Fancy houses contest - THE RESULTS!

First things first, thank you everyone who decided to enter our fancy houses contest! With 22 applicants, this event attracted many more players than I expected and is a clear success! Many people took the time to craft original buildings that showed a lot of creative thinking.

Three judges scored all houses from 0 to 10: Dr. Cossack, Sphenicus and WindRider739, based on the criterias outlined in the original announcement.

Without wasting any further time, THE WINNERS:
- First place: Texasmassacre - $20 Amazon.com giftcard
- Second place: Anonymous_SoFar - Diamond Sword with Looting III and Sharpness IV
- Third place: Phrogie - Diamond Pickaxe with Silk Touch I and Efficiency IV

You will all be contacted in-game in order to claim your prize. Congratulations! All entries, with their score and comments from our judges, can be viewed right here. Beware of the image-heavy page!

With the end of this contest, the town of Oak Hills is now available for all general construction work. If you have a house there, feel free to update it as you see fit; likewise, if you want to move there, you're welcomed to!

With the success of this, we're already looking at planning more contests in the future. As usual, keep an eye on this space for more information!

Server glitch in Port Townshend

A glitch unfortunately hit the area of Port Townshend tonight, and I was forced to restore the area based on a backup from two weeks ago.

If you lost supplies because of this, please contact me or one of the server ops and we will compensate you. I'm sorry that this happened!

TRAINS

Because trains.



Click for the full version!

In attendance: DrCossack, MediaKlepto, SoratheEliteOne, Orist501, Salifax, Sphenicus, Anonymous_SoFar, FigsNewton and iKatze!

Contest update - 72 hours left!

I'd like to remind all participants of our fancy house building contest that, from the time of this post, you have 72 hours left to complete your build! With 20 people picking a lot in Oak Hills, the judging period should prove interesting. I suggest to everyone who started construction to wrap things up before the end of Saturday!

House building contest!

It's time for a new building contest! The theme is fancy houses!

I've developed a new building ground near Central for this, called Oak Hills. To find it, go to Central then take the overland train line toward Victoria. Continue past the desert settlement. You'll arrive at a fork, where you need to take the line identified as "Oak Hills". The next stop is your destination!




Each contestant can use a single 20x20 lot as building ground. There are currently 9 available locations, marked with fences, and more will be added if several players are interested in participating.

Rules

- The theme is fancy houses. They can be built out of anything you want, as long as the result would be a good fit for a nice neighborhood.
- Each player can claim a single 20x20 lot to build.
- The houses can't step over or beyond the fences in any way.
- Basements are allowed, but again, they can't stretch beyond the lot's limits.
- The wooden fences can be replaced with something else, although you'd better ask your neighbors first!
- Outside AND inside counts! Make it interesting and realistic!
- As with anything else on the server, this is survival only. You need to gather your materials first, then get building!
- You have two weeks from now to get your building done. The contest will close on June 15th at 23:59.

Prizes

Since what is a good contest without prizes? :-) The following will be offered:

- First place: $20 Amazon.com (or .ca) giftcard, offered by Dr. Cossack
- Second place: in-game, refurbished Diamond Sword with Looting III and Sharpness IV, offered by WindRider739
- Third place: in-game, brand new Diamond Pickaxe with Silk Touch I and Efficiency IV, offered by MaximumRose


The houses will be judged on how well they stick to the theme and the creativity used in designing them. Realism is key: create lifelike indoor layouts to score the most points! Three players from the server will evaluate each house to determine the winners.

New player? You need to register to play on the Creeper's Lab, but it's automatic and you'll be playing within minutes! Get started, we'd like to have you with us!

Good luck!

Reminder: Saturday nights are Events Nights!

I'd like to take a minute to remind old and new players alike that Saturday nights are Events Nights!

This completely optional event, which starts at around 9pm Eastern time every Saturday, is the perfect opportunity for our players to do something besides mining and crafting. PvP, pig racing, parkour, mazes and more are on the menu!

Two new locations have been added recently to the rotation: Chicking by iKatze and Isle of Carnage by WindRider739. Chicking, playable by up to four players at the same time, involves using fishing rods to catch falling chicken. The first person to get five wins! Isle of Carnage is a large area (400x200 blocks) dedicated to PvP battles. It's sheer size makes it especially suitable for large groups of players, potentially regrouped in two factions: red and blue.

Want to have some fun? Something different than the usual Minecraft gameplay? Then join us on Events Nights!


UPDATE: Something came up and I might be showing up late tonight. I'll do my best to be there to start this up, but it might be delayed. Sorry about that!

New staff nominations!

First things first, thank you everyone who applied for a position. We had a great turnaround, and it's always good to see that people from the community want to get involved on a deeper level!

Several names were received, many were considered, but we could only accept a few! As such, please welcome iKatze as server op, and AleXxXfry and mormonmoo as helpers! Congratulations! All three of you will be getting shortly a private message on the forums with more detailed information.

For those who do not know, Kusorai recently stepped down on his own accord from his Op status. He will remain around as Helper to assist the player base.

As an aside, Krodane, AshaLina and itsthesherf have all inherited the new Media status, as they handle our YouTube, Tumblr/Facebook and Twitter accounts respectively! This new status doesn't come with any special abilities, but will allow players to have a clue to the special role they're playing around here.

Server upgraded to 1.5.2!

Hot on the heels of last week's 1.5.2 update, the server is now running the latest version of Minecraft with some bug fixes. Please update and keep on playing!

Minecraft 1.5.2 coming - wait before upgrading!

Minecraft 1.5.2 is expected to be released soon to fix some bugs. Unfortunately, 1.5.1 servers and 1.5.2 clients are NOT compatible. This means that, in order to keep on playing with us, you must wait before upgrading!

The jump to the new version should happen faster than the 1.5 update as fewer changes have been done to the game. Please be patient until then!

Help wanted!

The server's community is growing and growing, and with some of the usually reliable members busy with their personal lives, I'm looking to add a few people to the staff of the server. Ideally, I'd like to get one new Helper and one new Server Op, and that might be you!

The tasks of a helper include the following:

• Greeting the new players and answering any questions they might have
• Checking on those players to make sure they understand and follow the rules
• Getting players unstuck due to server bugs (it happens!)
• As a last resort, kicking and/or banning troublesome players

Being an op involves the above plus the following:

• Fix broken permissions
• Protect the player's creations as requested
• Investigate ongoing issues
• Promote players to the trusted status

Quite obviously, only registered and active players will be considered. If you're interested and want to apply to a position (or both!), please send me (Dr. Cossack) a private message through the forums.

Thank you for considering this!