Item the first: Sorry about not being on a lot. I generally lack direction when friends aren't on, especially friends whose Skype handles I know and can convince to voice-chat. (satyr, Rag, I may one day bug you for them, but today is not that day). And when I lack direction, I tend to not bother logging in. Also, Minecraft in general has been a low priority in my gaming life, which is something that needs fixing, admittedly.

Item the second: I'm of two minds when it comes to the idea of dumping the world and starting over with the next major upgrade. The bigger one is that I have nothing really saved that can help me replicate all the stuff I've done, and I'm anal enough that I'd want a picture-perfect replication. The smaller half is more prone to throwing its hands up and saying "fuck it, I can build better after the update, in a different place even." An idea I was thinking about floating around was a communal undersea domed community, which would naturally be way more work than I did on Kurast.

Item the third: As long as even one person holds interest in the server, I'll continue to pay for it. TBH, even if nobody's interested I'll still cover costs, just because I like exploring everybody else's builds, and really? No way in hell am I letting Dragon Keep, the Cocktower and Duck Junction disappear from the face of the Internet.

Item the fourth: If everybody votes in favor of emeralds, I shan't complain. Neither will I kick up a fuss about a vote in favor of no emeralds. Maintaining multiple worlds on a server sounds like a good idea, but my primary concern is overhead. I just don't want the server fees to run to the point where everybody's forced to pitch in, especially with current economic trends as it is. I suppose my overlying belief is "you're not here to worry about server fees, you're here to have fun." And really, everybody should feel that way. Also, a Superflat Creative world = LOVE.

Item the fifth: satyr accidentally dug into Dragon's basement? This is a story I just HAVE to hear. I've noticed that we're all really building and mining in a clump of personal territories that are closeish to Spawn City; I think the only reason Kurast hasn't been intruded on is because I deliberately went the hell out of my way, at Aine's request, to keep it away from spawn. (I wanna say it's about 1.2 or 1.5 km from the vicinity of Spawn City; I'd have to double-check.)

I'll do juuuuust that, Aine~

However! Before I start, I has a few questions for all y'alls. My current height budget allows for three blocks' worth of headroom in the undersea complex. I can prolly get away with a couple more blocks' worth of headroom, if necessary. Is everybody cool with three, or would you all want more headroom? (We're still prolly screwed if an endy or two happens to pop inside.)

Second, do we want gold-block floors (current default) or something else? Do we want cobble wainscoting, or do we want stronghold brick? Nether brick? Obsidian? Are you all okay with squared-off cube domes, or do you want more authentic half-spheres? This is for you guys, not me, so let me know what you'd like to see in this project!

Third, does everybody want their own private dome, or do we want more communal stuffs? I can do both if it comes down to that.

Last thing, and this is more for Aine's benefit than anything else. Do you want me to build a downward tunnel from the edge of Spawn City, or will a warp suffice to get there once I've put it all together?

An underwater building seems like such a huge undertaking.

Personally I'd suggest the half-sphere look, even if Minecraft and spheres don't easily mix. I'm not sure how Nether brick looks underwater, but it might be nice. Gold floors are fine, but perhaps intersperse with glowstone (or lanterns) so that someone swimming above could see the lights?

(A minecart track leading from spawn city through an underwater tunnel would be neat, too.)

Like satyr, I'd rather build a personal place on my own; right now my 'home' on the server is a hole in a cliff. It's not fancy, but I made it myself!

Okay, so by general consensus the underwater place will be half-spheres, with circular areas. I'm going to admit this, here and now, and pardon my uncouth language: For me, this is gonna blow goats left and right. I've never, ever been good at circular structures, and the last time I tried building an actual spherical dome, back when I was playing Beta? I gave up and threw it all above water.

Aine, I'm fairly certain I'll be needing Dragon's help with putting together the glassy parts themselves. I've already seen what he did with the newest part of Keep, so I don't doubt his skill in the least. My main goal here, boys and girls, is that I'll have no less than three to five meters of nothing but water between the top of the domes and the surface of the ocean. I mean, to me, it's not an underwater dome unless it's convincingly underwater. Only two meters of water just doesn't cut it. I guess that as long as you can stand on the tippy-top of the dome and still pull up the oxygen meter, it's underwater. Even better if you can't see the surface water's texture when standing on the dome.

I'll do my best, though. I actually have an idea for the way everything connects; at least one of you has had to have heard about an underwater "shark tunnel" like the ones Sea World has. They're really cool and awesomesauce. I'm also primarily inspired by a game spoon-san and I love playing, an old DOS game called Heretic. The game was basically a fantasy version of the classic FPS DOOM, and the third episode was about an evil sorcerer-demon's undersea crystal-dome base of operations. I have a screencap of the concept art, I'd guess you might call it; somebody remind me to post it later today, when I find the time to get to my Photobucket account.

I may have to keep the areas themselves smallish, so I don't end up breaking the water's surface with the glass. Granted, the new biome generation system puts in oceans with a floor much deeper than I was ever used to, but that's no fix against abject derpiness, and by now you all know me and derpiness. >>;;; This isn't gonna be a two-day project like Kurast was. Aine, let Dragon know I'll need his help and to show up on Skype if he can; I don't know which one of you threw up that pretty dome at Keep, but I'll be needing their aesthetic eye for this project.

Um. Private domes are okay, I guess, but if they're private I think I'd like to request that they're kept well-away from the main undersea area. It's just a friendly request, so nobody is compelled to obey. I'd appreciate it nevertheless. My idea was that the undersea zone was something more communal than privatized.

ETA: Here's the screenshot below.

Last edited by BioKraze (06-04-2012 05:37:30 PM)

Nanami?!

And Launchpad!

And a million sheep.

Rag & Bio and I did a bit of exploring. It seems the effect was highly localized, and I killed everything in a radius around where I was in Dragon's Keep. Seems like most everything else is okay, and much less of a 'holy fuck I killed EVERYTHING IN THE WOOOOOOOORLD' issue. Still, if you find anything missing, let me know.

Ragnarok wrote:

OITL's farm looked to be alright, I also saw at least four dogs and one cat at The East Dorm.

At first I was all, D:


Then I read this and was like,

Double post, sorry about this.

I finally got to a bit of testing, Aine. My therapist-ish friend and I tried to enter the Nether. Well, okay, she tried. And failed. I, on the other hand, ran into zero problems. I'm thinking perhaps the multiverse permissions are borked with admins allowed everywhere and everybody else allowed nowhere, so hopefully all you'd need to do is fiddle with those and everything will be rainbows and ponies. At least, I'm hoping so. I know next to nothing about server mods, and I'm praying that you won't have to permission-ize every mod, one by one like you said you might have to. D:

To all the other 'crafters, if you see a person with the nametage crystlmalice and the nickname Missphyre, say hi! That's my friend here in Yuma, who's peer support for my mental health and a really nice lady who's definitively older than just about the rest of us forumite Minecrafters. Trust me, it's not very easy to offend her, even with all the Freudian jokes we constantly make about SKU.

Also, if anybody is interested/gives a rat's ass, is there anything you'd like to see in Kurast that isn't already there? I do have a bit of room to build, even if I'll need to terraform slightly (which doesn't bother me, so it's cool ). I myself am lacking in significant ideas, but am entertaining the possibility of a convenient Nether portal whenever the multiverse issue gets fixed. I can also construct a mining camp for those that'd like to dig beneath the town and find all sorts of treasures. As you all may know, I've already added a lava-based disposal pool and an extensive farm (that I really should check on sometime).

Another idea, that could also work in Spawn City, is a floor-based compass rose, kinda like the ones you see in fancy parks and certain older buildings like museums. It's just an idea, but one I could totally get behind; I have a big problem remembering which way is officially north in the game world, and what Word of Notch said about which way the Minecraft sun sets (wasn't it in the west now? I remember it used to be in the north).

The basement's been there quite a while, it's just not very exciting.

I should get back to building... the heat is making me lazy.

That's a good question, it's not supposed to go at an angle! (There's redstone in a circuitious path.)

Also, if people want to set up a time to play on the server together I'd do my best to make it.

BioKraze wrote:

What do you guys think? Right now there are two terminals scheduled to be constructed, one near spawn and one near Aine's jungle. It'll take some time to put them in, though; Aine has said to me that if anybody is interested in helping construct it, she'll give them temporary creative mode rights for the purpose of helping me. Do any of you have any ideas of where we should install highway terminals to make it more convenient for all the 'crafters?

Hard to say, since I have no idea where Aine's jungle or your sealab are situated.  (I ran for a long way to find a jungle yesterday because I wanted some saplings.  No sign of any treehouses.)  If Aine's jungle is northwest of Spawn, it probably makes sense to use the basement of Duck Junction as the jumping-off point; the Rose Line would run from Spawn through Duck Junction to Aine's jungle.  But if the jungle is somewhere else, it would probably be better to put the spawn terminal in the Hana Learning Center basement, centralizing Spawn on the Rose Line and making it easy to get from Duck Junction to the jungle with only one quick transfer.

Clearing the water out is actually the easy part.  You just need to build a (minimum) one-wide-by-two-high dirt snake through the water where you want the tunnel to go, surround the snake with glass on every side, and then tunnel out the snake from one end.  No sponges necessary.  The same technique can be used to build domes.  OITL taught me this.

As a proof of concept, I went ahead and built a little dome in the river across the tracks from the Dark Flock.  I'd never built underwater stuff in Survival Mode before, but it wasn't that tough.  Access is through a hatch in an alcove in the nearby cliffside, if anyone wants to check it out.