Hey everyone! I want to start by thanking everyone for their long awaited patience with the lag issues. It’s such an unbelievably obnoxious issue, but I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by the cooperation and lack of flame that has been thrown our way. Thank you all for holding in there with us. That said, obviously an update is in order.
Is THIS the maintenance?
Unfortunately, no. We’re currently experiencing some down time as the main server box shut down unexpectedly. Console, SSH, etc is all unable to be accessed. Tythus and Telanir have already been alerted, and it seems that neither of them shut it down early. This was posted a bit ago in our Discord, so if you’re not already in there, be sure to join so that you can stay up to date! We’re just going to have to be patient. With this down time I figure I may as well take the time to post an update on what is supposed to be happening instead so we’re all on the same page.
The server is back up, everything else still applies, though!
What in the blue blazes is going on?
Like stated in my previous post, we’ve been waiting on some physical maintenance from our data-center to install some new parts. Their original ETA was the 24th – 25th , however they ended up being delayed and it was pushed back a couple days. With the physical maintenance nearing completion we’ll be installing the software for the new parts shortly and moving forward. We’re going to try to do as much work as we can before we need to bring down the main server to transfer over all the player and map data, then launch back on 1.14 and verify stability. So what about 1.15?
The 1.15 update, while it is a good thing to do, we don’t want push in the same update. As such we’re going to be rolling out the server on the new parts, verify that it’s stable with what we currently have, then move to 1.15 so long as we didn’t miss anything. This way if there’s any issues with the 1.15 update we can isolate them quickly and efficiently. The update is coming, however one step at a time. As you can see on the timeline below, once we’ve installed all that we can, the server will go down for maintenance to transfer over what we currently have. At that point, it will launch back up on 1.14 to verify that everything was installed correctly. Once everything’s stable then we can push forward to update to 1.15 in full.
So you’ve just been waiting?!
Not at all, actually! While we’ve been waiting a couple updates have slowly crept their way onto the live server while revamping old systems. Probably should’ve made a post about them before, but I’m going to go over the main two feature updates. There have been other stability updates pushed here and there, bug-fixes and so-on, but the community doesn’t need all the nitty-gritty details on, say, a tag being updated to use Persistent Data Containers instead of Public Bukkit Values. That’s just boring. Check out the next pages for more details!
Thank you to everyone once again for your patience, and I hope this post helps clarify the current timeline for server maintenance. If you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to post or contact me directly if need be!
Head Emporium
The first major overhaul was to revamp our custom head shop. It wasn’t really setup for longevity, so it needed to be built from the ground-up to use our menu API, and to stop storing everything into a config file instead of an actual database. But what does this mean for the players? Mostly nothing. The head shop will work (mostly) as it did before with a few changes to command syntax.
Why update Head Shop of all things, though?
Head Shop was a plugin that I had done the update for from 1.13 – 1.14, however it broke entirely with the Tythan menu update. As such in order to fix the shop it ended up needing to be rebuilt. Rather than implement a half-baked fix or remake we instead decided it would be a more worthy investment to complete the overhaul that was scheduled on our to-do list anyway. As such there are some new features added on top of what the Head Shop used to be.
Usage
/heads – The base command for the entire head shop plugin now. Simply using the command /heads will pull up a list of sub-commands as well as descriptions for what each of them do. For example, /heads shop will open up the shop itself (previously /headshop). Here’s a quick list of all the sub-commands and what they allow the player to do. Keep in mind all of these format as /heads sub-command
shop – As pointed out earlier, this is the main command to open up the menu to purchase new heads. When you select a head it no longer purchases it directly and instead pulls up a sub-menu in which you can select 1-64 as the amount of heads you wish to purchase at once, then simply exit the inventory or you can back out to continue purchasing heads.
request – Want to request a player’s head? You want to request a lot of a player’s head? Look no further! With request you can enter a player name and the amount of heads you wish to request from them. Keep in mind you will be charged right away, and if they choose to deny the request you will not get your minas back. This is to help deter spamming someone with requests. Additionally, if you request your own head or the head of an alternate account that’s linked then it will auto-accept it so you don’t need to jump around between accounts to accept your own head request. Each head costs 25 minas to request. You can still use /koplushead after executing someone to request their head for free if you wish.
from64 – This allows you to request a head based off of a skin value such as those shown on Minecraft Heads. Usually this is denoted in a value box with a weird garbled line of text. This is information stored in Base64, hence the name of the command, from64. You can also specify the amount, and much like request, it charges you right away. The difference here is that it must be approved by moderation before it can be added to your inventory. This is to ensure that everything being imported into the server is appropriate, at the very least.
approvals – When you receive a request, you can approve/deny them in the approvals section. Keep in mind you will only see the approvals if the player is currently online. This is to ensure that they are able to receive the head item if you accept it.
All the other sub-commands are for staff use and not something you’ll need to worry about. On the next page I’m going to dive into the changes to /edit!
Item Edit
Previously /edit used to run through a module for Obelisk called Moniker. Moniker wasn’t really built to handle all sorts of signatures and such, so it’s slowly deteriorated into a spaghetti mess and was due for an overhaul. Much like the Head Emporium, Item Edit mostly adds some quality of life changes and bug fixes to help streamline the process.
Why update Moniker of all things, though?
As the date for the physical maintenance closed in, I wanted to choose a small project I could bang out relatively quickly while not losing any quality. In addition, the removal of Obelisk modules is on our to-do list as well, as such it made sense to get it out of the way to slowly free up the to-do list for other projects in the future. Keep in mind that during this we were still pumping out bug fixes for various issues when they took precedent.
Usage
Item Edit should remain familiar with the base command being /edit still. As with Head Emporium on the previous page one can simply use the base command of /edit to pull up a list of sub-commands and descriptions for what each one does, such as /edit name which will change the name of an item, only charging the player a token if the item hasn’t already been edited previously. Here’s a quick list of the sub-commands for Item Edit. Keep in mind these are all formatted as /edit sub-command
tokens – Shows how many tokens a player has, and how long until the next refreshes if one has VIP renames.
Edit Methods
Any time an item is edited with the sub-commands below, it is marked as edited. Any amount of edits on a singular item stack only ever takes one token to complete, regardless of what kind of edit it is, or what VIP level the player is. The only exception is adding description to paper. Editing anything else still costs tokens.
name – Changes the name of a current item.
color – Changes the color of the current item’s name.
desc – Adds lore to an item. There is no /edit moredesc anymore, as you simply use /edit desc multiple times. In addition you can use the flag -newline to skip down to the next line after whatever description you just entered. The description can be empty so you can skip down multiple lines for formatting purposes.
glow – BedrockVIP+ feature. Applies an enchantment-style visual effect to an item. This no longer requires vote tokens to use.
sign – Signs an item with one’s username, or alternatively with one’s roleplay name if using the -rp flag. See the next page for signature types.
Clearing Methods
By making everything cleaner, the ability to clear information in case you made a mistake is something that was quick to implement. If an edited item has been cleared, it still maintains it’s edited status and doesn’t cost an additional token. If an item has been signed by someone other than yourself, you are unable to clear any information on it without a moderator overriding it. This can also be done for legacy items. All previously signed items can now be unsigned, but only by someone with moderator permissions.
clear signature – Removes the signature of an item.
clear desc – Removes the description and signature of an item.
clear all –Removes the description, signature, name, color, and glow effects from an item.
Maximum Length & Width
The maximum length of a description is based on the amount of lines it takes rather than the character count. By default everyone has access to 15 lines of description on an item. BedrockVIP and AetherVIP get 20 and 25 lines, respectively. This is to streamline what length means, since previously you could spam line breaks to make obnoxiously long descriptions.
The width of an item is based on the character count. We allow 50 characters per line. If you manage to use a word that’s larger than 50 characters then it will break it up and hyphenate it automatically. With the length and width set, these numbers should be approximately what was available beforehand for description lengths.
Legacy Voting Tokens
Unfortunately pulling the previous voting tokens has proven difficult, but it’s something I’ll continue looking into after the current priority maintenance. Apologies for the inconvenience!
Signature Types
There are now additional signature types! 26 in total, currently, including staff signature types. These signature types are available starting at BedrockVIP and up and are purely cosmetic. You select your type via /edit sign type, and every signature can have the -rp flag added to it. Here’s a quick rundown of what you might see floating around;
Staff
Non VIP Signatures
PLAYER, ROLEPLAY
DiamondVIP+ Signatures
DIAMOND, CURRENCY, PLUS, TRIDENT
BedrockVIP+ Signatures
CROWNS, TWINKLE, FLOWER, STAR
AetherVIP Signatures
FLEUR-DE-LIS, ORNATE, SNOWMAN, MUSIC, SNOWFLAKE, SUN, PEACE, SKULL
The MUSIC signature with the -rp flag;