Bits & Bytes Minecraft

bits & Bytes Minecraft (commonly known as bnbmc) is a bits & Bytes community Minecraft server first established in December 15th, 2017.

History

bits & Bytes Vanilla (December 2017)

The first iteration of this server was created on December 15th, 2017 as there were discussions of what a bits & Bytes Minecraft server would look like. No one on the discord server would expect a real Minecraft server until The Pixel Polygon (b&B member) decided to setup a server on Google Cloud. At the time, it ran on 1.12.2 and immediately grew traction when it was opened to the public for the first time.

During its heyday, most people would live under a building, now known as the bnbbnb. But as time moved on, people decided to leave that building to grow elsewhere. The area around the bnbbnb would turn into a city which is now Whale City.

While regular members enjoyed playing in the server's survival mode, the staff and The Pixel Polygon members had the added flexibility of seamlessly switching between survival and creative modes. This allowed for a more diverse range of experiences, but it also led to an increase in the complexity of infrastructural projects, many of which were challenging to construct within the limitations of survival mode. One notable infrastructure that emerged during this period is now known as AirCS.

Many cities and towns were established during this time one of the original ones were Whale City, Veronaville, Victor's Interesting City, Birch Boat Town, Birch Lodges, Alee Isle, and ShiftCity.

Unfortunately, server activity slowed down due to a modded server being present and the original vanilla server was shut off.

A modded server existed for a little while until it was shutdown due to it not being stable.

The vanilla server was reopened for a short time on December 31st, 2017 to see if there was interest, but it did not last long and was shut off for good.

bits & Bytes Vanilla 2 (July 2018 - August 2018)

Around this time, people were discussing about making another Minecraft server, and then the next day it was launched. Victor decided to host the server this time since he had enough money to run the server.

There was a poll for which version of Minecraft bnbmc2 will use. Out of the 11 votes, most wanted to use 1.12.2. Vehicles were not added due to it being more of a vanilla experience.

On 5:06 AM UTC, (convert this time please) the server finally launched. You initially got a set of stone tools. The world spawn was in a desert, by an ocean.

In the beginning, the server faced some trouble staying online, as it ran out of memory frequently. This was soon fixed, and buildings started emerging in the first city called “Sunflower City”. It was located between a swamp and forests. Some of the longest surviving structures include Royce’s “Little House” [86, 213], an unknown stone brick building beside it (which has been repurposed as a nether portal) [77, 220], the public bulletin and the public farm beside it (known as “Clock Square) [80, 200].

The last two continued to get expanded and still marked the town center until the server’s end. An economy was introduced with dollars as currency. On the 18th, a new city was built by Inkydink, called “Inkytown”. It only ever saw few people living there, so most buildings were for commercial purposes.

The AirCS transit system, which was already popular on the first Minecraft server, started construction on the 20th, codenamed “Project: Aren”. At this point a few private transit systems were also being created, but AirCS was going to be maintained by the community.

On the 21st a new bot was introduced to link the Minecraft and Discord chat together. The same day two new cities called “Contemporary Valley” (owned by Victor) and “Right Valley” (owned by Right Angle Productions) started construction. [60, -1683 and 85, 382 respectively] The former was home to theSupermarket, a printing press, an old-school mob farm, some homes and other buildings, the latter was only home to four buildings with a population of 2.

The AirCS project continued to expand with a central station being built east of Right Valley, connecting the 3 lines to Sunflower City, Inkytown and Contemporary Valley. During this time though, the server’s usage continued to decline, as people started getting burnt out. The server hit 1000 in-game days on the 1st of August. For this occasion multiple members built a firework show. Due to its declining usage, people started suggesting a fresh start for the server again. On the 8th of August a poll was made, whether or not the server should be reset. 71% were in favor, so the server’s map reset on the same day.

The server’s economy was disabled this time. After the reset had gone through, however, there was very little interest in the server, so eventually, the server finally shut down for good.

bits & Bytes Minecraft 1.1/orbis./UniCity Legacy (August 2018 - March 2019)

The bits & Bytes Vanilla server remained dormant for months. It was only until after bits & Bytes Vanila 2.0 ended that the server would relaunch again.

As part of the season finale to The Pixel Polygon’s Project: Aren series, he quietly relaunched the original server and placed its IP address within a B-roll shot as an easter egg, in hopes that someone would discover it.

Michael “TotalTowerTech” would eventually do so, and in a private conversation with Cameron, shared news about the server’s existence, at which point the news had spread to everybody.

After that, the server fully revived. Initially the server was in survival mode but eventually it turned into creative due to request.

It was here that businesses and transit systems started to flourish more than ever, with some of the notable ones, such as Walnut and the SQTR system, emerging as reimaginings of their bits & Bytes Vanilla 2.0 counterparts.

A new minigame was developed, called the AirCS race, where players raced to every AirCS station and then back to central. New towns were built, and transportation was now expanding more than ever.

But that eventually raised a concern. Over time, expanding transportation infrastructure made up for most of the server’s activity, leaving city development and innovation essentially behind in the process.

Not helping matters is that everybody was beginning to develop their own cities, which killed the whole point of residency.

These two factors led to the server shutting down in October 2018. This move ended up disheartening a lot of people, so around this same time, the orbis. server was launched as a private server supposedly separate from bits & Bytes lore.

This server would end up shutting down around early January 2019, however, it would end up relaunching the same day as “UniCity” by Alee. However, new projects under the UniCity brand would end up leaving the original creative server off to the side, as the “Legacy” server.

Eventually, this too would end up being shut down after a few months due to declining interest, instead favouring new endeavours.

It wasn’t until April 2021 that Victor would decide to relaunch the server for a brand new AirCS race, after which point the server remained online as a creative server.

bits & Bytes Minecraft 3 (October 2018)

After the decline and drama during bnbmc1.1, members still wanted a new Minecraft server. There were a lot of ambitious plans about bnbmc3 from people.

Since the staff team didn’t want bnbmc3 to go bad, they decided to restrict people to make cities, limit the plugins, limit making business, and limit suggestions for the server.

The next day, it was launched. Members join the server. The launch of the server was very strict.

The first few hours went fine. Later when Inkydink went AFK and built himself a little “safe house”, AShifter decided to troll him by putting gravel on the top of it, which eventually caused the server to shut down.

Overall, the server launch itself was a failure due to restrictions, overreaction, getting diamonds early, and miscommunication with the staff.

bnbmc3 was marked as the shortest bnbmc ever, it lasted for 4 hours.

bits & Bytes Minecraft 4 (January 2019 - October 2019)

I COULD HAVE DONE THAT 67% FASTA! This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

A new bnbmc server was first mentioned on the 14th of January 2019, gaining more attention over time leading up to its launch.

Between the time of the server starting and people first being allowed to join, a minor argument already began.

This server would be run unlike any other server that had come before or after it. Instead of a free-for-all, where people were allowed to claim land and declare sovereignty, a highly-centralized government was formed around all staff members and a select few people.

All cities, including residential buildings, were built by staff and a handful of players prior to the server going public, starting on the 5th of March. The server ended up being officially launched on the 13th of March.

bits & Bytes Minecraft 5/Q (Quarantine) (March 2020 - August 2020)

I COULD HAVE DONE THAT 67% FASTA! This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Onen the 22nd of March 2020, as a lot of countries around the world were in lockdown due to the pandemic, Blake suggested starting a new Minecraft server to pass time using AstralMod’s suggest command.

After a bit of talking, it was settled that bnbmc5 should just be a vanilla game with a few small plugins, most of which were developed in-house to replace specific plugins, such as EssentialsX.

A new name for the server was also brought up, being bnbmcQ. It was hosted by Victor again. A lot of talk about an economy system, transport and other rather controversial things ensued.

After a few days of testing the server, it was finally launched officially on the 25th at 15:12 UTC. Even though the server was upgraded shortly before its launch, it began lagging massively as soon as enough people joined.

One of the first buildings was a communal tree farm built by Vrabbers. A few residential buildings were built around it.

bits & Bytes Minecraft 6 (January 2021 - ???)

I COULD HAVE DONE THAT 67% FASTA! This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

This server started on the 16th January 2021. This server focused on a faction system with an economy, with every player getting a credit of 2000$ at start.

Some parts of the game were locked-down in the beginning, to avoid killing interest too soon by running out of things to do, which the previous servers suffered from.

bnbmc6 also featured a spawn area with rules and information. Due to this area not being protected, it was soon enough partially destroyed by mob damage. Soon enough the first players started to collect essential resources.

On the 3rd March it was announced that the end dimension would finally be enabled, though this never actually happened. Around this time a new global warming plugin was added, which simulated emissions (and by extension, rising water levels) from furnaces.

The server’s plugins would continue to be updated, with the last announcement being from the 8th March. Despite the efforts, the world only ever got populated sparsely and interest dropped soon enough.

bits & Bytes Minecraft 1.x (April 2021 - Present)

I COULD HAVE DONE THAT 67% FASTA! This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

todo

Trivia

• bnbmc3 was the shortest bnbmc ever, lasting 4 hours.

References

• A lot of information were pulled from the defunct bits & Bytes Documentary document.