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Annihilation Update - Crispy Cobalt (2.15.0)

Hello and welcome!

Today, we are thrilled to announce our latest update Crispy Cobalt!

As always, most of these changes are based on community feedback.

We would appreciate constructive, well-founded criticism (positive and negative!) here on the forums once you have experienced this update in-game for some time. Nothing is ever set in stone.


Changelog


NEW - Scoreboard

• The temporary additional Boss bar has been replaced with a new scoreboard:

Class Changes:

Spider

• In addition to its existing right click ability, Spider's Web can now be left clicked to spawn a pyramid of cobwebs right behind you.

Other Changes:

• Priority Queue
  To ensure more balanced teams and thus fairer games, the possible imbalance between the team with the most players and the one with the fewest has been reduced from 4 to:
  • 2, if the biggest team has 20 players or less.
  • 3, if the biggest team has more than 20 players.

• Annihilation Stats, Rank Points & Shotbow XP
  In order to incentivize staying in games to keep the number of players per team balanced, Annihilation stats, rank points & Shotbow XP are no longer given right away. They accumulate and are withheld until you and your team have lost or won. An overview will show how many Shotbow XP you have earned. Additionally, your gained rank points, number of kills and nexus damage will be displayed. From then on, survivors and winners can earn Annihilation stats, rank points & Shotbow XP instantly. Deserters who abandon their game and don't return before their team loses or wins won't receive anything any Annihilation stats for that game whatsoever.
• Edit: We acknowledge your constructive feedback that not giving Shotbow XP and rank points instantly during a game has a negative impact on the newer players. It prevents them from purchasing and unlocking classes quicker aswell as the feel of doing tasks in the game. We agree and are sorry for misjudging that, we have reverted those 2 changes.

• Enchanted Golden Apples
  As Annihilation is a team game, players who consume 3 enchanted golden apples within 3 minutes will not be able to eat another one for 2 minutes upon consuming the third one. Once the restriction of 2 minutes is over, you can eat 3 more enchanted golden apples. However, there will be another 2 minute restriction, if you do that within 3 minutes again.

• Leaderboard
  There is 1 new leaderboard:
  • Although everybody wants to have them on their team, they usually don't get a lot of recognition - let's change that: Best Defenders lists the 20 players with the most kills in defence of their own nexus!

• Common Items
  To prevent the ground from being cluttered by common items and comparatively less valuable drops from farms, these items now despawn faster:
  • Bones = 60 seconds
  • Carrots = 10 seconds
  • Feathers = 30 seconds
  • Flints = 30 seconds
  • Iron Hoes = 10 seconds
  • Lapis Lazuli = 10 seconds
  • Potatoes = 10 seconds
  • Redstone = 30 seconds
  • Seeds = 10 seconds
  • Snowballs = 10 seconds
  • Strings = 30 seconds
  • Wheat = 30 seconds

• Chat Command
  /team leave doesn't only remove you from a team in the Voting Phase, but it can now also be used to be removed from the Priority Queue.

Bug Fixes:

1. Being able to bypass the Priority Queue.
2. Remaining stuck in the Priority Queue despite no imbalance of teams.
3. Loss stats not being given to all losers.
4. Scout getting rubberbanded.
5. Not being able to time rifts successfully.
6. Preferences not being shown properly.
7. Getting stuck in cauldrons.
8. Some Class Items being activated upon left clicking; thanks to JonnyDvE for reporting Spider's Web!
9. Being offered Depth Strider II & III seeds, even though only Depth Strider I can be enchanted.
10. Skylands having an area behind Green's nexus building where blocks can't be interacted with; thanks to Spanglish for reporting it!
11. HighNorth having an unintended spot which nexuses can be mined from.
12. Hamlet missing a couple of anvils.

Closing Words:

While we have fixed several bugs in this update 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 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!

Letter from the Lead

Happy new year, Shotbow! As we wrap up 2021, I would love to reflect on Shotbow's past year. 2021 saw the advent of a new partnership with Lunar Client, a multitude of behind-the-scenes performance upgrades and fixes, including a new host for greater stability, and much more.

In 2022, we hope to have a larger focus on marketing, community interaction, player retention, voting rewards, cosmetics, and network-wide game stability.

Additionally, 2021 was a year filled with more regular content updates than any other year we've seen in the past. Our gamemode teams have worked very hard over the last year to bring you exciting new content for you and your friends to enjoy. Without further ado, here is a quick word from each of our gamemode's teams, including some upcoming new gamemodes, and some old and familiar faces.

Annihilation
In 2021, the Anni Team released four regular and two temporary updates which were mainly based on community feedback and included quite a few requests that had been extraordinarily popular. Moreover, we worked very hard to fulfill two long-standing wishes and to make as many of our passionate players happy as possible:

"Finally! " - That's what most EU players must have thought when they learned about the Annihilation EU Player Stats Transfer in July. We are thrilled that we could keep the promise which had been made several years ago!

At the end of August, we opened Annihilation Mini Admin Applications for the first time in five years: SnowVi1liers and IEvadeTax completed their training in November and have both done a fantastic job since!

As you all know, a normal year has 365 days. Do you remember how many Clan Wars you played? Thanks to Outra, M4bi, ryo, Pedro and JT, the Anni Team could host 245 out of which 21 were streamed to or premiered on our official YouTube channel!

In 2022, you don't have to wait long until our next update: We are currently working on a more meaningful attempt to make games fairer and thus more enjoyable, so stay tuned!

MineZ
The last year of MineZ has been wrought with updates, new content, and a surplus of changes both in and out of game. The highly anticipated release of the Banking system finally hit MineZ, which was one of the biggest changes to the fundamental gameplay of MineZ in a long time. As a crucial first step to bring MineZ up to modern standards, the bank has paved the way for future innovations in game. Alongside such a change, the addition of Meridian as a true player hub in world was added, alongside the ability to trade with other players, as a first step in the goal of making MineZ more welcoming for new players.

The instance system was overhauled early in the year, and alongside a myriad of build and balance changes all throughout the year, such as the return of 4 heart splashes, MineZ had a wide variety of different, exciting metas to play around in. With continued biome rebuilds, systemic changes, and more long term content like recurring supply drops, this year was one of laying the groundwork for continued improvements to MineZ. Though the MineZ team has changed frequently over the course of the past year, the future that lies before us is a hopeful one. We'll continue to strive to innovate, improve, and build upon that which we have. After a fun back to back holiday season, and armed with a strong team moving into 2022, we're looking at tackling the core game by improving longevity, player retention, and recurring gameplay content to make MineZ exciting, engaging, and most importantly, fun!

We thank you for your continued patience, support, and love for MineZ, and we're looking forward to continuing to improve upon this longstanding gamemode!

SMASH
This year has seen a lot of new content dropped for SMASH; we worked on improving lots of areas of the game such as Arenas, Ranked, and Modes. We'd like to thank everyone who's stuck around with us through thick and thin—we know that the long dry period without a proper developer was rough for players and staff alike, however we're looking to remedy that with all around fun and progressive updates.

We haven't delved much into specifics regarding what we want to do with the mode post Christmas Update too much within the team, but we are looking into statistics and leaderboards becoming more prominent outside of just ELO, and additionally more ways to play competitively such as a tournament system of the sorts. Certain reworks of the core game like KB and such may also occur this year, however we don't want to make any solid promises just yet! As always, we'll be watching the forums and Discord for any map, item, or general suggestions for the game. We hope to have some good bouts with everyone this year, thank you everyone!

Slaughter
This year, Slaughter saw 3 amazing updates: Slaughter 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3.

Slaughter went from an old, neglected, buggy alpha to a genuinely solid beta. While there are still a ton of features missing (party games, web leaderboards, the Final Feature™, etc.), the game has a bright future ahead of it and we can't wait for the full release!

Wasted
For the first time in nearly five years, the Minecraft first-person shooter Wasted peeked its head out of the garage. While the road back to jet packs and pig cars proved long and bumpy, Control emerged atop a new engine built to support multiple future games. Some may remember the brief life of Control on the network, where it served well as a fast-paced alternative to the loot and shoot nature of Sandbox. Its revival brings about enhanced class-based team gameplay and a shiny facelift to the original mechanics that remain beloved in the hearts of an enduring fan base. Look for further Alpha tests to be announced in January 2022 as we move towards open Beta.

The future of the Wasted family of games on Shotbow lies in the hands of the community. With each successive test, we've paid close attention to invaluable feedback coming from the participants. With a plethora of ideas collected from the golden years of Wasted, we look forward to evaluating improvements as well as faithfulness to the original against community feedback going forward. Once Control passes into the hands of the larger Shotbow community, we will closely monitor its reception in evaluating how to proceed with Sandbox and Gun Game. These projects are a labor of love for the staff, and made possible only with the sheer amount of support from our community. We look forward to seeing you in January, thank you!

Death by Void
Happy new year! Death By Void has been in a pretty stable spot throughout 2021, not much has changed besides a few bug fixes. Prize for finding all disguises coming Soon™.

When in Rogue
In early 2021, we had several alpha weekends for When in Rogue. After a few of these weekends, we decided to keep When in Rogue open as an alpha game. Although When in Rogue is still in an alpha state, we've seen quite a lot of you play it! In total, more than 32,000 dungeon levels were completed, in which more than 11 million gold was earned! Halfway through the year, we started with assembling a team to work on When in Rogue and discussed in what direction we want to take When in Rogue. We started working on improving the generator for the first update, whilst also overhauling the Stronghold dungeon with a completely new tileset. We will be releasing this first update in 2022.

Mine Theft Auto
Due lack of development resources and converting to 1.16 broke a lot of things, we haven't been able to make a lot of progress code-wise then we hoped. However, in the past few weeks, we have had some promising developments team-wise, and in 2022 we will keep working on Mine Theft Auto. We hope to give some more info in Q1 2022.

Expeditions
Expeditions is still under development after a relatively successful first alpha test. The next one will feature some persistence for the SMP world(s) and an outpost system for staying safe while away from home. Stay tuned for more news.

Closing Words
It has certainly been quite the year. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with Shotbow over the last year—we wouldn't be here without you. Thanks for flying Shotbow!


Updates
Network Updates
This holiday season, we gave you a few Holiday Gifts to enjoy, including a limited-time bundle, a network-wide 4x XP multiplier, a new perk for subscribers, Shotbow Shop changes, and more!

Additionally, in last month's newsletter, MrJack promised you an XP code if you voted for Shotbow. We got some awesome turnout—over 400 votes in the last month for Shotbow on vote.shotbow.net.

Thank you for all the awesome effort: to celebrate, here's a 10,000 XP code: I_VOTED_DEC_2021

We'll make the same offer this month: for every 100 votes on vote.shotbow.net, we'll give out an XP code for 2.5k XP! Start voting now!

MineZ Updates
This month, MineZ saw the return of holiday festivities for MineZ, including the return of Santa's Sweatshop, the Traveling Snowman, a Holiday Headhunt, and so much more. If you haven't already heard about the updates, you can check them out here.

SMASH Updates
SMASH released their Merry SMASHMAS update, which included new modes, Christmas themed maps, and more! Check out the full update changelog here.

Statistics
Network in General
Staff updates:

• MrJack was promoted to Community Manager
• BrendanLeeT and MrJack were promoted to Full Admin
• ro0Qmud joined the team as a Mini Builder
• Extrreme joined the team as a Jr. Developer

Other statistics:

• 2,960 in-game reports were handled in the last month
• There were 1,655 players banned in the last month
• 98 ban appeals were resolved in the last month
• A total of 89,750,914 XP was earned by players this month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 287 on December 31

Closing Words
Thanks for tuning in this month! I'm your host, Mistri—thanks for flying Shotbow!

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Happy holidays, Shotbow! Today, we have a ton of holiday gifts for you. Read below for more info!


For a limited time only, we are offering a spectacular Holiday Bundle! This package includes LIFETIME Platinum, a bunch of cosmetics, and more! Only available this holiday season: December 19 - January 2.

This Holiday Bundle offers a ton of cool perks:

• Lifetime Platinum Rank ($100 value) - Platinum tag in-game + all premium benefits, forever.
• 5 Shout Out Tokens ($10 value) - share some holiday carols with the whole network!
• Footsteps Particles ($5 value) - leave your footprints in the snow with these cool particles, available on almost every game we offer.
• Mr. Chill Pet (LIMITED EDITION) - this awesome snowman was only available for 1 month back in 2013, but he’s now back and better than ever!

Individually, these items are $125. This Holiday Bundle special is available for $79.99, at nearly a 40% discount!

For those that are looking to upgrade to Emerald or Obsidian, purchasing the Holiday Bundle for yourself—or purchasing as a gift for someone else—will grant your account $100 in credits towards Emerald or Obsidian.





For the next 2 weeks, enjoy a network-wide 4x XP multiplier! This multiplier is compounded with any premium multipliers — so if your current game has a 3x XP multiplier from a Platinum member, there will be a total of 12x XP! We hope you enjoy this holiday gift from the Shotbow team




Got something to say after that fight at MineZ? Had a really solid game of Annihilation and want to give your team a pat on the back? Does someone need to get R3KT!? All of these can be accomplished with a shout out: a message that is broadcast over the entirety of Shotbow - all you need is a Shout Token.

From now on, all Subscribers will get 3 Shout Tokens for every month of active subscription! These can be used to broadcast a message to the entire network! Simply do /shout [message] in the lobby to send a message to everyone.




We've made some changes to the Shotbow Shop! These changes have been long requested by the community, so thanks to all who have given feedback. We will continue to make additional changes over the coming months, so stay tuned for more.

Changelog:

• Dark theme is back! Now you no longer have to burn your eyes when purchasing from the Shotbow Store.
• Changed the prices on all items to $X.99 instead of $X.00 (e.g. $49.99, not $50.00).
• Updated premium descriptions to be a bit more up-to-date!
• Touched up rank icons, giving them a fresher look!
• Moved the list of premium perks from the top of the premium page to each of the individual premium rank pages.
• Grouped Cosmetics together, and clarified that cosmetics are not only available in the hub.
• Rebranded "Shout Out Tokens" to "Shout Tokens".
• Fixed bug: if you swap languages at the bottom of the store, you can now switch back to English.
• Miscellaneous design changes/fixes on the new dark theme.

If you haven't already tried it out, go check out MineZ: Sleigher's Delight update, and SMASH: Merry SMASHMAS update! Both introduce a ton of fun new features for MineZ and SMASH for the holidays.



We'd love to hear what you think about these gifts. As always, thanks for flying Shotbow!