By popular demand, there is now a Twenty Sided Minecraft server. Connect to:
twentymine.com
The server is both donated and administrated by Clint Olson. You might remember Clint from the last time he did something cool for us.
Everyone is a tourist by default, so people can come in and take the tour at any time without us having to worry that an anonymous user will wipe the place out overnight. If Clint or I are around and we feel safe building with you, we can bestow build privileges. (This will be made easier if your in-game name matches the name you use here on the site.) I realize this has a very “gated community” feel to it, which isn’t very welcoming. Sorry about that, but in a game where dozens of people can have their work obliterated by malicious users, we have to err on the side of caution.
No formal rules other than common sense manners: Don’t modify other people’s property without asking. Don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to you. Don’t be a jerk, etc.
Clint has been building in here for a while now. (You’ll know his stuff, he favors working in glass.) I’ve been building in here since yesterday. Just look for the bridge leading to the ridiculous mountain of smoothstone.
See you in the game. Thanks again to Clint.
EDIT: Duh. I forgot to mention the coolest feature: Check out the Google-maps style view of the world, which updates every n hours, where n is a number I forgot to ask Clint.
EDIT 2: Okay, that didn’t work. Server ran fine with three of us in testing, but just a couple more people CRIPPLED it. It’s alarming how quickly the resource usage goes up when you add users. Have to keep reminding myself that even though the game looks retro it still has cutting-edge performance needs.
EDIT 3: Back up again at a proper domain, on a more powerful machine. There’s a 10 person limit in place now. We’ll see how well this works.
The Best of 2019
I called 2019 "The Year of corporate Dystopia". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Pixel City Dev Blog
An attempt to make a good looking cityscape with nothing but simple tricks and a few rectangles of light.
Why I Hated Resident Evil 4
Ever wonder how seemingly sane people can hate popular games? It can happen!
Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.
PC Gaming Golden Age
It's not a legend. It was real. There was a time before DLC. Before DRM. Before crappy ports. It was glorious.
What fun! Can’t wait to join you.
Although, I’ve barely figured out how to create a shovel in that game!
Leslee
That is awesome! i will drop by when i get some time, its so hard to find a grief free (or low) server in minecraft. Having 10 hours of work burn down in front of you is just not fun.
Incidentally, the “Google Maps-style” view is located at:
EDIT: Apparently the server can’t handle the load of serving the webpage *and* the game. We’ll get the map back up on a different host shortly.
Clint
Link added. Nice one, Shamus.
Link seems dead atm.
That google map thing is pretty cool. Is it done automatically somehow, or do you have to manually take cartograph images and load them?
Almost certainly created with Overviewer, running server-side it automatically renders that for your from the world folder.
At this point, the only reason I have not purchased Minecraft is because of the Paypal thing. Once he can take my money directly without having to go through them, then he’s got my $13.78.
You’ll be in luck in the future. Assuming you have a credit card. Not certain about the debit cards. Notch mentioned something about looking into providing a non-Paypal payment option in the future.
Direct copy paste from blog:
“Oh yeah, we're working on setting up a straight credit card purchasing option for people who rather not use paypal, and I think we're pretty close to having that deal finalized with our bank. I should be able to start implementing that soon after the Halloween update.”
if you use such things as Visa debit cards, anything that doesn’t explicitly handle debit cards just treats them as the appropriate credit card… it just hits your bank account rather than your credit limit after going through visa’s system.
very convenient :)
I’ve actually heard that some don’t have debit cards that can be used as credit cards when necessary so I wanted to be clear. Also, I often split hairs. It just comes naturally.
Also… why would you not want to use PayPal? This confuses me
Doesn’t work for some, or so I’ve heard. Some refuse to use it for some reason. Which brings to my mind:
MechaCrash, you know that Paypal doesn’t require you to sign up to pay through it anymore, right? Of course there are other reasons not to use it, but I thought I should still check.
Edit: Confuses you? You must be one confused bunny rabbit most of the time then. Did you mean “doesn’t make sense”?
Or for some PayPal doesn’t support their countries. War torn Bosnia is there, and so is Albania, but no Serbia OR Montenegro.
A lot of people hate paypal. They’re kind of a fake bank. They’re not FDIC insured. They take ridiculous percentages. etc…
Neat stuff on the server! I approve of the ocean-based tree farm, and the suspension bridge. Also : Your mine is a maze of not-so-twisty passages, all alike. Coupled with lag rubber-banding me once a minute or so, it was very disorienting.
Thanks for the invitation, Shamus, but I’m going to have to decline!
Your server just isn’t up to the challenge.
Great! Can’t wait to come by once the fiancée finishes with Plants vs Zombies (in other words, not tonight).
According to the link in question, your MineCraft world is a vast, empty expanse of gray.
oh, what a barren featureless desert,,
sir, you’ve got the map upside down..”
Or he accidentaly got a map to Irregular´s Webcomic´s Featureless Infinite Plane of Death.
It’s actual size, sir. Look there’s even a little worm.
apparently it updates every day at 5am sharp
Shamus, I’ll be logging on as JackSlack. Just to try and make it easy to spot me.
I can’t connect. Trying to connect to twentysided.servegame.com gives me either
Unknown host 'twentysided.servegame.com'
or
Connection refused; connect
Anyone else?
EDIT; Just saw Shamus’s edit. Derp.
I would, but it’s broken :P… and I don’t have Alpha. Not that there can’t be TONS of AWESOME stuff on Classic…
P.S. I thought the ME2 season of Spoiler Warning was starting today?
Delayed. I meant to make an announcement. I think Thursday will be our day, though.
ah ty Shamus, looking forward to it.
Delayed due to Minecraft no doubt!
No, it’s “delayed for a reason that is competely unrelated to Minecraft”.
Nice! I can’t wait until you get it back up.
Ooh! I’ll come too! I’ll be under the name DragonZakarath. (And don’t worry; my having an obsession with dragons does not extend to having an obsession with fire.)
That’s ok. I have an obsession with fire which will entirely make up for anyone else’s lack.
(Chirez in MC btw)
FIRE GOOD
also awesome and i only burn down my own stuff (flint snd steel+ wood fort=not awesome)
I am SO on board for this when its up again!
Oh crap, look at these readings… The Neil Polenske Levels are through the roof! The Neil Polenske Hole is going to hit it’s key dilation any moment now!
I will so certainly give this a try as soon as it gets back up. Just hoping my computer and connection speed are up to the task of getting me my tree-top bachelor pad.
hey there shamus. thanks to clint for putting the server together. ill be joining as dourhand as soon as youve ironed the bugs out.
Resource usage on the current SMP server is ridiculous. I presume this has more to do with it being in alpha, rather than it having an actual need to consume so much memory.
I don’t think server resource usage is going to get much better. It’ll probably get worse before it gets better. Its not keeping track of health, its not reporting the position of projectiles, boats, or falling sand. And 30+ players quickly start to spread out to carve out their own small region. I think an old blog post said something like that if each player was in a completely different part of the world, each player requires something like 30 megabytes to contain the portion of the world they inhabit. And if they constantly push the edge of the map, they increase the file size of the entire world, which puts a drain on the server which has to both generate the terrain and send it to each player that is exploring the new land together. >.>
So yeah, I lost whatever point I was going to make. It’s just a hairy hairy issue.
EDIT: Also, I’ll be signing in as March_Wizard, so give me build rights if you see me :D
EDIT 2: Here is a blog entry from Notch’s blog about the server. It was the first release so things may have changed:
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/865210123/it-might-not-be-complete-but-i-think-its-stable
Wizard gets free drinks at the Mumbles Cantina.
For his awesome house sign!
Play that same song!
I’m definitely on-board. I’ve been playing Minecraft a lot, but then realized there isn’t much point to creating things if nobody else sees it. And I’m sure you guys will have some awesome stuff to blow my mind :D
All right, I now have it on a hosted VPS. Could I get a couple of people to try connecting to twentymine.com? Hopefully this one won’t die a horrible firey death when more than a couple people connect to it.
Clint
hey, btw, thanks for making this possible!
It was awesome, I was just glad I got to see what you had done in there before it froze up entirely on me and I had to quit, it was the highpoint of my day.
I’ll definitely join this when it’s fully working. Until then I have a few days left of New Vegas.
(I’ll log in as fenixkane)
Well I logged in and it ran fine for a while (started building an underwater base (only the access has been done) from a tiny island), but it just crashed on me. I think there were around 8 people on at the time so kinda limited now but it was still fun.
Anyway I’m going to sleep now. Look forward to more thrilling multiplayer minecraft action!!!
Mine crashes every time after maybe 30s, so oh well, too bad, so sad. nvm.
Same here :( I was really looking forward to sightseeing, and I saw a sweet hill to build a castle on one day. I’ll try again.
I was fine for the first 20mins I was on, then it crashed more and more frequently before getting up to a rate of about once every 30s or so and I had to give up. I’m not sure what changed to make the crashes more frequent (didn’t notice more players joining or anything) but maybe you’ll find that if you go on at a different time the crashes are more managable?
Shamus suggested that I turn my draw distance down, so I did and it worked – no crashes since :)
Damn!
I’ll definitely give it a look, sometime. Unfortunately, there’s currently a server that I’m a pretty big part of, and I’d hate to just leave them in the dust completely.
But if you see me, I’ll be running under the moniker Rosseloh.
Can’t wait to build with you guys!
My Minecraft username is “pearlyunicorn”, whenever the server becomes functional. Would it be out of line to bring in a friend? His Minecraft username is “Shoresome”
I have no idea how they did it, but Penny Arcade’s server’s set-up may solve your problem. Their map is already completely created, with a giant canyon that goes down to the bedrock serving as a boundary, in effect simulating the fixed sized maps of the indev versions of old. Anyway, if your problem is just with new areas being generated to fast, and you can figure out how they set the whole thing up, it’s definitely worth a try, as the results are quite impressive
‘Twas tonnes of fun. I smelted a bunch of glass, planted a bunch of trees, and made a Spoiler Warning memorial outside of the spawn.
I set up a stomping ground for myself and a couple of friends tonight and it’s kind of amazing how quickly it started gobbling up RAM. I can only assume that it keeps as much of the world in the assigned amount of memory (1GB on my machine) as it can and only swaps it out when it runs out of memory.
Another thing that really, REALLY kills the performance is when it generates maps. The server just chugged and chugged when I first signed in as a client, so I can imagine it running like crap when you have twenty-some people running around and generating new parts of the world.
One thing that might help performance a bit is generating a large chunk of the world (I believe that there are third-party applications that’ll do that for you) before opening up the server. The server addon that I use, Zicores Minecraft Admin, also has a plugin included in the default distribution that allows you to limit the size of the world. That might help you out a bit.
Failing that, you guys could always try getting in touch with people who run insanely popular Minecraft servers (Penny Arcade, et al) and see how they do it.
On the voltronarmy server they discovered that the biggest resource eater was a huge map caused by people who explored. Having too large a map would bring the server down. So one of the rules there is “No Exploring”. There is a way to cut an existing world down to a manageable file-size.
Kind of a sucky rule, but I do understand the need for it.
I will be so totally in on this.
I was on for a bit earlier, and staked out a little cave not too far from spawn. But the lag was making it impossible to do anything, so I had to leave. I’ll try again tomorrow, most likely.
Aww… I’ve been wanting to try this game for a while now (even though I just know I’m going to become an addict). Oh well, I guess when I’m ready to be unproductive I can find a different server.
Blast it.
That’s what I get for sleeping at night, I guess. Lousy time zones.
Yeah, we have the same building rights thing on my regular server. Tough but before we introduced it we got massive grief daily and had to reset two times because of it. And we also get people who react “why is there lag in town! Minecraft is such a simple game! Yo servah sax!” Well, no it isn’t. It’s resource heavy like you wouldn’t believe. I sometimes hope that once Notch gets the key features going it’ll prove possible to optimize the thing a little bit… no high hopes there though.
Like I mentioned earlier I would totally join this, even at the expense of my regular server (we’re resetting there after the 31st anyway), I’m not that much of an active builder but I am a dedicated miner and menial worker on other people’s projects (seriously, if you want a 20×20 pit cleaned down to bedrock, or you have a base of the tower and you need to stack it all the way to the ceiling I’m your man). Kust in case, my in game name is Illucoran, not that you’re likely to remember that but I’ll leave it here just in case the server gets running again and there’s a weird guy claiming to be a regular.
Aw. It didnt work?
It sounded like so much fun :'(
Is there a site with info on setting up a minecraft server? I have a spare computer not being used right now that I could set up as a server.
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Server
Java. It never stop surprising me.
Java is a perfectly fine environment and has grown to be rather fast over the years. The JIT compiler in the Java and .NET runtimes can beat C/C++ in some workloads.
The fact of the matter is that Minecraft simply does a ton of behind the scenes work. If you have twenty people running around and the server is constantly generating the world, it’s going to be slow regardless of what environment or VM you’re running it under.
I’ve been thinking about finding a multiplayer server to try out… I tend to not comment much here, as I don’t say anything if I don’t feel I have much to contribute (which explains my lack of blog or forum posting in general as well), but I do read here regularly. I’ll probably try to make time over the next couple days to hop in and take a peek around. I’ll show up as Theodolus.
Thanks to Clint for putting this up and working to get it running smoothly.
Awesome idea! Now, would it be possible for a similar Twenty-Sided Minecraft Classic server? ;)
Just had a look around and it looked interesting. Then the game crashed. Might try again later.
Just had a quick look around (as Ralphsleigh), some very cool stuff going on 8-). I will have to come back and check out progress.
The server said its running on the 1024 plan from here:
http://hazenet.co.uk/vps.html
This should be good for 10 people, I have been running a minecraft server for ~4 people off my filesever, it’s a 3Ghz P4 with 1Gb of ram, Ubuntu 10.04. Minecraft quite happily eats about 70% of the ram, but CPU usage is normally only 10-15% even with 2-3 people playing. My map is slightly smaller though and the players tend to stick around the spawn.
They also think huge walls of lava are the last word in minecraft architecture *sigh*. I have decided that if they want more TNT they need to build nice stuff first…
I’ll be getting on today and tomorrow (going to be gone over the weekend) and try to get a little time in, maybe find a nice spot so I start on some pet projects. I’ll be logging on as SpammyV, and if custom skins work in Multiplayer I’ll be a generic white male X-COM grunt. Because I can. And Creepers who pop up behind me out of nowhere is like Cryssalids popping out from beyond visual range and running up and zombifying all your scouts.
That’s why you don’t arm scouts.
Edit: or only arm them with live grenades (I’ve heard that zombification may cause them to drop it).
I think it does. Actually I arm the scouts but I use the scout/sniper tactics to try to kill anything out there. You never shoot with the scouts.
Thank you Shamus and Clint for this, it is excellent. Hopefully I can snicely get access to build on it later.
There are some structures I couldn’t figure out how to get inside of, without breaking glass. Will have to keep working on this later.
Why do you keep reminding us of this game? I was planning to get some non-minecraft related things done tonight, but a Twenty Sided Minecraft server? I just have to check it out!
Yay! Maybe I’ll pop on some time. Mostly I prefer isolation, though, so I’ll probably lurk a lot and occasionally chat a little…
For the record, my Minecraft name is DreadlordMrSon.
loved it! wish I could have stuck around longer but running low on time.
I may actually play multiplayer now. Thanks Shamus! (also I hate you for starting me on this game =D )
Okay, very cool. I’ll be back later.
Had a look earlier today. I’ve never actually played on any public multiplayer server, only a personal one with five or so people I know in real life.
Fantastic idea, will pop on and have a look sometime.
I do like those isometric map makers, I used cartographer on my server (mini one for me and a friend), and it reminded me a lot of SimCity 2000.
I tend to always use this name now, so I’m easy to spot! I also have an Avatar avatar, to make it even easier :)
Hi Shamus, I’ve been a fan for about two years (LOVED Pixel City by the way), but I think the only post I made was suggesting Mount & Blade as the game for an upcoming review (hint hint). I’m wondering if I could get on the whitelist to the server? I’ve been playing for about a week, and it’s time to get my MP on!
This server alone just may be enough to push me to buying the game.
So I’ve only spent a few hours (completely absorbed by the game), but you are some of the nicest and most awesome people I’ve ever met on online game servers. An insane pleasure. This server is great and you should feel great.
Hey, you guys might want to check this out:
http://status.hostedgameservers.com/2010/the-minecraft-memory-effect
Apparently you CAN host minecraft without it gobbling memory. It’s worth a shot, at least.
Fine Shamus, I’ll buy minecraft, you win, happy now?
Just checked out the server. I know it will grow, but y’all already have built some real gems. I don’t know if I’ll try and build anything there — so much competition. But I’m sure I’ll be checking back many times to look at all the pretty built by those with more talent than me :)
If you want build status, I’m a mod now, so go ahead and ask “thorvan.” You’ll be able to spot me by my cyan chat name.
*Looks at map*
So, amazing.
nice, i am going to look around for a bit in the server.
maybe i’ll get to build something some day, in which case i am going to erect a huge bonnet, don’t know where im supposed to get the pink blocks though…
I logged in as Epharian. I promise to be good if given build rights. I don’t mind grunt work (even just the collection of resources). I *do* tend to want to explore, but I think I can reign in that impulse.
Thanks!1
OK, only vaguely related, but I had to share this somewhere… someone has made Life (the square grid cell simulator where cells grow or die based on how many living neighbors a location has) in Dwarf Fortress.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=69307.0
That’s totally insane.
Wow. Thanks for the link.
Did someone create the twin water/lava falls in the top of the map or was that beautiful chance?
Factoid created those. He can attest that they were anything but chance — they were a significant amount of work to create.
Yeah, I can personally attest to the absolute pain the ass that is lava!
Don’t try and open a chest while holding a bucket of lava…
Well, I finally broke down and bought it. In the process I demonstrated once again why I always seem to end up playing dwarves in fantasy games. My “house” is best described as a bunker set atop a mineshaft.
Now if only it was possible to brew beer…
There’s a bit of irony in that Twentycraft.com currently only supports ten players.
Just sayin’.
Twelve currently, unless they changed it without telling me.
“topazwolf” in minecraft
Apologies to those on this evening – I really wanted to have a good look around but Minecraft just kept crashing me out from the server (which was odd as I had been online all evening, both on Minecraft and others).
A few failed attempts later (just as I was getting to see some of the really cool stuff) appeared to earn me a ban from the server.
I have no idea if my issues caused problems for the server/other player, so my apologies if they did. Hopefully sometime soon I’ll be able to get a stable connection.
Good luck with the projects – all looking fantastic (especailly the very cool helix…)
For you and any one else having issues staying in MC, Clint was saying to check this link for the fix:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=60704&sid=2ae1689e7c13c3135ee088b5e25b65af
Or you can set your view distance to normal, which might also help.
I finally made it in; you’ll see me as ChaosAlan. It was nice to meet a few people; it seems like a good community.
Is there a “welcome to the community” document anywhere that summarizes the guidelines? I’m thinking things like guidelines on using water/lava (which I learned from thorvan is restricted on twentymine) or limitations on exploring new areas (which I hear is restricted on many servers because it lags things for everyone).
This was my first time playing on a public server. Regulars on multiplayer may already know this, but if your client is crashy, try lowering your view distance (the “f” key). If it crashes a lot when you use the /warp and /home commands, well, those are just kinda crashy, so avoid them.
I had fun playing with you guys today! I was logged in as jsnlxndrlv. Normally I play on this server (link goes to our map from two weeks ago; we haven’t automated the map-system yet), but I plan to stop by regularly.
Alan, about the crashes: this fix is the one Clint pointed me to; apparently nobody who’s installed it has encountered another crash since.
I tried to connect, but nothing happens. Do you just type in twentymine.com into where it says to type the IP address?
Yep.
It seems that after my client crashed it downloaded the Halloween update. So I’ll see you guys when the servers update.
Aww. Portals to Slip don’t work in multiplayer, and minecarts are still broken.
Yeah, I left to eat dinner and then the update came. Will play as soon as you guys update. Also HELL IS SCARY!!!
In case anybody wasn’t aware, clients AND servers crashed as soon as the Halloween update was sent out, including twentymine.com.
Halloween update:
Random hellstone-like blocks appeared (found one in Vatez’ place for example), leaves dissolve into gray dust rather than green (smells like ash), damage doesn’t exist (no more oof-ing from falling, cacti, lava, fire…), mobspawners don’t spawn mobs (zombie zoo, noooo!), some grass is more brown/gray, overall theme is darker.
EDIT: Gold, Diamond and Iron blocks got a recolor so they are now a smooth color, rather than a gradient.
My area on the map seems to be grayed out… Odd. I’m just to the right and down from Dragonlair. Feel free to come and help me create a vast forest, I’m having trouble finding enough saplings on my own.
I’ve found why some areas appear to be greyed out on the map. The way Notch is handling the difference colors of grass and trees is to make the textures themselves greyscale in the source files, then adding color in programmatically. Unfortunately, Minecraft Overviewer (the Google Maps-style thing we use) uses the built-in textures with no modification, so any area that’s been updated since the Halloween patch has the new greyscale textures applied.
That being said, it should be fairly simple to create a composite textures file that has old grass *and* new stuff (like pumpkins).
New shiny:
http://twentymine.com/maps/overview-twentynight/
Also, successfully generated a composite PNG to fix the greyscale issue on the day map. Yay!
What did you do to fix the colors? Is it a patch to Overviewer?
EDITED CAUSE I’m a moron who forgot to check for pagination before asking for rights a 2nd time…
I hereby swear that if I get build rights I’ll leave everyone else’s stuff alone and only build stuff that rocks.
Unless, of course, someone wants help building. I can do that.
I finally bought Minecraft and I love it. The Twenty Sided server has some awesome creations! I woudl love to add to the server’s world, will have to watch out for an admin online.
I even got my 10 year old daughter playing! She spent more time then me so far, and she was amazed at what some people had built. She also has had fun on the water/lava slides.
Hello to all,
I’ve had some friends show me around this wonderful world everyone has created. I have been playing with minecarts and trying to attempt to actually make a rail system on my own world…..I have found out it takes alot of time and water is your enemy…..but I like the looks of things and if/when i get building privileges i could be an asset.
—
SilverBear92
Very nice world – lots of impressive construction been done.
I may check in again sometime.