There are a few changes and clarifications to the Nether tunnels project that will take place, and I'd like to shed some light on this. The large majority of what Sora wrote in his previous news post still stands.
- The main lines, going in all four cardinal directions, will be horse accessible either alongside the rails or through dedicated paths. Many of the private lines, going from the stations to various player bases, will be similarly done, although might not be 100% horse safe. Use caution when travelling through.
- The greek lettering naming scheme will be updated to make directions easier to follow for everyone. Each line will have its own naming pattern.
- The "owners" of each private line will have access to them, either for updates or to improve the look of the tunnels. I'm counting on you not to poke holes all over the place randomly.
In related news, Sora is being returned to his previous Helper status and is no longer in charge of this project. To keep the pool of active staff on the same level, Kagato75 is being promoted to Op status. Congrats, Kagato! On his end, UnknownEntity634 will be taking over the lead on the Nether project itself.
If someone has further comments or questions to share about all this, don't hesitate to reply to this news post.
Update: Sora decided to resign his staff position and his now back to Trusted status.
News
March 2014
The transition to 1.7 came with many new biomes, and several of you jumped at the opportunity to explore all these new areas. Things have since calmed down, many settling in their discovered locations, and large parts of the land have remained unused. As a reference, here is a far view of the world before and after the move to 1.7.

To free up some needed disk space and tidy up the world, I'm planning another map trim operation.
Areas that I believe are currently unused and don't have any interesting value are marked in red on the map. I'm asking you to please review said areas to ensure that nothing that belongs to you is included. If there's an area that you want to keep, please reply to this news post with the coordinates and I'll redraw the markers to keep it safe. If you have a single building located in the middle of nowhere, we can also move it to another location of your choice.
You have until April 5 to review this. The server will then be taken offline for a few hours of maintenance, which will include the removal of the unwated areas.
I'm also using the opportunity to offer you to clean-up chunk edges. Sometimes, when we move between game versions, newly generated terrain will have a sharp edge featuring sudden cliffs that don't look so good. I can use a special tool in-game to smooth this out. If you're interested, please provide the appropriates coordinates as a reply to this and I'll take care of it when I have the chance!
Reminder to all players: the building contest currently ongoing in Stone Ville has reached its middle point! You have two more weeks to complete your entry or get started on one, the deadline being on March 22nd at 23:59, Eastern Time! If you haven't begun yet, now is a good moment: several people have done their own entries in a few days only, which means that you have plenty of time to gather your materials, claim a lot and get building!
Speaking of Stone Ville, I'm now opening up the place for more buildings along with larger ones. If you're done with your contest entry (or don't have one!) and want to build something different, you're welcomed to do so. Likewise, you can also make larger builds by knocking down the fence separating two or more lots if you have a bigger idea waiting to be realized. For the sake of the contest itself, however, only one 25x25 lot will be considered by player. If you end up building on more than one area, please mark your contest entry clearly with your name and "Contest entry" on a sign. Also, for all construction works, keep in mind the general theme: ruined city downtown core!
Additionally, some of you might be interested in connecting your entries with the sewers. Salifax, Kagato and a few others are busy working on an extensive sewers network running under most of Stone Ville's streets. You are free to knock down the wall between your basement and the sewers themselves and make a passage of sorts. That area will be another ground to fight the future zombie uprising!
We have a nice server, in good health, with a great player base. As you must have noticed, there's been quite some growth lately. Additionally, thanks to several generous donators, finances are in good health.
This allows me to consider the options available for future server growth. There are several ways to go forward: raise the player cap, expand the current worlds, add new ones, or even launch a second server to run special mods...! To give myself an idea of what the current player base could be interested in, I've prepared a short survey. The results will be used to gauge interest; what actually happens for future expansions might be different. Please take a minute or two to answer it!
Take the short survey and voice your opinion!!
As a reminder, thanks to donations, the server's disk space has been increased by 200% while the memory has been upped by 100% compared to a year ago! You people are great!