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.