Expansion and Growth

So, while I may be extremely busy with school and studies and not being able to pop on as much as I’d like, I believe the server is stable enough and we’ve handled the few new players joining pretty well. With the recent upgrade to the server, we’ve got a lot more power to bring players in, and it’s a perfect time to start bringing in some new people.

So I’m asking you guys to maybe invite a friend or two to come play here, we’ve got plenty of room. Maybe organize a few events among yourselves, you don’t need me on to do these.

I’ll be making a few recruitment posts here and there, but anyone else can post one up to get our name out. If you feel like making one, just highlight some of our features like a very solid uptime, grief protection, friendly community.

I’ll try to set aside some time to host another event or two throughout the week, but by no means do you need to wait for me.

Acceptance Email/Tweet

If you’ve received an email from treesquid3, or a tweet from treesquid3 linking you here, or with the same text in the email, it means you’ve been accepted.

Here’s the contents of the email, and what the tweet would cover if it wasn’t limited to 140 characters:

You’ve been accepted! You can follow us on twitter: @treesquid3, more indepth updates on our tumblr, or our facebook, whichever is easier for more info. Feel free to log in at your leisure, making sure to read the /rules and /motd. To protect your blocks, you’ll need a gold shovel which you can use to designate a cuboid for protection. Everyone starts out with a set amount of protection points, which grows at a rate of about 100 blocks for every hour you are logged in. You can find more information reading the /rules in game or visiting our website. 

When you log in, feel free to ask questions. Any player with a light blue name is a guide and will help out to the best of their ability. Not knowing the rules is not a valid excuse for breaking them, so make sure you brush up on them. If you have further questions, shoot an email my way and I’ll try to help you out.
If for some reason you’re not whitelisted after this email, please reply to me so I can fix it, may have been a small typo.
The IP is squid.allgamer.net, see you online!
If you have applied and haven’t yet received an email or tweet, it’s either because you have too many bans, didn’t complete the app in full, or I’ve made a mistake. Shoot me an email and we’ll talk!

Important Server Announcement:

Please read this start to finish, as there are important details.

We’ve upgraded to 1.2.3, and are back on Bukkit, and this means that soon we will be  whitelisting all of the people that were accepted but not yet whitelisted while we waited for a stable bukkit version and land protection. This means that if you have something important to protect, I suggest you read this page for information on how to safe keep your valuables. The onus is on the player to understand and have anything valuable protected. I have also updated the rules section, so type /rules in game or click here for information on that.

If you do not have enough protection blocks to save a larger work, please email me (treesquid3@gmail.com) and include the location (coordinates) of your work and how many blocks you will need (If it’s 10 blocks long, and 5 blocks wide, 10x5=50, so you’d need 50 blocks. If you want some surrounding area protected as well, take that into consideration when doing your estimate). 

If I catch people zoning other player’s works on purpose to use as a form of griefing, or just being a douchebag, you’ll be jailed or banned.

I’m aiming to start a gradual trickle of new players starting this weekend, maybe Sunday, so it would be best  if you had marked off and protected your lands by then.

I will also be posting an update soon about new staff members. My current plan is to offer several players the opportunity to be “guides”. They’ll be given a different colored name, and tasked with helping out new players with general inquiries and things like protection help. There will be a non-game-breaking reward associated with this, as well as potential to move up to moderator (kick, jail, teleport and chat related commands), and potentially further. This is because as much as I’d like to kick around and help all you lovely people, I’m very busy with school and work at the moment.

Last but most certainly not least, with the new influx of players, and not having conducted a solid stress test, we may experience some lag due to heavy server usage and such. I’ll do my best to find a sweet spot number of how many players can be logged in at a time though, so not to worry. To help reduce this server stress, and increase the amount of players we can have online and the overall power of the server, please consider donating. I run this server on my money; being a University Student with only a part time job during non-summer months means I do not have a lot of money to spend on things like this. Sending a few dollars this way is an easy and cheap way to support the server so we can continue to run and provide you with days of entertainment. I will also introduce a VIP system if we are often at player cap, giving players who donate to keep the server running (and get it upgrades) a reserved slot on the server. YOU WILL NEVER BE KICKED to make room for one of these VIP players, however. 

More updates to follow over the next week or two.

So with that, I’d like to thank all of the new players (and the old) for playing here, and making it a great little community. It’s your guys’ easy going nature and good looks that makes running this show so easy for me, so cheers to you!

-Treesquid

Server Updated to 1.2

With the release of the official 1.2 today, we are upgraded. Throughout the next week or so as soon as Bukkit has a stable build, we will be switching to that. During this time, I’ll be discussing a few changes with the players and team of moderators. We will also be rolling out a form of land based protection too, so anyone that want’s to protect their land, I suggest you pop in and do so. I’ll try to post a tutorial walk through or  video to aid with this. After about a week or so of 1.2 on bukkit and everything’s been protected, we’ll be rolling out invites to the people accepted but not yet whitelisted. 

Here’s hoping for a smooth launch!

See you guys online. 

-Treesquid

Here’s a link to the 1.2 Client from Mojang.

Update to 12w08a

The server has updated to 12w08a and there’s tentative talk about  1.2 coming soon. This means I’ll be bugging players about input for various things, and prepping the server for our release date. We’ll be setting up protections too, I think everyone should have a bout 3 days to a week to set up protection after we get back on bukkit.

Here’s a link to the 12w08a client.

Updated to 12wo7b

You can click HERE for to download the 12w07b client. It’s required to play on the server. 

As I write this, the map is being converted to the new Anvil format, with a height increase to 256. Hopefully they were correct in saying there would be improvements to performance and we don’t notice a change.

If anyone has any questions, email me or shoot a tweet my way. The map should be good to go in about 5 minutes from the time of this posting, I have to head out for a bit. Hope it all works!

February 14th Update

So we’ve been up for almost a week, and accepted a bunch of playeres in to help stress test the server, and get a head start on construction.

Tomorrow there’s a good chance that a new snapshot will be out, so I’ll make a post on here when it’s up and I’ve upgraded. If you want to continue playing on this server, do not upgrade until the server itself has upgraded, or you will not be able to connect. I’m very busy, but I will try to take a bit of time to bump the server up. Hopefully all goes well and we get the new height max.

To those accepted but not yet whitelisted, I understand that many are anxious to play. The problem is, we upgraded to the new snapshots and have the new biomes. We cannot go back to 1.1 without problems, so we’re sticking with the latest snapshots. Once we’re at 1.2, we’ll stay on that with bukkit, only upgrading when bukkit does so we have block protection. The reason I’ve required your guys’ twitters or emails, is so that I can notify you when we open the doors. I will personally email you or tweet you, so even if you miss the update on tumblr, you’ll findout through me.

To all of the new guys playing on the server, I’d like to say thanks for joining. It has gone exceptionally smooth. I haven’t had to ban anyone, kick, or tell someone to cut out whatever they were  doing. This makes my job extremely easy, and allows me to have fun playing and building with you guys, so for that thank you. I look forward to playing and building more along side everyone, as well as taking a look at your guys’ structures in the future. 

That being said, I have some things to question the current whitelisters about, so I’ll either set up an email, poll, or just talk to you guys in game. 

If anyone has some screenshots they would like to submit, please do so, there is a small button in the top right corner that says “Submit” when you mouse over it. If you include a picture, try to say who built it, or where it is. Chances are I’ll post it up for everyone to see.

-treesquid

Feb. 10th Update

New players and applicants, please read:

I’ve replied to all of the new applications up to 6pm CST, as of February 10th. 

I’ve been whitelisting players that followed the rules and showed effort in their application, especially the ones who link interesting builds, and show maturity. That’s not to say that someone who’s been accepted and not yet whitelisted hasn’t shown maturity, but that it was more barebones than I’d hoped for.

Regardless, if you have received a tweet/email from me telling you you were accepted, you will be, closer to the 1.2 release when we have block protect.

For the few that have already been accepted, this is a reminder: Please do not venture near established towns/cities/railways just yet, as a creeper bomb or an enderman can wreck these, and I’d like to go into launch with just having to protect the locales, not repair them.

I’ve set up a small bunker with beds and starting food for you, the server is HARD mode, so you can starve, and monsters will punish you for not wearing armor. Please replenish the food as it dwindles for the new players, and abstain from griefing/killing/or stealing. Stealing and Killing will be allowed (in moderation) when we go live, but I’d prefer you guys work on team builds, and get somewhat established.

Locklear308, Lunacy/soundtoxin, Please email, twitter, or send me a message on tumblr with your in game name AND your email/twitter, ie something I can reach you with, or you will have to wait for the 1.2 release to be whitelisted.

I’ve seen a few of the works of are new players, and they’re not too shabby. I hope you guys enjoy playing here, and that we can grow as a community and create some truly epic builds.

*General reminder: I’m writing midterm exams right now, I won’t be on much for another week.

Update to 12w06a

Click HERE for a link to the newest snapshot, we’re currently using 12w06a. 

So funnily enough, the whitelist was kept off this morning, and people were logged in and exploring. Thankfully nothing was griefed, but the whitelist is back on, so sorry to those who popped on and started building, but the server’s not quite ready for it just yet.

I will be replying to emails and messages shortly, they’ll mostly just be a recap of the past few updates today. Can’t wait for 1.2 and bukkit to let you guys in!

treesquid

For those just interested in seeing our current works:

As not all of you are applying to play on the server, but asking for more pictures and a map download, I uploaded this a day or two ago: Febuary 7th Upload of Squid Server.

Read the page for coordinates to our larger works!

It is already outdated as BigDeal74 and I have done some major construction on his City atop a Mountain (It still needs a name), but it’s a great way to take a peak at what’s on the server.

It’s recommended that you are running on the most recenet snapshot, as there is a jungle biome a few thousand blocks from spawn that we’ve somewhat started.

Update for the admission and whitelist process:
I just finished my midterm, but have a lab to go to shortly. After the lab, I’ll head home and start replying to applications. It will mostly be just me stating I received the application, and that I’m creating a mailing list. The apps that look like some time was spent creating it, and contain screenshots of your work will probably be starred, and you guys are the ones that I may let in early before we get back on Bukkit with the release of 1.2.

I still have to talk to some of other players on my server to get some input and suggestions as well, I’d like for this transition to be seamless and smooth. I apologize for the wait many of you will face, but this sort of came out of no where.

Anyone with questions, I suggest you tweet @treesquid3 (feel free to follow, updates from here go there, and it’s a simple way to interact with others) before emailing me, as it’s quick and painless to reply that way. You email me as well and I will almost always reply relatively quickly, if not within the day.

EDIT: I have updated the Tumblr Page, including all of the tabs a long the right side.