Case Study

IceLegends SMP

A vanilla-first Romanian Minecraft SMP built for clean 3–4 month seasons.

The Problem

Running a community SMP means balancing plugin depth against vanilla feel, managing a world-reset cycle, and keeping operations simple enough for a solo admin. IceLegends SMP solves this with 11 carefully chosen plugins, strict feature gating per a "vanilla-first" principle, and fully automated backups and world resets.

My Role

Designed, configured, and deployed solo — server architecture, 11-plugin selection and configuration, LuckPerms permission model, economy and nation design, Docker infrastructure, and Cloudflare Tunnel ingress for Dynmap.

Join the Server ↗

Highlights

PaperMC 1.21 on Docker with a hard 11-plugin cap — every plugin is justified and none are redundant
Towny nations with seasonal quests (Quests + Citizens NPCs) and a single manually-spawned MythicMobs boss per season
AureliumSkills passive bonuses only — active abilities disabled to preserve vanilla combat (P-01)
DiscordSRV bridge logs every death, join, and chat event to dedicated Discord channels in real time
Daily automated backups with 7-day retention; resource world resets every Monday at 05:00 via cron

Stack

PaperMC 1.21DockerCloudflare TunnelLuckPermsTownyAureliumSkillsMythicMobsDiscordSRVDynmap

Constraints

Solo admin — every operation must complete in under 10 minutes (P-02).
Vanilla-first (P-01): if any plugin disappeared tomorrow, the game must continue unchanged.
11-plugin hard cap — every addition must displace something or prove unique, irreplaceable value.

System Architecture

Edge

Cloudflare Tunnel (Dynmap web map)

TCP :25565 open (Minecraft clients)

Runtime

Docker + docker-compose

itzg/minecraft-server image

Core

PaperMC 1.21

Vault

LuckPerms

EssentialsX

CoreProtect

Gameplay

Towny

AureliumSkills

ShopGUI+

Quests + Citizens

MythicMobs

Multiverse-Core

Ops

DiscordSRV bridge

Daily backup cron (04:00)

Weekly world reset cron (Mon 05:00)

Key Trade-offs

The decisions worth defending — what I chose, what I turned down, and why.

Plugin count cap

Chose

Hard cap at 11 plugins

Rejected

Unlimited plugin stack

Each plugin is a maintenance surface and a potential conflict point. The cap forces prioritisation and keeps the dependency graph legible for a solo admin.

Public ingress for Dynmap

Chose

Cloudflare Tunnel (no open ports)

Rejected

Expose :8123 directly via UFW

No origin IP exposure, free DDoS protection, and zero firewall rule maintenance — the same pattern used by the IceLegends portfolio site.

AureliumSkills scope

Chose

Passive bonuses only, active abilities disabled

Rejected

Full AureliumSkills feature set including active combat abilities

Active abilities alter vanilla combat — a direct violation of P-01. Passive bonuses reward playtime additively without changing the combat model.

Season lifecycle

Chose

Full world reset every 3–4 months

Rejected

Incremental map expansion with no reset

Resets keep the world fresh, prevent terrain exhaustion, and give every new player an equal start — critical for community health in a small SMP.

What I'd Do Differently

An honest retrospective — the stuff I'd change with more time, more users, or a second pass.

1Add a staging compose stack so plugin updates can be tested before touching the live season — one bad update cost several hours of rollback work.
2Move backup storage off-site from day one; local-only archives are a single hardware failure away from a full season loss.
3Wire Dynmap as a named Docker service rather than relying on the host port, so the Cloudflare Tunnel config survives container IP reassignment on restart.

Technical Deep-Dive

Architecture, specifications, and implementation details.

37 — MarriageMaster — Sistem Social Avansat

"

Parteneri cu TP instant, chat privat și beneficii exclusive — creează attachment față de server

#De ce e interesant

MarriageMaster nu e doar cosmetic — creează legături reale între jucători. Când doi jucători sunt parteneri, au motive concrete să joace împreună: TP instant oriunde, chat privat, bonus-uri comune. Creează attachment față de server — dacă pleacă, pierd ceva real.

#Download

Sursă:   spigotmc.org/resources/marriagemaster.19273
Licență: Gratis (versiunea de bază)
Impact vanilla: zero — pur social
Dependință: Vault (pentru ring-ul de nuntă cumpărat)

#Features principale

##Căsătorie

/marry propose NumeJucator    → trimiți cerere în căsătorie
/marry accept                  → accepti cererea
/marry divorce                 → divorțezi (cu cooldown 7 zile)
/marry list                    → lista cuplurilor de pe server

##Beneficii pentru cupluri

Feature	Comandă	Descriere
TP instant	/marry tp	Teleportare instant la partener
Chat privat	/marry chat mesaj	Chat vizibil doar între voi
Shared home	/marry sethome	Home comun accesibil de ambii
Gift	/marry gift	Trimite un item partenerului din inventar
HP share	automat	Când ești aproape de partener +2HP max

#Config

# data/plugins/MarriageMaster/config.yml

# Cerință pentru căsătorie — ring cumpărat
marriage-ring:
  required: true
  item: GOLDEN_APPLE        # "Inelul de aur"
  cost: 500                 # 500 coins din ShopGUI+

# Limită divorț
divorce-cooldown: 168       # ore (7 zile)

# Beneficii
benefits:
  tp-enabled: true
  tp-cooldown: 300          # secunde (5 minute)
  chat-enabled: true
  chat-prefix: "&d[♥] &f"
  shared-home: true
  gift-enabled: true
  hp-bonus: 2               # +1 HP când partenerii sunt în același chunk

# Mesaje în română
messages:
  propose: "&d{player} &7ți-a cerut mâna! Scrie &d/marry accept &7sau &d/marry deny"
  married: "&d❤ {player1} &7și &d{player2} &7sunt acum căsătoriți! ❤"
  divorced: "&7{player1} &7și &7{player2} &7au divorțat."

# Anunț pe tot serverul la căsătorie
announce-marriage: true
announce-format: "&d&l[Căsătorie] &d{player1} ❤ {player2} &7s-au căsătorit!"

#Integrare cu economia

# Adaugă "Inel de Nuntă" în ShopGUI+ categoria Special
# Item: Golden Apple cu custom name "Inelul de Aur ❤"
# Price: 500 coins cumpărare, fără sell

# La căsătorie se consumă inelul din inventarul ambilor jucători

#Eveniment de nuntă — procedura Admin

1. Cuplul anunță Admin că vor o nuntă
2. Admin construiește o locație temporară
3. Admin invită toți jucătorii: /broadcast [Nuntă] {player1} ❤ {player2} la /warp nunta
4. Ceremonie în joc: discursuri, foc de artificii
5. /marry officiate (Admin) → căsătorește oficial
6. Petrecere post-nuntă cu Brewery drinks
→ Cel mai memorabil moment de pe server

#Comenzi admin

/marry admin marry Player1 Player2   # Căsătorești forțat
/marry admin divorce Player1         # Divorțezi forțat
/marry admin list                    # Toate cuplurile
/marry admin tp Player1              # TP la partenerul lui Player1

#Hologramă la spawn

/dh create marriages
/dh addline marriages "&d&l❤ Cupluri pe Server ❤"
/dh addline marriages "&7{marriage_count} cupluri fericite"
/dh addline marriages "&7Cel mai recent: &d{marriage_latest}"

#Related Documents

Economy (prețul inelului) → 03_economy_design.md
Brewery (petrecere nuntă) → 22_brewery.md
Custom Events (ceremonie nuntă) → 35_custom_events.md
Spawn design (hologramă) → 09_spawn_design.md

~ End of Document ~