Minecraft Beta 1.5_02 Updates and Changes
Hey, everyone!
Well, the Bukkit team put out their recommended build yesterday for Beta 1.5_02. For those of you still grumbling about it, the wait was warranted. The team had a lot of work to do not just working on Beta 1.5, but restructuring their entire update process. Let's remember they're not coding in Logo here...there's a lot of effort that goes into this. Try to curb that immediate gut reaction of chagrin and show some appreciation for these guys. They DO make Bukkit for free, after all. 
Anyway, let me go over everything you need to know about Beta 1.5. Yes, you need to read it. Everyone's gonna complain about it, you might as well read the page of info I have for you regarding the updates.
Server Changes
Here's the quick view of what I actually had to update this release:
- Minecraft - Now on Beta 1.5_02 (no, that's not a typo...the server is on 1.5_02)
- Craftbukkit - Now on Build 733
- BigBrother - Now on a development snapshot of 1.8
- LWC - Now on 2.31
Nothing really outstanding here. All other plugins seem to be working in a stable manner (or, at least as stable as they were in 1.4...). Note that some of these plugins are not being actively developed, but seem to still work (such as SimpleShop and LocalShops).
Permission Changes and New Kits
I've tweaked some of the permissions in the game, and added a bunch of new kits! Some of these were requested, some I came up with myself. Here's the list:
- /tptoggle - Guests now have access. Now, you guys can use /tpa to show guests around.
- /tpdeny - Guests now have access. Allows guests to clear existing /tpa or /tpahere requests.
- /kit bedtime - New Architect kit. Gives you 1 bed to allow server-synchronized sleeping.
- /kit armor - New Artisan kit. Gives you a full set of leather armor.
- /kit snowballs - New Artisan kit. Gives you a full stack of snowballs.
- /kit jewellry - New VIP kit. Gives you 1 watch and 1 compass.
- /kit doggie - New VIP kit. Gives you 8 bones and 8 cooked pork for use in taming/healing wolves.
- /kit cookie - New Mod kit. Gives you 1 cookie.
- /kit boobtasmic - Restricted to admins only (per Runninghobo's request).
Known Dynmap Issues
Currently, the Dynamic Server Map seems to have some problems on the new release. The web page seems to work fine when in top-down view. Chatting, user locations, and map scrolling works perfectly. However, when you switch to isometic view, the web page crashes. I have to look into this to see what is going wrong. I might be able to fix this with a simple plugin reinstallation, but it could take me a while to fix. Note that complaining about this to me will not fix the plugin. Thanks.
Otherwise, Business as usual
Besides, the changes above, the server is the same as it was before. Towny, iConomy, FlatEarth, and everything else you're used to is the same as usual. I hope everyone enjoys Beta 1.5!
P.S. - I still owe you the jar backup tutorial...I'll post that this week.
Updated Rules and Beta 1.5 Updates
Hey everyone!
I've got two major things to cover here today, so I'll do them in one post:
Updated Rules/Blog Info
Please kick on over to the Server Info page and check out the new Server Rules. I've also adjusted the Important Info under Server Settings. I've made things a bit more concise and clear, as well as added a few rules. No real surprises here...just stuff I've been enforcing for a while but weren't officially part of the rules.
I also changed around the New Players page a bit and made it a bit easier to read. I trimmed some of the language and made it more concise and to the point.
Beta 1.5 Updates
Several of you have been bugging me about this, so let me give an update about where we stand. Right now, there is no recommended build for Bukkit that works with Beta 1.5. There IS a Bukkit version that will work with Beta 1.5, but it is untested and buggy. Also, I did a quick scan to see which plugins were updated for 1.5...not many. So, if I update now, we'll have a buggy Bukkit plugin, half support for the plugins that do work, and a bunch of plugins that don't. Not what we want, is it?
If you want more info on this, the Bukkit team has a post on it: Link Here
For those of you too lazy to click the link, here's what the Bukkit team said about updating to 1.5:
"We have completed the update to Minecraft 1.5_02 (and have had it done for a while now) and are working out a few issues before we promote a recommended build. A TEST ONLY build is available but we highly recommend that you wait until we promote a Recommended Build before putting it on your production server."
In other words, Bukkit is not ready for production yet. If you're still not convinced and are saying, "But Eagle, can't we just use a version that works? They said they have a build, it's just not recommended." Well, here's another statement regarding the Bukkit Team on non-recommended versions:
"Only Recommended Builds have gone through extensive testing. Anything else could result in unforeseen problems like Bukkit eating your cake or your world. You have been warned."
I'm not dealing with that. So, we wait. Might I remind you the server is working 100% with Beta 1.4. Everything is functional, and we have no issues whatsoever. The only issue on the server right now is a severe case of SNS Syndrome.
Speaking of SNS Syndrome, I will be making another post soon about how to back up your Minecraft Directory to test the new versions of Minecraft, yet keeping the old one so you can still play on Eagleworld. Stay tuned!
Playing Admin
So I have something I would like to talk to ALL the players of the Delorean server about an issue I have with ALL of you,
I'm super sick of people "playing admin" when we get new players if you are not an admin DO NOT ask them to read the rules or go to the blog or what their age is! I cant stress this enough. we have our system we want to hear(see) how people react to the questions and be able to see if their ip logged to the webpage.. IF there is not an admin on you can try to get a hold of an admin, there are several ways to contact both Peter(Eaglerock1337) and I(Runninghobo) OR just tell them to come back later simple as that.
Now I would like to make a point that if I see anyone else playing admin from here on out there WILL be consequences to your actions.
Now thank you for reading this here little post, have a great night and a fun Easter tomorrow
Love,
Nick
Bukkit for 1.5 Delayed
Hey, everyone.
Just a heads up for those of you that are still afflicted with SNS Syndrome. Bukkit for SMP 1.5 is going to take a while. The Bukkit team just released a post on their blog stating the reasons why. You can read the details from the Bukkit team's blog using this link. I recommend that you do, just so you realize what happens on the back-end of this game.
The basic jist of the post is as follows:
- Beta 1.5 is riddled with bugs, as most of that have tried it know
- Updating Bukkit at this time will be futile because of all the bugs
- Mojang will probably be releasing multiple updates to fix 1.5 in the next few days
- The Bukkit team will start working on a Beta 1.5-compatible Craftbukkit once SMP is stable
A prime example why having SNS Syndrome is a bad idea. Even the Bukkit team doesn't want to touch Beta 1.5 in its current state, and frankly, I can't blame them.
In other news, when I DO roll out Beta 1.5 on Eagleworld, I'll make some kit tweaks, and I will allow guests to use /tpaccept, so they can be teleported by Architects and Artisans.
A Serious Disorder
Hi everyone,
I need to talk to you today about a serious matter that affects many Americans, Canadians, and all of those across the world. It is a serious disorder that has spread across the world, and seems to have no signs of slowing down. It will eventually take over the world without serious intervention from the general populace.
I am, of course, talking about SNS Syndrome.
SNS Syndrome is a disorder that can affect people from all walks of life, but most commonly affects those that are heavy computer users. It has been diagnosed to many people in the Linux community, gaming circles, and yes, the Minecraft community at large.
If you are unfamiliar with SNS Syndrome, please read the information I have below on this serious condition.
SNS Syndrome Explained
SNS Syndrome is really an acronym for Shiny New Shit Syndrome, which is the disorder currently plaguing the US, Canada, and nations abroad. It was brought to my attention by the knowledgeable folk in the Debian IRC Channels, and now that I know about this condition, I see it all around me.
Here are the symptoms of SNS Syndrome:
- Uncontrollable urge to blab constantly about new updates
- The inability to stop asking about when updates are coming
- The feeling that you must have the latest version of something
- Making nonsensical decisions, such as upgrading to the latest version of something opposed the stable, older-version counterpart
If you exhibit these symptoms, you might have SNS Syndrome yourself.
What you can do about SNS Syndrome
SNS Syndrome tends to break out in an epidemic whenever a new version of something comes out, such as Minecraft Beta 1.5. If you or someone you know is exhibiting symptoms of SNS Syndrome, you can help. Here is what you can do to help yourself or help someone else:
- Try your hardest to resist the urge to upgrade to something instantly.
- If you feel urges to try out Beta 1.5, back up your Minecraft directory first.
- If you do not have the knowledge on how to back up your Minecraft directory, ask someone that does, or don't do it at all.
- Realize how great something is that works and works all the time.
- Remember all the great things about Beta 1.4_01 before immediately abandoning its status as a good game
These simple steps will help you and your Minecraft brethren and sistern fight the ever-prominent SNS Syndrome all around you in your daily life
In case you didn't get the hint
SLOW THE FUCK DOWN if you are bitching about the fact Eagleworld is not on Beta 1.5 yet. Bukkit has not yet been updated for Minecraft Beta 1.5. That means NO plugins, NO iconomy, NO security, NO nothing. The server will have about 5% of the functionality you are accustomed to if I upgrade right now.
And when Bukkit is updated, I have to wait for ALL OF THE PLUGINS WE USE to get updated. That could take days. And after THAT, I have to test it all. If you are not familiar with the amount of work this takes, take a look at this post about Beta 1.4. It takes a lot of work, usually on the scale of 10-20 hours per version. It's not going to happen overnight.
The spoiler contains the upgrade plan I used on Beta 1.4, updated for Beta 1.5:
| Spoiler Inside: Minecraft Beta 1.5 Upgrade Plan | |
|---|---|
So, please do not forget how good Beta 1.4 was to you. Don't abandon it for the latest and greatest. While Beta 1.5 is partying all night, getting drunk and high on cocaine, Beta 1.4 is sitting right here, ready and waiting for you. Don't let Beta 1.4 fall into obscurity while Beta 1.5 is still partying hard, making life difficult for everyone.
Tons ‘o’ Updates
Okay, I got a bunch of changes I did today, so allow me to fill you all in:
Craftbukkit/Plugin Updates
A bunch of plugins got updated, along with Bukkit itself. So far everything seems to be working nicely with no issues (at least no new ones...). The big changes to the server involved Essentials and LWC.
Door Redstone Protection Added
Thanks to the latest version of LWC, you can now protect your locked doors against redstone circuitry! Type /lwc flag redstone on and left-click a door to turn on redstone protection and disable an override of a locked door. If you want to enable redstone again, type /lwc flag redstone off.
Note that all locked doors DO NOT have this protection by default. So, if you have doors you want to disable redstone on, you must turn on the flag for each one. Do not assume the redstone lock is there.
New Essentials Commands
There are bunch of new commands thanks to the Essentials plugin! Here's the list of them and who has access to them:
- /whois - Builder - Now you can see player info at a glance! Displays their username, any nicknames they are currently using, their account balance, their location, whether they are AFK or available, and their current health. Very handy if you are trying to figure out who is using what nickname!
- /clearinventory - Architects - Architects or higher can now clear their own inventories. Clearing other people's inventories are still restricted to mods or above.
- /ext - VIP - VIPs, Mods, and Admins can now extinguish a player on command!
- /burn - Mods - Mods can do the opposite, too!
- /jails - Mods - Since we can set multiple jails, use /jails to see the list of them when you want to jail a player.
Global Shop Additions
I am adding gunpowder to the Global Shop, as it is a highly requested item. It's not cheap, but not too expensive, either. TNT works out to be about 10tl each. Note that buying gunpowder without access to use TNT doesn't let you place it. You can also sell gunpowder to the store as well, if you have extra and are looking to make a few extra Talons.
If you can think of anything else that should be added to the store, let me know. Note that I have no way of adding cocoa, so don't bother asking. The plugin still does not support damage values (which is how dyes are differentiated), so there is no way for me to sell it. I either have to wait for the plugin to support it or change plugins. The latter option I could do, but it would take me time.
And that's about it. Have fun with all the updates!
Server Back Up
Howdy,
The server was down for a few hours today, but I just brought it back up. It looks like the nightly restart caused this. The server couldn't bind to the Minecraft port, so I believe the old process didn't cleanly exit before the new one started. This shouldn't have happened, but I believe this is due one of the plugins hanging up and stopping the clean shutdown.
I'll have to take a look at what's going on during the reboot to see what exactly happened. I may reboot the server a few times tonight in order to test. I can't do this on a test server, as I can't duplicate the environment exactly otherwise.
Plugins and Promotions
Plugin Updates
Well, I fixed a few plugins and restored most of the server functionality. The dynamic map is working again. Before you start whining at me that it's not fixed, it only supports newer browsers, such as Google Chrome and Firefox 4. If your browser is not supported, bother the plugin maintainer, not me. I am not in the mood.
Shops are working again at this point. LocalShops was conflicting briefly with SimpleShop, as they were using the same command (/shop). That was fixed early on, so shops are working 100%. There are still the back-end bugs the server spits out, but it is not causing any gameplay issues.
EDIT: Page 6 of the Global Shop does not appear on the server for some reason. Again, this is the plugin developer, not me. Glowstone, Sponge, and Soul Sand do not appear in the list, but they are for sale. For prices in-game, use /shop check <item>. For example, "/shop check glowstone" will show the sale price of Glowstone (10tl). Also, the Global Shop page shows the list of everything. If it's on the blog, it is for sale.
Promotions
It's that time of the week, again. I promoted a bunch of players last night. This batch of promotions was all for the Architects. Six Architects were promoted to Artisan. These are the first batch of the "mcserverlist" people I've promoted past Architect. I have already adjusted everyone's rank and awarded them their raises. If you have not gotten your monthly salary yet, I gave your full new monthly salary. Here's the list:
- MirageSci - Architect
- ZeronFX - Architect
- Melany23 - Artisan
- Nephylim - Artisan
- _Nod_ - Artisan
- tim3bandit57 - Artisan
- MrKindLife - Artisan
- openminded - Artisan
- PoastToasties - VIP
- Jon_Lupen - VIP
Congrats to everyone that got promoted! Like I said, you should already have your new salaries and rankings. If you do not, please let me know so I can make adjustments accordingly.
Eagleworld updated to Minecraft 1.4
Hey everyone.
Well, it took me staying up until 4AM and about 15 hours of scouring code repositories for plugins, testing, migration, updating, and other crap, but Eagleworld is now stable on Minecraft SMP verion 1.4. I'll just quickly bulletpoint the changes made:
Latest Server Build
- Craftbukkit is now on the latest recommended build, 617.
- Essentials 2.1.11 is successfully installed and all configurations are updated.
- iConomy is now on 4.6.5 and works fine on 1.4.
- Townymod is on an unofficial build at version 0.61, updated for 1.4.
- LWC is up to version 2.11, updated for 1.4.
- BigBrother is on a snapshot build of 1.7.2, but is working fine.
- SimpleShop was not updated as of 1.3, but works on 1.4.
- LocalShops was updated to 2.2.0 and works fine.
- CreativeStick is updated to 0.6.0, which despite being a 1.3 plugin, works fine.
- FlatEarth is on version 0.6, and works great with 1.4.
As you can see, I had to update almost every plugin. There were tons of config changes, and some added functionality. I have not had time to update the help page yet, though, so you'll have to find the extra stuff on your own for now.
Current Server Bugs
And now, let's go over the bugs that the server has right now. They are not severe, but could cause minor issues:
- Townymod's latest version has a problem with usernames preceding with an underscore (like "_Nod_"). I don't know if this is going to prevent Nod from being part of Towny or not yet.
- iConomy is throwing database errors upon startup, which in my opinion aren't a problem, but I'll probably want to eventually fix.
- BigBrother attempts to update the database every time I start the server, despite the database being fully updated. I'm not sure what impact this will have, but the bug is there.
- SimpleShop, since it's not updated, is throwing warnings due to it using deprecated craftbukkit function calls. While this won't affect anything now, this could mean the plugin will no longer be supported if it is not updated soon.
- The dynmap plugin does not work yet. I have to wait for an update. Period.
- I am not 100% sure wolves will follow you throughout warping. If you lose a wolf because you were warp-happy, I'm not going to do anything about it. You were duly warned.
Time for a rant
I got the server up faster than I expected, thankfully, but you people didn't make it easy. Nothing but nagging left and right, and people actually explicitly logging on to tell me that they are updating and "won't wait around for this server." Frankly, it royally pissed me off.
When Minecraft got updated to Beta 1.2, it broke hMod completely. The server was down for three days. I got nothing but bitching and moaning that the server was down for three days. Never mind the fact that I was working my ass off during that. The server was down. You people couldn't play.
Come Beta 1.3, I got smarter. I thought it would be smart to allow you people to play on the server in "anarchy mode" with no mods and no rules until I could get the server up with mods and revert. People did nothing but bitch and complain about it, still complaining that the server was not right and they didn't have iConomy.
Come this last update, I said it would make more sense to keep the server in a stable environment and keep it on Beta 1.3 until I could get the server stable on 1.4. This way, you lose NOTHING and everything stays as it was. I got nothing but bitching from people that they couldn't play with wolves and that I wasn't "just updating it already."
Minecraft is a BETA PRODUCT. INCOMPLETE. Survival Multiplayer is NOT STABLE SOFTWARE. IT BREAKS. I am doing as best of a job as possible as a system administrator by delivering you a stable experience with unstable software and unofficial mods that bring the server into a playable state. It takes a good deal of effort to turn the mess of plugins into something that actually works, and works all the time.
If you think it's just a matter of "updating a file," go try it yourself. Sure, you might get it working, but try getting it working so your server stays up and doesn't lose data. My server only goes down for two reasons: the nightly reboot (which gives you roughly 10 seconds of downtime the most), and for server upgrades. Since Beta 1.2, the longest my server has been down for upgrades has been about 5 minutes.
If you calculate my uptime percentage, I'm hitting about 99.9%, folks. Also, as far as data loss goes, I haven't lost any. Ever. There is not much more I can do to make the server better. Especially considering the fact that I DO THIS FOR FREE. This is not something you pay for. If you had to, I can guarantee that you could not afford my rates.
So, enjoy your damn update. It may be the last one I do for this server. Go have fun with the stupid wolves. I won't. I need a break from Minecraft.
Minecraft 1.4 Updates (April Fools)
Hey everyone!
I've started some preliminary work on the migration, and I have some updates:
1) Minecraft 1.4 Vanilla appears to work 100%.
Thankfully, I have tested the vanilla 1.4 on Eagleworld.net with no bugs. So far, so good!
2) Craftbukkit appears to let the server start, but it is very buggy.
It looks as though craftbukkit has been updated, so Minecraft does in fact load on 1.4. However, we are probably going to have to wait for the next recommended build for it to be stable enough for use. There are a few bugs, which might affect plugins from working properly.
3) Essentials plugin is riddled with bugs.
Unfortunately, Essentials currently is a mess. It runs, but with some bugs:
- Server will occasionally crash unexpectedly
- Wolves will not work.
- Your iConomy data might get deleted unexpectedly and you will lose your Talons.
- You will occasionally get spawned into the Nether.
- Chat sometimes doesn't work
- Attempting to purchase from a store will occasionally delete your player inventory.
- Ore blocks when placed (such as iron or diamond ore) will occasionally disappear.
These are bugs that are not going to get fixed for at least 6-8 weeks. Essentials requires a complete rewrite for this to work. I will however roll out the server before then so that we can play on 1.4. I know everyone is excited for that.
That's all I've got so far. I hope have more updates soon. With luck, the server might be running version 1.4 in another 3 weeks or so.
Other Updates
I have some other news: I'm suspending the Monthly Salary program. I've decided that monthly salaries just do not make sense on the server, as it does not work fairly towards those that work hard on the server. Instead, it promotes sloth and unfairly assists the poor on the server. I'm sure everyone will agree with me on this assessment.
Server Upgrade Progress
As per the post yesterday, I've updated the server upgrade schedule and showed what has been done so far and what is left to do. Feel free to check it out if you like.
| Spoiler Inside | |
|---|---|