Season 3 announcement

by scipio3000

Welcome to this new announcement.

First of all, let's begin with a sincere apology. A lot of different personal issues impacted the flow of our updates. In a perfect world, these types of disturbances wouldn't affect our update cycles. Sadly, our team is fairly small and these problems postponed our patch by several weeks.
On the bright side, this led to the creation of our biggest update so far. The Season 3 update.

This post serves as an announcement of our incoming features. We expect the update to be released in a week time frame, depending on how testing goes.
Make sure to read this post fully, as we have a big announcement at the end of it.

Season 3 - Expanding the network

This season will be a stepping stone for the GamesLabs network. We will be slowly expanding our network to host more gamemodes aimed at wider audiences. Don't worry about Minescape though! We will still bring updates to Minescape!

God Wars and dungeoneering are two main goals of Season 3 when it comes to Minescape!

The Season 3 update will be released shortly, so don't forget to finish your season pass before it's too late!

The update

This seasonal update comes with new areas, new monsters and bosses, some Quality of Life, experience tweaks and last but not least, a new skill!
Here is a brief list of all the new features/changes:

  • A lot of new monsters
  • A new slayer dungeon
  • Slayer shop rework
  • 3 new bosses
  • Exploration keys
  • Full wilderness revamp with mechanics
  • New melee weapons
  • New construction skill
  • Q.o.L. changes and items such as an in-game minimap
  • Xp buffs in fletching/crafting
  • Known bugs have been fixed

Slayer/Monsters

Let's start with one of the main aspects of Minescape, PvE.

  • Animation system rework We have upgraded our animation system to be able to add more 3d monsters easily. We've also added the head of 3d monsters in the drop table to make it easier to find the monster you're looking for!

    We have one of the most advanced entity animation system on Minecraft Java Edition and are constantly upgrading it (same as the music system!). Our monsters are properly moving and attacking. Most other minecraft servers either comes with no 3d monster animation or static frame animations!
  • Ents Ents now have a new model!

    Their stats have also been altered and they are now weak to ranged!
  • Gargoyles We've added gargoyles. They're located at the slayer tower and drop a new unique weapon. More information about that weapon below!
  • Black demons now have a new model. They no longer look like Minecraft witherbosses!
  • Greater demons are stronger than black demons and use the same base model.
  • Deadly red spiders and poison spiders We've added two new types of spiders located in a slayer dungeon and in the wilderness.
  • Grizzly bear We've added a new type of Bear. They're located in the wilderness!
  • Mammoth From the ancient times, Mammoths now roam around the wilderness.
  • Hellhounds now have a new model as well!
  • Hobgoblin They come in two variants and are located in a slayer dungeon!
  • Minotaur have been placed in the security stronghold!
  • Black and Dark unicorns 2 new types of unicorns have been placed around seers village and the wilderness!
  • Banshee/Barbarians We improved their skins.
  • Brine rats models have been changed to giant rats.
  • Filler mobs We've added foxes/rabbits/cats/llama/mules and more men/women/rats to the world of Minescape. These mobs make the world feel more alive!
  • Boss previews We've added a preview for our instanced boss fights! Previews have the same look as the bosses and roam around their lairs.
  • Dark wizards' armors Their armors are now visible.
  • Highwaymen will now automatically attack you if you have a similar level than them.
  • New slayer shop We changed our slayer shop:
    • We changed cooked turtles to cooked monkfish.
    • We brought back slayer tokens (10 tokens for 5 points).
    • We added unfinished crossbows and bolts.
    • We added more arrows with a fletching requirement to buy them.
    • We added a rune pouch that can store up to 5 different types of runes.
    • We added an upgraded version of the bonecrusher necklace that can bury your bones for full XP.
    • You can now cancel your task for one slayer token.
    • You can now extend your task for one slayer token (You can only extend a task once).

  • Slayer shop for ironman We enabled the slayer shop for ironmen.
  • Wilderness slayer Please welcome Krystilia to Edgeville. She will be in charge of giving you wilderness slayer tasks.

    She is able to give you tasks on non-slayer mobs. Wilderness task kills grants more slayer experience.
    Krystilia can give you any monster located in the wilderness as a task (depending on your combat level).
  • New Edgeville dungeon We've added a new slayer dungeon. Vannaka is the master in charge of this dungeon. More information about the dungeon below.
  • Slayer tower We've added a second instance of Achtryn directly inside the slayer tower. Achtryn will no longer give you task for monsters located outside of the slayer tower.
  • End-game armor drops We've added mystic and dagonhai armor pieces as drops from some monsters and bosses.

Exploration

Exploration is a unique Minescape skill. In previous versions, Exploration was linked to cluescrolls.
Exploration now has 3 unlocks, 3 keys that require a certain level to be used and that open various parts of the maps.

  • Brass key The brass key requires level 20 in exploration and opens the locked shed leading to hillgiants.
  • Taverley maze key This key requires level 40 and opens golden gates in the taverley maze.
  • Experiment cave key This key requires level 50 and opens the experiment cave door.

New regions

This seasonal update comes with new regions:

The experiment cave and Frenkenstrain castle

Frenkenstrain has been working on a secret experiment. Several cases of sick monsters and NPCs were confirmed in season 2.

After defeating the experiment cave guardian, adventurers will be able to access the experiment cave.



A secret key is being protected by Frenkenstrain puppets leading to his latest invention: The creature.

The creature is a new Minescape exclusive boss located at the bottom of the experiment cave. Defeat Frenkenstrain's secret weapon to obtain a dragon plate full helm.

The creature has 4 different attack styles and its fight is similar to the experiment guardian. A prayer scepter and an anti dragonfire shield is recommended. The creature is weak to ranged.

Taverley maze

Some cult members have been spotted in Taverley. Rumors say that a group of warriors imprisoned a creature in the maze. Find the key that opens golden gates and defeat the imprisoned to obtain some Dagonhai armor pieces.


Be careful. This imprisoned chicken is not to be laughed at. Fight it with great caution. The evil chicken has one special attack and summons up to five chicken slaves... The imprisoned chicken is weak to ranged.

Edgeville dungeon and Obor

Here is a few pictures of the new Edgeville dungeon.







This dungeon has a part in the wilderness (which grants more experience as well).

The new Edgeville dungeon includes its boss, Obor. You will need a one time key to fight it.
Obor has one special ranged attack and has a high melee damage club.
Defeat this giant to obtain its club.

The wilderness


We have completely revamped the wilderness. It comes with a lot of new Points of Interests and will soon receive caves and dungeons.

Here is the current list of the wilderness features:

  • Obelisks Players may use obelisks to randomly teleport accross the wilderness.
  • Wilderness level We have changed the way our wilderness levels work. They are now incremental starting at level 1 to level 60.
  • Mines The wilderness comes with 4 mines: The steel mine, The skeleton's mine, The Hobgolin's mine, and The pirate's mine.
  • Shop It also comes with a pizza shop located at the bandit camp.

  • Smithing/furnaces and anvils have been placed around the wilderness as well.
  • Major POIs Here is a few screenshot of the wilderness:





    A new agility course:
  • Night time The wilderness is in a perpetual night time. A fading effect is triggered when you enter or leave the wilderness.
  • Runecrafting The runecrafting altars have been moved to these locations:
    • The chaos altar:
    • The death altar:
  • Beacons 5 exploration beacons have been laid down in the wilderness. Explore them all to increase your exploration level!

Crandor

Crandor received an exploration beacon.

New weapons

As you may have noticed already, this new seasonal update comes with new weapons:

  • Spears Metal spears have been added to the game. They can be made on anvils.
  • Hillgant club This club is a drop from Obor and is a very strong melee weapon.

  • Granite maul This maul comes with a special attack. Its special increases the damage of the weapon by 50% and reduces your attack speed by 50%.

Construction

Quite a few of you have been waiting for this skill for quite a bit of time!
We had to come up with a good technical solution to handle your player-owned-worlds.
After quite a bit of research we came with a solution similar to what Hypixel is using for their skyblock. If you are interested about this solution, you can read their dev-log here.

Now that the techical part is out of the way, let's proceed with the skill!

Getting your own island

Construction is a new Minescape skill where players own an island. They can purchase up to 64 chunks (8x8) and freely build on it.

To get your island, you will need to talk to an estate agent and purchase your island for 100,000 gp.

You can then access your island using a teleportation portal or a new magic spell: the island teleport, unlocked at level 40.
You can change your active portal by talking to an estate agent for 10,000gp.

Blocks

The skill comes with more than 250 unlocks divided into multiple categories:

  • Building blocks Basic blocks such as grass/stone/dirt.
  • Coloured blocks Coloured wool/glasses/carpets.
  • Decoration blocks Torches/boxes/barrels.
  • Log/Leaves/Planks/Doors/fences Main wood blocks.
  • Slabs Half blocks.
  • Stairs Stair blocks.
  • Walls Wall blocks.
  • Utility blocks Blocks to enhance your Minescape abilities.
  • Teleport tabs Magic tablets that can be made to teleport with no magic requirement.
  • Construction cape Free teleport to your island.

All these blocks can be purchased in various stores.

Gaining experience

Placing a non broken block is what grants the most experience points. Breaking a block will give you a broken version of the block. Crafting blocks will grant you a tiny bit of construction XP.
Breaking blocks require you to have a hammer. Hammers can be purchased at general stores.

Utility blocks

Here is the list of the utility blocks:

  • Sawmill 3000 Unlocked at level 1, it can be used to craft basic blocks
  • Construction bank chest Unlocked at level 5, it can be used to access your building blocks through your bank.
  • Lectern Unlocked at level 30, it can be used to create magic teleportation tablets.
  • Smoker Unlocked at level 70, it can be used to cook food.
  • Praying altar Unlocked at level 78, it can be used to regenerate your prayer points every 5 minutes.
  • Crafting table Unlocked at level 85, it acts as a normal crafting table.
  • Furnace Unlocked at level 90, it acts as a normal furnace.
  • Anvil Unlocked at level 95, it acts as a normal anvil.

Visiting an island

Players may visit other people island by using /visit <player>. Whilst visiting someone's island you cannot ineract with blocks. You can close your island from visitors by placing a door at the spawning pad.
Using /leave will teleport you back to where you were.

Quality of Life

This update also comes with a fair amount of Q.o.L. features.

  • Sound effects We've added sound effects to all monsters and NPCs. This enhances the overall combat gameplay/immersion.
  • One hander/two handers We've added a description to all our weapons mentioning their wield type. This is fairly useful for starters.
  • Fishing animation We've revamped the fishing animation to make it more explicit.
  • /skills We renamed the /tutorial command to /skills.
  • World map We've added an in-game minimap. This minimap contains all major points of interest as well as wilderness monster spawns. It can be purchased at general stores.

Gameplay tweaks

Here is the list of gameplay tweaks we've worked on for this update:

  • Infernal mages We have decreased the damage of infernal mages.
  • Barrows brothers We have increased the damage of the Barrows brothers.
  • Fletching We have buffed fletching xp by 50%.
  • Crafting We have buffed the crafting experience of dragonhide armors, leather armors, and jewelry.

Bug fixes

Here is the list of bug fixes we have fixed:

  • /agility Running the agility cape command was removing the item in the player's hand.
  • Guthan's item lore Guthan's armor set description was referring to its older mechanic. It now matches its proper effect.
  • Wand requirement With our last update, wand requirements were disabled. This has been patched.
  • XP lamps XP lamps can no longer be used to achieve level 121.
  • Water/Lava behavior Behavior of lava/water are now consistent.
  • Water/Lava loop Players stuck in a teleport loop will not be teleported to spawn.
  • Wilderness speed potions Speed potions were keeping their effects under some very specific circumstances. This issue has been fixed.
  • Hitboxes should now properly match the 3d modeled monsters. We also fixed arrows not hitting mobs under certain circumstances.

The network lobby

We've updated the main menu of the GamesLabs Lobby. It no longer sends you the resourcepack on join. The server will send you the lobby resourcepack once you leave the spawning pad. This allows for a faster Minescape join.

Minescape Leagues

And you thought this was the end of this seasonal patch notes? Well, you're almost right...
We are currently working on a seasonal Minescape gamemode. This gamemode is aimed at casual players and also competitive players.
Minescape Leagues will be based of our original Minescape game but will contain:

  • An achievement diary This achievement diary will be part of the final leaderboard. Rankings will be sorted by completion percentage.
  • Faster XP The game will contain way faster XP rates and a slightly different XP chart.
  • XP boosters Global boosters will be changed in leagues to +20% with different prices.
  • Isolation This gamemode will be isolated from the normal Minescape gamemode like the ironman mode. The Grand Exchange will be different and players will be able to communicate through player sharding and cross server chats.

We plan on releasing leagues 2 weeks after this seasonal update!

The end

This is the end of the Season 3 announcement.
I would like to thank Boobtit for her amazing models as well as Kev for his great work on the wilderness and the Edgeville dungeon.
Big thanks to the rest of the team and to you, the players.
Thanks for sticking with us and may this season bring more lights to the GamesLabs Network!