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Server Spotlight | |
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Department Updates - November
Feature
Edited by Silquer
Build - Winter Waltz & 1.18 Reviews
We've had a really busy few months in the build team working on two very big projects - this year's Winter Waltz school and reviewing all of our existing builds for any bugs caused by 1.18.
This year's Winter Waltz has been one to remember for the build team - we're just adding the tinsel to the trees and hanging the last baubles, but it has been a great success for the team. We had a relatively short time frame to turnaround the build due to the recent server changes, but the team has pulled together to produce a spectacular build. It captures the architectural style of the school's region extremely well, and we're excited to see it come to life for the event.
As we wrap up the Winter Waltz, we're continuing our 1.18 reviews and starting to turn our focus to plushie suitcases and 2026 event builds. While 2.0 was put on pause, we're also working behind the scenes to finish what we started with the Hogsend revamp, and plan to release this at some point in the future.
The other significant portion of the team’s work lately has been reviewing all of Potterworld’s builds for bugs caused by the upgrade to 1.18. This included the world map, quest builds, classrooms, arenas, minigames, housing sceneries and more. There were many bugs caused by the server upgrade, such as enchantment tables making the floor invisible, mushroom blocks turning to actual mushroom textures, and glass connecting to anything and everything! While we're sure some bugs are still out there to find, we’re proud of the progress that we’ve made, and the amazing efforts of the team. In the coming months, we will be continuing to work through reviewing our catalogue of builds made over the past 12 years.
Media - Store Releases, 1.18 Preparations, & Art Competitions
At the start of the month, the Store team focused on ensuring that everything store-side worked out smoothly with the 1.18 server upgrade. This included freezing players' voting streaks and updating the tech in a huge number of store items to ensure that the In-Game Store, hats, and broom appearances work as expected.
We also released the Wings & Wildflowers Store Releases mid-month. This included many amethyst-themed items, such as the Amethyst Dragon Wings and the Peony Flower Crown. It also came with the super popular Pet Bee that the 1.18 server upgrade allowed us to do!
Currently, the Store team is working on the December Store Releases! This will bring back our beloved seasonal holiday items. It will also introduce some exciting store items themed after this year's Winter Waltz event!
To celebrate the 1.18 server upgrade, we also released a Video Competition where players can make videos and post them on social media to participate! Read more here if you are interested in joining in: https://potterworldmc.com/threads/video-competition.17474/
Our 2D, 3D, and Skin Arithmancers have also been hard at work creating graphics, renders, and skins for the upcoming releases from various departments.
Finally, we relaunched the long-awaited Art Giveaway, which is now hosted quarterly. Would you like to participate? Make any form of winter-themed art and send it in the #quarterly-art-giveaway channel in our Discord server!
Game Design - Winter Waltz & Updates
We have a new emissive shader built into the pack that will allow specifically defined models to "glow in the dark!" You will notice these on things like the Plasma Blades and your wand glow tips!
We are working on using some new tech to allow future mods to have a full suite of animations! This will allow us to custom make mobs that have variations in their attacks and add new movement animations and death animations!
We will be soon releasing the Winter Waltz Event for this year and we are excited to share a new school with you!
The design team has also been working on ideation for the revamp of future professions and careers, more info about that soon to come!
Technology & Development - 1.18 & Testing
This month we released the 1.18 update after over four years of work! We were extremely happy with how the maintenance process went, and the subsequent bugs and cleanup that followed from it. We recommend you read our release post for more information about the process and a more thorough reflection!
With the return of Housing last week, we have now finished up a majority of our migration chores and can begin exploring new 1.18 features to add to Potterworld.
We would like to extend a thanks to all the staff who assisted with the update and pre-and-post maintenance work, as well as all the players who have reported bugs to us. We hope you're all enjoying 1.18!
In the background of the 1.18 upgrade, the Grounds Keepers have also been hard at work testing the 2025 Winter Waltz Event. We've thoroughly enjoyed testing this event, and are excited for players to experience various gameplay elements ranging from the fan-favourite advent calendar, to new and exciting team activities!
With the bulk of the 1.18 upgrade chores complete, we have turned our attention to helping the Game Designers set up the Model Engine plugin. This allows us to animate and bring our world mobs to life on a whole new level. Your first chance to grab a glimpse at these new mob mechanics will be in the November store releases pets, the Pet Pyrkaon Pup and Pet Talamyros, which now have an advanced idle, walking, teleportion and despawn animation. We hope you enjoy these and look forward to adding them to more places on the world!
These are all the updates the departments shared for November. Thank you for reading, and look forward to next month’s updates!