The never ending contest is going to come to an end one way or another. Today we had a fireworks display (to which nobody showed) I figured that it would be a good time for players to vote. Only 2 did and one did not follow the instructions.

Voting will end at 10pm EST 07-05-2016.
Voting instructions:
1) Take 1 book from the dropper at /warp contest grounds and write the plot numbers of your choices for the top 5 most helpful / informative builds.
2) Sign the book and drop it in the hopper where you got it.

Please congratulate MrBrittas on his promotion to Scout rank. He has shown himself to be a very helpful Tutor and seems to always have an answer to Minecraft questions. Not to mention he can AFK like a pro (stop pointing fingers at some Archons).

Edit: The update has been completed!

As noted on the 1.9 Upcoming World Changes thread, Essalo will be reset during the update and Ateph may have chunks regenerated afterwards. Please remove anything valued you may have placed in those two worlds. Deleting homes in those worlds is also advised, so you do not accidentally teleport into block after the update.

It may be still a week or three before the main server is updated to 1.9, a thread update will be posted when a date is more certain. In the meanwhile, a solution is being worked on to allow 1.9 connections to at least the lobby server.

Date posted at Update to 1.9 thread.

The above noted, here's what to expect when the main server can be updated.

Lokai
Traditionally, major updates involve expanding the map of the main world to accommodate new features. With this update, most new blocks and items appear in the end world, not the over world. All new items will be obtainable without Lokai being expanded.

Essalo
As the official end world for Pearl, Essalo will be reset during or shortly after the upgrade to 1.9....

MrBrittas noticed that I forgot to post the winners of the January Voting contest and has demanded a penance.
Even though my payments to _cache_, lordsirrom42 and MadMaeMarch have knocked me from the /money top list it seems the staff of Pearl MC thinks this is not enough. They are set to see my RP level be so low as to not be able to run my shop at the market.
To that end another contest has been demanded, being a lowly archon I must do the bidding of our officers and tutors.
This contest will not be the same as our prior build contest. What is different you ask?

The theme of this build contest will be Redstone / Tutorial builds. Contestant's builds should reflect some aspect of a tutorial. This can be redstone, server, or tips and strategies that will help players learn...

The regeneration of our custom world Ateph has been completed, it is now a fluffy place to die, and die, and die.