[0.4.14] LinuxGaming2 - A Server for Builders

[RohitM]

Can someone permafy the structure at (320, 160, 776)?
Pls structures 20 blocks around and prmafy in my name (Rohit not RohitM)

[LazyJ]

Can someone permafy the structure at (320, 160, 776)?
Pls structures 20 blocks around and prmafy in my name (Rohit not RohitM)

Howdy, Rohit :)

The new-growth trees have been permafied as well as the brass fences above and below, the glowglass road, and the vertical ladder columns. You will have to reset the locked signs at the base of the ladder column. When permafied, the messages of locked signs are masked so the signs need to be reset by the owner. Click on them, then click "Proceed" (you don't have to retype the message), and the message will display to everyone again like it should.

[2232]

Hey- I just wanna say that I just visited the server and happy to see that my property was of good use! I'm back, but not for long.

[RohitM]

Pls permafy the area at (320,226,776) in the name of Rohit (Not RohitM)
I have been greifed many times here.
Thanks,
Rohit

[LazyJ]

Pls permafy the area at (320,226,776) in the name of Rohit (Not RohitM)
I have been greifed many times here.
Thanks,
Rohit

Howdy, Rohit :)

The cleanglass sections have been permafied.

[robotest]

I want the wazumod! I don't know how to write a block that can get rid of all fall damage.

[LazyJ]

I want the wazumod! I don't know how to write a block that can get rid of all fall damage.

Howdy, robotest.

" I want the wazumod!" - It is concidered courtious to ask politely instead of demanding, especially when you wish to copy other people's work. Try using "please" and "thank you" next time.

The wazumod is included in the nightly backups that can be downloaded from here:

http://linuxgaming.us/minetest_backups

[LazyJ]

The server will be down for a few hours for maintenance after the backup has run.

UPDATE 2013_12_15 - Done

[LazyJ]

The server has been upgraded to Minetest 0.4.8 unstable, released 2013_12_14.

Clearobjects has been run to reduce the lag.

The map.sqlite database has been vacuumed (defragged).

Some new mods have been installed:
Ambience (server version)
Player_Textures (skins can now be assigned to playernames)
No_Guest (modified to also kick numbers-only playernames from the server)
No_Drowning (On this server water-elevators are used extensively and many players have built underwater)

Udpates to the older mods will occur as time allows.

This is just a quick blurb. The first post of this thread will be updated soon (after I get a few hours of sleep) with the new-stuff information and updated overview maps to make it all more "official". ;)

[Inocudom]

The server has been upgraded to Minetest 0.4.8 unstable, released 2013_12_14.

Clearobjects has been run to reduce the lag.

The map.sqlite database has been vacuumed (defragged).

Some new mods have been installed:
Ambience (server version)
Player_Textures (skins can now be assigned to playernames)
No_Guest (modified to also kick numbers-only playernames from the server)
No_Drowning (On this server water-elevators are used extensively and many players have built underwater)

Udpates to the older mods will occur as time allows.

That is very good news, LazyJ.

[Sokomine]

It's great that the server has been updated to 0.4.8!

[jp]

New building in LinuxGaming.us server !

The great pyramid of Giza. 102x102 blocks for the base.






I strongly advise you to come on this server. The atmosphere is serious, creative and friendly. The buildings are beautiful (for the most). And the admins are doing a very good job and are very attentive.

[spoiler]P.S.: LazyJ, you must contact me for PayPal...[/spoiler]

[LazyJ]

[spoiler]P.S.: LazyJ, you must contact me for PayPal...[/spoiler]

Thanks for the offer of support, jp. ;)

Contact Orby about that. He's the one who pays for the server.

On the old website Orby had a donate button we could use to chip-in a dollar or two to help offset the server costs. I wish he had been able to set that up in the new website.

One of the most helpful things players can do for the server is just what you have already done - posting nice screenshots from the server on this thread. \o/

Welcoming new-comers to the server is another thing players can do to help. Especially if you speak their language.

Simple, "little things", like patching the occasional pothole in roads, replacing a cobble stair in the public mine, or fixing a wall or path, planting a tree or two, etc. are other ways to help out. They may not be grandeous but they contribute to the overall improvement of the server.

In general, just being a good neighbor and a caretaker is probably the most helpful thing any player can do for the server.

Thanks again and keep up the good work. :)

[Ender_Foo]

I want an enderman skin please! Username is Ender_Kid.

[LazyJ]

I want an enderman skin please! Username is Ender_Kid.

Howdy, Ender_Foo :)

You will need to post the skin's png file in this thread for us to upload.

For example:

[wijnand the mine-aholic]

Hi everyone, here a picture of the mansion i'm building on the linuxgaming server. Its located just north of spawntown.




Could someone replace my skin (player name: wijnand) with this one >

+=========================================================+

I vote for the return of drowning;
... deleting those horrible "bat" and "crow" sounds from the ambiance mod;
... play less often the other birt sounds; (also shorter hearing distance)
... no wind sounds indoors.

+=========================================================+

The mob mods are probably to heavy for the server, but imho, it would be nice if the players could buy rat/sheep meat and bread. (and other food/drink items)

I think it would also be nice, if flowers did occansionally spawned on the map. Very very few a day, scatterted around on the map. No differend colors near each other. No spawning on permafyed areas, but protected if "player-placed."
Or the possibility to buy flowers, with which one can NOT make dyes.

Mayby it would be nice, if (jungle-)saplings left behind (not placed) on dirt and with enough light, spawn to trees after a couple of days. Less lag by items laying around in the open.

+=========================================================+

Something else that might be helpfull for the looks of the server, would be a simple contest.
Every month (a) winner(s) is/are choosen for there nice looking recently build/finished structures (houses, bridges, etc...)
Prizes could be a chest filled with several different items chosen by the winner.
With optional maximums like :

• 297 (3 slots) per mese / diamonds
• 396 (4 slots) per ore/ingots and dye (per color)
• 1584 (16 slots) obsidian blocks
• one water and/or lava (1 slot each)
• one (obligatory) nyan cat (one cake head, 12 tail pieces) (2 slots)
• no oerki blocks or ice/snow

And as a consolation prize:
a chest filled with mese/diamond (pick-)axes/shovels.

+=========================================================+

btw, i found my first (ever) nyan cat today, at -1366 Y.
Its head was stuck in the cave wall. Its tail sticking out into a dark emptiness.
I almost missed it.

[jp]

I vote for the return of drowning;

I'm not agree with that. Several buildings (including mines) have water columns for access. Putting torches, making "safe stepping places" will make harder (or sometimes inoperative) the game.

In addition, some players likes building under the water...

... deleting those horrible "bat" and "crow" sounds from the ambiance mod;
... play less often the other birt sounds; (also shorter hearing distance)
... no wind sounds indoors.

+1.

Something else that might be helpfull for the looks of the server, would be a simple contest.

Organize these contests and rewards it's very good idea, It should have a theme of building per contest and have a time constraint, one month per contest for example.


P.S.: very nice mansion ;)

[LazyJ]

Howdy, wijnand :)

You skin has been uploaded just before the backup occured to it should be in effect now. ;)


No Drowning Mod and Ambience for Servers (sound mod)
We'll need more input from the other players about the no_drowning and bat/crow sounds.

The Ambience mod doesn't appear to be coded to able to determine if the player is indoors or not (and I don't have the savvy to code that). The sound effects are triggered by what type of blocks the player is near. Overly simplified examples: near trees = bird sounds, near stone underground = bat sounds. Maybe someday modders' code savvy will be up to it, or maybe Minetest will be able to provide better queues for such mods to pick-up on.

If there are a lot of players that don't like the sound mod, it can be removed without ill-effect to our server.


Mobs
Yeah, mobs do take more resources to run. One of our long-term concerns is that mobs spawn *everywhere* and if the mob mod were ever replaced by a better one, there would be a tremendous amount of "unknown", former mob entities in the map. If there were a way to easily and safely clear out these and any other removed-mod block/item/entity then we would be more inclined to try such mods.

A great mod idea would be to have a mod or tool for MT admins who are *not* sqlite gurus to be able to easily search and safely edit the map's database for all unknown items and clear them all at once without having to hunt them down one-by-one in-game.


Bread and Meat
0.4.8 now includes farming so you can grow and harvest wheat to produce bread.

The admins could setup an admin shop to sell cooked_rat but it didn't seem necessary since thefamliygrog66's "Livingroom Furniture" mod is installed and that mod provides for 100% health restoration. But if we hear from a lot of players that cooked_rat should be on the menu then we can still setup a shop for it. You will have to provide your own ketsup and mustard. :0)


Flowers
Flowers are the default mapgen now in 0.4.8. I'm not sure if they only appear in newly generated areas or if, gradually over time, they spawn in previously generated areas.

I don't know how to control their spawning properties (color, where allowed, where not allowed). Even if I did, it would require a lot of editing every time the MT version is updated on the server (and MT server updates are planned to be more frequent than in the past).

To create flowers that do not produce dyes would require creating a new flower mod. For home, landscaping purposes, clusters of flowers (flower beds) or floral arrangements in vases for in-home displays would be nice to have. As they are now, the default flowers are better suited for small flower pots. VanessaE's "Plantlife" modprovides such flower pots but it's still not quite *it* for the "Home and Garden" look. Hehehe... just one more thing to add to the infinite "to-do" list.

Besides making the landscape prettier, flowers are intended to produce dyes, to then produce colored wool (white wool from string harvested from cotton plants - just pretend wool comes from cotton :)- ). The colored wool gives players a few more colored-block options to build with.

There are other colorful, building-block mods that could be added but we are trying (but not always succeeding) to maintain good, mod variety without being excessive or redundant.


Self-Planting Saplings
I think there was a mod, a long time ago, that would cause dropped saplings to grow. I don't know if it still exists and if it does, if it would be compatible. But, yeah, that would be something that would at least help to regenerated pillaged forests. As you've probably observered, few players are conservative enough to collect all fallen saplings after harvesting trees for wood.

Another tree-related source of lag are large tree farms. The more trees that are growing at the same time the more lag it will generate, though only temporarily. Similar happens when a player is running through an ungenerated area and MT's mapgen is working to create all the trees, land, caves, water, dungeons, jungles, deserts and other stuff. But trees are very important in Minetest and tree farms are practical for serious players, so it's a trade off between necessity and performance. Hopefully Minetest will eventually improve that issue.

Careless miners and players chucking stuff into lava creates more item-drop lag than jungle-saplings.

There is a mod that automatically scoops-up nearby dropped-items and puts them in the players inventory if there is room If not they remain on the ground. I'll ask VanessaE more about that mod, what is it and what are it's pros and cons. Maybe that is something we should have on our server. Hmmm...

It was also observed in the 0.4.6 version of Minetest that Minetest would generate perfectly vertical stacks of items embedded in the ground. Normally dropped items fall into a mixed cluster but these were columns of evenly stacked of the same items. At least with 0.4.8, the server can run clearobjects without crashing (though it is still a slow process - the world's map.sqlite is nearly 5gb, uncompressed, at this time).

Each month the server will be shut down for a few hours to run clearobjects to reduce dropped-item lag. It will have to be done manually so there won't be a consistent schedule like the nightly backups. I know maintenance is an inconvenience for players. It isn't exactly a whole lot of fun for the admin performing the maintenance either. :/


Design Build Contest
Now there's an interesting idea. :)

Perhaps if players posted screenshots of their contest submissions in this thread for others to judge and enjoy. I think Minetest.net forums can do polls for voting purposes... but I'm not seeing the option on-screen at the moment.

Lava blocks won't be used as prizes. Even though the flammable property has been removed from most things in the server, lava blocks are still dangerous to players and the mess they create is a headache for admins. That's why lava buckets were one of the first things to be done-away with since way back in the days of the original server world.

Nyan Cats as prizes or rewards have been suggested before. It's their rarity that makes them so special. I think we'll leave them that way. You are now among only a very, very small group of players that have legitimately aquired a Nyan Cat. Congrats! \0/ \0/ \0/


Thanks for the input and screenshots. This is how our server evolves and adapts over time. ;)

[shadowpawn84]

shadowpawn84

[LazyJ]

Howdy, shadowpawn84 :)

Your skin has been uploaded and will tak effect after the next server restart (backup).

[jp]

Some artworks by shadowpawn84 and ubuntuyou on LinuxGaming server :





Others big artworks afterward in the new dedicated area !

[jp]

Suggestions for the future of LinuxGaming server :

1. Creation of several spawn points (spawn1, spawn2, spawn3, etc.). It can be the main city, Sky City, Great Pyramid, Wijnand Mansion or other(s)... Technically, it's possible for have seen on other servers. The main city is aging and most of the buildings (including stores) are no longer maintained. It would allow new players a better start (new players get lost too easily in the main city), explore, better operating economy and support the creation over a large scope of the main section.

These spawn points are required to have 4 things : nice places of residence, shopping market, roads around, and a public mine.

In conclusion, we must decentralize all.

2. Creation of Teleport Stations on all spawn points. Minimum on the main city.

3. Possibility to have carts. It would make the mining and transports easier.

4. The maintaining of the economy and money mod. Because the sense of merit/worth of things, and a better usage of blocks is possible with this mod. Also, it avoids the "smear" of blocks everywhere by joking players.

Change to creative mode, it would be the theft or the lost of several months/years of working by serious players.

[LazyJ]

Howdy, jp :)

Multiple Spawn Points and Teleport Mods

Multiple spawn points and teleporter mods would seem to accomplish the same thing - getting players quickly from one point to another. I'm not very familiar with either yet but I will be studying them and asking other server admins/operators about their experiences using them.

Teleporters (once, whichever mod it is, has been installed) could be setup without requiring a server restart.

Multiple spawn points may require a server restart to take effect. That's something I'll have to look in to.

Another thing to take into account is whether or not the "/spawn" command is compatible with multiple spawn points.

Players use the spawn command to get out of difficult places or as a way to return to a familiar place when they are lost. RealBadAngel's "Unified Inventory" mod does provide a sethome function but I know players have hit the wrong button and accidentally reset their home position to the very place they were trying to leave. The spawn command at least returns them to a place they are familiar with and are able to find their way back to their home.


Carts Mod

I'll add PilzAdam's "Carts" mod to my list of mods to test.

Considering how long we had suffered with severe lag, I'm very wary about adding any automated mods as they have reputations of creating lag.


Economy and Money Mod

Because the sense of merit/worth of things, and a better usage of blocks is possible with this mod. Also, it avoids the "smear" of blocks everywhere by joking players.

I believe you are referring to the "infinite supply" property of glowlights from VanessaE's "HomeDecor" mod.

Yeah, unfortunately there have been a few players that have abused that property to grief. It is easily cleaned-up by the rollback feature of MT 0.4.8 but even so, I have had to consider removing all access to these blocks.

Even if access to these glowlights was moved to a money mod shop their infinite-supply would still remain. I don't have the code savvy yet to figure out what section of code causes this. It may very well be a glitch that causes the infinite-supply property of glowlights.

I'm really reluctant to remove these because they are so very useful to good players.


Change to Creative Mode

I share your opinion that switching to creative-mode would rob those, who worked hard and long to build nice things, of their bragging rights.

As I've been observing the server these many months, it seems to be evolving towards a creative-like server instead of a "Hunger Games", hard-core, survival style of server.

Minetest 0.4.8's default "farming" and "flowers" mods help the server be more creative-like without switching to full creative-mode. Players still have to farm, harvest, and craft the building materials they need.

Like good cooking (or good coffee ;) ), much of the enjoyment comes from the planning and preparation. The finished result (a good meal, a good brew of coffee, a good Minetest build) is all the more satisfying.

Other little things help make the server more creative-like.

For example, the players don't have to worry so much about dying and losing all of their stuff. The bones mod has been removed and the spawn command doesn't wipe out player's inventory.

PvP has been disabled so players don't have to worry about fending off other players looking to do battle. Swords and armor are pretty much useless on the LinuxGaming Minetest server.


Adding Mods in the Future

There won't be any new mods added for a long time. They will be added, it's just going to take a long time to work through their evaluation and testing.

The next phase of the Minetest server's upgrade/update process will be to update the existing mods. However, it is not as simple as uploading to the server the most recent release of those mods.

Most of the mods we are currently using, though very out-of-date, are edited to suit the server's unique setup. Any updates to those mods will require lots of time to edit and test before loading for use on the server.

Progress will be slow, deliberate, and cautious, but at least it will be progress. Nothing that is worth-while is ever quick and easy and LinuxGaming's Minetest server is very worth-while. ;)


Thanks for posting your comments, suggestions and screenshots. Discussions like this helps our community evolve and informs others who take the time to read about our community.

[Pitriss]

Hi multiple spawn points can be done by my mod: https://github.com/Pitriss/multispawn. It is working well on our private server.

[jp]

Super Sonic, by shadowpawn84, our great artist :)

[Sokomine]

It's really time for at least a second spawn point. Of course I'd like to advertise my travelnet mod for that purpose :-) It would also be very useful to have the elevators for all the skyscrapers in the main city (lag from other sources may make them hard to use). Selling travelnets for incredibly high prices might also be a motivation for players to achieve greater wealth in order to be able to afford one.

Pitriss' multiple spawn point mod may achieve the same, It seems to come with a menu for entering and editing spawn points, so it ought to require no server restarts either.

The problem with the light lies in the permafy mod. It needs some rework in order to avoid that kind of problem. Even then, there are limits to it. Perhaps we ought to take the one aspect that's great regarding the permafy mod - that you can easily see who ones what, without lag as in the hud - and integrate that into another protection mod.

[Anonymous_moose]

could you change my skin to this

username is anonymous_moose

[webdesigner97]

Dear server admin,
I've just been on the server and saw that you are using a quite outdated version of the StreetsMod. The latest version is 1.4.3 which can be downloaded from the forum topic (link in my signature). You will benefit from lots of changes:

• Improved textures
• Trafficlights, streetlamp, labeled stairs, signs, poles
• easier version control using the /streets chatcommand

[Pitriss]

hehe, I have used also older version in my game and I have no reason to update.. I have fixed it by myself, resolved conflicting recipes etc..

So, I think it is pointless to warn about new versions, because this is world of open source and everybody can do some improvements under the hood which you can't see. :) So I absolutely understood why someone preffer to use older versions. Frenetically upgrade to all new versions can result only in messed up gameplay.

[LazyJ]

Howdy ;)

anonymous_moose, your skin has been uploaded. It will take effect after the next server restart (after the nightly backup).


webdesigner97 and Pitriss (and anyone else curious about when the mods will be updated).

Oooh, yeah, most of the mods we are currently running are very out-of-date. However, despite being out-of-date, they are also heavily edited to suit the server's unique setup. Because of this, updating the mods is not as simple as merely uploading the newest version to the server.


Required Edits, part 1:
Because there is such a trememdous gap between the old mods we are using and their current versions, a lot of aliases will have to be edited-in. For example, when I loaded the latest version of Calinou's MoreBlocks mod (as of this writing, Github commit date: 2013_11_29) into a backup copy of the server's world file, Spawntown was covered in "unknown blocks" all over the place. Every item of every mod will have to be laid out, one-by-one to see which ones are broken and require aliases to fix.


Required Edits, part 2:
As I mentioned earlier, most of the mods used in our server have been heavily edited to suit the server's unique setup. One such example is a premptive measure to reduce griefing by disabling all empty buckets, water buckets, and lava buckets. Mods like thefamilygrog66's LavaLamp mod or VanessaE's HomeDecor mod that require any of these buckets in their recipes must have the recipes changed to something else.


Required Edits, part 3:
RealBadAngel's Unified Inventory mod is very, very useful. The trash can feature, the bags for extra storage capacity, the item search function, and the gem - Unified Inventory's craftguide. This is one of the most practical mods to have installed on a server and in your own copy of Minetest for singleplayer worlds.

Unfortunately, what we've found is several mods use different coding techniques to produce crafting recipes that are incompatible with current craftguide mods. The recipes do work, they just aren't in a format that displays correctly in craftguide mods.

This may have changed since I last worked through the mods back in the summer. I know Unified Inventory and several of the other mods have gone through a lot of updates since then.

Back then, as it may or may not be now, in order to get the crafting recipes to display correctly in any craftguide these other mod's have to have their recipes edited.

For example, VanessaE's HomeDecor mod uses a shapless, 4-wool ingredient recipe to produce one of the rugs. The "shapeless" property of the recipe causes a problem for craftguides. The shapeless recipe works but it doesn't display completely in a craftgude mod. The craftguides will only show the first three ingredients listed and not the fourth ingredient. To get shapless recipes with more than three ingredients to work in a craftguide's display, the recipe has to be changed from a shapeless recipe to a fixed-postion recipe.

In other cases, some mods' recipes had to be commented out and a special, totally separate, custom-made-for-the-server mod was written to provide replacement recipes written in the way that works with craftguide mods.


Required Edits, part 4:
There are several items whose displayed names are identical but the items themselves are different. To make things eaiser for all players, these identical names where edited for clarification.

For example, Calinou's MoreOres mod was installed to provide ore types and tool materials that were not present in the Minetest version of that time. Some of the MoreOres ores were duplicated in the default, minetest_game. Two such ores were MoreOres copper and default, minetest_game copper. Both displayed as "Copper Lump" in the player inventory.

VanessaE's HomeDecor mod has/had recipes that called for MoreOres copper whose display name and item icon were the exact same as the default, minetest_game copper. When player's moused over the icon in their inventory, they saw two, separate copper ingot icons that both said "Copper Ingot" but only one of those coppers worked in HomeDecor's recipe.

Both the MoreOres copper ingot and the default, minetest_game copper ingot were edited so when they are moused over, players see either "MoreOres Copper Ingot" or "Default Copper Ingot".

There are several other ores and items that have to have their displayed name (description) edited for much the same reason.


The mods will be updated on the server. However, it will take a long time to work through them and for that reason in particular, mods won't be updated until major improvement versions of the mods are released. Also, because of all the work involved to "custom fit" mods to our server, the number of mods that will be installed on our server won't be as many as there are on other servers.