Minecraft Multiplayer!

[Sepiche]

Today saw the release of the dedicated server for Minecraft Survival Alpha and we now have an OO server up and running!

I would describe the game right now as playable, but buggy.

Known issues:
- Furnaces wont smelt items and they will also consume the items which are put in
- No monsters
- If you throw a damaged item on the ground and then pick it up it will be fully repaired
- "saying" /iron or /wood will give you those resources

The server right now is reachable by URL, and because I'm a paranoid programmer just PM me if you are interested in joining in and I'll send you the URL.

On a side note if you want to change your character's skin you can do so by logging into the Minecraft site and going here:
http://www.minecraft.net/skin/

Enjoy!

Edit: Updated the list with the current status of bugs

[Mold Maker]

Great tower someone created to the north of spawn. I cleaned the bottom up and filled in some of the wall.

[Chaz]

Yow, that's a lot of fairly major issues. Unfortunately, I think I'm gonna hold off until things are a bit more stable. I spend my whole day testing buggy code, I don't think I can convince myself to spend my evening testing code that's that early.

[DonD]

I'll give it a whirl.

[Sepiche]

Once you get in there it's not really quite as bad as it sounds. The biggest thing is not saving items when you leave, but there are ways still to horde resources, and with the /iron command you can get iron for picks, etc.

We have a large tower now as a landmark and some beacon fires. There are also some great caves in the area and a lot of them twine together in interesting ways. I'm having some fun just exploring in addition to building.

I figure pretty much anything around the spawn is fair game for everyone to help with and use so have at it.

[Mold Maker]

Beacon fires... I like that. Burn Hollywood burn.

[Sepiche]

So far everything seems to be going well on the server. It's been up for about 24 hours now with only occasional lag and drops.

DonD built a nice monument south of the main tower (there's now a road leading to it). Many of the nearby caverns have been explored, and we've dug lots of tunnels connecting and intertwining them. We're also storing the raw iron blocks we find at the top of the tower in preparation for smelting being fixed at some point, along with wood and dirt in a couple of the lower floors.

We're not running into any problems yet, but keep in mind that the trees around the main tower will start to run out at some point if more aren't planted, so if you use a lot of them try to make a point to throw down a few saplings somewhere to keep the supplies up.

Anyone have any thoughts on a larger scale project we could all start pitching in on? I'd love to do some larger scale underwater domes once furnaces are working since without glass that's kind of pointless, but I'm sure we can come up with something amusing.

[msduncan]

We could do this:

Minecraft Earth

[msduncan]

Ok so here is something more doable.....

I was floored by some of the stuff in this guy's video:

Check it out

[Sepiche]

heh In Survival mode I'm not sure how possible that earth would be, but any of those from the second video look like good projects. I'm sure we can come up with some interesting stuff.

I just found some extra scripts on the Minecraft forum that you can load on a server to add additional commands, so if I get some time tonight I'll try to get those added. Among other things it lets you spawn food and will let you get a list of logged in players.

[DonD]

I took some screenshots last night before logging off.

Our tower. Home base. It houses supplies (tons of wood and iron), with multiple storage levels.


From atop the tower:


A floating, flaming platform someone made:


A natural formation that I found not too far from our starting area:


I guess I found the mine entrance..


My contribution. Multiple falling deaths were involved.

I came back today to find he had a flaming penis added. This being a family friendly place, I had to castrate him.

[DonD]

Some pictures from this evening.

Since there is no persistent storage in chests, items of use are left for others to take. This is the torch depot.


View from the starting area. A tower now keeps the statue company.


Elevated walkway linking a couple of areas and caverns.


The 'backyard'.

[Sepiche]

Nice pictures Don! I hopped on for a short bit last night and liked the additions I saw.

I was busy last night, but I have the next couple of days free, so I'll see about getting some of those server mods added tonight and let you guys know how to use them. I also finally had an epiphany of how to use cartographer with the multiplayer server, so I'll try to get an aerial shot of the surrounding lands posted tonight as well.

[Sepiche]

Having problems finding a server admin mod that does what I need, but I manged to get an overhead map for us:



Also, I found out you can use URLs to connect to the server which will keep me from having to send everyone an updated IP address if it changes. So I'll be PMing everyone a URL you can use to connect from now on.

[msduncan]

I think the server is down. I'm getting failed to connect messages.

[Sepiche]

Sorry about that. Comcast went down and just came back up a bit ago. Speeds are still pretty spotty, but slowly coming back up. Should be able to connect to the server again in a bit.

Edit: Well they're back up, but dropping a lot of packets. Hopefully they'll get it worked out soon, but keep trying and it should eventually get cleaned up.

[Sepiche]

I'm sure some of you saw, but I started work on a new tower near the first one the other night, and so far so good. I've managed to get it to almost as high as the first tower, and once it's to that point I plan on building a nice walkway to connect the towers together. Down the line I'm thinking of putting towers on all the nearby hilltops and connecting them back to the first tower.

I explored around a little the other day and there are some nice caverns a short distance from the main area if you follow the waterline. I really can't wait until he gets furnaces working though since there's some beautiful deep water not too far from the main area that's begging for some domes to be built in it.

[Mold Maker]

Anyone else getting major lag? I've tried logging in a couple times today and have been jumping back in time 2+ minutes frequently, and am unable to pick up mined stone and dropped tools. I've waited 5+ minutes surrounded by loose mined stone and it just disappears.

[Varity]

Anyone else getting major lag? I've tried logging in a couple times today and have been jumping back in time 2+ minutes frequently, and am unable to pick up mined stone and dropped tools. I've waited 5+ minutes surrounded by loose mined stone and it just disappears.

I've not had lag today that warps me back several seconds or minutes, but I've frequently experienced problems picking up stuff. I've found that it helps if I either select an empty slot on my quickbar or select a slot that would receive the item if it is picked up (same item type, less than 64 items).

[msduncan]

Planning to participate more when he makes it so that you keep your inventory and can smelt things. It's frustrating having to start from scratch every time.

[Sepiche]

Woot!

Server-side inventory is coming next week, including shared chests and so, and this is also when I will fix some of the bugs in SMP, like the ladder thing and the looking through walls bug.

[msduncan]

Woot!

Server-side inventory is coming next week, including shared chests and so, and this is also when I will fix some of the bugs in SMP, like the ladder thing and the looking through walls bug.

Woohoo!

[Sepiche]

Small server update just came out. I'll try to get it installed once I get home tonight. Looks like it might be possible for players to get at a player list command now at least. I'll try to get that setup for everyone.

* The server can now be started in either online/secure mode or offline/insecure mode. A secure server requires all connecting players to first authenticate on http://www.minecraft.net, then checks that the authentication matches, before letting the player in. A server running in offline mode won’t do any such checks, nor will it ask the client to authenticate, but you can’t be sure that people who connect really are who they claim they are. Offline mode is meant for LAN plan where you know the people connecting to the server.
* Added ban/pardon commands to ban and unban a player from the game
* Added ban-ip/pardon-ip commands to ban and unban a specific ip (you have to kick the player manually)
* Added op/deop commands to add/remove a player from the op list
* Added player ops. They can send server commands by typing a slash followed by a server command. Server ops can also build/destroy blocks near the spawn area.
* Made the server save terrain more frequently

[Sepiche]

Okay, server is upgraded to the new version and should be up and running. Next time I have a moment and see someone logged in I"ll start experimenting with the new user rights.

And here's the latest world map:

Looks like someone started on some writing way out there somewhere.

[Hrnac]

I found the end of the world.

-Hrnac

[bigimg][/url][/bigimg]

[Sepiche]

Did a little more exploring this weekend and found a pretty big body of water to the north, plus a few interesting caves.

[Vorret]

How do you craft?

[Vorret]

nevermind

[Vorret]

What are the command we can use in the server?
I looked for a list of commands but most don't seem to work...

[Sepiche]

The server is updated! Hop on in.

Edit:
Here's the full patch notes if anyone missed them. Everything seems to be working so far, but I have a few more things to try.

+ Added server-side inventory
+ Made the server save player locations when they leave the server
+ Made chests work in SMP
+ Made signs work in SMP
+ Made furnaces work in SMP
+ Added monsters=false to server.properties. You can turn it on for experimental monsters, but you can’t hurt them directly yet. (Fire works, though!)

But this is NOT SECURE YET! I decided to just focus on making it functional first so I actually got it out.

I’ll work on inventory security and server-side health management next week. Server-side health means you’ll be able to fight monsters and perhaps even other players.

[Sepiche]

Since this seems to be a recurring issue... please refrain from setting fire to any densely packed groups of trees near the spawn point. These aren't naturally occurring, and someone likely spent some time putting that all together. Likewise any large constructions that you didn't start yourself and haven't been invited to work on are best left alone.

So, explore to your hearts content, but go easy on the fire and pickaxes... there's plenty do to without damaging other people's creations.

[Baroquen]

Some crazy things already built. And a spawn point on top of trees was a new one on me too.

Then I got lost...
Fell off the edge of the world...
Think I got bugged, where any block I dug regenerated rather than entered my inventory...

Fun times! Went back to my single player game and will try again tomorrow.

[Sepiche]

Some crazy things already built. And a spawn point on top of trees was a new one on me too.

heh Yeah. It's not much of an issue now since you respawn where you log out now, but there seems to be a bug that moves around the spawn point every so often.

Not to mention that one where you can run into the edge of the world (even though there theoretically shouldn't be any)...

[AWS260]

I'm going to try jumping in the multiplayer world tonight. A few questions:

Can I use items that other people have created, like workbenches?

Does the world continuously generate itself as you explore the boundaries, or does it have a set size and borders?

- Furnaces wont smelt items and they will also consume the items which are put in

Does this mean I should just use the /iron command to get iron? Or is there a workaround for extracting materials from ore?

[Sepiche]

Can I use items that other people have created, like workbenches?

Yup. Be kind about using resources that someone is storing and all that, but it's all there for anyone to use.

Does the world continuously generate itself as you explore the boundaries, or does it have a set size and borders?

It's endless just like in single player *theoretically*. I've never had problems with it, but others have had problems with reaching the "end of the world" and it not creating new chunks, so it's probably still a tad buggy. Farther up the thread you can see the latest map of explored content.

Does this mean I should just use the /iron command to get iron? Or is there a workaround for extracting materials from ore?

Yeah, /iron is pretty much the only way to get smelted iron at the moment. Furnaces were supposed to be fixed last week but weren't actually, so there is some potential of them being fixed in the Friday update tomorrow.

Have fun looking around and feel free to pick a spot and start building to your hearts content. There are also still quite a few interesting looking caverns only a short walk from the spawn point.

[AWS260]

I had a good time wandering around the server. I cam across an absolutely stunning lavafall, pouring out of a cliff-face into the river below. I wonder if it's man-made or natural. In any case, I think that's where I'll set up a home base.

I did have some connection problems, though. Periodically I would have to disconnect and re-connect. Is that common, or could it be a problem on my end?

[Semaj]

grumble, I might have to buy the damn game, I hate you all

[Vorret]

grumble, I might have to buy the damn game, I hate you all

It's inexpensive and it's a great time waster

[Sepiche]

I did have some connection problems, though. Periodically I would have to disconnect and re-connect. Is that common, or could it be a problem on my end?

I've been noticing a bit more of that since the last update. Probably a few bugs relating to server side inventory (which was just added last week).

[AWS260]

I did have some connection problems, though. Periodically I would have to disconnect and re-connect. Is that common, or could it be a problem on my end?

I've been noticing a bit more of that since the last update. Probably a few bugs relating to server side inventory (which was just added last week).

It way worse tonight. I'll be able to interact for 5-15 seconds, and then everything will freeze up for 30 seconds (I can move through the world, but I can't interact and animals are frozen). Disconnecting doesn't help.