Minecraft 1.7

If you haven't played, or didn't read the last post, we're running 1.7.2!

Now, this comes with it's own set of issues that we're still working on. The experiment (a few posts ago) was a huge success, with 1.6.2 running much more stable than 1.6.4. With the new box, we're able to increase the RAM for the server, allowing us to run 1.7.2!
(As a small aside, 1.6.2 was running with 1G of RAM, max allowed. When I moved it over and upgraded just bukkit, we needed about 4G of RAM for just the worlds. Without the upgrade, we would still be stuck at 1.6.2.)
Because of the bukkit update process (and the devs), very few of the plugins we use are listed to work with 1.7.2. Only two plugins were plainly broken by this update: the VillageMarker mod, which didn't really work to begin with, and mcMMO, which is very disappointing. In good news, mcMMO is still releasing dev builds and will be updated. Meanwhile, I'll work out whatever other issues there are with the server (lag spikes and what have you).
We have new worlds for you to play in! Adventure+ is a fresh world with the normal Adventure rules and it comes equipped with its own nether and end. The old War was erased to make way for a fresh 1.7 No Rules world, also with unique nether and end worlds.
So, no more going into War and coming out in Adventure!
You will notice 'chunk errors' along the border of 1.6 loaded and 1.7 loaded chunks (yet unexplored regions). If you see these, and they look pretty cool, let us know. So far the best I've seen is Extreme Hills straight into an ocean.

The Upgrade

Thank you to everyone that donated to the new server! If you haven't jump on to try it out, we are up an running 1.7.2. I'll make another post in a few minutes discussing the plans and the problems with the server at the moment. But for now, bask in all of those wires!

That's all the pictures I took of the building process. I didn't want to record it because the webcam audio isn't very good and, well, it was midnight. I had to install the motherboard 3 times, too! (You'll notice that I left the backplate off in pictures 2 and 3). All the expected components arrived without harm and look and run as expected.

One thing not in the picture is the new modem, but it's there waiting to be used!

Thanks guys!

Last few days!

We're at the last week of the fundraising campaign and we're doing swimmingly! And by week, I mean calendar week because the drive ends in:


So please get your donation in soon and thank you to everyone who has donated thus far.

An Experiment

The crashes I've been discussing with you all, and the precipitating factor in the fundraising campaign, have gotten worse. I've spent the past few hours attempting to restart the server after the third crash of the day without much success. I've even tried to switch out possible problematic plugins until I'm left with only one option: a downgrade.

This is a temporary experiment to see how the server runs, but the structure saving feature in 1.6.4 seems to be a huge RAM consuming process, so I want to try running a downgraded 1.6.2 server until we're ready to transfer to 1.7. Using this method, 1.6.4 will only be used right before I transition to the new build and will minimize contact time with the public.

I want to thank you all for your patience with our server problems and hope you're as excited as I am for 1.7, our upgrade, and the future of PALADINS.

Requesting Unbans

Please do not use friends or alternate accounts to apply to be unbanned from the server.

If you are unbanned and would like more information or to appeal the decision, please email your request to PaladinsServer (@) gmail.com.

Thank you.

Coming up next

What were you hoping to see here? That's what we want to know!

What should the server admins be looking at for the server?

More players? New dungeon? New wands? More events?

I (Vellusian) have an arena planned that I need to begin putting together, but I'm willing to suspend that and focus on what our players want.

Do I need to add more server shops? Or more plots in the bazaar? Maybe balancing of some feature? Drastic reworking of the Gods plugin?

Things that are coming up: 

Zephyrus removal (weekend of Nov 29th)

  - Get your items exchanged or salvaged!

Winter Dungeon

  - Opening in early December. Recommendations appreciated (PaladinsServer@gmail.com).

Pro Shop

  - Tokens will be available after the IndieGoGo campaign completes.

Return of fresh Creative

  - Soon!

1.7.2 Update

  - Whenever Bukkit and a few key plugins patch!

Comment, mail, email, tweet. 

Let us know what you're thinking!

IndieGoGo Campaign Update #2

Wow, guys, just wow.
Thank you to our generous donors out there, because, after the campaign ends, we WILL be getting a new server.

I'll have a video up later to give my thanks to all of you who have donated so far, but let me say it here now: I will be taking the server up to the next level, regardless of value, which is going to be the $650 level (another 16 GB of RAM) as of this post. If you all take it up to that point, then I'll go beyond and get the processor upgrade and so forth.

Please consider donating to the server upgrade today: http://igg.me/at/PaladinsServer

IndieGoGo Campaign Update #1

We're one week into our server upgrade fundraiser, and we're more than 25% there!

Thank you to everyone who has donated so far and plan on donating, but we still have a ways to go before we reach our goal and want your help. Please consider how much you value the time you've spent on the server and how much better it would be with less lag and more players.

Visit our campaign here:
http://igg.me/at/PaladinsServer/x/5190998

Contact me at PaladinsServer@gmail.com with any questions.

And thanks again.

IndieGoGo

Our fund-raising campaign is live!

http://igg.me/at/PaladinsServer/x/5190998

We have until December 19th to raise the money that we need. I'll continue to post updates there and here.

Let me know if you have any questions and thank you all for playing with us.

More Information

As I've stated in the server several times over the week, the server was down for some routine maintenance today (3 November). We should be ready to go for 1.7 whenever Bukkit and our core mods have been updated. Everything has been checked and should be currently up to date, but please let me know if any plugins appear to be acting funny.

I wanted to expand on some points from the last post. First, I've decided to replace the War world with a standard, fresh 1.7 world when we update, rather than the implied Amplified world. Second, the Creative purging is likely going to happen at the same time, so please let us know what plots you want to keep!

To address the instability caused by Zephyrus, I've decided it's time to do the dirty work and begin a buyback campaign for items containing non-standard enchantments. Not only will these enchantments not work when I pull the plugin, but the items will cause a client crash if the items are handled (similar to putting them in an anvil). The buyback is simple, I, or other admins, will trade out your enchanted items with ones of similar enchantments. Toxic Strike will be replaced by Fire Aspect, Battle Axe will be replaced with Sharpness, Instamine will be replaced by Efficiency V, and Lifesuck will be replaced with a Damage V bonus of your choice (All, Smite, or Arthropods). I cannot turn these items off from being crafted, so they'll still be in the market until the plugin is removed.

Finally, I've decided to proceed with the crowd-funding campaign. Our minimum level is $500, so if we don't reach our goal, no one will be charged. We're using IndieGoGo as a platform and the link, once live, should be:  http://igg.me/at/PaladinsServer/x/5190998
We'd greatly appreciate your support and will go into more detail about the campaign as we get underway.

State of the Server

I want to start by saying thank you to all the player past and present who have spent their time building, exploring, and fighting on our server. As with any major Minecraft update, we see changes with our player base and the way we operate, so when we make the transition to 1.7 we'll be dealing with a lot of new issues and ask for your patience.
I wanted to highlight some of the changes we're proposing and solicit opinions and recommendations about these, or any other, ideas.

The special Halloween dungeon will remain open until the weekend, when I plan on taking the server down for maintenance.

We plan to entirely delete War and replace it with a fresh 1.7 world (Amplified?), so if you'd like your stuff, I recommend getting it out soon.

The Creative world is going to be made fresh again, since abandoned and laggy plots cover the map. Let us know if you must absolutely keep some of your plots and we'll copy them over for you. Probably.

We have a back end issue that prevents the server from being completely booted. I've been manually removing entire worlds and readding them back after loading. We've grow to the point that we simply cannot operate everything we have in the past and we're forced to make a choice: Bosses not functioning in all worlds, or the loss of Zephyrus (Lifesuck / Instamine). Granted I have a bias against some of the instability of Zephyrus for the server, but I feel it'd reduce lag and improve stability if we eliminated the plugin.

In the same vein, we're considering a one time donation campaign to raise money for the server that we want to make. Let us know if we're way off-base with the idea. This would be an all or nothing campaign, but I think we can do this. We're still working out potential rewards for donors, as well as what platform to use.

We'd love to hear your ideas and feedback. Comment here, tweet us, or mail us at gmail or on the server.
Thank you for your time!

Halloween!

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls.

We have a new dungeon on the server, for a limited time only! The Halloween dungeon features a new set of bosses: the King of Halloween and his corrupted servants, the Halloween Goblins. They're ready for a long fight and I hope you are too!

Image from NukeLikeTheBomb

To find this new dungeon, you must look around spawn and go trick or treating to find the entrance. I'll give you a hint, it's a recent addition to our Overworld.

Hopefully much more to come for the holiday season! Happy scaring!

Fort Doom

I'm proud to introduce you to the newest dungeon in our little family: Fort Doom.

This is a multi-rank dungeon, with areas for Knights+, Heroes +, and Champions+.
Once you breach the walls, Knights+ can expect to find Knights, FireDemons, and perhaps a Warlock attempting to keep you at bay.

Heroes+ invade the dark walls of the keep to best a vile Necromancer and his Warlock wards.

Meanwhile, Champions+ descend into the deep, past the Wither guardians, straight for a set of new bosses.

First, the Eaters: a trio of Wither skeletons that afflict your Mind, Flesh, and Soul. Second, the Corruptor: while seemingly harmless, this evil figure, when slain, opens a gate to another world and summons forth some greater terror. His dark life force might return as the Corruption that he sought with his life.

A warning

This is not a post that I thought I would have to make, but it appears necessary given recent and continuous behaviors I've seen on the server. I'll accept some of the responsibility, since, even while I'm online, I've often ignored the escalating usage of overly derogatory language exchanged on the server. I don't pretend to run a family-friendly server or ask that you players behave any less vulgar than you normally do; however, there's a difference between playful banter and true insults and threats that can certainly be misconstrued in text-based chat.
I don't care if you name items after sexual organs. I don't care if you discuss which animal has the biggest genitalia. I do care when you threaten other players with physical violence. I shouldn't EVER look at my console and see someone saying that they're going to stalk/kill/rape another player, their mother, or their dog. That is a person on the other side of the screen; a person who will have different opinions than you and will may not realize that you're joking.
I'm a little disappointed in all of us that it has come this far, but no farther.
This next point is in the rules, explicitly, but people can't seem to figure it out. No griefing, no stealing, and no PvP is a pretty simple set of rules. I'm getting tired of these few day bans on players and will shift to full bans again. DO NOT break into shit that is not yours. DO NOT take something from chests that is not yours. DO NOT kill players if both players did not agree to fight. It's not complicated!
Do not cheat, glitch, or exploit guys. No XRay, no fly mods. If you have a mod, or a method, that you might think is unfair. Ask someone. Especially Vellusian or Robot. If you come clean and haven't done anything wrong, we'll likely ignore any transgressions. If we catch you, you will be banned. End of story.
Thank you for your time. Happy mining!

Update 24 Aug 2013

We're only getting started in the latest slew of updates planned for the server and hope you enjoy what's coming.

First, we've balanced the revisited wands mentioned in the last post, cutting the cooldowns and upping the damage. And yes, they still cost 64 emerald blocks each.

We've got many new shops in the Overworld, like a Farmer's Market, a Bakery, an Adventure Shop, and even a rumored Shady Town.

In order to encourage players to play smartly, we've added a penalty for dying. At the time of this post, players rank Hero and above will lose $5000 every time they die, while less established players (ranked Knight and below) lose only $500 for each death.
Speaking of ranks, a new set of perks have been laid out:

Page: 3 gold nugget salary
Squire: Hat (/hat), color in chat and messages, 10 gold nugget salary
Apprentice: Emotes (/me), 3 gold ingot salary
Knight: Access to the PlotMe (Creative) world/commands, 10 gold ingot salary
Hero: Weather (/sun, /rain), AFK kick exemption, 3 gold block salary
Champion: Workbench (/wb), 10 gold block salary
Paladin: Fly (/fly), Join full server
Baron/Baroness: 3 diamond block salary
Viscount/Viscountess: 10 diamond block salary
Earl/Countess: Time (/day, /night)
Margrave/Margravine: Enderchest (/enderchest)
Duke/Duchess: Nicknames (/nick)

Finally, we've established a page over a Planet Minecraft (http://www.planetminecraft.com/server/paladins/) and we've got new domains to replace the old No-IP one. Try connecting with: play.MCPaladins.com or play.PaladinsServer.com.

That's it for this time guys. Plenty more to come!

Magic changes

We've made changes to the magic plugins on the server. We decided to disable the spells from Zephyrus, so all of your old wands and spellbooks are now defunct. However, the special enchantments are still available and will continue to function.
MagicalSpells have been reintroduced to the server with a new list of non-standard wands and carefully selected spells. We're still balancing them and looking for feedback, so let us know what you think. No more scavenger hunting random ingredients for crafting and upgrading wands, instead all wands cost a stack of emerald blocks. (I recommend using the VETE for a ready supply of emeralds).

Wands:
Wizard - Controls lightning and fire with ease.
Summoner - Bring forth animals and mobs on a whim.
Monk - Heals and movement skills abound.
Rogue - Leap about and rain arrows on your prey.
Jester - I can't really say much here...

More changes!

Well, we've got a lot to tell you!
  First off, I want to announce that the Bazaar is now added. By R-clicking the sign in the shop space, you are then allowed to build in the protected region and can setup [Trade] signs in that region and decorate it how you wish! Try ./warp bazaar and go shopping!
  Second, the MagicalSpells plugin (wands) has been removed. It's been causing issues by bypassing the protections put in by other plugins. However, magic is NOT gone from the server. We've replaced it with Zephyrus and hope that it's as interesting and useful as MS. I plan to add a write up for the new plugin soon, but for now, you need a wand and spellbook to make full use of the plugin. Currently, the phase and explode spells are disabled, as well as all of the custom items, but you can read more about it here: http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/zephyrus/
  We're about to start work on a brand new Adventure dungeon! I hope you're excited too, because this one promises to be a pain yet involves less fighting than the Fire Cathedral. A PvP arena will be coming soon too! And even more ranks!
  Also, talk to Vellusian about getting your orange named weapons renamed. This is done for server stability reasons.

VETE is now open!

We're opening the Villager Emerald Trading Emporium. It's located in the Overworld near to the rank building. The signs represent deals similar to, but worse than, normal villager trades; however, they never run out!
More trades are on the way, so let us know which ones you'd like to see.
You can reply here, send us a tweet @PaladinsServer, or an email to PaladinsServer (at) gmail . com.

Server Update - 30 May 2013

As of this morning, Evangelion has been removed and Dynmap has been reinstalled. Let me know if the server performance is different than over the last week.
Since the introduction of the rank system, I've introduced an up-tick in boss fighting. Since portion stacking is removed, I've added a potion buyback building in spawn.
I'm going to begin looking into the creation of an arena or a player market. Let me know which you want first!
Finally, we do have a server twitter account that I'll begin using more regularly if anyone is interested: @paladinsserver.
If you want to contact us directly, send us an email: paladinsserver at gmail . com.

Adjustments

The Adventure, Inferno, and super flat worlds all have no drop on them (which actually works).
An issue with the groups has been resolved, but if you're experiencing problems, contact us at paladinsserver at gmail.com.
The updated McMMO will allow you to gain some combat XP from spawned mobs, but it is reduced from wild mobs.
I'll be pulling Evangelion down soon and try adding back DynMap.
Thanks for playing Minecraft with us!

No Drop removed

I pulled the no drop plug in ths morning, since it was causing issues deleting inventories. We'll investigate more on how to keep your stuff soon.

Power outage

We've lost power and are currently under a tornado watch. We hope to be online as soon as possible.

Ranks

The ranking system is now live in a beta form!

Power outage

A brief power outage took down the server. We should be running again shortly.

Edit:
The server power loss messed with the routing of the server. We should be running again now!

Some changes

Alright guys, I realize that the server has been running with even more lag than usual, as well as several crashes.
Thus far, I've removed AddQuartz (Which may or may not have finished re-rendering some of the nether), DynMaps (and the PlotMe Extension), and the Lockette Addon, which the sign dupe bug was cause server lag.
Let me know what you guys think about a couple of ideas for improving the server:
A.) Elimination of either the SuperFlat or the Evangelion worlds, or both (Less worlds = less data used)
B.) Elimination of MagicWands (Concerned about the plugin health)
C.) Converting world and it's groups to a similar make-up as Eva (And deleting Eva)
D.) Regenerating the PlotMe (Creative) world with larger plots that can only be accessed via the new ranking system.

Leave a comment with your take on any or all of those options.

To the Beta Build

We're running the v1.5.1 beta build of bukkit and I've updated an assortment of plugins. Let me know if there are any problems over the next couple of days.

Additionally, the ranks are coming close to being added. Input would be appreciated.

Updates Galore!

The server and many of its plugins are running the 1.5.1 DEV builds! Come join in the fun; however, I must caution you all that the server may be unstable while the developers finish off their files.

Server down

The server will be down over the next few hours for backing up and plugin maintenance. We hope to be up to 1.5 very soon.
Thank you for playing!

1.5 Update

We're currently waiting for a beta bukkit build before we start testing our plugins and running the server as 1.5. Thank you for your patience.

More down time

We apologize for any delay j however, we are having trouble with the OS on the hosting machine.

'Gods' is back

Guys, the Gods plugin has been updated and it's back online! Cheer with me!

Okay, stop. That's embarrassing.

Go to: paladins.no-ip.org:9000

Server Outage

Last night, the server computer decided to complete some auto-updates and restarted. I apologize for any lost data, but overall it shouldn't have done too much harm.

We're experiencing some problems with the server at the moment. Please bare with us as we work out the problems with everything.

Thank you for playing!

Server Upgrades

At about 7:00 AM EST, I took the server down for maintenance and upgrades.
Backing up the server is taking longer than expected, so please be patient.

I'm expecting the server to be operational within the hour.

Thanks for playing!

paladins.no-ip.org:9000

Friends

Visit our friend and admin's page for more Minecraft info:

8bitcity.blogspot.com

Less Problems

Alright, I've downgraded the server, but you don't have to worry about your game clients! 1.4.6 and 1.4.7 are compatible.

This was done to repair errors in plugins that really add to the fun of the server, namely Gods. So, yes, you have your Gods again!

Go play right now:

paladins.no-ip.org:9000

Few more problems

So, as some of you may know, we're having a few problems with the Gods plugin. This is due to the release of the 1.4.7 patch and the corresponding server upgrade. I will update Gods once it proves to be compatible again.

Oddly, the Demigods plugin, which no one uses yet, is now started malfunctioning. That's all I have for you today. Have fun!

New IP

New IP for distribution!

paladins.no-ip.org:9000

Use it today!

Video Up!

Welcome!

So, let's start this off shall we?

Paladins is a small (read, very small) server about community. We asked that you don't PvP in any world except War, or Realm, without the other person agreeing to it. We also ask that you don't grief and loot other player's buildings, again outside of War.

We're running Multiverse and Essentials as the backbone of the server, with plenty of additions thrown in there. Specifically, you can look forward to playing with McJobs, McMMO, and Gods (which is a bit like a guilds/factions thing)  plugins.

I presume I've got everything set up right, permission-wise, but there may be plugin specific ones that need fixing.

Finally, TL:DR stop here! 

Connect to: 

paladins.no-ip.org:9000

We're running Dynmap here:

http://paladins.no-ip.org:8123

Thank you for stopping by!

Alright, I partially lied.

We're almost live. Working on a few bugs, but you're welcome to come and play with us!

We are live!