AMA - Tulonsae version

[Tulonsae]

Well, I've been watching wokka's AMA thread and decided I'd like to try it. So....

AMA stands for Ask Me Anything.

It can be about the Escapecraft Community, Minecraft stuff, multiplayer stuff, anything.

So, open up the questions and I'll post the answer.

[Invunarble]

Do these questions need to be serious? Or am I able to ask you things such as "Do you even lift"?

[Tulonsae]

Do these questions need to be serious? Or am I able to ask you things such as "Do you even lift"?

No, they don't have to be serious.

And currently, I don't lift.

[Invunarble]

How did you end up as an admin and an advisor at the same time?
What's the first game you recall playing? Favourite game?
Are you part of the Interra project? If so, what's bogging down work on that?
Do we have any use for graveyards now that plans to remove /gs appear to have been practically scrapped?
What's that hidden door behind the New Player spawn supposed to be for?
What does the name "Tulonsae" mean? It definitely doesn't sound like a typo or gibberish, like my name is.

[Tulonsae]

How did you end up as an admin and an advisor at the same time?
What's the first game you recall playing? Favourite game?
Are you part of the Interra project? If so, what's bogging down work on that?
Do we have any use for graveyards now that plans to remove /gs appear to have been practically scrapped?
What's that hidden door behind the New Player spawn supposed to be for?
What does the name "Tulonsae" mean? It definitely doesn't sound like a typo or gibberish, like my name is.

Well, after I got promoted to Admin, I talked to wokka a lot more. And he learned that I had management experience and such. We tried to keep me out of Advisors for a long time, but eventually it didn't make sense since a lot of people treated me that way anyway. So I became an Advisor officially.

The first computer game that I played on a personal computer was "Adventure" - the first game released for the IBM PC. The first computer game that I remember playing was a game called PITS which was at our college. It turns out that Pits was a WAY more enhanced version of Adventure. So Adventure was quite frustrating. (They'd added synonyms to the command list in Pits.) The first computer computer game I wrote was at the same time. It was a interactive text maze, written in Fortran.

I would have to say that my favorite computer game is currently Minecraft.

I'm not part of the Interra project. But I would say it's probably lack of resources.

I'm pretty sure we have a use for graveyards. But I'd have to look at my notes to see what...

I think the hidden door was some old portal. Unfortunately, many of the staff just cover things up when they make changes.... sigh...

Well, the name Tulonsae is a name I made up (yes, by putting syllables together) way back in 1977 (or before) for a character in a "world" I've been creating since I was in Grade 5 (or maybe before). And then when I had to come up with a name for my first RPG character I used it. And then later, I started using it for online games. And now it's my gaming persona...

[MrWhales]

I think you're talking about a different door, but there was once a door on the back wall leading to some mentor-related thing, I forget exactly what...

I'm going to be in this thread a lot, Tulon is a favorite person of mine

Tulon, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being best: How much do you like whales? And I mean the animal, cause I already know how much you love me :3

If you could change one thing about the server(community, policies, etc) what would it be?

What is your most interesting life-story?

[Tulonsae]

I think you're talking about a different door, but there was once a door on the back wall leading to some mentor-related thing, I forget exactly what...

I'm going to be in this thread a lot, Tulon is a favorite person of mine

Tulon, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being best: How much do you like whales? And I mean the animal, cause I already know how much you love me :3

If you could change one thing about the server(community, policies, etc) what would it be?

What is your most interesting life-story?

Oh, that door. That was a special room for the mentors that allowed them to teleport to some of the Enigma puzzles so they could let players in. Before the puzzles were changed to be self-serving entry.

Hmm.... the whales question is hard. They're great intelligent creatures who live in a cold, watery ocean. I guess... a 7 or 8.

I can't think of anything I'd like to change about the server, well except maybe to advertise it better and get more players. Now, Mojang and CraftBukkit are a completely different thing.

To be honest, I think most of my life is/was interesting. I can't think of any particular story that would be the most. So I thought of a few of them at random. And came up with:

• Aja, the murderous parakeet
• Just how many times can Glynis bury Gunner under the cat house before he wises up?
• Calliope figures out an innovative way to wake me up.
• The mouse massacre
• Mouse massacre, the sequel

But I settled on:

Gershwin Answers the Phone

Spoiler! :

We were living in a nice town home, way back in the days of phones with handles that rest in the cradle on the phone. And M.'s sister E. had been complaining that we were picking up the phone and hanging up on her. We weren't. We just figured she was pulling one of her jokes, esp. when she mentioned a cat meowing. And she just thought we were pulling a joke on her. This went on, once in awhile, for a few weeks.

And then one day we discovered what was happening. Gershwin, one of our numerous cats, loved to nap on the counter where the phone was. Well... next to the phone. Well... actually... it turns out - with his head under one end of the handle, next to the phone.

E. called as we were walking downstairs, just in time to see. Phone rings. Gershwin jerks awake, lifting his head abruptly, knocking the phone handle off the phone onto the floor. Then we hear E. going "Hello? Hello? Hello?" And before we could get much closer, Gershwin jumps down off the counter next to the phone handle and goes "Meow? Meow?" And their conversation preceded like this until we got to the phone.

We'd always wondered why we found the phone on the floor sometimes. Mystery solved.

And then we thought about the unknown people who'd called our place during this time frame. Hmm... That might explain some of those weird messages we got on the recorder....

[asi1998]

Same ?s I asked Wokka:

Favorite Holliday Gift?

Favorite Thing You did over the Holidays?

Favorite Block In Minecraft?

A new year's Resolution of yours?

[Sti_Jo_Lew]

If you could a have a well done remake of any game, what game would you choose to be remade?

On that note, what game could you see being made into a god movie?

[Tulonsae]

If you could a have a well done remake of any game, what game would you choose to be remade?

On that note, what game could you see being made into a god movie?

remade: Daggerfall (loved that game)

good movie: uh... hmm.... er.... Maybe the script I was writing with some friends of mine that was based on a particularly interesting RPG adventure some of us did. It wasn't a computer game tho. But it was really, really fun. Of course, we were writing that script long before all the "here's another movie of an RPG adventure that somebody did" happened.

[Tulonsae]

Same ?s I asked Wokka:

Favorite Holliday Gift?

Favorite Thing You did over the Holidays?

Favorite Block In Minecraft?

A new year's Resolution of yours?

Hmm... I would have to say the Mac mini that my parents paid for (most of). Followed closely by whatever I buy with the cash money that my father-in-law gave me.

Favorite thing: came up with a killer game idea (well, a game I'd love to play anyway).

Favorite block: I like a lot of them. Either lapis lazuli block, or redstone lamp block. Or maybe....

Resolution: same old, same old - try to get organized, try to get more done, try to lose weight, try to sleep properly, try to eat properly, try to get rid of more stuff (so I don't have to pay for so much storage fees), try to stop making everything into a project... Er... wait.... I think I just did that again.

[Invunarble]

What do you think about all of these AMA threads appearing out of nowhere?

Also, what is this killer game idea that you recently thought of? It sounds interesting.

[wokka1]

My Advisors post for AMA deserves to be stickied, like mine, so done

Tulon, you get a different question, only because you are so important to this community in your abilities.

Looking back on what we did over the last 2 years with Minecraft, Escapecraft and Bukkit, and all of the changes that were done on the technical side, what would you change if we had time travel? Given that we created many worlds when we could, then edited them together into Survival, added Nether with no boundaries (yes, ugh), and then added in Tolteca as another world and not an edit.

[Tulonsae]

What do you think about all of these AMA threads appearing out of nowhere?

Also, what is this killer game idea that you recently thought of? It sounds interesting.

I like the AMA threads. Finally something really interesting to read in General.

Well, the game would be in the Minecraft-genre - single/multiplayer, procedural world, building, etc. But while Minecraft centres around mining, mine would centre around something different. And I would add support for admin and moderation, plus plugin and client mod apis. The particular features and games rules would be different.

Most of this I've thought up over a year ago. The new thing was the idea to tie it all together. And no, I'm not going to say what that is - because this is a public forum and can be indexed in search engines. And I'd prefer to keep that particular part quiet until I have something coded.

[Serubin323]

What's your perfect day?

[Tulonsae]

What's your perfect day?

Uh, you know I'm ADHD and you ask that?

Umm.... well, I suppose any day that I feel like I've accomplished a great deal of really helpful and/or cool stuff.

[Tulonsae]

My Advisors post for AMA deserves to be stickied, like mine, so done

Tulon, you get a different question, only because you are so important to this community in your abilities.

Looking back on what we did over the last 2 years with Minecraft, Escapecraft and Bukkit, and all of the changes that were done on the technical side, what would you change if we had time travel? Given that we created many worlds when we could, then edited them together into Survival, added Nether with no boundaries (yes, ugh), and then added in Tolteca as another world and not an edit.

Hmm... I would ignore my regular "don't change it if it's not broken" and...

Sit down and really look at what the community was doing, what other plugins could do, rebuild (not recode) the craftbukkit (we sort of do that now) and plugins we use and write our own. Develop a new land claim system (a year ago), and ignore the staff nostalgia which prevented many good changes from happening until they were really too late. Encourage Drox (sooner) to modify significant code in CraftBukkit to improve Minecraft features. Put Beard onto server plugins, esp ones that could make it easier for the staff to build unique content (hire someone else for the store stuff). And write/use an expanded version of the Bukkit API for our own stuff. Use only our own stuff or open source plugins. And spend a little time coming up with a 20% solution to handle 80% of the testing. And let the other 20% of the issues just happen. Hey, it's really still Beta software anyway...

Now, that I know what the most significant thing we did to improve lag was. And I know how to code changes in plugins while still being able to use them when the owners' updated them. And I see what the core features that attract a good community are. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Serubin323]

What's your perfect day?

Uh, you know I'm ADHD and you ask that?

Umm.... well, I suppose any day that I feel like I've accomplished a great deal of really helpful and/or cool stuff.

Hehe

[dandres]

What do you think of the concept that the Minecraft community will be the ones updating and carrying Minecraft on into the future once API support has been added because the Minecraft team is running out of ideas to implement themselves. Also what would you like to see added or changed? I personal think they dropped the ball on the mine carts and could have made the mine cart system better and more efficient.

[Tulonsae]

What do you think of the concept that the Minecraft community will be the ones updating and carrying Minecraft on into the future once API support has been added because the Minecraft team is running out of ideas to implement themselves. Also what would you like to see added or changed? I personal think they dropped the ball on the mine carts and could have made the mine cart system better and more efficient.

Well, let's see. If they're really running out of ideas, they're pretty stupid. All they have to do is wade through their suggestions.

Mojang owns the client. It will get boring pretty fast if they don't update and add stuff to the client. There's only so much we can do on the server side. And asking everyone to agree on a client mod would be nearly impossible.

What I want from Mojang is stability and bug fixes. Then I want pre-announced changes that affect servers so we can prepare. And NO obfuscation so we don't spend all our time updating and can spend more time implementing new content.

Minecarts would be cool. Flying creatures. The ability to have more creatures on a per server basis. (Yes, they could change the client to support that.) Lots of other things as well...

Oh, and on a personal note, and they're finally adding redstone blocks (YES!), but I also want coal blocks.

[MrWhales]

And asking everyone to agree on a client mod would be nearly impossible.

Heh. We can't even agree on our suggestions for server mods.

[Tulonsae]

And asking everyone to agree on a client mod would be nearly impossible.

Heh. We can't even agree on our suggestions for server mods.

So true. And I was actually referring to the general minecraft community.