[Journal] Overview of 'Shell guides'.

Hi gang!

Now, I like writing guides from time to time and also like to think that some of my guides have actually managed to help a few players out. Thing is; I also think that some of these guides could still be useful for some of our new players. But here's the problem: I dislike bumping threads. Even if it is done once a month or so, I think it makes the thread look silly, especially when it involves a guide (if you don't believe me check some of my auctions, I came up with my "Shell bump rule" (bump the auction once per 24hrs) for that same reason).

So I've been thinking about the next best thing; keeping them a little in the picture without risking to overdo it. And certainly no bumping!

That's where I came up with this journal idea. Every time I write a new guide (which doesn't happen all that often) I'll eventually add it to this journal thread. So, say, after 2 - 4 weeks after I posted the guide I'll add a small review on the guide to this thread.

Thread gets a small "bump" without bumping, all my guides get a little extra attention and most of all: no excessive bumping nor spamming.

Overview of Shell guides (journal started the 14th of July 2015)

Beware the Idle time-out!

Empire Minecraft has a derelict policy. This means so much that if you stay away for too long (so not playing) then you risk that your residence(s) will eventually be declared vacant. Or, in other words, that you go derelict. This guide gives you some tips on what you can do to prevent it from happening.

Last update: 9th of August, 2015; added the new derelict policy change.

What happens if your supporter voucher runs out?

One of the things you can do to prevent going derelict is to become a supporter. And it's easy; you can get a single voucher which will get you a whole month of "supportership" (see the 'supporter link' for an overview of all the perks). But one thing puzzles many players: do you lose all your stuff once your voucher expires? Not to worry folks, but there are some things which you need to keep in mind. And this guide will explain those.

How to change your residence biome (and why).

A biome is a virtual area in Minecraft which heavily determines how the environment will behave. For example: in biomes such as deserts and mesa's you'll see that the grass will turn brown instead of green. That's because the temperature in these areas is very hot, so the grass wouldn't get enough water. An opposite to that could be the 'Ice Plains' biome; here the temperature is very cold and that will result in water eventually turning to ice! Fortunately for us we can change our residence biome, and this guide explains how.

Setting up Forge, LiteLoader and some mods (no, not moderators! ).

Most of us will play vanilla Minecraft (I usually do too) but there are alternative versions which can really enhance your gameplay. Like, for example, the Voxelmap plugin: this would add a small mini-map to your main screen which helps you keep an overview of where you are. It can also mark points on the map to make it easier to navigate. This guide explains how you could set this up.

Watching threads on the forums.

The forum software used by Empire Minecraft, called Xenforo, is a pretty complicated piece of software which provides many features. This guide explains how you can watch threads; that can help you to keep an eye out on a thread even if you didn't respond to it yourself. What that does you wonder? Simple: warn you when there are new posts. This guide explains more about that.

A guide on feature signs (and a cool, but dangerous, command)

Aikar and the developers keep adding features to the Empire and it can become a little hard to keep track of them all. So at one time I decided to write a guide (this was one of my first I think) as my way of saying "thanks for all the hard work".

I probably should do that again sometime, because there have been plenty of new features added and I know some of them still manage to puzzle players.

So what's next?

Now we wait Nah, this is my way to "bump" all my guides at the same time without bumping. As mentioned earlier: the moment I write a new guide I'll eventually add the link & a small description to this thread (but all without risking to overdo it).

Have any suggestions?

Don't worry: there is no such thing as a dumb questions. The only thing which could be dumb about a question is if you never ask it and as a result also never manage to find the answer to it yourself. If things puzzle you then I'd welcome suggestions on what to cover. And if you really don't like to mention what's puzzling you in public then always feel free to send me a private message.

'ShellGuides' usage policy

This thread contains an overview of all the guides I wrote on the Empire and which I think could be useful for players as a source of information. I've been asked a few times if people could copy some sections of my guides and that got me thinking about this small rules section. These rules apply to my guides as a whole.

1) Using (parts of) my guides on the Empire website (forums, wiki, etc.).

As long as you're doing something on the Empire website and for the Empire community then it's a total free for all. A reference back would be appreciated but it's not a requirement.

2) Using (parts of) my guides outside the Empire website.

If you want to use some of writings on a place outside of the Empire then I will allow doing so but only if these two very specific conditions are being met:

• You will reference me, ShelLuser, as the original author of whatever it is you're using.
• You will also reference the Empire Minecraft website (http://www.emc.gs/) either as a clickable link or in a written out way as I've shown in this sentence.

Only if both of these 2 conditions are met will I allow people to use my stuff outside of the Empire.

How residence permission groups work, and why you'd want to use them.

In this guide I explain what you can do with the recently added residence permission groups, what their advantage is and I also show you some specific ways in which you can use them. A life example (3rd post) has yet to be added, that will most likely happen around the time of adding this journal entry.

Updates

The guide on the derelict timer has been updated so that it also takes the upcoming change in the derelict policy into account.

How to try the new snapshots.

Mojang has released snapshots for the upcoming 1.9 version of Minecraft and in this guide I explain how you can try this out for yourself.

I really think your a good writer. This guide is absolutely finominal, I love it

Making your own town world.

Ever wanted to try out an idea for your residence in Creative mode? Or maybe you'd like to test a road edit to see how things work out before spending materials on it? In this guide I'm showing you how you can re-create the EMC town world (the roads) in single player. And no mods required: this all works in vanilla Minecraft.

How to optimize you redstone circuits.

A commonly heard complaint is that redstone circuits can cause heavy lag. Well, redstone by itself isn't really much of an issue, but there are some things which you can do to optimize your circuit(s) a bit and prevent some lag in the process. This guide explains how.

Even if you're not a redstone expert then I'd still recommend that you glimpse over it. One single torch can already make a difference!

And now I'll add 2 guides at once. Why 2? Because these 2 are officially mini guides though, as stated by some players, they may not be as miniature as you'd expect

How the compass became totally awesome (last update: 6th February 2016)

Last year the developers pushed out an update which made the usually pretty dull compass totally awesome. This guide explains more about it.

SMP2 Nether "training grounds" (this has been obsoleted by the waste reset).

Having problems with the Nether? Can't find a Nether fortress or are the ghasts constantly killing you? Well, this guide can point you to a "training area" which might help you out to gain some "Nether experience" within the safe reach of an outpost.

The admin flag = danger.

I can't believe that I never included this guide so far, even though it is one of the most important ones out there. Its also one of my guides which I favor, I consider it to be one of the better ones out there.

Also because Aya helped me out greatly, and I still need to laugh when she "stole" my vault voucher, tried to sell it for a ridiculous low price on both SMP2 and SMP8 and no one wanted to buy it

So here you go... Please... Don't give out the admin flag to random people. You only risk getting yourself into a heap of trouble.

A guide to the Utopia server

Ever wanted to know a little bit more about Utopia? Then maybe this guide can give you some ideas, but also don't forget about it's wiki page either

Wow you got a lot of guides!

What to do when you don't like that other player?

It's bound to happen someday, you might as well be prepared for it.

Suggestion ; explain to me how not to get screwed over by momentus
(and any other mob for that matter)
Long story short he spawned on top of me at the worst possible moment...

I am working on a strategy guide for the mini bosses (Marlix & Momentus in particular) which will be send to the blog, hopefully posted. I still need to work out the Marlix part but that one often gets postponed. Guess I should just try to go for it this weekend.

In the mean time: /ps can help you. If you check the survival section you'll find options to prevent spawning Mini bosses and / or Enraged mobs. So if you need a bit of peace & quiet then this definitely helps!

I know that ps changes it back, I was kinda caught unawares. I would really like to go into routinely hunting them. Ps could you also include some recommendations for gear? The best to face them with (In terms of enchantments, etc?)

Shell's guide to block protection!

WARNING: This guide is now slightly outdated, but an update is coming soon!

It has finally happened: Anti-griefing is here! This is the update which truly excites me to no end because now we can finally build structures in the Frontier and truly see them withstand the ages of time

In my opinion this new system is fully in line with the Empire itself: it is totally different than anything else out there (which is easily said than done, you try to come up with something original every once in a while, it's harder than it looks!), it doesn't intrude on gameplay too much (in my opinion obviously) and most of all: we're in control.

To me the Frontier has never been more appealing as it is now.

Wow nice job shell I'll add this link to my sig for new peps

This thread needs a good bump. CJ told me about this thread, so I wanted to check it out. *watches thread* Thanks for all the help, Shel!

Time for some new additions... In the mean time you can also expect an update for the block protection guide soonish, some things have changed which also need to find their way into the guide.

Let's play with clay!

This explains an efficient way on how you can dig up a lot of clay from the swamps in the waste, which you can then use to make brick blocks (or cook them into hardened clay, but if you're after that then you should consider going to a Mesa biome instead).

What happens if you got banned?

This is nothing official but I felt like sharing, also because I think us players could use a little 'back talk' about all this. Note: this guide is an unofficial one, but staff did take note of it.

This thread will be discontinued and I'm going to request the staff to close it. The reason for that is simple: it has served its purpose but it makes little sense to continue now that we have a dedicated forum for guides. I also feel that it gives me an unfair 'advantage' because I could theoretically bump my guides twice: once on the guide thread itself and then here.

But most of all: there's no need anymore to keep this around now that we can find all the guides nicely grouped together in one location.

Sorry for the bump, but I strongly feel the need to explain my motivations whenever I request one of my threads to be locked.