Editor's Note by Mapthor
Hey all! Welcome back to another edition of Mapthor’s Editor's Note. These past two weeks have been hectic with a lot of stuff happening. We had a lot of great promotions, a handful of jobs, and even a teaser for the upcoming Summer Events! But, in the end, the good can’t exist without the bad. We saw the resignations of both LeBlanc and Dave, who both stepped down from their Staff positions. Thank you both for your hard work on the server, we’re all gonna miss you. To quote Harvey Dent: “The night is darkest just before the dawn.” While we may be going through tough times both on the server and in real life, we’re gonna get through this. We just gotta stick together and it’ll turn out alright.

Happy Sailing,
Mapthor


Anorien - Lead: @Oberanio | In Progress
Report by Oberanio

We have been working on stream concepts since Toti and the texturer team released the new snapshot. Shoutout to Mithrilled and Xmine for creating concepts and fixing the last streams that weren't good enough.




Belfalas - Lead: @Darki | In Progress
Report by Barteldvn

We finished shrublands and cliff texturing in a large area around Minas Aduial and a small bit around castle Greymane. On top of that, Mithrilled is close to finishing the shrubs close to Goldarce. That will mean the shrubs are done. The last step of vegetation will be forests which will be done after the next Gondor RP snapshot (Forest update). Finally, there's been some artists working on Araburg, finishing up the last couple of interiors there.





Lond Daer – Lead: @Ivan1pl | In Progress
Report by Monster_Duck

Planning of Lond Daer is continuing to progress, but it was a little bit slow this fortnight. We can’t wait to see future progression that the build team will bring to this region.





Henneth Annun – Lead: @Mithrilled | In Progress
Report by Raffy

The interior of the cave is now pretty much finished! Work is still happening on the basin, and I also created a moor concept for the 2 hills above the actual cave, which was implicated by Mith! It's starting to look really nice!





Moria – Lead: @barteldvn | In progress
Report by Mershy

These past couple weeks have brought Moria to a good milestone I would say. Finally, Nic finished the organisation of the moria pack. This means new textures mainly made by bart and some features that are already present in the Gondor RP can be added. Exciting news indeed. Building wise, I have started building over in Mershy Mine near Durin’s Crossroads. Had a great build session and a successful job. Recent artists Thamso and 2nah have also been working in and around moria. Lacotax and Draonic are still voxelling away with Laco taking the task of the large movie cave near the west gate. And finally, things have picked up again in the 21st Hall. The university district has seen some work and the ruining has begun.





Osgiliath – Lead: @ooitsbirdo | In progress
Report by Foolhardyfish

This week some of you may have noticed the skies clearing over Osgiliath which is thanks to Draonic, Raffy, Maski, Bart, Mershy and any others who have pasted in trees over the past couple weeks. In addition, Bart has been running various jobs on the walls and I am preparing the camp for artists to upgrade, bringing us ever closer to completion.





Marshes – Lead: @Darki | In Progress
Report by Raffy

Now that our beloved Senior Designer ™ Darki is back from his break, we've already had some great progress on the Fenmarch. The main swamp was finished in one big big job, using some of the newer blocks from the first snapshot of the Gondor 3.0 update.




It’s general announcements time so if you’ve been busy for the past two weeks - I’m about to give you a speedy rundown! This is your Captain speaking so buckle up and enjoy the ride. Toti updated the Gondor RP pack so it’s 3.0 now. The summer events have been announced by the guides - they will commence around the first week of August. To get your blood pumping and your excitement up, Mortal_Engineer and Exeterkered are hosting The MCME Quiz Challenge on July 25th at 6pm GMT. Some smaller, but not any less important, news follows: The Who Last Saw The Ring event (technically) ended on the 1st of July. Befalas is fully shrubbed! The monthly podcast came out on the 5th of this month. Planning over Osgo has finally (for the most part) been removed! We’re also forming our own MCME Music Team to get some stellar music for the server. You can find all related threads on the forums and don’t forget to stop by and check out the new theme build while you’re there!

Become a Donor
Keeping MCME running is not free, every month we have to pay $235 to keep up all our work. Donations help us keep doing what we love and providing you with amazing builds to look at. Donations are not required but greatly accepted, if you want to help us in our feat of rebuilding Middle Earth in Minecraft you can donate here.
https://mcmiddleearth.com/donate/drives/community-costs.1/

Our Donors
We have a huge list of Donors this week, meaning we've already smashed our target for July, and we're not even half way through! Thanks to everyone!

• @Soars
• @Iru_
• @Tryfor34
• @Nelman_Black
• @CrookedSushi
• @MykelUmm
• @EhMehLeigh
• @LlamaJaden1
• @sierraleone_
• @MPMC1408

#MCMEdoesnotrunitself

Report by Ben_the_Epic

Daveck:It was sad to see Davy step down from his position of designer and moderator. All your hard work and dedication to this server will not be forgotten! Don't be a stranger! Resignation

LeBruhGandalf: LeBruhGandalf has also decided to step down from designer. He will be greatly missed. I can't say the same for his burps though.
Resignation

2nah:We may have lost two designers this edition but we have also gained two artists! Please welcome 2nah to the purple legion. You are an excellent builder and I can't wait to see all the great things you will do for this server!
Promotion

Thamso:The second artist to be promoted this edition is Thamso! Keep up the great work and build on!
Promotion

Xmine01:The amazing Xmine has reached the rank of Foreman! I can already tell that you will do an amazing job leading jobs and dealing with all the droogs! Get that whip cracking!
Promotion





Interview with @Credoo

Question 1.If you had to take one person from MCME on to a desert island for the rest of your life who would you take and why?
Tough question mostly because I'm a social animal and I would need something that drives me. I love being around people but I need my own place to calm down and be quiet too. So if I would be stranded on a desert island it would be with someone who has a good sense of humour otherwise I would die of boredom. Someone who's a good survivalist otherwise I would die out of starvation or cold. And someone who is creative to find a way to not only entertain ourselves but also create something that might grasp the attention of others so we are not stranded alone on a deserted island. My drive would be to create something that would catch the eye so why not build another Orthanc to get people on our formerly deserted island. And I would only be able to do that with one person who is sadly no longer part of our community our friendly neighbourhood Wookie "Homieno".

Question 2.Why did you call yourself Credoo?
Well I once played an mmo back in 2005 that I got a character to the maximum lvl after spending way to much time on it. I enjoyed playing that character for months with the friends I made along the way. But then one day I found out that that character and the account as a whole got banned for a silly reason. So I was forced to start anew and that was right before the beginning of a new expansion. All my friends were gonna play that new expansion and enjoying their time at the maximum level. So I had little choice but to start anew and fight my way to the maximum level again before the expansion came out. Since it was a long and tough journey ahead of me I needed to believe I was gonna make it. So I named my character Credoo (sadly credo was taken) which means ‘I believe’ in Latin. I made it to the max level before the expansion hit and enjoyed playing the expansion with my friends again. And Credoo stuck with me wherever I went afterwards. I still believe in the positive outcome of anything and everything so the I hold my name in high value to this day.

Question 3. You've been on MCME for a long time, what are the biggest change you've seen?
I've seen a lot of changes over my almost 9 years of MCME experience. But I believe the most influential one is the increasing level of professionalism pared with pure joy. Now we can have hour long debates about the effect of climate would have on a hill in a certain remote region on the map. Where in the past we had huge buildings made in the middle of nowhere with connecting tunnels just because some staff felt like they needed a place to hang out. Right now the increasing level of detail in which we approach every single thing on mcme still baffles me and to be honest it's sometimes hard to keep up with. But it gives me energy and drives me to challenge myself and come up with new and even better ideas on how to improve mcme as a whole.

Question 4. If the staff team had one big battle who would win and why?
Honestly no clue. I have met several people of mcme over the years but I wouldn't be able to tell who would win in a battle. So I'm gonna base it off the discussion that where had on mcme. I would say the someone who is stubborn usually wins a fight since they usually just keep coming at you even though they are knocked down and the simply just refuse to give up. There are 3 contenders for the most stubborn persons I encountered on MCME staff. Two are no longer staff so I will leave them out of it. So it will naturally go the person who is still in staff and still stubborn at times you probably know him best as Darki. Much love.

Question 5. We are fast approaching the 10th Anniversary, how would you sum it up in 1 sentence?
A never ending mess of an experience of joy, tears, sweat and pure nerdiness.

Interviewer: @Archimdes





This week we have another round of amazing builds and Media posts. We only choose from the best every time, so hard work does pay off. Sometimes it can get competitive and that is what will win a place here. Please give a warm welcome to this Times, winners of this week.

MEDIA Winners:


Thanks to everybody who contributed to the overall library of artwork with their beautiful screenshots! This edition I want to do a special shoutout to Monster_Duck, not necessarily because he took more screenshots than Jarno or Mershy or whoever, but because of the rapid improvement of the quality of his screenies. If even Monster can be media winner, then taking beautiful screenshots can’t be that hard! (Just joking.) Follow the screenshot guides sticked on Discord and make sure to ask for feedback in the #screenshot-feedback channel.

(http://imgur.com/a/kX68Pf4)

THEME-BUILD Winners

Here are our themedbuild winners of the week! Congrats to everyone involved in making such wonderful builds!

(http://imgur.com/a/mQfp9TM)




Sting
Sting was an Elven shortsword made in Gondolin during the First Age. After wielding it during the Quest for Erebor, Bilbo Baggins had it engraved with the Sindarin text, Maegnas aen estar nin dagnir in yngyl im. Translated into English, it reads, "Sting is my name; I am the spider's bane." The Appendix of The Silmarillion defines the element maeg in Sindarin as meaning "sharp" or "piercing". During the Third Age, it was wielded by Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, and Samwise Gamgee. If you /warp Trollshaws, you can find the cave where Sting was found yourself! You just have to explore...



This Week's Question:
What name did Sauron use to disguise himself, before deceiving the Elves of Eregion to create the rings of power?


Last week's winner: Nexus3_

Presented by: D3rr3x




You know us, we love sharing our progress and Twitter is the perfect place. Give us a good follow and always have something to look forward to on your daily scroll. Just to spice it up, comment your favouriteparts of our builds at
MinecraftMiddleEarth (@MCMiddleEarth) | Twitter . You won't be disappointed!

Sometimes you just want to enjoy some quality pictures, we got you covered. Head on over to our Facebook account, try following us there too https://www.facebook.com/mcmeproject/

But of course, the most important and obviously most used social network is of course Planet Minecraft! Be sure to give us a diamond there. It costs nothing! Minecraft Middle Earth Minecraft Server



Artist
Ahh yes. We all know the question. “How can I build?", As well as the responses “You can try a theme build” and “You can take part in jobs." The other answer is “Apply for Artist”, and the last option is by far the most exciting. Being able to build in your favourite places all the time. Sounds awesome. We can never have enough Artists, and with a wide range of current projects, there’s plenty for you to do!
Are you inspired to join MCME’s main build rank? You can apply for Artist/ today on the forums! The Managers, Designers and current Artists will work with you and help you on your journey.

Guide
Or perhaps, you’re not a builder. Well. That’s not a problem! Becoming A guide is obviously the better option anyway. As a Guide, you’re the forefront of MCME, and there’s no greater feeling than when someone says your tour was awesome. You don’t actually have to be a lore nerd either, you’ll pick up on lots really quickly.
When you join the Guides, you’ll be giving tours, running mini-games and testing players in lore quizzes, or if you prefer less “on the spot” stuff, Guidebooks are obviously your zen, or helping to tell MCME about MCME by writing up articles in the times. You’ll also plan help plan events such as The Summer Events and The Anniversary Events. We hope you join us soon, because us Guides really would love some more of us. What’re you waiting for?
Just click Guide and apply today!