haloman30

Howdy, folks! As of writing, the MC server has just been updated to 1.16.4, and with it - a few features are temporarily unavailable (but with others returning). Unfortunately, I gotta be real - this post likely won't be a very positive one - but I don't think it'll exactly be doom and gloom, either. Server Updates/Changes Unfortunately, several custom plugins that were made by GuitarXpress (MagicStuff, Tennis, and Soccer/Football) have broken with the update. This was happening with past updates already, but unfortunately he isn't around to update them. I do have the source code, however when I tried to compile myself I ran into some pretty tough build issues, that may or may not be a result of the plugin's code - I haven't had time to check yet. And unfortunately, I don't know when I'll have that time - but that's for later. Also unfortunately, the server will, for the time being, not support cracked players. This has nothing to do with any actual desire to leave cracked support behind, as I feel it's integral to CU's MC server, in at least some capacity. The issue is that FastLogin - the plugin we use to ensure premium players (those who actually own MC) don't have to run /login and /register commands. That plugin finally broke with this update (of all updates) and we're stuck waiting for an update to be available. As to when that'll be, I don't know. There hasn't been one for a very long time unfortunately. As soon as an update is available (or a suitable alternative is found), then you can expect Cracked support to return sometime not too long after. I have been informed that dev builds of FastLogin exist, and as such cracked support is back. But before I get into the real bad news (kind of), one good thing did happen - Dynmap is back online! It's been down for a while (due to waiting on an update), but turns out there's an updated version for 1.16.4! Yep, that's all the purely positive news I've got. There ARE good parts about the following subject, so don't feel gloomy just yet. My New Job If you've kept up on Discord, you've probably heard that I've recently started a new job at USPS. This job has some benefits - and some downsides. The upside is, above all else, the pay. I'll be working as a Processing Clerk (or PSE as they call it), which starts at a whopping 18.15$ an hour. The downside? Until you become a regular employee (as in, you're considered there for a career), you get very little in terms of a consistent schedule - and you have long hours. From what I've been told, I'll likely be working between 40 and 60 hours a week. Along with this, the days around holidays (the day before, day of, and day after) will usually see me working 12 hour shifts each of those days. The real kicker is that, for PSE's, the typical time to become a career employee is between 1 and 2 years. The nice thing is, this will pretty much instantly pull me out of poverty and leave me sitting pretty. The downside is that I'll be spending a lot of time working. Ideally, I'd be working a more balanced job - you know, 40 hours a week. And the good thing is that once you get career, that overtime becomes entirely optional. So after those couple years, I'll have that balanced job and will likely be making more than 18.15 an hour. Unfortunately, this means that my ability to commit to any new features or major additions to CU is going completely out the window. My ability to fix bugs quickly will be extremely limited. The plans for semi-vanilla and BungeeCord will likely not be happening anywhere remotely soon. Even assuming I had all the time in the world, doing BungeeCord alone would be months of work. With this job demanding these kinds of hours of me, there's no way in hell that's gonna get done anytime soon. I'd like to do it at some point, but as things stand currently - it's gonna be a while. The upshot is that there will never be anything resembling a financial concern with the server anymore. There will be more than enough money to cover all the bills many times over. Even if not much is happening during these next couple of years, the server will not be going away. I'll still make sure to find time to keep the server up-to-date and do general maintenance like that, but I simply won't be capable of committing to any sort of time frame for any new features. Even seemingly simple features would take hours upon hours to code, test, implement, and bugfix. Hours that, for the time being, I won't have. Now, does this mean that I won't have any time at all? No. I'm guaranteed at least one day off a week, and depending on how schedules line up, I'll likely have days here and there where I've got a fair chunk of ample time between work shifts. But this amount of time is going to be significantly limited compared to my previous job at Schnucks (which was usually 20-32 hours a week). Now, you may be wondering - if the hours are this rough, why don't I find a different job? After all, I've talked a fair bit about how I value time over money. Well, I do - and I still hold those beliefs. But currently, I'm in a rough spot. I'll be honest - had I not landed this job, there's a very high likelihood that I would've had to shut down the MC server, potentially for months. Finances are tight, and even with this high of pay, it's going to take 2-3 paychecks before we're fully dug out of this hole. That being said, if it turns out that my time is limited to such an extent where I feel that I'm unable to even have a life outside of work - and assuming that no amount of time management skills can remedy it - I may potentially look for other jobs. But I can't repeat what I've done in the past. I can't leave this job before finding another. Things are just too tight. And even then - I'll be making just over 18 bucks an hour. That's nothing to scoff at. That wage is higher than my dad or grandpa ever had during their lives. And I'm getting that at the age of 21, where my life has just started. Even if it sucks a bit and time is sparse, this may end up being a case where I decide I want to power through for the year or two before I reach career - because it's smooth sailing after that. Consistent, unchanging hours, balanced hours (no overtime if you don't want it), and damn good pay and benefits. As much as I don't want to basically take two years off - especially as we approach Chaotic United's 10 year anniversary - by getting this job, I am able to at least guarantee that CU actually lives to see that day. So, to recap. You'll likely still see me in Discord text chat fairly consistently - although I won't be always available like I was before. I'll be on there for at least a little bit every day, though. I don't know how often I'll be in voice chat, but it likely won't be very often. I'll try to make sure to do so at least somewhat consistently - if only for my own sanity. You likely won't see me on MC much at all for a while, and you likely won't see any major features come in anytime soon. Bugfixes also won't be as common, though I'll try and make it a priority to fix particularly serious ones (as in, real game-breaking bugs - not just minor inconveniences). I'll do my best to ensure the server is updated to newer MC versions as they come out. And, of course, once I get the funds (which should likely be within just a single paycheck), I'll be buying a new router (and possibly a modem) in order to fix the constant error 522 issues the website has had since we've migrated. Unfortunately, that's all I can guarantee. If I get an urge to work on something during some of my free time, then you may see fixes/features in that scenario - but don't count on it. However - since I'll have more than an excess of funds, this may allow for some new things that weren't possible before. Things that don't require me to be directly involved, but can still help keep things interesting. Some ideas include giveaways with proper cash (digital only tho) prizes, paid advertising, or potentially paying someone to help out in some areas. Don't count on that last one as it's a pretty remote idea, and something I don't know that I'm wholly comfortable with anyways - but the other two? Only time will tell. With all this going on, I only have one request - as tall of one as it may be. Keep playing. Keep voting. If you want to see CU continue to succeed and not dwindle to the starting line over this potentially very long period of time, the best thing you can do is play and vote. I'm confident that there's enough features on MC for people to have a decent time - even if there may not be much added for a while. If you have friends who play MC, invite them in. If you know people who used to play but have stopped, try and get them back in. But most of all, vote and keep playing. My worst fear with taking the break I mentioned before, and with taking on a job with such demanding hours is coming back afterwards to find that, when I get out of that situation, I come back to find that all I've worked to build has faded. That the people I've met and the community we've built might not be there when I'm able to finally make a formal return to consistently working on CU again. If you can't be on MC, please - keep in touch on our Discord server. That's where myself and many others have been, and will continue to be for a while yet. If you want to stay in touch but can't find time to play MC (or just find yourself bored of it), being active on our Discord is the next best thing you can do (and might even be better in some ways, to be honest). This job is a massive opportunity, and one that I desperately don't want to have to abandon. One that will result in not only a brighter future for myself - but for CU as well. We've been heavily limited in what we can do due to finances since the start. Limited funds to pay for servers, and for any money beyond that? Ha - forget it. Not a chance. But this job can change that. The pure resources made available from this job has the potential to do more for CU than any amount of time ever could. So, as said before - my one request is that you guys help me out by making sure that, when the day comes, I can make a formal return to working on CU - and have all you guys still there to celebrate with me.

+ Dynmap is back online * Updated server to MC 1.16.4 * Updated plugin: Dynmap (3.1-beta5) * Updated plugin: WorldEdit (7.2.0) * Updated plugin: WorldGuard (7.0.4) * Updated plugin: Holographic Displays (2.4.5) * Updated plugin: GeyserMC (#474) * Updated plugin: Citizens (2.0.27-b2166) * Updated plugin: VivecraftSpigotExtensions (1.16.4r1) - Temporarily disabled plugin: AuthMe - Temporarily disabled plugin: FastLogin - Cracked support has been temporarily removed as FastLogin is not currently up-to-date. Cracked support will return as soon as possible. - MagicStuff, Football, and Tennis are temporarily unavailable as they broke with 1.16.4. They will return as soon as an update is possible. - Removed Killerteddy

+ Added Halloween 2020 Hub to /warp archive * Set main hub back to non-Halloween version * Fixed rank colors from Discord all displaying as gray in MC - Removed Killerteddy

Accepted! Thank you for applying, you've been accepted! Enjoy your time here at Chaotic United! For a list of the perks you get for registering, check out this page. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask! Also, please make sure you've read the rules found here and you can vote for us here. Notes:

+ Added plugin: GeyserMC * Made some minor adjustments to MobArena map: Ruin - Removed Killerteddy

Update I've decided against having the poll, because upon further consideration, having cracked support on Bedrock doesn't really help anyone. By keeping it, we lock away the potential for our existing players to utilize it as a means of cross-play between devices/platforms. In terms of bringing in new Bedrock players, very few - if any - are likely to stick around if they have to do /login and /register commands - especially when Bedrock doesn't even really have cracked outside of Pocket Edition/mobile devices. As part of that too, there aren't many cracked Bedrock players to be brought in, anyways. So, should you opt to join the server on Bedrock, you'll be prompted for your Java Edition credentials. These credentials never get to us, they go straight to Mojang to authenticate your session and that's it. If you happen to be worried about it - the plugin used to do so (GeyserMC) is open source, so feel free to dig into it if you like. If you happen to feel really strongly that we should in fact maintain cracked support for Bedrock clients, feel free to try and make a case on Discord or reply to this topic. If there's a really good reason I haven't thought of, I am willing to potentially re-open the poll. Otherwise, don't worry about that poll anymore. :^)

Howdy, folks! This likely won't mean much to most of you - but for those of you who primarily play on the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft, listen up! GeyserMC As of now, we are gonna be testing out a plugin called GeyserMC. What does it do, exactly? Why, it means that you can connect to the main MC server on Bedrock Edition. That's right, if your preferred version of Bedrock Edition MC supports custom servers (ie, Windows 10 or Mobile, not sure about Xbox/other platforms), you'll be able to hop on and play on the main MC server in its entirety - every minigame, rank, donation perk, you name it... mostly. We'll get to that. We've done experiments with Bedrock Edition in the past, and they've usually not gone anywhere - as most all of them have involved using an entirely separate server specifically for Bedrock. Granted, Bedrock servers do have some pretty unique capabilities that aren't nearly as common (or in some cases, may not even be possible) on Java servers. However, those features usually tend to be pretty minor and, at the end of the day, we haven't really seen much justification for having an entirely separate Bedrock server that's just the same as the main server, but isolated to a separate platform. With GeyserMC, we no longer have to make that decision. It acts as a middleman/proxy between our main MC server and Bedrock clients. What does this mean for you, the player? It means that starting right now, you'll be able to hop on MC - the same server that most everyone else plays on, with all its features - on any version of Bedrock that supports custom servers. Windows 10 and Mobile both do, though I'm not certain if other versions do. If the other Bedrock versions let you type in an IP address (and both your game client and the GeyserMC plugin are up-to-date), then you'll be able to hop right in. Most things work as expected, not much to really talk about since, well, it's the main MC server. However, there are a few somewhat significant issues that will detract from the experience somewhat. Not enough to make it unplayable, but still ones worth mentioning. The Issues GeyserMC is still undergoing development, and isn't actually advised to be used in production at this time. However, it's far enough along in development to be fairly playable. The current features that don't work correctly as of writing include (but are probably not limited to): Several inventories/GUI screens Enchantment Table (as a proper GUI) Beacon Cartography Table Stonecutter Structure Block Horse Inventory Loom Smithing Table Several entity flags Invisible item frames used throughout the server instead display as regular item frames Player heads don't work Probably some other weird issues here and there But currently... that's it. In terms of basic Minecraft functionality, that's not a long list. Compare that to something similar that I was following called DragonProxy, where all you could do was login and chat - no world, no chunks, nothing. We've certainly come a great distance since then. Unfortunately, after some minor testing, there are a couple other things that are exclusive to CU that won't work on Bedrock. Not many, but again - still worth mentioning. Custom textures/models for Durite, Magic, and any other custom texture/item will not display - The vanilla texture of the real item is used instead. Bedrock Edition currently doesn't have any support for custom items, and technically neither does Java. The custom textures are made possible with Optifine - and since Bedrock isn't exactly moddable, there is no Optifine for Bedrock. Bedrock players are currently treated as cracked users - Due to how authentication works, Bedrock players are treated as cracked players on the server. There is a workaround for this, but doing so makes it mandatory to own Java edition. This is likely fine for many of you who probably have Java Edition already, but doing this could hamper our ability to gain any new players who play on Bedrock Edition exclusively. That being said, I'm also not entirely concerned with getting a bunch of Bedrock-only users on CU - so I've attached a poll to this topic and to the Discord announcement. There may still be some false anti-cheat detections - During my (brief) testing, the main trigger I saw continue to get flagged was for Speed, which I proceeded to increase the block limit of. It still notifies staff, so we're still able to see any potential hackers using it, but it should be much more forgiving for Bedrock players now. However, it's still possible that some checks occasionally get hit. If you get one that is easily reproduced, let one of our staff know so we can try and see if that can be fixed. The real downside to these issues is that they're largely out of our control. The issues that remain have to do with GeyserMC itself, or are simply limitations that are unavoidable due to the differences between Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft. Even so, what I've listed is pretty much it - and while some of them do certainly detract from the experience, you're still able to have fun and enjoy the server in almost its full capacity - which is pretty incredible when you consider how different the two editions of the game are on a technical level. Plus, it means that for people who aren't home and want to play on CU, people who have weaker computers that might struggle with Java but can handle Bedrock, and maybe even at some point players on consoles - they can join in on whatever things are going on with our MC server without having to be a second-class citizen on an entirely isolated server from the rest of us. And hey, that's pretty cool. Hey, what about that break of yours? I'll wrap things up with a status update on my break. As some of you may (or may not) have noticed, I've technically been taking a break for a couple weeks now. Unfortunately, I'm not officially coming out of that break just yet. Originally, I took the break due to some of the recurring drama, as well as stress from what felt like a constant piling on of bugs. But I'll be honest - at this point, neither of those are much of a factor anymore. The vast majority of the bugs that exist currently aren't game-breaking. All the gamemodes work to basically their fullest extent, and there's plenty of stuff for players to do. Along with that, pretty much every source of anxiety from back when I started the break has been tied up and resolved. At the moment, there's two main reasons I'm still on my break. Focusing on finding employment - If I'm unable to find a job soon, then bills won't be able to be paid anymore. That obviously cannot happen. There isn't much use in me working on the server now if I risk being unable to cover the bills in a month... or worse. Focusing on Elaztek Studios and the Blamite Game Engine - As some of you are now aware of, Chaotic United isn't my only project. The other primary project I focus on is Elaztek Studios - something I have much higher ambitions for than CU. Whereas Chaotic United is more of a hobby project of sorts, a community I tend to and care for during free time, Elaztek is something I hope to someday turn into my career. I don't really see CU as ever being something I do as a job - and to be honest, I like it better that way. Elaztek, however, is something that has the eventual end goal of being my own independent game development studio. The first step in that plan? Build a game engine from the ground up - Blamite. Over the past few months, I've neglected Elaztek and Blamite entirely - and that's something I really need to stop doing if I ever want Elaztek to succeed. As such, I'm going to continue spending a bit of time working on Blamite, or other things for Elaztek in general. I can't say for how long as of yet - but what I do know is that when I shift my focus back to CU, I've got a lot of stuff planned. The good news is that I definitely won't be withdrawing from the community, which is why for some of you - you may not have even noticed I ever took a break at all. I've been just as active in Discord as before - and that won't be changing. Well, I'd say that wraps it up pretty well. Put a bow on it and send it out! Remember to vote in the poll in regards to Bedrock Edition authentication! Otherwise, see you boys and girls in the next one.

+ Added new image URL for og:image meta tag (used in Discord rich embeds) - Removed emoji from Discord and forums: (windwaifu) - Removed emoji from Discord and forums: (pylon) - Removed emoji from Discord and forums: (wind) - Removed emoji from Discord and forums: (wfold) - Removed emoji from Discord and forums: (wf) - Removed emoji from Forums: (arlem) - Removed Killerteddy

Okay holy shit sidenote - after migrating over it seems that, at long last, Discord rich embeds work now. It would seem the issue with them was something to do with the InMotion host itself... huh.

Howdy, folks! You may have noticed that the forums were offline for a bit today. That's because today was the day of... The Big Move™. And by that, I mean that today was the day we migrated away from InMotion Hosting. But why? Why the sudden webhost migration? Well, if you've been active on the Discord - you'll know this wasn't sudden at all. This has been the plan since earlier this year. It just took until fairly recently for it to become feasible - or at least, seemingly feasible. Why We Moved As great as InMotion has been considering how much we paid for it, they've become increasingly frustrating to work with. On more than one occasion, I would get an email in my inbox telling me to remove a handful of .zip files. You see, according to their ToS, you aren't allowed to use the webhost for anything other than a website and email. Hosting files or other content that isn't explicitly part of a website doesn't fall into that category. I was at first unaware of this - because let's be real, nobody reads the ToS. Luckily, they don't just instantly shut your account off if they detect zip files. You get 48 hours to remove the files and only if you fail to do so afterwards are you at any risk of account termination. At first, this was still a pretty fair thing. It wasn't every single zip file, rather it was just a handful of larger ones - usually world archives. By the time this started to come up, I'd already had a subscription to OpenDrive, which gives me unlimited cloud storage for a mere $100 a year. So - I just moved everything over there, and while it took a while (especially to upload), it was done and things were good. But of course, if that's where it ended, we wouldn't be putting up a topic saying we'd moved away from them, would we? No - this continued to become more and more of a problem. What started as requests to remove 20-50GB archives later turned into 100-300MB archives, and later did in fact turn into every single .zip archive on the entire host. The last email I got about excessive "backup content" was one listing 196 different files, many of which were only a few megabytes in size. A select few were larger - but some of them were so small that they were even less than 1MB. This wasn't the only issue I'd had with them. Additionally, performance had become a recurring problem. Now in fairness - this is undoubtedly in part due to poor optimizations on my part. There's likely stuff I could do to improve things. For a while, the banner images you'd see on most pages were at 4k resolution, and in PNG format. Many of those were later downscaled to 1080p JPEGs, which somewhat helped. However, one of the biggest factors with the performance of the host happened to not be large images used in various places - but rather, resource limitations on the host itself. Not disk or storage limits, mind you - one of the best things about InMotion was the unlimited everything. Turns out, the CPU usage even during a single page load was being maxed out. The poor response times were a result of the machine itself being stressed and strained. Now, you might be wondering - why not just make a ticket? I could've theoretically made a ticket with them, because it's entirely possible the CPU usage had little to do with my own site. And this comes into the other issues with InMotion - it was a shared host. For smaller or simpler websites, there's absolutely nothing wrong with shared hosting. All the hard management stuff is taken care for you out of sight - all you worry about is the content itself and that's it. Things just work - and that's the beauty of it. It worked for us for a while too, and it perhaps could've continued to do so going forward. However, when running under shared hosting, if someone else is hitting the CPU hard for whatever reason, that'll start to affect you, too. It's all under the same machine - hence the term, "shared" hosting. You can get dedicated hosting to work around this, but this tends to be much more costly. The common thread interleaved between these issues all center around one thing - ownership and control. And that's precisely what this move was designed to fix. Our New Home So, where did we move? What hosting company did we go with? If you're active on Discord you already know the answer, but if not... nobody. We aren't hosted with any 3rd party company. For the first time in CU's history since 2015, one of our services is running off of owned hardware. That's to say, hardware that is itself entirely under ownership and control of CU. I've upgraded my home internet to a business plan with faster speeds (at virtually no increased cost), rebuilt my old AMD FX-8370 desktop, hooked it up to my TV, and went out and bought a single-user cPanel/WHM license and got everything set up. The only stipulation with that single-user license is that it runs in a virtual environment - which it does. However, I am in full control of this virtual environment and it's got plenty of breathing room to work with - so any performance/latency losses from virtualization should be negligible. The system is setup to have automated backups, and I'll be getting it setup to periodically upload them to OpenDrive as well for added peace of mind, as the website is one of those things that we've been negligent to back up regularly. Along with that, it's got two 2TB hard drives that are mirrored - so it's also safe from any potential hard drive failures as well. Now - full disclosure, this is partially an experiment in a way. It took a lot of tinkering and many days of slamming my face into my desk to work out some of the kinks with the whole setup - but things should be running smoothly now. Even so, I fully expect bugs to crop up just because of the fairly different system being run. Along with that, I'm also in the middle of sorting out stability issues with the FX board itself. But don't panic - I've got a backup board/CPU if it turns out that the FX (or the board it's on) are faulty. The issue at this time appears to be a faulty RAM stick - which has since been removed and the server has been stable ever since, but we won't know for sure for another week or so. If the site does happen to go offline, I can assure you it'll come right back online as soon as possible. And, in the worst case scenario - if running this stuff off of local hardware turns out to be completely infeasible and just isn't working out, I'll be holding onto the InMotion host for a while still - so that if we ever have to move back over, we can. But, as of now - everything seems solid. DNS works, Email works, the forums and website both work, everything seems to finally just work. If you find something that goes against that - don't hesitate to report it on the bug tracker. If the site happens to go offline for an extended period of time, ping me or DM me on Discord and I'll get it back online once I see it (likely after doing some hardware maintenance if it turns out the machine froze again). Oh, and be sure to let us know if the site is any faster than before. It should be a little faster, but there's still one more hardware upgrade that the machine needs - so it won't be running at full speed until then. Otherwise, if no issues arise - that's it. We're moved onto what will hopefully be the new home of the Chaotic United, Elaztek, and any other websites for the foreseeable future. And this time, there's nobody to tell us what content we can or can't have on the site. No arbitrary rules on zip files or having too large of files. The only one who has any say in what we do with the CU website, is us. And damn does that feel good. Just as a sidenote, I'm not intending to throw any shade at InMotion. They gave us pretty decent hosting for 13 bucks a month. Unlimited disk space, addon domains, email accounts, and so on. The performance wasn't great - but even then, when it's that cheap, it's hard to argue with it too much. If you happen to be wanting to host a site of your own, don't let my words against shared hosting scare you off of it. For simpler stuff or for people just getting started, shared hosting is affordable and relatively easy to use. It served ourselves, Nuclear District, and the old CU well for many years - we've just decided we want to take things into our own hands now. Anywho, that's all we've got for this one folks! Apologies for the downtime - though to be honest, it didn't last nearly as long as I was expecting. Overall, the migration went about as smooth as I could've asked for. Be sure to let us know if you run into any issues on the site.

* Updated to 1.16.3 * Updated CUMobArena to v1.0.1 * Fixed an issue where Netherite Tools needed to be shift-clicked into a Grindstone * Fixed an issue where CUMobArena wasn't checking for world name when checking if a block was part of an arena * Updated server resource pack to 1.1.11 - Removed Killerteddy

+ Added and to Forums and Discord + Added Icon Gallery * Updated forum icons - Removed Killerteddy

Yes, I know - it's a really minor detail. You probably look at them for about 20 seconds tops. Hell, you may not have even noticed them. Well, you're gonna notice them today motherf- Sorry - got a little too excited. Anywho - icons! As subtle of a detail as they may be, they should still always be quality and easy to look at. The old icons, while not exactly dated, were a product of a young graphic design student who only made them with a limited knowledge of what looked good vs. what didn't. In fairness - the icons aren't awful, especially when they're so small. However, deep within them, there are some pretty awful things about them that, for me personally, make them really awful. We'll get into those in a few minutes, but first - it's time for Granddad Halo to give you whippersnappers a history lesson! The Classic Icons (2012-2014) The icons that started it all. They're old-school, pretty dated by modern standards, super low-res, and... unoriginal? That's right - most of the old CU forum icons were pulled straight from the internet. You won't find as many nowadays, but some of the icons can still be found on some icon websites. They weren't hand-crafted by some designer just for CU, they were available for any regular Joe to use - free of charge. One example of a publicly-available icon is the following - the General Gaming icon. The left one is the one that was used on the CU forums. The one on the right was found by doing a reverse image search on Google from that original icon. Turns out - there's a higher resolution one out there that has significantly more detail! This is important for another reason that we'll get into later. Now, while the old icons may not have been original - they're somewhat iconic (pun not intended) in my opinion. They were seen for most of the old CU's lifespan - and, hey - they're nostalgic. And that's why the first custom icon refresh in 2016 was intended to modernize those original icons. The Flat Icons (2016-2020) I'd been fairly early into learning graphic design at my tech school (some of you around back then may recall it). At several points during the class, there was allocated "free" time - it wasn't really free time, rather you were supposed to work on any assignments or portfolio work. A few things came out of those instances of free time. The Elaztek logo, the HD version of the CU logo that we still use today, and - you guessed it, the forum icon refresh! You may recall me mentioning the importance of locating higher-resolution versions of the original icons. This wasn't always possible, but in cases where it was - it was a massive benefit. In order to create icons that were truly faithful to the originals, the more original detail - the better. The original arcade cabinet icon seen above was pretty low-resolution, and several details might've been missed - such as the specific shape of the joystick or the angled edges on the bottom corners. Since we're already using that icon as the benchmark, let's stick with it. On the left is the HD icon found online, and on the right is the flat recreation I made in 2016. At a glance, it probably looks pretty clean. However - and maybe this is just a case of me noticing all the problems in my own work - upon closer inspection, some weird issues begin to emerge. We're gonna go through a few of the major ones - across various icons. The Flaws This is the part where I nitpick a few of the icons. I ended up putting far too much effort into these fancy little diagrams - enjoy. The breakdown of each icon is each in its own spoiler and labeled accordingly. If you don't care about the specific flaws (or don't feel like poking fun at my old designs with me), feel free to skip past them to find where we get into the new icons. General Gaming Icon Console Gaming Icon Suggestions & Feedback Icon News & Announcements Icon MineCraft Registration Icon Computers & Tech Icon PC Gaming Icon There are other flaws with other icons not mentioned here. The general point being made is that the old icons, while they served their job of being modern replacements of the old ones, could've been a lot better. So, four years later, I finally did. The Brand-New Icons As of today, both the Chaotic United and Elaztek forums will be rocking a brand new set of icons. Icons that are both modern - but aren't just flat and devoid of detail. For instance, have a look at the new General Gaming icon: So far, everyone who's had a look at these icons says they're pretty good. And while I can't say for sure if they genuinely mean that or not - I'm pretty proud of how they've turned out. They've got just enough added detail from the originals to make them feel fresh, but at the same time they aren't overly detailed to the point that they look dated. All of the other icons showcased above can be found in the spoiler below. Additionally, a page has been setup where you can see each iteration of every forums icon thus far. I'll likely keep that page updated as we continue to update/redesign icons - because hey, archiving doesn't hurt - right? For the most part, the designs of each icon is the same as it was - just with a fresh coat of paint. However, several icons saw fairly significant departures from their originals. You can check the comparisons on the Icon Gallery page - but for now I'll describe the changes here. Computers & Tech - The icon is now of a purely front-facing perspective rather than a 3D perspective. I was honestly on the fence about this one - and honestly I may end up changing my mind later. The main reasoning behind it was partially to due with laziness, as properly replicating the original icon in it's 3D perspective is not a simple task. Along with that, it also ends up being somewhat out-of-place - as every other icon is of a front-facing object of some sort, with this single icon being a full 3D render of a PC tower and monitor. The new icon is a front-facing view of the original icon, with the front of the tower maintaining the same design and the monitor getting the original wallpaper back. If you like, you can download a 1080p or 4k version for your own wallpaper. I figured why not - it does look kinda neat (to me anyways) PC Gaming - The icon is now of an actual PC rather than a Mac. Additionally, rather than just being an ugly flat purple background, there's a real wallpaper and desktop UI represented. Fun fact - the wallpaper is the same design as the one used for Computers & Tech, and yes - you can download this one too. Both are linked at the bottom of the page. Sports - The icon has been changed from a Soccer Ball to a Football, Baseball, and Basketball. Why? Because soccer balls are annoying to make, and because the old soccer ball isn't even original. You can find the exact one on Google. Good job 2016 haloman30 Cars & Vehicles - The icon has been changed from a goofy looking car to a tire and wrench combo. Cars also happen to be annoying to draw and - just like with the soccer ball, it was pulled straight from Google. So - a redesign was in order. Music & Movies - Similar story to the first two, but with a little more depth. The original icon was just of a music note and a film spool. However, the particular arrangement of those two happened to look really clunky and just...bad. The note and the film reel were both pulled from Google, and since the icon itself was already pretty ugly - a full redesign was needed. The new icon is a blue play button. There were other minor adjustments made, but in general most of the icons are still largely based on their originals. Part of the redesign goal was to remain faithful to the originals, where I felt that the 2016 ones weren't as faithful as they could've been - even besides the whole flat style, since that's largely just a design decision. Whew - that was a lengthy topic, all about a handful of icons that most of y'all probably don't even bat an eye at. I figured I'd go into some of the nitty gritty details of some of the icons, because I'm sure there's at least one or two of you out there who can appreciate some of these details. If not, that's okay too. As mentioned above, you can grab 1080p and 4k wallpapers of the backgrounds used for the PC Gaming, Computers & Tech, and Streams icons. Along with that, you'll also find the link to the Icon Gallery below - where you can take a trip through the history of the icons found on the CU forums. Anywho - that's all for now. That break I mentioned before is still in effect as of writing this, I just had an urge to make icons. Not the most important thing ever - but hey. See you folks around! Wallpapers: PC Gaming PC Gaming 4k PC Gaming (no icon) PC Gaming (no icon) 4k Computers & Tech Computers & Tech 4k Streams Streams 4k Icon Gallery: https://chaoticunited.net/material/icon_gallery.html

* Development Team and Minecraft Moderator can now moderate Bug reports and Suggestions * Global Moderator has additional moderation capabilities on Forums - Removed link to Merch Store from navigation menu - Removed Killerteddy

Changed Status to Fixed

Changed Status to Fixed

Changed Status to Closed

+ Added emote to Discord: :ageofrebirth: * Updated links/name for Modded MC in #introduction channel from Brink of Chaos to Age of Rebirth * Restored original icons for Main MC, Modded MC, and Beta 1.7.3 in #introduction - Removed Killerteddy

Accepted! Thank you for applying, you've been accepted! Enjoy your time here at Chaotic United! For a list of the perks you get for registering, check out this page. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask! Also, please make sure you've read the rules found here and you can vote for us here. Notes: By the way, I renamed your account to "HappyNukes1157". You'd set the account display name as your email so I went ahead and fixed that up.

Update as of 9/19/2020 Hopefully this won't end up being a premature post that I have to eat later, but Wind has begun to turn around. After a couple days of silence and a couple days of fairly agitated conversation, he's finally reached a point where he's expressing genuine remorse for his actions and how things have ended up. Make no mistake, however - he will NOT be unbanned from CU anytime soon. The ban status is not changing. That is something that will only ever happen with time, and as Wind hopefully continues to improve himself to ensure that this kind of behavior is a distant memory. I will remain on break because, while the situation appears mostly resolved, I am still somewhat stressed from the other issues (and from this still, it'll take a day or two for that to fully pass) and I've got personal things that I'll need to start refocusing on that need to take priority. So, yeah. That's where things are at. Overall things are beginning to shift back into the positive direction - hopefully it stays that way. If they do, this break will likely be shorter rather than longer.

Benjamin Jay ate a turd and jumped like seabiscuit all his life, despite the development that his turtle contracted HIV during exile. His erect refrigerator took out the huge moist banana from his floor and into various holes of ntx's angina. Snowflakes make nice alternatives appealing to mediocre structures. Suddenly potatoes started raining endlessly across classrooms made much cake succumb with somali pirates which took advantage of exchanging condoms rised in Canada. According to Blar Flanagan, decomposing in Russia has declared that Ukraine became full of annoying rebels with tuxedos super glued to guard posts cursing battleships into shipwrecks, while eating trucks. Korean potatoes radioactively segregated all misconstrued antelopes, therefore the president ntx2 said "hallegua kamikaze", then raging apologetically, he proceeded to procrastinate mowing lawns for smallgoods and vegetables with Indians curry in my large futon mischievously nationalistically while seducing AtomicBeast101 inside a uterus when Alex pooped rainbows through his multiple penises. Bobbie had a ionized dump unloaded into Tai's car because he had to pee. Rockets launch right into Haloman30's pink greasy stretched canvas because Americans can't clone Bobbie's penis into inionized shorts. Valve can severely shut down Nik's small, wet potato using Micheal's massive ego and therefore had been alycats imagination that he was insane. The potato that esponshadow1 authorized had gotten very hot. Sometimes Windwhistle contracts aids while having popcorn. 420Blizzin had to live frugally. haloman30 eats large juicy pineapples. Killerteddy1 destroys massive populations of drug dealers while Stoneharry contemplates mass condensation of massive baby seabiscuits because his cat ceased alive. MILKANDOREOS and the Durite potatoes amassed, then extorted money from Communist China. Iamthebeautyx decided

Hey, guys. It's been a rough couple of days here for me and undoubtedly for several of you as well. As you all have probably heard by now, Wind has decided to leave us and CU behind. For how long, who knows. The way he decided to go about it resulted in him being kicked and later banned from the community due to the repeated hostility he's expressed towards everyone - myself included. I've known Wind since 2016. He first returned to CU under the name Arlem. He was a guy who was talented at building and was adamant about never using WorldEdit, and played a hefty amount of Paragon. Over time, we grew to become close friends, knowing all the deepest secrets about each other. Always being by the other's side no matter how bad it got. Unfortunately, it seems that at this time, that friendship has been severed - possibly even for good. It's been under considerable strain for the past couple months. I have no doubt it's been playing a part in why I've failed to be productive, both within CU and in my own personal life. Several situations have come up over the past month or so that have done nothing but cause me to be an emotional wreck. He's gone off on people, and gone off on me most of all. I think that "oh he's just in a shit mood and he'll come out of it in a day or two", only to then hear how he's talking normally to someone else - which fucking kills me - because it makes me think that maybe he won't come out of it, that maybe this really is how he feels and what he thinks. It makes it feel as though the friendship we've had genuinely does mean absolutely nothing, that maybe he truly does believe I'm as good as dirt. That I'm just a piece of shit, or that I may as well go back to being a cum stain on my mother's back, and that I should go to hell. I wanted to be there for him whenever he needed me. I wanted to be there through the good and the bad, the same way I have been for the past 4 years. But I can't keep being the punching bag every time something like this happens. I love the dude - I really do. But I've reached the limit of what I can handle. Originally I was going to wait for him to come around, to wait and see if he'd come around. I want to stick by his side the way I always have. But I can't. Not anymore. Not until he gets the help he needs. I can't help him anymore. I've been trying for years, and where did that leave me? Alone, miserable, and broken. Last night, I reached my breaking point. I cried for the first time in nearly a decade. It started when he got online as an alt under the name "Toiletwhistle", and had only two messages: My mood was just starting to come up a bit when this happened. Minutes later, espon (wolfbitez) mentioned that Wind was seemingly still talking to him - which of course had me fucked up since it suggests that Wind doing this isn't just one of his episodes, though it seems so clear that it must be - right? I felt massive rush of anger and frustration - venting to a few people in voice chat which built up to me standing out of my seat and shouting my words. I went into the hallway towards the storage room, let out the loudest scream I could, started banging on the door - and then the tears came. I broke down - right in Discord for everyone to see the absolutely pitiful mess of a person I'd been reduced to. I had to be moved to the Staff channel since I was obviously not gonna come over and move myself. That's the state of mind that one of my best friend put me in. That's what Wind did to me. How can I in good faith call someone a friend when that's the kind of shit they do to me? I can't. That being said, my hope is that this won't be permanent. I don't hate Wind. I pray that he'll come back around. I pray that this is just another one of his episodes - that this isn't really him. But I can't let myself get dragged down with him. It's crushing me. It's driving me insane. It's pushing me to and beyond my breaking point. Everyone has their limits as to what they can take. I think that, unfortunately, I've reached mine. Taking Some Time Off Yesterday I was banned from his server, blocked on Discord and later he got on MC just to remind me that I'm a piece of shit. Other staff members banned him from CU - but I've taken it upon myself to ban him from Elaztek and block him myself. I pray that this won't have to be a forever thing - that maybe he'll come back around, realize how awful he's treated myself and everyone else, and get the help he so desperately needs. I feel like shit doing this. It'll likely haunt me for a long time still - but it's better than being abused like this all the time, I guess. This combined with gradual fatigue and frustration with everything has brought me to the decision to take a break. I've been wanting to work on stuff for Elaztek Studios for a while now, but have felt too obligated to CU - what with the increasing player counts and massive amounts of donations - to step away. As much as I was hoping to avoid this - I've got to look out for my own mental health. The past months have left me shattered and broken. I begin to dread getting up for fear of what awaits me on Discord. It's a feeling I haven't felt since 2017 - except it's different this time. At least in 2017, Wind didn't hate me. He only hated the decisions I was making. Now, it seems that the target of his wrath isn't my actions, but me. If you're worried that I might not come back - don't be. In fact that's largely why I'm taking a break. Just as I've cut off Wind in an effort to preserve whatever may be left between he and I in the hopes we can come back together later, I'm taking a break from CU now to ensure I don't reach a point where I want to rid myself of being an owner on the community. I love CU and I love the community it has. It's truly satisfying and amazing to see that, while we may not have yet achieved the larger playerbase I'd love to have - we're still here. We've got a tightly-knit community here where everyone is a friend, and that's pretty damn cool. The plan is to, upon returning, be eager to get back to work on the server. Whether or not that'll happen, I can't yet say. Of course it also depends how long the break is. I don't know how long this break will be. It could be just a few days, it might be weeks, it may even be a month or two. I don't know yet. But it's apparent to me that I need to take some time away from CU. To Wind Wind, if you're reading this, know that I don't hate you. I love you - the real you. I want nothing more than my friend back. That's why I have to do this. I have to cut you off for now until you get better. Believe me I feel like absolute shit doing it. But I don't want to grow to hate you. I want to someday see you get the help you need - real help, not the "help" you got before - and that the two of us can reunite and go drink a couple Capri-Sun™s together or some shit. I pray that that day comes sooner rather than later. But I can't keep going through this, man. You're dragging me down with you. These past months have been unbearable for me, and nearly everyone I've talked to has been telling me since it began that I should cut you off. And at this point, after breaking down to tears in front of effectively everyone - I can't argue with them anymore. Please come back. Get the help you need and come back. Once you do I'll happily welcome you back in with open arms. But I can't take the abuse anymore. I hope you understand. If you think that me doing this is a dick move to do, I understand. If you want to never talk to me again because of it - it sucks, it hurts, but I understand. I didn't come to this decision lightly, if that makes it any better. I'm not removing your plugins. I won't erase your work. You've contributed massively to CU and I can never thank you enough - and I'll see to it that people remember you because of it, whether you return or not. Where to Find Me So, where will I be during this break? I'll be camping out over at Elaztek Studios primarily. If you wanna keep up with what I'll be up to or keep on talking to me in voice chat, you're free to hop into the Elaztek Discord. Fun fact - the Premiums and Veterans among you will get your ranks back upon joining over. If other people are over there, you'll likely see me in voice chat. If you aren't aware, Elaztek is a game development studio that I've (kind of) started up. Our current project is the Blamite Game Engine. Rather than using an off-the-shelf engine like Unreal or Unity, we want to build our own engine from the ground up. From the community side, we admittedly don't have a whole lot as of yet. Even so, we do have a forums and Discord. Now that being said, I'm also gonna try and stay active in CU in terms of the community. While I do believe I need a break, I also don't believe that secluding myself from my friends is going to make anything any better. In fact I'm fairly sure it'd do nothing but make everything that much harder. So in addition to Elaztek, you'll likely continue to see me in the CU discord, talking in text channels and in voice. However - please do not ask me to get on the server, or drag me into situations, or inform me about bugs or anything like that. The only reason I'd be sticking around is to talk to my friends. I want nothing to do with any server stuff and will not be involved save for very extreme situations where I absolutely must be there. If I can't get away from server management stuff in the CU Discord, then my fallback will be to either mute the server and live solely in Elaztek, or if that fails - I'll transfer server ownership to my alternate account and then leave the server until I feel ready to come back. If you wanna sign up on the Elaztek forums, you can do so at https://elaztek.com If you're interested in joining the Elaztek Discord, you can join at https://discord.gg/DYMFVWZ I'm sorry that I have to do this. I hate that it's gotten to this point. I hate that a friendship has been strained so heavily to lead to this. My hope is that when I make my return, I'll be ready and eager to get back to it. I hope to return and start working on getting bugs fixed, new gamemodes added, and making the MC server the best it can be. But that won't happen with me being in this mental state. I don't know how long it'll take me to reach that point. Maybe it'll just be a few days and I'll be ready, or maybe it'll take a month or two. Maybe it'll be somewhere in between. I don't know how much time I need because I've never felt so fucked up like this before. I've never been in a position where I felt that it was necessary to cut a friend off. For my whole life, friendships have only ever become distant - never strained like this. It's a new pain - and it's miserable. And considering just how much of Wind is still within CU, I don't see myself being able to recover as long as I'm still here trying to work on it. Once again, I'm sorry for doing this. I'm sorry that this topic is kind of all over the place and disorganized - I'm just not in a great headspace at the moment. I hope to come back sooner rather than later. Until then, you can find me on the Elaztek or CU Discord servers. Have a good day, yall. Try not to miss me too much.