them to the city.
• The darklands could be endless in size, but would not be backed up then OR be limited and be included in the backups.

I would be happy to hear opinions on this.

I finished the voting lottery! You can now win cool prizes whenever you vote! 100 Uncs are fixed prize and other stuff is dropped in your deposit so you can vote while offline from the server! Have fun!

[Update]
There is now a display of what you can win with what chance on the voting page!
[/Update]

I am planning on a voting lottery, and there should be some interesting prizes instead of the cake all the time. What I have to figure out is what prizes to give and how likely it should be to get the prizes without cluttering the whole thing up with too much random stuff.

The way it would work is the following: You vote for the server and draw a random number between 1 and 100. Then there will be a table that will determine what you won by the number you got.

Random example: All numbers 1-50 will get you a cake. So you have a 50% chance to get a cake. In that principle there should be items to get, and how likely they are to appear. Stuff that I would think are interesting to give away are:

• a random amount of XP, between 10 to 100 (chance 10%)
• a cake (chance 10%)
• a tripple-enchanted diamond pick (chance 5%)
• a diamond (chance 5%)
• a diamond block (chance 1%)
• a piece of coal (chance 1%)
• 1000 Uncs (chance 1%)
• nothing (chance 2%)
• a random monster egg (chance 10%)
• a random animal/npc egg (chance 15%)
• an iron ingot (chance 8%)
• a random amount of uncs between 100 to 500 (chance 10%)
• a cookie (chance 5%)

What else would be interesting or fun? Everything should add up to 100% of course. It should be fun and exciting but also rewarding.