I’m willing to admit that I am occasionally wrong about you guys.

The plan for 1.8 was in development for 6 months. That’s like a million years in Minecraft time. I poured over every detail…how I would test it, how we would present it, how it would differ from the main server, the technical necessities, the cost, the time, the effort required. You know, typical Serverus stuff.

We decided to make it harder. KeepInventory would be gone. The mobs would knock down your flimsy wooden doors. You’d get a limited number of command blocks. The admins wouldn’t help you as much. No toad hut powers, no command of the week, no killing yourself to get back to your bed.

The flipside of this was twofold. First, you’d be able to play 1.8, which was the obvious benefit. We knew from the get-go that the server would have to be a branch off from the Main server, your previous and forever home, because of the lag issues. When the ore generation sliders were announced, I knew THAT was the linchpin that would get you to play on both servers. Then the admins started to put spawn together before we launched, and I knew that we had a winner.

What I didn’t count on…was that you’d all be playing so much on the new server, that the Main server would become a ghost town.

I’ll admit, I figured some of you wouldn’t be able to hack it, playing on the harder, less coddling, 1.8 server. Especially the kids. I was waiting for whining. I was waiting for you to give up. I was waiting for some of you to just head back home where there was little consequence, little fear of the Minecraft nighttime.

What I found instead surprised me. Every single one of you, down to a player, embraced the new difficulty. You found ways to join forces to battle it. You helped the kids overcome it. And not a one of you whined about losing your stuff when you died. OK some of you did 😉 But you trudged on despite that. Despite our steadfast decision to refuse help to you, you decided to stick around.

Which brings me to the decision we’ve made today.

Yeah yeah Chris, get on with it already…

Sorry, I like to be melodramatic.

This unanimous exodus to the survival server has left me in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, we’re supposed to have two servers running. That was the plan. On the other hand, almost no one is playing on the Main server anymore, the 1.8 server lags more often than I’d like, and playing mob police is wearing thin, on all of us I think. We want you to be able to play the way you want, the way you’re used to playing. And even though I can’t guarantee that this decision will let you do exactly that, it will certainly help.

So while this was a tough decision for me to make, I think it will be for the best. Especially considering that Spigot 1.8 is even further away than we originally hoped, what with the Microsoft merger and the Bukkit fiasco of a few weeks ago. So in the interest of where the players have gathered en masse now, I’ve decided to put the Main server on ice until Bukkit catches up, and shift the funds we normally reserve for that server, into upgrading the 1.8 server.

What this means for you

Clearly, the first thing this means is that you won’t be playing on the Main server for a while. Don’t worry about the world map, that will be safe with us. Birthdays will be noted and the XP will be reserved for the reactivation. However, if you had toad hut powers, I’m afraid those will end prematurely. To be fair though, most of them have by this point.

The server address for the 1.8 server will become mc.gmmc.me. This is to get all the stragglers who don’t follow along to finally join us. What I’ve noticed is that most of the people who don’t participate in the Facebook group log on from time to time, and they are probably wondering where everyone is (despite my log on message but whatever, not everyone reads that) so let’s show them what all the hubbub is about, shall we?

In the end, I promise this will be a good thing. The server that everyone is playing on will be more capable (a full 8GB of RAM!), you’ll probably be able to house more animals closer together, and the simultaneous player limit will be upped to 30. You’ll lag less, and I’ll enjoy hearing about lag less too 😉

Then, once Bukkit and Spigot are back on board, we’ll reopen the Main server for an amazing homecoming. Thanks to Bungeecord, you’ll be able to move between servers and bring all of the stuff you’ve amassed on 1.8 over to Main, and you’ll be able to pimp out your original properties with all the cool new 1.8 stuff.

It will be a fabulous return, and I know it will be another grand chapter to pen in our history book.

For now though, let’s fully enjoy where we are, all of us. This decision takes a lot of pressure off of me, the admins, and you too, since you now won’t have to worry about what’s happening over on the other server. Everything will be safe and sound until we’re ready to rejoin it.

So when does this all happen?

The FragNet renewal for the main server typically would happen on October 5th, so I’ll be taking it offline the day before, on Saturday, October 4th. Until then, I’ve turned on /repair so you can get a chance to head over and fix all of your tools for the next 10 days or so. This gives you at least SOME reason to go back on over for a little bonus, and to wrap up any last loose threads before saying TTFN.

Again, this was a tough decision to make. I hope all of you agree with it, but in the end I think you’ll be happy that I did. It’s going to be really weird for me and Tonya, more than anyone. We’ve been playing in this world for over two years now, and it’s been the most amazing thing we’ve ever had the privilege to start and see grow. If you’re fairly observant, you already noticed that the picture I used for this article, is a picture from back when we weren’t even part of a bigger online community yet. It may as well be two lifetimes ago that all this began for us.

I know that it’s coming back, but still, it’s going to be hard to hit that Stop Server button on October 4th, knowing the wrinkle in time we’ll be creating for a world we’ve put so much of ourselves into. We’ll be looking forward to its return just as much as you.

As per usual, any questions, feel free to let me know in the post, or below in the comments.

Thanks,
Serverus

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