The Big Change

[GiraffeLars]

And experimental EggWars? It only released a few months ago... If that was ‘dead’ it was because of the No void mode ‘cause double egg was such a nice mode!

 

[Ilppa]

Is there any chance of getting the 1.8 FFA back?

 

[Zevoh]

View attachment 148871
Hello CubeCrafters!

It's been a while since I got to write an update but here we go.

Here's the TL;DR: We're removing games that had little to no players and have redesigned the lobby. If you'd like to know more read on!

View attachment 148857​

We're aware that there are going to be players of the games we've removed who are very disappointed but we also think that you'll appreciate the fact that getting those games to start took a long long time and in some cases was impossible. We've tried to make sure that there is a balance between combat orientated games and games that are popular without combat. The last slot (currently "???") will be taken up by a featured game. Any guesses on what our first one might be?

Currently available in the new lobby is:

• Tower Defence
• Lucky Islands
• SkyWars
• EggWars
• PvP
• Parkour
• ???????

It's been a long time coming for us to clean up all the mini-games we have and make the network both more manageable for us and better for players. With the decrease generally in the number of Minecraft Java players we've decided now is the right time. For the longtime CubeCraft players put yourself in the shoes of a new player who's joining the network for the first time (yes there are still a fair few of those!). If they joined one of our less popular games then they may have to wait quite a while for it to start. In fact that game may never start, which would be a very frustrating player experience. Decreasing the number of total games allows them to be full more of the time and make sure they begin quickly. We have had a similar experience on Bedrock and players can get in to a game quickly with it starting regularly.

Fewer games means that we can also focus on improvements to those games. I know that it frustrates members of the community when they suggest something, get feed back and even receive the "Escalated" tag but then not see it in the game weeks or even months after. The main reason for this is time and resource. Many people who want to help seem to think that both of these are unlimited (or at least more than we have). To provide continuous updates for 41 different games (as single and team modes are different code wise) as a team of 7 developers is impossible. This has changed in recent months as we also started working on the Bedrock versions of our games too. The only way that it is feasible for us to continue is to decrease the number of games we have allowing more of our developers a chance to work on them.

It's worth noting that just because a lot of games are going to be unavailable we're not simply deleting them. For now we'll be showing them off on a 2 week rotating basis through the Featured Game area. This is also where we'll show off our seasonal games. We've already decided what our first featured game will be and we're looking forward to releasing it, however we'd like to hear which games you want to see after that. Leave us a comment below with your vote! (Unless it's BlockBand, that's not coming back).

There are some negatives of the new lobby system. For now we've removed the compass so you will have to walk and hit the NPC you want to play however we've also taken the redesign as an opportunity to add in a lot of other quality of life updates:

• There are no longer lots of different lobbies each with their own layouts meaning we can focus builders on new game maps etc.
• All players will pass through the main lobby making it easier to find people you want to play with.
• The old leaderboards are gone and are now in a menu meaning we can show the top 200 players not just the top 5!
• Game shops are now available in the main lobby (accessed via the book in your inventory).
• The Lucky Islands resource pack is now optional.
• You can see the player counts for each game from the lobby.
• New duel settings! Right click on a player to challenge them (disable-able in settings).
• New Lobby Parkour and Vortex Jump.
• New Chest Chaser and Relic Hunter locations.
• Redesigned Main Lobby (we made it a little smaller so it's easier to find things!)

Now that's the main negative out of the way, let's talk about some of the new features and changes!

View attachment 148858
View attachment 148816​

Just like the Bedrock version of CubeCraft we have now added NPCs to our main lobby that you can use to select a game. All the functionality is still there that you would expect such as being able to select maps as a premium user.

Left clicking on an NPC will bring up the menu for that game. From here you can click on the game's item to jump in to a game or (if you have a rank that allows it) right click the icon to select a map. For games with more than one version (for example team and solo) you will see two icons.

In the bottom right you can also see a map. Clicking on this will show your statistics for that game.

​

View attachment 148859
View attachment 148861​

This is where you'll be able to find our seasonal games (with one coming soon ;)) and out of season they'll be a different game every 2 weeks. We'll be announcing them in advance so you'll know what's available when. We'll also be opening up a poll every now and again for you guys to vote on the games you want to see here. Who knows, maybe if a game is consistently popular it might get a permanent zone...

View attachment 148872
That's everything I think. A lot to digest and no doubt a lot to get used to! I hope that you can all understand the reasons behind this and I look forward to seeing which games get chosen to be featured. The new leaderboard system is also interesting... but that's for another, future, post!

See you all in game :D

LET TNT run come back!!! with all the maps!!

 

[Thiemo]

TL;DR:
Got a little excited by typing my feedback.
They had to do this as a marketing point of view, but the way they brought it, or did some things are just not good at all.
p.s: no hate on mie grammar pl0x me Dutch.

For everyone who is complaining about it, they had to.
Every server playercount is dropping, they get a lower income, and they still have to pay the full amount for all the extra lobbies and unused games. I get their point of view in a marketing perspective for sure, after all they're still a company.

The way how they brought this update, let's just say it couldn't be worse. You should have announced it way back, and have done it in small steps starting to announce a game removal for example. Not just, SIKE WIPED ALL OF YOUR FAVORITE GAMES. As I said, it's a company after all, I get that, but you wouldn't be one without a community, and by doing this you just show no interest in player feedback, since there hasn't even been a single public discussion about this.
I've asked multiple staff members their honest opinion and even they said they dislike parts of it a lot.

I get it, I get it, you can't just base everything on community feedback. And yes the average age is slowly decreasing so you're trying to make it more easier, but this is still Java and not Bedrock. We don't want 100 players with a quadrillion particles in 1 small place in a lobby, it's just badly structred in my opinion, you could have kept the server selector, and made portals further away from eachother and let that server selector teleport you to the game it's portal, in that way you could have added holographic leaderbords, villagers as shops, multiple NPCs (example EggWars team modes), or anything. This just feels like you're slowly forcing Java players to have the same bedrock experience, but we don't play on small little iPads, we play on a PC with a keyboard and a mouse, moving around is so much easier and faster, so no, we don't want NPCs right in front of our face.
It just feels sooo poorly designed and not even any back-up thought on it, yeah you can add back games in a 'rotation queue', but what's the point of removing it then, or even playing it if it's temporary, you removed games that weren't even dead.

As a developer myself, I know it's hard to find the perfect balance in community feedback, but atleast try to listen to it, and not ignore every fact of it, I'm sure some people like it, but I can guarentee you atleast 50% of the players think it's bad.
It's also mostly just getting used to, but getting used to this small, rushed, and just 0 detailed structure will make more players quit then trying to get used to it.
Like I said, my best option would be, spread it out the lobby, bring back the selector and make a lobby with a small place for every gamemode rather then just pushing NPCs in front of our faces, or atleast, for the sake of everything, move back the NPCs atleast 20 blocks...

It does look more organized in some ways, but like, the shop, leaderbords, statistics, it's all so poor, and so basic, and so not CubeCraft. I'm not trying to roast the management or anything, but like this just feels like you did whatever you wanted, in the fastest and easiest way possible. You could have done a little more on working things out, giving it a little twist, making it look more exciting, but nope, you just did everything in once, and gave us a lot less in return.

I stopped playing Minecraft a while back, but I always followed the process of CubeCraft, and it was finally moving in a good direction (i.m.o) with the Arcade update, the new beta gamemode lobby, and everything, and then out of no where you take away most of the players their playing experience and just make it feel less fun to be at the server in general.
This update could have been so much more, with the same way of working, you can combine an easy experience with a good looking detailed strucutre, trust me. At points like this I just get upset about choices CubeCraft is choosing to do. I'd love to see CubeCraft going a more proffesional direction like this with a less messy structure, but don't take that too serious by removing every little detail you ever had. And if you do not have the man power to do that, open the Jr. Developer process again, it was such a good project, recruit Jr Builders for example, just use the Junior project in general, they're all free anyways.

I agree on the NPCs, good job on that, the Armorstands just looked, yeah, bad. Also using NPCs in the Mainlobby is a +1 from me as well, it looks really smooth, with the banners behind it as well, just wrongly positioned at the lobbies rn i.m.o

In general, good update, way too less thinking behind the structure. I like the idea behind it, but as explained in this message, could have added some more details, and made it more cubecraftish.

 

[Nikoshka]

TL;DR:
Got a little excited by typing my feedback.
They had to do this as a marketing point of view, but the way they brought it, or did some things are just not good at all.
p.s: no hate on mie grammar pl0x me Dutch.

For everyone who is complaining about it, they had to.
Every server playercount is dropping, they get a lower income, and they still have to pay the full amount for all the extra lobbies and unused games. I get their point of view in a marketing perspective for sure, after all they're still a company.

The way how they brought this update, let's just say it couldn't be worse. You should have announced it way back, and have done it in small steps starting to announce a game removal for example. Not just, SIKE WIPED ALL OF YOUR FAVORITE GAMES. As I said, it's a company after all, I get that, but you wouldn't be one without a community, and by doing this you just show no interest in player feedback, since there hasn't even been a single public discussion about this.
I've asked multiple staff members their honest opinion and even they said they dislike parts of it a lot.

I get it, I get it, you can't just base everything on community feedback. And yes the average age is slowly decreasing so you're trying to make it more easier, but this is still Java and not Bedrock. We don't want 100 players with a quadrillion particles in 1 small place in a lobby, it's just badly structred in my opinion, you could have kept the server selector, and made portals further away from eachother and let that server selector teleport you to the game it's portal, in that way you could have added holographic leaderbords, villagers as shops, multiple NPCs (example EggWars team modes), or anything. This just feels like you're slowly forcing Java players to have the same bedrock experience, but we don't play on small little iPads, we play on a PC with a keyboard and a mouse, moving around is so much easier and faster, so no, we don't want NPCs right in front of our face.
It just feels sooo poorly designed and not even any back-up thought on it, yeah you can add back games in a 'rotation queue', but what's the point of removing it then, or even playing it if it's temporary, you removed games that weren't even dead.

As a developer myself, I know it's hard to find the perfect balance in community feedback, but atleast try to listen to it, and not ignore every fact of it, I'm sure some people like it, but I can guarentee you atleast 50% of the players think it's bad.
It's also mostly just getting used to, but getting used to this small, rushed, and just 0 detailed structure will make more players quit then trying to get used to it.
Like I said, my best option would be, spread it out the lobby, bring back the selector and make a lobby with a small place for every gamemode rather then just pushing NPCs in front of our faces, or atleast, for the sake of everything, move back the NPCs atleast 20 blocks...

It does look more organized in some ways, but like, the shop, leaderbords, statistics, it's all so poor, and so basic, and so not CubeCraft. I'm not trying to roast the management or anything, but like this just feels like you did whatever you wanted, in the fastest and easiest way possible. You could have done a little more on working things out, giving it a little twist, making it look more exciting, but nope, you just did everything in once, and gave us a lot less in return.

I stopped playing Minecraft a while back, but I always followed the process of CubeCraft, and it was finally moving in a good direction (i.m.o) with the Arcade update, the new beta gamemode lobby, and everything, and then out of no where you take away most of the players their playing experience and just make it feel less fun to be at the server in general.
This update could have been so much more, with the same way of working, you can combine an easy experience with a good looking detailed strucutre, trust me. At points like this I just get upset about choices CubeCraft is choosing to do. I'd love to see CubeCraft going a more proffesional direction like this with a less messy structure, but don't take that too serious by removing every little detail you ever had. And if you do not have the man power to do that, open the Jr. Developer process again, it was such a good project, recruit Jr Builders for example, just use the Junior project in general, they're all free anyways.

In general, good update, way too less thinking behind the sturcture.

I usually would just leave a like but this amazing post 100% reflects my opinion and I'd really like to show that by commenting. I absolutely agree.

 

[Jevmen]

Is there any chance of getting the 1.8 FFA back?

Probably pvp will be relased on 1.8 cubecraft

 

[ShortyLynnChaos]

Not sure what I think about this update so far
I do know that I'm a bit upset that Bingo was removed as I introduced my friends to this server for Bingo and Tower Defence alone....
I hope all 4 of us can continue to play on the same teams and not fight the random generator like I've been reading since non-donators can only have 3 people in a party...

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

Again.

Is Halloween happening or not?

 

[Jevmen]

Tnks for dont remove tower defende, is a good exclusive game

 

[Deleted member 352903]

Again.

Is Halloween happening or not?

...
Do you really think they're not going to make a Halloween update? They're obviously going to, they do it every year

 

[Jevmen]

Again.

Is Halloween happening or not?

Yes is hallowen event And this is a nigthmare

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

TL;DR:
Got a little excited by typing my feedback.
They had to do this as a marketing point of view, but the way they brought it, or did some things are just not good at all.
p.s: no hate on mie grammar pl0x me Dutch.

For everyone who is complaining about it, they had to.
Every server playercount is dropping, they get a lower income, and they still have to pay the full amount for all the extra lobbies and unused games. I get their point of view in a marketing perspective for sure, after all they're still a company.

The way how they brought this update, let's just say it couldn't be worse. You should have announced it way back, and have done it in small steps starting to announce a game removal for example. Not just, SIKE WIPED ALL OF YOUR FAVORITE GAMES. As I said, it's a company after all, I get that, but you wouldn't be one without a community, and by doing this you just show no interest in player feedback, since there hasn't even been a single public discussion about this.
I've asked multiple staff members their honest opinion and even they said they dislike parts of it a lot.

I get it, I get it, you can't just base everything on community feedback. And yes the average age is slowly decreasing so you're trying to make it more easier, but this is still Java and not Bedrock. We don't want 100 players with a quadrillion particles in 1 small place in a lobby, it's just badly structred in my opinion, you could have kept the server selector, and made portals further away from eachother and let that server selector teleport you to the game it's portal, in that way you could have added holographic leaderbords, villagers as shops, multiple NPCs (example EggWars team modes), or anything. This just feels like you're slowly forcing Java players to have the same bedrock experience, but we don't play on small little iPads, we play on a PC with a keyboard and a mouse, moving around is so much easier and faster, so no, we don't want NPCs right in front of our face.
It just feels sooo poorly designed and not even any back-up thought on it, yeah you can add back games in a 'rotation queue', but what's the point of removing it then, or even playing it if it's temporary, you removed games that weren't even dead.

As a developer myself, I know it's hard to find the perfect balance in community feedback, but atleast try to listen to it, and not ignore every fact of it, I'm sure some people like it, but I can guarentee you atleast 50% of the players think it's bad.
It's also mostly just getting used to, but getting used to this small, rushed, and just 0 detailed structure will make more players quit then trying to get used to it.
Like I said, my best option would be, spread it out the lobby, bring back the selector and make a lobby with a small place for every gamemode rather then just pushing NPCs in front of our faces, or atleast, for the sake of everything, move back the NPCs atleast 20 blocks...

It does look more organized in some ways, but like, the shop, leaderbords, statistics, it's all so poor, and so basic, and so not CubeCraft. I'm not trying to roast the management or anything, but like this just feels like you did whatever you wanted, in the fastest and easiest way possible. You could have done a little more on working things out, giving it a little twist, making it look more exciting, but nope, you just did everything in once, and gave us a lot less in return.

I stopped playing Minecraft a while back, but I always followed the process of CubeCraft, and it was finally moving in a good direction (i.m.o) with the Arcade update, the new beta gamemode lobby, and everything, and then out of no where you take away most of the players their playing experience and just make it feel less fun to be at the server in general.
This update could have been so much more, with the same way of working, you can combine an easy experience with a good looking detailed strucutre, trust me. At points like this I just get upset about choices CubeCraft is choosing to do. I'd love to see CubeCraft going a more proffesional direction like this with a less messy structure, but don't take that too serious by removing every little detail you ever had. And if you do not have the man power to do that, open the Jr. Developer process again, it was such a good project, recruit Jr Builders for example, just use the Junior project in general, they're all free anyways.

In general, good update, way too less thinking behind the structure.

No they did not HAVE to. They should clean up there act and fix what good they had instead of removing it and starting all over.

 

[Jevmen]

...
Do you really think they're not going to make a Halloween update? They're obviously going to, they do it every year

Yes.
I want to play ender with you......
Booo

 

[johncoles]

Again.

Is Halloween happening or not?

Indeed, but Halloween is a separate event :D

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

...
Do you really think they're not going to make a Halloween update? They're obviously going to, they do it every year

It's October 2nd. Still nothing. I mean the event would only last about the month so time is wasting. :/

Edit: Saw what you guys said. :thumbsup:

 

[Jevmen]

Pumpking hunt :D pls
Add a good update because comunity is very unstable, add a good pumpking hunt (is my fav)

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

Pumpking hunt :D pls
Add a good update because comunity is very unstable, add a good pumpking hunt (is my fav)

Unstable is putting it mildly. I would say the community is split. Most of the people who have discussed this update hate it.
This is literally going to effect Cubecraft very badly. The decline in activity will be very noticeable.
(I'm not saying everyone hates it)

 

[Ilppa]

There was a really nice community on the 1.8 ffa and there are lot of people that would want it back. Is there any chance of that happening?

 

[Thiemo]

Indeed, but Halloween is a separate event :D

spoooooooky :confused1:

 

[11Ls]

[redacted]