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Found 4 results

  1. Hey, everyone! A fair bit of stuff has happened since the last update! Valheim First and foremost - we've introduced a Valheim server! This is the first real non-MC server we've had in quite some time, the last one being our ElDewrito servers. You can grab Valheim on Steam for a cozy 20 bucks - and trust me, it's worth it. The majority of those active on our Discord have been playing it a fair bit since release. It's a survival/RPG type of game, and just like Minecraft, you can build all kinds of cool stuff. Make no mistake, however - this game isn't a cakewalk like Minecraft. Enemies are tougher, and you won't get the best-of-the-best gear in just a few hours. Fear not, however - it isn't quite as punishing as something like Ark for instance - it manages to strike a comfortable and enjoyable balance. Tl;dr - it's fun, go play it and join the server! You can connect to the server with the following IP: 51.222.241.11 In order to join, however, you'll need a password. Since there's nothing similar to Bukkit for Valheim as of yet, there's no real grief protection. In order to limit any potential for grief, the password can be found only by joining the Discord and checking the pinned messages in #valheim. BungeeCord Migration Not too long ago, we started migrating our gamemodes away from a single-server setup and into separated servers, linked together with BungeeCord. As of today, that migration is, essentially, complete. Survival and Skyblock inventories and ender chest contents were lost as we moved off from Multiverse-Inventories - something we also detailed in the last announcement and on Disord. Going forward, this will have a few nifty perks over the old setup: Bugs will be easier to track down and fix Lag should be reduced across the board Adding new features (and new gamemodes) will be easier and more possible World archives that are released after resets will be more complete, as inventories will be saved as part of the world Of course, we aren't done as of yet. We've still got a lot of work to do, and there's liable to be some bugs that pop up here and there. If you find them, let us know by submitting a bug report. Old World Archives We've recently released a whole bunch of old world archives that were previously just laying around on my PC. Something one of our members, @LKComputes said one night during a Discord call really stuck with me and kind of prompted this whole thing - "a private archive isn't really much of an archive". So, let's run through what's new on the download center! First and foremost, several old downloads were replaced with shiny new ones. Unlike the original uploads, these have a series of screenshots available on the download page - all taken with a lovely shader pack for maximum beauty. Additionally, something we used to do in the past was remove spawns from the Survival worlds prior to upload. We stopped doing that from 1.12 onwards, but the old worlds were still left fragmented. Well, that's no longer the case - all old worlds that had spawns removed have been restored and have their spawns fully intact. This includes both Nuclear District's 2015 survival world, as well as our own Survival worlds prior to 1.12. The only exception to this at the moment are the older worlds from Brink of Chaos - as it turns out my PC is horrendously disorganized. Once everything is gathered back up again, those will be released and restored as well. If you for whatever reason wish to download the original, spawn-less worlds, you can find them under a new "Legacy" category. In addition to restoring old worlds, we actually found a handful of new worlds that weren't released. This includes all previous Factions worlds, as well as the very first survival world we had from when we first started the new Chaotic United. These have all now been released and added to the collection for your enjoyment. During the hunt for old worlds, we also ran across some old worlds from a server you probably haven't heard of - KaizerCraft. In the early days of the Chaotic United revival, we (very briefly) merged with a server called KaizerCraft - also known as CyberCraft in the past. That server was affiliated with United AlyCraft, and we merged briefly in order to have the server run on something better than just my laptop - for context, this happened before Michael was in the picture and hosting our server. The merge didn't last long, however, due to a variety of communication issues - and we fairly quickly got out. Turns out, however, that when I was downloading my own stuff back to host it myself again, I'd also grabbed a bunch of worlds and server files from KaizerCraft's own server. And while that merge was brief, we've actually worked to collect a bit of its history too. The original IPs they used (kaizercraft.no-ip.org, cybercraftsg.no-ip.org, and kaizercraft.ddns.net) all point to our MC server. And hey, if I've got them, why not release them instead of sitting on them? The worlds were all taken on November 1st, 2014. Any changes made to the worlds after the fact won't be present, of course - and likely are long gone at this point, since most people don't obsessively hoard data like I do Lastly, and certainly not least, we've released all 4 worlds from Nuclear District's first MC server, taken as of May 14th, 2014. This is currently the only known backup of those worlds - and any changes made to them after that date won't be present. This doesn't include any of the post-reset worlds - these are the first public and official worlds from ND's server. Baxter sent me these worlds back in 2015, and of course I held them close since then. Last year we hosted the server briefly and did a livestream showing everything off - even Falkerz and Alex showed up to the party. Now, you can download them and play them at your leisure. Wrapping Up Whew! Quite a bit of stuff that's been going on - and plenty more to come. As always, stay tuned - and we'll see you in the next one.
  2. Hey, everyone! Just within the past day, we've taken the first step on migrating CU's server to a BungeeCord setup. There's a lot of technical talk about that in here, what it will entail, and how our plan has changed from the original goal. Additionally, we've got some details on my break as well as the current status of my job. If any of that interests you, keep on reading. My Break As most of you also know, I took a fairly long break from working on CU stuff due to some drama and other nonsense that transpired towards the end of summer. Those events, combined with me already growing stressed and tired due to the seemingly insurmountable pile of bugs, as well as a desire to go back to working on Blamite, led me to finally retreat into Elaztek. Unfortunately, it seems that while I was gone, player counts have begun to drop back down again. They haven't plummeted to 0, but they've gotten uncomfortably close. Granted, I don't think this is entirely my fault, but there's no doubt that my departure contributed to this. Now, for those of you who have been around for years, you likely have seen me do similar things before - and me taking a few months off here and there tends to be somewhat ordinary at this point. However, there's a lot of new faces around this year - and to them, the thought of me taking multiple months off seems absurd. I want to try and explain my thought process on this. Let me start by saying that yes, I am well aware that these breaks are not ideal. Ideally, I'd have things set up in such a way that, when I feel the need to take these breaks, the server doesn't have to come to a grinding halt. I know this - but I don't know of any way to solve it in the immediate future. My primary reason for taking these breaks is to avoid the same trap that the staff of old CU and ND fell into. People like Alex, Nik, Kendev, ntx2, and many more all devoted everything to CU for a few years. Whether they loved it or hated it, they gave it their all pretty much nonstop for years. But after those few years, they were done - and they never came back. The only significant figure of old CU/ND staff who's really still around is Nuke (aka, Atomicbeast101) - but even he isn't exactly considered active. He's still largely moved on with his life - only coming in when he feels the urge to do so, or if his advice in particular is being sought after. But everyone else? They're pretty much gone. The most I've seen from the others is a single drop-in after a few years, followed by departure. I don't mean to say it's a bad thing per se. People move on with their lives - that's a given. But me? I genuinely don't see myself ever truly wanting to leave. Maybe I'll change my mind someday, but I easily see myself still doing something here in another 10 years. What I fear is going too hard too fast and burning myself out - to such a point where I too want to wash my hands of CU and move on with my life. I don't want to do that. I never want to do that. While I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would love to keep CU going, and even people who may do it better than I did - I don't know of anyone who would be willing to commit to it this long term. I've been doing this more or less consistently since 2014. I've taken breaks during that time, yes - but I'm still here. I still do my best to ensure the continued growth and survival of Chaotic United. I may not be the best when it comes to carrying this torch, but I sure as hell won't ever let go of it. I don't know if anyone else out there would be willing to do something for 6 years - all while seeing such limited success. I'd imagine most people would call it quits a year in if their server only brought in 4-5 people. But even if someone else out there could and would do what I do - I love this community. As small as it may be, Chaotic United has been a part of my life for nearly half of it. I first joined in January 2012, and almost 9 years later I'm still here, still playing on CU. I don't want to let it go, and I don't want to burn myself out to such a degree where I can't bring myself to even touch it again. And this isn't just me either - the advice "remember, this isn't a job" has been given to me pretty regularly since I began, often from those same people who have since moved on from it. And it's that approach that leads to these extended breaks. I haven't, and likely never will treat CU as a job. When it begins to feel like one, I know that means it's time to step away for a little while. Ideally, I'd have things in place so that when those times come, it doesn't inevitably lead to the server suffering. This is a problem that likely won't go away anytime soon - but one that I eventually hope to nail down and resolve. But it's something that can only happen with time. If you're upset at that fact, I'm sorry. I understand if some of you are irritated that I don't commit 150% into CU like those who came before me - but I try to look at it from the broader scheme of things. Is it better if I burn myself out and end up deciding to close CU after a year or two of that? Or is it better if, while I may take long breaks here and there, I am able to stick around and keep pushing forward for potentially another decade, if not more? I lean towards the latter, but hey - that's just me. The good news is that this topic also marks the formal conclusion to my previous break. I am officially back to working on CU stuff again. I've got a lot of stuff planned (as always), and for those who read my previous announcement, this may come as quite a surprise. What happened to that job where I was working 60 hours a week? Well... My New Job 2.0 If you're active on Discord, you likely have heard the news. I quit USPS after just a week. Yeah, I know. It's kind of pathetic, but not without justification. The job at USPS was not only physically demanding, but also mentally taxing as well. In addition to effectively lifting weights for 8 hours a day (at least), you also had to keep your mind on about 8 things at once. That detail, combined with something I should've known from the very beginning, led to me taking a rapid exit before things got too crazy. What was that other thing I should've known? The fact that I am not willing to work 48-60+ hours a week. I imagine that for many people out there who don't have a ton of other stuff going on in their lives, they can afford to devote hours upon hours to work. But me? I've got enough on my plate to stay busy without any job at all - so in retrospect, accepting a job that would demand more than 40 hours a week was a fairly dumb decision on my part. So, if I knew that going in, why did I go through with it? Why accept it only to quit after a week? Two reasons: One, I had the idea that as a PSE, aka a Mail Processing Clerk, that the job would be largely non-physical. Maybe it's just me, but when I think of the term "clerk", I think of an office clerk or something similar to that. I don't imagine lifting these heavy things nonstop for 8-12 hours a day. I expected that I'd be doing occasional lifting, with the bulk of the job being standing or sitting somewhere, sorting letters into slots. What's worse is that I didn't have anything to go against that until my 4th day at the job. The first two days were orientation, the third was supposed to be training but we ended up being shoved into doing work for a whole different position, and the 4th day was the first day doing our actual training. The second reason was largely more to do with it - the pay. I would be making $18.15/hr, and that detail alone had me distracted and justifying anything else to myself and to those around me. I was so fixated on that hourly rate that I forgot my own personal beliefs and values. I've always been of the mindset that time is infinitely more valuable than money. I'd rather make enough to get by and be able to enjoy my time out of work, rather than dedicate 20-30 years of my life to work and do little else. I want to enjoy my youth as best as I can, I don't want to wait until my body is falling apart after decades of abuse to finally enjoy myself. But fear not - for I've already landed a new job: I'll be a cart attendant at Walmart. Yes, I'm going back to Walmart ladies and gentlemen. And yes, this will still be a very physical job - but the difference is that it will only be physical. Mentally, I can essentially tune out aside from ensuring I don't get run over or shove a bunch of carts into a vehicle. Along with that, you're largely left alone as long as you're doing your job well. It doesn't pay as great as USPS, but it starts at $11/hr, which is fairly decent all things considered - and assuming my hours are decent, will still leave me doing pretty okay once things stabilize. Not only that, but I'll have a much better work/life balance that I wouldn't have had at USPS. Most of all, however, the job itself is something that I not only have experience with, but is something that I could honestly see myself growing to enjoy. I did it for an hour at a time twice a day back at Schnucks, and out of everything I did there - I enjoyed pushing carts the most. I liked the freedom and peace you had when you were out there just left alone. And that was during the winter, too - the weather I enjoy being out in the least. For those unaware, I'm a bit weird in the sense that I really like being in hot weather. I've routinely gone on walks in over 100 degree heat, and while I finish those hour long walks drenched in sweat, I always felt good during and after them. I don't know why, but for me - sweating genuinely feels good. Maybe it's just the feeling of accomplishment from having done something to make me sweat rather than the sweat itself - who knows. I enjoy the heat, sun, and rain - and I can tolerate cold and snow. All of that combined makes me think that, after the initial adjustment phase of getting used to being on my feet that many hours a day, I'll actually like the job. I find myself honestly looking forward to that first day pushing carts in the heat - as weird as that sounds. The point of all of this is that I've switched jobs, and with this job, I'll still have time to dedicate to CU and/or Elaztek. In other words, everything in that previous topic about me not being around to do stuff? Forget about it - that's all null and void as of now. But enough job talk - let's get technical and talk about this renewed plan for BungeeCord! BungeeCord In the past, I've been both gung-ho and also extremely hesitant to start jumping ship to BungeeCord. I always knew in the back of my head that it'd become a requirement for continued feature and player growth, but for a while I figured we'd be fine up to 60 or more players. However, there were a couple brief times earlier this year where we hit 15 players - and the TPS dropped from 20 to 17. TPS, aka Ticks Per Second, is used to measure how fast or slow the server is running. Minecraft natively runs at 20 ticks per second, so 19-20 TPS is considered perfect. 17 is playable, but lag is noticeable. 15 and below starts to become very frustrating, and anything below 10 is usually considered unplayable by most. You may recall some of the issues with BungeeCord - namely that things begin to feel more sparse and separated. Things that people take for granted just don't work between servers, so for me that was a deal-breaker. Not only that, but getting those features introduced would take months... so why is BungeeCord already here? Well, upon reflection, I've decided to adjust how these changes will come into the server. The original plan was to get everything accounted for, then split off all the gamemodes at once and shove the entire transformed server out at once. I think that grouping everything into this umbrella made me feel more hesitant to start to tackle it, due to just how much work was attached to this - which in turn sapped my motivation to even do it. This is what led me to shelf it repeatedly. The new plan is to, instead, introduce these changes gradually over time. As of today - Chat, Ranks, Announcements, WorldEdit schematics, and the tab menu are cross-server. As time goes on, things like Mail, Player-to-Player Teleportation, Warps, and CUEmotes will become cross-server as well. These will be developed and rolled out as time goes on. Once these core features are made to work between servers, gamemodes will be broken away from the main server, until eventually every gamemode has been sectioned off into its own server. Make no mistake - this will all take a while still. However, doing it as a gradual rollout means that you'll see these changes gradually come into effect, and it means that new gamemodes (like Semi-Vanilla) will be available sooner, rather than having them held back until the surrounding components are ready. As of now, there are three servers available, currently accessible using /server: Hub/Waiting Room (hub) This server will act as a fallback in the event that one of the other servers is restarted or crashes. At the moment, restarts will unfortunately still kick users outright, but at some point we plan to get this solved. Here, you'll find a modified version of the hub that we used when we were merged with Nuclear District, and they still had their own server. It's kind of been a tradition that every time we've had BungeeCord setup that we end up bringing this old hub back - so why should this be any different? Semi-Vanilla (sv) Once everything is ready, this is where you'll go to play Semi-Vanilla. Much like when we had it before, it's server name is simply sv. It will be largely comparable to the original Semi-Vanilla server - no advantageous perks for donating, no crazy custom items, just a vanilla survival experience with economy and grief protection. You know - the basics. The only significant change is that unlike before, you'll still have your same rank on this server - as ranks are synchronized between servers. You'll have the basic cosmetic perks (like /me, chat colors, etc), but all of the real perks will remain locked to Survival. As of right now, you won't be able to do anything here. We've still got some work to do before Semi-Vanilla is ready. When that day comes, expect an announcement all about that. Main Server (cu) This is the main server, and it's largely unchanged from before. As of right now, all the gamemodes are currently within this server. Over time, however, gamemodes will be broken off into their own separate servers - at which point this server will likely act as a true hub server, and might contain some of the other miscellaneous stuff (such as builder world for instance). Also in keeping with tradition, the server name was kept as cu - since back when we were merged with Nuclear District, this was the name that our server got. This is one of those other things that has largely remained unchanged every time we've messed with BungeeCord before. Other Changes A few other smaller changes have been made that are notable, but don't really warrant a full section of their own. So, let's go through them here. Branding First off, you'll likely notice that some branding has been updated within MC. Since 2013, CU has rocked a Cyan and White color scheme within in-game messages. Outside of this, however, we've mostly stuck to a regular blue color. As of 1.16, Minecraft now supports hexadecimal color codes. What this means is that we are no longer limited to the 16 colors available, but that we can now use any color we could possibly want - including the exact shade of Blue that we use on CU's forums. After holding a poll, the overwhelming majority of the community voted to use this Blue color instead of Cyan - so you'll start seeing more and more Blue instead of Cyan. This won't be a universal change starting out, as some plugins don't yet support these color codes. Along with that, all of our custom plugins have the CU branding hard-coded in, and many of them will keep their existing Cyan branding for the time being. As time goes on (most likely when each of these plugins receives an unrelated update), the branding will be changed to the new Blue color scheme. Dynmap Since dynmap doesn't have any native support for BungeeCord either, we have to have separate dynmap instances for each server which uses it. In order to ensure the livemap continues to be easy to use, you'll now see a navigation bar when viewing the map on Desktop, which lets you switch between the different dynmap pages for each server, as well as return to the Forums or Homepage. Right now, the only options are the Main server and Semi-Vanilla, but this will expand as gamemodes get broken off into separate servers. Announcement Plugin Port Since 2014, we've been using the same Announcement plugin that I found on BukkitDev one day. It hasn't been maintained past 1.8, so I've been keeping it updated myself since then. Since it's such a simple plugin, I tried to see if it was possible to port the entire plugin to BungeeCord - that way, announcements would display cross-server (and that way the same message would be broadcast). Turns out, yes! With the only major changes being how configuration files are written/read, the old plugin never did anything that depended on Bukkit APIs that didn't also have an equivalent in BungeeCord (since it was just chat). This doesn't mean a whole lot to you guys, but I thought it was neat that this old Bukkit plugin was able to be completely ported to an entirely different API. Redesigned Tab Menu Since our old tab menu plugin lacked BungeeCord support, we needed to find a new plugin. And boy, did we find one. This new tab menu is everything I wanted the tab menu to be back in the day. Have a look for yourself: Old Menu New Menu The old animations were easy to migrate over, it has support for the new hex colors, and you can do a lot more with it than you could with the old plugin. Not only does it group players depending on what server they're in, but a few useful stats will always show at the top and bottom of the list. Additionally, you'll notice that usernames display differently as well. Each username will display in a different color depending on what rank they are - a feature that has been absent since Nuclear District's original MC server in 2014. Along with that, staff members will have a gold star (yes i know it looks like a snowflake, its an 8-spoke star) next to their name, and AFK users will have a gray hourglass next to their name. They're small additions, but ones that I think are pretty neat. Contextual Information in Chat Try hovering over a player's rank prefix or username in chat - you'll find something new! If you hover over someone's username, you'll see a few stats (as of their message) and you can click their name to start sending a message. If you hover over their rank prefix, you can get some information about that rank - be it what they do, or how to earn it. User Tooltip Rank Tooltip Wrapping Up Whew - another nice and lengthy announcement update in the bag! A few other minor changes were made here and there, but if you're interested in those you'll need to check the full changelog. Otherwise, that's all we've got for now. Hopefully, we'll have another one of these coming sooner rather than later.
  3. Man. Crazy to think we've been going nine years. Nine years is a long time. Typically, the past anniversary posts have been worded along the lines of "yea we're pretty quiet now but we'll get somewhere soon i promise!". Last year, I wanted the 8th anniversary announcement to be the final one following that format: Well, we aren't quite there yet unfortunately. That being said, we are undeniably closer to that target than we have been in a very long time - possibly closer than we ever have been. Which, hey - I'll take it. Any progress is good at this point. So, let's take a look back and reflect on the past year. Reflecting on Year 8 We started the 8th year off with, once more, a promise of hope for the future. We were hard at work on updating to 1.14 - though it still took much longer than any of us would've liked. It saw the departure of several staff members and the introduction of new ones. While year 8 wasn't as groundbreaking as we all obviously would've hoped - it was still a new beginning nonetheless. It marked the point where we fixed a number of the deeply-rooted management issues with CU. Not server issues per se, but issues with how I managed the people. I'd had a pretty serious issue with holding on to staff members for far too long. People were on the staff team for no other reason than I was used to seeing their name in Blue or Green. The vast majority of those people didn't even need to be demoted - when I laid out the new expectations going forward, they simply stepped down to avoid that uncomfortable situation. With those folk out of the team, room was available for new users to fill that role. The most notable addition is, of course, @Z0mbieslayer2013. You know him, you love him - and believe it or not, this is his first time as a Moderator. While there are certainly times where this is clear, he's done something that really doesn't happen as often as it probably should - he asks questions. Not just questions on "how do I do x", or "what do I do if Y happens?" - no, no. He stands up straight and asks questions about why things are they way they are. Questioning things that have been the case for years and pointing out things that should be obvious improvements. And while not all of his ideas and suggestions have been implemented - the fact that he still proposes changes and enhancements at all is important. When you as a leader surround yourself with people who just agree with you all the time, you're living in an echo chamber. And if nothing else, Zombie is ensuring that I'm not sitting in one. The second half of year 8 saw us hit some of the biggest population spikes we've seen in years. As unremarkable as reaching 10 or more users on the server at once seems, it's a step in the right direction - and a step we've not seen happen in years. The last time we saw numbers that high was in early 2017, roughly 3 years ago. And while those heights tend to happen at random with much of the activity still hanging much lower, activity as a whole has improved. 0 people on isn't the norm during the whole day - you'll typically only see it at a couple specific parts of the day (typically very early/late). And of course, we've been slowly working on migrating everything over to BungeeCord - in an effort to remove technical issues. And this will be our primary focus for Chaotic United's 9th year. The Plan for Year 9 Our plan for this year is similar to what we did in Year 8. Where Year 8 was the year of fixing management-related issues, Year 9 is the year of fixing all the technical problems that have been building up since 2014. Fixing long-time issues, and making future issues easier to nail down and resolve. However, due to the sheer volume of issues that are scattered about, there's no way for us to have a single, coherent memory of each and every issue. This is where you come in. If you find any bug - or anything that so much as looks like a bug - report it on our Bug Tracker. Our goal is to start the decade off with a solid technological foundation - and to enter the second decade of Chaotic United as a strong, stable, secure, and reliable server. A server that doesn't have a series of ridiculous roadblocks keeping people who would otherwise enjoy the server from having fun. And most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough - do NOT just tell me about a bug. My memory is NOT reliable and I guarantee you I'll forget about the issue entirely within 24 hours - if not sooner. This is the reason we have the bug tracker, so that issues aren't just "forgotten" and so that their status can be tracked. If you've told me about an issue before, report it. Anything that you'd consider strange or "probably not intentional" is something that should be reported. I want to know any and all issues you guys might have, severe or not. Even if it's a completely harmless bug, report it. I want to get each and every bug on that bug tracker fixed - I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I'm sick and tired of having a buggy server - and I'm sick of making you guys constantly put up with a buggy server. Speaking of Server Stuff... Something sort of huge has been developing here lately - and you might've already heard me mention it. But if you haven't - in the coming months, we'll be doing a bit of server consolidation. Most of this is outside of Chaotic United entirely, but one change that will affect CU (slightly) is that the Elaztek Gitlab will be hosted on the same machine as the MC server. For a while (and still at the time of writing), it runs on its own machine with a couple of things that aren't CU or Elaztek related. I know what you're thinking: "I don't give a damn about server consolidation - that's not exciting". And you're absolutely right. However, the next part (at least for me) is. As part of this consolidation, I will be taking over the payment of the CU/Elaztek servers moving forward. The only things I won't be paying for are the relays - as those are so cheap that Michael will continue paying for them. That being said, a couple of the unused ones are being dropped. If you're worried - don't be. If you use a relay, the one you use will be kept online. Several that we have are just not used whatsoever - and as such, they're being dropped. For those of you who have been around for a while, you'll know that Michael has been fairly crucial to paying the bills for most of the time of the CU revival. He hosted the server out of his house from late 2014 through to mid-2015 when we merged with ND. From there, we moved to a VPS which I paid for. A while later (2017 if I'm not mistaken but don't quote me on it), Michael stepped back in to pay for the dedicated server that we've been using until today. After finally getting a stable job that shows no signs of going anywhere, I'm finally in a position where I can actually cover these bills. And with this transition, I think it's all the more important that we all thank and honor Michael for what he's done for CU since 2014. It's no exaggeration that, if he never came along, we absolutely would not be here today. I'd have likely given up on it after my old laptop died and I'd probably be on a whole different path - never getting a chance to know any of you guys. The legacy of Chaotic United would've ended in mid-2016, possibly even sooner - when ND shut down. That would've been it and the book would've closed. But thanks to Michael - we persevered. As small as we are, we've held strong and steady and managed to hold this thing together all this time. We've made sure that, if nothing else, Chaotic United's story didn't end several years ago - to ensure it lives to see a new year, a new decade, and a new generation. And while there are numerous people who have contributed to that (see the credits page (which im aware needs some updating)), Michael is easily the biggest contributor by far. So - on behalf of all of us, thank you Michael for all that you've done thus far, and will hopefully continue to do. Oh yeah - sidenote, Michael won't be leaving the community. I know the way I wrote all that makes it sound like he is, but in reality he's still gonna be a big part of the backend management of CU - it's just that he won't be putting his own money into it anymore. When we start moving things to the new server, we'll be sure to announce it both on Forums and Discord - as there will be a little bit of downtime during the migration. Wrapping Up - For Now... Well, I think that about wraps it up for now. Some of you may think that this is yet another "hope for the future" post. And I suppose in a sense, it is. But this one is a bit different. I'm not proclaiming that we're starting a new beginning today. We already did that last year. I'm saying that right now, we're a little behind schedule - but still on track. This isn't the start of a new age of CU, but rather the next building block of that new beginning. I can't say how soon it'll be, but our goal is to be running smooth and stable and with either minimal or no bugs by December. Will we achieve that goal? Only time will tell - so stay tuned.
  4. Alright, so as of recently there seems to have been some controversy about CU's donation perks. I have been told by a few people that I should remove and/or limit the use of /item, /fly, and /gamemode perks. My stance has been, and still is, to maintain the system exactly as set up by the old CU. This has worked just fine for the past almost 4 years, but this past week people have suddenly had an issue with it - enough where I feel a poll should be conducted regarding this as well as another idea that has been presented to me: a Semi-Vanilla server. Now, this idea is something I mentioned in the previous announcement as something I would not do, but this was in the concept of replacing the main server with such a server. The idea I am presenting now is to have this as a separate server entirely, likely BungeeCord-ed with the main server for easily going between the two. This server would have some basic stuff - /home, /me, CUEmotes, Residence, WorldGuard, Essentials, anticheat, and possibly a single donation rank with a few added perks (maybe) - but that's about it. Staff would have only the extra perks needed to effectively check grief and fix it, moderate, and so on, which excludes a lot of the typical stuff that can be seen as "extras", which means they can play legitimately right beside players. This idea is something that ND experimented with right before we merged with them originally, and it seemed to do well. This idea has been mentioned to me by a few people as well, and while I absolutely will never replace the primary server with this, I believe that setting it up and making it a reality would be both easy on the team and easy on our available server hardware. The poll presents various voting options for how these things should be handled, and get your guys' interests figured out. A couple things to note before we wrap up this topic though: On the 2nd question (the one regarding the perks directly and with the most choices), please PICK TWO - and ONLY two. If you do not pick two, your votes will be ignored entirely. Additionally, these votes do NOT guarantee that we will go in that direction (or not exactly specifically), this is meant to see where current user interest lies and doesn't automatically determine the exact direction we will go. Rather, the votes you make will be taken into consideration when we do decide. This doesn't mean that what the winning vote is won't happen, it just means that us (the CU Staff) ultimately reserve the choice to do what we feel is the best for the future of the community. Also, if you select "Other" for that 2nd question, make sure you give us your idea by replying! The cooldown that was mentioned in the first question was implemented today - it is 15 seconds per use of the command. More details on the update can be found here: Lastly, if you happen to be a donator of these ranks, we want your feedback especially, as everything that was suggested thus far was (mostly) from people who didn't wield these powers. We look forward to hearing your feedback, and we thank you for your interest and participation in helping make CU better!