Rarek

Minecraft, now with over 7,000,000 purchases, is truly a fantastic game. One of the best extensions of Minecraft is the multiplayer side, so right here we're going to show you the quick and easy way of hosting a server on Ubuntu 12.04. It should be of note that this guide should also work for a whole mix of Linux distributions and versions, so don't think these instructions are isolated to Ubuntu 12.04. Let's get started, shall we? [h1]Pre-requisites[/h1] Before we begin, let's make sure we have a few essentials. All we'll be needing is Java and Screen, a utility that allows us to run applications on virtual "screens" (like tty for experienced users). First, let's focus on grabbing Java. In the terminal, let's run the following commands to get our hands on the Java RunTime Environment 6 (recommended for Minecraft): cd sudo wget https://github.com/flexiondotorg/oab-java6/raw/0.2.3/oab-java.sh -O oab-java.sh sudo chmod +x oab-java.sh sudo ./oab-java.sh sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sudo apt-get install sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts[/CODE] You might get a few prompts along the way asking you to confirm some actions; you'll want to hit [b]Y[/b] for those. Next let's look at getting screen. This one's a lot easier. [CODE=bash]sudo apt-get install screen[/CODE] Easy, right? [h1]Downloading Minecraft[/h1] Let's download Minecraft to our server. It's really, really simple. All we have to do is grab one file from Minecraft's servers and we're set! First, however, here's something to consider. If you'd like a server with mods on, you'll want to use Bukkit. Bukkit is a separate entity that works with Mojang (the creators of Minecraft) to produce a modding API; if you want mods on your server, you want Bukkit. Putting that aside, however, let's first create a user for Minecraft so that anyone else we want to help manage the server can just have access to that user and not the whole server! Let's make it simple and call our user [b]minecraft[/b]. Run the following commands to do so: [CODE=bash]useradd -m -s /bin/bash minecraft passwd minecraft[/CODE] After you type [b]passwd minecraft[/b] it will ask you to type in the password you'd like for the new user. It'll look like nothing's being typed, but it's just hiding what you type in-case anyone's behind you! Let's switch to our new user by using the following command: [CODE=bash]su minecraft[/CODE] You'll be asked to type the password you just defined and then you'll be in! Now, if you'd like a normal, plain, vanilla server, use the following command to grab it from Minecraft's servers: [CODE=bash]wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/MinecraftDownload/launcher/minecraft_server.jar[/CODE] If you'd instead like a moddable server (using Bukkit), use this command instead: [CODE=bash]wget http://dl.bukkit.org/latest-rb/craftbukkit.jar[/CODE] Brilliant! You've now downloaded Minecraft to your server! Time to get it started. [h1]Creating a Start-Up Script[/h1] To generate the configuration files we'll be needing to edit, we first need to start up Minecraft. Exciting, right? Let's do it properly, though. We'll make a file called [b]start.sh[/b] that we can use at any time to start the Minecraft server. That way we don't have to remember a long line of commands. So, let's create the file. [CODE=bash]nano start.sh[/CODE] This will open a screen with, what is essentially, a text editor. Now we just need to decide on something: RAM usage. Now the servers here at Ahoy World use 512MB to start up but have a limit of 2048MB (2GB). Setting it up like that causes a brief lag spike when the RAM usage goes up to the limit, but then it's stable and doesn't have to be running at that level all the time. For now, let's assign 512MB minimum and 1024MB maximum. This is done with the [b]-Xms###M[/b] and [b]-Xmx###M[/b] flags. Let's type this into our text editor, substituting [b]minecraft_server.jar[/b] for [b]craftbukkit.jar[/b] if you downloaded Bukkit: [CODE=bash]screen -dmS Minecraft java -Xms512M -Xmx1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui[/CODE] Now press [b]CTRL+X[/b] to start exiting the program. It'll ask if you want to save at the bottom - just press [b]Y[/b] and you're done. Now that we've created our start-up file, we'll quickly need to make it executable so we can use it. To do so, type the following command: [CODE=bash]chmod +x start.sh[/CODE] Brilliant! Now at any time we can type [b]./start.sh[/b] and our Minecraft server will start! Don't do it yet though. [h1]First Start-Up[/h1] Let's start up Minecraft for the first time, generate some config files and then stop it so we can edit them. Using part of the code we typed into [b]start.sh[/b], type the following into the terminal, again substituting [b]minecraft_server.jar[/b] for [b]craftbukkit.jar[/b] if you downloaded Bukkit: [CODE=bash]java -Xms512M -Xmx512M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui[/CODE] That should've started up the Minecraft server and made the terminal stream some data. Let it create all the config files for the first time, along with the map. When it says [b]Done[/b] on the last line and stops, simply type [b]stop[/b], press enter and we'll edit some files. [h1]Configuring the Server and Forwarding Ports[/h1] Minecraft's configuration is really, really easy. It's all sorted into one file for you and nicely laid out with a bunch of user-friendly options. Let's open up the [b]server.properties[/b] file that Minecraft has created and edit it. Type: [CODE=bash]nano server.properties[/CODE] Now we're editing the file! As you can see, it's pretty simple; just a bunch of variables and their values. Here's a couple that should be noted: [b]server-ip[/b] controls what IP address the server will use to accept connections. Unless you have a server with more than one [i]external[/i] IP address, leave this as [b]0.0.0.0[/b]. Changing it could cause you issues [b]server-port[/b] is the port number that Minecraft will bind to and use to accept connections. Everything uses port numbers - if a web server is accessed it'll be accessed through port 80. ArmA II uses port 2302 to accept connections, FTP is 20 and 21, SSH is 22 etc. [b]25565[/b] is the default and means that people won't need to specify the port number when connecting to the server. You only really need to fiddle with this if you have more than one Minecraft server running. [b]view-distance[/b] can be heavy on resources. Most servers use a view distance of [b]10[/b], though I'd recommend setting it to [b]5[/b] if you're running your server with or less than 1.5GB of RAM. When you're done editing, just save and exit the program like last time ([b]CTRL + X[/b] followed by [b]Y[/b]). Now a very common problem is people not being able to connect to their Minecraft server as the port is blocked by their firewall. While I can't cover port forwarding every router (try a website like PortForward.com), I can show you how to accept connections from the [b]25565[/b] port in Linux. We'll use [b]iptables[/b]. Use the following command to accept [b]TCP[/b] connections to the [b]25565[/b] port (make sure you're logged into an administrative / root account when you do this): [CODE=bash]sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 25565 -j ACCEPT[/CODE] That should do the trick. [h1]Starting the Server and Using Screen[/h1] Let's fire 'er up! Type [b]./start.sh[/b] and the server will start in the background using [b]Screen[/b]. As mentioned above, Screen allows us to run applications in the background as if they're just on another monitor. Let's go to the Minecraft screen right now. Type: [CODE=bash]screen -r Minecraft[/CODE] You should now go to a new screen where Minecraft is running! Fantastic! Type [b]help[/b] to get a list of commands you can use to administrate your server! If you ever want to stop your Minecraft server, connect to the screen using my above command and then type [b]stop[/b]. This allows Minecraft to save all block changes and the like before it shuts down so nothing is lost. To get out of the screen and leave it be, press [b]CTRL+A[/b] and then [b]D[/b]. Not [b]CTRL+A+D[/b] - press [b]CTRL+A[/b], let go and then press [b]D[/b]. This will detach you from the screen and leave Minecraft running! [h1]Connect![/h1] Hoorah! We're done! Use the IP address of your server to connect and go! That should be everything. Any questions, just ask.

Hello! That was me I'm afraid and, though I said it was a shameless plug, shame was definitely present. Good choices on the games, my lad! We don't have a Day Z server, but we just put up an ArmA II: CO server tonight! I'll definitely be grabbing Guild Wars 2 (so will Samuel, I believe), though I haven't pre-ordered it yet. Hmm... And Planetside 2! Never played the first but was always intrigued by the concept. Checking out the website it looks like a TF2 / Halo / Battlefield 2142 cross-over! Sounds good in my books! Hope to see you around and about m'lad. There's usually a good few of us with our arses on TeamSpeak if you ever fancy a chat! Oh and aye, welcome to Ahoy World.

Nice quick meeting this month! Here's a brief run-down of the decisions made. Dedicated Server George and Jack to be managing the server initially Two Minecraft servers - one dedicated to survival and one dedicated to creative / game modes Tekkit will not be hosted for the foreseeable future - the hardware requirements are too high Assetto Corsa will be hosted on the server ASAP ArmA III will be hosted on the server ASAP (ArmA II in the mean time) [*]YouTube Creation of solid, regular content George will manage the creation, organisation and editing of content Focus on play-throughs and tours / promotional videos of the Ahoy Minecraft! servers Also include reviews / guides (incl. mod installation and the like) [*]Minecraft Survival world will be regular, PVP Minecraft in a large-biome map, hosted on a 2GB server with a lot of slots Server / game mode priority list: Survival Zombie Survival Walls AhoyForts AhoyPrison RP World Zombie Survival Looking for constant input. Tell them what you want on the forums and follow the dev diaries Areas named "Area 1", "Area 2" etc to undergo a staggered release, the devs hopefully being 2 or 3 areas ahead of the current release Many more (but weaker) zombies than usual Good stuff people! Let's make it happen!

We're coming up worryingly quickly to our second Meeting of Minds. Happening at 19:00 GMT tomorrow (5th August 2012), everyone's invited to come and pitch in on Ahoy World's direction. Here's the current agenda. Dedicated Server Management What games we will be using it for? Minecraft Tekkit Assetto Corsa ArmA III (and II?) [*]Requirements - RAM? [*]YouTube Make solid content Decide on series & regular "shows" Primarily play-throughs with multiple people? George in charge of YouTube publications Reviews? Play-throughs? Guides (+mod installation etc?) As above, which direction should we take the channel? [*]Minecraft Which game modes will we be making? Which game modes will be completed in what order? Survival world to get players in to Ahoy World not many plugins harder mobs essentials

Hello there, good sir! A humble welcome to you! In addition to @fergie's question - where are ya from m'lad?

Good to see you on Minecraft last night, albeit for a short time! Will you be around this weekend?

Anything up to £10, my lad! Tell me what you want and I'll gift it to you ASAP!

Upon reaching 100 members here at Ahoy World, we whacked out a random number generator to see who would win a FREE Steam game! Our number generator arrived at 49. And the lucky member was... Fuzzballface! Congratulations laddy! Let's get that game sorted out for you. Whatchya gonna choose?

All done for you, sir. Glad to have ya with us laddy! Hope I'll be seeing you on TeamSpeak soon?

Hello there. With Minecraft 1.3.1 out right now (and a Bukkit snapshot to come very soon), we'll be needing to do a bit of re-designing. The AhoyCoin system we currently use is based on using signs to buy and sell items, while 1.3.1 will introduce NPC trading. I'm looking for ideas on how we should best use the new features of 1.3.1 to improve AhoyCoin as well as people who want to be involved in the development. Samuel and Drake pop into my mind immediately. There may be others, but if you want to help out please say so and I'll involve you from the get-go. We'll concentrate on AhoyForts first (the Fort vs Fort game-type that'll involve two teams gathering resources, surviving and ultimately destroying the opposing fort by sieging it using weak TNT). As I said, if you are interested say so here and make sure you have an account over at GitHub - that's where all the code will be available. Also if you're interested in learning I'll go through the basics with you, but it'd be a good idea to familiarise yourself with a good Bukkit plugin tutorial so you're not completely alienated!

Ooh I tried Windows 8 too. Ditched it when I couldn't play half the games I had.

Saaaaam! Good to see you m'lad! Hopefully catch you on TeamSpeak in the next couple o' days?

Wi-Fi spots are few and far between here so excuse any delay in responses. George! Write that down and bring it up in the meeting! Seems a lot of people can't make it in the afternoon. It could be moved to 19:30 / 20:00 if that'd be preferable? Let me know.

I'm on holiday from today (22/06/2012) 'til next Saturday (30/06/2012) and will probably be back online on the Sunday (01/07/2012). Posting that here 'cause there are a few things that I'd like to get sorted! This sounds like work (and it is) but if we can clear this up in one big "meeting" then we can start on a lot of things. The plan is to have this "meeting" in the Private Chat room on TeamSpeak on Sunday 1st July at 16:00 GMT. This isn't a secret; Private Chat just helps us stay on topic. If you want to be involved in the meeting please express your interest below or let me or any of the staff know on TeamSpeak before it starts. You can openly discuss this with any and all members and are encouraged to do so. Listen to what people's opinions are and share them with the rest of the community. This is about listening to the community and all pitching in on what we think is best. Here are a few bullet points - it'd be great if you could think about them, share them with those who are interested and get ready to shout points at me in the meeting. Minecraft Criteria for (Consider time requirement? Clean record? Activity?): Creators Architects Staff [*]VIP Privileges [*]Building Full access to all materials on Creative world? Application / Approval Process? Must they supply a form? Is lore required? Will the project be built before being approved? Build in Creative world and move to RP world? [*]Systems Hub Is it used / needed at all? (If not, do we need anything of the sort?) File Sharing - Do we just need this functionality? What could we use it for? (Building Applications?) Won't users simply be more comfortable using the forums? It's unclear what it is for from both the staff and user point of view [*]Wiki Minecraft only? How will it be managed? Have specific ranks for those who can create pages? Who can edit pages? What do we need it for? [*]Forums Is there anything wrong with them? What can be improved / added? Is there anything missing you feel is vital? [*]Introduction of New Systems Downloads? (Wallpapers, soundtracks, podcasts etc) Podcasts (How will we integrate these into the site?) Video (Is it best keeping our presence on YouTube?) [*]Dedicated Server Is it viable? What will immediately run on it? TeamSpeak 3 Minecraft ArmA II / III [*]Who will run it? [*]OS Windows Server 2003 / 2008 R2 Ubuntu Linux [*]Is it worth purchasing now or later? [*]Can we sustain it with donations? [*]Aims What should we aim to achieve? What are we doing well right now? What are we doing really (really (really)) shitly? Is there anything we're not doing you feel we should be doing? Social Media Activity Video You are free and encouraged to add to this list items which you think are relevant, though they will be discussed after all of the above. Remember, the meeting is in the Private Chat room on TeamSpeak on Sunday 1st July at 16:00 GMT! See you all in a week.

It's exactly the same as the Creative one (mc.ahoyworld.co.uk). It runs parallel and you can simply teleport between the two. For most members, however, this option will not be available until we properly set everything up and start the whole process moving. If you want to see how the RP world looks, just check out the Minecraft Map. If you hover of the right-hand side of the map, a little overlay will pop out showing you all the worlds that are currently running on the server. Click on any of the views (the little cubes) under the RP_World title to see it. There's nothing much to see right now - purely landscape which will probably be terraformed to fit in with whatever lore decisions are made. Once again, if you want to help with any of this and think yourself a trusted party please get in contact. We'll be making a big push on this soon and every helping hand would be appreciated.

There have been increasing enquiries as to exactly what on Earth is going on with our carefully-controlled RP Minecraft server Ahoy Minecraft! This will hopefully serve to let you all know what's happening, what we've been planning, what we've decided on and how all of this has affected and will affect you in the present and future. So let's kick off with the basics. Where have we been? [h2]So everyone disappeared?[/h2] Yes, a few of us did. Why? Other parts of Ahoy World and life. The plan for Ahoy World is to be bigger and better than it is right now. Bigger, however, does not equal better, so there are a few changes and tweaks that have to be made along the way to ensure everything goes smoothly. It's mainly those changes and tweaks that we've been focusing on for the past few weeks and, though they took some time, we're confident that it will've be worth it. [h2]What did you do?[/h2] Planning, organising and setting things straight. Oh and a new logo too. Especially in terms of the Minecraft RP world, everything was a mess. None of us had any illusions that the project wouldn't be a hard one, but I for one didn't realise until much later that we were only increasing the workload for ourselves by plodding on with a number of tasks and decisions that were made, to put it simply, wrongly. Some harsh decisions needed to be made with some time to think, without making constant knee-jerk reactions that, if left to continue, wouldn't produce the output that many of us have been working towards. Other than Minecraft, we've been making plans for how to turn Ahoy World into a larger, all-inclusive community. Though you might not want to be involved in other decks of the Ahoy World ship (such as our World of Warcraft guild and ArmA II Squadron), it's important to recognise that they are there and need just as much attention as anything else. Minecraft is our priority, as that currently contains our largest active member and donation count, but the other parts need a little bit of care. In regards to the logo, you'll be able to see it up top right now. Simple, on-topic and elegant. A masterpiece. Thanks to Dom for preliminary designs and @Fergus for the final creation, including an absolutely bad-ass animation that we'll put on the front of all of our videos. If you want to see it early, get in touch. [h2]What decisions have been made?[/h2] Firstly, the Minecraft server now has two worlds: the RP world and the Creative world. If you didn't know that fact, you'll be on the Creative world. The one we've all been building on for the past few months? That's now the Creative world. The reason for this was the messiness. The world was covered in structures that we just didn't want. With them being over ground, flying and underground it would've been near impossible to build the tightly-controlled RP world we wanted without having to painstakingly remove hundreds of embedded structures to another world. The new RP world has been generated from the old world's seed, so contains much of the same landscapes as the old one. When we fully start the project, agreed buildings will be WorldEdited into the new RP world from the Creative world. This is how ALL structures will be created from now on: you build it in the Creative world, it gets approved and is moved to the RP world. Secondly, we're branching out and four major additions are coming. First, we're starting a weekly podcast in the near future. We'll go through recent news (in gaming, Ahoy World and our own lives) and a few interesting topics every week that'll be sure to have us all laughing. If you're interested in any way, be it taking part, how it'll work or who's currently involved, contact either me or @Fergus! Next, plans are in place for our World of Warcraft guild to merge with another, bringing the two communities together and potentially doubling our userbase. The Guild Master of the other guild, currently named Runes of Valhalla, has been on the site for a while (say "Hi" Carl!) and plans are in place to start streaming the members over to Ahoy World shortly. After that, much more YouTube content. We currently have a channel with ~250 subscribers that barely gets touched. There's a few videos on there but the plan is to have much more regular content being pumped into it. Once again, if you're interested in this in any way, get in touch. We're looking for people who want a little more responsibility around the place. If that's you, tell us. Finally, a dedicated server. [h2]A Dedicated Server?![/h2] Yep. Currently, our 1.5GB Minecraft Server and our 40-slot TeamSpeak server run on a single £20 monthly bill. Once we start expanding, the plan is to attain a dedicated server for ~£80/month. This will give us 8GB RAM to play with (4GB of which will go straight to the Minecraft server), a quad-core processor and an unlimited bandwidth usage. We can slap a 256-slot non-profit TeamSpeak server on there and have everything running from there. With root access, we can put up any game server we like, be it ArmA III, Battlefield 3, Race 07 or any number of others. [h2]So there it is.[/h2] That's the plan. That's what we've been doing and that's what we're going to do. If you want to get involved, message me and we'll discuss what you want to do. A lot of us have big plans for this place and have put a lot of work into getting it ready for those plans to commence. Take the opportunity now and help out: we're headed to the top!

With recent additions, AhoyCoin's become a little bigger and a lot more complicated. I'm looking for people to help with code (even if it's just your input on how to add features / how to make the code more efficient), provide suggestions, report bugs and test, test, test. If you're immediately interested, make sure you're registered over at GitHub and give me your username. The project will be managed from there. Main source code can be found at https://github.com/Ahoy-World/AhoyCoin/tree/master/src/uk/co/ahoyworld If you're at all interested in AhoyCoin I encourage you to register your interest in this thread. It's just entered beta and I need a userbase to start testing it as much as possible. Do ridiculous things with it. I want you to try and break it. If it survives a multitude of mad-men purposefully attempting to break the system, it should be fine in any other situation. For those of you who aren't yet aware of what AhoyCoin is for and how we use it, here's the low-down. What is AhoyCoin? AhoyCoin is an in-house plugin developed to work alongside iConomy, allowing our playerbase to buy and sell items to and from a collection of 'towns' throughout the Minecraft world. Prices are managed dynamically through town tax rates, tax on specific items and specifically-set prices for that extra little bit of control. To make the plugin even more like a true economy, prices are affected by stock levels for that town, which rise and fall as players buy and sell as well as scheduled deliveries that replenish stock, individually set for each item. What does it mean for the player? Using AhoyCoin, the player will have access to items in an ever-changing economy. Dynamic supply and demand means that a smart trader can take advantage of certain situations and, through sometimes travelling huge distances, are able make a pretty profit if they do it right. To see the price of an item, simply punch the sign! You'll receive a message along the lines of "Buy 4 Apples from Drammar for 50 Gold?" and all you have to do to confirm the purchase is right-click! If you'd like to sell, simply punch the sign a second time. You'll be given a quote for the selling price and can, once again, confirm by right-clicking! What does it mean for creators? Shops are often a pain to create and, in other addons, require linking chests and even using redstone! With AhoyCoin, it's easy. Simply make a sign with the following information: 1st Line: [Vendor] 2nd Line: Town Name 3rd Line: Item Name 4th Line: Quantity[/CODE] For example: [CODE][Vendor] Drammar Bucket 1[/CODE] Punch the sign, it'll confirm the details and you're done! Players can now buy and sell buckets using that sign and stock and pricing will be automatically managed for you! [size=4][b]What else does AhoyCoin do?[/b][/size] Regardless of whether or not you actually want to know the answer to that question, you're about to find out. [b][size=3]Projects[/size][/b] AhoyCoin also manages what we're calling 'Projects'. While this may later be moved into a seperate plugin, right now it's being managed under the AhoyCoin umbrella. So Projects are more-or-less global quests that the whole server can get behind and work towards. They're structures or improvements that cannot be built unless a certain resource and/or money requirement is met. As an example, imagine that Drammar has a small wood chopping station. It only has a maximum stock of 20 and replenishes just 5 wood every 3 days. Using Projects, however, a creator sign could be placed proposing a new Lumber Mill to be built. One sign is placed for each resource needed, stating the project's name and the quantity of the resource needed. Players can 'donate' resources and money to each sign, contributing towards the Lumber Mill. When all the resource requirements have been met, the Lumber Mill will be built and Drammar will now have a maximum wood stock of 50, replenishing 15 wood every day. Using this method, players can improve towns that they make their home, allowing for a greater feeling of belonging and contribution to the community as a whole. Aside from the obvious benefits of better shops, however, the advantages of donating resources and money is still somewhat limited. Do you have an idea for how we could reward players who donate? Maybe they receive a discount of 5 or 10% when shopping at that particular Lumber Mill? That's all for now. However, as I said, if you have any suggestions or are interested in testing and using AhoyCoin and/or its Projects feature, please get in touch by either registering your interest in this thread or PMing me. Hope to hear from y'all soon.

Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out, Ciaran.

Extortionate prices are good. Also to all those who are wanting to build cities and towns - make them difficult to reach. What I mean by that is make it so that the journey there could be a perilous one. Far enough away that you have to go through the night which, if you don't find shelter, would be deadly.

Might as well do it in here. As a few of you know, TeamSpeak was down almost all of last night and evidently this morning as well. Fragnet (our hosts), while migrating web servers, were hit by a huge DDoS attack and the entirety of their service went down. All should be stable from now.

Ciaran - I'd go for selling less than that. If we want people to stay and want it to feel like a survival experience, travel should take long and items, even if just aesthetic like bookcases, should be hard to attain. Abandoned camps could offer maybe a few basic tools left behind by travellers, but players should make their way initially by selling the crap that's easy to get. That's my ideas on it though - all need to chip in on a large brainstorming session.

Glad to have you on the site! As raz said, I'll see you on the craftfield.

Back up.

Glad that you lot seem enthusiastic about the idea! Mazthoril - there's a mod called CityGuard that does exactly that. I'll get it on - it's a fantastic idea.

The server is now up to a stable level. Permissions are working fine, everyone's (from what I can tell) pretty happy with what they can do and we'll be trickling in mods such as WorldEdit and the like in the near future. But there's a game plan - a sustainable end result that's not only enjoyable for creators and survivors alike but should serve to provide exponentially growing entertainment. Here's what we're going to be working towards. Stage 1 The Idea Our little world is already full of incredible constructions, from the winter villages in the south to Hogwarts in the north and the sprawling underground metro stretching across the map, there's already a lot of places to go. WorldGuard will soon be introduced, allowing players to control their own segments of the map and assigning build permissions to only those they feel are worthy. You preserve your creations so that others may use them. The principal is to introduce survival into the mix, using the already-built constructions as safe havens and places to rest and stock up on resources. If you have a castle, think about putting beds there so travellers can sleep, and providing them with farmland and crops to survive. Make your buildings accessible. They may be difficult to find (or maybe even monster-ridden, dead cities with great treasures hidden away), but finding ways rewards them. Maybe a hard-to-find mountain path or an underground tunnel. Be creative and make an experience for the survivors. Stage 2 Who does what? Creators will create and survivors will survive. All regulars will have the choice of switching between creative and survival; it is only ordinary players that will be locked to survival. Server settings will mean that there will be more monsters than usual and said monsters will be a lot more vicious. If you, the current regular players, think this is a good idea, there will be a few ethical ground rules. No giving survival players hundreds of pieces of steak, for example. The idea is for them to survive and for their survival to be hard, not for you to impress them with your flying abilities. Ordinary players can, of course, become creators if seen fit. If they like creating more than they like surviving, that's fine. We'll make them a builder and they can create all they like, making the world even better for the survivors. Stage 3 What needs doing? We're already very close to being able to implement this system. All that's needed in a well-managed WorldGuard system and the permissions tweaking and it's done. It's then the extras we can start to worry about. If it's supposed to be hard to survive, we have to make it harder than Minecraft is by default. As mentioned above, the number and ferocity of the monsters will be increased, but there are other variables to consider. Money, for example. The recently-implemented metro system provides fast travel to the most significant structures in the world. Let's think of these as cities. Cities could be exciting places where a traveller could purchase weapons, armour and materials. Maybe they could buy seeds to grow on their own farmland, or better materials for defence. Minerals such as diamonds will be hard for the travellers to attain due to the increased amount of monsters, so we will apply significant value to those materials. Outside of the city, a traveller could strive to make more money to further their homestead. Materials from monsters are highly valuable but dangerous to attain. If everything had a value, we could start implementing a full-scale trading system. A survivor may hear that a village a long travel out of a safe haven may be selling Iron Ingots for a stupidly low price. They've struck a huge vein and can afford to sell it cheap. If the survivor dares to traverse the landscape and find the village, he can buy low and head back to a city to sell high, or simply use the materials for himself. Stage 4 Your Ideas Thinking about a project like this gets me really excited about the possibilites. We have a great team of highly skilled builders in this community and could easily create an immersive, interesting world. You can control eco-systems, trading, create dungeons and abandoned towns and villages as well as grand castles that are safe from the outside world. Chime in with all the ideas you have and whether you think we should go ahead with this plan. If it's a yes, I can't wait to get started.