[The Phoenix] "I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ;-;"

Rising from the Ashes of a dead newsletter comes the third in a long series of Inactivity!
During the initial stages of Brawl's takeover of CTF, I had promised bringing back Bacon Bits once CTF was out of Beta. I had thought that being out of Beta meant more updates but that wasn't the case, add the fact that I was at an all time low interest in CTF and XenForo crippling my formatting beauty I stopped working on it. Now, though, I have decided to bring it back in a much less professional manner. I do not know how frequently I will post this new Newsletter, nor do I know if people will care enough for me to continue this.
The Revival Of Instacaps​

There's a tiny glitch that currently allows Ally elfs to reflect ninja's Enderpearls. @Chactation, @Krabzz, and @ilosthegame took this glitch, combined it with help from Engineer, and proceeded to truly instacap any map. Due to the thread being Deleted/Hidden for some reason, I will provide a link to the wonderful video:

Christmas Hangout!​

This Christmas, Brawl is hosting a hangout on the event server that will have many little things to do. It's mainly going to be a chill out session with much of the Brawl community and will feature some giveaways. It'll start on December 27th at 2:00pm CST. Hopefully much of the CTF community stops by!

Skywars!​

I cant really interview Nom at this point in time, but I can surely tell you what he's worked on for the past couple of Months. Skywars is Brawl's newest server, a last man standing minigame in which people are placed into floating islands and a few select supplies to be the last one standing!
Gameplay
Skywars doesn't deviate too far from a normal Skywars server. Depending on the version you play you will be put in an island on your own or with a group with a random array of supplies. As other versions, this Skywars has a large Middle Island with better gear than the chests you spawn with to assist in killing off the competition. Kits are featured in the game as well and are meant to help you in your game, but not carry you throughout. Getting to Mid and getting the gear first is the goal. Compared to other servers, the gear in Brawl Skywars is rather "Heavy" (Iron Armor is rather typical) and gaining Mid Gear almost ensures victory with items such as Golden Apples, Ender Pearls, and Prot IV Diamond Armor. If a game lasts too long, meteors will start crashing down on players that deal a devastation to terrain.
Features
Skywars has a Crate system, you gain points by winning matches and with those points you can exchange for Keys to crates of certain value such as Common and Uncommon. These crates are a Gacha system, you can earn Kits of varying rarity (From Common to Legendary) as well as Cages that you spawn in before the game starts (I myself was lucky enough to earn the Minion cage). If you buy an Uncommon crate, you are ensured an Uncommon item. Even then, you can earn a Legendary item from a Common Crate, albeit with a little chance.

Overall Fun
For those who enjoy huge power gaps between normal gear and Mid Gear, you will enjoy how easy it it to beat out the other players once you gain Middle. For others, it may not be as fun as you have a harsh disadvantage with little methods of changing the course of the game without the person controlling middle screwing up majorly. Nom himself coded the game through and through, but wishes to talk to the higher ups about balancing the Middle for a less one-sided competition.

Interview With Winter!​

@wintergreen3 is one of the most recent additions to the CTF Mod list, and to celebrate that I've decided to ask her some questions pertaining to her new Mod status!

: How did you get into CTF?
: One day, a little over 3 years ago, I wanted to find a Minecraft CTF server, so naturally I asked Google for an answer and it came up with "MCPVP's Capture the Flag" and one other server that was really horrible. I joined my first game of CTF on November 28th of 2012, which was glitched into an all ocean world with the flags down at the bottom of the sea. I found the forums about 9 months later, and shortly after joined my first CTF team, Death From Above.
: What made you want to become Moderator?
: At the end of last year, I saw several good friends of mine becoming Moderators and it made me realize that regular members of the community could find themselves getting the position if they worked hard enough at it.
So for the next 6-8 months I worked here and there trying to catch hackers, while pestering @aRandomBob157 to ban them for me (while on MCPVP) and eventually I applied for Mod on Brawl. I failed the first time because I was so nervous in the interview that I just flat out failed some really easy questions, so a month later I applied again and got JMod.
: How has your experience been as a Moderator so far?
: So far I love being Mod. I get to ban hackers as much as I please, and I get great enjoyment out of that. Reffing matches is also really fun, and building random little patterns in the glass of the spawnbox is always cool. Hanging out with the other CTF and Brawl mods is fantastic, and I think I'm doing well as a Moderator so far. ^-^
: What is the hardest thing about being a Moderator?
: Probably the hardest thing for me so far has been getting the hang of everything, there's just a lot to take in. Not any perticular part of it is too difficult, though.
: What's your favorite thing about being a Mod?
: Being able to spectate any game I want at any time is great, also banning hackers is fun, too.
: What do you think of the community now that you're a Moderator?
: I pretty much think the same of them as I did several months ago - Most of the people in it mean well and can be pretty nice, but there's a about a 5-10% of really antagonistic people that tend to... overshadow the larger, nicer percent of the community.
: If you could Rename Bacon Bits, what would you name it?
: Oh god
: hm...
: I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ;-;
: Thats a pretty long name tbh

Sci - Fi Maps!​

I was going to play the card that I decided to choose Sci-Fi looking maps as of Star Wars The Force Awakens release, but I honestly chose these maps out of random and noticed they all have a rather Sci-Fi theme. These reviews won't be fully fleshed out since I don't have that much time, but I will try and point out the main points that come to mind.

Vetanor Landing
ID 162665
The map has a simplistic style which gives it points in aesthetics, but has some issues with its gameplay design. There are two corridors at the side of each spawn which have an intricate barrier system to prevent headshots, but all of the effort is overridden by the sponge that shoots you to the end of the pathway in an instant. The map has 2 layers to it, which makes the map a bit bigger that I would like to see. The flagroom is unique and very Star Wars, but the fact that there are only 3 exits that are rather far from the initial flagpost can hinder anybody on offense if the Defense is decent. Even with these flaws, Vetanor Landing seems worthy of being a CTF Map.


Fusion
ID 101240
The biggest problem with this map is that it’s double layered and flat. The small trenches near the middle of the middle of the map are a nice addition to avoid headshots, but the inclusion of a rather blank underground just makes the map unnecessarily large. Ditch the underground and improve on the foreground with some more trenches and the map would improve greatly.


Airlock V
ID 286525
This rework focuses on visual improvement rather than gameplay improvement. It adds a nice visual revamp to the map whilst slightly improving on the cramped gameplay the original airlock had. Even so, the Flagrooms are the only part of the map that are given an expanded rework and the pathway in between has very minor changes which leave this map lacking in gameplay.

That's all for this edition of The Phoenix, for now I will ask only one question:

Do you wish to see more of The Phoenix and how frequently?

I wont be doing a subscriber system anymore, as it was tedious to handle.

 

Im gonna be looking into that, I couldnt do it for this edition as I wanted to get this out by today.

 

Video hasn't released so I'm waiting until its done