Minecraft Final (2.0) Migration Plan

[Nimrod]

EDIT: This is no longer a valid plan and isn't going ahead. Please ignore this thread and read the Fresh Start Plan

Minecraft Final Version (2.0) Migration Plan​

It's time to discuss the plans for 2.0 and how they will affect all players on the server, please understand this is open to debate, and not a process which will be rushed. I'm first going to explain what the new setup will look like, then further down is the 'Migration Plan' on how we will change this.

Introduction:

Notch in november will be releasing the final (non-beta!) version of Minecraft at Minecon. A lot has changed since our worlds were generated back a year ago in 1.2, and many new resources, terrains, dungeons and NPC villages will exist in the code which we will not see, as our worlds were generated before they existed. Sadly, this does mean we will need to generate new worlds to take advantage of these features. After having our current worlds for over a year, they are crowded, and in need of a refresh to. But before you jump the ball game or get worried were going to delete your work, please read the following Plan and Migration Plan fully, to understand how we will take care of existing buildings and more. This is always a difficult choice, and when we took it over a year ago as we transition from Alpha to Beta, it wasn't taken lightly. It will take a few weeks for the server to recover as players take in the shock of starting in new fresh worlds, but we managed it once before, and we will manage it again.


The New Minecraft Server Plan:

Spawn Dome will be copied from MainWorld to a point in CityWorld, which will serve as the Hub. Eventually we would like to replace the Spawn Dome with a new spawn, in between the Cities next to the market, so people have access to the market and cities then warp pads to visit the other Worlds discussed later. We accept this replacement may not happen straight away, if possible we would like to start work on the new Spawn point now, however if this isn't completed in time when this move will happen, we will use the current Spawn Dome.

Freebuild will be renamed to Creative, and become a separate world with a round border of 1,200 to keep the size under control. (Thats 1,200 blocks in every direction from Spawn, with the first 150 blocks protected from mess with build rights removed). If the world ever becomes too full, the border can be expanded at a later date.
In this world, Creative Mode will be enabled, allowing everyone to spawn items on demand. This will be solely for people to build the best creations they have. Health won't exist, nor will money. Items spawned in here cannot be taken out of the Creative World.

Wilderness will be renamed to Survival, and become a separate world with a round border of 1,200 to keep the size under control. Spawn protection will exist in the first 150 blocks. In this world, it will be the raw Minecraft. Monsters will be on, Health (including Fall Damage), no time voting or time control and no item spawning. Basically, this will be the proper Minecraft experience. You will fear Night time, you will have to mine and work for your resources, and the purpose of the game will be restored. Also, Epic buildings will be epic in this world, as you can't just use Creative Mode to spawn items on demand, you worked for them!

CityWorld will stay, with City 17 and Orion and the joint Market Place. This world will have more meaning, serving as the hub / spawn world where players can RPG in the Cities, as well as buy items player to player in Market, or NPC/Sign to Player in the actual Cities. Having the spawn start right in the middle of the Cities will also introduce new players to some of the amazing buildings. Spawn will also have its own train station, or share with market (undecided). Items / Money will stay with you between City World and Survival (as these are non-item spawning locations, and allows you to buy items in City World for use with ur adventures in Wilderness.

SkyWorld will stay, as our original promise to the best players who have access to this world, this world is safe from Regeneration and will continue as planned. Also note if you have access, you could ask Admins to move some of your stuff from MainWorld into Skyworld instead, that way it is safe. (However they will need to be temporarily saved out, as SkyWorld will be off during the Migration Plan discussed later.

The Current MainWorld (Freebuild, Wilderness and Atlantis) will stay for about a month to allow migration to take place (further details below). However eventually it will need to go. Please be aware, we have kept this MainWorld for over a year, which is longer than most Minecraft Servers. We will also actively help players move there best buildings across, and 80%-90% of buildings in MainWorld belongs to players who have long got bored of Minecraft or our Server and left. The remaining will be handled with care and migrated where possible.

Nether will make a come back, once the Migration has finished. Currently no one uses it much, and its been mined to death so we are thinking of a new Nether eventually, connected to Survival world with user Nether Portals only.


Migration Plan:

To help Migrate players over to the new system, eventually MainWorld will need to go. However to ensure people can migrate there resources over to Survival, and any nice buildings over to Creative or Survival it will be run concurrently to the new setup for a period of time:-

We will run Mainworld along side the two new worlds for a period of time (Up to a month) while everyone is migrating over. Admins will migrate over a few buildings for each player over that time period. Please understand theres going to be massive demand at the start of the process and limited Admin resources, please be realistic where possible, and help spread the work load over the month period and not rush the admins straight away.

SkyWorld and Nether will be temporarily unloaded to provide enough resources to the server to run MainWorld (Freebuild, Wilderness, Atlantis) concurrently with the new worlds. This is only a temporary measure as running 5 or 6 worlds at once will put too much pressure on the server, and they will return once the progress has been completed.


Notes:

We are most likely looking into this for the Final Version of Minecraft due in November and not 1.8 as originally hoped, as Notch has publicly stated that he will be adding new biomes and generation features in 1.9 / Final which will not be present in 1.8, as such we do not want to rush into the new worlds, and have incomplete features, as these worlds will need to last at least a year minimum like MainWorld has.

We also do not want to put people off building in MainWorld, you can transfer your items and buildings across worlds with Admin assistance, however at the same time we believed we should be forward with the eventual plans for the server, so no one is in for a shock. The Migration Period is long, combined with Admins helped, its highly likely your have everything you need once the MainWorld is turned off.

We appreciate when 1.8 first comes out, a lot of people will be wanting to try out its new features. We will make sure there is a temp world with 1.8 features where people can go and see the NPC villages, and see the new Terrain features and dungeons. We will do this by making a temporarily world which will be seeded fresh in 1.8 to have the new features, it will Mimic Wilderness, by having no item spawning and monsters. Please note this world would be entirely temporarily. and short of playing with the new features, we advised not building anything you wish to keep in this, as when the new server plan goes into operation, this world will go with no migration plan in place, as we cannot handle 6 worlds at once.

As always, we are open to hear users feedback and suggestions.
This change will not be rushed into, but will be planned. This is version 1 of the plan.

 

[punkymunky]

i love the idea of it and to be honest i don't mind if my buildings get deleted, i want to start fresh. I've learned a lot from building in freebuild/wilderness so i can use what i know to make even better creations!

 

[MrNitvit]

It sounds like an amazing idea, though one problem is i really like my mansion and i have some basements to it. will it be alot of trouble to move. If it cant happen i will just have to make a new mansion... Meh, anyway life goes on.

 

[Flamzorz]

Will there be a way to transport chests?

 

[Nimrod]

Will there be a way to transport chests?

Yes, either by moving the items yourself, or if its in a building transfered over, it be copied across though your need to re-lock the chests yourself.

 

[MrNitvit]

I don't mind if everything gets refreshed since people were looking forward to the new 1.8 updates which would need new chunks to find. Since the worlds had been on so long most of the chunks have been generated. Also i wouldnt mind if my mansion was deleted although i would like some help transferring my stuff from the chests since i have about 12 double chests full.

 

[zacakabuilde]

i love the idea a lot, i don't know if i wanna start fresh or not yet but we shall see oh well u guys don't care about that silly stuff.=P

 

[AlleOpsO]

i love the idea a lot, i don't know if i wanna start fresh or not yet but we shall see oh well u guys don't care about that silly stuff.=P

lol you still got like 2months and we do care about the players opinion.

 

[MrNitvit]

Migration would be a great idea to start afresh since so many players(including me ) were complaining about the flat terrain and all and saying that they wanted different districts like the current Orion now. Also in the other thread like someone said that the players choose were to build and how to make there plot.

 

[leatherneckjr]

I haven't been on the server long, but a fresh start does sound kinda nice. I remember going to free build and walked so far to get away from all the massive structures that I wound up deep in wilderness. So naturally I got a nice surprise during my first night. Losing my building would be kind of a drag, but I'd survive =D. I also like the idea of not having the ability to change the time of day or weather seeing as how most of the time I'm underground mining anyways. As for fall damage returning, I understand it because that's natural minecraft, but I still would rather it not come back. Well thats my 2cents anyways

 

[Nimrod]

As for fall damage returning, I understand it because that's natural minecraft, but I still would rather it not come back. Well thats my 2cents anyways

I dislike fall damage quite a lot, one of the reasons it was turned off, but at the same time I do think it is natural. One of the benefits of McMmo (the ability/leveling system we have) is that you can learn via acrobatics to take less fall damage. So while at first we will be dieing all over the place, over time your be able to survive higher falls. Also if possible, I may suggest the Admins and myself look into perhaps descreasing fall damage, so you need to jump say 4 blocks or more to do damage instead of the current 2.



Also on an unrelated note, to further improve the Survival World. Admin have made a commitment not to spawn any items, nor will items from Builders Guild work in Survival. This is to ensure anything in there, is fair game. This will encourage people to mine, and buy resources from the market in City World, and at the same time make sure every building is realistic in the survival world. This may mean Builder and Trusted merging, but hasnt been decided.

 

[Skeven]

We have to keep in mind that there is a change coming to the health system by 1.8 or later. So we need to take that into consideration as far as fall damage (which I personally also hate) is concerned.

 

[MrNitvit]

If you look up minecraft update on Google lower down it will say upcoming features which say whats coming in 1.8, 1.9 and the last update of minecraft.(10.0)

 

[Nimrod]

Migration Plan Further Explained

Migration Plan and Stages Updated (07/09/2011):

Following on from the previous post, the Migration planning seems to be entering its final stages, and we are now giving the green light to the project. It has 4 stages, which you can see below in the following diagram:



Current 1.7
This is the server as it is is currently, showing you the various Worlds and Regions in use. Nothing has changed at the moment

Planned 1.8
Required sign off for moving onto this stage: Jessenic, xzKinGzxBuRnzx

This stage will happen shortly after Minecraft 1.8 is released from Notch. This stage will only be started once the Bukkit Minecraft Server and the vitally important Mods are updated to the new Adventure Update.

This may take longer than previous updates, as Notch has added a lot of content and changed a lot of the inner workings of Minecraft, so it may take even up to a week or worst case scenario two weeks, until the Server can be updated. During this period, we strongly recommend using the Version Tool so you can switch between the new 1.8 for Single Player, and 1.7 for Multiplayer.

Once this stage begins, a new world will be loaded up, which can be warped to via a command. This will become the 1.8 Testing world, Admins will be testing our Mods and other functions in this world, and at the same time players are welcome to explore the 1.8 features and do as they wish in this world. Please note, this is going to be a temporary world and any items or buildings made in here, will be lost in the next stage. Please be aware of this, the staff will not have time to WorldEdit peoples stuff out, and are making zero commitments to this, if you wish to play and build in this world you are welcome to, but it will be deleted without chance of recovery when the next stage is started.


Migration Period 1.9/1.10
Required sign off for moving onto this stage: Jessenic, Snookieboy

This stages start date is difficult to predict. Jessenic and Snookieboy will continue to read Notch's Tweets, Google+ posts and other social media to gain information as to when the Biomes will be finalised. Only once Notch has confirmed this which could be in 1.8, 1.9 or the final 1.10, we will then give notice of moving onto the Migration Period Stage.

The reason for this is, we do not want to start the generation/seed of Survival World or Creative World, when Notch has not finished the terrain generation code in Minecraft. The last thing we would like to do is end up stuck with the worlds for a year when there missing features Notch completed a few weeks after they were generated. For this reason, we are going to have to be boring and patient, and wait till we have all the information we need to enter this stage.

Please note, Notch has committed to releasing Minecraft final (1.10) at Minecon in late November, so this Migration stage at the very latest, will begin then.

Once this stage has begun, it will last for a guaranteed 30 days. During this Period, users will need to begin moving items and buildings from the MainWorld which is due deletion into the new Worlds (either City, Survival or Creative). Admins will be on hand to help during this period, but due to the length of it please do not rush the Admins at once, please take time and decide what you need to carry over. Please note, any massive buildings (like Pyramids, Towers etc) will only be transported to Creative World, as Survival world is not to be filled with massive structures.

The general policy is for one small building, or a load of chests per player, as we do wish to push people where possible to start again to keep our maps from filling up quickly. If you would like your items saved but not copied into new maps, Admins can save them out as schematics, which you can then import into Single Player worlds via WorldEdit or MCEdit (useful if you want to save something really cool, but do not need it in the new World).

Anyone wanting to move an item into SkyWorld who has permission, can ask an Admin to save there building as a WorldEdit Schematic, which can then be imported once SkyWorld has come back.

Migration Completed
Required sign off for moving onto this stage: Jessenic, Snookieboy, Skeven, AlleopsO, xzKinGzxBuRnzx, Jozo117.

This is the completed stage, once all the Administrators and Moderators are happy that everything has been migrated across, the go ahead will be given to unload MainWorld and re-load SkyWorld, and add the additional two small worlds (New Nether, and New Minetopia). At this stage, Migration will be completed and everyone can rest happy

The new Minetopia wasn't mentioned in the first plan as it was due to go, however Skeven mentioned the benefit to having a small Minetopia world, which would be very easy to regenerate once a month ensuring lots of places for Materials including Ores, Stone, Wood and more. We will encourage players where possible to use Minetopia for resource collecting, as we dislike trees being cut down in the Survival or Creative worlds as it ruins the landscape. Minetopia will benefit from the fact it is always daytime and monsters/animals are off, allowing people to mine without worrying about zombies.


Thanks for taking the time to read the finalized plan. Please check out the Diagram and make sure you know when you need to start moving. Any questions or comments, please ask

 

[Jozo117]

Sounds great i just have one question tho, if our buildings cant be transferred because they are massive (like my pyramids) is it possible to delete them but still get the items back? so world edit it away but all the blocks drop, that kind of thing.

 

[Flamzorz]

How would normal players go about moving buildings?

 

[Nimrod]

Sounds great i just have one question tho, if our buildings cant be transferred because they are massive (like my pyramids) is it possible to delete them but still get the items back? so world edit it away but all the blocks drop, that kind of thing.

I'm afraid not. There welcome to put items in chests to carry across, or request the building be moved to Creative.
We wouldn't really want to take mass buildings down and move there building blocks across on that scale either however, the whole idea is about a new beginning, if everyone had a years worth of mined items given back, I can see the Survival World being filled with stuff in less than a month and it does need to last a year. Perhaps on that point, we may need to set a limit of what can go across. Perhaps say 3 Double Chests maximum, otherwise we will have too many items and the rarity of them could be at risk. We're not against people moving stuff, were offering to help, but at the same time, players need to realize we cannot take everything across.

Please note - Keeping your items in your houses in City World, and moving spare items to that house is a good way to save items, as this world is safe from regeneration.

How would normal players go about moving buildings?

They can either take it down and rebuild it, or they can request an Admin to move it with WorldEdit over the 4 week period.


Also a further update:

In Orion SkyScraper District I have made a tower which I've labelled the Migration Storage Tower. in here are rooms loaded full of empty unlocked chests. Simple use as many as you need, put items in them and lock them with /cprivate and your good to go for storage.
City World is safe throughout the 4 stages of the Migration, so this tower is a safe place to store items knowing that no matter where we are with the Migration, you have access to your items. Of course however, this is only needed if you don't have a house in City world, if you have a house it will be the best place for storage.



I've set this up now, and enabled the warp [/warp storage] so players who aren't on as regularly who want to back up some items now can start the process way in advanced, this way you can split the work load over a long period of time if you wish.

Hope this helps.

 

[mikewalt11]

I really like the idea of regenerate the world to take advantage of 1.8 features. With all the things ive made and worked hard on i don't really mine it being deleted all i wont is my castle that me and a few others have been working on for the past week and my stuff. Im worried that i wont be on for 4 weeks starting on the 12th of September and find everything gone when i come back on the 7th of October although i moved most of my positions to city world for safe keeping. But then again i could always start fresh

1.8

 

[Nimrod]

Keeping an eye on Twitter, we noticed:
Jens Bergensten (Minecraft Developer)
@davecricket @notch You need to generate new areas. As it looks now, beta 1.9 will also require new generation

This confirms what we feared, if we generated the new worlds for 1.8, we would have to repeat the process in 1.9, confirming that Survival World and Creative World will not be generated until 1.9 at the earlist.
As such, the Migration Plan stays at 1.9 / 1.10, we will still have the demo world in 1.8 as per the plan.