If you keep up with Minecraft development then you might know that the Update Aquatic has been in the works for some time, and includes some major and exciting new features - many of which are underwater.

The possibility of starting over came up in the Telegram group lately. We would make the old map available for download to currently whitelisted players, maybe provide a way for people to carry over a few sentimental items from the old map to the new map, and then we'd start all over again from scratch. The map is almost 3 years old, and a lot of us get a lot of joy out of that first foray into a new land! And what better time than the Update Aquatic?

So, we want to know what you think. Please share your views in one of these places:

• The Telegram group
• The Discord server
• By emailing Cassian (me)

If you are whitelisted you will have access to all of these in your "application accepted" email from me when you were first whitelisted.

Two big changes today!

1. We have updated to Spigot 1.11, The Exploration Update. This means llamas, shulker boxes, and various other things.
2. We have removed the Shop and economy plugins. We tried out the whole Shop thing, finally finding a money-earning and shop plugin set-up that worked without getting in the way, and tried it out for a few months. Today was the end of an in-game vote to decide whether to keep them, and despite people being glad we'd given it a try the vote was heavily in favour of removing them all and becoming more vanilla again.

I can very highly recommend the plugin Shop by developer SnowGears, it was good value for the small amount of money it cost! If we had voted to keep a shop plugin, that would be The One.


[appropriate sign-off],

Cassian
IGN Cassolotl
Admin

~

Server address: thisland.nitrous.it
Dynmap
Website
Telegram news channel
Wiki
@Cassolotl on Telegram

We updated to Spigot 1.10 a few days ago, and it seems to be working well!

Shop and economy stuff

We've been trialing a shop/economy set-up for a few weeks, and a couple of days ago we voted. It was clear from the vote that people weren't happy with the set-up - all votes were either to discuss other options or to scrap it entirely.

ChestShop and Jobs Reborn weren't really meeting our needs, because Jobs Reborn was a bit big and complicated, and ChestShop was just really difficult and unintuitive to use. As a result of the vote, and based on the experience that I find it easier to start again than to try to convert existing systems to new plugins, I removed all the economy plugins.

After some research, I found a couple of plugins that seemed more suitable. They were successfully installed a few hours ago and are working well on the server so far.

• Shop is a bit like ChestShop in that it allows you to make a shop using a chest and a sign, but it's easier to use, more configurable, and more attractive. (Spigot page requiring Spigot account and costing $4.50, youtube video )
• Time Is Money lets players automatically earn virtual currency for being active on the server, being paid .10 coins per minute of active playing time. (Spigot page)

​We'll trial these for a couple of weeks, and then I'll see how everyone feels about them, and maybe run a vote.

I just updated the server to Spigot 1.9, and everything seems to be working as well as can be expected. :)
This means you'll have to make sure you've got the right profile selected. Sadly there's no Optifine for 1.9 yet but I'm sure there will be in time.
Updates of interest to autistic players:

• Subtitles (in audio settings)
• Water directly adjacent to glass no longer has an animation
• Boats move differently (again)

It's time for a new communal build! We've recently mostly-finished work on the Nether Hub, and there are a few things still in the pipeline but it works and it's a good mostly-safe place to meet in the middle. The next thing on the list is an in-game voting system, and in order to distribute voting books we need a decent post office.

The last build was a sort of chaotically managed group effort, with people chipping in as much work and materials as they could or wanted to. It's time to try something more structured and with clear boundaries and rules, for those who work that way.

The Post Office is very vague, but here's what we know so far:

• It may be far from the centre of the map, but it'll be linked via two-way teleport to the hub in Subzero, which is right at the centre of the map and very close to spawn.
• It will be used for secure distribution of voting cards for votes.
• It will not be a place to express yourself - that's what the allotments are for. The Post Office is for functionality, dropping off messages (in written books) and goods quickly and easily.

The contest starts now, and will be judged by vote. The build period will end two weeks from today, at noon UTC/GMT on Saturday 13th February 2016. (Time zone converter.)

Here are the criteria:

1. The Post Office must be demonstrably mob-proof and sufficiently lit.
2. Bear in mind that some decorations and materials may be over-stimulating for some players.
3. The Post Office must be easily securable using GriefPrevention; post/mail should not be accessible by players other than the person whose postbox it is.
   1. No player should be required to make subclaims.
   2. Reminder that top level claims can be as small as 2x2.
4. The Post Office should be easily extendable, and at a reasonably low cost in terms of materials and time spent obtaining them, should the player base increase such that this is required.
5. There must be a single place inside the Post Office, in a central or accessible location, for players to teleport in and out.
6. There must be a way to label or mark postboxes with each player's name.
7. The project should be self-sufficient after being built, with minimal involvement required from a project manager or admin.
8. There should be an information wall with signs informing people of at least the following information (feel free to paraphrase and rearrange):
   1. It's a communal post office for giving stuff to other players.
   2. You can claim any available postbox by adding a sign with at least your playername on it; secure it with GriefPrevention. [Make sure that players can do this without having to ask for help from another player; instructions may be required.]
   3. GriefPrevention claims expire after 180 days.
   4. If you don't log in for over a year, your postbox may be emptied and claimed by someone else unless you indicate that you may be away for a while with signs on your postbox.
   5. If you lose access to Minecraft in such a way that you can't place that sign, contact Cassolotl (lotte dot lodge at gmail dot com); they will make sure your postbox is protected.
   6. If you find a postbox with a sign on it that is not claimed by GriefPrevention and you would like to move in, first type "/seen playername" to find out when that person last logged in. You can only claim a postbox if the owner hasn't logged in for over a year and has not indicated that they will be back. Then contact Cassolotl (lotte dot lodge at gmail dot com) to let them know that you're claiming an abandoned postbox.

Here's how it's going to go down:

1. Designs may be submitted by individuals or by teams.
2. One submission per player or team; no updates allowed. Your submission is final.
   1. A player may submit as an individual, and also as a member of a team.
3. Participants are encouraged to share co-ordinates before they submit if they want to get feedback on their builds and make sure that their designs are accessible, etc. However, secret builds are also fine!
4. Before the deadline, submit your design to the Telegram group or to Cassolotl by email. Your submission should include:
   1. Screenshots of your build in the default resource pack.
   2. Co-ordinates so that people can visit and test it out a bit.
   3. A few details on how it will be built. Will the winner build it alone, or with assistance from volunteers? How will the materials be obtained? Will the winner use the prototype they made for the contest, or start from scratch in a better location?
5. Players will have three days following the deadline to discuss the merits of the various submissions, ending at noon 16th February.
   1. During these three days, anyone who wants to vote should ask Cassolotl for a vote card (or vote cards).
   2. Participants are allowed to vote, and can vote for their own submissions.
6. Players will have 24 hours starting noon 16th February to vote for their favourite post office designs. Voting will be in a specially made voting booth. It will be anonymous to all, including the vote counter.
   1. If there are two entries, players will be given one voting book each. If there are more than two entries, players will be given two voting books each, allowing them to vote for their two favourite designs or to vote for one design twice.
7. Shortly after noon on 17th February UTC/GMT, the vote counter will count the votes and announce the winner. The winner will be announced both in the Telegram group and in a blog post here.
8. The winner will have one week to produce a working post office. This deadline can be extended by request.
9. Should the winner not be able to ensure production of their post office, the person who came second place will be asked to produce their post office instead.

First of all, I would like to apologise. I have not been as present for these events as I should have been, and I am aware that I should have stepped in sooner as admin to help moderate. I am new to this whole authority thing, I've never run a Minecraft server before, and I was worried about being too interfering! I think, having learned from this experience, I can be more helpful in future.

Zero Zero was originally built by harpereaves as a fringe project back when the server was young enough to only have three players, all of whom were AFK friends already. Since then, Zero Zero has been managed by harpereaves as part personal project, part community project. Recently the lack of clarity over the ownership and purpose of Zero Zero came to light. We formally and informally tried some different solutions, but none "felt right".

Today me and harpereaves discussed it, and we came to the conclusion that for this to be fully resolved, Zero Zero and all attached projects should be removed, leaving only a small platform in the middle of the ocean and a drop down to the nether portal on the ocean floor.

Here's the plan:

1. The Zero Zero platform and the surrounding area will be build-protected, meaning that players cannot build there. This will last indefinitely.
2. Harpereaves and any other involved players and volunteers will remove all projects and salvageable materials. This includes the Marketplace and the Junkyard.
3. Any allotments whose griefprevention claims have expired following six months of player inactivity will be dismantled by Cassolotl, with materials from them placed in a chest and protected so that only the owner of the allotment can take them. Players will be given a further six months to reclaim their materials, after which the contents of the box will be free to take.
4. Once everything has been cleared, Zero Zero will be ensmallenated, so that it's just a smaller platform in the middle of the ocean.
5. Active players can leave their allotments as they are until the new Allotment Project is announced, since some of them have teleport blocks in them.
6. When the new Allotment Project is announced, players who wish to move their allotment teleport blocks and target co-ordinates will be able to do so for free.

I would like to add that I am not closed to the idea of a community space at Zero Zero in future - but I think that after such a big mix-up we would as a server benefit from some downtime. I will open Zero Zero to community development when the time feels right.

If you have any questions please feel free to message me on Telegram (cassolotl), or email me using the forms on this site or by replying to your application acceptance email.

PS: We now have three places on Telegram:

• This Land chatter group, for social, sharing screencaps, organising group projects/adventures, etc. (Ask for access - whitelisted players only.)
• This Land announcements channel, for infrequent non-interactive announcements.
• This Land Conflict Resolution group, for keeping disputes out of the main chat area. (Ask for access - whitelisted players only.)

We just updated the server to Spigot 1.8.8 to see if it would fix a whitelisting bug, but it didn't. Ah well.

What this means is, if you're applying to join This Land, you'll need to enter your UUID in the comment section of the joining form as well as giving us your IGN/username. I have to add it all manually via the file manager. I'll be glad when that bug is fixed!

Hello!

For ages I've been meaning to get PvP (player vs. player) sorted out, so that players who want to fight can fight and players who don't can't hurt anyone else or be hurt themselves.

After some tinkering, here's the haps!

• You can now use /pvp to toggle PvP on and off.
• If your PvP is on, others who have PvP on can hurt you and you can hurt them back.
• If your PvP is off, no one can hurt you and you can't hurt anyone else, full stop.
• All of this is unaffected by player and admin claims using GriefPrevention.
• Type /pvplist to see a list of all players with PvP enabled, and then go find them and prank the hell out of them.
• If you've never logged in before, your /PvP will automatically be set to OFF.

PLEASE NOTE! If you are an existing player, your PvP will automatically be set to ON. This means that when you next log in, you will be on the PvP list (command: /pvplist) whether you like it or not. Hopefully during this transitionary period people will be nice and check when you log in that you know about the new PvP situation, so be careful before attacking someone over the next couple of months, okay? Okay.

Things here are going pretty well. There's been a bit of an uptick in players, including people who're coming back regularly. We've even got regulars in different timezones. The nether network is expanding, and people are enjoying the new shiny things of 1.8. Bunnies! Slime block trampolines! Sea fortresses! Villager-enabled automatic farming, ooooooo.

Anyway, the real reason I'm here is to mention that this morning I changed some stuff in the GriefPrevention config file - wooden doors are no longer locked until claim owners grant /accesstrust, and fire now spreads and destroys.

If you're here because you're wondering why the server is down, it's because we're updating to Spigot 1.8 - check back in an hour or so for progress reports.

Edit: All done, and the server is running! The Dynmap is down because it needs tweaking but it should be back soon. :)

Edit again: Dynmap is fixed!