Manacube, Minecraft's illustrious parkour community, and the Five Block Jump.

[Tas]

Manacube parkour is not a "parkour server." It is the type of server Dream mentions in his video: a minigame. There is a vast and mathematically advanced parkour community out there that Manacube simply isn't a part of. But is this necessarily a bad thing? Our parkour isn't hard compared to the other servers. The most challenging jump that will be accepted is about the level of a triple neo. Here are some aspects to consider about Manacube in comparison to the community of parkour servers:

• Really tough, calculated jumps are not and never were the goal, and attempting to implement these in courses will never be encouraged.
• The rankup and prestige system is about the grind, not the skill level.
• Original themes and attractive builds are just as important as the parkour for getting your course accepted.
• Balanced courses that are enjoyable and rewarding are more important than rage and "practicing jumps."

There is a small, slow trickle of parkourers who visit from other servers, thinking that Manacube is just like the others. They play a few Easy courses, play a few Insane courses, try to build the "hArDEsT inSAnE" and then leave. Because that's not what Manacube is about.

Look at the top players in the leaderboard's different categories (other than world records). On this server, you are rewarded for dedication - the hours spent. It doesn't matter how skilled you are; if you can spend 1000 hours grinding a course, you'll succeed on the server. If you like to build, you can feel the satisfaction of having your parkour accepted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the traditional parkour servers are worse, or unsophisticated. It's just different. They are tight-knit communities of intelligent, math-savvy players who want to learn, improve, practice, and hone their skills. Manacube is casual, low-effort, and pay-to-win.

Dream is a Minecraft YouTuber who made a YouTube video. Why is it such a big deal that Manacube, and the parkour community as a whole, gained a bigger playerbase? Whether or not these new players stick around or actually contribute to the community is irrelevant. There will always be parkour gods, and there will always be noobs who want to build the Five Block Jump in their singleplayer world.

When Dream recorded the video and Manacube parkour boomed, most of the veteran players were annoyed and bothered. Rightly so. However, like it or not, parkour boomed. Suddenly there were hundreds of new players who hadn't even known you could jump on something other than a block, a ladder, or a fence. Imagine how they felt when they did their first neo! Their first double neo! Their first headhitter vine to pane! You name it! Because that's Minecraft. Whether it's a new server, a new mod, a cave update - you never know what corner of the game you'll find yourself in next week, and it should be embraced. Many of the players who discovered Manacube through Dream's video are still here, and they are some of the most active members today.

All servers are not created equal, and we must appreciate every aspect of the game for what it is. And we must appreciate every player for who they are, what servers they play, and most importantly, whether they neo on the right or the left side.

 

[khirina]

left side best side

 

[zzykrkv]

I'm sorry this is just complete wrong. Like seriously?? I will never ever trust someone who Neos on the left side.

 

[zzykrkv]

On a more serious note I honestly think that some jumps I've seen are harder than a triple neo. Like I can do a triple neo in less attempts than some jumps I find on insanes.
And also. yes it feels great to do a jump you've never done before. When I did my first bwmm I screamed and when I did my first double triple neo my mum thought I had a heart attack.

 

[Tas]

On a more serious note I honestly think that some jumps I've seen are harder than a triple neo. Like I can do a triple neo in less attempts than some jumps I find on insanes.
And also. yes it feels great to do a jump you've never done before. When I did my first bwmm I screamed and when I did my first double triple neo my mum thought I had a heart attack.

It's true, some of the hardest insanes have some jumps that are probably more technically difficult than a triple neo. What I meant by that was that there is a general standard that a triple neo, and jumps of a similar difficulty, are "as hard" as will be accepted. However, context - how close the nearest checkpoint is, how far into the map you are, etc. - matters too.

 

[Blurpyfied]

why wasnt this thread made right after the dream video.. wouldve been more usefull and yes I hate the kids who say "Dream is here" in chat when he's here and it blocks up chat. Its kinda annoying and I wish we had a filter on it. I dont even think the donators care if dream is on even though they are the ones who start it sometimes.

 

[Tas]

why wasnt this thread made right after the dream video.. wouldve been more usefull and yes I hate the kids who say "Dream is here" in chat when he's here and it blocks up chat. Its kinda annoying and I wish we had a filter on it. I dont even think the donators care if dream is on even though they are the ones who start it sometimes.

It was made in response to the thread called "Dream" from last week.

 

[BatteryAcid06]

Manacube parkour is not a "parkour server." It is the type of server Dream mentions in his video: a minigame. There is a vast and mathematically advanced parkour community out there that Manacube simply isn't a part of. But is this necessarily a bad thing? Our parkour isn't hard compared to the other servers. The most challenging jump that will be accepted is about the level of a triple neo. Here are some aspects to consider about Manacube in comparison to the community of parkour servers:

• Really tough, calculated jumps are not and never were the goal, and attempting to implement these in courses will never be encouraged.
• The rankup and prestige system is about the grind, not the skill level.
• Original themes and attractive builds are just as important as the parkour for getting your course accepted.
• Balanced courses that are enjoyable and rewarding are more important than rage and "practicing jumps."

There is a small, slow trickle of parkourers who visit from other servers, thinking that Manacube is just like the others. They play a few Easy courses, play a few Insane courses, try to build the "hArDEsT inSAnE" and then leave. Because that's not what Manacube is about.

Look at the top players in the leaderboard's different categories (other than world records). On this server, you are rewarded for dedication - the hours spent. It doesn't matter how skilled you are; if you can spend 1000 hours grinding a course, you'll succeed on the server. If you like to build, you can feel the satisfaction of having your parkour accepted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the traditional parkour servers are worse, or unsophisticated. It's just different. They are tight-knit communities of intelligent, math-savvy players who want to learn, improve, practice, and hone their skills. Manacube is casual, low-effort, and pay-to-win.

Dream is a Minecraft YouTuber who made a YouTube video. Why is it such a big deal that Manacube, and the parkour community as a whole, gained a bigger playerbase? Whether or not these new players stick around or actually contribute to the community is irrelevant. There will always be parkour gods, and there will always be noobs who want to build the Five Block Jump in their singleplayer world.

When Dream recorded the video and Manacube parkour boomed, most of the veteran players were annoyed and bothered. Rightly so. However, like it or not, parkour boomed. Suddenly there were hundreds of new players who hadn't even known you could jump on something other than a block, a ladder, or a fence. Imagine how they felt when they did their first neo! Their first double neo! Their first headhitter vine to pane! You name it! Because that's Minecraft. Whether it's a new server, a new mod, a cave update - you never know what corner of the game you'll find yourself in next week, and it should be embraced. Many of the players who discovered Manacube through Dream's video are still here, and they are some of the most active members today.

All servers are not created equal, and we must appreciate every aspect of the game for what it is. And we must appreciate every player for who they are, what servers they play, and most importantly, whether they neo on the right or the left side.

Thanks! this really expanded my knowledge base!

 

[Jupiter]

honestly I joined from Dream. I knew about the server before he even covered it but I never really played it. Ive played parkour servers since like 2017 but never got into this server until today. I feel like I'm annoying people just because I just started playing just because of Dream. and tbh joining with a ton of new players just makes people think of me as someone that only joined because of some big youtuber or something.

 

[Shinxray]

honestly I joined from Dream. I knew about the server before he even covered it but I never really played it. Ive played parkour servers since like 2017 but never got into this server until today. I feel like I'm annoying people just because I just started playing just because of Dream. and tbh joining with a ton of new players just makes people think of me as someone that only joined because of some big youtuber or something.

There is nothing wrong about joining a server because a big youtuber shared it, don't feel bad about it. The problem is because there is a minority of Dream fans that like spamming stuff on parkour chat, older parkour players on the servers or just Dream haters put everyone in the same bag and criticize everyone that joined thanks to him. So even if you joined with a ton of other players, maybe prove that you are not like the spammer/haters, and it should be good I guess ?

 

[_TreeBark_]

Manacube is "hated" in the pk community, bc of how big it is and how weird the manacube community is, so if you wanna get into the pk community dont go around saying you play mana bc u know, people will lose respect for you, and thats just how it is.

 

[zzykrkv]

Manacube is "hated" in the pk community, bc of how big it is and how weird the manacube community is, so if you wanna get into the pk community dont go around saying you play mana bc u know, people will lose respect for you, and thats just how it is.

to an extent, yes. The server is mocked and joked about quite a bit for its unprofessionalism, but I think the annoyance really comes from that a lot players tend to be the same ones who keep saying a 5 block jump is possible and spreading dreams incorrect theory as fact.

The community REALLY doesn't like misinformation, so even small things like 1 random incorrect reddit post with 500 upvotes or one video with a couple hundred views always becomes big news. For example, someone with ~400 subs uploaded a video with them supposedly doing an 8-8 with 4 45 strafes, which was wrong in many ways. It made really big news in the community and now he's kind of a meme with his 20deg strafes. However, we do have valid reasoning. It is hard for a tiny community to reach out, especially when we're very heavy on maths. If 1 person makes an incorrect post, it can really easily spread, and thats just more misinformation that we're forced to try clear up to people who aren't necessarily the most open minded. Manacube, from what i've found, is where the misinformed are most commonly found.

I think the 2nd pet peeve of the community is misrepresentation. We really dislike how parkour is just seen as a silly game, when we take it professionally. And I think that's our view on manacube with its p2w style. However, I don't really think this creates irritation, rather it's just something for us to joke about, like we do with preston often.

 

[Quinny]

Personally, I wish ManaCube could overcome the overwhelming amount of Dream fanboys, etc. and be taken a bit more seriously in the Parkour community. I agree that we definitely have our certain role in the parkour community that isn't necessarily bad, and should be appreciated for what it is. But a reputation once tarnished isn't easily overcome...I do wish we could have some of the more difficult jumps, or at the very least, a p2w free, rank up style parkour aspect that appeals to the more skilled and calculative parkour player.

We tend to miss out on a pretty big and influential part of the parkour community that is truly dedicated to this style of play, aka, people who will return if there's a goal to be met, or something that is worth their while. Being one of the larger servers, I'm to this day disappointed we don't have rank ups. Sure, we stand out more because we don't have them, but speed run parkour is naturally more casual. It doesn't take very long to complete a map if you're even half decent or average. Most insanes (especially older ones) aren't very challenging compared to the difficulty that comes from other places in the community. Champ maps are longer, but not exactly requiring any advanced knowledge or skills for the most part.
ManaCube as a whole does benefit from the casual aspect of our Parkour server, as it's a very sociable and accessible place for the average player. You come to ManaCube through Dream, through Parkour, and eventually make friends here and become integrated in our community. And we love that! I'm so happy that parkour has brought many people here seemingly to stay.

Even so, as a map judge I personally wouldn't mind accepting gradually more difficult insanes that have proper setups, and require precision and knowledge about parkour to complete. TheSimpsons is infamously the hardest map we have on ManaCube, solely because it's just "hard jump vomit" as I like to call it. I would love to have more difficult maps on Mana that introduce well-designed, tougher jumps to players willing to attempt them. I think ManaCube has the capacity to grow in this way.

As a mapper I also wouldn't mind building some rankups ;)