Friday, Friday, lets all get down on Fri– Oh wait. Actually its Saturday! Saturday we will be refusing connection to the server by anyone who is NOT using Spoutcraft. Of course, there are plenty of you who are probably wondering still “What is SpoutCraft?” So I will explain more fully.
Spoutcraft is an alternative Minecraft client designed to take advantage of special features offered by the Spout plugin. Without the Spout plugin, Spoutcraft functions exactly like the Minecraft client, so its very nearly the same thing, even the installation is the same! To install Spoutcraft, you do the same thing you did with Minecraft: Download the file to your desktop and just run the game from there… which really isnt an installation now, is it?
The Spoutcraft client, as I said, is designed to take advantage of features offered by the Spout plugin, so that means the Spoutcraft client is modded for that purpose. Because the Spoutcraft client is already modded, it becomes more difficult for modders and cheaters to mod and cheat, because it is harder for them to find mods that work with SpoutCraft (because modding a client that is already modded is difficult to do because mods would clash with each other). The bottom line is that it would cut back on a LOT of modding and cheating done on the server, although I dont expect it to be eliminated completely.
We also run a plugin on the server that enforces a single texture pack on the entire server, using Spout. This prevents people from using invisible texture packs to see through walls, mine for ore, and watch other players through the landscape. A forum post was started on recommendations for the texture pack almost two weeks ago, and the only recommendations were Doku’s textures. Therefore, since it was the only suggestion, there is no need to vote on what texture packs will be used, and Doku’s textures will be enforced on the server once Spoutcraft is enforced.
So with that long-winded explanation, you probably want to know, YET AGAIN, when spoutcraft will be enforced. The answer is: This Saturday, the 24th of December, just in time for Christmas. To download Spoutcraft, you will need to go to this link: http://dev.bukkit.org/client-mods/spoutcraft/
Download the Automatic Updater (I recommend the .exe file) to your desktop, then doubleclick on it when it is on your desktop, and log into the game, just like you would with Minecraft. You will have to add the server to your server list again, Bretonia’s Best, andromeda.servegame.com. Then connect to the server, and watch the magic happen!
For support on running SpoutCraft, please visit our support thread at: http://www.andyvgr.com/forum-2?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=78