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Back from Holidays…

I am back from my holidays!

First of all, thanks for all the members who have been contributing to ways to improve the server during the last week. I have a ton of stuff to do now and I hope I will get something done this week, but it might be a bit hectic since I have a week of work to catch up with.

Secondly, here are the best pictures of the holiday!

Holidays

I will be gone from the 6th April until 15th of April. Most likely I will not have any meaningful internet connection during the whole time. So lot approvals etc might take longer than normally during that time, up to 2 days or longer. Please be patient and tell new people about that. I would also make sense not to make too much advertising for the server in form of videos or reddit posts, to avoid disappointed users that don’t get their lots approved.

Recent & future developments

I wanted to give an update quickly on what’s brewing and what’s cooked. Please think about these topics and give me your opinions.

  • MC 1.2.5 is out. I will update the server as soon as all the plugins confirm that there is no issue.Delays here should not affect us too much since 1.2.5 and 1.2.4 are cross-compatible.
  • I am still not firm on the future of the kingdom. However, the current map should disappear sooner or later (April/May). I might generate a smaller map (1000×1000 for example) for community builds.
  • If you still have a lot in the old world, please consider moving them to the empire. If you do not want it anymore, please abandon it.
  • I am also wondering if the flatlands is the most needed thing on the server. If you have a flatlands lot, please tell me what you think about it. If I would close it, flatlands users would get an empire lot. No decision/schedule yet.
  • It seems that we can install portals again. I will most probably install them only to get from world to world, and use warps within the city.
  • There is a new minecart plugin, which works however a bit different from minecart mania. The biggest change is that a minecart spawner is now a sign instead of a block. This means we would have to update all stations. All other stuff seems to work similar however. Please see here. I will install this within the next two weeks.

Kingdom Discontinued!

I am “closing down” the kingdom. There has been very little activity and the last large builds, Rome and Pluto’s castle, are either already in the city or being finished up and moved out as well. If there seems to be a large requirement for another revival in the future, we can enable it again. For now, only elders and masters can build there to move out stuff etc. If you have things there and need to get them, please tell me.

2D Maps fixed for good!

I have now fixed the 2D maps. The old software that I was using was not supporting the 1.2.4 file format. So what I did is finally write a program that assembles all images from the flat 3D map into one picture… a bit around the corner but the advantage is that we depend on one less software now, achieving the same.

The display of the Worldguard regions in the 3D maps is now also OFF by default. You can still switch it on in the layer menu of the map however.

While the 3D map updates instantly. the 2D map will be created from the 3D map only once a day.

Server upgraded!

i have upgraded the server! What does not work?

  • The end. There is a bug for sharing XP between the normal world and the end. You could go and fight the dragon, but not take XP home. So I blocked the entrance for now.
  • The 2D Maps. The renderer that I used for the 2D maps has not been updated for 1.2.4. That means that all maps are outdated, specially the darklands. The 3D map however now shows the lots too. I am searching for a better solution. If you know a map render software that does 1.2.4 maps in 2D and in one single file, not a google map, please let me know.
  • Check if your inventory is there, including armor. If not, I am unfortunately not able to do anything about it, but I hope there are no issues for most of the people
  • Minecart Mania
  • Towny

I installed basically all plugins now except for Towny and Minecart Mania. Please tell me if you see anything else missing.

 

Bukkit Recommended Build is out!

Ok, so some hours ago a new recommended build for 1.2.4 has been released. This means that the plugin authors now have a stable version to work with. Now we only need them to release the updated plugins.

In order to upgrade to 1.2.4 we need to have a certain minimum of plugins upgraded to 1.2.4 that enable griefer protection, world transportation and inventory-mangement between worlds. If we are lucky, we will be able to upgrade this weekend! A lot of the important plugins have beta versions out already and I would assume that final version should be quick to release. We might go live with some reduced functionality in the beginning and add other plugins as they are released.

Why we have not upgraded to 1.2.3 yet…

We have not ugraded yet because here is still no recommended build for bukkit. While we could upgrade to a non-recommended build please be aware that the current version of bukkit still sports a number of bugs that the bukkit team describes themselves as critical or blockers. So I am checking several times a day on the progress, and while there is work being done fixing those bugs, it is still not very fast. So please stand by and wait until a recommended build is out.

New users, please read this!

If you just joined this server, please note that we are running 2 versions of Minecraft currently:

  • Version 1.1 (the old version) where all the plugins, protections and features of the server are currently live
  • Version 1.2.4 (The new, current version) where we have only a temporary server without protection and with a temporary map that will be deleted. The Whitelist here is not automatically updated – only on a server restart.

If you are connecting to the server and get a time out, you are probably using the wrong version/port combination. In general, I would strongly recommend that you use version 1.1 and connect to the main server.

The Epic Quest

I am planning on creating an epic quest with the story admin. This quest will be planned in an out-of-game environment such as a wiki. It will be a multi-branch game, involving as much of the city builds as possible. It will be permanent work-in-progress and ever-expanding through user submissions. Structure proposal

We could have several main story arcs

  • The epic quest
    • Story Arc “Egypt – find tut anch’s mask”
    • Story Arc “Japan – rescue the emperor’s daughter”
    • Story Arc “The secret of the cathedral”
    • etc.

The story arcs will have several sub-branches and can connect to other story arcs through intermediary quests & bridge-stories.

If you are interested in participating or of you have additional ideas, please comment.

New voting mechanism proposal

I changed the process for contests now. First, they are open for submissions, then open for voting, then they are closed. This will prevent people voting before all entries are submitted or after the contest is closed which was possible before. I will therefore announce a week of voting after a contest is stopped from allowing submissions.

Further, I am proposing an expansion of the people who can vote and introduce weighted voting instead. So Architects, Masters, Elders and myself can vote with the following weights:

  • Owner: 1.5
  • Elders: 1
  • Masters: 0.5
  • Architects: 0.3

This weighting is currently only a draft and I am happy for suggestions.

Ballon contest winners announcement!

We have closed the balloon contest and are ready to announce the winners! This was really a contest anyone could participate and also the first one where people could enter several submissions. The result is that we have 21 individual balloons that add a great scenery to the city and a lot of new stuff to explore! Thanks to all participants! Here are the winner per user levels

  • Settlers: 1st Silver82, 2nd xecaria
  • Architects: 1st Psiber, 2nd fingermouse
  • Masters: 1st Luklukk, 2nd azkedar
  • Elders: 1st Lvasold, 2nd hiosa

Settlers and Archictects 1st win a user level upgrade, 2nd win 2 enchanted items of choice! Masters & elders win a stack of diamonds and 2nd also 2 enchanted items of choice! Congratz! To get the enchanted items, please tell me what you want in a comment here and I deposit them for you. The diamonds are already deposited.

And the Grand Price winner for the overall highest score: Psiber! He wins an additional   stack of diamonds! Congratz!