Hello beautiful people, welcome to the much awaited yearly recap!
2017 has been our biggest year so far. It's been a year full of incredible milestones and unprecedented growth for our humble community. As usual, December happened to be our busiest month and there's loads for people to catch up on if they missed out on server shenanigans. Without any further ado, let's begin our little journey through the yearly recap!

Fruitbowl News

FruitPrison Finally Announced
Only a few weeks ago we had the next addition to the Fruitservers Network announced, and it's safe to say everyone is pretty excited for it! FruitPrison is slated for release sometime in 2018, although I'm not really going to reveal a whole lot more than that. Not because I've been censored by anyone, I just don't want to spoil anything!

Donations
Every month I tend to do a little spiel about how amazing everyone's support for the server has been since we seem to be regularly crushing our donation goals. This month is a little different though. If you'll look at the image below, you'll notice some really jaw-dropping figures. This has been by far the most successful month Fruitservers has ever experienced, with survival accumulating nearly $8000 in donations and skyblock accumulating $2000. Needless to say, we are so incredibly grateful for everyone's support and it just means we'll get to see exciting new things much sooner than expected. Thank you Fruitsters.

Fruitmas Competition
Santa decided to drop by Fruitservers for a couple of weeks this month and following tradition, everyone had to feed the big-bellied man a bunch of special recipes in exchange for nifty little goodies! The players with the most points on survival and skyblock would earn themselves a Razer Ornata Chroma Membrane Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. Great effort from everyone and congratulations to these winners!

Voting Competition
Reminder to everyone that votes are tallied up for the post a few hours before the end of the month so sneaking in a couple of votes right at the end may not help. Thanks to everyone for voting as often as possible, and congratulations to these winners who've nabbed a voucher for themselves! (The votes had to be tallied up earlier than normal so we had time to prepare for other things throughout the night).

Build Competition
Rejoice, we've decided to bring back the build competition for 2018! January's theme will be something a little simpler, we hope to receive dozens of entries! The theme we've chosen is mediterranean, an example image should give you an idea of what sort of build we're after if you're not so sure what it's about. Remember there won't be any prizes distributed unless we get at least 5 entries.
_{*Credit to Cupid for the image provided.*}

Competition Rules
- Build must be finished by 31st January.
- Players are restricted to working individually.
- Build must be completed on the Creative Server.
- Do not build chestrooms, spawners, massive farms etc. We want creativity, not everyday things.
- Only one entry per individual.
- No pixel art!
- Keep redstone minimal if you must use it.
- Do NOT copy anyone else's builds, not even ones you find on Google images!
- Minimum 5 entries. There will be no winners announced if we don't get at least 5 entries!
- Builds need to be started and completed within the same month. You cannot use assets from previous entries.
- Completed entries that don't earn a top 3 place will net the builder a token on the server of their choice.

Top Players

FruitServers is an amazing community because of the people that are a part of it. Every month one player and one staff memberfrom both Survival and Skyblock are selected and acknowledged for their contribution to the server, whether it be ingame or behind the scenes.

Player of the month Survival - Sleepy_Ninja. A player who represents everything Fruitservers is about; friendliness, approachability, and is always keen to tackle whatever events we host. Sleepy_Ninja also showed maturity and understanding during a time when many others chose to complain and rant, this did not go unnoticed. Well earned Sleepy_Ninja.

Staff of the month Survival - Survival Team! Looking back at how incredible this year has been, it's only fitting to acknowledge the entire team for their efforts throughout each and every month. This isn't just a shoutout to the veterans who stuck by the entire time, it's also recognizing the newer staff who joined and gave their role everything they had. Team, you've been stellar this year. Thank you!

Player of the month Skyblock - spleggeti. Another player who embodies what our beautiful server is about, spleggeti's generosity towards others is being acknowledged this month. Spleggeti's kindness is something other players should aim to replicate, well done spleggeti!

Staff of the month Skyblock - WittyQuip & lilshortyrae. Skyblock's christmas events simply would not have run as smoothly as they did without the steadfast presence of these two. Their dedication and support throughout 2017 earns them a shoutout in the biggest monthly post of the year. Thank you Witty and Rae!

Survival and Skyblock are lucky to have such strong moderating and build teams, however we are always accepting applications for both of these roles. Mister Bulk_Bogan happens to look quite lonely being the sole member of the Event-Coordination team so if you'd like to help alleviate some of his burden, consider looking into his role. Think you have what it takes to join one of these fantastic teams? Submit an application at www.fruitservers.net/staff

As mentioned last month we always look forward to hearing feedback from you guys about possible improvements. If you have ideas, please share them with us either through the website, in-game, or via discord. We want to know what you think!

Finally, we're going to end this post a little differently. I want you to leave a comment describing your favourite memory from Fruitservers in 2017. Who knows, you might even get a little reward for taking the time to share your memories!

Thank you for joining Fruitservers in our journey through 2017.

Fruitservers wishes you a stellar 2018, happy new year fruitsters!