(see preceeding post)
Things that have happened:
Cassian said that they won't play on Bee anymore.
Cassian has given me ownership of this website.
I've changed things on the website so all forms go to me now.
Things that will happen:
Cassian deopped.
Website updated to reflect the fact that Cassian isn't a member of staff anymore.
If/when Cassian starts their own server, it will be blogged about here.
It is probably going to be more difficult for me to manage the server without Cassian as they helped a lot.
I may ask for help (from players).
There will be more updates.
I will get better at blogging.

Feels:
I am somewhat distressed. I will probably recover.
I am very greatful for all that Cassian (Lottiotta) has contributed to Bee.

--Adam

It is with some confusion that I leave the server.

Earlier today I had a big conversation with Adam, about the priorities of the server and my disinclination to work on the spawn island building when the server's future and present seem so unstable to me. I think perhaps the server is going in one direction while I'm going in another, and it's just now become apparent.

So Adam's un-oped me, and I'm going to wander off and ponder whether or not to start my own server. I won't be updating this blog any more, but before I go I will just say that Adam has told me that no more people will be whitelisted, including people in the waiting list, until AutismChat and DeathBukkit are installed and working - which might be a couple of months or much longer.

I like to hope that I will see some of the players on any server I happen to set up, because I miss them all already!

--Cassian

Bee has always been intended to be a simple survival server, with modifications for the comfort and safety of people on the autism spectrum. We've modified it to have Grief Prevention, which keeps our stuff safe, and to have AutismChat, which makes communication more manageable. Something that we feel doesn't quite fit this vibe is our decision to put keepInventory on.

If like me you're not familiar with all the ins and outs of Minecraft settings, putting keepInventory on means you keep all your inventory and XP when you die. You still respawn back at your bed or at spawn, but you don't leave all your stuff and twinkles back at your death site for another player to find and take, or worse still, only to disappear after the chunk has been loaded for five minutes.

This is really good because we don't lose all our hard-earned stuff when we accidentally fall down a hole or something. But it deviates from survival mode somewhat because it means you can teleport home whenever you like by typing /kill.  In short, it removes the death mechanic from Minecraft.

Adam has been looking for alternatives, and it looks like they've found a viable option: Death Chests.

• Upon death, your inventory is put in a chest at the spot where you died.
• There's often a setting that lets the admin specify how long the chest is "locked" to you. For a given amount of time only you would be able to access your own death chest, and after that time it's fair game for anyone who finds it.
• It's good because teleporting home is no longer an easy option, but your stuff is safe and can't dematerialise after five minutes.

The bad news is the best-implemented death chest plugin for Bukkit appears to be DeathBukkit, which is elegant and lets you set it so that it makes a sign instead of a chest - but it is quite out of date and doesn't work properly. Adam's plan is to ask someone to fix it. We're not sure how long this will take, but it's pretty much decided.

So what this blog post is telling you is, don't get too cosy with keepInventory on. We're working on an alternative that still allows a forgiving gameplay experience.

Here's harpereaves in one of the official construction hats that one of our other players made for everyone. You can also see the ridiculosity of the skytable and the pumpkinfloor.

Adam said I could mention that this is all being done in survival mode - that's one of the side effects of everyone using survival mode, including OPs and admins and such.

--Cassian

You may remember how the spawn island looked when you first logged in. For those who've not joined, it looked like the nice picture on the homepage - basically a sweet house, thoughtfully designed by not-me, with a little farm at the front.

We built it and placed it at a time when we had no real knowledge of spawn point mechanics in multi-player worlds. We've since found out that the house is partially inside the 20x20 square in which new players may spawn, and for some reason when someone dies and their bed has been destroyed they always show up in the same place.

The house is positioned in such a way that when someone respawns on the spawn island they're sort of around the back of the house. It feels kind of messy and clumsy.

Additionally, we have found through survey feedback that there's a need for in-game tutorialness on how to use AutismChat. People being able to test it out in-game is a great way to learn, so we decided that the lovely house on the spawn island should be replaced with a building containing an AutismChat tutorial and quiz. New players will spawn in it and be walked through all the commands and what they do and why, before being tested on a few of the basics.

In order to get an idea of the position of the spawn square I'm basically defacing the spawn island. It's temporary, I swear! But it is taking me a few days so far.

This is the skytable, which is a platform exactly 20x20 in the sky that exactly covers the spawn square. It was an experiment to see if new players and existing ones spawned in the highest point made after the creation of the world in the spawn square. (We found that new players spawn on top of the skytable, but after that they all spawn in the exact same place down on the ground. Odd times.)

And this is what's going on down on the ground. It's the spawn square, soon to be completely covered in jack o' lanterns. It gives me an idea of where we'll need to be building, and it flattens out the spawn square, since when we created the world some of it was actually in the ocean.

I'm imagining what with this and the AutismChat updates that Adam's planning we won't be whitelisting many new players for at least a few days - we don't want to submit you to the chaos. But you should apply anyway so we can whitelist you ASAP.

--Cassian

Following some feedback from a survey we've sent round recently, we've sorted out some meeting times for players in various timezones. They're listed on the Joining page for now, until I find a better place.

Sunday evenings

Slot 1
CST/CDT (US): 12pm
EST/EDT (US): 1pm
GMT (UK): 6pm

Slot 2
CST/CDT (US): 5pm
EST/EDT (US): 6pm
GMT (UK): 11pm

Adam got this from the server host:

So basically, add 185.38.148.17:25581 to your list of servers in your Minecraft client, call it Bee 2, and at some point in the few days after 30th May we'll flip from one to the other - at which point you can delete the old one from your server list.

--Cassian

*Edit: The host keep postponing this date whenever we reach the deadline. When the IP address finally changes, I'll just do a blog post.

--Adam

The server has been running out of RAM even with no players online and all the installed plugins are somewhat essential so I've upgraded the hosting plan from 512Mb RAM to 1024Mb RAM - that should give us some more space to work with. I've increased the number of player slots from 6 to 8. It could probably go higher (the host says 16) but until some issues with AutismChat are sorted out, I'm not sure I'd want to be on a server with more than 8 people, and the server is first and foremost for me to play on, so there!

In other news: A userguide for the current version of AutismChat has been written at long last. There's a link to it on the "AutismChat" page.

I'm currently working on some big changes to AutismChat. Global chat will be removed and leaderless parties will be implemented. The fine details haven't quite been hammered out yet.

--Adam

First of all, I've been trying to make a nice big map wall in the spawn island house. It's going well so far; I am not working really hard on getting it finished, so if you're an explorer feel free to ask me (Lottiotta) for copies of maps (you might need to bring blank maps), and ask which co-ordinates you'll need to stand at to make new ones that fit the grid.

Second, we're thinking of improving the spawn island. All the AutismChat documentation is available here on the site, but a few of us think it would be better if there was some in-game tutorial, since some people learn better that way. Plus the spawn house worked well when we needed a base close to spawn, but if the spawn island is going to have an AutismChat tutorial building there may not be room for the spawn house - it overlaps the spawn area.

--Cassian

Adam has managed to find the source of the unnerving lack of monsters at night time, and has fixed it! (It was view-distance; it was 7 and now it's 8.)

That means that peril is increased by 5000% and is back to your usual familiar comforting death-inducing vanilla night-time experience.

Continue about your business.

(But, like, take torches with you.)

--Cassian