Special Events Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Some Awesome Minecraft

Category: Special Events

30Jun

Some Awesome Steam Run(s) – July 2018

Posted in Competitions, Game Nights, NuNu, Some Awesome, Special Events | Leave a comment

What is the Steam Run?

For those of you who are new, the Steam Run is an event we host on the server where we zero in on a mineshaft somewhere on the server, and we border it off from the rest of the world. We then go through the mineshaft, adding chests full of goodies for players to find, and depositing huge veins of rich ores for you to mine. We also add some special rooms, and plenty of mobs to keep you on your toes. But most importantly of all, the Steam Run gets it name from the numerous books you can find, in each of which there is contained one Steam key, a game code you can then redeem on the Steam PC gaming distribution platform.

Past Steam Runs have included up to 60 of these games, this year we’re taking it up a notch. Over 150 keys will be available to pick up, including titles like Jurassic Park: The Game, Dead Island GOTY Edition, Day of the Tentacle Remastered, and many more amazing hits, as well as indie gems and even game codes for the Playstation 4.

When is the Steam Run?

We’ll be splitting the event in two this year, so we can get as many people as possible involved. The first of the two events takes place on the 4th of July, which is on a Wednesday this year, meaning most folks will actually get the day itself off (in America anyways). We’ll start at 2pm Eastern time so folks on the west coast can get involved, as well as people in the UK (since they’re probably not celebrating our independence LOL).

Anyone who cannot make the first event is welcome to come to the second, which is TBA as far as the date itself. Only people who did not attend the first event will be allowed at the second event so it’s fair.

If you’re interested in attending the event on the 4th of July, please go into the Facebook event in the group and mark yourself as going, so we know what to expect for how long it should take, how many of the 150 keys to place, and who to put in the group for teleportation to the event.

Rules of Engagement

At the start of the event, we will teleport everyone to the location where there will be a starting room with tools, food, and beds to set your spawn. Once we have everyone together, we will announce in the chat the countdown as well as on the Discord voice channel. We will be streaming this event, so if you are in the Discord channel, be prepared to be on the stream as well.

Power tools will be disabled for this event, but if you sign up for an account at SomeAwesome.com and connect your Steam profile, we are rewarding players who do this with a custom diamond pickaxe that is enchanted with Efficiency 5, Fortune 3, Unbreaking 3 and Mending. This will put everyone on equal footing right from the beginning. Sorry, but we realized after the last Steam Run that power tools were too OP, however once the run is over we generally let people use them to strip mine the place in case any goody caches are left behind.

As per usual, the common rules of courtesy apply. For example, if someone has found a chest, you should not try to also go in that chest and try to snake some of the items out from under them. Flagrant attempts at piggybacking, cheating or other subversive behavior can result in getting banned, but I know you guys are cool so I’m expecting a fair show of things.

This year we’ve actually bedrocked off the play area, so unless you hit a wall of bedrock, you’re still in the play area and fun stuff could be nearby, so keep those picks humming! The admins and I will be in spectate mode, and if you’re on the Discord channel we’re generally pretty liberal about telling you if you’re getting hot or cold with chests towards the endgame so it’s in your best interest to hop on there with us once the pickings start getting slim.

How Do I Activate My Steam Games After The Event?

It’s the first entry in our Frequently Asked Questions area of the Some Awesome website so if you need to know how that works then click here.

It’s customary for members to also trade their games after the Steam Run in the Facebook group so if you get a game and you don’t think you’ll like it, head over to the group and we’ll have a thread going for trades.

Every time we do one of these it’s a lot of fun so we look forward to seeing you all there. Feel free to ask questions or add comments below or in the Facebook event or message me privately.

Thanks!
~Serverus

05Feb

End of the Beginning: The Roadmap Forward

Posted in Main, Some Awesome, Special Events | Leave a comment

In a little less than 2 months, we will celebrate our 5th year running. We’ve had a lot of people come and go, an infinite amount of fun, and our fair share of drama 🙂

You can say many things about this group, but “boring” is not one of them.

We’ve stayed a fairly small circle of like-minded folks over the last few years, and while I love that, it’s safe to say that if we want to grow, we’ve got to do some housekeeping first. We have changes ranging all across the spectrum of human emotions to be made, so let’s just dig into it.

First, the happy news…

SomeAwesome.com Integration

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who helped with Beta testing. Your feedback has been extremely helpful. In fact the feature we just pushed out is based on the feedback I got from a lot of you.

One of the things I heard the most from people is that they would prefer to earn points by reviewing games they already had in their Steam library. This kind of went against the initial idea of only reviewing games that had keys available, but who am I to argue with the users! So with the latest release, you can connect your Steam account directly to your SA account and start earning points by reviewing games you’ve already spent a good chunk of time on.

Plus you automatically earn an extra 2000 points just by connecting your Steam account.

Furthermore, I’m working on a prototype section of the site just for people who play on the server. When I’m finished, you’ll be able to use your points to gain things in game, including:

Enchantment Books
Player Heads
Command Blocks
Elytra

On top of that, we’ll be offering command permissions, including /repair, /home and Treefeller, that you can redeem with points as well.

If you weren’t part of the initial testing group, that’s no problem at all. Starting today we’re opening up registration to whitelisted users only. If you’re interested in getting free Steam games of your choice, or you just want to get in-game goodies (hopefully starting in a week or two) then sign up here and make sure you fill in your Minecraft username in the appropriate field.

And now, the sad news…

Sundown of Main

We’ve had Main since the beginning. Even before the beginning, really. At first it was just our family LAN server world. But when we opened it up for the first time on April 6th, 2013, it became all of yours too. Many of us feel like we’ve got a lifetime of memories that exist only there.

To be honest, this call has been in the pipes for a long time. It never felt like the right time to do it. Technically it doesn’t feel like it now either, but we know we need to do it.

I’m hoping that this archiving (I don’t like to call it “shutting down”) of Main will be temporary. I honestly do. But it has to be done for a few reasons (more than just money)

1. Money

OK yes one of the reasons is money, but I only bring it up first because I want you all to understand what I mean by that, and why it’s not the most important reason here.

For starters, we’ve been with Fragnet for 4 years now, and quite frankly we’ve outgrown them.

Literally, I mean. Our world size exceeds their limits at the rate plan we’re on. It’s 30GB.

Each server is $40 per month. It’s not that we can’t afford that, but the reality is, with the amount of players we have split between both servers, combined with the ambitions 😉 of those players, it makes more sense to put everyone on a single server that can deliver the kind of stability and flexibility that we need. And in order to do that, we have to move to Amazon Web Services.

Mind you, with AWS, we can do a lot more, and I won’t be breathing down your necks all the time like a tech-fueled raging deity. Mostly anyway.

2. Player Density

The proof is kind of in the pudding here. The more we split players across both servers, the less people are playing together. It’s easier to attract and retain new players with the combined headcount. So my hope is that, once we hit a decent rate of concurrent players, we can reopen Main, also on an AWS server.

Let me be clear here that I’m not pointing fingers. If anything, the fault is on this side of the table. We put a lot of things on the back burner because Life Happens and all, but we could have made a better effort to provide a more consistent schedule of events for you guys, and that’s on us. Again, the hope is to kickstart things back up with Some Awesome and inextricably link it to the success of the Minecraft server. But it has to be done in a way that we don’t sacrifice the high quality of the player base we’ve all grown used to. Therein lies the challenge. So it goes.

3. Due Diligence

A couple months ago, we had a griefer. This was no ordinary griefer either, this was a hacking griefer taking advantage of a security flaw in 1.12.1. He was on Main. It was not great.

By some stroke of luck, one of his TNT towers was triggered and thus we were alerted to it. Because of the size of the worlds, I’m only given a single backup that rotates out once a day. In other words, I only have 24 hours of crisis management at my disposal. I try to download backups every once in a while too but they’re huge so it’s not ideal. Anyway, the point is we caught it, banned him, saw where he went, reversed the damage and made everything alright again, but we got lucky.

With AWS I can automate backups without worrying about size limitations, so that’s good, but more to the point is that it takes us twice as much effort to police both servers. Since Nunu is where the majority of the people play, we often forget to poke our heads in on Main to see if anything is up. Taking Main down for now helps us solve that problem for now too.

So What Now?

I’m not taking it down tomorrow or anything, so don’t panic. The plan is to have one last day with it on April 6th, 2018, and then we say our goodbyes, if just for now.

In the meantime, please take pictures. If you have pictures of old times, those would be great too, please dig those up. On the anniversary, we’ll be having a huge DefenderCraft event over on Main (details forthcoming), and afterwords we’ll be streaming a slideshow of everyone’s images while we hang out in the Discord channel and talk about old times.

If we’re going to send Main off properly, I’d appreciate if we can do it together.

Any questions feel free to post in the group or message me privately on Facebook if you prefer.

Thanks,
~Serverus

08Nov

November Steam Run 11/25/17

Posted in Servers, Special Events | Leave a comment

It’s high past time for another Steam Run don’t ya think? After you’ve stuffed yourself silly for Thanksgiving and then emptied your wallet on Black Friday, we think it would do you good to sit back, relax, and feverishly break blocks looking for chests with free games in them. Right? Good times.

Steam Run January 2017

Once again, we have slated over 60 games to find in a custom built zone (no wandering out of the prize area inadvertently anymore) as well as our standard loot: elytra, shulker boxes, power tools and the rest of the good stuff. Maybe this year I’ll actually note down the coords so I can have a definitive answer for you as to whether all the games have been found. 😉 And for the first time, we’ll be having this little picnic on Nunu.

We’ll be using this opportunity (since the Steam Run is a popular event) to make a couple of major announcements as well, so if you want to know what the future of Some Awesome has in store for it, be in the Discord voice channel when we play (or at least be watching on Twitch since we’ll be streaming it too).

We’ll be starting at 7pm EST as this seems like a good enough time for everyone to join, from the west coast to our UK people and everyone in between. If you’re on at that time, be prepared to participate, since we’ll be teleporting everyone on the server in one fell swoop (no need for a meeting place) right before the start.

If you have any questions, feel free to throw them in the thread where we post the link to this article.

See you guys soon!
~Serverus

24Oct

Halloween 2016!

Posted in Game Nights, Holidays, NuNu, Special Events | Leave a comment

Who can believe it’s almost Halloween again?! Time to put on those scary skins and celebrate Minecraft style!

Beginning Wednesday, October 27th stop by the Holiday Area to get your holiday souvenirs and monster costumes. Remember to bring sticks and emeralds! Don’t forget to grab your holiday map and banners while you’re there.

That evening we’ll go inside the giant pumpkin and head over to the Halloween Maze for some holiday fun. Get some holiday treats while Trick-or-Treating in our new holiday village, but beware some neighbors aren’t so friendly, and then try your best to solve our spooky maze! All event participants will receive a Zombie Horse prize and place their names on the Wall of Fame.

If you can’t make the Wednesday event, join GardenSavvy for our special UK hours. Check the Facebook event for more details.

Zombie horses are only available during the events. And yes, if you go to both events you can have receive two horses!

The holiday area, maze, and trick-or-treating will remain open until Sunday,November 6th when we will need to shut down to prepare for Thanksgiving.

Have a happy and safe Halloween. Beware of the clowns!

31Jan

Geocaching on Some Awesome – NuNu Style

Posted in Rules, Special Events, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

As some of you old-timers remember, we have a geocaching center on Main. We thought it was time to bring this fun family centered activity to NuNu since it has grown so much! So announcing, Geocaching on Some Awesome – NuNu Style! Those not familiar with geocaching, let’s start with the basics.

What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is basically a treasure hunt! It exists in real life and it is a wonderful family activity. Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

How do I geocache?

In the Geocaching Center, you will find a section for instructions (to the left), Geocache Book dispensers (up the stairs), the Trace your Trackable section (to the right and back) and a Hints center (to the right). You can access the Geocaching center by walking along the SOUTH road in the market.

Here is how geocaching will work: when you visit the Geocaching Center, go to the second floor and retrieve ONE book from a geocaching dispenser. You may do the geocaches in order or in any order that you wish. This book must be returned (at the top of the stairs) when you have found your geocache. Please only take one book at a time. In the book you will find coordinates and information about a cache. Using the x y z coordinates contained within the book, you can navigate to the cache to find the hidden treasure! Each book also contains a hint on where the cache may be located. That might help narrow down a starting point for you.

Notes on geocaching and cache locations:

1) All caches are located in public properties. Do not go on any private property to search for a cache.

2) No caches are buried. They may be underneath things so look around but you should not have to dig in order to find a cache.

3) All caches look the same. They are a single chest with a Geocaching Compass in an item frame on the outside.

4) Contained within each geocache is the following: a Welcome book for reading and putting back, a geocaching log for signing and putting back, possibly a trackable (see Trackable section for more information), and a number of items.

5) The random items in the chest are the treasure. However, the treasure system is take one, LEAVE one. If you cannot leave anything, please do not take anything.

6) Always leave an area better than you found it! (Meaning, don’t destroy the area. Be kind to the geocache. Be respectful.)

7) Can’t find a cache even with the coordinates and hint? There are hints available as a last resort!

Once you have found your cache, you have to return the book so it can be returned into the system.

What is a Trackable?

A trackable is part of a collection of items that remain within the geocaching system. A trackable may be found in any of the geocaches. You will know a trackable because it is named, numbered, and enchanted. Trackables are meant to stay within the geocaching system and are NOT for personal use like the other items that can be found in the chests. If you find a trackable, take it and return to the geocaching center to sign the log associated with the trackable you found. It will be your responsibility to place the trackable back into the system (meaning, go to another geocache and leave the trackable in that cache). It is OK if there are multiple trackables in a geocache. Please be respectful of the trackable system and try to return the trackable to a geocache in a timely manner. If you cannot, there is a hopper where you can place the unwanted trackable and it can be placed back in the system.

Ok, what else?

Please be respectful of the Geocaching system. It will not work unless everyone plays nice. No griefing, PLEASE! And the most important rule, HAVE FUN! Having a hard time finding a geocache? Check out the Hint Room located in the Geocaching Center. If you are interested in participating in making a geocache, contact Nancy Owen (dancingn27) and she will set you up!

If you find 5 geocaches or 10, sign your name on the Silver or Gold wall and contact dancingn27 (tag Nancy Owen on FB) for a prize! All participants should add their names to the main wall as well. Don’t forget once you found your first geocache, you can grab a Some Awesome Geocaching map! Happy Geocaching!

30Nov

3rd Annual Secret Santa & Christmas Stockings Event!

Posted in Features, Holidays, Special Events | Leave a comment

Here it is! For the 3rd year, our official Secret Santa & Christmas Stockings event! 😀

~~Secret Santa~~
We have such a fun & amazing community here that our Secret Santa events are always a hit. Leaving someone presents is basically a daily thing on our servers, but the randomized drawing of Secret Santa makes it so you may get to know a completely different player when leaving a Secret Santa gift.

We have some changes, so even if you’ve done this before, please READ all the way through! 😉

WHAT is Secret Santa?

A Gift exchange, but more! You submit your name into a pool of others, when submissions are closed, you’ll be given a random name. That person will be whom you are giving a gift to!

If you submit your name, you’re not only committing to giving someone else a gift, but you should receive one as well!

HOW do we get started?

Inside the trunk of the giant Christmas Tree in the holiday area, is where you start the submission process. From ~now~ until Monday, Dec. 7^th, you will be able to join the Secret Santa event by grabbing a book* (provided via button), sign it with your name (Step 1), and drop it into the chest (Step 2).

You are welcome to submit names on behalf of other players (family/friends) if they cannot get on & do it for themselves (put their name as the book title). However please keep in mind: 1. You should have their permission first. 2. If they cannot get online to give their gift, you will be the one responsible for the gift.
*Fine print: Please ONLY grab these books for this purpose & for nothing else. Thanks!

What’s next?

At this point, some people already start planning for the gift they’re going to give or build. Others wait until they know who will be receiving their gift so they can customize it to that player’s needs or likes.

Beginning Monday, Dec. 7^th: the Admin team will work on randomly assigning Santas to recipients. This way we can make sure everyone has someone & that you don’t get your own name! 😉 We will let you know the name of the player you’ve been assigned sometime on Dec. 7^th or 8^th. This will be the person you are giving a gift to.
~The Fine Print!~ When you submit your name/signup, you are agreeing to provide a gift for someone else. If you are too busy to get online to submit your own name and have someone do it for you, please only have your name submitted if you will be available to give a gift later. 😉 We try to avoid such sadness as missed giving opportunities.

Finally: GIFT! 😀

Go forth & GIFT! Now is your time to customize something special for your recipient. YOU choose how you will reveal the gift! You can give it early, or you can wait until just before Christmas. We do ask that all gifts be given (delivered, built, etc) by Dec. 24^th at the latest.

Tips:

Join the Event! 😀 We will have opportunities for people to list their needs/likes so that a Secret Santa might get to know a little more about the player they are giving to.
Make sure your name & IGN are listed on the group’s IGN doc (click here) so it’s easier to match gift suggestions to players in-game.
If you are building a gift for your recipient, pick an area that won’t be in their way. For purely decorative builds, maybe around the edges of their land would be best (i.e.: don’t place a fountain in the middle of/blocking their tree farm). If they need a new farm or animal pens, then a place they can get to them easily would probably be great.
If you are wanting to leave a chest of goodies for your Secret Santa recipient, we will have options available where you can leave gifts *under the Christmas tree*. Of course you’re welcome to build them a decorative present at their place with the chest of goodies hidden inside. 😀

Gift Ideas (a few things that have been done before):

Pixel art of something the receiver likes (pick a fandom, any fandom!)
Completing or helping with a large build they’re in need of
Chest of goodies: favorite blocks, colors, supplies needed, specially named items for decor, hard-to-get items

We look forward to another great holiday season of fun gift-giving here in our Awesome Community!

~~The Stockings Were Hung…~~

All the good little Steves & Alexes are hoping to get something special in their stockings this season! While you’re at the Holiday area, hang your stocking by the fireplace & you’ll get a gift from the Admins after Christmas! ^_^

There are buttons for red or green stockings, choose your color and rename your stocking* with your IGN on one of the anvils. Using the item frames provided, hang it on the brick wall around the fireplace. Only stockings hung before Christmas morning will be eligible for gifts.
*Fine print: Only ONE stocking per player. Please only use/take 1 item frame.

After Christmas morning, the admins will collect the stockings & you will be able to make ONE Christmas wish. It can be any one item (not a stack), or enchantment that you wish (from creative inventory, not an item that needs to be summoned).
Addendum: A power shovel or power pick is a valid option for your item. 😉

~Holiday Area OPEN for December!~

As usual, our Holiday area isn’t without other amenities! We have festive decor to enjoy and custom villagers to trade with. This holiday our villagers have such things as festive goodies, custom outfits, banners, & more.

Trades: cobble, emeralds, diamonds blocks, sticks, & white wool

Trades: cobble, emeralds, diamond blocks, sticks, & white wool

See the “Gingerbread Man” with your cobble for some special treats; check where you sit on the Naughty or N’ice list with “List Checker” (bring diamond blocks & emeralds, trust me); Santa’s Elf has your custom tailored Santa Suit (he likes sticks), and Santa’s Elf2 has some of our most Festive banners for trade (bring white wool)!

Note: the collectible Christmas Map is also now available!

Don’t forget to download the Some Awesome community’s favorite Christmas Texture pack:
XmasBDCraft 2014 from Sphax!

« Older posts

Newer posts »