Ostrich1414's Portal Hub
| Ostrich1414's Portal Hub | |
|---|---|
| Place | |
| |
| Name: Ostrich1414's Portal Hub | |
| Status: Inactive | |
| Formed: January 2017 | |
| Abandoned: December 2019 | |
| Members: ostrich1414 | |
"Ostrich1414's Portal Hub" is a portal hub created by ostrich1414 sometime in January 2017. Although the portal hub never had an official name or designation, it was nonetheless used extensively by ostrich1414 and several other players between 2017 and 2019. Originally serving as a private portal hub mainly for ostrich1414's use, it quickly gained more active users over time until the portal hub became too well-known and public to be safe and secure.
Due to the amount of players using and knowledgeable of the hub by late 2019, ostrich1414 jokingly referred to it as "the most abused and unsafe portal hub in SimPvP history".
Notable Connections
NOTE: Some of the connections listed below are no longer active, or were removed/replaced during the portal hub's use.
While visually uninteresting and rather modest, Ostrich1414's Portal Hub had the significance of carrying connections to several notable bases (ironically, many of these bases are inactive or abandoned today):
- Quinsigamond
- Stonetown
- Monarchia
- Virunum
- Haven
- Estevez
- Ascaris
- Florestria
- The Capital
- MisterStrawman's Castle
- Java Linsghey
- Tol Honeth
- Trump City
- New Bapadia
- New Nos Astra
- Oberstein
History
Humble Beginnings
After returning to the server in January 2017, after a year-and-a-half long hiatus, ostrich1414 was determined to start over and increase his wealth and presence. To do so, ostrich1414 needed connections to many of his old bases, as well as his new base he began working on that same month, Quinsigamond. After finding a location a couple hundred thousand blocks from spawn, he created a small, rather uninteresting portal hub, but one that would soon house the entirety of ostrich1414's early portal network. The first three connections were Virunum, Stonetown and Quinsigamond, with ostrich1414 soon pursuing more over early-to-mid 2017.
Although the small hub had been used sparingly throughout 2017, the arrival of The League and its need for new bases and more server influence led ostrich1414 to take a more active initiative in growing its portal connections. Two of the League's bases, Estevez and Oberstein, were connected to the hub, and ostrich1414 also switched his spawnpoint from Monarchia to the hub, where it remained until mid-2019. While ostrich1414 had been the sole owner and user of the portal hub, the birth and activity of the League, as well as The Cold War and its need for connections to former United Alliance bases, led ostrich1414 to invite the other two co-founders of the League, Porkington and Master_Xybot. Until late 2018, these three players were the only people who knew of the portal hub's existence.
Middle Period
By the time Struthio began growing into a large global city in December 2018, ostrich1414 brought the next player to the hub - Sengorn_Leopard. In this case, it was for ostrich1414 to secretly show Sengorn_Leopard some of his older bases, and to loot some of the inactive ones to aid in Struthio's growth. In the time between the height of the League in late-2017-to-early-2018, to Struthio's Renaissance in late 2018, ostrich1414 had added a few more connections, from summertime bases like Java Linsghey and Tol Honeth to obscure, older bases like Haven and New Nos Astra.
Decrease in Use
2019 would prove to be the most detrimental year for the hub. By early 2019, ostrich1414's confidence grew, and his sense of security deteriorated. He began to slowly invite more and more players to the hub, although every invitation was very secret. The first blow to the hub's security was around February-March 2019; CrackyJoe had followed ostrich1414 while invisible, tracing his path from Struthio all the way to the portal hub. CrackyJoe later revealed this to ostrich1414, as he had no bad intentions, and only wanted to prove its security flaws - anyone could find it if they followed ostrich1414 while invisible.
After Struthio and Florestria were abandoned in May 2019, ostrich1414 set out to found a new city, Yittrium. However, at this point in time, ostrich1414's need for his portal hub had dwindled; many of the bases it connected to were either active, abandoned or insignificant in 2019. Furthermore, leaving his spawnpoint there was slowly proving to be a nuisance, as it required ostrich1414 to make a long trek back to his home base every time he died. Thus, ostrich1414 decided to place his spawnpoint at a house in Yittrium, his first in-city spawnpoint since Quinsigamond in 2017. This move left the portal hub underused by ostrich1414, save for the occasional trip.
The Final Blow
On December 1st, 2019, tragedy would finally strike Ostrich1414's Portal Hub. After months of overuse from other SimPvP players, ranging from clipchip and JavelinFury to SkykirryChycho and AntHand, a new player would discover the portal hub, this time through x-ray hacks. This player, named Bombast, discovered the hub through x-raying hidden portals and gained access to all the bases connected it. This prompted Bombast to leak the coordinates to several of the bases, as well as inviting random players to the hub, like Antzakes1 and Lord1 (although these players were unaware that he had discovered it by hacking at the time they went). He would later be jailed that same day.
This would serve as the official end to any remaining sense of secrecy the portal hub had, and the hub quickly became a well-known, semi-public SimPvP fixture. While ostrich1414 rarely used it anymore by 2020, instead opting to live in his cities and establish more high-security, onion-routed portal connections without a central hub, Ostrich1414's Portal Hub was still somewhat in use by other players. Ironically, by 2020, these other players used it far more frequently than ostrich1414 himself. Of course, nearly all of the bases still attached were either leaked, abandoned or griefed, and many of the portal connections were broken or abused after the Bombast leaks. Nonetheless, the hub lives on in infamy for being a failed security attempt, and a model for how not to conduct a secret portal hub.
Gallery
A view of the portal hub's interior
One of two rooms in the hub, this one serving as storage
An end crystal portal trap set up by AntHand to kill any Florestrian intruders
