This may be more appropriate for the requests forum, but I'm not sure if this has already been done.

I got online over the weekend, and found out that we're getting a new map for the 1.8 update, which is great (I personally hoped we'd get a new map back when there was talk of it when we had all the problems around 1.6), but no one I spoke seemed [100%] certain of the details.

It seems we're going to be able to take a chest of items with us to the new map, but there are conflicting answers as to whether it's a single or a double chest. A couple people seemed to think Broonie may be convinced to make it two chests. There was also something mentioned about the old map being playable on the server, but separate to the new one? (rather than another world, like Nether/Skylands).

I looked around, and couldn't find anything written down about it, so I was wondering if a) I'm being blind and there IS a post somewhere, or b) Broonie/Flightster was planning to make a post, but the details aren't fixed yet.

If it's b, is there a chance you could make a post anyway, maybe just putting something like "you can take ONE chest of items, but I haven't decided what size it is." If it's a, can someone post a linky.

Other questions I had about it are; do you think the eco plugin will be running before the new map (ie: we could sell off all our stuff before moving over), and are there any plans to change any of the donator commands (ie, take away /tppos).

When I was asking about the new map in-game, there others saying things like, "wait, what? we're getting a new map??" so I know I'm not the only who would like to see some info.

Much love, beagrie.

Nothing is confirmed, as of yet. Once a plan of action is layed down, a news post will be posted on the front page.

All this talk of a new map, inventory transfers (or not), parallel worlds, etc... is due to some chatting on TeamSpeak a couple weeks ago between Broonie, myself, sgt_blinky, jig, and a couple others that I can't recall right now. This was basically just myself and the others randomly thinking out loud. Broonie probably isn't really going to decide on a new map till we know more about 1.8. Possibly not till 1.8 is released and he can play around with it on his private test server for a bit.

The backstory:
The "new map" conversation was kicked off by the fact that major changes are going to be included in 1.8 "adventure update", including (and probably not limited to) the inclusion of "NPC villages" that will figure prominently in animal mob harvesting. Its already been stated by Notch and Jens that animals will be persistent (don't despawn) and only the animals present at map creation time will appear naturally in the world. That makes them a fixed resource, unless you can regenerate them somehow. The villages somehow might be a source of new animals, though, via farms. I assume this to be true since Jens is in talks with the author of the "Baby Animals" mod for Minecraft.

Also, ignoring the whole animal farming issue... there are several new map features that are known to be in the 1.8 update; ruins, villages, strongholds, ravines, and canyons, as well as a selectable sky limit up to 512 high. None of those features will show up in the existing CFUK map, unless someone walks into a map area that has never been generated. If you scan around the live map cartograph, you can see that of the current 20,000 X 20,000 block map, nearly all of it has already been generated already. This means to get the new features of 1.8, a new map is almost certainly required.

Again, though, this is pure speculation until 1.8 is officially released and people can get their hands on it. Its possible that Mojang are just adding those features purely for single player, and multiplayer maps are not affected.

I am glad we are getting a new map. We've lost tons of maps on this server, and I always found that fresh starts are nice despite all the things that we lost in the previous maps. A new start will be really nice with an update like this.

as well as a selectable sky limit up to 512 high.

minecraftblock0

Thats unlikely to be enabled on the server. Doubling the Sky Limit means more memory, more block updates sent to clients, etc. So you need more bandwidth and more memory for that.

It would also make the server less popular if it was enabled due to the fact that it means a lower FPS for all clients.

as well as a selectable sky limit up to 512 high.

minecraftblock0

So you need more bandwidth and more memory for that.

Stucuk

The server should be capable of handling it. It's got a LOT of RAM (just ask Broonie, he's always mentioning it). But yes, when it comes to clients, that's our problem.

I can't imagine it going all the way up to 512, but for instance doubling it might be interesting. To 256 instead.

It also thrashes the drives more and chunk generation/sending packets/etc takes more CPU time. To have the same stability and player count you would need more memory and more CPU power. If you double the height you effectively double the memory needed to store the loaded chunks.

- This is an interesting read about it.