Competition now closed, finalists will be announced shortly.


Today will mark the first of our building competitions, entering this competition will give you the opportunity to win instant Veteranship and Tokens for V6. The overall winning build will be placed inside the spawn of Version 6.0, forever leaving it's mark on the community.

Theme

The theme for the first build competition will be a Version 5.0 Memorial. As there will be a museum portal in the new spawn, we want to create a small area which can pay homage to the fantastic memories we have all shared in the current version. Design something that shouts Version 5.0 - Something the whole community can relate to.

As stated above this will be a fairly "Small" area so don't go too wild, once you have created the build post at least 3 images below of the finished build. When the competition ends the Admins will select the most creative builds to be put into our grand final. The overall winner will be voted by our community in a server wide poll!

Winner(s) of the build will be required to either send or give co-ordinates to the build, if building outside the server you must be aware of .schematic files as this will be the only format we accept outside the server.


Rules

- Build in an open space
- If building outside the server be prepared to create a .schematic file. (Unsure? Google it)
- Must fit the theme stated above
- Anything that is too large will not be valid

Reward

- Instant Veteranship
- Build in v6 including a plaque (sign) with your name on the build
- 5,000 Tokens

Due Date

The competition will end on Monday the 20th May 2013.

Good luck,

Noobstown Staff

Hello,

This Friday will mark our first build stream, in which you will be able to watch version 6.0 being built for around 1-2 hours. We'll be answering questions made on the live stream panel, so if you have any questions/concerns regarding the update feel free to post on there.

http://www.noobscraft.com/live/


We will be streaming on that link on Friday at 7pm BST (British Summer Time) Finished

Re-watch the stream @ http://www.twitch.tv/noobstowntv/b/389943064

Also, be sure to check out our Youtube channel for secret update videos! - Previews of the new spawn and features.

http://www.youtube.com/user/NoobsCraft

http://youtu.be/OgZoJXWaJjA

http://youtu.be/F0WB7gKFGJQ


From Friday onward we will also be enabling permanent x2 Mcmmo XP

Introducing the v6 reward program! - Rewarding all those who have spent countless hours in v5 and will continue to do so right up to the release. We want to personally reward you people, and give you a head start in v6.

How will this work?

We have planned out a selection of ways you can earn our new currency "V6 Tokens" these are similar to Points which can be spent on our Web-shop in v6. Tokens can be spent on blocks and tools to give you that extra boost when starting your brand new adventure!

How can I earn these?

Easy! Do you enjoy playing the server? Are you stuck for ideas on what to do whilst v6 is in the works? Well, here is your answer - Earn Tokens. Earning Tokens is simple, you can earn them by being online, joining in with events and even leveling skills. Level skills, huh? Well, for each power level you have we are giving you two Tokens to spend in v6 which will be converted live as you level.

Activity? :o

We are rewarding the 10 most active players of each week up until the release of v6. The total most active 100 players will be eligible for the new reformed v5 Veteran rank. The rank will have its own unique dedication kit upon wearing this kit you'll get some sweet buffs! *Speed and Haste* we are also giving those in this rank a full month of double xp on the release of v6. Staying active and dedicated to our community is something we will cherish and appreciate. So, we will also be giving those who stick around chances to part-take in BETA testing of our new events world in V6.

Competitions

Competitions will be held to give you other chances of earning Tokens and Veteran. Building competitions will enable those to have their builds showcased in the spawn of v6! *Exciting!*

Extra Benefits

Those active up until the release will also gain extra chunk claim with our new Wilderness system allowing for faster expanding on your land, this will be a great advantage to gain over other player that have to gain online time in v6 in order to unlock more chunk claims.

Information regarding your Tokens and more information can be found at: http://www.noobscraft.com/tokens

Noobstown has been running in its current main version for well over a year now (with small changes every so often!), the time for real change calls! Version 5 was built upon experience of our dedicated administration team, working to give you the best possible survival game-play a server can offer. Since the release in November 2011 I believe we have achieved this goal, with over 30,000+ new members and a great community that is actively involved with the server each and every day.

As the New Year approached development began on the next generation of Noobstown, that's right, it's what you have all speculated and talked about for quite some time. Version 6.0

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Version 6.0 - Eco-Friendly!
The new version of Noobstown has been developed to fix the flaws of our current version, we strive each day to make the server better and we feel at this stage in development we can publicly release information about the release to you; our community.

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Noobstown - Your Adventure

Upon entering Noobstown you were always given two options - Wilderness or Town, most people joined Towns for one reason: Protection. We feel you shouldn't join towns simply for protection, but for community and friendship, to learn and grow on the server as one. The Wilderness and Towns have always felt very far apart, you build in the wilderness and a town comes along and is all "Hey, that's our land back off" then generally speaking they would claim over you - Which isn't the right way about it. That's where we feel the need to introduce a two world system - Two worlds include the following: Town Wilderness Small break down of each world: Town This world will technically be the main world that will include the spawn, this will be a complete no build zone - Meaning if you aren't on town land, you cannot build as simple as that. We feel that towns need the freedom to expand, to become the empire they wish to be without people getting in their way. Towns have a strong community impact and we are strongly promoting the use of towns, to allow them to grow and flourish. Wilderness The wilderness is a world in which you can live alone or with a couple of friends, with the anti-grief system you'll be able to enjoy a grief-free experience in the wilderness to live and enjoy your time out in the wild. This goes for anyone whom wishes to have a small keeping outside of Town life.

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Griefing - Minecrafts worst enemy

So, we understand that your creations in the current wilderness are often griefed and we are aware this is becoming a growing issue as it's slowly destroying all of our natural landscape and is turning away new members. Even with our dedicated staff members that work their hearts and souls out each and every day to provide the best grief-free experience on the server, they cannot tackle the growing problem alone. We have a solution for the problem and we are going to eradicate all griefing on the server, completely - Full stop.

Anti-Grief System

This system will protect your builds in the new "Wilderness world". The entire world will act like the current towny setup but with the freedom of not being restricted by town rules and taxes; if you want to build you need to own/have permission to build! The system will allow you to purchase a few chunks (a 16x16 block area) within the game, only you can then edit these areas and build/mine as you normally would. Once you have set up a good location to build in you can purchase surrounding chunks allowing you to expand your projects and keep building! You can obviously also give building rights on your chunks to your in-game friends! To ensure that you have enough space to expand in and to ensure that it doesn't get too busy around your builds there will be limits on who can purchase those chunks directly connected to the areas you already own. The beauty of this system is that if you want to move on from your area or, a player leaves the server or gets banned then the areas that you/they owned will be reset completely! Back to the wilderness just as perfect as if you/they had never even been there! This system means also that there is absolutely no chance of a grief occurring in the Wilderness; only those you invite to your areas will be able to edit your builds!

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Economy

Noobstown has quite a stable and strong economy but we feel there are major flaws in the current system which has caused some disruption to the whole performance of growth, such as providing admin shops and global quick-access type systems. This stops players who have gathered these items from earning a fair price in Noobz - This begins a hoarding process where each player will hoard non-rare items due to the fact they are seemingly worthless. Starting this system today would seem pointless as everyone has pretty much every item they need (Older players), this is mainly due to server side shops we offered from day one. We understand people need them for convenience selling but here is where the new system kicks in... Imagine player to player trading that's simplistic - Two clicks away from a sale.

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Auctions!
Introducing the Auction house, this will be a mainly web-based system that allows you to have an "eBay" type experience in Noobstown.

How will this work?
Simple! - Transfer items in game onto your web inventory which can then be put inside the auction, simply post your items at whatever price you wish (The server will offer generated dynamic pricing depending on what past trades of the item were sold at) You don't have to follow the dynamic pricing but it will stop players from scamming/ripping you off! (Yippee)

Want to buy something? Easy! Use the search function for example: "Diamond" and you will be presented with a list of players selling diamonds from cheapest to most expensive, you may also bid on the item. The highest bidder will win an auction, once the auction has been won you will be notified via the site and our in game notification system.

To claim the item you withdraw the item from your web inventory which will then be transferred to your in game inventory. Woohoo!

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Mcmmo - Skill leveling

Balancing of skills has always been the hardest job, we want to provide players rewards for the hard work they put into their skills without putting too many valuables into the game thus ruining the economy. With the new version we will be working with veteran skill-levelers to gain the balance of progressive and rewarded leveling without causing too many problems with the economy. The aim is to create a fun enjoyable leveling system that's less like a chore.

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Borders, Sweet, Sweet, Borders
Borders are a frustrating part of the server, the whole point of Minecraft is to explore! With such a small border as we currently have this feels very restricting, well not anymore. As the server has been upgraded countless of times since the release in 2011, we are able to handle the extra load a larger world would take - Thus we are tripling the size of both the Town and Wilderness world.

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Livemap

Ever wanted to view your build from above or see the entire Noobstown world? You'll be able to in v6! The live map will be returning; allowing you to view a birds-eye view of the world, this will enable you to easily navigate around and find friends. This was taken down in the past due to heavy load on the server, but we have now eradicated that issue. This will be accessible from the site!

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Membership - Simplicity!
Our current system of membership at first glance looks easy, and it truly is; yet it has caused many problems for a number of players in the past, and has caused us to lose a considerable amount of new members. We feel that reforming this system is a must.

The system will now be a try-before you signup - Meaning the player can spend a good couple of hours playing until they are notified that to continue playing they must signup, this will hopefully give players an urge to sign-up as they have already had a feel for the community and game-play on the server.

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Waterworth's changes and input

I will not go into much detail about all of the changes as it would take me a long time, nonetheless I will explain the major changes to the Staff team, Moderation as a whole and the server events. Firstly, we are implementing more plugins to aid in server events for example we will be adding plugins to support large scale events and adventures! We will be including our own versions of multiplayer maps such as “The Walls” and “Survival Games” these events will be trialed and tested in the new version. We will also be adding automated games such as Spleef, so players can join whenever they want, and win prizes! I am also very happy to announce we will be implementing better PvP team games, such as Capture the flag – I believe this is a great change as it gives players other activities to take part in on top of the normal survival Minecraft experience. We want to make Noobscraft innovative and not just another multiplayer server The main thing I am here to talk about is Moderation, The changes to Moderation include revamping all of the server/site rules to be a lot more understandable, fair and suitable for a family-style server, I also plan to make an easier Staff application format, as the current system is quite confusing and people who are suitable for these roles may miss out because the format is unclear. We are also adding a new method of appealing for a ban; Ban appeals will be dealt with privately, so we can gather information and acquire a result quicker; it also means that players can give confidential information, without it being seen by the public. Finally, we are improving our anti-grief features as already explained, the blocks on these chunks will be protected and only be able to be broken by the owner and people they give permission to, in addition to this our /grief command will also be improved for quicker staff support. Thank you all for your support, every member of Noobscraft has contributed to our success and growth, thanks for a great two years of Noobstown and hopefully more to come! I will see you all in Version 6!

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We understand this news may be distasteful to some of you but we personally feel that the current age and state of the server is in a critical state, there is need for this update and it's not going to be easy. We believe that the version change will mean a bigger, brighter future for Noobstown that will keep it alive for many years to come with the new anti-grief system in place the world should stay fresh for a very long time.

All current data on the server will be reset, this includes the following: Towns, Skills, Money, Blocks, Items and everything else in between. This decision was not taken lightly, but if the data was moved we would be left with the current state of the server where new players are left in a dark hole in which it's almost impossible to get onto the ladder and start enjoying the server like everyone else.

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Touching on Donations
All Donation Points that are on your account at this current time will be kept for the new version - We appreciate all of the support from those who have helped us financially support the server as this has enabled us to continue doing what we love, to provide a better and more stable server for our community.

In order to ensure you don't waste your Donation rewards we will be locking down the Points shop until v6 is released, only those who are currently VIP will be able to continue their subscription of it!

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If you have any further questions that we may not have covered, please post below. Any other personal questions or details you require regarding the changes do not refrain from personal messaging me, or any other Administrator.

To the future,

Fatnoob, Waterworth, & ItsLawrence

We will obviously be posting more information and specific details as we get closer to release!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaJYef34cAo#ws

We are bringing back Moderator of the Month! ~ This means you can now vote which Moderator you found:

- Most Active
- Most Helpful
- Most Responsive
- Gave Highest Quality Moderation
- Most Friendliest
- Most Reliable

and finally the Best Overall Moderator of the Month!

We hope this will give us an understanding on the level of Moderation on the server, so vote now because you only have 14 days from the 1st of Feb to cast that all important vote!

From now until the end of the year each month you'll be able to vote for the highest achieving Moderator.

Well it's almost the end of Noobmas in Noobstown... he has packed up all his items and is preparing for the big day! (Don't forget to open your Calendar window on the 25th!)

This year Noobmas has given the greatest gift to the server.. better than anything you could have ever possible asked for (Actually this item has been asked for ever since it was removed...Over 9000 times) Pistons! Not only pistons but Villager trading too!

Break down:

Noobmas gift to the server = Villager Trading and the return of Pistons.

How will they work?

Villager trading

Villager traders will only be available at spawn unfortunately, we cannot alter ever single Villager around the world. These traders at spawn will be enable you to trade emeralds for items; that's right! it's time to use all those Emeralds you have all been collecting.

Pistons (A lot more complicated)

This is useful information regarding our updated custom piston extension cooldown system. It will hopefully outline a few of the changes we have implemented to allow you to make the most of our new pistons.

Possible Questions & Answers

• Do both sticky and normal pistons now work then? And if yes; do they both use the new extension system?
  Yes. Both sticky and normal pistons will now work as part of this update and both work using the new extension system.
• Will my contraction which does X work still?
  Whilst it would be great to be able to say yes for everything the answer is sadly no. Features which can be legitimately useful were being exploited as part of some of the piston bugs; this is what we have attempted to fix, but in doing so we know the some machines will also break.
  
• Why have you made this change?
  The change has been introduced in order to hopefully fix several bugs/exploits which resulted from the fast pulsing of pistons.
• If Mojang ever properly fix pistons will you go back to their default functionality?
  If we can ensure that the bugs surrounding pistons have been completely fixed then it is likely we will revert our custom changes and go back to the much more functional original pistons. However at the current bug fixing rate this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
  
• Has the change adjusted the crafting recipe?
  No.

How the Change Works
As to not make this post as big as the Minecraft wiki page regarding pistons (http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Piston)  I'm only going to explain how the changes we have made change how the pistons technically work.

• Pistons will retract as normal, according to the redstone signal which the piston receives. When no signal is given to a piston it will retract.
• Pistons will now only extend once every 7 seconds irrespective of the redstone signal going off and then turning back on.
• Once a piston has extended (at a certain location refer to the next point for more information regarding this) it cannot re-extend until 7 seconds after it retracts.
• The 7 second cooldown time starts from when the piston retracts and not from when the piston first extends.
• If you extend a piston at a certain location and then a new piston is put into that exact location the extension cooldown time will continue until the 7 seconds (of the original piston) has passed.
• If a piston remains powered after the cooldown has finished it will not extend until the signal goes off and then goes back on.

Important
It is important to note that this change will drastically edit the way redstone piston contraptions work, and that as this change (even though it seems small) will make many systems which require fast pulsing/changing pistons useless. It will however continue to work for certain: piston doors, simple farms, lighting systems, flip-flops, BUD switches and many other things.
It will probably take time to get used to the change however we are sure it is a much better compromise than pistons being completely disabled.

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It is also important to note that as always bug exploitation is strictly against the rules. Any bugs found must be reported immediately or action will be taken.

To all players and family of players; from all the staff here at Noobstown Have a great Christmas and a fantastic New year!

Article Image by Jayjay36 - Thank him.

Yes, indeed and boy is December going to be a great month in Noobstown! We have tons of events, fun and games lined up for you all this holiday season. The events range from new event-bots to custom plugins and even website interaction... We've really pushed the sleigh out this year!

To kick off December we are releasing our Advent calendar! Some of you may remember the calendar from last year, we thought It'd be a great idea to bring back to the server.

From the 1st - 25th you'll be able to open a calendar window each and every day. The advent windows will give you a surprise gift, as the days go on the gifts will improve. If you are lucky enough to open the 25th window you'll be in for a big Christmasy treat. Let's not forget the events! We have planned many events; one of the events includes our custom plugin "Snowball". Snowball is a game in which each player must fight, collect and throw snowballs at their opponents. A successful hit will earn you one point and the player with the highest score at the end will be the overall winner. Each player has 25 lives, if you are hit 25 times you will be eliminated. Remember! the game is about the highest score, not the last player standing. Each game will be logged and put onto the Snowball High-scores (Coming soon). The over-all winner (max points earned) of all games played will receive an extra special prize!

Father Noobmas will be in town this December, he will pop onto the server from time to time and hand out gifts to the fellow residents of Noobstown. If you are lucky enough to find him he'll be happy enough to give you a gift, just ask! You will find Noobmas at spawn, in towns and anywhere a candy-cane gift-point has been setup. Keep your eyes peeled!

All the other events will be posted on the Noobmas timetable later this week ~ Stay tuned!

I would just like to personally address this is not a religious server, we are celebrating a holiday that we can all enjoy. Don't celebrate "Christmas"? No need to worry, just sit back and enjoy the fun that takes place on the server during Noobmas.

We wish everyone a safe and enjoyable Holiday season this year and do hope you'll come along and join in with the fun!


Article Image by JayJay36 ~ Thank him!

This Monday at around 10 am GMT London time, the server will be offline for roughly 1-2 hours whilst we upgrade the server. Once again we thank you for all the support you have given Noobstown over this year and a half. The support enables us to continuously upgrade and maintain the server, to reduce lag and increase stability.

Many thanks,

Noobscraft staff