Hello again! It feels like just yesterday when I last told you all about an update… the VampireZ update that is, well here we are again - and not for the last time this week. There will be another post tomorrow too!

So what’s happened? Well - lets kick it off with my favorite change - Multispawn has been added to Paintball and two new maps are here to show it off! Multispawn puts a new perspective on gameplay... literally! It also prevents those nasty situations where you get spawncamped! New Hats, Features, Killstreaks, Perks and a bunch of balance changes are here too, check out the notes below!

New Maps!

• Aztec, a community submission by Team Devise! http://hypixel.net/threads/paintball-aztec-by-team-devise.147464/
  • This map features two sides in a forest separated by a large gorge with only a few narrow bridges to cross! Expect to hunker down and have an epic faceoff!
• Boletus, a creative server contest winning map by Goldenminr!
  • A Mushroom themed map with more limited cover, a large river runs through the middle and one half of your team spawns up on a ridge line, while the other spawns down by a river. We recommend playing this map on 1.8!
• To make room for these new maps, LaMente has been retired to the map vault for now, and may reappear in the future.

New features added!

• General
  • After game leader boards now show kills as well as 1st / 2nd / 3rd
  • 1.8 Feature - Activatable hats now spawn floating text complete with sayings!
  • 1.8 Feature - Killstreak timers are shown in the action bar.
  • Multispawn Support! Maps are now able to have multiple spawn points per team, allowing builders much more flexibility to create maps with more interesting angles! The two new maps both feature this, and best of all - it’s an awful lot harder to spawncamp when the enemy team has two bases they will be rushing out from!
    • On Aztec, teams spawn on four corners on opposite sides of a gorge
    • On Boletus, your team can either spawn on the high ground or low ground. If you spawn on the high ground - try to support your team from above!
• Perks
  • Adrenaline: Now combines properly with Speed hat, giving Speed 3
  • Transfusion: Unspent kill coins have a chance to be converted into coins after game.
• Killstreaks:
  • Bomberman: Enemies explode in a radius around you, this also hits yourself!
  • Backstab: Teleport to the location of killed enemies immediately!
  • Landmine: Place a pressure plate at your feet, if someone steps on this - it explodes and kills all enemies in a radius!
  • Quintuple shot: Triple shot's bigger brother! Shoot five snowballs with each shot!
• Hats
  • Hats now have sayings when activated!
  • NoxyD Hat: 8 seconds of spawn Protection instead of just 5! Comes complete with cool paintball visor.
  • Ghost Hat: 15% chance not to lose a life on death

Changes!

• General
  • Max game length increased from 15 minutes to 20 minutes
  • Maximum possible game coins increased from 10k to 15k
  • The killcoin item stack has gone to school and learned how to count up to 111 instead of just 64 now.
• Perks
  • The Endurance perk has been changed to % increases rather than flat amounts. The result of this is that Killsteaks with longer base durations are now more effected by Endurance levels than Killstreaks with shorter durations.
    
    As an example, the Forcedfield duration @ Max endurance level is now 37.5 (down from 52.5)
    
    As another example, the Triple Shot duration @ Max endurance level is now 75 (up from 67.5)
• Killstreaks
  • Nuke now gives its user kills
  • Forcefield effect reduced by 50%
  • Strong Arm and Super Strong Arm now properly have a difference. Strong arm fires with double velocity. Super Strong arm now fires at triple velocity.
• Hats
  • The Mystery hat now correctly gives its owner kills.
  • Rezzus hat cooldown reduced to 60 seconds from 80,
  • Rezzus hat Effective range is now 15 blocks (decreased from 25)
  • The Normal hat now spawns fireworks less frequently.
• Maps
  • Added Aztec
  • Added Boletus
  • Retired LaMente to the Map Vault for now

The coding changes for this update were made by @Plancke, a man who is no stranger to the Paintball community. I mostly notice him in the kill list on the left of my screen , he’s joined our HDTP (Hypixel Developer Training Program) and just like last night - this update does not impact the timeline of other projects. I’ll let him introduce himself just below me!

We hope you guys enjoy, please be sure to leave feedback on the newly opened paintball forum!

Welcome to the ‘Light in the Growing Darkness’ update for VampireZ. This update releases a number of new items both for Survivors and Vampires, some modifications to existing items and features, some bug fixes and 2 new maps!

• Survivors are getting Holy books to providing healing and strength to other survivors.
• A new ‘Wooden Stake’ in the hidden chest
• A Not-so-Wooden ‘Steak’ with Sharpness 2 in the survivor shop.
• Thorns have been removed from the God Armour set. This was done because recent changes to the behavior of the thorns ability cause the God Armour to break much faster than intended with the thorns enchantment.
• Sharpness has been removed from the Stone Shard and replaced with smite for all those wishing to better slay zombies.
• The icons for survivors to purchase gold have been changed to a gold nugget for 10, a gold ingot for 100 and a gold block for 1000 to help distinguish them in the shop.
• The Vampire blood drinker ability will no longer work for survivors.

Let us first talk in more detail about the light. This update introduces a new shop item for the survivors called the Holy Book. Our goal with the Holy book was to introduce a more thematic element and to encourage more team oriented gameplay without restricting player choices. In other words… Protect the healer.

There are 2 Holy Books the survivors can purchase - a Book of Healing and a Book of Strength.The book of Healing will provide regen for yourself and those in a distance around you. The book of Strength will provide strength to yourself and those around you. The effect of the book will last for as long as you keep the book in your hands.But there are some requirements for it to work:

• You must hold the book in your hands for about 20 seconds (there is a little bit a variance in the time)
• If you switch to a different item the timer will reset
• You can not attack while holding the book, doing so will reset the timer.
• You must not be wearing armour for the book to work.

If you are holding the book you will get a message that you are Praying. If you are wearing armour you will get a message that you must take it off for the book to work. If you hit something with the book it will give you a message that the time has been reset. Once you have held the book for the required amount of time you will get a message that your prayers have been answered.

We know this sounds like a steep price for activation, but if you consider that this book is giving the group around you the abilities of the god pots well, they better be doing everything in their power to keep you alive.

To further aid the survivors a new item has been added to the hidden chest that spawns randomly on the map - A wooden stake. There are a few different ways to kill a vampire and we all know a wooden stake to the heart is one. The wooden stake will instantly kill a vampire similar to the way the Holy water does. However the act of killing the vampire will break the stake so it is a one use item… and it will add no extra benefit against zombies so be careful not to waste the stake by beating zombies about the head with it.

As everyone knows the 2nd best way to kill vampires is through the use of awful puns. That's why we have added a new - not wooden - “Steak” to the survivor shop..It’s a steak. Like the ones that normally come from cows, sizzle when cooked on a grill and taste delicious. (Sorry vegetarians!) But this is no normal steak… the ‘Steak’ not only provides a delicious meal... it has sharpness 2! So get out there and kill some vampires with the power of puns.


Vampires are getting 2 new abilities and some balance changes.

• The ability to cause near by zombies to target the nearest player
  
• The ability to automatically open nearby wooden doors.
  
• The vampire invisibility is coming back.
  
• The Original Fang will now be called the Master Fang and will be given to any respawning vampire if there are 3 or less vampires in the game.
  
• Vampiric Strength and Regen abilities will be available for purchase again 5 seconds after being purchased.
  
• The base coins for survivor kills has been increased from 5 to 10.

Now lets talk in more detail about the growing darkness. The powers of the vampires are growing. The first new ability allows the vampires to command nearby zombies - directing them to attack the nearest player, regardless of line of sight. This works similar to the flame arrow but instead of showing you where the survivor is, this ability shows the zombies where the survivor is. If the zombie is currently chasing a survivor this will not override that.

The second new ability allows the Vampire to enter without an invitation, forcing open all nearby wooden doors. This will hopefully take care of issues with overly enthusiastic zombies clogging up doorways, but be quick as this doesn’t make the doors remain open for long...

In addition, the lost powers of invisibility have returned to the vampires... to a degree. Vampires will be invisible when they spawn like they once did, but once they engage in battle they will become visible again.

To help the starting vampires, or if the number of vampires in the game drops down to two or less, vampires will get the original fang when they respawn. This should help those poor outnumbered vampires.

Vampires mastery of their existing skills has increased, allowing a vampire to repurchase strength or regen after a 5 seconds instead of having to wait for the ability to wear off. Now you won’t have to worry about your strength wearing off in the middle of a fight.

And… More coins for vampires! The base coins awarded for a survivor kill has been increased from 5 to 10.


And finally, NEW MAPS! we will be retiring the Cavern map for now and replacing it with two new maps - and Egyptian themed and a Pirate bay themed map to better represent the the darkness of the vampires spreading to new and distant lands.

The Pyramids map is a community submitted map (by mll254, Bap66, hyper398, TheKindKitten and some guy named zanflango) featuring a sprawling desert village as well as 2 large pyramids, one of which is a recreation of the Great pyramid of Giza with the “Grand Gallery’, “Queens Chamber’, ‘Kings Chamber’ and the ‘Subterranean Chamber’ complete with a Pit of Death (guard rail not included… so watch your step)

The Plundered map is also a community submitted map (by ‘Team Devise’ Bigrat12345, m3llym3lly, 7five7, TheKindKitten, Benolian, insaneteamc, and Pixelproh Cheesey1998) featuring a pirate theme and a port city. The Vampires which smuggled aboard a pirate ship have arrived at port just in time to to interrupt the celebratory pig roast. With no shortage of places for survivors to hide among the winding port town comprised of shops, re-purposed shipwrecks and jungle tree houses. This highly thematic map promises to be lot of fun.

This update has been very much primarily done by zanflango. A member of our newly launched Hypixel Developer Training program. He is gonna reply just after this post so you can get to know him a little more!

Be sure to post thoughts, feedback and discussion over on the new VampireZ forum!

Stay tuned for more exciting posts over the next few days, as this update does not impact our timeline for other updates promised and was worked on independently by zanflango !

Needless to say, a long overdue update to one of our most unique games and a great debut as the first fruit of success driven by our Developer Training Program!

The Delicious Update: Phase 1

There are actually too many changes to list for this update, so we will just give you the main points and let you discover the details on the server!
Because of the size of this update, we decided to split this update into 3 phases to ease things up.
Rest assured, in between those phases we are going to release other updates, balances, new games and more. This much needed update will help us release future patches and content at a faster rate.

Phase 1

• New Lobbies
  • All lobbies received a complete revamp and feature a new simple layout to help new players find their way around with no confusion. Don’t worry, we made sure that the new homes we are giving you are fun to hangout with your friends. Make sure you poke around to see hidden stuff!
  • The main lobby now features one giant portal instead of individual portals, that gives us more flexibility for future features while also making it easier on new players to find what they are looking for. It’s much less messy!
  • The Hall of Love is growing and needs a new home, we will be introducing it back in Phase 2. Unfortunately for now, it’s closed down for maintenance.

• Scoreboards
  • Games now features better scoreboard that are normalized across games.
  • Some old lobbies were updated to use the new scoreboard system.
• Compass and Profile
  • We removed the animations from the compass and added more useful descriptions to help new players.

• The “Profile” menu has been added in your action bar, which gave us the ability to add more options and move non-game related options away from the compass.

• New features have been added to the new Profile menu, make sure you take a look!

• Tutorials System
  • Some very simple tutorials were added to help new players find their way around, it also gives coins and experience to help them get started. Can be completed by all players once, even veteran players.

• Leaderboards for all games (Overall/Monthly/Weekly)
• Visual Enhancements

Phase 2 (Early December)

• Shop Fixes
• Chat Fixes
• Lobbies Parkours
• Hall of Love

Phase 3 (Late December)

• Mystery Box
• Quest Master

Upcoming other stuff

A lot of cool updates in the very near future…

• 2 New Mega Games (both being worked on by different teams!)
• Blitz Balance Update (Ready) (This week)
• Megawalls Balance Update (Not Ready) (Within 2 weeks)
• Quakecraft Updates (Ready) (This week)
  
• The Walls Updates (Ready) (Within 2 weeks)
  
• Paintball Updates (Ready) (This week)
• TNT Games Updates (Ready) (Within 2 weeks)
• Arcade Updates (Not Ready) (no ETA)
• Cops and Crims Changes (Not Ready) (no ETA)

A special thanks to Cryptkeeper and the build teams

For Phase 1 of this update, I’d like to give a special mention to the Hypixel Build Team, Vadact and the Craftpixel team for getting so many lobbies done at the same time, and also to Cryptkeeper - one of our developers. His first steps towards making things simpler and cleaner is what prompted this entire approach, a large part of it was his work. Be sure to give them a pat on the back the next time you see them in one of our lobbies!


Return of NoxyD!

NoxyD has returned to the team! He has decided to come back to Hypixel instead of staying at Riot Games, he will not only be rejoining us to help with the server, but also to be the Project Leader for a New Non-Minecraft Game. Don’t expect an update on this for many months, but rest assured - if you are one of our MVP+ users, you will be in the early testing phases as promised when you purchased the rank! Welcome back my friend!


Final Thoughts

Exciting times lay ahead of us! We are always committed to improving the server for all aspects of our userbase, we hope you like the new changes and are looking forward for the things still yet to come!

Known Issues

• The new pregame lobbies will be changed over to reflect their current game instead of a pub, we plan to introduce a Sky Island theme pregame waiting lobby tonight while we wait for the Build team to create appropriately themed ones
• The Arena Challenger and Magical Chest will be making a return soon!
• Parkours will be added in Phase 2, please read the full news post
• Quakecraft has quite a few unforseen issues; sounds and lasers - will be fixed asap
• Paintball lobby will get a quick overhaul to give more a paintball feeling (thanks for feedback on this. The snowball will make a return!)
• Mega Walls class selection will be improved
• Leaderboards are not 100% working perfectly as we would like
• We had to remove a few gadgets that were crashing lobbies, working on a fix asap
• Blood particle toggle issues
• Some network lag occuring, that's unrelated to the update, we are aware of it and know the cause, we just need time to fix
• Tutorials are turned off for now, until we resolve last minute issues

Currently experiencing some network issues, should be resolved in the next few minutes.

Edit: We found the issue, working on a quick fix!

For this Black Friday only, we're discounting ALL everything up to 75%! This is the largest discount we've ever done and rest assured that this discount isn't coming round again any time soon.
CLICK HERE! The discount will last for about 24 hours.
Grab it while it's hot! We are adding tons of features to ranks before holidays, so now is the time to grab it for cheap!

55% OFF RANKS
75% OFF HYPIXEL CREDITS
25% OFF NETWORK BOOSTERS

Thanks again for your generous support and have a great weekend!
Brace yourselves. big update is coming this weekend.

EDIT: Extended sale!
EDIT: Extended again, almost over now!


FAQ

What updates are coming up for Hypixel Credits?
40 new gadgets, Mystery Box keys, custom games settings, combat pets, new pets and more!

What updates are coming up for Ranks?
Cosmetic currency multiplier, future games cosmetics, extra secret features and more!

Why should you get Hypixel Boosters now?
Boosters will soon get nerfed but will not affect previously owned boosters.

Double Coins Weekend
Hey hey hey! It is that time of the month again, double coins for everyone!
We have been working hard on new content and we haven't been able to deliver new stuff before the weekend so we thought we could let you guys farm some coins in the meantime!

Blitz Survival Games Updates
We are currently preparing new maps, caelum revamp and also doing a kit update. Some might go live this weekend, stay tuned!

Mega Walls Updates
We recently added combat-logging prevention, yay! That being said, now we are working on balancing all classes.

New stuff?!?
We have a lot of cool features and 2 Mega Games coming up, but I'll leave that for another news post for the actual releases. I'm personally excited to see all of it put together, it will make the server feel a lot more polished and fun!

Anti Hack System
A new anti-hack system will be rolled in the next few days... the fact is that we can catch pretty much all popular hacking clients now, we just need to bring HAL, the punisher, to get rid of everyone that is hacking. From our initial testing, it caught 10 out of 10 players hacking, so this will be interesting