A New Year's speech
Traditionally every year on january 2nd a new year's speech is held in my hometown which I accompany as part of the local orchestra. And during today's speech I thought for myself, who not do something similar for MCME? Thus I'd like to reminisce about what the year 2016 has brought us, and what 2017 might still bring.
We started 2016 with the completion of the new Aldburg, lead by @Fireinferno13. By inheriting some textures from other packs Fire really added a very nice and shiny pearl to the already rather old and dusty Rohan region. Soon after that the Artist-lead project of Fennas Drúnin was begun and in july it was at last completed. It was not always easy with this large group of Artists, but the result is undeniable very awesome!
Beside that 2016 stood, as the years before, in the light of Gondor progression. Most notably Anfalas could be concluded, which I think was one of the greatest collaborations of multiple Designers and Artists that we had in a long time. Other notable successes were all the surrouding areas to Linhir and the House of Tarannon Falastur, and of course all the many fiefs that we are still working on bringing to a conclusion, namely Lamedon, Belfalas and Tolfalas.
However our biggest challenge by far was and will still be for a long time: Moria. At this point I'd like to name @Despot666 as the first of the two persons I'd like to label as "Members of the year 2016". With an iron and almost unmoveable perseverance he is leading new Moria like noone else could. He created an entire Resourcepack all on his own, and is probably the last man standing who's still keeping an overview over the progress in Moria. Moria is a very scary project, probably because it is so crazily big. Maybe partly because of that, the progress is a bit less quick as we intially might have hoped. But even though it might not seem like it to some, I dare say that the current progress is pretty solid and after all quite a good number of Designers and Artists have dared passing through Moria's gates and have started to relentlessly build hall after hall.
Overall I do think the progress we made in projects was very good in 2016. Our standards are rising and so is the time it takes to complete something, and also the discipline it takes not to give up on these enormous tasks. We might not be able to finish as many projects per year as we once did anymore, but the number of hours put into building is doubtlessly still stunning!
Beside project progress this year will enter history as probably the one year with the most technical and organisational advancements. And I do not want to forget about when this urge for change has went to far for once, when it came to my mind to gather ideas for merging our server with another one. While the way the idea first got into public was very chaotic and accompanied by many uncertainties I do have to admit that even if it would have happened differently it would not have worked out. After all there is a lot more that makes up MCME than first meets the eye! At this point I'd like to again deeply apologize to everyone of MCME for the troubles this story caused, and want you to be reassured that I've learned a lot from it.
On the brighter side I'd like to name my second Member of the year 2016: @Eriol_Eandur. It is an absolute mystery where this guy takes all his ideas from, and how he can possibly make all of them come true within the blink of an eye! And at the same time he's actively working on projects! Eriol is clearly responsible for what this year will be known in the future. Along with @Ivan1pl he developped a crazy amount of new plugins for the server. An automatic teleport plugin for Moria. The armorstand and banner editors. A large bunch of other useful tools collected as the Architect plugin. And all the discoveries regarding unused blockstates and how to access them, and at last, how we can gain access to infinite blocks! I've probably still missed a lot of things, a few more will be mentioned a bit further below that will come into action in 2017!
Oh and I forgot: WE GOT A FREEBUILD AGAIN! /mvtp freebuild!!!111!
Edit: There soon will be freebuild again, technical details are still being sorted out.
2016 was a crazy year and it was fantastic to be MCME's Head Designer in this time. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for the immense amount of time you have spent on making MCME better every day. Our time is the most precious thing we all have, and it is fantastic that there is a community of like-minded people that decide on uniting their minds and their free time to collaborate on something like this project. Thanks to everyone who contributed to MCME in 2016!
Now, what can you expect from 2017? Project-wise there's two big things on the schedule obviously. First and foremost is Moria. The amount of halls and caves we have completed by now most likely soon exceeds the one from old Moria, but in a quality that is so massively higher then back in 2010. But there's still a long way to go, and it shall be our biggest interest to join and support Despot in any way we can. A single man could build a large city on his own, given enough time. But no man can build a Moria as we want to build it. Only a community with many a pair of helping hands can achieve this, and even for such a community it is an immense challenge. Let us truly accept the challenge and show what a strong community can do!
Secondly we'll have Dol Amroth, which will serve as first testing ground for all the technical novelties early 2017 will bring. Dol Amroth will also be very big, but here the challenge will lie much more in finding the "modern" style of MCME, which will be the starting point for the future "overworld" projects to come. Very fundamental changes on the technical side will come with it, as it looks now you might soon need to abandon the vanilla Minecraft inventory...
The plugins that will soon be available include: A custom inventory, which will (most likely) contain all blocks, both those that are already available through the creative inventory, but aso more importantly all the special blocks that so far only existed behind the scenes. Also we'll finally be able to sort the inventory in a sensible way so that hopefully the time to search the blocks you need will drop by a good amount.
Along with the custom inventories the Unified Resource Pack Structure aka URPS will soon enter it's last stage. Our packs will be a lot cleaner then, textures will mostly occupy matching vanilla blocks, and unused files will be removed from the packs.
Furthermore, the Animations plugin is finished and might soon be implemented on the main server! All hail to @Ivan1pl for bringing back one of the most iconic MCME features! And lastly, Eriol finished a plugin called the Guidebook, which will, if enabled, supply all who wander the lands of Middle-earth with a little more information about the locations they find themselves ending up in.
And then we recently had a staff meeting where we again talked about the reintroduction of two new ranks: Foreman and Commoner. I can tell you at this point that pretty much all the staff members who voiced their opinion are generally in favor of the addition of both of them! The discussions are still going on, but are also coming towards a conclusion. In the case of Foreman, the biggest open question is whether to make it a temporary held or a "regular" permanent rank. Find a bit more about that further below, and after reading that, vote in the poll above!
For Commoner, Eriol is already developing a plugin that will make maintaining Commoner promotions very easy. So far only this much: The promotion process will most likely be similar to how it was way back when Commoner, then called Member, was first introduced: Through voting by other people.
The signs stand very well that 2017 will get a very very interesting year. I'd be happy if as many as possible would join me on this ride and discover all the new things the future will offer together with me!
So, if you've read this far, congratulations, you may ask me ingame to get a free cookie as reward
We started 2016 with the completion of the new Aldburg, lead by @Fireinferno13. By inheriting some textures from other packs Fire really added a very nice and shiny pearl to the already rather old and dusty Rohan region. Soon after that the Artist-lead project of Fennas Drúnin was begun and in july it was at last completed. It was not always easy with this large group of Artists, but the result is undeniable very awesome!
Beside that 2016 stood, as the years before, in the light of Gondor progression. Most notably Anfalas could be concluded, which I think was one of the greatest collaborations of multiple Designers and Artists that we had in a long time. Other notable successes were all the surrouding areas to Linhir and the House of Tarannon Falastur, and of course all the many fiefs that we are still working on bringing to a conclusion, namely Lamedon, Belfalas and Tolfalas.
However our biggest challenge by far was and will still be for a long time: Moria. At this point I'd like to name @Despot666 as the first of the two persons I'd like to label as "Members of the year 2016". With an iron and almost unmoveable perseverance he is leading new Moria like noone else could. He created an entire Resourcepack all on his own, and is probably the last man standing who's still keeping an overview over the progress in Moria. Moria is a very scary project, probably because it is so crazily big. Maybe partly because of that, the progress is a bit less quick as we intially might have hoped. But even though it might not seem like it to some, I dare say that the current progress is pretty solid and after all quite a good number of Designers and Artists have dared passing through Moria's gates and have started to relentlessly build hall after hall.
Overall I do think the progress we made in projects was very good in 2016. Our standards are rising and so is the time it takes to complete something, and also the discipline it takes not to give up on these enormous tasks. We might not be able to finish as many projects per year as we once did anymore, but the number of hours put into building is doubtlessly still stunning!
Beside project progress this year will enter history as probably the one year with the most technical and organisational advancements. And I do not want to forget about when this urge for change has went to far for once, when it came to my mind to gather ideas for merging our server with another one. While the way the idea first got into public was very chaotic and accompanied by many uncertainties I do have to admit that even if it would have happened differently it would not have worked out. After all there is a lot more that makes up MCME than first meets the eye! At this point I'd like to again deeply apologize to everyone of MCME for the troubles this story caused, and want you to be reassured that I've learned a lot from it.
On the brighter side I'd like to name my second Member of the year 2016: @Eriol_Eandur. It is an absolute mystery where this guy takes all his ideas from, and how he can possibly make all of them come true within the blink of an eye! And at the same time he's actively working on projects! Eriol is clearly responsible for what this year will be known in the future. Along with @Ivan1pl he developped a crazy amount of new plugins for the server. An automatic teleport plugin for Moria. The armorstand and banner editors. A large bunch of other useful tools collected as the Architect plugin. And all the discoveries regarding unused blockstates and how to access them, and at last, how we can gain access to infinite blocks! I've probably still missed a lot of things, a few more will be mentioned a bit further below that will come into action in 2017!
Oh and I forgot: WE GOT A FREEBUILD AGAIN! /mvtp freebuild!!!111!
Edit: There soon will be freebuild again, technical details are still being sorted out.
2016 was a crazy year and it was fantastic to be MCME's Head Designer in this time. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for the immense amount of time you have spent on making MCME better every day. Our time is the most precious thing we all have, and it is fantastic that there is a community of like-minded people that decide on uniting their minds and their free time to collaborate on something like this project. Thanks to everyone who contributed to MCME in 2016!
Now, what can you expect from 2017? Project-wise there's two big things on the schedule obviously. First and foremost is Moria. The amount of halls and caves we have completed by now most likely soon exceeds the one from old Moria, but in a quality that is so massively higher then back in 2010. But there's still a long way to go, and it shall be our biggest interest to join and support Despot in any way we can. A single man could build a large city on his own, given enough time. But no man can build a Moria as we want to build it. Only a community with many a pair of helping hands can achieve this, and even for such a community it is an immense challenge. Let us truly accept the challenge and show what a strong community can do!
Secondly we'll have Dol Amroth, which will serve as first testing ground for all the technical novelties early 2017 will bring. Dol Amroth will also be very big, but here the challenge will lie much more in finding the "modern" style of MCME, which will be the starting point for the future "overworld" projects to come. Very fundamental changes on the technical side will come with it, as it looks now you might soon need to abandon the vanilla Minecraft inventory...
The plugins that will soon be available include: A custom inventory, which will (most likely) contain all blocks, both those that are already available through the creative inventory, but aso more importantly all the special blocks that so far only existed behind the scenes. Also we'll finally be able to sort the inventory in a sensible way so that hopefully the time to search the blocks you need will drop by a good amount.
Along with the custom inventories the Unified Resource Pack Structure aka URPS will soon enter it's last stage. Our packs will be a lot cleaner then, textures will mostly occupy matching vanilla blocks, and unused files will be removed from the packs.
Furthermore, the Animations plugin is finished and might soon be implemented on the main server! All hail to @Ivan1pl for bringing back one of the most iconic MCME features! And lastly, Eriol finished a plugin called the Guidebook, which will, if enabled, supply all who wander the lands of Middle-earth with a little more information about the locations they find themselves ending up in.
And then we recently had a staff meeting where we again talked about the reintroduction of two new ranks: Foreman and Commoner. I can tell you at this point that pretty much all the staff members who voiced their opinion are generally in favor of the addition of both of them! The discussions are still going on, but are also coming towards a conclusion. In the case of Foreman, the biggest open question is whether to make it a temporary held or a "regular" permanent rank. Find a bit more about that further below, and after reading that, vote in the poll above!
For Commoner, Eriol is already developing a plugin that will make maintaining Commoner promotions very easy. So far only this much: The promotion process will most likely be similar to how it was way back when Commoner, then called Member, was first introduced: Through voting by other people.
The signs stand very well that 2017 will get a very very interesting year. I'd be happy if as many as possible would join me on this ride and discover all the new things the future will offer together with me!
So, if you've read this far, congratulations, you may ask me ingame to get a free cookie as reward
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