We're getting even closer to the end of the year, and now our week of preparations leading up to the giveaway has also concluded.

We had a great turn-out of 33 players show up this week, and as promised we whipped up even more prize packages to hand out. Some players have already received their winnings, but we've still got plenty to go around for those of you who missed out on the chance to grab them tonight. Feel free to poke MediaKlepto or SorathePumpking in-game or on Discord to catch up with us when we're around to snag a shulker full of goodies.

As a special added bonus, we also conducted a super secret raffle drawing alongside the giveaway, where a single lucky player would receive an as of yet unreleased set of Golden Warpriest Armor from an upcoming Horseman Challenge area. The blessing of the Squidgods have fallen on BiGsTiVo this time, so congrats to him!

Thanks to everyone who joined us this week, and here's to hoping for another great year of mining and crafting!

A casualty of the dedicated server move two months ago was the images gallery featuring various views of the player builds. After having to re-upload the images one by one, that gallery is now back online!

Once in a while, I generate a render of a view from the server, either of a specific player build, a natural structure, a town, or more. I brought my rendering setup back online in October and have resumed creating new images in the meantime. You can visit the gallery today and find eight new renders that weren't there before, along with all previously available ones.

If there's something you'd like to see in there, I always accept requests, so get in touch with me or leave a reply to this post!

2018 is finally drawing to a close, and what better way to celebrate than with a giveaway! This isn't a raffle in our typical style; this time everyone wins!

We've got a huge backlog of confiscated materials to dole out, as well as some science-y items to give you a headstart on the Lost Woods, the Hunter's Lodge, the End Challenge, Wychwood, and Snowhead. Prizes include materials like diamonds and lapis, collectibles like skulls, armor pieces and ammo from the various challenge areas, and shards for the different merchants. There might even be some cheeky currently unreleased items hiding in some of the loot, so it's well-within everyone's interest to participate!

The login period for this giveaway runs from 12:00AM (midnight) Sunday December 23rd to 11:59PM Saturday December 29th when drawings will be held. Every single player who logs in to the Creeper's Lab Lobby or any world accessible from it during this timeframe will win 1 of 25 different packages, randomly distributed at the end of the week. If more than 25 players are eligible, we'll either create additional packages or double-up the ones we have. No one misses out as long as they've shown up to be entered into the running!

As with all things in life, there are however a few rules:

- 1-minute minimum attendance: Stay logged in for at least 1 minute. You love us at least that much, right?
- 1 win per player: Players with multiple eligible accounts will only receive 1 prize.
- Participants much be registered: Visitors are not eligible.
- Prizes are final: Feel free to trade other players for some of their loot, but rerolls are not an option.

Good luck to everyone, and here's to another year of mining and crafting, and many more~

Many of you have heard of the newest batch of challenges to be added, from the Lost Wood to the Horsemen events. Some have already tried them, but others might have been intimidated by the potential difficulty. As such, how about getting some assistance in discovering these?

Itachi has graciously offered to bring groups of players through the Lost Woods, our Zelda-like adventure challenge. This is your chance to be guided through the experience, learning how these activities should be handled while earning various items by defeating enemies and completing section of the map! Build up your equipment!

To give you an extra hand, Events Night will be triggered for the duration, preventing you from losing your equipment on death. This will begin this Saturday, at noon Eastern time, and continue through the full weekend. This is a great opportunity to try something new in safer conditions than you might otherwise have, so be sure to show up for some fun!

Following up on yesterday's news about cards, Sphenicus has updated our Christmas resource pack! This brings it to the 1.13 data format, along with some new content and improvements. You can download it from the resource packs page!

Unlike before, this is now an add-on. That is, you want to install the regular pack, then add this one with a higher priority so you get the best results.

It's December already, and you know what that means, right? Christmas cards!!

For those new to this, every year I send out a holidays card in the mail directly to you, featuring a scene from the server, and its free! All you need to do is submit your physical mailing address, wait, and you'll get one around the holidays!

You have two ways to claim yours: in Laurasia, visit the Seasonal Park (in Central, heading North, using the Residential Line) and find the giant mailbox represented above. Get a book, write your name and address, submit it, and you're done! Alternatively, if you don't want to go in-game, you can use this special page tied to the forums.

I clear the list of submitted addresses every year, so if you want one, please send your address anew - I didn't keep it! I still have limited quantities of the cards from 2014 to 2017 available. If you want one because you didn't claim it before (or you simply lost yours), please specify a year when you put your address.

For the first release of this event series, see: here.

What better way to start off the snowy month of December than with a new Horsemen event! And it just so happens, this one is located out in the snowy reaches of the East, the Castle of Conquest! Specifically, the areas around it: Snowhead. The castle and it's grounds can be reached much like the others: During events night using the warp at the top of the Keep of Time, the warps in the Citadel, or via it's nether portal, linked out of UnknownEntity's Divine Trans Hub.




This event focuses on the Temple of Ancients, whose entrance can be found at the end of the frozen river that runs next to the castle. This event is designed in the flavor of old-school MMO grind dungeons, where you defeat waves of opponents to collect enough drops for a greater prize.

In this release, we start to more heavily dive into the building lore, which you can read more about on this page. Chapters 2 and 3 are now available! Of new loot, the Warpriest armors are now available; slightly weaker in defensive measure then the Barrows armors (while still as strong as conventional armor), with one major perk: these armors are unbreakable! Also available to create are the Godswords, powerful new swords specialized after each of the four Gods involved in the temple. For further details on all the items available, please check the newly added areas in the Cavern of Science, or directly from their villagers on the second floor of Moosemart, and of course at the event site itself, at the village of Naragun. And of course, if you have questions, throw them at your nearest Horsemen!




Part of what this (and the last) event added are these stands for Lorebooks; written books that add more insight into the areas they describe and are even collectible in a series of sorts. There are two kinds of books: the Apocalyptic books spread out across the world, at the locations they describe (released along with their corresponding events), and the Archive books, which are added to the stands at the Citadel once the next event has been released. You can identify which books have been filled out at the Citadel by the creeper heads posted on the stands (See pictured above.) Finding all the Apocalyptic books may even be an achievement in of themselves... if you get my drift!

In addition to the Lorebooks and the new additions in the Citadel's two main areas, Conquest's Quest Board is now open with another set of Horsemen Quests; take a look if you're out there! See you again on February 1st for the next event release!

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Hunter's Lodge

This month is a special month for the Lodge, where two raid bosses are available! This month, Santa and his minions are looking for a fight, and elsewhere, the boss of the Overlook Hotel is out for blood. Make sure you make your way out and give these a go! The Raid boss button will spawn both these groups, so make sure you hunt well!

---

UHC

A new UHC world is available for the month of December. It’s getting cold out there, so please be careful to keep warm… or not to slip and fall off!

Many of you have heard of the various challenge areas that have been designed and built in the past several months, many of them being spearheaded by Sora. These include the regenerating structures, the Hunter's Lodge, the Horsemen events and more. Unfortunately, some of these were temporarily offline due to changes to the game's data structures in 1.13.

We're happy to announce that the Lost Woods are now back in working condition, wrapping up the work into converting everything! This means that any and all of these events can be accessed right away. Since the list is getting rather long, Sora has compiled a description of each one along with screenshots.

The next event should arrive on December 1st!

November is back, and since it's the 11th, it means that the Creeper's Lab is now seven years old! That's a long time for an online game and community to be running, and I'm proud to say that we're in a good position to keep on going for a good while! My thanks go to everyone, no matter how old or new you are around these parts!

Quite a bit has happened in the last year, most notably the following:
- The launch of the Grindatron, a month-long event where players need to find and return a specific amount of an item every few hours. Hint: That's coming back eventually!
- A wider rotation of challenges now take place in the lobby for greater variety.
- The launch of several always-running events: the Lost Woods, the Hunter's Lodge, Wychwood forest and the Horseman quests.
- The move to a new dedicated server with increased capacities.
- The update to Minecraft 1.13, which took many, many hours of work to ensure that it'd go smoothly.

With a major game update now (mostly) out of the way, I'm ready to move forward with new projects for the community. We've got a bright future ahead of us!

I'd like to take a moment to thank all those who generously support me on Patreon. With their help (as small as $1 a month), I'm able to cover the current costs of the server along with planning future expansion that'll benefit to everyone!

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Newsletter

The first major project on that list of items I want to get done: the Creeper's Lab newsletter!

This is something I've alluded to in the past: starting now, we'll be sending up a monthly email newsletter to interested subscribers to recap what's going's on with the Creeper's Lab and its community. Some issues will include exclusive content, this month's being a new render of the Creeper Citadel. The first issue has been sent out today!

Sounds fun? You can subscribe today to make sure you never miss anything important! If you want a preview of what's to come, here's a copy of the first issue.

A new challenge is up for the month of November, accessible straight from the lobby as usual. This time around, due to the unique setting, you won't need to eat to sate your hunger. However, in keeping with UHC mode, your health won't recover by simply eating either. Good luck!

On a related note, a new raid boss is now available for the month at the Hunter's Lodge. We're making good progress on bringing everything up to speed after the 1.13 changes!

As many of you are aware by now, the update to 1.13 broke a fair amount of features and functionality that the staff has been busy fixing. Here's the status of some notable items.

Ongoing events and features
- The Creeper Citadel is fully operational and includes villagers for 1.13.
- The challenges of the End Arena are back online.
- The three regenerating structures, including Requiem and Nyx, are fixed.
- The raid boss at the Hunter's Lodge is back, with lowered HP to compensate for the downtime.
- The three difficulty levels of the Hunter's Lodge are currently unavailable.
- Famine's Woods and the Lost Woods are not available right now, but should be soon.
- Most of the teleporters are currently broken; they will hopefully be back by next weekend.

Resource packs
The resource packs have been updated to the 1.13 format thanks to Sphen! This includes the Standard pack along with the Notato and Classic Rock addons. You can download them all from the resource pack page. Speaking of, Sphen is always looking for suggestions on updates to the packs; if you have any, or ideas for new music packs, please contact him through Discord!

Achievements
Secondary features like achievements aren't being processed, but that should settle down soon. In the meantime, the stats like blocks placed/broken, deaths and damage and so on should still be counted properly.

Oceans
The new animals like live fish and dolphins spawn into the existing oceans. However, the new structures and plants like kelp and coral are only found on Tasmantis or by exploring new areas. At the same time, we've got plenty of existing oceans on Laurasia or Rodinia that could be repurposed. As such, I'm offering you the option to convert ocean locations near your builds to the new format. Please get in touch with me if you're interested, while being specific on the areas that you want changed. This will only be done on unbuilt and unchanged oceans, as the procedure will erase whatever has been built or dug at that location.

Note that the type of ocean you'd get is whatever the game will spawn: it could be a large coral reef, a set of icebergs, plain water, anything, so consider this while planning things out! This will only really work in 1.8+ chunks, as the older ones will likely generate something that's not water.

The Creeper's Lab is in the process of moving over to 1.13.2, and you're welcome to join us now!

If you've played Tasmantis before, note that everything including it is now running on Minecraft 1.13.2, and not .1. You might want to double-check your game version! Tasmantis no longer has a separate connection point, you can now use the standard play.creeperslab.net address and access it from the lobby, in the survival section. This world is the best place to look if you want to find coral, fish, or any of the new game content.

Please note that not everything is available yet. Notably, the convenience plugins ChopTree and FastCraft haven't been updated yet by their authors. Patreon backers can't set a trail right now, but that should be fixed soon. The achievements are mostly fine, and your stats are still being counted in the case of any unexpected side-effect. Some minor bugs could happen with a few actions like teleports. Most of these will be fixed in the coming days.

I used this opportunity to make various fixes and improvements to the chat system. Shiny new: cross-server private chat! You can now use /msg or /r to contact someone playing in a different server, and it'll work seamlessly. Remember to use the Tab key to autocomplete names before sending your messages. On the fixing side, long lines or messages with multiple lines used to be cut on IRC. This is no longer the case.

As many of you know, this was a complex update to process. Not only did the game receive many important background changes to its structure, there are also a lot of new items and functionality. On top of that, I migrated the entire content of the Creeper's Lab to a new dedicated server today, with a faster CPU and more storage space. As such, you might encounter weird behavior, or bugs. Some of the items you were wearing might have lost their color or some enchantments. In this case, please contact any staff member so that we can help you: items will be replaced as needed.

If you appreciate the work I've put in this update, why not consider supporting me on Patreon? Any small recurring amount helps, and in exchange you get access to a variety of goodies like an orange star, custom titles, trails, or even postcards in the mail!


With the bulk of the update work behind us, I'll soon be back at developing new features and adding new ways to have fun. Stay tuned for the next chapters of our story!

The tests I've conducted so far have been promising. While I still have some work left before it happens, I can now say that we'll be updating to Minecraft 1.13 Tuesday next week, the 23rd. I'll use the time before then to finish some needed software development along with ensuring that things are as stable as possible. A few minor items will likely be missing at first, but will be added back in when either myself or the original plugin authors take care of it. Those who have played Tasmastis should agree that almost everything is running as it should now.

This upgrade will also include a full hardware server migration which is likely to take a few hours at best. During that time, the entire network will be offline. Then, each game server's world will be converted one-by-one to the new format, coming online when ready. Laurasia will be last due to its size and complexity.

To all Tasmantis players: your inventories will be wiped when it gets merged in next week. It's important that you clear your entire personal inventory before then. This includes held items, worn armor and enderchest content. Placing all these items in regular chests will be enough to save them. I won't be able to retreive your inventory post-merge if you forget to do this, so be sure to take care of it in time!

Straight from the horse's mouth:

Welcomes ladies and gents, boys, girls, and anything in betweeeeen.
It's that time of the year again where the creepy crawlies come out to play.
What better way to celebrate it than with the end of the world!
--
The Horsemen are back, and there's bodies to mow down. This time, however, you're not the target. Everything is!

This month will begin a series of event releases focused on the areas of the Horsemen, and specific new dungeons opening related to them. How do they relate, you say? Well instead of us explaining, how about a story!

Along with each event release, two chapters of a special server narrative will also be released, so everyone can follow along. This release will be a Prologue, focued on the history of the server, and then the first chapter to open things up. The story can be accessed with the below link:
http://www.creeperslab.net/story.php

This first event will be focused on the Castle of Famine, and the surrounding area- a forest now known as Wychwood. Eight trees are spread out throughout the woods, with eight crypts below them. Seek them out, and learn the secret to accessing a special boss hidden in Famine's basement...

In addition to the items and equipment you can find within the grounds, there's an update to the Horsemen themselves. With each release, a notice board will begin to be updated on the castle grounds. This board will list "Horsemen Quests", which detail missions that can be done once a month, their objective presented to the related Horsemen in question; One of which, will be to challenge the Horsemen to PvP! Good luck!

These quests reward "Horsemen Points", which can be saved and used to trade for powerful weapons kept by NPC traders on the Horsemen's grounds.

Each update will bring these features to each of the involved Horsemen's areas, so currently only Famine's quests and grounds are setup for the moment- the other 3 areas to follow. As is the case with the Hunter's Lodge and Lost Woods, this event also has no end!

There's multiple ways to access the Castle, such as via the Nether, or the top of the Keep of Time during Events Night, but we're also adding a new method, via a new area at the center of the map!




Introducing, the Creeper Citadel! This floating fortress stands at the exact center of the server, and will be a focal point to both the story and future releases. During Events Night, there's also active warps to all 4 Horsemen Castles. The main features of the islands, currently being finished, including a physical catalogue of all items you can obtain from the Lost Woods, Hunter's Lodge, and the current and future Horsemen events to come, updated as new areas and items are released. Additionally, behind the main Citadel building, there is a building called the Moosemart! This will contain all related NPC villagers in one place- allowing trades of all sorts of shards in one place! Including all the NPCs from the Creeper Bazaar, Minetropolis Pier, and any others that have appeared across the years. The Citadel can be reached from Lily Keep in the nether, or via a warp near spawn in Central.




Speaking of the Hunter's Lodge, a new raid boss is live. You might even recognize this month's...

It's time to take another step in the process toward 1.13 with the launch of a test world for it: Tasmantis! Point your 1.13.1 client to 192.99.35.146:25567 and give it a spin!

There are still a few limitations in place, but all core functionalities are in. For starters, you can view a map of this new world, which is primarily made out of oceans. Note that this is independent from the rest of the network: there is no linked inventory or supplies, but you can still enjoy the global chat. As such, everyone is starting from scratch! For the sake of having a legit test experience, no items will be randomly spawned - this is survival once again!

Among the current limitations:
- No FastCraft, ChopTree or chairs
- There's no private chat yet
- Trails are disabled
- Some staff features are still missing (yes, we can still kick/ban you!)


Resource server

Tasmantis is not only a test instance - it will also be used as a resource world to get the new 1.13 content. You're anxious to get building and would like to get a head start gathering supplies? You can do this here! Once the network is updated, Tasmantis will be linked to it, and you'll be able to ferry your supplies back to the main worlds. It will be kept linked for a while, then eventually get retired once people lose interest. As such, I recommend not doing overly elaborate builds in it.

Please keep in mind not to store important valuables on your person or Enderchest in the long term: once Tasmantis links up to the rest of the network, your inventory won't carry over! It's better to have a storage place where you place your valuables in standard chests.

A reminder on this will be offered before the link-up happens so you can clear your inventory.


The main update

This is a prototype server being used to test the current versions of the server and plugins. Once all components are in place and I'm satisfied with the stability of it all, the main servers will be migrated over.

There are still some key elements that need work before the whole network jumps over:
- A vanilla glitch still exists where random chests get wiped during the world update process
- Some plugins haven't been reviewed by their authors
- I want to polish some new features before they go live

Only when all three of the above have been cleared to my satisfaction will we make the final migration.

Thank you for your patience!

A new UHC world has been launched for September. Accessible through the lobby as always, this new custom map might be familiar to those who who have attempted a skyblock challenge before. If you haven't... well, just be sure to watch your step or you'll quickly see what's down!

To go around some limitations, and in opposite to the usual, natural health regeneration is enabled. PvP is on, and the four usual targets are waiting for you!

---

As part of the new month, as highlighted by Sora last week, a new raid boss has appeared at the Hunter's Lodge. This new opponent, The Colossus of Rhodes, is meant to be attacked by groups of players at the same time (see: raid boss). From what I hear, this is one that you might need to hit for a long, long time to get a chance to win one of its multiple drops.

As a reminder, the Hunter's Lodge is accessible 24/7, and not only during Events Night, so you can visit whenever you please.

Good luck!

From SorathePumpking:

"Announcing the official launch of the Hunter's Lodge and Dragon Priest challenges!

In a special dual-launch, we have two new events accessible to players at all times, the Lemuria Badlands Hunter's Lodge and the End Arena - Dragon Priest Challenge!

For all who participated in the last Spiderdome science session, you will have collected some 'Shard' items. These items can be collected from unique mobs spawned in the Lemuria Badlands, by selecting a difficulty and then hunting for them. Find the mobs, defeat them, and collect their drops in order to trade for special loot!

Normally, a different raid boss will cycle at the beginning of each month- however, as we're nearing the end of this month, a temporary raid boss has been setup instead!

You can reach the lodge one of three ways:
1. By Overworld, you can reach it via a rail tunnel out of Halfway Grand Central Station in Lemuria.
2. By Nether, Southern Mainline, first sub-station: Eden Bay. Take the Lemuria Hub tunnel, and then the 'Hunter's Lodge' rail.
3. By TARDIS/Time Warp, the 'PvP & Battles - Hunter's Lodge' warp.



--

In addition to the Hunters Lodge, a new challenge has been setup in the arena located on Laurasia's main end island. Two merchants have appeared on the spawn platform, who are eager to trade for drops of Dragon Priests, which can be spawned with the button located at the bottom of the stairs up to the island. Be warned, there is no inventory safety in the End, even on Events Night!

To get to the arena, take the Northern Peripheral overworld rail out of Central, on Grand Central Station's top floor, to the Stronghold stop. Make sure to come well prepared and sleep somewhere!




Happy Hunting!"

Pay a visit to the Spiderdome this Saturday - August 11th, starting around 9:30 EST - for a special event!

We're doing SCIENCE! There are some new things on the horizon, and this is your chance to get a peak at some of them early. You'll be facing off against some new enemies, along with a chance to snag some fancy loot.

Don't forget to come prepared for combat. We'll be looking forward to killing seeing you there!

Another month, another challenge world awaits! This month will feature UHC with a custom world generation. Your main goal: survive! You can also score 5 Merit Points for completing each of these objectives, if you dare:
- Crafting a bookshelf
- Crafting an enchantment table
- Access the Nether
- Pick up a blaze rod

This will be the last challenge with a fully customized world for a while at least, as the ability to generate them is going away with Minecraft 1.13. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Today, Mojang has released Minecraft 1.13, the Update Aquatic! I know some of you might be anxious to try it, but you'll need to stay on 1.12.2 to connect to the Creeper's Lab for the time being.

Some of you are aware already that this new game version includes a lot of technical upgrades, many of which break internal compatibility. The Spigot team estimates that the amount of changes is about the equivalent of 1.9 to 1.12, combined. This means that a lot of server plugins will need a review and updates before we can safely look forward. We have to wait for some plugin developers to refresh their code, while I'll have to take care of some changes of my own. As such, it's likely that this will need some time. Your patience is appreciated!

Keep an eye on this space for later updates!

I've expanded today the list of destinations where the news are propagated to include some of our social network channels. Most notably, you'll now get updates the moment they get posted on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter as well! This is meant to complement the content that these pages contain, and not replace it. You can still look forward to fun images, videos and community updates as they come!

This enhancement means that you can now follow the news of the Creeper's Lab in seven different locations:
- The website
- The forums
- Using the RSS news feed
- In the #news channel on Discord
- On Facebook
- On Twitter
- On Tumblr

Additionally, we'll now make an effort to register the dates of all events in our Steam group. That way, if you're logged in to Steam, you'll automatically get a notification the moment that an event is starting!

To benefit from this, follow us on any and all of the platforms above!

On a related note, we're still in the planning stages for a Creeper's Lab newsletter, to be sent out by e-mail once a month or so. If you're interested in receiving that, please subscribe using the box at the top of the news on the website!

Rumors have been filtering through the forest for a while now, and it's time to pull the curtain: the Lost Woods are awaiting heroes to free them from evil!

Sora has prepared a large playable area named the Lost Woods. Strongly inspired by the Legend of Zelda series, this new game situated on Laurasia's overworld involves an adventure through its namesake forest, on a quest to gather items and eventually earn the Master Sword. What will you encounter along the way? New monsters! Treasures! Dungeons! Challenges! And more! Additionally, the completionists will want to search and find the 100 Gold Skulltulas that have been scattered all over the place.

It is highly recommended that you bring in plenty of food along with a few shulker boxes to store the various drops that you can earn while exploring. Armors and weapons are left at your discretion: many enemies will drop valuables, and there are a lot of treasure chests to be found to help you along the way.

Please note that, due to its nature, only one person may enter and move through the Great Deku tree at a time.



You are invited to come discover this next weekend, starting on Saturday July 14. To get there, visit the End of Time in the Assorted Attractions category, and go up a floor to the Halloween Town door. Exit the plaza to the East and follow the path heading North until you reach the limit of the woods.

As this place is massive and a single playthrough will require several hours, Events Night will be running all weekend. We'll open the doors at noon on Saturday and keep things running until the end of Sunday. This means that you won't lose your precious inventory upon dying, which is something that you might very well need to rely on! Additional play windows might be added later on based on your feedback.

Who's ready to stand as the Hero of Time?

After (re-)discovering the limitations from the old Minecraft Classic game mode, several people followed their inspiration to create various builds and pixel arts. In total, nine entries were judged and ranked to obtain the top three winners:

First place: IncognitoLens
Second place: Coneva
Third place: Castoh

They have earned respectively 50, 30 and 15 Merit Points. Congrats! You can now view the full list of entries on this page.

As a reminder, the Minecraft Classic simulation is still available a free build area until the end of the month, so don't hesitate to drop by for a bit of creative output!

A full year of contests and events has wrapped up, with everyone getting the chance to gather points, and it's time to announce the results! Without further delay:

First place: axe_y, with 205 points!
Second place: Raegal, 123 points!
Third place: Doctacosa, 117 points!

I'll remove myself from the running, which puts Coneva in third place with 99 points. Congratulations to everyone, and I hope you had fun along the way!

As a reminder, here are the prizes that were eligible to be won:

- $20 USD / $25 CAD Amazon.com gift card - Buy what you want!
- Any Steam game of your choice up to $20 USD / $25 CAD - More gaming!
- Lego Minecraft #21119 - The Dungeon - For real-life block handling!
- A MineToys figure - Get your Minecraft character to stand on your desk!

I'll be sending all the winners a private forum message explaining the steps to claim their prizes.

---

I'll be reorganizing the Merit Points system a bit, including how to earn and spend them. Between this and the upcoming work related to the update to Minecraft 1.13, I'll skip running a challenge for this month. Not to leave you empty-handed, I have set up our Minecraft Classic simulation for a free building period. You can access it right now straight from the lobby, in the Challenge section. You're welcome to build whatever you want, as much as you want, in creative mode - just keep in mind that there is no specific reward attached to this!

Being a public Minecraft network comes with some challenges, especially when it comes to managing new players. Not everyone works out, and some actually need to be forcibly removed for the best of the community.

In order to make the list of bans more available to everyone, as well as warn others of potential issues, we've compiled a public Wall of Shame. This lists every single ban that happened on the Creeper's Lab history, along with an explanation if available, and gets automatically updated the moment someone new gets kicked out.

This will mostly replace the forum topic that some of you might already be familiar with. This new page is more complete and precise thanks to it including both usernames and player UUIDs.

Ahh, Minecraft Classic. Many of you never experienced it, but it's the point in Minecraft's lifetime where the game really started to get noticed and reported on. The game received a lot of improvements since then and is quite different, but how about we look back at what used to be the hottest game to try?

Introducing the June 2018 seasonal contest: Minecraft Classic! I've created a simulated copy of the old mode within the seasonal server. This includes the following limitations:
- The world is limited to 256 x 256 x 64 blocks only
- Playable in creative mode
- A limited list of materials is available

What you build is up to you! Pixel art was especially popular in that era, but any type of build is accepted, at any size, as long as it uses a reasonable amount of room so that other players also have room to grow.

This is the last event of the current cycle of Merit Points, along with the June UHC challenge. Score points now; the winners of the past year will be announced after this, along with an updated points system!

A map is available for your convenience.


Rules

As indicated above, you'll be building in creative mode, with the full ability of flight. You can only build up to y=63, so be sure not to cross that threshold. You can pick your materials from the creative menu, but keep in mind that only the following will be available:
- Cobblestone
- Bricks
- Dirt
- Wooden Planks
- Leaves (Oak)
- Glass
- Stone Slabs
- Moss Stone
- Saplings (Oak)
- Flowers (Red and Yellow)
- Mushrooms (Brown and Red)
- Sand
- Gravel
- Sponge
- Wool (all 16 colors)
- Ores (Iron, Coal and Gold)
- Iron block
- Gold block
- Bookshelf
- TNT
- Obsidian
- Bedrock
- Sign

The space is limited, so you might need to get close to other players. Still, please leave at least 3 blocks between entries. Also, place a sign on your entry so we know it's yours. You can make multiple builds, but only one will be judged - please mark it as your selected one on a sign if you've got multiples.

This contest takes place on the Seasonal server, which is accessible through Laurasia's TransHub in Central. There is no exit portal (buttons didn't exist in Classic!), so remember that you can /lobby out at any time to head back to a different world.


Prizes

The top three entries as selected by the contest judges will consist of the following amount of Merit Points:
- First place: 50
- Second place: 30
- Third place: 15

This is your last chance to score points before winners are announced, and there are multiple prizes on the line, so be sure to participate! There are physical and digital goodies to be won! As this happens in creative mode, you don't even need to gather any supplies. As always, you can see your current position on the leaderboard.


Interested in judging for this? Please get in touch with me!

This contest will end on the 30 June, at 23:59 Eastern Time. That gives you three weeks to realize your best ideas!

Good luck!

A few weeks ago, you were asked to vote on the Lemuria contest entries that were built by the judges of said contest. Three entries were eligible, with these final results...

Doctacosa (hi!) got the first place, while both MediaKlepto and MineshaftBob ended up tied for second place. The Bobs each won an increase of $5 on their Patreon pledging values, provided by Sora, while my own prize is still being worked on. Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote, and congrats to everyone involved!

If you're looking forward to a new building contest, I might have some news for you very soon, so keep an eye on this space!

I'm going to take some time next Sunday, the 27th, to upgrade the dedicated server's operating system to the latest version. I'm planning to start the process in the morning. This is something that'll take a few hours if everything goes right, or a day or two if problems happen (hopefully not!). During that time, many items will be offline, including but not limited to:
- The Minecraft servers
- The Starbound server
- The Discord - IRC chat bridge
- Some of the subdomains (like the server maps)

The Discord server will remain available during this operation and I'll be around to keep you informed. I'll also use this opportunity to perform more in-depth backups than usual to ensure that we can quickly get back on our feet if anything goes wrong down the line!

The points for last month's challenge map have been awarded to everyone who visited it. I hope you had enjoyed your visit!

This month, we are going back to UHC. A new world has been introduced, low in size but high in challenge! As always, PvP is enabled, and you can earn 5 Merit Points for reaching each of these targets:
- Crafting a bookshelf
- Crafting an enchantment table
- Access the Nether
- Pick up a blaze rod

If you attempt this or not is up to you, but a visit should at least be in order!

For various reasons, some large regions have been claimed over time: big cities, natural reserves, large building projects, etc. To help new and old players alike to identify these regions and avoid trying to build when it's not possible, they have now been flagged on the map. You can hide these markers by using the layers button at the left and unchecking the "Regions" option if you so wish.

If you can think of other areas that should be identified, please reply to this news post or contact me directly and I'll take care of it.

I've also taken this opportunity to clearly identify the main rail lines of the overworld, especially the four cardinal ones. You can make them appear by checking the "Rails" layer option.


On an unrelated note, I've made some changes yesterday to the players list seen in-game, which you usually bring up by holding the Tab key. That list will now display the players across the network instead of only being focused on the location you are on. Players marked in white are on the same server as you, while those in grey are somewhere else!

It's been awhile, so I figure it's time to see if I can kill.... Er... Entertain the lot of you.

This Saturday, April 21st, at 10pm est, I am inviting everyone to Skelebrony Nether Fortress. This has been my private hunting grounds for a long time, and for one night only, I'm letting people in. However, it costs a diamond at the door.

For the event, there's a few rule changes. I'm sure you'll notice it right away, so we'll keep it mum. Some stated rules will be, no looting swords, no unfair advantages. The aim is to collect wither skulls, whoever manages the most in the time, gets the stash of payment diamonds. Then everyone can take a turn in the Wither Lounge "cashing" in your skulls for precious stars. You will be directed where to go before the event.

Afterwards, if there's still participants that want to, some nether spleef at the Coldstone Crematorium can take place, or other activities in the area.

- Masterlink

At long last, here are the results for last year's Lemuria building contest!

Each entry in Minetropolis, Halfway and West Halfway has been judged according to the initial set of criterias. Then, each player's scores were totalled to know how many points they earned in total. Visibly unfinished entries weren't counted. From there, we know who came out on top!

Without further wait, the final scores!!

Primagen: 1309
axe_y: 1075
Coneva: 869
Lacar: 432
Castoh: 212
Merls: 107
AshaLina: 104
Connovan: 102

Congratulations to all! This means that Primagen, axe_y and Coneva have each earned a prize. Here's what they win, from the original news post:
Each person in the top 3 can choose either a $50 amazon giftcard, a 3D printed statue of their minecraft skin, or an additional minecraft account, in addition to the below merit points:
--1st Place: Choice of one of the above prizes, and 50 merit points
--2nd Place: Choice of one of the above prizes, and 30 merit points
--3rd Place: Choice of one of the above prizes, and 15 merit points

The fourth place, held by Lacar, also wins a little something in-game! Sora will get in touch for you to claim your prize. The full list of entries and comments can be viewed on their individual pages: Minetropolis, Halfway and West Halfway.

And that's not all!

Three of the judges have also made entries set to be ranked separately. Please vote for your favorite! These final results will be published in a week or so.


All three locations have several building lots available still, and you're welcomed to claim one or several to create something of your own. The goal is to eventually fill in all available spots!

We hope that you enjoyed this large-scaled event and will join us on the next ones!

The April challenge is now live! This time around, I've pulled something from the archives: you get to explore a world that was only available for a single day, two years ago, but this time with a full month ahead of you to dive in deeper... or get higher?




This is a free month: you don't need to hit any specific targets, just entering the world will be enough to score 5 Merit Points. That gives you all the latitude to have fun exploring this world and make what you can of it. You'll find it in the lobby, as usual.

The points for last month's parkour challenge have also been attributed. Congratulations to axe_y, who was the only one to actually make it all the way through!

Looking for the long-awaited results of the Minetropolis contest, or to be on the receiving end of some SCIENCE? Well, you're in luck, as Sora's got news on both fronts!

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It's just about time for another -WTF is Sora doing now-.

"Hey Sora where's the contest resuuuuuuults?"

Hush your facessssss, judging just completed. Point compiling is nearly done, and we'll have results and winners posted on April 4th, so tune in Wednesday ya vultures.

But that's not why we're heeeeere.

I'm inviting everyone to a special 'Science' edition of Spider Dome, and you're all my guinea pigs.

Yes, you should be afraid.

There's a few new events in the works, and a couple of them involve... well, science.
And what better way to test science than on all of you!

It's not just all for my amusement, however, and there will be rewards to be gained from what you can.. collect.

Stop on by Spiderdome this Saturday at 10pm EST for a... Party? Party.

Need a break from trying to conquer this month's Kenorland challenge? Maybe that gave you a taste for more parkour?

Well, you're in luck! We now have two extra courses thanks to Coneva and SorathePumpking. Both have been tested and are awaiting your presence! You'll find these in the Games section of the lobby, under Parkour. We now have a total of 8 courses for you to enjoy.

You'd like to design a course of our own? Make your way to Central, enter the "Game Dev" teleporter in the TransHub, and claim an available area! You are free to build what you want in creative mode to be potentially included in the lobby later on.

Let's try this again.

It turns out that too many people were busy dancing in green tutus while holding shamrocks last weekend, and our special event for St. Patrick's Day couldn't take place as scheduled. Worry not, though, for we're going to try and make that happen NEXT weekend! You can look at the previous news post to get an idea on what's in store.

As such, you're cordially invited once again for our green-themed SpiderDome event this Saturday, the 24th, at 10pm Eastern time. Bring your courage and earn some precious gems for your efforts!

Are you game for a gathering to gain gems from green ghouls?

At MineshaftBob's calling, you are formally invited to join us on this St. Patrick's Day, Saturday the 17th, for a special themed SpiderDome battle! You will be tasked to fight waves of zombies and attempt to gather their rotting meat... or fall in the attempt! You'll then be able to trade said meat for some precious gems. As always, a few surprises are likely, so you won't want to miss this!

The event will start at around 10pm Eastern time, during Events Night. Don't be late!

Laurasia's End has been cleared tonight to open the way for new explorations. Everything has been reset save for the initial platform: Sora built an arena of sorts to improve on the scenery and change from the usual battle. This also saves you from random dragon attacks that could send you down the void before you could even realize what's going on! To compensate on this making things slightly easier, I've removed the End from DynMap's display: you're on your own while you explore this final frontier!

For those of you who might not be aware, I periodically reset Laurasia's end to make it easier for everyone to explore the place and find new End cities to loot and supplies to gather. To fight a new dragon, you'll need to place four Ender crystal around the exit portal. If you want to build more permanent structures instead, please make your way to Rodinia's End, which is permanent and even has a few rail lines for your convenience.

In related Laurasia news, this is a reminder that the scheduled map trim will happen in less than two weeks. I've redrawn some regions to account for the feedback I've received so far. If there are still areas marked in red that you want to keep, please contact me before this happens!

Another month, another challenge!

This time, it won't be your survival skills that are put to the test, nor your fighting abilities. This is all about precision movement, as you'll be facing the toughest parkour course available on the Creeper's Lab: MountainB0y's Cobalt Mines! Your goal is simple: make it to the end. The details are left up to you!

Each player can earn up to 20 Merit Points for completing the challenge. The farther in you get, the greater amount of points you'll gather, so don't hesitate to give it a shot even if you think it's impossible. While this course is already available in the Parkour section of the lobby, please use the copy available in the Challenges section to ensure that you benefit from the extra tracking I've setup. Hunger doesn't decrease while in there, so you won't have to worry about that. Just make it to the end!

Good luck!

To keep the file size of Laurasia, our largest server, manageable, I sometimes delete old and unused areas. It makes things likes backups easier to manage, and it ensures that some areas are clean when people decide to explore the unknown. It's been a while since this last happened, and it's time for some housecleaning!

I've marked in red a set of regions on Laurasia's map. These are set to be deleted unless someone tells me that its worth keeping. At such, please look at the map closely to ensure that everything that belongs to you and that you want to keep is outside of the red areas. If something isn't right, please reply to this news post or contact me directly with coordinates and we can look into redrawing the borders or moving your buildings to a new location.

The trim will happen sometime on or after the 24 March, so you still have weeks to check through everything. Still, I suggest you do it early to make sure that you don't forget!

February's challenge is now live! This time, we're going back to UHC (Ultra Hardcore), where survival is paramount! The world is locked to hard difficulty, and your health doesn't regenerate on its own, so you need to be very careful not to take in much damage. Also, if you die for any reason, you'll be thrown out of the world for a week, so be careful!

There are four individual targets to reach during the month. Each completed one will earn out 5 Merit Points:
- Crafting a bookshelf
- Crafting an enchantment table
- Access the Nether
- Pick up a blaze rod

PvP is enabled, so thread carefully.

This, like other challenges, is available right from the lobby. Good luck!

They ran, they ran, or at least they tried. The (probably too) large amount of mobs in this perpetual night setting definitely challenged people, and deaths were plentiful. Still, several tried, and two ranked especially high. Here's the list of runners along with their highest distance covered during the last month!

Kagato: 96776
Lacar: 61408
axe_y: 9703
Primagen: 4070
Doctacosa: 3931
MadSciMerls: 1001
MineshaftBob: 866
TasteTheDragon: 768
Raegal: 604
YukiLoveYu: 319
Zamwich: 196
SorathePumpking: 67
Coneva: 8

Congrats to everyone! The promised amount of Merit Points have been handed around. A new event in Kenorland will follow shortly!

Some of you ask once in a while how you can help the Creeper's Lab. We've got some ways, like the Patreon campaign for monthly contributions, but that's not an option for everyone. I now have another alternative for you!

The Creeper's Lab is listed on various Minecraft servers lists so that new potential players can find us. It's possible to vote for us on these lists, daily, to help improve our rankings and visibility. I've created a new, convenient way for you to find these voting pages: typing /vote in-game will display clickable links, so you can easily go and access each page. It takes only a few seconds to fill-in each one! Typing /vote again afterwards will then grey out the sites that you've already used for the day.

Want to do that, but not log in-game? That's easy too: access the Servers > Help & contributions page, and you'll find the available voting links there as well.

To thank you for taking the time to vote, you'll earn a Merit Point every day that you vote on at least half the available options. That's up to 31 points that you can win every month by helping us, and you don't even need to get in-game to do so! Type /vote in-game, or bookmark the Help page, and you're on your way!


This is part one of two updates. A later addition will give you more opportunities to use your Merit Points in new and fun ways, so you might want to start earning as many of them as possible starting today!

A new FTB Server has been opened! We have started a new server for SkyFactory. Upon initial spawn a tiny island will generate for you and your goal is to build from that! you start with 1 block of dirt and a single tree. Can you create a vast base and discover the secret to branching out? You can launch the game from the Feed The Beast Launcher the same as Altera! Simply select SkyFactory 3. Server address altera.zonexus.net

The bulk of the holidays are over, and some of you probably ate a bit too much food. It's time to get back into shape with some running exercises! Race Away is back!

For those that don't know, the goal of Race Away is simple: run east on the X axis, as far as you can, and cover more distance than the others. The higher your ranking, the more points you earn! If you die, you get sent back ALL the way to the beginning, so slow and steady might be a better strategy than fast and furious.


Goal

Get to the highest X coordinate that you can on Kenorland. That's it! If you die or backtrack, your highest position overall will be saved and used as the final result. The inventory in Kenorland is separate, as always, so you can't bring anything: you'll have to craft your materials right on site.

This event will last for the full month of January.


Rules

To keep the file size of this manageable, the world is limited to -300 to 300 on the Z axis. Any attempt to move further out than that will bounce you back inside. PvP is disabled. A small area around spawn is mob-proofed to give you a chance at gathering a few basic supplies before starting your run.


Prizes

All runners will earn Merit Points based on the amount of participants, plus a bonus. Let's say that 10 people enter this month: whoever comes up first will earn 10 points, the second place 9, the third place 8, and so on. If there are 15 entrants, the first place will get 15 points, second 14, etc. On top of that, a bonus of 10, 5 and 2 points respectively will be handed to the top three runners. This way, everyone gets something, but the best results are rewarded too!


Good luck!

Fancy new header images provided by xray!

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I'm replacing the monthly UHC world in Kenorland with a larger rotation of events, called Challenges. This will ensure that things don't grow stale due to the repetition. Events similar to this month's Race Away and last month's Grindatron will be part of this new rotation, while UHC and special worlds with specific targets will be included as well.

If you have comments on this or suggestions to offer for future challenges, don't hesitate to comment on this news post!

About 170 cycles later, the Grindatron has finished offering targets at our players! Everyone who participated earned their own score as Merit Points. Here's the final list of results for all entrants:

Raegal: 118
axe_y: 115
Doctacosa: 54
Coneva: 53
Kagato: 23
MineshaftBob: 16
Primagen: 15
MediaKlepto: 14
Lacar: 13
GingeKoda: 8
MadSciMerls: 5
UnknownEntity634: 5
TasteTheDragon: 1

The points have been added to each player, and the leaderboard now reflects that.

Everyone who tried it seems to have enjoyed the Grindatron, so it's likely to make an encore at some point. For now, something else will take over either tonight or tomorrow to keep you busy and active, so be on the lookout for that!