The rule
If a package would make one player mine faster than another, it does not go in the store. Mine letters and prestige levels come from mining only, and nobody can buy, gift or transfer them. The store does not sell, and will not add:
- sell boosters or multipliers, for one player or for the whole server
- pickaxes, tools, custom enchants, nukes, boss pills, or kits that contain them
- prison cash, tokens or any other in-game currency
- mine letters, prestige levels, or skips past either
- plot mines, plot miners or upgrades to either
- crate keys, loot boxes, or anything else with a random reward
The launch announcement ruled out boosters, pickaxe upgrades, cash and skips for good. Random rewards are banned by the store's own catalog rules.
Earned in game, never sold
Fractured Skies is a big prison server, and most of what makes a player strong on it is a system rather than a purchase. Every one of these is earned by playing, and none of them has a price anywhere:
- Tokens, which drop from blocks and pay for the upgrades below. There is no token package.
- Custom enchants on pickaxes and weapons, bought a level at a time with those tokens.
- Sell multipliers, from prestiging, the token shop, crates and events. No premium rank carries one, and no cosmetic tag does either.
- Nukes, boss pills and PvP mine activators.
- Crate keys, including seasonal ones: voting, events, KOTH, bosses and milestones pay them.
- Plot mines, their upgrades and plot miners.
- Every tag that means something: event tags, KOTH tags and prestige milestones. The store's tags are cosmetic and say nothing about your progress.
That is the difference between this store and the usual prison store. The systems that decide who is ahead are all inside the game, and the store is beside them rather than on top of them.
What the store sells
Three premium ranks, Ember, Ash and Cinder, plus single cosmetics and gift cards. A premium rank is a separate ladder from the mine letters A to Z and from your prestige number: it sits beside them and never moves either. Every item is a one-time purchase: nothing renews, and ranks belong to your account rather than to one season. This is every rank perk:
| Perk | Ember | Ash | Cinder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank tag Coloured tag in chat and the tab list | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chat colours Use & colour codes in chat | Not included | Yes | Yes |
| /nick Set a custom display name | Not included | Not included | Yes |
| Particle trails Cosmetic only, no effect on mining | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| Discord role Coloured name in the Discord member list | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| /sethome slots Saved warp points of your own | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| Player vaults Extra storage you reach with /pv | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| /craft Portable crafting bench | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| /ec Open your ender chest anywhere | Not included | Yes | Yes |
| /hat Wear any block on your head | Not included | Yes | Yes |
| Auction listings Items you can list at once | 3 | 8 | 16 |
| Priority queue Skip the line when the server is full | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cosmetic pets at once They follow you; they cannot fight, carry or mine | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| New cosmetics early Seven days before general release | Not included | Not included | Yes |
Single cosmetics are chat tags, particle trails and pets. Pets follow you around; they cannot fight, carry items or mine. Gift cards are store credit: they are not prison cash and have no value outside the store. The rank comparison in the store shows the same table with prices.
Where a rank does help
Ranks save time and effort outside the mines:
- More homes and player vaults mean less walking and more storage.
-
/craft,/ecand/hatopen a crafting table or your ender chest anywhere, or put a block on your head. - The priority queue lets you in first when the server is full. Once you are in, it does nothing.
- More auction listings let you offer more items to other players at the same time. This is the one perk that touches trading. Buyers still decide what they pay, and no rank changes what the shop pays for a block.
What you get without paying
- The [INMATE] chat tag, free for every account. Switch to it with
/tag. - $25,000 prison cash per vote.
- 5 vote tokens per vote, spent in /voteshop.
- Seven days in a row: one cosmetic trail charge.
- The three highest voters each month get the [VOTER] chat tag for the next month and a store gift card.
Vote rewards are paid per listing site, once every 24 hours. The vote page lists the sites.
Is pay-to-win allowed on Minecraft servers?
Mojang's Minecraft Usage Guidelines let a server charge for access, sell cosmetics (except capes) and sell in-game currency that has no real-world value. Perks that affect gameplay are allowed only if they do not ruin other players' experience or give a competitive advantage in the game. Whatever a server sells has to suit players of all ages, and it must show its content and prices before anyone joins. Mojang reserves the right to decide whether a server's way of making money fits its brand.
Fractured Skies stays well inside those lines: nothing it sells affects mining, and nothing is sold for a random reward.
Why the store works this way
Selling speed is the obvious way for a prison server to make money. The team turned it down at launch, knowing it costs money, so that the number next to a player's name means the same for everyone who reads it. Prestige in particular is the one number nobody can buy.
How to hold us to it
- The table on this page is built from the same data as the store's rank table, so the two cannot disagree.
- Gameplay changes are announced on the news page and in Discord before they go live.
- If you think a package breaks the rule, say so: email store@fractured-skies.world or open a ticket from the support page.