Cemetech's Minecraft server in its current incarnation has reached 14 months of age, and over those 14 months of Minecraft 1.7 and Minecraft 1.8, we have seen a flourishing world of cities and rivalries grow. Dozens of Cemetech members have built towns and nations around our growing map, railroads connect the far reaches of the world, and almost every day sees mining, building, and PvP. Unfortunately, although we originally envisioned the map as a bastion of very creative, clever PvP, this play style is no longer tenable. Specifically, we have found that our current userbase and game mechanics make it difficult to separate the rivalries and politics of Minecraft PvP from the real world, which has led to hurt feelings, alienated players, and decreased activity. Therefore, in the spirit of revitalization, we are proud to announce Cemetech's "new" Intellectual Survival server!

What does this mean?
  • No involuntary PvP, and no stealing. You aren't allowed to attack other players, you aren't allowed to raid towns, you aren't allowed to raid wilderness bases, and you can't try to grief towns or wilderness. These are now bannable offenses.
  • You can mutually agree to arena PvP with other players, but it must be mutual.
  • The emphasis is now on building the best, most beautiful, most functional buildings, cities, and empires, rather than also trying to prevent your enemies from growing. We will be holding monthly events to encourage camaraderie and cooperation.

So what are you waiting for? Come check out the Cemetech Minecraft server at mc.cemetech.net, and bring your friends! To kick things off, the server has been visited by a mysterious rogue known only as the Jack of Spades, who has sent us the following message:

Jack of Spades wrote:
I must away from this land of mischief and hills. Alas, I have hidden my treasure of ages, with spoils and riches from the far reaches of this map you cannot begin to touch, deep within the map (or perhaps way up high?). The clues to my treasure number three, and as you search, waypoints and valuables shall mark your travels. To search, perchance to dream: a lofty checkered room from a long-fallen empire marks your first clue.

-- Jack of Spades

If you choose to pursue Jack's riddles, you may find significant riches and unique items that will make your search worth your while. I only ask that if you do so, you post screenshots of your findings here in this thread.

I see that there aren't that many plugins on the server. The bukkit plugin that I used to use a lot (mcMMO) doesn't seem to be updated for 1.8.

The first mod I ever played with (which subsequently became a bukkit mod) is updated. Think you could add it?

http://www.curse.com/bukkit-plugins/minecraft/runecraft
Our gameplay style is more vanilla than that; we find that our players can do a lot of very creative things with vanilla, EggCatcher, Towny, and the few other plugins that we have. I think that something like RuneCraft or mcMMO change the play style too much for the sort of server our server aims to be.

In other news, has anyone started the scavenger hunt yet?
Is the world going to be reset?
Ivoah wrote:
Is the world going to be reset?
The world is not going to be reset until at least the release of 1.9. General sentiment indicates that 1.9 might be a fun point at which to start over on a new world, as you can see from the topic on the subject, but that is months away.
Yay server updates!

/me goes to play on the Server now
I can't wait to play! Can you fix up the dynmap? The tab says "Cemetech PvP" and we still can't see what we say when we type stuff. Also is it possible to make the messages not disappear as quickly?


Finally, that's a huge improvement!
Congratulations on finding the first clue and the first treasure, tifreak, Marudok, and Chauronslilsis! It looks like we have some tough competition for the second clue and treasure, though; I see Nuclear_Hazard and CharlesSprinkle joining the hunt.
Found the 2nd location!!!


Will there be more of these hunts for treasure?
Congratulations on finding that, Charles! I think the next leg of the journey will be the hardest yet, unless I've made the clues too obvious. Good luck to all.

Unicorn wrote:
Will there be more of these hunts for treasure?
KermMartian wrote:
We will be holding monthly events to encourage camaraderie and cooperation.
Oh, sorry to waste your time Kerm.
Not a problem; it was a reasonable question. To the seekers of the treasure: because the third clue was so vague, as I discovered as I searched DynMap more, additional clues have been scattered around that people following the known clues may find.
That was a great game, everyone! The 2nd locations hint was a little vague, but I figured it was one of the extreme hills bordering an ocean and forest of some sort with a waterfall that goes down a good portion of the way. It was partly luck that I chose the first spot correctly as there were a couple other locations I deemed to be possible.

It was quite an interesting turn of events when I was scouting around... once I went to the peak of the biome and looked to the waterfall, I had found this (screenshot after I found the treasure):


So, I went down to the bottom of the waterfall and well... I wasn't too happy with what I saw. It was both annoying and hilarious


Took me a full 2-3 minutes to go all the way back up the waterfall (thanks Kerm!), and I dug behind the waterfall's source, which I had initially taken out to get it out of the way, but realized what I did when Kerm scolded me in private chat hahaha.
There was a bedrock box I had to do a bit of digging around since there was no apparent entrance to it. I figured there was some sort of hole in the top that I had to go through or a side entrance, and after a couple minute of digging around the box, I found the hole and dug into it. Lucky me, I walked right into a cobweb trap, and oh man was I really shaking with nervousness, staring at the pressure plates that sat beneath me-- an imminent and inescapable doom awaiting within 10 seconds. I could not help but think to myself 5 things while my eyes were wider than a deer in headlights:
[1] Why did I just jump into cobwebs? That was awfully dumb.
[2] I'm about to die.
[3] I'm about to die!!!
[4] Kerm is probably watching me right now slowly sink to my doom and laughing so hard at me.
[5] Seriously, that was dumb.

KABOOOOMMM

Thanks to my armor, I survived with 7 hearts, but with my heart beating sensibly.

I dug into the obsidian protection, and voila



There it is.



GG, Jack.

Good game everyone!
Well played Charles Smile
Good game, everyone. It was a lot of fun watching the quest as a vanished administrator, and I even learned a few things for the next quest. Speaking as a non-admin player, I know Arcadia will want to purchase/acquire a few of those eggs and saplings.
All in all, I think this was a very, very simple, and yet amazing treasure hunt. I would be excited to see this once or twice a month kind of like what comic did for a short period of time. Especially toward the end, it was very tense and was thrilling.

Jack of Spades wrote:

I must away from this land of mischief and hills. Alas, I have hidden my treasure of ages, with spoils and riches from the far reaches of this map you cannot begin to touch, deep within the map (or perhaps way up high?). The clues to my treasure number three, and as you search, waypoints and valuables shall mark your travels. To search, perchance to dream: a lofty checkered room from a long-fallen empire marks your first clue.

-- Jack of Spades


This first clue was well-written. I know it was intentionally made easy, but that's independent of the clue's quality, which was great. It was easy to determine that it was in a fallen city from the very early history of the map, but actually thinking of where to go was the question. Of course, I didn't get to go after it at this time, but it was going to be a fun quest if I was able to.


Jack of Spades wrote:

You must next venture deep underwater. Fierce aquatic beasts of the far, far north protect the second clue in unclaimed waters. Dig beneath and find a glowing chamber, where your third clue awaits.

-JACK


You had mentioned that you thought this one would be harder to find than the first, and technically, I believe it is in a way. The clue in and of itself was an obvious giveaway that the "fierce aquatic beasts" referenced to guardians, which were in the north monument. The location was far easier to pursue than the first location in Valentina, since you would have to possibly go to multiple towns and explore all of the ruins for anything. However, I think you intended on it possibly being harder because it wasn't necessarily right away you'd find the location of the treasure and next hint, being in the caves beneath? I initially lurked in the monument and dug beneath things, but then later realized that there was airspace beneath the monument itself, so I picked a spot toward the center and dug down a bit. Now, I had no idea of what to expect or where to go, but I figured you wouldn't just hide it arbitrarily in a bunch of stone, you'd randomly stumble upon. I figured it had to be in a cave of some sort. As I dug down, I heard a few skeletons that told me that was the best way to go to begin navigating the cave system and finding the treasure. I rather quickly opened up to a small cave with the skeletons and TONS of creepers... about 6 actually all grouped together. After fighting them off, I saw the box around the corner. If you go to the monument and backtrack my trail, you can see what I did.
The monument in and of itself was a good location because of the mobs that swarmed like bees. You truly had to be prepared for everything, otherwise you end up dying as a few others unfortunately did ):
This was additionally a clever location because the elder guardian's effect of mining fatigue severely hindered you from doing anything unless you had thought to bring multiple buckets of milk with you. I feel that on average, someone might have gone out to the monument without the gear to spend a bit of time underwater and fight the mobs off or defend from them. On top of a possible death, one might have further forgotten to bring milk or may have not thought of it at all. So, I could definitely see this taking time to actually end up digging beneath and finally getting the clue and treasure. So the general location (monument) is obvious, the location of the actual box you had to think a little about, and the actual preparedness of going up against the challenge of the monument was probably the most clever factor I liked.
I had grabbed like 12 buckets of milk, my full protection gear and equipment, respiration III helmet and torches for air pockets, and depth strider boots to complete the mission without too much difficulty.

Jack of Spades wrote:

The second secret have you found, deep beneath the sea monsters' lair. Your next venture is to the heights of the tallest mountain. Capped in snow and a waterfall, with magma descending its flanks, it borders a vast ocean and a host of spores. Descend its waterfall to find the third and final treasure.


I think this is the level of hint that I always enjoy and find the most fun with. It honestly took me a bit of time to analyze the dynmap and think of possible locations, ruling a ton of places out that didn't match the description. The waterfall and lava, while necessary in the hint, was still very vague to where I couldn't say exactly a single biome location. When you described vaguely that "Capped in snow and a waterfall, with magma descending its flanks...", I knew on top of the heights of the tallest mountain, that it was obviously an extreme hills, bordering an ocean from the later part of the hint. "Host of spores" bordering, was a very clever term to use and kept me thinking for a few minutes and during my entire journey what exactly you meant, whether if it was like some sort of flower forest, or if it was a general forest. But the water and lava didn't initially help me since you said they descend down the flanks... that's how I interpreted it. I think what you possibly actually meant was that the lava descended the flank, and the waterfall was along with capped in snow. The comma splice and wording threw me off about whether you meant the water was also going down its flanks. But even if it was unintentional phrasing/grammar, I think it was for the better that it wasn't perfectly phrased. When I had selected 6 different regions that bordered a forest and an ocean, the lava hint wasn't really helpful because every single one of them had lava flowing down the sides at one point. The waterfall... I had taken to be closer to its flanks, and imagined that it flowed down from a higher location to the bottom, and just by luck, I saw a waterfall and lavafall near to each other in the correct extreme hills biome. Turns out, the waterfall I initially thought was referenced in the riddle, was actually the wrong one. I climbed up it after looking at the bottom of it, scratching my head a little bit. I looked around to a nearby forest to see if it was some sort of flower forest or not, and couldn't quite get it after looking around that waterfall. I reread the riddle and saw "your next venture is to the heights of the tallest mountain", and then told myself, "ohhhhhhh... I should probably actually find the tallest peak and go near it first and perhaps find a hint of some sort". I saw the upper waterfall which didn't go down anywhere near where I thought it should have gone, and when I navigated to the source, the story tells itself from there.

I really enjoyed the fact that you boxed the treasure room in bedrock to make for some tedious work, and rigged it. I couldn't see the pressure plates from up top, and it would have been smart to probably pour water down or something after having seen the cobwebs. The TNT rig was brilliant and was a very tense 10 seconds on my way down to the pressure plate, and I'd love to see more traps that end up causing death. Sorry for disappointing you in not dying haha. I look forward to your future traps, and will likewise learn from this to be more cautious and think smart to defuse whatever you have.

Again, this was a job well done for something so simple. I hope to see these on some regular basis, and to see some nice, clever hints that make everyone think for a while and end up exploring, and failing multiple times before narrowing down the location.
I think the mixture of progressively harder scenarios in this hunt was a very good way to go. However, I wouldn't count 100% on something posted to the forum every time since not everyone uses it or may consider posting, which could end up backfiring since the person could hog all the hints and treasure to themselves with no chance of anyone else being able to go find anything.
And of course, the treasure being proportional in worth to the difficulty of the hunt is a great idea to go along with. Unobtainable and otherwise rare items that cannot be easily produced or even produced at all are a major motivator to participation in these events, and I think will serve as a great incentive for everyone to play, and overall encourage server activity.

I would further suggest to have this done on some basis not just because of how it will encourage activity, but also because of expectations perhaps. I feel if it's randomly posted out of nowhere on the forum and/or mc.cemetech webpage (which we should update for this and related stuff!), then you'll have some players never getting to participate because people find the stuff before they had a chance to look at the topic. But if we say that it'll be like the first week of each month or every 2 weeks, then it would be expected, and perhaps more people will play, having it planned in their minds in advance.
This looks like fun! I'll definitely be joining the hunt at some point, however, I'm banning myself from games (with the exception of checking town balances) until my project is done Smile
  
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