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 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All posts from the old (12 years ago) Blogspot site have been archived here.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.
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.
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!
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)
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.
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.
Friendship ended with Overviewer, now BlueMap is my bestfriend
A massive upgrade to the server maps has arrived! All of the old maps have been re-rendered and the server map will now be available.
Hello! I have great news about the server map renders! We are now using BlueMap to generate world maps to explore in your browser. I will explain why below, as well as some of the plus sides and limitations of the switch.
Why switch now?
So glad you asked. It all started when I upgraded the SMP server to Minecraft 1.20, and suddenly any chunks that had been visited in the new version were not rendered at all. A quick visit to Minecraft Overviewer’s website tells me that the project is no longer updated.
So I began the search for new map rendering software to replace Overviewer. Their blog post suggested BlueMap so I gave it a try. It seemed to check all the boxes I was looking for and I really like the way maps turned out after a few tests and learning how to configure it.
Pros and Cons
BlueMap seems to be an improvement in all ways. It renders a full 3D model so you can explore worlds in much greater detail like never before. It also has the advantage of taking up less space (costing me less money to store). On average, maps are about 30% smaller, as an extreme example though, the Castles & Casinos & VIllages map render was a whole 30GB, and now it is 8.5GB.
Top Down view like a 2D map in-game.Perspective view from any angle.Free-cam, lets you explore the world in first person like spectator mode in-game.
BlueMap lets you view a 2D map, a perspective view, or even go through the world in first person, similar to spectator mode in-game. Be sure to check it out on the server map, or on any of the past maps!
Like most renderers, it does not render entities, so you will still need to download the world and play it to see your pets, read your signs or look at item frames and banners. Overviewer couldn’t do it either, nor would it even let you zoom in enough to see enough detail anyways so I don’t see this as an issue with BlueMap.
Overall I am quite happy with BlueMap and the significant upgrade in map quality. Thanks for reading!
The low-down on the update to Minecraft 1.18 and what it means for the server
There are many changes coming to the TNTable SMP server with Minecraft 1.18. Check this post out for the details and what it means for you.
Minecraft 1.18 is being released on November 30th! That means some changes coming for the server, this time there are many. I am doing a bit of an overhaul on the server and adding more functionality and features to make the experience more pleasant. Buckle up because this is a long post with a lot of important information.
Details
Minecraft Changes
A lot has changed in Minecraft, check out the wiki page for an extensive list of changes. I will summarize a few though.
Terrain generation and world changes
Worlds now go up to y=320 and down to y=-64
Ore spawning has changed and there are new distribution algorithms. Check out this table for details. Ore generation is increased between certain heights
More uses for copper ore now
Mountain Goats
Changes to cave generation
Noodle style and caverns added to improve generation
More dungeons, especially below y=0
Aquifers now in the game. Local water levels allows for underground lakes
Technical Change: Minecraft will now be a little more threaded, providing a performance boost to some systems
Simulation vs Render Distance
New simulation distance determines how far ticks will occur around the player. This is CPU heavy
Render distance is graphical and can allow you to see more terrain than your CPU is processing. This is GPU heavy
Multiplayer Sleep functionality
Loads of bug fixes
Datapack Changes
TNTable Datapack
I have cleaned up the TNTable datapack and removed recipes that are provided through other packs now. Do not worry though, there is no functionality being lost, it is being added elsewhere.
Other Datapacks
Below is the list of datapacks that are going to be included on the server at launch, details on usage will be provided later in the post and a dedicated page will be made. For now, here are the packs you can expect to see on the server. However they are all subject to change without notice.
Armour Statues: Book to edit armour stand positions
Fast Leaf Decay
Custom Nether Portals
Cauldron Concrete: Drop concrete powder into a cauldron to make concrete
Redstone Rotation Wrench
Terracotta Rotation Wrench
Player Head Drops: Players drop heads when killed by another player
Double Shulker Shells: Shulkers drop two shells instead of one
Larger Phantoms: Phantoms get larger the longer it has been since sleeping
Spawn TP: Command to teleport to world spawn
Home TP: Command to set and teleport to a home spawn
Tag: HermitCraft Tag game on the server
Dropper to Dispenser: Turn droppers into dispensers
Rotten Flesh to Leather: Smelt rotten flesh into leather
Sandstone Dyeing: Dye sand into red sand
Craftable Gravel, Horse Armour, God Apples, Saddles, Name Tags, and Bundles
Server Map/World Reset 🗺️
To take full advantage of the world and all the changes to generation, the map will be reset to provide a fresh start. This is a great opportunity to make a base in the new caverns that can be 100+ blocks tall, or perhaps you want a secret lair on top of a mountain to make sure nobody can find you. Following the release of PaperMC for Minecraft 1.18, the server will be updated and there will be a launch party of sorts on Discord where we can all join the server and start this new journey together. Keep an eye on Discord for information about that.
Server Changes
There are many changes coming to the server that you can read all about here.
First of all, Phantoms are coming back to the server, and with the Larger Phantoms datapack this will mean that they get larger the longer it has been since you’ve last slept. But do not fret! The newly added teleport functionality should make it easier to get back to your home sweet home so you can snuggle up in bed 🛏️ to keep those pesky nightmare creatures away! Isn’t that exciting?!?
Datapacks
Usage Guide
Alrighty this may be long, but it is important. There will be a page dedicated to this information shortly if I feel that it would help. Otherwise some of this information will also be in the server book so keep that nice and safe.
Name Colours
You get to choose your name colour, and you get to choose your name colour, you ALL get to choose your own name colour!!!! No more having to beg for just the right colour for your name you can do it yourself. Woo!
All you have to do is type in a teeny tiny command. You ready?
/trigger name_color
🤯 Boom, that’s it. You will get a nice little prompt in chat and a list of colours to click on and choose from. Isn’t that simply amazing? I think so.
Armour Statues
Here is a handy dandy YouTube tutorial because I can’t be bothered to type it all out. I will tell you how to get started though so don’t worry. You need to get the book.
To do that, make a Book and Quill and put some random garbage in there. Doesn’t matter. Then sign the book and call it Statues, spelled exactly like that with the capital S. Some magic happens and you’ve got a fancy little book to modify armour stands now.
Redstone and Terracotta Rotation Wrench
The recipes can be found in your in-game crafting book. 📒
Teleportation 🏠
Well well well, I am finally adding in /spawn and /home functionality. Maybe we can get a nice spawn now that it is easy and quick to get there. Anyways, to teleport to spawn use /trigger spawn. Home is a little more complex, first you have to set it. Use /trigger sethome to set your home, and /trigger home to get back there after a long day in the mines, at spawn or wherever you decide to spend your time in Minecraft, I don’t judge.
Crafting
There are new custom crafting recipes coming to the server. Check out the crafting page for more details!
Advancements
There are new custom advancements coming to the server. Check out the advancements page for more details!
Woah, I just got some déjà vue there. Anyways…
Hardcore World
Wait what? A hardcore world? Why yes, there will be a Hardcore server where you can die and lose your precious hours of work forever. It will launch a few weeks after the regular SMP server and it will get its own post with details on how to join. Yet another thing to be on the watch for.
This is perfect place for players who wish for a bit more of a challenge. This server does not have all the comforts of the regular SMP server, you must survive in pure vanilla Minecraft. Beg others to sleep through the night, deal with phantoms, fight mobs on hard mode. All this and the risk of losing it all if you die! What’s not to love?
Housekeeping
Whitelist Audit
I am performing a whitelist audit. Any username that is not spoken for by the map reset will not be added to the whitelist. If you miss the change to get your username on the whitelist before the server starts, do not worry. Message me and I will get you added once again!
Minecraft 1.17 is the first part of the Caves and Cliffs update. The server world will not be resetting until the second part is released.
Minecraft 1.17 – Caves and Cliffs Part I
Minecraft 1.17 is the first part of the Caves and Cliffs update. Much of the features have been delayed until the second part. The next update will feature all the changes planned for world generation, with all new underground cave and mountain generation and build height changes.
The world will not be reset until the second part of the update is released around the end of the year. The second part will drastically changes world generation. This will allow for all the changes to be fully utilized. To make use of the new features in 1.17 you will need to find new chunks. This should be fairly straightforward with the available world map.
To encourage exploration to the new chunks I will be sponsoring transportation systems to new chunks to help ease the burden of taking on such a large project. Contact me to submit your proposal for a transportation system and I will work out funding.
The server itself will update to Minecraft 1.17 once PaperMC has a functioning build. Until then it will remain on Minecarft 1.16.5. I will be posting on Discord once the server is updated.
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.
Using Waterfall Velocity, a Minecraft server proxy, you only need one address to be able to connect to multiple servers.
How to get between Minecraft Servers?
Using the new configuration I have combined all servers under one address and port so there is no need to have multiple TNTable servers in your list. I discuss the specifics later. For now I will just give you the commands to get around. They are also really easy to find on the server. At any time start typing “/server” and a list of autocomplete suggestions will come up with the available servers.
SMP
/server smp
UHC
/server uhc
Creative
/server creative
Waterfall
Waterfall is a fork on BungeeCord, a Minecraft server proxy. It takes BungeeCord and optimizes it further.
Note from the future
Waterfall is no longer being used, Velocity has replaced it. It provides the the same functionality with additional performance improvements.
What is a server proxy and why do I care?
A server proxy allows the addresses to be combined into one so that multiple servers are not needed in the list with multiple ports or extra configuration at a DNS level. Waterfall is advantageous for me as I can create additional servers and configure waterfall instead of worrying about additional ports needing to be opened and all the extra configuration that would otherwise be required. Travelling between servers is easy and it will remember which server you were in before logging out and place you back in there when rejoining.
Joining
The server address can be found in the TNTable Discord community. Ensure that you have given me your username before joining so that I may add your name to the whitelist. By default you will land in the SMP server but switching is a command away.
A new server, updated website backend, more map storage!
Hello everyone, I have some exciting news, or at least it is exciting for me. This post is kind of a collection of smaller insignificant news bits all rolled into one, so enjoy.
First of all, and most exciting; I am building a newer, more powerful server. I hope you all like the poorly drawn on image I have included. This is fantastic news as it means the Minecraft server will have more power, and I will be able to run many more game servers upon request. For those that like the nitty gritty of computers I will include a parts list below as well the internet connection information. However this does mean there will be some downtime over the holiday season. I will post to Discord when this can be anticipated and how long it is expected to last. Please keep an eye out for that.
Second of all, the website’s backend has been updated. This may not mean much for any of you, but it means a lot for me. You may notice marginally improved performance but it is likely imperceptible. It mainly makes my life easier, and I have figured out automatic deployment of updates. Please note however that the night mode colours are still being tweaked so bear with me on that.
Third of all, the maps are now all finally available for your viewing and nostalgic pleasure. For those interested I have moved them from a file server on a VPS into an Object Storage bucket on Linode. This does mean incurring a monthly cost but it allows me to have all the map renders available, and know that the data is safe, so it is worth it for me. Please check the past maps out and feel free to share screenshots of anything that you find. I plan on migrating the current server map over to Linode as well but that won’t get its own post.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Have some server specs. These are subject to change and will be updated accordingly.
Server Info
Part List
Part
Product
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X – 8 Cores 16 Threads @ 65W
Motherboard
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
RAM
G.Skill Ripjaw 64GB (4x16GB) 3200Mhz CL16 (32GB available for games)
Storage
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB NVMe SSD
Additional Storage
3x 6TB WD Red HDD (NAS)
Case
be quiet PURE BASE 6 (Reusing an Old Case)
PSU
be quiet PURE BASE 6 (Reusing an Old Case)
UPS
Eaton 5S 1500VA 900W (Runtime to be estimated after build)
Last Updated December 14th, 2020
Uplink Info
Copper Coaxial Cable Connection (I wish it was fibre but oh well)
