I’m not even going to bother telling people not to update right away because.. because… oh crap, I just did. Ignore that. (and the update)

Downgrade Guide

So what’s holding up the things and the what-not. Well, the what-not is fine. So don’t you worry. But here’s the things… First, Craftbukkit hasn’t been updated yet to support 1.4.6. That’s not all that concerns me, because some plugins have yet to be updated to be compatible with breaking changes the Craftbukkit guys made in the lastest 1.4.5 builds. In fact, one of the guys defending one of the breaking changes is the author of our main plugin that’s still broken and un-updated! Oh, the sweet succulent irony has a bitter aftertaste. I was going to update to 1.4.5 R1.0 today in preparation for 1.4.6 builds; however, I had to hold off because too many things broke — and that’s after updating 11 other plugins that needed it.

Until PhysicalShop is updated (and hopefully RecipeManager) I’m not sure it’d be wise to move to the new builds of Craftbukkit. And only then can we consider updating to 1.4.6.

We needed a Christmas tree for our survival world so that people could make gifts for each other. So I built one in Delta. You can get there by using “/warp christmas”. Use deadbolt signs to lock the gift chests and place the recipients name on the 3rd line. (eg. /deadbolt 3 Player) If you make wrapping around the box, be sure to put another sign on the outside.

We’re now connected to a pure vanilla outworld for the new Minecraft version. (no mineral veins, cities, etc.) One thing I’m trying this time around is a live map for the outworld, but flat and only for areas people have explored. (ie. placed/broken blocks) There’s also the proper nether and end. There’s not many new terrain features in 1.4, but this is a tradition you can expect to continue for each new version.

Don’t know what an outworld is? Every couple weeks I put up a temporary world designed for adventurers, with fresh resources and unique features. They’re always on hard difficulty. You can’t teleport in or out of them except through the super stargate outside Final City. (/warp supergate) And almost every outworld is unique to the one’s before it, sometimes featuring different terrain, ore distribution, and/or structures. Because they’re temporary, you’re encouraged not to build or store anything in the world that you don’t want to keep.

You can see the full changelog here. Below are some highlights that benefit from some comment about how they affect our server right now.

• In F3 debug, added the cardinal direction indicating the direction the player is facing. Notch changed cardinal directions after beta, so some areas still refer to North as what is now West. We may have to finally concede to the new directions for clarity.
• Mobs, items and projectiles now pass through nether portals. This is currently disabled in Craftbukkit until it’s fixed, as it was crashing servers.
• Added Witch Huts and witches in swamps. Like any new generation features, these will only appear in outworlds. I have no plans for a new main world for this version.
• Carrots and potatoes can now be found growing in villages. These also drop as rare drops from zombies, but you can find some in the market as well to start your own farm.
• New Anvil used for repairing and combining enchanted items as well as for renaming any item/block for experience levels. Currently can’t be protected with Deadbolt or I think WorldGuard.
• Flower Pots let players plant all kinds of saplings, mushrooms, flowers and cacti, dead shrubs and ferns. There is currently a bug with fast-break blocks like pots (mushrooms, grass, flowers, vines, etc). Sometimes it’ll instantly break the block behind it as well. It will drop the item for that block assuming you’re using a tool that can harvest that item. Be careful. Do not break pots on top of diamond blocks with your bear hands, for instance.
• New Item Frames. These can be buggy, since they work really differently than most blocks, but they’re now protected by WorldGuard.
• Mob Heads are very rarely dropped when mobs are killed by players. Currently only wither heads drop. Though I’m not sure if Wither Skeletons will spawn properly in our main world nethers. I restricted the ability to place them in the main worlds to make Withers for Nether Stars. This will only be enabled in outworlds to protect from destruction. Exceptions can be made on a case by case basis.
• Buttons now stay active for 0.2 seconds longer. This may affect some contraptions that depend on the button press length.
• New maps. These may be buggy still. But when/if they work, I’ll be adjusting some pixel art so that we can have some custom maps for item frame pictures that we can share.
• Leather Armor Can now be dyed in 16777215 different colors. We’ll be using this in some pvp games no doubt.
• Zombies & Skeletons will now rarely spawn with armor of all kinds, sometimes enchanted. If it’s possible, I’d like to enable zombies to spawn with jackolanterns like during Halloween, since we missed that.
• Right-clicking a villager zombie under the influence of a Weakness potion with a golden apple will invert their potion effect, make them wiggle slightly and eventually turn back into a villager. I know some of you were trying to get some villagers. This is a solution to that.
• Slimes now spawn in swamps at night. Since these spawns are affected by light level, I’ll be adding them to the list of denied mob spawns in flagged regions. Players will have to re-add the flag, though, to activate it.

“We’ve established a connection with another world. After scouting the surrounding terrain, we were excited to discover some advanced cities! However, on closer inspection, it looks like it they were abandoned in a hurry… and for good reason. The cities are infested. Salvage and looting teams should use extreme caution. As for miners, there’s some large veins here, but less dense than P13-002.”

Continue reading →

If you head over to the Super Stargate west of Final City again, you’ll find you can go to the second outworld. All conditions of the previous outworld apply, plus four additional unique properties. One of those is the use of large biomes this time around. I’ll leave the other three for you to discover for yourself.

Like P13-001, I generated this using a random seed (using previously mentioned and unmentioned properties). It’s completely unseen by even me, except for the spawn. You are explorers, my friends.

For more background, please read the first Outworlds post.

“I’ve successfully connected to another planet system, which I’ve designated P13. The first world, P13-001, seems to be remarkably similar to Gamma in our system. The presence of old civilizations are more pronounced, though, with a few ancient temples scattered about. There’s even villagers of the same species! Could this be the cradle of their civilization? I’ve further discovered that this world too connects to the Nether dimension. Perhaps they spread throughout the galaxy through those long and dark passages. In any case, this world and its nether offer vast untapped resources. What discoveries remain around the corner in other parts of this system, I wonder? Due to the difficulty in engaging a connection with another world that far away, I’ve chosen to leave it connected to P13-001 until we’ve explored its reaches, including the nebulous End dimension. I speculate that there lies a few hidden underground strongholds with end portals, much like in Gamma.”

As some may have already found, we now have access to what may be considered resource or temporary worlds. You can get there using the super Stargate just west (old west) of Final City. In practice, they’ll be used for materials that get grabbed up quick in our main worlds, like glowstone. But it also has the benefit of seeing some short term changes to the world generation that don’t warrant a whole new main world. With Minecraft 1.3 this includes jungle and desert temples. I’ll keep this world and its nether/end dimensions up until we defeat the enderdragon, at which point I’ll work on replacing it with a new and different world. I hope to have unique settings for each new world, but this one is pretty vanilla. You should know that you cannot teleport in it. So you’ll have to make your way back to the Stargate, of which you can’t make more. It’s also on the hard difficulty, so be careful!

As a side benefit of this, I’m going to make our current End permanent so that people can build there.