User:Darparniox/10years

The Dogcraft Server is turning 10 years old on the 28^th of September, 2025.

To mark the occasion, we're holding events all around the community. Here on the Dogcraft Wiki, we’ve curated a list of the 10 articles we think tell the story of the server over the past 10 years.

In addition, launching shortly will be an Interactive Timeline that will allow anyone to explore the server's history in more detail

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Curated articles

As we get closer to the 28^th, every second day, two more of our curated articles will be revealed and featured, so check back regularly!

Survival 1 - Pioneer
Beginnings

The official Dogcraft Server was launched on the 28th of September, 2015 to a group of whitelisted [Pioneer]s, and later opened to the public in November of that year.

The very early Dogcraft community was a mix of tight knit players who knew each well already upon launch through the forum community or unofficial servers, and new players that came and often went. This is evidenced by a world that was packed densely with builds around spawn, some impressive and complete, some in various unfinished states. There was often little central organisation of builds and initiatives, especially in the first few months of the world. Forum threads, alongside signs in game, and /mail acted as the main methods of communication.

In the latter year or so of Survival 1, the server began to have more organised initiatives, such as the first events by the staff Events Team, founding of the first player settlements and player led events such as elytra races.

1. Spawn City

Spawn City, a short walk from the world’s spawn location, was the centrepiece of Survival 1’s spawn area. Spawn City has an endearing, organic and reactionary style not seen in subsequent worlds, emblematic of the very early period of the Dogcraft Server.

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2. Lackria

Lackria was the first widely successful player created public settlement. Founded in mid-2016, it became a key location and key pillar of the budding event scene over the remaining Survival 1 period.

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Survival 2 - Settlement
Boom

Survival 2 was launched in the second half of 2017, and was open concurrently with Survival 1, though almost all players switched and were active on the newer world. The world was relatively short-lived - just 14 months.

During this period, the elements of organised player communities began to crystallise. This was a natural progression as similarly interested players become more familiar, but was also fueled by the rise of Discord as a communication platform, which allowed more organisation and regulation within a player group to accomplish increasingly specific goals.

The biggest rise in prominence was that of public settlements, which developed from the conditions described earlier, and exploded once spotlight was put on them by ReNDoG. This phenomenon has been posthumously referred to as the Townpocalypse.

3. City of Havana

The City of Havana was conceptualised with the purpose of housing the Survival Railway Network's Grand Central Station. However it, morphed quickly into a city project with a set of specific building guidelines revolving around creating buildings with public purpose and a structurally cohesive urban setting. The city was featured on a base tour video with ReNDoG.

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4. Akkara City

Akkara City was a large scale plot based city with an emphasis on creating an aesthetically cohesive setting. Taking experience from Lackria, the city was more tightly guided and pre-planned with specific guidelines for different districts. ReNDoG livestreamed a portion of the city's 12-hour opening event, and this exposure amplified the cultural effect of the then-recent base tour video.

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Survival 3 - Evolution
& Diversification

Survival 3 was heralded by an abrupt hard reset of the economy, and removal of previous worlds, the first instance of it's kind on the Dogcraft Server.

Public 'community' projects continued to evolve, expand, and gain legitimacy. For example, community projects such as the Survival Railway Network, Nether Transport Network, and Grand Map were hosted in the Spawn admin claim itself. Earlier, the most prominent public communities had been base around a settlement, in Survival 3, those settlement communities continued to intertwine and diversify. New groups formed around those diversifications. A few organisations began to develop which were founded on the basis of events on the server, becoming sort of meta-projects, such as the DC Courtroom.

Also a popular phenomenon in Survival 3 was the proliferation of shared bases between groups of a handful of players. These had quite possibly quietly existed in the past, but several of these bases were on a scale seldom seen previously and difficult to achieve without more than a few members. Those bases achieved a level of renown that others had not, and display the deepening ties of players as the server aged.

5. Dogcraft Spleef League

The Dogcraft Spleef league was a sports league hosted by many locations on the server. Initially conceptualised and contested by teams from existing settlements and organisations, the league evolved to more of a free-for-all system as the world matured. This concept and subsequent arc is a good example of the progression of community projects during Survival 3.

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6. The Home Tree

The Home Tree was the probably the most well-known and most extensive of the large-scale group base wave of the world. Based around a giant custom tree with a myriad of farms inside, the base had it's own railway connection and expanded into the surrounding bay and other biomes.

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Survival 4 - Amplification

In April 2020, the Dogcraft server moved server hosts from rented hardware to dedicated hardware at the premises of [Admin] staff. This brought with it marked increase in performance and the beginning of Survival 4, another fresh start. However, the hype of a new Minecraft world combined with real-world events of the time would cause a marked increase player number upon launch, and therefore huge strain on the server. The decision was made to implement a second parallel survival world 11 days after launch, Beagle, which successfully combatted these performance issues.

In many ways, Survival 4 continued the trends of Survival 3 but with increased volume and scale. The events scene was particularly lively during 2020 and beyond, with a notable run of well-attended live events, in part so successful due to the aforementioned increased playerbase. These were bolstered by the reformation of the Events Team during Survival 3, who continued and expanded their work significantly in Survival 4.

Transport networks, now a staple of the server, expanded to new heights in terms of scale even in the face dual worlds, due to ever-increasing resources and new initiatives. Creation and success of new networks was also present, which brought new infrastructure, and before the end of the world had inspired more in the form of future plans.

7. Dogcraft Hunger Games

The Dogcraft Hunger Games were held in August 2020 to great success, being conducted in a custom arena in survival, but based off a popular minigame found on specialised minigame servers. This event, a one-off, live event is one of the best representations of the style of the time.

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8. Road and Horse Network

The Road and Horse Network (RHN) was the first fresh and major edition to the transport network scene in years. By bringing structure to path roads, a common sight on the server in any case, the RHN found success as an effective transport network with a low barrier to entry.

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Survival 5 - Fragmentation

Due to the increased playerbase experienced through the previous Survival 4 worlds, the decision was made to increase the number of worlds for Survival 5 to four. Partially, this was in anticipation of a continuing increase.

However, the server player numbers stayed steady, and four worlds proved to be surplus to needs. Players bases were stretched further apart than ever before. The four spawn locations saw only modest building activity surrounding them.

Some public projects faced headwinds because of reduced world continuity and identity. These groups in many cases needed to work harder to connect the physical space or create vibrant areas.

9. Leon

The Regency of Leon was a large scale city project, separated into five districts inspired by European architecture across several centuries.
Leon, perhaps indirectly, in many ways represents a culmination of settlement evolution on the Dogcraft Server. Governance featured advance planning, building guidelines and approval, and delegation techniques, which ensured an intentionally built city on a huge scale. The result was the clear 'capital' city of Survival 5 which held several major server events.

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Survival 6 - Get Off My Lawn

In the lead-up to Survival 6, it was announced by ReNDoG that the server would become 18+ at the launch of new worlds later in 2023. This proved to be controversial but was deemed necessary to ensure player safety. The server was also to move back to hosting only two Survival worlds.

Despite the loss of some community members due to the new age minimum and fewer settlements present, the prominent institutions of Dogcraft have remained. This is a testament to the ability of Dogcraft to foster and support a resilient, long-tenured playerbase over the last 10 years.

10. Retriever Spawn City

Retriever’s Spawn City has been, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the biggest settlement near spawn since the original Survival 1 city. This can surely be partially attributed to the favourable terrain early presence of transport facilities to serve as a template setter, and the 2024 Build Competition held there. However, these are not all unique and another driving force may be the vacuum created by a lack player settlements elsewhere on the server, pushing those with an idea for one-off public build back to spawn.

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