Update, As of Sunday 24th!

1. The fishing puzzle is done! 3 remain: tunnel, parkour cave, and floating islands. islands might run into SECRET WEAPON problems but should be plenty of room

2. Fireworks: Switch is gathering them and plans to put in the launchers (at least a ring around the temple, which shouldn't take too long

3. We need someone to build the spawn fort(s) and finish the carts lines!

4. I'll try to finish the cave parkour tomorrow and get started/finish the tunnel puzzle! They should all be easy, since the fishing puzzle took so long due to such variety of materials compared to digging and placing stone bricks.

Update, As of Friday 22!

1. The date is set to Thursday, August 28, at 6PM PST, 9PM EST!

2. The lights are functional! Side note to puzzles: The puzzles are all planned and should be ready to go in the next few days. They are: Fishing puzzle from Ghrey's 5k Planning. Tunnel dungeon with lava and hidden switches (something like an AND gate that requires all four be active to unlock the password sign). Parkour cave, a pear-shaped ladder puzzle with a pool at the bottom, maybe some stalagmites and stalactites to make it more interesting! Floating islands, scavenger hunt: like Endor of Rev 11, have some floating islands with temple ruins with password puzzle pieces scattered around, and when combined, have it spell something. I vote BACON. Then we only have to build 5 islands.

3. Temple! Rokku says the temple is nearly done.

4. Puzzles aren't done quite yet, but I have all/most of the entrances planned out! I might rearrange some because some areas look harder to get to than others which will add to the challenge. The puzzles can/should be a pre-fight game, an hour earlier than the event itself. Maybe the first round will begin whenever people are there/ready, and after asking them for passwords, turn on whatever's been found and start the fight.

5. Yup!

6. I've repaired some of the hills and put some double dirt in places, but I haven't done the bushes/glowstone yet. I actually think I'd like to replace the bright torches with redstone torches for moodiness and more mob spawns. It may be uncomfortable not being able to control mob spawns in the whole area. Dunno about this one but it might be nice!

As of Thursday, August 21:

Edit:

Here's a list of priorities for making Nightoak good to go!

1. Setting a date: Saturday, August 23? Around 7:30PM EST? I'm free every day after 5, I have nothing going on in the evenings!

2. The lights! Those are important. I edited the buff redstone a little so that it works, the buffs are ready! I think it would be neat to start with all the buffs off, and try to individually make 4 puzzles that will turn all the buffs on. As the event starts we can encourage people to arrive early to "solve the temple." One puzzle is the pear-shaped ladder parkour I thought up, another can be my Creative psychological module involving fishing from last rev's planned community 5K. Then we can make an adventure mode of sorts, a bunch of tunnels and hallways leading through darkness and redstone torches, so people just have to explore a little. That can fit in the large tunnel area under all the dirt in Nightoak proper.

3. The temple! Rokku, the man, has the plan.

4. Aforementioned puzzles! With the lights and temple done, only thing left is to make it more interesting!

5. Floating islands! This could be another puzzle. Explore to find all the keywords, combine for the answer. Could be a scramble of words for a common saying, like Azumarill did last rev with All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait. That could actually be the 4th puzzle for the buffs, so we'd just have to build stuff.

6. Fancify the hills! My plan is to put in glowstone and bushes to provide more natural, moody light, rather than the torches we have.

7. BONEMEAL ERRWHERE

8. Enjoy the event!

I think this won't take too long to wrap up, maybe the lights will take a while since it takes some finesse to jump and add wool and add redstone.

Previous: With the rev purportedly ending within a reasonable amount of time (admins actually working on the next rev / expecting to finish it) it should now be time to roll out the beginnings of nightoak! Here's a list of things I came up with that we might want to check on / finish up ahead of time:

• Moon control! We want to make sure all our beacons are in place and the redstone is ready

• The temple! We can complicate the temple itself with hallways and secret doors and perhaps even traps?

• A spawn fort! I think this was a very successful part of last nightoak and it would be good to build and supply a new one. I think our rail comes at the west wall, and we could have the rail spit people out at the start of a mountainous/underground journey to the spawn fort.

• Aforementioned story-based spawn fort discovery! I really enjoyed the community effort last rev in trying to make a public 5K in small modules/blocks. What if we had an adventure prior to the event where people could hop through difficult, non-deadly puzzles to reach the spawn fort? The Indiana Bones mob is a thing (Whiteoak unofficial mascot / buried balls-deep in cobble fence protections under the Hanging Gardens), and we could make a little/big story about Indiana Bones and the Sunken Doppelganger. or something more clever than that

• Really general, obvious stuff: Pretty up the arena itself! What made the last nightoak so damn appealing were all the random trees, landscaping, water features, etc. etc. If the redstone is done I'd like to dig in (pun intended) and flow some rivers through the area. I made the dirt only one layer deep so this water is complicated. Maybe just some waterfalls from the ceiling and shallow ponds? But definitely little farm patches, some bonemeal decorating, jungle tree sniper dens, ancient vine stone brick towers, some fancy doppel stone structures reminiscent of a long-lost whiteoakian civilization, etc. etc. TL;DR: Make things look purty as hell!

• An easy way to find the entrance and get to the event! We had a lovely hut courtesy Rokku that Switch devastated with his eminent domain seizure of property for, of all things, an exquisite tree house. We could have the nightoak entrance stand alone, OR, be accessible via our somewhat functioning CARTS station.

With all that in place, it'll look nice, it'll work, people can get to it, get supplies when they're there, and come back out of death when they inevitably get too close to spooky shit.

I'm planning on spending weekends and such digging into planning, resource allocation (special blocks), etc. I have 2 beacons to my name, possibly including the one in wateroak, so we should be fine as hell on buffs.

Please leave comments!

I can edit this post to cross out stuff we don't like or have finished.