The Tale of Minecraft's Baddest Server

Written: 2024-07-24 · Last Updated: Never

This is a tale I've wanted to tell for a long, long time. A proper full documented history of a server otherwise lost to time and only known to the very few who played it: Minecraft's Baddest Server (MBS).

Okay so is there context?

This is a pretty niche topic, but I'm writing it half as a tribute to the server and half as a reference for the last few remaining players (including myself) who still hold a fond memory of a place that no longer exists. If you're not a former player, then there's not much here that you'd be personally that invested in; but read on if you're a fan of a good ol' chronology because boy can I write one of those!

So as a quick overview of what the hell MBS is and why I have any involvement is this:

Minecraft's Baddest Server (MBS), later SeveriaMC (SMC) was a small Minecraft SMP server established in 2020 by a small group of people who rose from the ashes of another community on a different server. Most notably, MBS was a silver age Minecraft server. Silver age comes as a spin off of the concept of Golden Age Minecraft (y'know, like the subreddit): those Golden Years of early Minecraft from Classic to Release 1.2.5 (although some will argue of Beta 1.9's suckiness, therefore leaving Beta 1.8.9 as the last good version). Silver age refers to the period just after that: 1.3 through to the last ever non-Microsoft release, Release 1.8.9

Beta 1.9 (what became Release 1.0) was a heavily controversial update that added hunger and sprinting, just to name a bit. There was a good proportion of the playerbase who were so opposed to such changes that they chose to simply not play the newer version. These people stuck to what was a recent version when their grievances were new, and now—13 years later (eek! time moves!)—keep going with the once-new-now-antique version. Others, however, haven't played Minecraft since 2011 or before, and just admire the simplicity of Beta Minecraft. Either or, the number of people in the Golden Age Minecraft community is large. (Remember: Minecraft's first explosion of popularity online (back in ye olde Yogscast days) was in 2011, during mid–late Beta) I myself am in the Silver Age camp: I started playing Minecraft the day after 1.5 released, so the first few post-1.0 releases of the game are my personal favourites—ones I remember the best and hold in the highest regard, despite having played versions from every era spanning from Pre-Classic to the latest version (1.21 as of writing).

So in 2020, I see a server ad while scrolling recent posts on Reddit one evening (inset right is a similar poster, I believe the original (at this dead link) is lost to time).1 It's for a Release 1.0 SMP with the grammatically questionable-sounding name of "Minecraft's Baddest Server"—with a release date, launching soon—and it has a Discord invite. I save the post for later, and when later comes, I join the Discord and have a look around to see what it's all about. There aren't too many people around, as it's about a week and a bit out from launch; nevertheless, I join in with the server and prepare for launch day.

A Full History

Okay, well to tell this story we'll have to go back. Way back. I swear we actually need to.

In 2014, and then again in 2017, a public Beta 1.7.3 golden age Minecraft server called RetroMC is founded.2 RetroMC is a Towny SMP, meaning that most players are divided into town groups where they build and build a community. One such community is the town Neoncity, lead by an unnamed owner. The Neoncity group has its own Discord and a decently sized community on the RetroMC server.

However, the leader of Neoncity destroys the Discord server and disbands the town on RetroMC (leaving the physical builds untouched). Most members of the town give up on the server, leaving very few remaining former Neoncity players. Somewhere between June and September 2019, the remaining Neoncity players form their own private SMP amongst each other. This SMP lasts until sometime in early–mid 2020, where player counts drop off and interest is eventually lost, and the server eventually closes.

On June 28^th, 2020, a former Neoncity SMP member by the name of Calx makes a post on the /r/GoldenAgeMinecraft subreddit advertising a new SMP on a post titled "Minecraft's baddest Server."1 This is the same ad I would see one evening scrolling Reddit (a pastime I thankfully have not partaken in for years 😌) The advertisement stated that MBS would be a Release 1.0 Minecraft server, and that it would launch on the 8^th of July—1 week and 3 days after posting. Comments vary from:1

i know this is not before 1.0, but i'd consider it part of old mc.

and

This is dope

…to:

read rule 1

(Outright dismissal of the post because /r/GoldenAgeMinecraft prefers Beta 1.8 and before)

Regardless, Neoncity stragglers and their friends meet new players, including me, in the following days after the post goes up. Overall, the singular post brings in a relatively large amount of activity to the Discord pending the server's launch. Calx said in December of 2023:

as far as i remember people only began joining after we put the reddit banner up

I remember as the server picked up, quite a few messages and conversations passing each day getting ready for the full server to release. Finally, the day comes. I miss a lot of the very initial Getting Wood moments of the server, but I'm there by day one to explore and fill out my inventory just a bit. Me and around 20–30 other players form the original group of launch day players. Here's the first photo I take:

Did I mention I was doing this all on my Inspiron 1545? 3 GiB RAM and a Pentium T4400. Not great. That thing was 10/11 years old then, and wasn't getting any faster with a bodged copy of Release 1.0 and no OptiFine to speak of. Anyway, I digress.

The first few days of the server are very nice, everyone heads out and builds communities and works together to create pretty great things. It seems that each time I log back on the place where I had logged off had developed into an even more polished and completed town area. Potentially the single earliest town established was named Minecraft's Baddest Town:

This place went from a crop, a bed, and a chest, to multiple player houses, mines, farms, and plain decorative builds within a matter of days right at the start of the server. I was around to see it spring to life in real time.

I never actually properly settled in in the world, I toured around in a more nomadic style, seeing bases and progressing with only what I had in my inventory. When the server launched, it already had a built spawn area and some commands like /nick. (Well, /nick, or it was just an offline mode server. The latter is probably actually more likely)

After 9 days up, ownership is transferred from Calx to another prominent figure, Topher (who renamed to TDFPL around this time), from the Neoncity days. This is because Calx's Discord account (and thus the MBS Discord that he owned) was pending suspension due to him being below the Discord TOS' minimum age requirement for an account. Because of this risk, Topher initiated a move to a new Discord server and shut down the old one, leaving it dead. I've also heard another account that states the old Discord was nuked, but I can't verify this; it's most likely that the old server died as most people left it and moved to the new Discord.

The Ender Dragon is defeated by a launch day player called Mortis on the 19^th. Around this time, Calx comes to the new Discord under an anonymous alt account called "LacIsBac" and acts to provoke and antagonise admins of the server. There's a whole drama around this time and a lot of hostilities between the people who run MBS and Calx, the former leader. Calx's aggression and verbal abuse culminates in the LacIsBac account being found out and banned on the 20^th.

On the 2^nd of August, 2020, Season 2 of Minecraft's Baddest Server is announced to launch on the 14^th, but is postponed to a TBA date the day after. The day after that, the Season 2 concept is scrapped completely, and is replaced by an announcement that a new SMP map will be created, and the original MBS map will also be kept available through the use of the Multiverse plugin. On the 10^th, the original map is put into creative mode and a new survival map is launched.

Topher announces Minecraft's Baddest Server is being renamed to SeveriaMC. Mortis reacts to this by remembering that it was the name of an old server Topher used to run. I'm not sure when the old SeveriaMC existed, but it's probably somewhere around 2018–2019. I asked about it in 2023, in reference to Mortis' reaction message:

toydotgame: there was another server callled [sic] severiamc?
Topher: yeah but it was only a smp between friends

On that same day (17 August), a pseudo-anarchy map is launched, called the "Season World" as it will reset every 3 months. The day after, the SeveriaMC YouTube channel is created. I think there used to be a server trailer or something of the sort on there, but it's definitely an empty channel now. A Dynmap web map^{[dead link]} for the Minecraft server is launched at the same time. 5 days later, /r/SeveriaMC^{[now a private community]} is created. (It appears there was also a prior subreddit for the MBS name, called /r/MCsBaddestServer.3 The subreddit is 404'd now)

A teaser for a proper Season 2 drops on the 27^th, and an announcement the day after. Season 2 is set to launch on September the 5^th. At the end of August, Season 2's launch date is pushed forward to September 1^st. Season 2 ends up launching a day late, and on Release 1.1 due to plugin incompatibilities (the Minecraft-Discord chat bridge bot was due to break due to Discord changes, and the fix for it only worked on 1.1+). On the 8^th, a poll is put out to see if everyone would prefer to update to 1.2.5.

By this point, it's September, and playership is down to below 10 players IIRC. I had stopped being super involved and had moved back to lurking about a month beforehand. The consecutive updates to the server and map resets bring short-term interest back, but people very quickly get bored and eventually the constant change pushes some away. On 13 September, Topher puts out an announcement announcing that he is seeking a replacement in his position:

@everyone Who wants to be a new owner of the server (I'll still be an owner kind of, but won't care that much), DM me. The server's costs are 2 dollars per month.

The next day, the server's new administrator, named Coro, makes their introduction in the announcements channel:

@everyone I apologise for a second ping in a row, but as you can probably tell, The server is now under new managment, led by yours truly. Topher will still have power and assist me in managing the server. As for my first change expect the discord to be streamlined and cleaned up so you don't get confused with the channels anymore. More will come soon so keep your eyes peeled! If you have any feedback, please let me know in #feedback. Thanks for your attention!

Topher then takes a step back from the community and administration. On October 7^th, Coro releases a poll to everyone, asking if they wish to abandon silver age Minecraft altogether, and move to the latest version (at the time, 1.16.3). Within 4 hours, the motion succeeds 14 to 8. Coro begins planning to move to 1.16.

On the 8^th, copies of the OG, Season 2, and anarchy maps are uploaded to a MEGA link.3 The maps are kept online as true anarchy maps. 4 days later, all of the maps are re-uploaded again as griefed copies.5

The official closing date of SeveriaMC is 11 October 2020.

Conclusion

After the closure of the server, the Discord slowly rotted away and by mid-2021 I left it for what I thought would probably be forever. The Discord remained practically dead, and all other traces of MBS online slowly died of link rot. Today, the map downloads, screenshots, and the Discord are the only tangible pieces of history from a server that started and ended nearly 4 years ago.

Interestingly, one of the first bases I found on my adventures in the early days was by someone called cashuuuu. I would meet cashuuuu again in December of 2023 in the iPod Discord; it turns out they're an active member of the iPod Discord community and a moderator there on that 12k member server. Something something small world!

Calx came back to the MBS Discord quite a few months ago as well, and it was nice to reconnect with the server's founder this many years on after he went completely missing from the server. Topher has always been in the Discord, acting as a kind of steward of the server, as the #welcome channel lists more and more members leaving the server as they deactivate accounts and lose interest in still hanging around. I've been back on there since April of 2023 and I just silently watch a lot too. It's a good historical reference for my memory of the place.

So that's why I made this article, because I hold a fond memory of this ancient niche-as-hell silver age Minecraft server I joined back in my Reddit phase that died within mere months of it being created. On my personal SMP, ICCMC, I've built a replica model of the MBS spawn grass block in my base, so that another remnant of the server can continue to exist through the long-term thing that is ICCMC:

Sometimes it's fun to live the spur-of-the-moment stuff, and leave the reminiscence for later.

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Gallery

Reference List/Further Reading

1. "Minecraft's baddest Server". /u/redditcalx03. Archived from the original on 2023-06-15.
2. "Timeline". RetroMC wiki.
3. "/r/MCsBaddestServer URL prefix saved URLs". The Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on 2023-06-16. It appears this subreddit may have been renamed to /r/sheeperino, as that subreddit contains posts that are also listed on the old MBS subreddit.
4. "SeveriaMC - 1.1 Server Map Files". MEGA.nz.
5. "SeveriaMC Griefed". MEGA.nz.