TNTable

Author: David M

  • SMP Update to MC 26.3

    The Minecraft SMP server has been updated to Minecraft 26.3! Check out the wiki entry to learn all about the update. A new dappled forest biome has been added, new stair and slab types (concrete, wool), poplar trees, and so much more. Happy crafting!

  • Minecraft 26.3 – Coming Soon

    I am waiting on a few pieces of software to update before updating the server to 26.3, but it is coming soon. I will make another announcement when the update is complete. PaperMC, the most important part of the server has beta builds out, which means the full release is imminent.

  • TNTable 2025: Year in Review

    TNTable 2025: Year in Review

    This post originally started with 2026 being on the horizon, whoops. Don’t @ me, I know it is Q3 2026 now. I got busy okay? Anyways, here’s the post:

    What a year 2025 has been in the world, but we’re not going to talk about that. Instead we are going to talk about the TNTable servers! 2025 saw quite a bit less activity on the Minecraft servers, but that’s okay! Many things happened in the background which I am feeling good about, and looking forward to.

    Overview

    • Minecraft server updates
    • Hytale servers are available to setup now!
    • Major changes and improvements on the server, both hardware, software, and game play

    Minecraft Updates

    This last year was interesting for updates. Mojang switched to a “drops” style of updates instead of massive changes, which is kind of nice in a way. The game has matured and there are fewer changes to mechanics. This is also the last year where the updates will follow sequential numbering. Starting this year (2026) it is switching. The first update of the year will be 26.1, the next drop will be 26.2 and so-on.

    The server started the year with The Garden Awakens (1.21.4) update from December 2024. We were introduced to the Creaking, as well as the pale garden.

    • March 2025: Spring to Life (1.21.5) brought mob variants that were based on biome temperature.
    • June 2025: Chase the Skies (1.21.6) is arguably one of my favourite updates with the introduction of Happy Ghasts.
    • September 2025: The Copper Age (1.21.9) gave us copper armour, tools, and a little guy who can sort chests for you, albeit very slowly. We also got shelves, finally.
    • Lastly, Mounts of Mayhem (1.21.11) is the final drop of the year bringing us into 2026. We’ve got spears now, netherite horse armour, new underwater mobs, and more.

    SMP Server Updates

    This last year was a big year for changes on the server. We didn’t see much player activity throughout the year, little pockets here and there. But in the background I was hard at work optimizing and improving the server experience.

    Much of this is a result of the massive overhaul of my servers. I get into the details later in this post. This is an overview of the game play and SMP server-related items that have changed or improved over the year.

    • The server map renders live now, integrates with public homes and waypoints, as well as showing the location of online players.
    • Death chests has been switched back to gravestones. This means no time limit on picking up your items.
    • The server render distance has been increased due to improvements in hardware, as well as game optimizations.

    Hardware Updates

    I got two new servers, moved some resources and services around between my servers, and ultimately was able to allocate more resources to game servers. It is also time to say goodbye to the original Borden server, a computer that has been with us for 13 years.

    New hardware

    My server cabinet in my apartment

    In 2025 I bought two new server computers. In April, and November. This brings me to 3 servers in my apartment. Each with its own purpose.

    Laurier is the NAS (Network Attached Storage) server. It has 6 hard drives in it. This holds all of the backups and media for the services I run, including the Minecraft servers.

    Then there is King, it currently runs the Minecraft servers. Though, this is a lie now as I have replaced King in 2026 but that will be for the 2026 year in review.

    Lastly there is new Borden. This server runs all my personal services like cloud storage and photo backups and all that. It also runs the media servers now. More on that in the next section.

    Reallocation of resources

    With the replacement of Borden and addition of Laurier I have been able to reallocate resources to make better use of the computing power available.

    Before this I had two servers, King and Borden. King hosted my media servers and game servers. This meant resources were being shared between media streaming and games. It was inefficient and not optimal. Borden ran my personal services.

    Now I have moved my media servers to Borden since the CPU is optimised for media transcoding tasks. So King is now free to primarily run the game servers. More resources available, and higher priority access to those resources instead of sharing them. I also unloaded media storage to a different server which has had a positive impact for backups and bulk data storage.

    Saying goodbye to an old friend

    OG Borden circa 2016

    Part of these updates means retiring original Borden, a sever that has been with us for the better part of 13 years now. It was a trusty computer, it was the second generation of server computer for our SMP worlds and other game servers. A significant improvement over the old Compaq desktop we had. It is still quite capable today, however it was time to retire it for more powerful & efficient hardware. I donated it to Free Geek Toronto, and OG Borden will live a third life as a desktop computer for those in need.

    Who would have thought that the money we pooled together in grade 9 would have gotten us a computer that lasted this long? I am very happy we were able to acquire it, and am equally happy that it served us for so long and allowed us to keep the Minecraft servers going over the years.

    Software Updates

    On top of hardware changes, the software that underpins all of the server hosting has undergone significant changes. The change of hardware was a perfect opportunity to improve the software side of things too.

    Pelican Panel

    I migrated the server hosting from Pterodactyl Panel to Perlican Panel. Mainly because Pterodactyl had stopped development for a long period of time and is lacking features. Some of the developers ended up creating Pelican Panel as a response to the lack of progress. Pterodactyl has since been revived but I am liking Pelican more. I also migrated server backups to my new NAS.

    BlueMap

    The server map has also been improved. BlueMap is now running on the server as a plugin instead of a separate service that only ran every 2-3 days. This also means deeper integration into the server, features include showing online player locations, and public homes & warps. For the first time ever the nether and end are also rendered on an active SMP world.

    Other software changes

    The Discord music bot has been sunset. It was not being used all that much, and it is easy to spin another one up if the need arises again.

    Additionally, we tried out a new software for our Wiki but ended up sticking with MediaWiki. Bookstack is great but it does not have the best editing flow for us. Thank you to everyone who tried it out and provided feedback.

    Finances

    Let’s go over some costs of running the server. Not much has changed from last year, I only have an estimate since it is a fraction of my actual usage, the server runs with other services as well. I estimate about $80 was spent on the server over the year, which averages $6.67 per month. Costs include the domain name, internet, electricity, web hosting, etc… There were no capital expenses on the server this year.

    Wrapping up, looking ahead

    If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. Also thank you to all the players who enjoyed the server this year, it is a pleasure to continue to provide a place for us to have fun, hang out, and build together. I look forward to what lies ahead, especially with Hytale coming out.

    I will leave you here now and wish everyone a happy 2026.

    David

  • New Website: 2026 Edition

    New Website: 2026 Edition

    The most significant change is under the hood.

    Hello everyone, long time to chat. I hope everyone is doing well.

    The Minecraft servers have not seen all that much action over the last year. More on that coming in a Year in Review post coming soon. Yeah I know it is nearly 2027 already but better late than never. This is precisely the reason I chose to redo the website on WordPress instead of keeping it as it was. Keep reading to learn why.

    Changes

    First, let’s get the changes out of the way. There are a few though nothing major.

    • All content relating to past servers and anything that a player could contribute to has been moved to the wiki. This is to reduce the burden on my time for editing and coming up with content, as well as allow players to contribute/modify/correct what is written.
    • All posts from the old (12 years ago) Blogspot site have been archived here. Feel free to check them out, or don’t. I was a little excited about it and posted a lot and not much of it was useful. Though I suppose it filled a need at the time.
    • Some modifications and tweaks to the website’s design elements and spacing around them.

    That is pretty much it, I have been building this for the past month or so and I am happy to finally get to publish it. There may still be some changes coming up; WordPress makes editing much easier.

    If anybody feels inclined to write content for the website let me know! I can set you up. It should at the very least be somewhat related to the TNTable community so keep that in mind.

    Why

    Now for the why. The previous website was running on Grav, an open source flat-file CMS. Read more about it here, when I redid the website last. I am now moving all the websites I help create and manage over to WordPress. I really struggled to fully adopt a different stack due to the lack of time available to dedicate to learning another framework properly. This lead to a lot of false-starts and decision paralysis in a way. I would never start any project because it was too large to tackle, and I would stop supporting the websites I currently had because upkeep took too much effort. So websites would be deployed and then decay. I wanted to replace them all before any became an emergency. Then I would really have a problem.

    So I am moving everything to WordPress. I like it, the editor is plenty powerful for what I need, and there are a number of plugins available for the extensions of functionality I wanted.

    The friction to begin a project on the website, or start writing a new post is gone. I will actually be able to write the year in review posts much closer to the conclusion of the year rather than 9-10 months and a website redesign later.

    The Wiki

    The wiki remains ever important. There was lots of content on the old website that did not need to be there, the information was sitting there dormant instead of being alive and available for anybody to edit, improve, and contribute to. Mainly the server descriptions, but also moderator biographies. The server pages have received a small overhaul on the wiki and no longer point to a blog post, instead there is a download link.

    The server archive on the website serves as more of a timeline now with links to the wiki, map, and world download as well.

    Anyways, that’s all for now, stay tuned for the year in review post, as well as an upcoming service launch that I am very excited for.

  • Sup, this is the new site

    Welcome to the new site! This has all the known past material on it, including the old blogspot stuff from 2014. These announcement posts will be for small updates, while News will be for longer-form updates. Both will get posted to Discord in the future.

  • Server Updates: Fall 2025 Edition

    Server Updates: Fall 2025 Edition

    This update shouldn’t fall flat…

    Long time no see, it is about time I provide an update on the happenings of the server. As well as some upcoming changes and improvements to look forward to!

    Changes since the last update

    Let me check when the last update was, I cannot remember what has changed since then. Please hold.

    Ah yes, here we go.

    • I bought a new server computer
      • This server is not replacing the current machine, stay tuned for the 2025 year in review for more details on that.
    • Improved backups, there was an issue where backups were not deleted even though they were supposed to be deleted in accordance with the retention policy. However they were not and I had over 2TB of backups for the servers. Clearing that out helped me a lot, and made room for future backups.
    • We are migrating our wiki to a new service called BookStack. Check it ou here!
      • We are looking for help to do this migration, if you are interested reach out to David on Discord.
      • If you want to contribute but don’t want to help with the migration, totally understand, reach out to David on Discord to set up an account.
      • This is no longer happening. Please disregard.

    Upcoming Changes

    There are a few changes and improvements I will be working on in the next couple months. The timeline is a little long and fuzzy because it depends on how much free time I have, and all the other changes I need to make before to prepare for these improvements.

    • Live server map rendering, hoping to also get player positions on maps (only when logged in of course).
      • This will result in a full re-render of the server map when I do make the change, but after that updates should be near instant when chunks are changed.
      • This will also save me about $0.50 per month in map hosting costs as I am bringing it onto my server and not hosting it in the cloud.
    • Website overhaul (I know I know, I say this nearly every update) – more details to follow later.
    • New game hosting back end called Pelican Panel

    Pelican Panel

    I am switching is from Pterodactyl Panel to Pelican Panel, this mainly means nothing for the average player except for some downtime while I migrate everything over. Less than a day. For those interested in learning why I am glad you asked.

    Pterodactyl Panel is an open source project, but the developers spent less and less time on the project, and other contributors wanted to add features but were rejected due to the direction the owner wanted to take the project. So they split off and created Pelican Panel. This split appears to be amicable as the lead developer did not have enough time to dedicate it seems. I could be wrong about all this. Anyways, Pelican Panel is now the more active version with a larger library of game support. Pterodactyl was getting outdated and I would have to use workarounds to get things to work in the last year or two. I will be posting updates in Discord about downtime and when the full migration is complete.

    Just a quick note/update. Pterodactyl Panel is back and being developed again. However we will be sticking with Pelican Panel.

    Live Server Map

    I am taking advantage of the switch to Pelican Panel to also improve the server map render. I really don’t need to wait for this, I simply plan to add the BlueMap plugin to the server and adjust where my web server points to, but I am making a bunch of changes already so I will just add it on. The way the map currently renders is every 2 days a separate virtual machine downloads the map from Pterodactyl Panel, then runs BlueMap which checks for changes in the files and renders that. This has a few disadvantages, mainly that it could take up to 2 days for builds to appear. The other change is that it causes a small spike in server usage that could otherwise be avoided, and resources are allocated to a virtual machine that only really needs them for 10 minutes every 2 days. Running BlueMap as a plugin should enable nearly instant updates, as well as player locations. To help with performance I will also be storing the map in a database instead of as plain files.

    Anyways, with this I leave you know until the 2025 year in review in the first half of 2026!

  • TNTable 2024: Year in Review

    TNTable 2024: Year in Review

    We’ve had quite the year in 2024, a new website, a new SMP world and more. We’re going to look at all the major events from this year together, go over costs to run the server (quite reasonable), and what we are looking forward to in 2025. Thanks for being a part of the community in 2024 and here’s to many more years!

    Noteworthy Events

    Let’s go through the major happenings of 2024, or at least all those I can remember. We started the year pretty quiet, not much activity on the server but there were a few updates.

    New Logo and Datapack Changes

    We left off with a new logo and datapack changes to the server. Okay, this happened at the end of 2023 but close enough. This was a long-overdue update to the logo, and the updates to datapacks were very helpful. These changes have carried forward and many of the enhancements that we voted for have been improved and replaced with mods for better functionality.

    Minecraft: Armoured Paws Update

    We saw the release of the Armoured Paws Update (MC 1.20.5) in April. Notable additions to the game were wolf variations, wolf armour and armadillos. The update went largely unnoticed on the server since activity was pretty low at the time.

    New Website

    I spent 50+ hours designing and building this new website, you can read more about it here. Overall it is a huge improvement compared to the previous website. Part of this involved updating all the map renderings and migrating them to a new version of BlueMap which is more performant and requires less storage space. Exciting stuff.

    Also, the website might be getting an update in the near future, it will remain largely the same but I am going to port it over to ProcessWire. It is another CMS and I much prefer it to Grav after working on a few projects with it. Stay tuned for updates on that, however it won’t be a major redesign this time around.

    Minecraft: Tricky Trials Update

    Then July rolls around and the new update Tricky Trials (MC 1.21.0) is upon us. The conversation about a server reset begins. We discuss and vote for a map reset. The excitement and planning for this new update and world is in high gear. In addition to the new trial chambers in Minecraft we add even more to the server with a datapack called Dungeons and Taverns. This leads us natually into our next topic: the new server world.

    New Server World

    We reset the server world and added a selection of plugins and datapacks to enhance the experience. For the first time the server map was pre-rendered and available viewing before the world launch, and the seed was hand-picked for the best starting area and spawn location among the worlds and seeds sampled. We (Matt) also began publishing a weekly recap of the events and builds from the server when there was plenty of activity. Activity inevitably died down about 4 weeks in, but players hop on occasionally and continue to build and create.

    A few notable bases includes Red Team, check their base out on the server map. If you have time go check it out on the server as well, there is so much to see and explore there. On the other side of the map west of spawn is Megaussy. It isn’t as large as Red Team but it still has character and charm. Admittedly that is where my base is so I may be a little biased.

    Expenses

    How much does it cost to run the server? Not as much as one would think once the hardware is purchased. I run a few other services on the same server so that also helps split up the costs. In total I estimate that it cost $85.24 to run the server for all of 2024. That includes the cost of storing the server renders, electricity, internet and web hosting for the website and wiki. Really not to bad, especially spread out over 12 months. This does not include any money set aside to fund upgrades or new servers in general so it really is just running costs so keep that in mind.

    Looking towards the future

    As we look towards the future I hope that we see some activity on the SMP server again soon. In addition I am planning on launching an Ultra Hardcore Minecraft server, it will be based on a plugin that lets players organize and start games themselves. Also a regular hardcore server again for players wanting additional challenge. As always, if there are any game servers you would like to see let me know and I can spin them up for you.

    Thanks for making it this far in the article, that is all for the 2024 year in review. Happy new year!

  • 2024 TNTable SMP Map Reset

    2024 TNTable SMP Map Reset

    New map who dis?

    Following the release of Minecraft 1.21, we are resetting the server map! Read on to see a summary of the new things in Minecraft, and to find out all the changes coming to the TNTable server.

    Well hello there, fancy seeing you here. Did you come to read about the new SMP map, and all the new things coming to Minecraft? I have good news for you then!

    This is going to be a longer post with lots of information so buckle up. We’re going to cover the changes coming to the server, and what to expect from the new world. I’m also going to cover some of the changes that Minecraft has introduced since the last reset to refresh everyone’s memory and hopefully inspire some goals to work towards.

    Server Changes

    There is lots going on here so I wil break it down as best I can in this list:

    • Homes, Spawn, Back and TPA commmands are moving to plugins for greater stability and efficiency.
    • Gravestones is moving to a plugin. Gravestones will now break after 5 minutes and then items will have another 5 minutes before de-spawning.
      • With the /back command after dying I think this is more than enough time to gather your things.
    • All the vanilla tweaks datapacks that were in are still in, except for those being replaced by plugins.
    • The world will be pre-rendered in a 5000 block radius and viewable online before the server launch.
    • Adding new structures from the Dungeons and Taverns datapack, the first 1500 blocks radius around spawn will be rendered without the datapack, then it will be added.
      • This datapack adds a wide selection of new enchantments as well. Be sure to check out the link for more details.

    We might also try and introduce a weekly.bi-weekly/monthly/whenever there is time newsletter about the happenings on the server.

    Minecraft Changes

    1.21 – Tricky Trials

    This one is a big one and the most recent, plus the reason we are resetting the server map. The biggest thing is the introduction of Trial Chambers. They provide a new challenge to players looking for loot and an adventure with some challenge. I have summarized a few more notable changes below too.

    • More copper uses (doors, trapdoors, chiseled copper)
    • More tuff uses (walls, chiseled)
    • Crafter – automated crafting finally
    • Trial Chambers
      • Trial Spawners
      • Trial Vaults – needs trial keys or ominous keys to unlock
      • Regular chamber is without the ominous effect, but ominous effect will get you better loot for a harder challenge
      • Need to get Ominous bottles from illagers
    • New weapon: Mace – from trial chamber, epic rarity
    • 3 new music disks
    • 20 new paintings
    • New enchantments
    • Bogged & Breeze mobs
    • Wind charges – can be used as projectiles or to launch yourself upward
      • Made from breeze rods

    1.20.5 – Armoured Paws

    • Armadillos
    • Wolf armour
    • Variations of wolves

    1.20 – Trails & Tales

    I know we have been playing on 1.20 for a while now but there are some features I think are worth highlighting again to make use of on the new server.

    • Calibrated skulk sensors
    • Chiseled Bookshelves
    • Hanging Sign
    • Archeology materials (suspicious sang, gravel, brushes, pottery)
    • Camels!
    • Sniffers
    • Trail ruins

    Final Notes

    Here are the last of the notes that aren’t long enough to be their own post but are important still.

    Hardcore & Creative Servers

    The creative server will get reset as well. Nothing really new there.

    The hardcore server will also be reset later in the year, and I have fun plans for that to make it even more challenging. Stay tuned.

    Server Hardware

    The server is still largely running the same hardware it was when I first built it. I have added two more hard drives. None of this really affects the TNTable servers.

    The one notable change that is nice is that the server is now located with me in Toronto, so that makes upgrading easier. The other benefit is full symmetrical gigabit fibre internet. This means a faster and more reliable connection to the server. Though, the server moved two years ago now so this isn’t new. I just haven’t made any post about it yet.

    TNTable Wiki

    I also want to highlight the wiki, it is a great resource for information, and I would love to record server events that happen there. There is a contribution guide to get you started, and templates that are easy to use to create your own project or pet pages.

    That is all for now, can’t wait to see everyone on the server this coming Wednesday.

  • 2024 TNTable Website Update

    2024 TNTable Website Update

    Now built with Grav!

    This post is considered out of date. This may be for a number of reasons, for example: the information may be out of date, the topic may be irrelevant now, or simply that the post is quite old but I wanted to keep the history.

    A whole new look and new backend for the TNTable Website, built on Grav! A modern, flat-file CMS.

    Hello lovely people, it has been a long time since I have posted an update. I have exciting news today, as you can see, there is a brand new website! It is still a work in progress so things may change. The motivation for this change is to make it easier to create new posts on the website, as well as have complete control over the design. This comes with some drawbacks, things may not render correctly for everyone on every device for now. I will be working on that slowly. Let me know if anything looks funky for you so I can fix it.

    The design of this website has been built from the ground up by me, no templates or anything, just HTML, CSS and Twig with Grav.

    The nitty-gritty details

    For those interested in the details, I used to build this website with Hugo, it is a powerful static site generator, but it is overkill. I did not have enough time to learn how to use Hugo and make custom Hugo templates & themes unfortunately. I found myself spending more time fixing things rather than writing posts and updates that I wanted to create. I also tried WordPress but it was a little too heavy for this use, and very restrictive when it comes to post types. Then I tried 11ty, which is also a static site generator with an easier to use template and theme creation process. But I still wanted something that made it easier to create new content and that would let me do it from an interface online.

    Enter Grav: A flat-file CMS with an easy to learn, but super powerful template and theming language. It takes the best of a CMS, meaning content it easier to create online through an interface, and combines it with the ease of customization seen in 11ty.

    That is all for now about the website, now I have a little announcement about the SMP server.

    SMP Map Reset

    Yes, it is official! The SMP map is being reset after two and a half years it is time. With the additions in Minecraft 1.21 it only makes sense. There is going to be a post explaining all the changes coming to the server, as well as all the new things in Minecraft from the past few version so keep an eye out for that.

    That is all for now, looking forward to seeing all of you on the server, launching on July 31st 2024.