The EcoCity Times- 4th Edition

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We are Back!
After no sight of the newsletter since April this year, the EcoCity Times is back. I really hope you enjoy the 4th Edition, it's a good read. If you would like to write an article for us, or you want to join the team, please contact me through the forums, preferably with a sample of your writing. For those of you wondering what's happened to @Eekelmo, he's still a part of the team, but is taking a back seat. Therefore, I will be taking charge of the newsletter until we say otherwise. We appreciate all of you who read this, and would like to thank you all for your continued support! If you would like to sponsor the EcoCity Times, please read the article towards the bottom of the newsletter.
TaylorBros22

The End!
It has been long awaited and it is now finally here, the end is upon us. The main attraction will be the end farming, where, it has been reported, you can make in excess of $50,000 ECD an hour! To put this in perspective, that's nearly 3x the pay of melon farming with a melon sword per hour. It's likely more things will be added to the end, but this has not been confirmed. So, round up some friends and battle into the end to make that money!

Let's Get Down to Business
Following the collapse of The Vault of ECC, we've seen many new businesses sprout up in the Classified & Ads section. I'll be discussing one of these businesses as well as talking to the owner of it.
The business is 'Dee-Vault' run by @DiamondDesire. Dee-Vault is a business that offers vault-building services, loans and star tool rentals. Not everyone will be able to afford the vaults considering their pricing, but based off of DiamondDesire's previous builds (EG /warp anime) I'm sure that they look fantastic. The star tool rentals are pretty standard, as are the loans. Dee-Vault has already seen some success with a 1,750,000 ECD loan with a payback of 2,250,000 ECD to @GeorgiaMC.

I had a short interview with @DiamondDesire about her business:
eekelmo: So what made you want to start up Dee-Vault?
DiamondDesire: Well, I have wanted to start this business for a long time before other similar busineses were created, but I had (a) lack of funds, now that I have the funds I decided I might aswell put it to some use and make a business that most people can use
eekelmo: Do you think this will be a long-term project?
DiamondDesire: Definitely! I hope so anyway as long as people stay interested with it

You can find the thread for Dee-Vault here.
Eekelmo

Interview with JamieSinn!
Eekelmo sat down with ECC's lead developer to discuss all things programming and ECC.
eekelmo: So what got you into programming?
JamieSinn: Initially? Or Bukkit?
eekelmo: Initially.
JamieSinn: I had a fascination with computers early, and always was taking them apart and putting them back together. Eventually turned to me learning Scratch and Python. I got to tour the EA studios in vancouver because my dad had connections with the then director of the site.
eekelmo: That's pretty awesome, how about Bukkit?
JameSinn: I played minecraft from an early age, and did a little bit of modding and stuff with the client, then got interested in hMod, when that evolved into bukkit, I just followed suit.
Initially, I wrote some small plugins in my boredom time for ecc
probably can find the really old suggestions somewhere
eekelmo: So what is it like developing for ECC then?
Seems like a busy job considering the size of the server.
JamieSinn: haha, it's a lot of fun, but yeah, it gets quite stressful balancing life, school, and ecc.
1.9 has screwed up a ton of stuff in essentials
so that's been my focus lately
eekelmo: Yeah, 1.9 has been a huge update, can't imagine how complicated it must be.
JamieSinn: It's mostly fine until you get to the offhand things
it's a bit annoying then
eekelmo: Ah ok.
Do you ever get time to do 'normal' ECC stuff?
JamieSinn: Nah, I've given up my "player" hat a long time ago
eekelmo: The poor hat
JamieSinn:
eekelmo: So is anything going on with Sinn Development at the moment?
JamieSinn: Currently working on moving my entire webserver and all my databases over to OVH
eekelmo: Just going to pretend that I know what that means
JamieSinn: As well, working on a few tools to help robotics teams in FRC
eekelmo: That honestly sounds really cool.
JamieSinn: It's fun, I've been doing robotics for 4 years and it's given me so much, I thought it was time to give back a bit
eekelmo:
Yeah I've done some robotics stuff in school, it's a great time
A question from idk (@idkhowtoplay): what is your favourite anime?
JamieSinn: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
eekelmo: He told me Sailor Moon 100%... I've been lied to
JamieSinn: never watched it
eekelmo: Do you have any thoughts of the whole 'blamie jamie' thing whenever anything goes wrong?
JamieSinn: I personally think it's hilarious
eekelmo: #devlife
JamieSinn: When shit breaks, usually I get spammy messages in fake german from andrew
eekelmo: Hahaha
JamieSinn: inside joke between us
"MEINPOOPENHAUZEN"
eekelmo: Lol.
Speaking of andrew, you two know each other IRL to my understanding, how did that happen?
JamieSinn: His brother and I went to a robotics class/place called ebots, him and another one of my best friends, ben was met there. All 3 of us hit it off, and we hung out quite a lot afterwards. Michael mentioned that his brother was running a minecraft server for michael's friends and invited us to play. Hence my introduction to andrew
eekelmo: What a nice coincidence
JamieSinn: indeed
eekelmo: Last question,
When is the hub coming out???
JamieSinn: Lmao
you can simply do /server lobby now, thats technically the hub, but yeah. Things have taken a bit of a turn off the path we expected.
EULA is causing a lot of issues with a lot of servers. So we've been busy with that. Overall, it's not something I can give an ETA for. Things like the EULA are so unexpected no one can predict for it.
eekelmo: Mojang = rude
Anyway, thanks for your time Jamie.
JamieSinn: np

Staff Activity Changes
It was recently announced that the senior administration team have reduced the minimum amount of online time a staff member needs to play. Previously, it was 3-4 hours which was viewed by some as too long, so, after a suggestion by icondigi which was accepted by Nicit6, a new minimum time has been set. Moderators are now expected to spend a minimum of 2 hours each day online. This is viewed as a more reasonable amount of time, which may mean that more people apply for staff. Staff applications are currently open, and you can apply now! Good Luck!
TaylorBros22

Summer Build Competition!
Feeling summery Yet? I'm certainly not- too much rain and cool weather over here! If, like me, you're not, ECC'S seasonal build competition should give you those summer vibes. The brief is very simple, just build a beach party. How hard can that be...? With prizes for not just 3rd place but 4th and 5th too, there's nothing to loose! You can win $500,000 ECC plus 5 event tokens, so it's all to play for. You can build as a team or on your own. Just apply in this section and that money could be yours! http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/forums/server-event-applications.115/
TaylorBros22

Sponsorship
If you would like to have an advert placed in the next edition of the EcoCity Times, or sponsor the EcoCIty Times for a period of time, please PM TaylorBros22 through the forums. Prices can be discussed there. Please note that you can sponsor the Times as an individual or a business. You can sponsor the EcoCity Times as a single note- eg: Sponsored by @TaylorBros22, as a link to a business/forum page (along with a tag) or a banner (which you would make/have someone make and pass me on the image link). The price increasing accordingly. (Thanks to @AdmiralD for this idea!)

Thanks for Reading!