History of the WolvHaven Server
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The WolvHaven Server's History continues to evolve, feel free to add in content!
Founded somewhere in Early 2011, the WolvHaven Server was founded to be SilverWolv's personal private minecraft server among friends. Over the years the server has experienced many events, good and bad and has overcome several blunders. The server continues to navigate its way through being a rather informally run minecraft server to where it is today becoming a rather well-known server in the minecraft transport builcing & city roleplay community. This page documents a rough outline of major events that happened in the server over the years and continues to evolve.
2011: Humble Beginnings
The WolvHaven Server was born in early 2011 as a private minecraft server for SilverWolv and his friends. SilverWolv was recently introduced to the game of Minecraft and the endless possibilities and blank-canvas nature of the game was attractive to him. He mainly spent his time in Single Player until he joined his friend who went by the username of __Husky__'s minecraft server. There he experienced the joys multiplayer minecraft for the first time, and decided to start his own server.
New Centrif is born
Main article: New Centrif (1st Haven)
Upon discovering that one could import an existing minecraft world into a vanilla server, the WolvHaven server was born. The server had no official name, and was run purely on the vanilla minecraft multiplayer server that came with the game itself. The server was founded with a simple goal to build a city in minecraft with minimal help from mods to the games. A funamental aspect was also that there was to be no official texture pack, as it would be a hassle to distribute and maintain such a resource.
WolvHaven back then was not a 24/7 server, and was operated using hamachi to allow other players to connect. This was often very cumbersome for new members but was sufficient given its private server nature.
Troubled Times
After the retirement of New Centrif in end 2011 with the release of minecraft 1.0 during minecon 2011, the server set out to experiment using bukkit and plugins for the first time. However with limited understanding of how permissions worked, the server soon switched back to vanilla minecraft. It would go through several iterations of different worlds and formats before settling on the next iteration of the city called Wolv City.
2012: New City, small traction
Wolv City replaces New Centrif
Main article: Wolv City (2nd Haven)
Wolv City later replaced the city of New Centrif as the main world of the server. It was also with this iteration of the city where WolvHaven took on the survival multiplayer gamemode that is familiar with us today. Players would travel out of the city in survival and mine for resources before coming back to the city to trade among themselves. Wolv City also had a particular district named Wolv Haven, which is where the server eventually gets its name today.
The Founding Fathers
SilverWolv had previously also mostly played on a seperate minecraft server named "Lucky Kingdom" where he met mash_p0tat0es. Mash originally asked SilverWolv whether he had any wool for a giant pig statue he was making, to which SilverWolv replied that he didnt even have enough wool for a bed and couldnt give him any as a result. Their friendship grew when SilverWolv bought a plot of land and built a simple wooden house in his town which he found to look very nice. Eventually SilverWolv also founded a town called "New Centrif" in the server, and mash also joined in.
Eventually both players connected on social media and mash joined in on the server on 2 April 2012 as an admin. He eventually invited his classmate y0urs_Tru1y to join the server as well, who would soon be promoted to Moderator, and then later Admin.
Together, SilverWolv, __Husky__, Mash_p0tat0es and y0urs_Tru1y make up the founding fathers of the server.
The Bukkit Experiment
Up till early 2012, the server had been running on a vanilla minecraft server. It's initial experiemntations with bukkit eventually failed due to the lack of knowledge with in-game permissions and how overall plugins worked together in general. There was also no initial need for the server to move to Bukkit given its simple nature and small playerbase.
Economy Reset
The server also underwent its first and only ever economy reset during this period of time after experimentation with economy plugins left players with illigetimate spawned-in balances. The experiment lead to certain members having millions while others in the negative balances. This negative balance eventually lead to the server's net total amount of money in circulation to be over a negative million WHD.
A full reset was performed, resetting every player's balance to $1000. All members, including staff were to obtain currency from legitimate methods such as mining and trading. To assist in this new mode, the Jobs plugin was introduced; but the very same plugin would lead to several problems with the economy later on.
Popularity on Twitter
SilverWolv would on occasions share screenshots of Wolv City on his twitter, which eventually got the attention of RookieMC97, who was a rather popular figure within a community with over 1000 followers. RookieMC97 eventually joined the server to tour and posted screenshots of the server online, which sparked interest in many of their followers who then came online to visit. However, despite all this, the server continued to remain private as SilverWolv did not have a way to finance or pay for server hosting due to a lack of a credit/debit card.
2013: New Haven, WolvHaven is public (for a short while)!
New Haven replaces New Centrif
Main article: New Haven (3rd Haven)
Wolv City eventually outgrew the ambitions for a growing minecraft city, and hence the 3rd iteration of the city, New Haven was born. This was also the first time in the server where the WorldGuard was used to protect the city's infrastructure.
Server goes public for 2 months
SilverWolv eventually reached a deal with his parents that he would finance the server and his parents would assist to pay the server bills using their payment cards. The server was hosted on a server hosting platform called mine-o-city hosting for a very affordable cost of US$5 a month, and the server only had 1GB of RAM at the time.
The server opened to the public in June to much fanfare, and had a consistent playerbase that mainly enjoyed playing survival, and new members of Staff joined the team. Carew, PixelVox, PunchingPixel and KuteKake, who were all from the Twitter community that RookieMC97 promoted to as well. This which lasted for 2 months till July where a disagreement between SilverWolv and his parents led to the plug being pulled on the server as there was no way for the bills for the server to be paid without a card even if SilverWolv could afford it.
Mission #SaveTheHaven
When the news broke that the server was going down members of the twitter community started a campaign called "SaveTheHaven" to help finance and pay for the server. A member started a paypal which ran into some issues eventually although some members had sent money to the account. The amounting pressure eventually gave way due to questioning as to when the paypal would be ready to allow for the payment of the server bills to be made and the idea was dropped with refunds made to all who had contributed.
WitherGate: Mass Grief Attack
WolvHaven experienced its first mass grief attack in 2013 where an exploit involving wither explosions and damage was used on the Sandbox by a player called MrGreen289. Over half of the Sandbox was damaged as a result and had a great impact on the server as the Sandbox then was one of the most popular worlds within the server.
Investigations later found that it was caused due to inadequate protections by WorldGuard, and was immediately fixed.
PixelGate: Staff betrayal
Due to a disagreement between SilverWolv and PixelVox, PixelVox threatened to release the NewHaven city world file to the public as he had been entrusted with the world save file for rendering purposes on the premise that the file would not be shared. This prompted SilverWolv to release the world as a safeguard onto planetminecraft. Since then, SilverWolv has been very wary of who he entrusts server files and access with in the staff team.
Launch of the Wiki
In August 2013, the WolvHaven Wiki was launched using a free service provider shoutwiki. Several articles about 3rd Haven were written. The introduction of a Wiki for the server was one of the goals of SilverWolv, similar another popular Minecraft creative server at the time - The VoxelBox.
The WolvHaven Wiki would prove to be rather unpopular later on, with frequent service outages, slow support, and a lack of customisation.
Connections with Epsilon From Tumblr
SilverWolv regularly posted builds from the server on Tumblr which sparked the interest of a player by the name of nakokun, who was the owner and founder of the city of Epsilon. Both players and servers forged a strong bond and friendship as they would often help each other out and build on both servers.
The WolvHaven Gathering and Christmas
Main article: The WolvHaven Gathering
The server later went public again during the November and December school holidays, and the very first WolvHaven Gathering was held in November 2013 together with Thanksgiving and Chsitmas festivities in the server. SilverWolv was also experimenting with WorldPainter during the period, and soon after the next iteration of the city NewWolvHaven was being planned and built.
It was also during this period of time where Axton would join the server, with ambitions to build a mass transit railway network that connected the city.
NewWolvHaven Replaces NewHaven
Main Article: New WolvHaven (4th Haven)
Construction for 4th Haven began in late December 2013. For the first time in WolvHaven's history, the world was custom generated using a program called "WorldPainter". It was also the first time where the city would be comprised of multiple islands instead of a single island, which was the case in the previous iterations of the city.
2014: Public, but very quiet
2014 was a relatively quiet year for the server as SilverWolv was busy studying for his GCE 'O' Level examination. The server was mainly patronised by players who played Survival Multiplayer but did not see a lot of activity.
In March, Mash_p0tat0es had donated a minecraft server which he paid but did not have a use for till the end of the year. He had bought a year long subscription with hosting provide Nitrous Hosting but plans for his own server did not fall into place, and passed the server plan over to WolvHaven. As a result, the server was hosted online, but without much supervision as SilverWolv would only come online during the weekends until December
BlameNitro
Nitrous Hosting was not very popular with WolvHaveners due to frequent downtimes and an imposed limit on storage space. As a result, whenever there were technical difficulties, #BlameNitro was the go-to tagline.
YouTube Channel
Click here to access WolvHaven's official YouTube channel.
The WolvHaven YouTube channel was launched in August 2014, and its first YouTube video of a timelapse ride of the BERT District Line was released, and since then, YouTube would be the main source where players would find out about WolvHaven. The video has over 140,000 views as of 2021.
Stalingrad Tram opens
Main Article: WolvHaven Tram (4th Haven)
In September 2014, a building competition, dubbed "Innovate", was announced to the public, with the aim of receiving creative transit ideas from the commuters themselves, which in turn, would be turned into reality if it met the three criteria: low-cost, low maintenance, and efficient. Many submissions were considered, such as a trolleybus or monorail system that ran on all three islands. However, it was settled and decided that a tram system was the most cost-efficient, low maintenance, and efficient in terms of passenger flow.
On the 13th of October 2014, player MatthieuTofu, who had envisioned the project, unveiled the Stalingrad Tram, or the Tram Line 1, or as it's known now, the WolvHaven Tram. The line opened on the 13th of October 2014, with its original route running from Stalingrad Coast (Now Stalingrad South) to Stalingrad. Just a few weeks later on the 2nd of November, Tram Line 1 extended further up north to Central Park East (now SOHO) and to Nationale (now Parkroyal) with the entire route stretching 1.4km over 9 stops.
Tram service was unreliable at first but with the introduction of a revolutionary automatic spawning tram system on the 16th of January 2015, tram service delivery increased to 95%, and ridership was at an all time high. Referred to as the future of rail transit, the WolvHaven Tram was very successful in its first year.
Upon the completion of the first line, ambitious plans were drawn out to expand the tram system further east, and possibly even into Westford, as a means of solution to replace the debilitating status of the poignant bus system back then. However, due to an also debilitating ticks per second situation, all plans were shelved and eventually replaced with buses that served the planned routes.
2015: The start of a new Era
The WolvHaven most people are familiar with began from 2015.
Financing is here
SilverWolv managed to register for a pre-paid debit card to use to pay for the server bills, and in 2015 the server shifted to a 1GB server hosted by MCProHosting. The server was renewed at 2 month intervals.
Titanium Server
Nixholas joined the server in April 2015 as he was a classmate of SilverWolv, and would contribute to many aspects of server administration, mainly handling the technical aspects of the server. A proposal for a cheaper alternative server hosting provider was given with more resources such as RAM and storage space.
The idea was for all WolvHaven services to be centralized into a single machine, with a website using xenforo. However, this proved to be fatal as a DDoS attack brought the server down. It was later found out that the server hoster was using dated hardware, which resulted in the loss of over 4 months of data and progress.
City-Build 1.0: Project Westlandia
Main Article: Gardellia
Autobus22 introduced a new creative city-building concept to the server, whereby a national rail network would be built and players would be able to claim stations and build towns and cities around their claimed stations. Work had progressed but several design flaws led to the termination of the project. It would later be replaced with Old Gardellia in early 2016.
City-Build 2.0: Westlandia2 (Old Gardellia)
Main Article: Gardellia
The project that opened after Westlandia would be the original Gardellia. This version of the world was a large world painted flat island, with the intention that players would be able to terraform the terrain to their liking after. This iteration of Old Gardellia was mired with controversy, stemming from disagreements over borders caused by the small station spacing, unequal WorldEdit rights and poor or selective enforcement of the rules.
2016:
Metro+ Introduced
Main Article: Metro+
The Metro+, a form of electronic ticket used on public transport in Greater WolvHaven and is the first of its kind in Minecraft, was introduced onto the server on the 11th of January 2016. It is valid for travel on all Department of Transport operated modes of transport including Metro, Bus and Ferries and is also valid on some privately operated modes of transport such as BERT. Whilst it was first issued to members of WolvHaven in Janurary 2016 initially with a small amount of functionality, more features such as being able to get a replacement card should the original be destroyed/lost using the original card's ID were eventually added.
A standard Metro+ card is a Name Tag that is titled Metro+ | Standard with the identification of the card while a Single Journey Metro+ is a Name Tag that is titled Metro+ | Single Journey with the mode of transport the single journey ticket is valid for. Passengers "tap" the card on a reader when entering or leaving the mode of transport in order to validate and refund extra amount charged respectively. Cards may be purchased, refunded and "Topped Up" at ticket machines found at Metro & BERT stations and major Bus stops.
The idea for a tap on tap off card system had existed in WolvHaven since as early as the Wolv City era in 2012 and during the days of the NewHaven era, a brand new ticketing system was introduced, called MyTransit but it soon ran into multiple problems with fare evasion and passengers being charged the incorrect fare resulting in the system being scrapped.
City-Build 2.0 Terminated: Too much drama
Main Article: Gardellia
In early 2016, SilverWolv announced the termination of the original/old Gardellia citing excessive drama that was caused by the world and inadequate moderation or enforcement standards. A replacement world would be worked on which would later become the current Gardellia world. A new world was desired to address all of the design issues faced by the original Gardellia.
A search for a suitable world seed was initiated, and the seed "qixtato" was selected after rounds of suggestions. Work on the network would progress over the rest of the year before its final opening
Joshypocalypse: WorldEdit disaster
In March 2016, the largest WorldEdit accident in the server occured. Then server member Jotch was working on the construction of the WolvHaven Metro extension into Mechanicsburg which was originally meant to go in the lower deck of the Silonner Bridge. He had made a selection in the North of Westward before proceeding to another location near Palais De Royale to work on another project.
However, Jotch did not deselect the selection earlier made in Westford, and while making a selection near Palais De Royale, the second point of the selection failed to register, likey due to connection latency issues. He then proceeded to //set 0 on a selection that made up almost 50% of the city.
Due to the server's then recently upgraded hardware, this meant that the server was able to handle and process most of the world edit operation before crashing. As a result, they relogged into the server to find that almost all of the city had its ground level deleted and replaced with an approximately 7m deep hole.
The Joshypocalypse incident led to the introduction of WorldEdit limits on the server to prevent similar incidents from occurring again.
WolvHaven celebrates its fifth anniversary
Main Article: The WolvHaven Gathering
WolvHaven celebrated its fifth anniversary on the 2nd of April 2016. As part of the celebrations, a WolvHaven Gathering, dubbed 5WH, was held in front of the 4th Haven Eiffel Tower. With the introduction of Discord, WolvHaveners continued with the music-sharing tradition using a music discord bot. This also allowed participants to interact with each other through voice for the first time as well.
The celebrations featured traditional games played in previous WolvHaven Gatherings such as spleef, paintball and build my thing. In addition, a ghast attack survival game where players would hide in a building and try to survive an onslaught of ghasts attacking the building using fireballs was introduced. The event also featured a dragon ride, where players would ride on ender dragons that flew on a defined path to tour the city.
[Embed YouTube trailer of 5WH]
Political Parties banned
Main Article: Political Parties
All political parties were banned and vetoed with majority approval by the Executive Council on the 24th of April 2016 due to endless fighting between parties and many a refusal by many to follow server rules. Political parties would not be reintroduced onto the server until the Party-List Proportionate system was implemented in April 2017.
[Helper] rank introduced (4 Jun)
Main Article: Ranks
"It felt like I went back in time"
As part of continuing 5th Anniversary Celebration events, the "It felt like I went back in time" exhibition was opened between the 10th and 30th of September 2016. It enabled WolvHaveners to visit the server's 3 previous city worlds, notably New Centrif (1st Haven), Wolv City (2nd Haven) and New Haven (3rd Haven).
A fresh new website
The server launched a new website on the 12th of November 2016. This came after the old website was hacked by a hacking group that was engaged by a member who could not accept their ban. As a result, all forum data was lost however no user information was compromised.
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City-Build 3.0: (New) Gardellia is here!
Main Article: Gardellia
Westlandia2's replacement was launched on Christmas Day, 25th December 2016. This followed WolvHaveners voting in the World Referendum held from 18 March 2016 to 20 March 2016 in favour of a new creative-building world. The new world came pre-built with a rail network which was presented to the public on the June 3rd 2016. As a result, the world itself was rendered as early as June 14th 2016 in order for construction of the network to begin. WolvHaveners were once again consulted on September 24th and October 30th with regards to the station design of the rail network and the rules of the new world. On December 22nd, WolvHaveners were able to start applying to build in the new world.
Calais de Royale (29-31 Dec)
2017:
Old Gardellia and INNOVATE officially closed
Following the opening of the current iteration of Gardellia and the Laboratory world, the Old Gardellia and INNOVATE worlds were closed on the 22nd of January 2017.
Moderator and Administrator elections cancelled (February)
Main Article: Staff
On February 23rd 2017, President SilverWolv announced the cancellation of all future Moderator and Administrator elections. This was later revealed to have been decided in view of members of staff being afraid of punishing members of the server for fear of losing out on their votes in elections. Following this, a new appointment system was revealed on March 4th, with new Moderators and Administrators being promoted from the ranks of Helper and Moderator respectively at quarterly Staff Performance Reviews.
FifthHaven planning begins
Main Article: New Wolfminster (5th Haven)
With serious design flaws in the 4th Haven primarily due to its small size, proposals for the 5th iteration of the city would be floated since 2016 as the server celebrated its 5th Anniversary. This was despite the option of expanding the current world winning out in a Parliament sitting, a plan which was eventually ruled out due to technical difficulties and the greater potential benefits of starting a brand new city from scratch.
In March 2017, planning for the new city world officially begun with WolvHaveners being asked to help plan the new world and notably comment on an initial proposed map layout for Fifth Haven by SilverWolv. The proposal called for a 7km by 7km world made up of 7 main islands, and paid homage to 4th Haven with the shape of the new proposed Wolfminster island looking very similar to that of its predecessor.
Members of the community started proposing ideas using the map, drawing out districts and areas for land use; including Metro maps which were frowned upon by SilverWolv himself and other members of the community who felt that Metro and rail transit planning should not be its top priority. This eventually led to rail infrastructure planning being halted for 3 years.
Problems with the initial proposal soon ensued, as planners soon found out that the scale at which they wished to build at would result in space in the proposed world running out very quickly, resulting in similar problems as 4th Haven. This was notably due to the shift from 3-block wide road lanes to 5-block wide road lanes.
Parliament relaunched and reformed
Main Article: April 2017 WolvHaven Political Reforms
In late February 2017, President SilverWolv introduced plans of a brand new parliamentary system whereby general elections would be held under a Party-List Proportionate system in which the percentage of votes a party garnered would determine the percentage of the seats they have in Parliament. Non-elected players would also be allowed to participate in proceedings though their votes would weigh less than those of elected Members of Parliament. Along with the new system came a new Parliament Building and chamber which meant that for the first time, the House of Representatives and the Senate would have their own separate chambers within the same building.
The last Parliament session under the original 2016 parliamentary system was held on the 1st April 2017. After which, Parliament was dissolved and the new system was put into effect.
Political Party registration begins
Main Article: Political Parties
With the introduction of a party-list proportionate system came the legalization of political parties which had previously been banned with party registration starting on March 30th. In order to be included on ballot papers, parties had to register on the Political Parties wiki page and create a separate page for the party itself.
Televised WBC debate
As part of the new parliamentary system and April 2017 General Election, the WolvHaven Broadcasting Corporation hosted a televised debate between party leaders on the 2nd of April. Topics such as stricter chat laws, trams/trains/rail systems in the Sandbox and Laboratory worlds, Gardellia access requirements, rights and autonomy and Pangaea rules were debated.
[Embed YouTube video of the debate]
April 2017 General Election
Main Article: General Election of WolvHaven, April 2017
The first General Election of WolvHaven was held from 6 April 2017 to form the House of Representatives of the 6th Parliament of WolvHaven. Turnout was low at 30 voters, with most voters being members of the Political Parties running in the election, resulting with no party gaining an overall majority of seats.
| Party | % of Vote | Number of Votes | Seats after election |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Centre | 13.79% |
4/29 |
1/12
|
| Democratiam | 3.45% |
1/29 |
0/12
|
| Honest and Green Party | 13.79% |
4/29 |
1/12
|
| WolvHaven Realist and Altruist Party | 3.45% |
1/29 |
0/12
|
| National Conservative Party | 13.79% |
4/29 |
1/12
|
| Party for Gardellia | 6.90% |
2/29 |
0/12
|
| Pure Haven Party | 17.24% |
5/29 |
2/12
|
| South Gardellian National Party | 17.24% |
5/29 |
2/12
|
| WolvHaven Architect Party | 10.34% |
3/29 |
1/12
|
| Spoiled Votes | - | 1/30 |
- |
Formation of a Coalition Government
Main Article: SGNP-NCP-CEN Coalition
Following negotiations, the South Gardellian National Party, National Conservative Party and The Centre formed the SGNP-NCP-CEN Coalition on April 15th following President SilverWolv inviting them to form a government, enabling their leader olovld to take office as the 1st Prime Minister of WolvHaven. Meanwhile, the Pure Haven Party and the WolvHaven Architect Party formed an opposition coalition whilst the Honest and Green Party remained neutral to either side of the house.
Pangaea replaces New Hollow
Main Article: Pangaea
As part of a set of World Resets announced by President SilverWolv in January 2017, the old survival world New Hollow was closed on the May 6th marking the end of a transition period to the new Pangaea world.
Mechanicsburg International Airport opened
Main Article: Mechanicsburg International Airport
Following the opening of Mechanicsburg International Airport in 4th Haven on June 10th 2017, the server's spawn was moved there. This included the opening of a new immigration test located in the Airport Concourse whilst players could access the server's different worlds by boarding planes at the airport's various gates.
Laboratory access restricted
Main Article: Laboratory
On August 19th 2017, access to the Laboratory world was restricted build access to those with Gardellia build rights and architects only. In addition, all train tracks and model railroads would be removed, though station and train models would not. This marked a major shift in the world's purpose, being the spirtual successor to INNOVATE, a world which focused on rail systems.
#server-chat launched on Discord
On September 6th 2017, the #server-chat channel (then named #irc) was launched on the official WolvHaven Discord channel. Similarly to the dynmap IRC feature which existed at the time, it enabled Discord users to communicate directly with players on the Minecraft server. Following the trial period and the new feature's popularity, the dynmap IRC feature was phased out on September 27th.
The September 16th 2017 Parliament Session
Trial on streamlining parliamentary process
Main Article: Parliament of WolvHaven
On September 13th 2017, President SilverWolv announced a trial on changes to the parliamentary process intending on speeding up legislative work.
Bills would notably have to go through an additional vote and three readings. The first reading involved the reading of the bill's title and summary statement after which the house would vote on it based on the usefulness of the bill. The rest of the lawmaking process remained the same.
The September 16th 2017 Parliament Session and ensuing inquiry
Main Article: Parliament of WolvHaven/7th
Originally scheduled to be the second last parliament session of the term, the September 16th 2017 Parliament session would become the session with the largest amount of drama at its time. The Honest and Green Party queued a total of five bills together with the Democratiam queuing an additional two bills leading to the session exceeding the 3.5 hour maximum runtime. It was also the first session whereby the aforementioned first reading vote was introduced to save parliament time in the event a bill which would be deemed a waste of parliament time could swiftly be rejected.
As many of the parliamentary staff were unavailable that day, Parliament was understaffed with only the speaker and one clerk, making it impossible for each of the two voting lobbies to be manned by clerks to record the votes.
Allegations were soon made by the Leader of the Opposition, autobus22, accusing the United Progressive Coalition (UPG) and the National Conservative Party of voting out bills tabled by the Honest and Green Party based on the party and opinion of the bill and thus not being in accordance of the purpose of the first reading vote. The Leader of the Opposition was also seen interrupting several calls by calling out several invalid points of order. This eventually led to members of the South Gardellian National Party provoking the leader of the opposition by jeering at him at some points of the debate.
Several unparliamentary remarks were made throughout the session, of which the most notable was the Leader of the Opposition calling the Speaker, Grass_Jelly, a "muppet". All of this eventually boiled over when there was a disagreement over whether the HGP MP Ardyle's vote was to be counted or not. The Leader of the Opposition lashed out at the clerks & UPG leading to autobus22 being the first Leader of the Opposition to be removed from the chamber by the Speaker in WolvHaven Parliament History.
A parliamentary inquiry into the session was carried out after the Leader of the Opposition accused the Speaker and clerk of professional wrongdoing such as but not limited to not honoring the 5 minute speech cap time and that bills were brought to voting too early. However, the report published showed that the Speaker had not committed any wrongdoing and that he had carried out his tasks properly.
There was also a lot of public backlash against the Leader of the Opposition over his lack of understanding towards the Speaker and the clerk as parliament sessions started at midnight for the speaker and 10pm for the clerk. He was labelled as being unreasonable and having too high of an expectation of people. The Prime Minister, minebuilder1223 also chimed in and recalled his experience of being a parliamentary clerk - describing it as a "bloody stressful job" when "MPs don't behave properly".
New Metro Operator Concession Model launched
The Department of Transport launched a new Metro Operator Concession Model that took effect on September 24th 2017.
Under the new model, all existing Metro Line Operators saw their contracts terminated on the September 24th. The new scheme saw most of the automatic metro lines being operated by TransHaven – the government owned public transport operator while the manual lines were awarded to different operators. The new model also clarified the role of operators with them notably having to liaison with existing train drivers to provide regular scheduled services on the manual lines they operate. Contracts would run for three months with the operator’s contract will be reviewed and terminated or renewed based on the line’s performance.
First session of the Gardellia Assembly
Main Article: Gardellian Assembly
After the passing of Gardellia Federalisation & Council Establishment Bill, WolvHaven was turned into a federation and Gardellia was given statehood, leading to the establishment of the Parliament of Gardellia. The Gardellian Assembly make its own laws and only enact in Gardellia. As a result, all infrastructure plans which extend outside of town borders and were still in planning by the October 29th had to be presented to the first session of the Gardellian Assembly held on the same day before construction can start. If they are not, they would be deemed illegal by the Assembly and be requested to be removed.
The new system was widely unpopular and described as overly bureaucratic and quickly fell into disuse with a new Noticeboard being put into place to foster communication on Gardellian projects.
Further changes to parliamentary procedure
Main Article: Parliament of WolvHaven
Following the initial trial of first voting introduced on September 16th 2017, further changes were made to the Parliamentary process from November 16th which remained in place until the replacement of physical sessions of Parliament by Discord Parliament.
Notable changes included the removal of first votes which made parliamentary proceedings more confusing and ultimately took more time than required in the event a division was required. In addition, all bills would now have to go through a minimum of two parliamentary sessions in order to be passed by the House of Representatives with each bill being debate on twice and being voted on after the second debate at the second session.
Honestus Esse
The Honestus Esse initiative was launched by the WolvHaven staff team on December 9th 2017 running till the end of the month in a bid to make members more aware of their actions and how they affect the community.
Named after the Latin term meaning “to be honest”, the initiative encouraged players to provide anonymous feedback to others in the community, similar to the popular anonymous tools at the time such as sayat.me and sarahah. The initiative was set up in the wake of findings made by the WolvHaven Demographic Census 2017 in which numerous players noted that they were annoyed by one or more people on the server. Therefore, the Honestus Esse program was created to compile and send feedback to people on the server in order to make each other more aware of their actions, how they affect and/or make others feel and how they can improve to help build a better community together.
Gardellia Expanded
Main Article: Gardellia
In the wake of the increasing overcrowding of Gardellia, the world was expanded to the north, east and west in late December 2017 around its first anniversary.
2018:
Changes to verbal warnings
In the wake of Veteran players having been noted by Staff as having broken server rules at a higher frequency since 2017, changes were made to the server's verbal warning system from January 1st 2018. In order to comabt the leniancy that is offered to players who are ranked citizen and above, leading to many thinking that they will always be able to get away with breaking the rules, verbal warnings were no longer given out to players who had been around on the server for more than 6 months.
Gardellian second claims
Main Article: Gardellia
Following the expansion of Gardellia in late December 2017, players were authorized to start second claims conditioned to certain requirements from January 2nd 2018. Players' first claims notably had to be large enough, spanning over 250 metres in radius from the city centre whilst their second claims could not be located on the mainline network if their prior claim already was located on it.
2018 Gardellia Hockey League
Main Article: 2018 Gardellia Hockey League
The Gardellia Hockey League was an independant ice hockey league operating within Gardellia. The league consisted of eight teams throughout eight cities who aimed to win the glorious and magnificent GHL Cup. First founded in early 2017 after the commissioner, Ziggy85, decided he wanted to share his love of hockey within the world of WolvHaven. Helped by fellow hockey fan DNP_10, the league's first competitive season started on January 6th 2018 wrapping up on July 7th with the victory of the Nelsonburg Ice Eagles.
| Award | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| Qixiang Trophy | Castelnau Conquest | Awarded to the team that wins the regular season by having the most points in the standings out of the entire league |
| Gardellia Award | Nelsonburg Ice Eagles | Awarded to the player with the most goals scored out of the entire league |
| Diamond Award | Dalesburg Flight | Awarded to the winner of the Western Conference Finals |
| Notch Trophy | Nelsonburg Ice Eagles | Awarded to the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals |
| GHL Cup | Nelsonburg Ice Eagles | The most prestigious award in the league, awarded to the team that wins the GHL Playoffs and thus becomes the league champion |
Shifts in WolvHaven's political landscape
Prime minister minebuilder1223 resigns
Main Article: Prime Minister of WolvHaven
Following the weakening of the United Progressive Coalition government as Members of Parliament from the The Centre and the South Gardellian National Party were repeatedly absent and after several clashes with the opposition over some of the controversial topics such as the Mentionable List Revision Act and the contentious Government and Parliament Reform Bill, Prime Minister minebuilder1223 tendered his resignation to the President on January 28th 2018 during the 8th Session of Parliament of the term and has appointed _AngelKevin_ (now ohuehue) as the 4th Prime Minister of WolvHaven. minebuilder1223 had previously stated his intentions to resign at the end of the Parliamentary Term.
Formation of Forward WolvHaven: the beginning of the mega-party era
Main Article: Forward WolvHaven
In the wake of the near-collapse of the United Progressive Coalition and the upcoming April 2018 General Election, the Party for Gardellia and the National Conservative Party merged to form the Forward WolvHaven mega-party on March 25th. The merger enabled the newly-formed party to become the largest party following the April 2018 General Election with 7 out of the 17 seats, far ahead of The Centre's 3 Members of Parliament. Despite this, in order to attain a majority in the House of Representatives, Forward WolvHaven partnered with Democratiam to form the FWH-DEM Coalition.
Parliamentary supermajority
Main Article: FWH-DEM-CEN Coalition
In the wake of the Honest and Green Party's increasingly strained relation with The Centre due to the former's controversial leader autobus22, The Centre joined the Government on June 24th forming the FWH-DEM-CEN Coalition. The grand coalition was the most powerful in WolvHaven Parliamentary History, controlling 14 out of the 17 seats leaving the opposition powerless.
Final FifthHaven world map revealed
Main Article: New Wolfminster (5th Haven)
The initial island layout for FifthHaven came under heavy criticism by Lykanatthemochi for being "too unrealistic" and also requested for a more "realistic" island layout, and as a result, he was invited by SilverWolv to propose a new map layout as the world had already been worldpainted by then.
Lykanatthemochi followed up with the call for his idea of "realistic looking islands" on 14 March 2018 with a drawing that contained 11 main islands for development. The proposal also called for a larger map size of 10km by 10km; which was eventually upscaled further to the current 12km by 12km. This new proposal would be taken as the official layout which New Wolfminster was to be based upon.
The new proposal also followed the layout of the original initial proposal, allowing most of the previously discussed plans to be easily transferred over into the new map.
Due to its nature, the world had to be worldpainted again from scratch. To do this, SilverWolv printed a copy of the image and slid it into a clear plastic paper holder and traced the outlines of the islands using a permanent marker. He then pasted the clear plastic holder over his laptop which had the worldpainter program open and started painting the world from there using the drawn outlines as reference.
WBC Website launched
Main Article: WolvHaven Broadcasting Corporation
The WBC News Website was launched on March 4th 2018. Replacing the WolvHavener, the website provided a one-stop news source for players. WolvHaveners could also contribute by submitting opinion pieces or by joining the news team. Activity on the website did not last that long however and was practically inactive by early 2020 when newsnetwh was launched. News coverage by WBC News would later be eventually officially discontinued in May 2020.
Ground broken on FifthHaven
Main Article: New Wolfminster (5th Haven)
Ground was broken on FifthHaven on June 23rd 2018 and was celebrated by minebuilder1223, who shared a picture of the first blocks placed in the world; which formed the official WolvHaven flag on a mast on the world's Clarence Island, which would be the world's Welcome Centre.
New players would spawn on a boats; similar to how immigrants arrived in the United States at Ellis Island back in the day. A new immigration building was also constructed, together with a Hospital & Quarantine Centre; which as since been demolished by Heiopeii to make way for newer plans for the island. By May 2018, work had started on the city's capitol island with the initial roundabout infront of City Hall constructed, and the island's initial road network would start to be constructed.
Prior to this three preview versions of the world were put up onto the server, which allowed builders to tour, visit, and test buildings within the worlds before official work would begin as a final chance for players to provide feedback about any potential tweaks that were required for the world itself.
NWGA Saga (Apr-Oct)
Interclaim alliances were beginning to be established in Gardellia. One of the first, the North-West Gardellia Alliance (NWGA) would find itself dragged into a controversy surrounding one of its members, Delfino88, owner of Dolphinplains in late-March 2018 as he was given various warnings relating to large-scale illegal terraforming, plagiarism and lying to staff.
The following is an article from WBC News published on April 4th 2018.
NWGA dragged into drama as one of its members gets bannedWhile the WolvHaven community was busy fooling around during April Fools, little that they know that a ticking drama time bomb was about to be set off. A prominent citizen by the name of Delfino88 was banned during April Fools for a week after accumulating three active warnings. Five Active WarningsDelfino88 was previously warned for large scale worldediting in Gardellia which was referred to as “deswamping” by the community and repeated trespass into restricted areas within WolvHaven. The final warning came on the 1st April 2018 for lying to staff bringing the total number of active warnings to three, resulting in a ban of a week. An additional two warnings came in later on 2 April 2018 after he failed to remove builds which he copied without permission from Tony515 by burying the building underneath instead of removing it as required. This was part of the new plagiarism act of 2018 which was passed and signed in parliament on the 24 March 2018 which gave all members a week’s grace period to remove all builds which were copied without permission from the author. This led to him having five active warnings which upgraded his ban from a temporary one week ban to an appealable permanent ban. He will be able to appeal his ban from 9 April 2018. Delfino takes a standDispleased with the one week ban initially, it was reported that Delfino88 took to the North West Gardellia Alliance (NWGA) discord to show his disapproval of the ban. This was later confirmed when SpaceInvader11 shared a meme which Delfino88 posted in the NWGA Discord. The meme depicted a picture of Delfino wearing a banner with what looks like a crossed out WolvHaven logo and had a caption “You can’t just ban Delino on April 1st”.Upon finding out that his ban had been upgraded to a permanent ban on 2 April 2018, Delfino88 took to WolvHaven Discord to express his displeasure. Commenting in the general channel of the WolvHaven Discord, Delfino said “I may try to appeal, but I'll never step foot on WH again (Maybe)” after several members accused him of advertising in the general chat and MC_Dunc asked him to leave.He later went on to discuss about how he was “worth unbanning” in a conversation with admin Rom5419. Rom5419 said “appealable (ban) means you can consult staff to review your ban. Only works if you're worth unbanning.” to which Delfino88 asked “Am I worth unbanning?”. Rom5419 said that he was “totally not” worth unbanning, prompting Delfino to respond, saying “I'm sorry but I think I am I got banned for so little”. Delfino also listed out the three three initial warnings that were given out to him but argued that the additional 2 that caused his appealable permanent ban were unexplained and that he did not understand why he received the warnings. SilverWolv respondsUnimpressed with the messages that were sent in general after the notification of the double warning was given, SilverWolv explained to Delfino the reason regarding the plagiarized builds which were just buried instead of removed. He also reminded Delfino that he had already been caught trying to use loopholes within the Gardellia rules to attempt to claim Frosty_Creeper’s Gardellia Mainline station and that staff had to remind him several times before he finally complied. Delfino replied saying “I was at 0 warnings. Then 5”. SilverWolv later explained that people do go from being well behaving members to receiving many warnings within a short period of time. He later went on to comment about the behaviour which Delfino was exhibiting in discord. “Especially with that kind of attitude you’re displaying here right now” said SilverWolv, “What I see here is that you’re acting as if you didn't deserve your bans or warnings when you did flout the rules.” Delfino later replied, saying that he understood that he deserved the warnings but later went on to comment that they were “too heavy” North West Gardellia Alliance (NWGA) members dragged into the dramaWolvHaveners later proceeded to talk about the future of Dolphin Plains - Delfino’s town in Gardellia. Frosty_Creeper talked about the possibility of turning the North West Gardellia Council (NWGC) public domain and how it would depend on whether the NWGA decides on whether Dolphin Plains remains a member of the NWGA. In response to it, Delfino said that Dolphin Plains was a founder of NWGC and that if Dolphin Plains wasn’t a member of the NWGA, the NWGC would cease to exist. This caused several NWGA members to retaliate to what his claims. “That's not true. I was also a member and so was pixel. And a lot of others.” said HurricanePanda08, a member of the NWGA. “Delfino if you're gone forever, NWGA won't cease to exist”. After further explanations made by notable staff members SilverWolv and MatthieuTofu, many NWGA members started expressing their displeasure in the way that Delfino88 had “tainted” the reputation of the alliance. After some discussion Delfino88 was stripped off of “Member” rank in the NGWA Discord after some members criticized him for deleting messages condemning his behavior. NGWA members will vote on officially removing Delfino88 from the alliance in the near future. An announcement was made by Mopsistudios on the behalf of the NWGA in the Gardellia channel of the WolvHaven Discord. It read “The NWGA would like to apologize to all players/staff members involved in the case involving its fellow member, Delfino88. His actions do not reflect the NWGA's standards, nor were any of his actions endorsed by council. Furthermore, I would like to apologize to Frosty_Foobar10, who owns the city Delfino attempted to claim. This was revealed to the council by him, and reasonable efforts were made to prevent them. The NWGA is happy to provide any evidence needed in this ongoing case. Thank you and we appreciate your understanding!”. Another message by NWGA member, Baymax1020 followed up stating that Delfino’s NWGA membership had been “suspended for the time being”. The future of Dolphin PlainsWBC reached out to SilverWolv for a statement on the future of Dolphin Plains. “Dolphin Plains will be subject to the Gardellia abandoned claims act of 2017,” he said, “the only way for him to retain ownership of Dolphin Plains is to successfully appeal his ban within the timeframe before the town is classified as abandoned, afterwhich the standard protocol of either transferring its ownership, removing it or turning it into a public domain claim.” Complications may arise in the future regarding the railway that runs through Dolphin Plains in the future. When asked about outcome of the railway in the event Dolphin Plains does get removed, SilverWolv said that special consideration will be given for the rail line and that it would most likely be retained. |
The alliance found itself once again in the spotlight in October 2018 following large scale disputes stemming from a vote being held to reinstate Delfino88 as an NWGA member.
[to be completed]
WH-MRT Joint Security Agreement
Following increasing threats to server security, a first draft of the WH-MRT Joint Security Agreement was revealed to WolvHaveners on June 10th 2018.
This followed a round of constructive and comprehensive talk between WolvHaven officials their MRT counterparts which have given both administrations a chance to have important and influencial discussions about a number of issues and discuss how the security situation between both of our servers could be improved. Both servers came to an agreement about what information should and should not be distributed between servers, with notably Personally Identifiable Information (such as IP addresses, personal email addresses or addresses of residence or work) not being shared between servers, but information exclusively pertaining to an individual's online profile (such as Bans, Warnings and Past Offences) being permitted to be shared for the benfit of both server's security. WolvHaveners were invited to scrutinize the draft agreement and offer feedback.
Few changes were proposed by WolvHaveners and following a conclusive second round of negotations and the passing of the bill by Parliament, part of the Joint Security Agreement came into effect on June 24th.
1st Wolvhaven Olympics
Main Article: 1st Wolvhaven Olympics
The 1st Wolvhaven Olympics were held between July 6th and 18th 2018. Featuring seven events (Hockey, Curling, Bobsled, Archery, PVP, Speed Skating and Spleef) and 18 participating cities, the events made use of numerous sporting facilities in WolvHaven City.
Ofcorp launched
Main Article: Office of Corporations
In the wider context of the rapid increase in the amount of corporate activity in WolvHaven, the Forward WolvHaven-led government announced the formation of the Office of Corporations on August 4th. The new statutory agency would be responsible for registering corporations and giving them closer ties to the government though small companies were not required to register if they did not have any intention of working with the government.
OfCorp was never fully implemented and was quickly forgotten amidst other government policies and intitiatives.
Tree world opens
After many requests, the Custom Tree Repository tree grid by lentebriesje was been added to the server on August 7th. This enabled Architects & Gardellian worldedit permission holders to visit and copy the trees from the new world.
Metro+ B series launched
Main Article: Metro+
In line with the routine maintenance and renewal of the Metro+ ticketing system, Metro+ A-Series cards were phased out from July 18th and were completely replaced by B-Series cards from August 16th.
[Embed YouTube video]
Holiday Train
In the spirit of the 2018 festive season, President SilverWolv announced the launch of a community train build on November 10th.
All players with Gardellia build rights were able to contribute to the train built in the Laboratory world. Players were invited to add random cars/coaches/carriages to the train. The event culminated with a race held on December 23rd in which players tried to be the fastest to run from the first to the last car of the train.
[Embed YouTube video]
Greater WolvHaven Transformation 2020 launched
Main Article: Greater WolvHaven Transformation 2020
President SilverWolv announced the launch of the Greater WolvHaven Transformation 2020 on December 26th 2018. The scheme was an organizational transformation program that seeked to review, reform and ratify all aspects of the server by the end of 2020 with the vision of a more consistent, efficient and enjoyable server experience for all.
2019:
First administrative day
In line with the Greater WolvHaven Transformation 2020 program, administrative days were introduced starting from January 19th 2019.
This came as the server's increasing number of applications had made it difficult to understand when they were processed. As such, administrative days were introduced as a common deadline for all tasks such as application processing, Regulatory Enforcement Actions by Staff, and other practices which would take place on the third Saturday of every month. Quarterly Report days on the other hand would fall on the administrative days once every three months. Staff activities such as Sandbox Cleanups, Staff Performance Reviews and General Server Maintenance would therefore be conducted every March, June, September and December.
WolvHaveners were urged to submit applications more than a week ahead of administrative days in order to ensure that they were processed in the same month.
Demerit point system reform
With the previous demerit point system within WolvHaven having been noted as being too lax on drivers, a new system was put into place from January 19th. Previously unsanctioned offenses such as speeding, bypassing signals, and skipping stations were added to the list of offenses which resulted in demerit points being handed out.
The new system introduced more clear criteria for driver and examiner blacklists and other forms of punishment.
Trainthrottle introduced
Spearheaded by mopsistudios, Trainthrottle, a new mode of train control for manually operated trains on the WolvHaven server, was launched on April 5th.
Unlike previous methods of train driving, the train operator applies power/brakes to the train instead of directly setting the train speed allowing for a more realistic, fun and challenging experience. Train throttle was originally conceptualized in 2017 but initial attempts to turn it into reality failed.
[Embed YT video]
First [Engineer] (?)
Main Article: Ranks
Staff split into Departments
Main Article: Staff
In line with the Greater WolvHaven Transformation 2020 program, the Staff Team was split into Departments from May 19th 2019.
- Qualifications Department – Handles everything regarding applications for ranks like Architect, Engineer and Worldedit Qualification
- Gardellia Department – Handles Gardellia related matters like Build Rights Applications, Promotions and Abandoned Claims enforcement
- Properties Department – Handles all property related matters in the city like public housing, setting up regions for players and sandbox cleanup
Gardellia Mainlines code reform (May-July)
Main Article: Gardellia Mainline Code Format History
Screenshot Contest
In a bid to celebrate Wolvhaven’s architectural and creative diversity, a screenshot contest was held in June aiming to showcase the community’s creative works with WolvHaveners voting for their favorite entries.
| Rank | Photographer | Screenshot | Caption |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kakadoka | 
|
The City of Aegis, charming by day, perilous by night. |
| 2 | CM_Raiders | 
|
Indeed I was right, a new world has been waiting for me all along. |
| 3 | mopsistudios | 
|
City meets harbour. |
| _somtingwong | 
|
Morning at City Hall. | |
| minebuilder1223 | 
|
Pont dros y môr. |
WolvHaven's Game Show Marathon
WolvHaven hosted its first ever Game Show Marathon during the montsh of July and August. WolvHaveners participated in various in-game versions of popular real-life game shows in a bid to win prizes. The games, adapated from their real-life equivalents by Tony515 includedPress Your Luck, Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, and Match Game.
[Embed Wheel of Fortune episode]
Other events such as Buildoffs, Spleef and paintball matches were also held during summer.
Dynmap Visibility
In line with the implementation of the Dynmap (Hidden View) Act, 2019 the use of the Dynamic Map Hide command (/dynmap hide) became illegal from August 1st 2019.
This followed several instances of players making use of the dynmap hide command in order to hide malicious acts from server staff. Exceptions from the new rules were permitted in the interest of player security with regards to stalking and harassment and server events that would require players to be invisible from the dynamic map.
Gardellia Claim Registration
Main Article: Gardellia
In line with the implementation of the Gardellia Claim Registry Act, 2019 all Gardellian claim holders were required to register their claims using the Claim Registry Formby August 31st. This included deregistering/abandoning claims, helping ensure accuracy in record keeping by Staff. With the changes, Gardellians were also able to apply for exemption from having their claims being deemed abandoned using the form.
Parliament shifts to Discord
Main Article: Parliament of WolvHaven
Trial Period
As part of the growing effort to make Parliament more accessible to all WolvHaveners in line with the Greater WolvHaven Transformation 2020 program, a trial was conducted from the 16 to 22 June 2019 in which parliamentary debates on certain bills would be shifted to the WolvHaven Discord.
This followed the declining attendance coupled with the low number of political parties contesting in elections because of all their members “being unable to attend Parliament at the stipulated timings” which signalled that Parliament in its physical form was no longer performing its role of effectively representing public opinion and views.
While a hybrid solution involving a mix of physical in-game sessions and discord voting/debate continuation was widely preferred and considered, the implementation of such a system was considered to be too taxing on existing manpower and could further complicate matters. The new hard-line approach to transform parliament would involve getting rid of physical in-game sessions entirely; apart from ceremonial purposes, effectively allowing debate to go on at all times of the week while the bill is in the consideration stages.
As part of the trial, each item of business received its own dedicated Discord channel. Whilst the content of the channels may be read by anyone, only Verified members may speak in the channels. All the text channels have a slow mode period of 5 minutes to ensure that the channels do not get flooded and to ensure that debate remains orderly and all speeches made within the channels are binding meaning that they were included in the official Hansard for the session on June 22nd 2019 and a physical in-game session was still held. Only votes by elected MPs will be considered on votes on Discord Parliament.
Following the trial period, Parliament voted to adopt the new system.
Final Implementation
Following the last physical session of Parliament on September 21st 2019, both the Senate and House of Representatives moved to the server's official Discord.
The first session of Discord Parliament was held on October 5th with most of the procedure introduced during the trial period back in June completely unchanged.
New Logo (December)
WolvHaven received a new logo designed by Lykan on December 13th 2019. This followed a teaser poster dubbed 'Project CyberWolv' by President SilverWolv released on December 5th.
Project Cyberwolv poster teasing the new server logo
Transparent background version of the new logo designed by Lykan
New wiki logo
Formation of United WolvHaven: political hegemony?
Main Article: United WolvHaven
In a bid to "ensure the sustainability of, not only the parties but the parliamentary system as a whole, well into the future", Forward WolvHaven and The Centre announced that they would be merging to form the new United WolvHaven party on December 31st 2019. With 16 party members as of January 2020, the party was largest ever in WolvHaven's history.
2020: a pandemic-induced boost in activity... not without controversy
A year of political turmoil
January 2020 General Election
Main Article: General Election of WolvHaven, January 2020
Mainline Codes Standardisation Bill Saga
FACT Bill
UWH infighting, prime minister mopsistudios resigns
Main Article: Prime Minister of WolvHaven
Dissolution of Parliament
[Embed newsnet coverage]
May 2020 General Election: the last battle of the parties
Main Article: General Election of WolvHaven, May 2020
[Embed newsnet coverage]
Number_21's letter regarding toxicity
Number_21 published a powerful statement on June 26th 2020 calling out a toxic environment on the server highlighted by the contentious May 2020 General Election campaign season.
The following is Number_21's letter.
| Dear Wolvhaven
DISCLAIMER: This letter does not exonerate autobus22's past behavior that many frowned upon I am shocked at the fact that no one has been realizing how serious of an issue this is that someone had to leave based on not feeling safe within the community, and that no one brought the issue up after he left. Even though it was an election season and criticism and debating was quite common, some of the things said towards Auto were not acceptable by any standards. There are many instances of ad hominem attacks against him as a person rather than the policy that he was drafting. These ad hominem attacks aimed to paint him as a liar and manipulator who tricks members of other opposition parties into serving his own gain. By far the worst that happened was when he was mocked for the way he typed and edited his messages, with someone joking “Guys lets have a message editing challenge! Most edited messages over the whole campaign wins!!”, even though it was clearly intended for people to edit old messages instead of spamming new ones to keep the chat clean. It was one of the most disgraceful things that could have happened to anyone and if this was in a school this would be considered cyberbullying. I firmly asked the people who were attacking Auto to reflect on for a minute, and to see what they have been doing and to think to themselves if what they were doing was acceptable behaviour, but when they responded all they showed me was that they did not care about how they acted towards others. When Auto was called a liar, I asked them if how would they feel to be called a liar, and one responded “I would be honored to be called a lair as lairs are pretty cool”, and when I told the person who made the editing joke that it wasn’t funny and insulting he said “oh noes HGP doesn’t like les jokes”. Calling someone a liar is not a joke, it is a serious accusation meant to attack the person directly in order to degrade them; so to are the comments made on how Auto edits his messages, but they didn't treat them as serious issues, but as so called harmless jokes that ended up causing some of the greatest emotional harm to not just Auto, but to me as well. Every time I saw a comment that was attacking Auto, I felt as if I was being attacked as well, and eventually it got to the point where we were both crying in a call with each other. I felt the pain he felt, it was as if society thought he was a punching bag, something that could be hit over and over and over again without facing any concequences. Despite the guilt he had of leaving me and the rest of the Wolvhaven community behind, the toxicity on the server was too much for him, and it was only one of many times that he was driven off the server due to toxicity, with one time him contemplating suicide. It is not easy to describe what happened that night, but all I can say is that in that conversation flowed a river of tears. After the emotional conversation, Auto resigned from the HGP and left Wolvhaven indefinitley. To me this was a big deal as I had just lost a friend from the server where I met him, and the fact that the server had lost a player who contributed a lot to its development. What I was shocked to see was that there was no mass outrage over what happened, and what was even worse was the so called thank you letter from those who attacked Auto. It saidI thought this thank you letter for everything that Auto had done was completely insincere even more of an insult to him than it was a complement. Auto did not leave because of real life issues out of his control, he left because the community was not a safe place for him to be in anymore out of fear of harassment. They stated that he had a drive to work for the benefit of all Wolvhaveners while constantly questioning him during the debate about his activity, and that if he was really dedicated to the server. There was no apology in the letter expressing how they treated him was wrong, all they did was say “we are ‘sorry’ to be seeing you leave” in order to cover up what they really did; harass Auto to the point where he left the server just because he disagreed with them. They harassed him so much that a few days later Auto said that he was less stressed and happier overall after he left in a conversation with me.
#THINK FOR YOURSELF, SPEAK FOR YOURSELF! Sincerely, Number_21 |
United WolvHaven disbands
Main Article: United WolvHaven
On November 12th 2020, United WolvHaven leader and Prime Minister CM_Raiders announced that they would be disbanding following the end of the term of the 13th Parliament of WolvHaven.
The following is the statement from the Prime Minister and the letter of cessation of activities provided by the United WolvHaven party.
| United WolvHaven Cessation of Activities Letter | Statement by CM_Raiders |
|---|---|
| To the community of Wolvhaven, We humbly thank you for your ongoing support in parliament over these past years. From our beginnings as the National Conservative Party, Party for Gardellia or the Centre, to our progression as Forward WolvHaven, to our final form as United WolvHaven, we have been humbled by your ongoing support. It is now, with our deepest regrets, we inform you of our exit from formal WolvHaven politics. In our time in parliament, we have had our ups and our downs but we have enjoyed almost every moment of it.
Ezzo
CM_Raiders, Prime Minister, Baymax1020, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance, Trade and the Economy, CaptainSlow_, Minister for Infrastructure and National Development, Grass_Jelly, Minister for Home Affairs, Hinwapoon, Leader of the House, MatthieuTofu, Minister for Education and Culture, _Aezo, Chief Minister of Gardellia, Minebuilder1223, Minister for Foreign Affairs, VincentLUMCFan, Member of Parliament, Kangaroo567, Former MP, Tony515, Former MP, boomdoom_, Secretary, Cupochan_, _somtinwong, TurboChan |
As a result, this has been my one and only term as Prime Minister. I must certainly say that it has been a wonderful time serving and while my real life commitments have gradually rendered my activity both in parliament and in WolvHaven to decrease, I sincerely wish the HoR and its future good luck in its future endeavours!
|
November 2020 Political Reforms
Main Article: November 2020 WolvHaven Political Reforms
The November 2020 WolvHaven Political Reforms were a series of reforms to the WolvHaven electoral and political system.
Under the proposed changes, Staff would no longer be allowed to run for nor stand in elections for positions in the House of Representatives and thus the House of Representatives would be made entirely of non-staffers, and represent the community’s interest whilst the Senate would be made entirely of staff, and members selected by the President for their expertise to represent server management’s interests. This would enable a clearer seperation of powers between the executive branch and the legislature which would reduce confusion over authority, resolve the strained community unity, eliminate issues linked to a lack of authority/power and those linked with concerns over conflict of interest.
2020 Referendum on the mode of representation
Main Article: 2020 Referendum on the mode of representation
The 2020 Referendum on the mode of representation was a referendum held from November 27th 2020 to November 29th 2020 to decide on future mode of representation starting from the February 2021 general election.
The referendum was comprised of three questions:
1. Do you support direct-elect ministerial positions (DEP)?
- Option 1 - Yes
- Option 2 - No
2. Under a direct-elect ministerial position system, do you want general Members of Parliament (MPs)?
- Option 1 - Yes
- Option 2 - No
3. If there are general Members of Parliament, how should they be elected?
- Option 1 - Using Single Transferrable Vote (STV)
- Option 2 - Using Party-List Proportionate system (PLP)
WolvHaveners voted in favour of the newly proposed direct-elect ministerial positions whilst continuing to favour general Members of Parliament who would be lected under the Single Transferrable Vote system.
| Question | % of vote for Option 1 | Number of vote for Option 1 | % of vote for Option 2 | Number of vote for Option 2 | Preferred Option |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Do you support direct-elect ministerial positions (DEP)?
Option 1 - Yes Option 2 - No||75.00% |
36/48 |
25.00% |
12/48 |
YES | |
| 2. Under a direct-elect ministerial position system, do you want general Members of Parliament (MPs)?
Option 1 - Yes Option 2 - No||66.67% |
32/48 |
33.33% |
16/48 |
YES | |
| 3. If there are general Members of Parliament, how should they be elected?
Option 1 - Using Single Transferrable Vote (STV) Option 2 - using Party-List Proportionate system (PLP)||68.75% |
33/48 |
31.25% |
15/48 |
STV |
WolvHaveners decide on Permanent Residency rank implementation
Main Article: 2020 Referendum on Permanent Residency (PR) Implementation
WolvHaveners decided on the implementation modalities of the Permanent Residency rank in the 2020 Referendum on Permanent Residency (PR) Implementation. This came after it was decided that the modalities of the rank were to be decided by all WolvHaveners rather than solely the House of Representatives and the Senate due to the controversial nature of the topic and due to the long period of time having elapsed since the bill was first voted on in Parliament in 2018.
The referendum was comrpised of five questions:
1. Should the PR rank be introduced?
- Option A - Yes
- Option B - No
2. How should it be implemented?
- Option A - Current Citizens shall not be demoted to PR rank
- Option B - Citizens who have committed serious crimes or who have a large number of previous offenses shall be demoted to PR rank
3. What should be the criteria for promotion to PR?
- Option A - Remove the need for an introductory letter and allow PRs with 1 warning to be promoted
- Option B - No changes to the provisions of the Permanent Residency Act, 2018
4. What should be the criteria for demotion to PR?
- Option A - Allow for inactive citizens to be demoted to PR rank
- Option B - No changes to the provisions of the Permanent Residency Act, 2018
5. What should the rights and privileges be for PR?
- Option A - Provide PRs with the same rights and privileges as citizens, except the right to participation in parliament and vote at elections
- Option B - No changes to the provisions of the Permanent Residency Act, 2018
WolvHaveners voted in favour of the PR rank whilst opting for current Citizens not to be demoted to the Permanent Resident rank whilst relaxing the criteria for promotion to Citizen and voting against provisions for inactive Citizens to be demoted to PR. In addition, WolvHaveners voted in favour of providing PRs with the same rights and privileges as citizens barring the right to participate in Parliament and vote in elections.
Following the referendum's result, Visitors promoted from January 15th were promoted to the PR rank rather than being promoted to the citizen rank. This was done on a temporary basis until Parliament confirmed the measures decided upon in the referendum. The first PRs would only be promoted to the citizen rank from March of the same year when the Citizen application process was finalised.
| Question | % of vote for Option A | Number of vote for Option A | % of vote for Option B | Number of vote for Option B | Preferred Option |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Should the PR rank be introduced?
Option A - Yes Option B - No||62.8% |
49/78 |
35.9% |
28/78 |
A | |
| 2. How should it be implemented?
Option A - Current Citizens shall not be demoted to PR rank Option B - Citizens who have committed serious crimes or who have a large number of previous offenses shall be demoted to PR rank||46.1% |
36/78 |
53.8% |
42/78 |
B | |
| 3. What should be the criteria for promotion to PR?
Option A - Remove the need for an introductory letter and allow PRs with 1 warning to be promoted Option B - No changes to the provisions of the Permanent Residency Act, 2018||67.9% |
53/78 |
35.9% |
25/78 |
A | |
| 4. What should be the criteria for demotion to PR?
Option A - Allow for inactive citizens to be demoted to PR rank Option B - No changes to the provisions of the Permanent Residency Act, 2018 ||28.2% |
22/78 |
71.8% |
56/78 |
B | |
| 5. What should the rights and privileges be for PR?
Option A - Provide PRs with the same rights and privileges as citizens, except the right to participation in parliament and vote at elections Option B - No changes to the provisions of the Permanent Residency Act, 2018||64.1% |
50/78 |
35.9% |
28/78 |
A |
TPA for all
In line with the TPA reform bill passed in Parliament of WolvHaven, the tpa commands were opened up from January 15th to all players ranked citizens and above for a fee of $10 per use.
Media Revolution
Launch of newsnet
Main Article: NewsNet WH
newsnet, WolvHaven's first independent media organization was launched in January 2020 by MatthieuTofu & CM_Raiders. It marked the end of the WolvHaven Broadcasting Corporation's monopoly on the WolvHaven media market. Launching from Studio 1 of the NewsNet Broadcasting Centre in onenorth in Gardellia on January 31st 2020 with the release of the January 2020 edition of Newsroom hosted by editor-in-chief and CEO MatthieuTofu, the new news network was widely praised by ordinary WolvHaveners.
Starting from March 2020, CM_Raiders joined MatthieuTofu in presenting Newsroom WolvHaven in the first edition to incorporate on-screen interviews with numerous interviews from across the server's political spectrum such as the then United WolvHaven Minister for Infrastructure and National Development Baymax1020 and independent statistican imperial_block.
Viewership of the newly-created news outlet soared with the contentious May 2020 General Election with newsnet being the first news outlet in WolvHaven history to interview all party representatives in an unprecedented election coverage package and the first independent news outlet to host an election debate. newsnet also revolutionized the way WolvHaveners waited for the results of elections with the launch of live election coverage involving political analysts and candidates.
WBC shifts its focus from news coverage
Following the increasing inactivity of the WolvHaven Broadcasting Corporation's news division and website, CEO Lykan announced on May 12th that the Corporation would be shifting its focus away from news coverage. He stated that the WBC had succeeded in its role in kickstarting the server's media industry, referencing the earlier launch of newsnet, and would instead be focusing its attention on enterntainement and documentaries.
Gardellia claiming suspended for national security reasons
Main Article: Gardellia
In a bid to avoid another Calais de Royale incident, claiming in Gardellia was suspended between February 18th 2020 and February 29th 2020, coinciding with the Minecart Rapid Transit server's migration to a new server machine dubbed 'Zeta'. This was made possible through the use of the National Security (Gardellian Claiming) Act.
Elytra Racing
mopsistudios hosted an elytra racing competition on March 25th. Players raced against each other to be the first to cross the finish line in a knockout tournament.
Gardellia lost, happy April Fool's Day! (April)
Main Article: Gardellia
#helpop ticket system
The standalone #helpop channel on WolvHaven's official Discord server was replaced by a new ticketing system from April 19th. The new system would require tickets to be created by players seeking Staff assistance and would only be visible to the ticket creator and Staff.
Following a sucessful trial period, the new ticket system was retained.
AdminShop opens
The Adminshop at Republic Mall was opened by the United WolvHaven Minister for Infrastructure and National Development, BargainBinAdmin on May 5th. Subsequently, the Jobs plugin was also removed from the server.
WolvHaven subreddit launched
Click here to access the official WolvHaven Subreddit
The official WolvHaven Subreddit was launched on May 7th by Jotch and CM_Raiders.
DevCom launched
Main Article: Federal Republic of WolvHaven Development Commission
The Development Commission (DevCom) of WolvHaven was launched on the 22nd of June. The Commission, headed by nixholas, aims to improve and optimise WolvHaven's server infrastructure swiftly and securely. Because the Commission works on server-critical tasks, it reports solely to President SilverWolv.
Server returns to Singapore
The server returned to Singapore on a new machine following a migration conducted between the 15th and 16th of June.
Captcha launched in the wake of spam attacks (June)
Pride 2020
Main Article: WolvHaven Pride
The first WolvHaven Pride was held on 27 June 2020, 2PM UTC, mainly organized by Littledoggy2 and CrazySharkGaming. The parade was first held in 2020 as lockdowns around the world due to the COVID-19 Pandemic caused real-life pride parades to be rescheduled or canceled entirely. The parade was held in Capitol Island (Fifth Haven), and participants marched from City Hall to Parade Grounds (Fifth Haven), along the Boulevard at the center of the island. Participants lined up together with wearing banners as hats to form a "PRIDE20" banner, and they marched alongside floats that were constructed along the boulevard. The parade led to the server hitting its latest record of players online at a given time of 30, the server's maximum player slots at the time.
The event had all members of the community contribute. The iconic pastel-colored howling wolf with a heart logo was created by Teh_Red. Meanwhile, street decorations and banners were made by ohuehue. Perfecttrains helped to build the firework systems.
A monument commemorating the event was built in the park behind Parade Grounds.
Server leadership changes
Ahead of President SilverWolv's start of university-level studies, he announced major changes to the server's leadership on August 5th.
Since the 1st of August, two of the staff team’s existing admins had been entrusted and given the power to make overall decisions concerning the server with a new rank having been created for these two staff members namely the PSO(OPS) and PSO(PC) ranks.
- Principal Staff Officer (Policy and Community)
- Jotch was appointed as the server’s PSO for Policy and Community responsible for overseeing, identifying, and addressing any issues or disputes within the community in general.
- Principal Staff Officer (Operations)
- mopsistudios was appointed as the server’s PSO for Operations responsible for overseeing and looking into the server’s administrative processes; such as application processing and regulatory enforcement.
In addition nixholas was appointed as the server’s new development commissioner and was in charge in overseeing the server’s technical aspects such as uptime and upkeep of plugins together with his appointed team of server devs.
[Embed newsnet coverage]
Whistle-blowing form launched
In a bid to increase accountability and encourage reporting, a whistle-blowing form was launched at the end of October. It enabled players to report rule infractions, and issues such as staff misconduct anonymously.
Staff departments reorganization
Main Article: Staff
In line with the implementation of the November 2020 WolvHaven Political Reforms, the staff team was once again restructured into new departments from November.
- Ministry for Internal Affairs (MIA)
- Gardellian Affairs & Regulation Department (GARD)
- Ministry for Infrastructure and National Development (MIND)
- Ministry for Culture and Foreign Affairs (MCFA)
- Development Commission of WolvHaven (DevCom)
Calidia launched
Main Article: Calidia
Issues with the Gardellia world after 4 years were starting to show. The decision to space claiming stations and locations approximately 500m apart posed several issues as players expanded their claims and cities to other nearby stations.
The earlier decision to space stations 500m apart was made in reference to 4th Haven's size, and certain claims were starting to outgrow the original estimates which were made in 2016. These claims were limited as their adjacent stations had also been claimed by other claims, causing very unnatural elongated claims to form.
Several disputes had already started to form and SilverWolv decided that a new complementing world would be the optimal solution to Gardenia's problems.
The new world, named Calidia following a vote by WolvHaveners, opened on Christmas Day 2020.
2021: as the world starts living with COVID, the server adjusts to a new normal
Parliament's demise
Main Article: Parliament of WolvHaven
February 2021 General Election: the first under the reformed system
Main Article: General Election of WolvHaven, February 2021
July 2021 General Election: the last General Election
Main Article: General Election of WolvHaven, July 2021
August 2021 By-Election: the first and last By-Election
Main Article: By-election of WolvHaven, August 2021
The August 2021 by-election was held between August 27th 2021 and August 29th 2021 to elect a new Minister for Infrastructure and National Development as the seat was rendered vacant by the resignation of incumbent minister YoshiBoyAdvance on August 11th 2021, only a month into the term of the 15th Parliament of WolvHaven. It was the first ever by-election held after the November 2020 reforms and whole of WolvHaven history.
Turnout dropped from the July 2021 General Election, with only 33 WolvHaveners casting their ballots.
| Party | Candidate | Final Count % | Final Count | Elected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Independent | Heiopeii | 90.91% |
30/33 |
ELECTED |
| Independent | LittleDragon2187 | 9.09% |
3/33 |
|
| - | Spoiled Votes | - | 0/33 |
Indefinite suspension of the House of Representatives
Following a period of unprecedented low parliamentary and server activity during the term of the 15th Parliament of WolvHaven, no general election was called to elect House of Representative MPs for the 16th Parliament of WolvHaven. In effect, this resulted in the indefinite suspension of the House of Representatives since December 18th 2021, the last parliamentary session of the 15th Parliament of WolvHaven.
Perfect Trains with a dash of Rickroll (1 Apr)
WolvHaven celebrates its tenth anniversary (2 Apr)
Metro+ C series launched
Main Article: Metro+
In line with the routine maintenance and renewal of the Metro+ ticketing system, Metro+ B-Series cards were phased out from March 3rd and were completely replaced by C-Series cards from April 6th.
New wiki launched
Following the return of the server to Singapore on a dedicated machine owned and maintained by the WolvHaven server itself in June 2020, a new self-hosted server wiki was launched in June 2021.
This followed numerous complaints by server members which were heard and expressed by server leadership too regarding the previous Shoutwiki service. The outsourced wiki was plagued by numerous disruptions out of the control of staff.
[VIP] rank phased out, [PS] tag introduced
Main Article: Ranks
On June 3rd 2021, President SilverWolv announced changes to the server's rank system.
The [VIP] rank was retired from the server complately following careful consideration and consultation, with all past members with the rank being demoted back to [Citizen]. The President noted that while the rank was meant to reward and recognise players who frequently patronised the server in the past, that it was time to recognise that the rank no longer served its purpose, neither did it represent the current community. He added that whilst most of the community wanted a clear-cut well defined criteria for the VIP rank should it be reintroduced, as rewarding it was previously subjective and prone to unintended bias, it was too challenging to come up with a new criteria, thus the rank would be discontinued altogether.
In tandem, a Public Servant [PS] tag, was introduced to give more recognition to non-staffers who help keep the server running. Public Servants are members on the server who either have limited enforcement powers or members who commonly work with or assist staff in server operations such as Train Examiners under MIND, Wiki Curators under MCFA, and members of the Parliamentary Service.
Pride 2021
Main Article: WolvHaven Pride
The 2021 edition of the parade was held on 26 June 2021, 2PM UTC, mainly organised by Littledoggy2 and CrazySharkGaming, held in the same location as the parade in 2020. Along with the parade came several infrastructure improvements, such as the removal of the original stage that was built in 2020. The stage was replaced with a smaller, more permanent structure by National Solutions Group which would be used for all future events held at the same venue in the future. The updated stage was smaller, but fit in with the rest of the world better in terms of scale.
The 2021 edition also placed a larger emphasis on trans rights and further showed its support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the states, the main stage featured light blue, pink, and white. While not shown in the main march, the official promotional video for the event - the Wolv Haven Rainbow Crossing featured the colors of the progress flag. The zebra crossing was transformed into one with the six colors of the rainbow, the trans pride colors, black, and brown.
Players were treated to games such as Splegg, Paintball, and MobArena - a new addition to WolvHaven's events. However, due to unforseen technical difficulties, many did not play splegg.
A Float design competition was also announced in the 2021 edition, and 18 floats were contributed by the community.
[Embed YT Video (Pride Crossing — WolvHaven Pride 2021)]
Server rules simplified (July)
[Embed YT Video (Presentation: Major changes to the server rules you need to know)]
Vision 2023 announced
Main Article: Vision 2023
Vision 2023, a strategic framework to shift the WolvHaven server from a mixed survival-roleplay creative server to a creative-focused server, was announced on October 27th 2021 with an aim for completion by 2023. Key goals included reducing the complexity of the server experience, and further accelerated development of WolvHaven City's fifth iteration - New Wolfminster. Vision 2023 marks the largest change in the server since its inception; departing from its traditional mixed survival-roleplay and creative structure. Ultimately, it was to convert the server to attract a more generic audience, in light of competition from other games such as Roblox for the server's niche transit enthusiast player base.
2022: Shift to a creative-focused server
The ephemeral Building Blasts
Main Article: Building Blasts
Building Blasts were community events introduced on March 26th. Scheduled every fortnight on Saturday at 2PM UTC, players were invited to work together on different projects, primarily in New Wolfminster. These projects could range from building actual buildings, or doing 'menial tasks' such as road building/street decor. In these events more seasoned builders were able to work with less experienced/newer builders and teach them to make better builds with the aim of improving everyone's overall building standard. These building blasts also aimed to increase community cohesion and players often joined onto voice chats to converse and enjoyed music together using the music bot on the WolvHaven official Discord. In addition builds were showcased on newsnet's fortnightly Building Blast Showcase segment. However Buildings Blasts were cancelled in June due to a lack of participation.
[Embed Building Blast Showcase]
WolvHaven on r/place
Main Article: WolvHaven on r/place
r/place was a collaborative project and social experiment hosted on the social networking site Reddit that began on April Fools' Day 2017 and was revived again after five years on April Fools' Day 2022. The WolvHaven community contributed to the project in the form of the server's logo during the 2022 event.
New Sandbox launched (Aug 29)
Main Article: Sandbox
New Survival World, Avalon, launched (soon)
Removal of manual metro lines
Gradual phasing out of drivers in tandem with the closure of 4H
First announced as part of the Vision 2023 program, the retirement of manual metro lines was confirmed by President SilverWolv on May 1st 2022.
He stated that when the transition to FifthHaven was officially made, that support for official manually operated metro lines would cease. This meant that operations for WolvHaven Metro Lines 4, 5, 6 and 7 would be suspended by 2023 and that there would not be any manually operated lines in New Wolfminster.
He explained his decision by stating that support for the manual lines had been getting increasingly difficult with the with the majority of train examiners being unavailable most of the time, making it hard to match players with examiners who are online at the same time. That a lot of administrative burden was involved in the upkeep of the system including the upkeep of driver records, and necessary custom plugins to tackle cheating in the system by players abusing exploits which were becoming increasingly burdenous on Staff. He also noted that a disproportionate amount of effort to serve a niche section of the community and that Staff had noted that the majority of the players who came on to drive trains only came online just to drive trains, and rarely interacted with other aspects of the server, or its community. This linked into his point that the gamemode was unsustainable and that players who came on just to drive metro trains eventually got bored or tired of the system and leave, whereby the only thing that would entice them to return would be an expansion of the system itself which was not sustainable.
Relaxation of driving restrictions
As promised in May 2022, on October 8th 2022, President SilverWolv announced that from October 14th 2022, manual metro lines would be able to be driven by players who do not hold licenses and that players were able to access warps for the depots of these lines in the DOT building in La Resistance/Dakota. All past driver blacklists were also waived.