UPDATE: New idea, considering that Greenwich time is 6 hours ahead of EST, we will be starting the competition at 4:00 PM GMT / 10:00 AM EST on Saturday and will run it for 24 hours so it will end at 4:00 PM GMT / 10:00 AM EST on Sunday.

UPDATE: Tentative date and time is Sunday 22nd of January, 10:00AM - 8:00PM GMT. Let me know if this sounds good in the comments

UPDATE: Merijnwouda and Pirate have signed themselves up for the first match, but there's always room for more contestants if anyone else wants to join in. Details on where and when coming soon...

It's another build competition!!!.... but, here's the catch. Two people will be pitted against each other to see who can build the sickest structure in 10 hours or less. The competitors will be given unlimited access to every resource, including sponge, and, when the structures are complete, they will be judged and the winner will get.... TBD... Anyways, if you want to sign up, just say so in the comments.

See? When I said it might drop today...I was just 30 minutes too early :D

According to some hot rumors, Minecraft 1.1 is going to drop today! How opportune with our server move! Now, we won't be updating until bukkit is stable...however with this new host we're not limited to recommended builds only, we can install development builds which still work, so we can be up to date MUCH faster.

We know that many of you want to play around in 1.1 right off, but to play before we update,...do that you need to backup you client's game files, and keep a 1.0 version (Windows and Linux) AND a 1.1 version that you can go back and forth between. Here's how to find the files that need to be backed up:

• In Linux: ~/.minecraft
• In Windows XP: C:/Documents and Settings/[USERNAME]/Application Data/.minecraft
• In Windows 7: C:/Users/[USERNAME]/AppData/Roaming/.minecraft
• In OSX: Mac Version of 1.0 /Users/[USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/minecraft

As always, here's the Official Feature List and the often-more-useful Wiki feature and bug list. Also, for everyone asking when Bukkit will be updated, here's their status: Bukkit Dev Status.

mc.teh3l3m3nts.com

Report any issues in the comments!

So why have we been so quiet the last few days? Well, cncr04s, sbrough10 and I have been setting up a new server host on a VPS. Cncr04s has the most experience working with a vps, and has really taken the lion's share of getting this all set up. We have it running, and it seems to be ok, but we're squashing one last bug before we switch over to it. (For the technical people...java is allocating 2x as much ram as it should, so we can't use the vps' full potential. We have 2.5GB...we can't go up past 1.75G allocated to the server or it aborts)

When we finalize that, the server address will be mc.teh3l3m3nts.com which brings up another point...we have the .com again! Not sure if you noticed, but the .com and the .net both work now. Which is neato. When we switch over, we'll stop that server, upload the most current version of the map to the new host, and switch her on. I'll leave the server at my house on for a bit with a redirect message pointing people to the new host.

So be on the lookout! One more thing...we need to make an effort to ramp up website traffic, now that we're paying for hosting again (it's like $15 a month cheaper, but still). So do this...send me screenshots with captions and I'll post them here. Also, if you think something in the logs is funny enough to post...type #### which will be easy for me to search for (as opposed to combing 100,000 line logs like we used to.

Can I get a "What, What!" in the comments?!?!?!

So with all the hosting troubles and stuff in the last month or so, it's clear we've needed a new owner. Cncr04s has proven himself to know what's going on in the backend, and knows how to do the tech stuff to run the server. He's level headed and particularly has experience with VPS's, which is the type of host we are moving to. Please help me in welcoming him to the team!