Reverting kMod, Minecraft.net, and Blog Updates
What a day. It's been a rough one, for sure. I have three major points of news to cover...
Firstly: www.minecraft.net is still flapping up and down due Mojang's web server migration. The website is still only connecting sporadically, which causes great difficulty with logging into Eagleworld. Our server is up and running as always, but it may take as many as 20 tries to get logged in due to the overloaded authorization server. Notch has not provided updates since the last post, so we just have to wait and see what happens.
Secondly: In testing the newer versions of kMod (both 0.9 and 0.9.1), I was notified by several users that a major regression occurred: colored blocks do not work in either of those two versions of kMod. While 0.9+ has fixed several other issues we were having (such as stairs not orienting properly when placed), the lack of colored wool blocks is too large of a regression to leave be. As such, I have rolled back Eagleworld to version 0.8.5 of kMod until a new version is released.
Unfortunately, the bugs we were experiencing in 0.8.5 will have to stay for a little while later. Consult the previous post (LINK) to see the details.
Lastly: I have added two new big updates to the Eagleworld.net Minecraft blog you will be interested in. The first is a comprehensive help page (found here) which answers the majority of questions I get about getting around Eagleworld. The second is a live server status update for both Eagleworld's Minecraft server and Minecraft.net. The Eagleworld Minecraft server status checks to see if the processes are running on Delorean every time you load the page. This gives you a to-the-second status on the server status. The Minecraft.net status pings www.minecraft.net and sees its response time. If it responds within a second, it lists minecraft.net as up. No response or a delayed response gives a down status. The reason for the one-second cap is that if minecraft.net does not respond in 1 second, it is under heavy load (just like now) and will cause major delays and problems logging in.
Hopefully these blog updates will make your life easier and let it be a more useful resource in regards to Minecraft overall. Ideally, I would like the blog to be a one-stop shop for all of your Minecraft news, and I believe these updates bring it one step closer to that goal.
Now let's just hope Mojang gets their web server working right soon...
kMod Updated to v0.9.1 and Minecraft.net issues
Hey everyone!
Well, kMod was updated again today to resolve an issue with the Stargate plugin. While Eagleworld does not use this plugin, the fix could also fix other issues in the process. Therefore, I have updated to the latest version. I still need people to help me test what is in fact working and what is not. Note that the stuff that was previously working must be tested as well, as we could have come across regressions during the updating process.
One other important note is that minecraft.net is currently down due to web server migration. You can get the latest update on Notch's tumblr (located here). Since Eagleworld checks to see if you have a registered account before you can join (to protect against others using your username), you will not be able to connect until this is resolved.
I recommend checking Notch's blog occasionally and also using the Down or Not website to check (go here to see if minecraft.net is actually down for everyone still. Also, if you are able to connect to the webpage, you will be able to connect to the server in-game.
Again, if I can get help seeing what bugs we are still experiencing, I can do my best to help alleviate them. The list of bugs we need to check are below. Thanks again!
Bugs that were fixed in 0.8.5 but need regression testing:
- Opening chests with items in hand now works as it should.
- The duplication bugs have been resolved.
- Placing blocks on yourself no longer occurs.
- Buckets work properly now.
- All food works as it should.
- Eggs and snowballs can now be thrown again.
- Ladders can now be placed properly.
- All new blocks are now able to be placed.
- Regular torches can now be placed with no orientation issues.
- Animals are spawning normally.
- You can now use dye on blocks and place it properly.
- You can use dye on sheep properly.
- Redstone is strange when the server first starts up but will return to normal working state after the server is running for a few minutes. Levers also work strange initially but work after the same amount of time.
- HUD experience no delays or slowdowns since the latest update.
- Boats can now be properly placed, as well as ridden.
- Torches now properly get placed on snow.
Bugs I have not confirmed either way:
- If you lay a birch tree, the white trees, they'll come out as normal brown trees.
- Any other block placed on snow floats.. (Guessing this happens with steps too and floor plates.}
- Using a bow with arrow in your inventory makes the shooting sound and decreases the number of arrows you have, but the arrows are not shot, or if they are, they are invisible, do no damage, and cannot be picked up.
- iStick is currently not working.
- GriefAlert is not working 100% reporting should now be resolved as of 0.9).
- The HUD doesn't have the extra effect from the patch update where the items grow larger then shrink back to normal size to indicate you picked something up.
- Stairs still have the orientation bug where they will only face North.
- Need to test whether redstone torches can be placed without the orientation bug.
- Need to test LWC.
Bugs that are known to be unfixed:
- None yet...need to test!
kMod updated to v0.9!
Well, hclewk is working extra-hard on kMod, and things are starting to shape up very quickly, and very nicely. He has recently updated kMod again early in the morning (twice!), which should fix more issues that we have been experiencing. Server is now fully updated to Minecraft Beta 1.2_01 and kMod 0.9. According to hclewk, this update should fix several plugins that use right-clicking, including LWC! Here's a new rundown of the bugs we've been experiencing, what has been resolved, and what has not. As you can see, most of the stuff is fixed by now:
Bugs that were fixed in 0.8.5 but need regression testing:
- Opening chests with items in hand now works as it should.
- The duplication bugs have been resolved.
- Placing blocks on yourself no longer occurs.
- Buckets work properly now.
- All food works as it should.
- Eggs and snowballs can now be thrown again.
- Ladders can now be placed properly.
- All new blocks are now able to be placed.
- Regular torches can now be placed with no orientation issues.
- Animals are spawning normally.
- You can now use dye on blocks and place it properly.
- You can use dye on sheep properly.
- Redstone is strange when the server first starts up but will return to normal working state after the server is running for a few minutes. Levers also work strange initially but work after the same amount of time.
- HUD experience no delays or slowdowns since the latest update.
- Boats can now be properly placed, as well as ridden.
- Torches now properly get placed on snow.
Bugs I have not confirmed either way:
- If you lay a birch tree, the white trees, they'll come out as normal brown trees.
- Any other block placed on snow floats.. (Guessing this happens with steps too and floor plates.}
- Using a bow with arrow in your inventory makes the shooting sound and decreases the number of arrows you have, but the arrows are not shot, or if they are, they are invisible, do no damage, and cannot be picked up.
- iStick is currently not working.
- GriefAlert is not working 100% reporting should now be resolved as of 0.9).
- The HUD doesn't have the extra effect from the patch update where the items grow larger then shrink back to normal size to indicate you picked something up.
- Stairs still have the orientation bug where they will only face North.
- Need to test whether redstone torches can be placed without the orientation bug.
- Need to test LWC.
Bugs that are known to be unfixed:
- None yet...need to test!
Again, as with the previous update, please please please help me test this stuff so I can get a confirmation either way. If you can confirm whether or not a bug is still occurring on the server, it'd help me big time.
kMod updated to v0.8.5!
Hello fellow Minecrafters! Great news for kMod! The server mod has recently been updated, which should address the lion's share of the bugs we have been experiencing lately! Make sure to log in and check it out!
I'll update below what I have confirmed to be working or not working on the server:
Bugs I have confirmed to be fixed:
- Opening chests with items in it now works as it should.
- The duplication bugs have been resolved.
- Placing blocks on yourself no longer occurs.
- Buckets work properly now.
- All food works as it should.
- Eggs and snowballs can now be thrown again.
- Ladders can now be placed properly.
- All new blocks are now able to be placed.
- Torches can now be placed with no orientation issues.
- Animals are spawning normally.
- You can now use dye on blocks and place it properly.
- You can use dye on sheep properly.
- Redstone is strange when the server first starts up but will return to normal working state after the server is running for a few minutes. Levers also work strange initially but work after the same amount of time.
- HUD experience no delays or slowdowns since the latest update.
- Boats can now be properly placed, as well as ridden.
- Torches now properly get placed on snow.
Bugs I have not confirmed either way:
- If you lay a birch tree, the white trees, they'll come out as normal brown trees.
- Any other block placed on snow floats.. (Guessing this happens with steps too and floor plates.}
- Using a bow with arrow in your inventory makes the shooting sound and decreases the number of arrows you have, but the arrows are not shot, or if they are, they are invisible, do no damage, and cannot be picked up.
Bugs that are known to be unfixed:
- iStick is currently not working.
- GriefAlert is not working 100%.
- The HUD doesn't have the extra effect from the patch update where the items grow larger then shrink back to normal size to indicate you picked something up.
- Stairs still have the orientation bug where they will only face North.
If you have updates on any of the unconfirmed bugs, let me know. I will update the blog accordingly. Also, as I get a chance to test things, I will be sure to update this post until all of the bugs are confirmed to work or not work. If you experience any of the bugs that I have tested, please let me know so I can accurately change the blog entry.
I'm sure this will make the server far more enjoyable to use at this point. I apologize that the server hasn't been 100% since 1.2, but server owners were really left in the lurch after this last update. At least the new blocks are usable at this point! Enjoy!
Minecraft Server is back up…sorta
Well, it's day 3 with no Minecraft, the only thing that's even remotely close to a solution to bringing the server back up is kMod. This mod is basically a fork off of hMod, done by a guy called hclewk, who decided to take it upon himself to attempt to ressurect the mod. He has been working hard on the mod so far, and plans on continuing to do so, at least in the short term until Bukkit is complete.
Anyway, I have decided to adopt kMod now, despite the fact that it is risky to do so. I do have full backups of the map and the server configs, just in case corruption occurs due to the unofficial, buggy mod.
PLEASE keep in mind this is a BUGGY BUGGY BUGGY release. Just to give you an idea about how many bugs there are, these are the ones that have been reported so far (as per the list I took from the kMod site below):
- Open anything and you'll place a block on the object you opened. i.e. Chests, Furnaces, Doors, Signs. This can result in a torch destroying the block beside a door in order to be placed there.
- You can place blocks on yourself. This duplicates the block, by putting one on the ground, but keeping the one in your inventory.
- Lava buckets do not work. You place lava and it disappears. The same occurs with water.
- You cannot use food except cake. You cannot throw eggs. (Probably the same for snowballs)
- The HUD is slow on updating when you drop items (Or from what I experienced)
- Stargate doesn't work (Fairly known one and is confirmed to not work)
- Animals aren't spawning.
- Monsters aren't spawning.
- Ladders don't work.
- Can't place new blocks? (i.e Noteblocks, Sandstone)
- Sheep dye doesn't work.
- Levers won't flip up or down and they sometimes move the block but they work.
- Craftbook doesn't work.
- The HUD doesn't have the extra effect from the patch update where the items grow larger then shrink back to normal size to indicate you picked something up.
- If you lay a birch tree, the white trees, they'll come out as normal brown trees.
- Can't place torches on snow.
- Any other block placed on snow floats.. (Guessing this happens with steps too and floor plates.}
- Cuboid doesn't work.
- Stairs and torches are somewhat broken. I place one on the wall (torch) and there's a block next to it, it will instantly move to the other block. And stairs won't work at all. I try to place them, and they face the opposite direction.
- Using a bow with arrow in your inventory makes the shooting sound and decreases the number of arrows you have, but the arrows are not shot, or if they are, they are invisible, do no damage, and cannot be picked up.
- Boats cannot be placed, but can be ridden.
I do not wish to be informed that these bugs exist. As you can see above, I am aware of it. "Letting me know" is not necessary, and will be promply ignored. Complaining about it will get you a kick. I am really not in the mood to deal with complains over a matter that I have no control over. Surely you can understand my frustration in the matter, but please realize taht I do not have control over the matter, and I am simply attempting to make the best over a bad situation.
However, since the server IS back up, I would like to reward those of you that are taking the time to deal with my long posts. If you log on the server either today or tomorrow and see me online, send me a tell with the word "malcom" when on the MC server (type /tell Eagle malcom) and you will get 500 Talons!
While I wouldn't call the server "up," I would definitely call it functional enough to let us work on our projects again, at least until kMod gets more stable over the next few days. Enjoy!
Server Update – Long Explanation Edition
Hey, everyone!
Well, I am still working on getting the server running, but I thought it would be appropriate to provide a detailed explanation about why the server's not working, what we can do about it, and when I expect it to be back up. There will be no TL;DR version of this post, so please read it all.
First off, some background: most of you are aware that the server uses hey0's Mod (a.k.a. hMod) for server administration, and as a plugin wrapper. The mod gives us basically everything we are accustomed to, including warps, user groups, friendly item names (as opposed to using the data ID's), and every plugin I have on the server. Basically, hMod is crucial to running Eagleworld.
The problem with this is that hey0 announced that he no longer plays the game, and that he only made the mod for his own server. Therefore, he wished to discontinue making hMod. He did say, however, that he would continue updating hMod until a new server mod, called Bukkit, would be ready for release. Many hMod developers moved to the Bukkit team, and Bukkit will be far better than hMod for running the server, and most hMod plugin devs are porting their plugins to Bukkit.
As most of you know, Notch and his team released Minecraft Beta version 1.2 last Thursday, which provided us with many long-awaited game featuers (colored wools and dyes, new blocks, working paintings, new creatures, and, of course, cake). Naturally, since the game IS in Beta, and since Notch changed a good deal of how Minecraft works, hMod broke come the 1.2 Beta release. I had expected this, and I expceted there would be a day or two that hMod would not be updated.
What I did NOT expect to find was that hey0 announced that hMod will no longer be updated. Period. Instead of waiting for Bukkit to take over hMod's role (which it is nowhere near ready to do), he basically just said "suck it" and left everyone in the lurch. As such, that leaves us only two viable options for getting the server online: waiting for Bukkit to be released (which could take weeks), or hoping somebody will release an unofficial version of hMod.
The Bukkit team announced afterwards that it would attempt to patch and release hMod this one time in order to bridge the gap that this caused, but they quickly stated they were unable to do so. Those that were familiar with hMod before said it was too different for them to understand it, and it would take away too much time from implementing Bukkit. So, while the Bukkit team tried, they were not able to update hMod.
Anyway, I looked into the possibility of a new hMod build, and I think I found one. The guy doing the mod calls it "kMod," and it is basically just a patch-up of hMod for the new release. It looks promising, but has many bugs. It might be our answer until a better option comes along.
As far as when I expect the server to come back online, I want to wait a day or so to see if kMod gets patched, or a better implementation comes around. However, if none do come around, I will use kMod just to get the server online, buggy or not. I expect to bring up Eagleworld by Saturday night the earliest, Sunday the latest.
Thanks for everyone's patience! We'll get back on the server soon!
Minecraft Server Update
Hi everyone! Sorry the blog has to be created on such a bad occasion. I don't have time for a lengthier post, so I will just let everyone know for now that the Minecraft server will be down until further notice. I will explain in detail later, but for now I'll let you know that Beta 1.2 broke hMod, and hey0 does not want to update hMod anymore. So, right now, there is no way for us to use all of the features we are accustomed to.
I am going to fill this blog with more features later, so please check back soon. Also, I will script an uptime notification that will let you know when the server is back up.