Patch 8.5 - Towns! 🏘️

Patch 8.5 is focused on bringing back the classic towny community feeling, while making the system much easier for new players to understand and use.

Joining a town should not feel awkward, hidden, or impossible. Towns should be easier to discover, easier to join, easier to grow, and far more alive.

This update introduces Public Towns, public plot claiming, plot sales, a new Town Board, Town RTP, recruitment broadcasts, global town announcements, and new town growth incentives.

This is the kind of town overhaul that would normally be saved for a new season. Instead, we have worked to bring it into Season 8 already, because new player onboarding matters more than ever.

🏘️ A More Social Town Experience

For a long time, one of the biggest problems with towns has been simple:

New players join the server, want to be part of a community, but end up stuck alone because no one invites them.

Patch 8.5 is designed to fix that.

Towns should feel active. They should feel visible. They should feel like a real part of the world again.

With this update, towns can now advertise themselves, offer public plots, recruit residents more easily, and give newcomers a much smoother path into community life.

✨ Highlights

• Public Towns can now be listed for everyone to discover
• Players can join public towns without needing a manual invite
• Public plots can be set as free claim or for sale
• Paid plot claims deposit money directly into the town bank
• A new Public Town Board has been added at spawn
• Towns can be browsed, previewed, joined, and sorted more easily
• Town RTP lets players teleport to a random public town plot
• Recruitment broadcasts can feature public towns with available plots
• Town level costs can now be reduced based on active membership
• Town creation and disband messages now appear across the full network

📣 Global Town Announcements

Town activity will now feel more visible across the server.

Whenever a town is created or disbanded, a global cross-server message will appear for everyone to see.

Announcements include:

• Town name
• Mayor
• Click-to-view option

This helps major town activity feel like part of the world again, instead of happening quietly in the background.

🏳️ Public Towns

Towns can now be made public.

A public town allows players to join without needing a manual invite, making it much easier for new players to find a place to belong.

To keep the system clean, towns must meet a few requirements before appearing publicly.

Public town requirements:

• The town must have a town spawn set
• The town must have at least 1 free resident slot or 1 public plot available
• Public status can automatically close if the town becomes full

This means the public list should only show towns that are actually ready to welcome new players.

Public towns are a major step toward making MineRaze feel more social and less isolated for fresh arrivals.

🏡 Public Plots & Plot Sales

Towns can now list plots for players to claim.

This gives mayors a clear way to prepare land, houses, farms, or starter areas for new residents.

Plot types:

• For Sale — the player pays to claim access to the plot
• Free Claim — the player can claim the plot for free

When a player enters a public plot that can be claimed, an actionbar message will show useful information about it.

Players can see:

• Whether the plot is available
• Whether the plot is free or paid
• How to claim it

No more guessing. No more wandering through towns wondering what is open.

For paid plot claims, the money goes directly into the town bank, helping towns fund their growth and giving organized communities a real reason to build public housing and plot areas.

📜 Public Town Board

A new Public Town Board has been added at spawn.

This gives players a central place to browse towns that are actively recruiting and offering land.

The board shows useful town information at a glance, making town discovery much easier than relying on random chat messages or chance encounters.

The Town Board can show:

• Mayor
• Member count
• Claim count
• Available public plots
• Online members

Towns can be sorted by:

• Most available plots
• Most online members
• Newest towns
• Most active towns

This turns town discovery into a real system and gives public towns a proper way to be seen.

👀 Town Preview Teleports

Browsing towns is useful. Seeing them in person is better.

The Public Town Board now lets players preview teleport to a town before deciding whether they want to join or settle there.

This helps players get a real sense of the town before committing.

Previewing helps players check:

• Town layout
• Build quality
• Location
• Atmosphere
• Available public plots

It is a simple feature, but it makes joining towns feel far more natural and beginner-friendly.

🎲 Town RTP

Finding a town should not rely on luck, random invites, or hoping someone notices you in chat.

That is where Town RTP comes in.

Players can now use:

/town rtp

or:

/town rtp -autojoin

How it works:

Town RTP sends you to a random town plot that meets all of these conditions:

• The town is public
• The town is open to join
• The town has a plot available for you to claim

This gives new players a much faster way to step into a community and see what it feels like in person.

Command options:

/town rtp

Teleports you to a random eligible plot in a public town.

/town rtp -autojoin

Automatically joins the town before teleporting you there.

Once you arrive, you can explore the town, look around, and claim a plot if you like what you see.

For town mayors, there is no extra setup beyond meeting the normal public town requirements. If your town is public, open, and has available plots, it can automatically be included in the Town RTP pool.

📢 Recruitment Broadcasts

Public towns with available plots can now be featured in periodic chat recruitment messages.

These broadcasts help surface towns that are actually open for new residents and give players direct ways to check them out.

This gives public towns far more visibility, while also giving new players a steady stream of opportunities to join an existing community instead of starting alone.

In short: if your town is open, the server can help advertise it.

📈 Town Growth Incentives

Growing a town is now more rewarding.

Town level costs can now be reduced based on the number of active members in the town. This is designed to reward towns that recruit and retain real players, rather than simply stacking inactive names. An active player is defined as someone who has logged in within the last 14 days.

Current discounts:

• 0-5 active members — no discount
• 6-10 active members — 10% discount
• 11-20 active members — 20% discount
• 21+ active members — 30% discount

This gives town leaders a stronger reason to open their gates, recruit players, and build communities that actually feel alive.

🧭 How to Use the New Town System

If you are a new player looking for a town, the best place to start is the Public Town Board at spawn.

The board shows public towns that are currently open to new residents, making it much easier to find somewhere to settle without needing to ask around in chat.

Finding a town:

• Left-click a town on the board to preview it
• Right-click a town on the board to join it directly

If you would rather be sent to a random public town, use:

/town rtp

If you want to automatically join the town before being teleported there, use:

/town rtp -autojoin

If you already know which public town you want to join, use:

/town public join <town>

🏡 Claiming a Public Plot

Once you have joined a town, look for available public plots.

When you stand inside a plot that can be claimed, an actionbar message will tell you whether the plot is free or for sale.

To claim the plot, use:

/plot claim

How claiming works:

• If the plot is free, you will gain access immediately
• If the plot is for sale, the money will be paid directly into the town bank

This gives new residents a clear way to join a town, find land, and start building without needing manual help from the mayor.

🏰 For Town Leaders

Town leaders can make their town public and offer plots for new players to claim.

Basic setup:

• Set your town spawn with /town setspawn
• Create a town plot with /plot
• Stand inside the plot
• Mark the plot as available with:
  • /plot freeclaim
  • /plot forsale <price>
• Enable public town status with:
  • /town public on

Once your town is public and has available plots, it can appear on the Town Board, be found through Town RTP, and be featured in recruitment broadcasts.

This makes it much easier for active towns to recruit new players and grow naturally.

📌 Commands

Here are the key commands added or used with this update.

Public Towns

• /town public on
• /town public off
• /town public join <town>
• /town rtp
• /town rtp -autojoin
• /townboard

Plot Sales

• /plot forsale <price>
• /plot freeclaim
• /plot notforsale
• /plot saleinfo
• /plot claim

You can also browse public towns through the new Town Board at spawn.

🌍 Why This Update Matters

Patch 8.5 is about more than commands and menus.

It is about making towns feel like communities again.

The best towny-style experiences happen when players can find each other, settle together, and feel like they are part of something larger than themselves.

When new players are locked out of that experience, the world feels colder, quieter, and less alive.

This patch is designed to change that.

We want towns that recruit.
We want towns that grow.
We want towns that welcome newcomers.

And we want joining a community on MineRaze to feel easier than ever.

See you in-game!

play.mineraze.net