Welcome to The MeepTimes, the twice-monthly update to keep the community in the loop with what’s new, behind the scenes, and in the works.

Community/Server Events
Decorating Spawn
Clue’s Saturday events took a creative turn when he tasked the server with decorating spawn for the holidays to their own liking. Look at the process and a narrative describing it here.

Parkour
Spawn has a limited-time parkour with jump boost (which sadly makes it harder). If you can suffer through the four-checkpoint course though, you’ll get a prize of 25k.

The Christmas Event!
Enjoy the Christmas event at /warp Christmas, /warp cmobs, /warp cboats, and /pa join Christmas. Find out more about how it was designed below in The Project section of the Meeptimes, or look at some beautiful screenshots of the event here.

Christmas Decoration Contest
Decorate your town for Christmas to win the prize! See here for details.

Creative Christmas Decoration Contest
Build the best Christmas-y creative plot! For more info and prize details, look here.

Server Updates
Rank Info
The rank info holograms in spawn have been updated, as well as the Guide to Donator Perks on forums.

Sethome Buff
The total number of sethome for each rank has been buffed to the following:
Citizen - 3
Vip - 5
Premium - 10
Exclusive - 20
Elite - 50
Supreme - 75
Ultimate/Legend - 100

Random
/rtp now works as shorthand for /random.

Clearlag Update
Clearlag no longer removes shulker boxes, beacons, player heads, written books, diamond tools, and diamond armor.

Parkour Checkpoints
Logging out of parkour or disconnecting will now cause you to go back to your last checkpoint upon re-entry.

Parkour Leaderboards
Parkour leaderboards have been reset.

Epitaph Grenades
Grenades are no longer enabled on this Halo FFA map.

Bugs Squashed
Head Database
The head database has been fixed to work in Towns once again!

Vote Key Chances
Vote key chances have been increased to 20%.

Creative Potions
An issue where potions could affect players in Creative is now fixed.

Wild /bottle
The /bottle plugin now works in Wild.

Vote Pickaxe Message
Receiving the Type X pickaxe now displays the proper message.

Vote Pickaxe #1 Error
The correct number when receiving a Vote Pickaxe #1 displays in chat when receiving one.

Boomo Welcome
Welcome messages now display while in Boomo.

Chillroom Leaderboard
The leaderboard for Chillroom is now enabled.

Quests
All quests have been updated to display proper coordinates and locations after other updates moved things.

Haste Notes
Haste notes work properly in towns again.

MeepTimes Contests
In this section, the community will get a chance to participate in a quick contest in each MeepTimes! There will be a 25k prize (from the MeepTimes writers) for one lucky winner, who will be chosen by random number generator. To be entered, just reply to the thread with an answer! Winner will be paid with the release of the next MeepTimes.

The question for this issue is: What’s your favorite part of this year’s Christmas event?

The winner to last week’s Meeptimes question was @SpongeyStar , who enjoys sitting by the fire drinking hot cocoa and watching SpongeBob.

The Project: Christmas Event 2018

What is the Christmas Event?
The Christmas Event is the second large-scale Christmas Event on the server. Originally designed by oldchopper, NinjaRoxy, and alex77034, the map has been revamped this year to new ideas and concepts. Read below what those are!

Who was involved in this project?

@CluelessKlutz - Lead the general project and mob arena design
@MasterofBoom - Developed the mob arena and assisted in technical setup
@qazini - Created the parkour course
@Mettekes and @agnd - Helped design and fool-proof the parkour course; generated ideas

Let’s talk!
This year’s Christmas map is the same as last year’s. What’s changed?
While we are still using the same map concept created by chopper, Roxy, and Alex last year, we’ve restructured the map to be less concentrated in a few areas. The parkour has been completely rebuilt by @qazini, and @MasterofBoom has dedicated a sizable chunk of time to creating the new arena setup. - @CluelessKlutz

A few of the peaks now contain the arenas, which you'll notice are snow globes! - @MasterofBoom

The Christmas map this year has, rather than the separate fighting cave area of last year, a collection of arenas disguised as snowglobes throughout the map, a much more Christmas-y approach if you ask me. In addition to this, a whole parkour course has been built into the map that rewards you with a bird's eye view of the whole place if you're able to rage through the course. - @agnd

How was this year’s arena system devised?
After the Easter event, I asked myself why some people had said multiple times they were getting bored of the mob arenas. Over the summer, I began watching and reading about game design for full-fledged games and how developers work to make their games enjoyable. One of the central focuses I had was eliminating the feeling of grinding. The truth about grinding is it is a feeling rather than a state of gameplay. Changing things up multiple times to keep it from becoming repetitive is key to ending the feeling of grinding. While I was working on all of these ideas in my head, Boom showed me a portion of one of his gamemodes he’d been developing for about two years independently that used a manual system to create waves of mobs players on a Skyblock-esque island would fight. After talking about it, we decided it’d be a good idea to try and work out a system for a new arena and see how it went. Regardless, the real credit for the arenas belongs to Boom, who spent close to twelve hours writing and testing things to make it all work. - @CluelessKlutz

Well, I've always hated the previous style of "arenas" where you just enter in with whatever you want. However, the idea of fighting mobs for the items still had potential. So, why not make more fair to new people and reward skill both at the same time? - @MasterofBoom

What was it like working on the event?
It was really fun being able to easily suggest changes to the event, and being able to implement some of the ideas for the arenas myself! - @MasterofBoom

It was quite a lot of fun. We were all constantly bouncing ideas off of each other, and some were bad and some were good and in that way it felt great to be constantly refining the event. My main job was creating the parkour, and I haven’t yet released any courses before, so this was really my first time being in charge of a parkour course. - @qazini

It was fun mainly. There were times where I got abused by clue, but that's normal… - @Mettekes

It was fun! Lotta hard work on others' part while I flew around making candy canes went into this to bring it all together; it was very rewarding in the end. - @agnd

What was your favorite part of this project?
It’s quite a bit of work to put on these kinds of events. The best moment of creating content like this is getting to watch everyone see it for the first time and have a good time. - @CluelessKlutz

Definitely making the bosses in the arenas; they all had to be sort of stylized to feel like more than just a slightly harder version of the last, but they all were fairly simple to make once the idea was done. - @MasterofBoom

I loved building the parkour. A lot of the time I’d push jumps to be so hard that they kind of become impossible, so it was a balancing act, certainly, but it was very entertaining to make a few evil jumps (Unless you’re on the jumps right now and are getting frustrated. Then I had nothing to do with it). - @qazini

I loved being able to give my ideas and help to whatever was being worked on, the main part I helped with was testing the parkour. - @Mettekes

Probably adding and coming up with new aspects to the event together, letting the creativity flow. -@agnd

What proved the most challenging?
Getting everything added on schedule proved to be quite a challenge due to wrapping up my first semester of college at the same time. - @CluelessKlutz

I'd have to say balancing the arenas and the kits. The arenas have to be delicately balanced to be challenging but not mobspam, and the kits have to be on the same scale so it's not "choose this kit or lose" - @MasterofBoom

Figuring out where to go with the course after it left the cavern. I went through a lot of rough drafts that were then scrapped. There was a number of parameters that it had to follow, like it couldn’t go above the ice track, for example, and it had to reach a certain height. Getting rid of all the skips also proved tough. With the easily climbable mountains and overhangs, it was difficult to make sure that the course didn’t have cheats. - @qazini

THE PARKOUR!!! It's rough.. but it's fun and once you get the flow, you'll be able to get it in no time. - @Mettekes

Working with qazini - @agnd

Anything else you’d like to add?
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! I hope everyone enjoys the event as much as I have in creating it. - @CluelessKlutz

Not much, I just hope everyone enjoys all of the effort that went into the event, and has a good time with it! - @MasterofBoom

I hope you all enjoy the arenas and the parkour, and I’d love to hear any feedback you guys have for next time. - @qazini

I know everybody loves Christmas, but what's the big deal? I don't see it. ;l - @Mettekes

Qaz smellz (bad) - @agnd

Humans of MeepCraft ft. @MegaStufOreo

A premiumified @MegaStufOreo presenting his beautiful dirt shack

Would you like to be interviewed for the Meeptimes?
Alright better make some top notch questions for a top notch player, amirite

You were a respected moderator at one point. How did you go from that to server troll in the span of a few months?
That’s a good one. I had a lot going on at the time with school and sports so I had to resign. Soon after though, I got salty so I took it upon myself to avenge other players and ever since then it’s been a rollercoaster.

What are some of your favorite trolls that you’ve pulled off?
This is a hard one because there’s sooo many but my favorite troll probably has to be the nether portal trap. Seeing people not being able to type, exit the game, or even the tab just brings a tear to my eye. I also love when me and a bunch of other toxic players can all collaborate to make a sentence or a word in global and freak everyone out. It’s amazing.

What brought you to request to be premium again, if only temporarily?
Meh, after 5 years of the same color I wanna try something new. I got premium on July 22nd 2013, so 5 ½ years ago. Kinda nostalgic to be back in the same place I guess. Dark blue only exists in the tag. There’s light blue chat and tags, so dark blue makes premium unique :)

What are some of your hobbies outside of Meep then?
I like to sleep and eat tendies. Oh yeah I also row and do school stuff for college. Fun.

Rowing as in boats or rowing as in fights?
Yeah I row. I mean, fighting’s pretty lit but no I don’t do that I’m weak. I only fight eight year olds on minecraft servers.

Any fun plans for winter break?
I’m going to Florida. So no.

If you could only have either books, movies, or music for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
Probably music. I listen to music way too much. I’m listening to it right now! Elvis is on!!!
Elvis Presley, god among men. You gotta love 70s music, c’mon.

That’s your favorite genre then?
One of them. My playlist is mostly music from the 60s-00s, rock and alternative.

How’d you come to like relatively old music?
My dad is into that. That’s his time, y’know, naturally he made me like that too.

What’s an artist, album, or song that you’d like to recommend?
From Memphis to Vegas / From Vegas to Memphis. Presley. Or Queen. They’re good too, alwaysss. (Listening to Blue Suede Shoes right now.)

Anything that you’d like to add?
Gah idk. Meep is cool. Meep on.
Toxic people rule. Bless all of you who make Meepcraft that much greater with the art of toxicity

Welcomes and Farewells
Congratulations to @MasterofBoom on being promoted to Developer!

After many months of long, hard work, @qazini has received a well-deserved promotion to Supermod! Congratulations and good luck!

Social Media!
Be sure to follow us/subscribe to all of our social media platforms to get sneak peaks and be kept up to date on all things Meep!

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Twitter! - @MeepCraftMC reddit! - MeepCraft
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Get involved with the MeepTimes
With every release of the MeepTimes, we pick a cover photo, a story, and community events submitted by the community! The owner of each piece of content selected will receive a 5,000 meeble reward. To submit entries for the next release of the MeepTimes, send a private message to @qazini.

Happy Meeping!
The next issue of The MeepTimes will be released December 28th, 2018. See you then!
This issue was created by: @qazini @CluelessKlutz @Mettekes