Of the UHCS and SMP

So, as you may know, some things have happened with the UHCS that I'm not completely sure about. I know that the original admin just kinda stopped coming around. Long ago he stopped hosting UHC games, but recently he's been just MIA when it comes to the UHCS. Many people didn't like this. Honestly it didn't bother me.
Part of the reason I liked the UHCS is because of the people, but a lot of them left, I'm sure they all had their reasons. They still played the games, but I think the idea of a survival server with the UHC mod on, although unique, was a pain. I even felt it, but kept playing there, trying to build on what I was doing.
Originally the server was hosted somewhere that sucked balls. horrible lag, all the time. A group of us chipped in money to get hosted by a new company that was supposed to fix the problems, but it didn't seem to help. I threw in like $25, and I think in total we got like 150-200 to host the server for many months.
I blame the plugins, I think a lot of the grief protection cause blocks to re-appear and threw out more lag than it should have and would just cause the game to stutter all the time, every few minutes you'd be stopped on the track for 15 seconds while in a railcart, or the last 5 blocks you broke would re-appear. It made doing anything a pain.
Not long before 1.4 hit, there were periods when the server was down for DAYS with no one around to fix it. And then of course 1.4 hit and because the server was running bukkit it wouldn't be updated until bukkit did.
With the update to 1.4 there was talk of people who wanted to keep playing together, the community is still there, just not on that server. A new vanilla snapshot server popped up. The Minecore server. This server is much more restrictive on who gets in, and only someone who is suggested by an active player can even apply to be added to the whitelist.
There were a lot of complaints about the UHCS this addressed, some people hated how easily new people were added to the whitelist. Personally, I didn't care as long as they were cool folks. What I missed was the continuity of the server.
The Minecore server is great, I've had some really good times with the folks on there, but I don't plan on recording anything on there, just going to be there for fun. I might throw out some footage occasionally or appear in other people's videos, but it won't be a regular thing.
After Minecore popped up, the people who were new and active on the old UHCS started talk of clearing the place out, starting over fresh. Not sure exactly what came of that beside that the last time I tried logging into the UHCS, I was denied (not whitelisted anymore) on the server I helped fund, even though it's going by another name, Mumblecraft, in the MotD. Honestly, I don't mind. It seems that the old world that was there (which I assume has been erased from that specific server), was moved off to another one, under a different admin.
I was contacted by that admin before the move, asked if I wanted to join and I gladly said yes. Seems the server is up, but I'm not on the whitelist. I'm sure it's just something that was overlooked, I haven't bothered bringing it up to the admin because I'm not too worried. I put a lot of work into my builds on the server, but I really wasn't too attached to them.
Again, it's more about the community. There's a lot of crossover between the two, the New UHCS and The Minecore Server. Most of the people I really got on with are on the Minecore server. There are other things outside of normal survival play we do together. So in the end, to me, it isn't a big deal. I'm just glad I can share my minecraft experiences with you guys.
All of this is one of the main reason I've picked back up with Mining with Munchmo. That server I control, I don't have to worry about some admin closing it down, wiping the world, griefers, etc. Sure, I'm mostly alone there, which sucks, but I have community in many other places, so I'm happy.

I'm sure there's a lot that I've missed or not covered here. You might even have some questions, and if you do, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer 'em.

And so it ends . . . sorta

So, I have uploaded my very last episode of Meandering with Munchmo to youtube. The show has finished and I will not upload another, but that doesn't mean it's over. From now on, every Friday I will livestream the show on my Twitch.TV channel! So make sure you're following me there so you'll know when I go live. That's http://www.twitch.tv/munchmo
I haven't decided yet what time it will be, but I will be announcing it on youtube with a short commercial. I think I'll go for an hour each night, we'll see though, depends on how the audience is.
Also, I will be trying to focus more on Hardcore, see if I can bring that show to a close. I feel like my videos are a little too across the board, and I need to narrow down my focus to bring better content to you guys.
Along with these changes, Mining with Munchmo is coming back! The show will change a little, but I'll wait till the first episode is up to discuss with you guys more about that. With 1.4 out now, I've turned that world from bukkit server to a vanilla server.
Also with 1.4 out, I won't be spending much time on the UHCS until it is updated.

Ideas so far

So far I've come up with the following things for the amusement park:
Roller Coaster
Zoo
Spleef Arena
Melee Arena
Bow Arena
Mob Arena
TNT Arena
Glass Maze
Hedge Maze
Monorail
Tunnel of Love
Shooting Gallery
Food Court
Carousel
I'm thinking I'll start with an area about 500x500 and I should hopefully have enough space for it all and more space to grow.

More Funland ideas

A monorail that goes around the whole park
A tunnel of love
Some kind of carousel that might use minecarts?

The roller coaster

So, some ideas I've had that I wanted to get out of my head so I'll remember them are:
a portion that goes under a lava fall and a water fall, and something that goes deep underwater, and at bedrock, and all the way up to height limit, and through abandoned mines, and all around the amusement park.

Epic Good Time Funland!

So, I have this idea planned for my Bukkit world, actually a couple. I'll go into them in a bit more detail here. They are both large, ambitious projects that will take a long time to complete, and hopefully some of the other players on the server will join in too.
The first is Epic Good Time Funland (name is a WIP). It will be our Minecraft amusement park. There are a few things I intend to build there, and I'm sure more will come to me as time goes on. So far I've got ideas for having a roller coaster (what's an amusement park without a roller coaster), a "petting zoo" (although I don't know if I'll be able to keep hostile mobs from despawning), a mob arena (big top maybe?), a gladiator arena (for some real melee pvp action), a bow arena (like the mindcrack paintball area), glass maze (or some kind of maze, maybe hedge), and much more.
Obviously, if you guys have any ideas of things you want to see in there, let me know and I'll do whatever I can to make it happen. The plan is to do it all as legitimately as I can, but still using the Bukkit tools at my disposal. I was originally going to start with a flat world using a world-generator but have since changed my mind to start with a new real world and just clear the land. Would give me a lot more to do, but also a lot more resources to work with.
The second project I had in mind wasn't exactly for me, but I'm considering either creating another server for my son's Hunger Games, or creating a hunger games world on the Bukkit server for him to play with. I have a lot of untapped potential on my server right now, I could probably run at least 2-3 more servers on it and was looking into Multicraft, but I don't feel like spending the money on something I can do with just a little more effort.
The hunger games that my son is doing is all arenas he is building in creative mode with no special addons or plugins, so having a separate server for him to play with might make it easier for him to make sure he does everything he wants with that.
I look forward to your feedback with ideas and suggestions!

Well, that's ok then

So, the Youtube uploader is being dumb. It won't upload a video at all in Firefox, but in Chrome it is uploading, but not showing any progress at all. Because of this, I was at least able to get the two videos I had out there. So you can be happy to have a new Mining with Munchmo and a new Mo' Angels 'n Creepers.
I've also got a new episode of Hardcore uploading now which should be available to you guys a little later today, and I am going to see if I can get a new video up every day for the next week or two.
On a side note, Bukkit still hasn't got a Recommended build for their server yet, so I'm still in 1.1 in Mining with Munchmo, but I'm keeping with 1.2.3 for Meandering and Hardcore. I haven't found a reason to update Mo' Angels 'n Creepers yet, so that's still at 1.0.
Also of note, we might have a new version of Minecraft this week per Jeb's tweet. This can be a good or bad thing, might mean it will take even longer for Bukkit to get an RB out for the server, but it'll also hopefully fix some of the glaring bugs in 1.2.3.

What a disaster!

Do, today I got a new video up, Meandering. I actually had it up yesterday, but stupid me, I forgot to watch the video or anything before going through the process of encoding and uploading it. There was no audio! I had game sounds, but for some reason, my mic didn't pick up. Not sure if I accidentally muted it, or what, but I had the video up at the usual time, but it was unwatchable.
So, instead of recording a whole new video, I just decided to dub it. I watched the video and recorded commentary. Then I took that audio track and overlaid it with the video and Viola! you have the newest Meandering.
To be honest, I was kinda scared to do it. I thought I'd have a hard time making it feel real. But in the end I think it turned out ok. There are some points in the video when I was watching it that I almost forgot the voice-over wasn't recorded with the video.
Don't worry, this won't become a regular thing, unless you guys really like it, then I might start doing the series this way. Not having the commentate (is that a word?) would make it easier to survive, but who wants to see that?
Of course, I recorded some footage for Mining with Munchmo that same day and had to completely re-record that portion. Luckily there wasn't anything major that went down.
Course, then later as I was doing some work on the rail station, I found a cave and went exploring. Found another zombie dungeon, and got eaten alive by them. Then, within moments, the guy that was tagging along got killed by a creeper and Poof, there goes enchanted diamond sword, pick, and shovel. . . /sadface

Last chance to vote!

Going to record the another episode of Meandering in a few hours, and there's been no more new votes, so unless there is, it's time to explore that mineshaft! I've been busy building and digging and playing recently.
A friend that I introduced to Minecraft just started his own server, running 1.2.3 on his home internet connection, and I've been playing on that some. I've got myself a treehouse in a jungle. Found a TON of diamonds in a mineshaft that's really close to bedrock.
Got the spider farm just about the way I want it on my server. Next project is going to be a mine cart station, I'll be starting that soon.
I also plan on recording more hardcore in the next day or two, so you can look forward to that.
I'm pretty close to "beating" skyblock too, so I'll show you guys around there when the time comes. It's not too impressive though, I'm not all that good at making things pretty.

Daunting Project

So the newest episode of Mining with Munchmo is up now, and I've begun building a cave spider exp farm from some spawners a friend of mine found. Now, in the end, this is gonna be a good thing, the zombie spawner was great for exp, but getting it at three times the rate will be even better.
Now, the video is going to end up being 3 parts. Originally it was planned to only be 2, but I got so much footage for the first half that I ended up dividing that in two. I'll still be releasing the videos at the normal times, just means I'll be ahead a week or two.
I must say that I was procrastinating a bit on this project because I felt a bit overwhelmed with everything involved. I still feel that way a bit actually, even though all I have left is the drop-tower. Of course, I do plan on clearing the whole area around the spawners out and making it prettier too, but that's mostly just gonna be digging rocks. After the work I've done, I still may need to modify the design slightly, but so far it appears to be working ok.

Stupid Greifers

So, I had to roll my server back three times over the weekend due to people being stupid. First it was because my son pissed off one of his friends and he was blowing creepers up in the world. Then this guy destroyed my zombie farm, which I thought might have been accidental. Of course, later someone totally spent god knows how long ripping the place apart and destroying my base, so I kicked the two people who could have been responsible and rolled it back again.
Now you might think it's wrong of me to kick both guys out when it was most likely only one of them. I can't know for sure which one did it, but the fact that the guy I'm certain did it (was the guy who destroyed the zombie spawner in my exp farm) was vouched for by the other guy it could have been, made me decide to err on the side of caution and just kick them both out.
Of course, right now as I'm reading this, I realized I should have recorded some video of what they did. Luckily the rollback didn't take long (it's like 1 minute of copying files). And no one lost anything. So really I don't understand what the point was, the guy spend a long time doing this, the damage was extensive. But in the end, it meant nothing.

Meandering forward!

So the votes were in and forward was the choice! This week we fight off creepers in the night as we continue walking around my vanilla server. I am beset upon by all sorts of monsters and bugs, but the lag was kept at bay!
I think restarting the server just before recording helps, although I still got hit with the weird bug where I get stuck in a spot and the one where the blocks around me change (or even disappear completely!) as I light them up.
With that video up, it's time to begin work on my next Mining with Munchmo! This time we're going to clear out the old chicken room to make way for a new farm! Silk touch is going to be even more important than ever, unless I want to try to run grass down 30 blocks, which I don't.
Wish me luck!

Zipper towers and SMP

So, I really thought this was gonna be a great idea and really easy to do, but after spending a LONG time working on it, seems that zipper towers don't work on a server?
I didn't find a good tutorial for the build till I was already halfway through with the process, even though I was doing it all wrong.
Eventually I found the right tutorial and figured out I had to start over. Even in the end I'm not sure I did it right. It looks like it should work, so either I did it right and it just won't work on SMP or I did it wrong and I have no idea where I messed up.
If you want to see the tutorial, you can find it here.

Let's get this party started!

So I just made my newest Mining with Munchmo public, it is up for viewing! I spend a lot more time working on my underground lair making it prettier, and so far this is just the tip of the iceberg. I've some major plans for renovation.
After widening the tunnel and getting all the clay I need (well, at the time I thought it was enough, but I realized now that I need some more) I begin to lay out the next phase of design. I need lava, and a lot of it! But before I do that, I'm going to replace that damned spinning minecart track to the surface with something nicer. Look for the next Mining with Munchmo where we'll build a zipper tower!
Now it's time for me to record another Meandering. . . Stay tuned!

Uploading as I type this

A new video is uploading as I write this. Today's video is Mining with Munchmo and in it I go on the hunt for clay to prettify the minecart tunnel to the zombie spawner. Unfortunately, since then I've changed my ideas around a little bit, and I need a lot more clay. That will mean at least 2-3 more visits to the surface and that rail track up bothers me. So what am I gonna do about it? I'm going to install a new solution to get to and from the surface.
So, today I'm going to start recording the next video where I'll be putting in a zipper tower to the surface. I've also got some other plans for changes to my base including getting rid of that fishing hole and expand the storage room into that. I never use the fishing hole and don't see a reason to have it. I'm also planning on widening some of the walkways because that narrow one just bothers me.
I also need to venture into the nether to get more glowstone and blaze rods, because I want to expand my brewing chamber.

Stupid Youtube is Stupid

So, overnight I uploaded a new Mining with Munchmo video featuring another trip to the nether! But for some reason the video has been flagged as containing copyrighted material. The real problem I have is that the dispute form talks about whether I think it contains the copyrighted material, yet nowhere does it even mention what is actually being claimed as copyrighted! Something called the "Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society" has laid claim to something within the video, a video that is not even publicly available now.
It seems that within mere moments after filing the dispute, the claim is just gone now. This really seems like a malicious abuse of the system by a third party (an affiliate of the RIAA, I'm sure) to make money off other people's hard work. I understand people being upset for not getting credit for their art or losing money due to piracy, but I really don't think any third party should be allowed to claim infringement for another unless explicitly directed to do so.

Finishing touches

In today's thrilling conclusion we find out hero in the depths of his branch mine in search of diamonds, in the harrowing desert digging for sand and waiting patiently for zombies to spawn.
I eventually got sick of digging for diamonds so ended up going topside for the first time in ages, and realized that what looked like it should have been a snow biome actually was one. This world was first started in 1.8, which if I remember correctly didn't have any snow.
Stay tuned for my next episode where I have fun with my zombie farm and venture into the nether.
Video behind the cut.

Just another update

So, Bukkit finally released an updated version to work with 1.8.1. I've got my server updated and moved the new world into it. I've started feeling better, so less coughing and sniffling. I am planning on doing another video tonight, but I think it might have to be another special edition since there is already a pre-release of 1.9 out! I'll likely throw together a single player game and run around in it giving my impressions of the updated content. Once 1.9 (and for that matter, 1.10) is officially released, I'll probably start a new world again for it. Because of that, the current project I'm planning on undertaking in the new world that was created for 1.8 might be put off until we're not expecting a major update soon.

Welcome one and all

I decided to setup a Mining With Munchmo blog where I can talk about the things I've done and the things I plan on doing. I'm ready to record another video, but I've been sick the past few days (as you can tell from my last couple videos) and don't want to subject you guys to all the coughing and sniffling I'd be doing. For now, I'll take this time to discuss what I'm doing in the world.
I currently have two different Minecraft servers setup. The first is my worlds in 1.7.3 housed with Bukkit which I'm waiting to update to 1.8.1 when Bukkit has a recommended build for it. The second is a 1.8.1 vanilla server that I am running because I got impatient while waiting to play 1.8 for the Bukkit update. Once Bukkit gets an update released I plan on moving the world from the vanilla server over into the Bukkit server and turning off vanilla until the next time I need it. Currently, all my worlds are using whitelists because I don't feel like having to deal with permissions and possible griefers. The server is housed on a computer I put together. It is running Ubuntu 11.04 on an AMD Phenom II X2 565 with 16GB of ram and approximately 3TB of storage. I not only use this server for Minecraft, but it also serves all my media for watching over the home network (Xbox, PS3, etc).
As you probably saw in the first video, my thirteen year old son also shares the world with me. Just yesterday he invited a friend from school to play on our server, so in future videos you may see them running around.
I think for now, this is a good enough introduction, so please feel free to drop me a line and ask me any questions you have.