On April 13, 2025, Carolyn pitched the idea of running a new Minecraft network to the Gamer Dorks staff team. We failed once before, so the idea was daunting. We didn’t want to fail again. But, our game development has been stagnant since December, and we figured that we didn’t have much to lose if we failed. Worst case scenario, development is paused for even longer. So we decided to try again. A new approach, with new game modes, made with the experience of past failure.
The New Approach
This time, we wanted to do things differently. Remnant Minecraft was a huge endeavor, which required immense amounts of developer time to keep up with players. We didn’t just need to make new items and mobs; but we also needed to make structures, we needed to promote the server, we needed to make interesting boss fights, and we needed to write a story. All for Minecraft players who likely wouldn’t appreciate the effort we put in to it.
So, we had to take a different approach. We decided that each server we make should only require a minimum amount of effort to keep going once it is released. Games that offer longevity without constant developer work. Games that do not have a highly detailed story which most players will skip right past. After some deliberating, we landed on our current development model.
Carolyn will lead the development for all new servers. She will lead our team in making the game mode, and then, one to three months later, we start work on one major update to expand upon the game mode, resolve any gameplay issues, and generally polish the game. After that, it’s up to the rest of the team to add new features as they deem fit.
Moreover, we could reuse assets and code from the old server. We had plenty of amazing builds and textures created by our old staff team. We had multiple premium plugins available that we already paid for. Perhaps most importantly, our team is experienced this time.
Unlimited Games
We started with three game modes. Ones that we knew our community liked, ones we knew how to make well.
We started by making UHC Reborn. A modern take on the classic UHC game mode. Players enter a hardcore world with a shrinking border with one goal: survive. They have no health regeneration, and unique scenarios change the rules of the game, making it more or less difficult. Mochi has experience running UHC before, and it was well-liked during the Minehut 10-year anniversary event.
There’s a major problem with UHC though. It requires at least three players to run. If someone finds the UHC server, and it only has one or zero people in it, they leave right away, because they don’t want to wait around for the game to start. And even if there are enough people, it might be too slow for most players. So this could never be our main game mode.
Next, we made Creative Pro. A creative plots server where we gave everyone pro tools for free. We gave everyone access to FastAsyncWorldEdit, a powerful server-side building tool. We reached out to the Axiom developers to request a server whitelist, so that everyone in Creative Pro can access Axiom, an even more powerful building tool that needs to be installed on the client as well as on the server to run.
Creative Pro was a major hit. When we first opened our network to the public, we had 5-8 players on every day at peak times in Creative alone. Nobody ever managed to crash the server (which is often a danger in creative plots servers), and nobody was griefed.
UHC, Creative, and the server lobby only took about a month between them to develop and release to the public. However, we weren’t done yet. We wanted to release one more game mode before we advertised the Gamer Dorks Minecraft Network.
Finally, we made Enhanced Survival. A very familiar experience to anyone who has been a part of the Gamer Dorks community for a long time, as it took inspiration from Remnant Minecraft, from the HyruleGamingGroup SMP, and from the Minehaus SMP; all servers we played on as a community.
We started by creating a whole new dimension. The Otherworld, also known as the Mirror World, is the “final destination” of Enhanced Survival. It features incredibly strong mobs, new ores, and powerful items of all sorts. We reused the terrain generator that we used for the Aether dimension in Remnant Minecraft (with a few adjustments to create the Deep Ocean Abyss biome), and we added generating structures reminiscent of those in Remnant Minecraft.
The Otherworld was far more detailed than any custom dimension we had in Remnant Minecraft. It had about as many different mobs as the Overworld, ranging from monsters, to animals, to humanoid civilians. We decided this was enough, we didn’t need to make a dozen new dimensions like we did in Remnant Minecraft.
We then thought back to how much conflict there was in Remnant Minecraft, and how that made the game less appealing to a lot of more mature players, which was our target audience. We decided to take a look at how the Minehaus and HGG SMPs handled player conflict, and follow their approach. We made griefing and theft against the rules, we made no in-game incentive to PVP, and we made it easier for new players to get started.
So we settled on Enhanced Survival. A refreshingly high-quality SMP, with land claim and economies, and a whole new dimension to discover. It was a major hit. We were absolutely blown away by how many people like this server. With 10-15 people on at peak times every day, this server was far more stable in player counts than Remnant Minecraft ever was. And we only needed to put in a fraction of the effort to achieve this.
The "One Update" Rule
As mentioned before, Carolyn, our lead developer, will lead only one major update for each game mode before moving on to the next. And this worked out surprisingly well. It gave us an opportunity to respond to player behavior and feedback, without putting us in an endless cycle of constant development.
In Enhanced Survival, our first update primarily made all the useless mobs useful. Many mobs dropped nothing, or their drops were useless beyond a single recipe. Our first update added new armor sets, new weapons, new tools, Civilian trading with rubies, and new utility blocks and foods to make all the new mobs have uses.
Players are now more satisfied with the endgame content of the server. They feel that going to the Otherworld is extremely worthwhile, and they no longer feel like they wasted time by killing a mob or boss that didn’t have a useful drop.
In Creative Pro, we improved the new player experience. Many players didn’t know how to make a plot, or if they did, they were disappointed at all the features we disabled in the server, or at the small size of their plot. And so, we made players immediately claim a random plot when they first join the server. We made it so that free players can claim 4 plots in total, and doubled the number that each supporter rank can claim. We re-enabled redstone for everyone, and we added a help menu which tells people about all the tools they have access to (and the features that are locked) in Creative Pro.
Since the update, we’ve seen player retention increase significantly in creative, and even people who have never played a creative server before feel comfortable building in a plot.
In UHC Reborn, we added unlockable kits and a new deathmatch arena. The kits are all intended to be of roughly similar power. Some increase the player’s power in the early game, while others make them stronger in the late game but are entirely useless if you can’t make it that far. It adds an extra level of variety to games which, coupled with the scenarios, make every single UHC game just as interesting as the last (Unless everyone votes for Randomized Crafts).
The original arena was just the lobby world, which turned out to have a lot of hidden overpowered loot if you knew where to look. Many players could get diamond armor and enchantments during deathmatch which they didn’t have before, which made the 30 minutes of preparation before feel pointless. With the new arena, there is still a little bit of loot players can take, but only on the level of golden apples and arrows to make going to the center of the arena worthwhile.
Since the update, UHC games have felt more fair, more variable, and deathmatches have felt genuinely fun.
The Monetization Problem
Despite the major success of the new Gamer Dorks Minecraft Network, one problem still remains: Monetization. We decided that we can still never go pay to win, and that means any hopes of making a reasonable profit from this server are dead.
But, we did change how we think about it a little bit. Before, we wanted nothing to affect gameplay whatsoever. Now, we think that there are ways money can affect gameplay that doesn’t make it unfair. Consider Team Fortress 2, where the weapons unlocks are no better and no worse than the stock weapons. Or consider Heroes of the Storm, where heroes can be unlocked but all heroes are designed to be balanced. In both cases, you can unlock gameplay-altering features either through paying money or through progressing through gameplay. In both cases, players are no more powerful for having paid money.
This realization affects how we do monetization on the Gamer Dorks Minecraft Network. We now feel comfortable selling convenience features (like bigger backpacks in survival), or selling unlockables which do not provide a distinct advantage and which can be obtained through normal gameplay means (like Soul Keys in UHC or crate keyalls in Survival).
Even so, we aren’t making a profit. There’s not enough incentive for players to make a purchase, because they can’t gain an advantage over others doing it. We hope that in the future, players will be more generous with their money, but for now, we’ve done what we can, and we have enough savings to make the server work with what we have.
The Future of DorkNet
Would it surprise you to hear we have four new game modes in the works? We’re working with two new teams of developers, each of which will be leading the development of one new game mode on our network. And our own team will be working on two new modes, both of which will likely be released by the end of 2025.
Unboxed is a challenging social sandbox MMO with leveling, factions, and base building; based on the classic Box server. This will be a highly competitive, extremely grindy, and rather straightforward mode. There will be two main zones in Unboxed. The “box world”, in which players gather resources, complete challenges, fight mobs, and level up; and the “faction world”, in which players claim land, fight wars, and grow their faction.
A social sandbox MMO, as opposed to a MMORPG, is player driven rather than story-driven. We intend for most of the gameplay in this server to revolve around player interaction, rather than the world or the NPCs.
Skirmish and Siege is a class-based team PVP game mode, where players must control an objective to win. There will be 15 unique classes, each one with a different playstyle. Players can unlock items to change their class loadouts, changing their strengths and weaknesses. A significant portion of this game mode is inspired by the popular Valve game Team Fortress 2.
Openmindedness is working on a roguelike or roguelite Dungeon Crawler. More info to be revealed.
MrDragon and Dr. Purpur are working on an open world Skyblock RPG server, filled with custom content like dungeons, enchantments, items, bosses, and more to be revealed.
Conclusion
We gave Minecraft a second try, and so far, it has been a success. Thank you all for joining us in this endeavor.
If you want to hear news about the Remnant, and how it has evolved outside of Minecraft, stay tuned for our next blog post. This will include news about Fragmented and Escape from Rockfall.
