haloman30

* Fixed 'Board index' link on UAC website * Reduced server status timeout on homepage and forums index * Fixed Builder rank on forums being unable to view Bug Tracker categories - Removed ElDewrito block from homepage services list - Removed Killerteddy

+ Added mod: CUStuff + Added custom recipes for colored OpenBlocks elevators + Added custom recipes for colored OpenBlocks rotating elevators * Adjust logo and color on splash screen * Fix custom font not being enabled by default * Update OpenBlocks from 1.5 to 1.6 * Update OpenModsLib from 0.9 to 0.10.1 * Downgrade Forge from 1614 to 1558 * Downgrade Forestry from 4.2.5.53 to 4.2.2.50 * Downgrade DynamicSurroundings from 1.0.6.4 to 1.0.5.11 * Fixed an issue where Nether portals would always send you to the spawn area of either world - Removed mod: ShetiPhianCore - Removed mod: Platforms - Removed Flan content pack: Global Firestorm v3.2 to fix Vehicle Crafting Table crash - Removed Killerteddy

Changed Status to Fixed

With the power of plugins this has been resolved

+ Added emoji: - Removed Killerteddy

Changed Status to Closed

So this is an issue with the mod itself that doesn't seem fixable for whatever reason. 10/10

+ Added timeline entries for 2020 thus far + Added timeline entry for MinecraftMarket shutdown in 2018 + Added new announcement banner to old MM shutdown topic - Removed Killerteddy

Howdy, folks! If you've kept up with Discord, you may have noticed the following announcement was posted, with little to no context: This was a sorta-cheesy way to launch one of hopefully several server-wide events - leveraging OptiFine's Custom Item Texture (CIT) support to introduce entirely new tools and items into the game. This was all possible thanks to @Windwhistle, who you might recall from such plugins as Grifblock and our MobArena replacement. The textures were first given rough shapes by Wind and I went in and polished them up - with the end result being Durite. The Tools Durite tools are just as strong as Diamond tools, but have some extra quirks about them: Durite Hammer - Acts identical to the Gravity Hammer in Grifblock Durite Pickaxe, Durite Shovel, and Durite Axe - Mines a 3x3x3 cube wherever you mine, similar to hammers in Modded MC (except those are 3x3x1) Durite Sword - Nothing too crazy, but does more damage than a Diamond Sword Durite Armor - Taking damage can actually charge up the armor. When the particles around the armor show up and turn to a light purple/pink, right click on the ground to let out an explosion Along with those specific abilities, all armor and tools have a 1 in 3 chance of not taking any damage when used/hit - which effectively makes all of the tools and armor 33% stronger than Diamond. Obtaining Durite As of now, there are a number of small hand-placed Durite craters, with a larger one present somewhere as well. The specific locations are up to you to find - but here's a hint: Dynmap will likely be of assistance. If that's not enough, the image attached to the Discord announcement (see the spoiler above) also includes a subtle hint. Additional Notes on Durite In the event that all Durite craters are depleted, we are able to add more - don't count on this happening for a while though - the whole point is for them to be fairly rare and thus quite valuable. Additionally, textures for the items and armor are handled using a server resource pack. You will need to allow this to be applied as well as be using the latest version of OptiFine for the textures to display properly. We'll likely be making more use of this resource pack over time - and already it does make an adjustment outside of Durite. Go check out Grifblock again if you'd like to see what it is. The only real limitation to OptiFine's CIT is that we can't do truly custom block textures - hence why Durite Ore isn't a proper block texture. But considering that all of this can be done within vanilla Minecraft is, to me, quite crazy to think about and lends itself to a wide array of ideas - ones that you should be seeing in the somewhat near future. Modded MC Just want to give a major apology for the lack of updates in regards to Modded MC. I've largely been focused on Elaztek for a while, and because of that I haven't had a ton of time to really sit down and work on Brink of Chaos' successor. Make no mistake - it is coming, and I plan to shift gears and focus on it before returning to working on Elaztek. I can't guarantee when it'll happen of course - because things never quite go to plan - but I just want to acknowledge that we haven't just canned the idea of modded MC. I've just been fairly busy with a bit too much on my plate as of late. What I will say is don't expect it to be super soon. 1.16 is just around the corner (June 23rd), and it likely won't be too long after that Spigot and Paper update. I plan to work on modded a bit before that happens, but once it does I will be focusing primarily on 1.16. On top of that, I've got other adult life things to work on before I can do either of those, so I can't really give a proper time frame as to when everything will happen. Just hang in there - it's coming. I promise. DonationStore So, something we mentioned a while ago was an overhaul to our donation store, using the creatively-named software called 'DonationStore'. Unlike our previous stores which used MinecraftMarket and later CraftingStore after MM shut down, this store is entirely self-hosted. How is that a good thing? Well, it means that at no point will we face something like what happened to MinecraftMarket. What happened to them, you might ask? Well, in Summer 2018, they just vanished - with seemingly no real information as to why. They appeared to be hacked by "XrtGroup", although some theorize that this wasn't even a hacker group - but instead was MM's owner trying to just up and leave with people's money (albeit with no real evidence to support that claim). Fortunately this didn't result in any serious ramifications for users who donated to us (or other stores) as MM didn't store actual payment method information. What this did mean was that any configuration, packages, images, and payment history was gone - forever. Luckily, we've kept a list of all the donators available via /warp donator ingame which saved us from losing all payment information, but that list may not be complete. On top of that, any payment history from the old NuclearDistrict store (which I'd been given access to by @Baxman) was also gone for good. In other words, we had no way to see who donated to ND in the event someone from ND came back to CU and wanted a rank back. We also lost package information for our own store as well as ND's store - which is particularly painful for me since, as you guys know, I like to preserve history and archive things obsessively. When that first went down, DonationStore was one of the candidates I looked at. Unfortunately, at the time the only one available was 1.0 which was reported to be fairly insecure and/or buggy. The 2.0 rewrite was well underway, however, but was still years from release. I moved to CraftingStore instead, but kept an eye on DonationStore's Discord. For those who wish for a more in-depth explanation, you can check the announcement we posted upon first moving to CraftingStore here. But, let's digress back to DonationStore. At the start of 2020, DonationStore 2.0 finally launched publicly - and I was all over it. It took a bit to get the funds for it, but I bought a license back in Spring. However, shortly after that purchase I started to set up plans to get CU's services migrated to a dedicated server of my own, to take the burden off of Michael, and so I held off on doing all the configuration. By the time I finally got the chance to get it setup, a ton of updates had been released and I'd only gotten the cheapest upgrade duration - so I dropped another 16 bucks to get the new features (which looked quite nice to me personally) and got to work. The major thing that's nice about a self-hosted store, besides the obvious protection against a 3rd-party site being able to shut down at a moment's notice, is that you have a lot more control over the site than you would otherwise. Granted, you can get almost all of these features by getting a premium plan with one of the existing platforms - but for a monthly fee only. DonationStore allows you to pay once and then never again. You do have to pay for additional feature updates, but then it's no worse than IP.Board (what we use for forums). If you don't care for the new features, you can pay once and never have to again. Your store doesn't get features retroactively locked down if you don't renew or anything like that. Oh, and since it's selfhosted, we don't have to pay for something as basic as SSL - just fire up CertBot and it's good to go. So payments are now finally going through HTTPS - like they realistically should always be doing regardless. The new store is live at https://donate.chaoticunited.net. The new design is a blend of the old MinecraftMarket store, the CraftingStore store, as well as bringing some elements from our own website/forums theme as well. It doesn't deviate heavily from the stock design - but if you ask me, it doesn't really need to. Along with the new design, we've also introduced a setting where you can choose where your donation goes - as mentioned in the apology topic I posted not too long ago. After adding an item to the cart, you'll be greeted with this screen: Other than that, all the old payments have been imported from CraftingStore as well as all original packages. Something I plan to do here soon is introduce the massive list of disguises that are currently unavailable, as well as do some price-cutting on a lot of the disguises. While bringing these over, I noticed how ridiculously expensive a lot of these are - so expect an announcement somewhat soon announcing some price-cuts on most, if not all existing disguises (and the introduction of a whole ton of new ones). If you find any issues with the store, be sure to let me know so I can go in and fix it! Wrapping Up That's all I've got for now though, folks! Go hunt down that Durite! If you have any feedback regarding Durite (or anything, really) don't hesitate to let us know! Otherwise, enjoy your new toys!

+ Added plugin: CUEventMeteor + Added server resource pack + Added Durite crash sites around Survival world + Added new resource and toolset: Durite * Gravity Hammer in Grifblock now uses a custom texture (from Halo Minecraft Wars texture pack) * Energy Sword in Grifblock now uses a custom texture (from Halo Minecraft Wars texture pack) - Removed Killerteddy

* Added barriers to Grifblock arena Court to hopefully ensure the grifblock doesn't end up out of bounds * Migrated server to new server (that halo finally pays for) * Updated CUMobArena to fix an issue with spectating * Updated PGGrifblock to fix an issue with spectating - Removed Killerteddy

+ Added messages on MC, Forums, and Donation Store informing users about anti-police-brutality donations * Fixed an issue on MC where nether portals would take you to the wrong destination (skyblock sort of works but not perfectly) - Removed Killerteddy

Howdy, folks. Normally I don't touch politics in any "official" manner, but with the recent events I feel compelled to do so. As I'm sure you're all aware, a recent act of disgusting police brutality was demonstrated on a man named George Floyd. The way he was killed was one of unfortunately many instances of police brutality. Whether you believe that the action was evidence of systemic racism or not, I think we can all agree that America's police are far from perfect. There's certainly lots of honest and well-meaning officers out there - and they're fine. But the man who killed Floyd had a known history of complaints, yet was still allowed to continue being an officer. On top of that - more often than not, officers tend to get off much easier when charged with crimes - many never even get charged in the first place. This kind of shit is just unacceptable - and I think we can all agree that it needs to end now. So, I'm doing something that I've never actually done before - I'll be routing 100% of donations until July 7th to CUAPB - Communities United Against Police Brutality - a charity who aims to bring about improvements and reforms to our police systems. If for any reason you disagree with what these guys are doing and still wish to donate, you can either wait until July 8 or DM me upon donating. I recognize that I haven't done a ton of research into the charity, so it's not impossible that they've got skeletons in the closet that I'm unaware of (though I kind of doubt it) and don't wish to force people to donate to a charity they personally wouldn't support. The donations will be gathered and donated all at once on July 7. If you wish to read more into the charity yourself, their site is at https://www.cuapb.org. If you're looking for a rank upgrade and want to help support police reform and bring justice for George Floyd all at once, head to http://donate.chaoticunited.net.

+ Added plugin: PGGrifblock + Added plugin: CUMobArena (replaces old, buggy MobArena plugin) + Added plugin: CustomHeads + Re-added plugin: DynMap + Added plugin: WitherAntiCheat + Added plugin: WorldEditSUI + Added MobArena map: fword + Added MobArena map: Hopeless + Added Grifblock map: Sorting Area + Added Grifblock map: Island (has very topical easter egg in the water) + Added Grifblock map: grifword + Added SurvivalGames to /play menu + Added Grifblock to /play menu + Added Grifblock to website minigame map browser + Added Hopeless to website MobArena map list + Added SurvivalGames to website minigame map browser + Added SurvivalGames and Grifblock to Gamemode list on Minecraft page on website * Reduced VeinMiner vein values to reduce lag when using VeinMiner * DYNMAP IS FINALLY BACK (and has been for a bit but this changelog is late af) * Replaced old, buggy MobArena plugin with a custom-coded upgrade by @Windwhistle * Builder can now create Craftbook mechanics in Builder world * Command Blocks can no longer be placed by regular players * MC Rank perk lists now mention additional plots per-rank * Disabled NDParkour built-in protection as it created unnecessary lag (WorldGuard protects the maps just fine) * Member can now use /heads in Creative to spawn custom heads easily * Creator and above can use /heads in Survival * Spleef and Archives are no longer listed as [New] in /play menu * Any user with WorldEdit can now toggle the selection UI by doing /wesui toggle - Disabled Craftbook 'Snow' mechanic to fix players being unable to gather snowballs - Removed plugin: MobArena - Removed Derek Chauvin - Removed Killerteddy

Howdy folks! We've got an exciting announcement today! We are officially launching two new minigames: SurvivalGames and Grifblock! SurvivalGames So, yeah. If you've been playing on the server for a bit, you'll know that SurvivalGames has technically been playable for a while now. We wanted to wait for an official launch in order to ensure that all the bugs were worked out. As far as we can tell - things are working as intended, and thus, we're making it official! A handful of maps are currently available, the details (and a screenshot) of which you can see here: https://chaoticunited.net/games/minecraft/maps/survivalgames.html. If you don't care about any of that and just want to get playing, head to /warp survivalgames and go wild! Grifblock Grifblock, however, is brand new - and you won't find it anywhere else. At least, within Minecraft. It's a recreation of Halo's popular Grifball gamemode, but within Minecraft! With the power of the Bukkit API, we've got working Gravity Hammers, Energy Swords, and a small selection of maps at launch. You can find the full list at the link below. The maps Sorting Area and Island may look familiar to you, as they are remakes of two of our Grifball maps from the old ElDewrito server. We plan to get the other maps from ElDewrito rebuilt as well - so keep your eyes peeled for those, which should be done relatively soon™. This plugin was hand-crafted by none other than our very own @Windwhistle. Not only did he make Grifblock, he also recoded the MobArena plugin from scratch - both to allow for new features as well as to make the gamemode finally stable. Show him some well-deserved love! Or else. Full Grifblock map list: https://chaoticunited.net/games/minecraft/maps/grifblock.html Dynmap Yes, the rumors are true! Dynmap has returned to Chaotic United! Not all the worlds are fully rendered out yet, but Survival should be ready for viewing - with the others coming, as usual, soon™. Nothing much more than that in terms of the livemap - you can check it out at http://mc.chaoticunited.net:8123 Well, that's all we've got for now, folks! No extra stuff this time around, just keeping things short and sweet and to the point. Stay safe out there, folks.

Shit sorry didn't see this until just now lmao Unfortunately, this is currently a known issue with no real fix outside of our eventual migration to BungeeCord. Nether Portals in general tend to be buggy server-wide, for instance in Survival a lot of people coming back from the nether will end up locked in my base inexplicably, and a similar issue happens with SkyBlock. The most that we can do for now is have a Moderator fly around and locate your actual nether island, teleport you to it, and then have you set a home there. A proper fix will become possible once we've finished migrating to BungeeCord - but don't expect that to happen anytime super soon as there's a long ways to go still.

* Fixed Platinum wrongly having access to unsafe enchantments - 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:

Alrighty folks, so it's not even been 24 hours - but even so, a lot has happened and we've got a new plan for the situation. First off, I want to thank all of you for the overwhelming support thus far. I'll be honest, I expected this to turn out a lot worse than what ended up happening. Moreover, I was actually surprised that option A (do what you want with the money) actually seems to be winning out - I fully expected option B to win by a landslide. However, our end plan is going to basically be neither of those two options. After some internal talks, here's our plan: I'm going to be making sure all donations are kept in reserve up until I have enough to cover the following month (or maybe even 2 months) worth of server bills. In other words, anywhere between 50 and 100 dollars will be set aside as "don't touch any of this" money, mainly as a precautionary measure in the event of a catastrophic event in my personal life that makes me unable to pay the bills. Almost anything above that reserve will be handled as it has been thus far. Almost. As I mentioned a while back, we will soon be migrating to a new donation store website called DonationStore. One thing that should be possible with this (since it's self-hosted, unlike the other store softwares) is being able to have added options during the purchase process. In other words, an option will be left up to the user upon purchasing anything from the store. The user will be able to decide where that money goes, whether they want it to go exclusively to CU itself in some way, shape, or form, or if they simply don't mind either way. This way, the user will be made fully aware and in control of whether or not the money goes towards CU. One other thing, that was recently brought up by @Em_Aru, is the phrasing on the site itself. Thus far, it's been called a "Donation" store. You're "donating" to CU and we're "giving" you a rank out of nothing but generosity. We've kept it with that name just out of tradition, but perhaps this is one of those traditions that needs to be broken - as, without that terminology being used, this entire situation never would've even been a concern. So, in no specific time frame, we're going to be migrating away from using the term "donation" in the context of the store. This will likely be (one of) the last posts you'll see in CU referring to our MC rank shop..thing as a "donation store". As you can tell, we'll need to find an alternative term for it. Eventually, the URL will be changed to something like http://store.chaoticunited.net as opposed to http://donate.chaoticunited.net. Eventually, there won't be any references to the ranks as a donation - however the user-selectable "where the money goes" option will remain. Once again, I sincerely apologize for this whole mess. Or if you think I'm not even in the wrong - I apologize for, if nothing else, being a bit emotional and a bit of a downer for the past day, and chances are I'll likely be a bit of a mess for a little while yet. The whole situation has caused a couple rifts, one in particular that I can only pray gets closed, and overall the whole situation has just taken its toll on me. I'm not asking for support, or even for you to agree with my personal viewpoints. Because while I personally don't consider this to be a major moral issue, I recognize that some of you very well might - and because of that, I'm setting my thoughts aside to try and make things right - because at the end of the day, it's not really about me. It's about you guys - the community as a whole. And at the end of the day I can think whatever I want - but if you guys don't like it, then there's only one right path for me to take.

This is gonna be a fairly serious announcement, a sort of confession if you will. I just urge you to please read over the entire announcement before coming to any conclusions on the matter. You see, up until this point I've had next to nothing come in through donations. However, lately more donations have been coming in - coincidentally right as I happen to get a job that itself brings in money. What I haven't given much thought to is how you guys would feel about what those funds went to. Up until now, funds have been immediately transferred to my personal bank account - the same one that our new dedicated server will be renewed from. I treated donation money as just, my money. I gave little consideration to ensuring that those funds went to things like server renewals and other such things - as ultimately, I knew I'd be able to afford them regardless. And ultimately the donations that come in don't begin to cover the majority of CU's overall costs. Considering all of this, I saw it as no issue to use donation funds on whatever I pleased - as long as I made sure that the bills got paid. Apparently, however, some of my own staff wasn't aware of this - including our own administration. Hearing me mention that I bought something non-CU related with (probably) donation money nonchalantly in voice resulted in one particular admin having quite the shock and negative response, along with another member of the team. I honestly couldn't tell you what specific dollars went to where, because again - when it comes in, it just becomes part of my overall bank account. I have had similar discussions with other staff members in the past, and none of them saw much issue with it. And - to be fair, I still personally see little issue in terms of morals in this whole thing. That being said, I've also not done a great job of communicating that to you guys, either. The only place you'll see this in the Terms of Service on the donation site. And, in fairness, it's nothing new. It's been a policy since 2014 - for one key reason. I've always maintained that I will never, at any point rely on donations to keep CU running, because donation income can be unreliable at best. And with the sheer amount of expenses we have, it's simply not feasible anyways. After having two members of my team chew me out and even go so far as to compare me to Killerteddy himself - an accusation I strongly disagree with since Teddy was known for forcing other past CU staff to pay the bills in his absence - I think that I should, if nothing else, consult you guys about this, and use that to decide how I handle donations going forward. First, I want to explain my perspective. CU's bills stretch far beyond what anyone would call reasonable. I've managed to gather every single domain that had any connection to Chaotic United in any way, shape, or form - a lot of them. Overall, I pay for roughly 40ish domains, each of which are 13 dollars a year. You can figure out the rest - it's a hefty chunk of change. Additionally, there's a VPS that hosts Discord bots and our Beta 1.7.3 server ($14/month), a webhost which powers the forums for CU and Elaztek ($13/month), and a dedicated server which runs our Main and Modded MC servers ($48/month). In fairness - up until these past couple months, Michael has been paying for the Dedicated server. It wasn't until very recently that I've been able to actually take over those payments (and even then, we aren't done moving stuff over yet). But everything else is already being paid for by me, and has been for some time. However considering how much money I (or my father in some cases) have put in, I saw treating donations with the same liberty as personal spending money as no issue. And at the end of the day, if the money just sat idle as a pool for the bills to come out of, the end result is the same. Perhaps part of me having this mentality is just fear of becoming reliant on donations - there's been enough this year to cover several months of dedicated server bills, for sure. But, that's all in the past - and isn't the primary purpose for this announcement. This announcement is about the future. If you feel genuinely upset, betrayed, or hurt by this - I give you my deepest apologies. I genuinely never imagined it to be any real issue at the end of the day. And, whether I think I'm becoming closer to Teddy than I'd like or not - I want to still do right by you guys. So, I'll leave it up to you. First, I'll be making a poll. Do any of you guys feel that donations should be exclusively used for server bills? Do you think that I'm justified in using them how I desire considering the overall situation? Do you just not give 2 shits either way? Let me know with the choices below. Going forward, as we migrate things to new servers and eventually migrate to a new donation store software entirely, what I'm going to look into doing is making this whole thing a user choice at checkout. The idea is basically that, as a user, you can choose to ensure your money goes directly back into CU, or if you don't care - then it gives me free license to do what I want with it. Until such a system takes place, however, the poll on this announcement will determine what happens to donations after today. However, unlike past polls, I'm not gonna just pick whoever has more than the other. If it's a close result, then I'll just stay on the safe side and keep funds for CU usage only. The only way I'll be using funds freely is if that option wins out by an overwhelming majority (say 75% to 80% or more). However, there's one more thing I want to try and do. If you honestly, truly, and deeply feel like I have wronged you by misuse of donations, DM me. I can't give any time frames but I'll do my best to try and refund you personally as soon as I'm able. My current work hours are incredibly shit so it's liable to be many, many months down the road. Keep in mind that doing this will result in you not having the rank anymore - obviously - and if every single person who has ever donated asks for their donations back, I probably won't be able to do it for a couple of years even. I do still have bills to pay, after all. Note: If you wish to claim a refund you must do so within 2 weeks of this announcement (by June 8, 2020). Any refund requests afterwards will not be honored. So, uh, yeah. That's it. This isn't about any new features or anything like that, though there are some of those in the works as always. Once again, if you feel hurt or betrayed or offended by this - I'm sorry - and I'll do everything within my reach to make it right. Because, at the end of the day, I am not Killerteddy1.

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 emoji: + Added emoji: + Added emoji: - Removed Killerteddy

Unfortunately, our administration team has determined that, for the time being, you are to remain banned from our Discord. Keep in mind you are still free to use our Forums and Minecraft server as you desire, the bans do not extend to there.

+ Added bot to Discord: Server Captcha Bot (to help prevent future advertisement bots from spamming everyone) + Added Discord channel: #verification + Added Discord channel: #verificatio-info + Added Discord role: Validated * Made all current users part of Validated role - Removed Killerteddy

Man. Crazy to think we've been going nine years. Nine years is a long time. Typically, the past anniversary posts have been worded along the lines of "yea we're pretty quiet now but we'll get somewhere soon i promise!". Last year, I wanted the 8th anniversary announcement to be the final one following that format: Well, we aren't quite there yet unfortunately. That being said, we are undeniably closer to that target than we have been in a very long time - possibly closer than we ever have been. Which, hey - I'll take it. Any progress is good at this point. So, let's take a look back and reflect on the past year. Reflecting on Year 8 We started the 8th year off with, once more, a promise of hope for the future. We were hard at work on updating to 1.14 - though it still took much longer than any of us would've liked. It saw the departure of several staff members and the introduction of new ones. While year 8 wasn't as groundbreaking as we all obviously would've hoped - it was still a new beginning nonetheless. It marked the point where we fixed a number of the deeply-rooted management issues with CU. Not server issues per se, but issues with how I managed the people. I'd had a pretty serious issue with holding on to staff members for far too long. People were on the staff team for no other reason than I was used to seeing their name in Blue or Green. The vast majority of those people didn't even need to be demoted - when I laid out the new expectations going forward, they simply stepped down to avoid that uncomfortable situation. With those folk out of the team, room was available for new users to fill that role. The most notable addition is, of course, @Z0mbieslayer2013. You know him, you love him - and believe it or not, this is his first time as a Moderator. While there are certainly times where this is clear, he's done something that really doesn't happen as often as it probably should - he asks questions. Not just questions on "how do I do x", or "what do I do if Y happens?" - no, no. He stands up straight and asks questions about why things are they way they are. Questioning things that have been the case for years and pointing out things that should be obvious improvements. And while not all of his ideas and suggestions have been implemented - the fact that he still proposes changes and enhancements at all is important. When you as a leader surround yourself with people who just agree with you all the time, you're living in an echo chamber. And if nothing else, Zombie is ensuring that I'm not sitting in one. The second half of year 8 saw us hit some of the biggest population spikes we've seen in years. As unremarkable as reaching 10 or more users on the server at once seems, it's a step in the right direction - and a step we've not seen happen in years. The last time we saw numbers that high was in early 2017, roughly 3 years ago. And while those heights tend to happen at random with much of the activity still hanging much lower, activity as a whole has improved. 0 people on isn't the norm during the whole day - you'll typically only see it at a couple specific parts of the day (typically very early/late). And of course, we've been slowly working on migrating everything over to BungeeCord - in an effort to remove technical issues. And this will be our primary focus for Chaotic United's 9th year. The Plan for Year 9 Our plan for this year is similar to what we did in Year 8. Where Year 8 was the year of fixing management-related issues, Year 9 is the year of fixing all the technical problems that have been building up since 2014. Fixing long-time issues, and making future issues easier to nail down and resolve. However, due to the sheer volume of issues that are scattered about, there's no way for us to have a single, coherent memory of each and every issue. This is where you come in. If you find any bug - or anything that so much as looks like a bug - report it on our Bug Tracker. Our goal is to start the decade off with a solid technological foundation - and to enter the second decade of Chaotic United as a strong, stable, secure, and reliable server. A server that doesn't have a series of ridiculous roadblocks keeping people who would otherwise enjoy the server from having fun. And most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough - do NOT just tell me about a bug. My memory is NOT reliable and I guarantee you I'll forget about the issue entirely within 24 hours - if not sooner. This is the reason we have the bug tracker, so that issues aren't just "forgotten" and so that their status can be tracked. If you've told me about an issue before, report it. Anything that you'd consider strange or "probably not intentional" is something that should be reported. I want to know any and all issues you guys might have, severe or not. Even if it's a completely harmless bug, report it. I want to get each and every bug on that bug tracker fixed - I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I'm sick and tired of having a buggy server - and I'm sick of making you guys constantly put up with a buggy server. Speaking of Server Stuff... Something sort of huge has been developing here lately - and you might've already heard me mention it. But if you haven't - in the coming months, we'll be doing a bit of server consolidation. Most of this is outside of Chaotic United entirely, but one change that will affect CU (slightly) is that the Elaztek Gitlab will be hosted on the same machine as the MC server. For a while (and still at the time of writing), it runs on its own machine with a couple of things that aren't CU or Elaztek related. I know what you're thinking: "I don't give a damn about server consolidation - that's not exciting". And you're absolutely right. However, the next part (at least for me) is. As part of this consolidation, I will be taking over the payment of the CU/Elaztek servers moving forward. The only things I won't be paying for are the relays - as those are so cheap that Michael will continue paying for them. That being said, a couple of the unused ones are being dropped. If you're worried - don't be. If you use a relay, the one you use will be kept online. Several that we have are just not used whatsoever - and as such, they're being dropped. For those of you who have been around for a while, you'll know that Michael has been fairly crucial to paying the bills for most of the time of the CU revival. He hosted the server out of his house from late 2014 through to mid-2015 when we merged with ND. From there, we moved to a VPS which I paid for. A while later (2017 if I'm not mistaken but don't quote me on it), Michael stepped back in to pay for the dedicated server that we've been using until today. After finally getting a stable job that shows no signs of going anywhere, I'm finally in a position where I can actually cover these bills. And with this transition, I think it's all the more important that we all thank and honor Michael for what he's done for CU since 2014. It's no exaggeration that, if he never came along, we absolutely would not be here today. I'd have likely given up on it after my old laptop died and I'd probably be on a whole different path - never getting a chance to know any of you guys. The legacy of Chaotic United would've ended in mid-2016, possibly even sooner - when ND shut down. That would've been it and the book would've closed. But thanks to Michael - we persevered. As small as we are, we've held strong and steady and managed to hold this thing together all this time. We've made sure that, if nothing else, Chaotic United's story didn't end several years ago - to ensure it lives to see a new year, a new decade, and a new generation. And while there are numerous people who have contributed to that (see the credits page (which im aware needs some updating)), Michael is easily the biggest contributor by far. So - on behalf of all of us, thank you Michael for all that you've done thus far, and will hopefully continue to do. Oh yeah - sidenote, Michael won't be leaving the community. I know the way I wrote all that makes it sound like he is, but in reality he's still gonna be a big part of the backend management of CU - it's just that he won't be putting his own money into it anymore. When we start moving things to the new server, we'll be sure to announce it both on Forums and Discord - as there will be a little bit of downtime during the migration. Wrapping Up - For Now... Well, I think that about wraps it up for now. Some of you may think that this is yet another "hope for the future" post. And I suppose in a sense, it is. But this one is a bit different. I'm not proclaiming that we're starting a new beginning today. We already did that last year. I'm saying that right now, we're a little behind schedule - but still on track. This isn't the start of a new age of CU, but rather the next building block of that new beginning. I can't say how soon it'll be, but our goal is to be running smooth and stable and with either minimal or no bugs by December. Will we achieve that goal? Only time will tell - so stay tuned.