Looking ahead, we’re thrilled about the next chapter. Our team has been hard at work implementing some serious server upgrades that will not only enhance the current experience but also allow us to implement new features and updates. We know server upgrades don’t sound exciting, but the opportunities it opens up will be well worth the effort! 

With that in mind, for this year’s special anniversary event we are proud to present:

This classic Minecraft Survival game challenges you to survive in a world where lava slowly rises – consuming everything in its path. The last player standing in this ultimate game of “The Floor is Lava” will receive a special reward! Lava Survival is only available until May 6^th, so act quick to secure your prizes!

Prizes

Placing first in a match of Lava Survival will award you with the Lifeboat Golem pet.

Placing in the top 25% of a Lava Survival match will award you with the Magma Wolf pet.

If PvP isn’t your thing, you can also claim a free anniversary cake in the lobby.

In addition to Lava Survival and limited-time, celebratory pets, we wanted to do something to reward our founding members – those that have been with us since the very beginning of Lifeboat. For those active accounts created prior to 2017, we are awarding the exclusive Pioneer Tag.

First off we removed switching, although it was an interesting mechanic, in practice switching is only really used by cheaters. This also brings this part of combat back up to parity with vanilla.

We re-wrote combat on One in the Chamber as a test for Lava Survival and found that knockback was being doubled. This is fixed.

/report now only shows the players in your current match, which should make reporting much easier in certain game modes.

You can no longer use snowballs to break beds in Bedwars, you also can’t open shopkeepers by shooting them with a bow. We’ve also adjusted some item pricing to encourage use of some of the more interesting mechanics.

Fixed some skins showing up as invisible server-wide.

Fixed some empty buttons on a couple pages in Creative Mode.

Fixed bamboo exceeding plot height in Creative Mode.

Fixed inventories breaking on the client if you changed servers with one open.

Zombies in Lifeboat City spawn far more often, and much closer to where players actually spend time.

The custom compass in Lifeboat City has been removed for having a glitchy texture, plus the vanilla compass is much better at communicating direction.

We’ve also released a free “Words on Blocks” texture pack and dynamic world on our Discord server. Check out the details here.

In-game changes

Prison

We’ve added a new tool to prison, the warden wand. We’ve also nerfed thor’s hammer so it can only break around 1000 blocks per minute, but make no mistake that it’s still the fastest tool around.

Survival Mode

We’ve added an iron-tier omnitool to the shop that acts as a shovel, pick, and axe to help you get started after reset if you want to skip the stone tool stage.

Fun facts for the winter SM map.

• There was 2,144,437 coal ore on the map, or 70% more than normal world gen.
• There was 1,367,276 iron ore on the map, or 96% more than normal world gen.
• There was 364,750 redstone ore on the map, or 93% more than normal world gen.
• There was 140,367 diamond ore on the map, or 503% more than normal world gen.
• There was 14,229 emerald ore on the map, or 33,779% more than normal world gen.

Bugfixes

• The texture in the bottom left of the game selector screen now loads instantly, instead of showing a pink & black box for a few seconds while the game struggles to load the file.
• Buttons in the BedWars shop were briefly missing text, this is fixed.
• Fixed a dupe bug in Prison related to trading.
• Although thankfulness is an ongoing practice, we didn’t intend to bring back the thanksgiving lobby yesterday. It will be swapped out sooner than you can say gobble gobble!

Infrastructure

We have been working hard on various systems in the backend, most aren’t ready to be shared but one is! This change happened way back in the fall but we’ve massively improved the joining process so even poor connections can get on to the server instead of getting a “cannot connect to server” message.

Old Maps

We’ve started digging through the archives and plan to bring some old maps back in to rotation, if only for a short time. Some of you may recognize the old lobby at the top of this post.

Support Services

We’re continuously improving our support services to ensure all queries submitted are responded to promptly. We are working on new support systems to use that will replace some of our older systems, some of which have been around since the server started – while they have served us well it is time to replace them. Some of the areas we are working on:

• Xbox Live authentication on the support forms to reduce the number of false support requests we receive and also to help our Support Team provide better assistance with issues.
• A new internal system that staff use to manage player accounts that will replace the current system in use.
• Improved internal support request processing to provide faster responses but also to improve the workflow for our staff and volunteers.

You might not physically see all of these changes, however, combined they will ultimately contribute to improving the overall experience.

Self-Help Support Website

You might have noticed that our self-help support website – help.lbsg.net – has been offline over the last few months, but fear not, it shall be returning soon. Due to some internal issues, this has been out of action since November but we’re actively working on bringing this back and we’ll let you know once this is available again. In the meantime, please continue to send support requests to our Support Team through the forms available on the Contact Us page. Of course, the self-help support hub is not a replacement for contacting us directly, it is simply there to help resolve common issues quicker with easy-to-follow instructions without contacting us directly and we hope you will find it useful once again.

We want to take a moment to thank all of the players who report rule breakers and hackers to us daily through our form – you collectively help to improve the playing experience.

There is a new way to report hackers or other bad behavior on the server, simply type /hacker in game and select the username and reason. If you have evidence of the issue please still send it over using the form at lbsg.net/player-report or on Discord.

Anticheat and other server optimizations to reduce lag.

Significant changes to the way we connect to clients, mostly improving the experience for people with bad internet connections.

The current set of server pets brings back the interactive turkey from years past, Carla the Capybara, and a pet inspired by (but cooler looking than) the as yet unreleased breeze mob for trial chambers.

Creative Mode

We think we’ve found the last of the many different ways to edit plot borders. If you still have blocks stuck in the border there is a new “reset plot borders” button in the UI.

Re-organized the plot settings for easier navigation.

New CM+ Tools!

We’ve added a host of new tools to CM+, the most notable of which are cut, copy, and paste. They have a size limit of 4096 blocks but you can use the new //size command to check how big your selection is. There is even a new //undo command that can fix your last mistake. This set of tools isn’t fully done yet; some blocks don’t save their rotation or color but we figured we’d get you what we have to make use of over the holiday weekend.

There are also new //circle //hcircle //cyl //hcyl //sphere //walls //sphere and //hsphere commands. Read the autocomplete text in game for help using each of these commands. Finally, we’ve added //1 and //2 as alternatives to //pos1 and //pos2.

Lifeboat City

Added a wanted mechanic to catch people who go around punching other players, if you’d like a reward for catching them go start the job at the police station.

Added an appliance shop for blocks like crafting and enchanting tables, as well as a cool looking material reducer.

SM

The Halloween maps have come and gone and we learned that even 10x normal diamond generation isn’t enough for the most vocal among you. There aren’t currently plans for winter maps since we don’t think a map of only snow would be very fun, but start a suggestion on Discord if you have any good ideas.

CM mega plots are now mixed in with the normal plots so you don’t have to build alone just because you wanted a big plot! There is one known issue where atmosphere and building on parts of other people’s mega plot sometimes won’t work. That should be fixed next week.

We’ve also fixed quite a few bugs.

• World edit will always select the correct coordinates
• World edit can no longer place blocks outside your plot
• Others can no longer use your item frames or flower pots unless you give them build access
• Some old plots weren’t loading in correctly, these should now be fixed

Survival Mode

We have special Halloween worlds for the next reset, they have already started showing up on a few servers, but they’ll be live on the rest from the 15th to the end of the month. It’s up to you to figure out which world you’re on but it will be one of these three.

Misc

We’ve reduced the price of the bow in bedwars to three gold due to community input.

Pumpkin Cat and Possum Pumpkin make a return to the token pet rotation, as well as a new Ghost pet.

Check out the pumpkin hunt in the Halloween lobby when it goes up next week, you’ll get a flying pumpkin pet if you manage to find them all!

There is a new UI for chat commands to help those of you on consoles or anyone who just doesn’t want to type.

Lifeboat City

• Buggies squashed:
  • Bells were indestructible, now they are destructible
  • Ender Eyes can now be crafted again
  • Leaves in forest no longer turn to Bedrock when broken with a pickaxe
• The Scute was added to the fishing loot table for northern lakes in the forest
• City Pass addition:
  • Assistants:
    • Enderman
      • A walking chest!
    • Villager
      • A walking store!

Survival Mode

• There is now a warning that pops up when you get within 15 blocks of the border
• Redstone is back!
  • It’s very rare but look around y=12

Survival Games

We’ve fixed a lot of small issues on the survival games maps, and made sure they all have crafting and enchanting in the middle. Give it a try and let us know what we missed!

General:

• There are 3 new pets available for purchase with the Pet Tokens!
  • Frog Dragon
  • Axolotl
  • Bumble Pig

Prison:

• It’s Free Prison Week for a LIMITED TIME!
• The Lucky Block Mine is open for mining!
  • Only opens to those who have a key
  • Once opened, it’s open to the all in the server to get a better payout
  • Pays out equal to, or greater than your current mine level
  • The more people that join, the better the payout at the end for the one who opened it

Zombie Apocalypse

• Fixed the Space Invasion map

General

• Biome Bosses statue is in the lobby for a LIMITED TIME!
• $1 vs $1,000,000,000 Boats statue is in the lobby for a LIMITED TIME!
• Fixed compatibility issues for versions older than 1.19.30 not being able to join
• Fixed a UI bug that crashed Android devices
• Added a “How to Play” menu in each of the gamemode menus
• General navigation improvements to the UI

Prison

• The Prison TNT offer is back for a LIMITED TIME!
• Patched the bug where players were able to swim in the PvP mine
• Fixed custom tools not being able to break these blocks:
  • Oak Log
  • Acacia Log
  • Obsidian
  • Sand
  • Snow
• Patched players being able to make dirt paths around the world
• Patched Players being able to place paintings around the world
• Patched decorative TNT that was able to be ignited with fire aspect swords

Survival Mode

• Y5 diamonds are BACK! Dev Note: May be adjusted based on feedback we receive from the community.
• Fixed a bug that was sending players to different Survival Mode servers. Dev Note: Always look to the “SM Selector” menu within SM to make sure you are on the server you want to be on.

General

• Balancing to anti-cheat
• 100 Floor Challenge statue is in the lobby for a LIMITED TIME!!! Can you make it to the top?
• Warden Invasion statue is in the lobby for a LIMITED TIME!!! Tame your Wobblez and survive the sculked out mobs!

Creative Mode

• New option to rename plot saves
• Fixes to a few command crashes
• Various menu updates

Lifeboat City

• New locations
  • School
    • This school managed to have more than 4 rooms in it!
    • Check in with Kata to get yourself a teacher or student tag, then roleplay the day away!
  • PvP arena
    • You can fight without going to jail, but damage is not yet implemented.
  • Leaderboard building
    • The spawn point is no longer cluttered up with floating text.
    • Added boards for login streaks, total skill level, and fishing level
  • Mall
    • Most of the shops are now located in the mall; your one-stop-shop for all things that are blocks!
  • Amusement Park
    • For now it just looks cool, maybe in the future we’ll let you take laggy minecart rides around the roller coaster.
  • Airport
    • Holds the record for shortest security line (2022)
  • The massive tree
    • It’s a massive tree
  • Volcano
    • Actually smaller than the tree
  • Lagoon
    • Through the caves behind the massive tree you’ll find an idyllic lagoon perfect for high class beach outings.
  • Bay
    • Convenient beach access for the whole city
    • Waterfront property available for premium plot owners. Don’t worry, there aren’t any property taxes.
  • Parkour
    • Insanely hard unless you cheat with ender pearls, but we didn’t say that….
  • Some of you may remember the trampoline, though it’s not as bouncy as it used to be.
  • And more! but exploring is half of the fun anyway!
    • Share any cool things you find in the #media channel in our main Discord!
• New Features
  • City-Wide train system
    • Dev Note: It’s not actually a feature right now, I just wanted to let you know not to waste your time following the tracks
  • You can punch people on your own plot without getting sent to jail
  • Forestry and Mining have gotten a huge map upgrade
    • Forestry mechanics have also been changed so you no longer need to replant trees
    • No longer blinded in the mine
    • There is a chance of getting a wheel spin while gathering so you’ll get some wheel spins even without login streaks
  • The Postal Carrier customer are now in fixed locations
    • More updates on the way
  • Raw fish from fishing can now be sold to the forester or miner
    • A fisherman will be arriving soon…
• New paid features
  • City Pass
    • Has access to a mine with better spawn rates for expensive ore
    • Has access to more trees, acacia, spruce, dark oak, jungle, and mushroom
    • Has access to the new traveling merchant with unique items
    • Babify Me!
      • Lets you change size
    • Can make yourself immune to pvp when on your plot
  • More premium plot locations to choose from
• Bugfixes
  • When they moved into the new city, the townspeople were careful to stay out of the walls.
  • The city workers filled in all the sinkholes they could find, but if you find another, send them a bug report with coordinates. They do work for the government, after all.
  • The rivers are now made out of sand
  • Can now complete the new player tutorial on the new map
  • In Progress
    • All this new stuff and making the map like 20x bigger added a smidgen of lag
    • If the map is full you can still join, but you won’t have a plot.
      • Dev Note: The workaround for now is to use /hub to go back to the hub then /transfer lbc2 lbc3, lbc4, etc. until you find one with fewer people.

Prison

• Patched the Bedrock Pickaxe’s inability to break certain blocks
• Patched certain tools not being able to break any blocks

Zombie Apocalypse

• Patched the “infinite supply drop” glitch
• Reworked the swords in the shop and how they are given to the player
• Removed the Vex from the gamemode
• Added bows, TNT, and potions
• Fixed the Stone Arena map instant death

General

• Spectator mode block collision fix
• FREE Prison week!!

Creative Mode

• You can now invite friends to plots

Lifeboat City

• Player-crafted fishing rod fix. Note: the crafting recipe has been altered slightly, but you can craft it directly from the book.
• Removed Guess the Number pet desire
• Added a new customization tab to navigator with options chatFx, particles, and backpacks
• Players now teleport to police office when released from jail
• Added details about GPS and bonus mechanic for postal deliveries
• There were some name changes for postal delivery customers
• Added an option to give up the postal delivery job once started

Survival Mode

• New backup system to prevent early resets