Nice, it's fun to see new people check out the place.

We now have WorldGuard enabled.

With this plugin, enderman griefing is now permanently disabled. They cannot steal your blocks any longer.

Also, all moderators and above have access to WorldGuard features. This is to allow moderators to set up region protections.

Regions can be defined in a whole variety of ways, with a whole variety of functions. The primary function of regions is to deny users the ability to affect anything within these regions - you can effectively protect regions to prevent ANYBODY else from building within them. But there are a ton of other functions too - including enter/exit messages, teleport functions (walk into a spot and it teleports you to a new location), mob protection, and even invincibility (for example, you now cannot die whatsoever in the spawn region of Spawn Island), to name a few.


I would appreciate it if moderators could familiarize themselves with the WorldGuard tools. WorldGuard uses the WorldEdit wand tool to make selections (//wand). On top of that, here are a few links to help:

Main WorldGuard Wiki page http://wiki.sk89q.com/wiki/WorldGuard

Region protection section, including a tutorial http://wiki.sk89q.com/wiki/WorldGuard/Regions

Region flags - giving functions to regions http://wiki.sk89q.com/wiki/WorldGuard/Regions/Flags

Chest protection/locking - http://wiki.sk89q.com/wiki/WorldGuard/Chest_protection

Ordinary builders are permitted to request their creations to be marked as "regions". They can ask for ANY moderator to come set a region. Be reasonable with setting flags - they can prevent mob damage (including creepers), set enter/exit messages (that is, "greeting" and "farewell" flags), notify flags (to let them know if someone enters or exits their property), but heal or hunger-affecting flags are not permitted. Also, you will have to run a "/region addowner REGIONNAME OWNERNAME" command to give them ownership over their regions.

LASTLY: I've already set up regions to protect SOME areas. Check the region list (/region list) before setting up any new regions.

though ill say the majority will over rule me im not a big fan of blocking normal mobs form doing their thing. protected areas im not big on either i dont want the areas to be come a patchwork of reserved fiefdoms  but i understand why the push for this is going on. i would rather us caution on the side of open and death rather than closed and alive. i worry about rules and regulations draning the fun out of the game

Spawn might be a good place to protect just to be sure it's kept intact at all times. I agree that overprotection would take the fun out of the game, but I can see the benefits of protecting welcome/spawn locations and pure showcase areas.

I'll try out some of the new region features for sure. The transportation feature is very interesting.

I can confidently and without question say that, even with the rules we have set up right now, we're still waaay by far one of the most "open" big servers out there. And the servers I've seen that are even more open than ours either suffer severe griefer attacks or have absolutely nothing of value built.

And trust me, I've seen A LOT of servers. I frequently visit other servers to see what kinds of things they've built. Most of them have pain in the ass rules set up that make it rather frustrating visiting them. No flying, if they don't have flying disabled but you're not allowed to fly, you get banned permanently for doing so. Or else you might have to pay to sponsor the server to GET the permission to fly. And they love to require you to build something AWESOMEEEZRORS in a predetermined region before being allowed to do whatever they like.

The reason I wanted WorldGuard in, though, was because we've had griefing after griefing, including a number from who should have been previously "trustworthy" players. If people can't damage things that aren't theirs, simply put, griefing can't happen. If we want to be open to more players, we need to have ways to protect people's creations. SWatchdog can do that partway, but I've seen griefers get around that before.

We're still not safe, but this way we at least won't have to deal with any major headaches or setbacks. There's no reason to get any stricter from here, at least.

Also, not making a debate over why we should keep it - just giving my logic behind having installed it. We can totally go more conservative with protection if you think we should - giving normal members access to even fewer flags, etc. I just feel that, as soon as we update on PlanetMinecraft and start getting an influx, we're gonna want these measures in place.

the server will be down for a bit today while i test the ram that came back form RMA, looks like one stick might still have issues, but thats better than 4 that had issues before should be back up even with testing around 4:15pm est

servers are back up now running with 24 of our 32 gb

It's been a long while, but we're finally back to advertising the server again, which means an influx of new players should arrive soon...

We now have a variety of new security measures in place. Rollback systems, region protection systems, new promotion systems, blacklisted abilities, and more. And with the new security, we also now have new privileges for players!

Initially, players joining the server will be Guests. After spending a simple 30 minutes on the server, they will promote automatically to Member. Once a Member, they will be eligible to become Builders.

Members must register an account at our forums to become a Builder. Once they've done so, we will promote them. MODERATORS, you CAN promote people. If you're online and a Member (teal text) asks for a promotion and they say they've registered, check http://z15.invisionfree.com/VGCMC and if they've registered, run a /manuadd PLAYERNAME builder command.

Builders become SeniorBuilders after 2880 minutes (or 48 hours) of play time. Senior Builders are capable of spawning a very select number of items - dirt, cobblestone, wood planks, sand, gravel, and some basic armor.

SeniorBuilders then are promoted to SuperBuilders, who can spawn almost ANYTHING, upon building something impressive. But we wish them to use varied materials! Great cobblestone behemoths are frowned upon.



MY NEXT PROJECT: Setting up a warp signs and free signs system in Noobtown. This will provide new players with excellent resources for getting started - the appropriate supplies to get going, and some easy warps for finding good places to build.

The project in Noobtown is complete. We now have a warp hub and a supply center. Warp hub has warps to Dionne, Embraever, Elysia, Marduk, and Tiamat, as well as each of those locations having warps back.

The supply center has spawners for each of the different types of kits, as well as a market where you can trade items for other items.


I also didn't have my SeniorBuilder and SuperBuilder groups properly permission'd, so they didn't work right. Turned out, I was basically trying to use apples and oranges, when you can only use one or the other. I eventually had to resort to adding a billion permissions to make SuperBuilders possible and it was totally over-the-top, but eh, it works now at least.

Added more to the market at Noobtown.

Now, for $1 each (players start with $25 now, btw), you can buy sets of 4 cooked porkchops or chickens.

For $10, you can get:

-32 lapis lazuli
-32 coal
-10 iron ores, OR
-1 diamond

To earn money, you have to sell resources. 64 dirt, cobble, wood planks, sand, or wool will get you $5. You can also buy sets of 64 of any of these for $5 as well.

This system set up to help noobs who are having trouble finding resources but have chests full of dirt and cobble, mostly.