Twenty Sided Server Info

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jan 23, 2011

Filed under: Notices 47 comments

Clint is the curator of the Twenty Sided Minecraft server. The other day I joked that he’d added more features to the game than Minecraft author Notch, but it’s actually sort of true. He’s added mods to our server that allow us to regulate building, build 2D maps, track player statistics, make backups of world data and restore them selectively to clean up after griefers, color chat text, appoint moderators, and a bunch of other things that aren’t part of the core game.

minecraft_map.jpg

This is mostly done through user-made mods, which tend to break when the game is patched. The process of installing mods and making sure they don’t conflict is not a one-time job, but an ongoing process.

The designer used water to make the blue blocks, and then encased the thing in glass to keep water from spilling everywhere.  With the latest patch we’ve gained the ability to dye wool, which means we don’t need to do this sort of thing anymore.  You can just build with blue wool blocks.
The designer used water to make the blue blocks, and then encased the thing in glass to keep water from spilling everywhere. With the latest patch we’ve gained the ability to dye wool, which means we don’t need to do this sort of thing anymore. You can just build with blue wool blocks.

The server is 100% in creative mode: No monsters, no damage, and you can usually get a moderator to give you free stuff if you ask nicely. So if you just really need to make a 100 meter pole of solid diamond block, you don’t need to spend six months mining for the stuff.

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT TREE.  Man, if you cut it down you’d have enough wood to make, I dunno…  A big tree like this one, I guess?
LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT TREE. Man, if you cut it down you’d have enough wood to make, I dunno… A big tree like this one, I guess?

When a major server update happens, he usually takes down the creative server and runs the game in survival mode. There’s no point in trying to play creatively with internet strangers without basic tools like building rights and damage recovery, so we abandon that and fight zombies for a few days until the new plugins are available. A lot of people take a break from the game at this point – not everyone likes survival mode.

My nemesis built this.
My nemesis built this.

Plans are underway for making an alternate Twentymine server that always runs in survival mode. I don’t know what the status of that is, but it sounds interesting. I’ve been playing a lot of single-player survival recently (big post on that tomorrow) and I’m curious to see how people behave when they are trapped in a dirt hut, surrounded by zombies, and free to grief the other survivors.

 


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47 thoughts on “Twenty Sided Server Info

  1. orangeban says:

    Yeah, we’re all looking forward to the survival server right now.

    A note though is that your not free to grief other survivors. We’re yet to decide just how PVP it’ll be (can you steal, kill, destroy structures ect.).

    1. Shamus says:

      I meant “free” in the sense of “able” not “allowed”. It’s a lot easier to kill people and get away with it when you have mobs to do your dirty work for you.

      1. Velkrin says:

        Thus begins the planning phase of the Twenty Sided Gladiatorial Arena.

        Man Vs Beast, two foes locked in mortal combat. The winner gets to take Garrus to the prom.

        1. Jekyll says:

          So the final fight would consist of Mumbles wailing on Rutz while he sings Celine Dion?

          1. Bryan says:

            I can’t decide if I’d pay to see that, or would claw my eyes and ears out if *forced* to experience that.

            So, uh… congratulations, I guess? :-)

            1. Jekyll says:

              :-D Maybe Celine was too strong, it might cause all who watch the spectacle to foam at the mouth and die as opposed to the usual %50 due to heavy pun attacks.

              1. Fat Tony says:

                Rutskatn uses: PUN!
                It was super effective!

                Audience has FLED!

                Rutskarn is evolving!!!

                Your Rutskarn has become Trollskarn!

            2. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of cynical pessimism says:

              I’m betting on that you’d pay to see that and then end up clawing your eyes and earlobes out because you can’t get away from it fast enough by running.

      2. MrWhales says:

        just open up their ceiling while they arent looking! the spiders will take care of the rest….

      3. Kaeltik says:

        House rules will be very important.

        I can’t wait for the Alamo-style zombie fest. I can see turns as the weapon smith/baker/farmer being just as fun as turns engineering the defenses or manning the front lines.

        Not looking forward to the friendly fire, factionalism, griefing, and cheats that will inevitably arise.

    2. Friend of Dragons says:

      I’d like to be able to fight other players… just within a few limitations like making a person’s own structure a sort of safe zone for them in which they’ll be left alone.

      1. Klay F. says:

        Now I’m imagining scenarios where someone’s “house” will cover something likw 20% of the current game world so as to avoid getting ganked.

    3. When survival was up. I buried my stuff after having one home blown apart by creepers and another looted and robbed.

  2. Rosseloh says:

    Looking forward to seeing how that survival server turns out! I haven’t been on the d20 server recently but should probably come back…

  3. Nic says:

    I love the poem that is readable from the map view!

  4. jph330 says:

    Can’t wait for the survival server. I enjoy survival much more than creative, mostly because I don’t have the attention span to build a big monument.

  5. Andy_Panthro says:

    The unofficial GOG minecraft server is now in Survival mode with the latest updates.

    I generally prefer it, since you get that thrill of people working together against a common threat.

    Of course you do get those moments like this afternoon, where I left my newly created tower to find a creeper there to greet me. He promptly blew up, destroying the entrance to my tower. Quite displeasing, as you can imagine.

    I find it too easy to get bored with creative mode, especially once the land (and sometimes sea) is covered with peoples creations. It becomes too safe and easy, and I yearn for the danger again.

    With a Survival game, you can make a nice safe place, but you can always take a trip across the sea and start afresh, regaining that danger. Then make a sky-road between your two settlements!

  6. Friend of Dragons says:

    The survival server is fun, but the last time it was around there was one main problem I had with it: the mobs were so laggy that it was nigh-impossible to kill them in open terrain without losing a sizable chunk of health because half of the attacks that really should have hit them didn’t. Especially the %$#@ spiders.

  7. Zagzag says:

    Shamus, are you planning on looking around the Twentymine server more? I’ve never actually seen you online before, although time zomes almost certainly affect this. How much have you been on?

  8. rofltehcat says:

    I love the pixel art that can only be seen from space, both the final fantasy characters and the pokemon.

    Edit: You guys even got a giant NES! Sweet!

  9. Vipermagi says:

    The biggest issue with setting up the survival server is a lack of response from the hosting company. They don’t seem to have recovered from a DDOS very well. Server’s been lagging more than usual, and they haven’t responded to Clint’s emails yet.

    There’s a fair lot of chatter on the forums about the server. We’ve established a price list for the admin trade shop (prices are pretty steep we hope, so as to encourage trade between players), but aren’t entirely sure how to handle PvP. There’s a few ideas already; ‘one-time’ option of turning PvP on, having it toggleable, having predefined areas with or without PvP (two of those; a scattershot idea, and something ring-based).. Feel free to propose and comment on ideas.
    That and more on the Twentymine forums thread.
    (disclaimer: not all discussion is done over the forums)

  10. Vegedus says:

    This leaves me convinced minecraft IS a MMO. It’s not quite “massively” in the ordinary sense of the word, but the relatively sparse population per server is the only signifigant point where it deviates from other MMOs. Well, that, and that the gameplay is focused on building and mining rather than killing stuff.

    Also, I’ve been playing a lot of singleplayer lately, but I don’t really feel like rejoining the server (I’ve been on just long enough to get diamond tools and make what I believe was one of the first pieces of pixel art on the server). Oddly, my kick from the game seems to come from hoarding materials rather than using them for anything. I’ve been collecting and storing wool, diamond and all that other stuff like a maniac, but I haven’t the foggiest what to do with it.

    1. Ringwraith says:

      The beauty of it is that you don’t have to play multiplayer, it works really well in singleplayer too.
      The fact that you can transport the map files over if you fancy showing your creations off is just gravy.

    2. Mad Flavius says:

      Even cooler, the MMO-ness of Minecraft is about to get even BIGGER. Because an enterprising individual playing with hmod (and now ported to the dev builds of Bukkit) discovered a way to use Notch’s Nether portal concept to build the equivalent of a Stargate system called ServerPort. Basically, by building Nether gates and linking them with some server wrapper code and special signs on the gate, you can jump between linked *servers* while keeping inventory and health persistent between worlds.

      A stargate system. Between Minecraft servers.

      Squee.

      1. Velkrin says:

        I think you mean “Kree”.

        1. Will says:

          The best part is that Notch wanted to do that with nether portals in multiplayer anyway.

      2. Nyaz says:

        …Seriously? That sounds AWESOME.

      3. Vegedus says:

        Awesome. I guess when people get bored they can then spend their time cleaning the nether of Ghasts, Ghostbuster style.

  11. Ringwraith says:

    I may have to jump onto the server at some point and build some stuff like how I spent a lot of yesterday doing this on another server.
    Though I tend to get intimidated from building anything on well-populated servers, I prefer the quieter ones.

    1. Kdansky says:

      Disgaea? I love you!

  12. Ben Munson says:

    I’ve only ever played survival mode, with my brother. At first we just enjoyed outwitting the mobs by building small safe areas. Then we enjoyed figuring out the game mechanics, and after that, exploring for dungeons and rare mines. We did build a few big castles, but that part of the game seemed more of a chore to us than the rest of it. We found that the bits we liked didn’t really scale with the time we spent playing, I would like to know if others found anything similar…

  13. Miral says:

    I just started building something (not terribly exciting though) and then the update hit, so I’m waiting for the server to switch back to creative. Any chance there’ll be an announcement of some kind when that happens (preferably here, but in the forums would work too)? Historically it hasn’t seemed like there’s a good way to find out what state things are in without logging in and hoping there’s a mod online to ask… (or seeing what weird state of destruction things are in)

    Also, for an example of what PvP does to people, I saw some videos of a “Chaos” server set up by the discovr.us crowd that’s full PvP…

    1. Zukhramm says:

      It already is and has been for a couple of days.

  14. Mari says:

    I run a Minecrack server for my two kiddos and myself. Like the Twenty Sided server, we run most of the time in creative mode. But every few weeks we spend the weekend trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. It seems to keep the game fresh for us. And we actually get a kick out of seeing the structures we worked on in previous weeks virtually destroyed by creepers. I’ve seen one of the kids deliberately lead creepers to things she was building hours before. I’ve seen the other one deliberately lead creepers to things her sister was building hours before, too ;-) As you can see, family bonds don’t even pause or slow down good griefing. I think the only reason things I build don’t get griefed is because I have this obsession with building huge, tall structures and then either setting them on fire or dropping lava down them. Apparently flaming death deters the little monsters.

  15. Nemesis? Are you referring to the arch builder (me) or the bridge builder (definitely not me)? I own the admittedly small motte and bailey castle in the back of the arch.

    1. Shamus says:

      It was a Rutskarnian pun.

      “Arch nemesis”

        1. Vanderbane says:

          And here I thought I was the nemesis as bridge-builder. Oh well, I’ll have to build more towers with my name emblazoned on them in hopes of obtaining that status.

  16. March_Wizard says:

    I would look forward to that. I stopped joining the server because it was mostly being used as a creative server, which is basically just the free mode of the game. Not that it’s bad, but I already burned through any sort of creative structure I wanted to build back when creative mode was the only mode. I enjoy making structures now that can survive and farm against the creatures out to get you. Cooperative survival is the feature I was most looking forward too, since that is the main selling point of the game. The free creative version never took off, while the survival mode pay version is the one everyone talks about now. It adds context to otherwise contextless creations.

    So the last thing I built there was that creeper statue next to your Miner Steve statue :D I hope you liked it <.<

  17. TSED says:

    Something completely unrelated: is that 20sided TF2 server still going? I got it on the Christmas Steam sales, and I remember it being called “newb-friendly.” After a few bouts with the offline practice mode, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really, really suck.

    1. Aulayan says:

      It takes a long time to be good at TF2. I’ve been playing on a semi private server for a few weeks now and only have had a couple rounds where I felt I was credit to team.

      But I second his initial question!

  18. Gndwyn says:

    I just want to say thank you for letting people download their own copies of the Twentymine. I’m not really interested in playing multi-player (I’m addicted to the single-player game), but I really enjoy wandering around and being awe-struck at all the stuff other people have built.

    I’ve played a lot of video games that try to wow you with the scenery, with amazing landscapes and huge castles and stuff. That’s one of my favorite things in video games. But I don’t think any game has come close to amazing me as much as just wandering around some of the larger Minecraft multiplayer servers like the Twentymine. You guys are incredible. Thanks.

  19. Ian says:

    Multiplayer survival is incredibly fun. I don’t care much for single player survival because I generally just prefer to mine, craft, and build in that mode, but there’s just something magical about spelunking with a friend and screaming over Skype, “SHIT! CREEPER!” moments before the two of us explode.

    It’s also amazing how quickly you can strip an entire beach down with two people working at it. We had a chest full of glass before we knew it (we’re building a glass tower that goes from bedrock to above the clouds). So much fun.

    Since hMod bit the dust and Bukkit has yet to be released in a final state, we’ve been playing vanilla Minecraft. Considering how often we cheat* and the number of people that know how to actually reach my server (two, including me) the lack of extra features isn’t too bad.

    *We “cheated” twice. The first time was when I got blown up by invisible creepers and my items disappeared…fun. Believe me, I wasn’t about to build another diamond pickaxe and shovel because the game neglected to draw enemies on my client. The second time when we decided to celebrate the decommissioning of our “hobbit house” — a settlement built into a grassy hill — by stuffing it with TNT and lighting a fuse. We dubbed it the “hobbit crater” after that.

    1. Ian says:

      AND THERE’S MORE.

      I think the beauty about Minecraft is that it’s several games in one without really trying to be that way. You have the exploration aspect, which is pretty obvious. You don’t even have to make a pickaxe to explore vast cave systems. You can build structures, from simple settlements to nice houses to elaborate castles. In multiplayer, you can work as a dedicated craftsman and craft items for others players. In survival you can be a monster hunter, adorned in sparkling diamond armor, besting foes with your sword and bow skills. In survival multiplayer you can keep enemies off of your mining and crafting friends.

      And, on top of this, you get a fantastic LEGO-esque platform in which to unleash your creativity. It’s very exciting to see where the game goes from here. Aside from a general lack of polish (occasional lag issues on high-end machines, lack of tutorials, etc) it’s kind of hard to believe that it just made it to beta recently.

      Best ~$15 (after currency exchange) I ever spent.

  20. aaron says:

    i always play peaceful on survival alone. i used to actually search for the resources but that got boring, so i downloaded mcedit and got chests full of everything in the game. now im actually having more fun than ever before. its not quite the same though since there is no need to explore caves and such. im stil constantly entertained by messing with minecart tracks and redstone. i highly reccomend mcedit not only for “cheating” but also saving your prized creations and importing them into another map. really shamus, you should try it.

  21. M the cheddar Monk says:

    If I can join, and you can build things in mid-air, I know what my first project would be: a Mass Relay. I know how i’d do it, too; I’m also interested in doing the Citadel, but that seems a bit more… complicated. Once I get Minecraft I’ll be sure to try and join, although since I have no reputation and multiple aliases I doubt you’ll let a loser like me in.

  22. sidslothh says:

    hi im looking for a server were i can build and mine ore without having someone destroy my progress was wondering if you were able to help me out

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