Welcome, dear reader, to the fourth edition of (hopefully) so far beautiful 2016! Yeah it is your "Vala of buildin'n'stuff" again, or actually for the first time in this position, to get down to write an edition of the Times. Admiring a finished edition of the Times is really a nice thing to do, especially when you wrote it yourself. There's only one problem with that: It's so god dang arduous! Writing every edition is to some extent a pleasure, but to some extent also a burden. And it may happen that writing an edition grows into being more a burden than a pleasure, mostly caused because those stupid days only have 24 hours, and with people bold enough to take over a thing like writing the Times it usually is the case that their schedule already is crammed with other things. And the outcome of an edition that was more a burden than a pleasure to write is either a hastily written and very meagre edition, or no edition at all.
There's absolutely no critique against the editiors who presented you the Times the last months, much rather do I need to thank them a lot for carrying on this newspaper when it grew into being more a burden to me last September.
But now enough of that topic, how, and especially by whom, the Times will be presented in the future remains yet to be seen, hence for now let me introduce you to this week's edition!
The first big change I made is about the structure! I splitted the Times up in three main parts: The first one is containing all topics about what happened last week, entitled "whats up?" (comment below if you have a better name
). In the middle follows a "special feature" that can be of really any kind, and we already often had such features, e.g. the short story contest or the #WeAreMCME section. The third big section is the "Upcoming" part which of course informs about everything that you need to start the upcoming week of Middle-earthy endeavours well-prepared. As usual all this is envelopped by the opening and closing statements.The second notable change is that I want to tell about more things happening on MCME than just the projects. Especially right now it's about plugins that are being developped, but also other things may be of interest. I also included some noteworthy threads on the forums, or whatever else I can find really
Alright enough of this boring talking! By now your coffee/tea/hot chocolate hopefully is ready to be drunk, so nothing is anymore hindering you to read this week's MCME Times. Enjoy!
Breaking News
It has happened again! @Tyranystrasz has submitted a picture from MCME to Reddit and it went out of control! Get to the Reddit page by clicking here or admire the picture Tyran submitted right in this week's Times:
Moria, picture by @Despot666, published in his Moria screens thread: Official Moria screenshots dump
Congratulations to Despot for building this creation and Tyran for picking such a popular picture! @q220 please show us the graph with how many people looked for our website with this post!
Project Progress
Moria, picture by @Despot666, published in his Moria screens thread: Official Moria screenshots dump
Congratulations to Despot for building this creation and Tyran for picking such a popular picture! @q220 please show us the graph with how many people looked for our website with this post!
Andrast (In Progress) - Lead: @jacenpeter
In what one may call his "experimenting" section Jacen has now reworked the snow pattern so that he can be sure that the concept he will apply to all peaks looks the best it possibly can. And I can reassure you: It does look incredibly awesome!
Furthermore Jacen nuked a large chunk of the southernmost part of Andrast again. The terrain there has already been edited once, but in the last staff meeting we had to see and state that the White Mountains are using way too many different styles. Jacen now is taking the challenge of fixing that (Very bold decision m8
). Check the map I included above to see how many styles there were around late last year.
Anfalas (In Progress) - Lead: @DSESGH Furthermore Jacen nuked a large chunk of the southernmost part of Andrast again. The terrain there has already been edited once, but in the last staff meeting we had to see and state that the White Mountains are using way too many different styles. Jacen now is taking the challenge of fixing that (Very bold decision m8
). Check the map I included above to see how many styles there were around late last year.
River work is what is keeping DSE busy in Anfalas. On the southern shore @greglas2 has been working on the salt flats, laying out a lot of markings for what shall be created soon. Additionally I found a very nice easter egg-ish location, an inn in a small cave. Try to find it!
Lamedon (In Progress) - Lead: @Eriol_Eandur
Every single day Eriol has been hosting jobs this week! More than I have since the year started 
. All hail Eriol for his immortal perseverance with Lamedon! Whether it be roads or streams, Eriol will not rest until they are all done.
Misty Mountains (In Progress) - Lead: @Emilio_ & @Finrod_Amandil . All hail Eriol for his immortal perseverance with Lamedon! Whether it be roads or streams, Eriol will not rest until they are all done.
I had my last week of this years mandatory military service (as military musician ) and hence were not able to grant much attention to my beloved Misties.
Fornost Reruin (In Progress) - Lead: @Fireinferno13 & @Demonataz ) and hence were not able to grant much attention to my beloved Misties.
Artists have once more gone crazy in Fornost, almost all houses are now done or in progress, if you're an Artist and still want to claim one you need to be quick!
[Public Project] - Fennas Drúnin (New) - Lead: @thomasd16
Fennas Drúnin is an old town located at the bottom of the angle where the Bruinen flows into the Mitheithel. It has seen many kingdoms come and go and has had many different owners, today it is run by Fëotar and a local council who uses it as a centre for his farms. Some key features of the town are a stone keep and wall which were originally built by the Númenóreans.
For now the project will mostly be voxelling, I need to fix up the rivers and move them further apart at the tip so that the keep has more room to be built in. Next up will be the terrain the town is built on. Fingers crossed that the terrain does not take too long to do and we can get straight to building
.
- thomasd16
For now the project will mostly be voxelling, I need to fix up the rivers and move them further apart at the tip so that the keep has more room to be built in. Next up will be the terrain the town is built on. Fingers crossed that the terrain does not take too long to do and we can get straight to building
.- thomasd16
Plugin Development
Plotbuild Plugin (Last bug fixes in progress) - Devs: @Eriol_Eandur & @Ivan1pl
Resource PacksThe inspiration for the Plotbuild plugin was on one hand to make it possible for Adventurers to build on the actual Middle-earth map without staff supervision. We already have the possibility to grant building without staff presence on plotworld, but building houses right on the final terrain is a lot more fun than in a weird plotgrid, isn't it? On the other hand the plotbuild plugin will make it easier to create and manage freebuilds.
The plugin has really a lot of commands, currently 27 of them (9 can be used by non-staff). While this of course requires more time to learn how to handle the plugin it makes it incredibly flexible in use.
New New Player World (Ready for implementation) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur, Assistance: @_Luk The plugin has really a lot of commands, currently 27 of them (9 can be used by non-staff). While this of course requires more time to learn how to handle the plugin it makes it incredibly flexible in use.
I hope you all agree on that our first NPW was neither in design nor in choice of the questions very admireable. This has now been fixed by Eriol and Luk who selected an excerpt of the map as new region for the new NPW with a set of new questions and a fancy plugin that asks about them while one walks along the road.
The new NPW will hopefully soon be installed, we'll tell you how to get yourself into the NPW again to give it a look once its done
Moria Teleport Plugin (Ready to be tested on dev server) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur The new NPW will hopefully soon be installed, we'll tell you how to get yourself into the NPW again to give it a look once its done
It may have been possible to solve with command blocks, but with all the other plugins we have by now the chances are high that the vanilla commands are partly disturbed by the plugin mechanics. Hence our unstoppable developer Eriol immidiately stepped up and offered to make a plugin for automatic teleports that will bring you from and to new Moria without requiring you to click or type a single thing!
Minigames Plugin (Small fixes in progress) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur
In collaboration with the Guides a plugin was developped to easily create and run minigames. Currently the plugin features Hide and Seek, Races and Quizzes. For the latter one however we need everyones help! We'd like to assemble a pool of questions to be used in the quizzes. And of course the more questions we have the better it'll be, because I guess you don't want to answer the same questions over and over again... Read more about how you can submit questions below!
Randomising Plugin (Ready for implementation) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur
This plugin was an idea of q220 himself. The idea is a very technical one: As you may have seen in the newer crop fields, e.g. throughout southern Gondor, we build them using crops in different growth stadiums to give the fields a more natural look. However making that with voxel or by hand takes a lot of time, and there's many fields which are not using this technique yet, especially the Shire. The plugin now can be used to randomize the data values of specified blocks, which is the technical description to achieve the above.
Only a small thing, but a really nice small thing!
Only a small thing, but a really nice small thing!
Mordor Pack (In Progress) - Lead: @bender400
Rank UpdatesEven though it may still take quite a while until we get down to start Mordor, the RP is the most important thing we'll need to start this project. bender has taken the lead of the development, helping him are currently @Eriol_Eandur, @kisos, @mattlego, @jacenpeter and @Ryiw. If you too are interested in creating textures for the new Mordor pack please contact @bender400.
New Doors (Waiting for Update) - Creator: @Ryiw
For the new 1.8 doors Ryiw has created an immense amount of textures. For all four packs I selected and added five of these new textures, currently we're waiting for q to update the download links.
Banners (Waiting for Update) - Creator: @SKy_the_Thunder
Sky has created very awesome banner overlays with which we can make really fancy banners for Rohan, Gondor and even Mordor. These are also waiting to be officially added.
Three players have been promoted to Artist last weekend. They all did show a huge amount of passion and perseverance by joining almost all the jobs that there were and did put a gigantic amount of time into their Carn Dûm Project Builds.
Congratulations to:
Back from his break is @_Luk! Welcome back as Designer!
Once more however we need to bid farewell to @BurgundyStig aka Speeder, at least from seeing him walking the lands of Middle-earth as Guide! Namárië!
Media of the weekCongratulations to:
Back from his break is @_Luk! Welcome back as Designer!
Once more however we need to bid farewell to @BurgundyStig aka Speeder, at least from seeing him walking the lands of Middle-earth as Guide! Namárië!
@SmaugJuice has directed his virtual camera towards the falls of Rauros this week. And once more we see that the ingame time a shot is taken at makes up the major part of the beauty of a shot!
The Falls of Rauros by @SmaugJuice
The Falls of Rauros by @SmaugJuice
Other news
Change in Public Projects
Lore Bits #1: Thought-readingAs we're moving towards having less projects at the same time I changed the amount of public projects going on at the same time from two to one. For the next few months this shall be Fennas Drúnin lead by thomasd16.
Motivation series
@smogpaster has messaged all staff members and asked them about their motivation to build/play on MCME and he got a bunch of really interesting answers which I deem worthy to share with everyone!
Where do you live?Eriol_Eandur:
Well I can't really explain why I like to create things. It's just fun. Of course it it great to see the results. But it's also just relaxing and satisfying to slowly shape a building, river, tree or mountain.
It's easier to tell why I'm building at MCME:
I'm a great fan of Tolkien's books. The community of MCME is a great place to meet people who share my fascination and talk about Tolkiens creation. Minecraft is an awesome tool to recreate Tolkiens world. It is very simple to use. Many people play it. Thus there is a lot of manpower which makes this project great and possible.
What do I do:
I love to do terraforming and build natural stuff like trees and rivers. I'm also running jobs quite often to include Adventueres in building Middle-earth. At the moment I am leading the Lamedon project, which is a quiete populated region in Gondor. I'm creating the terrain, mountains and rivers, placing trees and planning the locations of farms and roads. Artists and during jobs Adventurers build the Farms, and roads and small streams.
Well I can't really explain why I like to create things. It's just fun. Of course it it great to see the results. But it's also just relaxing and satisfying to slowly shape a building, river, tree or mountain.
It's easier to tell why I'm building at MCME:
I'm a great fan of Tolkien's books. The community of MCME is a great place to meet people who share my fascination and talk about Tolkiens creation. Minecraft is an awesome tool to recreate Tolkiens world. It is very simple to use. Many people play it. Thus there is a lot of manpower which makes this project great and possible.
What do I do:
I love to do terraforming and build natural stuff like trees and rivers. I'm also running jobs quite often to include Adventueres in building Middle-earth. At the moment I am leading the Lamedon project, which is a quiete populated region in Gondor. I'm creating the terrain, mountains and rivers, placing trees and planning the locations of farms and roads. Artists and during jobs Adventurers build the Farms, and roads and small streams.
@Daddlio has asked this question in this thread and has also gotten a bunch of replies worth checking out! Be sure to give his thread a look and answer if you have something to share about your hometown!
In this section I will show off a small portion of lore that assumingly not many know about yet, maybe because Tolkien only wrote about it beyond LotR and the Hobbit. If you have an own Lore Bit to share please message it to me (@Finrod_Amandil).
Ósanwe-kenta (Quenya for "Enquiry into the Communication Thought") is an essay written by Tolkien somewhere around 1959-60. It has been published through the magazine Vinyar Tengwar #39 from July 1998. A simplified and shortened description of the first part I want to present here. Be sure to read the entire essay if this is interesting to you. An online version can be found here: http://fanmodules.free.fr/Our Resources/Magazine articles/VT 39 and 41 - Osanwe-kenta.pdf
Ósanwe-kenta (Quenya for "Enquiry into the Communication Thought") is an essay written by Tolkien somewhere around 1959-60. It has been published through the magazine Vinyar Tengwar #39 from July 1998. A simplified and shortened description of the first part I want to present here. Be sure to read the entire essay if this is interesting to you. An online version can be found here: http://fanmodules.free.fr/Our Resources/Magazine articles/VT 39 and 41 - Osanwe-kenta.pdf
Have you never wondered how Galadriel was able to speak to Frodo and Boromir in Lothlórien? Well regardless whether you did, here's the answer: Sanwe, literally "mind-communicating".
Everyone, regardless whether he be an elf or man or Vala has the capability of using one's mind to communicate with others. However this is bound to some difficulties. While one can always detect the minds of the conversation partner the other's mind needs to be open, or willing, to accept the conversation. In Valinor it is normal that everyone's mind is open all times, in Middle-earth however one often finds persons closing their minds against certain or all others to avoid the abuse of thought-communication (elaborated on in the second part of the essay). If someone closes his mind, there is no way to break his unwill forcefully. Additionally, as the spirit (fëa) of everyone is always bound to its body (hröa) the body can, and usually does, weaken the connection between two minds.
On the other hand however there's ways to strengthen that connection, namely by three means: Affinity, urgency and authority. Affinity comes to use when the two minds are very familiar with each other and by default trusting each other. As examples Tolkien gives the connection between someone and his king, or between two close friends. Urgency is about situations when the person seeking to engage in a conversation is driven by strong emotions. This can both be joy or fear. Lastly authority helps persons that do have the position of being able to command others to build up a connection. This is especially the case when Valar try to build up a conversation.
Communication through speaking (using one's voice) however has grown more and more important over time, leading to Sanwe being used more and more rarely. Combined with the situation of late Third Age Middle-earth and all it's conflicts leading to most persons closing their minds (maybe even already instinctively) this may explain why we almost only witness elves using this technique.
Do you like this idea as a new section of the Times? Leave your opinion below!Everyone, regardless whether he be an elf or man or Vala has the capability of using one's mind to communicate with others. However this is bound to some difficulties. While one can always detect the minds of the conversation partner the other's mind needs to be open, or willing, to accept the conversation. In Valinor it is normal that everyone's mind is open all times, in Middle-earth however one often finds persons closing their minds against certain or all others to avoid the abuse of thought-communication (elaborated on in the second part of the essay). If someone closes his mind, there is no way to break his unwill forcefully. Additionally, as the spirit (fëa) of everyone is always bound to its body (hröa) the body can, and usually does, weaken the connection between two minds.
On the other hand however there's ways to strengthen that connection, namely by three means: Affinity, urgency and authority. Affinity comes to use when the two minds are very familiar with each other and by default trusting each other. As examples Tolkien gives the connection between someone and his king, or between two close friends. Urgency is about situations when the person seeking to engage in a conversation is driven by strong emotions. This can both be joy or fear. Lastly authority helps persons that do have the position of being able to command others to build up a connection. This is especially the case when Valar try to build up a conversation.
Communication through speaking (using one's voice) however has grown more and more important over time, leading to Sanwe being used more and more rarely. Combined with the situation of late Third Age Middle-earth and all it's conflicts leading to most persons closing their minds (maybe even already instinctively) this may explain why we almost only witness elves using this technique.
Upcoming
Themed Build
This week's Themed Build is about building a Siege Tower of the troops of Mordor as used in the Battle of the Pelennor. More information can be found here: #3/16 - Mordor Siege Tower
Scheduled Events
Tours
Community OutreachThere are no Tours announced for this week yet, but keep an eye on this thread and request a tour if you want one!
Jobs & Plotbuilds
It looks like both Plotbuilds for Adventurers (Treebuild and Fornost) are completed by now. Artists can still build ships in Eaglz' shipyard at /warp Eaglz' Shipyard in plotworld.
Jobs for next Saturday will be announced in this thread over the course of the week.
Jobs for next Saturday will be announced in this thread over the course of the week.
Questions for Minigames Plugin
Closing statementAs mentioned above, Eriol and the Guides are developping a minigame plugin featuring a quiz gamemode! To get the best out of this we need as many questions as possible! The questions will be separated into categories (Lore - Movies - MCME) and can be of any difficulty, both easy and incredibly hard (and some in between) questions are required! However both the question and the answers should be fairly short for practical reasons.
Use the link below to submit your questions, of course you can submit as many as you want!
In the end the questions will either be of multiple choice kind or that you have to type the exact answer. Also multiple choice questions with multiple answers to be selected are possible. However the type of the question will be set by me and the devs, so don't worry about that when submitting your questions!
Link to form: Questions for Minigame plugin
The First MCME Parody Karaoke Event Use the link below to submit your questions, of course you can submit as many as you want!
In the end the questions will either be of multiple choice kind or that you have to type the exact answer. Also multiple choice questions with multiple answers to be selected are possible. However the type of the question will be set by me and the devs, so don't worry about that when submitting your questions!
Link to form: Questions for Minigame plugin
@BurgundyStig (aka Speeder) is planning for a Karaoke event using famous songs covered with custom LotR or MCME related lyrics! Add your ideas to this thread if you too think this will be a hell lot of fun!
Audiobook
This is just a really quick note from myself that this is something that definitely should be picked up again! Whether it will again be hosted by @Credoo, myself or someone else has yet to be decided. But please fill out the poll at the top whether you'd prefer starting once again from the start at Bagend or whether we should continue at around where we left, which was around Isengard being invaded by the Ents if I remember correctly.
EDIT: Please check out this thread for more information: Audiobook
Screenshots for FacebookEDIT: Please check out this thread for more information: Audiobook
@Tyranystrasz has access to the MCME Facebook page and is regularily posting screenshots of our builds there! Lend him a hand and submit your best screens here: MCME screenshots for Facebook
Phew this edition took me really long to write. Do you think it was worth it? Comment below whether or not you enjoyed this week's Times or parts of it!
Connected to this week's special feature about thought-communicating I found this quote:
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