The map trim and migration of the Survival server has been completed successfully! Everything in-game is exactly as you left it. The server is still running 1.7.10, and will be upgraded to 1.8 at a later date.

Please note that there is a new address to connect to:
play.creeperslab.net

No more IPs, just a simple name to remember! Be sure to tell everyone you know so we don't leave anyone behind by mistake! Should any future moves happen, this address should remain the same.

Likewise, you'll now find the map at http://play.creeperslab.net:8263/. It is currently regenerating and will be fully available in a few hours.

The maintenance that I wrote about in a previous news post will happen next Monday, December 29th. The server will be down for several hours, probably going on all day.

This will involve the removal of all areas marked in red on the map (last call if you want to keep something!), the clearing of some old buildings made by inactive players in and around Central, and the move of the server to a new platform (still on 1.7.10). This means that the server IP will change; please keep an eye on this space for the future connection details!

The Raw server will remain available during the entire operation.

The Raw Survival server has been moved to Spigot 1.8 tonight. This means, at long last, the addition of a few of our standard plugins. Most notably:

- Region protections
- Chests, furnances and door locks
- DynMap

The map is currently regenerating and undergoing tests. This post will be updated tomorrow with the link to the new map. IRC integration is currently broken, but should be back within a day as well. IRC integration is (mostly) fixed!

Update: The map is now live! The link has been added in the navigation menu.

The Bank in Point Zero uses vanilla locking mechanisms, and I'm asking everyone to keep on using it as such. That means that no /cprivate commands should be used in the vault.


The upgrade / merge path

This brings us one step closer to the eventual move of the main Survival server to 1.8. Some time after that's done, Raw will be merged in, allowing players to move between Survival and Raw at their leisure and moving inventory items back and forth.

One important thing to note: it is possible that Raw will be split off again in the future. If it appears that an upcoming Minecraft update will take more than a few weeks to happen on Survival, Raw might be spun off to stand on its own once again. This would allow the players interested in playing the new version to move forward while staying with the Creeper's Lab. This also means that Raw might return to be a fully vanilla server in the future. While you can now have your homes and chests locked, those protections would be temporarily disabled in case of an upgrade. As such, please keep up the good protecting / hiding habits that you have developed so far!

Last night's event involved, at various stages, DrCossack, iKatze, Kingdaddytoad, MagicMarker101, ringman77, SoratheEliteOne, Sphenicus and UnknownEntity634.

The first phase involved four Sailor Scouts withers spawned in at once, leaving the fighters to fight for their lives. None managed to survive until the end of the battle, but they jumped back in afterwards to finish the monsters. Some more classic Spider Dome battles took place afterwards, followed by spleef and PvP.

The winners (or survivors!) of each round were:
- Spider Dome, first round: UnknownEntity634
- Spider Dome, second round: DrCossack
- Spleef: iKatze
- PvP: DrCossack

All prizes, including some Nether stars, have been delivered to each player's mailbox. Every single participant also received something, so be sure to check that out!

Thanks again to Skreelink for running another successful event!

To celebrate Christmas and everything related to gatherings, Skreelink has prepared a new event for you! Participation prizes will be offered to all, along with the chance to score some rare goodies!

The event will take place this Saturday, December the 20th, at around 9pm Eastern time. Meet up with all of us at the Spider Dome for the first part, which will be followed by various activities! For a preview of what is to come, here is Skreelink's invitation.

We hope to see many of you there!

---

Holiday greetings to all!

It seems to be that time of the year again, where all of us seek out family and friends to spend good times with. Roaring fires, delicious food, wonderful company, and of course DANCING.

That's right, you're invited to a Christmas Dance Party! We'll all gather together, listen to wonderful Christmas music, and just have a good time.

Invite all of your friends, come as you are. I'll be bringing a few of my friends to be sure! We're holding a casual dress party, so it's up to you how you want to look, get fancy! However, we do want to keep a few things fair, so we'll be providing a few amenities for the evening.

Everything will be catered, food, drink, and entertainment. After the dancing is over, we'll gather around the fire for some rousing stories from our own favorite SyrupSanta: DrCossack.

Then there's more! Door prizes for everyone! What will it be? Well you'll see when you get there now won't you?

To help manage server growth and keep things running smoothly, I'm preparing a new map trim operation on the Survival server. The areas marked in red on the map are scheduled to be deleted sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day. Please review them to make sure that nothing of yours is included within. If there is something within these regions that you'd like to keep, please contact me so I can redraw the borders or move your holdings away.

Additionally, old and unused buildings located in and around Central's general area will be put into storage at the same time. This will give a chance for new players to settle more easily around the spawn area. Only buildings made by players that haven't been active in over a year will be cleaned. If you have been away for a long time and are reading this, please contact me in-game or through the forums to tell me which buildings you'd like to keep in place. Active players don't need to do anything on that front, as their work will be preserved as usual.

Finally, it's very possible that the server will be migrated to a new platform on the same day, which implies an IP address change. Please keep an eye on this space for more information on that.

The exact date for the maintenance day will be announced closer to the end of the month!

Eleven people braved 3,375 blocks of various materials, delicately (or not) hacking away to get a shape out of the solid form. The various sculptures have been rated by three judges, Anonymous_SoFar, MediaKlepto and WindRider739 and given a score from 0 to 10. Without further delay, THE WINNERS:

- First place: Sphenicus
- Second place: Henry_Jaime
- Third place: DrCossack

Congratulations! The full list of entries, along with screenshots and everyone's scores, can be seen on the results page.

I hope that everyone enjoyed the event, and my thanks go to Anonymous_SoFar for bringing up this original idea and running the whole operation!

The holiday season is quickly coming up! After the success I had sending Christmas cards last year, I decided to do it again! This year, the cards will be custom-made with Creeper's Lab imagery!

To get one, login to the Survival server and find your way to the giant mailbox. It is located in the seasonal garden in Central, which was the location of the botanical garden contest last summer. You can quickly reach the area, starting at Grand Central Station, by taking the Residental Line from the bottom floor.

Once you have located the giant mailbox in the park, simply press the button to get a book, write your full address (including ZIP/postal code and country), then place the signed book in the chest. You'll then receive a card in the mail later this month!

If you only play on the Raw Survival server, or are unable to connect at all, you can login to your forum account and submit your address on this special page.


Resource pack updates

The Christmas edition of the resource pack has been updated by Sphenicus! You'll find within some new themed records, along with holiday-related images. Note that this pack is a full one, not an addon, and includes everything within the single download.

Both packs can be obtained from the resource pack page.

Anonymous_SoFar's sculpting contest is now open! You have up until next Saturday, December 6th, at 11:59pm to carefully remove blocks from your cube to give it a proper shape! For the details, please see the previous news post on the matter.

To access the contest area, travel to Central, visit the TransHub and enter the teleportation pad marked "Sculpting Contest".

At the time of this posting, there are only six lots left. Claim yours as soon as possible from Anon. Once they're gone, they're gone!

Some of you might not be aware that the Creeper's Lab is present on several social networks. These various mediums are a great way to stay in touch with the community, ask questions, share ideas, discover new things about the servers, and more! You can always find links to all of them in the right menu bar of the website.

Some of the managers of these accounts, myself included, are planning to make a better use of these networks by posting more content and being more active overall. As such, I strongly suggest that you follow any or all of the following, and share them with your friends!


Facebook
Our Facebook page, mostly ran by WindRider739, is a hot spot for the community. News are posted there, along with updates from the community members ("happy birthday!") and various announcements. Like, comment, share!


Instagram
Images, images, images. AshaLina posts Minecraft images on Instagram!


Tumblr
Our Tumblr account is full of screenshots, renders, stories and links about what we do on the servers, and managed to attract several new players. I will happily reblog anything appropriate posted using the "#creeper's lab" tag, so get posting and tagging what you did! I also answer posted questions whenever I receive them!


Twitch
A few of our members stream their playtime from time to time, along with special events. Our podcast sessions are also streamed live on Twitch before being made available for later viewing.


Twitter
Our Twitter account automatically includes notifications on new Facebook and Twitch posts alongside quick tidbits of info. Unplanned downtime notifications will also be posted there, such as a server crashing while being unable to restart it for several hours.


YouTube
Videos, videos, videos. Our account gets Twitch highlights once in a blue moon, along with varied presentations. We're currently looking for someone to make semi-regular posts over there. If you are interested, please send me a sample of your previous work.


NEW: Reddit
A subreddit for the Creeper's Lab community is now available! You can use that space to post build ideas, screenshots, share ideas, ask questions, and more! I will be moderating the place.


NEW: Steam
We now have a Steam group for the Creeper's Lab, managed by MagicMarker101! This is the place where members will be able to find each other for online gaming, see what others are currently enjoying, along with a calendar of upcoming events. It provides reminders!


Forums
As always, don't forget about our very own forums! Myself and others frequently post there to share thoughts, screenshots or general Minecraft news. I sometimes float ideas there first before taking decisions or making front page announcements. The forums are also a nice place to exchange with other people from the community about other topics than just Minecraft!



All of us are opened to suggestions, comments and feedback. These social media accounts are there for YOU, so be sure to make yourself heard... and to follow them!

The Raw Survival server has been updated to Minecraft 1.8.1. While this version is compatible with 1.8, I highly suggest that you upgrade to benefit from the multiple bug fixes!

Anonymous_SoFar has a new challenge for you, the likes of which haven't been done on the Creeper's Lab before. The goal: sculpting a box of material to get the nicest result possible!

You can claim a lot and base material NOW by contacting Anon, and you have up until next Saturday (the 29th) to do so. The contest proper will launch on that day, and you will have one week to complete your sculpting work. This means that you have up until December 6th at 11:59pm to complete your sculpture!

Full details below, courtesy of Anon!

---


Description

You are given a 15X15X15 solid block of material. You are to sculpt what you like out of this block, but be careful as block placement is denied, so Diamond picks are not recommended. The contest will take a period of two weeks, the first week will be preparations and the second the sculpting.

Prep week will basically be choosing a lot and asking me what material, out of the list below, you'd like to use; I'll make the block for you then wait. (This is just so I can place the blocks before we deny block placement.)

The second week is the sculpting portions, it is highly recommend that you take time during prep week to think of something you'd like to sculpt; time is precious.

In the TransHub in Central, there will be a pad to teleport you to the contest area; this will also enable flight for you so you can reach the top of your block. The exit of the area is next to the entrance, which disables flight on exiting. The contest area is sealed so you can't escape!

Along with this being a new and challenging contest, I have a new set of rewards as well! The top three winners of the contest have a choice of one of three rewards. These are are a Materials Chest (full of iron, gold, diamond, etc.), an Enchanting chest (Bottle o'enchanting, lapis, books, etc.), or a Mystery Chest!

The lots and base material are on a first come first serve basis. List of material are:

4 lots of Stone
4 lots of sandstone
2 of Ice
2 snow

There are 16 available lots available. Once the material is chosen it is gone, so plase dont complain that you didn't get what you wanted!

Picks and shovels will be provided for the contest, ranging from wood to iron (depending on the material and how confident you feel in your aim).


Rules

- You can only remove blocks from the material
- Flight is on during the competition, only in the special area
- No tampering with other people's builds


The way winners will be determined is just on originality, use of the block, use of the small area, etc.

Have fun and enjoy the contest!

---

Once again, to claim a lot and material, contact Anon during this week. You can reach him via Skype (if you have his name), message him on the server or on IRC whenever he's online. Alternatively, you can reach out to UnknownEntity634 or MediaKlepto.

Our second podcast session, hosted by Mikey, is scheduled to take place next Wednesday evening. It will be streamed live to the audience, then made available for download afterwards.

This session will begin a new segment that we're hoping to include each time: an highlight of one of the multiple attractions available on the server, most notably during Events Nights. The attraction and its location will be introduced during the show itself, then a mini-tournament will be streamed after its conclusion. You might want to read on the forums Mikey's post about all this!

For those who have missed the first podcast, you can listen to it here.

I hope that many of you will be joining us next week!

First things first, I'd like to remind everyone that we have the Race to Survive event planned this Saturday, at 9pm Eastern Time! For the full details, please see my previous news post about it. Remember that we need at least 10 participants to make this happen, so tell your friends!


Teleporters network reorganization

While on the topic of Events Night, the network of teleporters, including the End of Time, has been completely reorganized. The new setup has the events spread out over different hubs, sorted by categories. This will ensure that we don't run out of spots to add later activities! All the current destinations have moved around, so you'll have to take a look around and get familiarized with them.

Anyone is welcomed to build new attractions! Once you have a complete project, it'll be linked to the network for quick access during later Events Nights.

It is true! As of today, the Creeper's Lab is three years old! Our first server launched on 2011-11-11 and has been running ever since without a single map reset. Several things happened in the past year, most notably:

- The addition of new worlds!
- Multiple contests and events!
- A new website design!
- The launch of the Raw server!

I'd like to take this occasion to thank everyone who's currently playing with us, with a special mention to those who joined early on and are still around to this day. The place wouldn't be the same without you all!

As a comparison for those of you who haven't been with us for too long, here is how the server's spawn point looked on launch day, compared to a render of the same area today. You can click on that second image to get a full HD version!





Here's to more years of mining and crafting!

Do you have the will and strength to endure and survive another event?

Skreelink is back with a new proposition to entertain you! The Race to Survive event is made of two major parts spread out in multiple locations on the server.

The first will involve players fighting predetermined sets of mobs at the Wither Lounge. Kill the beasts, get spoils and earn points to move up to the next round! The second part will involve RACING! Then, to wrap things up, a special bonus round that remains to be announced...

Due to how the event is setup and to make things as fun as possible, at least 10 players are required to participate! If that minimum isn't reached, the event will be postponed to another day.

There are multiple prizes available to be earned, but those are being kept under wraps as a surprise! All I'll tell you is that this should be well worth your time and efforts. There are enough ways to earn items that most players should be able to come back with at least something.

This event will take place next week, on November 15. Due to its extra length, we're planning to start shortly after the launch of Events Night at 9pm (Eastern time). Again, if the required minimum to 10 players isn't reached, the event will be delayed to another evening.

We hope to see you there!

Several people braved the madness to score pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns! Skreelink gathered the most, with 36 pumpkins and 11 jack-o-lanterns!

After a small prize was handed out to everyone present, something surprising happening, which caused many players to suddenly and unexpectedly suffer a case of death. While things calmed down after a little while, the rumor says that THEY might return to haunt us some day...

I hope that you enjoyed our special Halloween event!

- Raffle!

The following 9 people won the raffle, which took place shortly after midnight: ElizherTheGreat, Henry_Jaime, HimochiKouen, MagicMarker101, SerenityBlack, SexyGarcia, Sphenicus, starfyredragon, UnityEXE and WindRider739!

Additionally, Sphenicus won the large prize consisting of even more items!

Those of you who weren't online when the winners were announced have had their items delivered to the post office in Nether Central. If you didn't have a PO box, one was created for you!

To celebrate Halloween and all things dead (or undead!), a special event will happen all day this Saturday!

On November 1st, you will notice that some mobs on the Survival server will wear pumpkins (and, more rarely, jack-o-lanterns) on their heads. Your objective: kill those mobs and gather all of the dropped pumpkin heads, if any! Zombies, skeletons and zombie pigmen are the monsters to target.

The event will run on November 1st, all day, from midnight to 10pm, Eastern Time. There is a maximum of 30 pumpkins to be gathered every hour, for a grand maximum of 630 units during the event! All players are encouraged to participate and see how many they can get!

To track the server-wide progress on that day, you can type the /pumpkin command at any time. Once the cap of 30 is reached for a given hour, the counter will stop increasing until the next round.

At 10pm, all players that have gathered heads will have to come to Grand Central Station for an official tally. Whoever gathered the most heads will win a prize! Additionally, a random person will be picked for a presence prize even if they didn't gather anything, so everyone is encouraged to show up no matter if they went hunting or not!

Note that vanilla Minecraft causes heads to happen on some mobs on October 31st, but not release them as drops. You can take that day as a practice run before the real harvest begins on November 1st!


- Raffle

A special raffle will also be made amongst all players who login on the Survival server, during Events Night, between 9pm and midnight (Eastern Time)! Simply logging in will give you the chance to earn 1 of 10 lots of goodies collected over time from banned players! Alternatively, if you cannot get in-game, visits in the chatroom will be included as well. The announcement of the results and distribution of items will happen shortly after midnight.


- Wallpaper

To put yourself in the mood, I've created a themed Halloween wallpaper in full HD resolution (1920 x 1080). Click the preview below to obtain the full version!

If you like this kind of detailed shots of the server, I've been generating and posting a new one every few days on the forums. Feel free to check out the entire set!

You've gone to space, and you have since returned on firm ground. This means that it's time to announce some results!

10 players entered the space contest and completed their entry to some degree! Three judges, Dr. Cossack, Mikey_el16 and Septina, have visited the area and given a note from 0 to 10 to each entry based on how well the space theme was followed and the overall quality of the work. Without further wait...

THE RESULTS!

First place: Katame and starfyredragon - $20 Amazon.com giftcard or $20 US bill
Second place: Anonymous_SoFar and MediaKlepto - horse owner and breeder kit
Third place: AshaLina - one super bow + stack of arrows
Random prize: Andromedea1 - one emerald block!

The full list of entries, along with comments from the judges, can be found on the results page! Amasia is still available for visiting, entry improvements, or even brand new construction. Congrats to all those who won, and thanks to everyone else for participating!


Now that the contest has wrapped up, something is obvious: many people claimed lots, some even started building, but many, many people didn't follow up on their ideas. In fact, only about half of the claimed lots really got developed. I'd like to know why: was the theme uninspiring? Was the building scope too large? Did you simply not have time to work on your entry? Please reply to this news post with anything you might want to share, thus helping me put together something even better down the line!

Eight brave contestants decided to face the madness of a Nether Spleef event mixed with wither battles... but only one player could come out victorious!

nikkehammerfist came on top of the spleef tournament, defeating Dr. Cossack in the final round! She then proceeded to attempt to take down two withers at the same time in the Lounge... but unfortunately failed at the task. The top four spleef players, nikke, Dr. Cossack, Mikey_el16 and tranxalive then rushed in and covered themselves in glory with a flawless victory! They each earned 100 levels as a result.

Once again, my thanks go to Skreelink for preparing and running another successful event!

Skreelink, Master of the Withers, is back again with a new event, something never seen before around these parts: Nether Spleef, with a Wither spin!

The battleground is a 1 vs 1 spleef arena, the floor made out of soul sand, with a wither freely roaming and firing at the contestants. As in standard spleef, you want to wield a shovel to cause your opponent to fall down. Once you have done that, you get to attack the wither until you defeat it or it kills you. Several battles using this format will be done, in a tournament structure, until one player stands victorious!

As a follow-up event, the winner of the tournament will be invited over to the Wither Lounge to fight TWO withers at once. Should he succeed, a great prize is awaiting him. Otherwise, the top 4 winners of the tournament will rush in to take over. If they fail too, then it's all over!

To participate, make your way to the Wither Lounge before 10pm Eastern Time this Saturday. To do that, from the End of Time, find the right destination in the PvP & Battles category. There will be a prize for everyone present!

The following prizes will be awarded:

First part: tournament
Winner: Special Spleef Shovel + Wither Skull
Wither killer (if applicable): Nether star if successful

Second part: Twin withers battle:
300 levels if successful
Else, 100 levels per person for the top 4 winners if successful

Participation
5 iron blocks for all!

All rewards are legit and provided by Skreelink himself.


See you this Saturday!


- Events Night and Raw Survival

As the question has come up in the past few days, Events Night will happen only on the main Survival server. Many of the special features required to run it, such as the teleporters, cannot be done using 1.8 at this point. Besides, those events run best with many people involved, which is easier if everyone is in the same place!

As previously announced, our new server, running vanilla Minecraft 1.8 and named Raw Survival, is LIVE!

Those looking for more information on why a second server is being launched might want to read my previous news post on the subject. The short version is, this is meant for those who want to play with 1.8 right away, as the main server will remain on 1.7.10 for quite some time. The latter remains my main focus and our largest play ground!

This took quite a bit of effort to get running: different server structure, different hosting setup, strict limitations to work with... Still, I was able to get several key complements running the way I wanted them to, so that your visit to the 1.8 server will keep you in the same familiar environment you're used to. Countless hours went into this, but it's still possible that I neglected something. Please let me know if that's the case.

Those interested can jump in at:

The Raw Survival name was chosen to represent both the added challenge (no convenience plugins here!) and the fact that will be a test platform for future updates. While I'll strive to give this place my usual attention to details, its very nature means that it will possibly come with less stability. This server will also be a test ground for the eventual migration of the main Survival one to this server version and platform.


- Core differences with the Survival server

Going with vanilla Minecraft unfortunately involves some losses. The following are not available or possible at the new place:
- Chest & doors protections
- Anti-griefing protections
- Multiple worlds
- DynMap
- Preview mode: must be whitelisted to log in
- Automated End resets
- Achievements
- PvP arenas
- Ranks
- Quick tree felling

On a more positive note, I'm very happy to announce that I was able to get the chatroom integrated on the Raw Survival server! This means that you'll be able to enter the chatroom to chat with the in-game players, and that the players will be able to keep in touch no matter on which server they're playing!

As indicated above, the whitelist procedure doesn't support the preview mode that was added on the Survival server some months back: registration is mandatory. Anyone currently whitelisted on the 1.7.10 server has access to 1.8, as the list is shared.

The lack of protection plugins means that buildings can't be locked away, nor can doors or chests. While griefing is still strickly forbidden, and offenders will be banned, you need to take care of storing your valuables in secured locations. Don't leave everything out in plain sight!

One extra tip: all commands, most notably private messaging, require FULL usernames to be provided. However, you can rely on tab completion to get the job done. For example, if you want to send me a message, you can start to type "/msg drc", hit the TAB key, and it'll turn into "/msg DrCossack"... assuming I'm online, of course!


- The new world

A seed has been carefully selected to make sure that all biome types are available around the spawn point. Mega taiga? Check. Ice spikes? Check. Mesa? Check. Mushroom island? Check. Deep ocean? Check.

To properly manage growth, a world border has been installed. It is currently set to 2000 blocks around 0,0, and will be expanded as needed. This is a square border, so you can move between x=-2000, z=-2000 and x=2000, z=2000.


- Future

As soon as it can be done reasonably, this server will be migrated to the new option that'll rise from Bukkit's ashes. Once we have succesfully tested it, and most of the appropriate plugins are available, the current Survival server will be moved over to 1.8 as well. After some further stability tests, the current plans will have the Raw Survival world added as an extra destination in Central's TransHub, finally bringing back all players together in the same place. This will be a delicate transition that will only happen when it is safe to do so.

If you have any questions or comments, please reply to this news post or contact me directly!

Enjoy the new server!


- Post-scriptum

An event is scheduled to happen this weekend, during Events Night, on the main Survival server. More details coming later this week!

As many of you know, two weeks ago we started running a podcast for the Creeper's Lab, ran by our own Mikey_el16. The first episode was a success, with many people tuning in live on Twitch! It featured Mikey, ADeadlyFish, MaximumRose and myself talking about Minecraft, videogaming news and the announcement of the 1.8 server among other things.

Those who didn't catch it when it happened now have several options to catch-up:
- Direct download (MP3)
- Twitch
- YouTube

Additionally, if you are a podcast pro and use some application to manage your subscriptions, we also have an RSS feed you can follow!

We welcome your questions, comments and suggestions, and would like to have your thoughts! If you want to say anything, please post in this forum topic or use #CreepersCast on Twitter.

The next episode is planned to be recorded on Wednesday, October 29. Please join us then!

As first announced in our podcast episode earlier this week, I'm now in the planning stages to launch a 1.8 server. This'll be the place for those who don't want to wait until the main server itself is updated to 1.8. Below are a bunch of details about that upcoming server, including when you can expect to access it!

The short version: the current server is staying at 1.7.10 for a while; a new one based on 1.8 will be launched in parallel soon.


- Current Bukkit/Spigot/Sponge status

It feels like I've written several "State of the Server"-type messages lately, and there's a good reason for that: there's been quite a few major changes to the Minecraft community lately! The following block is a repost of what I wrote in the forums two weeks ago when looking for feedback.

The goal of this explanation is to keep things simple. I might take a few shortcuts along the way, but you should be able to understand what's the current situation and how we got here.

The server is running Spigot, which is a derivative of Bukkit. Bukkit itself is a remake of sorts of Minecraft's official server, allowing the installation of plugins and giving server admins a lot more control over various settings. The large majority of servers out there run Bukkit or Spigot. Both projects are run independently from Mojang and without their assistance.

On August 21, the Bukkit team announced that they were closing the project, due to various legal grey areas and lack of support from Mojang. The same day, Mojang revealed that they actually owned Bukkit, had been for over two years, and that they would keep it active. Dinnerbone was quick to say that he'd personally prepare the 1.8 update.

On September 3, both Bukkit and Spigot's downloads were hit by a DMCA takedown by a former Bukkit developer. This person claims that Mojang tried to take ownership of his code, which the license wouldn't allow to happen, and thus that he no longer wants his work to be used. Even if he were to back down for any reason, any other developer could then make the same claim.

The end result, right now, is a possible legal battle from Mojang to fight this claim or the complete abandon of Bukkit. An alternative will obviously come up, either from Mojang itself or another group. In either case, it's going to take time. Like, several months at least to obtain something stable.


- "When are we getting 1.8?"

The ever-popular question has no obvious answer. Bukkit is dead in the water; Spigot still has updates but no formally announced plans for full support; the upcoming alternative Sponge won't be playable for a while. Since one of my primary goals is to keep the server stable and free from data corruption, I won't jump over to the first option available. Software obviously takes some time to mature.

Considering how things are currently going, and this is subject to change depending of the situation, I wouldn't be surprised if we were only able to upgrade to 1.8 early next year. Yes, that'd be 2015.


- Why a 1.8 server?

Part of the answer is above. Mojang released 1.8 on September 2, but the main server won't be ready to upgrade for some time. I know that most of our core players will stick around no matter which version is in use, and I thank you for your patience and understanding. At the same time, some want to try the new things, even if it means losing their comfort blanket. Likewise, it's hard to attract new players when all you can advertise is the old flavor. Having that new server will help bring new blood in, without sacrificing anything that has been currently built.

I expect most of our current player base to stay on the 1.7.10 Survival server, and many among the staff have already confirmed that this is what they'll do. Likewise, most of my own playtime will be on 1.7.10, and that place will stay my main focus for admin duties as well. The current server and community are the core of the Creeper's Lab, the 1.8 option is only an addition.


- How will the new server run?

The 1.8 server will run straight vanilla Minecraft, with no modifications whatsoever. The difference from what is available on the Creeper's Lab isn't that different, but you should be prepared for the loss of a few conveniences.

Work is already underway for this world, and I have started building a secured spawn point to ensure that new players are welcomed properly... and safely away from the monsters!

I want to have this new playing option available as soon as possible. As such, you can expect to have it available within a week or two. Keep an eye on this space for information on the formal launch!


- What about that second, modded server?

That is unfortunately getting delayed, due to the time required to launch the 1.8 server itself and the current, many unknowns related to the future of Minecraft servers. This is still among my plans for the future, of course. I'll post more once some progress has been made!


Oh, and if anyone was wondering about the logo for the new place...

It's that time again: a building contest!

Leave behind cities, caves, rails, mountains, even creepers: this time, we're going to SPACE! We're breaking away from the standard medieval / pseudo-modern style of Minecraft to focus on the modern or future, realistic or with a sci-fi twist.

What you decide to build is up to you, although it obviously has to be space-themed. Will you do a spaceship? A space station? An asteroid? Even a mini-planet? That's up to you to decide!

* RULES *

The contest entries must stay within the confines of a single, 50x50 lot. You own the entire height of said lot, and can use the reference bedrock blocks to find their exact borders. This time around, you can not build on the borders themselves. What use you make of the space available is up to you: you do NOT need to fill it up. Outer space consists of a lot of emptiness, and so can your entry. Besides, several potential designs will need a lot of length, but possibly much less depth. The walkways are situated on a single level, but space isn't set on a flat plane: you can build higher or lower!

You are free to work in teams should you desire. In that case, you can either work together on the same lot or each take adjacent lots and merge them together. You can also build more than one entry if you feel like it, although only one will be judged for the contest. If you build on more than one location, please clearly mark which one is your entry.

Due to the possibly larger building scale involved, you have FOUR WEEKS to complete your entry. The contest begins now and ends on October 18th at 23:59, Eastern time.

Pick a lot, place your name on it, and start building! Be creative!


* PRIZES *

All good contests need fitting prizes. Here is what is available this time around!

First place: $20 Amazon.com giftcard or $20 US bill (your choice)
Second place: horse owner and breeder kit
Third place: one super bow + stack of arrows, courtesy of Squid's Cove
Random person: surprise participation prize!

The judging criterias will be how well the theme was respected (space setting), the originality of your idea, and the proper use of the various materials. Strict penalties will apply if your construction spills outside of your lot.


* BUILDING DETAILS *

Due to the special nature of this theme, a new world permanently set to night time is now available. To get the proper view in this world, Amasia, it is highly recommended that you turn off the display of clouds. You can reach this new place from Central's TransHub, which will lead you directly to the site of the contest.


Some leaf platforms have been added to make your life easier while building, but they will be removed after the deadline. Since those were temporarily spawned in, please don't keep them or incorporate them in your builds. You can ask me or any op to remove them if unwanted, or if you're done. The bedrock corners will be removed at the same time. The dirt pathways are also temporary and in the process of being replaced with something more appropriate for the setting.

To save yourself from falling into the void of space and losing all your items, keepInventory is permanently set to true: dying for any reason will not cause you to lose your items!

If someone who is NOT planning to participate is interested in being a judge, please contact me before the end of the contest.
Edit: All set, thank you!

Good luck!

Many brave fighters stepped up for last Saturday's fights! 13 people decided to face Withers on one-on-one battles while the crowd cheered them on. Not everyone was set to win, however...

Among the participants, DaBestGamer_01, DrCossack and UnknownEntity634 used their skills and left the arena victorious, each holding a precious Nether Star. On the other hand, ADeadlyFish, Andromedea1, FigsNewton, Katame, Mikey_el16, MagicMarker101, nikkehammerfist, Sphenicus, starfyredragon and tranxalive fought bravely but fell prey to the monsters. They still scored a consolation prize of 5 iron blocks. Once this carnage was over, many stayed for a mix of PvP and rounds of monster fighting.

The Wither Lounge has now been added as a permanent part of the End of Time network, making it available for later Events Nights!

Once again, thanks to everyone for participating, and to Skreelink for creating and running these events!

The rumor that's been growing and growing in the past several days turned out to be true: Microsoft is purchasing Mojang, makers of Minecraft, for $USD 2,500,000,000. Official statements: Mojang, Notch (mirror), Microsoft, press release.

The Minecraft development team, including Jeb, is still there. Only Notch, Carl and Jakob (co-founders and company heads) have left, so this won't have any impact on the game on the short term. Now, of course, what does this mean for the game and the Creeper's Lab?

First and foremost, the MC team is still there. They'll keep on working on new game versions. Microsoft representatives have said that they intend to keep the game available (and continue to work) for other platforms as well, and I see no reason to believe otherwise: a large potion of the Minecraft profits come for the console and mobile versions.

Of course, down the line, things will change in a way or another. There have been other transitions before, many of them causing apprehension:
- Mojang's creation as a business ("Notch is going corporate!")
- Jeb taking over as lead developer ("Will he do the right thing?")
- The release of Minecraft 1.0 ("Will the updates soon stop?")
- Notch stepping away from the game ("We're doomed!")
- Microsoft purchasing Mojang (cue current comments)

My point is, things have been (mostly) fine overall, and I believe that this latest step will follow in the same way once the dust has settled.

I'm relatively hopeful that this will help the game grow even more over time. Microsoft can add support for even more platforms, ensure that the game remains compatible with future Windows versions (one of the largest markets), and their games division has traditionally been good at ensuring long-term support. At worst, Microsoft will let the game stagnate and the current versions will remain available. The community itself is so active, and has pushed the game in so many directions, that Minecraft will never really die.

As for the Creeper's Lab? We're here, the server is running, an update to 1.8 will happen when ready, I have plans for growth and we'll see from there, as usual. I'm not planning any changes in light of these news, and I'm looking forward to more years of mining and crafting! :-) Speaking of the 1.8 update, those looking for more information on that might want to check my recent forum post.

And hey, some people are having fun with this situation.

Long live Minecraft!

There are two kinds of people: those who fear for their lives, and those who rise to the challenges thrown their way. If you are part of the latter group, Skreelink is back with more Wither madness. The goal, this time: a 1 vs 1 battle, player vs wither, in a new arena. No matter who wins, you get a prize!

This event will happen next week, September the 20th, on Events Night. Make sure that you find your way to the arena before 10pm, Eastern Time! A direct access will be available from the End of Time, in the PvP & Battles category.

The full visitor's guide and write-up follow!

---

{Wither's Pleasure Lounge}
{Visitor's guide and invitation Brochure}

Salutations Miners,

Now, it seems that sometimes... During that hard mining and fending off monsters... That a miner could get tired of it all and need some relaxation. Maybe after a particularly rough day, you come home to be greeted by an empty house, the furnace empty so you have to eat your fish cold, sushi-style without the fixings. Just once, maybe it'd be nice to spend an evening with someone who can appreciate you for all the work you do?

Well, then today you might be pleasantly surprised! Why you ask?

In the Grand Opening of the Wither's Pleasure Lounge, we're giving away free one-night passes to spend with some of the best, most talented escorts we have to offer! So drop the pickaxe and shovel, take the nearest rail out to the balmy soulsand beaches of The Nether and swing by for a night of bliss.

The Lounge can be found at the corner of love and desire, parked in the middle of the famed Lurking Skree Nether Fortress. Take the Eastern Line from Nether Central for three stations, a swing by the Room of Devine Transportation and find the proper rail from there. Optionally, take the nearest TARDIS or Time Gate, our Experts are always available to help you along the way, give us a ring!

So, what's the catch you ask? There is none! Everyone that shows gets the best night we can offer, but first come first serve, get here quick.

When you arrive, your name goes in the queue and seated until you are called. Afterwards, you will be engrossed in a night of dancing, feasting, and a chance for quality time with the most talented Lady Withers we have, unless you prefer the manly Stud Withers, we cater to both. Just you and her, going rounds and having the night of your life, don't imagine it, drop by and EXPERIENCE the fun!

Now, our facility does have some rules (Although not many, you naughty miners ;) )

1: Please respect the privacy of the other patrons, no need to ruin their night of fun. (No naysaying, they don't know the glass is two-way, shh)
2: It's Mano-A-Mano, just you and the professional you are engaging with.
3: Clothing optional, want just simple iron? Fancy expensive gold and diamonds? ...Maybe you're into a little leather? Your choice! Can't say your partner will be wearing much though... ;)
4: Mmm 'toys' We'll leave that up to you as well, anything you think you might need to make the night the best it can be.
5: Friends? Leave 'em at home, although if you DO choose to bring someone, it's between you two who gets the rewards of the night.
6: Doors. Yep, they're locked from the outside! We want to make sure you get the privacy you deserve so no ins or outs after you're served.

What do you get out of this? Well, lemme just do a little checking of our assets...

1: Your partner, if you do your job and make them happy as well (I know they work here, but they deserve it right?) might reward you, keep this as a momento of your night!

2: Feeling a bit unsatisfied? We're sorry your night didn't go as expected, we try our best but things happen.. Take five blocks of the finest iron and our sincerest appology.

Afterwards, the floor will be open to all visitors to release their frustrations out on each other! Patrons will be expected to clean up their messes, however.


The shorter version:

I've built a new PvP arena (The Wither's Pleasure Lounge, or Wither Lounge), and in celebration I am giving opening night visitors a one-on-one chance at a wither. There are no rules, bring what you think you'll need. You can request help from a friend, and if they accept, they forfeit their chance at one-on-one and it's between you two who gets the nether star. All of the withers are legit, so they count for the achievement and you keep the spoils. I'm just saving you the hours of laboring to collect skulls.

You only get one shot at it, so if you fail, you get the consolation prize for trying of five iron blocks.

After everyone has had a go at a wither, the arena will be opened for PvP fights, the twist being that mob-spawns ARE allowed in the arena. Adds a little danger, player or pigman? Careful who you poke! Although I do NOT expect many things to spawn, as the caged in arena limits spawn-area size around the player (as I recall 16 block radius). As such, I'm going to allow DrCossack to run SpiderDome-ish spawns and stuff WHILE the players PvP. So keep your eyes peeled on players AND mobs.

Do note this was built in my nether fortress, and as such I implore you not to try to wander around and tear anything down, such as quartz and glowstone, without my permission.

If you need help getting there, finding your way to the arena, or getting home, simply ask. I will be glad to guide you through the place, albeit it's very simple.

It's been a while since I've made a news post adressing the status of the server. Since I'm back in action, now seems like a good time!


Server updated to 1.7.10

The server has been updated today to Minecraft 1.7.10. This should eliminate the annoying block lag that some of you have been suffering from in the past few weeks, along with player skins being lost ("I'm Steve!") when you died or moved through portals. Some other bug fixes are included as well. Please let me know if any other issues show up.


1.8 is being released soon

Mojang currently plans to release version 1.8 on September 2. As usual, the server will take some time to be ready for an upgrade, so please stay with us on 1.7.10 in the meantime!

To do that, in the game's launcher, click the "Edit Profile" button then make sure that the "Use version" field is set to "release 1.7.10" (or any version between 1.7.6 and 1.7.10). Hit the save button, and you'll be good!


Bukkit troubles

Some of you have heard of troubles related to the Bukkit project, which is the base of the server software that we currently use. The current situation will leave us with a working 1.8 version, so the upcoming update will happen as usual. The path beyond that is currently unclear, but that's for me to worry about. Just keep on playing and having fun, and I'll ensure that things keep on working in the future!


Second server status

Still in the planning stages is a second server for the Creeper's Lab, in Survival mode (sorry, Creative fans!), using mods. While this has been taking more time than expected, several steps related to this have been taking in the past months, including the new website layout and some plugin updates. I don't want to rush the process, as I want to take the time to do it right. I've got several good ideas that I'm looking to implement. More details will be posted once things are set in stone!


More coming later

Always. :-) Thanks for playing with us!

The increased challenge of the Wither Ball got the best of our participants: no one survived the onslaught! As this was a last-man standing competition, we got the following winners:

First place: SerenityBlack
Second place: tranxalive
Third place: BossMasterLink

After everyone died, the doors were reopened and everyone got to rush in until all five withers were truly dead and gone. Regular Spider Dome activities then followed!

Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make this event a success, and of course to Skreelink for running it!

Carnage! Mayhem! Prizes! This all sounds good, right?

Skreelink has decided to ready up a sequel to last month's Wither Waltz. Once again, the basic goal is to enter a fight with multiple contestants and withers, and try to leave victorious. Higher challenge, more valuable prizes, and everyone who enters gets to keep something!

This will happen this Saturday, during Events Night. The doors will be locked at 10pm Eastern Time, so be sure to get to the Spider Dome beforehand. If too few participants show up, the event will be postponed. Here are the full details!

---

Hello and welcome mortals!

You've been invited to a Wither's Ball... Now some of you were around during the waltz, now's the time for some real fun.

As you know, the Waltz involved everyone being locked in the Spider Dome with two withers, this event will be similar but with a couple of changed things, since it seemed to go a bit fast last time.

Rules:

1: Melee weapons will be provided, leave your smite swords at home, you have friends.
2: Armor will be provided, some players can't afford shiny Protection IV diamond armors.

The above two are to keep things even between players.

3: Personal bows ARE allowed, they'll only save you 'til the withers drop the floor anyway.
4: Potions ARE ALLOWED this time. You provide your own.
5: Please do not attempt to harm other players.
6: If you die, you cannot return to the arena, please head up to the observation deck.
7: No hiding in corners to let others die, jump in there and fight.
8: You must die, Cthulhu demands it.

Now that wasn't so hard, was it? Now lets talk about some prizes~

1st place: Same as last time, Nether star + iron for pyramid NEW? + diamond block
2nd place: A regular chest full of iron blocks
3rd place: 2 emerald blocks
Participation: Keeping provided special weapon and armor

Winner can decide on trading with second place if they desire the iron more.

This is run as a last-man-standing, and as such, if all the withers are killed with survivors, the Spider Dome will remained locked and regular insanity provided by DrCossack will ensue until everyone is murdered lovingly to dictate rank, no tying for second place this time!

Since there is a short notice for this event, although playes have been jittery since the first one for another, I'm sure word of mouth will get participants quickly!

HOWEVER! In the event that low participation happens, the event will be postponed to allow longer exposure in the news thread... but you guys want carnage now, don't you? So get out there and tell all your MC buddies about it and extend the special invitation to the Wither Ball!

19 players entered the botanical garden contest, 3 have come out with a victory and prizes! Our two judges, Anonymous_SoFar and Dr. Cossack, have visited the gardens and given a note from 0 to 10 to each entry based on how well the botanical garden theme was followed and the overall quality of the work. Without further wait...

THE RESULTS!

First place: MagicMarker101 - enchanted diamond sword for Wither kills
Second place: HimochiKouen and MediaKlepto - potions geared toward PvP + Dr. Cossack head
Third place: cmzangetsu93 - two enderchests!

The full list of entries, along with comments from the two judges, can be found on the results page! Some of you might notice that the scores averages tend to be lower this time around. Part of that is explained by the fact that the judges felt that many entries, while interesting, didn't fit very well with the botanical garden theme. Many would be more appropriate for a city park, most likely!


I'd like to thank everyone who entered! This was a first attempt at smaller scale contests, with smaller building lots and prizes, yet the community has jumped at the opportunity. With that much interest, you can look forward to more contests in the future!

The Creeper's Lab is available on various social networks. We're currently on
Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube. Those various channels are all used differently. Some keep the members aware of ongoing server news, others share screenshots and stories, while a few have a focus on recruiting new players by making them aware that we exist.

Another option to keep in touch is through our forums. The community uses it to share news, discus ongoing server changes, offer suggestions, ask questions, and more. It's also a casual place to talk about everything and nothing, even things unrelated to Minecraft.

To help me understand what you expect out of social media and the forums, I've put together a short, 10 questions survey. This will only take you a minute or two to answer, but will give me a better idea of what you want and how we can make the best possible use of each channel.

Take the survey now!

If you have additional points to make that aren't covered in the survey, you can either reply to this news post or contact me directly.

Thank you for answering!

The name Wither is enough to send a chill down the spine of many players, yet several brave warriors came in tonight to fight TWO of these at the same time! The team worked quickly, felling the two withers in a few short minutes and only had three casualties!

2FortToothKickin, DrCossack, HimochiKouen, iKatze, nikkehammerfist, starfyredragon and UnknownEntity634 all survived and won the second place prize: a diamond block! frogdreck1 managed to land the killing blow, earning the first place prize: a Nether Star and enough iron blocks for a fully powered beacon pyramid. Congrats, everyone!

Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make this event a success, and thanks to Skreelink for running it!

Skreelink, Master of the Withers, has decided to organize an event featuring the fearsome beasts!

The Wither Waltz involves two withers being spawned at the same time in the Spider Dome. All contestants will be locked in the arena beforehand, to attempt to take down both monsters without being killed themselves. If you, as a fighter, get killed: you're out of the fight. You only get one chance at this, so prepare yourself accordingly!

You're invited at the Spider Dome, which is easily reachable through the End of Time. The event will start this Saturday, during Events Night, at 10pm (Eastern time). Be sure to get there 10-15 minutes early to prepare yourself! This happening also has prizes for EVERYONE, so you won't come out empty handed!

The rest of this news item comes from Skreelink himself, with a few clarifications added.

---

Rules, everyone loves rules:

1: No smite swords, weapons checked at door. No need to make it easier, you'll have friends to rely on!
2: Any armor is fine.
3: If you die, you're out. Head up to the observation deck.
4: No attacking from outside the room. Since everyone should be inside already, not too big a problem.
5: No splash potions, don't wanna hurt our friends, eh? Friendly competition.
6: Helpers and ops ARE allowed to play.
7: No late entries! Once the doors are closed, no other participants.
8: Have fun, is a game!

Now, let's talk prizes... often popular in events! This is run as a last man standing game.

1st place: One of the nether stars and enough iron for a beacon pyramid.
2nd place: A diamond block.
3rd place: 10 iron blocks and a Skreelink head.
All participants: One diamond for trying.

In the event of a tie (multiple survivors): Myself (Skreelink) and already 'out' players will judge who gave the final blow for first place (logs will be checked if confirmation is needed), all other survivors get a diamond block to match 2nd place. Players CAN 'back down' if chosen for first, and simply accept a diamond block of course if they may already have beacons, or know another player really wants one.

If all players are killed and withers survive: Prizes will be issued on the last man standing rules, last killed of course is 1st place. Then, FREE FOR ALL. Rules are done, allowed to shoot wither between the cobble fences, pull out the wither swords and rush it, etc. until the remaining wither (or witherS!) are dead. If it seems to get out of hand, and the players cannot kill the withers, I will request them to be op terminated for safety reasons.... But we should have faith in the fighting ability of our PvP hardened fighters eh?

---

Who will win? Our brave warriors, or the wild withers? We will find out this coming Saturday!

Cha0sQc has prepared a challenge for all players!

Found at his place and running for the next two weeks and a half, you're invited to compete for the fastest running time. The three top winners get to win prizes! To get there, from Nether Central Station, take the Western line to the second station ("Salad Facts"). Then, continue on the High Tor Castle line and go through the "Maze" Nether portal.

Details below, as provided by Cha0sQc himself!

---

Try out ChaosQc (Maze & Puzzle) before August 15th and win some prizes. You will need to advise him so he can open the front door for you, and stand-by to help you in case of support... for a price of course ! ;b
TRY TO ARRIVE AT => 20:00 Hours (in-game) so you can sleep in a bed, and in-case of an accident you can respond back in the game.
Also wear your best armor, you may need it.

1st Place - Enchanted Diamond Sword (With special skills of "Bane of Arthropodes IV & more") + Enchanted Pick.
2nd Place - 8 or more Potions with Enchanted Books
3rd Place - Hammertoe's Head - LOL

Depending on the players Skill the puzzle can last from 25 minutes to over 1 hours or more, depending on your penalties and skills.

Example;
- Sickness did it in 25 minutes (He tested it out for me, but he will not be counting in this contest.
- Ashalina time was 1 hr & 53 minutes, counting the penalties of moving forward and dying, she also will not count in the contest, and was nice to test my MAZE, Thank-You.
- PS; since she tested my Maze /Puzzle I have simplified a certain "PART" just a bit... "I'm not saying" but I did not want to make it to simple.... :-)

Here are the RULES;

Rule # 1 -> Get ready and change your batteries, do not eat at the same time and blame it on sticky or wet fingers, or blame it on "Lag" your time will still be counting.
(Looks like he had those excuses already from Media... and he is still on Part #1 of the Maze after 20 minutes - LOL)

Rule # 2 -> If you get stuck and can't figure out a way to get out of a certain Part of the Maze/Puzzle, you can ask for a FREE pass, it will cost you 10 minutes.
(You can ask for a free PASS at 10 minutes only once, the next one's will cost you 15 minutes then 20 minutes the next one then 25 minutes the next one, and so on, you get the idea.
(You cannot ask for a FREE PASS for the first Part, sorry you have to go through this one, and I have not changed it since "Sickness got through it in less the 3 minutes" so I know it can be done.)

Rule # 3 -> If you "DIE" there is a 15 minute penalty, I will stop the time and bring you back to the same spot you where, then start the time again.

Rule # 4 -> If you need to go somewhere I can stop the time till you decide to continue from the same spot you where at that time, but try to plan ahead please.
(This option is good only once... then I add 30 minutes as a penalty)

Now, how to access the "Maze/Puzzle", easily. You can go to the Nether Central Station and head towards High Thor Castle it should take you under 3 minutes, don't forget to bring a Cart! Once at High Thor Castle, there are 2 Portals, the first one belongs to Doorgunners that is not the right one. It will be indicated where to go for the MAZE/Puzzle - Chaos Qc on your right, which is just 10 blocks away. That 2nd Portal will take you directly in-front of my Maze/Puzzle, where I will be waiting for you.

Hope you enjoy it, it took over 2 weeks to build and I threw in many different brain teasers... hahaha.

Here is the only clue I will give you, don't rush through it, take time and try to decipher and decode all the clues written in the game, it will make it easier. But for this you have to make sure you looked around every corner.

When you see me in the game, advise me that you want to run the GAME!

PS; If this is a success I have many more idea, and if the demand is there I will build a 2nd one, which I already have many idea's..

- Cha0sQc

With 35 entrants tonight and 10 lots to be won, the odds were good for our players! The following have won a box full of goodies!

• AlphaSniper828
• AshaLina
• Dark_Fact
• JVVL
• MagicMarker101
• nikkehammerfist
• rpetersen
• SoratheEliteOne
• TenacArmy
• Cha0sQc (big prize)

Congratulations to everyone! For those that haven't received their goodies directly, they have been delivered to your mailbox in Nether Central. One has been created for rpetersen, while Cha0sQc will find his items in a temporary doublechest on the middle floor.

Also, don't miss the building contest, which just launched!

People love building contests, but those often take a while to prepare. As such, I'm trying today something new: smaller-scale contests!

This special challenge has you working in a limited, 10x10 space to create an element of a botanical garden. What will you do? A floral arrangement? A nice fountain? A water display? Benches to take a break? Something else entirely? The choice is yours!

The contest area is Central's Seasonal Park, in the Residential District, located in the north side of the city. To get there, walk the paths heading north or use the Residential Line from underground in Grand Central Station.


* RULES *

Pick a lot, put your name on it (on the outside border is fine too), and get building! Due to the nature of the park, you own the lot from sky limit down to *5* blocks underground. Your working area is defined by the 10x10 grass square you've selected. Tree leaves can overhang in the pathways as long as they're not in the way, but be reasonable on this front.

Due to this contest being designed to fit within the park, only 20 lots are available for the taking. Once all places are taken, that's it, so be sure to head there early! One lot by person only.

UPDATE: All 20 lots have been claimed, that was fast!

The contest begins NOW and ends in two weeks, that is on August 2, 2014 at 23:59pm, Eastern Time.


* PRIZES *

Of course, what would a contest be without prizes? As this event is smaller in scale, so are the prizes. They might not be as impressive, but they definitely have a value for many of the players! Besides, you can always claim bragging rights!

- First place: Enchanted diamond sword, specialized for Wither Skeleton kills
- Second place: A set of potions geared toward PvP + a Dr. Cossack head
- Third place: Two enderchests for the careful explorer and builder!

Judging will take place after the contest period is over. The judges will go around and give a score out of ten on each entry. Evaluation criterias will be adhesion to the theme (botanical garden elements), overall quality of the build and best use of the space available.


The garden will remain on display afterwards, but might get temporarily swapped out for other events, such as Christmas time.

If this new formula is a success, smaller contests could be scheduled on a regular basis to cohabit with the larger-scale events we've done in the past. Comments on this are welcome, now and after the event!

You prefer the idea of larger contests, where you can go wild with your ideas? A new one is already in the planning stages, with more to follow, so stay tuned!

Some of you might be wondering what happens to the supplies of banned members. Are they burnt away? Sent to oblivion? Kept by the staff? Or are they simply forgotten away, left to rot in chests forever?

What actually happens is that the items are taken by a staff member and stored safely away. Once enough have been gathered, a raffle to redistribute the content among active players is organized... and that time is upon us! For this round, 10 chests of items are being prepared. They aren't all identical in content, but aim to have a similar value, and only focus on interesting items: there are no sticks or wheat seeds to be found!

To enter this raffle and get the chance to win, be sure to join us online or in chat next Events Night, this Saturday, between 9pm and midnight (Eastern time). You only need to show up during that period; you can leave whenever you want to. The winners will be determined shortly after midnight. Online winners will be able to claim their chest directly, while the rest will be delivered in the post office in Nether Central.

We haven't done such a raffle in a few months and we have acquired quite a bit of loot. As such, I highly suggest that you enter to win one of the 10 sets: the effort is definitely worth it!


A special announcement will also be made this Saturday, so join us in-game or keep an eye on this space for more information!

The dragon fight is popular, and everyone wants to have a shot at it! Unfortunately, my previous method to reset the End world broke when we updated to 1.7.9. I now have a better alternative!

Starting today, after the dragon is killed, the End will automatically reset 24 hours later. This allows more battles to happen without any manual action, while still opening a time window for those looking to gather some precious moon cheese and obsidian. If a player is in the End after the timer expires, the reset will be placed on hold until he leaves, so there's no danger of a sudden dragon appearance.

I'm happy to release today a brand new look for the website of the Creeper's Lab!

While the previous appearance of the website had some charm, I felt like it was overdue for a redesign, hopefully giving it a somewhat more professional appearance and a better structure. I've been slowly working on this for the past few months, leading to what you're seeing today. An additional motivation for this was to have a layout that would better support multiple servers in the future, with everything related to each one regrouped in easily noticed sections.

The information for each server is now color-coded. The Creeper's Lab, both as a website and a network, is keeping the green creeper beaker as its main logo. The survival server will adopt a new squid beaker along with a dark blue theme. The upcoming server, due to its expanded range of PvP and fighting options, will use a blaze beaker and a related orange color. These logos will appear in your Minecraft client's servers list, on each news item when viewed on the website, and in the right menu bar. That way, you can quickly identify which part of the Creeper's Lab is affected with a news update or some key information.

You can easily see a result of this in the right menu bar, where the IP address of the server is always visible along with the current server version and what versions of the Minecraft client are compatible with it. This will hopefully make it easier for new and current players to find their way around quickly.

Among some of the other changes on this new website:

• A new dropdown menu, which will work better with some web browsers.
• Links to all pages, including past contest results.
• Clarified rules with some extra information.
• And some other surprises!

As such, I invite you to click around, discover what's new, and reply to this news post with your comments! Also, be sure to report anything that might look wrong on your end. While I ran multiple tests over the last few weeks, it's possible that something escaped me! I want your feedback!

To go with yesterday's staff changes, Sphenicus has updated the server's resource pack to update the staff portraits and include a few surprises. If you disabled the automatic download option, grab it now!

If you're having trouble getting the add-ons to work, please note that Minecraft 1.7.9 changed how those are managed. This new FAQ entry will explain how to manage this:

Q: The glorious add-ons you provided aren't working! WHAT DO?

A: Make sure you have both packs active and that the add-on is listed ABOVE the main pack on the active list. If it's still not working then it's Mojang's fault like everything else. To fix this all ya gotta do is go to your server list and click "Edit" for the Creeper's Lab server. Then disable the server resource pack option. From there you might have to redownload the base pack, but after that you should be good.

As I've posted last week, the time has come to name new people to assist as part of the staff. Many applied, a few were picked; thank you everyone for your interest in helping others!

Without further delay, I'm happy to announce that UnknownEntity634 has been promoted to Op status, while both Septina and Skreelink have obtained Helper status. Congratulations to the three of you! You will all be receiving a forum PM shortly with the details of your new positions.


I'd also like to take a moment to thank everyone, including regular players, who's been helping the new players since the whitelist procedure change. Many of the new faces have had questions about the process and many of you stepped forward to offer help. I very much appreciate how the community responded to this change!

The server is doing well overall, with more people getting involved and events happening on a regular basis. The new whitelist procedure, recently introduced, means that many new visitors need some guidance in getting registered to join us properly. As it happens, some among the current staff are also being kept busy by various things outside of the game. As such, I'm now looking to add a few people to the roster. This includes at least 1 op, 1 helper, and 1 YouTube/Twitch 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/Twitch creator is two-fold. Such a person could produce new videos showcasing the server itself, our builds and ongoing events, then post them on our YouTube channel for the world to see. While others might contribute episodes once in a while, whoever applies to this position should expect to be the primary content creator. Alternatively, such a person could also use our official Twitch.tv channel to stream and create highlights of their ongoing play sessions and events on the server. You're free to apply to one side or both of the video aspect. 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 haven't been around much in the past months and "promise to be online this time, for realz", you won't 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 about a week from now.


Please note that Krodane, inflammo and itsthesherf has been returned to trusted status due to inactivity. I appreciate the help that you gave while you could. Thank you!

The server has been updated to MC 1.7.9 today. Be sure to select the appropriate version in the Minecraft launcher ("Edit profile" -> "Use version: release 1.7.9") to be able to continue playing with us! This update brings bug fixes but no new gameplay features.

Notable is the fact that the server resource pack, if enabled, overwrites your current settings (including the add-ons we provide). Those who do want to install some add-ons, like Notato or the classic rock pack, might want to turn that off. To do so, in your servers select screen, select the "Creeper's Lab" option, hit the "Edit" button, and switch the "Server Resource Packs" option to "Disabled". You'll then need to manually install the base pack and all options.

Minecraft 1.7.10 coming soon
The next version, 1.7.10, is scheduled to be released this week. It is compatible with our current one, so you're free to update at your convenience.

8 contestants stepped into the arena, but only 1 could come out as victorious. The big question was: who?

In rounds featuring 2, 3 or 4 contestants at a time, the matches followed a tournament-style system featuring gradual elimination until one person stood at the top. The grand finale was a tight battle between iKatze and tranxalive, who had to win 2 out of the 3 matches. After a tie and some lenghty face-offs, tranxalive came on top to win the pot of 18 diamonds! Congratulations!

Thank you to all the participants and those who came to watch, either in-game or over someone else's shoulder!

Calling all players for a spleef tournament this Saturday!

This competition will see all entrants fight to see who has the best footing and precise shovel strikes! Players of all levels are welcomed, even if you have never played a spleef match before. In case you don't even know what "spleef" is, it will be explained to you in-game. It's very simple, so don't hesitate to come!

To enter the tournament, each participant will have to pay the entrance fee of two diamonds. Groups will then be made to go through quarter-finals, semi-finals and a big finale. The winner of the competition, the last person standing, will win all the diamonds provided by the participants!

The event will be hosted at Love Train Stadium, in Port Townshend. There is a timegate available right next to it, so you can easily make your way through the End of Time network. All required equipment will be provided, so the only elements needed are your presence and the entrance fee of two diamonds.

This will take place this Saturday, during Events Night. Make your way to the stadium at 9:45pm, Eastern time! Non-entrants are more than welcomed to come sit in the stands and root for their favorite contestants and grab a souvenir along the way.

Meet you there!

I've pushed today some changes on how the server's whitelist works. The basic procedure remains the same: all players need to register on the forums, confirm their e-mail address, then add their Minecraft username to be able to play with us.

However, it is now possible for new players to immediately connect to the server and walk around. Those people, tagged with 'Visitor', are not able to break or place blocks, open chests, use the TransHub, or do much of anything. However, it gives them a chance to look around, get a preview of the server, and possibly ask for help with the registration process if they're having trouble. As such, you can expect to see many new faces try the server from now on. Let's be nice to them and invite them to register!

The new registration process is now fully compatible with UUIDs. This is one more step completed before the server is upgraded to 1.7.9 and eventually 1.8.

As many of you noticed, when the server gets close to full capacity, everything slows down noticeably. The amount of players online plays a role, obviously, and yet our current setup should be able to support an heavier load without issues. Some investigation told me that the core of the problem are the automated farms that have been built in Laurasia and Gondwana, in the core cities of each world (Central and Keystone City, respectively).

As such, I'm officially banning grinders, automated farms and large amount of animals around the spawn area of each world. While I can see the value of those elements, the problem comes from their location: the spawn areas of each world is constantly loaded, which means that any device placed in those locations is constantly loaded and active. The server's performance is thus directly affected.

This means that, in the area defined by a radius of about 150 blocks around each world's spawn point, no potentially laggy devices can be built. This includes gold and iron farms, chicken cookers, mob grinders (automated or not) and any related builds. You are free to do these anywhere else, just not around each world spawn area. The existing devices have been moved or will be in the coming days.


I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind all players to keep their automated farms under control. Most notably, we've had several chicken farms go out of control lately, slowing down the entire server for all players. Please be mindful of the impact of your actions toward others. The smoother the gameplay is, the better for all of us!

The Creeper's Lab resource pack has been updated tonight. Those who accepted it through the server will be automatically updated when you next join; others will have to download it from the resource pack page. Read on for the details, from pack maintainer Sphenicus!


Hey how's it goin, it's the crazy guy again. I made some changes to that resource pack doohickey you guys seem to like so much for some reason. The standard pack is still the same, with all it's taters and musics and whatnot. What was changed is how you change the standard pack. Before the way you would get a different pack was by downloading a full resource pack that included everything in the standard pack plus whatever was changed. This was largely due to the old system of resource pack management. With the new system allowing multiple packs to be active at once, I can now put together smaller "mini-packs" that only have a few files in them. This keeps file size down which is good for you guys cuz it wastes less space, and good for the website because it potential saves money on data transfer rates! To celebrate this update I've put together a highly demanded Classic Rock record pack. This pack includes 12 different classic rock songs from the good ol' 1960's and 70's on the records. The best part is since it doesn't have everything else with it that it's half the size of a full pack! (No seriously, the records alone are at least half the file size) Notato Edition has also been revamped as a Notato Add-On, containing only the rain graphic and the rain sound, which brings it down from around 40MB to 92KB. In the future I can easily prepare more mini-packs for records, ambient music, paintings, etc. if enough people want them. The possibilities are endless! So enjoy the new shizzle and remember to check out the FAQ whether you have questions or not because you still might learn something.


Founder and President of the Shiny Hats Club
Chairman of the Board of the Time-Space Travel Committee
Sphenicus

I'm introducting today a new map render for the main world, Laurasia. Instead of the previous 60 degrees angle, the Surface (3D) mode will use an angle of 30 degrees. This view looks more natural and makes most player structures, especially the tall ones, stand out much better. To allow a full world view to finally be available once again, a level of zoom-in has been sacrified.

Gondwana and Avalonia, due to their more extreme geography, will keep their current look. Switching the view would hide most player structures behind mountains, rendering the map useless in most situations.

The map is currently rendering and will take at least a few hours to complete due to the large size of the world.

I've reconfigured part of the server's settings so that the End can be reset without requiring an entire server restart. This will allow me to reset the End every few days as needed instead of every week or two, which will be useful now that we have more players interested in facing that challenge.

As a reminder, the End on the server gets periodically reset to give all players a chance to face the Ender Dragon, earn an egg and score the related achievement. Go forth, brave adventurers!

Mojang is planning to release Minecraft 1.7.6 tomorrow. However, this new version won't allow you to connect to the server: you need to stay with us on versions 1.7.2, 1.7.4 or 1.7.5. Make sure to select the correct option in the Minecraft launcher!

As I've posted before, 1.7.6 is the release preparing for username changes. Since many modifications are needed server-side, from both me and mod makers, we won't be updating to that version for a while still.

UPDATE: Minecraft 1.7.7 has been released to fix some bugs. The comments above still apply.

A month ago, I ran a survey asking for opinions on the current state of the server and how it should be expanded next. My thanks go to everyone who answered it, I gained some valuable insights from the results.

Based on this data and the wishes of the community at large, I'm now planning to launch a second server, with mods installed, allowing a different type of Minecraft gameplay that isn't possible with the current server. The list of specific mods is still being worked on, although it will probably involve a few individual options mixed in and an expanded focus on PvP. One of my ongoing goals on the Creeper's Lab is to keep the gameplay as vanilla as possible, with a few changes done for convenience's sake. The new server won't have to do with such limitations.

I'd like to reassure all players that the current server, which is well established, will remain my main priority and focus. The new one is being planned as a bonus, not a replacement to what is now available.

So, when do we get to play this?
Not for some time yet. The upcoming update to Minecraft 1.8 (and, incidentally, to 1.7.6) is preparing the scene to allow username changes. This is a step that will be especially difficult to manage server-side, since everything is currently set to identify the players by their usernames. I will have to update many plugins and rewrite some entirely, along with the whitelisting procedure on the forums and some admin tools, to get us compatible with these new changes. As such, my development time will be focused on preparing this upgrade, and I won't start to do any advanced planning on a second server until all that is cleared up. I can't tell yet how long this will take.

Thanks for your patience!

First of all, congratulations to all participants! This contest has had a large number of entrants and featured a lot of great, original buildings forming a real, although ruined city core. I'm very pleased with the results, and I hope you are, too!

Three judges, Dr. Cossack, iKatze and MediaKlepto went around the city and scored each project from 0 to 10, based on the already known rules: following the ruined city theme in a downtown area, while respecting the limits of the given lot.

THE RESULTS:

First place: Kagato75 - $20 Amazon.com giftcard
Second place: FigsNewton - Dr. Cossack's Favorites
Third place: Anonymous_SoFar - Full iron gear set
Random pick: PhantomLesMis - Fortune diamond pickaxe

You can see the full list of entries, along with scores, screenshots and comments from the judges, on the results page. Thanks to everyone who entered, and here's to more contests in the future!


Now, for a Stone Ville update. As I've indicated before, the city is still opened for building. If you want to do further work on a contest entry, you're free to do so. Likewise, anyone is free to claim a lot, or two, or more, and start building something original! I will personally be working on some additions in the coming weeks. The bigger the city gets, the better! I'll be monitoring additions in order to expand the city and add new lots as needed.

As a reminder, the sewers that run under most of the streets are yours to connect any basements into. They've been built in a pristine condition, you're welcome to make them look derelict with the addition of broken stone, water and anything you see fit.

Last but not least, the city's area is destined to be turned into a zombie uprising area in the future, accessible during Events Night and at large, so it will see plenty of visitors in the future.

There are a few changes and clarifications to the Nether tunnels project that will take place, and I'd like to shed some light on this. The large majority of what Sora wrote in his previous news post still stands.

- The main lines, going in all four cardinal directions, will be horse accessible either alongside the rails or through dedicated paths. Many of the private lines, going from the stations to various player bases, will be similarly done, although might not be 100% horse safe. Use caution when travelling through.
- The greek lettering naming scheme will be updated to make directions easier to follow for everyone. Each line will have its own naming pattern.
- The "owners" of each private line will have access to them, either for updates or to improve the look of the tunnels. I'm counting on you not to poke holes all over the place randomly.

In related news, Sora is being returned to his previous Helper status and is no longer in charge of this project. To keep the pool of active staff on the same level, Kagato75 is being promoted to Op status. Congrats, Kagato! On his end, UnknownEntity634 will be taking over the lead on the Nether project itself.

If someone has further comments or questions to share about all this, don't hesitate to reply to this news post.


Update: Sora decided to resign his staff position and his now back to Trusted status.

The transition to 1.7 came with many new biomes, and several of you jumped at the opportunity to explore all these new areas. Things have since calmed down, many settling in their discovered locations, and large parts of the land have remained unused. As a reference, here is a far view of the world before and after the move to 1.7.

To free up some needed disk space and tidy up the world, I'm planning another map trim operation.

Areas that I believe are currently unused and don't have any interesting value are marked in red on the map. I'm asking you to please review said areas to ensure that nothing that belongs to you is included. If there's an area that you want to keep, please reply to this news post with the coordinates and I'll redraw the markers to keep it safe. If you have a single building located in the middle of nowhere, we can also move it to another location of your choice.

You have until April 5 to review this. The server will then be taken offline for a few hours of maintenance, which will include the removal of the unwated areas.

I'm also using the opportunity to offer you to clean-up chunk edges. Sometimes, when we move between game versions, newly generated terrain will have a sharp edge featuring sudden cliffs that don't look so good. I can use a special tool in-game to smooth this out. If you're interested, please provide the appropriates coordinates as a reply to this and I'll take care of it when I have the chance!

Reminder to all players: the building contest currently ongoing in Stone Ville has reached its middle point! You have two more weeks to complete your entry or get started on one, the deadline being on March 22nd at 23:59, Eastern Time! If you haven't begun yet, now is a good moment: several people have done their own entries in a few days only, which means that you have plenty of time to gather your materials, claim a lot and get building!

Speaking of Stone Ville, I'm now opening up the place for more buildings along with larger ones. If you're done with your contest entry (or don't have one!) and want to build something different, you're welcomed to do so. Likewise, you can also make larger builds by knocking down the fence separating two or more lots if you have a bigger idea waiting to be realized. For the sake of the contest itself, however, only one 25x25 lot will be considered by player. If you end up building on more than one area, please mark your contest entry clearly with your name and "Contest entry" on a sign. Also, for all construction works, keep in mind the general theme: ruined city downtown core!

Additionally, some of you might be interested in connecting your entries with the sewers. Salifax, Kagato and a few others are busy working on an extensive sewers network running under most of Stone Ville's streets. You are free to knock down the wall between your basement and the sewers themselves and make a passage of sorts. That area will be another ground to fight the future zombie uprising!

We have a nice server, in good health, with a great player base. As you must have noticed, there's been quite some growth lately. Additionally, thanks to several generous donators, finances are in good health.

This allows me to consider the options available for future server growth. There are several ways to go forward: raise the player cap, expand the current worlds, add new ones, or even launch a second server to run special mods...! To give myself an idea of what the current player base could be interested in, I've prepared a short survey. The results will be used to gauge interest; what actually happens for future expansions might be different. Please take a minute or two to answer it!

Take the short survey and voice your opinion!!


As a reminder, thanks to donations, the server's disk space has been increased by 200% while the memory has been upped by 100% compared to a year ago! You people are great!

Sphenicus has updated the Creeper's Lab resource pack today! The changes include a swapped record, a new painting and blaze turrets. If you've accepted the server resource pack suggestion, it will automatically update itself on your next login. Otherwise, grab it from the download page!

Don't forget that requests are considered, too. Read the FAQ at the bottom of the page for the details!


Minecraft 1.7.5 coming, no problem
Mojang is planning to release a minor update, Minecraft 1.7.5, tomorrow morning. This latest version remains compatible with 1.7.4 and 1.7.2, so you're free to update to it whenever you want: you'll still be able to connect to the server.


Fire spread disabled in Stone Ville
For those who don't check news comments, fire spread has been disabled in the contest area of Stone Ville. This will make it easier to integrate fire without the added risk of burning down your entire structures!

Some of you have asked for it, and here it is: it's time for a new building contest!

This time around, we're building a new city with a major twist: a ruined city, badly damaged and ransacked after an apocalyspse. Which type of apocalypse happened is left to your imagination! The area has been designed as a realistic downtown area of a large city: the roads and sidewalks all have correct proportions and sizes as taken from real life, with a few small exceptions. The full scenery is still being worked on, with a focus on destruction and ruins.

Your goal: pick a lot in the new area of Stone Ville and build something that would usually be located in a downtown area and subsequently went through a disaster. There are many options available to you: a derelic skyscraper, a blown up gas station, a ransacked shopping mall, a partially burnt down apartment complex, a hardened survivors shelter, a flooded and moldy theater, that's up for you to decide! Be creative!




* RULES *

Contest entries must stay within the confines of a single, 25x25 lot. You own that plot of land from bedrock to sky limit. The fences defining the lot limits can be replaced, although you should check with your neighbors first if they agree to the change. Do not overstep the limits in any way.

You're also welcome to make additions past the end of the contest, or build entirely new constructions. Lots will be added as needed. Should the city be temporarily full, please don't claim any land until the Department of Urbanism had the chance to assign more lots.

Initially, only contestants can claim a lot. To do so, please place a sign with your player name and "Contest entry" somewhere visible on your property. Once things are well underway, the city will be opened at large and players will be invited to come create non-entries, second buildings or even larger constructions that wouldn't fit on a standard lot. More information on that will be available later.

Several people seemed to have run out of time during the Muncie contest. As such, and to give everyone a chance to realize their ambitions, this one will run for FOUR WEEKS. As such, it begins NOW and will end on March 22nd at 23:59, Eastern Time.


* PRIZES *

What's a contest without prizes? The following will be awarded:
FIRST PLACE: $20 Amazon.com gift card, from Texassmassace
SECOND PLACE: Dr. Cossack's Favorites: a set of items picked among the admin's favorites
THIRD PLACE: Iron pack: full set of iron armor + tools
RANDOM PERSON: A surprise participation prize!

Judging will take place after the contest period is over. The judges will go around and give a score out of ten on each entry. Evaluation criterias will be adhesion to the theme (ruined city, downtown area, realistic size) and overall quality of the build.


All those interested to participate, along with any interested observers, can now make their way to Stone Ville. From Central, head to the Nether Station on the bottom floor. Then, take the Plymouth Line to the first substation, step out of your cart, and take the "Stone Ville" line to the end.


Note that, once the contest is over, the entire place will be turned into a zombie uprising survival area. The goal is to make a large area, of several city blocks if possible. People will be more than welcome to hang around and build, although they might want to stay on their toes to avoid the hordes of zombies that will swarm the area at night!

Good luck to everyone, and try your best!

I'd like to remind new and old players alike that Saturday nights are Events Night! Starting at 9pm Eastern time and lasting several hours, this special period features several attractions that can be enjoyed by yourself or as part of a group! To make things easier, there are a number of teleporters enabled all around the map for quick travel. Also, and only during those periods, no items or experience will be lost when dying. This makes it that much easier to organize PvP matches! Note that this latest part applies to Laurasia and the Nether only: players in Gondwana, Avalonia and the End need to stay on their toes at all times!

Some of these nights are streamed live on our Twitch channel! Tune in to get a different point of view on various happenings and listen to some of us commenting server shenanigans!

The activities available include PvP arenas, parkour, mazes, racetracks, roller coasters, chess and more! For a full list, please see the page about the attractions. It has been updated with the latest additions, including Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots on the Townshend boardwalk. You can also join us for endless fishing nights, everyone hoping to score a delicious puffer fish!

Please note that Salifax has prepared something set for a grand unveiling on this coming Saturday. Join us during this week's event to discover his latest creation!

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