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Hey CubeCrafters!

It's getting colder and darker outside which means it's time to make things very cosy! We are happy to announce our Helper Applications have been completely re-opened! Over the past two months, our team has been brainstorming and working extremely hard to make sure we keep improving our system and keep it up-to-date. With this update, a lot of the changes were made on the backend side of our system, with some frontend changes as well. You may even see a little teaser here and there, so let's jump right into it!


One of the adjustments we made to threads is limiting them. Before, we had four threads in total that talked about recruitment.
This could be very intimidating for new applicants and could wind up confusing them, as there was a lot of switching between threads to get more information that was provided in them. This is why we have combined these four threads to allow for them to shrink into just one! The content of the thread itself has remained relatively the same as it was in the original four threads, but I do encourage all of you to read through it just to be up to date!

While we were working through these threads. we took a look at our current requirements. We wanted to address the concerns on the lack of Bedrock Moderation we have, which meant we needed to find a way to bring more people onto the team. Keeping in mind that becoming a helper is a trial period, we have decided to slightly lower the requirements for Bedrock applicants. All of the new requirements can be found in the helper applications thread, but for ease of reading, they are listed below as well.
Note: None of these tweaks will affect our main requirements or values though, which are listed here.

Bedrock

• 80 messages on Discord or 15 Forums messages
• 5 successful website or /sr reports
• 2 months of server activity

Java

• 200 discord messages
• 25 forums messages
• 50 website reports
• 3 months of server activity

With these tweaks to our requirements, we have realized that a lot of what we viewed as a helper strayed from it being a trial. In general, it was pretty common that those who got helper would soon get mod, as they had already done a lot to meet the requirements we had in place. We wanted to get back to the concept that being a helper is a trial period and a time for us to train them. This has resulted in ever so slight changes, though it does not mean you will be negatively impacted. It simply means we have tweaked our requirements to better represent us looking to train users and the helper period being a trial as a whole. It also means we have worked backend to better improve our helper trial period to ensure we are providing our best to help these new helpers grow and improve.


While we cannot share all of the changes with you guys, unless you become a helper , we did want to give you some sneak peeks into the things we have done backend to improve this trial period as a whole.

Interview Stage
You have applied to be a helper, get put on considering, and then make it to the interview stage. This interview is a time for us to get to know you and to also ask you questions we did not ask in your applications. After several sit-down sessions of reviewing the interview as a whole, we wanted to make it a little more fun. So we have made some spicy adjustments to the interview questions we ask!

Helper Resources
We have always had some resources for our helpers to utilize while they are in training. However, it always felt a bit lacking and we decided to do something about this! We have tweaked some of our existing tools and added more tools/resources for our helpers as a whole to assist them through their training!

Team Bonding
We realized that being a helper is a very daunting experience. Joining the staff team after being a part of the community can be challenging. Due to us reflecting on our first time joining the team and listening to other feedback, we have thought of ways to help the helpers bond as a team and also bond with the rest of the staff!

Gained Knowledge
Our helper process is changing, which we went a bit more into detail above. Due to this, we wanted to make sure that the knowledge we are providing the helpers during their trial is striving to prepare them to be a moderator. Due to this, we have tweaked some of our backend resources and methods to ensure the helpers are able to get the most out of the training they receive during their trial.

Much More
We have so much more we have done and all of this is just scratching the surface of the changes we have been making! There is only so much we can share here, unfortunately, but we hope you all are as excited as we are to see what the future holds!


Curious to see what being a helper is like? Want to help the server? What are you waiting for? Head on over to our application information guide to learn more!

Ready to apply? Click here!

Good luck to everyone who applies! We are excited to start welcoming new faces onto the moderation team!

Hai all!
We bring you an exciting yet massive change that is coming to the Translation Team! After the change in leadership, there was a lot of review and discussion over how the Translation Team works and how we could improve it. This has led to many plans about how we can change the system to facilitate the team's end goal, which is translating the network!



Minor tweaks have occurred to allow for a more streamlined and efficient process. This means that there is now new information to read and continued transparency with the community as well.
To summarize some of the changes; the recruitment for developers has been moved to an internal process, applying to be a translator will not mean an instant move up to proofreader (or any other part of the team), requirements and what we look for in an applicant have been tweaked - updated in a thread here, along with the way we recruit being public there too.



This means that any developers we may need will be from our translators on the team instead. While this was not an easy decision to make, it was one we found to be a necessity. The main reason is due to the fact that the goal of the translations team is about translating for the server. As such we will not always have projects for the developers and want to ensure they are able to help out in other ways too! This will also allow us to put all of our focus on finding amazing people that have a heart for translating.



In the past, there was a rare possibility that someone applying to be a translator could instantly be put in a proofreader position if their skills showed to be of that quality. While this is an amazing thing, with the restructuring of the team, it was not something that we desired to continue. As such, we will now only be accepting applicants as translators. This will also allow them to learn about the team, our mission, and what we do before being given extra responsibility.

This also means that our requirements, and what we look for in an applicant, have been tweaked slightly. Any changes made will be seen in the application information thread mentioned above.

As a final note, we wanted to allow for transparency with you all on how it is we handle the recruitment process. We feel this is an important factor, as it allows you all to understand the steps and also what it entails from our perspective. This process was tweaked as well, which will be the way they are handled moving forward and explained in the application information thread mentioned above.



The ranks as a whole have been completely changed. As for the staff rank, it will be changed to SrTranslator. However, those who had Translator rank before, but are not a SrTranslator now, will be grandfathered in with the Translator rank until they leave the Translation Team.
As for the internal ranks, there used to be Heads, Team Leads, Proofreaders, Recruitment, Events, Development, Translators, and Report Translators. There is now a more simplified structure, which is as follows:

SrTranslators -
Will be the ones that work alongside the Proofreaders and the Admin Team to ensure the team's purpose is filled/motivation consistent. They will be assisting with events and assurance that the team is accomplishing goals. They will be handling responsibilities like recruitment, translation bug tracking, and monitoring their language teams.
These will have the in-game, forums, and discord rank SrTranslator!

Proofreaders -
Will be the ones that help to ensure their teams are accomplishing strings of great quality, including the resolution of bugs found with the translations. The proofreaders will also work alongside the SrTranslators to help with motivation, recruitment, and monitoring the welfare of their respective language teams.


Translators -
Will be the ones providing quality translations of our network's information. This will vary depending on the tasks at hand and the future, but as of currently this relates to our Java & Bedrock network, as well as our Helpdesk Articles.
There will be those that solely help with translating for the Moderation team, but that will be while that language team grows. Once they reach 5 members, they will be translating that language onto the server as well!



Projects

• Everything the team translates ranges from in-game strings to helpdesk articles. Our end goal is to allow people to be able to access our server in the language that they are native in.
  • This used to be done through Google Groups, but has now been moved to a more efficient and equipped site!
  • All of this is now accomplished through utilizing applications like Discord and Weblate, which allow us to get the strings translated and published at the best quality possible.

Admins

• Now, alongside @AnimalTamer1, @Cynamooo and @Calichin will be assisting in overseeing the team!
  • Cynamooo will be assisting with the recruitment side of the team, monitoring the progress, and supporting the SrTranslators.
  • Meanwhile, Calichin will be assisting in overseeing the welfare and motivation of the team!

What we can give you

• Experiences and Knowledge
  • Feeling a sense of duty and belonging, collaborating with many into determining the success of a massive project!
  • Having your work seen by the community and assisting in improving the gaming experience of one of the largest Minecraft networks in the world!
  • An environment that allows you to learn and grow by providing personal feedback, a great variety of tools, training, and role opportunities.
  • To thank you for your volunteering, we are also willing to write a job reference and an employer can reach out to the CubeCraft Administration for confirmation of contributions.
  • Enjoy the fun and unique games, events, and competitions that we do as a team!
  • Meet, socialize and build invaluable friendships with kind and helpful individuals from around the world!

We are excited to continue to see the translation team grow and allow our network to be understood by people all over the world! We hope you all are too!

If you are interested in applying, you can find more information on that here and go to apply here.

Hey CubeCrafters!

We've been a bit quiet about Magic & Mayhem and whether it was going to stay permanent or not. As we've had an extremely successful release of the magic-filled RPG, full of feedback that we could use for the future going forward with other RPGs, we feel like it would be best for us to refocus back onto providing our community with the highest quality minigames.

As a result, we are unable to completely maintain Magic & Mayhem with content updates, so we're making this week the final week of Magic & Mayhem!



Magic & Mayhem games will stop opening on 1st October at 12:45pm BST, and will be unable to join at 1:00pm BST.


Yes! You, the players, have helped us in our journey to defeat The Corruption, so it's best to keep that loot as a token for your courage and bravery!


We understand that there are multiple amazing suggestions regarding Magic & Mayhem around the forums that we would have loved to take a look into post-release. However, with a dwindling player count (in general, as well as in the RPG), we felt like it'd be a good point to take a step back and assess all of our feedback before moving forward with our future plans, as well as begin to refocus on our games. We cannot wait to share with you what we're planning in terms of RPGs, but for now, look forward to some major updates to our larger games!

Soon, we will be having a Behind the Cube regarding the development process of Magic & Mayhem, - from an idea, to planning, to the story, to the complex development systems that you may not pay too much attention to, there is a massive amount of technology that we cannot wait to show to you! I'm sure some of our Java players are curious about "How did CubeCraft get Bedrock models with animations on Java?!?!"

If you have any questions, we'll be happy to answer. Thanks everyone for reading - have you beaten the Conjurer yet? Let's see how high we could get this number together - we'll post some statistics soon!

This is a free & educational world that you will find on the Minecraft Marketplace, the world is all about plants!


We created a free and informative piece of content. Why? We believe it's important to offer an alternative way of learning, to give people more opportunities of staying engaged with a subject they are passionate about! Plants are vital to our existence and we want the Minecraft audience to experience this in our interactive map.



We created a world where the player didn't feel like they're learning but they really are. A gardener guide takes you through the map and teaches you about the different aspects of the plants - the plant cells, the anatomy of a plant, and photosynthesis. You can then go and take a quiz where you have to pass 5 questions in order to move on. The next stage of the experience is roaming free around the garden where the player can take additional quests and learn even more!




A lot of work went into the creation process. We starting to collaborate and work on a plan. Most plans change and this was project was no exception! Our goals were to create an interactive experience with various plants for the player to grow and learn about. We planned out what we wanted the user to learn and how they would learn that piece of information. By using creative builds, models, and animations to keep the user excited!



@Yamin lead the artististic process by creating the models and worked with the team to help texture the different plant variations. You will find the models spread around the map - and they all look amazing! We have all kinds of plants, fruit trees, bushes, cacti to pretty flowers that help attract pollinators.



Behaviours and Redstone are key to any map! I had an awesome time working on the technical process of this map. As I have an allotment myself, I was able to take my learnings from creating my own garden to bringing this into the virtual world of Minecraft, which was super rewarding! The features I created were the growing mechanics and allowing the user to interact with them, adding the sounds and various animations so that they work in the game.

@SpookedCow was the genius behind the Redstone and wrote the various commands that allowed the user to hear the gardeners beautiful voice at the right time. This took a tremendous amount of patience and I don't think spooked quite liked her voice by the end of the project after hearing it so many times! Spooked created the pathfinding of the gardener who would navigate through the different areas and challenges.

This is the first rendition of the growing mechanics of a plant. As you can see from the latest version it has changed a lot, the newest one has smoother growing animation and is more consistent. Each plant has its own growing animation which stops as soon the plant needs water. It will grow again when given water like a real plant and will grow to its full potential. They all have their own death animation - big sad.



@jelliobean wrote the script for the gardener. We knew we wanted the gardener to talk in the game. At first, we got some of our designers to have a go at the voice acting but it just wasn't right. We finally decided to get a professional voice actor to read the script, which sounds amazing and really fits in with the character! Here's a demo of 2 variations of her voice and tone.




It was fantastic to release our free educational content as part of the back to school promo with Minecraft. If you'd like to read the Minecraft blog post, click here!
Find Plants on the marketplace HERE
You can check out our other highlights here:
Flappy Dragon
SkyWars
Pet Mobs

Hello CubeCrafters,

Some time ago, we released our Parkour gamemode to our Bedrock network for many people to enjoy and endure the jumps, falls & rage. Now it's time to give this gamemode a full introduction to our Bedrock network! Read below to learn about the whole update, we've added so much content!