In-game changes

Prison

We’ve added a new tool to prison, the warden wand. We’ve also nerfed thor’s hammer so it can only break around 1000 blocks per minute, but make no mistake that it’s still the fastest tool around.

Survival Mode

We’ve added an iron-tier omnitool to the shop that acts as a shovel, pick, and axe to help you get started after reset if you want to skip the stone tool stage.

Fun facts for the winter SM map.

• There was 2,144,437 coal ore on the map, or 70% more than normal world gen.
• There was 1,367,276 iron ore on the map, or 96% more than normal world gen.
• There was 364,750 redstone ore on the map, or 93% more than normal world gen.
• There was 140,367 diamond ore on the map, or 503% more than normal world gen.
• There was 14,229 emerald ore on the map, or 33,779% more than normal world gen.

Bugfixes

• The texture in the bottom left of the game selector screen now loads instantly, instead of showing a pink & black box for a few seconds while the game struggles to load the file.
• Buttons in the BedWars shop were briefly missing text, this is fixed.
• Fixed a dupe bug in Prison related to trading.
• Although thankfulness is an ongoing practice, we didn’t intend to bring back the thanksgiving lobby yesterday. It will be swapped out sooner than you can say gobble gobble!

Infrastructure

We have been working hard on various systems in the backend, most aren’t ready to be shared but one is! This change happened way back in the fall but we’ve massively improved the joining process so even poor connections can get on to the server instead of getting a “cannot connect to server” message.

Old Maps

We’ve started digging through the archives and plan to bring some old maps back in to rotation, if only for a short time. Some of you may recognize the old lobby at the top of this post.

Support Services

We’re continuously improving our support services to ensure all queries submitted are responded to promptly. We are working on new support systems to use that will replace some of our older systems, some of which have been around since the server started – while they have served us well it is time to replace them. Some of the areas we are working on:

• Xbox Live authentication on the support forms to reduce the number of false support requests we receive and also to help our Support Team provide better assistance with issues.
• A new internal system that staff use to manage player accounts that will replace the current system in use.
• Improved internal support request processing to provide faster responses but also to improve the workflow for our staff and volunteers.

You might not physically see all of these changes, however, combined they will ultimately contribute to improving the overall experience.

Self-Help Support Website

You might have noticed that our self-help support website – help.lbsg.net – has been offline over the last few months, but fear not, it shall be returning soon. Due to some internal issues, this has been out of action since November but we’re actively working on bringing this back and we’ll let you know once this is available again. In the meantime, please continue to send support requests to our Support Team through the forms available on the Contact Us page. Of course, the self-help support hub is not a replacement for contacting us directly, it is simply there to help resolve common issues quicker with easy-to-follow instructions without contacting us directly and we hope you will find it useful once again.

We want to take a moment to thank all of the players who report rule breakers and hackers to us daily through our form – you collectively help to improve the playing experience.