Introducing the Shotbow magazine | PG 3
Community art spotlight info| PG 4
YOUTUBE COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT | PG 5-6
DEVELOPER INTERVIEWS - STORM345 | PG 7-10
QUBION PLOT HIGHLIGHTS | PG 11 - 12
Annihilation map reviews | PG 13 - 14
Behind the scenes - MineZ | PG 16 - 18
Photo gallery - smash | PG 19 - 22
Community Surveys | PG 23
CREDITS | PG 24 - 25
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Introduction - Issue #1
Hey there!
This is the first release of our Shotbow Magazine. I’m Sunlost,
and I’m the lead producer for the project. The idea was first
posted on the forums by Dinohoot8, who is the co-producer
of the Shotbow Magazine. After going unnoticed for some
time, Dinohoot8 reminded me of the idea. I thought it was a
great idea, so we ran with it. Two months later, we have a full
magazine being released, aiming to bring interesting
content to the community. We have a large team of writers,
who will be working together to deliver this publication to
you bi-monthly. We’re always looking for new concepts for
the magazine, so please leave your ideas in the comments of
the thread!
Without further ado, the Shotbow Magazine team
presents Issue #1!
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Community art spotlight
Welcome to the first Shotbow Magazine Community Art
Spotlight! Every edition, players can submit their works of art
to possibly be included in the Shotbow Magazine! All the
submissions will be judged by an un-biased, anonymous
panel of admins. Only one player will get the grand prize of
5000 XP, but 2 other runner-ups will also get their art
presented in the magazine. They will get their names and
their art near the front of the magazine, (and of course,
bragging rights). More prizes might be added as new
editions are released. (Screenshots, drawings, and renders
are all accepted.)
Please do note that if there are not enough participants, Shotbow Magazine may not
continue the spotlight in future editions.
This quarter’s theme is Summer, so put your sunglasses on
and head to the beach! Shotbow Magazine will be waiting
for your submissions.
Submission Link
Written and Edited by Sunlost
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YouTube community spotlights
The Shotbow Community makes a lot of fun, entertaining
YouTube content. In this article, a few players will have their
YouTube videos featured in the magazine. Shotbow
Magazine will attempt to select videos that the community
really enjoys, either because of
comedy or general interest in
content.
Catsage, a member of the
Shotbow Film Crew, also runs
her own YouTube channel. She
released a video named “MineZ - Quality Town Reviews (that
no one asked for)”. In the video, she walks around MineZ
with Fridge2177, and does “Town Reviews”, a parody of the
typical review system the community has seen. Catsage’s
arbitrary point system was funny and Fridge definitely
helped with the comedy.
Link
The Shotbow YouTube Channel released a “Throwback
Thursday” Video showing the original MineZ trailer from 4
years ago in celebration of Shotbow’s fourth anniversary. It
definitely shows how far the
network has come since then!
Link
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Ninja_Bacn, also a member of the
Shotbow Film Crew, made a
noteworthy video. “MineZ - The
West (Cinematic)”. The video is a
dark- themed cinematic featuring
a lot of the western locations in
MineZ. While it may have some slow fps in a few areas, it’s
still really cool. The music brings it all together, Lorde’s
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. It’s a very entertaining
video and comes highly recommended.
Link
SquallyTheWally released a third part
to his Annihilation tutorials series, a
guide on controlling the middle of
the map. He gives some interesting
tips, and it would be a helpful guide
to anyone who is new to
Annihilation.
Link
Want your videos featured in this article? Post your
videos on the announcement thread, and we might put it
in!
Special thanks to all of the content creators in the Shotbow Community,
especially the ones featured in this article. You have brought the community hours of
entertainment.
Written and Edited by Sunlost
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Developer interviews
Today, we interview Eddie (storm345), the Developer of MTA.
Who are you?
My name is Eddie (storm345) and I am a
developer at Shotbow! The game I work most
on is Mine Theft Auto (MTA), although I also do
work on other games like Qubion.
What do you enjoy most about your position?
The best bit about programming anything is
seeing the result. It is incredibly rewarding to
see real people playing a game or using
software you coded. I also love some of the
crazy and amazing ideas that our community
comes up with. For example, a large chunk of
MTA is based on ideas suggested by the
community, like houses, handcuffs, and tasers.
What is your favorite thing that you have
coded?
My favorite ‘thing I have coded’ is the MTA Phone. The code
behind it isn’t anything particularly special, but I love the idea of
it replacing the need to remember hundreds of commands (Like
on other servers).
Why did you code for Shotbow and not just any other server?
Before Shotbow I was the lead developer at another Minecraft
Server Network, GameBlade (Formerly ‘MineTheftAuto’). The
network had quite a few fun games such as Mirrors Edge,
MineTheftAuto (alpha, and 1.0), Creative Plots, Mario Kart, a
survival server, and more. However, in 2015 GameBlade shut
down and merged with Shotbow, bringing with it Mine Theft
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Auto (2.0). Shotbow is a great server to be a part of because it has
very dedicated staff, a wonderful community and the resources to
deliver an excellent gaming experience to all players.
How did you start programming?
A few years ago I found myself running a Minecraft server for my
friends. While I had played around with some web code before,
(HTML, CSS, etc.) I had never really done any actual programming,
and I thought it’d be fun to create a useful plugin for the server
that added some cool extra commands. (Jailing, etc.). The plugin
was eventually put onto Bukkit and people started asking for
additions to it. I added their requests, learning what I was doing as
I coded.
After a while I thought it’d be fun to try messing around with
vehicles, so I experimented with trying to get minecarts to drive
like cars. Once I got it working, I added it into my plugin on Bukkit
and it soon became fairly popular. Only a few weeks after, people
were asking for it to be added into a new separate plugin just for
the cars, and ‘uCars’ was born. At this point I was still very much a
novice programmer.
Working on uCars taught me quite a lot, it seemed like every day
I’d receive feedback from people with bugs to fix and new features
to add, each new feature even crazier than the one before it.
Before long, uCars was an incredibly complex, and messy, plugin
with every possible thing you could want cars to do. The Yogscast
(British YouTubers who I am a huge fan of) even did a Yoglabs
video (Pig vs Cart) on the plugin, using a map made specifically for
it by the talented people over at TheVoxelBox.
After working a while longer on uCars and some other Bukkit
projects, I noticed my code was looking pretty messy. At this point
I made the best decision - to buy a book about programming and
java and actually learn the correct way to do things. I would highly
recommend anybody who wants to program software to do the
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same, it made a huge difference to the quality of what I was able
to produce.
A few months later, I was contacted by a Dutch man named
‘Bjarn’ who was having issues with people being able to exit
minecarts and use it to glitch through walls. I took a look at the
issue and altered the location players exited from the vehicles.
After this, he asked me to help him with some code he had - The
code for Mine Theft Auto alpha (The first Minecraft GTA server).
The previous developer helping him had recently left and, like me
a few months before, he didn’t have much programming
knowledge - so the code was very messy and rather poor.
Before long I was lead developer of the ‘MineTheftAuto’ server
(Later to become GameBlade). Having cleaned up the terribly
messy code given to me and producing a massive update to the
game (Including the heists you still play today!), MineTheftAuto 1.0
was released. It had a few issues on launch but went on to be a
largely successful game.
Following the success of MTA 1.0, ‘MineTheftAuto’ became
GameBlade and many more games were created; Mirrors Edge,
Creative Plots, etc.
Fast forward to 2015, due to a person using the ‘kneesnap’
exploit (bug in older vanilla Minecraft giving people in creative
servers op powers via a glitch) the network was ruined. The person
using the exploit messed about with permissions and spawned in
huge sums of money in MTA, entirely breaking the economy and
ruining the popularity of the game. Sadly this ultimately caused
the death of the network.
Luckily, I had at some point ran into lazertester at some point a
while beforehand and had his contact information in my
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skype. After some negotiating Shotbow then agreed to merge
with GameBlade and take onboard Bjarn, myself and the admin
team.
Even before the merge of Shotbow and GameBlade I had been
working on a new update to MineTheftAuto: MTA 2.0. This huge
update contained new minigames, new guns, a new map,
leveling, and many more awesome features that weren’t part of
the original game. After the merge with Shotbow, I began work
on finishing the update and altering the game to run across
multiple servers, instead of the single server used at GameBlade.
2016 then came about. The launch of MTA 2.0 was at the start of
January and I was incredibly happy with its success. The game
was averaging 200+ players on it at any given time (With 300-500
on weekends). That number has since fallen but I’m hoping after
the 1.9 update (And planned super awesome post-1.9 update
afterwards) that the player count will soar once again.
Any tips for new programmers?
I think that a good starting point is to find something fun and
useful to work on. For me it was a plugin to use on a server with
friends, but it could be anything. Simply creating something and
then maintaining and improving upon it will teach you useful
skills such as debugging.
I would however strongly suggest reading a book, or doing an
online course to learn properly about programming before you
do anything serious. (Such as selling what you’ve made, or
working for a network). Learning the theory behind object
oriented programming and learning about core programming
concepts, such as concurrency, etc. will help you greatly.
Written by Dinohoot8 and Storm345, Edited by Sunlost
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Qubion plot highlight
Welcome to the first ever Qubion plot
highlight, where we at the magazine
look at plots on the creative server and
show case the ones that The
Shotbow Community thinks stand out!
This edition, we have a Ledari plot
created by _Maplemoose_ , a cute little
penguin standing over an icy water fall.
One thing this plot is to be applauded
for is for how it effectively utilizes its
terrain. Instead of building the typical
single cliff that so many other Ledari
plots attempt, this player has shaped
his/her terrain so that it forms a kind of
dome over his/her penguin. This not only makes for a nice
background, but also helps draw the eye to his/her cute
penguin in the center. You really can’t say no to that face.
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_Maplemoose_ also did a
good job of making sure that
there were no blank spaces on
the plot. Normally when cliffs
are made, players will make
the mistake of leaving the
sides of the cliff completely
empty. While not a terrible
thing to do, it can leave the
plot looking rather bare and
boring. Maple combatted this
by adding ice to the sides of
the cliffs, which not only
covered the blank space but
also added a nice blue color to
the terrain. He or She also
made sure not to leave the top
of the cliff empty, either, and
decorated it with some icy
pine trees.
It is nice to see a Ledari plot that puts a focus on organics.
Even though the plots for Ledari rank generally focus on
structures, a good organic can really make the difference
between a rankup or not. However, this plot should still
have some structures, as that is currently one of the requirements to achieve Ledari rank. Thankfully, it shouldn’t
be too hard to add one alongside the trees on top of the
cliff. Once this plot has a nice structure, it could easily be
ranked up.
Written by EmeraldClef, Plot by _MapleMoose_, Edited by Sunlost
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Annihilation map reviews
Annihilation is one of the most played games on Shotbow.
Between the US and EU servers, there are a lot of people
who enjoy playing it. With Annihilation being one of the
most popular games, there has to be a map that is the
community favorite. In Annihilation’s case, there are three.
They are Coastal, Canyon, and Andorra.
Coastal is the most played map in Annihilation. It has been
around since the beginning of the game and it will be
around for a long time. The map is the only map in
competitive mode. Jackelofhell and xxsaundersxx made the
map. The map has two iron mines, two coal mines, one
redstone mine, and one emerald mine per team. There is
also one shared diamond mine in the center of the map.
The Coastal mid is unique because in the middle there is a
beacon and nine iron blocks for people to mine. There’s also
a lot of water around the map. The class that is great for
water is definitely iceman. You are able to maneuver around
quickly and escape from the dangers of getting killed in a
crowded mid. Not to mention that you travel in style!
Canyon is another popular map. It is frequently played, and
a large majority of players love it. The size of Canyon is
382x382, which is the same as Coastal. The map is devoid of
water except for a small area in mid. The diamonds are in
that water area at mid.
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The nexus tower is a temple which has many entrances
and hiding spots. There is a chamber on the right side of
every base that leads into a well to where a player can
quickly take a shortcut to the nexus tower. When going to
mid, be sure to be careful of the huge drop down to the
bottom of the canyon. That's where Acrobat comes in.
Acrobat can double jump and is immune to fall damage.
This is definitely the best class in Canyon because of the
immunity to fall damage.
Andorra 3.9.2 is a very fancy map to play on. It has evolved
overtime from a simple map to the more elegant version
the users play on today. The map size is 401x401 (which is a
very large map). The Andorra nexus tower is great because
it's not underground where people can just camp on the
stairs and kill you. Users can grapple or build to the top of
the tower instead of having to run up a flight of stairs.
Andorra’s mid is fantastic! Did you ever imagine having a
coliseum for a mid? It’s very different from the other
maps. There is also a secret room behind the nether portal
in the nexus tower. A safe place to brew potions is in the
in-base gravel mine. Scout is a huge factor in Andorra
because it’s easy to get around the map, grapple away in
the water if people are chasing you, and to go across the
trees much more efficiently.
That was Annihilation Map Reviews! Next month should
be more informative as the Shotbow Magazine will be
diving into more gameplay tips.
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Written by Dinohoot8, Athys, Patty2, Zyong, and Superbob1000, Edited by Sunlost
Vote for the Shotbow Network! (links below)
Voting for Shotbow on Planet Minecraft, Minecraft Forum,
and MC Servers is something each and every one of us
should do! Not only does it give you 200 free XP daily (600 if
you vote on all three), it greatly helps out the Shotbow
Network by increasing visibility! Every one of you enjoys
Shotbow's many fun games, which the entire staff puts a ton
of effort into! With the staff putting in so much effort, it
would be appreciated if you would take the time to vote!
There is a lot of exciting stuff coming soon for Shotbow, so
be sure to spread the word in any way you can! This includes
Social media, friends, etc! If you need ways to remind
yourself to vote, you can set daily reminders, bookmark the
voting page, or even better, make it so the voting page
comes up when you start your browser!
Vote on MC Forum - Vote on PMC - Vote on MC Servers
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Behind the scenes - MineZ
All of the redstoners are probably wondering how these
MineZ dungeons made? Well, Shotbow Magazine has the
answer for you. A retired team member went behind the
scenes in Desert Canyon Sanctuary and St. Roseluck Crypt
to bring you tips and wonderful screen shots from the
inside.
Desert Canyon Sanctuary
The first thing that you see is
the stained clay in the middle. They represent the various
parts of the ceiling that fall. If you look to the left, you can
see a command block next to a line of command blocks,
this command makes the TNT drop. The redstone block is
pulsed by the glass block, but whichever block places the
wool in the line of command blocks or deletes it controls
the duration. Once
the wool reaches
the end, it triggers
a chain of command blocks that
turns off the boss
and opens the loot
room.
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St. Roseluck Crypt:
The Wither Bridge
This is the redstone for the Wither
Bridge. The colored wool in the
erratic pattern shows which
dispensers are going to be firing.
The lined-up command blocks work in pairs, one turns on
the right ceiling lights, the other fires the correct
dispensers.
The Wave Room
This is the redstone for
the Wave Room. It’s
almost identical to the
redstone used in DCS’s
wave room. You might
notice the zombie in the
glass cage, he’s the safety feature. If you log out, he will
despawn and the dungeon freezes. That means that you
can’t continue to the next wave and you’ll be stuck in the
dungeon. This is to prevent people from logging out to
avoid fighting zombies. If you win and didn’t log out, the
Zombie dies. The room is complete, the door opens, and it
resets for the next players. The Command Blocks next to
the cage determines how many times each dispenser gets
pulsed (dropping zombies). It’s preset at 4, 6, or 10. The
phase block (the green wool in the line of command
blocks) control which ones get powered.
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Links to Pictures
1 - DCS Boss Room
2 - DCS Boss Room Redstone
3 - Roseluck Bridge Redstone
4 - Roseluck Wave Room Redstone
5 - Roseluck Wave Room
Written by Thomas_Dorland, Edited by Sunlost
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Photo gallery - smash
Greetings my fellow Shotbow community members!
Welcome to the first photo gallery article for the new
magazine. Every edition I, Squally, will be releasing 5
new screenshots from a Shotbow game. They will later
be entered into the Shotbow wallpaper pack, but you
folks are getting a special look at them simply for
reading this!
This edition I have chosen SMASH - the swift, actionpacked game that everyone has had loads of fun
playing. Screenshot 1 is of the map “The Ship”, which
isn’t as popular despite looking absolutely awesome
with shaders. I’m sure you will all recognize screenshot
2, “Arena”, undoubtedly one of the most popular
SMASH maps out there. “Volcano” is a diverse and
somewhat cinematic map and it’s also one of my
personal favorites so I just had to implement it.
Screenshot 4 is the one I think looks the best, but can
you tell what it is? Have a guess - the answer will be
released next issue. Finally, if you have ever played
SMASH, you will recognize this; the humble hub!
Thanks for looking through, and please be sure to
SMASH me some new ideas if you have any!
- Squally
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SMASH Map — The Ship
SMASH Map — Arena
20
SMASH Map — Volcano
Secret
21
SMASH Lobby
Download Links
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4
Screenshot 5
Written by SquallyTheWally, Edited by Sunlost
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Community surveys
-FluffoonHello all,
To begin I’d like to say that I’ve always valued what the
community thinks about the server; their suggestions,
concerns, etc. Your joint voice is what must inspire and
drive us. So I decided to start making surveys each
month and get an idea of what you guys want, and how
you guys feel about the server and its games. The results
of the surveys may be a great help in making decisions
in the future. I only ask you for one thing: be honest and
serious in your responses. Be constructive and explain
your points, and we will give you an appropriate
response. One-word comments, troll comments, or
insults will not be analyzed. To start off, the first survey
will be more of an introductory one - we will be asking
you to describe Shotbow through your eyes in 10
questions. Later on we will give you the opportunity to
choose more specific topics aimed at certain games or
problems. Feel free to suggest questions in the
comments of the announcement post. So, without any
more delay, here is the link to the survey. I’ve added a
password to avoid responses from people not related to
Shotbow. The password is survey1.
Thanks for participating.
Survey
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Closing and credits
As we close this first edition of the Shotbow Magazine,
the Editor would just like to thank each and every one
of the people who made this possible.
Athys - Co-Writer of “Annihilation Map Reviews”
Catsage - Featured Video in “YouTube Community Spotlights”
Coconut88123 - “Happy 4th Anniversary” Front Cover Art
Dinohoot8 - Co-Writer of “Annihilation Map Reviews”, Interviewer in “Developer Interviews”, Organization
Fluffoon - Writer of “Community Surveys”
Jeroenhero - Dates for “4 Years of Shotbow”
Navarr - Dates for “4 Years of Shotbow”, General Guidance
Ninja_Bacn - Featured Video in “YouTube Community
Spotlights”
Patty2 - Co-Writer of “Annihilation Map Reviews”
SquallyTheWally - Writer of “Photo Gallery - Smash”,
Featured Video in “YouTube Community Spotlights”
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Superbob1000 - Co-Writer of “Annihilation Map Reviews”
Sunlost - Lead Editor, Project Manager, Writer of
“Community Art Spotlight” and “YouTube Community
Spotlights”
Storm345 - Interviewee in “Developer Interviews”
Thomas_Dorland - Writer of “Behind the Scenes ~ MineZ”
Zyong - Co-Writer of “Annihilation Map Reviews”
We’ll see you all in the next edition! Bye!
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