Shotbow

To the Mine Theft Auto Community,

It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that Mine Theft Auto will be shutting down permanently. While we tried our best to fix all of its issues, over countless months of work, the team came to realize that we simply do not have enough resources to maintain such a large gamemode with so many moving parts. Between the code, building, resource packs, web infrastructure, and more, there simply isn't enough qualified manpower to reopen Mine Theft Auto, and keep it up and running.

It has been a fantastic journey thus far, and we know that Mine Theft Auto has touched each of our lives in an irreplaceable way. Thank you for being a part of this incredible journey, and we hope that our paths cross with yours again in the future.

- The Mine Theft Auto Team

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Happy new year, Shotbow! 2022 what a year it's been. We've seen many amazing things, such as the 10th Anniversary of Shotbow, The annual Spookfest with the return of Ghostcraft, and now The Shotbow Winterfest. One of our goals at the start of 2022 was to improve interaction between staff and players. Looking back at some of the contests we held such as the MineZ Winter Building Contest, The Spookfest Skin Contest and now The Winterfest Selfie Contest. I can proudly say we've improved a lot on this. Another goal was to increase our use of Social Media, and then especially TikTok and YTShorts. Again, we've improved a lot on this and we will continue to do so in 2023. In 2022 we've seen a lot of staff members come and go, and we're really thankful to everyone who's been helping us out. We're even more thankful to everyone who has been playing and supporting us for years now. We are trying our hardest to improve wherever and whenever we can!

But what's next? In 2023 we once again want to focus on marketing and more community interactions. We've already welcomed a new team, The Shotbow Events Team in order to improve upon this. They will be focussing on hosting regular events for the community, and you will have a say in it as well! When it comes to game updates, you can expect a lot of fun stuff! Annihilation will go back to regular content updates now that the 1.16 Base Update has been released and from MineZ you may expect some very bold changes to the core gameplay loop and an overhaul of existing backend structures. The main plan for Slaughter is to get 1.4 out and in a stable position for future smaller updates.

I would also like to introduce you to the Shotbow Holiday Special, a Shotbow Winter magazine that provides you with all information regarding The Shotbow Winterfest, XP-codes, a store bundle and an exclusive interview with our Network Lead Mistri!



Welcome to 2023 everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are ready to start the new year. I'm Axyy and today I will go through everything that happened last month!

Network Updates
Winterfest Selfie Contest Results
Last month we held a Winter Selfie Contest and the results are finally in!
(Please note, I did not pick these winners myself. I put all selfies up to vote and then gave the staff team the chance to vote for their favorite 3)

• 1st place Munguia - Gold Rank for you or a friend.
• 2nd place sunbreathing - Silver Rank & 20k Shotbow XP for you or a friend.
• 3rd place ItsWoz_ - 3 Shout Tokens & Gradient Armor Set for you or a friend.

Winners, please check your forums inbox to claim your prize!

Chat-Related Bans Conversion
All permanent chat-related bans have been converted to permanent mutes. In total, there were 1,043 permanent bans, over the last 10 years (earliest was February 2013) that have now been converted to permanent mutes. They have now been unbanned, but cannot chat anywhere on the network due to their permanent mute.

Shotbow Events Team
I'm happy to announce that we're welcoming a new team to Shotbow... The Events Team! The main goal of this team is to improve upon community interactions by hosting fun events on a weekly basis, going through community suggestions and even give our players an opportunity to join the team in the near future.

Team Applications
Ever wanted to join the Shotbow Staff Team? The following teams are accepting applications:

• Development Team
• Annihilation Administrative Team
• Warband and Wasted: Control Staff Team

Gamemode Updates
Annihilation Updates
During December the Annihilation Team hosted multiple events and clan wars such as the Annihilation Duelstal WAR Event, multiple OP games and the Annihilation Ice Event.

Check out this amazing video produced by our Media Partner lPirlo:


MineZ Updates
This month, the MineZ team released Patch 5.2.0, 5.2.1 and 5.2.2.
Read the full changelog here.

Additionally, the MineZ team released the official Christmas Update of 2022 bringing you many exciting features!



Statistics
SMASH Rankings
The Winter season has started, here are the current standings:

• 1st - _YouGotSmoked_ [1020]
• 2nd - HelixdaHustle [1017]
• 3rd - SupernovaBlade [1005]

Network in General
Staff updates:

• sabau joined the Annihilation Mini Admin team
• Outra joined the Events Team as Team Lead
• Axyy joined the Events Team as Team Co-Lead
• lPirlo joined the Events Team as Event-Staff
• TheBearOfJustice joined the Marketing Team

Other statistics:

• 1231 in-game reports were handled in the last month
• There were 420 players banned in the last month
• 34 ban appeals were handled in the last month
• There were 29 support tickets resolved in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 182 on December 31st
• 68,051,308 XP was earned by players this month

Closing Words
I'm Axyy and this was Dentril's New Moon for January, may all of your wishes come true in 2023!

Happy Holidays, Survivors!

The time has finally come. We’ve brought out the decorations, pulled the cookies out of the oven and decked the halls with boughs of holly.

The team has worked very hard to bring you this update and we’re happy to finally welcome you to Wonderland 2022.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland
It wouldn’t be a Winter Wonderland without decorated towns filling the world. This year we’re launching Wonderland with 24 Christmas themed locations, with plans to add even more holiday rebuilds in the coming weeks!

Of course each of these locations is full of special, holiday themed goodies so why not stop by each Holiday town to sample the many things they offer?

You’ll also find that the Ghost ship has departed for the month, though I hear an exceptionally large Gingerbread replica has dropped its gumdrop anchor somewhere.

Tales of Glory
We're happy to announce the return of the Christmas dungeon questline, featuring:

• Clarce Coal Mines ((at Clarce))
• Rotted Roots, at Snow tree
• Santa's Sweatshop, accessible via the southpole, which you can travel to in Pravus

The Traveling Snowman


As with previous years, our good friend the Traveling snowman has returned to Valar. He brings with him a bounty of exciting, exclusive and useful items for anyone that he bumps into. This year, chest tiers will be the same on both weekend and weekdays to ensure everyone has a chance for top chests regardless of time.

Treat Chest Schedule and Loot
Expect exact times to be announced in time for the start of next week!

Notifications:
At the scheduled start time, a server will be picked to host the traveling snowman, which will be followed by an announcement across MineZ and pinging the shotbow discord with its location and the countdown to the first chest spawn! Keep your eyes peeled for more than yuletide carolers in the area, and head that way! Similar to last year weekend chests will have higher tiers of loot available compared to their weekday counterpart.

In order to be pinged for supply drop spawns, make sure to assign yourself the 'supplydrops' role from #notifications in the official Shotbow discord! (https://discord.gg/shotbow)



Chests spawn in after the announcement on a delay, and similar to the past year of supply drops, will not spawn all at the same time. Chests spawn in phases, little by little each of the chests will spawn in, staggered one after the other, and you'll either have to get out quick with the first drop of loot, or stay longer to keep up the fight to claim as much as you can!

As always, alting is not allowed, and all other MineZ and Shotbow Rules apply as normal.


The Twelve Days of Christmas Headhunt


This year we are happy to bring another headhunt for those observant explorers among you. Hidden among the Holiday rebuilds of the main world(none in instances), you may come across these dark red, numbered presents.

We’ve made a few changes to the headhunt system but most notably for players, /checkheads now opens a GUI displaying all active headhunts throughout the world. This should make it easier for you to keep track and visualize your progress.

This headhunt we are also trying out a new reward system, pitched by community members. In addition to the normal loot and a special cosmetic bundle for all players that complete it, players who do not have access to the exclusive PVE server will earn 5 days of PVE/Private server access. This time becomes immediately active after completing the headhunt, so be aware of that when completing it.

Advent Calendar


Similar to 2020's daily calendar, we have designed a series of rewards for all 24 days accessible via /advent! Items can be unlocked on the respective days up to EST midnight. Slots before release (10th) will remain claimable on any day.

Closing Thoughts
With all these opportunities for merry-making, we hope to see you stop by and take a stroll through MineZ, during the most wonderful time of the year. We hope to end this year on a high note and intend to supply additional content through follow-up releases during the season. There’s plenty to be excited for in 2023, and we can’t wait to show you more.

From our families to yours, we hope you have a safe and happy Holiday season.
As always, Thanks for flying Shotbow! (Vote for Shotbow!)