An Update!

[SGT_ADZ]

The past few months since Mojang released the 1.8 game update have been hectic, and here's a summary of everything that's been going on.

The recent moderator election
As many of you know, we recently had a mod election, the victor being Dshumway62. If you see him, make sure to congratulate him. For this mod election we tried out a new way of electing somebody. We asked you what you wanted in a staff member, and the staff team then picked the candidates, and carried out interviews. The interviews were a great success, and we look to continue this format in the future. With this election, we decided to do a double promotion. Congratulations to Almirith on the promotion to Admin. Be sure to check out the mod election post here: http://archives.codespeak.org/innectis/forum/index.php/topic,3239.0.html

IDP Progress
We recently updated to IDP version 9.4.1. Progress on IDP has been great, our developer, AlphaBlend has been working around the clock to pump out cool updates. We have some pretty cool new features planned and we are excited to bring them to you. The direction IDP is heading in is exciting, and the future of the project looks bright. The 1.8 update should allow us to expand IDP beyond our wildest expectations. Should you have any suggestions as to cool features you would like to see added to IDP, let us know here: http://archives.codespeak.org/innectis/forum/index.php/board,6.0.html

The Next Building Contest
You guys wanted it, and we are proud to announce the next building contest. The theme for the next building contest will be "Winter." Stay tuned to the forums for further announcements regarding the contest. The first building contest we had was held during the week of Halloween. Many great builds were submitted, but there could only be one winner. Congratulations to RoyalSyn on winning the contest, and some pretty neat prizes.  Check out the original building contest post here to see the 3 players who placed for prizes: http://archives.codespeak.org/innectis/forum/index.php/topic,3216.0.html

The Vanilla server
When Mojang updated to 1.8, we spent a week or two on a vanilla server, as requested by the community. The vanilla server was a lot of fun, and it was nice to see people building in groups. The 1.8 update added some really cool new blocks, and structures, and the builds people made with the new blocks/items were really nice to see. When we changed back to 1.7.10, we created a world download for those who still wanted to work on their vanilla builds. You can find the world download here: http://files.innectis.net/worlds/Vanilla-18.zip

Mini-Games
StarScythe7 has been working on a couple of mini-games since we enabled command blocks on the server. Firstly, we have Hide & Seek, which contains a set of 6 maps, created by members of the community. You can find the Hide & Seek lobby at /warp hs. We also have Duck Hunt, a minecraft twist on a retro game. Parkour your way to the top and kill the hunter. You can find the Duck Hunt lobby at /warp dh.

[Vector]

The situation with Minecraft 1.8 seems to be progressing rather slowly. I'm still not sure whether I should go with Sponge, as that seems much different to the normal bukkit that we're used to. Fortunately for us, there is Glowstone, but it is not 1.8 ready yet. Spigot released  an update for Minecraft 1.8 rather recently. It would seem like we're all set to go with this. However, that's not really true.

A few months ago there was a legal battle over CraftBukkit, essentially shutting down the project and many derivative projects based off of it. Spigot claims they have resolved all legal problems and presented a Bukkit, CraftBukkit and even Spigot that would work with Minecraft 1.8. Thing is, this may still entail the legal issues. However, that's not the only reason I don't want spigot 1.8. In actuality, it's not the greatest reason I don't want to use it.

1) New development environment. I've been with the same setup for 3+ years now. Switching to something new seems a bit chaotic to me
2) It doesn't seem like their patch system is friendly with the fact we add custom code to our server to fit any needs we may have. They would create updates and that may conflict
with our own system
3) Plugins we already have may not even be updated in tandem with this Spigot/CraftBukkit update as these plugins were authored off of the official Bukkit/CraftBukkit code

At some point I should toy with the idea of removing the custom IDP code inside our server .jar and replacing it with working code IDP-side. However, I don't think that's possible with some code, as some crucial IDP functionality would break (item effects/types for items, for example). If it was possible to do this, I could remove 2), and that leaves the development environment, and plugins authored from other developers. Due to the nature of 1.8 and the massive code changes involved, I don't imagine I would tackle the updating of these other plugins mystel.

If I go with Sponge, then that means changing quite a bit of IDP to match the requirements of Sponge. At this point, it seems like Glowstone is the best option. However, unfortunately that is not usable in a server environment yet. I do monitor progress of both Glowstone and Sponge though, seeing where they are and gauging whether to update yet or not. Nothing's come as of yet.

That being said, this situation is both unfair and unfortunate. I know you guys have been waiting for months. I want an update myself... this wait has been too long.

So, sorry to report that nothing new has really changed, but I at least gave you a more in-depth explanation than I have in the past.

[Nosliw]

You could always start over using Glowstone, and only when most of the features are moved over then start using the Glowstone run server. Helping them out with their development along the way would give you a good insight to how they work.

[l_iamW]

TL;DR We must wait even longer for 1.8 because CraftBuckit have been shut down.

Woah! Nos is here!? What is this madness!?