Over the past few months SkyGrid has undoubtedly been the weakest of our Aether suite of servers.
With constant crashing, poor Nether & End Grid support, small player protections and a collection of other issues.
Well that simply wasn't good enough.

SkyGrid Redux is now open!
Notable Changes;
- Brand new Spawn [Courtesy of Mixter213]
- Default Protection Size of 600x600 for each Player
- Players are now placed 1200 blocks apart in the grid
- Chests now have a proper random loot table
- Nether & End grids are now fully functional
- Up to 8 players can team up in one persons Grid
Unfortunately for all of this to work we have had to reset the old Grid, however we think you'll really enjoy the changes made and hope that you'll continue to enjoy the mode!
If you do have any issues, please post them on the forums at https://www.matecraft.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=29 or in #support on Discord

Happy Matecrafting!

Hello everyone

All of the staff have been very busy behind the scenes over the last week or two, working hard to improve the server by making changes, fixing bugs and making sure that everything is running smoothly. (Sequacious posted here reading the current updates and news.)

As some of you are aware, we have had an influx of new people, and this is really good for the server, as it means that we are growing and that the advertising that we are currently doing is working.

Can I please just remind everyone to be as welcoming and inviting of the new people as possible, even if it is just as simple as asking them if they would like to join you in what you are doing.

I would like to do more with the advertising for the server, so starting next week we are going to be running two campaigns on our Twitter & Facebook.
The first is going to be a vote remind which is going to be tweeted out every day next week reminding people to vote for the server. If you can please vote for the server everyday this would help us out massively and you get some cool in game rewards as well. (You can find the link to our voting sites here)

The second one I am going to be running just for next week is an experiment to see how certain hashtags preform and what interaction that they get.
So this will be things like #selfiesunday and it might be a selfie of a few people on the server all grouped together.

I have also made some minor changes to some of the advertisements that we put out on twitter, these are mainly just changes to some hashtags & wording and adding pictures for the Discord, Website and Store information that we send out.

If you do have any questions about any of this you can reach me on Discord or in game, or if you do have any suggestions of things you would like to see, please let me know.

The whole reason we are making these changes is that on the 20th of this month, Matecraft will have been running for 7 years. This in itself is a massive achievement and I would like to say thank you to all of the players and staff who have helped us reach this milestone.

We are currently looking at possibly holding some sort of event on the server in order to crown this achievement.
Thanks

Hello all!
Welcome to the series of updates I will be posting as time goes on, bringing the community up-to-speed with the goings on of the network.

First things first, we recently had a massive changeover in the backend of the entire network when it comes to player permissions.
For those of you that don't know, permissions are what allow players to do commands, show prefixes & interact with anything in the server.
Naturally this switch may introduce issues so if you come across any please let us know.

Time for some per-server news:
Elite Survival: A massive PvP Arena has popped up at spawn and you can acquire player heads in it! There's also special mechanics in place to make sure you don't lose your inventory or XP while in the Arena.
Creative: All tiers of Builder have been given /pweather [rain,sun,reset] as the weather in Creative is always set to sun. 
We're also constantly testing the viability of FastAsyncWorldEdit returning as it's developers are squashing some major bugs, making World Edit functions much less likely to strain the server.
Aether [SkyBlock, SkyGrid, AcidIsland, CaveBlock]: All Aether servers have been updated internally to help prevent crashing.
As a side note, SkyGrid Redux is almost ready to launch, with less crashing, a new spawn, working chests in the grid, larger default claims & more!
Enchanted: Small tweaks have been made over the past week but the next patch is incoming! The next patch is themed around extra dimensions, and one dimension I'm happy to confirm is coming is the 'Oasis'.
This world is full of bustling forests surrounded by huge sand plateaus, however, if you follow the rivers underground you'll find massive underground caverns that continue for miles.
The bloodmoons are less frequent, but more deadly. Especially with the return of Giants
More to come soon.
Global: Many messages sent to players [rankups, bans, mutes, kicks e.t.c] have been updated to differentiate them from normal chat.
Bombermate, SuperSmashMates & The Towers Coming Very Soon

Be sure to check out this post from Vertanzil on Voting Rewards, Community Discussion and More to get your say on some future Matecraft features;
https://www.matecraft.org/showthread.php?tid=1396

Until next time, Happy Matecrafting!

Hello there I wanted to bring you something a little bit different to the recent update posts and hot fixes that we post here in the announcement.
Myself, MagmaGuy & Sequacious have been looking at various ideas the advertising and marketing of the server going forward. While going through this process we have come up with additional ideas and would like feedback from you the players of the server and the staff as well.
 
Now some of these changes might not happen over night and they could be a few weeks down the line. As there will need to be various discussions had on what is the best way to implement these changes and what affect it is going to have on the server and the community as a whole.
 
I am going to split this down into categories, the first one is relating to my favourite subject and that is voting, vote rewards and player interaction.
 
As I am sure you are all aware, we now have a lot more vote sites and chances for you to gain rewards in game across all of the Matecraft servers.
 
What I would like to ask is for your help with this, as we are now set up on the majority of the voting sites and we are constantly tweaking things in the backend, by either changing the wording of our advertisements, creating new media to advertise with.
It would be much appreciated if you could just spend 5 minutes a day to vote for the server and this will help us out massively.
 
We are also looking to make changes to the server based on this as well, some of these changes are as follows. Sending helpful reminders to players to ask them to vote for the server (This is something we are looking to roll out across the server and possibly to discord as well).
https://www.strawpoll.me/19648025
 
Other options that we are currently considering are additional vote rewards for players along with the crate keys. These could be called MateVote Rewards, this is something that I am welcome to getting feedback from you the players.
 
The initial thoughts are to do a reward system by getting x number of votes per day, then we can issue a reward for reaching that number (Either a drop party of loot), Weekly vote rewards and a leader board and some form of additional tag for players who are regular voters;
https://www.strawpoll.me/19648047
 
The second categories are more related to events and the community itself. As I want to make sure that everyone when they come onto the server. That they are engaged in the community and have something to do and that there is always something happening.
 
One of the other ideas that was suggested was a global events system, this could be anything from a Lottery system where you pick a number and win a prize to unscramble the word, to other events.
 
The last category relates to referral rewards & promotional code rewards.
 
This is something that had been discussed in brief but we had been looking into the possibility of adding a refer a friend scheme where you get someone to join and you get a reward for doing so; 
https://www.strawpoll.me/19648069
 
We also wanted to possible trial the referral reward code rewards where we might post something on one of our social media pages and you have a limited time to claim the reward;
https://www.strawpoll.me/19648073
 
There are other smaller updates that we are looking into such as Holographic Chat for Donators and possible doing some sort of a quiz for new players to gain Member more easily.
 
The majority of these are up for debate as they will need to be implemented in the correct way.
 
Which is why I am asking for feedback from everyone who plays on Matecraft, for your input (I have added straw poll links to the post at various parts for you to vote) if you do have any additional ideas you would like to discuss. Please post them under suggestions on the forums and we can poll it.

Hello all!
Welcome to the first of a series of updates I will be posting as time goes on, bringing the community up-to-speed with the goings on of the network.

Currently there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to bring Matecraft back to it's former glory.
Let's start by addressing some concerns players have had recently.

Known Issues;
- Frequent Crashing of SkyGrid - The SkyGrid Redux update has been due for a while and now that I have a lot more free time, it will be coming shortly. This will hopefully fix this issue.
- Frequent Crashing of Enchanted - The cause is known, unfortunately an easy fix is not, we're actively working to come up with a solution for this.
- AcidIsland Mob Spawn Rates are FAR too High - This is being investigated.

Server Resets;
Each server on the Matecraft network has a different approach to resetting and we know this can get confusing, so I'll outline it per-server here.
Elite Survival - Operates a 2-world policy. If a Minecraft update has enough changes to world generation, a new world will be opened. This world will be where all new players spawn and a warp will be created to the spawn of the old one should players wish to return. Inventories are NOT shared between these worlds. With 1.16, it seems only the Nether world has changes in generation so it will most likely be the only one resetting.
Creative - Creative DOES NOT reset if we can help it. The only time Creative ever needs to reset is if world corruption occurs, or a server-breaking bug happens. For 1.16 we are planning on introducing a new Nether Terrain Plots world as the Nether generation has actually gotten interesting.
Aether [SkyBlock, SkyGrid, AcidIsland, CaveBlock] - Again, these servers do not reset if we can help it. The spawn shops are continuously updated with blocks from newer versions as time goes on.
Classic - Does not reset.
Enchanted - Enchanted does have a history of resetting every version, however with 1.16 as the changes seem to be only with the Nether & Enchanted doesn't rely on Vanilla biomes at all, only the Nether will be resetting.

Now on to something lighter, new modes for the network!
We recently put out a poll asking if the community wanted minigames to return in some fashion and the answer was a resounding yes.
We've recently opened MateQuake which has been quite popular, with SuperSmashMates & Bombermate soon to follow.
Stay tuned for more on these soon!

You may have also noticed a lot of newcomers and additions to our Voting Sites, Twitter and YouTube.
Our new head of PR, Vertanzil has been busting out advertising for the network like nobodies business and it's been working great!
We look forward to what he has in store for us in the coming weeks as the work so far has been fantastic!

  Build Battle | Community Challenge  

Date and Time: March 14th, Saturday at 5:00pm - 6:00pm EST 

Objective: Build anything within a theme (to be voted on) in a 30x30 contest area 

Prize: $10.00(USD) Matecraft Store Credit

Rules: - The set time limit is 1 hour 
- If you come late, you can still join! But you only have until 6:00pm EST to complete your build 
- No teams, you must build by yourself 
- World Edit is allowed 
- The build must be in the 30x30 area 
- Griefing is not allowed 
- Everyone is allowed to participate, this includes staff! 
- The contest will be moderated to ensure no foul-play At the end of the contest everyone will vote for their favorite build, you cannot vote for your own. If there is a tie between builds, every participant will vote in a tie breaker. The winner will receive $10.00 USD Matecraft Store credit! Have fun and happy gaming!

 Spleef 

Join us for a good old fashion game of Spleef! 
This will take place at 6:30pm EST in Elite Survival at /spawn! 

Hope to see you there!

It's that time again! Please join us for...
  Two Block Build Battle | Community Challenge 

Date and Time:
January 18th, Saturday at 5:00pm - 6:00pm EST

Objective: Build anything with only TWO different blocks, of your choosing, in a 30x30 contest area

Prize: $10.00(USD) Matecraft Store Credit 

Rules:
- The set time limit is 1 hour
- If you come late, you can still join! But you only have until 6:00pm EST to complete your build
- No teams, you must build by yourself
- World Edit is allowed
- The build must be in the 30x30 area
- The build must contain only two different kinds of blocks
- Griefing is not allowed
- Everyone is allowed to participate, this includes staff!
- The contest will be moderated to ensure no foul-play

At the end of the contest, everyone will vote for their favorite build, you cannot vote for your own. If there is a tie between builds, every participant will vote in a tiebreaker. The winner will receive $10.00 USD Matecraft Store credit!

Have fun and happy gaming!

Both Classic and Enchanted are now open in a soft launch.
This means that there may be issues and only if absolutely, may be reset, however this is unlikely.

Classic:
Classic is a fully supported base 1.8.8 survival server that clients up to 1.14.x can join.
Featuring aspects from old builds of our own survival server, Continuity, as well as features from older Matecraft Enchanted and SkyBlock servers, this is truly a nostalgia buffet.
Notable Features;
- mcMMO Classic
- Runecraft 2.0
-- Acolyte & Oracle Runecraft Ranks
- WoodLeague & StoneLeague Mob Arenas
-- Gladiator & Warrior Ranks
- InfernalMobs with ALL of the older player-created mob drops back
- Dynamic Map at https://www.matecraft.org/ClassicMap
& more.


Enchanted:
Enchanted is a more difficult survival experience which greatly modifies base Minecraft and also expands the end-game beyond beating the Ender-Dragon.
Notable Features;
- Magic | Player craftable wands with individual upgrades
- New Enchantments | With a brand new enchanting GUI, enchant items up to level 50
- Custom Terrain | A fully custom world, with unique Overworld, Cave, Nether and End generation
- New Mobs | Brand new and dangerous mobs that spawn in Caves, the Nether & End
- New Structures | 17 new structures that generate in the Overworld
- Tamable Foxes | Use Berries
- Right Click Crop Harvesting
- Werewolves | 3 different ways to get infected
- Seasons | Daily weathers with effects that help and hinder the player
- Souls | Drop a soul where you die that holds all your items and XP until you get it back
- Mining | New mining mechanics including passive perks, Rune Guardians & sell-able loot
& more.

Other:
- The Member+ Quiz is once again open in Nexus
- EliteMobs & Mob Stacking is back on all Aether servers

Huge thanks to Mixter213 for his help in making the spawns of both servers and helping set the quiz back up.

We've been quite sporadic over letting players know the status of all servers since the 'Thanos Snap' of Matecraft. This post is to get everyone up to date on what's working, what's not, and what's being worked on.

Elite Survival
Elite Survival was brought back online day 1 by sdk345 and myself [Sequacious] while keeping all 1.14 builds intact. Unfortunately it resulted in the loss of all 1.13 content.

Creative
Creative was brought back online day 1 by Sequacious, unfortunately all existing worlds were unrecoverable and no backups existed. The worlds are utilized now and thankfully filling back up with players' creations.

Aether
Zen Islands: SkyBlock was brought back online a few weeks back, with a re-made spawn by and is very close to 100% functional. At the time of writing this post, it's currently only missing Envoys however once again has challenges.
SkyGrid: SkyGrid was brought online shortly after Zen Islands featuring full shop integration, voting rewards & donation rewards for the first time ever on Matecraft.
AcidIsland: AcidIsland was brought online a few days ago [as of writing this post] for the first time on Matecraft since 1.12, and also features full shop integration, voting rewards & donation rewards.
CaveBlock: CaveBlock was brought online just a few hours ago and is a brand new mode to Matecraft featuring an entirely underground map and some fun twists we think players will love. Also already features the standard full shop integration, voting rewards & donation rewards.

Classic
Currently Offline

Enchanted
Currently Offline

Store: -  http://store.matecraft.org/
Matecraft's store has undergone a 100% overhaul, as have individual donator rewards. All players in game have been moved to this new system and we think it includes some things you'll all love.

Classic is the next server being worked on. There is no ETA for it as it, along with Enchanted, is one of the largest projects on the Matecraft Network.
We thank you for sticking with us through this time, have fun on what's here, look forward to what's coming and as always, happy Matecrafting!

Credits: [so far]
Bringing Survival Back Online - sdk345 & Sequacious
EliteMobs Feature Updates - magmaguy
Bringing Creative Back Online - Sequacious
Creating MiniPlots Spawn - 69OzCanOfBepis
Creating MegaPlots & TerrainPlots Spawns - Mixter213
Bringing SkyBlock Back Online - Sequacious
Re-designing SkyBlock Spawn - Mixter213
Bringing SkyGrid Back Online - Sequacious
Modifying SkyGrid Spawn - Mixter213
Bringing AcidIsland Online - Sequacious
Modifying AcidIsland Spawn - Mixter213
Creating AcidIsland Island Schematic - Mixter213
Bringing CaveBlock Online - Sequacious
Creating CaveBlock Spawn - Mixter213 & 69OzCanOfBepis
Creating CaveBlock Island Schematic - Mixter213
Discord Chat Links: sdk345
General Maintenance and Bringing Servers back to Feature-Parity - Sequacious

Planet Minecraft:
    VoteURL: https://www.planetminecraft.com/server/m...-survival/

MinecraftServers.org:
    VoteURL: https://minecraftservers.org/server/60005

Minecraft-Tracker:
    VoteURL: https://minecraft-tracker.com/server/6170/

MCSL:
    VoteURL: https://minecraft-server-list.com/server/279614/

Minelist:
    VoteURL: https://minelist.net/server/2853

MinecraftServersList:
    VoteURL: https://minecraftlist.org/vote/15179

SERVERPACT:
    VoteURL: https://www.serverpact.com/vote-43094

Minecraft-MP:
    VoteURL: https://minecraft-mp.com/server-s30944

MineServers:
    VoteURL: https://mineservers.com/server/wbUKiike/...ft-network