TD;DR: New 1.9 server, 1.8 world can sill be accessed at: legacy.craftymynes.com

With a new version of Minecraft comes a new set of challenges for server owners. Over the last few weeks I have been testing the 1.9 Snapshots, finding out what is new, what has changed and what I need to do to get ready for release.

When I first heard about 1.9, my original plan was to delete the end but keep the overworld to allow for the new dragon fight, floating islands and fortress. As the Snapshots progressed, more and more features were added including the new command blocks. When I saw the new command blocks, I was excited, I could finally optimize the terrible system that has been running the server almost a year and a half.

As I started trying to convert the system I quickly realized that combining all the triggers into one "cmd" trigger would greatly reduce the amount of scores on the scoreboard. Right now each player has on average 35-45 scores, with just shy of 100k players, we have about 4 million scores on the scoreboard. Our new system would remove scores that aren't needed and combine others into one easy to use trigger. Our new system is down to just 5 scores on average, per player.

With this system being completely incompatible with the old one, along with many other reasons, we have decided to create a new 1.9 server that gives the old a fresh new look while still keeping with CraftyMynes core values. Below are some of the reasons we are creating a new server as well as some of the changes/improvements that will be taking place.

Reasons:

Our world is just over 75gb, zip backups just over 50gb, this is a lot of data to deal with. Our current setup creates a quick copy of the world so that the server is in read-only mode for the shortest amount of time possible, minimized potential data loss during backups. It then creates a zip that it offloads to 2 different offsite backup servers to make storing and restoring easier. All this data comes at a cost, backups are slow, precious bandwidth is used for tasks other then serving data to players. Creating a new server will greatly reduce the amount of time and data required to run CraftyMynes.

With about 100k players played on our server since the last reset, excess data is all over the place, from the scoreboard, to the player data files to the chunks their base was in. Many players spend only a short period of time on the server, unlike them, their data doesn't leave. In some locations this is less of an issue, player data files are each stored separately, don't take up much space and don't effect performance in any noticeable way. In other cases, it directly effects performance, slow load times, block lag and inventory lag. Creating a new server without all these extra players gives us a chance to start with a fresh set of files and an empty scoreboard.

As many of you may know, 1.9 overhauls the combat of minecraft, from the way you swing your sword to the balance of golden apples and potions, everything has changed. Allowing players to keep their golden apples would rekt the economy as well as create a huge disadvantage for new players. Starting with a fresh slate allows us to rebuild the economy for 1.9 as well as fully embrace the new combat system.

Our staff spend a lot of time repairing spawn and planting new trees, ideally we would just reset the spawn area or at the bare minimum recreate ore veins and dungeons, but this is just not possible. Our current spawn looks like swiss cheese, at least 90% of the ores are gone and most of the area within 25k has been explored. A new server means, new blocks, populated ores and unexplored terrain.

Changes/Improvements:

As you may have noticed, we have a new forum and store, I have been working on my own forum for the last few weeks, and I'm very happy with it.

The ban lists, donations and VIP are synced between the 2 servers, buy VIP will give you VIP on both servers, getting banned on 1.9 will also get you banned on 1.8.

We have created a new spawn that keeps many of your favorite features but also adds a few new ones. With 1.9 the end is a much bigger thing, for this reason we have added a centralized End portal to spawn. As you may know, PVP is also a big part of 1.9, in the centre of spawn, you will find the new PVP arena. This arena is bigger, has a changeable map and is raised in the air above spawn. We have also adjusted the layout of spawn, areas are closer together and its easier to navigate. Also, we have built spawn in a way that keeps chunk updates down to 0, greatly reducing lag.

The new 1.9 map will soon be available at mc.craftymynes.com and the old 1.8 map will be at legacy.craftymynes.com. The old forums/store is outdate and should not be used.

TPA might be getting an overhaul making it much easier to tp to players.

We look forward to seeing all our players on the new 1.9 server in the coming week.

- Crafty and the CraftyMynes Staff