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July 2025 - Putting Community First

· 11 min read
MrTytanic
MrTytanic
Owner

Hello EarthPol!​

Welcome to our second monthly blog post, a space where we don’t just report our progress, but celebrate the people and stories that make EarthPol what it is.

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Server Growth​

This month, EarthPol has seen remarkable growth. We've welcomed 2,346 new players, with 365 rising to become active participants on the server. In that time, 275 new towns have been founded, contributing to a total of 704 towns and 142 nations across the map. These numbers represent new stories being written everyday by players like you who work and shape the world we've built together.

Our world now holds 5,844 residents, spanning an impressive 111,334 townblocks on our 1:326 scale Earth. We’re proud to continue providing a platform where your ideas and creativity thrive.

Overcoming Obstacles​

This July, EarthPol faced three major technical challenges: a plugin exploit, a backup restore issue, and a botnet-related network disruption. Each time, our team responded quickly and decisively—whether restoring data, protecting player progress, or working with partners to resolve network issues.

We not only fixed the problems at hand, but also used each incident as an opportunity to improve our systems, audit our security, and better serve our community. Player satisfaction remains our top priority, and we’re committed to continuously learning and adapting.

SignedVelocity Backdoor​

In late June, we dealt with an incident in which a vulnerability was exploited. The attacker, known as Error110 who is a developer on another server and a banned player, attempted to disrupt the player economy by issuing arbitrary admin commands like setting everyone in creative mode or giving everyone gold blocks.

Thanks to the swift action of our team and our backup system, we were able to pause the server within minutes and restore it to a secure state as of June 27, just twenty minutes before the attack occurred.

But we did not stop there. We conducted a comprehensive audit of all our plugins, strengthening our defenses and expanding our StaffMonitor system to proactively detect and alert us to any future exploit attempts.

Response

For more information on the incident and our response, read our root cause analysis here: Server Hacked? How?.

Backup Restore​

During a planned move to improve our systems, an unexpected reset of the main EarthPol server occurred, during which 35% of the server was impacted. This happened while relocating our development setup to a new location to help free up storage space for our backup system. Due to the large amount of data generated by our players, our backup storage became full and started overwriting previous backups. Additionally, some backup files were mistakenly deleted, which resulted in us restoring from an older backup than intended.

Despite this setback, we acted quickly and restored the server from the most recent stable backup. Thanks to the hard work of our staff team, we were able to manually recover over 561 towns and restore most major player builds and items.

In total, we responded to nearly 600 refund tickets, all fully resolved within two weeks with the care and efficiency we strive for. Our all-volunteer staff worked tirelessly to ensure every player’s concerns were addressed and questions answered promptly and we appreciate your patience.

Our priority was restoring what matters most: your time, your effort, and your vision. We recognize that every build is part of a player’s story and we carefully approached every ticket with that mindset and respect.

We have taken strong precautions to prevent anything like this from happening again, including daily checks to ensure backups are running smoothly and saving properly.

For more information on the incident and our response, read our root cause analysis here: Backup Issues.

Botnet Issue​

Most recently, EarthPol experienced lag that was unfortunately beyond our direct control. Our anti-DDoS provider, TCPShield, informed us that a widespread botnet attack targeted multiple providers, causing disruptions particularly affecting players on the North American West Coast and Oceania. In response, TCPShield proactively moved our network to a different provider unaffected by this attack. We encourage all players to reconnect and share any feedback on their connection in our Support Discord.

While this situation was out of our hands, we are working on optimizations on our side to ensure a smoother and more reliable experience for everyone.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

Community Highlights​

This section is dedicated to you all, the players who build, organize, and bring EarthPol to life through creativity, diplomacy, and shared ambition.

Player Organizations​

The United Nations

The EarthPol United Nations prevails as the most influential and sizable community with intentions of uniting the various EPMC nations, preventing unnecessary wars, keeping nations accountable for their actions, and promoting cooperation among all players inside and out of the UN.

Join the United Nations Discord Server.

UN

Formula 1

The return of Formula 1 has sparked a wave of national pride and competition. This group blends racing, engineering, and style, as players design racetracks and compete for the title of EarthPol’s fastest nation.

Join the Formula 1 Discord Server.

F1

The EarthPol Football League

EarthPol’s favorite team sport is back! With new teams forming and stadiums rising across the map, the EPFL is gearing up for its next big season. Whether you're building a team or a field, now’s the time to get involved.

Join the EPFL Discord Server.

EPFL

Events​

This month had major events from three organizations: The EarthPol Creative Team, the United Nations, and Formula 1.

World Wonders Build Competition

Hosted by the EarthPol Creative Team, this competition challenged towns to recreate real-world landmarks within the server. From ancient temples to modern icons, players showcased incredible creativity and architectural talent.

Please congratulate tygzy for winning first place with his impressive build at /t spawn Linz.

F1

EarthPol UN General Assembly Meetings

The UN held a series of impactful sessions this month, where nations gathered to debate, negotiate, and pass resolutions on global server issues. These meetings are a cornerstone of EarthPol diplomacy.

UNGA

Formula 1 Building Competiton

Formula 1 has returned to EarthPol with a design challenge: build the most impressive, detailed, and functional racetrack. Participants are going full throttle, bringing the thrill of racing to life through inventive builds and national themes. This event will conclude next week so there's still time to participate!

Tell Your Story​

Every player has a voice, and every nation has a narrative. Whether you’re leading a rising power, building your hometown block by block, or organizing player events, your experience shapes the world we share. We’re committed to highlighting your contributions in future blog posts, social media, and community recaps.

Have something cool to share? Tag us on Discord or submit to the #📸┃memories channel!

Development Updates​

New Features​

Ambassador Nation Rank: We’ve introduced a new nation rank, the Ambassador. Only one player per nation may hold this rank, which is designed to support the upcoming automated United Nations ambassador system.

Honor Point Deductions: Our custom Honor Points plugin was designed to add a rewarding layer to political and military engagement but they’re not meant to fuel inactive PvP clans. To reinforce EarthPol’s focus on diplomacy and sandbox roleplay we added the following changes:

  • 1 Honor Point will be deducted per day after 14 days of player inactivity.

  • Players who have been offline for 2+ days will no longer gain Honor Points until they return.

Global Keep Inventory During Sieges: To address long-standing Nether-based exploits, such as portal trapping and unfair ambushes outside Siege Zones, we’ve enabled Keep Inventory server-wide during active siege sessions.

VPN Access for Premium Players: Premium members can now join EarthPol using the premium.earthpol.com IP, allowing VPN access without issues.

Premium VPN

New Website Intro: A new intro video now plays upon your first visit to www.earthpol.com, showcasing our server to new players with a well-crafted cinematic experience.

New Voting Page: We’ve launched a clean new voting page with links to all supported sites, making it easier to support the server and earn rewards.

SiegeWar HUD: By using /sw hud {siege}, players are able to once again view live data on points and banner control in real time. This was a previous feature that was disabled by Folia.

Siege

Bug Fixes​

  • Fixed ice crafting to correctly return 2 ice instead of 4, closing a dupe exploit.
  • Fixed BlueMap towny map display issue.
  • Fixed towny permissions oversight where all players can interact and manage minecart chests and hoppers.
  • Fixed an issue where neutral or peaceful towns/nations were incorrectly given siege ranks. These ranks are now fully removed from affected towns.
  • Restored broken crafting recipes lost during a prior rollback.
  • Added more disc options to McMMO excavation.
  • Enabled Fair Play Mode for minimap mods like Xaero’s, disabling features like cave mode and mob/entity radar to ensure a level playing field.
  • 1.21 potions now work correctly in towns.

SiegeWar Hard Fork​

EarthPol is developing its own custom SiegeWar fork, built to better fit our server’s unique gameplay. While we were one of the first to adopt SiegeWar, its current direction no longer matches our vision. In July 2025, we officially hardforked the plugin. This version will remain public but exclusive to EarthPol due to licensing.

Players

As we have full creative freedom over this fork, we welcome any feedback or suggestions players may offer. Suggestions can be made in the #📂┃suggestions channel in the EarthPol Discord. This is a long-term project, and we appreciate your patience—it’ll be worth it. Here are some features we have in mind:

  • War justifications
  • War Attrition
  • Expanded Alliances

And so much more to come. Progress can be tracked in the #🔧┃siegewar-rework channel in the EarthPol Discord.

Upcoming Major Update​

On August 13th, we will be releasing our first major update which will add many new features and bug fixes. We’re planning a server-wide event to celebrate the release, you don't want to miss it!

Join our Update 1.0 Public Briefing Event on Discord to explore new features, changes, and get your questions answered live.

Looking Ahead​

MrTytanic

Let us be clear: this is not the summit. This is the ascent. We do not measure success by what we’ve done, but by what we are determined to do. Like all great empires, EarthPol is not built on power alone. It is the unity, care, and vision of our players that carry us forward. The road ahead is long, but it leads somewhere worth going where we will all walk together.

Thank you all for your continued support,

— MrTytanic

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