Thought Experiment: Converting a Vanilla Server to TFC

[madflavius 46]

Disclaimer: Please do not read this post as anything other than what the title says. I do not request additional features or faster development, but merely hope to offer an interesting topic for discussion that could provide great benefits in the future.

With that out of the way, here is the situation:

First, and most importantly, TFC is utterly fantastic.

Background: My server, Eleutheria, is based around trade, a player-driven economy, and nations competing for resources, occasionally even role-playing reasons for war (gasp, investment in the world!). In other words, perfect for the setup of TFC, what with the vastly modified resources and heavily cooperation-focused gameplay. Therefore, I have resolved to convert over to TFC as quickly as possible, once it stabilizes enough that each build will no longer require a completely fresh world (I did that far too often--with mixed results--with vanilla through the years). My players, by and large, eagerly await this change (with the reservations outlined below), and many have even ceased activities in preparation for the switch.

As the server has existed in its present form since July 2010 (something like 168 in-game years), we have a dedicated player base that has invested a substantial amount of time in both their 1) buildings and infrastructure, as well as 2) their stockpiles of resources. There is a single, server-wide currency, the Denarii, that is pegged to the diamond at a rate of 100 denarii = 1 diamond (the "diamond standard"), and many players have accumulated hundreds of thousands of denarii.

The Problem(s): TFC, obviously, does not use the vast majority of vanilla items and blocks. Furthermore, it has a completely different world-gen and climate system. Any conversion of an existing world would have to address three significant problems:

1) Conversion of the world itself, which has two sub-problems:

a. Moving the player-created cities and buildings

b. Modifying the blocks in these cities and buildings to conform to TFC (no vanilla cobble, for instance).

2) Conversion of stored "riches," i.e. ores, tools, food, and valuables stored in chests.

3) Conversion of the monetary system.

The Intent: Through all of these modifications, there is an important balance that must be struck between two competing sides: first, preservation of the hard work of the current players; second, the interests of those who would come to the server after the conversion, as well as the enjoyment of already-existing players as they learn the ropes of TFC. I don't want my players to be able to entirely skip the "leveling up" through the Ages of TFC because they farmed mob spawners in vanilla, but I also don't want their cities to be entirely useless in this new world either. Above all, a solution that does not fragment the existing player base is best.

Discuss away! It would be helpful if you stated the problem you are addressing in your responses, so we can keep track of them (for instance, "In regards to Problem 1(a)..."). I feel that this is a useful discussion, not only (and obviously) for my purposes, but in general, for any server owners that are interested in converting their own servers over to the Glory of TFC.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

It is almost entirely impossible to try and convert a vanilla world to a TFC one, simply because of how many things are different. I really thank you for this topic though, it's polite, well-written and worthy of a discussion, I'm glad you've chosen to play the mod that Bioxx and I have made

As almost all items in the world are TFC-exclusive and most of the fun of TFC is survival and growing and mining and expanding, I agree that hacking in all of your old items would be a problem. Cooperation in TFC is a must, I know that the servers I have played on greatly benefited from sharing of resources to a degree and an economy, having certain players out mining or harvesting lumber, it makes for a fun game.

For 1., I would say that trying to move or convert the world isn't going to work. A new world is pretty much your only option. I would suggest that you enter the world and give certain VERY trusted players cerative access to build a communal base to begin with, where players can be protected from the night, but not given free tools or anything, merely as a hub for people to get started from. Whether you want to go further and try and rebuild everything with TFC blocks (using vanilla ones would just hurt the server I think, for immersion/roleplay reason) is up to you though.

As for your second problem, I'm at a bit of a loss here as well. I would strongly recommend startng from scratch, but if your players want to carry over their tools from vanilla, I would convert them as follows: diamond tools become wrought iron, vanilla iron tools become bronze. I would limit them to only one tool of each, and not to get any free TFC exclusive tools. The vanilla:TFC tool tiers I just gave you I think match up to the durabilities and strengths pretty well.

Finally, for your currency, I don't know what exactly a "denarii" is represented as in-game, but I think you could maintain the diamond standard for TFC. TFC diamonds have no intrinsic value, but really, nothing else does either... I would use this standard and with the understanding of all your players that diamonds have value because you say they do. Kimberlite is difficult enough to find on it's own and exquisite level diamonds are exceptionally rare, so it makes for a good standard. You could also use gold or platinum as they are quite rare as well. I THINK TFC is getting a currency of it's own at some point, so you can switch over to that eventually.

[Ditto8353 202]

The Angry Part

The only way to convert vanilla to TFC is to generate a TFC world and rebuild everything by hand.

The environment is completely different in TFC, as north and south actually make a difference.

There isn't really a way to reasonably compare the work required in TFC to achieve a full top-level suit of armor as opposed to the hour of branch-mining it takes to get a full suit of vanilla diamond armor

The Other Part

If you really want your players to experience the satisfaction and general excitement of playing cooperatively and/or competitively in TFC they need to start from the beginning. A sprawling kingdom is truly an awe inspiring thing when build from the ground up in TFC. To stand on top of your fortress and scan the horizon, looking over your mines and production facilities, looking over the houses of your subjects, there can truly be no higher form of satisfaction in Minecraft, no greater glory. If you ever figure out how to convert your old map into TFC you will be taking that feeling away. You will be destroying the true reason to play TFC.

[Menoch 335]

Aside from using world edit, and then taking only the cities out of the existing word and placing them in the new TFC world, I am not sure how you would go about reassigning the existing block ID's to new ones.

My thought would be to leave the current server running in Vanilla and making a whole new server.

If you want to assure that each and every player does not skip the TFC ladder of developement, this is most likely going to be the only sure fire way of implementing that.

I understand that you do not want to lose everything that everyone has worked so hard for, but no matter how you look at it, the current Vanilla world is going to lose a LOT simply because of the fact that TFC is so drastically different.

Were you on a bukkit server, and if TFC was compatible, there are a number of Plugins that could let you reassign existing vanilla blocks to TFC ID's (i think) ie more materials via SpoutPlugin and spoutcraft, and so on. Just my 2 cents.

[madflavius 46]

Thank you so much for your responses, folks. There's a lot to think about and digest. Obviously, I've thought about this fairly extensively so far, and I have some potential solutions, but the reason I started this topic is to get a vast breadth of opinion to draw from. Here are my (potential!) solutions to the problems as I see it.

1)a and b: My solution was a limited move of only player-created structures, not any of the world itself (barring a small bit of the land each city rests on). My server is Bukkit-based currently, so my thoughts line up a lot with Menoch's:

• I could save schematics of the cities themselves by utilizing a grid system to ensure that each piece lines up with the next (rather than saving as one big schematic, which is ridiculous and crashes the server).
• Generate the new TFC world, completely unmodified.
• Let people spawn in and wander about as hunter/gatherers, essentially starting TFC fresh. Their objective would be to locate a region they consider optimal for their city, based on ores, climate, wildlife, etc. This phase could take minutes, hours, or days, depending on how careful the players of each city were with their scouting.
• Copy in the cities into the chosen locations.
• Run a WorldEdit //replace to change each vanilla block type to the appropriate block of that region. For instance, if the area had predominantly gabbro, cobblestone would become gabbro cobblestone, slabs become smoothed gabbro slabs, etc.

Obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages to this potential solution. Side question (don't want to derail the topic though): would TFC work with the Forge-fied Bukkit versions that are floating around? I ran a test Bukkit server with Buildcraft once, and that Forge-based mod worked fine...however I don't know if there are Bukkit-capable .jars with the PlayerAPI too.

Regarding 2):

There isn't really a way to reasonably compare the work required in TFC to achieve a full top-level suit of armor as opposed to the hour of branch-mining it takes to get a full suit of vanilla diamond armor

I would convert them as follows: diamond tools become wrought iron, vanilla iron tools become bronze. I would limit them to only one tool of each, and not to get any free TFC exclusive tools. The vanilla:TFC tool tiers I just gave you I think match up to the durabilities and strengths pretty well.

I agree entirely, Ditto. Personally, I would love to just start fresh, both with buildings and materials, but I have a lot of valuable players--ones that have added immensely to the mood and maturity of the server, who have directly said that they would probably quit if they lost their cities. This isn't petty, mind you, and I understand entirely: while I would be willing to abandon my own buildings, what with my excitement at starting fresh in TFC, folks have put countless hours into these glorious grand structures, and it would be a pity to lose them.

Dunk, that solution is very interesting...I originally thought of tools like in vanilla, where they can now be repaired perfectly and maintain their enchantments, but by turning them into bronze/wrought iron, those original tools would break eventually, and they would have to experience true TFC. I might even shift that down even more, with diamond = bronze and iron = zinc or tin, to speed up that process of evaporating the old world more quickly.

The thing that I can play around with too might seem silly to some, but the world-building (as in, mythology) of the server is rather important to how it operates. For example, I recently decided that nether portals are frustrating game-breakers, because although I and a friend painstakingly updated MoveCraft (buildable ships!) to work with our setting, there was never a need to use glorious cogs or caravels, because you could just wander into the nether, take one of the many rails people built, and appear in another city for trade. But rather than face the widespread mutiny on the server by simply removing them, the change was built into the backstory: the portals were just running off the magical essences left over from this epic prehistoric war between Endermen and Testificates (that made Endermen crazy and Testificates...well, themselves, dumb and useless), the essence was finally used up over time, and they all shut off--but there is a legend of a single, huge portal on a ruined island city somewhere in the world (to leave the ability for folks to get nether materials for potions). Anyway, long story (literally) short, I can fudge the item modification if I come up with a really good in-character reason for everything changing. The Magic Retcon has saved our bacon many times, from massive WorldEdit glitches (the Great Drought of 16 P.A.) to Notch's blunders (the Heims Perpetua of 31 P.A.--perpetual winter--caused by that crazy ice-spreading glitch back in Beta, which required a completely fresh world).

Finally, regarding 3), I am planning to abandon a server-wide currency (we use iConomy now) in favor of either nothing, or whatever TFC will have built in. The question isn't so much "what should the currency be," but "what can I do with the massive stockpiles of money people have accumulated to fairly give them something proportional in the new world." It doesn't have to be currency, even; it could be blocks, food, tools, anything. Heck, it might even be nothing at all, if that's an option you folks think would work best. I could even just say the banks broke down in the social dislocation caused by bladdy blah, and now too bad your money's gone. But preferably with a bit more tact than that.

Again, thank you all for your comments, this is a really interesting discussion to have.

[Deviator 51]

Finally, regarding 3), I am planning to abandon a server-wide currency (we use iConomy now) in favor of either nothing, or whatever TFC will have built in. The question isn't so much "what should the currency be," but "what can I do with the massive stockpiles of money people have accumulated to fairly give them something proportional in the new world." It doesn't have to be currency, even; it could be blocks, food, tools, anything. Heck, it might even be nothing at all, if that's an option you folks think would work best. I could even just say the banks broke down in the social dislocation caused by bladdy blah, and now too bad your money's gone. But preferably with a bit more tact than that.

Again, thank you all for your comments, this is a really interesting discussion to have.

Not sure exactly how big your cities are, but if you are abandoning currency you could assign a value of the structures on the vanilla server and assign a value of blocks on the TFC server and raise each players currency stockpile by their structure value. In essence you are buying their structures from them. Then have them "purchase" TFC blocks from you with their stockpiles to rebuild their cities.

This lets them decide on material conversion. It might suck to have to rebuild the city but at least it will be the way they want it and they wouldn't have to mine the materials all over again. After the stockpiles of currency are gone, don't distribute any more on the TFC server and you now have your cities. If you are going to do schematics anyway, you could easily get a count of all the different block types in each structure to assign the value plus maybe a bit extra for time spent building.

I would limit what they can and cannot purchase in TFC mode though. I wouldn't let them purchase higher tier tools, but would allow them lower tier so they can remove misplaced blocks while they rebuild. As far as a back story you could just say an earthquake destroyed everything and here is your insurance money to rebuild lol.

[AlmightySquid 72]

As for your second problem, I'm at a bit of a loss here as well. I would strongly recommend startng from scratch, but if your players want to carry over their tools from vanilla, I would convert them as follows: diamond tools become wrought iron, vanilla iron tools become bronze. I would limit them to only one tool of each, and not to get any free TFC exclusive tools. The vanilla:TFC tool tiers I just gave you I think match up to the durabilities and strengths pretty well.

Even if the durabilities and efficiency of the tools do match up, the effort needed to make them does definitely not. Thats why I think starting from scratch completely would be the best way of converting a server to TFC. The things you can achieve in TFC only if you play for a few days, would probably take 20 minutes in vanilla.

Off-topic-ish; do you know anything about the currency that might be implemented? I think it'd be better if servers created their own value for currencies, e.g. someone who found a huge vein of gold would actually be rich. Of course, gold is useless in TFC right? So is a piece of paper with "$100" on it in real life.

What I'm saying is, money should be something players on a server agree on and start considering a currency themselves.

Am I making any sense?

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

No, I wouldn't advise doing a straight conversion of vanilla to TFC... TFC cobble is affected by gravity, remember, so any cobble roofs will collapse.

If you're scrapping currency I would advise people to just lose the money they had. They enjoyed playing vanilla and worked hard etc, but TFC is a whole new game and to experience it properly, you need to start fresh. The grinding or traps they used to horde money in the other server doesn't translate into anything you could do to survive in TFC, so I don't think it should come over the transition.

[puxapuak 232]

You could have someone build a programmatic solution for the map. You'd need to do some hard thinking first, but I'm sure you and your server kin could come up with a viable conversion of blocks. Then it's a matter of taking a new TFC world and mapping the structures onto it using some conversion of the blocks. If it is vanilla that's being used, you could even use a straight xfer of cobble/brick to whatever the local rock type is (but in brick form). Wood would be similar.

I don't really see the currency as a problem. There are a lot of options for tiered currency already in TFC.

Ultimately though I agree with others though... start a new server and just tell everyone the intent is to migrate to the TFC world. TFC needs to be experienced in the raw. If people are interested, they will move over. And even some of the die-hards - if given the opportunity to bounce between worlds - may be drawn in once they get a foot in the door. And it's quite possible that people will come up with their own way to deal with currency transitions. Sometimes forcing things on a population is the last thing you want to do. People are adaptable.

[Kimbblesrath 503]

You could have someone build a programmatic solution for the map. You'd need to do some hard thinking first, but I'm sure you and your server kin could come up with a viable conversion of blocks. Then it's a matter of taking a new TFC world and mapping the structures onto it using some conversion of the blocks. If it is vanilla that's being used, you could even use a straight xfer of cobble/brick to whatever the local rock type is (but in brick form). Wood would be similar.

I don't really see the currency as a problem. There are a lot of options for tiered currency already in TFC.

Ultimately though I agree with others though... start a new server and just tell everyone the intent is to migrate to the TFC world. TFC needs to be experienced in the raw. If people are interested, they will move over. And even some of the die-hards - if given the opportunity to bounce between worlds - may be drawn in once they get a foot in the door. And it's quite possible that people will come up with their own way to deal with currency transitions. Sometimes forcing things on a population is the last thing you want to do. People are adaptable.

On that, does anyone know what the coin piles in the textures are for?

[puxapuak 232]

On that, does anyone know what the coin piles in the textures are for?

Scrooge McDuck.

[Kimbblesrath 503]

Scrooge McDuck.

AAAHAHAHAHAH! And actually, now that I think about it, there are a lot of unused textures in there. Like I think i saw one for...coal coke? And there is a whole file for coloured beds (really want that) and there is a thatch pile iirc. I guess they are things Bioxx started and never finished or started and haven't continued on...

[puxapuak 232]

AAAHAHAHAHAH! And actually, now that I think about it, there are a lot of unused textures in there. Like I think i saw one for...coal coke? And there is a whole file for coloured beds (really want that) and there is a thatch pile iirc. I guess they are things Bioxx started and never finished or started and haven't continued on...

I dunno if you are a programmer... but this is the way of things on a project that is so much bigger than you thought it was when you first had the idea. Eventually you find yourself bouncing around inside the project and doing bits and pieces here and there. You get some done, but others are left at a partial state. When you start bringing others on board, it gets even worse (though it's not really bad per se, just the way humans work). "I need this texture!" ... "Oh wait, that code is boring to program. I'll wait on that."

[Kimbblesrath 503]

I dunno if you are a programmer... but this is the way of things on a project that is so much bigger than you thought it was when you first had the idea. Eventually you find yourself bouncing around inside the project and doing bits and pieces here and there. You get some done, but others are left at a partial state. When you start bringing others on board, it gets even worse (though it's not really bad per se, just the way humans work). "I need this texture!" ... "Oh wait, that code is boring to program. I'll wait on that."

I AM NOT!!! I have no idea with programming whatsoever. But I DO have some talent in Art. Check out the TFC FANART!!! thread I made in the Discussion topic. (IDK if you have seen it already) Skip a couple pages though cuz the first part is just us being crazily stupid and raising Dunk's ego to the limits. But I understand where you are coming from. It is like that with any large project really. I have TONS of unfininshed art ideas and stuff (but FAR more finished, OK not far but a good bit more),.

[puxapuak 232]

I AM NOT!!! I have no idea with programming whatsoever. But I DO have some talent in Art. Check out the TFC FANART!!! thread I made in the Discussion topic. (IDK if you have seen it already) Skip a couple pages though cuz the first part is just us being crazily stupid and raising Dunk's ego to the limits. But I understand where you are coming from. It is like that with any large project really. I have TONS of unfininshed art ideas and stuff (but FAR more finished, OK not far but a good bit more),.

I have seen it but I have not clicked it. I have a predisposition to avoiding art. I like to paint (usually my pants... I like denim) but I found art late in life and it is usually social commentary; it will take a while to translate that onto digital canvasses. Mostly I just don't understand the portrayal. People are very confusing, so I don't usually understand their motivations for their art. But I will go have a look.

(Hmm... I say 'late in life' but it's not really late at all. I guess I just say that because I don't feel significantly different than I did when I was 16 but I don't look the same and people expect certain behavioural differences which they themselves do not bother adopting.)

[killster550 401]

now, i know nothing of programming, but if you were to simulate an apocalypse in the original server, saving resources in the progress but having nearly every building collapse ( all non TFC blocks would dissapear) and the chosen few (players) that came out of their hiding places found themselves in a new world, but thanks to preknowledge of the apocalypse they have stored resources in a vault so they can rebuild ( and you can create gigantic vaults filled with resources according to the players wishes,)

this solution would get rid of every non-tfc item, including tools, yet remain credibility in rebuilding (and you can try to copy-pasta everything you're able to save to the new server)

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

now, i know nothing of programming, but if you were to simulate an apocalypse in the original server, saving resources in the progress but having nearly every building collapse ( all non TFC blocks would dissapear) and the chosen few (players) that came out of their hiding places found themselves in a new world, but thanks to preknowledge of the apocalypse they have stored resources in a vault so they can rebuild ( and you can create gigantic vaults filled with resources according to the players wishes,)

this solution would get rid of every non-tfc item, including tools, yet remain credibility in rebuilding (and you can try to copy-pasta everything you're able to save to the new server)

no this makes no sense. be quiet. You don't seem tio know whats going on.

[killster550 401]

no this makes no sense. be quiet. You don't seem tio know whats going on.

fair enough, yet it would be more useful if you would mention what i dont know anything about. what you said, comes quite close to simply saying shut up, which doesnt fit for a member of the staff, although ill respect it and shut up

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

fair enough, yet it would be more useful if you would mention what i dont know anything about. what you said, comes quite close to simply saying shut up, which doesnt fit for a member of the staff, although ill respect it and shut up

fair enough, yet it would be more useful if you would mention what i dont know anything about. what you said, comes quite close to simply saying shut up, which doesnt fit for a member of the staff, although ill respect it and shut up

there are no non-tfc items in tfc. loosing all vanilla items would mean all food, all tools, all ores, all armour all blocks (except gravel) etc... the only thing left over would be like fences, sticks an torches. theres no point.

And I'm not just a forum mod see the title? I'm a game dev

[Ditto8353 202]

And I'm the Official Forum Badass

[killster550 401]

there are no non-tfc items in tfc. loosing all vanilla items would mean all food, all tools, all ores, all armour all blocks (except gravel) etc... the only thing left over would be like fences, sticks an torches. theres no point.

And I'm not just a forum mod see the title? I'm a game dev

well i did not know that you altered the values for every block in such a way that nothing would be saved, i thought there'd be quite some blocks remaining.

and i said member of the staff referring to your dev status, else i would'v said mod

also, if that is so, then there is no real transfer way besides just giving people the resources to rebuild, although i saw a post about someone being able to use MCedit in TFC on one of the threads, maybe that could offer a solution?

[Vovk 5]

You could take stock of everything you have on the server, write it down on a list, convert things in your list from Vanilla to TFC using your brainbox (everywhere you see a diamond pickaxe for example you could write in an iron one, etc)

Once you have your list of all the resources on the server, use worldedit to create a copy/paste template of a stone vault that must be dug into. After your players have been on for a day or so, and they have begun building their town - paste these vaults within a large (3 to 5k) radius of the base in interesting locations (inside the tip of a mountain, at the bottom of a ravine, at the deepest part of the oceans, etc)

The vaults should contain chests, stacks of wood, and tool racks full of the stuff from your list. How much is in each vault and how many vaults you have is up to you.

Just my 2 denarii...

[killster550 401]

You could take stock of everything you have on the server, write it down on a list, convert things in your list from Vanilla to TFC using your brainbox (everywhere you see a diamond pickaxe for example you could write in an iron one, etc)

Once you have your list of all the resources on the server, use worldedit to create a copy/paste template of a stone vault that must be dug into. After your players have been on for a day or so, and they have begun building their town - paste these vaults within a large (3 to 5k) radius of the base in interesting locations (inside the tip of a mountain, at the bottom of a ravine, at the deepest part of the oceans, etc)

The vaults should contain chests, stacks of wood, and tool racks full of the stuff from your list. How much is in each vault and how many vaults you have is up to you.

Just my 2 denarii...

well that is what i meant, except for the fact i didnt know the blocks were untransferrable, and i tried to explain it as the server owner has done with previous bugs and rules although IMO these vaults should be in set locations, with the players spawning in a total of 5 (maybe more) areas, from which they could expand towards one another, finding vaults along the way(which are mob proofed so they provide safe shelter as well)

just throwing it out there

[madflavius 46]

Thank you so much for all your suggestions, everyone! After a lot of thinking, this is my solution--if it works (we'll get to that below). I'm sharing the solution mostly so I can get additional opinions, but also some technical help regarding Bukkit/Forge and all that goodness.

I will be creating two worlds (three, with the nether, I suppose...) in total. They will be referred to henceforth as AA and PA. If you want the reasons I'm calling them that, it relates to their eras, which I explain in detail in the spoiler (not important for understanding what I'm doing, but perhaps interesting to some, if for no other reason than illustrating the fun of role-playing in our fairly serious server).

In the mythos of Eleutheria, there have been two major eras of the world, which are memorialized in the date system--similar to BC/AD, but the years in the "BC" analogue don't count down, just for convenience. The first era, Ante Auroram (AA, Before the Dawn) is an age of myth, mostly shrouded in legends of great men and terrible deeds. Archaeologists from the second era have discovered little concrete fact about the AA times, beyond the fact that the Endermen launched a world-spanning war of annihilation, and after a titanic struggle were defeated at terrible cost. In the last days of the war, the ancients summoned all their power and obliterated the vast portal bridge between The End and Eleutheria, thus trapping the remaining Endermen in our plane and cutting them off from all reinforcements. However, the vast energy required to accomplish this feat struck the very sun from the sky and ultimately devastated the AA civilizations. It was a war without victory.

Darkness followed. No records survive that recall the duration of this horrifying expanse of time, but tribes and nations across the face of Eleutheria sing of it with trembling, almost as if the collective subconsciousness yet burns with terror. Darkness and night are indelibly etched into the myths and legends of Eleutheria as the time when undead abominations walk the earth. Finally, after untold ages of night, the Dawn came, the sun--old reborn or new come--casting glorious cleansing rays across Eleutheria. This event marks the start of a new era, called Post Auroram (PA), after the Dawn. Even the salutation common across the various tribes and peoples--"may your Dawns rise quickly!"--echoes the import of this seminal event.

The current world on the Eleutheria server is set in PA, starting at the first Dawn in 0 PA, currently in the 170s PA.

The current, vanilla/Bukkit world is PA, the new TFC one is AA.

For PA, I'm going to convert all the bank accounts from denarii back to diamonds (since it's a diamond standard, 100d = 1 diamond), and deposit those diamonds in everyones' chests. This allows me to get rid of the money system and let it be done freely. Nothing else will need to change.

AA will be the TFC world, and takes place (as the spoiler hinted) millenia before the events in our present server. In other words, it is effectively a prequel to the present world, and the cataclysm that separates the ages (AA and PA) allows me to handwave the different shape of continents, block types, weapons, everything.

Technical Problems (here's where I would love a lot of advice/help!)

• I know a while ago there was a Bukkit/Forge combined mod that would allow me to use plugins in addition to Forge mods. I tested it with Buildcraft. Does anyone know if it still works, and if it would work with TFC? My reasons for keeping Bukkit are twofold: general anti-griefing protection and shops.
• Does vanilla Minecraft allow you to run a multiverse? I assume so, since it generally does run three worlds simultaneously (overworld, The End, and Nether). If so, does anyone have any resources they could point me to so I could figure out how to do it effectively?
• Here's the kicker: if PA remained effectively vanilla, would it work to have TFC active even though I wouldn't be using any TFC blocks in that world? I would have to allow all the vanilla recipes again in the config, I know, but besides that, do you folks think it is viable? My main concerns would relate to food and the new health system. Vanilla steak and bread should still work, maybe?

That's my plan after considering all your suggestions. As you can probably tell, it's a mashup of a lot of the different suggestions, and I really hope it would work--it would save me a huge amount of time, and give both those who prefer TFC (hopefully some of you folks too! ) and those who prefer vanilla a home in our community.

I look forward to some responses to ponder!

[killster550 401]

eeeh, the nether in TFC is broken to hell, if you actually try going in there you'd kill your server, so keep that SEPERATE

also, TFC changes a lot more than just blocks, there is gravity, temperature, a immensively different spawning system for map mob and block, so you should make 1 tfc server, and one vanilla server, completely seperate from one another (dunk shoot me if im wrong)