The EpicQuestz Newsletter #65 (31/12/2023)


The EpicQuestz Newsletter
ISSUE 65 - 31 December 2023

Editor’s Note

Welcome, one and all! I trust you all had a warm and cosy holiday period. As we come to the end of yet another rotation around the sun, what better time that to sum up the last few weeks on the server. And, since new year’s eve has fallen on a Sunday, it seems all too perfect of a coincidence. So join me, if you feel so inclined, as we go on a magical mystery tour for the next 5 minutes or so, and reflect upon the wondrous rollercoaster that was 2023.
-@lee_yam11



Project Progress

Osgiliath | In Progress
Project Leader: @LimeeFox

Massive progress! We’ve almost finished building the exteriors for the majority of what was laid out in the third district, and let us not forget that each building has also directly come with an interior structure. Furthermore, @DragonLordPixal has built a layout for another portion of the third district, North of the bridge, which is going to be a mostly fishermen neighbourhood. @Tobberz also slightly reduced the size of the park/garden South of the 2nd District and added a few wealthy house layouts. I have also assigned the planning of the DIstrict 4, located to the south-west of the city, to @lee_yam11. So far, he’s been able to lay down the structure of the streets. Finally, I myself finished off laying out the second district by adding a few houses to the north of the central street. In the same area, I continued laying out the last portion of the 1st District and recycled one of @the_pharaohs_cat’s “basiliques” that he built for a different purpose. I also made progress on the interior of the Dome of Stars.
- Project Leader, @LimeeFox



Bree | In Progress
Co-Leader: @LimeeFox Co-Leader: @lee_yam11

A slightly different project photo this time. This a screenshot from after the most recent build session, next to one shortly after we had started the very first houses, way back in 2021. Just so you may see quite how far we have come.
Progress has been chugging along nicely in the ever-waging war of interior decorating. Our beloved green team has been eager for more jobs, however I have been startlingly busy throughout most of December, and therefore unable to create more. I have, however, created some jobs for the larger buildings around Bree, to act as a change from the standard houses we have been focussing on in recent months. Some standouts from these include a charming little records and bookkeeper’s offices, structured by the delightful @Rio, and @Starship and myself worked on restructuring a lead-worker’s home and workshop, as it required a bit of a makeover. Looking into the early months of 2024, we hope to host another build session in which we can create the stables complex that has been planned out, and start work outside the town walls on some fields and some rural buildings out there.
*- Project Co-Leader, @lee_yam11 *


Other Developments

I often don’t really know where to put these bits, so I’m going to hide them here and hope noone notices that they don’t really belong in ‘Other Developments’.

  • Weathertop and Setton have both had a completed revamp for the Empire War Siege server.
  • Team lobbies for the maps are also underway, with one for Weathertop already being complete.

Technical Corner

Some of you may remember a couple months ago, we had the Arceon plugin installed for a brief period. It then became outdated so we could no longer use it. Towards the end of November, I decided to donate the necessary amount to re-obtain it, and everything was amazing and wonderful! For less than 24 hours, until we found out the EpicJobs plugin was incompatible with Arceon, and it had to be uninstalled immediately. And thus concludes this tragic, gut-wrenching tale.

Also the server is now joinable on versions 1.20.3 and 1.20.4.



Featured Creation

Strengthening his lead once again for the title of ‘Most Featured Creations’, we have @the_pharaohs_cat returning with his affectionately named “Mud Castle”.



Looking Back

The final newsletter of 2023. One of too few, I should like to add, though upon my head be it. As many of you likely know, I returned to the server in July after a two and a bit year gap from having any semblance of activity around EpicQuestz. But in the last 5 months, it’s been wonderful watching all the progress we have made, as well as the numerous amount of builder promotions we have had; undoubtedly a record for most in recent years. Seeing the server in such a healthy place after being gone for so long was definitely a satisfying feeling, and I feel confidant that we will continue into 2024 as strong as we have been for this year. I’ve had plenty of fond memories of this year, having met a lot of the newer members of the team for the first time, and it’s been a delight building with you all.


Looking Forward

Onto the next one then! Another twelve months awaits us my friends. We hope to see some of our trial builders complete said trials soon, and after them we must find more little minions to recruit. What else can we expect from 2024? Dead Marshes is all but ready for release, and is awaiting a cinematic and some screenshots before release. And, at what will very soon be 3 years of development, is it possible we’ll finally see a completed Bree this year…? :eyes:
One can only hope. Things are starting to pull together within this huge project though, and as well all know, nothing lasts forever. It will have to be finalised eventually.

As mentioned in the staff meeting, we are limiting newsletter productions now to whenever there has been noticeable progress, or when an editor pops up and expresses an interest in scribbling some notes down. That being said, this next year we may be looking to expand our editor list, since it had been so long since the previous guest editor before Sir Rio of the 155 wrote the last edition.

What will the next project be? Will we have another big promotion in the early parts of 2024? Will we sudden blow up on social media and get hundreds of new members? Only time will tell. For now though, I bid you a fond farewell, and a very sincere happy New Year.

BI-WEEKLY QUIZ:

Sticking to the theme of these last two sections:


What has been a standout moment for you this year?
Be it your funniest moment, or your proudest?



For me, seeing 8 of us speedrunning the exterior construction of Bree house in 3 minutes and 26 seconds is definitely up there. We had several attempts, but this was our best time.


Answer to the previous quiz:
The answer to last letter’s riddle was: The stars. They come out at night, and are stolen away during the day. Shoutout to mister @Tobberz for getting the right answer first.

4 Likes

THIS TIME I AM CERTAIN I WILL GET THE RIGHT ANSWER FOR THE QUIZ!!!

My standout memory this year, if we exclude the Bree house speedrun, was probably the animation of the Black Gate. We were in a rush to complete Osgiliath and Black Gate for Empire War’s september opening and we spent like 4 days straight up dawn-to-dusk building every single little Black Gate opening frame (30 frames I think).
The difficulty was lying in the diagonality of the doors, because every frame the gates opened/closed by a tiny degree.

You’d think it can’t get worse but it did, cuz we redid everything a second time when I realized that we forgot (or should have had animated) to animate the little towers, which served as hinges. Ultimately, it ended up being for nothing (for now) because of the way animations work on Empire War.

@Cotander coded a system that relies on blueprints in the form of Minecraft vanilla structures saved using structure blocks. Unfortunately, vanilla minecraft imposes an annoying limit to the size of the blueprints, which means we’d need like 8 blueprints just for a single gate. Luckily there are mods to bypass it but it’s additional work for a map that ended up only being in rotation on the condition that 60 players are online (and even then, it seems too big!). Ah… Glorious map.

But yeah I really loved the chaotic and hilarious and humouristic rush we had to get everything ready for EW, in a period when a ton of new people were welcomed into the EpicQuestz community & lots of promotions. There was real fellowship there and I loved that atmosphere. Great people, I tell you.

Every once in a while there is this new wave/generation of builders applying to EQ and they’re getting along really well and it’s super fun to be part of it and every time it’s such a delight : )

P.S: help, i wanted to do a : ) without a space but it didn’t let me without turning my smiley into a stinky emoji

2 Likes

Indeed, it was the most invested I had been in recent years to a project/projects. Helping with the gates was painful but fun. Now we are both traumatized thanks to it…