About the server

Aedificium is an architecture-oriented server for the sandbox video game Minecraft. Anyone can join our server and start building right away in creative mode or alternatively play in a survival-only part of the main world.

Introduction

The current incarnation of the server was designed to accomodate both the creative and survival gamemodes. We aim to create an experience where players can easily switch between these two modes of gameplay. As such, the main world (“world”) is split between two primary regions: the “freebuild” region and the rest of the world, respectively. Both gamemodes use separate inventories and have different sets of permissions.

There are three other worlds: the freebuild world (not to be confused with the “freebuild” region in “world”), the PlotMe world (“visitor_flat”) and a read-only version of the old main world before its terrain generation was modified (“architect_flat”). All three of these worlds natively function in the creative mode and have procedurally generated flat terrain, unlike the main world, which has natural terrain.

The freebuild world (also known as “visitor_flat”) obviously allows players to freely build without restrictions. PlotMe, on the other hand, allows for players to stake out their own “plots” with which they can exact precise control over who can or cannot build there.

Finally, there are three permissions groups on our server, excluding new players (“visitors”): architects, moderators, and administrators. We strive for an extremely simple permissions structure in order to maintain equal footing between players.

A brief history

The server was first brought online under the name Chromium on 21 July 2013. It originally ran a fork of CraftBukkit and a modified release of the plugin TotalFreedomMod, created by Steven Lawson and Jerom van der Sar, to give root-level permissions to every player that joined.

In 2015, another server by the name of TatsuCraft Freedom was brought offline due to an incident with the hosting company. After this, several members from that server’s community migrated to Chromium. On 31 August, the Chromium server was partially destroyed due to a data loss incident, while the website and forum remained online. Not long after, the server was brought back online using a backup taken approximately one month prior to the incident.

Since then, the main world (formerly known as the “adminworld”) has continued to be expanded upon. In November 2024, the procedural terrain generation was changed from being completely flat to a natural terrain generated by the Terra platform. Due to its age, Aedificium is a server with an extremely rich history and so it would be impossible to mention everything that’s noteworthy in this text alone.

Specifications

The server now supports several methods of connection using various clients. It currently runs PaperMC, a fork of CraftBukkit, running behind a Velocity proxy server. The server natively supports the latest stable version of Minecraft (Java Edition) and lets players connect with older versions using a protocol translation layer. For purposes of maintaing individual privacy, some player telemetry has been disabled. Microsoft chat reporting “features” have also been disabled.

The “physical server” refers to the machine which hosts the Minecraft server. The physical server is a 14 x Xeon E5-2680 v4 with 20 GB of memory dedicated to the Minecraft process. Server data is regularly backed up to a private network in order to prevent data loss. The community forum, along with some other services, are hosted by DigitalOcean, whereas the physical server is personally hosted by the server owner.

Support our community

Aedificium is completely free for its players. We refuse to add features which require any form of monetary payment (except for the server currency; this does not represent actual money). As such, we rely on contributions from the community in order to help us maintain everything. Contributions do not come in the form of monetary donations. Instead, you can contribute in some of these ways, notwithstanding others:

1. Vote for the server listings in order to allow more people to learn about the server’s existence.

2. If you are a C++ or Java developer, consider following us on GitHub. Since we moved away from Cuberite, the amount of ongoing development has decreased exponentially, however many aspects of our server are home-grown and we appreciate any potential improvements to code quality.

3. Join the Discord server to get in touch with other players and potentially give support to newcomers.

4. Join the forum to participate in conversations about the future of the server.

5. Finally, if you enjoy the server, then you should not hesitate to share it with your friends. More awareness leads to more engagement and therefore more activity and thus more contributions.