The EpicQuestz Newsletter #19 (18/01/20)


The EpicQuestz Newsletter
Issue 19 - 18 January 2020
Editor’s Note
Hello everyone! I am @dog_lover11, your host for this week. I was as surprised as you probably are that a builder like me was given permission to write this, but let’s see how it goes! We’ve got a bunch of updates on projects, and a lot of developments across the server, so let’s get into it!
- Editor, @dog_lover11
Project Progress

Grimslade | In Progress
[Designer: @LimeeFox ]
“The Grimslade farms are finally complete thanks principally to @the_pharaohs_cat, but also to myself. Further progress on Grimslade is now halted until further terrain works begin. In effect, Grimslade can be considered complete but will of-course be edited as the Rohan Project progresses.”
- Overseer, @Tobberz


Minas Tirith | In Progress
[Designer: @the_pharaohs_cat]
"Since the New Year there hasn’t been that much work on Minas Tirith. The only major thing I have done since then is the stables, which can be found next to the ramp onto the 6th level. This is due to the focus of myself and many others being on projects such as Grimslade, or the upcoming Osgiliath.”
- Designer, @the_pharaohs_cat


Nordinbad | Cancelled
“Nordinbad has been cancelled, following the resignation of thebeserker. Should any Artist wish to carry it on they are free to do so as a personal project, but it is no longer an official project. If you are a Blue-namer and want to take this on, just reply here and tell us”
- Overseer, @Tobberz


Osgiliath | In Progress
[Designer: @the_pharaohs_cat ]
“I’ve completed the Osgiliath terrain to the highest standard and it is ready to be built on. The base was created in Worldmachine a week ago, then I smoothed some parts out and matched it to the map in Worldpainter over the last 2 days and just finished editing a bit of the texturing in-game.”
- Designer, @Enoshade

“More Osgiliath announcements will come following the staff meeting we [had/will have] on Saturday 18th. Enoshade has completed the terrain, and I will proceed with planning it over the coming days."
- Overseer, @Tobberz


Rohan Terrain | In Progress
[Designer: @Enoshade ]
“Not much here. I spent most of my time making 2 more sets of different tree species, which should mean I am almost done with the trees (at least, for Southern Rohan). In the actual worldpainter map, I just kept on smoothing things out and making sure it looks fine in-game, and the Aldburg section is pretty much finished in that regard so I am only waiting on it because I’ll need to export the rocks and trees first, and come up with some standardized materials for texturing."
- Designer, @Enoshade


Other Developments

The first major development of the last two weeks is the beginnings of an Epic Questz Survival Server. It is currently in beta, and @StealWonders and @Tobberz are currently working on coding plugins and all the other technical parts of running a server. If you want to join the warzone, message @StealWonders on discord for a whitelist!

Second on the list is the newly refurbished Assets warp! @LimeeFox has kindly created a brand new plot filled with all the previous assets and trees and the likes. It has a much nicer design and layout, check it out was at /warp assets!
(The old asset warps have been renamed to /warp assets-archive1 /warp assets_archive2)

Barud-Dur was marked as paused in the previous Newsletter, but it is safe to consider the project cancelled along with Nordinbad, due the @thebeserker ‘s resignation. However, as mentioned above, if any artists or above wish to continue these projects, then please get in contact with us!

Staff have decided that, to help maintain the server, they will be holding regular monthly meetings, the first of which has taken place this weekend.

Despite not having any properly active projects, if you do wish to continue helping out around the server, you can still help on future projects by building assets and providing designs for houses and the likes. Head over to /warp Osgiliath and /warp Aldburg-assets to contribute what you can!

The discord server has been doing very well since the new year, we have been gaining a steady flow of members since the closure of Empire War, many of which came directly from our sister server. As such, we should expect a statement on the future of EpicQuestz from @Tobberz next week.

Technical Corner

There were not many technical changes in the last week, although we mounted a volume to the server (a network hard-drive) to store our dynmap data, but volumes can still be expanded in the future.
@StealWonders recently configured a command in-game so that now typing either /rp or /texturepack will trigger an automatic download of the EpicQuestz resource pack.
Sadly, plugins for our plot system are still bugged, so if you need a plot claimed for you, please message one of our lovely administrators to appoint you owner of a plot.
Promotions

There has been one promotion in the last two weeks, @koohikoo has been promoted to Trial Builder as well as a slight reshuffle of the staff team.

Sadly, @thebeserker decided to step down from his role as Manager, and therefore the staff team decided it was necessary to dissolve the rank of Manager.
As such, @limeefox has been reappointed back to his previous role of Designer!


Featured Creation

This week’s featured creation is provided - again - by @the_pharaohs_cat! Nonetheless, Cat built a lovely rendition of The Dome Of Stars for the assets of Osgiliath.

The powers that be have begun a secret investigation to the alleged bribes mentioned by @Enoshade last newsletter, and I must admit it’s suspicious he’s been featured three times in a row. Despite his cheating the system, we do not con-dome any violence towards him. (haha get it?) Anyway, check out the rest of our Osgiliath assets at /warp Osgiliath, and maybe even lend a hand!





Closing

To close, it’s been a quiet couple of weeks. Progress on Grimslade had been going slow for a while, but now that we have finally all the fields, the majority of the project is done. I have been your host this week, and my final note is that I sincerely apologise for my appalling dome pun! I hope next week you have an editor who can tell better jokes.
Apologies if this newsletter is poorly formatted, we are experiencing some issues due to a recent update, but soon enough it should be fixed.

BI-WEEKLY QUIZ: {QUIZ QUESTIONS}. What is the height from the base of Minas Tirith to the peak of the Tower of Ecthelion? COMMENT DOWN BELOW! Answer is revealed in the next newsletter!

Answer to the previous quiz: Maedhros lost his hand after his escape from his long imprisonment at the hands of Morgoth. He was chained up by his wrist for many years, but when his friend, Fingon, finally found him, he was unable to break the chains. So, with the help of Thorondor, they cut off Maedhros’ hand and took him to freedom.

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Good job. I think our Discourse forum software has actually broken so I can’t see the [center] formatting, but this newsletter was not only useful, but an epic guest edit by you :smiley:

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you in the future, Editor doglover_11 :3

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uh oh… you’ve found me out, better run for it :running_man:

Flee, you puny feline.

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Cat is actually very long. Just imagine a cat with normal proportions other than the fact he is 6 feet long.

Wow so he is speedy??
I can imagine him racing across the floor on all fours in his bananarmour straight start me.
I am afraid.

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Well I’ll be damned.
I never thought I’d say it, and I most certainly don’t want to, but… I don’t know the answer.
You see, I’ve never been good with questions such as these that require numbers and the like.
Anyhow, I can’t simply not answer the question, my honour depends on it. As such, I will make an educated guess for it. I hope those videos I watched some time ago comparing the height of Middle Earth landmarks will come in handy.
I’ll go with a height of something around 500m tall?
I pray that I’m not utterly humiliated in two weeks when the answer comes out…

Nice newsletter Doggo! And thanks for making me really think for this one - good hard question that you probably thought up just to rattle me…

How tall is Minas Tirith? Well, I do not believe it is ever outright stated. I’ve heard of there being some plans existing in The History of Middle Earth, though I believe those aren’t entirely official. Various estimates could be made, ranging from something like 100m to 800m. However, if there is any official and fairly precise number, I do not know it.

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