~The MCME Times~ #21/16

Opening statement

Thanks everyone who participated in last week's poll! Definitely something I will do more often if similar questions raise! Of course I will follow your votes; the Beacons will remain lit and I'll add @Wodleth's textures to the Resource Packs. To the additional question by @Ardelenia whether we want to keep the lore-inaccurate Beacons from Halifirien to Edoras: I decided by myself to remove these Beacons in the next few days and replace it with matching stables for the horse messengers at Halifirien, Aldburg and Edoras.
I'd like to emphasize that the question about the Beacons came from @Mandos, and therefore I want to animate everyone of you to question everything and if you feel like something should be changed, message me and tell me about it!
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Whats Up?

Project Progress

Andrast (In Progress) - Lead: @jacenpeter

Wroxxite is off to a good start terraforming the coast of andrast and already has a nice mountain ridge done. While that was going on I was working on finishing up a valley with a small stream between the foothills and the main range.
- Jacenpeter
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Anfalas (In Progress) - Lead: @kisos

@Ivan1pl is continueing, and from what I see on Dynmap, about to wind up the work on the Anfalas rivers. Additionally @Wraith_Knight and @otho worked on the farms along with some jobs in which @TI_20601, @elios2405, @RubenPieterMark, @samgamgee10, @133mc and @KonradSoderlund participated!
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Belfalas (In Progress) - Lead: @Thijs1801

With the valley of Steelmoar and Silverbay coming to an end, @Eriol_Eandur, @Eaglz and I have turned toward the valleys of Goldarce and Rimaer. Eriol is, as usual, terraforming like crazy and has recently done the terrain for Goldarce. Eag and I immediately turned our gaze to it and started planning some stuff. When the terrain around that area is completely finished it will look stunning, that I promise!

Introducing: The Belfalas Belltower Contest! In this contest we're going to build the Belltowers of Belfalas used to communicate to Dol Amroth if there are any dangers near the shores. There has been a change of plan and the contest now consists of 3 stages. Stage 1 is already in progress, namely being the Belltower of Silverbay. Me and the judges will choose finalists Wednesday, and the definitive winner will be chosen on Sunday 5th of June.
- Thijs1801

More information on the Belfalas Contest can be found here: Contest - The Belfalas Belltower Contest!
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Lamedon (In Progress) - Lead: @Eriol_Eandur

No progress this week.
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Misty Mountains (In Progress) - Lead: @Finrod_Amandil

Beside some more smoothing in the Misties I finally hosted the first job for the Gladden Fields! Many a thank-you to @IceBearz, @D3r3k2003, @CowMooMatt, @ImperatorFVV, @Darki190 and @toeyoman for the help and to @Will_em for the support! Many more of these jobs will yet follow, so watch out for these, and if you see me online and want to do something, do not hesitate to ask!

Additionally I started a fairly big project on my own which is recording a timelapse video of the creation of an entire fairly long valley, from the basic WorldPainter mountains all the way to the finished terrain. By now I already have recorded about 2.5 hours of footage, and here's a quick spoiler about how it may look like in the end:

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Tolfalas (In Progress) - Lead: @Tyranystrasz

No progress this week.
A lot of progress behind the scenes in Tyran's WorldMachine, fancy pictures next week!
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Valleys of Celos and Sirith (In Progress) - Lead: @Fireinferno13

No progress this week. Luk will be back from vacation this weekend so we should get the ball rolling soon enough!
- Fireinferno13
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[Public Project] Fennas Drúnin (In Progress) - Lead: @thomasd16

The terrain outside the city walls has been mostly finished now, and right away is now being covered with small farming villages, the detail work inside the town is also making fantastic progress, this week we may especially witness the presence of a new market place! The Artist town is coming along very well, this week shaped by the hands of @thomasd_17 with broad support by @NicTheFifth, @toeyoman, @ReniMarus, @Bengberg and @SmaugJuice.
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Plugin Development

Animation Plugin (In Progress) - Dev: @Ivan1pl

The animation plugin has been resting for a while now, but Ivan has revealed to me his plans for the near future, and that is finishing his rivers in Anfalas as well as fixing all the small things we found in the Plotbuild Plugin still; after that he will pick up the threads for the long-expected Animation Plugin again!
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Plotbuild Plugin (Small fixes in progress) - Devs: @Eriol_Eandur & @Ivan1pl

Eriol has already done his part of the bug fixes, everything that is related to the generation of the plot borders, and Ivan is working on all the other small things while we speak!
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New New Player World (Testing in progress) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur, Assistance: @_Luk

No changes this week.
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Minigames Plugin (Small fixes in progress) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur

The final set of questions (1123 of them) is currently being implemented on the dev server and we'e looking forward for a last testing session of the Minigames Plugin.
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MCME-Architect (Testing in progress) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur

Eriol has updated the plugin named "The Gaffer" to 1.9 which is the plugin that handles build permissions on the server. He also added an option for other plugins to ask The Gaffer whether a certain player has build permissions at a certain location. This makes it possible that all features that so far were intended to be Artist+ only will also be available to all Adventurers, during jobs and Plotbuilds. That means that Adventurers will also have access to the Banner Editor and the Armorstand Editor and if I got Eriol right, Adventurers that join a job in the future will receive Creative gamemode and the Creative mode inventory!

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Resource Packs

Mordor Pack (In Progress) - Lead: @bender400

Bender has selected quite a lot of textures from other resource packs to be added to the Mordor pack, to get a base set of textures to work on. Some of these borrowed textures may eventually get replaced by new ones, and other changes will for sure be made too.
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Alternative Elvish Tools - Creator: @Wodleth

You guys have given a clear opinion on which textures you prefer! So Wodleth's it is! The former golden sword will be replaced for now, but MC 1.9 will have a possibility to have more weapon textures in game than there are weapons; hopefully we can bring that texture back then, and maybe even more!​

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New Texture Madness - Creator: @Despot666

This heap of new textures will be added to the Eriador pack for now. If it would happen that we'd require additional space for other new textures there, we can still replace some of Despot's textures.
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Rank Updates

I am glad that I can announce you another fine lad that has been promoted to the Designer rank: @Wraith_Knight! Congratulations and all the best for your time in green cloak!

The purple cloak however I was able to reward @ImperatorFVV with! Congratulations to you on your promotion to Artist!​

Media of the week

We recently discovered a touring series of the MCME server on Youtube, produced by TanMan321Go, who goes by the name TNTbros2 in Minecraft and I liked them a lot! Here's the first video of his series:
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Other news

Audiobook review

Good guy Faramir, makes two decisions that will theoretically cost him his life - still does not die. Be like Faramir.
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Fanfiction #2: Tall Men with Stars on their Cloak by Bonnie L. Sherrell

A fanfiction about Hobbits someone wished for last week; as you can guess there's a gianormous amount of stories to select from! I have read a few of them and picked a fairly short one depicting a neat small scene from the youth days of Frodo, Merry and Pippin.

Link to the story: Tall Men with Stars on their Cloaks by Larner

What would you like to read next week? Race, length, time, sad or funny? Comment below!​

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Upcoming

Themed Build

Project Build 3 weeks - 1 week left!
Theme: Goblin-town
Resource Pack: Moria / Dwarven
Thread: #15/16 - [Project Build] Goblin-town
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Scheduled Events

Audiobook session 16

Next week we are already going to arrive at the end of Book 4 and thereby at the end of The Two Towers! Can we actually do it and complete the entire LotR trilogy?!

Session is on Saturday, 19:00 BST.
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Jobs & Plotbuilds

Jobs for next Saturday will be announced in this thread over the course of the week. Be sure to ask Designers for jobs at any time, maybe they can offer something!
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Community Outreach

Tours by @NicTheFifth

Nic is leading tours around the server here and then for both new and old members! The next scheduled tour of his will be next Saturday, 18:00 BST (one hours before the Audiobook)!
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Facebook page team change

Since this week its no longer only Tyran and q220 who have access to our Facebook page, but also @Fireinferno13! He is currently on the lookout for new ideas for how to present ourselves on Facebook, so if there's anything you'd like to appear there, please comment below!
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Closing statement

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Like our Planetminecraft page daily to help promoting MCME!​

 

[_Drayz_]

That's a really nice idea of showing the evolution and progress of the valley! Could that be posted on the MCME YouTube channel showing what happens to make areas? Or is that already a plan?

 

[RubenPieterMark]

Again like the story very much, I would like to read a Dwarven story in te next times if thats possible?

 

[samgamgee10]

I haven't been reading the stories mostly because I'm too lazy to wait for the site to load on my cruddy Mac, but then I realized that I could learn much more background lore about the history of Aragorn and all the Rangers through these. Though I agree with Ruben that a dwarven one would be cool for next week

 

[RubenPieterMark]

I haven't been reading the stories mostly because I'm too lazy to wait for the site to load on my cruddy Mac, but then I realized that I could learn much more background lore about the history of Aragorn and all the Rangers through these. Though I agree with Ruben that a dwarven one would be cool for next week

Dont worry this is just the second story.

 

[TheSpeedy_]

This entry of the MCME times has received the Stig's seal of approval:

 

[samgamgee10]

Dont worry this is just the second story.

oh...............

..........................

 

[Potter_Boy_17]

Be like Faramir.

Shot thrice by arrows, still does not die. Who said I needed to obey normal laws about death?!

 

[GeorgeMas]

Awesome story! Thanks for admiring the request!

 

[Ardelenia]

Adventurers that join a job in the future will receive Creative gamemode and the Creative mode inventory!

Why doesn't everyone just have creative mode, for simplicity? Adventurers already have creative in the Moria world, and that works fine, so I don't see why it would be bad for them to have it always, in all worlds. It even solves the (very minor) issue of many new players wanting armor/swords, such that others don't need to give them items or help them get to a different world with creative mode. Furthermore, for the small number of people who still join thinking it's rp/survival, seeing that they're in creative mode will make it clear that it is a building server.

 

[Finrod_Amandil]

Why doesn't everyone just have creative mode, for simplicity? Adventurers already have creative in the Moria world, and that works fine, so I don't see why it would be bad for them to have it always, in all worlds. It even solves the (very minor) issue of many new players wanting armor/swords, such that others don't need to give them items or help them get to a different world with creative mode. Furthermore, for the small number of people who still join thinking it's rp/survival, seeing that they're in creative mode will make it clear that it is a building server.

According to q its a technical reason having to do with the restrictions we object Oathbreakers with. But the thing we're aiming for now is that Adventurers will get Creative mode whenever they are permitted to build and that the switch between the gamemodes is 100% automatical and seamless (e.g. if you enter a plot in survival, flying with /fly you won't stall on entering the plot or leaving it.)