As many of you are likely to be aware; Mojang recently updated their information regarding the updating name changing abilities within Minecraft. (https://mojang.com/2015/01/announcing-minecraft-name-changes/). As we explained several months ago (https://www.noobscraft.com/server/username-changing-minecraft-1-8/) we will not be supporting the ability to change your username at the point that Mojang is releasing it.

On the 4th of February they plan to enable the ability to change your Minecraft username. If at this point (or any point up until we announce it is possible) you do change your name to anything other than exactly the name we have recorded you will be unable to access any of the CloudSquid servers.

As explained several months ago; we use a large number of plugins on our servers which provide extra functionality such as Towny and mcMMO, etc. Most of these plugins store data about you by attaching your information to your username; this won't be possible in the future as you will have the ability to change your name. Whilst we have taken steps to ensure all our custom plugins are updated to the new system of using user ids, as you know we don't develop all of the plugins we use; and we cannot force third-party developers to adopt this change.

Several months ago we introduced a system which will block all users who have changed/are using a changed name; this is still in use! If on or after the 4th of February you choose to change your name you will not be able to access Noobstown! This change is hopefully only temporary but is necessary to ensure the safety of your in-game items/land/experience and the server as a whole. It is however likely we will continue to use this for the foreseeable future, if you have no plans to change your name then you will be completely unaffected by this change. As part of this update you will be unable to access any of the CloudSquid servers plus your Noobscraft.com account if:

• You change your username to something different to the exact one you've already used on our servers. (This includes adjusting the case of your name!)
• You use a username which has already been used by another user of our servers.

Just to make that clear: if you decide to change your username you will be unable to access the server or site for the foreseeable future. This will also not be considered a valid reason for inactivity in regards to land.

If you have any questions regarding this change (both the change to Minecraft and our change) please feel free to reply to this topic.

Wait, if we can't come on the server if we name change, then we are inactive, technically, right? Our towns (or anything else) would think we are inactive and remove the plots we have because of the confusion if there isn't a solution available for the name changing at the time. If we DO name change, then how are people going to find out that we have and not left the server?

If you change your name you won't be able to access the server or the site; we won't currently support name changes, to players yes it would appear as though you were inactive, and your land, etc. may be cleared.

If you make the choice to change your name you need to be aware of the consequences of doing so; effectively everything you have on Noobstown will be lost if you do it. This is exactly why we have been posting warnings for months and have made this topic; if you change your name you will be effectively automatically banned. We would suggest that you do not change your name if you want to still play on Noobstown at this time.

When you say that we wont be able to join, you mean as the previous account, right?  Because i would think that changing your username would just make you appear as a new MC account or do the pluggins detect if your username is actually one that has been changed?
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Your account will be unable to connect with whatever username you have changed to; the previous name will no longer exist. If your name is changed then the account where you changed the name won't be able to connect. If you aren't using your original name or you are using a name which has already been used by someone else you won't be able to connect. The system knows all previously connected names and accounts and checks these to make sure you haven't joined before with a different name.

Hopefully that answers your question, if not please explain in more detail exactly what you're asking.

I assume that if you change your name and then change it back again you should be able to join again.

In theory yes you would then be able to join again, but it would take over 2 months (with the 30/37 day delay between changes) and you risk losing the name if someone else wants it. It isn't something we'd advise.

Sorry, i wasn't really clear on what i asked.  So if someone wanted to start anew on the server for some reason with a new username, could they change it and still join?

No, if you change your name you will not be able to access the server. We can't support users who are connecting with different names (even if they don't mind losing everything) because once we reach a point where we are able to support the name changing your account would appear twice in our system (if you were able to connect with the changed name); this would likely lead to some complicated problems.

You'll most likely have to wait until the plugins are updated. That would be a lot to keep up with. Who's who and who wants to be who. haha if that makes sense.

What are other servers doing in order to keep up with the updates?