Text Formatting Now Available In Chat!

I've enabled the use of Minecraft's text formatting codes in chat, all the codes except 'Obfuscated' are now available to all ranks. 

A full list of the colour and formatting codes can be found here:

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Formatting_codes

When using them in chat you need to replace the character before the letter or number with an '&' symbol, for example:

&4Hello!     - would make the text appear red (as '4' is the code for the colour red).

&lHello! - would make the text appear bold (as 'l' is the code for bold formatting).

&4&lHello! - would make the text appear red and bold (a combination of the other examples).

The codes can be combined in just about any way you want!

Also please note that you can also use any of the colour codes on Lockette signs, however Lockette signs will not recognise the other formatting codes such as bold or italic.

Maintenance

I have taken the server down for maintenance, it shouldn't take more than a few hours and I expect the server to be back up by midday.

There will be a whitelist in place until all work is completed.

UPDATE: 11:50 The work is complete and the whitelist is removed!

Protection Stones, Website Changes & Helpers

Protection Stones

Protection Stones are now limited in number by rank rather than having a limit of 4 stones for all players, the new limits are as follows:

New Builder     - 2 stones.
Member           - 4 stones.
Member+         - 6 stones.

Stones already placed will not be affected by these limits unless removed, i.e. if you are a New Builder with 3 stones placed your areas will remain protected, however if you remove one of them you will not be able to place it again until you are promoted to Member rank and your limit increases.

We feel this is a fairer system that provides an additional reward for regular players, as well as increasing the maximum area of protection available to players at Member+ rank or above.

Website Changes

The "Commands", "Security" & "Rank Info" pages have all been updated with new information and to make certain things clearer based on player feedback.

Helpers

We now have 3 players at Helper rank:

crazyboy909, Go_Magic2, & zinatawehowe

We've received excellent feedback on all three and based on feedback from the Helpers themselves and other players we've decided to increase their powers.

As of now Helpers can remove dropped items en-masse to assist with machine overflows etc causing lag, teleport directly to any players 'Home' and view (but not edit) other players inventories to help gather evidence relating to griefing.

Downtime last night

There was a severe DDoS attack against another server in our rack in the data centre, they ended up having to reroute the entire rack for several hours last night / this morning.

I'm just sorting a few things out before it comes back online, which should hopefully take no longer than an hour.

I'll post an update once the server is ready to come back up!

UPDATE: 11:30 - Nearly done, just waiting for the manual backup to complete (90% done)!

UPDATE: 11:50 - Last batch of files are taking longer than expected, getting their though!

UPDATE: 12:15 - Server is back up!

Easter Fun

Throughout today  we'll be randomly placing gold chests in the protected area around spawn and each chest will contain a 'prize' for the first person to find it, here's the details...

The gold chests will be within the protected area, so within about 200m of the main spawn building.

The gold chests will be locked using Lockette (locked by either by DiggyWig or DigginChickin) with a number underneath the name.

The first player to 'call out' both the name and number on the Lockette sign gets whatever is inside the chest.

Once the name & number has been called, DiggyWig or DigginChickin will tp to you to break the sign so you can claim your loot!

So as an example you find gold chest locked with a sign with this written on it:

 [private]
DiggyWig
 3736475

To claim the chest you need to 'call out' this in chat:    "DiggyWig 3736475"

Prizes will range from cocoa beans and eggs (it is easter after all!) to enchanted armour and red matter!

Their will be a server announcement when new chests have been placed!

Happy Hunting!

Connection Issue Last Night

As many of you will know the server was unavailable for several hours last night due to a connectivity issue, the server was up but players we're unable to connect.

Connections to the server are now working again and the hosting company is looking into the cause, which appears to be connected to the other shorter network drop-outs we've experienced over the last few days.

Hopefully we won't be having these issues much longer!

EDIT: 11:25 - The hosting company has tweaked some network configurations which will hopefully resolve the issue, however only time will tell, fingers crossed!