The Crow's Nest: [Public Server] [US West Coast] [Dedicated]

[Whane The Whip 99]

THE CROW'S NEST (TCN) (Down while updating to 0.7)
More Information available on the TCN Website

The Crow's Nest is a public Ylands dedicated server (DS) hosted in Los Angeles California. TCN began as a private test server for providing feedback and went public on Sunday Jan 15th. I'm attentive to the server and do all that I can to keep lag and issues to a minimum, but this is still early access so you can definitely expect bugs and performance/optimization issues.

TCN is not a default Explore world, it is a custom map generated through the editor. TCN1 (the current map) consists of two islands that are side by side, and much larger than the standard Explore islands. Most of the active players have grouped together near spawn. Since this is a generated world using the editor, the protective barriers (PB or "orb") are not included, this is due to the fact that the PB's are not available in the editor. I'm hopeful that the PB will eventually become available in the editor, but there are benefits to using a custom map that outweigh the orb, and the orb is not currently protecting as well as it could anyway. Here are a few key features of TCN:

► Features:

• Keep items on death. When you die, be sure to choose the "respawn" option. Your personal inventory is the most secure container you have. Craft the additional inventory containers as soon as you can to get the most out of this feature and to expand your inventory capacity.
• Welcome kit included in your inventory when you start. This includes clay, iron ore, and a seedbox packed with seeds. There's no need to worry about someone depleting the island of key materials, and no one can take your items through PvP.
• Automated daily restarts at 4:15am and 4:15pm to help keep the lag beast away.
• Automated backups every 4 hours.
• Corpse removal every few(ish) 2 days. Note: Server down time during removal.

► Rules:

Regardless of the rules below, if I conclude that you're just here to disrupt other players, then I will ban you for however long I think is appropriate. If I want to talk to you, then that is me giving you a chance to explain your position, and give my position as well, so don't avoid that conversation. Ideally, I prefer for the list of rules to be as small as possible, so this is what we have at the moment:

1. PvP is permitted except for OPC (offline player character) killing and AFK killing. If you go AFK, please sit down on the ground (F4) or in a chair. Anyone logged in but sitting on the ground is assumed to be AFK, even if they are chatting (it's hardly fair to start a fight with someone sitting down).
2. Don't destroy/place blocks on bases that don't belong to you without permission. (Exceptions: gifts, team builds, and open community builds).
3. Don't grief the terrain on or near other player bases. You'll get no warnings with this one. Every player knows this rule because it is included in the letter you get in your welcome kit and anyone doing this knows exactly what they're doing. Do it once, you're banned.
4. No exploits, cheats, or hacks. I realize their are some soft exploits, like infinite iron, but I'm primarily against exploits that disrupt other players or the server. If you're not sure whether or not something is allowable, just ask an admin.
5. Keep things civil. No hateful or racial slurs, or personal insults.
6. When in doubt, treat others as you would have them treat you.

If you've been banned, you can request an appeal by sending me a PM here on the Ylands forum, or here.

► Server Wipes:

Unscheduled server wipes will only occur if and when extreme performance related circumstances require it. Whenever their is a scheduled or unscheduled server wipe, a copy of the DS save file will be made available for anyone that wants to keep a copy of their work or copy their builds as a composition. The first scheduled server wipe is planned for the release of Ylands 0.7.

► Roll Backs:

Any roll backs (due to correcting various issues) are usually only a few minutes back. In a worse case scenario, a roll back could be as far back as 4 hours (unless the issue was older and we didn't catch it sooner). Though automatic backups happen every 4 hours, I also I perform backups before performing any maintenance or testing server content.

► Known Issues:

There is intermittent character freezing in which you cannot move your character for several seconds. This seems to happen when someone logs in, or has a failed login attempt. This was supposed to be fixed for the 0.63 release and at first it seemed fixed but for whatever reason, it is back.

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by Whane The Whip

[Whane The Whip 99]

The current map for TCN will be wiped when version 0.7 is released. According to BI, this will be towards the beginning of February. I will need at least one full day to generate a new 0.7 world and prep it for publishing as a dedicated server.

A few of the improvements planned for TCN2 include:

1. New Temperate biome. This should scale back the weather, no more back to back snow storms followed by a rain storm.
2. Slight changes to the welcome kit that appears in your inventory at start.
3. TCN2 will include random sites of interest (SOI), it could be as simple as a barrel hidden between a bush and rock, or a more enduring puzzle. SOI's will populate over time offering up treasure to players regardless of how late they join, many SOI's will contain non-craftable items.
4. Spawn is improved. It's a little better, but nothing that will rob attention from the builds accomplished by players. The spawn location will be placed near to where I think a community could build near each other, but not so close that new users logging in for the first time will be surrounded by builds or on door steps like it currently is. This should help speed up login times.

The island will still be quite large and I'm experimenting with seeds to find something interesting to generate with 0.7.

[Whane The Whip 99]

TCN2 expected Saturday Feb 3rd. Count on 24 - 48 hours of down time.

With the announcement of 0.7 being released on Friday Feb 2nd, the earliest you can expect TCN2 to be up is later in the day/evening on Saturday Feb 3rd. That could get extended to Sunday depending on whether or not I encounter any issues while setting up the new world. I'm planning on extras but if they become too troublesome, then I'll ditch them.

Did you rejoin the server and have to start over?
That's my fault. I've been shutting down the server to remove corpses as they always seem to get in the way of builds and I think they contribute to lag too. What I didn't realize is that if I deleted corpse, it also deleted player data. So if you died while offline, and I removed your corpse, when you logged in again you would not see a "respawn" option, instead you would see the new character screen. In the future I will be more selective about the corpses I delete. If I see you dead in the middle of no where and only wearing grass clothes (or no clothes), I will probably delete. If I see you with other clothes, or armor, or at a base or camp that I think belongs to you, then I will relocate your corpse instead of deleting it.

Likewise, I might move you if you're alive too, if you decided to plop down in the middle of someones base before logging out. Same rules above will apply, I will either delete or relocate your corpse. So if you log back in and find yourself in a mass grave, then that's a good thing, because you will still have your inventory and won't have to start over. If I know you as a regular, then I will not delete or move you regardless of where you logged out, unless you are dead, and then I will just move you.

[Whane The Whip 99]

Due to a very strange bug that cleared all data from the save game file down to 0kb, the server was not accessible for at least the better part of the morning. Sadly, the automated backups that were supposed to occur every 4 hours seems to have failed 3 days ago (I just now noticed). The result is an 18 hour rollback from a manual save I made yesterday. Let me know what you lost and I will see what I can do in-game, but builds I wont be able to help much with, other than replace the mats, or the base components.

[Whane The Whip 99]

TCN is down while I fiddle with new options in the DS and generate a new world for 0.7. Anything you had on the old map will be wiped. If you want a copy of the old map and you have a build there then PM me here or message me on Discord and I'll give you a copy of the game save.