A world where someone lives
By September 21 Anarchy had rules but no life: not a single mob lived in its world, chests stored nothing, and sand hung in the air. In one week the world came alive — so fast that on the busiest day 282 changes went into it.
TNT that was a stone
The week began with TNT. The tinderbox now lights a real four-second fuse: the stick stays put, smoke curls above it, and you can't put it out. TNT caught in an explosion goes off next, in a chain. We tested it on a 21 by 21 by 21 cube — that's 9,261 sticks at once — and the server didn't fall behind by a single tick.
Along the way something funny came out: until that day TNT looked like ordinary stone both in the world and in your pockets, and made no sound. Now it looks like TNT and sounds like it. You can buy it from the Buyer — not cheaply: starter coins alone won't get you one. A day later special charges appeared too: the “Blast Charge”, almost four times stronger than a regular one, and the “Bunker Buster”, which crushes even obsidian. And claims in Anarchy no longer protect against explosions.
An empty world
On September 22 we decided the main thing: Anarchy comes out only as a whole, with everything it's supposed to have — events, bosses, special TNT and raids on claims. It got its own button in the lobby and a card with a poster drawn right in code: dusk, a ruined tower, two people with swords facing each other and an explosion crater. Three signs — three rules of the mode: here you fight, here you break, here you blow things up.
And then we looked at the world itself — and saw how empty it was. Not a single mob lived in it. A placed chest stored nothing. There was no furnace, no buckets or flowing water, and farmland didn't grow. In one day all of it appeared: herds in their biomes, zombies that come at night and burn at dawn, chests, barrels and furnaces, buckets and water, homes and /tpa.
A stone from the sky
The same day Anarchy got world events. Nine stashes on a schedule: a click — and five minutes later the stash opens, with a zone around it where you can't build or break. Ten raid bosses with their own names — from the Flame Regent to Rockbreaker. And the “Red-Hot Stone”: “A red-hot stone crashed from the sky — split it together!” To split it, the whole server needs a thousand hits. If you don't make it in ten minutes, the loot is shared among those who hit it. Die at the stone and your hits burn away.
Wednesday, 282 changes
September 23 was the busiest day of the week. Physics came alive: sand falls, a chopped treetop no longer hangs in the air forever, saplings grow into trees. Experience appeared — before, Anarchy didn't have a single line of it. Players learned to burn in fire and lava (before, they didn't burn at all). A bar went up at the top, the scoreboard on the right. Wings learned to glide, clans got levels and chat, and regular chat became audible within a hundred blocks.
On the spawn map, where nothing can be broken, one exception appeared — the auto-mine. It's a cube of 8,712 blocks that refills every ten minutes. The decision was short: “Auto-mines can be broken.”
Voices, runes and the second hand
On September 24 new voices went into the game: 133 animal voices and 137 monster voices. We listened to each one first and chose: some were accepted whole, some in part, and the polar bear was sent back to be redone. The new monster voices turned out noticeably louder than the old ones, and they were leveled right away. (Right now game sounds are off by default — you can turn them on in the settings.)
The same day runes appeared. The “Rune of Might”: eat it and you get regeneration, a big reserve of health, resistance and fire protection. The “Rune of Wandering” moves you to a random safe spot nearby. The “Rune of Blink” flies in an arc, and you're moved to where it lands. And the “Last breath charm”, which saves you from death. And by midnight players got a second hand, which didn't exist at all before: the F key swaps hands. Today the charm works precisely from it.
The morning and evening of one table
Friday, September 25, was the day of the big turn. At 9:50 a.m. the table for item powers worked for the first time. And in the afternoon came: “Let's not call them that anymore. Let them be enhancements.” And it was decided to win them not at a table but from an NPC at spawn — for experience: the more experience you put in, the higher the chance of something rare.
By evening it already worked. The Cutter on the spawn map spins a drum for experience. Common, rare, epic and legendary enhancements come out; what you win goes into your personal stash, and you can apply it to an item with him too. Two identical powers merge into one a level higher. The table was closed that same evening at 9:26 p.m. — it worked for less than twelve hours.
The Cutter and the Infuser got this look on October 3; in September simple figures stood in their places.
That same Friday the bow fired for the first time. Until then kits handed it out with the honest note “bow shooting isn't in the game yet”. Skeletons learned to draw the string so that you can see and hear it: the bow creaks and trembles before the shot, and you can dodge the arrow if you're watching. Weapons got an attack charge with a bar under the crosshair: every weapon has its own speed, and a hit “on the beat” strikes as a critical even from the ground. The “War Crossbow” and the “War Harpoon” appeared — and mobs that use them: drowned with harpoons and bandits with crossbows (today they're called marauders). And zombies' “outstretched” arms turned out to have been sticking out… behind their backs all this time.
“Is there a lot more besides this?”
On Saturday, September 26, came the question: “Besides this, is there a lot more that'll need doing?” We recounted the list of everything Anarchy must have at launch: of 451 items, 195 were done, with about forty big chunks of work ahead. The answer was one word — “Everything.” That is, quests, crates with keys and everything else get done before the launch, not after.
And the work went in big chunks. The same day flasks with their own names appeared — “Hop Brew”, “Frisky Kvass”, “Vial of St. John's Wort” and ten more — along with the Infuser, who mixes two flasks into one with the effects of both. Six crates that open with keys went up. The charm crate stood closed during the day with the sign “there are no charms in the game yet — keep the key, it'll come in handy”. In the evening the charms arrived — 31 talismans for the second hand that add health, speed, damage or armor — and the crate opened. Quests in three chapters appeared too: “Mirra's Archive”, “Torvald's Outpost” and “Ilva's Observatory”, fifteen tasks in a row each.
Sunday
By Sunday evening 42 of the 45 new enhancements worked. “Lode Chaser” digs out a whole ore vein, “Felling” brings down the entire tree, under “Firestep” lava hardens, “Footbridge” lets you walk on water, and “Cat Paws” cancels fall damage. Each of the ten bosses already had 8–12 moves. The bed became a respawn point, and the TAB player list started showing ranks and ping.
Players hadn't seen any of this yet. The whole week — more than seven hundred changes — reached them all at once five days later, on October 2.