Back when we began 95 Degrees in 2016, we were a small, slightly experimental home for a tiny yet extremely closely bonded community. Ever since we’ve tried to keep that homely feeling by keeping our community close and providing a unique experience.

In 2017 we grew like crazy — we decided to buy premium ranks on Discord.me, which is our main source of members. We grew by 700 members in a month.

We started the year with 172 members and ended it with 1740.

We clearly underestimated how many people we’d get all at once! However, we learned a lot from what happened, how we handled such a huge tidal wave of people, etc. Overall we had some good times and some bad times in 2017. We added the Table channels and leveled roles. We called this 95 Degrees V2.

Our “95 Degrees Mashup”, celebrating our 2nd anniversary.

In 2018 we focused on unique ways to bond our community closer together, ways in which no other server could. We launched Degreecoin, 95 Degrees Trivia and the 95 Degrees Radio — and to celebrate two years of the server, I took all of our events, ranging from game nights to quizzes, put them in a blender, and served it in a YouTube stream on the day we turned 2. The 95 Degrees Mashup was a collection of what 95 Degrees was all about, all blended in to one stream. Everyone got to experience it all together at the same time, and honestly it’s one of my all-time favourite 95 Degrees moments.

And so, in 2019 — it’s time for a fresh, modern start. We’ve given our logo a fresh, bold and modern look. Also, we’ve added a saucer. From a graphic design standpoint, it’s so much easier to use in branding such as banners and icons because it’s more rounded. Believe it or not, the “2017–2018” text is centered below the old 95 Degrees logo. The logo on the right looks so much neater compared to the centered text below it.

We think we’ve hit the target for what we wanted to bring to the table, and stand out from the extremely crowded Discord server lists. We’ve provided unique, new experiences that no other server could provide just like we do. For example, I’ve seen plenty of radio bots, but not one has been exclusive to a server, with jingles, ads and fully customisable behaviour for events, etc.

We’re happy with how Guardian and the Radio bots are so far, but we’re not done yet. We want to take them a step further and introduce more and more features that not only set us apart, but enhance what we’ve already got and make it more fun for everyone.

We’ve transferred development from jaetpa to VoidInVoid, who I’ve known since 2015 probably. He’s been such a helping hand with multiple projects over all the years I’ve known him, and so we’re letting him take over.

Guardian is being rewritten right now (and has been for a few weeks!) from bottom to top.

Existing features and commands will still be there and will function as they already do, in fact we wanted to prioritise this. But we’re also making improvements too — especially with Degreecoin. We’ve found that Degreecoin has been useful for handing out in events, for example, yet it’s been severely lacking in terms of things for people to actually spend them on. As a result, we’ve seen people rack up hundreds of thousands of Degreecoin, and all of a sudden “We’re giving away 2000 Degreecoin if you attend this event!” doesn’t sound so intriguing after all.

Guardian V2 is getting a facelift too — complete with a ban hammer.

The Radio is also being updated

In fact it’s almost ready. We’re adding an achievements system to convince people to listen for longer, and to share more good music with their friends. We’re also adding a like/dislike system, so we can see what songs people like and dislike from a moderation standpoint. If there’s any songs with an overwhelming amount of dislikes, we’ll consider removing it. The way songs are added to the bot is also being altered to make it more flexible.

And yes, we realise the merch is outdated… But consider the old logo an OG piece. Eventually we’ll update the merch too.

We hope that Guardian V2, Radio V2 and 95 Degrees V3 overall bring even more fun experiences to the community! None of this would be possible without donations and of course your overall support. Thanks for sticking around during this difficult few weeks.