[709]

I was able to coax one to the surface and finally kill it after getting high above it and raining down infinite flaming arrows, but hand-to-hand I'd be dead meat (again).

I've built a covered entryway for the stairway down, with some beds & chests to keep your preciousness safe if you dare venture below. Bonus neato 1.19 stuff: if you kill a mob (any mob) near enough to the enclosure you will grow sculk blocks/veins around the area that they die.

[kscherer]

I may have to hop on and go have a look. Little time for it right now, but it sounds very adventurous.

Edit: Holy cow, that's a scary-looking place! Not sure I want to go in there without lighting the place up like daylight in the desert! Yipes!

[drewprops]

Okay, so if you have some time watch these two videos.

The first is Tango, capturing the warden then releasing it on the server...

https://youtu.be/jrKpOdxdei0

...where the hermits are in the midst of playing a very limited series in which they are each "soul mates" with another player.

They share life points, so when one takes damage, their mate takes damage.

The next video is of Ethos and the others, using fishing rods to attempt to fling the warden through the barrier around the play area, to remove the hazard.

Some hilarious unexpected things happen.

https://youtu.be/DyRLt3-YBlI


...

[Brad]

Originally Posted by 709 I haven't really explored the city at all, but skirted the edges far enough away from the sculk triggers that I could dig a stairway up to sunlight. If anyone wants to take a peek the stairway down is 300-ish blocks due north of the North Portal*, at 65/-2350. I'd reset your spawn using the bed and maybe pack some of your valuables away because the Warden is no joke. First he hits you with darkness and then has some sort of sonic shriek that goes through walls. Killed me very dead in less than 30 seconds.

Oof. I went to check this out, and the darkness effect is very unsettling. I nope'd my ass outta there. Very cool entrance, though.

Originally Posted by 709 * If you take the nether to the North Portal it might drop you off outside of the lookout tower. Portals are acting kinda strangely in 1.19, but I haven't figured out why yet. They were working as expected in 1.18. 🤷‍♂️

I also got dumped into a new ground-level portal outside of the tower. That's super weird. Some other portals seem to work fine, like the ones to Bradtropolis and the Space Needle. Hmm…

[Brad]

Originally Posted by drewprops Okay, so if you have some time watch these two videos.

Those were fun. Thanks for sharing, Drew.

Makes me miss the early days when there'd almost always be someone on the ANMC server and the occasional group adventures we'd have.

[Brad]

The Minecraft launcher is now nagging folks with a link to https://aka.ms/JavaChatReporting to learn about the content moderation changes in 1.19.1.

All player reports will be reviewed by an investigator to make sure the complaint is well-founded so that any suspensions or bans that might result are fair. Our investigators are aware of the kind of things that happen in Minecraft and possibilities of misinterpretation – for example, chat messages that relate to combat or other in-game situations. Our investigators understand chat messages can have different meanings depending on the situation and consider that context when reviewing reports. Our investigators also follow the same strict privacy procedures that Mojang Studios follows to protect the privacy of information contained in Player Reports.

That page also links to Player Reporting FAQ

Will I get banned without my case being reviewed by a human? No. Player reports are handled by our team of human investigators, who are trained specifically for investigating reports in Minecraft. Each report will be reviewed before any action is taken.

Yes, I'm confident that these "human investigators" will be just as good as the highly skilled and tactful content moderators for YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, or any other social platform with millions of users. I have every bit of confidence that Microsoft's "human investigators" are well-educated, well-compensated, and wholly impartial masters of the English language with no biases and enough time to fairly interpret and arbitrate any conversation entirely out of context since they claim not to be monitoring other chat messages.

[turtle]

I do null route most of the "tracking" URLs for MS via Pihole and do force the ANMC server to use it. I don't know how much the moderation would fall into that, but if you have URLs to add to the block list I'd be happy to specifically block them. Of course, modifying /etc/hosts might be a good option for that server too. I don't know how much that will impact the ability to play the game though.

[Brad]

That's a clever idea I hadn't considered!

FWIW, I did some research on ways around the new Microsoft authentication garbage. There are a handful of mods that replace or augment auth in various ways, but none of them are particularly great. At this point I'm mostly looking into this as an academic exercise and because I suspect that Microsoft will eventually cut access for at least one of us "accidentally" at some point.

Some things I've been reading about…
https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Yggdrasil
https://wiki.vg/Authentication
https://wiki.vg/Microsoft_Authentication_Scheme
https://wiki.vg/Protocol_Encryption#Authentication

[turtle]

I wonder if we will even have the problem with the "enforce-secure-profile=false" flag set. If MS can't authenticate us as uses would it still ban on here?

This actually prompted me to go through the server.properties and look over a few things.

We could conceivably change the "online-mode=true" to false, but stand the chance of players spoofing on to the server. This doesn't make sense really... unless a play gets banned that we want to allow in.

FYI, I think the mcstatus uses the snooper data so we don't want to change "snooper-enabled=true". I have the FQDN null routed so the server can't reach it publicly anyway. My zabbix server lis local and able to get the data requested.

"text-filtering-config", wonder if this is being implemented now?

[kscherer]

Wait a minute. Am I understanding this correctly, that Microsoft is listening in on private conversations on private Minecraft servers and preparing to ban people who are engaged in totally private conversations that server-members may actually be voluntarily engaged in?

These are not public servers, but private servers. What am I missing?

[turtle]

If one of the players on a server (public or private) reports another player that may result in a ban.

So if you get pissed with me and report me I may be banned from all MC servers. Even from our ANMC server. Of course, that would be very limiting for our ANMC server if that happened. So for us, we control the environment so much it shouldn't be a problem, but I'm with Brad in preventing it from ever being a problem.

Also, we could argue that the ANMC server is public, we just limit via whitelist.

[Brad]

What turtle said is entirely correct.

If you get reported on any server, you are banned from all servers, public or private.

Yes, this is ridiculously heavy-handed. You can thank Microsoft.

[709]

Looks like I'm going to shut my mouth or get creative leaving emojis at player's bases so Microsoft can't track me.

[Brad]

Also, if you have some time to kill, these videos by "Aizistral" (author of the No Chat Reports mod that I installed in our server) do a fantastic job of explaining the technical details behind this garbage and some critical flaws in its design and implementation:

How Minecraft's Player Chat Reporting works (...and why I hate it)
Why you can be banned for NOTHING in Minecraft (...and how to protect yourself)
Minecraft 1.19.84: Is This War?
Misconceptions about Minecraft's Chat Reporting

(chronological order, oldest video first)

He talks about the No Chat Reports mod in the second video starting around 8:30 (and throughout the third video). If you start watching these, I suggest you watch them all (I was able to listen in the background and understand just fine playing at 2x) because Microsoft/Mojang have been quietly sneaking in changes that he explains in the subsequent videos.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by 709 Looks like I'm going to shut my mouth or get creative leaving emojis at player's bases so Microsoft can't track me.

Brilliant.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by 709 Looks like I'm going to shut my mouth or get creative leaving emojis at player's bases so Microsoft can't track me.

Fucker!

[turtle]

Originally Posted by Brad Also, if you have some time to kill, these videos by "Aizistral" (author of the No Chat Reports mod that I installed in our server) do a fantastic job of explaining the technical details behind this garbage and some critical flaws in its design and implementation: How Minecraft's Player Chat Reporting works (...and why I hate it) Why you can be banned for NOTHING in Minecraft (...and how to protect yourself) Minecraft 1.19.84: Is This War? Misconceptions about Minecraft's Chat Reporting (chronological order, oldest video first) He talks about the No Chat Reports mod in the second video starting around 8:30 (and throughout the third video). If you start watching these, I suggest you watch them all (I was able to listen in the background and understand just fine playing at 2x) because Microsoft/Mojang have been quietly sneaking in changes that he explains in the subsequent videos.

Wow. Long time watching these, and only into the third one right now but this is pretty bad. I mean, the guy doing the videos is certainly sensationalizing it, but there is real validity to what he is saying.

Edit: 709, you are still the man! I love it!

[709]

Meant to post this after reconfiguring some public farms* the other night, but to whoever put the mural up around the Grand Theatre, kudos! It's amazing! Super fun!



*Replaced the bamboo farm with a mangrove farm. For how big the trees are they don't have a ton of wood, so they needed a stand-alone. Put a smaller bamboo farm over by the CommEx.

[Brad]

*raises hand*



When I was rocketing around the world to check on things following the big 1.19 trim and migration a week ago, I was struck with inspiration. As brilliant as that old building is, I've always thought its backside was an eyesore in this world. In its original location in Bridgeport, I think it sat side-by-side with other structures, and its back wall was facing away from the main thoroughfare. Seeing the Mario and cola/Coke graffiti elsewhere made me think a similar mural could help this bland edifice blend in more with its natural surroundings.

I was wondering how long it might take for someone to notice; I'm glad you approve.

(I also did a little long-overdue landscaping around its rear entrance. Way back when it was copied over, that area was just kind of buried inside a dirt hill. It's not perfect, but now you can at least get in and out without digging or falling into a hole.)

[709]

Originally Posted by kscherer And frogs!!

One spot on the entire map where the right temperature biomes intersect to be able to breed all 3 frog types in the same area. Many thanks to Brad's 1.13 biome fiddling (), otherwise I doubt the game would naturally generate an area like that at all.

[Brad]

[drewprops]

Are there any islands left where I could go win an elytra? Has anybody made a gunpowder farm?


...

[turtle]

709, where is that one spot for frogs?

Drew, You should be able to get tons from the community mob trap to the north of CC.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by turtle 709, where is that one spot for frogs?

Ken also wants to know.

Originally Posted by drewprops Are there any islands left where I could go win an elytra? Has anybody made a gunpowder farm?

Originally Posted by turtle Drew, You should be able to get tons from the community mob trap to the north of CC.

You can also "win" one at the Alter of the Church of Something-or-Other in Bradtropolis.

[709]

Follow the path north out of Bradtropolis past the dock, and once you cross the small bridge at the ocean corner take the path to the right. Protip: It's a whole lot easier to bring a bucket of tadpole back home than leash a frog and pull it all the way back, but if you want a specific color you might have to. Wherever the tadpole 'grows up' will determine what color frog it is. Temperate=orange cold=green warm=gray.

[kscherer]

Might have to pop over there, today, and have a look.

Edit: As usual 709, very cool!

[Brad]

I haven't had a chance to get on the server to see it in person yet, but I zoomed around MCMaps to find the Frog Factory. Very cool!

[Brad]

I just noticed that the official Minecraft launcher is up to 1.19.2. I'll take a few minutes now to update my local modded 1.19.2 and verify things before updating the modded server later this evening to 1.19.2 too.

Changes from 1.19 to 1.19.2 appear to include…

- the dreaded chat reporting system (which our modded server will discard)
- a couple of minor bug fixes related to their new chat reporting system
- nothing else.

[drewprops]

B*tches holding back my curses??!!

Edit: so this motherfranking message board is censoring my messages?? Flap!!!

Edit Edit: it swaps out funky words too?? This is a pile of horse ship!!!
...

[Brad]

Minecraft server is currently stopped for updates…