Hot News of the Month

I’m still covering important news that happened this month, as I promised. However, due to the increased scope, that means that my standards for what makes the news has no increased. I had pretty low standards in the newsletter era.

So, please don’t yell at me if I didn’t cover your “major” announcement that announces your nation existing.

As a note, this news covers anything after December 24, 2024.

CivMC Updates

A peaceful fishing lake on the floating Admin Island. (cr: RedDevel)

Although there were no new major updates to speak of, the big major announcements were that admins Ahri and SoundTech resigned as admins.

Ahri left as he had not been involved in the game as of late, but was one of the founding admins and did an excellent job setting up the map on CivMC. He’s been an excellent help and made an extremely balanced as well as exciting map; among, if not, the best map the genre has seen.

SoundTech had consistently been the lead developer of the server since its inception as well. Having a heavy hand in the server’s direction and leading many of the core development aspects of the game, he was an extremely committed admin and did a lot to make the server as stable as it is today. He stepped back due to his career and family life, which he deserves.

I am a little biased since I’m close friends with both, but I really appreciate all the efforts that they’ve made to the game and their requests to interact with me, as they did an excellent job.

To place an ad here, take a look at the ads page.

Insert Sanrio Joke Here

The Hello Kitty Isles train station (cr: me!).

Sorry, I couldn’t really think of that good of a joke.

The Hello Kitty Islands has garnered a lot of attention in the past month, and not necessarily in a good way. Even I had to hear all of this happen within Pavia discord, so you know it’s making waves.

• Jan 5 saw natls pearled by Exyria, and called for the country to justify it.
  • Several players jokingly came out and used the All Tomato copypasta previously used by toontasker in protest of their pearling, not to mention a bulletproof case for the Exyrian side of the conflict.
  • They eventually sentenced epicblob to 500d and one week of pearl time, as well as in addition, banned from the HKI.
• However, later that month, natls reported that there was illegal mining of meteoric iron veins at Joja, but could not verify the person who was doing so.
  • They demanded reps of 5000d following; which many in the post saw as outrageous.
  • The post was not received very well, and a followup post was likewise similarly poorly received. Many chalk this up to being weak as Sloth points out the country did not have the capacity to defend its claims on the nether portal.
• Although not directly tied to these specific things, AfricanWarl0rd also posted an apology regarding their behaviors towards natls and admins during their ban in autumn 2024.

We Regret To Inform You

As many previously noted in the previous month, Accra had come into caretaker-ship of the old Mount Augusta territory previously in Alenarith.

• They revealed their future intentions for the area in a post in late January, which intended to keep a good amount of the historic building areas untouched.
• However, they sketched out an area north of the city, of which they themselves said is not a vault, saying it’s a “complex for Accra”. Quite literally that makes a lot more people suspect a vault is going to be there.
• Some may not recognize that the old Mount Augusta territory is quite close to Estalian (now Suramir) territory; its nearest claim is a large mushroom island roughly 1,000 blocks away. Suramir official Walkers visited the area intentionally to check what that was.
• A vault-like hole located in the territory — that was pre-existing prior to the Accran claim — was found, and Walkers likewise sent a confrontational message to Forged, alleging that its proximity to Estalian territory posed a threat and demanded them to stop.
• This immediately [spawned so many memes] and Walkers clarified later that sadchamp (another Accran official) had notified that it may be used for defensive purposes, of which Forged has said it will not happen.

Whatever’s Important

Mount Augusta’s new rail station! (cr: Jaybirdino/Logic_Man)

• The LOTUS Alliance was founded between several nations in the Eastern Continent, led by Exyria, Accra, Rivia and others. (ed. note: I’m sure that makes VilyanZ very happy)
• Meanwhile, Icenia announced the Western Anti-Raider Defense, which introduces mutual defense for raiders for those nations in the alliance, with Icenia, Winterbourne and Zatoka being the initial signatories.
• Jbblocker was freed by SlothInASuit, who was notable for being in Gang Shi. He was released from a logbox in Icenia, and of course, Sloth was pearled too. Yeah, that’s all I’m saying about that one.
• Tatsu became the very first leader of Pavia, whether Emperor, Crown Prince, or Prime Minister, to ever reach Dice Day Six, meaning he survived all previous five dice days in increasing difficulty. SteelHand would succeed him as Prime Minister with a relative blowout win.
• CivMC also made a major quality of life update on January 15, adding several repair factories and recipes, an /afk command, and two rounds of brew updates.
• A rare newfriend nation war happened as szepess was pearled by Skandic (a new nation in the south of Alenarith) after szepess assumed aggresion on the part of Skandic.
• A newfriend, Francisco1234569, was pearled after raiding up to 4000 diamonds worth materials from Bestfiretop.
  • After showing up on snitches on around January 16 and raided, about five protestors gathered in New Callisto, rallying against his pearling.

Ok, well that was most of the news that I have time to cover and was important to talk about. That’s pretty much all you’re going to get!