2 years ago today I created the CraftyMynes server to create redstone and command block contraptions, I never thought it would become what it is today. On October the 10th I bought a 512mb ram server from some sketchy server reseller, I started building a sethome system and 3 days later I posted the server on MinecraftServerList. I couldn't believe how fast players joined, within the first 5 minutes I already had 10 players, my system couldn't cope, the server crashed and the sethome system screwed up, it was a complete failure. I whitelisted the server and got to work on version 2.0, it took some time but when I thought I had it just right I bought another gb of ram and put the server back online.

To my surprise the server was handling it, we had 5 players on and they were loving the sethome system. I got to work on a way to tp to spawn and other warps, it was awesome. As time went on we got more players and I couldn't moderate the server all by myself. I asked if a few of my friends that I played with if they wanted to change servers and play on CraftyMynes, they said yes and we had our first staff. As time progressed we had more players, more staff and I started a store to fund a better server. $5 here and $10 there, we finally had enough to upgrade to 4gb of ram, think of the possibilities, we could now host ever more players!

I upgraded the server and for some reason it said that the providers license key was invalid. I contacted the provider with no success, I did some research and found out that the guys house was for sale and he was completely MIA, we were playing on a server that could have disappeared at anytime. I ask some of the staff and players if I should make the leap from $20/month to $110/month and they assured me that we would be ok. I fronted the money and bought the new server, it was so fast compared to the old one.

We started gaining ranks and before we knew it we were on the first page. Time went on and we were up to 20 players and 18th place. Before we knew it we jumped to 3rd place with 30+ players. I looked at our funds and we had enough to make an upgrade to a 1650v2 with 128gb of ram. This was a crazy server, we could have run a whole hosting company on it.

Then it happened, I got hacked, the hacker deleted all of our files, formatted the hard drives, deleted our backups and post all my details on our forum. This hit me so hard, I wanted to cry, give up everything and hide but I didn't. I spent the night cleaning everything up and resetting passwords. I found a recent copy of the map on another server that I was testing out at the time and changed the dns to that. Within 24 hours I had the server back up and running as if nothing had happened.

I am so grateful that I have this wonderful community to come home to every day. Seeing the community that sprouted from the seed I planted 2 years ago is very inspiring. It's incredible to know that we have had over 1/4 million unique players on this server throughout the years and many that were here at the beginning are still here today. I want to thank each and every one of the players that have been apart of the community but I also want to say a huge thank you to our staff and donors that keep this server alive, I couldn't have done it without you.

Happy birthday CraftyMynes!!!

- Crafty