Shotbow

Welcome to the spooky season, Shotbow! In this edition of Dentril's New Moon, we've got a lot to talk about this month, including new and exciting updates for both MineZ and Annihilation, and even a few projects of our beloved Lead Developer lazertester! With all that said, let's take a look at what's been going on in the month of September, as well as some things you can expect down the line!


Annihilation Updates
Courtesy of the awesome folks at Annihilation, we're proud to have released the Tender Titanium update this month! This was an update based heavily on community feedback, and it has brought a handful of new features to Annihilation. Some of these changes have included two new leaderboards for Biggest Winners and Biggest Deserters, and a new Item Stash system that allows you to temporarily store items you would have otherwise lost if your inventory was full.

Perhaps the most notable change of this update however was the addition of the Flurry ability to the Hunter class' kit. This fun new ability allows a Hunter to fire a barrage of player-seeking missiles that deal massive damage to those who fail to evade or block them! This feature may be a little experimental, but it's certainly a "blast", so give it a try along with the rest of this amazing update!

Additionally, with the Halloween season ramping up you can expect to see Annihilation's spooky maps on rotation very soon! These seasonal maps will be popping up in games throughout October, so make sure to keep an eye out for them when they arrive. I recommend trying one of these maps with Minecraft version 1.16, as you'll get to experience some creepy nether ambience while playing!

MineZ Updates
September has been a month of many bugfixes and general changes for MineZ, as much of the team's focus has been on preparing for the Spookfest festivities on the horizon! Some of the most notable changes between patches 4.4.1 to 4.4.4 include balance changes to the Spires, new functionality for the rifts at Bindpoint and Shacklepoint, and an astounding rebuild of Al Hasa Quarry. Furthermore, the MineZ Team recently published the MineZ Player Survey, which has proven to be a great way for all players to make their voices heard. The survey is still open, so if you're a MineZ rookie, regular, or roleplayer, then make sure to fill out this form! It will only take five to ten minutes of your time!

As we move into October and the annual celebration of Spookfest, the MineZ Team has a lot in store to fill your days and nights with fright! This year we're bringing back the long-awaited Treat Chests, along with other fantastic features, spooky rebuilds, and even a Zombee Head Hunt spanning across all of Valar! You can read more about this year's celebrations in the dedicated announcement linked above. I recommend giving it a good look; there's a lot to unpick within this post!

GG Updates
Though the GG Developers have been focusing their efforts on MineZ's Spookfest this month, GG saw a small update at the start of the month. This mini-update brought a few changes, including some additions to the ToyBox system. Regular updates will hopefully resume some time after the Halloween season, and you will be able to follow all future changes and updates with the GG Update Changelog.

Ghostcraft Updates
You may have seen or heard rumors around the Shotbow Discord that a certain Shotbow original will be returning soon. Well, the rumors are true, as Ghostcraft is slated to return for the first time in many years! This long-lost classic will soon appear on the network to accompany the spooky season, and may even stick around beyond October as a permanent Shotbow gamemode, meaning you'll be able to shear and stab to your heart's content! Keep an eye out for more information and updates in the Shotbow Discord.

Expeditions Updates
Yet another one of lazer's projects, Expeditions is an experimental gamemode that combines aspects of vanilla survival and creative plots. As one would expect from the name, Expeditions is all about going on adventures to complete tasks and gather resources in vanilla worlds, which you can then bring back to your plot. You can then build whatever you want using the products of your journey, or even take your previously gathered items to aid your next one! In order to connect to Expeditions, you can use the command /expreview and jump into an adventure of your own. This game is currently in early previews, so expect bugs and a general absence of features, but give it a try if you enjoy a generally laid-back Minecraft experience.

Statistics
Network in General
Staff updates:

• Agypagy was promoted to Full Admin
• Agypagy joined the Ban Appeal Counselor Team
• Paulossj was promoted to Full Localizer

Other statistics:

• There were 499 players banned in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 354 on September 5th
• 1,550 in-game reports were handled in the last month
• 98 ban appeals were resolved in the last month
• There were 25 Anni Clan Wars in the last month, including 1 premiere on Youtube

Closing Words

With many of us starting school and work again, potentially for the first time in a good while, it can be a little awkward getting back into the groove of normal life. We hope that, amongst the stresses of life and the gradual return to normality across the world, you will be able to come home after a busy day and have a great time hanging out with friends and playing some Shotbow! With an entire month of exciting activity to come, I truly hope that our combined efforts can put a smile on your face all throughout October! Let's make this Halloween one to remember! That's everything I've got for this edition of Dentril's New Moon. As always...

Thanks for flying Shotbow!

It's finally that time of year! Welcome to one of the spookiest and busiest parts of the year for MineZ! For years upon years, MineZ has been host to a wonderful month of exciting content - and this year is no exception! We've gathered some of our favorite activities from years past and got them ready for another spook-tacular year of events and, of course, loot!

We're excited to launch this update tentatively this weekend. Please understand we may delay as we put on finishing touches. We appreciate your patience as the hype continues to build! Anyways, without further ado, let's read on to see what's in store for this year's Spookfest, and a few insights on the future of MineZ!


The long awaited return of Treat Chests is finally upon us! Year after year, the Treat Chest system has been a crowd favorite, bringing people from all corners of the community together for epic events all week! The general system behind treat chests has been modernized thanks to some hard work from the MineZ team, but should look very similar to those of you who have attended in years past. Below you will find all the information you'll need for this year, whether you're a seasoned veteran, or attending Spookfest and Treat Chests for the first time!

Treat Chest Schedule and Loot

This year we wanted to hit Treat Chests hard, knowing they're one of the most sought after events of the season. We try our best to make sure chests are available to the most people possible across a few timezones. For that reason, we've settled on this tentative schedule for Treat Chests this year! (All times in Eastern Standard Time EST) We've settled on Tuesdays as an "EU Chest" and Thursdays as an "NA Chest", with the hopes that the times are still accessible to as many people as possible.

1. Tuesday: 3PM EST "EU Chest"
2. Thursday: 8PM EST "NA Chest"
3. Saturday: 3PM EST Weekend Chest
4. Sunday: 3PM EST Weekend Chest

The Weekend Chests are special, and feature extra-spookified builds, extra loot, and more danger! You'll want to bring your fastest hands to make it out with the loot in these chests. As the month goes on, we'll be introducing new loot to the Treat Chests, so the spooky items you find each week will change - you won't want to miss a single week of Treat Chests this year! In years past, many Spooky Items have been cosmetic, and we're trying our best to get away from that this year. In each chest, you should find many of the rare items this go around are usable, unique items that you'll want to be swinging at other players! Keep an eye out for some old favorites (Super Spooky Pumpkin, anyone?) and new exciting additions as more of these items roll throughout the month!

We understand our players hate missing out on content, so we've started with this schedule to ensure that people don't get too burnt out prepping for chests, but also giving plenty of opportunities for people to attend. We'll be keeping a close watch on numbers and feedback for the event, so anything can change as the month goes on!


Chest Spawning

Chest spawning is an important part of the nuance of claiming your prizes! This year, you'll see two announcements for each Treat Chest event. The first announcement takes place 1 hour before the event starts, and is broadcast network wide for players to start to prepare for. At the scheduled start time, a new server opens with the location spawned in, with another announcement across MineZ of it's location and the countdown to the first chest spawn! Keep in mind the locations aren't always exact, and may be nearby the announced spot. Keep your eyes peeled for spooky business in the area, and head that way!


Chests spawn in after the announcement on a delay, but new this year, not all at the same time. This year, the action keeps going, and little by little each of the chests will spawn in, staggered one after the other, and you'll either have to get out quick with the first drop of loot, or stay longer to keep up the fight to claim as much as you can!

As always, alting is not allowed, and all other MineZ and Shotbow Rules apply as normal.



What would Spookfest be if there wasn't a scary map to go alongside it? Much like previous years of Spookfest, entire towns across Valar have been changed for the entire month of October! You'll see some familiar returning builds as well as some new facelifts to the roster. Alongside some of these locations you may find some fun mini-games, challenges, or features that could affect your gameplay! Each location will feature some additional Spookfest Chests with unique loot - costumes and all, with practical uses to make your October season all the spookier.



"There's zombees!"
"Zombies, oh no! Where are they coming fro- wait.. are you saying Zom-BEES?"


A returning game loved by many, this year's Spookfest Headhunt is sure to be a doozy! This Spookfest will feature two 2-week long headhunts, each with 20 heads to find scattered throughout Valar - but this go around you may have to look harder than normal! Heads are hidden at named locations across the map (but not in instances!). Once you've found a head, simply right click it to be awarded a small fortune of xp. When you claim the last head, you'll be gifted some extra prizes!

You better BEE-lieve this headhunt will be a bit harder than it has been in the past. Keep your eyes peeled for these sneaky undead bugs to claim your rewards!


As we get ready for Spookfest, with a huge amount of time dedicated by our staff team, I'm sure many of you are wondering what's next for MineZ. Alongside the launch of Spookfest this year comes a few more updates that you can check out in the MineZ Changelog soon. These non-spookfest related changes will remain once Spookfest ends after October, and you should look forward to more changes like them. Over the course of Spookfest, staff will be watching to make sure everything is running smoothly while we look forward to making the game stay lively in November following the Spookfest hype. Keep an eye out for more build changes, balance updates, and more gameplay tweaks as we continue to gather feedback from the community. (Check out our MineZ Player Survey!) Devs are continuing to work in the background on the move to 1.16 for MineZ, so expect more build and balance related content in the meantime!

We appreciate all the feedback we receive from the community, and are looking forward to the fall and winter seasons, as both the leaves on the trees and MineZ continues to change.

That's it for now! We're excited for a month of Spookfest, creepy builds, fistfuls of candy, and tons of MineZ.

Until next time, and as always,

Thanks for flying Shotbow!

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Annihilation Update - Tender Titanium (2.13.0)

Hello and welcome!

Today, we are thrilled to announce our latest update Tender Titanium!

Most of these changes are based on community feedback and include some requests which have been popular.

As always, nothing is ever set in stone and we appreciate constructive, well-founded criticism (positive and negative). We would ask that you try out the update before giving feedback.


Changelog


NEW:

Hunter active ability: 'Flurry'

The all new Flurry ability is a hunter's best friend. This ability will fire out a flurry of missiles that will seek out all enemies within a ten block radius.
Missile features:

• Hunt down enemies for 20 seconds, if it cannot reach its enemy, it will self-destruct.
• Upon hit, it will:
  • Deal six hearts of damage (armour and all effects are taken into account)
  • Knock the enemy back
  • Sets the enemy glowing for the hunter for five seconds
  • Reduce the hunter's cooldown by five seconds
• Can destroy enemy team doors that get in its way

If you find yourself the target of a missile, follow these simple steps:

1. Listen. Can you hear the fuse of the missle?
2. Look. Can you see the missle glowing?
3. Act. If you can't run away, you can punch the missle!

P.S: This feature is a bit experimental and we are looking forward to your feedback!

Class Changes:

Miner

• To indicate that its Gold Rush ability is active, small yellow particles now spawn on ores upon hitting them.

Other Changes:

• Abandoned Stats
  In order to incentivize staying in games to keep the number of players per team balanced, Abandoned stats are now given to players, if:
  • they are on a team
  • the game has started
  • they abandon the game before their own nexus has been destroyed or before their own team has won

• Leaderboards
  There are 2 new leaderboards:
  • Win/Loss Ratio has been replaced with Biggest Winners due to the number of player quitting before their team loses and thus skewing the statistics.
  • Biggest Deserters that will show the top 20 players who continuously leave the team high and dry.

• Record Stats
  As record stats served no purpose and made it harder to view your stats, they have been hidden.

• Item Stash
  Previously, you would not receive items that were directly added to your inventory if it was full. We have now added the Item Stash that will store these items for 60 seconds. After making enough space in your inventory, you can either click the chat notification or type /stash to retrieve these items. This list includes all retrievable items:
  • Boss Buffs
  • Team Doors
  • Private Stands
  • Purchases from the Brewing Shop and the Weapon Shop
  • Alchemist's Stand
  • Arrows from Archer's Arrow Drop
  • Bard's BuffBox
  • Builder's Delaying Blocks
  • Tinkerer's PowerPads and its fragments

• Chat Command
  To speed up replying to private messages, we have introduced the /r <message> (alias for /reply) command. This will allow you to send a message to the last person who you privately messaged.

Bug Fixes:

1. Players turning completely invisible to anyone.
2. Scout not being the only class which can use the Grapple.
3. Certain regular items working like specific Boss Buff items.
4. Sea lanterns functioning as Builder's Delaying Blocks.
5. Melon blocks and logs disappearing permanently.
6. Not being able to break blocks that are placed in the spot of melon blocks and logs.
7. Player-generated melon blocks and logs regenerating.
8. Ninjas' Shurikens launching up enemies very high.
9. Defender not receiving permanent Regeneration and additional HP.
10. Defender not losing additional HP.
11. Boots of Grace not breaking.
12. Losing Invisibility despite Boots of Grace cancelling fall damage.
13. Helmet of Extinguishment not extinguishing flames when having Fire Resistance.
14. Chestplate of Fortitude and Leggings of Swiftness giving their respective effect to enemies.
15. Armour being put on upon hitting a player or being hit by a teammate after using Assassin's Leap.
16. Armour not being put back on upon breaking a block after using Assassin's Leap.
17. Armour not being put back on upon taking fall damage or breaking a block after using Spy's Flee.
18. Thorns on armour vanishing.
19. BloodMage being able to inflict Poison II on enemies while being immobilized.
20. Alchemist, Bard, Builder and Tinkerer losing Class Items upon rejoining.
21. Not being able to stack stackable purchases from the Brewing Shop and the Weapon Shop while having a full inventory.
22. The name of Transporter's Portal Maker not updating properly.
23. The name of Defender's Alert Item not updating upon rejoining; thanks to Benjamin_Loison for reporting it!
24. Water buckets appearing empty after attempting to place water on cobwebs (1.13+ only bug); thanks to shajunghoon for reporting it!
25. Castaway missing rift points; thanks to nashinium for reporting it!
26. Nature having a high number of entities in Yellow's base; thanks to Manuel32 for reporting it!
27. Nature and Nature1v1 having a few glitchy spawn points.
28. Andorra having a couple of spawn points which are too close to the void.
29. Hamlet having some glitchy spawn points.

Closing Words:

While we have fixed quite a few bugs in this update once again, some you may have experienced and others you probably didn't know were there, we are aware that we still have bugs to fix and we appreciate all the help you can give us with getting those fixed. If you find a bug in Annihilation and want to have a chance of getting a shoutout in the next update thread, you can report it on our official Discord by using this command: !support bug <IGN>.

Credits:

First and foremost, thank you very much to our awesome Devs: Hilly, Mosh and Galap, for making this update possible and to the whole Anni Team for working hard every single day!

Of course, many thanks to you, our passionate community, for offering suggestions, reporting bugs and supporting us!

As always, we have plans for many more exciting updates and new features, so stay tuned!