Hyreon's Last Server

**Hyreon's Last Server** is a Minecraft server created by Hyreon in 2023 as a response to previous servers they and their friends made. It has been running since June 5th, 2023 with custom plugins that rotate every season, with a different gameplay focus for the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter seasons.

The server contains a few guiding principles, as well as some contracts that bind the staff.

## Principles

### Not A Minecraft Server

Hyreon's Last Server is not designed as a Minecraft server first and foremost, but a mod based on Minecraft. This means core mechanics of the game may be changed in response to balance and frustration issues, without prior warning. For instance, access to the Nether roof is now banned (to counter some imbalanced farms and transporation methods), and players can be revived after dying (to counter player frustration). It also means that, if you play Minecraft for some particular niche like making grinders, there is no guarantee your niche will exist on the server at all.

### Yet a Minecraft Server

Whatever the purpose and spirit of Hyreon's Last Server may be, it is still, truly, a Minecraft Server. This is done to make the experience more accessible and familiar to newcomers, so that no standalone software is required, and mechanics that aren't essential to the identity of Hyreon's Last Server (like how to craft a pickaxe) do not need to be re-learned by players.

It also is intended to reduce development time; since the vision of Hyreon's Last Server included features such as an infinite procedurally generated world, a vast pool of resources to collect and craft, construction and destruction, a varying progression path and a combat system, and Minecraft already implements all of these things, previous standalone projects were abandoned in favor of the Minecraft server.

Additionally, Minecraft is a popular game, and therefore we wish to leverage its popularity for the mission of the server.

### Community First

Under Hyreon's convictions, human connection is eternally valuable. While the Internet has provided some means for making new connections, it is often in practice used as a replacement to them. Games often displace social activities, and games are often quite lonely affairs.

Hyreon's Last Server is an attempt to redeem this trend, by creating a gaming experience that is as fun as others, yet necessarily social. This is done through:

* Mechanics: Playing the game optimally will force you to meet and greet the people who play beside you. Features like reviving other players, limiting resources to a certain biome, and intense bursts of difficulty in the Summer mob invasion make playing solo way less fun than playing in a group.
* Seasons: By varying the focus of the server between seasons, people with different priorities in the game can still interact with each other directly and indirectly.
* Staff and Community

This also means that, if the server is perceived to be a net negative on the people involved, it will be shut down, and there will be no servers after it.

### Game Second

People load up games to "have fun," and this is a game. Whatever community may exist is built around fun, and helping each other have fun. Therefore, mechanics are sometimes added or removed for no other purpose than to improve Minecraft, the game we all love. However, gameplay changes are not *bound* to being fun. For example, limiting plant growth to certain biomes just means that some plants fail to grow. That isn't inherently fun, but it creates a new way to bind players to each other, where they must expand to different biomes or trade with others.

### Art Third

Minecraft is uniquely geared against immediate gratification, with the "grind" being a core part of the game. Where it does not interfere with fun or with community engagement, we want players to be able to express their ideas, and know they're doing more than consuming a product when playing here.

When given the choice between a goal-oriented or an open-ended feature, we will lean towards open-ended ones, so that players are not bound by Hyreon's vision of progress.

### Your Time Matters

This means two things:

* We will not pad gameplay progression behind large time investments, unless those time investments are fun in and of themselves. Current mechanics like mining, villager trading and mob grinders already lean this way, but we will not add anything like them. Progress will be limited by: mechanical skill; number of players; or by activities that are intrinsically rewarding *in theory*, to *someone*.
* Players who spend more time on the server should have a progression advantage over players who spend less, all things being equal.

### Leave When You Wish

While in tension with the first goal, it is necessary for the server to admit its place as a game, that must give way to real responsibilities, and demand nothing more than what the person wishes to invest.

Also, a player of sufficient skill should be able to quickly become competitive. If we add a level system where experience level gives you a flat bonus to damage and defense, that would violate this principle; experience cannot be finessed from other players, nor obtained quickly. Items, however, can be; and social engineering is a skill, so the power scaling of items needs no upper bound.

## Contracts

These contracts are binding, and written to improve confidence of people on the server of its long-term value.

### Never Reset

We guarantee that any character progression (e.g. items) and any structures you build will be there upon your return, unless another player has decided to remove it for their own purposes. We allow ourselves the following exceptions:

* If you have broken server rules, but do not know the extent of your damage, we may revert all of your changes on the server, or manually withdraw character progression.
* We do not guarantee that items will always behave the same way, even if they are vanilla items. (As examples: we may change the crafting recipe for Fireworks, increase the attack strength of diamond swords, or outright remove the ability to eat Enchanted Golden Apples.)
* We may convert all items of one type to another item, which may be less desirable. (As an example: If we change progression drastically, Netherite items may be converted into Diamond, for instance.)
* Custom dimensions may become inaccessible after a time, or for a time, though we are required to give a half season of warning.
* We do not guarantee that, even if your region is protected, that the protection will last forever; or that your inventory will always remain untouchable by other players.

### Seasonal Change

We guarantee that, four times each year, we will change season.

* **Time of seasons:** within 7 days of these dates, the seasons will begin on:
	+ Spring: March 05
	+ Summer: June 05
	+ Autumn: September 05
	+ Winter: December 05
* **Scope of seasons:** Spring will have the least gameplay changes, followed by Summer and Autumn; Winter will have the most changes.
* **Type of seasons:** Players will bear the power and responsibility of enforcing some rules during the Autumn and Winter seasons. Players will be able to turn off PvP during the Spring and Summer seasons.