Please see the side bar for the latest poll regarding the next contest. Given the 1.8 update happening this week, I will wait starting a new contest for some days, but I would love to hear what contest you want to have next!

Please note you can pick 2 options in the poll this time.

We (finally) have the noble house winners! Sorry that it took so long. I promise the next contest will be done faster!

1st Prizes:

• Rank Settler: rocky73 -> Level Up!
• Rank Citizen: Dullahb -> Level Up!
• Rank Architect: KoolKalang -> Level Up!
• Ranks Master/Elder: Plutmaster -> errrm? congratz?

2nd Prizes:

• Rank Settler: Akymma & AlHannibal -> Stack of Diamonds!
• Rank Citizen: Chpentain -> Stack of Diamonds!
• Rank Architect: AlbertPuding & HenMeister -> Stack of Diamonds!

Try to catch me online for the rewards! Congratz to everyone! Thanks for participating! This one was a huge addition to our City! Bold names of the 2nd prizes still need to get the reward.

I copied over all the houses from the noble house contest. Please go and check your building. Please note that there are sometimes bugs when copying stuff. Namely the following items sometimes break:

• doors
• beds
• pistons
• pictures

I already did my best to fix the stuff except for the pictures. If you see that something is broken or missing, please ask a VIP to fix it for you. I will start the judging probably tomorrow and finish within this week. Due to the amount of entries this might take a while. Missing paintings won’t affect the outcome though. Please also make sure that there is a sign somewhere near the door that has your name on it.

Ok, here is the new contest! This summer we are going on a cruise! So build a boat of any kind! Think about the different types there are:

• Ferries
• Warships
• Sailboats
• Fishing boats
• Cruise Ships w. Casinos
• etc

Limits:

• No identical entries. If stuff looks to similar only one can win. Please be creative in the type of boat. I do not want to see 10 battle cruisers.
• 100 length and 30 width max. Smaller is often better. Also if we have too many large boats, we will be limited which to place in the city waters
• Lowest block has to be at the same height as the water
• Make a frame at the water level around it that includes all the ship width and length so I can copy it.

Add a comment with your user level and coordinates of the build here. Picture not mandatory but would be nice. Contest deadline is 31st of August.

The contest is closed now. I will try to see and judge the entries as soon as possible. Please be patient.

I have started a spleef league. Please see the spleef page for details (on the bottom). Since this is the first time, we have to see how it plays out. This is an indefinite challenge. We will see after some time how many people participate from the start or join late and give awards to the first people reaching the round X.

I have made a decision on the contest winner. It’s enickcnln!
No wait. He posted his entry first, so the others had a disadvantage. So it’s Hardcorepuding!
No wait. He always fishes in the central park. So it’s pinebenj!
No wait. He submitted last so he could see what the others were doing.
Ahhh f*ck it.
You guys all win.

I had a hard time on this. The buildings are all great also somewhat similar in the level of detail, quality, variety etc. So I took the easy way out and simply let you all win. So it’s a stack of diamonds and a level up for all three of you!
Congratz!

The new contest is out, the topic is “Noble house”! Build a 20×20 house with the following features:

• A family house of rich people
• A garden around it that has to fit on the 20×20
• Not more than a ground floor and a upper floor

Voting will be split by user level. The level used is the one you have when the contest closes. Winning in your class requires that at least two people per level enter. If you are the only one in your class you will be part of the level above yours.

Contest will close 31st of July!

Post you entry here with the coordinates and screenshots please!

The contest is closed. Winners will be announced hopefully tomorrow. All 3 buildings have been copied to the city already.

Since I will be leaving Monday afternoon for a business trip, then for a 10 day Holiday, then another couple of days for another Business trip. So I will not have the time to work on the contest. Therefore I postpone it for 2 weeks until the 10th of July. Sorry about announcing this so late but some stuff has changed on my schedule recently that makes that an option just now.

I also will try to move the lot application to an fully automated process. It has been running 90% smooth so far with me only controlling the process, but there are still some smaller hickups that I have to check on before having it run unattended.

Sadly, despite there being some people really got at this stuff (at least according to their own words), not many people had really time to come up with anything at all. While there have been some entries to the contest, there have not been nearly enough to call it a competition worth a stack of diamonds and more so comparable to the buildings we see standing around. Guess it’s a minecraft server and not a banner design server after all.

So how to proceed? I will work together with the best entry (rthurber) to improve on it and make a final banner. Of course he will get the diamonds, too.

Since the old banner is now quite old, I have decided to make a new banner contest. The requirements:

• Shape should be similar to the banners you find at minestatus.net
• It should NOT include a text/slogan yet. For now, we are searching for a picture of the server that includes buildings that bring the message across how epic the buildings on this server really are. You can take in-game screenshots or also the 3D-Map for example. You can assemble a picture of many others or generate something completely new.
• Deadline is 19th of June.
• Winner gets a stack of Diamonds!

The text will be added in another step, maybe also via a contest.

Good luck!

Last contest followup

I know transferred all the buildings that won an award to the city. Please check again to make sure I did not overlook anything before you destroy the one on your plot. If you did not win an award and want the building to be transferred, please tell me.

In general please keep in mind that I am happy to transfer additional buildings to the city if they fit and meet the quality average of the other existing buildings. Empty shells without functions might be moved a bit to the borders of the city to keep the center more interesting.

For those who did not get their reward yet, please contact me in-game unless you are getting a level upgrade. Those I can do anytime if you choose it above the cash reward, but you have to tell me what you want.

Next Contest announcement

The topic this time is Medium-Size house block. This means that you have to build a set of at least 2, maximum 4 buildings with a minimum height of 30 and a max height of 40 on a square of 20×20. The rating goes for the following criteria:

• variety between the buildings in one block
• overall usability (4 walls vs. roller coaster)
• detail usability (buttons, minecarts, redstone)
• detail in design, outside and inside
• usability in general (stairs, doors etc)
• fun in design, signs & functions
• Innovation & context relevance (just outside the city center, cheaper real-estate)

Deadline is the 26th of June. 1st prize is a stack of Diamonds or a level upgrade. Post here the coordinates, the lot and some screenshots.

Thanks a lot to all for the submissions for the latest contest. There has been really some awesome productions out there. I had a hard time judging those. This is why there will be no single winner again this time!

I have been looking at the following:

• How does it look from the outside (form & materials)?
• Is the inside nicely designed with love for detail?
• Is the overall function idea new?
• Is there stuff in there one can actually use?
• Is there something really new or just a different version of things we have seen already?
• Usability Details such as the staircase, signage, doors etc, like in a real building

So I have chosen the best in the categories:

• So the best outside design was for the hotel, the resort, the clock tower, the bank and the mall (in no particular order).
• The best function ideas are (again no order) the bank, the resort and the clock tower
• The best inside detail goes to (again no order) the hotel, the resort and the red-stone tutorials

So you can guess this will be hard to give out prices. So here is the verdict:

• Daiyamondo gets 1st place for his Hotel
• Stractor ALSO gets 1st place for the Resort

Both win a stack of diamonds or the level upgrade. Additionally:

• Sockso (clock tower)
• ChickenHotDisco (bank)
• kgirtxd (red-stone)
• hardcorepuding (mall)

get second prize for their work, a stack of diamonds, too (but no level upgrade option) ;-D
Please note that this was quite difficult. Those that have not been mentioned, there was some great work in either of the categories but those mentioned excelled in more than one thing in my opinion. If you feel you had deserved more, send me a message and I either explain you why not (if you can take it :-) ) or reconsider your proposal!

I will transfer all the winners to the city center within the next days. Congratz again to all!

We have the following things done in the city:

• The redstone ministry is done. Please take a look. There is still tons of space free on the upper floors, so if you can think of an interesting redstone setup to be demonstrated, please post a comment.
• We have a new street-intersection train station. Since we cannot place whole buildings with huge stations in them everywhere, this will come in handy. It also allows for a smoother ride. There are buttons to go up and down
• We transported Plutomasters cathedral to the city and made a decorative wall around it. The wall can be also entered. We are planning a sewer access once we have a good format for the sewers
• We have a spleef & PvP arena now for everyone to use. The old PvP arena was removed. The gate to the PvP lot is also in the new arena.
• The next contest will most likely be a suburbia-contest. Take a 20×20 space, and build 2-4 smaller buildings on it. Max height 40 blocks. Can be residential, commercial etc, cafe’s, burger joints, whatever. Formal announcement once the skyscraper contest is finished.

Here is the new contest, the sky scraper contest! You are supposed to build a building with a base dimension of 20×20 maximum or 16×16 minimum (does not have to be square) which has no cellar, and a base that is no lower than block 63 (so when you are standing on it, your client shows you are 65). You can build a non-functional building, but functionality of any kind will be rewarded higher.

If you built one of those already in the city, you can submit that one of course. The winner gets a stack of diamonds or a level upgrade (max VIP). The deadline is 29th of May. Paste a screenshot & the coordinates here so I can go there and take a look please.

Of course 2 people can build the same type of building. The better one shall win. You can also build a type that is already present in the city (hospital etc). I will take the better one. Independent of winners/loosers, I might copy some of the building into the city later.

Ok, I took a longer look now at the Egyptian statue building entries!

Soooo the winnner iiiiiiiiss:

LVASold with his deathmask of King Tut! He will receive the amount of blocks used in diamonds (not blocks) AND 1 stack of lightstone OR upgrade to VIP (you choose)

Second prize goes to:

• pinebenj for his Colossus
• plutomaster for his god of darkness

Both win 20 blocks of glowstone or diamond, you choose.

Third prize goes to:

• Daiyamondo for the Ram Creeper twins
• Albertpuding for the creeper sphinx

Both win 10 blocks of glowstone or diamond, you choose.

Congratulations! Please contact me to get the rewards! Also, I will try to transfer all of those to the public area inside or around the pyramid.

The new pyramid in spawn needs Egyptian statues! So here is a contest:

Build an Egyptian statue! Small or big! But they have to be recognizable Egyptian. Post a link to a picture here.

The first prize: You get the amount of blocks used in diamonds AND

• 1 stack of lightstone OR
• a level upgrade! (You choose)

The rules:

• Build a statue that is recognizably Egyptian out of any material. I will convert it into sandstone once it is accepted.
• Post a link to the image of the statue here in the comments
• If someone posts the same statue (or an extremely similar) as you built first, your entry is disqualified. So the simpler the statue, the more risk! The point here is not that 2 people might build a sphinx. The point is that 2 people might build the EXACT same sphinx.
• The statue has to be 3D and not just 2D pixel art.
• There might be bonus prizes for cool/funny stuff. Don’t expect the same amount of prizes as last time!
• provisional deadline is end of 1st of May. If the upgrade to 1.5 delays stuff a lot, I might extend

Please do not post those google image links. most times they do not work. You can click through to the actual page and post the proper link.