its said unable to verify username after I changed my name

It looks like you've managed to sort this now, but it is an issue with Minecraft itself. You can solve this just by closing your client or logging out of it and then re-logging in to your account again after reopening it. Then just connect to Noobstown.com as normal.

That's right! You can now play on Noobstown.com with a changed name! If you've already changed your name you can now connect as normal, and if you've been putting it off until now, feel free to change your name and connect as normal.

You don't need to do anything special really, if you change your name (or have changed it) simply connect to the server as normal, everything will automatically adjust to your new name. If you've got a site account your site account will be updated and you'll be sent an email with your new details including a new temporary password.

You can now keep track of everyone who has recently changed their name and connected to the server at https://www.noobscraft.com/namechanges/ too.

This is something that has been in the works and planned for almost two years now, it's finally here! I know this is something that literally hundreds of players have been waiting for, it's finally done!

If anyone has any problems with connecting or notices things aren't quite working as intended, do let me know though! If you've got any feedback or comments please let me know!

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If you've got any chestshops please make sure you update them to the new system before connecting with a different name.

The server is now back online after the planned maintenance earlier today. This update has brought in a number of fixes and some updates to the Wilderness and a lot of the behind-the-scenes features ready for the final step to allow name changing to come later in the month.

Included in this change were some of the bigger "Summer Updates" to the Wilderness, plus some other things. Here's some of the more important changes:

• A new command to check how many free Wilderness chunks you've got left able to be claimed as part of our free chunks system. Simply use /wild free in-game to find out how many you can claim before you'll have to pay some in-game money. (Work item)
• A small adjustment to the pricing of the Wilderness chunks (if you choose to pay for them), this is likely to be adjusted down again in the future too though
• Slime blocks can now be pushed using pistons in the Wilderness too! (Work item)
• Sponges now work in all worlds! (Work item)
• Several Wilderness bugs/fixes and small changes to make things easier to use, including:
  
  • An alias of /wild chunks list, you can now just use /wild list
  • /wild go will no longer land you in water, and will give you a minute of protection when used
  • Fixed: Daylight sensors which have been set to night mode can be toggled to day mode without building rights
  • Fixed: Blocks which are more than one block wide can be placed outside the edge of owned land
  • Fixed: Dark oak fence gates aren't protected
  • Several command descriptions and help information has been reworded
  (General Work item)
  
• The 'Moderator' title in-game has been shortened back to just 'Mod'

While it's not quite ready yet, the main reason this downtime was longer than a normal update is because it involved converting most of the data we store over to a new system ready to facilitate name changing which will be coming in just a few days now (keep an eye out for that post) !

If you notice any problems please do let me know.

Just a reminder than the Chunk of the Month competition is still on-going for September, find out more about it here. Plus we'll be bringing back regular events next month!

When i try join the server it says failed to verify username when i haven't changed it.

As others have suggested, this wasn't a problem with Noobstown, but with Mojang's session/authentication servers, I'd suggest checking https://help.mojang.com if you think we're having a problem . Glad the problem is sorted now though.

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With regards to the 'Donation' shop, maybe it is possible for instead of taking it down, remove all the items that change gameplay (Horses, chunks, rank upgrades, etc) and replace all of those with a couple of cosmetic items,  for example maybe an exclusive cape, or the ability to change your prefix in game, for example instead of [Member] you can change it to something unique that you think of, obviously there would be a character limit and no profanity etc etc, but it would keep the same colour so we can see still who's VIP, Member, Mod, etc!
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It's a shame about the x2 Mcmmo donations going away.  I can certainly understand not wanting to complicate your taxes, but Mojang's guidelines would allow that kind of thing
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Eventually there will likely be some for of shop allowing for the purchase of cosmetic only items or items which cause things for all players (such as the double mcMMO XP).

I do understand the want for this, but as I briefly explained and rueyeet touched on; doing this would create quite a task for me in terms of keeping track of sales for taxes. Since Noobstown isn't a business as such and as I currently have a full time job; any income coming from Noobstown payments would be classed as extra personal income for myself (even though it would be fed back into Noobstown) and as such I'd have to declare that to be taxed manually as part of my yearly taxes. It gets even more complicated by the fact that the majority of the time things would be ran at a loss. I'd need to weigh up the benefits of the funds against the amount of extra work to determine if it's actually worth it, and at the moment it personally doesn't seem to be of much benefit considering the time it could potentially take vs the minimal income it could generate. Directly selling things is something I will likely do longer term once I have sorted out how exactly the tax side of things would work, or if there is ever the need to increase spending and I can no longer afford it myself, or if it's something people really want I could push to get that figured out sooner. I will be probably adding a generalised 'Donate' button (for no rewards) soon as I said in the original post though.

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Maybe have a look at the optimisation of the keywords and all that stuff which makes Noobscraft pop up on the search engines and other sites like PMC etc.
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The majority of new players joining are coming due to Mineapoc. I think it'd be better to put Noobstown on other Server "showcase" websites. Might get some new members joining long-term 

While I can understand where you're coming from I personally am going to try and focus on improving the existing experience for new and existing players before we make a bigger push to try and get even more people to connect. You may have noticed that since the transfer we've been visited by quite a few new players, but many of them find the start confusing or unsuitable. Once I'm satisfied that the experience for new players is fun enough that they're more likely to consider sticking around then I'll work on publicising the server more.

Maybe a community project now and then also could be great for bringing existing people and new people on, something outside of events, maybe there can be a group competition where you're in teams and you build a new arena, or a new district for the spawn, and then the winners get the build implemented into the server. This couple maybe be done in a completely seperate world which is only open during the period of the event where you get "Unlimited" supplies (everything could be put in a chest shop costing 0nbz, but your inventory emptied automatically when you leave the world so nothing is brought out and exploited, or something along those lines that is community based, aswell as the events obviously, except with this you could just let it run for however long and just check periodically if anything is amiss!
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I like that idea, we've definitely got plans to do more community events as I said in the post above, but making group ones where you have to work together sounds like a nice idea. Not sure at the moment how we'd implement the 'unlimited supplies'  and your specific suggestion, but something to consider.

I would be happy if sponges worked again in town and wild worlds. I liked the way they used to soak up a 5x5x5 square of water back in v5 or whenever they were usable last.
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The sponges in the Wilderness will end up working like they do in towns and normal vanilla Minecraft where they absorb water and then become wet and need drying out. This is already the case for towns it just needs putting into the Wilderness too !

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If you have anymore comments or questions just reply and ask .

As promised I'm going to outline several different areas of Noobstown and my plans for them moving forward now that Foob is taking a step back from his ownership and administration role. This is on top of the information outlined at https://www.noobscraft.com/server/the-future-of-noobstown-17952/. This might not answer all of your questions moving forward so if you have any questions please just ask. I am also open to feedback about any of this, it doesn't have to be fixed in stone, so if you've got an opinion or idea feel free to put it forward.




Planned Updates
We're going to continue on with the existing plans for development, including name changing, the wilderness update, etc. The list of items available at https://www.noobscraft.com/work/ hasn't changed, I will also continue to add to this as new ideas and plans come forward. I am obviously the only developer here and as such things won't be lightning fast, but I will be spending a large chunk of my time trying to work out updates to keep new things coming to Noobstown. The final few "Summer Updates" should be released this month, this includes:

• Name Changing - This is the big one in the list, almost everything is now in place and a few players who have changed their name have already trialed this. There will be more information about how exactly this is going to work. As part of this there will have to be an update to how Chest Shops work (since they list your name currently ), but this will be explained as it happens, and I'll give you all time to adjust accordingly.
• Wilderness Updates - Things like the free chunks check commands, sponges in the wilderness, slime blocks with pistons and a number of bug fixes will be coming. As well as further adjustments to the pricing of chunks if you use Nbz to buy them.
• Head Shop - This again will be coming, the specifics of pricing and which heads will be available just need to be determined and then this won't take long to implement. If you've got any suggestions, or have any specific decorative heads you would like to see please suggest them.

If you've got any specific questions about the updates themselves just ask them.




Donations
As you will likely have noticed the "Donate" messages and links on the server and site have been removed. Currently for now we will no longer be accepting donations in exchange for rewards as we previously did. The server costs are not that high and at the moment I can afford to fund things completely myself, however in the near future I might introduce a quick and simple 'donate button' to allow you to simply donate if you really want to, but again at the moment no rewards will be given in return. Some form of revised store for purchasing things and assisting with the funding of Noobstown will likely return in the future but for now you cannot donate in the same form as you used to be able to. The reason for this relates to old changes in to the Minecraft Commerical Guidelines and also in terms of the personal complications caused by taxation which would have to be paid on any purchases made. Anything already purchased is already yours so don't worry about losing things.

This does mean a few things:

• There is and will no longer be any way to donate to get VIP or VIP+ through payments. All existing VIPs and VIP+s will keep the rank obviously but for now there will be no way to become a new one or to upgrade from VIP to VIP+. The perks of being VIP and VIP+ are going against the Minecraft commerical guidelines as such we will not be able to ever sell it in its current format again.
• Those spawners which were previously for sale on the old store will be added to /spawners at an increased price compared with the other ones. These being available for purchase using real money is going again Minecraft's Commerical guidelines and as such we will not be able to sell them to fund the server in the future.
• The purchase of additional Wilderness land or extra homes will no longer be possible. You can already earn Wilderness land for free just for playing anyway.
• For now the option to purchase 2x mcMMO XP for the whole server will be unavailable. I have however been doing random periods of double XP at random times anyway, so if you're online you might be able to take part in some of those anyway.

Events
As you are probably aware we've been quite lacking on the event front for the last few months, I do plan to change this though. As you have hopefully read Chunk of the Month has returned as the first step to improving. We'll be moving back to the more scheduled events with times and dates soon too. I'm planning to bring in some regular weekly/month recurring events, and I'm going to add a calendar/timetable feature on the site so you'll be able to look at days and see whether we've got anything special going on for that day. Keep an eye out for announcements about those soon.




The Staff Team
A few people have asked me if we're going to be getting new admins, and the simple answer at the moment is no . At the moment we aren't in direct need of such as large team as we don't have as many players at the moment. If things pick up again then I might look into expanding the team, but they aren't really needed at the moment.

As for the existing team; I'm very grateful for all of the help they provide, they're an often under-appreciated key part of Noobstown. As we need the moderation  team will expand . They'll hopefully assist me in running the planned events which will be coming soon! You can find information about the current staff team at https://www.noobscraft.com/team/.




Reduced Player Numbers
I just want to address a few people who have mentioned concern about the fact Noobstown doesn't get as many players as we used to. While I agree it's not great, it doesn't symbolise the end of the server, I've got no plans to slow down in development or features and as explained above we will be bringing back events, and introducing other fun features in the future. We will be likely introducing features to make it easier for new players to get started too, and will try to have a more active role in helping new players.

I keep saying this but if you've got any ideas for how to make Noobstown more fun so people (including yourself) want to stick around and so it's generally more enjoyable for you to play then please do suggest them. If it's a big idea I'm still open to it too, things can change and new ideas can be introduced. Noobstown is meant to be a community for us all to enjoy; ideas don't just have to come from the staff, I'm welcoming anyone to put forward their ideas.




Finally I want to give a great thanks to Foob for getting Noobstown to where it is today, and for giving me the opportunity to continue on with things now that he has stepped down. I wish him all the best in whatever future ventures he takes part in .

If you have any questions about anything mentioned above, the future of Noobstown, my plans or anything similar please do just ask.

- ItsLawrence

In other news the Map is now available again from the link at the top of the site and https://www.noobscraft.com/map/.

The server is now back online. You can read more at: https://www.noobscraft.com/server/we-re-back/.

Just to inform you that starting from this Friday (9th) evening (UK time) until potentially late into the weekend the server (Noobstown.com) is likely to be down and as such unavailable.

The downtime is to facilitate the transfer of information and connections from the existing hardware to the new machine that we'll be using moving forward. We can't avoid downtime sadly, as to ensure that the new machine is showing the most up-to-date version of the worlds ; I'll try to work as fast as I can to get things all ready and moved over to the new hardware though.

As we have an enormous amount of data to transfer and many different connections, etc. to set up I really can't give a good estimate of how long this might actually take until it actually occurs, so be aware that it could potentially result in downtime for the whole weekend (but hopefully not ). The downtime will begin from 6pm BST on Friday the 9th of September (what's that in my timezone?) though. I'll be sure to make a post here once the server is back up so keep checking back every so often you might also notice some changes to things on the site here once it's up again .

While we're down the TeamSpeak server (voice.noobstown.com) and this site should be up still, but they also both may experience minimal downtime as we have to adjust things to point at the new hardware. Nothing will be lost so don't worry about that, this is just to transfer everything over .

I hope you'll all understand the need for this downtime. Once it's complete I'll also be making a post outlining what specifically are my plans for the server moving forward, it's a big move for Noobstown ! Any questions, just ask.

- ItsLawrence


All of our other domains which point at Noobstown.com and the Noobstown game server (such as Noobs.town) will also be unavailable during this time. Any of you who use the direct server IP to connect to Noobstown.com too, that will cease to work after this downtime.

That's right we're bringing back the old Chunk of the Month competition! Each month you get the opportunity to submit a chunk you own to be reviewed in our contest, we're looking for creative, interesting and well-designed plots according to a monthly theme! You can find out about the previous winners at Noobs.town/cotm/.

I know a number of you have probably joined since we stopped doing this, and it's changed slightly so be sure to read how this works:

• Each month we'll make a post like this on the site and give a theme for that month.
• You then have the rest of the month to make design and build something in either the Wilderness OR the Town world according to the monthly theme, in a chunk you own.
• You then submit your chunk using /cotm submit while stood in that chunk. Then make a reply to the monthly post outlining your design, explain it a bit.
• At the end of the month I (and possibly other members of the staff team) will then go around all of the entries and judge which we deem to be the winner. Another post will then be made announcing the winner and all entries/prizes will be handed out.

It's very simple to take part, just use /cotm submit and post a reply to the monthly topic .

A few rules:

• Your build must be within 1 single Minecraft chunk (16x16), but height doesn't matter. If you're using Minecraft 1.10+ you can use F3+G to view the boundaries in yellow !
• You must own the land you're submitting your entry in, if it's in the Town world you must individually own the plot, and in the Wilderness you must own the land.
• You need to follow the theme.
• You need to actually build something, just submitting a simple few blocks to get the rewards won't count.
• You need to submit your design using /cotm submit before midnight on the last day of the month (UK time)! This deadline is automated so don't miss it.
• You need to leave your build up after the end of the month because we need chance to judge it!

The winner of each month will earn themselves:

• A unique winner trophy for that month
• 100,000Nbz
• Your chunk showcased at Noobs.town/cotm/
• Your name forever listed in-game when doing /cotm contests
• 5 FREE Wilderness Chunks This is irrespective of if you built in the Town world!

Plus everyone who takes part will receive a participation prize and a free wilderness chunk (again irrespective of if you built in the Town world).

Just a note of a few changes since the last time we ran this contest:

• You can now build pixel art if you want to, but we'd prefer proper building work.
• As above, this can now be done in either the Wilderness OR Town worlds! Either one is fine now, as long as you own the plot/land.
• You don't need to place the sign now, just make sure when you submit the chunk you're inside/looking at your build!
• You don't need to use your visits anymore; use /cotm submit now! If you want to change its position just use

Got any questions? Just ask them below in a reply or in-game!

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As for this month's theme! We're going to start it off again with a general building contest to see who can build the best Tree House!

The theme is: Tree Houses; take from that what you want to, it could be an actual tree house, a house made of trees, trees on a house, just the theme is Tree Houses, we'd love to see what you can build!

Just a quick post to inform you that the Mining World, Nether and End have been reset for September!

Top Voters for August will be announced later today also.

Just to let you know it's a double mcMMO XP weekend all this weekend! I hope you get chance to enjoy and make the most of it.

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We've not forgotten about the planned 'Summer' updates too, I'm working hard at the to moment to get things ready to take over from Foob next month, then the updates will continue on .

Yes please! I'd appreciate that because of how long i've been off it'd be interesting to see how much the servers grown!

Hey, sorry for my delayed response.

As you should be able to tell I've now updated your username on our systems and you should be able to get back onto Noobstown.com! This was a one-off for now though, if you change your name again you'll be blocked from accessing the server until we fully allow name changing hopefully in the next coming months.

If you notice any problems with your name not quite matching up in some areas or have any problems please let me know , this isn't something we normally do so if there are problems do inform us.

But I look forward to seeing you on Noobstown.com again in the coming days .

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Yes, the Bluex_ account is renamed from MemeGravy. Sorry about that. Thanks for helping me get back online. If possible, I'd like my Veteran tag to be transferred to the Bluex_ account and my forum account changed to Bluex_ (I don't know if that's possible, but thanks for doing what you've been able to do so far).
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So just to confirm you'd like to use the account 'Bluex_' on Noobstown.com? If so then would you like be to adjust your account to match up with that Minecraft account and new name?

You'll lose any items/land, etc. that you had in-game on the 'Bluex12345' account because obviously it's a different Minecraft account but at least you'll be able to get back online .