First things first, thank you to everyone who applied to help running the server. We have a lively community, and the number of applications I received definitely line up with that! Of course, not everyone who wanted to could be named. Please don't take this as a personal rejection: some difficult choices were made!

With that said, I'm happy to announce today the addition of the following players to our staff:
Ops: MediaKlepto and SoraTheEliteOne
Helpers: kagato75, MagicMarker101 and UnknownEntity634
YouTube: Bossygirl3

This is more people than I originally called for, but with the amount of interest and some of the current staff members being tied with real-life issues, I think it's reasonable to have some more people available.

As a reminder to everyone, anyone who is part of the staff is usually able to answer most questions. Don't hesitate to ask any of them instead of always waiting for me to be available, you'll probably get faster answers that way!


Everyone listed above, you'll receive a private forum message with detailed instructions in the coming minutes. Please give it your dedicated attention! :-)

The server has been growing quite a bit lately: more daily players, new worlds, new events, and so on. To keep up with this growth, I'm now looking to add a few people to our staff. This includes ideally at least 1 op, 2 helpers, and 1 YouTube creator.

As a reminder, the tasks of a helper are focused mostly on helping the community by answering questions, with a much smaller focus on special commands than ops. This includes:

• 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

The focus of the YouTube reporter would be to produce new videos showcasing the server itself, our builds and ongoing events. These videos would then go on our channel for the world to see. Others might contribute episodes once in a while, but whoever applies to this position should expect to be the primary creator. We've had some nice successes with our recently launched Twitch channel, but there's definitely a purpose for nicely edited videos as well. If you've already done videos before, don't hesitate to send a sample link our way!

As usual, only registered and active players will be considered. If you're interested and want to apply to a position (or two!), please send me (Dr. Cossack) a private message through the forums. People will be chosen in a week or two, depending on the feedback received.


Please note that AleXxXfry and mormonmoo have both returned to the trusted status due to their inactivity. Thanks for helping while you could, guys!

As many of you have noticed, our quick tree felling plugin, MyriadAxe (/maon) wasn't working on the new tree types introduced in Minecraft 1.7. As such, I've replaced it with the much more up-to-date ChopTree2.

To enable this feature, when playing, type /togglechop. As before, aim for the lowest log of the tree with an axe to see it all come crashing down! You can reenter the same command to disable it, which is especially handy if you're going to work near wood houses to avoid accidents.

This new method works on all tree types currently available. It will also auto-rotate the logs from bigger oak trees so you don't end up with weird sideways ones. However, no sapling will be automtically replanted! If you need one, you'll have to gather it from the decaying leaves.

Chiseled stone bricks. Mossy cobble. Podzol.

You have all these ideas for your building projects, but the blocks are about impossible to find in survival mode due to their extreme rarity. In order to get around this, I'm unveiling today a trading project where you can provide some blocks to get others in exchange.

This new system is located in Central, inside Texassmassace's Creeper Bazaar. On the second and third floors are a series of traders that all work on the same pattern: insert items in the provided droppers, which will replaced them by the desired items. All the traders except the chiseled stone one accept multiple payments being inserted at once, making the trading operations that much faster.

The following trades are now offered:



* Why furnaces for chiseled stone bricks? They simplify the trade process by regrouping 8 cobble blocks as a single payment.

The three head traders need generic Steve heads to be provided. To make this easier, I've built next to the Bazaar a Head Neutralizer: you can insert the heads of players defeated in PvP within and obtain Steve heads, which will be accepted for trading. This is a temporary building that will most likely be improved and extended in the future.

The items provided in those traders have obviously been spawned it. To make sure that everything stays fair and we don't stray from the survival experience, the items fed to the machines to perform a trade will be destroyed. As such, no blocks are actually being created and the Law of Equivalent Exchange remains unbroken. I'll periodically refill the devices to ensure that exchanges can be done at any time.


I'm aware that the upcoming Minecraft 1.8 release will include recipes for some of these blocks. I decided to proceed anyway as some players have requested said blocks and the preparation work was already done. Besides, 1.8 is months away from us still and I didn't want to ask everyone to hold their ideas until then.

The trades offered will most likely be adjusted periodically, depending of the needs of the player base and updates to the game itself. Most notably, once we move to MC 1.8, the blocks that will be available for crafting will be retired from the traders.

My thanks go to Texassmassace, who agreed to build the trader machines and host this within his building. You can show your appreciation by visiting his shops located within the Bazaar! He has music discs, potions and more available for sale!

First, I want to thank everyone for turning out for the fishing event, and making it a smashing success! We had 17 people on the pier, nine of which were there as early as a half an hour before the contest began! Your support and excitement for the event has guaranteed that there will be more special events in the near future!

Here are the scores for our fishing contest!

xlorditachix - 83
cmzangetsu93 - 84
MagicMarker101 - 87
Oondivinezin - 92
laladoll - 95
kingdaddytoad - 101
Sphenicus - 117
DrCossack - 126
iKatze 130
Ashalina - 144
frogdrek1 - 148
Anonymous_SoFar - 151
Nikkehammerfist - 157
Tranxalive - 162

Congratulations to Tranxalive, who won the fishing contest, and a pot of 20 diamond blocks! A special congratulations to xlorditachix who despite not placing high on points (that's luck, I suppose!) managed to win a diamond block for fishing out the coolest item; an enchanted book with 14 levels of enchants on it!

I think everyone had fun, and we even got a special donation from someone who enjoyed watching us stream the contest! If you have a cool idea for an event we can run, send DrCossack or myself, WindRider739 a message letting us know!

I'm glad all you creepers turned out for the event, and I hope we can make the next event even bigger!

Saturday Fishing Jamboree!

Hey, Creepers! Wind here with another exciting announcement! Lately fishing is hot, hot, hot with the addition of new fish, items and enchanting books available to be caught with a fishing pole. Why not make it more fun with a better payout? Our own Daylightnightmar is hosting a fishing tournament in Port Townshend this Saturday. The rules will be as follows!

Entrance fee is 3 diamonds. All diamonds go into a pot. The player with the most points at the end of the contest takes the whole pot! (I will also be throwing 5 diamond blocks into the pot to sweeten the deal.)

All players must report to the Townshend Pier by 9:45 pm EST with their entrance fee in hand. (remember that TARDIS and Time Gate transportation is available, and make sure you have the timezone right.)

Each player will be provided with 5 fishing poles by staff. (No enchanted poles may be used, even if caught during the tournament. Poles MAY be repaired by other poles caught during the tournament.)

Contest begins at 10:00 pm EST. You may join late, but no extra time will be given.

All fish and caught items must be placed in a chest next to you. (This chest will be locked to all players who are not you, and will have your name on it.)

The event will run for one hour. At the end of the contest, all points (explained below) will be tallied, and the person with the most points wins the pot! Only fish and items in the chest when time is up will be counted for your score. A two minute warning will be given before time is up.

POINTS!

Fish = 1 Point
Salmon = 3 Points
Puffer Fish = 3 Points
Clown Fish = 5 Points

As an added bonus, there will be a prize of 1 diamond block for the best enchanted item caught during the contest! This will be judged by the staff on hand.

In addition to this, we'll also have our regular games and PVP across the worlds, and yours truly will be streaming the fishing event and events night overall LIVE on the Creeper's Lab twitch channel! http://www.twitch.tv/CreepersLab. If this turns out to be a success, we may host another one at a later date, and we'll work on coming up with some other cool contests! See you all on Saturday!

This is the moment some of you have been waiting for: multiple worlds are now available! Read on for a description of each one, some useful notes, and something orange. Click on any images for a bigger version!


Laurasia

This is the main world, which has been running for over two years and remains our main playground. It is now named Laurasia. The survival difficulty level is set to normal, as before. The old areas have been created by Minecraft's default generator, while all post-1.7 areas are set to large biomes.




Gondwana

Looking for an extra challenge, or something different? Visit Gondwana! This is an amplified world, meaning that most biomes can reach up to the sky limit. This creates several gravity-defying structures just begging to be climbed. To increase the challenge, this new world's difficulty level is permanently set to hard. Zombies can break down wooden doors and you can starve to death, among other perils. Adventurers beware!




Avalonia

Back by popular request, this is a large, player-made survival island. Featuring a large mountain, a volcano and several very tall trees, this small world is a nice building ground for those looking for something different than Minecraft's standard lands. Some players might remember seeing it as a temporary creative world during a previous server maintenance. It's now permanently back as a survival site, on normal difficulty.




General notes about multiple worlds

Your inventory carries over all worlds, including the content of EnderChests. Those looking to start anew are free to step over to their new destinations carrying nothing; those who would rather start with some handy tools are likely free to do so. Nether portals will only work on the main world, Laurasia - building them in other worlds won't allow you to go anywhere. Head to the center of the new worlds for a teleportation pad bringing you back to Laurasia. Note that both worlds also have a set barrier that you can't cross: what you can see the map is the full extent of each world. To keep the difficulty level high, keepInventory will not be toggled in the alternate worlds, even on Events Nights.

The maps for these new worlds is generating at the time I'm posting this information and will be fully available soon enough.


Laurasia TransHub

To travel between hubs, you have to access the Laurasia TransHub. Located in Central right next to Grand Central Station and the Nether portal, this area has teleportation pads leading to the spawn points of each world. To return to this location, use the nearby exit pad found near the center of each world.




Large mesa biome

Mesa! Mesa? Mesa?! Mesa! Mesa...

You wanted a mesa biome! You looked hard to discover one! Others with the same goal helped you! But no one could locate such a special place to this day...

Worry not! To give everyone a chance to walk on that orange soil, a large mesa biome has been transplanted on the main world, Laurasia. This area is large enough to allow the development of several towns and construction projects, along with looting of rarer blocks.

Its location will be very obvious on the map as soon as it finishes updating. Overworld and Nether rails will be built soon to allow quick access to this new biome.


Go forth, fearless explorers, and discover all these new places!!

Hey, Creepers! Wind here with an important announcement. With the surprising popularity of the Creeper's LabCast on Events Night and a few smaller casts before and after, our LabCast will be moved to an official Creeper's Lab channel on Twitch TV! Until now, all streams have been hosted on my personal twitch account at http://www.twitch.tv/cedwards9 . I will continue to host forum casts and game streams for Minecraft and other games. However, the official Creeper's Lab Events Night streams and other server streams will be hosted at http://www.twitch.tv/CreepersLab from now on. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already!

That said, I will be hosting another Events Night Creeper's LabCast this Saturday from 7:30 or 8:30 PM, EST until 3AM! During this time, I can show off people's creations, play / watch games and events, participate in PvP and just talk about anything that the Creepers want to talk about! The last three casts have been very successful and we're already flooded with requests for more casts and themes.

Make sure to visit the official forum topic on the LabCast to weigh in on what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to see in future casts! This channel has been created by the creepers and for the creepers, so your input is important to us! Additionally, if you've got an idea for a show / cast that you'd like to host, you can post it to get input and talk to myself or DrCossack about putting it on the channel!

As always, don't forget to subscribe and share with your friends! Happy Creeping!

~WindRider739