Good evening everyone, I was originally planning on posting this yesterday, but I was kept busy by something else, so we'll have to do this today instead!
Yesterday marked the 7th day since the last post, where I started on the development of season two, so let's get this started, shall we?

Before we start with the actual devlog though, I just wanted to do a quick mention that the previous account registration botting that was happening has been resolved and I am turning off the Discord linking requirements.

Finished tasks:

During this first week of preparing Season two of the CK collaborative SMP I've actually managed to get most things done, I'll list those below;

• Most plugins are working -> Some are throwing odd errors, but they appear to be working just fine.

• Some plugins are still not working/working correctly due to the recency of the selected 1.21.4 game version that's been decided upon, I do hope that updated versions of these non-working plugins will be available in a timely fashion before the rough estimate opening timeframe, but there may need to be some delays (or downgrades to 1.21.3) if working versions are not available early enough to get them set up properly.

• Season 2's world seed has been found and decided, all that's left to do there is to decide on where to build the spawn and actually do the build :)

Feature highlight:

Big changes to how whitelisting is handled -> Whitelisting is now handled more seamlessely and automatically by the introduction of Discord <-> MC account linking:

Once you've been accepted through the application process, all you need to do is join the server and copy the code you receive in the chat when attempting to connect to the Season 2 SMP Server, it will then explain what needs to be done with the code;
Copy & paste it (and only the code) into the DMs of the Server Connector bot & it will automatically allow you access to the Season 2 SMP Server.
No more need for any of us Staff members to manually give you access to the server once the server recognizes your name, it's all done perfectly seamlessely. 🎉

Yes, this also means that the ugly "SMPaccess" prefix that all of us have in the minecraft-connected discord channel can officially dissapear, YAY!

In-progress Tasks:

• As mentioned in the finished tasks, while the world seed has been decided upon, the place our spawn build will be located is not, which also means that the build hasn't been completed. If you have any ideas of requests on what/how the spawn build will look, join the CK discord and submit a request in the feedback-forums channel. (║〔ask-n-feedbck〕)

• The /bank and /help commands and menus are in the process of being updated and reworked, but a plugin update is required for me to get that done fully. Hopefully I'll have more news about this for next week's devlog post.

Planned features:

• Multi-version compatibility: We're planning on setting up both forwards-compatibility for later versions when they arrive, but also backwards-compatibility, meaning that players that still want to play on 1.20 can still join the server. Using this feature however (backwards compatibility) is not recommended or expected to contain full compatibility with custom or newer items or blocks (Map-based images, admin-specific build tools for spawn, blocks or items introduced in later versions of the game, etc) nor stability.

• Decoration Heads: Previously requested in season 1, of which I promised to get set up, but I kind-off for got about it, whoops 👀 This feature will be available on season 2 launch.

That's it!

While it may not seem like mutch, it's been a hell of a ride getting to this point, and honestly, the only reason I got to this point in just a week is mostly thanks to reusing settings and configurations, etc from Season 1 with some modifications to prepare it for season 2.

Once Season 2 is ready, I do plan on starting work on an actual new gamemode to roll out hopefully in the first quarter of next year, but we'll see how that turns out.
Thank you very much for deciding to play with us, and I hope you have a great week moving forwards! 🥳

- Griind.