Survival 4

Survival 4
Camp Dogcraft, the Spawn of Survival 4
Server World
Type	Survival Multiplayer World
Opened	1st April, 2020

Survival 4 is the fourth major Survival Multiplayer world on the Dogcraft Server. It released on the 1^st of April, 2020, succeeding the Survival 3 world, bringing with it the update to Minecraft 1.15: The Buzzy Bees, a new Dogcraft.net website and a total reset of Dogcraft Dollar balances, claim blocks and previous purchases. Survival 4 also marked a move to dedicated hardware for the server as opposed to the previous setup which limited performance.

Announcement & Release

After over a year and a half, some players began raising questions as to the longevity of the Survival 3 world, as it was on its way to becoming one of the longest lasting worlds on Dogcraft. However, poor performance following Survival 3's update to Minecraft 1.14 and the poor chunk-loading behavior that brought with it built anticipation for an update to the next version, 1.15.

On the 14^th of March, 2020, it was announced by Head Moderator  Scooberson that the Dogcraft Server would be updating and that after that Survival 3 would soon be ending to make way for a Survival 4 world as a result of the need to transition to new hardware. Some details about the new world were revealed, such as the removal of the world border and the fact that it meant a total reset of claim blocks, purchases and DCD balances. It was also announced that Survival 4 would update to Minecraft 1.16 upon the version's release, meaning that the nether would need to be reset to allow for the new generation.

Player reaction was largely positive to the announcement, with the majority welcoming the upgrade. Some players were upset about the removal of all claim blocks and player balances, however unlike the transition from Survival 2 to Survival 3, players were optimistic thanks to the advanced notice given by leadership and much better organisation.

Addition of Beagle

Survival 4's opening day was heavily plagued by various lag and chunk loading issues caused by the strain of over a hundred players on launch. These issues were such that many considered the server unplayable for the first few days. Several plugins were disabled throughout the following week, and player numbers began to drop slowly, to around an average of 70. Many aspects of the server improved significantly, especially chunk loading and mob spawning, and it was widely noted that the new hardware was performing better than the old given the circumstances. Nevertheless, the server was still not an ideal experience, and crashes became very frequent at the end of the first week, as did persistent issues with warps.

An announcement pertaining to the situation was made by Head Moderator simply_simon on the 7ᵗʰ of April. The announcement detailed the planned solution to the various lag issues. A second overworld would be created and would function as another dimension, with inventories, ender chests and experience levels all retained when teleporting between the two. This would allow Minecraft, a 'single threaded' game to be run across two single threads, one computing a seperate overworld each. The new overworld would feature it's own nether and end dimensions which can also be teleported to from the other nether and end. Chat and 'Tab' screens would be shared, as would moderating tools. The new overworld would be called Camp Beagle, and the original renamed Camp Husky, in reference to the camp style spawn builds they have. Beagle would launch on the 11ᵗʰ of April, the same day as a player would be placed on the server for the first time, of 55 (plus five extra spaces for moderators) for each Camp.

Features

A number of new features and changes were added alongside the transition.

• Claim blocks could now be purchased directly in-game using the /buyclaimblocks command, for 2DCD per claim block.
• A new homes plugin was added.
  • Instead of having a certain number of homes players can set, homes now cost a certain amount of money to set based on how long the player wants to set it for.
  • Players can now set homes publicly, allowing anyone to travel to them. They can also charge for teleporting to them.
  • Homes can now be named and have messages when using them.
• Mob eggs, a feature that was available during Survival 1 and some of Survival 2 saw a return, allowing players to have a chance of "capturing" mobs by throwing an egg at them.
• A new Shop Chests plugin allowing players to sell and buy goods.