Shotbow

MineZ Changelog

Hello Survivors!

Summer is finally here, and with it comes a new MineZ update! The MineZ team has been hard at work over the last few months creating, revising, and finalizing this major update, so we are excited to finally release it! Continue reading to see what's changed!



New Settlers from the South
Welcome to Meridian; a new settlement just off the southern coast of Valar, the name given to our realm by these seafarers.

It brings with it a host of amenities available to you. Most notably, a bank for players to store their items. Meridian is a new spawn for all players, starting a generation of new explorers. It is a safe-haven for you, devoid of zombies and under the surveillance of these new settlers. You won't have to worry about hunger or thirst here!

Use Meridian as a launchpad for all your adventures. Meet up with players here, interact with these new and mysterious travelers and of course - store your items.


The Island Folk

It's unusual to see many people, especially talkative ones. Though in Meridian, you'll notice there are many lively characters.

Conversational NPCs

These NPCs offer up tidbits of advice and in some cases items. They are soulbound of course, but will surely help you in your travels. Not all NPCs will offer you a gift, but they generally have something to say, whether it's rumors about the mainland or stories.

Baldric the Supplier

Some NPCs may even be willing to refill your gear. This new feature was created to help players who make several journeys back and forth, replenishing your spawn-kit items. We did this due to the amount of players who routinely killed themselves to recoup valuable items and to establish more of a game loop.

Spawn NPCs

Another addition you will notice are NPCs who will take you to different spawn towns. All players have the option to use these NPCs; regardless of rank.

Historically, only premium members have been able to choose to spawn at specific locations, though after looking at months of player actions it is clear that this has been hurting player retention with the vast majority of non-premium players choosing to kill or drown themselves for as long as 5 minutes to get a close enough spawn to their friends.

This change will allow groups to play together instantly. Players who have purchased premium still maintain the ability to spawn anywhere along the coast, and this may come in handy during certain events in the future.

We will be expanding premium features soon, to make up for the lackluster amount of cosmetics and perks you receive, so please have patience! For the moment, we felt improving the game loop was one of the biggest concerns.

• Players may still use the old spawn command if you desire. There is also an NPC ,"Oliver the Navigator", who presents players with spawn choices in a GUI format.

These NPCs will be expanded upon in the future, but we hope you enjoy these new additions/changes.


Item Storage for All

Over the years since MineZ's creation, alternate Minecraft accounts have become the de facto item storage method since there was no other way to safely store items. As little as seven months ago, the idea of a per-player item storage system (commonly referred to as "The Bank") was just that -- an idea. While it had been talked about for many months prior as a very important feature, actually creating The Bank was a daunting task. In general, inventory management from a technical standpoint must be more precise and well-thought-out than usual; even the smallest bug or mistake could result in complete data loss or game failure. Even so, with the staff recognizing the impending need for the system after the Mojang Java account migration announcement, one MineZ developer accepted the task. After a long, tumultuous journey, the MineZ team is proud to announce the official release of the MineZ Player Bank.

The following sections will provide a brief overview with the most up-to-date information of the Player Bank and its functions. For a more in-depth explanation with images, please refer to the Banking System PTR Thread. Note: some features listed in the PTR thread are outdated.

The Player Bank

Bank Access

The Bank can be accessed by right-clicking specific Ender Chests. With this update, these Ender Chests can only be found inside the Treasury building at Meridian. You can return to Meridian at any time using the NPCs on special ships found in the surrounding areas of major spawn locations (Geuten, Carmi, Romero, Bell Farm, Portsmouth, Pravus, Grimdale, and Kaocho).

While some of you may be disappointed that there are no locations in other parts of the map, releasing with a south-only approach was by far the easiest option with regards to balancing and the most logical for the current implementation. We will continue to explore other possible locations and implementations in the future.

Bank Storage

The Bank offers two separate storage spaces, which are referred to as the "Main" and "Legacy" banks. By default, every player will start with TWO pages (1 page = 4x9 slots) for both the Main and Legacy Banks. Storage space in for both banks are limited, however there are plans to add expansion possibilities in the future.

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

The Legacy bank allows you to store any item that is CURRENTLY NOT OBTAINABLE in the game. This includes cosmetics, some legacy legendaries, and rare items. As a general rule, 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. The purpose of this bank is to be used to store cosmetics and legacy items. Similar to the Main Bank, there are a few notable exceptions that are stated below.

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

• The following items CANNOT be stored in EITHER bank:
  • Bags*
  • Soulbound Items

*Note: Bags were limited to one of each color in the PTR, however this was found to require some more time to correctly incorporate, so for the foreseeable future they will not be storable. Even so, we will continuing working on eventually making one of each color storable.

PTR Bug Reporters

For those of you who participated in the PTR all the way back in January, thank you! This update would not have been possible without your help. Rewards for those who submitted qualified bug reports will be distributed over the coming weeks. As a bonus, everyone that qualified for a reward will also receive a special bank-themed glyph in honor of its official release!


A New Way to Trade

In addition to adding a place to store your items, we've also added an official system to trade them!

The "/trade (name)" command or shift-right-clicking the player you are trading with can be used to send a trading request. The request must be accepted by clicking [ACCEPT] in the chat before the trading GUI is opened. The trade will automatically cancel if at any point you are not within 20 blocks of the player you are trading with.

You can trade multiple items at once, and the trade will only complete after both players have offered items and clicked the "confirm" button in the GUI. Soulbound items cannot be traded.

Collect a Premium Discount!


Looking Towards the Future

While this update may seem relatively small on the surface, the content in it is important as it lays the groundwork for future projects and fulfills the pressing need for a permanent per-player item storage system.

The summer season is just getting started and so are we! Stay tuned over the coming months for more MineZ content!

As always, and until next time,

Thanks for flying Shotbow!

日本語版, Español
Annihilation Update - Gentle Iridium (2.12.0)

Hello and welcome!

Today, we are thrilled that we may announce our latest update Gentle Iridium!

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

As always, we appreciate constructive, well-founded criticism (positive and negative!) once you have experienced this update in-game for some time. Nothing is ever set in stone.


Changelog


NEW - Idle Timer

• In order to ensure as many active and thus productive teammates as possible, players who have been idle will be kicked from the game after:
  • 3 minutes in Phase 1 - 3
  • 5 minutes in Phase 4 - 5
• If you are detected as idle, although you are not, simply move your cross hairs within the 15 second timer.

Class Changes:

Assassin

• Thanks to Establishment's thread, we decided to bring back Assassin's feature that reduces the cooldown of its Leap ability by 8 seconds upon killing an enemy.

Bard

• The BuffBox of a Bard can now be right clicked by teammates to find out which effect it's giving, so that you don't play the same song twice.
• You can now point at a BuffBox to place a block while shifting.

Builder

• Delaying Blocks that have been placed by a Builder on your team can now be right clicked by teammates as well, which allows multiple Builders to plan their Delaying Block placement in a more effective way.

Defender

• Defender now has a brand new second Class Item that is called Alert Item:
  • Right click it to drop it below your character on the ground.
  • Unless it's picked up or you decide to toss it somewhere else, it doesn't despawn.
  • It can only be picked up by enemies.
  • A quiet sound is played to its vicinity and small particles appear when it's picked up.
  • Enemies can bypass it by holding an item.

Farmer

• The radius of Farmer's Feast ability has been increased from 10 to 13 blocks to match its counterpart, the Famine ability.

Healer

• Instead of permanent Weakness, Healer now receives it temporarily upon healing:
  • 15 seconds, if you left click your Bloodbag to heal a single teammate
  • 5 seconds, if you right click your Bloodbag to heal up to 3 teammates

IceMan

• IceMan's ice can now be broken, because no class should generate unbreakable blocks.

Lumberjack

• Lumberjack now deals +1 HP of damage with any axe.
• The duration of its Brute Force ability has been increased from 10 to 15 seconds.

Mercenary

• Just as Immobilizer's Immobilizer ability, Mercenary's Mark of Death ability can no longer mark invisible enemies who don't wear any armour at all.

Pyro

• Pyro's Firestorm doesn't only set enemies on fire, but it now also gives nearby teammates Fire Resistance for 10 seconds and extinguishes their flames in case they are burning.

Spider

• Vines which are created by Spider's Wall Climb ability can now be broken (see IceMan).

Transporter

• Transporter's Portal Maker now only works upon right clicking, which reduces the risk of destroying your portal accidentally.

Other Changes:

• Strength
  Strength has been buffed slightly:
  • Strength I = +2 HP of damage (instead of +1 HP of damage)
  • Strength II = +4 HP of damage (instead of +2 HP of damage)
  • Strength III = +6 HP of damage (instead of +3 HP of damage)

• Weapon Shop
  Some prices have been reworked:
  • Iron Chestplate = 5 Gold (instead of 6 Gold)
  • Iron Leggings = 5 Gold (instead of 4 Gold)
  • Iron Sword = 1 Gold (instead of 4 Gold)
  • 16 Arrows = 1 Gold (instead of 5 Gold)
  • 3 Bottles O' Enchanting = 2 Gold (instead of 1 Bottle O' Enchanting for 4 Gold)

• Bosses
  Whenever a Boss spawns a notification now appears in chat in addition to the acoustic signal.

• Class Items
  All 39 classes now have an actual Class Item on the hotbar slot that you want your Class Item to be on by default. These 3 classes were missing:
  • Archer: Arrow Drop (instead of 16 arrows)
  • Civilian: Craft O' Matic (instead of the chest)
  • Farmer: Famine (instead of the stone hoe)

• Chat Command
  /fingergun = (☞ﾟ⌣ﾟ)☞

Bug Fixes:

1. Players getting kicked and disqualified. (Unfortunately, that means that Acrobats can no longer spam their space bar to take off in the voting lobby.)
2. Being able to break Boss portals.
3. Protection not reducing certain damage types properly; thanks to Nasar for reporting it!
4. Circumventing the 10 second cooldown of ender pearls.
5. The friends system not being functional.
6. Being hooked to an enemy Scorpio after dying; thanks to GiveMeFlowers for reporting it!
7. RiftWalker's rifts not being broken by void.
8. Tinkerer's enchanted books getting lost.
9. Transporter's portals being placed on fences and walls; thanks to The_Ponjuice for reporting it!
10. IceMan's ice suffocating players.
11. Builder's Delaying Blocks turning into regular sea lanterns; thanks to shiroe_hammuni for reporting it!
12. Tinkerer's Haste II and Speed II PowerPads not overwriting Haste I and Speed I.
13. Builder not getting XP levels for placing blocks.
14. Not being able to collect the Boss Buff which is dropped by the Bosses.
15. Immobilizer not being able to immobilize an enemy Immobilizer.
16. Consuming 2 Tinkerer's books instead of 1.
17. Boots of Grace losing durability, although they shouldn't.
18. Transporter's portals being placed on crafting tables and anvils; thanks to Woolfed for reporting it!
19. Activating the 8 block radius of team doors without actually placing them; thanks to Sens for reporting it!
20. Enchanter's Intensifier being splashed occasionally.
21. Coastal having a couple of spawn points which were too close to the void.
22. Villages having unbreakable blocks.
23. Not being able to vote for a map by using /vote <map>; thanks to JonnyDvE for reporting it!
24. /team leave returning an error, even though the command works.
25. Players not being removed from the Priority Queue, although they are on a team (Event Server only bug).

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!

Deutsch, Francais, Español, 日本語


How's it going Shotbow! My name is MrJack, and I'll be your new host for this month's edition of Dentril's New Moon, Shotbow's monthly newsletter. Let's take a look at the past month's events and happenings!

Updates
SMASH Updates
SMASH released a massive content update, the Arena Update!

A grand total of 11 new maps have entered the rotation, a mix of old and new that you're sure to enjoy! Alongside some quality of life updates, including a tutorial, you'll be sure to enjoy all that SMASH has to offer!

MineZ Updates
MineZ has been moving along with hordes of new updates! Quality of life bug fixes, continued work on instances, and balance changes to loot, damage, and more can all be seen here (3.12) and here (3.12.3).

Annihilation Updates
Annihilation has been lively with more Clan Wars! Check out some exciting 1v1 matches here: #46 and #47.

Statistics
Network in General
Staff updates:

• JTGangsterLP6 was promoted to Annihilation Lead
• MissHilevi was promoted to Full Developer
• ArsMagia joined the Jr. Developer team
• ACrispyTortilla rejoined the Full Admin team
• MrJack joined the MineZ Mini Admin team
• donnerblitz_1 joined the Art team

Other statistics:

• A total of 79,687,501 XP was earned by players this month
• There were 1,318 players banned in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 314 on May 22
• 83 ban appeals were resolved in the last month

Closing Words
Thanks for reading this month's edition of Dentril's New Moon! I've been your host, MrJack, and as always, thanks for flying Shotbow!