Read on for a summary of recent changes to N3FS – the new Minecraft 1.18 server, shut-down of the old 1.16 server, and future plans!

What’s changed? Why the changes? To conclude…

What’s changed?

Incoming: Minecraft 1.18

Our new Minecraft 1.18 server has been soft-launched, and is accessible at new.n3fs.co.uk!

Full server details are available here, and the old server addresses will be updated to point to the new server when we’re ready.

The new server has been simplified and re-built from the ground up, and features a Survival world.

Shutting down: Minecraft 1.16

The previous server, which has been with us since May 2019 (Minecraft 1.13), is now closed. We will be performing shut-down activities for the next weeks.

World downloads

World downloads for Survival and Creative are being prepared and will be made available soon-ish™.

Update (13 Aug 2022): The world downloads are now available!

Verification & access to Minecraft

We previously introduced a verification process to deter griefing and vandalism, which has increasingly become more common.

For 1.18, verification will continue to be required for players to be able to interact and build, across the entire game world.

Why the changes?

Firstly, dwindling player numbers has made our high server costs unjustifiable. Information on our recurring server costs before and after the changes can be found here.

Secondly, the way the previous servers were set-up is quite complex.

It includes a main proxy, and at least 3 Minecraft server instances (Hub, Survival, Creative, plus any other seasonal servers), each running a unique set of plugins which may need to communicate with each other. This was originally done to optimise performance, with complexity being the trade-off.

The complexity and our lack of free time meant that maintenance was a chore and hard to schedule, which also explains our tardiness with updating the servers in a timely manner and the repeatedly slipping timelines.

For this iteration, the focus is on reducing costs to a reasonable level, and to keep the server simple to make it easy to maintain and update.

Unfortunately, the downside is that we only have a single Survival world. The Creative world is currently not in our plans, unless server performance allows for it, and the player numbers are high enough to justify the upgrades and additional maintenance and costs.

To conclude…

We’re glad we’re able to get these changes finally pushed through. Thank you very much for your patience; we apologise for the delays, and we hope you enjoy the new server and all the new content in the 1.18 update!

– Joey