Thanks to the spigot plugin Geyser, we are pleased to announce that our server now supports Bedrock clients!  Thanks to The_Banana_Bunch for bringing this up...as his computer died and all his remaining options are Bedrock clients lol.

To use this, Bedrock players will still need a Java Minecraft account.  From the bedrock client, players will simply add our server, mc.teh3l3m3nts.com, using the default Bedrock port 19132.

If you are connecting from a console (Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch) you can still connect, but the instructions are more complex.  Geyser provides their own instructions here; they require using the BedrockConnect DNS servers and we recommend the official BedrockConnect DNS IP here: 104.238.130.180.

Once the bedrock client finds our server and tries to connect, it will prompt you for your Java account login credentials, whether that be a Mojang account or a Microsoft account.  Enter those, and you should be in as your java player with all your inventory, positioning, and permissions preserved.

I created a datapack which helps with villager lag in trading halls.

If you name tag a villager with "Stillager" or "stillager" they will stop moving and path finding altogether. This is done by setting the "NoAI" tag of the villager to 1. This typically eliminates restocks, so I have a function to manually restock all trades at 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM. This is mostly consistent with vanilla behavior, villagers restock twice a day at slightly random times, but their 4 phases of the day (work, gather, wander, and sleep) can be divided into 4 segments which is the logic behind the restock times.

If you want to disable this, you tag the villager with "Moveager" or "moveager" and the name disappears and their AI is restored.

This is particularly useful for trading halls where villagers are locked in 1x1 spaces. In my test world where I have a trading hall with ~150 villagers, it took the tps from 15 to 20. This has tremendous lag reduction impacts without the headache of doing double-carpet tricks, and is completely optional so villagers in mob farms or those that are naturally spawned are completely unaffected; this is opt-in.

It can be downloaded here:

• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.8.zip For 1.20.5-6
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.7.zip For 1.20.3-4
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.6.zip For 1.20.2
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.5.zip For 1.20.0-1
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.4.zip For 1.19.4
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.3.zip For 1.19.1-3
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.2.zip For 1.19.0
• https://www.teh3l3m3nts.com/stillagers/v1.0.1.zip For 1.18.2 and Older

More information can be seen here: https://www.planetminecraft.com/data-pack/stillagers/

Special thanks to the VanillaTweaks team; this was made using their "SilenceMe" and "Track Raw Statistics" datapacks as templates.

This is my first datapack, so feedback is welcome.

Now that 1.17 has dropped, it was time to start the Shulker Shell farm we built!

We were finally able to upgrade to 1.17!  Here's some raw streams of our expedition to new chunks!

1.17 is out!  Yay!  Are we updating yet?  NO!!!  Why?  Because our plugin engine isn't ready yet.  Let's go through a checklist of things that need to update, I'll keep this up to date:

1. SpigotMC - First builds are out: - https://www.spigotmc.org/threads/spigot-bungeecord-1-17.510208/
2. PaperMC - Test builds are out - https://papermc.io/downloads

Also, we need plugins to be ready/tested in 1.17; mojang changed a LOT of API's and requires a move to Java 1.16 so the need for testing even unchanging plugins is critical:

1. EssentialsX - NOT READY - https://github.com/EssentialsX/Essentials/releases Project
2. LuckPerms - READY - https://luckperms.net/download
3. Vault - READY, Officially unchanged in 1.17 but reports say it's working: https://github.com/MilkBowl/Vault A Spigot dev says he's tested it and it's working
4. GriefPrevention - NOT READY, Likely works and just needs testing - Officially untested in 1.17: https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/griefprevention.1884/ Some users are reporting it's now working in 1.17
5. Dynmap - NOT READY, beta1 has initial 1.17 support but beta2 will be the first we will run - https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/dynmap.274/
6. Multiverse-Core - LIKELY READY, Likely works and just needs testing - https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/multiverse-core.390/ Devs say it likely will work at the time of release of 1.17: MV supports Java 16 already, and will most likely support 1.17 at release. If there are any issues reported at the time of release, we will try our best to get them fixed quickly.

Here's some "optional" plugins that we use that aren't critical but need to be upgraded:

1. ArmorStandTools - NOT READY, Likely works and just needs testing - https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/armor-stand-tools.2237/
2. BBOutlineReloaded - NOT READY, likely needs support for new structures - https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/bounding-box-outline-reloaded
3. VillagerOptimiser - NOT READY, Likely works and just needs testing - https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/villager-optimiser-1-14-2-1-16-5.68517/
4. FakePlayers - NOT READY, Likely works and just needs testing - https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/fake-players-server-side-bots.91163/
5. Dynmap Griefpreventoin - NOT READY, Likely works and just needs testing - https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/grief-prevention-dynmap-support.2881/
6. MatterBukkit - READY - https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/matterbukkit/files/3360204

Lastly, there are some client mods we use which are very helpful but aren't deal-breakers

1. Optifine - Preview version is out - https://optifine.net/downloads
2. Fabric Loader - Out for 1.17 - https://fabricmc.net/use/
3. Fabric API - Out for 1.17 - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/fabric-api
4. Optifabric - Out for 1.17 - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/optifabric
5. ReplayMod - NOT READY - https://www.replaymod.com/download/ Per the discord it's released to VIP's so release is imminent.
6. Litematica - Out for 1.17 - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/litematica
7. MiniHUD - Out for 1.17 - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/minihud
8. Malilib - Out for 1.17 - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/malilib
9. BBOutlineReloaded - NOT READY, likely needs support for new structures - https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/bounding-box-outline-reloaded/files