Shotbow

We're coming up on the most explosive time of the year here on Smash, so why don't we make this celebration a special one!

Full Patch Notes

AKA: The Multimodal Update!

While this update does follow the traditional seasonal theme most of the community has come to expect, this update has a huge impact on the future of Smash's content cycle per-say.

New Modes

Previously Smash has had a few "modes" like normal, ranked, media, and party; however we're ticking this up a notch now. Within the game selector you'll now find 4 modes to choose from, as shown below. Each mode has its own game rules such as item spawn rates, lives, ELO calculation, and other fun stuff.



Current modes for this update:

• Unranked - Original mode, without elo loss or gain
• Ranked - Original mode with elo in play, teaming is not allowed
• Lifeless - Unlimited Lives, most kills wins
• Christmas - Read ahead!

Christmas LTM

So, what is this new Christmas mode? Simply put, it's a special mode with loads of new content packed into it, which will last throughout the winter season/celebration. Many of the normal Smash rules are changed up, such as the normal FFA format! Players will now be designated as the Snowman, or a normal Player (we like to call them elves). Snowman have increased lives, scaling with the amount of players in the lobby, and normal players must knock out the Snowman to win. Additionally, only special items are in play here! And if that wasn't enough...

New Limited TIme Maps!

The Christmas LTM has 9 selectable maps, all of which are holiday redesigns & returning maps:

• Arena: Frosted
• Temple: Frosted
• Fort Snow (Fort Sponge but snowy)
• Frosted Bridge
• Winter Fortress
• Ice
• Sled
• Tree
• Winter Cell

Netherfort also returns as a normal map, as it was removed some time ago.
Tree & Sled will be playable in the normal playlists as well.

Additional Updates

• Adjusted sign layout in spawn boxes to make them consistent across all maps
• Just a Crappy Snowball -> A Not so Crappy Snowball
• VIllager in Monster Egg -> Snowman
• Christmas Festivities Return! "New" Lobby & Festive Music
• Brought back leaderboard position update on login
• Fixed media maps being playable in party games
• Fixed party leaders being able to reduce XP gain in public matches by joining

And that's it! We're hoping to add additional content with regards to more modes in future updates, so hopefully no more simple map reskin updates anymore! A huge thank-you to everyone who's been playing since the Competitive Update and giving feedback, thus far the highest ELO obtained is around 1301, but there's still a little more time to hop on the top 20 leaderboard!
(As always, any feedback or submissions are greatly appreciated)

As always, Thanks for flying Shotbow, and for playing SMASH! (Vote for Shotbow!)
- The Smash Team

Happy Holidays! The time has finally come for MineZ and the land of Valar to be plunged into an arctic winter, wrought with new builds, fun experiences, and ample holiday spirit! Off the back of a successful Halloween season, the team has been hard at work putting things together for our next seasonal update - MineZ: Sleigher's Delight!

You should see some familiar concepts that you've come to know and love from years past, and while you may not find it all present to start, you'll find more additions throughout the season! Without further ado, let's get into this year's update!

Santa's Sweatshop Returns Once More

As with seasons past, Santa's Sweatshop and a few Christmas themed dungeons are on their way back onto the map of MineZ! At launch, only Rotted Roots will be available, and the other dungeons should open in short order. Here you'll find familiar challenges to overcome, battling through various mobs, rooms, and even some minecarts to claim your rewards. You'll need to complete both Clarce Coal Mines and Rotted Roots to access the Sweatshop, which can be found in none other than...



The South Pole! This nostalgic wonderland can be accessed via boat, which will be docked in Pravus in short order. Visit here once it arrives to check out the arctic of Valar, and if you happen to have completed the previous two dungeons, your journey here may end inside Santa's Sweatshop... Winter dungeons are always a blast, and we hope this menagerie of content helps keep you all occupied as they come out! You can expect more content throughout the month!

A Wonderland of Snow

As with any Holiday Update, this season is chock full of jolly holiday rebuilds! All throughout the map you'll find fun re-imaginings of your favorite builds, and each of these locations will feature extra loot as well! You'll find a few tiers of chests with food, potions, military loot, and more, but maybe not all together! You'll have to explore and figure out which locations offer what loot, and watch your back for others doing the same! You'll find that both the Gold Standard and Ghost Ship have found new homes for the Holiday season, and we hope you find their new locations soon!

Speaking of things to watch out for, I've heard rumblings just east of Icy Dock... What could it be, making all that noise?



The Traveling Snowman



As with previous years, The Traveling Snowman will return once again! The traveling snowman won't be live with the initial update, but will come later in the month and remain for the winter season. We appreciate your patience as this coveted feature gets the attention it deserves. Expect it to stick around well after Christmas! More information to come soon!

Holiday Headhunt

As always, a fan favorite game to play when you're not busy fighting off the undead, a new Headhunt can be found throughout MineZ! Valuable presents stashed away throughout MineZ, you can find these diamond coated presents in any location with a title (but not in an instance!). There are 20 presents to find, with the usual xp reward for each present, and a small bounty of goodies to go along with it once you've gathered them all!



The first Headhunt will be live until December 25th (tentatively), and a new Headhunt will replace it until the end of the seasonal update! Each will feature new rewards, so be sure to complete them all!

A Present from Us to You

Holiday updates are one of the most routine things MineZ sees, year after year. And while we didn't release right at the beginning of the month, we intend on keeping this update live into January so we can all enjoy the season for just as long as we normally would. As thanks for your continued patience, support, and feedback throughout these past few months, we'll be capping off our holiday present to you all with an additional page in the bank! With this update, everyone should see a permanent, new page to their Main bank. As the game continues to grow, we want to make sure everyone has a place to store their presents (or standard gear) moving forward, and this should be a nice first step towards that! We hope you enjoy the additional space as a small thank you present from the MineZ staff to our community.

Caroling Together

As part of this update, and permanently moving forward, a long time feature will be leaving MineZ. No longer will you have to resort to just a radio to discuss with other players. The radio is being phased out, and instead you'll find the addition of global chat! Using either /chat [global,local,party] you can switch between chat modes to discuss with people all across MineZ. Alternatively, simply put a ! in front of your message to make it global! We hope this change will make MineZ more interactive and lively for all those who play it, making those long journeys across the map a bit more engaging!

Following up with this system is a much requested addition of a mute system for MineZ. We'll be keeping a close eye on global chat with this new system, and hope the launch of both of these is met with positivity!

Departing Words

That said, we're certainly not done here! Expect more information, news, and features as the month goes on. We appreciate what we've all been through this year, and while every year has it's ups and downs, we hope to end it on a high note as we move forward into 2022, with more great content on the horizon.

But for now, get ready to button up and embrace the cold, we'll see you in game! As a reminder, our Mini-Admin and Builder applications are still open. You can also discuss this, and any other update in our Community Feedback Server!

As always, Thanks for flying Shotbow! (Vote for Shotbow!)

Happy Holidays Shotbow! Welcome to the jolliest Dentril's New Moon of the year, and another round of many updates across all of Shotbow! November is historically quiet for the network, but this year has been busy in the month between our two holiday packed seasons!

News, announcements, and many updates for your favorite gamemodes have made plenty of new opportunities and entertainment for the staff team and community. Take for example our newest contest, with the opportunity to get your very own design on a Shotbow official Lunar Cloak! Speaking of opportunities, the Film Crew just opened applications if you're looking to join the Shotbow team! Additionally, applications for the MineZ team remain open, and you should keep an eye out for more applications to open throughout the network in the future! With that out of the way, let's get into the updates!


MineZ Updates
Eerie happenings of Spookfest have departed, and since then, MineZ has stayed busy with a month of content and news! In addition to a new team structure, MineZ also launched it's latest content, the Seasons of Change update! Rife with ongoing content like the continuation of a crowd favorite, supply drops, as well as more headhunts, dungeon updates(hello Frostbain!), and many more balance and build updates, MineZ has been going strong, and continues to do so!

Continuing to pump out updates, the MineZ team hopes to bring more re-playability to the game, and these recent changes are a positive step in that direction. We're looking forward to see what else MineZ puts out in the coming months! Keep an eye out for more updates for the holiday season, soon!

SMASH Updates
Keen minds of the staff team over at SMASH have continued to wow us with consistent and highly requested changes for the gamemode! A long time coming, the return of the ELO system has finally arrived! The Competitive Update has brought back the rating system for SMASH, and the ELO system is sure to bring back the spirit of competition to the playerbase. We're looking forward to how this rating system plays out, and can't wait to continue to put out more content in the future! Time to grind some ELO...

Annihilation Updates
Following a community involved series of votes and public playtests, Annihilation has revamped the Scout in the Serious Gallium update! This update specifically targets the Scout, and we've greatly enjoyed involving the community in our decision making for this update! In addition to this update, we also were pleased to welcome im_a_squid_kid on to host a few streams and games of Annihilation! We hope you all got a chance to tune in and play or watch some games with him, and in case you missed it, you can check out the VODs on his twitch channel, here!

Statistics
Network in General

Staff updates:

• Outra was promoted to Localization Co-Lead
• IEvadeTax joined the Annihilation Mini-Admin Team
• SnowVi1liers joined the Annihilation Mini-Admin Team
• ro_cks joined the Build Team
• RoseFredricks joined the Art Team

Other statistics:

• 3,448 in-game reports were handled in the last month
• There were 2,140 players banned in the last month
• 61 ban appeals were resolved in the last month
• There were 103 support tickets resolved in the last month
• This month we achieved a peak playercount of 232 on November 13th
• There were 9 Anni Clan Wars in the last month (Check out the latest premiere here)

Closing Words

We're all excited for the year to be coming to a close, and are looking back on all the fun memories of this year, while looking forward to the remaining month of content, updates, and time spent together on Shotbow. Keep an eye out for future content, announcements, and more, and consider joining our Discord!

Lastly, harking back to the days of old, we'd like to get back to voting! We have a few goals for voting, and for each mark we hit, we'll hand out an XP code! Vote for Shotbow, and for every 100 votes we get, we'll announce an XP code! We hope this incentive and some community effort will be another method of making the public aware of what Shotbow has to offer. We'll continue to strive to make Shotbow the best it can be. In the meantime, we hope to catch you all throughout the network.

As always, I'm MrJack, and thanks for flying Shotbow!