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The EpicQuestz Newsletter
Issue #60 - 09 January 2023
Greetings, new and old! It is my pleasure to be the one opening this year’s Newsletter “season” with the first Newsletter in 2023. Moreso, this is the 60th edition! What a time to be alive… Speaking of which, let’s find out what’s going on - grab a cup of tea, reach out for the cookies and read along for the news:
-Editor, @LimeeFox
Recently, we’ve briefly discussed Osgiliath in a staff meeting. Within the next year, we are planning to do more work on the palatial district. Questions have been raised regarding the city-planning, or more precisely, the street layout. We might have gone too far with the curves in the fourth district, and as such we intend to change this and make less curved streets. Big plans require further discussion, so we decided to jump into a discord voice chat and talk about it more thoroughly sometime in February.
- Project Leader, @LimeeFox
Another successful build session! Two weeks ago, we completed 23 new household exteriors! You can see the part we’ve worked on in the picture above, which is the south-eastern side of Bree. New interiors were built, including hobbit holes! More progress on the forest, adding even more trees (mostly birch trees) and we’re slowly planting saplings around the place. Smaller-scale foliage is next on the to-do list. More build sessions are planned in February to make more progress on the house structures in the town.
We actually need help from YOU (yes you, the reader) to come up with a name for one of the town’s finest butchers. Anything that can fit into a hanging sign! Comment it down below, or send a message on our discord server (EpicQuestz)
- Project Leader, @LimeeFox
A few weeks ago, we’ve had another Staff Meeting which gathered all four Designers and an Admin, to catch up with the current EpicQuestz status and to discuss plans for 2023. You can learn more by reading the Full Staff Meeting Report here: EpicQuestz Staff Meeting (27/12/22)
Now, a few words from StealWonders, our admin:
"The keen among of you might already have noticed that we no longer use Tebex / Buyraft as our Donation hosts. This is due to the fact that Tebex now no longer includes monthly subscriptions in their free tier and takes are larger percentage of donations
we rely on. Not only that but they also take a percentage on all payouts. Outragous!
As there are many alternatives we could easily make the switch over to Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/epicquestz) a platform for creators to receive donations and tips for their work. If you want to support us financially you are free to do so one-time or as a monthly subscription. If you cannot aid financially you are just as helpful spreading word about our builds and server, watching our videos or playing on our server and interacting with our builders. Check out our Ko-Fi page here: https://ko-fi.com/epicquestz
Our server host has also increased their pricing over the past months, as have many others. In the near future we will try reduce server costs where possible.
On the subject of resource-pack news, it is important to note that EpicQuestz uses three different resource packs that are hosted on our GitHub in a repository (GitHub - EpicQuestz/EpicQuestz-RPs: The three RPs of EpicQuestz).
Over the past days I have cleaned up the files and created a pipeline that automatically merges every addon pack (Eriador, Gonodr & Rohan) with our base pack and automatically squashes (reduce file size) and zips the pack and offer it up for download. The pack updates are also automatically applied for all players on the server that are currently using a specific pack. This will greatly reduce future workloads packaging the textures and making the files ready for release. EpicSuite support for this has been added (feat: add pack update command by StealWonders · Pull Request #9 · EpicQuestz/EpicSuite · GitHub)."
- Server Administrator, @StealWonders
There might be a separate announcement for the way our resourcepack development works soon. Keep an eye on our Discord news channel!
Over the course of the holidays/end of the year, I found some time again to work on new and old plans and ideas.
The server and its plugins have been updated to MC v1.19.3. Afterwards, I used the opportunity and added five new plugins to our fine collection:
The Grid Selector add-on for Schematic Brush, Leather Colorizer & LiveAtlas (an alternative map UI for Squaremap) along with two of Squaremap’s addons.
https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/grid-selector-schematic-brush-reborn-2-add-on.99635/
https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/leather-colorizer.99462/
https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/liveatlas-alternative-map-ui-dynmap-squaremap-pl3xmap-overviewer.86939/
I highly recommend you familiarize yourself with the grid selector addon, as this can heavily increase the productivity of
pasting trees, bushes, rocks and other assets into your builds. As for LiveAtlas, you can now see that the map has gotten a new look to it: https://map.epicquestz.com/
Some work on EpicJobs has also been done. I have started a rewrite as the old plugin was heavily outdated and was using
various outdated frameworks that are no longer the common basis of modern plugin development.
- Server Administrator, @StealWonders
This week, I’d like to feature what one could call a mud castle, but in reality it’s quite a gem! Built by no other than @the_pharaohs_cat!
That’s enough news for now! Watch out for orcs in the fields… Don’t let meat be back on their menu. In case you seek refuge, EpicQuestz is always open and has a warm spot ready for you as a Traveller, but also as a Builder in case you’d like to join our team: https://forums.epicquestz.com/t/how-do-i-get-promoted-to-builder/
Thank you for reading, and see you soon!
-Editor, @LimeeFox