[This article would replace the article currently known as ‘Empire Updates’. What I have is the best I can get out of my sources, including the News and Updates forums, and archive.org snapshots of the Empire Guide. The oldies of the Team will be able to correct and add what I’ve missed, and we could maybe make it into a table like they have on the Minecraft Wiki.] Empire Minecraft is one of the few Minecraft servers out there which writes almost all of its plugins from scratch. Over the years, the project has grown and grown, and today, the code comprising EMC is massive. There are currently 4 developers who contribute to the EMC project. - Aikar, the Lead Developer, the longest serving. Also an Administrator. - Hatorijr - PirateOfDW - just_five_fun There is also one former developer, JustinGuy, also the founder of EMC. The list of updates is as follows, in descending order beginning with most recent. Entries in green indicate major updates, most others are bug fixes and small additions. - 1st March 2014 - Player settings [green, bold] - Ability to customise whether one drops their head upon natural death - Ability to customise whether one drops their head upon death in PvP - Ability to turn chat notifications on and off - Settings can be server specific or can apply to all servers - Misc changes [bold] - Voting is now friendlier for keeping and increasing vote streak - Issues where bonus was missed due to server timezone alignment fixed - Older players no longer get the new player signs on new residences - Forceclaims now free for players under 3 hours old - Shop activity notifications now work across servers - Unprovoked minibosses will no longer attack players - 26TH February 2014 - When you die during PvP, your head is now placed in your inventory, instead of being dropped on the floor - ‘buff’ and ‘itemuse’ flag now affects residence owner and admins - Colour on chat messages will no longer be white on next line - Links in chat can be clicked again - Names are highlighted in red again - Moderators no longer hear a chime sound for sending a message to Moderator Chat - 23rd February 2014 - Clicking on a player name for a chat message now starts a private conversation with that user - Clicking on a channel letter (T beside name) switches to that channel - New players finishing tutorial now automatically claim a residence, and get a few helpful signs on the Residence - Fixed Fire Aspect and Thorns in the static damage fair PvP arenas - Relaxed chat filter to more easily allow duplicate messages - 22nd February 2014 - Usage of 1.7 rich chat messages [this would be in bold to indicate a subheading] - On death in PvP arenas, the name of the killer’s weapon can now be hovered over to reveal a tooltip describing the item - Mail you received now lists each item received, and can be hovered over to see the item’s tooltip - Additional residence flags [bold] - ‘buff’ flag added, determining whether players are allowed to have any form of buff on one’s residence - ‘itemuse’ flag added, determining whether players are allowed to use any form of items on one’s residence - Misc changes [bold] - Items sent to you by the system (for example, through mail or the PvP arenas) that are dropped onto the ground because your inventory is full are now protected and cannot be picked up by other players - Item despawn time has been increased from the 5 minutes in vanilla Minecraft to 15 minutes - View distance in town reduced from 5 to 4 for performance - View distance in the wild reduced from 6 to 7 for performance - Purchasing items from [slot] chests will now pull from other slots before the target slot, even for slot 1 - Groups now have a /group pvp toggle to toggle damaging each other in the PvP arenas - Name alerts and highlights are now case insensitive, and work even for lowercase - Fixed a bug with the server display on /p - /r pay now notifies you even when you are not on the same server as the person sending the funds - Removed some rendundant /res set messages - 19th February 2014 - PvP [bold, green] - 4 unique PvP arenas added, at /v pvp in SMP6 Town - Item dropping and durability damage disabled, respawning at arena entrance on death (though consumables are consumed) - Open 24/7, staff not needed - Improved voting [bold] - Rupee bonus intervals now occur more frequently - Items added to voting rewards, including Diamonds, Emeralds, Vault and Stable Vouchers, unbreakable named Voter’s Armour, and ‘one other collector’s item’ - TopG bonus increased to 300r - Voting now notifies you of reward in-game, displays bonus - Tutorial can no longer be skipped [bold] - Misc changes [bold] - Website registration now mandatory after 5 days on the Empire, can be reverted - Clicking on a slot purchase sign, then a different sign no longer buys, instead prompts a new confirmation - Horse flag will now correctly prevent horses from entering a residence - Residence permission errors reduced to prevent spam - February 14th 2014 - Empire Mail [bold, green] - Items can now be transferred from player to player using /mail send [recipient] [subject] while in Town - Sending books is free, every other item slot used to send costs 50r each - /help mail lists Mail-related commands - Misc changes [bold] - Admin flag now lets you control the tags of a residence - The use of residence locations on RTS signs has been fixed - Feature signs can now be activated by entering nether portals - Copying flags added, allowing you to copy one player’s set of flags to another, using /res pcopy (player being copied from) (player being copied to) - Fireworks now drop from droppers, instead of fire - February 11th 2014 - Admin flag [bold, green] - New flag ‘admin’ added, allowing players to give all flags to someone plus the ability to change flags (except for admin) - Locations for Residences [bold, green] - Players can now set locations on their residences which they can directly teleport to using /res loc set [name] to set a location and /home [name] to teleport to a location - BungeeCord now has a dedicated server, can restart itself in the event of a crash [bold] - Misc changes [bold] - Admin team re-labelled to better describe specific roles - Developer title added - Players are now unable to bypass build perms to complete half slabs - Tags will be cleared when a residence is reset or unclaimed - Lowered the drop rates of animal heads - Lowered the effect of Looting on mob heads - Custom monsters now ignore minecarts - Momentus now draws in even after he passes the maximum age for Enraged spawns - Banned users’ residences can now be moved onto - Igniting blocks on residences now properly requires ignite instead of firespread - Users using /register no longer cause server crashes - Dynmap optimised to cause reduced lag - 31st January 2014 - All players can now use /map hide [bold, green] - Misc updates [bold] - Ability to mass farm minibosses removed - Netherhounds now able to move again - Looting now affects custom EMC drops - Items now properly stack when picked up - Arrows now despawn again - 29th January 2014 - Dragon Stone Fragments added [bold, green] - Fragments will be necessary to enter a Dragon Tomb when released - Misc changes [bold] - Empire Tips improved, new players now get them more frequently - Forceclaiming without being on the target residence added - Added teleporting directly to Wastelands and Frontier outposts - Pig heads added - New Spigot features to reduce lag implemented - 16th January 2014 - Post-tutorial guidance for new players [bold, green] - Upon leaving tutorial, players are now guided when opening a residence - Upon claiming a residence, players are now told to equip armour and go to the Wastelands - Upon entering Wastelands, players are told to get back using a link to the livemap - Upon arriving back, players are told to set up a shop with instructions on the Wiki - /help shop added for shop help - New players who teleport to a different residence in town are given a tip, telling them to use /home to return - Signs added to tutorial spawn informing them that EMC is no PvP and chat is PG-13 - 10th January 2014 - Support for adding multiple flags to multiple people added [bold] - e.g. /res pset Aikar,Maxarias,Bigdavie build,container,use,move true now gives Aikar, Maxarias and Bigdavie the build, container, use and move flags - Tutorial improvements [bold] - Players now given a ‘Getting Started’ book upon joining - Tutorial entrance improved - Chat filter improvements [bold] - Filter now blocks repeated messages where only punctuation and spacing is different - When you trigger the chat filter, a message now informs you, though not if you are under 12 hours old on EMC - Misc changes [bold] - Changed residence message to inform players under 10 days old that their residence will be derelict if they fail to return in 10 days, or 30 days if they’re over 10 days old - Dereliction will also be adjusted to this logic - If a server has no free residences, and a player types /v open, they will be directed to /server to find a server with free residences - Momentus HP reduced and damage cap increased - Poppies can now be sold as ‘Rose’ or ‘Poppy’, /iteminfo says ‘Poppy’ by default - Players who join after a long period of time no longer have ‘last seen never ago’ affixed to their name on the join message in chat - Witches now harm players - Typing your referral during /register should work now - Entity limiter is now more accurate - Group rejoin now works correctly - All Wasteland portals should work now - More conditions now allow for custom drops - January 8th 2014 - Automatic crash restarting [bold] - All servers will now be automatically restarted if they crash every 5 minutes - December 11th 2013 - Empire Minecraft updated to Minecraft 1.7.2 [bold, green] - December 9th 2013 - A single address can now be used to join EMC, all servers are now linked with a /server command [bold, green] - November 12th 2013 - Residences can now be tagged for easier access, use /res tag add (tagname) [bold] - In-game registration improved [bold] - The game will now remind you to join the forums after 24 hours on the Empire - /register command added for ingame registration - /forumpass command added to remind you of your /register-generated password - November 11th 2013 - Tutorial can now be skipped, this change can be reverted [bold] - November 8th 2013 - Chat improvements [bold] - New notification sound added when you receive a private message - A new /dnd command has been added to toggle ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode - /away added, enabling an AFK mode to inform those messaging you that you are away -/res message default added to default messages - September 29th 2013 - New tutorial added [bold, green] - August 13th 2013 - Survival Update improvements [bold] - Enraged mobs which spawn around Momentuses no longer spawn unless player is in their draw-in range - Marlix will now draw you in if attacked from a distance he can’t attack you back from - Lengthened the duration on some of the Zombie Virus’ negative effects - Marlix spawn rate has been improved - Marlix respawn rate has been reduced - Imrpoved Marlixes’ drop rates - Removed 1.6 difficulty scaling based on how long a player has been in a chunk - Misc changes [bold] - Voting now resets the derelict timer on your residence(s) - Voting info added to /p - Horse name tags now only show on hover - Eggifying a horse now automatically clears its inventory - Momentus cannot draw you in if you are in a protected area - Crashing glitch fixed - Golems are now correctly blocked in town - July 26th 2013 - Empire Minecraft has updated to Minecraft 1.6 [bold, green] - Horse Update [bold, green] - ‘Horse’ flag added, determining whether people can ride horses on your residence - ‘Eggify’ flag added, determining whether people can eggify on your residence - ‘animaldamage’ flag added, determining whether people can damage animals on your residence - ‘Build’ flag now required to name animals on your residence - When horses are tamed, they are now protected and linked to you as its owner, meaning flags are required for other people to use it - Not going near a horse for 15 days unlinks you and the horse - ‘Stables’ added, allowing you to store and summon horses you own and take them across servers, while maintaining their stats and armour which would be lost upon eggifying - Free players get 1 Stable, Iron gets 2, Gold gets 3, Diamond gets 5, Stable Vouchers can be used regardless of supporter level to increase Stables to a maximum of 10 - July 5th 2013 - /shop now includes items introduced in Minecraft 1.5 as well as enchanted books [bold] - July 3rd 2013 - Forceclaiming introduced [bold] - Derelict time bumped to 15 days - June 26th 2013 - Additions to Groups Update [bold] - Groups now give bonus XP when involved in XP giving activities and automatically share between all group members, can be toggled with /group xpshare - Groups now give buffs depending on the activity they are doing - Group stats now available via /group score - June 23rd 2013 - Groups Update [bold, green] - Players can now create temporary Groups with people from the same server by inviting someone using /invite - Players can chat to others in the same group using /ch g, even if some members are in different worlds - You remain in a Group until you are kicked or leave, joining EMC again within 5 minutes automatically rejoins the group - June 21st 2013 - Additions to Survival Update [bold] - Enraged Creeper added - Tweaks to survival update - June 18th 2013 - Survival Update [bold, green] - Non-Town worlds switched to Normal difficulty - 3 Enraged Mobs added, the Enraged Skeleton, Enraged Zombie, and the Netherhound (Enraged Wolf) - 2 Minibosses added, the Marlix (a flying Skeleton) and the Momentus (a Giant) - 11 custom drops added, including 4 pieces of Marlix armour, a Marlix Bow, Momentus’s Toothpick, the Zombie Virus, Shiny Arrow and Shiny Flesh, Player Heads and Mob Heads - May 21st 2013 - Voting update [bold] - Four new sites added to the voting list on the site - Ender Crystals added [bold] - Owners of an Original Dragon Egg are now able to place Ender Crystals on their residence - Voting improvements [bold] - Time to lose your voting streak bumped to 30 hours - You will no longer lose your whole voting streak at once, only 4 days for the first day you miss and 2 days for each day thereafter - May 19th 2013 - Wastelands worlds added [bold, green] - Each server now has a Wastelands Wild and a Wastelands Nether, alongside what is now known as a Frontier Wild and a Frontier Nether - Wastelands has its own spawn, procedurally placed in the world every reset - May 3rd 2013 - Empire Minecraft has been updated to Minecraft 1.5.2 [bold, green] - March 31st 2013 - Empire Minecraft Tracker launched [bold, green] - track.empire.us can now be used to access an issue tracker for users to view - Small team established to curate the tracker - Flags update [bold] - 16 new flags added, relating to boats, minecarts, enderpearls, shears, fireworks, anvil use, villagers and animals - March 23rd 2013 - Empire Minecraft has been updated to Minecraft 1.5.1 [bold, green] - February 22nd 2013 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed issues where arrows not firing correctly - Fixed issues with item frames randomly falling off - Fixed issues with paintings being really weird - Fixed issues with Ghast being able to attack you while out of visible range - February 21st 2013 - Misc changes [bold] - Supporters and staff now have colored name tags in-game - Entity limiter will no longer kill mobs that have picked up players items. - More performance changes - should no longer lag spike anymore - Entity Range change, lowered the distance players can see entities - Shop world should no longer lag anyones client - February 14th 2013 - Empire Shop Update [bold, green] - New shop released, can be accessed via /shop or town portals - Old shop has been removed - Other activation improvements to ensure no impact to gameplay - Not having a move flag on a Residence will no longer block all actions - Town will now receive broadcasts when a player has finished the last question of the tutorial so players can now go to greet the new player when they exit - Bats are now spawnable in town from Spawn Eggs bought in /shop - Bats and Squids will no longer despawn in town - February 12th 2013 - Misc changes [bold] - Move flag optimizations for Residence - Move on a residence now puts you back a few blocks before you stepped on it, instead of teleporting you to some other location - Enderpearls will no longer allow you on residences where you do not have move flag - Preparing for the shop update, deployed world so we can configure it - Performance optimizations to Residence - Local chat in town has been expanded from 100 blocks to 128. - Local chat in the wild has been expanded from 100 blocks to 512 blocks - Ocelots will no longer potentially spawn 3 ocelots (This was not a bug, as it is desired vanilla behavior, but due to us having egging, it had to be altered) - World View Distance increased to 7 for all worlds for better visuals. - Entity activation range for animals reduced to 16 to compensate for better view-distance - Firespread is now default off for new residences and /res default including town roads - Wither will now never be killed by Entity Limiter auto kill - February 1st 2013 - Vault Update [bold, green] - Multiple Vault pages can now be bought using /vault expand, free players are limited to 2 pages, Iron to 5, Gold to 25, and Diamond to 50 - Vault pages now nameable, and can be accessed as such - Once you have 5 Vault pages, Vault is free to access - Vault can store every item, including books, renamed items, and new items - January 19th 2013 - Forum changes [bold] - Events and Contests Forum created - January 17th 2013 - Diamond Supporters can now fly while in Utopia Town [bold] - Referrals bumped to 2,000r per player referred, from 500r [bold] - January 1st 2013 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed some bugs in Bukkit and random bugs in Empire code - Entity Limiter autokill will kill monsters before animals - Fixed counting bug in Entity Limiter for the wild - Fixed bug in Entity Limiter causing lag - December 22nd 2012 - Empire Minecraft has updated to Minecraft 1.4.6 [bold, green] - Misc changes [bold] - Fireworks can be used infinitely - Major code rewrite, where every major point of code was modified for a large performance improvement - Many bugs from the rewrite were found and fixed immediately after release - ChestShop can now sell 3 enchanted items - ChestShop now has [slot #] feature to sell special items like Written Books - December 2nd 2012 - Major performance boost, using new technology and other improvements - Large boost to voting rewards and supported sites - November 25th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - More 1.4.5 updates - Wood buttons now protected - Glitch that gave infinite use spawn eggs fixed, previously glitched eggs now automatically fix themselves - Anvils now have uncapped levels - November 17th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed animal egg duplication exploit - Fixed boats being able to knock down item frames - Most other major bugs now fixed - November 15th 2012 - Empire Minecraft updated to Minecraft 1.4.5 (also works with 1.4.4) [bold, green] - November 1st 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Updates and bug fixes to 1.4.2. - October 31st 2012 - Empire Minecraft has updated to Minecraft 1.4.2 [bold, green] - October 10th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Optimisation to reduce lag - Added a new plugin to reduce lag - Added new /qm shortcut to @, so now @t message will send a message to town chat - September 29th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Bukkit upgrade implemented - September 23rd 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Server no longer need reboots - Fixed issues with the rate crops grow - September 21st 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Added death messages to show to nearby players! Can be turned off by turning status (join/leaves) off. - Attempted fix on the XP display when respawning - Server update to hopefully fix lag issues and stop reboots - September 13th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed chunk rollback problem - September 11th 2012 - Entity limiting [bold] - The system will now automatically remove animals from a group larger than a certain limit - Monsters will now only spawn within 4 chunks of a player - Players can no longer throw chicken eggs or use spawn eggs on residences they don’t have build flag on - ‘breed’ flag added to determine whether a player is permitted to breed animals on your residence - /entcount added to give a report of the entities in a residence or entity area - August 30th 2012 - Residence Chat [bold] - Added the Residence Channel, which broadcasts messages to everyone within the residence you’re on, accessible via /ch r - July 4th 2012 - Supporters can now set their wild respawn point by right-clicking any bed at any time of day [bold] - April 24th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Improved the database - April 22nd 2012 - Chat update [bold] - Chat settings are now cross server, meaning ignoring someone works across all servers - /ignore now completely ignores the player, including leaving and joining messages - Fixed a bug where people could get around being ignored with private messages -New feature, /chat status [on/off], to determine if you see players join or leave, complete the tutorial or get banned or kicked - /reply added, to send a pm to the last player that sent you one - /c, a new alias for /chat - A new shortcut, @, which works the same as /tell - A new shortcut, @@, identical to /reply - Fixed a bug where people who are a very large distance into the wild could chat to anyone else in the Wild - Improved performance of the chat system - If you are in a private conversation, you no longer are booted from it when the player disconnects - You can no longer ignore a player who does not exist on EMC - If you are a supporter, you are now automatically in the supporter channel - Improved /chat who, so that it is a true list of who will hear your messages - You can no longer leave or join channels - /leave causes the player to leave a private conversation - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed a bug reducing performance in the Residence system - April 19th 2012 - Started beta on Utopia for upcoming chat updates - April 15th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Applied some performance improvements - Removed the natural spawning of villagers with doors for now - April 13th 2012 - Site changes [bold] - Changed the server list on sidebar of main page to take up less room - Added new Partners & Friends section to homepage sidebar - April 10th 2012 - Site changes [bold] - Empire.us now works as a domain - Changed server list so it show the newest on top - April 4th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Empire Minecraft has updated to Minecraft 1.2.5 [bold, green] - March 30th 2012 - Diamond supporters can now claim 4 residences [bold] - Added RTS to the Empire Guide - March 29th 2012 - Residential Teleportation System [bold, green] - Using the command /res tpsign, a sign, a block and a pressure plate, you can now create a teleporter to other locations on your res, or to other residences - Misc changes [bold] - Upgraded to latest stable CraftBukkit - Added initial code for future updates - Senior staff can now /res default for a player - Fixed staff /goto command dropping out of the sky if no Y was specified - Fixed losing blocks when trying to spawn a iron or snow golem in Town - Fixed iron golems spawning in Town (they were not supposed to) - March 28th 2012 - Site changes [bold] - Made improvements to the front page "featured" posts so that you are not stuck to a certain thumbnail. - March 26th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Turned off the temporary world reset perks, including free vault, wilderness vault, and free eggification - Updated to newest livemap to support new block types - March 24th 2012 - Empire Minecraft has updated to Minecraft 1.2.4 [bold, green] - Added support for the new Wooden Planks and Sandstone types to shops - March 22nd 2012 - The resets [bold, green] - Reset Wilderness, Nether, and the End on all SMP servers - March 20th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Implemented a new set of performance tweaks to help with server lag caused by 1.2. - Added missing BB Code to the site help. - March 11th 2012 - Launch of SMP7 [bold, green] - Launched a new server, SMP7 - March 10th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Changed it so you can now eggify baby animals - Fixed the idle kick so it only kicks if current players > max players - 5 (won't kick you anymore if the server is not full) - Fixed residence resets so it doesn't reset into another players residence above height 127 - Fixed nether bug where you would get stuck above bedrock under certain circumstances - Added new world gen plugin to pre-generate chunks - Fixed an error where bedrock was deleted on res reset (another reset will fix it) - Fixed a bug where it warned you when removing build perms (like you had added permission) - Added some missing items to shops (such as ferns). - March 7th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Added new command /fun for smp3 - Utopia players can now set beds as spawn location by right clicking - Fixed colored signs - Added a warning note when you are replying to a forum thread that has been inactive for over 30 days - March 5th 2012 - Empire Minecraft has updated to Minecraft 1.2.3 [bold, green] - Removed the ability to open a shop chest by clicking on the sign - Changed /purchase vault to /vault - Temporarily disabled vault while we are upgrading servers to prevent people trying to take Minecraft 1.2 items into Minecraft 1.1 servers - Temporarily disabled fire charge usage both by right clicking and shooting from a dispenser - Hardware upgrade for SMP1-4 [bold] - March 2nd 2012 - Added initial system to detect invalid emails and show a message to the user next time they are on the site - March 1st 2012 - Changed eggification to need the build flag instead of the use flag - Fixed an eggification bug involving multiple clicks - Updated Empire Guide mistakes and grammar errors - Added Eggification section to Guide, removed purchases section - Removed the recommended server for new players from top of site and top of guide, it didn't really make sense anymore - February 29th 2012 - Eggification [bold, green] - Right clicking an animal or villager with a stick turns it into a Spawn Egg - /purchase animal command removed - February 23rd 2012 - Rupees update [bold] - Rupees can now be bought for a donation of real world money - February 20th 2012 - Implemented a new system where players can report trouble makers. Details in a news thread. - Added IP logging to Square, can now track players causing trouble with multiple accounts. - Fixed login issue that was causing XP to reset if you joined a server twice. - February 15th 2012 - Launch of SMP6 [bold, green] - A new server, SMP6, has been launched - Misc changes [bold] - Bukkit merge into EMC platform [bold] - TNT can no longer be used by non-diamond supporters through exploit - Splash potions that are damaging can no longer be used on other players - You can no longer add a slab to stone slabs that are not in your residence - February 14th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Pre-launch of smp6 to Diamond supporters - Fixed a bug where calculating ranks for TEXP was causing sluggish load times. - February 13th 2012 - XP Update [bold, green] - Experience points are now cross-server - You no longer lose XP upon death - TEXP leaderboards introduced, keeping track of the total XP acquired on a monthly and lifetime basis - Misc changes [bold] - Dragon Eggs no longer teleport when clicked - Changed the timer so you can reset or unclaim once every hour, rather than once every 24 hours - Added rupees balance and TEXP to the ‘Signed in as’ box on the top of the sidebar - Added TEXP to the member views - February 11th 2012 - Site changes [bold] - You can now use your Minecraft skin as your avatar - February 10th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Added birthday page to members section on site. - February 6th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed access signs not being usable in protected areas outside of Town (like Nether Spleef on smp1). - Added support for a new staff group for non moderator staff members - Change Senior Moderator title to Senior Staff - Fixed an error when trying to ban or kick a player with special characters - February 4th 2012 - Access and shop sign changes [bold] - Fixed the behavior of access signs so they act like locked signs - Old access signs that don't have "[ ACCESS ]" on the top line will no longer work. TO fix it just remove the sign and make a new one (the system automatically changes it to "[ ACCESS ]" since a few releases ago). - Charcoal can now be sold in shops - February 3rd 2012 - Server migration [bold] - Migrated all servers to new EMC platform - February 2nd 2012 - Launch of SMP5 [bold, green] - Launched a new server, SMP5 - Misc changes [bold] - Released the next generation of the EMC platform, currently only smp5 is running on this platform, others will be migrated shortly. - January 28th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Small bug fixes and Bukkit update - Added a bunch of logs to Square - January 25th 2012 - Square Moderation Suite release [bold, green] - Initial release of the new staff tools, named "Square" - Square allows access to logs, easier player management and live dashboards - January 14th 2012 - Empire Minecraft has been updated to Minecraft 1.1 [bold, green] - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed some bugs related to Minecraft 1.1 and nether portals - January 6th 2012 - Guide changes [bold] - Some Empire Guide updates including a new section on locking items - January 5th 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Increased the confirm delay for a residence reset or reclaim to 20 seconds from 10 - Fixed the nasty bug that would kill you if you tried to teleport inside a boat or minecart - Changed it so you have to have both build AND container flags to place an [ ACCESS ] sign in a residence. - Added a new "Periodic Reset Area" (yellow border) to the live map to show the area we reset from time to time. - Fixed the bug where you would be kicked by MC with a message about hacking when entering a residence you don't have move permission in. - Added the ability to lock chests and other items outside town by placing a sign directly above it with the first line "lock" - January 4th 2012 - Slot increase test [bold] - The number of slots on SMP1 has been increased from 45 to 60 as a test - Site change [bold] - Fixed a Firefox 9 bug where you couldn’t post new forum threads or start private conversations - January 3rd 2012 - Misc changes [bold] - Multiple performance improvements and bug fixes for the livemap - Changed open res color to orange instead of blue - Increased max connections to live map, added a 30 minute inactive auto close - January 1st 2012 - Chat changes [bold] - Fixed bug where TNT didn't work for Diamond supporters - HUGE chat changes. Only local chat (100 blocks radius) in the Wilderness and Nether now - Renamed Global channel to Town and changed its color to red (to match Towns color). - Improved some of the messaging with chat commands. - Improved /chat who, so that is actually shows who is listening on your channel (including if they are in range for local chat). - Added /chat because it is easier to remember (and makes more sense) than /ch (but /ch will still work). - Added new in-game command: /help channels - Added the ability to turn off the random tips with /tip off - Added new automated spammer ban system - Added current world to /pinfo if they are connected to the same server. - Added red messages that warns you when you give build permissions to a residence - December 30th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added a new random tip system that will display a random tip every 20 minutes. You can also get a random tip with /tip - Fall damage remove on entire Utopia server - Hunger damage removed on entire Utopia server - Gold supporters can now have 2 residences in the Empire - Diamond supporters can now have 3 residences in the Empire - Gold supporters can now claim a Utopia lot if they wish - Fixed a bug where Diamond supporters could not claim a residence after unclaiming one - Various small fixes with memory management - December 28th 2011 - New Forum [bold] - Added a new forum called Community Marketplace for advertising in-game shops and services - December 27th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Vault now supports enchanted items - You can now sell enchanted items in chest shops, use /iteminfo and put the ID it gives you on the last line of the sign - Improved potion selling in chest shops, to sell potions use /iteminfo and put the ID it gives you on the last line of the sign - Added a confirmation prompt with information when buying enchanted items or potions - Lots of various chest shop updates and bug fixes. - Improved the chest shop /iteminfo command. - You can now buy squids with /purchase - December 20th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added another website to vote on for another 50r - Fixed staff online box to show moderators - December 19th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed a bug relating to TNT for Staff - New players now have to join the website and see the guide before they can even sign into an Empire serve - December 18th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Some site fixes, mainly for users of Internet Explorer - Cleaned up the homepage so it looks cleaner - December 16th 2011 - New supporter perks [bold] - Gold and Diamond Supporters can now customise the message displayed when players enter and leave their residence(s) - Diamond Supporters can now use TNT everywhere, including Town following an enabling process - Misc changes [bold] - Improved some sections in the Guide - December 15th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Upgraded to official Bukkit release, fixing lots of bugs such as XP not being displayed properly and ender pearl throwing - Fixed a bug with residence [access] signs if the username was longer than 15 characters, from now on you just put the first 15 characters of the username. - Gold and Diamond Supporters can now customize the enter and leave messages to their residence(s) - There is a bug in Minecraft where you can get stuck above the bedrock in the Nether. If this happens you can now use /town to get out. - Added the ability to use "FREE" for buy or sell price on shop signs. - Improved the error checking when placing a shop sign (mostly on validating the cost). - Fixed Ghasts not doing damage in the nether. - Added new Diamond Supporters perk, they can now use TNT including in Town (Diamond supporters see the supporters forums for how to enable it in your res). - Fixed a bug where a players group would not change when they upgraded (or downgraded) to a supporter until they disconnected and reconnected. - December 13th 2011 - Second voting site added [bold] - December 12th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Disabled Ender Pearls because of a duplication glitch - December 11th 2011 - Rupees Update [bold, green] - Rewrote the rupees system from scratch - Rupees no longer support fractions and those shop signs will stop working. - Added new section on site to view rupee account history. - Added the alias /r for /rupees - Remove the /rupees top and /rupees rank - Added system to support giving away rupees for promotions - Fixed a bug in player chest shops were someone with build permission could make a store on your lot, but the owner could not remove the sign. - Site changes [bold] - Signatures now have a maximum size of 150 pixels - December 10th 2011 - Changed MySQL replication to add new slave for website to leverage game server data quicker (in preparation for other updates). - December 4th 2011 - Launch of SMP3 [bold, green] - Launched a new server, SMP3 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed logos on bottom left of Live Maps and added the server name to it - Updated the new user tutorial questions - Changed new user tutorial rewards to give stone instead of iron tools - December 2nd 2011 - Residence updates [bold] - Individual buttons, doors, chests, and other containers and devices can now have access restricted using signs - Residences can now be reset and unclaimed - December 1st 2011 - First voting sites added [bold, green] - Added the ability to vote for EMC on Minecraft server lists to earn rupees - One site available to vote on MCSL - Misc updates [bold] - Added new 1.0 items to the store (smp1 now, will move to others shortly) - Updates to the Live Map to fix 1.0 problems - Added a warning about the derelict policy that is shown when you claim a res. - Fixed a bug where you could still kill animals with arrows on a res you don't have "build" on. - Fixed a bug where senior staff could not TP to a Residence where move was false. - Teleporting to a residence where the TP location is inside of blocks will now be fixed. The teleport location will be moved up until it finds a safe spot. - When a residence is reset it will now clean any blocks that are overhanging the streets (like trees). - Added that ability to grant access to a single door, chest, button, lever, etc for everyone or a single player by using signs (see separate news post). - Added the ability to reset your own res. - Added the ability to unclaim your own res. - Cleaned up a bunch of the permission denied messages in residence so they make more sense. - Fixed the random patches of dirt that are sometimes left behind after a residence reset. - November 29th 2011 - Animal Update [bold] - You can now purchase animals with /purchase, at a price of 350r each - You now need a residence’s build flag to kill animals on it - Tamed wolves are no longer treated like players - Using shears on animals in Town requires that you have the use flag in that residence - Cows will now spawn in town - Misc changes [bold] - Changed members section on site so it is sorted by last activity - Added new Staff tab in Members section - November 28th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added better names for some of the 1.0 items (for store) - Upgraded latest code from Bukkit, should fix doors glitch - You can now purchase animals with /purchase, for 500 rupees each, they will spawn where you are standing - Killing animals in Town requires that you have the build flag in that residence. - Tamed wolves are no longer treated like players - Using shears in Town requires that you have the use flag in that residence. - Thrown eggs now spawn baby chickens - Cows will now spawn in Town - Fixed some residence bugs that effected administrators - November 26th 2011 - Launch of Utopia server [bold, green] - A new server for supporters, Utopia, has been added - Will replace the old Utopia world on SMP1 - Misc changes [bold] - Improved the residence derelict system to make mass reclaiming of derelict residences easier for staff - November 25th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added new /park that works on smp2 to go the new Empire park - Brewing Stands are now protected under the container flag in residences - Enchantment Tables are now protected under the use flag in residences - Cauldrons are now protected under the use flag in residences - Jukeboxes are now protected under the container flag in residences - Changed the color of /purchase info descriptions from white to blue - Removed old sign-in message about worlds resetting - November 23rd 2011 - Empire Minecraft has been updated to Minecraft 1.0 [bold, green] - Every SMP server now has one "normal" world called "wilderness" - Changed /town so that it takes you to the Town spawn, and to get help on Town commands you now use /help town - Added /wild that works just like /wilderness - Added support for new type of server "Utopia" - Added new /vault command for free vault access in Utopia - Added new secondary group feature to prepare for chat mod privileges - Tweaked the idle kicker to prevent a rare case where someone would TP to their res exactly on both checks and get kicked. - Tweaked the idle kicker so that when you are chatting you will not be kicked. - Changed countdown to be every minute for shutdown or restart. - Added new /res default command that resets all your flags (permissions) back to defaults. - Disabled TNT server wide on every server. - Rotated live map so that north is still up (the directions changed in MC 1.0). - Improved the Live Map quality and added the ability to zoom out further. - November 21st 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Updated the guide to have a section about the livemap - Technical work with the dev bukkit build for 1.0 - November 19th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Updated the servers section on the site to add more info to the server detail page - Added a small server list on the right of the homepage - November 13th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added a new idle kick system that kicks players who have been idle for at least 10 minutes - November 12th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Updated the servers section on the site so you can get more details, such as who is currently online - November 11th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Implemented a new EMC API to support the new servers section on the site. - Added the new servers section on the site - November 10th 2011 - Arenas shutdown [bold] - Empire Arenas server has been shut down to free up resources - November 9th 2011 - Launch of SMP2 [bold, green] - Launched a new server, SMP2 - Misc changes [bold] - Added the ability to see who is on another server, such as /who smp2 - Fixed a bug where the countdown timer to next day (on sign-in) would never go below one hour. - November 8th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added a bunch of new code to support cross-server functionality. - Added new group "Senior Moderator". - Removed the command /me - Shortened the length of the sign-in message (removed the text "on this server"). - Fixed a bug where kick and ban reasons were always lower case. - Changed "First Empire Sign-in" in /pinfo to be days/hours/seconds ago rather than a time stamp. - Removed comma after last name in /who list - Fixed a bug where you would get kicked if you tp to a residence where you don't have access. - Added new /purchase system (details later) - Added new cross-server vault system. - Added opening of vault to /purchase system. - November 5th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Bug fixes from yesterday’s update - Supporters will now receive their daily sign-in bonus at midnight ET if they didn't sign-in that day. - November 4th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Complete rewrite of permissions system, help system, player management and session system, bans and moderation system, in an effort to reduce lag and in preparation for future changes. Although this was a LARGE change most of it does not impact the player experience. - Changed daily sign-in bonus message to be more obvious (pink and under the motd) and to give you a countdown if you already received it today. - Supporters no longer get supporter bonus at midnight ET, instead they get it as part of the daily sign-in bonus. - Changed temp ban messages so they show how long you are banned - Fixed a ban system bug where players banned with a long reason would get an error instead of the ban message. - Fixed a bug in /visit open - where players with all number usernames were being reported as open residences. - Upgraded the /who list to be a little cleaner. - Fixed a bug where new players that become a supporter before joining the server would spawn on top of the spawn building rather than in the tutorial. - You no longer see your own join message (to reduce clutter in sign-in messages) - Added new command /pinfo where you can get details on a player. This replaces /lastlogin /firstlogin and /checkban. - Added new shortcut /p for /pinfo - Added new shortcut /v for /visit - Added new shortcut /g for /goto (Moderators only) - Added new shortcut /m for /mode (Admins only) - October 28th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed some more "chest shop" names to make more sense. - Added an alternate verification method for players who want to join the site without their Minecraft password. - October 27th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Redid help section at /help, this included adding /help res /help rupees /help flags - Changed guests that are in the tutorial now show up as black color in online lists - Fixed the online player count in the Minecraft multiplayer screen - Optimised performance - October 26th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Disabled weather in Utopia - Testing fixes which will increase performances - October 25th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Fence gates in residences now require the "use" flag to open or close - Redstone repeaters in residences now require the "use" flag to change the delay - You can no longer use bone meal on other players’ residences - You can no longer trample crops in a residence unless you have the "build" flag - Added new command /visit random - takes you to a random players residence - Added new command /visit open - takes you to a random unclaimed residence - October 24th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Expanded Town to make room for new players - Removed town bedrock walls and replaced with an invisible fence instead - Changed /store so it takes you to the new store - October 23rd 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Fixed a loophole where you could skip the new user tutorial - Fixed a loophole where you could skip the new user tutorial by joining the site - Fixed a bug where you would sometimes see two disconnect messages when a player leaves - Fixed a bug where you would sometimes see the disconnect messages when chat is off - Implemented a new plugin to handle when the server is full - October 22nd 2011 - Tutorial added [bold, green] - The tutorial will be compulsory for all new players, it is a series of questions in a maze format - New users no longer have to join the site to claim a residence - Tweaked some of the reset residences code, working toward having a self reset feature in the future - October 21st 2011 - Chat improvements [bold] - Players can now turn chat on and off - October 20th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Test changes to the new user flow to prepare for the new tutorial - Upgrades to the plugin to give better names to odd items - October 18th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Added a new plugin to give better names to unusual items in the store such as dyes - October 17th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Playing with some new algorithms to fix the areas around spawns that creepers and TNT have destroyed - Improved server restart and shutdown scripts to provide more information of why in chat - Updated one of the plugins used to prevent and catch fly hacks - October 14th 2011 - Daily Bonus [bold, green] - Players now get 100 rupees for free every day, just by signing in - The 1r reward for every 6 minutes of play has been removed - October 10th 2011 - Utopia changes [bold] - The Wilderness and Wasteland of Utopia are now permanently set to day - October 6th 2011 - Misc changes [bold] - Bug fixed where a player would be stuck in a large black hole left by an unloaded chunk - September 29th 2011 - Wasteland outposts [bold] - Outside of Wasteland spawn is now a pavilion with 4 teleports to outposts 10,000 blocks from spawn - September 28th 2011 - Residence changes [bold] - Only players who have registered on the website can now claim a residence - September 18th 2011 - Empire Minecraft has been updated to Minecraft Beta 1.8 [bold, green] - Referral System [bold, green] - If a player lists you as their referral when registering, you get 1,000r - Wilderness added [bold, green] - A new world, the Wilderness, has been added, it is a regular Minecraft overworld like the Wasteland, but without a livemap - September 15th 2011 - Chat updates [bold] - Chat now divided into two channels, local and global - You can now stop a certain player’s messages from appearing in your chat using /ignore - September 13th 2011 - Residence updates [bold] - Admins can now reset residences - Fixed a bug where you could destroy or place paintings in other players’ residences - Made tit so that you can no longer put out netherrack fires in other players’ residences - September 11th 2011 - Empire Arenas [bold, green] - arenas.empireminecraft.com now takes you to a server where you can battle multiple waves of regular and special mobs - September 8th 2011 - Town update [bold] - Nether Portals now take you back to Town spawn - Nether Portals with a sign under them with a player’s name on it take you to that player’s residence - September 2nd 2011 - Site changes [bold] - Forum layout rearranged - August 27th 2011 - Supporter Subscriptions [bold, green] - For a monthly fee, you can now enjoy one of three sets of perks for supporting Empire Minecraft - August 21st 2011 - Player Shop Update [bold, green] - Players will now be able to create their own shops to buy and sell items for rupees - Floating items in the shop removed - Misc changes [bold] - /town command now works in any world spawn - ‘shortcut to your residence teleporters in the world spawn have been removed - Added several new mod and hack checks - Fixed the error shown when you try and build in the Town spawn - Admins will now have coloured names in chat - August 18th 2011 - Coloured signs [bold] - You can now add colouring and formatting to text on signs - August 17th 2011 - Livemap update [bold] - Clicking on a Town residence on the livemap displays its name and number - Open residences now show in a blue outline - Red border added around the protected spawn area in the Wasteland and Nether - Clicking a player in the list on the right follows them - Server migration [bold] - August 11th 2011 - Town teleporting [bold, green] - /home now takes you to your residence - /town now teleports you to Town spawn - /store now teleports you to the Town shop - /visit now teleports you to a residence by player name or address number - /visit open now teleports you to an open residence - /visit random now teleports you to a random residence - August 10th 2011 - Livemap updates [bold] - Livemap now runs on Leaflet instead of the Google Maps API - Livemap is now HD - August 8th 2011 - Town updates [bold] - Town expanded to accommodate new players - Residences now have numbered addresses - August 4th 2011 - Empire Minecraft website launched [bold, green] - Website includes forums - July 25th 2011 - Empire Minecraft launched [bold, green] - The first server, ‘main’, launched