Shotbow

Hello Survivors!

The Purpose of PTR

Rigorous testing is a critical development component of any new product. It ensures that the product is not faulty and can be redistributed to the consumers. If a faulty product is distributed, there are always repercussions, some of which are very hard to recover from. The Bank has to work near-perfectly before being released to the live servers. We simply cannot afford to release a version that risks some of the worst-case scenarios occurring (e.g, item duplication or item loss glitches). The occurrence of a worst-case scenario would ultimately undermine the integrity of the Bank system and immensely hurt the game as a whole.

With that said, there is only so much the development team can test on our own. We can simulate how a player might use the Bank (or how they might break it) for days, but in the end there are no better testers than those who will use the feature in-game.

Risk vs. Reward

As obvious as it may seem to have a public test, there are many pros and cons that the team considered before making a final decision. One of those factors was player interaction. For as many players that will test, provide feedback, report bugs, and overall help make the Bank a quality product for everyone, there are many that will look for ways to exploit the Bank for themselves.

Considering the importance of being near-perfect upon live release, we have decided that we will be offering some rewards for helping test and reporting bugs. Each bug reported that has not already been reported, and verified by a dev as a bug, will receive a prize for their contribution. A list of known bugs with the PTR can be found in the first comment of this thread; please DO NOT make a report for anything explicitly specified on the list, it will not be eligible for a reward and we are already aware of the issue. If you don't want to fill out a report for a reward, please still submit any and all feedback! Also, please note that the developer team holds the right to decide what reward each reported bug deserves, the outline below is a guide for your convenience and is not absolute. However, rest assured reporting all the bugs you find will be worth your time. The general reward thresholds and the requirements to receive rewards are outlined below.

Reward

Reward Thresholds

• Major Bug
  • Bugs that significantly affect overall function and could harm the game; e.g, duping, data loss, rollbacks, etc.
  • A very special reward. More details will be provided to the player at the time of reward distribution.
  • Possible rewards: A special in-game item, a large XP reward (~20,000), a free in-game cosmetic effect

• Medium Bug
  • Bugs that affect overall functionality, but are not as significant as major bugs; e.g, abnormal inventory interactions, the bank pages cannot be opened, etc.
  • Possible rewards: A medium XP reward (~5,000)

• Minor Bug
  • Bugs that do not affect the overall function but should still be fixed; items dropping randomly, not stacking correctly, etc.
  • Possible rewards: A small XP reward (~1,000)

Reward Requirements

In order for your bug report to be eligible for a reward, the following format and information must be included in your report:

• Player Name:
  • The in-game name you were using when the bug occurred.

• Date and Time:
  • The approximate date and time of when the bug occurred (be sure to include a timezone!).

• Description of the Issue:
  • A short description of what the issue is and what the expected behavior should be.

• Evidence of Issue:
  • Only ONE form of evidence outlined below is required, however as much information as you can provide is very appreciated
    • A video clearly showing the bug, including approximately 30 seconds before and after the bug's occurrence. A text list of recreation steps should be included to supplement the video.
    • OR A series of screenshots clearly showing the bug (as much as possible) uploaded to an imgur album (or similar service) with a DETAILED text list of re-creation steps. It is important that these steps can be easily followed so we can reproduce the issue!

• Additional Information:
  • Any other useful information or comments. Please only include if applicable, stating "none" is not necessary.

EXAMPLE REPORT:

• Player Name:
  • ShadowLAX

• Date and Time:
  • January 17th, 2021, at 12 PM CST

• Description of the Issue:
  • Issue: When I open a bank page, the bank page features are missing. The inventory title and toolbar options are incorrect/missing.
  • Expected: The bank navigator toolbar should be visible at the bottom of the page and the title should read "Main Bank Page x/max".

• Evidence of Issue:
  • Video: Link
  • Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/YfnMCGw
  • Step 1: Open the bank menu normally by right-clicking
  • Step 2: Open the main bank page selector
  • Step 3: Open any page
  • Step 4: The toolbar is not visible, and the inventory title is incorrect

After you have filled out your report, you can submit it by sending a DM to ShadowLAX either on the forums or by filling out this Google form. Do NOT post reports in any publicly-viewed forum; doing so will result in that report becoming ineligible for a reward. You will be contacted through the same medium if the development team has any additional questions and for coordination of your reward, so be sure to check the conversation occasionally. These rewards will last until well after the live release, but please be sure to send in bugs as you find them!

Risk

We want to make it clear that you will not get in trouble for finding bugs and experimenting with them on PTR. The fine line between a ban (or potential blacklist) and a reward is simply reporting it. There will be a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for not reporting bugs that have the potential for exploitation (most notably, duping). If we find out that a similar-typed bug has not been reported, and we know that the player plans to exploit said bug when the Bank is released to live, YOU WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED. This will be the only warning you receive. And to be extra safe, we have added multiple security measures with the Bank. No matter how sly you may think you are, the odds of getting away with anything is not in your favor.

The Banking System

Accessing the Bank

Currently, the Bank has been placed at each major spawn town (Geuten, Carmi, Romero, Portsmouth, Pravus, Grimdale, and Kaocho). In each of these towns, a structure similar to the image below contains an ender chest. Right-click this ender chest to open your Bank.



The Bank Structure

The Bank is a per-player item storage system, meaning only you have access to your items while they are stored in the Bank. It is composed to two separate "banks", the "main bank" and the "legacy bank." The difference between the
banks will be discussed in the next section, however the overall structure is the same. From the main menu (pictured below), left-click one of the bank options to open the page selector.



The page selector displays all your pages available to be used for storage. Left-click one of the pages to open that page.
Generally, a "page" consists of a 4x9 chest inventory that you can put items in (pictured below).



Once a page (pictured below) is opened, you can place your items into the page, similar as you would for any other chest. When finished, you can close the inventory to exit, the items would be saved automatically and available the next time you open the bank. The bottom row contains options to navigate to the next and previous pages (if available) and to return to the page selector. No items can be placed in the bottom row.



The Main Bank vs. The Legacy Bank

As mentioned in the section above, the Bank is composed of the "main bank" and the "legacy bank." The main difference between the two bank types is the items that you can store and the total number of storage spaces available.

The main bank allows you to store ALMOST ANY item you have or may find in the world. This includes, but is not limited to, armor, weapons, potions, food, legendaries, cosmetics, and rares. If it's in your inventory, or it can generally be found in the world, it can likely be stored in the main bank. There are a few exceptions that will be explicitly stated later in this section. Main bank storage is limited.

The legacy bank allows you to store any item that is CURRENTLY NOT OBTAINABLE in the game. This includes cosmetics, legacy items, and rare items. If it can be found through normal means in the game (including, but not limited to, loot chests, mobs, and dungeons), it CANNOT be placed in the legacy bank. In general, the function of this bank is to store cosmetics and legacy items. Like the main bank, there are a few exceptions that are explained below. Legacy bank storage is also limited.

Both banks have some special case items that are either not storable or are limited. These exceptions are stated below. Please note that this list is not exhaustive and is subject to change.

• Bags
  • Bags are limited to ONE OF EACH COLOR in the ENTIRE bank.
  • Bags must be completely empty in order to be stored in the bank.
  • Normal storage filtering applies (e.g, if it is currently obtainable in-game, it can only be placed in the main-bank).

• Soulbound Items
  • Soulbound items CANNOT be placed in EITHER bank.

Bank Storage

For THIS PTR ONLY, everyone will be given FOUR pages in both the main and legacy bank. This is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to test the pagination. This number is subject to change, but if it does, it will only increase. That being said, these numbers ARE NOT the live-release storage defaults; they will be announced at the time that the Bank is released to live. Additionally, while not released with this PTR, there will be ways to expand bank storage in the future.

Closing

We recognize that this system may not be what some players might have been expecting, but we are committed to making the Bank as fair and useful to everyone, from the veterans to the new guys. We believe that this system is the best compromise in regards to giving players a place to store their special items while maintaining one of the core principles of MineZ.

Even though time is running out before Mojang starts locking accounts, we will not be releasing the Bank until it is ready to be released. It will remain in PTR indefinitely until such time. The time at which Bank is fully released is entirely up to you, the players; the more testing that is done, and the more bug reports that are submitted, the faster the Bank will be released. That being said, it is important to note that nothing is absolutely final and everything is subject to change over the testing period.

We thank you in advance for helping test and providing any and all feedback while Bank is in this public testing phase!

As always, and until next time,


Thanks for flying Shotbow!

Happy New Years, Survivors!

Off the heels of the MineZ Wonderland event and the end of the crazy year that 2020 was, let's take a few moments to reflect on where we started this year and where we are now. After that we can jump into what's coming with this update!

2020 In Review

2020 proved to be one of the most influential years for MineZ as a whole. After the slump we found ourselves in getting MineZ updated to a 1.12.2 code base and finally releasing the long-awaited MineZ: Origins update, we promised everyone we could continue releasing routine updates to MineZ.

Below is a list of every major update thread we released throughout 2020:

• MineZ's 1.12.2 PTR Release
• MineZ: Our Story
• MineZ: Origins - Official Trailer
• MineZ: Origins - Changelog & Release Thread
• MineZ Map & Zerbia Challenge
• MineZ: Books, Dungeons and Towns, Oh My!
• MineZ: Loot Rebalance PTR
• MineZ: Loot Overhaul Update
• MineZ: Future Sight
• MineZ: The Adventurer's Update
• MineZ: First Steps
• MineZ: Spookfest 2020
• MineZ: Scratching The Surface
• MineZ: Wonderland 2020
• MineZ: Military Loot Overhaul PTR

Fifteen major update threads! It's easy to see that this was the biggest year for content in MineZ. Obviously we won't go into great detail on what each release included, you're welcome to explore the past threads at your leisure. We feel it's important for everyone to reflect and see that the only way for MineZ is forward.

Development Changes

The latter half of 2020 saw DocCodeSharp leave the team. In his leave, several new developers stepped up to the plate and began to work on MineZ. After the Adventurer's Update we had to make some changes and learn the backend of MineZ.

Moving forward was not going to be an easy task, but with a team of five developers it started to become easier, and the team learned how to work together.

halowars91, ShadowLAX, InstantLightning, JACOBSMILE, and Marine_PvP. All of them stepped up to the challenge and
continued developing new features, fixing bugs, and bringing a fresh view into the core of MineZ.

Learning to Innovate

MineZ is both a blessing and a curse for the same reason. Simply put, MineZ is an old game. When you look at a lot of older Minecraft gamemodes, not a lot can say that they've been around for 8 years and still see active development to this day.

We worked tirelessly on the MineZ Origins release and wanted to continue building on that foundation. However, as a team we stepped back and determined that a lack of innovation would cause MineZ to stagnate. With this in mind we pivoted in a different direction. Our goal was simple in concept yet difficult in execution: to bring MineZ into the present day.

Back when MineZ was released in 2012 it fit a niche that had not yet been filled in Minecraft. Back when Minecraft was simpler the thought of stitching servers together and effectively playing with hundreds of players at a time was unheard of.

Now in this day and age we had to face the facts that MineZ was not that same game anymore - yet that's not necessarily a bad thing. It left a lot of room for us to grow and bring some much needed features into the spotlight. We always look at the addition of bags in MineZ as a prime example of this innovation: the ability to expand your inventory sounded simple on paper, yet it opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities for MineZ -

And it's only going to get better from here.

Changes for 2021

Internally we have been working to solidify our development and streamline MineZ's workflow. One of our biggest change was to direct the focus of everyone on the team towards a theme for each month. While we will continue regular patches throughout each month, we want to ask ourselves what we want to see out of a larger content update for each month.

Our plan is simple: We'll meet regularly and discuss current and future plans for MineZ's development and game design. You may have already noticed this thread is being written under a new forum account specifically for the MineZ Team. This is for a good reason.

MineZ is a now more than ever a team effort. Everyone has a place on this team whether they're a builder, admin, or developer. Our plan is to leave no stone unturned when producing content for the game. If it's not fun or possibly damages the vision of MineZ going forward, there are plans in place to discuss and deliberate - both internally and externally - on these ideas and goals.

There's been a lot of reminiscing and foundational talks so far in this thread, and you're probably ready to see what we've got in store for this update! This New Year marks a fresh start on new and revised content in MineZ, and this update is the first of many more to come.

Legendary Reworks

Every month, our plan is to rework a few legendary items and gradually update every single one to be not only more effective, but also more fun to use. Our goal is to gradually move away from "random chance" items in favor of a style more catered to using their effects when the time is right through triggered and passive abilities. With this in mind we also want to introduce more utility legendary items; this update includes an example of a utility legendary rework alongside a combat-oriented legendary.

This update includes reworks to the Phantom Blade and Gamble.
(View the MineZ Changelog for specifics regarding these reworks)

You can expect these kind of reworks for different legendary items every month! While some may retain their original theme or style you can also look forward to more unique changes that offer new gameplay experiences to all players.

Military Loot Overhaul

We've run a Military Loot PTR that tested some proposed changes to MineZ's military loot. The community voiced their concerns on where gearing up felt underwhelming or unfun, we've taken a careful note of this and have worked to tune military loot to feel more rewarding.

Generally speaking, gearing up should be a little faster than before and you should be able to find late-game gear in more locations. We understand that this is an ongoing battle as it will continue to be something the team refines and adjusts, so feel free to share your feedback!

What's Old is New Again

The banner image of this thread depicts an overgrown forest - possibly a jungle? And there's some sort of Shelter in the Trees...

Yes, that's right! We've brought back a location that has been missing since the Origins release - Treetop Shelter! Fully reimaged and built by EnderMCx, this location is a beautiful stop on your way to Agni Ignis; we're certain this will be an attractive stop during your trek through the jungle.

"Where's Waddles?" Wrap-up

Our favorite penguin Waddles has left us once again, but on his way out he left gifts for those who found all of his hiding spots!

The Wonderland 2020 thread promised to give rewards for this event just after December 25th, though we ran into a couple snags that delayed that slightly. Thankfully these have been resolved, and the winners will be receiving their prizes soon!

wmn will be reaching out to the winners with details on how to claim your special prizes. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Ongoing Projects

Bank Progress

As a follow-up to bags in MineZ we've been working on a banking system in the background to help store all of your favorite goodies in MineZ. We still can't share an exact timeline for release, but rest assured, it's getting close.

We suggest keeping an eye on the Shotbow Discord and right here on the forums for when more information is released. It may come sooner than you expect...

Instance Upgrades

Another goal is to branch dungeon instances off of the main game servers. This carries many benefits, but the main one is for better overall performance. Minecraft has a hard time running multiple worlds with lots of entities and redstone at a given time. In our current framework, dungeon worlds all load on the original requesting MineZ server, and as a result performance takes a hit. Spreading this load out gives us immediate performance benefits in addition to lots of future flexibility.

We've been running a PTR for this upgrade project and are beginning to feel more and more confident on the new system each day. Stay tuned for more information!

Cleaning House

There's been a lot on our backlog of projects for a while now. With that in mind we are going to be spending the remainder of January working to gradually churn out quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and requested features that have been collecting dust for too long.

Conclusion

2020 was a crazy year. We don't like to bring down these update threads, but we hope everyone stayed healthy during the global pandemic. It's been tough for some, but we hope that everything slowly turns for the better.

As for MineZ, we are continuing work as always, and we have a lot of exciting things to look forward to! Once again, Happy New Year, and we'll see you in our next update thread.

Thanks for flying Shotbow!

Türkçe, Español


Letter from the Lead - Mistri

Wow.

That's all I can say when I think about 2020, this rollercoaster of a year. While the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the globe, we have all been stuck in-doors trying to live some semblance of a normal life. This year has been anything but normal, and I speak for all of us on the Shotbow staff team when I say: our thoughts are with everyone who has had hardship and troubles throughout these trying times.

That being said, this year has been a year unlike any other for Shotbow. So many incredibly large changes have taken place, many of which are paving the road to a brighter future for you. Let's take a look at a few areas of growth last year, and how we'll continue on that trend in 2021.

The Network
Here are some very concise bullet points that summarize some very large and significant updates:

• Shotbow upgraded to a base 1.12.2 version
• lazertester rejoined the team as Lead Developer
• We hit a player peak of 805, the largest playercount we've seen in years
• We recruited 12 new Jr. Developers
• We started new Marketing efforts, and recruited a new Marketing team to oversee it
• We transitioned the entire Shotbow infrastructure to Kubernetes
• Rank upgrades are now automated
• The friends and parties system is back!

If that isn't enough for you, here are some things we have planned for 2021:

• Continued work on a new website
• An overhaul of Shotbow XP, which will allow us to return to our old ways of selling XP, voting for XP, and per-person multipliers
• Continued efforts from the Marketing team to collaborate with Content Creators for promotion of Shotbow
• Release of new games, and continued updates of existing ones
• Increased transparency and player-staff interactions

Annihilation
This year saw Annihilation move from a 1.9 base to a 1.12 base as part of our server-wide version upgrade. This not only allowed for current version joining, but also prepared Annihilation for faster and cleaner updates.

We just released our 9th Annihilation Update for the year, making 2020 the year with the most Annihilation Updates ever!

A new "Phase 3 Premium Joining Privilege" was added as part of our latest update, Fresh Lithium. Active-premium members are now able to join games for an extra phase. This includes Subscribers!

We recently did a full rework of our Combat System and Knockback is now much improved as a result of these changes.

Thanks to JTGangsterLP6 and DJ_Pedro, we've hosted a total of 36 Clan Wars since the end of March 2020, most of which were live streamed! Look out for the Premieres of the outstanding matches soon. If you don't want to miss out on any of the action, you should consider subscribing to the official Shotbow YouTube.

Some things that we're planning for 2021 include:

• A new Class Progression System whereby classes are unlocked through achievements instead of XP.
• New leaderboards with monthly achievements displayed in the Annihilation Lobby.
• A new base code re-write, which will allow for ease of implementation of more creative & fun future content.
• A new Annihilation events environment that allows for customizable games. This will facilitate Event Tokens and potentially an Annihilation League.
• An interactive tutorial that will give new players a jump-start into the world of Annihilation and its unique game mechanics.
• More content and class updates potentially utilizing some of the new 1.12 features.

While this list is subject to change, we have a lot planned for 2021 that we believe you'll all really enjoy. Keep on the lookout for more info coming soon.

MineZ
This past year, MineZ has seen a substantial amount of changes, updates, and brand new content. It introduced the long-awaited Origins update, which rebuilt countless locations on the map, introduced new and revised lore, and so much more!

However, it was also a year of learning for us on the MineZ Team. While we strive to put out content on a regular basis, we also had to sit down on multiple occasions and reevaluate our priorities in the game. We understood flaws in MineZ's lack of innovation, as well as old archaic design choices that have persisted since MineZ's initial inception in 2012. Furthermore, we also had to learn to work as a restructured development team, now with five active developers. It would be a lie to say we were able to do it gracefully and without much notice to the community as a whole.

We are continuing to learn how to work as a team moving into 2021, we think 2021 can shape up to be even better than 2020 for MineZ. While we may not have as massive as an update like Origins in our scope, MineZ benefits from not needing constant large-scale updates to persist. We believe it can see growth again in the face of innovation and new ideas.

We have a lot of room to innovate once we get the ball rolling once more. The holiday events were memorable and engaging, but we want to pivot back into new things for the core game now.

Thank you, everyone, for your continued support through this tough year. Look out for MineZ's New Year thread, where we'll go into a bit more detail on what we've learned through 2020, and where we plan to go for 2021.

SMASH
This year for SMASH has seen amazing growth, notably in recent weeks the playercount has been hitting 40-50 on the weekends consistently, and 20-30 during normal weekdays. This year we also tried a few new things with the community, the biggest of them being the SMASH Tournament. While scheduling was very difficult as many players come from different parts of the globe, we received a lot of great feedback from participants and spectators on how we could improve for future tournaments! 2020 has been slow in terms of content for SMASH, thankfully lazertester picked up the game for a bit, and gave us a much needed tuneup to 1.12 base, with some new items and features while he was at it. The team mode, quick menu, and 3 new items all got introduced in the Left Field Update. With the not-so-recent re-addition of Red_Epicness to the team in September, we have been planning and making updates to the gamemode behind the scenes, and are hoping 2021 can bring lots of new things to the game.

Here's what everyone can expect in the coming year: an updated Arena system, that will allow us to easily add more maps. With this, we will add in the winners of the map contest. The new Arena System will also mean a few map tweaks, so item spawns and may layout may slightly differ. We've got a slew of new cosmetics planned, including, but not limited to; more KO sounds + particles, KO messages in chat, and "Battle Music" which will use the same Radio system we currently use in the festive lobby. We are also planning for a new gamemode within the lobby that will basically be a free-for-all game that never ends.

The SMASH Team is really grateful to everyone who's been showing their love and support for the gamemode, and love hearing your feedback on new things we try out. We hope that all these back end fixes and changes will allow us to do some really fun things in the future. Here's to 2021!

Miner Problems
Being our first official game release in years, Miner Problems is incredibly fun and entertaining, and super unique in the realm of Minecraft Murder Mystery gamemodes. We hope to continue to collaborate with content creators to get the word out about Shotbow and Miner Problems as a whole. If you haven't already tried it out, grab some friends and hop on!

When in Rogue
Throughout 2020, we hosted a few Alpha Preview Weekends for When in Rogue. Although work was stalled for a little while, 2021 will bring new mobs, better dungeons, new dungeon types, boss battles, and much more. We hope to release When in Rogue once the game is ready and incredibly polished. For now, it remains in an Alpha stage. You'll be seeing more Alpha Preview Weekends in the near future, so be sure to keep on the lookout for those on the forums.

Warband
Warband had its first public Alpha in December of 2020, and the team cannot thank players enough for getting involved in this new endeavor and providing many valuable suggestions, bug reports, and reviews. Coming into 2021, we will be kicking into high-gear with Talents, a skill-tree system and Feats, an achievement system along with custom-generated points of interest placed throughout the domain. Warband's official release is expected within the first quarter of 2021, and we can't wait to see how you all will contribute to making the game reach its full potential.

Mine Theft Auto
Mine Theft Auto was temporarily closed for maintenance, and the team is working hard to bring it back. While we have no promises for a release date yet, we're hoping it'll be back in 2021. We've also onboarded a few new Jr. Developers to help out with the game, so new developments are picking up pace.

Closing Words
As you can see, it has been quite the year. Many of the changes we made have paved the path to faster, more efficient, and more effective updates in 2021. We hope you are enjoying Shotbow, and as always, we are open to feedback and suggestions if you have any.

Happy NEWYEAR21 - thanks for flying Shotbow!


Updates
Network Updates
We introduced 3 new tunnels, which should slightly improve routing to our US servers. Use these new IPs to connect to the following regions:

• Europe: eu.shotbow.net
• Japan: jp.shotbow.net
• Australia: au.shotbow.net

Annihilation Updates
Annihilation introduced a new update, Fresh Lithium, which includes some awesome new changes, including Phase 3 joining for premiums, tons of class changes, new knockback adjustments, bug fixes, and much more!

MineZ Updates
MineZ underwent a large millitary loot overhaul, along with a PTR. You can read all about it here.

Miner Problems Updates
Miner Problems, our brand-new Mineraft Murder Mystery gamemode was released. You can watch the trailer here. In addition, check out JOKO playing the game here.

Statistics
SMASH Rankings
The winter season has just ended, and the results are in!

• 1st - BigGiantKing - 75,000 XP
• 2nd - Cometcat13 - 50,000 XP
• 3rd (tie) - Acstes - 25,000 XP
• 3rd (tie) - flexing74 - 25,000 XP

Network in General
Staff updates:

• Ktrompfl joined the development team as a Jr. Developer for MTA
• M4bi joined the Ban Appeal Counselor team
• pigplayer joined the Annihilation Mini Admin team
• Agypagy, Xhat, and _SealClubber joined the MineZ Mini Admin team

Other statistics:

• A total of 85,377,133 XP was earned by players this month
• There were 2,071 players banned in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 343 on December 30
• 111 ban appeals were resolved in the last month

Closing Words
Thanks for tuning in this month. As always, I'm your host, Mistri - catch you next month, and thanks for flying Shotbow!