MinecraftOffline.net launched on September 30th, 2024 as an anarchy server when MinecraftOnline was down for a few days. The only initial rule was no spamming, but I removed that when MinecraftOnline came back up.
Despite most players returning to MinecraftOnline, I didn't feel like deleting the server. There were some genuinely cool builds and it also helped it was initially free to run as I was using the free tier of GCP.
The free tier ran out and I switched to Hetzner instead on October 6th, 2024. The server now costs £40 per month to run and it has these specifications:
- Processor: Intel XEON E-2276G (released 2019 which is quite old for 2024/2025)
- Storage: 2x SSD U.2 NVMe 960 GB Datacenter
- Memory: 2x RAM 32768 MB DDR4 ECC (Total 65536 MB / 64 GB)
- Network: NIC 1 Gbit (Intel I219-LM)
In hindsight, it is clear I overspecced. The server is an embarrassing, colossal failure. I originally thought the issue was one of uniqueness: there are, after all, lots of anarchy servers out there already. But when I introduced a lifesteal plugin on April 19th, 2025 to make it more spicy, the server remained as dead as ever.
Whilst we do get an average of 1000 new unique players every couple of months, player retention is horrifically bad. Players join, realise everyone is a bot, and then leave. To my mind, this still beats the alternative of them not joining in the first place once they see no one is online in the multiplayer list.
A dead server has led to a sizeable net loss (negative £465). There have only been three donations the entire year and they were all for unbans which are £5 each.
Whilst Year 1 has been a failure, I have had fun setting up the server, developing plugins, and learning a little sysadmin. Or maybe my inclination to treat the server as a hobby is a mechanism for coping... the truth is I don't know why it has failed. It is likely Year 2 will be as equally disastrous.