It could be ages before 1.9 comes out. Also, it's been announced that when you generate seeds after 1.8 you have the option to disallow the generation of NPC villages, so as not to spoil the immersion for those who don't want 'em. I've no idea if seeds generated before the update will have villages on or off (but I assume off).

if at all possible I would like the be considered for addition to the user list :)

I like building red stone circuits, transportation systems, and overly complicated secret doors.

Username is Glitcher

You and DH are going to get on brilliantly.

Welcome on board, Glitch :)

I’d like to correct this to refer to strongholds instead of villages.

Oh Glitch, I told you to PM me your username. I was going to use you for some hilarious pranks.

Hm, noone's on the server on the (presumably) last day before the update. Anyway, I'll be on this evening most of the time, so you'll find at least me online, experimenting with pistons since I haven't really used them before.

Well the biggest bug is Furnaces don't work, They crash the game and when you craft something and drop the remaining materials, you can't pick them back up. Obvioulsy it will be fix before its released.

Furnace work fine for me. Craft-dropped items ghost but aren't lost. Are these SMP-specific bugs?

No. The furnace doesn't always crash and Crashpunk misunderstands the ghost items.

Maybe because I held off a day or two to download it, and it was fixed?

I didn't think they're releasing bugfixes until they officially launch it, but I this is the company that leaked their own game.

Maybe they made a special exception for something that crashes the game every time you want to cook something. Or maybe I'm just weirdly immune. Ironically, 1.7.3 crashed my Minecraft every time I right-clicked on a stove.

I think I'm pretty much packed for Exoddus. All I need to get now is food, which will be a pain until we can actually stack food. I tidied up the chests by the Nether portal - nothing was taken. I'll add some mushrooms and saplings before we head off.

I'd also like to change my skin to something a little more permanent and "me".

I'm taking 3 stacks of wheat. That should be more than enough for a few people given how much steak cows drop in 1.8.

I’m taking nothing except the resources in the community chests—I’m gonna survive off the land.

I have a few basic tools and utility blocks and enough ingredients to make five stacks of mushroom soup.

At the moment stew doesn't stack, because of bowls (if a person with a full inventory eats a mushroom stew from a stack, where does the empty bowl go?). Dunno if this'll be changed when the update is finished.

Im gonna just take with me what I feel like taking with me. it's not like the new land wont have anything we need. We can get it there as easily as we can get it at our regular land.

What happened to adventuring? >: (

The hunger bar. There won't be enough cows for all for all of us and a wheat farm will take time to establish.

I'm just taking wood and a few tools. Surviving off the land FTW!

BTW, if I come back to my place after a while and find all my chests empty I will have someone's head.

Chickens give meat now as well, don't they? And food stacks in 1.8! W00t!

With the new biomes it's possible to be very, very, very far away from any trees. Anyway, why should we have to spend ages gathering common resources like stone when we all have tons of the stuff anyway? Save time for the first-day building, and bring stuff with you! We want to erect a shelter quickly over there, so bring what you'll need for that if nothing else. Torches and some stone and a bed.

That reminds me; I also have a stack of wheat seeds, a stack of birch saplings, and a stack of each type of mushroom to get some farms started.

I dont really care if Im not gonna find resources easily. I like working for my stuff. I find the finding-and-collecting-resources part of MC fun.

I suppose I'll take some food though. and diamond gear =D

I provided a few beds in the supply chests a few days ago.

Also, is the plan to produce a quick temporary shelter and then build the new base elsewhere, or to start the new base straight away with the sleeping quarters being set up first?

I think a fair bit hinges on exactly what we find when we get through the portal.

Unless we come out somewhere totally inhospitable, the plan is to set up a secure location in the vicinity of where the Portal comes out, and then build the town around said secure location, so we all have somewhere safe to take shelter as necessary during the construction of our houses and the town hall and so on.

I'm excited and I've not even been on the server yet :D

I suggest you and DH take care of the new transport system around Exoddus base. I also propose we put the entire new transport system underground as much as possible from now on. I really don't like the look of all those elevated raillines going everywhere.

Yes please. Exoddus Metro has a nice ring to it.