65 replies to this topic

[darrenstraight]

Dear Members,

Back in August, we made a major change in YAMS; this involved restructuring the towns, you can see the post here in which I explained that this was all part of bigger changes within YAMS.

In September, we moved over to 1.8 which was another major change for YAMS, I posted about this here in which I explained again that there were bigger changes coming to YAMS, but they would not happen until the final release but that I would make sure CSO’s would be informed first then members.

In November again I explained that bigger changes would be happening in YAMS, I posted about this here. I talked briefly about how we would be moving to a new world in the New Year and that while I’m sure this will make many of you sad or even angry that you have to understand that our current world has many problems with it including map corruption and old terrain.

I went on to mention that we will be making this move an enjoyable experience for everyone on YAMS and that this will in no way be goodbye to our current world, as we hope to do tours of it from time to time and that anything you have done or will continue to do on YAMS is not wasted and is very much appreciated.

I finally went on to explain that you shouldn’t worry at the moment too much and that we will release more details on this move as soon as we can, hopefully a month before it happens.

It’s now December and I’m writing to you all to provide you with preliminary details of this move to a new world. To clarify I’m not just talking about an extra world here; I’m talking about a complete refresh of all worlds including the main world.

Let me explain my breaking this down into questions.

Why is this happening?

There are many reasons why. One being the fact that our current world was created in early beta and can no longer support new biomes correctly, another one being the fact that near enough the entire world has tiny pockets of holes/caves underground, these are not normal caves but areas where it looks like ores should have been but have vanished! This is no joke; it’s pretty bad and worries me how this map corruption could have happened. Though not visible by simply mining (you’d think it’s just a small cave) it’s certainly visible with MCEdit or other such ways. There are also many other reasons a lot of which relate to the infrastructure of the towns and there being no possibility for expansion but I’ll move onto the next question now as I have so much else to say!

When will this be happening?

We have selected the period of time between Saturday 11^th and Sunday 19^th of February 2012 in which myself and my staff team will be working very hard in selecting a new world and getting it ready for you to come and join us following completion of the main essential structures in each town. As its 2 months away from me telling you all, there should be plenty of time for you to get ready. Of course you may even have extra time, as we may have to delay it if there’s a Minecraft Update or something unexpected happens, but for now that’s the date we are aiming for.

How will we pick a new world?

Picking the new world will be one of the biggest decisions that I will have to make in this move as once we have chosen, that’s it, there’s no going back! One of the biggest problems we will have with unfortunately no way of solving it is that we may create and finish a new world then the next day there’s an announcement that the Minecraft Land Terrain Generation is changing again, putting us back at square one with a map that’s out of date!

It’s worth noting that there was this discussion recently on twitter though:

• brechpilot: @jeb_ is the level-generator going to change anytime soon or will it stay this way for some time?
• @jeb_: @brechpilot From now on I need to have backwards compatibility
• brechpilot: @jeb_ does this mean that chunks generated by 1.x would fit to those generated by 1.0?
• @jeb_: @brechpilot No it means that when the world gen changes, the old maps will still use an old world gen for compatibility

But that’s doesn’t solve anything, luckily for us we have the mining world where we can always get new stuff from!
Ok so the question, how we will we pick a new world? Let me explain:

I have found a program that automatically expands the terrain/loads chunks based on a selected distance value for your world, right now this isn’t working for 1.0 but I’m hoping this will be fixed soon. We will use this on some seeds to explore terrain quicker instead of flying around the world trying to load chunks, also giving us the advantage of having all the chunks preloaded. We will take cartographs images to get a top down view of the world.

The idea is to find a map that is suitable to all are needs and has all biomes within close proximity, as each town will be on a cardinal direction it would be preferable that biomes are in the right places, however a lot of that will be down to luck.

Once we have selected the world, which may just be a case of saying lets go for this one, providing the Multiverse world plugin still works, which is what we use now for the mining world, we will upload the world and create a staff only portal to it so we can start building the basic building infrastructure in it. If Multiverse for some reason does not work we will use a test server.

How will this transfer happen?

A project management table and maybe even a Gantt chart will be drawn up by myself closer the time detailing the various steps that need to happen before we can go live with the new world. Here are some things that should be mentioned:

• As explained above staff members will be the first into this new world. We will ensure that the basic infrastructure is in place for people, spawn tower/town, roads/rails, town locations, welcome centres, rules, plots, community plots etc!
• While staff members are doing this, everyone in the community will help build a massive Ark, a bit like Noah’s Ark or the Ark in the film 2012. In this ark everyone will be given a specific room with an equal amount of chests in which they can place their items in that they which to take to the new world, chest amount has yet to be decided but it most probably will only be around 2 double chests per person… this not only means that once you get to the new world you will have loads to do in terms of gathering resources it also means you will have to think carefully of what you want to take. I’m hoping this will be seen as a good thing as it will level the playing field a bit! Though… who’s to say you can’t fill your double chests with diamonds and then try and sell them in the new world! This will quite interesting see what happens and what everyone decides to take.
• In the ark there will be various other such rooms such as kitchens for food and various central stores in which we can bring materials along to start the foundations of the new towns and community builds. These materials should not be used for individual houses; maybe a guard will be needed to guard the chests and count outgoings from the chests. We will need loads of help from the community to gather resources.
• Plans for the ark (location, time frames, and design) will need to be decided soon as preferably you should start getting it done as soon as possible so people have a place to leave their items in case they are not on for the week we move over. For now if you have something to say about it talk here, but a dedicated topic will be created in a near in the future date.
• Individual houses will not be transferred over to the new world as this would somewhat defeat the purpose of a new world. However a limited amount of public builds that are necessary for the running of the server such as the jail will be, but for the most part I’d like to see lots of new epic builds. So start getting them thinking caps on.
• Members should not take down their houses/builds as we may from time to visit old YAMS as part of a nostalgic tour of how YAMS used to be or even use it for events. Keeping the map intact will also help us recreate builds in the new world when necessary. However if you have a wall of diamond blocks for example in your house and you wish to take it down to transfer it that would be acceptable but the integral structure of the house should remain.
• Once the ark is done and all essential town/world structures are in place then we are ready to swap the map over, this will involve some down time but I will be sure to update you. The ark will be moved over into a temporary area of the map and a warp created so you can all gather your items from it! Don’t worry we will be watching out for thief’s!
• You will all be asked to re-read the rules and check out all the towns and from there put in a request to live here post/sign (not talking about sandbox). We may ask you before that what town you wish to live in so we can have some idea of which towns will become too full or too empty. But more on that latter nearer the time!
• Regarding the last bullet point, see new update further down below.

Wait what about sandbox users?

By the time this move happens I would like to see sandbox empty, of course that may not happen and if it does what happens to all the people that just got approved, they build a house only to move to a new world the following week. Well that’s where we may have to give them a choice, those approved can either choose to stay in Sandbox or Move out to a new town, either way they get a space for their items on the ark and go straight to a town at the new world. But those not approved a few weeks before will be on the understanding that they will stay not approved can have a place on the ark but will have to rebuild their house in the new sandbox. Talks about this will happen closer the time.

What will this new world be like?

Well we don’t know yet, but we do have a few ideas/plans, here are some of them:

• New spawn tower inside a new spawn town. The spawn tower will be much more central to spawn town and will even have its own central station!
• New Sandbox with more demo houses and easier approval system.
• The idea is that providing we have the infrastructure in place new users will look around all the towns themselves and read the town rules of each town themselves in a town welcome Centre and then from there decide what town they like best. Once they have decided they will then put their name on the approval board + town they would like to move too and if I approve them they can move straight too that town without anyone ever needing to be on to show them the way. Of course they can still ask for tours and this will only work if the infrastructure is in place, such as is this town full/free and where to find the plots and town rules.
• Spawn hotel will most probably not exist as it’s a pain to keep updated with who does and doesn’t have a room and also people should really be working towards getting their house approved (If they don’t have good buildings skills we should help them learn).
• A better planned out rail/road network will be implemented with only one station per town/attraction. Main roads will now be 5/7 width instead of 4/6 and will have glowstone down the centre every so often. I have a layout of roads in mind but it will probably alter due to not knowing what the world will look like yet. Here’s an example, "S" represents Spawn Town and "T" represents the Towns we could have.

T--------------T --------------T----------------T
¦............... ...¦...................¦
¦...................¦...................¦
¦...................¦...................¦
T--------------S --------------T----------------T
¦...................¦...................¦
¦...................¦...................¦
¦...................¦...................¦
T--------------T --------------T

• A new set of towns but only start with a few to start with (N, E, S, W), some suggestions have included: Redstone, Futuristic, Steam Punk, Tundra/Snowy, Underground/subterranean (Dwarfton), Underwater (Merton / Aqua ), Mountain, Natureham/Eden project/Biosphere, Castle town, IRLham, Far west, Wild West and many more!
• Towns will still be plot based as our test with current towns as proved successful. Members can only build their house in their plot however they can and should be encouraged to help out on community builds around the town.
• Each town will have specific attractions, such as spleef, pig races, archery, blocky, pvp etc.
• However bigger more central things such as a coliseum would most possibly have its own location as it gives us more control over the layout and arranging events. I have also always wanted a YAMS theme park so this would have its own area, but I’m not going to rush it.
• More bigger creative builds.
• A better implementation of the test area. I want to see more people build here but people aren’t right now!
• A pixel art valley…
• The mining world will stay providing we can still run it, that is the plugin still works and it doesn’t cause even more cpu usage as right now we have 3 official worlds, with the ender world it could be 4, that’s a lot and doesn’t leave us for room to have extra fun worlds from time to time.
• Loads more but this is a start…

So just to clarify what do I do from now till the move?

• Help finish of any projects currently being done so everything is polished off for any tours we do of the place!
• Consider what you want to take to the new world.
• Help gather resources for the ark!
• Help plan build the ark, post to come soon.
• Suggest ideas.
• Anything else you can thing of…

Right well that’s enough writing for now if anyone’s still reading this and hasn’t fallen asleep. I hope you can all understand why this move is happening and what benefits it will bring towards YAMS! A lot of other servers out there will be starting new worlds too, so we are not the only ones, but if I may say so we are certainly one of the ones that have thought things through very thoroughly!

As we progress towards the moving date we will ask your opinion on various things in relation to this move so be sure to keep your eye out on various topics!

It’s also very important to understand that while we won’t be in this world next year, YAMS rules and regulations still apply from now till the time of the move and beyond. Same goes for any duties you may have, they should not be disregarded as things still need to run smoothly.

Especially as plans may change or be delayed, the reality is we can only plan we don’t know where this server or Minecraft will be Next Year!

I hope I have explained enough of the current situation and the future plans we have in store, if you have any concerns please let us know below. We shall keep you updated as much as we can but for now all discussions about this should be kept here!

Thank you for your continued support in YAMS. Don’t forget there are various competitions and events going on at the moment and the Christmas World is open!

Kind Regards,
Darren and team.

 

Update 19th December:

New ark topic created here: http://www.darrenstr...-world-the-ark/

Please follow these directions to the ark (use /compass to help you.)

• Take the train south from spawn station to the first stop near my birthday cake area.
• Change at this stop and go west here past the pixel art.
• Just keep going west past woodbridge
• You can’t miss the place you’ll know when there as youll see it!

 

Update 26th January 2012:

Hello it's been a while since I updated this topic, that’s because we have been pretty busy focusing on building the ark and there wasn't really much else to say here that hadn’t already been said, as we can't really do much until we choose a new world. However today I would like to update you on a few things.

Minecraft 1.2

I really would like to see the new world contain Jungles however we don’t have a date on when Minecraft 1.2 will be out (it could be tomorrow, the day we select a new world or even the day after) so with that said we are still going ahead with the move in February, because we can’t be waiting on updates all the time, Mojang will continue to release terrain changes and there’s not much we can do about it. In a more positive note at least we will have our beloved mining world so I’ll always refresh that when there are new biomes.

The Ark

The ark is nearing completion and it is hoped that it will be complete and all your items will be on it by Thursday the 9^th of February 2012, I have picked this date as it’s the Friday before I will be full on dedicating my time for the next week towards getting the new world fully set up so I don’t want to be worrying too much on if the ark is ready! Any items added to chests after this may not be guaranteed to move to the new world.

Remember you only get 2 double chests and cannot use any one else or sell/trade spaces in chests, it’s more fair this way so please respect that. Also I’ve said this before but remember that your inventory will not carry across or will pets.

We will shortly be assigning cabin numbers, please bear with us while we make this happen. If you are not on the sign up board at the ark yet get your name on it, it’s imperative that you do so if you wish to transfer items.

If you are not sure where the ark is, see my previous update.

Current world

I have made it clear to my staff that while we are setting up the new world that the current world in its current state should not be neglected, so don’t worry we will still be showing our faces and we will be answering any last minute questions you have, of course some we can’t answer as we do want to keep some surprises!

Maybe we can install some more fun plugins for that week? And celebrate YAMS’s 1^st world in style! Suggest away and I’ll look into it! Simple but fun works best.

Remember this isn’t the end of the current world, I do hope to do tours of it at some point just like we did recently with a tour of various world backups throughout the past year since YAMS started. Just because we are having a new world it doesn’t mean we are not YAMS.

Setting up the new world

Starting from Wednesday 1^st of February 2012 I will be looking for a new map seed, I know exactly what I want, it’s just finding it, but with some dedication (I have all the required tools to do the job efficiently) I’m sure I can find one that will fit all our requirements, I’ve done a little bit of looking already and its quite interesting how seeds can be very diverse and sometimes you’ll find the perfect area for spawn but the original spawn point is 2000+ blocks away and in an ocean! I’m trying not to move the spawn point to far away so to make it easier for everyone with coordinates.

Once I have found the right seed we will start setting up everything the way we want it on a test server, this will happen Friday the 10^th of February 2012 and Friday the 17^th of February 2012. After that date we will copy everything across to the current server, this will involve some downtime.

My staff will be working very hard to help me with this but of course there are only so many hours in a day so in the event that we don’t get things finished in time, we will have to push the date back until it’s done.

Moving to the new world

It is hoped that starting from the Saturday the 18^th of February 2012 you will be able to start coming back onto the server. However there’s a bit of a catch! If you’re not on the arks signup board you won’t be able to get on at least for the first few days or so while we get everyone settled in, that’s why it’s imperative that if you want to be added to the exclusive temp whitelist that you get yourself on that board.

Once people have started moving to new towns, we will restore the original whitelist and things can continue as normal.

Starting in the new world

With this change of world there will be many new exciting changes and because it will be quite different in some ways to how it is setup now especially in terms of sandbox and towns we have decided upon the following:

• When you spawn in the new world you will be required to read the rules and any other information present regardless of your time with us.
• All members and staff (including me) will be required to go through Sandbox, this was a hard decision for me and I made sure I consulted with all my staff but it’s one I really feel will benefit all of us. My reason behind it is that it will give everyone a chance to experience and explore new spawn town and surrounding areas and be up to scratch on how we do things now. As well as this it can ensure there’s a smooth transition of people moving to towns, instead of a massive rush, giving us time to ensure everything up and running.
• With the above said we are of course limited on the number of sandbox plots, so to increase the amount of free plots not all staff will be going through sandbox at the same time, ensuring members get first pick. Also by limiting the amount of players being able to get on at first we can also ensure a smoother transition.
• If you don’t manage to get a Sandbox plot, you will be required to temporary stay at the ark until a Sandbox plot is available to you, we may create a first come first server waiting list board. A warp or portal to the ark will be provided.

Contributors

In the past the criteria for entering the contributor group has been rather vague. With the move to the new map we will be resetting all contributors and writing up a checklist for someone who we believe should be eligible for this group. Rob has some interesting plans that could tie into this….

Teaser:

Summarised timescale

Wednesday the 1^st February 2012 – I will start looking at seeds.
Thursday the 9^th of February 2012 – Ark to be completed and all items in chests.
Friday the 10^th of February 2012 – From this date onwards I will be full on dedicating my time to the move, staff will keep me up to date on current world status and I will make sure I too show my face!
Friday the 17^th of February 2012 – I would like everything setup in the new world by this date.
Saturday the 18^th of February 2012 – Everything should all be setup by now and we can start getting people back on the server in an orderly fashion.

These timescales are subject to change and my staff have a hard time ahead so please make sure you support them in every way possible.

Finally

We hope you can understand why we have made the decisions we have made and we hope you will share the enthusiasm and excitement we have in this move… we promise you theres some fun times ahead for YAMS!

If you have any questions feel free to post below. We will answer them where possible.

 

FAQ:

Q. Will we be able to download the map?
A. No as it will be used for events from time to time.

Q. Will we keep our inventory?
A. No thats why you have 2 double chests on the ark.

[iiJ3CT "Jim"]

its for the best in whole and as much as i love yams how it is it dose need changing and because of the updates places will not look the the same but i totaly agree with Darren [ loving the ark idea btw darren xD ]

PS: i will hopefully be on if the server more after christmas part from ive got 5 or 6 exams in the space of 1 or two week so yer

[Captain_Marbles]

I can't wait! It'll be nice to have a new world. As Jim says, I too have a few exams around that time, so I'll keep you informed about that. I think my exams are in early Feb though, so I should be able to attend the move

[iiJ3CT "Jim"]

dibs on building 1st hotel

[benjamine12]

Better get to thinking on what to bring

[iiJ3CT "Jim"]

i have nothing xD

[Calisurf]

OMG! I am now really gonna try to get on now!

[Shippinu]

/me squeals incoherently with excitement

This sounds exciting. I also rather like some of the town ideas!

[Morton16]

Sounds Great ! A fresh start will really shake things up ( In a good way )

[Dynamo12xr4 (Joe)]

OMG! I am now really gonna try to get on now!

Cali when i went to your house i was worrying on if you would be able to bring anything but atleat your active on the forums

Also im Excited about the move

[Grindboy]

The ark is a fantastic idea! I love it

One of the reasons I haven't been on much is because I have a house and farm with everything I could ever need. There's no reason for me to come on and explore or craft because I want of nothing. Moving to a new world will definitely make me want to play more.

[darrenstraight]

The ark is a fantastic idea! I love it

One of the reasons I haven't been on much is because I have a house and farm with everything I could ever need. There's no reason for me to come on and explore or craft because I want of nothing. Moving to a new world will definitely make me want to play more.

Not even to play in all the events? Or build something in the christmas world? Or even complete the new maze? Or the stronghold? Or help out on all the community builds going on? You should come and take a look at the other towns instead of being a Hobit!

Glad you like the idea though.

[fatgai]

This is nice, A lovely new map, and hopefully it will have that new map smell!

[xXsiyrXx]

:'[ i hate to see all that work go to a new map darren... (the railroads and such) good luck, now you've really got me donating

[kcagnolatti]

will there be new towns or the same towns but differents structures

Will i be still living in Enderville in the new map or am i going to go somewhere else

and this is also a new chance to explore since i believe warps are not going to be in the same place and instead of the nether in the recent place it could

be in another. This is my thoughts on the new world and once it happens im getting a Noah skin

[SteerpikeSister]

completely new towns, we will be building mostly from scratch.

[Dynamo12xr4 (Joe)]

With what steer said Completely new only some things such as the Colosseum Will probably be coming with us not individual houses

We should Also give Darren as Much support as possible as it will be very stressful for him

[darrenstraight]

Thanks to everyone who said kind words above, please make sure you tell others who dont know about this!

As promised an Ark topic is now up:
http://www.darrenstr...w-world-the-ark

[Murasna]

Should we start talking about what to put in towns now or after we have established what is there already and what to expect, such as spleef arena is in _____ town etc.?

[darrenstraight]

Should we start talking about what to put in towns now or after we have established what is there already and what to expect, such as spleef arena is in _____ town etc.?

One step at a time, as I said above a project management table is set for this. There is no point in talking about whats going in towns until we actually have town plans, a lot of which cant be done until we move.. so don't worry about that for now.