Shotbow

Hello Survivors!

It’s been a little bit since we gave players a good look into the future of development for MineZ. We’ve been tirelessly working behind the scenes on a myriad of updates, and while none are launching today, we’d like to go over some of our thoughts on the current game state and our intent and goals in the patches you’ll see in the coming months. That said, let’s jump right in.

MineZ has largely been the same game for close to a decade. With a 10 year anniversary on the horizon, the MineZ Team has been all too aware of what has and hasn’t changed over that decade, and we’re looking to ramp it up. MineZ has sorely lacked progression for many years, and the Bank was a nice first step towards players feeling some sense of progress. But the bank is not enough on its own. Player numbers fluctuate, and though winter saw some great return to the playerbase, we’re still nowhere close to what we were at Origins release, or the days of old with multiple full servers. We’d like to begin to turn that around with a number of more impactful updates, beyond just tweaking numbers and adjusting the meta slightly.


Creating More Gameplay Loops
Future updates will look to innovate progression and content within the game, and while it’s been said before, we’ve made great strides internally to set up more depth to our content, add replayability to the game, and give reason to log in each day and continue playing. Recent updates should hopefully reflect some of that intent. See the change to Shivers, which now join the roster of mobs that have a rare drop worth grinding for. Expect more changes like this to many other mobs, including potential new ones! You can check out some survey results that help highlight why we’re looking at mobs, too. Though this is a small-scale example of replayability, we hope to continue to head down that path to provide good reasons for people to keep playing, and to expand the scope of what there is to do in MineZ beyond PvP and the existing Dungeons. While we don’t want to reveal our hand just yet of what exactly this is, you should hopefully see a PTR in the coming months with a large system that should be the beginning of a new future for MineZ. Our intent is to make the game bigger than its current systems by adding more gameplay loops that don’t currently exist, while supporting existing ones by creating more depth with those new systems.

Looting and Consistency
While we are introducing some grind heavy elements like stated above, one thing we also are looking to tackle is looting in MineZ. For many years, one thing has remained consistent: the inconsistency of looting. MineZ has thousands of chests, and looting gameplay as it stands is not too engaging. Despite that, players have to spend much of their time looting by passing up worthless chests. A big contributor to this is the inconsistency from loot chests. When opening a chest, it is not uncommon to find one worthless item within. We want to reduce these meaningless interactions, while keeping progression relatively similar. We’re happy with gear speed currently, and want to preserve that, while cutting down the meaningless interactions within that time frame.

Additionally, we want to ensure that endgame gear is still viable, but not necessary to participate in your favorite content. Alongside these changes to consistency, we’ll also likely have changes to loot tables you should keep an eye out for. Keep an eye out for a PTR server in the coming months to test out these extensive changes we’ve been working on behind the scenes. Our intent is to make the existing gameplay loops more engaging by cutting down time spent doing menial tasks and removing “bad luck” when looting, so people can get to their preferred content of choice, be it PvP or PvE gameplay.

Statistics, Achievements, and Progress
This is not the only method of progression that there is in gaming however, and we’re well aware of the desire for more senses of progression when playing MineZ. The broken state of stats and achievements has been as such for quite some time, and we know how even something as small as stats can be a big motivator when playing. We’re looking to address such things soon, which will hopefully just be the beginning of more long term progression. This will come in the form of a better achievements and stats system, as well as other achievable feats in game, such as rare drops, detailed above. Our intent is to allow players to see more defined progress over time via stats and achievements, and incorporate rewards into that as well for tangible senses of progress.

PvP - Phantom Blades Galore
Regarding PvP, there is always much discussion about the perfect meta for MineZ, and it’s rarely fully agreed upon. Our recent PvP player survey provided much insight to the current state of the game, and we have a few ideas for what to tackle to make that aspect of the game more enjoyable, as well as making PvP better for those who don’t want to partake in it. Though much of these thoughts are in the early stages due to the recency of that survey, we will be continuing to engage with the community through surveys such as those to gather feedback and hear your thoughts on what parts of the game need our attention. We thank you for all your honest and direct feedback on this subject and others.

Current info suggests outnumbering and the inability to compete while rat-geared are roadblocks to people enjoying PvP, as well as certain legendaries being too oppressive in god geared kits. You can check out some of the survey results from our active PvP community to see how some of these changes were supported by their thoughts as well as ours. Our intent is to begin adjusting things so outnumbering is less oppressive, rat-gearing becomes a reasonable option/endgame gear is not required for PvP, and potion inventories are a healthier mix of drinks and splashes, while also addressing the amount of mobility that Phantom Blade provides.

Closing Words
All of the above is still somewhat vague, and we know that words are meaningless without action. We hope to have PTR server playtests in the coming months for content that we want to get perfect for you all to enjoy, while also setting the server up for future growth. MineZ has been around for a long time, and we certainly don’t want to see it go anywhere but up. All of these changes are still a little bit away, but you should still look forward to another update that is soon to come, chock full of awesome content, including the much requested return of a certain feature. As always, thank you for all the patience and wonderful feedback you’ve given to the staff team, as it’s a tremendous help in making the game as great as it can be.

We can't wait to show you all what we've been working on!

- The MineZ Team

Hello Shotbow! It's finally the beginning of the summer season, and the whole network is jumping with anticipation of what's to come! The past month has been lively with new content from both Shotbow and our community, and more opportunities to join the two together as well! Check out the return of the Film Crew Applications, as well as some familiar ones like the Annihilation Mini Admin Applications, which are still open for submission! We're looking forward to continuing to involve the community and expand the team during the summer, as we look forward to more updates and content releases!

MineZ Updates
The MineZ team has been hard at work behind the scenes on content to come, but that's not to say nothing came out this month! As always, you should check out the MineZ Changelog for more info about the latest legendary reworks, headhunts, new items, and bugfixes that are now live! Additionally, there have been a whole host of events going on the past month(and not just on MineZ!), from PvP events on live, to wave events on the event server! You can check out one of the wave events, here!

We've also been actively discussing what more is to come, as well as hosting plenty of polls over in the MineZ Community Board discord, which we recommend joining for great insights on the future of MineZ, and a good opportunity to help provide feedback for all updates!

Warband Updates
Lots has been happening for Warband in the past month, with playtests galore on our back-to-back event filled weekends! You can check out one of many of our Warband Alpha Playtests here! We also recommend joining the Shotbow Discord for sneak peeks at what's to come!

Death by Void Updates
Death By Void has returned to the overworld, fixing some longstanding bugs along the way. Check it out if you haven't already!

Statistics
Network in General
Discord updates:

• You can now add notification roles on our Discord to be notified of events and updates, see the #notifications channel on Discord!

Staff updates:

• GunOverdose was promoted to Full Staff and Marketing/PR Co-Lead
• angry_nacho joined the Marketing Team
• SmallSpoon joined the Marketing Team
• OrcaHedral joined the Warband Team as a Jr. Specialist
• sdf007 joined the Localization Team

Other statistics:

• There were 561 players banned in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 246 on May 1st

Closing Words
Get excited for a busy summer! We here at Shotbow are always looking forward to what's next, and always more excited to get to share it with you all. Keep an eye out for some new releases, more videos, events, passion projects (such as the ToggleSneak mod made by our very own Galap), and the upcoming 10th Anniversary for Shotbow!! More to come on that later. But for now, I'm MrJack, and thanks for flying Shotbow!

Shotbow Is Looking for a Film Crew!
Hello Shotbow! Things have been busy all across the Network with gamemode updates, staffing changes, and so much more. As we witness all of this change, one thing echoes in our mind, and that's to film it all so others can experience it too!

You may think "what happened with the last round applications". Well let me apologize to the people that applied last time, we weren't very clear on our part with some questions. If you did apply and are still passionate about joining the film crew I recommend re-applying!

What You Need to Know
As members of our Film Crew, you'd be responsible for the creation of lots of different content - tutorials, promotional videos, cinematics, and much more! Working closely alongside our Marketing Team to ensure our content gets to where it needs to be, we're looking for those who have a passion for the Network, and want to see Shotbow grow. Our Film Crew will be here to entertain, inspire, and bring the existing community together while also reaching new audiences!

Our Film Crew will work as a team on a multitude of projects, and as such, cooperation is essential! We're looking for passionate members of the community, and we know there's already a fair few of you out there!

The Application
You can find the application for joining the Film Crew here. Please keep in mind that applying does not guarantee you a position on the team. We're looking forward to all who apply, and are excited at the prospect of having a dedicated Film Crew team. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible, so get your portfolios ready! Please DM either MrJack or PokeTheEye if you have any questions.

The moment you applied we are going to try and get back to you within 14 days. If you didn't receive a message after 14 days, you are allowed to message me once about it as a reminder. Messaging me or another staff member multiple times about your application, you'll be automatically denied.

Applications will close June 19th 2022.