Im gonna be honnest here: plugins suck. They completely destroy the pure vanilla experience multiplayer minecraft has to give. Lets take a look at the "Essentials" plugin, shall we.


The first thing it has to offer is player kits and first join kits. I am completely against these, as they can be abused for free tools, as well are just outright stupid. On just about every server, these kits compose of a stone sword, pick, axe and shovel, and lets face it, it takes 5 minutes to get those. If they were so "Essential," Mojang would have gave them to every player naturally.

Essentials also provides item metadata spawning, which can be easily done via commands thanks to the past few updates/snapshots.

The next feature is player to player teleporting. This kinda makes the game unfair due to simple fast travel. Let me give you an example: Players a and b both log on at the same time. Player a has a friend that already has a good base set up. Player b has to instead walk ways off to get away from civilization to set up his base. While this is a pretty bad example, it means that bigger groups of players have a much greater advantage.

Single or multiple homes is another feature of Essentials. I've used this on multiple servers as a way to get out of sticky situations, such as falling in lava, and pretty much everyone uses this as a way to keep their stuff safe and essentially cheat death. It means that people are abusing features that are unavailable in vanilla.

Warp locations with sign support: much like the other teleport commands. Why do you need a sign when you can use a button?

Full chat and nickname customization: You dont need bukkit for this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaN_VokszzI

Full moderator control (Muting, Jailing, Temp Banning): Well, first of all, you have both the kick and ban command. While it may be harsh, banning people on the spot is a viable solution, especially if you give them several warnings beforehand. Muting is pointless because minecraft automatically kicks people for spamming, and you're better off punishing spammers through different means. Jailing can be done in vanilla with a simple command block clock that teleports players and temp banning can be done though repeated kicking. But seriously, all these are unnecessary, as you can give 3 kicks as warnings and a ban if the person persists. They can all also be done if the server's owners are proactive. In my opinion, these commands are for the lazy.

Economy support: Can be abused for easy resource gathering. Why not just set up several trade stalls for players to trade in?

Full permission based build control, with the ability to block certain items: Want to block an item? Just put the command "/clear @a [item id]" on a loop and it will prevent players from even having the item in their inventory

Core world protection (explosions, fire,etc.): Dont want fire spread? use "/gamerule doFireTick false" Dont want explosions? use the clear command above to block TNT! Dont want people to use mobs to blow stuff up? Use "/gamerule mobGreifing false"

Look, my point is that plugins are the lazy way out. A lot of the things they do can be done without them. They ruin innovative server protection and wreck your minecraft experience. Look, you're probably thinking "But frozen! Plugins protect my house from griefers!"

Minecraft is a survival game. That means you need to be able to respond to whatever the game throws at you. You have to think outside the box. Is your house too visible? Maybe build underground. People burning your house down? Use fireproof materials. Even if a greifer gets into your house and steals all your stuff, it's not the end of the world. You gotta learn from your mistakes and improve.

What im getting at is that plugins are abused, and really steal from the survival aspect of the game. But this is the point where the "Rant" part of this blog ends. Most multiplayer plugins might be horrid, but there are a few diamonds in the rough. Theres games like dwarves vs zombies and super craft bros, servers that stand out. Why? Because they do something differently.

Well, I hope you liked my "Rant" please drop a comment to tell me your opinion and subscribe for more! If you like this, please give this a nice blue rock (Im talking lapis, not diamonds)

-Frozen_Chaos