PLA Virtual World

[rbcp]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/S3GAmJCvIvE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/S3GAmJCvIvE&rel=1</a>

I was watching this video by WhiteSword today, where he's showing off this world he made in Minecraft, but he's going to be killing it soon because nobody is really using it.  I've never played Minecraft before and I know very little about how it all works, though I have seen some pretty neat demos on YouTube this past year.  I was thinking about asking Whitesword if I could just take it over from him.  Maybe start paying whatever the monthly fee is and letting all us PLA people play around on it.

Back in 2004 or so, Altalp set up this really amazing virtual PLA world on ActiveWorlds that included Eastgate Cinema (showing Elephant & Bird), a PLA hotel and Dino's house.  It was all really detailed and a lot of fun to mess around in.  Somewhere I still have some screenshots of Altalp's world and I will post them in here when I find them.  I thought I posted this somewhere else already, but I can't find a thread for it.  I'm guessing that world has been deleted by now, but it could still exist somewhere.  The coordinates for it were on Cal's forums.

What's everyone think of trying out a virtual world?  Preferably some kind of world where the users don't have to pay a monthly fee to visit it.  If the prices aren't insane, I could pay for a monthly server for us all to be on.  ActiveWorlds sells servers, but the prices are a little high on them.  Minecraft is so popular these days that there must be some good server deals out there.

And what else is there?  I remember Second Life being really big about 5 years ago, but I haven't heard much about it since then.  Their graphics are a lot better, but it requires a supercomputer to run it.  Looks like they let you buy land too (2,000 square meters for $15/month seems high), and I think it's free for users to just come in and visit the land.

[rbcp]

I guess you all hate the Minecraft idea.  I might set it up anyway since I recently found out that I can install it on my own server and run it from home for free.  If it gets used enough, then I can move to a real server.

[markov]

I think its kind of a cool idea, just not sure how much time I'd have to participate

[rbcp]

Since a lot of people on Facebook were interested in the Minecraft idea, I started looking at servers again and I found one that was cheap enough that I had to sign up for it.  I think it lets up to 10 people at a time log in for multiplayer.  It's only got 640 megs of RAM and I have no idea how well it'll be able to handle things, especially since it's a cheap server.  You can use any of these addresses to get on:

la2.mcbox.net:26026
la2.minecraftbox.com:26026
96.44.162.50:26026

I just set up a basic world template for it.  Feel free to start building, but I'm probably not going to have time to really get into managing this thing until next week.  From what I understand, if someone wants to be an asshole, they can come in and destroy anything you build.  I can ban usernames and IP addresses if they cause too many problems.  Eventually I'll get some plugins installed so that we can prevent bad things from happening.  I'm a complete newb at Minecraft, so everything I just said here is probably wrong.

If you're new to Minecraft, visit http://www.minecraft.net/ and read.  The application to play Minecraft costs $20 per user.  I know that sucks, but at least it's not a monthly fee.  If $20 is too crazy for you, then maybe you can split the cost with someone and share the account.  Maybe there are torrents for it or other ways to play for free, I don't know.

[DBK]

Idlerp on Mincecraft = DBK.  Just for the record.

[rbcp]

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Controls is a good page to learn the basic controls while you're in Minecraft.  I'm so dumb that I couldn't figure out how to turn my head without looking at that page.  I also couldn't figure out how to open a door so I accidentally destroyed the door.

This is really neat stuff.  I didn't know that you could actually play games in Minecraft.  I remember in ActiveWorlds there were no games at all, so I was kind of expecting the same thing from this.  This has a lot of fun potential.  I'm playing around with admin stuff right now and figuring out how it all works.  I installed the plugin that Whitesword mentioned in his video for tracking down people who damage things, so I'm assuming that everyone can start building without too much worry of your creations being completely destroyed.

[buzzard]

I get an error when I try to connect "Disconnected by server/ Took too long"
Maybe it's just because i'm logging in from the UK. I'll try again tomorrow. I am also a total minecraft noob

[rbcp]

2011-06-17 15:05:00 [WARNING] WaitingForGodot moved wrongly!

That's from my server log.  Quit moving wrongly, Godot!

Really, I have no idea what that means, but it sure sounds bad.

[DBK]

Yeah, I get hung up at the "Logging In" part.  I guess updating MC wouldn't hurt.

[rbcp]

I did buy a slow, crappy server, but so far I haven't had any problems with logging in or lag.  I figure once we start having problems with the world getting too big or too many people being on at once, I can buy a larger package or move to a better server.  Try connecting to some other Minecraft servers and playing around in their worlds, just to make sure you're able to connect to other places.  Let me know if it's only mine that you can't get on.  I know for me, I can barely connect to any worlds on my Mac, but it works just fine on my PC.  I have a ton of shit running on my Mac, though.

Also, I don't know if I've got this world set up for building or not.  If it is, I couldn't figure out how to mine or build last night, but I didn't have much time to mess with it.  I'm going to ask a friend of mine if he wants to admin this thing for us since I won't be able to put much time into it until late next week.

[rbcp]

I just imported Whitesword's world.  There's some really amazing stuff in there.  Please try your best not to disturb any of the existing structures that you see, but feel free to start building your own stuff on empty spots.  I'm going to be making regular backups of the world until I learn how to use all these admin features, just in case someone goes nuts and destroys everything.

[buzzard]

I was on earlier today but i've been kicked out and now get this message

Code: [Select]

connect lost internal exception: java.net.sockettimeoutexception: read timed outI can connect to the reddit servers so I don't think its me

It's looking really fun though, make sure to farm lots of cacti!

[rbcp]

I was looking for something on my hard drive today and I stumbled upon the old ActiveWorld pictures I took back in 2005.  Here they are.





Outside Dino's house:


Inside Dino's house:


Eastgate Cinema, playing Elephant & Bird:








RBCP's House:

[kickingKIDSforKASH]

i keep getting the same message : connect lost internal exception: java.net.sockettimeoutexception: read timed out. im gonna keep trying not sure what the problem is though.

[rbcp]

i keep getting the same message : connect lost internal exception: java.net.sockettimeoutexception: read timed out. im gonna keep trying not sure what the problem is though.

I just tried to log in and got the same message, so I rebooted the server and now it's fine.  I've been really busy since I set this up and haven't had much time to put into it.  I'll try to keep a better eye on it though.