Morning Discussion

Lately I've taken to buying books on recommendation alone, not even reading reviews, the plot synopsis or cover blurbs. "You might like this" is all I know going in. It's brilliant. Everything is a surprise. I have no idea of the plot, the characters, the genre, the author's writing style, anything. Fantastic. It doesn't always work out but $10 isn't much and it's a small price to pay for what I get. Besides, if I don't like a book, I can always easily pass it on or donate to a charity shop. I wish I could come into video games in this way.

Alas, $50 is not an amount to casually drop on something I may like, nor even $20. I want to know more--the genre, the developer's track record, how stable it is, whether it performs well... by which point, I've accidentally learnt everything about the game anyway. Besides, most games operate in the same way, so it's unlikely I'd be surprised anyway. There are plot spoilers but video game plots are, by and large, to be ignored and avoided as much as possible lest your brain dribble out of your ears.

When video game surprises do come along, though, gosh it's lovely.

From The Chatty
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    December 8, 2010 5:13 AM

    Wednesday Morning Minecraft Thread!
    No Screw Ups Edition!!!

    oh god oh god I missed something somewhere I know it

    Multiplayer Servers!
    MercFox1 : mercfox1.sytes.net / se.shkn.ws / shackeast.shkn.ws
    foo1 (PvE/ moderated PvP): foo1.sytes.net / foo1.shkn.ws / 216.139.192.52 / richcunts.sytes.net
    Shadowdane (PvE) : shadowdane.shacknet.nu / sd.shkn.ws / shadowdane.shkn.ws
    m0rfus (Full PvP) : morfus.dyndns.org / morfus.shkn.ws
    Haxim (TNT) : asplode.dyndns.org / haxim.shkn.ws

    Teamspeak : ts.shackbattles.com:9987

    I know it

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      December 8, 2010 5:14 AM

      Guides and Utilities

      - Oizomapper! Map your single player or multiplayer levels! By mroizo40
      http://www.digitized-e.com/mroizo/OizoMapper.zip

      - Shackwiki Minecraft page!
      http://shackwiki.com/wiki/Minecraft

      Video Guides!
      - (Series) X's Adventures in Minecraft! Linked by zuff!
      http://tinyurl.com/2ah7sex
      Lots of useful info in here!

      - (Series) Minecraft Minecart Tutorials! Boosters! Track switches! Et cetera!
      http://tinyurl.com/2udl2lt

      - Water Physics Tutorial by Arctic Fox!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=24127669#itemanchor_24127669

      Written Guides!
      - Beginner’s Guides to Minecraft, originally linked by at0micgarden!
      (Work in Progress) Guide to Alpha: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17021
      How to Survive Your First Night: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=19065

      Shacker Help!
      - Things I Wish I’d Known, a retrospective by Ebu!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23608826#itemanchor_23608826

      - Linkmania! By zuff!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23514788#itemanchor_23514788
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23533536#itemanchor_23533536


      - Ores, and How to Find Them, by Fooldozer and CodeRedBeard!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23582115#itemanchor_23582115

      - Multiplayer Tips from BlackCat9
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23641449#itemanchor_23641449

      - Circle guides! More useful than they sound!
      http://www.agentpothead.com/minecraft/sphere.html linked/hosted by AgentPothead!
      http://www.shackpics.com/files/radii_even_to_100_pgzh2n77iabkgcmee93q.png hosted by Arctic Fox!

      - Beginner’s Guide to Redstone, links by The Grolar Bear!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=24044649#itemanchor_24044649

      - And some generally useful keys to press!
      F11 - full screen!
      F3 (hold) - CPU/ memory usage bar! Spikes for CPU/ red box for memory, I think!
      F5 - third person mode!

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      December 8, 2010 5:15 AM

      Dong on Patrol!

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      December 8, 2010 5:18 AM

      Can I move my treasure box to other place? it's in my bunker in ice island, but I want to move somewhere that is warm and no ice and sand. Can I?

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        December 8, 2010 5:26 AM

        You will have to remove all the contents first, unfortunately.

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      December 8, 2010 5:18 AM

      I was climbing up a ladder to put some loot in our chest room, and what do I see? A creeper just hanging out!

      http://www.shackpics.com/viewer.x?file=20101208_071023_hp2zsqpaeic3immn98qi.png

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        December 8, 2010 7:06 AM

        Thatssssssssss a nice everything you had there.

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      December 8, 2010 5:23 AM

      Minecraft.net down again? It's a slow and snowy day at work, I thought I could craft some mines.

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      December 8, 2010 5:36 AM

      http://notch.tumblr.com/

      Server-side inventory and websites

      I’ve been working on server-side inventory, but progress has been slow and agonizing, mostly due to the first version of inventory just being a GUI hack. I got almost nothing done yesterday, but today I will roll up my sleeves and just dig in. The first step will be to commit everything to our brand new version control system (git), the second step will be to start screaming out loud (“aaaaaaaaa!!”) and just start typing code randomly. That should do it.

      Typing code randomly, heh.

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        December 8, 2010 5:40 AM

        [deleted]

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          December 8, 2010 5:42 AM

          Yes, everyone is 100% productive at work, all the time JohnnyRey. (*refreshes Shack*)

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            December 8, 2010 5:46 AM

            [deleted]

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              December 8, 2010 5:48 AM

              that's bullshit Johnny, and if you can't see that I wonder at what you do for a job

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                December 8, 2010 5:49 AM

                [deleted]

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                  December 8, 2010 5:53 AM

                  I think the problem is you have "a" job, Notch has many jobs.

                  He's trying to program, do tech support, account support, etc etc etc.

                  When he sits down and does a lot of programming he can bang out patches, like last week.

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                  December 8, 2010 5:53 AM

                  1) Take a step back. Think about days where you have done what you feel to be a ton of work, but an outsider/boss/layperson wouldn't recognise that because you've basically just replaced infrastructure that 'already worked', but poorly. Now it works far better. Every job has things like this.

                  2) In the past month, he's added server-side damage, done FIVE bugfixes, and is now working on server-side inventory. I'm not sure entirely what you want here.

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                    December 8, 2010 6:13 AM

                    Exactly! It might not sound like a lot of work to some of us because we aren't sitting there seeing what he's working on each day. But how busy does your average person's work day sound when you sum it up in a sentence or two? It's a dangerous thing to assume you know what's going on in a place you've never been, with a person you've never met, doing a job you have never had.

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                  December 8, 2010 5:53 AM

                  And people hate him whenever he does or doesn't do something with it, so yes why should he?

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                  December 8, 2010 6:01 AM

                  Software development is a LOT different than most other jobs. The large bulk of my work isn't actually coding but figuring out what to code. Programming is all problem solving. Even the simplest of things can take days to make and to the end user it might be something you do in 1 second.

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                    December 8, 2010 6:08 AM

                    [deleted]

                    • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                      December 8, 2010 6:11 AM

                      You do understand that he lives in Sweden, right? A lot of his twittering is after business hours. As for the rest, he probably spends a lot less time during the work day tweeting than you do shacking.

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                        December 8, 2010 6:17 AM

                        [deleted]

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                          December 8, 2010 6:20 AM

                          I'm a big critic of the way Notch is handling some things, but I'm not going to complain about his dedication to the code at this point in time. It's looking like he's going to hit Beta by year end, which should hopefully solve one of my problems with Notch -- his attitude to us all as alpha testers.

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                            December 8, 2010 6:26 AM

                            [deleted]

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                              December 8, 2010 6:29 AM

                              You mean typing code randomly doesn't impress you?!?

                              Heh.

                              I know what you mean, but it's kinda late now. He's done interviews, etc, so he's become 'the face of Minecraft'.

                              Gee, since it started as a one-man operation (right?), I don't know who else you'd pick. I guess it'd be nice if he did more coding, but all this other stuff gets in the way.

                            • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                              December 8, 2010 6:31 AM

                              He's pretty bad at PR, but that's his problem. Whether or not you choose to get worked up over stupid stuff like a perceived lack of productivity or the fact that he's bad at PR is on you.

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                            December 8, 2010 6:39 AM

                            [deleted]

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                          December 8, 2010 6:50 AM

                          Well... I can't speak for everybody else but in my case... I've heard a lot of negative stuff lately towards notch... but honestly I don't feel he deserves it lately. Around the time of the Halloween patch there he was making a lot of bad choices and releasing some really buggy updates etc. But lately he's been pushing out the updates and getting some good stuff done. For a while there I could understand the negative feedback... but he's seems to be doing good work lately... and I feel the need to defend the guy when he's on a roll. :)

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                            December 8, 2010 7:00 AM

                            [deleted]

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                              December 8, 2010 7:02 AM

                              Well, actually, there are some amazing mods out there, but they aren't being used on Shack servers.

                              I agree that the game itself needs more stuff, can't rely on mods. Notch does go off on tangents and forget some things. Hopefully it all works out in the end...heh.

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                                December 8, 2010 7:03 AM

                                [deleted]

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                                  December 8, 2010 7:05 AM

                                  [deleted]

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                                    December 8, 2010 7:23 AM

                                    Runecraft is the name IIRC

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                                      December 8, 2010 7:37 AM

                                      [deleted]

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                                        December 8, 2010 7:56 AM

                                        Negative, it's basically a crafting mod that allows you to do 'spells' creating warp gates and the like, didn't really fit with any of our servers. Also I'm not a fan of complexity for the sake of complexity (which is why I'm not a fan of Towny, but I roll with that because the higher-ups like it)

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                                  December 8, 2010 7:39 AM

                                  There are economy and quest mods.

                                  I'm trying out this server, see what the economy is like: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1014&t=89553

                                  The mod (iConomy) just uses 'coins' as currency, but someone made one that uses gold as currency, I think that'd be cool.

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                                    December 8, 2010 7:42 AM

                                    Of course a lot of things are command line based, not the most user friendly.

                                    • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                                      December 8, 2010 7:47 AM

                                      Yeah that's because they're all server mods, once notch adds the official mod API people should be able to do some crazy stuff.

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                      December 8, 2010 6:14 AM

                      Unless you're sitting right next to him, you have no idea how productive or unproductive he may be.

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                      December 8, 2010 6:15 AM

                      Also, he is often most productive on the days when he twitters a lot. I think he does his work in spurts then takes a quick break to tweet. And just goes back and forth between the two. I don't follow his twitter as closely as I did a couple months ago... but on the days of his big patches etc... he would tweet like crazy. I think it's just how he blows off steam.

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              December 8, 2010 6:06 AM

              lol stats on the internet

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              December 8, 2010 6:10 AM

              I don't know.. the past few weeks he's been pretty productive.

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          December 8, 2010 5:43 AM

          There are some days when a developer isn't able to do any developing, either due to meetings, designing, or just mental blocks.

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            December 8, 2010 5:45 AM

            Or you get days like the one I had yesterday, where every time you're about to start something brilliant someone comes and knocks on your door and distracts you. Then they leave and you think "Finally. Alright, quick check of the Shack/Twitter/Facebook/whatever and then back to work." Then you start work and someone else knocks on your door again, and the cycle repeats...

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              December 8, 2010 5:51 AM

              It can take up to 90 minutes to get your mental model back after an interruption.

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              December 8, 2010 6:06 AM

              Man this is so true. Especially for us IT d00des

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                December 8, 2010 6:18 AM

                It's a serious issue for me in a building with a cubicle system and 2,000+ IS/IT people. A LOT of people like to walk around, drink coffee and TALK. I'm not much of a talker.. and holy shit... some people don't get the hint. Usually when you turn in the middle of the conversation and start typing emails... you'd imagine most people would see that as a sign that I might not be super interested in what's being discussed. But some people.. will just keep going.. and going.. and going...

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                  December 8, 2010 7:10 AM

                  Best put some rancid tuna salad in your trash bin to keep them away. You'll just have to build a tolerance for it to be able to work though.

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                    December 8, 2010 12:45 PM

                    Hah. I might try that if the smell of even fresh tuna didn't turn my stomach.

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            December 8, 2010 7:39 AM

            I've found the best thing to do with mental blocks is to go do something else. Go for a walk, go to the gym, something.

            My subconcious is far smarter than I am.

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          December 8, 2010 5:43 AM

          He's a CEO now. Do you expect him to work? At least he's not playing some ski-golf or something.

      • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        December 8, 2010 6:07 AM

        i can vouch for this technique

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          December 8, 2010 6:15 AM

          Cool, I'll add "this technique" to the whitelist next time he logs in.

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        December 8, 2010 8:31 AM

        Mmmmmmmmmmmm

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      December 8, 2010 5:55 AM

      502 Gateway error help!

      I've been getting a 502 Gateway error on most threads on minecraftforums.net and it's been really annoying. Today I decided to try a different browser (FF instead of Chrome) and I can view all the threads!

      What's the deal? I'm not logged into the forums in either browser. Why did Chrome suddenly break and how do I fix it?

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      December 8, 2010 5:59 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 8, 2010 6:18 AM

      one last repost Claimed Town areas on foo1: http://pixeltrap.net/minecraft/TownyMap.png

      (N.B. both the render and the territory map are a few days old at this point, so if you've changed anything over the weekend it probably won't show. It's fairly manual and clunky at the moment, but if people are interested I could probably update these maps on a weekly basis or something.)

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        December 8, 2010 6:19 AM

        I think it's great to see. It would be great if there was a way to automate it.

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          December 8, 2010 6:38 AM

          Automating it isn't too hard -- I can code a regular pull down of the render and towny data pretty easily, and run this script on it. (I should have some time to clean up the code now that I have no guests in my office anymore, woo). Main reason that I said a weekly update is

          * Town creation/expansion doesn't really happen at a furious rate now that most of the server is all set up; and
          * the overhead render is still a bit broken, pegging the CPUs at 100% whenever we run it and causing megalag. So I'm thinking that we'll schedule it to run in the middle of the night, on a weekly basis or something (assuming foo hasn't already done this -- he's sneaky like that).

          Maybe I'll just get everything set up for a weekly version, and pin a 'last updated' line to the top-right or something. Also remove those damn axes on the sides :P

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            December 8, 2010 6:41 AM

            I think if things were active (wars and stuff) that it might be nice to have daily updates. If that's too much stress on the server then weekly is fine.

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        December 8, 2010 6:28 AM

        Yea, this is fucking awesome if we could automate it!

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        December 8, 2010 6:52 AM

        Also let me know if your town borders are, well, in the wrong place. The Towny data and the main map are on different scales, and I *think* I've registered them correctly (you can see marks around Endor that I used for this purpose) but more data = better.

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        December 8, 2010 7:02 AM

        [deleted]

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      December 8, 2010 8:11 AM

      lol someone finally did it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ctWhEKlGvY

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      December 8, 2010 8:12 AM

      I finally got FSAA working properly in Minecraft... it looks awesome!
      http://shadowdane.shackspace.com/Minecraft/Pics/Minecraft_FSAA.png

      In the Nvidia Control panel, I added "Javaw.exe" to the Programs List. Then I set FSAA to override any program settings, used the SLI FSAA modes Nvidia now offers. Figured I might as well use the 2nd video card for something as Minecraft doesn't really use SLI at all.

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        December 8, 2010 8:17 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 8, 2010 8:19 AM

        [deleted]

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          December 8, 2010 9:05 AM

          Not at home right now.. but I'll do it when I get home.

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        December 8, 2010 8:20 AM

        ooooooo smoooooth

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        December 8, 2010 8:20 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 8, 2010 11:16 AM

        [deleted]

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          December 8, 2010 12:37 PM

          I haven't used an ATI card in years... is there a way to setup executable or game specific profiles?

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          December 8, 2010 2:39 PM

          I was trying last night. There does NOT seem to be a way to do it on a per-game basis. But you can tell Catalyst Control Center to override game defaults and turn on various AA and AF options. They are named poorly, but you can see what they do with some experimentation.

          I was also able to get FSAA working, but sadly, there were glitches. There was a odd box around any light source. Also weird seams between blocks. I ended up turning it off. :(

          But I didn't try all combinations of settings. If someone figures it out, please share!

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      December 8, 2010 8:36 AM

      Shadowdane's crashed :(

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      December 8, 2010 10:49 AM

      Wow i wonder how quickly this gets shot down by Notch... Minecraft Server written in C++
      http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1012&t=101183

      Granted I don't know if I'd trust running some guys server especially the thing is Closed Source, no way for anyone to check that this guy isn't doing anything here like stealing passwords, ect...

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        December 8, 2010 11:42 AM

        I'm not quite sure what this all means.

      • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        December 8, 2010 11:45 AM

        I don't know where people get the idea that it's okay to do stuff like this without permission.

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          December 8, 2010 11:52 AM

          Here's one persons response: Why would it be wrong or illegal? Notch isn't selling the server, he's selling the client. Why would he care about the server, especially if it encourages more people to buy the client?

          http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=1461889#p1461889

          I have no idea.

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            December 8, 2010 12:10 PM

            [deleted]

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              December 8, 2010 12:15 PM

              Although the official server does have an option for turning client auth off.

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              December 8, 2010 12:48 PM

              note that the central authorization server at minecraft.net is completely separate from the actual minecraft server software

              • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                December 8, 2010 1:06 PM

                It would still be very very easy for someone to allow pirated clients to connect with a custom server though.

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                  December 8, 2010 1:07 PM

                  that's notch's problem on the client side (if it's that important, he shouldn't allow you to connect to any server without authenticating with his auth server). there's nothing morally, ethically, legally, or logically wrong with creating a drop-in server replacement

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                    December 8, 2010 1:12 PM

                    i assume you're completely against hMod and all other server mods that redistribute Notch's code without permission, considering that those actually **ARE** illegal. hMod is totally fucking illegal. he decompiled Notch's jars and rebuilt them with his own modifications. that is straight-up infringement

                    • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                      December 8, 2010 1:13 PM

                      How do you think they reverse engineered this C++ server?

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                        December 8, 2010 1:14 PM

                        you seem a little confused about what's going on here. reverse engineering the protocol is legal and is one of the oldest and most common practices in computer science. decompiling and redistributing the actual code is copyright infringement.

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                          December 8, 2010 1:17 PM

                          i will show my hand and say that i know a lot about this because of my day job. our bread and butter is reverse engineering third party software and then clean-room cloning it, exactly as this minecraft server did. it's legal as an eagle. we've been sued before and nothing relating to this reverse engineering process has ever stuck. lots of things are illegal, but messing around with someone's app to see how it works and then using that knowledge to write your own is totally legal and acceptable

                        • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                          December 8, 2010 1:19 PM

                          It's not just some protocol, he rebuilt the entire server presumably using notch's code. What if he decided to rebuild the client as well, would that be okay?

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                            December 8, 2010 1:21 PM

                            what makes you think notch's code was used? the official server is written in Java and the bytecode is obfuscated making it hard to understand. this is written in C++. it would be pretty hard to make that argument

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                              December 8, 2010 1:21 PM

                              frankly it would be easier to not use notch's code because the server protocol has already been reverse engineered and documented

                              http://mc.kev009.com/wiki/Protocol

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                                December 8, 2010 1:23 PM

                                and yeah, redoing the client would also be OK. as long as you don't call it "minecraft" or use any of mojang's copyrighted assets, you're good to go

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                                  December 8, 2010 1:32 PM

                                  it just seems weird to freak out about this when hMod is ACTUALLY INFRINGING but nobody cares

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                  December 8, 2010 1:11 PM

                  It's currently very easy for someone to allow pirated clients to connect to 'official' servers as well.

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          December 8, 2010 12:46 PM

          why wouldn't it be? you guys are weird

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        December 8, 2010 11:54 AM

        I tired it out anyway, despite my better judgement. Performance is better.

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          December 8, 2010 12:45 PM

          Yah I would expect it to run better... Java isn't known for high performance

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      December 8, 2010 12:51 PM

      How in the world do you do THIS!!! AWESOME!!!

      http://nerd.nu/map/

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        December 8, 2010 12:54 PM

        I'm not sure why you're impressed, when our renders are clearly superior http://foo1.shkn.ws/~djr/mc/gmap/

        What am I missing here?

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          December 8, 2010 12:56 PM

          [deleted]

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            December 8, 2010 12:58 PM

            i like their isolated winter biome off in the middle of nowhere with no generated chunks around it

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          December 8, 2010 1:10 PM

          I'm impressed because you can change to bird's eye view, then tunnel view, then night view, height map etc...

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            December 8, 2010 1:11 PM

            and yes I completely agree that ozio's render is much better (it's what I utilize on my server though I wish I knew how to get it into google)

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              December 8, 2010 1:14 PM

              Do an angled render, (or a textured one if you prefer). Within that is a checkbox to Google maps-ify your render.

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                December 8, 2010 1:16 PM

                Not sure about command-line switches if you're running this on Linux or Mac, though. Maybe SM foo or Shadowdane for what the command is?

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            December 8, 2010 1:13 PM

            Oizo can do all that too, although I can see how the ease of flicking between the different types is attractive :)

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        December 8, 2010 12:56 PM

        oizo is better in every way

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        December 8, 2010 12:57 PM

        Holy CRAP! I thought Merc's server was pretty dense! That is insane! I'd imagine that's what MercFox1 would look like if we had 20 more serious hardcore builders and... another 4 months or so of constant building. There's a lot of stuff in there man.

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      December 8, 2010 12:57 PM

      Notch is clearly high:

      While on the subway after work today, me, @jeb_, @Kappische and @jnkboy came up with a really neat new use for redstone. http://i.imgur.com/YuiKT.png

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      December 8, 2010 4:48 PM

      Towny Question:

      Can citizens of the same nation build in each other's towns?

Hello, Meet Lola