Remembering HOMETOWN

Hi There! I'm ChimneySwift

If you're an OG Minetest player, there's a tiny chance you remember me as one of the moderators from HOMETOWN. I've made this little site to share HOMETOWN's map with you all.

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My Personal Experience on HOMETOWN

HOMETOWN was the first online multiplayer server I ever really played, and I was immediately welcomed by the awesome and friendly community. I have so many fond memories from HOMETOWN, from the massive moderator christmas project (the one where I used a replacer tool on a protection block like an idiot) to the beautiful builds from Techy5, user2 and so many others. I don't think I've ever met a more wholesome guy than kiko, and DrClaw was definitely one of the coolest moms I've ever talked to. I even have fond memories of that guy that ban evaded so hard that EDad needed to make a custom detection mod to keep him banned.

It truely was an amazing server.

The end of HOMETOWN could only be described as tragic. The months following the server being partially restored after an accidental server wipe was frought with lag, and after losing contact with Kibbie and ExeterDad, the server eventually went down. I can only hope that this was because Kibbie and ExeterDad as dedicated parents decided that focussing on their family was more important than the server, but I'm not sure I will ever know what truely happened.

After the end of HOMETOWN, I could never find a server quite like it, and I found myself playing Minecraft ever since. As I recently decided to create my own Minecraft server with the goal of a similar style to HOMETOWN, I thought of HOMETOWN and decided to buy the domain to help continue it's memory.

History

Origin

The server was first started on a Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer as a way for the Exeter's kids to keep entertained on a long roadtrip, eventually the server developed from a simple Minetest world into a beautiful recreation of their home town.

Eventually Kibbie and ExeterDad realised the potential a server like their's would have as a safe place for kids like theirs to play if it were made public. So, ExeterDad hired a dedicated server running a Xeon E3-1230 (4×3.2GHz) with 32GB of RAM and 240GB of SSD storage, with the intention to run a small server with a group of friends they had met on other Minetest servers (Mainly Just Test 2).

The server hit the ground running with an already mature assortment of mods, with hours of testing by the family, along with a healthy and friendly initial playerbase. This coupled with the server being run by parents with a focus on family friendliness sat very well with the Minetest community, and the playerbase quickly grew until HOMETOWN became one of, if not the most popular Minetest Server on the list.

Community

The HOMETOWN community was one of the healthiest. This lead to a large number of massive collaborative building projects blanketing the landscape around the spawn.

The server's family friendly focus lead to a rich playerbase of all ages, and the mapgen tweaks ExeterDad had made when he built the server evened the playing field and made large building projects possible (also, a couple of the mods might have uhh, "lended" some creative items to builders...)

Additionally, the staff frequently engaged with the community, hosting events and challenges which rewarded players for their hard work.

Map Corruption

The biggest test of the HOMETOWN community came on 2018/06/21, when the server went down after the map became corrupted during a PostgreSQL database backend upgrade. The map was backed up, but the backup also proved corrupted once it was loaded to the server (as the position column of the block data table was missing, the reason for this is still unclear).

Many community members shared the sentiment that a new HOMETOWN with a fresh map may be a welcome change, after all HOMETOWN was about the community more than the builds. Others felt that more could be done to save the map.

Every block place/dig event was logged in the server's debug.txt, so some users worked on a script which would build a map database from this log file. Unfortunately this solution proved too complex, as the server's debug.txt was fragmented and occasional corruptions in the file's formatting were likely, which posed problems for the software.

The most promising solution would be to combine local map saves. Minetest gives clients the option to save incoming map data to a local map database, if these map fragments were combined together, anywhere where someone had walked with local map save enabled would then be backed up. Every user which had this feature enabled quickly sent their map backups into ExeterDad who compiled them to form a map backup. The fact that this occurred so quickly and without tampering to the map backups is a true testament to the server's community. The server went back up on 2018/07/12 thanks to the tireless work from ExeterDad (well, it probably wasn't very tireless, pretty sure he had a break after that).

Server Shutdown

On 2018/11/08 the server went down for the last time due to mysterious circumstances. This is the date the server bill was due to be paid each month, and as a result the server was taken offline by the hosting company. However, the underlying reason for the unpaid server bill is still unknown, as there has since been no communication from either admins, including via direct SMS contact. The server staff believe the admins are still alive and well, but the reasoning for the sudden absence is still a mystery, as this behavior is not characteristic of them. Additionally, Kibbie had mentioned that in the event they could no longer support the server, they would pass ownership onto a staff member or other trustworthy hoster, not only did this not happen, but there was no communication or warning of the impending shutdown.

World Download

The compiled HOMETOWN maps have been available for some time now, but with the deletion of the HOMETOWN Community Discord, there was no public place to find them. Now, if you want to check out the amazing builds, you can download the map backup available below:

Modpack

Compiled map

Individual map backups

For the technical users:

Script for combining backups

Map meta file (slightly better than default seed)

Since the server was running 0.4.16 at the time it went down, this is the version the modpack is compatible with.

To reduce bandwidth usage, the map files are compressed with 7zip.

In order to play, extract the hometowm.zip file directly into your minetest/games folder (or wherever your Minetest install is located). Open Minetest, select the HOMETOWN game, create a world using the singlenode worldgen, with the Hometown game. Then before joining the world, extract ht-map.7z into the world folder. You can now join the world.

Many of the maps have new versions of some areas, but older versions of others. If you're looking for a specific build, download the individual maps file and search for one with your build.

USAGE: For the respect of the staff who helped build the server up to what it was, and to the builders who spent hours of work crafting masterpieces, we kindly ask that you do not redistribute or rehost the map, use the 'HOMETOWN' name in an attempt to give your server popularity, or copy and reuse the builds contained within the map without written permission from the original builder. It is OK to host the map on a small, private server (not on the server list or publicly accessible) and to play, build, grief or modify the map however you want in singleplayer or on a small, private server.

The Copyright for any mods contained within the modpack is held by the owner of the mod. The custom mods made by ChimneySwift for the modpack are licensed for personal use only and cannot legally be used outside of the license terms.

Credits

So many people were involved in making HOMETOWN the place it was that it would be impossible to list them all. These are the people that made exceptional contributions to the community: