Holiday Season 2016

The holidays are upon us yet again! While they can be stressful at times, they are also full of joy and celebration. On Superstes Noctis, we celebrate Christmas; there's a Mega Spruce tree that has been there since the beginning of the server right at spawn, and every December we decorate it and leave gifts in the large presents scattered around it. This is the first year we've had five presents instead of three, so it may be more crowded than ever before but it is also more festive and fun!

As a reminder to all members of the server, you can leave gifts for the other members of the server in their respective presents around the tree. Flip down the trapdoor and place your gifts in the chest; they are trapped chests, so your items will remain in the chest until you close it and then drain into the collection chest below it connected via a hopper. Please do not dismantle any presents until the group gathers around the 25th to open them together! Your gifts can be anonymous or not, it's all up to you.

On behalf of the Superstes Noctis crew, I'd like to extend wishes for a joyous and unforgettable holiday season regardless of what you celebrate. Just don't forget to listen for zombies, skeletons, creepers, and spiders... they don't know what time of year it is, and will continue to hinder your efforts to survive the night.

The Superstes Noctis Spawn Christmas Spruce Tree

Now Running 1.11

I found myself really excited when I heard Mojang was releasing Minecraft 1.11... until I played it and realized that there is only one new feature I'm ever actually going to use, being the new Shulker Boxes. The Observer Blocks are useful too, but I won't use them as much... and I certainly have no use for a poorly-built Woodland Mansion or Llamas that are inferior to Donkeys in pretty much every way. (Especially compared to well-bred high-stat Mules)

Nevertheless, Superstes Noctis is now running Minecraft 1.11, which is sure to [barely] change the way we survive the night.

Wrapping up Year Three

It's hard to believe the third year of Superstes Noctis is coming to a close already, with the start of the fourth year in just a couple days! The server hasn't been all that active the past few months, but we're making some changes which should hopefully renew interest for the members of the server.

Double memory. We've doubled the memory on our server, which should allow us all to play simultaneously without generating lag in most situations and allow the server's render distance to be increased for better immersion and sightseeing. Since some of the server members are geographically somewhat far from the server -- which is hosted in Phoenix, Arizona by MCPro Hosting -- they create more strain on the server and more memory is needed to keep things smooth for them. (Especially when multiple people are online simultaneously, not always in the same chunks) The new plan should power up to 18 players, and since we only have 5 at the moment it should handle itself just fine.

Discussions on map changes. In the entirety of the running time of Superstes Noctis, we've been using the same map. This is awesome because it feels familiar and homely around spawn, as well as allowing extensive building with plenty of supplies to pull things off; however, it also means we have to explore quite far to see new terrain or the features of new world generation in updated versions of the game. Some players are content staying around spawn and building there, while others would rather explore and discover new things... which has prompted the discussion of whether or not we should make a new map. The trouble is that in order to keep our spawn area, we'd have to use MCEdit to plop it down in a new map with a different seed; this would leave choppy borders around spawn that would be difficult to clean up as well as some possible issues with copied entities and such.

We have yet to make final decisions on anything but the memory increase, but we don't need to rush to any decisions. One thing is for certain: the extra memory on the server will certainly make it more enjoyable as we continue to survive the night!

SN Resource Pack Version 2.0

A new version of the Superstes Noctis Resource Pack is available now! Version 2.0.1 can be downloaded from the "Resource Pack" page on our blog, or by clicking here. Version 2.0 is for Minecraft 1.11, which is set for release on November 15th, 2016! The pack should work just fine for 1.9 and 1.10 versions as well, but the game will say the pack is incompatible ("made for a newer version of Minecraft") and has not been tested fully with those versions. Version 1.0.1 is still available on the download page for 1.9-1.10.2 users.

If you try out the Resource Pack, let us know what you think of it! We encourage your constructive feedback on the pack to make it better in the future. Switch to the Superstes Noctis Resource Pack and let it aide you in your continuing efforts to, of course, survive the night!