I also received the SIGC award which is now engraved:

Spirit of the rules:  The reward block is intended as a reward for players completing a challenge you have built.  It is also acceptable to use one as a town guestbook.

Specifics:

1. An active, populated town may place one 'open' reward block (that does not require a challenge to reach) for use as a guestbook.  An empty town that only contains a townstone and a reward block does not qualify.
2. For blocks placed at the end of a challenge, it should take at least 5~10 minutes to solve the challenge (ie, end of a dungeon or a end of a complex maze)
3. Block must be reachable / challenge must be accomplishable
4. Alt characters are not allowed and will be permabanned on sight.

One user decompiled the source code for one of these programs and found out its only function was to send your username and password to the cheat program's author.  Do you really want someone stealing your account?  These programs may also come packaged with malware such as viruses, which can be a major pain to get rid of.

TLDR: Avoid shady cheat programs, they're traps.

At the end of dungeons (or mazes or whatever), drop a Reward Block to reward players for reaching the end.  Their name will be recorded into the list of users who reached the block, along with a total count of how many players found it.  If it's the first reward block from your account that they've used, they'll also receive 250 gold and 1 skill point!

Try to find all the reward blocks in-game!  You can get a list of all of them, including their location coordinates with the command /rewardblocks

To start things off, Psy and I have placed reward blocks at the end of each of our dungeons.

Thanks to El Dromedario who posted the idea that inspired this to the suggestion box

8BitMMO / Archive Entertainment Dev Newsletter!

It's been four months since my last dev summary, so here's a quick overview of all the major updates to 8BitMMO over the past few months -- as well as a reminder as to what the game is in case you forgot

8BitMMO is a free sandbox building game, an 8bit-style 2D massively multiplayer universe! It's a giant construction sandbox -- you can build a home or a castle in a persistent streaming world. Found and manage your own city. Fight evil Lawyercats and engage in player vs player battle.

To watch the trailer - click here.

To play the game - click here (or type http://8bit.vg in your browser)

Homestone

The #1 (and #3) player suggestion with a combined 163 votes has been implemented!  It is now possible to set your own /home location.

Simply place a Homestone in your home, or wherever you wish to respawn, and from then on /home will respawn you there.  If you wish to respawn at Root, no problem, just type /root.

Shortcuts for both of these commands have been added to the menu.

Enjoy!

Water

Another highly requested item, I recently added Water.  It is highly hazardous as I did not also add swimming

The Wildepad

Many new (and even old) players have expressed frustration in finding the wilderness.  Early in the game, it was a simple matter to walk to the edge of Origin and build where you like.  But as the world has built outwards, it has become harder and harder to find the edge of the wild.

This is now addressed with The Wildepad.  This is a special telepad in Root that will teleport you into the wilderness.  You can then place down your Homestone and get to building right away.

For more details, see this blog post.

Nomnomnomnom

A chicken leg can be bought in the shop for a couple gold in the Household Goods section.  Once you've placed it in the world, press E to eat some delicious rotisserie chicken.

Back Button Added to Shop

Makes browsing the shop easier, as you can return to the previous page with either a single click, or by pressing backspace.

Left Handled Doors

You can now place left handled doors, which are great for double door situations:

MegaMap

All sorts of new cool places to check out on the latest update of the MegaMap.

Cleaning-fu

Moderators now have the ability to clean up old junk tiles in the wilderness.  The mod team has put this to great use already, but if you have particular requests, then ask a mod kindly and they may be able to help you.

Swag

I had these made up a while back to give out at events.  Quite handy!

And this banner is also great for events:

Play it Now

Well, that's it for now.  Even more exciting news to come soon.  As always, please follow along on the blog / twitter / facebook for the latest updates, and click here play the game!