I have just created 4 more outposts. To complement the 4 in the corners, there are now 4 more straight north, south, east & west of spawn. Find the portals and take a look! please tell me if the trading chests are not accessible.

Too lazy to pull out the logs now. But when people repeatedly tell you to shut up because you are insulting it should be a good hint to do so.
Also the IRC password changed, please check on the chat page what it is now.

By the way: You can ignore people in chat with /ignore . Of course, if someone is trolling, please tell me first and THEN put them on ignore. Being able to be ignored by someone is not a reason to be trolling.

On a side note: If you tell me “Ban me please”, there is a very high likelyhood that I will do that. Some people do that in anger, some because the feel they spend too much time here. So do not joke about this.

I have fixed the trading post in spawn. It now works with normal chests and does not need dispensers anymore. I also installed trading posts in the 4 outposts. Please try them out and tell me if you cannot access the chests there. Happy Trading!

There finally seems to be a decent trading plugin that works with iConomy! This means that you will be able to run shops in the spawn and outposts! I will set up market places where you can setup shop and start trading your stuff at your own prices. In spawn, this will most likely happen in the Tower above the Spa. I am not sure when the first version of the plugin will be released but I will test it with some people first before we release it to the general public.

I am hoping to get the whole game a bit more interactive that way. Ideally I would disable even home and instead setup a couple of additional portals to make the whole game experience more action than command-based. I already now have the option to charge for using the portals…

I have a rule that people should not build large walls. Why? Because they are ugly of course. They block the view for others and do not have any effect whatsoever. You cannot keep people out anyhow.

Now some people think it’s better to make them out of glass. like 100 blocks high. Well, I do not think this is an improvement. Then other people come and ask that if they put a roof on them, it’s not a wall anymore but a building. Well guess what: This is hard on the edge of the “stupid questions” ban.

I have reviewed and updated the building guidelines. Please go and read them. If your current construction violates them, please change it. If it’s too big, I can come over and take it away quickly or move it underground when I have time.

In short: Do not build ugly stuff. This game does not have ladders, stairs, 120 materials so that you build a hollow box because you are too lazy to cave the underground out.

If you read the building guidelines and think: “Oh but I wanted to build this huuge box in the air out of [whatever] and if I make it only 80 instead of 100 blocks, wide, it should be ok right? Let’s ask uncovery”, then you are already on the path of the stupid questions.

I found a forum that seems to integrate with WordPress quite well. Please try it out and tell me if it works well for you or not. Help requests, Clan pages/threads should be placed into the forum. Also discussions about specific features will be held there instead

The lot reservation is back up for now. Please note that this is not instant and not fully automated. I have to process the requests manually and make sure that not two people applied for the same lot. I hope that the coming update (tomorrow) for the protection plugin will make this easier.

Today one of the more annoying players who was banned dropped in on the IRC channel and started harassing users. To prevent this type of behavior in the future, I added a password to the IRC channel. You can find out what the current password is by going to the Chat page. The web form automatically inserts the password, so no change there.

Some people did not know, but the PvP arena is active and working. By simply entering it you are vulnerable to PvP attacks. Also, we have a 200×200 PvP lot which is active too. There is also now a warp gate inside the PvP Arena building in the spawn area that brings you directly to the PvP lot. Currently the PvP lot features a larger cave, 3 dense forests and a lava cascade. It is currently not possible to dig/build in that lot, and I do not intend to make that available.
Instead I am asking for idea what to put into the area to make it more interesting.

I went around today to reveal the last corners of the map that no one went to yet. So go right ahead to the 2D map and see for yourself what lands await you there!

Among other updates, the plugin system I am using theoretically now supports multi-world. This means we can have a nether and even possibly parallel other worlds. There is an issue with this however. All the plugins we are using will have to support this function first, which is not the case at all. Then, I have no idea what this means memory-wise for the server. Currently its probably no issue, but still there will have to be some testing before that becomes an option for us.

Also, I am still working on the lot reservation & discovery of old users. I am currently facing the issue that I have to go back to a more manual way of adding the lots which is bugging me of course. I have some hopes that this will change next week and I am a bit reluctant to do a major programming effort if I it would be for nothing already next week. I will try to come up with a temporary solution until then.

The discovery of old users currently stalls on the issue that the capitalization of the users in game and on the blog are different, and I have to write a program first that fixes or ignores that. I hope there will be some more time on the weekend to proceed on that. However it does not make too much sense to find the old users if there is no way yet to reset their lot.