Alpha Centauri IV

Alpha Centauri IV was a Ravenkraft world active from 2012 into 2013 — the first orderly, structured world after the founding anarchy era. Several players who joined here remained core community members for years.

World Info
Era	2012–July 2013
Active	late 2012 – July 2013
Type	Vanilla Survival
Server	RVNK Event (Arcology archive)
Directory	`alphac`
Founded by	Wizardofire
Arcology	Arcology Dynmap

Overview[edit]

A deliberate step away from anarchy toward co-operative city-building. The world supported a portal network, road and rail system, and — unusually — a player-built ship fast travel network that connected city docks by class-rated vessels.

Cities & Settlements[edit]

Ravenport — spawn capital; featured a Southern Bridge (constructed March 2013 with help from Mattfu, TheWanderingFool, Justin1243, Ajentsp02, and AnUnhappyPickle)
Archea— captained by Moose696; key residents included Stalin77 and Mattfu; featured a harbor with pirate island dock
Sher, Southerland, Stalingrad — settlements in the Archea region
Sol Sanctum — the spawn portal hub; housed portals to Zeal, Kepler 22b, and Dagobah
Babel — coastal city; hosted the Unattainables Token Shop (blue-roofed tent, accepts tokens) and the portal to Zeal
Iken — settlement built by Nickel, near completion December 2012
Taconia — city south of which Jeffrey_starwars and Captain_Becky built a full Isengard replica complete with a mining operation
Southern continent city — founded by RexisFern (December 2012)

Notable Players[edit]

justin1423, Mattfu, ParadigmPlague, Shammon, Stalin77, theoubre, RyanPhantom, TheWanderingFool, Moose696

Notable Builds[edit]

Lichenacht — mushroom city built by Moose696
Raven statue — built by Jekyell on the east side of Ravenport
PvP games area — built by ParadigmPlague (as Bonerus); included a Spleef arena and a "paint gun" arena; celebrated for its use of mushroom blocks
Isengard replica — built south of Taconia by jeffrey_starwars and Captain_Becky, with a functioning mining operation
Player ships — Mattfu built a ship in Ravenport; Moose696 moored one at Archea's pirate island; Leinoir built a vessel in the VOID world

Ship Fast Travel System[edit]

A unique Alpha Centauri IV mechanic: players could build a ship in their city's docks and link it to another port for fast travel. Vessel classes by length:

Class	Min. Length	Masts	Travel Range	Cost
Galley	20 blocks	2+	2,000 blocks	40 tokens
Galleon	60 blocks	3+	4,000 blocks	45 tokens
Frigate	90 blocks	—	8,000 blocks	50 tokens

Ships required an open waterway between ports and a ship present at both ends.

Economy & Plugins[edit]

Bartersigns — the original barter trading plugin.
Token system — tokens earned through voting, ranking, and donating. Two tokens per day from voting on external server lists (minecraft-server-list.com, Planet Minecraft). Spent at the Babel Token Shop on spawn eggs, building moves, terrain regeneration, and more. Wizardofire took over its development during this era — his first Java project — adding enchanted-item support and laying the foundation for what eventually became the BarterShops system.
No /warp or /home commands; the server used portals, roads, rails, and player ships for travel.

The Ravenkraft Arcade[edit]

An early automated world-management system built with web scripts, command blocks, and custom code, located near Zeal's spawn. Players could load adventure maps, reset PvP arenas, and share instances. The first publicly playable title was the adventure map "From Ashes". This system was a conceptual precursor to RVNKWorlds.

Events[edit]

NPC/VOID Skirmish — informal PvP event between NPC and VOID factions (2013)
Naval Battles — proposed by Stalin77; rules discussed for ship-to-ship combat
Screenshot Contest — build submissions with token prizes, deadline March 16, 2013

Notes[edit]

In July 2013 two Event server worlds — Kepler 22b and Dagobah — were merged into Ravenkraft and made accessible from Sol Sanctum's portals, requiring players to manually clear their inventories for the import. This is among the earliest documented use of the Event server concept on Ravenkraft.

RyanPhantom documented the era through livestreams. A world map was created for Alpha Centauri IV; one community member later suggested making a similar map for Zothique. At least one other world, Zeal, existed concurrently and was reachable via dedicated portals.