Hello everyone, welcome back to another edition of Community Highlights! For anyone who is new here, in this thread I compile lots of information about amazing updates and community content over the latest month into just one thread. You can find the previous edition here. As mentioned in the previous edition, this thread will be slightly different from now on, with a little more focus going towards news and updates. Although it still has community aspects, I'm curious what you all think about potentially renaming the thread or keeping it the same, and if yes, if you have any ideas. Feel free to discuss it in the replies down below. Otherwise, let's get started!
Summer at CubeCraft 
It’s summer time at CubeCraft! This summer brings what seems to be widely considered one of CubeCraft’s best seasonal updates in the recent years. Many of the past seasonal updates have needed to be simplified or had parts missing due to a lack of resources while other projects are being worked on, however this time we have seen the return of many of the players’ favourite seasonal features.
First, there’s a brand new lobby, complete with an ice cream hunt with a win effect reward. Many of the old summer maps have returned, along with five brand new ones. The team must have been working hard, as they have brought us yet another new bundle - the Tropical Bundle! This bundle has been available in the weekly shop rotation along with three returning summer bundles - the Beach Bundle, the EggWars Summer Bundle and the SkyWars Summer Bundle.
CubeCraft is also hosting a summer competition on the Discord server. You can submit any type of creation you want, including selfies, skins, pixel art and Minecraft builds. Submissions are open until September 2nd, and prizes include having your creation displayed on the main hub board, Bedrock game ranks and summer bundles, and a Java Obsidian subscription.
You can find out more about the summer update from the official news post here!
A render of the new summer hub by CubeCraft
BedWars on Java 
After four months of BedWars being exclusive to Bedrock, it finally made it to the Java network on July 17th! BedWars was released as a beta game on Java, providing teams of two with six different maps to play on.
As well as this, BedWars also received a minor update on both platforms. A new hat has been added, named the skeleton hat, which reduces enemy turrets’ range by fifty percent. Wearing this hat may give you an easier time getting through the other teams’ defences in order to break their bed. With the addition of this new hat, the other hats have been rebalanced. The regeneration hat and the anti knockback hat now cost twenty gold each and their effects have been significantly decreased. This change was met with mixed reactions from the community, with some players liking the changes and others believing that the hats are not as useful as they once were.
There are some other quality of life changes included in this update. You can read the official news post here for more information!
A screenshot of the new BedWars NPC in the Java lobby
Battling Buddies 
On July 30th, CubeCraft released two new content packs onto the Bedrock network - the Kaiju Pack and the Mecha Pack. Both of these come with a buddy, a cage and a prefix and cost 990 minecoins each. But there’s a twist - the Kaiju buddy and the Mecha buddy don’t get along very well, so if they see each other in the lobby, they will fight! This is a fascinating demonstration of interaction between buddies, and I am excited to see what more could be done with this mechanic in the future.
Two new maps were added alongside these packs. The first is a SkyWars teams of 4 map named Hangar, and the second is a BlockWars CTF map named Clash. Due to the gamemodes, both of these are exclusive to Bedrock.
While some players have expressed how much they love the design of the cosmetics, many have mentioned that the bundles are very expensive, with one user suggesting that 660 minecoins each could be a more reasonable price. Some players were also confused by the teaser, shown below, as it looked like a teaser for a major update.
Click here to read the official news post on these pack releases!
A teaser of the new packs a few days before their release.
Changelog 
Now that I’ve covered all of the major updates, let’s take a look at some of the smaller changes. This section aims to include things that are public/revealed information but were not mentioned in places where they would be easily seen.
July 1
- Wither and ender dragon spawn eggs have been removed from Pillars of Fortune. The team mentioned on one of their TikTok posts that ghasts, blazes and vexes will remain as you can avoid them or fight back.
- Three of the buddies that are unlockable via VIP levels have received refreshed designs. These are the robot buddy, the tiki mask buddy and the monkey buddy.
- Extra kill messages have been added to the Obsidian subscription on Java. This was a previous feature of the plus rank, but was not included in the new subscription ranks before. Players with this rank will now see a variety of different kill messages in chat when they kill a player.
- A new prefix has been added to the forums called “Unofficial Giveaway”. This prefix will be added to all community giveaways to indicate that CubeCraft is not responsible if giveaways are cancelled or rewards are not received. You can add this prefix yourself when hosting a giveaway.
- @Eli and @JokeKaedee have been promoted from Helper to Moderator. Meanwhile, @Basketman has left the Helper team.
- The VIP levels option has been removed from Discord support tickets, as bugs connected to VIP levels are now resolved.
- Five seconds of spawn protection has been added to BedWars, and players can no longer place blocks on the inside part of the islands.
- The chat filter has been made less strict on signs and in party chat.
- French support tickets are now available in the Discord server.
- The Kaiju and Mecha packs now come with prefixes [Kaiju] and [Mecha]. These prefixes were not included in the original release of the packs but they were added after it was mentioned by a community member.
What’s Next? 
CubeCraft has a public update board, which is a great way to see some of what the team is currently working on. This month, “Secret Project #1” has been moved back to the in progress section after previously being in testing. Camezonda has mentioned that the game is being tweaked which is why this has happened. By sending this message he has also confirmed that the secret project is definitely a game.
Everything else on the board remains the same. A lot of projects that were previously on the board have been released this month, which could explain why nothing new has been added or changed.
Community Spotlight 
In this part of the thread, I share some highlights from CubeCraft’s community spaces. Usually this includes suggestions and creations, but really anything can qualify. The highlights are not always the most popular but tend to be original, thought-out ideas and posts of high quality. This may be slightly rushed due to the new format I'm trying and my eagerness to get this thread out today, but I'll do my best to improve it for next month!
Gifting Incentives
by @ReesleReesle suggests an incentive to encourage players to gift others. The proposed system works similar to VIP levels, in that the more gifts you give, the better the rewards you receive. These rewards are exclusive loot items that can only be obtained by gifting. The idea is that this will encourage players to gift others, in order to unlock this exclusive loot.
Achievement System Overhaul by @Blom
Blom suggests an overhaul of the entire achievements system on Java. First, Blom explains that some of the current achievements are/may be unobtainable based on the Java map rotations. Blom also mentions that existing achievements are often not updated along with new updates and thus become outdated and poorly balanced. There are some other ideas put forward as well, so make sure you check out the thread yourself.
MinerWare: Dropper Boss Game by @Hoshi
Dropper is a popular Minecraft minigame where you have to dodge obstacles while falling and make it all the way to the bottom. Adding Dropper to CubeCraft has been suggested before, often as a separate gamemode idea. However, Hoshi’s take on this idea is that it should be added to MinerWare as a boss game instead, as it fits perfectly with the other minigames available there.
A fan-made SkyWars summer map by skywarsmc on Discord
A fan-made BlockWars CTF map by @vado4550
Thank you for reading, everyone! If you think there is anything important that I have missed or if you find any inaccuracies, please send a reply below or contact me privately here! Please let me know if you like this new format or not, as well as any other feedback you may have!
