Server 1 Year Anniversary
As you might know, the server has been up for 1 year now. Actually 1 year and 1 month, but due to me being sick the anniversary got delayed.
It’s now time to celebrate. So from this day on, for one full week it’s party time! We’re going to have lots of events, and new cool stuff added on the server. To kick it off in high gear, I give you…
TNT Run
The first minigame that just got added to Skyblock is TNT Run.
To join in game type /tr join default (or /tr j default for short). If there’s a game running and you want to spectate, you can do so at /warp TNTRun.
Good luck winning. The winner gets 100 sc for now, reward and other aspects of the game will be adjusted for better balance in the near future.
Oh, and the arena layout is just temporary. I’ll make better looking ones tomorrow 😉
Let’s party!
Safe Trade re-enabled
This is a short notice: After fixing the bugs in previous version, the Safe trade has been re-enabled on the server. Enjoy 🙂
New Skyblock Ranks Added
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Two new ranks have been added to the server: emerald and obsidian. They follow the same progression as existing ranks, emerald being the first upgrade after diamond, followed by obsidian.
So the entire progression is like this: iron > gold > diamond > emerald > obsidian.
Full details regarding each upgrade rank can be viewed on this page: Account Upgrade
In short, the new benefits of each rank over existing diamond rank are as follows:
Emerald
- Light green colored name and prefix
- Access to a portable workbench, anywhere you are (/workbench command). For obvious reasons, the command is disabled in arenas.
- Ability to create colored signs. I’ll post a full guide to this later, but I’m sure most of you know how to make them already.
- New kit items, in /kit emeraldpack – these come on top of everything in the diamondpack:
– diamond axe
– 8 clay
– more sand and grass
– more bookcases
Obsidian
- Purple colored name and prefix
- Access to portable enderchest, anywhere you are (/enderchest command). For obvious reasons, the command is disabled in arenas.
- Change your personal time on the server. Like if it’s night on the server and you want it day, you can do /ptime day and it will appear as if it is day. The change will only appear to you, and it doesn’t affect mob spawning rules.
- Ability to create Disposal signs. Place a sign down and make first line read [Disposal]. Right click and it will open like a chest. Anything you put in there will instantly disappear, never to be seen again. It’s basically an infinite trashcan or bin.
- New kit items, in /kit obsidianpack – these come on top of everything in the emeraldpack:
– diamond hoe
– 8 obsidian
– more sand and grass
– more bookcases
For more details go here: Account Upgrade
Skyblock Server Voice Chat
It’s been requested a lot, and figured part of the server 1 year celebration events is a good time to go forward with this…
We now have our very own voice chat server, courtesy of RaidCall. Before we move on to the details, this is (currently) unmoderated. Let’s try to keep it PG just as the server chat, but if you’re a responsible parent keep in mind it’s not moderated.
To access the chat and talk with your friends, here’s the link:
https://www.raidcall.com/go.php?sid=7490827&cid=2
Meet you there 😉
Server Anniversary Postponed 1 week
Due to health issues – somehow I managed to catch a nasty flu – it’s for the better if the server anniversary events will be postponed for next weekend.
You guys deserve the best and I feel that handling the type of things I have in mind (new fun and addictive minigames, giveaways, a new scavenger hunt and much more) is simply not possible with fever and feeling like being hit by a truck.
Account Upgrade fix
Hey guys,
This is a short one:
Less than a day ago Buycraft removed support for the old style links that we’ve been using for your account upgrades. As a result of that, the buttons we have on the Account Upgrade page no longer worked.
I’ve just changed them to the new format. They now use sleek pop-up style windows, so your whole experience is much better. Plus, you no longer need to leave our website to upgrade your account.
My apologies for not catching it up on time, so if you’ve been trying to upgrade your account in the past 24 hours and couldn’t please try now and let me know how it goes. Also my thanks go to Ladyblanche that let me know the old buttons were broken, and to the players that let her know about it.
As a side note, this is going to be an exciting week at MCSpaceCraft. So many cool stuff going to happen. Can’t wait!
Skyblock Server Maintenance and Upgrade
As some of you might know, Skyblock anniversary is due in a couple days. It has been running quite smoothly for the past year, but it’s now time for an upgrade.
Thanks to your generous efforts and support, for which I’m grateful each and every day, I’ve rented a brand new and faster server in the same datacenter as the old server.
It’s now time to move stuff over. The website has been already switched to another host, and soon will start moving Skyblock and the other 2 servers (Survival Games and Creative).
Will you lose progress, islands, inventory, your cat, etc?
YOU WON’T LOSE ANYTHING! Everything will be copied over: the map, the islands, your inventory, your spacecoins, everything. Well, everything except your cat. You’re on your own with that.
There will be approximately 1 hour of downtime later today. Unfortunately it can’t be avoided, as the servers need to be shut down to make sure all data is properly written to disk. Then copy it over to the new server.
I will announce the start time on this post, then update it periodically as I’m completing the migration.
Can you do anything to make sure it runs smoothly?
YES! Please make sure you’re connecting to the correct server IP, which is displayed near the top on every page on this site. Yes, those big bold letters on top.
Here it is again: skyblock.mcspacecraft.com. The IP didn’t change in more than half a year. It won’t change now either, but double checking to make sure that’s the IP you have in Minecraft can’t hurt, right? 🙂
All times are GMT.
- 6:00 PM – migration started
- 7:00 PM – data copied to the new server
- 7:15 PM – Survival Games and Creative servers shut down and migrated
- 7:45 PM – Skyblock server shut down and migration started. Estimated downtime: 1 hour.
- 8:07 PM – data migration complete. Running checks. Estimated downtime remaining: 30 mins.
- 8:19 PM – Skyblock server migration complete. All servers are online and functional.
Migration completed successfully. Enjoy 🙂
Skyblock updated to 1.6.4
About 12 hours ago Mojang updated Minecraft to 1.6.4. A few moments ago all the servers in the network have been updated to 1.6.4. This includes Skyblock, Survival Games and Creative.
Taking advantage of the planned maintenance, I also pushed a couple bugfixes and updates that have been sitting there waiting to be deployed.
- If you’re a diamond donator, you can fly again in /ma donator. You don’t have to do anything special. Simply have /fly active when you join and you’ll be able to fly once inside.
- Books of Effects now only drop if you kill the mobs, meaning if you deal the killing blow with a sword, bow or other means. They no longer drop if the mob is killed by any other means not involving a player, e.g. from fall damage, lava damage, pistons or killed by other mobs. This has been requested a couple times by people with large mob farms.
- Sticky pistons are no longer able to pull protected blocks (diamond blocks, beacons, etc.)
- TNT explosions no longer deal damage to players. It has been requested on the forums, and I think it goes along with all other protections we have. It helps making your experience on the server as fun and safe as possible. TNT explosions still deal damage to mobs and animals, if you have rights to kill the animals in that area. Note this does not apply to creeper explosions, these still hurt players as they used to.
- /played has been reset for last time. We’re now handling this with a custom written plugin, replacing the old way we used to do this. It’s faster, better and has a couple other neat features you’ll see in upcoming weeks. As I said a couple times in the past, old played time is not lost and I’ll be importing the data to the new plugin in the near future. Until then, everyone that logs on the server will get 500 sc as a small token of appreciation first time they log on.
There’s so much new stuff coming in the next weeks. No matter if you enjoy PvP, PvE, working with redstone contraptions or simply building awesome structures, there will be something new for you to explore and enjoy. It will blow your socks off 🙂