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The 4chan Period
The server started around december of 2010. Its promised world without rules or boundaries was what attracted players from countless corners of the internet, but among those corners, the one that stands out its 4chan. The server started to gain a great amount of players as it started to be constantly spammed in 4chan boards such as /v/ and /b/. The 4chan community always was an unruly one, so it would only make sense for them to play on a server without rules.
Their arrival on 2b2t not only increased the player numbers but it also left a permanent cultural mark on the server. They were the first that tried to turn 2b2t into a server as offensive as possible, so they could keep away all the little kids that were playing (and continue to play) minecraft. The use of swastikas, for example, was brought by them. To offend and shock anyone who instantly logged in at spawn. The swastika is widely known as a symbol of hate and it was that hate that fueled the first months of the server. You can imagine that nothing creative or productive came out of what we used to call “The 4chan Period”. If you wander 2b2t long enough, you can still find many of these swastikas and ruined buildings around from that time. The use of words “newfag”,” oldfag” and even the greentext would be a 4chan inheritance that 2b2t still carries with pride.
The Forum Massacre Period
However 2b2t would suffer another impact from a new incoming group of players. They were known as “Facepunchers”. This name comes from the internet forum Facepunch, which they were users of. They first appeared in April of 2011, when a player called Chezhead decided that it would be a fun idea to rally the forum users and invite them to play all together on 2b2t and form a “republic” there with rules and jobs. Oh boy was he wrong.
The first invasion of outsiders on 2b2t was the prime example of stupidity and naivety. It ended horribly for them. They came in many numbers, adding even more players than the regular rates of 50-60. The server reached its peak with 80 to 90 players online. As soon as their presence was noted, they became the punch bag (irony here) of the “oldfags”. The entire community turned on them. They were being killed at spawn and every base they tried to make wouldn’t last a week. The 2b2ters were smarter than them, infiltrating in their forums and passing themselves as facepunchers, getting their coords to destroy them later. They were fighting an enemy that they couldn’t fight back. The griefers acted on their own. They had no group base and no organized actions, just a lot of determination to get coords and the use of the first hacked clients to show up in the game.
Chezhead would give up on the project just a few months later but others would take his place and try to save the remains of that mess. But even so, they continued to be massacred by the playerbase of the time until most of the facepunchers left or simply gave up on the idea of basing with their own kind. Most that stayed on the server decided it was best to abandon their former identification as facepunchers. The amount of facepunch fortresses and camps being advertised was so high in the forums, that even a dirt hut would claim to be one of them as an obvious joke. The Republic idea officially died in February 2012, ending the “Forum Massacre Period”.
The Great Server Decay
But even defeated, the presence of the forum and of the facepunchers would have a great impact in the server ways. Its forum became the most used 2b2t media, having dozens of post per day and a total of 7 threads, some with hundreds of pages. Thanks to this, Facepunch became the first way to actually record the events that happened in the server in those years.
After the chaos of the last two periods however, 2b2t entered in one of its most depressive and near-death states. It was thanks to a series of lag problems, map switching, ip change (.net to .org) and even a server downtime of 3 months that lowered the players of the server from 70 to mere 20. This happened because some players lost interest due to the problem or didn’t know about the ip change, so they thought the server closed forever. This period is marked by the increase in the numbers of group bases and decrease of greifings. All that heat from the first years was gone and 2b2t was cooling down to sum it up. Some of the most noted events of this time were:
* 2k2k becoming the last official facepunch base.
* Imperator’s base founding in April of 2012. (which wasn’t really noted at all since it was made in secrecy, its just important to mention)
* The End being re-enabled after player abuse.
It was also at this time that JudgeHolden and his friends were stranded in the millions (read the 2b2t comic), where it would eventually lead some of them to Imp's Base.
The First Valkyrian Period
The year of 2013 however re-energized the server near-death playerbase as something unusual was about to happen. The base crew of Anatolia and Hitlerwood would unite at a temp map to play together. They would found a new base when 2b2t returned called Valkyria, on April of 2013. This base would change the history of the server for the next years. Anatolia was composed by some fairly new players: Pyrobyte, Drewbookman and Sato86. While Hitlerwood was known as the last facepunch group base to stand. Members of it were Coldwave, Hinderjd, zach3397, KnightVista and others.
The base become quickly relevant for being the most active spot on the server at the time, holding ¼ of the regulars of that year, but the dupe that came in 1.4.7 is what gave the Valkyrians the power to become to be reckoned with. They already were the largest group in the server history at that time. The well-armed members helped to stay safe as a group for the years to come. They adopted an eagle made of blocks as their symbol and branded themselves as guardians of 2b2t, attacking spawn whenever they felt like it or when an outside invasion was in course.
This scenario happened in august of 2013 when 2b2t was invaded thanks a video released by IGN, calling the server one of the 6 most amazing things in minecraft. This tribute made players rain in and angered oldfags because of the lag that they were bringing with them, but lag alone is just a useful excuse. Spawn killing is a long and strong tradition of 2b2t and one of the most common hobbies among old players. Then a invasion of redditors came right after that one, clashing with the incursion forces that were already at spawn, waiting for them.
Valkyria and its players would continue to make more bases over the years and resisting griefings and internal problems. With the new biomes update, a highly anticipated base was to be found called Asgard, but the project failed as the coordinates were leaked by the Thunderhack exploit on January 2014. This dealt a great blow to the already exhausted Valkyrians, making some of them leave or take a break from the server, ending the what is known as “First Valkyrian Period”
The Legion-Gape Interlude
The server and its players were quick to make other bases. Shortly after the first Gape base was founded near spawn and many players were invited to live there. Gape would be important to form some friendships between new players of that year. The Legion of Shenandoah also started to organize itself at this time. 3b3t server appeared and was important as this moment since 2b2t faced another downtime due a severe lag spikes problem after a version update. Other than that, this quick period didn’t had other relevant events. Fenrir, a new base formed by valkyrians and players of different corners, would be founded in June of 2014, but the base only really kicked off in September. The beginning of the construction of Fenrir would end the “Legion-Gape Interlude” and begin a new period with the valkyrias on the stage again.
The Second Valkyrian Period
The Second Valkyria Period would bring with several new bases such as Fenrir, Asgard II and Nova. The basemembers of this places would eventually become the new Valkyrians of 2015. They were known as Asgardians. A merge the Legion group and the Gape 2 base crew with what was left of the First Period made Asgard II happen, named after the first one that failed. A2 reached 30 players and its destruction 1 month later began the Third Incursion. It led most of these players to march to spawn and dominate it for a month.
There was no outside invasion at play at the time, it was purely an act of strength by the Asgardians. They baited many of the players that hated them to spawn and killed most, all that while building the most gigantic spawn base of the server history (so far).
The End of the Incursion also ends the last period of the Valkyrians on 2b2t. The eagle that once revived the server from a close death would give its last drop of sweat and rest in May of 2015. The symbol is still used on 2b2t as it represent unity and perseverance. Aureus was founded days after.
Pre-Hype Period
The history continues however as big scandals would hit the server weeks later. First was the “/a exploit “that allowed players to triangulate people’s coords, causing the destruction of several bases and more recently the backdoor leak which was proved that illegal administrative acts took/was taken place between 2015 and 2016. The whole drama started by the leak and the admin refusal or blindness, caused a big chunk of the regulars to leave 2b2t.
Today it is well known that Tristan, Taylo, Jared, Clyde and others were involved in using a OP’ed account named georgebush420, which belonged to Hausemaster. They had stole its access and were using it to destroy anyone who they didn’t like and spam superweapons and stashes for themselves. This situation would leave the 2b2t playerbase vulnerable, as many good players quit the server due the abuse, for the scenario we have presently, the biggest invasion the server ever faced.
But this invasion might not have happen if so many articles were not written about the server during this period. Motherboard and RPS wrote articles before the youtube mayhem on 2b2t. This is now just speculation, but they might have made possible for Napkin to find 2b2t and that way, Rusher as well.
This period was also one of the most destructive. Major bases were destroyed such as King’s Landing, Space Valkyria, Olympus and even the greater of them all… Imperator’s base. The only redeeming event about this time was that Project Vault began during this period, as a initiative to preserve the server’s history and beauty, with the participation of dozens. Months dedicated to travel around 2b2t and recover as many world downloads of bases as possible. The tide of destruction was countered by the most noble act ever done on 2b2t.
The Age of Hype
On the first day of June of 2016, the server’s history would take a rough turn into chaos thanks to a youtuber named TheCampingRusher. He had heard about 2b2t from his youtube “rival” NapkinOfTruth. After that, Rusher, a youtuber with more than 900.000 subscribers, decided to make a video on the server. The reaction was immediate. His video exploded with 1 million views. That of course brought a heavy impact on the server. Thousands of his fans tried to join to 2b2t as well to meet their idol. The success of his video “Oldest server in minecraft” (which is a lie) was so great at first that he started to do more videos. Meanwhile, the original community of 2b2t was unable to play, drowning in the thousands he brought with him.
“The 2b2t Dilemma of 2016, this massive influx of the lot of you new players caused a lot of interesting changes to this community. 2b2t had a very unique community culture, and it started to have a very formulaic passing of time in the way bases rose and fall up until now. The biggest problem is all of us, who are part of the old culture of 2b2t, are now outnumbered about 1:4 to the new players. This means our way of life on 2b2t is diluted extremely. The culture, societies, and the systems of which are the foundations of what made 2b2t unique and special are threatened. Those of you who are new to the server, but claim to not be "Rusherfags" and you claim you hate the kids, and want to help the "veterans". You are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. “
- xarviar about the Rusher Invasion.
The situation was so dire that not even Rusher himself could log on. The server kept crashing constantly. You had to spam click the reconnect button or have a client with auto-reconnect to have any hopes to join. Sometimes not even that was enough. The server was limited to 200 players. For this reason, the youtuber attempted to buy 2b2t so he could log whenever he wanted. Rusher had found his gold mine and he tried to bargain for it. Hausemaster, the owner of the server however refused his offer.
Rusher then attempted to buy a priority access from Hause. This offer was also refused as the owner saw that the old players of the server, the ones that made 2b2t what it is, were being unable to play because of his fans. To solve this, they agreed in making a queue system, using a server Rusher would host and the veterans would have priority over it. All accounts that had logged on 2b2t before 1st June of 2016 would have quicker access. The server hardware also had to be upgraded to sustain the new player numbers. Rusher also agreed to pay for it.
This made the number of old players on the server to jump from 5 online to 50 or more. The 2b2t community was back in control thanks to Hausemaster.
This also made possible the rise of a new incursion. Before the priority queue, they were already a few brave( and patient) players at spawn, killing new players. Some of their names were Fit, Babbaj, Jared2013, Legato, etc. They were the first to oppose this new invasion from youtube. At the same time, Fit would grow popular by making videos of him killing “Rushers”.
This would eventually lead to a conflict between the new and the old. At first, it began with the Teamveteran initiative. It was designed to appeal the new players into helping the community at spawn, but it was made for the new map spawn, when 2b2t oldmap was brought down for a few weeks. In this new world, the oldfags were slowly losing ground to Rusher’s fans. Fit released a video calling all old and new players to join his front to fight back the invasion. In order to join, you would have to be a lone wolf and craft a banner.
2 days later, the old map returned and the oldfags had their dupe stashes and resources at disposal again. They no longer needed newfags to help them to control spawn. It was then decided that Teamveteran would continue as a mean to split the Rusher fanbase in two and weaken them even more. The newcomers would sabotage and kill each other over one banner or the other as the oldfags would kill anyone without discrimination, even if they were carrying the black banner of the vets. The biggest ruse in 2b2t history was at play.
Since it was a ruse, appearances needed to be kept. Fit continued to make videos about teamveteran and the “war” continued to storm spawn. Day after day, many new players, regarding of side would meet the same fate as soon as they arrived. This ruse prevented a unified and strong front of Rushers to form, since they couldn’t trust each other anymore. With the dupe that was about to come, this could have been deadly for the spawn occupation. Factions like The Resistance managed to bring a considerable challenge to the oldfags with only 5-6 people. Without teamveteran’s ideology splitting forces and spreading untrust, they might have managed to amass 10 or 20. It would be a force to rival any incursion or occupation, especially with fresh duped items.
The inconvenience is that many of the old players didn’t know about what was happening in the background and they openly opposed Fit for working with new players, accusing him of trying milk money off 2b2t. His channel popularity and growth was a consequence of the ruse, but they did not understand that and couldn’t know the truth. Fit accepted the hits and critics for the best of 2b2t.
This however was not a problem, since old players would kill all people using a veteran shield, which was the main idea in the first place. So even the people that hated Fit were doing exactly what he wanted.. This would keep going for a few weeks more until the 4th incursion was declared. Unlike the last 3 for, this incursion was to be more open and less planned. The members would go to spawn and improvise. The goal here was to deal hard blows on the new players and their recent formed factions in 2b2t, such as Resistance, Peacekeepers, etc.
If 2b2t had declared a 4th incursion since the very beginning without teamveteran taken place before, an obvious front of Rushers would form to fight it back. They would resist and get better equipment (with the dupe). They would work together and have greater numbers. Teamveteran divided them and made easier to conquer and fight them. The first time psychological warfare was used on 2b2t.
A great job was done too by Offtopia, who planted spies in these factions. When the dupe happened in July, their stashes wouldn’t last long. In a matter of weeks, the resistance saw two stashes gone and the Peacekeepers lost one as well. The 4th incursion began to fully occupy spawn and wait for the factions to arrive and gank them (a tactic they were using against oldfags). This happened on the 28th of July 2016, when 5 new players faced 14 old players in combat. The biggest battle 2b2t had ever since its creation.
Weeks later, the 4th incursion would end due the internal conflicts that resulted in the destruction of 2 bases. However no amount of resource was lost on their part. The bases were for resting, repairing and food. The use of end crystals and bed bombing intensified after this, making spawn and nether a dangerous zone for anyone, no matter what armor they were using. This discouraged the continuation of the incursion even more, as some members were already exploded by this tactic. All the small factions retreated from spawn in order to save resources.
Seeing this, the 4th Reich, a new faction that opposed the Rushers and sympathized with the original community, began to stay at spawn with naked alts to explode people, along with other players applying the same tactic, disputing space with them and blowing each other up.
Even if 2b2t was at player peak, the spawn became a desert.
By this time, the interest on 2b2t began to die out in both Rusher and Fit’s channel. The “war” veil was starting to fall and the ugly and deceiving face of 2b2t finally came to light. New players realized that there are no sides. Rusher also couldn’t record his videos as often since the use of massive lag machines was made by the factions Vortex Coalition and 4th Reich against all youtubers. The former members of the incursion, at a base called Medina were also using one. Maybe more people and other smaller groups did the same. The server TPS, which was mostly stable before, started to drop dramatically, sometimes even crashing the server.
This contributed for the youtubers to leave. As of today, only Fit (which was already a 2b2t player before all of this) and NedaT remain from the mayhem that the hype brought.
Things were shaken again by the discovery of maybe the biggest dupe exploit in history. This rearmed the oldfags and armed the new players and their factions. And this despite the fact that some of them were destroyed by a backdoored client leak, there are still many out there, ready to use in a future base, event or incursion. One thing is for sure, the peaceful era that Hinderjd spoke of in 2013, ended in 1st June of 2016.
Conclusion
Wew, I had to write almost 3 pages just to describe these last crazy months. In summary, youtube changed 2b2t, but in the end, 2b2t will always be 2b2t. No outside force can break it or bend its ways. We are what we are. The worst server in minecraft history.
This is also the first time that the purpose of teamveteran is officially revealed. Fit, you put yourself on the fire for us, even those that shunned you. You helped us to tame an invasion of enormous proportions.and secure the community place as dominant despite the unbelievable odds and numbers. It was about time for people to know the truth.
If you are reading this, and you are a youtuber who wants to make a series (or even a article writer), know that you are not welcome here and you and your channel will be hostilized. This is not a threat from me. It’s just the way things are here. We don’t like people who think that can make money out of us and our way to be, so be warned.
“This server has never been for the faint of heart. It has nothing to do with its age, the state of its spawn or lack of moderation. It has everything to do with the type of people here. The ones that keep coming back. We would like to be left alone, and what little company we do find, we tend to find in people as strange as us. This server is no place for youtubers looking to make a quick buck. The ones that have featured this place on videos, have done their audience a disservice. I wouldn’t wish this place on anybody. To make it perfectly clear, there is no war. There is no wind condition.. It has been and always will be a matter of time. Those who do not belong here will eventually fade away and forget this place ever existed. Those who stay will have always belonged here and they will never truly leave”
- DocSmurf
