We have all waited for a way to communicate to other players on the server for a while now, and finally the day has come! Staff have put together a Teamspeak 3 server for the MCS community to talk and play together! Teamspeak allows players to talk to each other and join different channels for different conversations.

IP: minecraftserver.com

Steps on how to join the teamspeak server
1) First thing you need is to download the Teamspeak 3 Client. A link to download it can be found HERE
2) Once downloaded, follow the installation steps until everything is set up the way you like
3) Next, click Connections on the top left of the screen
4) Click Connect (or Ctrl + S) and type in minecraftserver.com for the ip of the server. Where it says username, type in your minecraft username. There is no password for the server.
5) Click Connect and you will be connected to the server.
6) Ask any staff in game to promote you to be able to talk and chat
7) Connect anytime you want by repeating steps 3-5

As you all know Mojang has recently started enforcing the EULA.
To comply with the EULA we had to remove the fly and superpick abilities from donators.

To not completely screw over the current donators, I installed a mechanic which will let you keep fly and superpick if you log in within 7 days of this post. If you log in after these 7 days you will not get the abilities back.

Apologies for the inconvenience and thanks Mojang/Microsoft for these changes! #MakeMicrosoftMoneyAgain (#MMMA)

As you all noticed the shops have been closed for a few days because of laggy situations.
Today I have more information about the issue and what happens next. If you are not interested in the technical details you can go read the bottom of the post for the conclusion.
Details:
It appeared in the accountholder factory class the plugin would first try to obtain a user via using their ingame uuid and comparing that to offline players. If this case would throw an error it would simply loop ALL OfflinePlayer files untill it would find the correct file.
Considering we have over 15000 unique player files this can take a while. This action was done every time the money would have to be accessed.
When I did a few benchmark tests it appeared these few lines of code could take up to 450ms per action (almost half a second, and the server needs to run at 20 tick per second, so actions can take a max of 1/20th of a second, or 50 ms, not to cause lag).
The fix:
I modified the accountholder class and all commands to use player names, which are then run through my UUID fetcher, every time an action has to be done, my UUID fetcher will check if it already has the UUID and return this (which I can easily get OfflinePlayer from), or otherwise get the UUID from Mojang and stores it in the cache. (Your UUIDs are stored in cache automatically once you log in, to speed it up even more)

Conclusion:
Shops are now open again and we will see how it goes the next few days. If you find any bugs or issues please post them in here so I can take a look at a possible fix.

Have fun!

Minecraft 1.9 - Combat Update
Posted on Feb 29, 2016 by Searge

The arrow struck the shield with a impactful “thud!”. Steve peeked around the shield’s edge and saw the arrow was wrapped in a note! Steve excitedly pulled it loose to see what it said…

“You’re happy you had that shield, aren’t you?”

And yes, Steve was pretty happy.

Minecraft has been updated to 1.9! It contains a lot of changes. Most remarkably, the combat mechanics have been updated to make fighting more interesting and offer more map-making options. Here’s a almost complete list of the new and changed features:

• Added shields
• Attacking now has a “cool-down” delay, making it more important to time your attacks
• You can now hold items in both hands (default quick key to swap items is ‘F’)
• Swords have a special sweep attack
• Axes have a special crushing blow attack
• Added the elytra
• New mob: Shulker
• Expanded The End
• Added Chorus plants
• New Purpur blocks
• New End Rod block
• Added dragon head block
• Ender Dragon can be resummoned
• Added beetroot and beetroot soup (from MCE)
• Added grass path block
• Added igloos
• Armor protection values have been lowered
• Added tipped arrows
• Added spectral arrows
• Added Frost Walker enchantment and frosted ice block
• Added a whole bunch of new sound effects
• Added sound effect subtitles
• Brewing Stand now requires Blaze Powder to activate
• Added skeleton riders
• We believe we’ve fixed MC-10 and a whole bunch of other issues
• Removed Herobrine

Copied from: http://mojang.com/2016/02/minecraft-19-combat-update/

I have Created a Forum for creative constructor applications right were all the other creative applications are located.
The wiki has also been updated as it was way out of date.

To those that aren't aware, the wiki has a new rule: Which is Rule 4.5. We've recently had some activity that involved autofishing, or basically programs/bots/hacks/etc where it involves fishing automatically without any human input. This can lead to obtaining items (sometimes rare) without any effort at all, since you're basically afk while the utility/program/whichever does it thing. The rule is stated as:

"Fishing bots tend to devalue items and just breaks the spirit of the game. Anyone caught doing this will be teleported to spawn. If needed, further consequences will follow. "

While those who are known to autofish will not receive any punishment before this rule was put in place, it is absolutely recommended that you cease all autofish activities at once, otherwise you'll be seeing spawn a lot more often than you should.

You will find the rule in full here:

http://www.minecraftserver.com/forum/wiki/server-rules/

Thank you.

TL; DR - Designers, Reavers, and Architects are now things on the server. Designers and Reavers are basically finished, and Architects just need an item shop and possibly one or two more goodies.

The good old standby of "people who make shit look good" and "people who build things that look good" is back with a slight twist! Do you have the skills to make the craft in mining actually work? Then apply with your build now! Applications are COMMUNITY VOTED! - You need to have 2/3rd's majority Yes versus No after two weeks of voting. Having more than 50/50 of staff+architects agree to your build works as well. (Minimums apply, we want at least 15 votes in 2 weeks to get an accurate representation of your build. As always, OS's have the final say)

That's right, you have TWO pathways of being accepted. Either one will get you there! If no one votes, just let people know!

If you want to be a reaver - a person who destroys old builds that are abandoned - you also need to apply AND be a designer first. Because of the complexity of the plugin we use for protection, we can't have everyone be a reaver, so its an upgrade path from the designer - you have to create before you can destroy

Architects are a special breed of designers or reavers who have gone above and beyond in their builds. We're talking "youtube-level" creations that we would want to put online for display. You MUST be a designer or reaver, and your application will be reviewed by the OS and other architects. We want a 2/3rds majority of a quorum of available people for this position.

More details regarding perks are in the wiki, as always. You can apply in the respective forum sections

Minecraft is an endless world of crafting, exploring mining, and uniting with players either sitting next to you on the couch, or from all ends of the globe. Virtually anything you put your mind to can be built as long as the technology behind it is simple, but that only goes for the vanilla game.

The modding community gives you access to a wide variety of game changing mods made by the community and are readily available free of charge. It is easy to say Minecraft is a world separate of ours, but what if I told you with the help of Verizon Wireless, our world is being merged with the wonderful world of Minecraft through the magic of mods? Take a look for yourself!