Dogcraft.net

Dogcraft.net is a website that serves as the official online destination for all fans of ReNDoG, known as Cyberdogs. The site has been active since its founding on the 12^th of July, 2012 and is officially run and endorsed by ReNDoG himself alongside his team of staff. On the site, visitors can find a forum, an online shop as well as information sections about the website's Minecraft Server and community. The site also acts as a place where fans can create an account, which allows people to post on the forums and purchase things from the shop.

Features

"Welcome to Dogcraft.net, the place where #Cyberdogsunite!" Dogcraft.net

Dogcraft.net has had many features and revisions through the years. Despite this, the core of the website - to serve as a hub for all things ReNDoG has continued to remain the same throughout its legacy.

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The Dogcraft.net logo used by ReNDoG in the intros to his videos.

• Forums
  • Historically, the forums were the main place Cyberdogs went to chat about the latest ReNDoG videos as well as other gaming and non-gaming related affairs. The rise of Discord and instant messaging has weakened the popularity of the forums in recent years, but they still stand as a good way of chatting with fellow players.
  • Forum games have also been popular, acting as fun distractions where players would come up with a "thread rule" which players had to comply with when replying to a thread.
  • Speaking on the forums nets Cyberdogs Dogcraft Dollars.
• Shop
  • The Dogcraft Shop is known today as the place to go to purchase Minecraft server related upgrades. However, before the server launched players could purchase website stock, which were virtual items that increased the estate value of your account.
  • Players could trade these virtual items, and some were exclusive or limited. Though the items served no practical purpose, Cyberdogs would enjoy trading and purchasing these items to climb the rich list and raise their estate values.
  • Players used to be able to purchase Dogcraft Dollars with real-world money before the server had to comply with the Mojang EULA changes.
  • Towards the latter half of the Survival 1 world, you could rent mall plots from a section on the website store.

• Chat
  • A chatroom was in operation for most of the website's life. The chatroom was very popular among Cyberdogs and was well moderated. ReNDoG would often hang out in the room and discuss videos and Minecraft with his fans.
  • The chatroom was controversially removed in late 2016 as a result of the rise in popularity of Discord as a medium for communication.
• Arcade
  • Cyberdogs were able to play some classic flash games which were embedded onto the website. This section was known as the Arcade.
• FAQ and Rules
  • The website was home to information about ReNDoG and his fans, as well as rules regarding how users must conduct themselves when communicating on the website.
• VIP Membership
  • Before ReNDoG switched to Patreon as his sole method of supporting him, website visitors were able to purchase a VIP Membership to support the website.
  • Purchasing VIP would earn you exclusive access to a special forum of the website and a special tag and the membership would be a monthly . Later on, when the Minecraft Server would launch it would even earn you a special rank there.

History

Founding

"Go check it out guys, "Dogcraft.net", we've got a whole bunch of peeps there we [sic] got 200 members already, we just hang out and chat!" ReNDoG

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The homepage of Dogcraft.net on the 21^st of August, 2012; one month after the founding of the website.

Though the date is somewhat a mystery, the common consensus is that Dogcraft.net was launched on the 12^th of July, 2012. On this date, ReNDoG would launch the website which he built himself as a "place where Cyberdogs can hang out and chat". He would first mention his website by introducing it to his fans in Epsiode #56 of his Let's Play Minecraft series, which he uploaded on the 14^th of July, 2012. In the video, he introduces the Dogolith as a monument to immortalize his fans by inscribing them in signs on the side of a tower structure in his survival world. From this point, a spot on the Dogolith became quite sought after by viewers and would lead to an influx of registrations for the site.

Rise and Growth

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The homepage of Dogcraft.net in late 2013. By this point, the website had advanced with its community.

As ReNDoG grew in popularity as a YouTuber, the website would grow and expand over time. As the website grew, ReNDoG would appoint prominent members of staff to his community to help improve the website. Notable appointments include Mattigins, victix12 and Staircaseclimber who would assist in the moderation and development of the website. The latter of the three would also inspire the implementation of a "Staircase" system where players could be awarded virtual step points for achieving great things on a goal to climb a metaphorical "golden staircase". The curation and high quality of moderation on the website would nurture a good, non-toxic community that was all to common in early-2010's internet forums of the period. Rules were introduced to achieve this, of course, including the infamous "Over-13's only" rule to comply with British internet legislation.

Through the website, ReNDoG would also meet some other content creators. An attempt was made to create a group known as the "Cyberdog Network", acting almost like a MCN (Multi-Channel Network) of YouTubers promoting each other in a group. Members of the Cyberdog Network included Baergo, IvanDogovich, MudDog and Strife; all of whom were Dogcraft.net members throughout the history of the site. Together, the group began a series on a Hexxit Modpack server and the website was updated with discussion forums for each member of the group. However, these plans would ultimately be short lived as the group lacked chemistry and coordination much of the time.

Minecraft Server Launch

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The Dogcraft.net Minecraft server has been hosted at server.dogcraft.net from the beginning. Interestingly, the MOTD for the server has never changed since launch.

As the community grew, members would frequently request a Minecraft Server for fans to play together. Many fans would create white-listed fan servers throughout the site's history to achieve this, the most notable attempt being that of SGHUK, who hosted an unofficial server from 2014 all the way up until the launch of the official Minecraft server in 2015. SGHUK's server was a vanilla server lacking many of the advanced plugins present in the modern server and required sign up through the website. Despite these limitations, the server was highly popular acting as the de-facto home for many Cyberdogs.

It would not be until the fall of 2015 where an official fan server would be announced by ReNDoG and his staff, where a full server would be created for players to enjoy. The server launched into a testing phase on the 28^th of September, 2015 with Survival, Amplified, MCMMO, Creative and Skyblock worlds for testers to play on, as well as a Server Hub connecting them based on ReNDoG's Mole City in his survival world. On the same day, an official Dogcraft discord server was created at 9:37AM BST. During the testing phase, only lucky players who were selected on the forums to be pioneers were able to play on the server and test out its features. The server would officially launch to the public on the 14^th of November, 2015 marking the beginnings of great expansion for the community. From this point forth, many argued that the community shifted away to being a forum with a Minecraft server to being a Minecraft server with a forum as the server became hugely popular among fans.

Early Server Era

See Also: Spawn (Survival 1) § City History

Spawn City in the original Survival 1 world.

The Dogcraft Minecraft Server quickly became the main attraction of the community almost instantly. A new forum area was setup for server-based discussion and before the rise in popularity of discord came about, with the website serving as the central place to discuss the server. Many early builds on the server were coordinated and planned on the website throughout the first few years of the server, including large projects such as the Survival Railway Network and building projects in spawn.

Originally launching on 1.8, the server's main Survival world lacked an End Dimension before it was launched in a large-scale public event by ReNDoG when the server updated to Minecraft 1.9. The server grew to be predominately a building server, attracting builders who would construct immense builds on the server. Just like the website, the server is heavily moderated. A strict list of rules were setup for the server initially and the high level of moderation continued to curate a good community. As the server developed, it became quickly clear that the Survival world would become the main focus for players as it boasted the largest active player count

As most projects relied on the forums for coordination, communication between players was slow, leading to development relying heavily on in-game chat. Despite this, the server boasted some impressive feats furthering its popularity including the aforementioned railway network as well as large community cities such as that of Lackria. ReNDoG would make occasional visits to the world and a special town known as Stream Town was setup which he streamed from weekly for a brief period of time.

Hacking and Subsequent Redo

The current front page of Dogcraft.net

In late 2016, the server was hacked by an external group of hackers. The hack resulted in the complete loss of the original hub as well as the complete loss of the website. The hack was devastating and meant the loss of thousands of forum posts and history. The only things that did remain were player account data and the original set of worlds which were thankfully saved.

Following the hack, the website had to be completely rebuilt from scratch which was done by administrator Mattigins. The new website removed the flash arcade games on the forums and opted for a cleaner, less cluttered look.

Current Dogcraft.net

The website as it is today may have lost much of what made the original site attractive to fans of ReNDoG, but what remains is the high quality of community it has curated over the years. In recent times, usage of the forums has dramatically fallen as a result of the rise of Discord as a platform for communication. However, the website is still actively used to purchase upgrades from the shop, manage linking and ReNDoG patreon benefits.

In 2017, Dogcraft celebrated its fifth birthday in which Head Moderator LilWolfie asked site members to list their favorite memories of the site. As of 2019, the website has over 7500 registered and linked accounts, with the Discord Server having over 2500 members.

Legacy and Impact

Compared with other Minecraft YouTubers, ReNDoG's usage of a website to build a community may be considered a unique approach, however in this case many would argue it has been remarkably successful. The Dogcraft.net site has allowed ReNDoG to build a strong online presence further boosting his following in an era of the internet before platforms such as Discord allowed for this easily. The high levels of moderation have come under question, though despite this they continue to maintain a high quality of community.

There have been several examples of players meeting on Dogcraft, leading to lasting friendships, such as:

• Navi_heylisten and Clangedinn both met through Dogcraft and announced their marriage to take place in Summer 2019. A special in-game wedding event is planned for the occasion.
• Members of the City of Havana met up in late 2017 for a meetup in the Netherlands.

Trivia

• The Dogcraft.net website is also accessible via the URL ren.dog.
• The name "Dogcraft" is the same as that of a long-running modded Minecraft series by fellow YouTuber stacyplays, despite their being no correlation between the two.
  • As a result of this, many people googling the term "Dogcraft" end up on the website.
  • To assist with this unfortunate clash, the FAQ section on Dogcraft has a section answering questions about stacyplays "Dogcraft" series.
• The name which ReNDoG calls his fans by, "Cyberdog" is also shared by a fashion retail outlet in Camden, London.