As many of you know, the admin team has been leading very busy personal lives as of late. We haven’t been able to give Nations at War the attention it deserves and demands. In addition, the server has not been able to support our current standard of deployment and asking you to donate to reach the lofty sum that the server requires to run is not reasonable of us. We could downgrade to a smaller server, but that would just create illusions and problems that would be more harmful than the alternative.

As such, we will be allowing the Minecraft and Mumble server subscription to lapse. On the 22nd, we will take these down and back up the server for storage. We will also be releasing the Season 2 and Season 2.5 maps shortly thereafter. Following the shutdown, we will be transferring the forums to another server at the same web address, so if you don’t see it for a day or two, don’t worry. It’ll be back.

This will allow us to focus all our spare energy into creating the next season, instead of splitting our focus between running the current half-season and developing the new.

In addition, Minecraft is quickly evolving, and things we’re working on are being changed every week with new updates. Without the API to stabilize what we’re developing, it’s very difficult to make decisions about the future.

Unfortunately, without a server and without testing going on, having applications open would just be a giant tease and unfair to those trying to join us. We won’t be accepting any new applications until we’re ready to show some real progress. We’ll also be closing the forum registration and locking down the Visitor’s Center to combat the waves upon waves of spam we deal with.

When we’re ready to re-open, we will make many large and glorious announcements to all corners of the internets. In our fresh start, we’ll be revisiting the whitelist and cleaning it. If you’ve been a member in the past, you don’t have to worry, you’ll still have a bed in our village to come back to.

Stick around. The community will still be reading, the forums will still be here, so this doesn’t mark the end. We’ll still be playing other games with each other and debating the necessities of mounted combat in the interim. If you need something in particular from the admins, we’ll definitely still be in IRC and monitoring the forums, don’t fret.

We will be back soon enough with great news for the next season.

We’ve prepared a FAQ here, and as always, feel free to ask us any questions you may have.

Our second video is up now, showing the glories of the Midland Nations! You’ll see the lovingly crafted homelands of the Intrepid Society, the Pathfinder’s Guild, New Forthwind, and the Greater Blackhole Empire. The world may have ended, but the wonders built by the hard labor of these nations live on in our memory.

If you’re new to Nations at War please take the time to look around, get to know our community and if you’re interested you can apply now to take part in Season 2.5. We’ve opened up testing and the public applications (which will now be consistently open), so if you’ve been waiting to apply now is the time to do it!

Information about the testing phase can be found here. If you have any questions, the Visitor’s Center is the place to ask for all newcomers!

It has been a struggle, these past days, as the three nations planned, fought, and raided for control of this powerful stone. But one nation has prevailed, and the grimstone has coalesced into mighty tools that they may make their mark on the lands. These are but pale shadows of the tools the gods themselves use, but potent items nontheless.

The winner of the grimstone contest is: The Mavi!

A chest will be placed shortly within your territory containing wondrous items! Blessed by the spirits of your ancestors, perhaps they will make this new land easier to thrive in.

Congratulations!

A strange form of stone, not found in any seam or mine in this world, has begun to fall from the skies. It carries strong enchantments, and in large quantities may provide the edge a nation needs to turn the tide against their aggressors.

The villagers of the small towns scattered nearby have begun to collect this stone in small storage areas throughout the world. Be on the lookout for these shrines and structures!

This contest will last for two weeks. At varying points during that time, the admin staff will make counts of the amount of grimstone collected by each nation, with a final tally coming in at the end of the week. These checks will be made on an irregular schedule, so it behooves the nations to keep their stockpiles full at all times!

Grimstone collected from these structures must be stored in the shrines and stockpiles that you created last week. Grimstone placed in any other chest will not be counted towards the winning totals!

This last week has shown that the nations are not only skilled at building with the larger scheme in mind, but also at creating smaller (but no less important!) pieces to fill in their nations.

We hereby announce the winner of the contest to be The Mavi!

The effort and work they’ve put into their structure will resonate over the coming weeks. Work will be lighter, and their storage will always seem more full than they remember it! In less fanciful terms, they will gain a +10% bonus to all grimstone collected during the next contest!

As a reminder, the unnecessary destruction of shrines will be met with swift and terrifying justice!

For weeks, the nations have toiled. The lands around them resounded with the creak and cracks of timber being harvest, and the ground below reverberated with the impacts of picks digging through stone and ore alike. Their craftsman have slaved away, joining wood and stone and even more arcane materials together into a completed whole.

But only one nation would rise above the rest. Their craftsmanship and dedication, the desire to sweat and bleed for their lands, would set them apart from their fellows.

That nation is Astracarn!

Their walls and housing districts both showed both ingenuity and a strong aesthetic sense. Further, their dedication to keeping their marketplaces full was impressive. Testificates, grateful for the protection the great nation, stood resolute ready to trade with those granted the right by the great nation.

As a reward, Astracarn has been given a doublechest full of rare and prized materials to continue their construction!

But there is yet more! Scouts from all nations report that the others have begun construction of new, and oddly separate structures! Are they shrines? Why are they situated outside of nation boundaries? Only time will tell!
Please be sure to check your respective nation forums for details.

Hello there folks, and welcome to Season 2.5! Having ended Season 2 with the end of the world, we are now moving into putting together and testing the plugins we are going to use for Season 3. Since there are a lot of new folks coming this way, we want you to know what to expect when you join us, so we’re going to explain a little about the changes from Season 2 to Season 2.5.

New Map – In order to save time better spent on Season 3, we have generated a new map using the 1.7.3 terrain generation and overlaid the features from 1.2.5. You’ll still get your jungles and NPC villages, but the terrain itself should be much more dynamic and interesting than what is currently generated.

New Nations – While we’ll never forget the nations of Season 2, we want to try out the plugins under development which means we’re going to be forming new nations. You’ll see these in the thread here, and all players will be moved into nations as requests and population allow.

New People – As you may already know, applications have opened and will be staying open as long as we can manage to do so. That means tons of new people to play with!

New Plugins – This is the bread and butter of Season 2.5! You’ll all be trying out the new plugins we put together. While many of them are foundational to getting the game working, we do expect to be getting into some really exciting territory with these! You’ll also be able to earn tickets by filing good, non-duplicate bug reports that you can trade in during the beginning of Season 3 for some pretty neat stuff!

New Events – It wouldn’t be Nations at War without events! You can expect intrigue, excitement, and above all war in the coming weeks.

And with that, we would like to announce our first event!

The four nations have found themselves in hostile lands, surrounded by potential enemies. Now is a time to build fortifications to keep their people safe, and homes to comfort them. For the next two weeks, the new nations will be finding and building a first city. At the end of that time, during the weekend of the 21st, the admin staff will roam the land and judge each of these cities. The winners will receive some additional loot to help them on their way to sustainable, comfortable living as well as a ticket for the Season 3 raffle!

Our first video is now available, chronicling the Northern Nations of Season 2! For those of you new to Nations at War, this is a sneak peek into the fantastic nations our players created during that season! For our returning members, this might be a trip down memory lane, or a chance to show off.

If you’re new to Nations at War please take the time to look around, get to know our community and if you’re interested you can apply now to take part in Season 2.5. We’ve opened up testing and the public applications (which will now be consistently open), so if you’ve been waiting to apply now is the time to do it!

Information about the testing phase can be found here. If you have any questions, the Visitor’s Center is the place to ask for all newcomers!

ArguableLobster won first, followed by B_C in second, and third was a tie between Onundr and ButtKittens. Each of them will get one ticket regardless of score. Hopefully this was a bit of fun for you guys. Keep an eye on the forums, as we’ve got more fun stuff in the works for you soon.

Brotano and Alfie tied for first, followed by Cliffhanger and Electronics in second and third (respectively). Each of which will get one ticket regardless of score. Sunday will have a different group playing but for those that got cheated out of the third round today because the server tanked, if we can fit it, we’ll do another round with you guys and probably whoever is still around from the Sunday bracket just for fun (no points). We’ll see what happens.

A few of you have asked if we would do another Survival Games event and we’ve decided it would be a pretty good idea. If you were there last time we did it, you’ll know that we found waiting for everyone to finish was a horribly boring affair. Instead, this time, we’re going to break you up into segments and do a bracket tournament. We need to know how many of you are going to commit to doing this, so let us know in the thread. I’ll update that post with more information as needed.

It’ll be over the weekend of June 16th-17th, times are TBA (likely between noon and 3PM PDT).