Warzone
Description
Warzone is a team-oriented PvP server offering both casual and competitive gameplay. It was founded by Luuke and hosted on Minehut since December 20, 2014[1]. Warzone draws inspiration from Overcast Community and remains true to its community roots.
Today, Warzone features over 600 maps across 10+ game modes, with a dynamic pool and map voting system that adapts to player count. The network also have a dedicated team that organizes events and tournaments based on player interest.
Now running on PGM, Warzone has been through many eras. CardinalPGM was the original framework of Warzone. The server shortly began to use TGM and has now been replaced by PGM in 2022 after multiple years.
History
Warzone has existed for over a decade, and brims with a wide array of history. It has fostered a welcoming, passionate, and prolific atmosphere that has allowed for a tightly knit community within its niche. Warzone was first brought to life in 2014, and has experienced immense developmental revamps, consistent updates, and care since its inception. Despite its reopening in 2017 after significant downtime, Warzone was able to grow and flourish in-game, and through the Discord server released that same year.
2014 - 2018
2018
February 2018 - Twitter Account, Stat & Punishment Reset, & Level Balancing
Warzone's first Twitter account was announced on the 1st of February, 2018.
All in-game player statistics were reset on the 4th of February, 2018. Minor adjustments to level balancing were also implemented.
On the 15th of February, all punishments that occurred before the stat reset, excluding blacklisted players, were reset to make room for a new punishment system used by the staff team.
April 2018 - Warzone Forums
The 12th of April, 2018, saw the release of the Warzone community forums. Appeals & reports were moved from the Discord to this website, as well as various Discord channels.
March 2018 - Free for All (FFA)
A new game mode, FFA, was introduced to Warzone on the 6th of March, 2018.
September 2018 - Creative & Developmental Control of Warzone transitions
Luuke, the founder and original developer of Warzone and its plugin TGM, handed the creative and developmental control of the server to Lucas (also known as Gamer) to pursue other endeavors. This transition was confirmed to the community on the 23rd of September, 2018.
A new Warzone store was released to the public on the 28th of September.
October 2018 - Big Updates & Server Breach
A multitude of server improvements and new features were announced on the 9th of October, 2018.
- Spectators gained the ability to teleport to players.
- A new map rotation was added.
- Kill rewards, including a command for players to view their current kill streak were added.
- Ranks were released back to the public through the store alongside the introduction of purchasable join sounds.
On October 14th, exploiters who breached Warzone's infrastructure through a BungeeCord exploit, and had gained access to the account of a member of the staff team, were successfully de-opped and promptly had their access revoked.
2019
January 2019 - Warzone Website Re Release
On the 20th of January, 2019, the Warzone website was re-released.
February 2019 - Minehut Breach Shuts Down Warzone
During this month, Minehut experienced a significant breach which resulted in all player servers being shut down, ultimately affecting Warzone and disrupting its planned stat reset.
Trent, a representative of Minehut at this time, released the following statement to the Minehut Discord server on the 7th of February, 2019.
On Saturday, a user got into Minehut's backend and attempted to wipe every single machine we have. Fortunately, his attempts were not successful as we have been recovering your server data and are close to finishing the data recovery process. During this attack, the user was able to access our user database which contains email accounts and encrypted passwords.
March 2019 - Warzone Test Run
Warzone was brought back externally for a temporary period during Minehut's continued downtime, with an IP being announced on the Warzone Discord on the 13th of March, 2019.
May 2019 - Return of Warzone to Minehut & Website Re Write
After the return of Minehut, Warzone commenced testing to return the server to its original state on the 10th of May, 2019.
On the 15th of May, Warzone officially returned to Minehut.
Website changes were introduced on the 19th of May, consisting of a leaderboard for player statistics and a rules page.
June 2019 - Stat Reset
Months after the impromptu shutdown of Minehut & Warzone, the stat reset originally scheduled to take place in February 2019 was successfully implemented.
October 2019 - Performance Improvements & Respawn System
The 9th of August, 2019, saw new enhancements to server performance and the addition of a respawn system, adding a delay to respawn time on maps that choose to have it enabled.
November 2019 - Staff Page & Purchasable Tags
Various changes were implemented on the 4th of November, 2019.
- A Staff page was created on the Warzone website.
- Purchasable suffixes (also known as tags) were reintroduced.
- General improvements were made to TGM behind the scenes.
2020
March 2020 - Bedrock Edition
During this month, Minehut began supporting cross play for users on Bedrock Edition, meaning that players using their phones or tablets were now able to connect to Warzone.
On the 18th of March, 2020, users on Bedrock Edition were granted access to join Warzone, but were restricted from competing in matches. This decision was made due to an unfair advantage through bridging, as Bedrock players could bridge without looking at blocks.
2021
January 2021 - Server Improvements & Rules Page
Warzone received a new rules page on the 18th of January, 2021.
The duration of a map cycle following the end of a match was reduced to 10 seconds from 20 seconds, and new players were also now given an introduction on how to join the game by using /join.
March 2021 - Capture the Flag (CTF), King of the Flag (KOTF)
The 3rd of March, 2021, saw the introduction of two new game modes to Warzone. - Capture the Flag (CTF), with the goal of retrieving the flag and bringing it to a designated location multiple times, normally at the player's spawn. - King of the Flag (CTF), with the goal of defending and holding the flag to generate points for a team.
April 2021 - Team Griefing Policies
On the 7th of April, 2021, the Warzone community received an announcement to the Discord from the staff team, commenting on the influx of players abstaining from competitive participation and rather engaging in unrelated, pacifist activities.
In the past, instances of players building a house, fishing, or doing any sort of recreational activity that was not playing the game or going for the objectives was rare, perhaps occasional. People used to do it to take a break from the game or have some innocent fun. However, recently, this practice has been happening daily, sometimes even for more than 3 matches straight. Consequently, it has become a problem for both players and staff that needs to be addressed.
...
Staff members have always been instructed to exercise some leniency with the rule of game throwing, especially if it's just one or two players running around with no armor doing nothing. Unfortunately, it has gone out of hand and there have been several situations a team is at a disadvantage because of it. For that reason, we will be gradually reducing our leniency if more issues derived from these circumstances are observed, meaning that punishments for game throwing will be more strict from now on.
Please, do not encourage other players to participate in activities that are not going for the objectives or playing the game. We encourage the community to report instances of game throwing to avoid more issues.
An announcement regarding the future introduction of a screenshare policy was sent to the Warzone Discord on the 26th of July, 2021.
Important notice: Screenshare policy
In an effort to combat cheating and rule-breaking, we have decided to begin carrying out screenshares on a public setting. However, such screenshares will not begin immediately as a two week grace period will take place first. This is so that players can familiarize themselves with this new policy and ask any questions they might have.
Player privacy is of utmost importance during a screenshare. We will never go through your computer looking for information unrelated to Minecraft and its relevant processes.
Some important things to note: - We will not screenshare players on request. - Being part of one screenshare will not prevent players from being screenshared again in the future. - A variety of trusted programs will be installed and executed during a screenshare. It is every player's responsibility to investigate these programs beforehand.
You may consult with a senior staff member for any specific questions. Screenshares will not formally begin until August 10th, 2021.
Warzone's screensharing policy became live on the 10th of August, 2021, through a second announcement on the Warzone Discord.
For the past two weeks, a broadcast announcing this policy was delivered to each player every time they joined the server. Additionally, the same broadcast has been actively sent out globally many times a day. This broadcast will be updated slightly to go in line with today's announcement. It will continue to be delivered (individually) on every join for a week while the global broadcast will remain indefinitely.
Once again, we'd like to remind all players that privacy is of utmost importance during a screenshare. Staff conducting a screenshare will never go through your personal data, files, documents, or content unrelated to Minecraft and its processes.
A screenshare page for users to view this policy was also launched.
December 2021 - Chat & Command Feedback Disabled
An exploit found within a Java logging library, called Log4j was discovered in December, 2021, which had the potential of providing a malicious user with remote code execution (RCE) on a victim's computer by simply sending a chat message.
Despite Minehut patching this exploit, it had the potential of impacting the Minecraft client itself. Therefore, chat and command feedback was disabled on Warzone on the 10th of December and returned the following day.
2022
January 2022 - The Big Update (TGM to PGM)
As of January 30th, 2022, Warzone transitioned to PGM (PvP Game Manager) plugin as the foundation for the server, replacing the TGM (Team Game Manager) plugin which was used since 2017.
The Big Update also saw:
- A complete reset of player statistics.
- More in-game statistics to be tracked than before, alongside new leaderboards.
- True 1.8 PvP combat, supported by SportPaper.
- A much larger map collection.
- Improved server performance.
June 2022 - Reopening of the store
Players gained access to a multitude of more cosmetic perks achieved by donating on the 15th of June, 2022.
- VIP received 3 new particle effects.
- VIP+ received 5 new particle effects & 3 projectile trails.
- VIP++ received 7 new particle effects & 5 projectile trails.
July 2022 - Return of kit editing and join sounds
On the 24th of July, 2022, players could keep the order of their hotbar after respawning, allowing for individual kit editing. With the help of an addon plugin for PGM, Warzone utilized machine learning to keep track of the players' preferred loadout.
Join sounds also returned for donators.
- VIP received 4 sounds.
- VIP+ received 8 sounds.
- VIP++ received 12 sounds.
- Nitro Boosters received 2 exclusive sounds.
2023
2023 - Beginning of server inactivity
Throughout 2023, Warzone began to experience an immense reduction in its player count. The staff team attributes this to the attention and interest of the Minehut player base shifting to game modes & servers that favor mechanics strictly used on latest versions. Warzone, which runs on 1.8 while accepting higher versions, was also affected by the lack of a 1.8 PvP category within Minehut's server selection menu, which limited the server's visibility and the formerly consistent influx of new players.
In this time, Warzone ran a significant number of events and contests to keep the recurring player base satisfied. Various arcade events partaking in-game, and Discord-run events involving the community were hosted.
August 2023 - Mapmaking Contest
On the 14th of August, 2023, a mapmaking contest was announced. Participants were given two weeks to submit a map for Warzone's droplet rotation.
- Winners received the 'Map Champion' Discord role, a permanent cosmetic role.
- Participants received the Map Contester discord role; a 1-month cosmetic role for all those who participate in the competition by submitting at least one map before the August 26th deadline.
September 2023 - First attempt at the addition of a 1.8 PvP category
Warzone attempted to influence a change to server categories on Minehut, with the hopes of encouraging the implementation of a 1.8 PvP category. This request was made in the hopes of bolstering the visibility of the server through Minehut's server menu.
On the 12th of September, 2023, an announcement was made to the Warzone Discord server by the staff team.
PSA: Minehut seeking feedback for feature that can benefit Warzone
Minehut have recently opened a thread discussion on their Discord server requesting feedback on additional server categories they can add to their menu. Warzone would benefit from a 1.8 PvP servers category, which Minehut currently doesn't provide. It would help filter PvP servers depending on whether their combat is 1.8 or 1.9 based. Minehut used to have this category in the past, but removed it in one of their updates; statistically, we found that Warzone had a lot more player traffic when this category existed.
If you believe filtering between 1.8 and 1.9 servers is a useful feature, we encourage you to present your feedback within this thread and at the least, upvote the thread. With enough support, this can assist Warzone with garnering more of a consistent player count.
Thank you for your consideration!
Despite strenuous efforts by the Warzone staff team and members of its community, this attempt was unsuccessful to bring forward this change.
2024
April 2024 - Achievement System
The 12th of April, 2024, saw the foundation of Warzone's first achievement system. This system was released to the public in a testing phase, allowing the experience of players' to become more rewarding and dynamic through unlocking prestigious achievements. It was also configured to promote the unlocking of achievements regardless of specific play style.
June 2024 - Second attempt of adding an 1.8 PvP category
In 2024, Minehut was placed under new ownership. With this in mind, Warzone hoped that this fresh roster of management would adhere to the request of supporting its niche through adding a 1.8 PvP Category.
On the 18th of June, a second call to the Warzone community to support this request was announced on the Warzone Discord. This was made after Minehut opened a thread on their Discord, requesting feedback and discussion about the category.
The announcement sent to Warzone members reads as followed:
Help Revive Warzone
Hey everyone, recently Minehut changed owners, and during this change they asked players to give suggestions and feedback so they can get an idea of what the community wants. I think this is a great opportunity to bring back the discussion on adding back the 1.8 PvP tag. As we have mentioned in the past, the 1.8 tag greatly benefits us and other 1.8 pvp servers from distinguishing ourselves from all the other larger servers out there that aren't on 1.8! Old Minehut didn't listen to us, but hopefully with your help the new owners will give us a response!
It would help out a lot if you check the thread out, and if you agree with the idea show some support! Whether you comment or just react to the suggestion, it will go a long way! I have no doubt that having the 1.8 PvP tag added back will be a great help in showing our server off and having a much higher chance in attracting more players.
July 2024 - 1.8 PvP Category, Stat Reset & Updates
In the beginning of July, efforts made by the Warzone community to add a 1.8 PvP tag to Minehut were fortunately successful. Minehut has added and kept this tag in their server menu to the present day.
Warzone experienced more individual player joins within this time, and began to build up a small amount of consistency in recurring players.
July 14th, 2024, saw a long-awaited stat reset on Warzone & multiple updates to the server.
- All in-game player statistics were reset; levels, kills, win & achievements. Ranks & tags remained.
- A new achievement system was added on this day, adding bragging rights for reaching certain milestones on the server.
- Leveling progress was returned to its formerly exponential system, where the more you level up, the harder it takes to continue leveling.
- A leaderboard command was added in-game, allowing players to view the following categories; Kills, Deaths, XP, Wins, & Losses - and sort by Daily, Weekly, Monthly, & Yearly time periods.
Gameplay
Matches on Warzone typically consist of two teams, but can also be played in a free-for-all setting or with up to four teams depending on the chosen map.
Players will attempt to complete the objective before the other team, and most maps on Warzone accommodate various types of play styles. For example, on a Capture The Wool map, players may choose to defend their objective with defense supplies, or rush the objective in an attempt to place the enemy wool back at their base.
Gamemodes
Warzone is presently comprised of 11 game modes.
- Destroy The Monument (DTM): Break the opponent's monument before they break yours!
- Destroy The Core (DTC): Leak the other team's sphere of lava while protecting yours!
- Capture The Wool (CTW): Capture all of the other team's wools!
- Capture The Flag (CTF): Capture and bring the flag (banner) back to your base to win!
- King Of The Flag (KOTF): Hold and contest the flag to generate points for your team!
- King Of The Hill (KOTH): Conquer the capture points and get a certain amount of points first to win!
- Infection: If you get infected, kill the humans, otherwise run and hide!
- Team Deathmatch (TDM): Fight for your team and get more kills than the opposition!
- Blitz: You have a certain amount of lives, kill the other teams before they kill you!
- Free For All (FFA): Fight others to get the most kills in the least amount of time to win the match!
- Arcade: Fun, less serious matches with unique twists!
During the early days of TGM, Warzone used a widespread kit system instead of allowing maps to have their own kits. Players could purchase these kits with a currency earned from playing matches.
| Kit Name | Armor | Inventory | Abilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barbarian |
|
|
Brute Force
|
| Big Spender |
|
|
Coin Toss
|
| Builder |
|
|
Super Breaker
|
| Choruser |
|
|
Chorus Fruit
|
| Demoman |
|
|
Throwing TNT
|
| Engineer |
|
|
Turret
|
| Fire Archer |
|
|
Fire Arrows
|
| Infiltrator |
|
|
Speed Boost
|
| Medic |
|
|
Healing Zone
|
| Necromancer |
|
|
Raise Dead
|
| Ninja |
|
|
Star Spin
|
| Phoenix |
|
|
Fire Breath
|
| Redstone Mechanic |
|
|
Redstone Mechanic
|
| Seeking Archer |
|
|
Heat-Seeker Attachment
|
| Sheep Farmer |
|
|
Exploding Sheep
|
| Shielder |
|
|
Shield
|
| Spy |
|
|
Disguise
|
| Tank |
|
|
Ground Slam
|
| Thor |
|
|
Lightning Strike
|
Maps
Discuss the development of Warzone specific maps, public PGM maps, etc.
Some noteworthy events:
- On May 30th, 2020, all Capture The Wool [CTW] maps received a build height limit.
- On June 8th, 2020, every other map also received a build height limit.
- On February 18th, 2021, Destroy the Wool [DTW] maps with multiple monuments now required you to break both to complete the objective.
- On March 2nd, 2021, Capture the Flag [CTF] and King of the Flag [KoTF] were released.
- On March 9th, 2021, all maps were updated so armor didn't drop upon death.
- On October 8th, 2021, a map.png was added to every map. This was a nice visual indicator of the map.
- In December 2021, the Map Development team ran an event that required players to find a gift hidden on select maps.
- In 2021, 143 new maps were added to Warzone, bringing the total maps to 308.
Events & Tournaments
Since 2017, Warzone has hosted several tournaments involving competitive team-based PvP combat in a series of maps. Teams that won received prizes in the form of store credit for ranks and tags. By June 2021, Warzone began offering scrimmage servers for teams to practice on the maps before a tournament. In late 2022, Warzone hosted its first draft tournament in which players could sign up without a team and were chosen by team captains.
| Name | Date | Winners | Images |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warzone T1[2] | October 7, 2017 | 1st: Team Jitter 2nd: Team META 3rd: Team Outcast |
|
| October Spook[3] | October 17–21, 2017 | 1st: Team Valor 2nd: Team PickleRicks 3rd: Team Vengeance |
|
| Ping Bomb Mini Tourney | October 27, 2017 | Team Purple | |
| Turkey Bowl | November 19–25, 2017 | Team Jalapeños | |
| The Spring Fling[4] | March 3, 2018 | 1st: Team Maverick 2nd: Team oop's 3rd: Team Super Nubs |
|
| Warzone Madness[5] | March 16–17, 2018 | 1st: Team Celestial 2nd: Team Oceania 3rd: Team oop's |
|
| Spring Tournament[6] | March 31, 2018 | 1st: Team BESTPVPERS 2nd: Team Blademasters 3rd: Team Assault |
|
| April Anarchy[7] | April 14, 2018 | 1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team TERRASTRIAL 3rd: Team Red Hot Chilli Peppers |
|
| May Mania[8] | May 5, 2018 | 1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team Legion 3rd: Red Hot Chilli Peppers |
|
| May Mayhem | May 19, 2018 | Unknown | |
| August Absurdity[9] | August 4, 2018 | 1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team Despacito 3rd: Team Red Hot Chilli Peppers |
|
| September Slaughter[10] | September 8, 2018 | 1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team Red Hot Chilli Peppers 3rd: Team Domination |
|
| October Spook 2.0[11] | October 13, 2018 (postponed to October 14) |
1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team Red Hot Chilli Peppers 3rd: Twisted Blisters |
|
| December Destruction[12] | December 1, 2018 | 1st: Team Galway 2nd: Team Ireland 3rd: Team Jalapeños 2.0 |
|
| February Frustration | February 23, 2019 (postponed to unknown date) |
Unknown | |
| Warzone's RETURNament[13] | August 24, 2019 | 1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team Easy Brehd 3rd: Team egirls |
|
| Warzone's Majesty[14] | September 14, 2019 | N/A Tournament was canceled. |
|
| Returnament 2: Electric Boogaloo[15] | March 20, 2021 | 1st: Team Jalapeños 2nd: Team Legion 3rd: Team krem |
|
| Warzone: Let There Be Carnage[16] | June 12, 2021 | 1st: Team Red Hot Chilli Peppers 2nd: Team Legion 3rd: Team Aphelios |
|
| Arcade Day: 2v2 Spleef Tournament[17] | September 11, 2021 | 1st: Patrikano/AtditC 2nd: _Stay/AngelIsGood69 3rd: __BT/Swurrrrrrrrrrvey and TheBestGamer/Virus53 (tied) |
|
| The Secrets of Warzone[18] | April 9, 2022 | 1st: Team Iceberg 2nd: Team Jalapeños 3rd: Team Power Rangers |
|
| Warzone Draft Tournament[19] | October 29, 2022 | 1st: Team Hungover 2nd: Team welcometofrance 3rd: Team ② |
|
| Spleef 2v2 Tournament 2 | February 11, 2023 | OAF6/byRobo (Team THE GOBBLERS) |
Development
Legacy
In its earliest history, Warzone used the CardinalPGM plugin, which was a clone of the former Overcast Network "Project Ares" PGM plugin. It was forked by Luuke on November 14, 2016, with the intention to redesign many aspects of the plugin as well as using JSON instead of XML for the underlying language for maps.[20] Notably, the fork added kits with special abilities that were used on every maps and implementing in-game currency for players to upgrade and purchase more kits.
GamePlate
GamePlate was an unreleased "minigame management" plugin intended to replace CardinalPGM. Development started on December 18, 2016, and ended on January 13, 2017, shortly before the creation of TGM.[21] Its goal was to offer team.gg as a platform where players can visit a website to "queue" a Minecraft server and play quick matches at any moment.
TGM
Team Game Manager ("TGM") was a custom plugin developed by Luuke, with its GitHub repository being published on April 26, 2017.[22] Unlike CardinalPGM, TGM did not retain all of the classic kits with special abilities. Instead, maps could define custom kits if desired, while some Arcade maps retained the classic kits.
PGM & Mars
On January 29, 2022, Warzone transitioned to PvP Game Manager ("PGM"), a plugin maintained by members of Overcast Community. In addition, Warzone created Mars, an addon plugin that has been billed as "an all-in-one plugin" to handle "extensive tracking of player, match, and map stats" as well as "comprehensive community moderation tools, permission groups (ranks), other optional entitlements (such as chat tags), and more."
Community
discuss the current community, how the community tends to play / enjoy the server
References
- ↑ "MINEHUT NEW MINIGAME - WARZONE" on YouTube. Retrieved on September 13, 2024.
- ↑ Warzone Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ October Spook Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ The Spring Fling Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ Warzone Madness Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ Spring Tournament Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ April Anarchy Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ May Mania Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ August Absurdity Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ September Slaughter Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ October Spook 2.0 Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ December Destruction Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ RETURNament Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ WarzoneMC [@WarzoneMC] (September 4, 2019). "⚔️Have you signed up for Warzone's next tournament yet?" Retrieved on August 3, 2024 - via Twitter.
- ↑ Returnament 2: Electric Boogaloo Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ Warzone: Let There Be Carnage Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ Arcade Day: Spleef 2v2 Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ The Secrets of Warzone Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ Warzone MC Draft Tournament Challonge. Retrieved on August 11, 2024.
- ↑ initial commit · WarzoneMC/LegacyWZ@8a42fdc GitHub.
- ↑ Initial commits · Minehut/GamePlate@d882634 GitHub.
- ↑ initial commit · WarzoneMC/tgm@ef57f5d GitHub.
External links
- Server address:
warzone.minehut.gg,play.warzone.network,play.warz.one - Official Website
- Discord
- X (formerly Twitter) Profile
- Instagram Profile
- TikTok Profile
- GitHub Organization
- Legacy GitHub Organization