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What's up Shotbow! If you don't know me already, my name is Mistri, and I'll be your host for this month's edition of Dentril's New Moon, Shotbow's premiere monthly newsletter. This month was full of (somewhat spooky) updates, and I can't wait to share them with you. Without further ado, let's jump right into it!

Updates
Network Updates
Public Relations and Marketing
This month, we opened applications for the Shotbow Public Relations and Marketing teams. Shotbow is making a larger effort to focus on getting a lot of new players, as well as retaining them for the future. We recruited people to the Shotbow team to fill the roles of: Social Media Assistant, Graphic Artist, Media Team Coordinator, and Trend Analyst. If any of these positions are of interest to you, and you haven't applied yet, we are still accepting applications! Read all about it on the announcement thread here.

Also, please give a warm welcome to our new Public Relations and Marketing team members, which are listed in the Staff Updates section below.

Reddit Updates
We have re-vamped the Shotbow reddit, which has been around since before the forums! Announcements from the forums will be cross-posted to our Reddit. Come join r/Shotbow and post your own creative and original content! Shotbow-related memes, videos, and other content is welcome.

Shotbow Shop
This month, we also made some improvements to the Shotbow shop. For those who are looking to get Emerald and Obsidian ranks, the entire process is now automated. Whenever purchasing a gift for someone else, there will be a field for your username as the gifter, and you will receive credit for the purchase towards your Emerald and Obisidian rank. You'll automatically be upgraded if you've spent enough while this new system is active. Read all about the changes on this thread.

VPN Bypass
If you or a friend have been blocked from joining Shotbow due to our VPN Blocker, we have good news for you! We've noticed that the VPN Blocker sometimes blocks people that aren't using a VPN. For this reason, starting today, if you have active Shotbow premium, you can bypass the VPN Blocker check when playing on Shotbow!

Active Shotbow premium means that you have done one of the following:

• Purchased Subscriber ($10) within the last month
• Purchased Silver ($25) within the last 3 months
• Purchased Gold ($50) within the last 7 months
• Purchased Platinum ($100)

Note: this feature is experimental. We reserve the right to remove this new premium perk at any time. If you don't already have Shotbow premium, buy now!

Annihilation Updates
A new Annihilation update, Wise Neon, was released earlier this month. It included many class changes, balance changes, bug fixes, and tons more! You can read all about it here!

In addition, we streamed multiple Community Clan Wars on our YouTube channel. You can check out the matches at the following links: 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 23.

GG Updates
GG used to be a home of MineZ pvpers who wanted to warm up/practice PvP or simply wanted to have fun fighting other players without having to gear up. However, a few years later, the gamemode was abandoned due to not having active devs working on it and gamemode features being outdated over time, such as items and knockback system not synced to MineZ.

Marine_PvP, one of our Jr. Developers, has been rewriting GG's code base, and this month, we finally were able to release the reworked version of GG. It includes new game mechanics, KOTHs, an economy, and so much more! You can read all about the changes to GG here!

MineZ Updates
MineZ has a longstanding tradition of having spooky Halloween treats (and tricks) each year in an event we call "Spookfest". This year, a unique take on Spookfest has been running throughout October. Treat chests, special items, head hunts, special events, and so much more! Read all about Spookfest here.

In addition, we also livestreamed a community 20v20 fight with some awesome commentary from some of the Shotbow staff. Check it out here!



P.S. I hear a jolly Christmas update awaits! More details coming later this month.

SMASH Updates
The great SMASH tournament has just ended, and the results are in!

• 1st - Jackiechun430 - 1 Month Shotbow Subscription + 50,000 XP
• 2nd - Sonicboom_ - 40,000 XP

Statistics
SMASH Rankings
The fall season ends soon, so be sure to climb up the leaderboards for ranked matches! Current standings are:

• 1st - Acstes with 1032 ELO
• 2nd - burak278 with 1021 ELO
• 3rd - Cometcat13 with 1021 ELO

Network in General
Staff updates:

• JACOBSMILE joined the Developer team as Jr. Site Reliability Engineer
• Pichu2002 and ShadowLAX have joined the Developer team as a Jr. Developer
• JACOBSMILE has been promoted to Community Manager
• PokeTheEye was promoted to Film Crew Lead
• Samstag1 was promoted to Localization Co-Lead
• Tatre was promoted to Full Admin
• EnderMCx joined the team as a Mini Builder
• Jonathan03011998, squallythewally, CuteButEvil, Braiti, MrJack, and ShayminPlays have joined the Marketing team

Other statistics:

• A total of 75,792,868 XP was earned by players this month
• There were 809 players banned in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 327 on October 3
• 85 ban appeals were resolved in the last month

Closing Words
Thanks for tuning in this month. Expect to see some sus announcements coming your way this month, and be sure to check out the Shotbow Discord for exclusive sneak-peeks!

As always, I'm your host, Mistri — catch you next month, and thanks for flying Shotbow!

Today, we're happy to roll out a new change to the Shotbow Shop that will make it easier to gift packages to players, and also will significantly speed up the rank upgrade process for Emerald and Obsidian upgrades.

Gifting & Rank Upgrades

Before today, if you wanted to buy a rank for a friend, you would enter their username in the Shotbow Shop, along with your payment info. However, if you wanted to count this purchase towards Emerald and Obsidian upgrades in the future, Shotbow Staff wouldn't be able to associate this purchase to your account, since it was under their username. That's why we have a long, tedious process for rank upgrade requests, which involves digging up the Transaction ID of each purchase you made for a friend.

The Emerald and Obsidian ranks were meant to be a thank-you to those who were generous enough to give to others, but the current process to apply for the upgrade is painful and tedious, and the approval process is manual on our end.

For this reason, we are adding a "Benefactor" field to all Shotbow Shop purchases. Starting now, when you purchase a rank for a friend, you will enter their username as normal, but you'll also be prompted with a second field to enter your username as the Benefactor.

The Benefactor will receive the credit for the purchase, and when the Benefactor has accumulated enough purchases, they will be upgraded to Emerald and Obsidian automatically.

New Purchase Process

When you purchase on the Shotbow Shop, you will be granted with the same prompt as before. In this prompt, you should enter the username of the person who is receiving the gift.



On the next screen, you should enter your username. The credit for this purchase will go to this person (the Benefactor). If you are purchasing a package for yourself, enter your username a second time.



Credits

Each user has a dollar amount of "credits" spent on Shotbow. Each purchase is either Premium or Cosmetic credits. Premium credits count towards Silver, Gold, and Platinum upgrades. Both Cosmetic and Premium credits count towards Emerald and Obsidian upgrades.

Please refer to this table for how Credits are granted for premium purchases.




In addition, any Cosmetic purchase will give credits to only the Benefactor by default.

All individual purchases will continue to function as normal, but now Emerald and Obsidian upgrades will be handled automatically.

Old Emerald and Obsidian Purchases

If you have been purchasing for others to save up for Emerald or Obsidian before this date, don't worry! You can still use your old Transaction IDs in combination with this new system. You can continue to use the Rank Upgrade Request form until the end of 2020. In 2021, we'll still allow you to upgrade using Transaction IDs, but you'll have to send us a support ticket (via the Contact Us form at the bottom of this webpage).

Closing Words

This is a new system; if you experience any bugs, please contact us on this thread or by sending us a support ticket via the Contact Us form below.

Thanks for flying Shotbow!

日本語版 Español
Annihilation Update - Wise Neon (2.9.0)

Hi Everyone!

It's that time again and we are happy to present you with yet another Anni update, Wise Neon!

Most of these changes are based on community feedback. A lot of thought and reasoning has gone into them so please give them a chance before passing judgement. As always, nothing is set in stone and things can be tweaked where necessary.

Many thanks to everyone who offered suggestions and reported problems.

Note:
Knockback is currently being worked on. Once we have a working version there will be play tests to get community feedback, followed by further tweaking if necessary.


Changelog


NEW - Beacons

• Due to popular demand Beacons can now be activated and used again. Yay!

Class Changes:

Bard

• The Bard Box now persists after death (like TP's and Tinkerer pads).
• We've added a recall feature so you no longer have to find your Bard Box and break it.
• There is now a 15 second overall cool-down before you can select a new song, to prevent spamming effects.

Builder

• Building a defense should come with a reward for your hard work. We increased the amount of XP Builder earns from placing blocks by reducing the cool-down from 2.0 to 1.5 seconds.

Enchanter

• Until now Succubus ignored the extra enchanter levels that would normally be converted to HP during combat. We've raised the level at which Enchanter XP is converted to prevent this from happening. Enchanter XP is now converted into HP once Enchanters health drops below 7 HP, that way all levels are fully converted before a Succubus can use their Life Drain ability at 6 HP or less. Previously levels were converted once HP dropped below 2 HP.

Farmer

• 1./ Crop Immunity:
  • Crops that are being grown by a Farmer now have immunity from non farmer team mates for 80 seconds from the time they are broken.
  • Non farmers team mates are sent a message advising them to use farmer to break crops.
  • Enemies can still break crops at any time.
• 2./ Feast Ability:
  • Gives players feedback for the Feast ability, in the form of:
  • Area of effect particles (similar to famine).
  • A chat message notification (similar to famine).
  • A new sound effect.
• 3./ Farmer drop and inventory changes:
  • Decreased the drop rate of apples - Enchanted golden apples have become much more common and are no longer mainly used to rush/end games, an increasing number of players use them at mid and to mine rush. Strong items are necessary to break stalemates, but should be difficult to obtain.
  • Increased the drop rate of iron ore.
  • Added a chest to Farmers spawn items.

Immobilizer

• Increased the Absorption hearts which a player receives upon being immobilized from 1 1/2 (3 HP) to 4 (8 HP). This will bring it in line with Swapper.
• Scaled the time which a player is immobilized for, based on their armor points: A player that wears full diamond (20 armor points) is immobilized for the full 5 seconds, a player who doesn't wear any armor (0 armor points) is immobilized for 2 seconds.
• Invisible players who don't wear any armor at all can no longer be immobilized - defending used to be a skill that required your undivided attention, listening for footsteps and looking for particles. AFK defending as Immobilizer has been getting increasingly common. Not only does this takes the skill and the fun out of defending, it also takes the skill and fun out of solo invis rushing.

RiftWalker

• In addition to the recently added notification which alerts the riftee of an incoming rift, we have now also added the 10 second countdown to their chat.

Scorpio

• Can now be used in more situations, the hook is no longer cancelled if there is a block behind the Scorpio.
• The hook now breaks on first contact if there is no room for the hooked player, or if the player is changing class, and gives the Scorpio a chat notification telling them why it has failed.

Scout

• Added reasons to Scouts "Unable to grapple" text notification (i.e. while on fire, in deep water).

Spy

• Spy used to be a very popular defense class but is rarely used for defending since the extra backstab damage was removed. We've re-added this popular feature to give it more versatility. This also allows spy to use it's flee ability to double back and come up behind an enemy to deal more damage.

Vampire

• Added a clock to Vampires spawn kit, as well as a clock at each base. That way it's clear when the passive ability begins and ends since it's not based on light levels but rather on the day night cycle. Suggested by Quiglet in the Nifty Boron update thread.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused saturation to deplete too fast while regenerating health.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Shields to block 100% damage.
• Fixed a bug where damage from Thor's hammer, poison and the wither effect were affected by unenchanted armor.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Farmer to get afk drops.
• Fixed a bug where farmer crops keep growing if broken by an enemy.
• Fixed a bug where base level regeneration potions had the same duration as their extended version.
• Fixed a bug where Alchemists brew stands that were blown up by Engineers bunkerbuster were not returned to the Alchemists inventory.
• Fixed a bug which rendered many temporary potion particles invisible (e.g. golden apples, Bard's BuffBox, Tinkerer's PowerPads).
• Added functionality to prevent falling blocks going through webs (they now pop into their item form)
• Various Admin related fixes and other nerdy dev stuff.

Credits:

As always, many thanks to:
Our amazing devs, Mosh, Galap and MissHilevi, for their hard work and dedication in bringing us these updates. A special thanks to MissHilevi who is responsible for the bulk of this update.
My wonderful Co-Lead and technical guru, JTGangsterLP6, who manages bug documentation and update-testing.
The Anni admin team for all their hard work, testing and bug hunting.
And all of you who offered suggestions, reported problems and gave support along the way.

Many of the changes we have made in this update have come from you the community, and our wonderful Admin team who continue to strive to make Anni the best it can be.

We have plans for many more exciting updates and new features, so stay tuned!