Hello CubeCrafters

This is an update to this thread regarding our removal of pre-1.16.200 versions. For the past year, we've supported all the way down to 1.16.100, and since then you have been able to join the network from that version onward. However given current circumstances, it's no longer viable for us to continue supporting 1.16 versions.

With this being said, we will be removing support for all 1.16 versions on November 30.



We understand that some people may be upset with this change, however, it is no longer sustainable for us to continue supporting this version any further. We've held onto 1.16 a lot longer than we typically do any version, and initially reversed our removal of 1.16.100 & 1.16.200 due to feedback from the community. But since then, 2 new Bedrock versions have been released with 1.18 coming on the 30th, and the number of people playing on 1.16 versions has dropped dramatically. The more versions we attempt to support back, the worse the playing experience and the more difficult it becomes to maintain them.

Some of you may have noticed some obscure issues popping up on these older versions, such as the inability to break blocks at times or the lobby items being invisible. This is purely due to the nature of these versions becoming more of a technical burden and it not supporting newer systems created on our network due to its age or lack of features. The game itself is rapidly advancing, and we want to move on with it too.



1.16 versions actually make up a very tiny number of people on our network.
On Friday, November 19 where we peaked at 23,000 players, only 266 of those were using a 1.16 version. This makes up roughly 1% of our total online players. Looking at 1.16.100 specifically which tends to have a much more vocal demand, our statistics show that within the span of a week, the highest it peaked at is around 25 out of 30,000 overall players. To put it into perspective, this makes up 0.08% of our Bedrock network.

Here is a visualization of the player count on 1.16.100:
Given these numbers, it doesn't make much sense for us to continue holding back this far considering how few people actually play on this version.

We are aware that some people encounter worse performance on newer versions due to the introduction of Render Dragon, or issues such as the "pink glitch". We do, however, have a solution for that!

Following the instructions mentioned in our HelpDesk article here, you can get an x86 build of Minecraft Bedrock which does not use the Render Dragon engine. Keep in mind that you will need to be signed into an Xbox account that owns the game in order for this to work. Using this build should make the game run at a comparable rate as it did on 1.16.100.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, we're happy to answer them! Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone!

We are excited to share with you all that the Quality Assurance team has been revamped! This has taken a few months in the works and we're super excited to share this with you all! Read on to see what the revamp entails!


One of the reasons for us revamping the Quality Assurance team was to combine responsibilities and add new responsibilities to the team! Before the revamp, the Quality Assurance team had to test Marketplace maps and games. With the revamp, we're adding the extra responsibilities:

• Bugs - I'm sure you agree that finding bugs on the server is always a pain. They're always ruining your experience and it sucks! Now, the QA team will all be trained to report bugs internally as well as to our development team to ensure that these bugs are being made known to everyone.
• Server QA - One of our major goals in 2022 is to provide our wonderful players with the best experience possible - and this can only be achieved if our updates take a bit longer to develop, and are QA'd a lot! This will be done by our new Quality Assurance team.

What this means is that the Quality Assurance team makes sure you, the player, are having the best experience possible on every platform. The Quality Assurance team will test out Marketplace maps and games, but they will also test out new games and updates on our networks, and they will forward reported bugs to our developers.

Our current Market QA team has done wonderfully with reporting bugs and forwarding them to our Behaviour and Redstone team for Marketplace, and their knowledge will be extremely useful for us as a server to utilise too!


To divide workload and knowledge, @Joëlle and @Marieke2001 have both been assigned to lead the Quality Assurance team. Joëlle will be responsible for the Marketplace side of Quality Assurance, while Marieke will lead the Bugs team together with Server Quality Assurance. If you have any questions about the role and what it entails, feel free to send either of them a conversation here on the forums!


Due to these rather big changes to the Quality Assurance team, the application process had to be reviewed and adjusted where needed. Application threads have been updated to fit better into the new team. We have listed the changes that happened in the Quality Assurance application thread.


While the Quality Assurance revamp was being discussed, the decision was made to create a rank for the team! Previously there was no way to recognize a Quality Assurance team member in-game, so the rank should give more clarity and visibility about this important role!


Has this thread made you excited about the Quality Assurance team? Do you want to help out by testing and giving feedback on games and updates before they're released, before everyone else? Would you like to help out with bug reports and testing? Go ahead and apply HERE!

Hello CubeCrafters!

After months of testing & perfecting our regions system, we're ready to take things a whole step further and bring a smoother CubeCraft experience to even more players! - On Java & Bedrock



We've left a few hints to this over the past week - some of you may have noticed reduced ping to our servers, a different MOTD and a totally intentional region appearing on the region selector, cough cough.

We've been running tests on Asia games all week, and we're now happy to officially launch the region! This wouldn't have been possible without our new Production Operations team's hard work.



Just like we said when we released our North American regions - when you connect to CubeCraft, you automatically join the region closest to you with the best ping! For example, if you're in Germany, you'd go to our EU region, but if you're in Malaysia, you will go to our Asia region - basically, what has a better connection to you. When joining a game, we also try our best to put you on a server that's in your region.

Remember, at quiet times for some regions, we might start sending you to games in regions where there are more players, so don't be surprised if you're sometimes sent to European or North American games!



We've made some slight changes to the lobby selector to make it more clear what the regions are:

Thanks for reading; we hope you have an awesome time on our brand new AS region! Stay safe.

Hello CubeCrafters,

We're very excited to unveil our brand new hub on both Java & Bedrock, we've been working on this project for a long time now and we're finally ready to release it for all of you to see!

It features all new 1.12 blocks from our update in Summer as well as more details with models for Bedrock.



We've overhauled the main game area with some changes that will make your CubeCraft experience better:

Starting with the removal of portals. We understand that many people love the portals however after our rapid game releases they became incredibly difficult to work with in the lobby due to their scale and inability to curve. Our new design allows us to move NPCs closer and curve them around the player for a cleaner design.


Banners have all been remastered and put a larger focus on the colour of that gamemode to make each game look visually unique from spawn. Additionally we've created new models for the menu items in spawn; VIP levels, gifting & content packs to represent more of what they are & they also have a cool spin - take a look!




We know our community love lobby parkour, so we've got three new ones for you and due to popular demand Bedrock comes with two rewards to unlock for completing the parkour! Completion of 'Rooftop' rewards you with a win effect called Cityscape, and completion of 'Tower' grants you a prefix.




We had shops built into the main city square early on and we thought it'd be cool if they were functional instead of leaving them empty & boring, so we've added marketplace content to them and in the future we will have game loot stores as well! - What stores would you like to see in the future?




During our development process we always thought it'd be fun to explore the lobby via transportation like a real city, so we created a fully functioning train, the coolest way to explore the new hub!

The train will take you around our lobby at various stations and is ridable by up to 30 people at the same time, it has cool jingles, effects & animations.



Alongside the train we've also got a hot air balloon for getting to those hard to reach places around the lobby, it flies through the sky and seats 4 people at once, you and others in the balloon can vote on locations to visit before take off!



We've added a day/night cycle to the lobby and it will always keep moving forward, to compensate for the darkness of night time we've also added cool lamp post models on Bedrock that emit light.



We've also made some changes to Java that don't apply to Bedrock such as lobby games; we've increased the amount of hidden chest locations and relic markers for relic hunting.

The compass has also made a return to Java with this new lobby, so you can select games without even moving to the NPCs!

Similar to Bedrock, Java is being limited by the art backdrops behind them as they cannot be curved, we also discovered they contribute massively to frame rate issues in the lobby, since we've removed these we've seen large FPS boosts to players.

Furthermore thanks to @itsmochhi and @gumoholic - we now have brand-new skins for all the NPCs in the main area! Among Slimes was not included in this list because it uses a skin from in the game, this may change in the future.




Bedrock

• Remastered banner models.
• Removed portals.
• Added train & hot air balloon transportation.
• Curved podiums and moved closer to spawn platform.
• Added models around spawn for decoration. (including benches you can sit on!)
• Moved all NPCs & Banners into resource pack for loading times.
• Added functional shops you can walk in.
• Added ability to teleport straight to spawn using hot bar item.
• Added entities around hub that teleport you to spawn.
• Added lobby Parkour rewards.
• Added day/night cycle.
• Added CubeCraft logo above spawn.
• Added new model icons for gifting, VIP levels & content packs.
• Added ability to teleport to games by walking inside NPCs.
• Fixed glitchy doors.
• Fixed dismounting being glitchy.
• Fixed some directional blocks not pointing in correct direction.
• Increased general lobby performance.
• Fixed internal server error after completing lobby parkour.
• Moved "best time" text underneath current time in lobby parkour.
• Fixed teleporting bug in lobby parkour.

Java

• Re-added compass to Java.
• Removed backdrops & logos. (boosting performance as well)
• Remastered/remade all Java skins. (excl Among Slimes)
• Added 20% more Relic Hunting & Chest Chaser locations.

Development: @SuperSuccubus
Lead Builder: @Unstrafeless
Project Lead & Models: @Story
Interior Builder: @TheJeroen
Java Skins: @itsmochhi & @gumoholic
Protocol & Extras: @Redned
Hot Air Balloon: @amandapanda
Parkour Rewards: @camulos03
Lobby Parkour: @Berty


And that's it for this update! Thanks everyone for reading - if you want to take a look at some FREE backgrounds for your desktop or phone, check them out on our public Notion page HERE!