Hello, welcome to the October 2024 edition of Community Highlights! This thread compiles the latest CubeCraft news and updates as well as the highlights of recent community content into just one thread. Let's get started with the main updates!
The Spooky Season is Here! 
The spooky lobby and maps return as Halloween hits CubeCraft! The popular Ender minigame has also returned, where as a human you have to collect all twenty hidden pages before the Ender finds you. Bedrock has fourteen returning Halloween maps and Java has eight, and additionally five of CubeCraft's creepiest bundles have been available to purchase during this event: The horror bundle, the EggWars Halloween bundle, the SkyWars Halloween bundle, the backrooms bundle and the lethal entities bundle. Finally, CubeCraft had one more surprise in store for us and that was the new lobby quests! Instead of the lobby hunt being spread throughout the entire lobby, it is divided into five quest sections where a different type of creature needs to be collected. There's still a few days left of the Halloween event, so go and play some Ender while you still can!
The 2024 Halloween hub, by CubeCraft.
Java Map Rotations Incoming! 
The next Java maps rotation is right around the corner, expected to release on November 12th, and for the next five days you have a chance to influence them! In the official Discord server there is a new channel for you to vote for your favourite active and inactive maps for EggWars, SkyWars and Lucky Islands. Be sure to cast your vote before the polls close!
A screenshot of the map polls on Discord.
Changelog 
Now that we have covered all of the major updates, let’s take a look at some of the smaller changes!
October 4
- Some minor changes were made to Ender - the voting chance for being Ender has become more impactful and a new Ender punishment chance weight system has been added. Additionally, a new Ender is now selected if the previous Ender leaves.
- Community Games #6 was held in the Discord server.
October 17
- The new epic kill effect "Lightning" was released.
- The "Web" prefix was added to the suggestions subforum and the "BedWars", "Beta Games", "Pillars of Fortune" and "Ender" prefixes were added to the game discussions subforum.
- Ender has been removed from Java before the end of the Halloween update, due to long queue times.
- The CubeCraft/Ziax privacy policy has been updated.
- The official rules page has been updated to clarify that the language supported in our Discord server is English, with the only exception of language-specific channels.
- The volume of the game win sound has been reduced.
- The lose game sound has been changed.
- The volume of the "Lightning" kill effect has been reduced.
- The Rocket PvP event has been removed from FFA.
What’s Next? 
CubeCraft's public update board is a great place to see what is coming next to CubeCraft. You can find projects that the CubeCraft team is working on, and sometimes you'll even find spoilers!
October 25th saw three new additions to the board. One was the upcoming Java map rotations which were discussed above. The second addition is a new mystery bundle and three new maps to go along with it; one for EggWars, one for Lucky Islands and one for PvP duels. We don't know the theme of this bundle yet, but the emoji used on the board is a desktop computer, so make your guesses!
Finally, the winter 2024 event has started development, and it will most likely be releasing in late November or December. It has been confirmed that the winter hub will have lobby "quests" similar to those from the halloween creature hunt from this month. We also know that Snowman Survival will return and that a new winter-themed cosmetic bundle is on its way. A list of winter maps will be revealed closer to the release along with any additional information, if there is any.
Community Spotlight 
It's time to share some highlights from CubeCraft’s wonderful community! Here are some of the top suggestions and creations that have been posted on our community platforms this month! If you see your content here and do not wish for it to be featured, please contact me in a private conversation here.
Bring back Minerware as the next LTM gamemode by @Loskol
After the success of the recent limited time mode Team Lucky Islands on Java, Loskol suggests to continue the addition of limited time modes and thinks the next one should be MinerWare, and over thirty people agree! If you would like to see MinerWare return to Java, be sure to upvote this thread.
Community Engagement by @Snigdo69Zerus
This thread by Snigdo69Zerus is short and sweet, suggesting several ways to boost community engagement, such as polls, events, community created maps and games. While the replies pointed out that community created maps would unfortunately not be possible, they also mentioned that in-game polls as well as advertising them more frequently could go a long way.
Return Colony Control in Christmas Event 2024 by @groove_
Now that the information for the winter update has been released on the public update board, it seems like only Snowman Survival is going to be returning this year. However, many players in this suggestion hope that Colony Control can return after two long years of absence.
That concludes our monthly CubeCraft recap, thank you for reading! If you find any inaccuracies or have other concerns, please contact me in a private conversation here.
Check out the previous edition of Community Highlights here!
