Lobbies (also known as Hubs) are where the players spawn when they join the server. Players can change Lobbies using the Nether Star in their inventory. There are currently 2 public Lobbies and a Staff Lobby on Minecraft Central.
Main Lobby[]
Lobbies serve as the main nexus of the server. In the Main Lobby NPCs show the player available sub-servers. The Main Lobby is on an island which is surrounded by the void. There is a lower area with the NPCs, 2 images with useful links, Voting Villagers and a launch pad. Premium Ranks are able to fly and all players get Night Vision effects to make the Lobby brighter.
Upon joining the Main Lobby, players receive a Server Selector (Compass), Premium Ranks (Emerald), Collectibles (Chest), Player Visibility Toggle (Green/Gray Dye) and Lobby Selector (Nether Star). There used to be a bone item that let the player choose Mounts, but this feature was removed on the 1st of April 2016. The placement of the items in the player hotbar has varied a lot. There have been other items in the hotbar too, such as a Tutorial Book and an item to make other players invisible. There also used to be a Minigame Stats item (Player Head) when Minigames were in the Main Lobby. This same item was previously a book. The Premium Ranks item also used to be called Donator ranks before it was changed on the 3rd of February 2023.
The current Main Lobby has some special features that the players can use. There are 2 rooms, those being a Spleef room and a Parkour room. In comparison to the previous version of the Lobby, players can fly and use Cosmetics in these. The parkour extends around the whole island. The Spleef room can be accessed by going up the stairs in the Main Lobby and going through a portal. There is also a Villager that lists notable members in a GUI. These notable members are the Owners and Administrators of MCCentral, as well as the former Administrators. The Spleef arena gives the players a Diamond Shovel. There is a timer of 30 seconds before a match of Spleef begins, and at least 2 players are required for the game to start. Players can also sit on the chairs (all the stairs) in the Lobby by right-clicking on them.
Minigame Lobby[]
Minigame Lobbies were added on the 21st of May 2021 when the Minigames revamp was released. These Lobbies served as the place where all Minigame-related things were done. There were 3 Minigame Lobbies in total. Players got a Minigame Selector (Compass), Profile Item (Player Head), Collectibles (Chest), Player Visibility Toggle (Green/Gray Dye) and Lobby Selector (Nether Star) when joining the Lobby. The Profile Item was used to access Statistics, Minigame Achievements and Settings. In Settings players could toggle certain Minigame cosmetics on and off. Minigame Lobbies were removed on the 26th of August 2022 when the Minigames were removed.
Similar to the Main Lobby, premium ranks could use fly and there were jump pads to make traveling faster. There were separate rooms for each Minigame, and inside these rooms players could find NPCs to access various features.
The Minigame Lobbies had 4 areas which were decorated around a park theme. A parkour map could be found in one of these areas. The spruce stairs in the Minigame Lobbies could be used as chairs, and the chests had various items inside. Players couldn't edit these, though. The Minigame Lobby was built by Swaggle.
History[]
The way of choosing a sub-server or Minigame has varied during the history of MCCentral. There used to be signs for each Minigame server that the players could click and join the games. This was later changed into a GUI-based automated joining system. There used to be pressure plates on the right side of the spawn that players could use to teleport to the Minigames and sub-server portals.
Previously when players teleported to Minigames, they could see a Merchant in the middle, and on the right and left sides their own statistics. Even before this the Merchants used to be in small "booths" on the side or in the middle of the Minigame building. This was later gradually removed, as Minigames moved into NPC-joining, replacing Merchants with an emerald in the waiting lobby. When the Minigames revamp was relased, these merchants were added back to the lobbies, although in a different way.
Players used to get Speed III, Jump Boost III and Night Vision II potion effects in the Lobby before the 22nd of August 2018.
On the 20th November 2015 when Arcade was released, the other end of the Lobbies changed a bit. An arcade-themed building was added with the Arcade Minigame signs in it. When the Arcade games were removed completely on the 19th of July 2018, the building was blocked off.
There was originally only one Lobby but the number of Lobbies was expanded on the 16th of March when there were 3 Lobbies in total. The number of lobbies was later increased to be 9 and somewhere around spring 2015 the amount of Lobbies was increased to be 12. Later that spring it became 15. On the 4th of February 2016, the total amount of Lobbies was raised to 24. During August or September 2016 the Lobby count was reduced to 16. With the addition of a new Lobby design on the 22nd of August 2018, the count was reduced to 9. On the 26th of August 2022 when multiple sub-servers and Minigames were removed, the amount of public Lobbies was reduced to 2. The Staff Lobby was also removed at the same time but it returned on the 30th of August 2022.
There have been many different lobby designs:
- The 1st Lobby with only Minigame buildings
- The 2nd Lobby complex with both a sub-server and Minigame Lobby (added by the 13th of February 2014).
- The 3rd Lobby that was rather long, with each sub-server and Minigame having its own building.
- The 4th Lobby that had only the sub-server portals and NPCs for the Minigames.
- The 5th Lobby that was round in shape and had portals for the sub-servers, along with NPCs for the Minigames.
- The 6th and current Lobby that is a floating island and has NPCs, Voting Villagers and a parkour around the whole map.
On the 27th of August 2015 a new spawn room design was released. It featured player models (NPCs) standing on pedestals representing each playable sub-server and Minigame. The other parts of the Lobbies weren't changed.
The third spawn model featured Merchants standing on both the right and left side of the Minigames. From the spawn room to the left there was a Premium rank (then known as Donator rank) information room and on the right teleports to Minigames and sub-servers.
On the 1st of April 2016 Wardrobes were removed completely when the new Cosmetic Treasures were introduced.
On the 22nd of August 2018 a new Lobby design was added. This Main Lobby had special features that the players could use. There were 3 rooms, those being a PvP room, a Spleef room and a Parkour room. Flying and Cosmetics were disabled in these rooms. A new addition was also a Villager that listed notable members in a GUI. In the PvP room players got Iron Armour and a Diamond Sword. The Spleef arena gave the players a Diamond Shovel. There was a timer of 30 seconds before a match of Spleef begun, and at least 2 players were required for the game to start. Players could also sit on the chairs (all the stairs) in the Lobby by right-clicking on them. The Main Lobby was surrounded by tall mountains, and there was a World Border around it to prevent players from escaping.
When Minigames switched to their own Lobby on the 20th-21st of May 2021, the Minigame NPCs and Cosmetic Treasure chest were removed from the Main Lobbies. The Minigame Stats item was also removed from the players' hotbar, and the player visibility item was added. Players could access the Minigames Lobby through a single NPC which transfered them there.
On the 26th of August 2022 when several sub-servers and the Minigames were removed, the Lobby changed to a smaller one, with only NPCs instead of portals. The Minigame Lobby was removed at the same time, along with the Staff Lobby. However, the Staff Lobby returned on the 30th of August 2022.
Special Occasions[]
The Lobbies have been decorated for Halloween in 2013 and 2018-2023. They were also decorated for Christmas in 2014-2023. The Halloween 2023 Lobby also acted as the 10 year anniversary lobby, with half of the lobby being dedicated to Halloween and the other half to the anniversary.
Staff Lobby[]
A Staff Lobby was added on the 23rd of August 2018. The Staff Lobby looks and works exactly like the regular lobbies. It was added so that staff members could deal with chatreports and other matters in peace, without having players interrupt them. Only staff members are able to access this lobby through the Lobby Selector in their inventories. The Staff Lobby was removed on the 26th of August 2022 but was added back on the 30th of August 2022.