Man, 1.5 sure is awesome isn't it? Doesn't it suck that we're without commands though? There's several ways we have to handle updates, and now that bukkit has taken OVER a week to make a recommended build for 1.5, a conversation needs to be had.

First, a brief explanation. Bukkit edits and overwrites Minecraft's code, so a Minecraft update often means bukkit needs to be greatly re-written. They have 3 statuses for builds of bukkit: Failed, Stable, and Recommended. Here's the difference:

• Failed: They made code changes, the program basically doesn't load
• Stable: It works, and most plugins work, but it's not fully tested or there's a few bugs
• Recommended: The build is thoroughly tested and has no bugs

For the most part, a stable build works well and doesn't have many errors, you just typically download the .jar file and put it in your minecraft directory, and it works. The problem is, our host uses a service called "MCMyAdmin" which ONLY allows automated install of recommended builds. This is usually a good solution for a host; it's easy to use and you're not putting potentially broken code running on your server (imagine if some untested code goes into an infinite loop and uses a ton of resources...badness). This is why we've been running without commands or anything since 1.5_02.

In theory, we can submit a ticket to the people at our server host and ask them to install a stable build. They should be willing to do that, however the issues are that the stable build can get updated every few hours when they're working on it, and the turnaround for getting it installed may be half a day or more. It begs the question how often do we want to have to update bukkit AND all our plugins. Also...these are essentially testing versions, they could cause errors to make the game unplayable OR potentially even corrupt the world.

The other option is to not upgrade to new versions of minecraft AT ALL until a new recommended bukkit is out. We keep the server at the current version, keep the current bukkit...and users would NOT be able to update their clients or they wouldn't be able to connect. There's tutorials out there how to keep 2 versions of the minecraft client on your computer, but it's a bit of a pain...at least we'd have the tools to stop griefers and such.

With that explanation in mind...what would you prefer?

Hey everyone, looks like the hosting provider is having some issues. We can log into the admin panel, but the server version is back to 1.4, we can't update it to 1.5_02, and we can't get it to start. The error we're getting is that their host is under heavy load, meaning it's nothing wrong on our end.

We'll keep checking in every so often to see if we can't get it started, and you should do the same. Rest assured, I downloaded the latest backup, so EVERYTHING will still be there for you, your precious cubes are safe. For the time being, you'll just have to suffer through playing some Portal 2 :D

-Surf

If it isn't already clear, 1.5 came out, and as with every update, we're vanilla for a while. Check out the feature list here. There's a bunch of cool features in 1.5, though a bunch of bugs too.

Bukkit is saying they're having some issues with compatibility, read about that here.

Finally, veterans, just know that because Noobs was the default group, noobspawn is now the default spawn. If you die, you'll be going to noobspawn. I think this is a good thing, seeing as we've had a FLOOD of new members and have less tools to control them in case they're griefers.

HOORAY!! We are officially upgraded. Hopefully no more lag or crash issues.... and we can fit a fuckload more players.

Hopefully soon we will CRASH NO MORE!!!!! I got sick of it and just submitted a ticket to go the next tier up in hosting, giving us more RAM and thusly (hopefully) allowing us to keep having such a ridiculously large map, and multiworld, and the rest of the memory draining plugins.  I was apprehensive about doing this, as I can't afford it of the donations dry up, but i decided it's only fair to everyone who has helped, financially and otherwise, to have the best experience possible.... and that obviously includes lag and crashing lol.  I'll keep everyone updated as I hear back from servercraft about it, and let everyone know any downtime, etc that this will cause.

hamfuck.