Like Walt, Imaginears Club had very humble beginnings. We started on an old laptop using a 3G connection. Our server said we had 20 slots, but 9 Guests later and we were struggling to stay online. My, how far we’ve come. It’s very much like the many new theme park servers that sprout up each year. Right now, we count about 10 new servers in the past month– all of which waving their hands to be seen.

When Imaginears Club started (as MCDisney), there were no other servers of the kind anywhere in the world. We were the first theme park, first Disney related server & first Walt Disney World related server. We did not have competition, nor did we care if we did. (Still don’t, although it should never be viewed as competition since none of us are in an actual business.) Our only competition was regular survival servers and a few creative ones. Our version of competing with them was to simply state that we had a safe place to play, free from trolling, swearing and personal information sharing. There was never a time when we attacked them or talked bad about them to make ourselves look better. That would only hurt our image…AND DISNEY’S!!! Why would we want to do that? That’s just silly!

(I talked about a lot of this IN MARCH. In fact, I even posted about it A SECOND TIME later that same month.)

We need to be 100% clear: Imaginears Club has never and would never attack, malign, disrespect, gossip about or in any way be unprofessional towards the creation or existence of servers that emulate us. It is against the very fabric of our creation. Like Disney, nothing in Imaginears Club’s history, our tweets, our social media, or any postings, content, discussions or mumble recordings in 4 long and well-documented years has ever shown different. The evidence just doesn’t exist.

Imaginears Club is proud to have influenced so many to start their own servers. That is why we created the PARTNER PROGRAM. Those are servers (whether or not they are 100% Disney) that share our goals, views and belief in safety, security & happiness. We vouch for them because each of our partners have a proven history of positivity and Guest service.

We’re honored to have been officially associated with Disney, recently, and continue to learn from their 60+ year history of running Theme Parks. Learning from that history, we know that there is no place in this market for rumors, trolling, jealousy, trash talking, vengeance or any of the other negative emotions. It has never had a place in the Wonderful World of Disney. We should all be celebrating, playing, having fun, meeting new people, sharing ideas, and growing the family.

Disney has a simplified list of 4 keys that every Cast Member must follow. (a more in-depth list is in the image on this post) These keys should be the basis for ALL servers:

1. I project a positive image and energy.
2. I am courteous and respectful to all Guests, including Children.
3. I stay in character and play the part.
4. I go above and beyond.

Imaginears Club has a few additions. Our DOs and Don’ts for server owners:

1. Don’t start a server (or run it) with a mission like “We can do it better than [insert name here]”.
2. Don’t bother yourself with what everyone else is doing.
3. Don’t ever bash others on social media.
4. Don’t fall victim to (or spread) gossip and rumors.
5. DO give the Guests something to be excited about.
6. DO focus on your own server and how to constantly improve it.
7. DO be a guiding light that people gravitate towards, emulating positivity.
8. DO find ways to be unique, like a butterfly or snowflake, and let that one-of-a-kind beauty shine.
9. DO offer your mods and admins incentives.
10. DO trust, share & reflect positivity.

Follow these simple guidelines and the Guests will come.

Imaginears Club is always looking for more Partners. The field is massive, right now, and we wish them all the very best. Who knows? You could be our next Partner!

Imaginears Club August Update

Legobuilder0813, Manager

Hey, everyone! Summer’s almost over, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop having some fun! There have been so many changes since the last update (which can be found here).

Lets start off with the New Staff Members announced at the Meeting on Saturday:

Intern:

• __Tyler__

• Uniphication

• Sealands

Cast Members:

• NolotheRolo

• jedder

• The_Bloodhound

Make sure you congratulate them when you see them on our servers! Also, applications are now open to become a Staff Member! The application can be found here! They will be open for 5 days, so be sure to get yours in!

The Big Update

During the month of July, we released a lot of new changes to the server that we’ve been working on for a very long time! For starters, we migrated our servers to a different data center. Instead of being hosted on the West Coast, we’re now hosted on the East Coast. This increases everyone’s connection, even our friends on the other side of the Atlantic! During the transfer, connection was difficult for a bit while we fixed all of the issues with the transfer, but it’s all up and running now. But we’ve had more things to show off than the better connection. Here’s a full list of everything we changed in the past few months:

Everywhere:

• Coins and Credits have now become Money and Tokens, and all values have been reset to default. Everyone starts with $250 and 0 Tokens. DVC Members and Shareholders should receive their proper amount of Tokens which will be used later this year.
• Inventories have been reset with this update so everyone starts fresh.
• Introduction of the [Shareholder] Rank to provide recognition for those who are able to donate $20 or more. Shareholder does not come with any more perks than a DVC Membership does.

In the Parks:

• Inventories have been reset with this update so everyone starts fresh.
• Auto-Resource Pack system has been added, choose a Resource Pack and it will always download to you automagically every time you join the server. You do not have to use this feature, just choose “None” in the Resource Pack Menu.
• Guests are now able to customize their MagicBand’s Name Color and the Color of the MagicBand, however, Special Edition MagicBands are only for DVC Members.
• All Special Edition MagicBands are free. (This is still for DVC Members and Shareholders only)
• Players can now rent out Hotel Rooms on the Resorts Server! (/join Resorts) We are currently working on some new Hotels that will be available in the future as well!
• The cross-server inventories no longer lose player’s inventories. If you experience such an issue, please notify a staff member immediately.
• Guests are no longer able to sign autograph books. To sign, you must be a character or special guest.
• You’re no longer allowed to drop items on the ground. Some users were using this to spam unwanted items in another player’s inventory.
• There is a new [Queue] System that all rides have been updated to. This system will ensure everyone will get on the ride they want to and the ride will not breakdown from too many guests. This system is explained more in-depth later in the update.
• Removed the “Create a Report” option in the MagicBand, that is no longer going to be a feature. Instead, the Resource Pack Menu has been moved from My Profile to the Main Menu.
• A new feature, Player Settings, has been created in the My Profile menu. It can be used to disable unwanted features and also block flash/strobe effects for users who may need it.
• Stitch’s Great Escape is back up and running!
• Toy Story Mania has the shooting parts of the game working!
• Shows now have some cool new features to play with!
• Shops are now custom, items will be found in many locations with some of those items only found in special areas. (ex. Elsa doll will only be found in Norway)

On Creative:

• Plots have been reset, schematics are available for those who claimed them at this link: https://goo.gl/aaupTU
• New Creative Menu (/menu) which has all you need like a Banner Creator, Head Shop, and more!
• DVC Members no longer get a second free plot, everyone starts out with one. We realized we were in violation of Mojang’s EULA (https://goo.gl/2WqHZ6) by giving out a second plot to DVC Members.
• Using money, which can be earned from riding rides, participating in events or playing Arcade Games, you can purchase a second plot! The price hasn’t been determined yet.
• You cannot purchase more than one extra plot, no one is permitted to own more than two at any time.

That’s the entire list! If you see something on there that doesn’t exist right now, we’re probably working on releasing it very soon.

Briefly mentioned in the above list was the new [Queue] System every ride has been updated to, this is how it works. All you have to do is walk up to the ride and go through the queue, click on the [Queue] Sign, wait until you’re next in line and you’re teleported into the ride and the carts spawn for you. This system ensures everyone gets a fair chance to get on their favorite ride without having to deal with crowds or broken rides. Since you no longer spawn the cart, the system takes care of it. Unless there is some catastrophic system failure, rides won’t break down anymore. And incase they do (because accidents do happen) just call a CM over and they’ll be happy to fix the ride for you.

New Epcot

The wait is over, New Epcot has finally been released! It can be accessed at either /join Epcot or /warp Epcot, exactly where old Epcot was. There’s no need to create a list of what’s new in New Epcot, it’s all new! Since the New Epcot is open, we’re going to start to run a newer version of IROE instead of the older one. This one has been improved in so many ways, it’s amazing! (Special Credit for Steven_Davison and MixMasterJacob, they were the main people working on New IROE).

Our 4th Anniversary!

2015 marks Imaginears Club’s 4th complete year! That’s amazing, can you believe that? We’ve also grown so much and improved over our years from experience! We’re celebrating the entire month on our Seasonal Server which can be accessed by typing /join Seasonal anywhere on our server. The theme is Four Parks One Dream where we celebrate the four Disney Parks around the world. We also have an island called Nautica Cays built by the amazing team at NauticalCraft who created our Disney Cruise Line Ships. What would a celebration lasting an entire month be without a custom Imaginears Club Show? Every day for the whole month we will be showing our Fireworks Spectacular Dreams Come True. We also made a video on our YouTube Channel to celebrate our Anniversary! Click here for the link to the video.

The Arcade Update

That’s right, we’re bringing the Arcade back and it’ll be better than ever! We’re starting fresh with some completely new Arcade Games! Unfortunately, that does mean we have to remove the current ones. I think you’ll like the new games, though! As of right now we have two Arcade Games planned and have already started working on them. However, we’ve only released info on one of them. The other will be a surprise to come later!

Capture the Flag

Remember when we first mentioned this Arcade Game back in January? Yeah, it’s been sitting on the back burner for a while now while we updated the Parks with a whole bunch of new things. Now we’re going to pick it up again! Here’s a brief summary about Capture the Flag:

This game has 4 teams of 10 players, 40 players in total. Only 16 players are required to start a game. The teams are Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. Each has a “base” in a corner of the map. There are barriers between the teams, this prevents them from interacting until the barriers fall. Players will have 10 minutes to gather resources, craft, enchant, etc. After those 10 minutes, the barriers will fall and the fun will begin. There are 5 flags players will capture: One for each team and one in the Center. The goal for each team is to capture every other flag on the map before another team does. If a team captures all flags before another team captures their flag, they will receive bonus Money. The exact amounts of Money a player will receive has not been decided yet. Players will also be able to select from five kits at the start of each game. They will be able to make upgrades to these kits in the Arcade Lobby. There’s one last thing about this game. Since we’ve removed the Imagination Games, the Nightmares from there have nowhere to go. They’ve invaded this game! Throughout the game Nightmares will spawn in at random places, that should be fun!

This game has not been finished yet and a release date has not been determined. When we have one, you will know. Be sure to follow us on our Social Media Accounts for the latest information!

That’s all we have for now! We have some really cool things in store for you guys in the coming months. I can’t wait to release it all! Please remember if you ever have any questions, comments or concerns with anything  just contact a Staff Member on the server or fill out a form here on our website. Have a great day!

Stitch’s Great Escape has returned!

After being closed for months, we have finally started to show Stitch’s Great Escape again! The first showing was tonight, August 5th at 10:00. Due to the small size of the Show Room, we can only fit up to 56 people in one showing. We had so many people that wanted to see the show, we had to show it three times! Here’s a picture of the crowd during the second pre-show.

It was so much fun! I would like to personally thank the people who re-created the entire show. They are MixMasterJacob, Xavier9214, Zafacon2 and ZACx209. They worked so hard and the end result was amazing. Be sure to thank them if you see them on the server!

We are going to start to show Stitch’s Great Escape more frequently since it’s back up and running! Keep an eye out in chat for an announcement, it runs at random times at /warp SGE! That’s all for now, see you at the Public Meeting this Saturday at 4pm EST.

Our valued Guests have always known that we are dedicated to their fun, happiness, safety and comfort. Most of the work we do is unseen…happening every day, backstage. From keeping chat clean, to making sure our Guests have all they want, to running shows– our Cast Member volunteers work extra hard to make sure every day is the best.

Creating the largest, most visited and safest Parks possible takes more than work. It also costs a significant amount of money to run. Donations have helped, but the bulk of our costs are still covered by generous Cast Members and our owner.

We want to offer all of you even more in the coming months and years. More developers, plugins, games, shows, rides, events…the list is long. In order for us to do that, though, we need your help.

Walt once said about building parks: “Biggest problem? Well, I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life. MONEY. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.”
This has been our focus, too, so we’re looking for generous Guests to help us fill up our donations more than ever before. It’s time for us to expand and we can only do that with your support.

Head over to http://store.imaginears.club and choose ‘CLUB 33’. Once there, donate as much as you can. If we can get over $2000 in donations, we can do more than you could ever imagine (and we know that’s a lot!).

We are so excited about the future of Imaginears Club and our Partner servers and what we have planned. Our hope is to bring that to you sooner, rather than later. You can also help by sharing this post, retweeting it and linking to it on social media. Everything helps.

Thanks and have a MAGICAL 4th anniversary month!

As Walt says in the image above: “Money doesn’t excite me…ideas excite me”. That has been our approach from the day we opened. Keep it free for everyone. We should never have to worry about money.

We still want to hold true to that idea, however, with growth comes responsibilities. We are now at a stage when the hiring of developers, full-time staff and special tools is a requirement to continue this amazing growth. The more Guests we welcome through the gates, the more we need to provide.

So, we’re reaching out to those of you who have the ability to help us take giant leaps forward. We need your help to be able to bring on new Technicians, Developers, & Managers that have the skills and purchase the tools needed to propel us even further into the future.

Please, visit store.imaginears.club and make a donation of more than $20. You will be given a ‘SHAREHOLDER’ tag for recognition and the knowledge that you are helping us move into a Great Big Beautiful Tommorrow.

It is our hope that your donations will allow us unfettered growth potential and allow us to welcome even more happy Guests.

Thanks and have a MAGICAL Day!

In recent months, Imaginears Club’s popularity & growth has been moving at light speed. With that comes challenges. One of those challenges is dealing with attackers who, for some reason we have yet to understand, feel they need to spend tons of money to fail at bringing our servers down. Sure, we see temporary interruptions, but the attacks rarely last longer than 5 minutes. Still, it is a safety and security concern we must address.

We run a server dedicated to the MAGIC of Disney. That should only evoke positive, happy thoughts & actions. Our worries should be about filling food dispensers or running a show on time. I mean, what sort of person would take the time (and spend the tons of money it requires) to bother a bunch of children and families who just want to have fun? Sadly, they do and that is why we now have better tools to deal with them. Plus, we know who some of them are because they used their personal emails to create those accounts. (More on that another time.)

Here are a few of the new ways we are working harder to protect you and keep the MAGIC alive for everyone to enjoy:

Failed DDOS

• We now have ways to track down the individuals who are attacking our servers. Plus, we’re working even closer with law enforcement to make sure their actions can no longer have an effect. In fact, in the past 24 hours we have more data than we ever did before on who those attackers are. We also have individuals informing us, regularly, on some of the other servers attacking us. Expect more news on that, soon. (Last night, they flooded us in 1 hour with a 2GB attack. It failed. We stayed up. You can see that jump in the image to the right – Failed DDOS)

X4B in action

• We purchased top-tier level DDOS protection from a company called X4B. This is the same protection the very top servers have. Sending packets is the most common attack, so what it does is re-route that traffic elsewhere, keeping the Imaginears Club you know and love online longer with fewer issues! (See an example from last night to the right – X4B in action)

• Our website, mumble & servers are now hosted on their own individual boxes. This means each part of Imaginears Club is separate from the next. Before, all our servers went through the same route. Now, if they take one down, the others remain up and running without interruption!

Our new panel

• New tools to help our Managers and Cast Members monitor the servers. Our old servers were based in 4 different panels, making monitoring and running them difficult and cumbersome. Now, all our panels are located in the same place. Plus, they have a mobile device interface to offer even more flexibility. Our Cast Members can access this from anywhere. It shows users, memory, server status, versions…everything we need to make sure your favorite server is online. (An example of the new panel is on the right – Our new panel)

• Working directly with our host, MCProHosting and their technicians and managers, to provide around the clock protection. MCProHosting is the world’s leader in Minecraft server solutions. They host the very best, top servers in the world including our good friends at HyPixel. Thanks to our partnership with them, you can expect more improvements down the road!

Imaginears Club is dedicated to your protection. No other server offers our level of security and safety. From the anti-swear technology we developed in-house that keeps chat clean, to our over 100 Cast Member volunteers from all over the world keeping the servers monitored at all times, we pride ourselves in the level of protection we can offer. Now, we can add the many items above to our long list of ways we’re working hard to keep you secure and happy.

Our goal is to run the servers so you never have to see or hear about these things again. Just like the real security at Walt Disney World Resort, we want the safety of our Guests to be out-of-sight and out-of-mind. You should be more worried about how many rides you can go on and how many shows you can see in a day, right?

We are fully informed as to who our biggest attackers are. We know many of them used to come to Imaginears Club. Some of them even went on to run their own servers. That is why we started the PARTNER PROGRAM. It lets you know who is safe and who is trusted in the community. Plus, we have always had a policy of non-interference with any non-partnered server. We never tweet about, bother, go on, troll or in any way pay attention to our competitors. All Cast Members agree to a level of respect, honor & honesty when they are hired. We ask them never to interact with non-partnered servers on their personal accounts so that we can avoid drama & issues. This policy has been in place since we started and will continue into the future.

We believe in transparency & honesty with our Guests. You are our most important reason for doing this. Everything we do is with you in mind. Your enjoyment, happiness and safety are our top priorities. We want you to visit our parks and have the best time, free from worry or concerns. That’s the way Walt Disney wanted it for his parks.

We hope you have a MAGICAL time and enjoy yourselves, even more, knowing how much we do behind the scenes to protect and serve you.

Sincerely,

David Wasman

Owner/Founder of imaginears