By: Michael Rymut and Rachel Jung

   Looking to make some friends or to spend the summer playing with some old ones? Consider Nations Survival. Our community has seen members from all across the world, ranging from Denmark to the Philippines and Canada to Poland. I, Michael Rymut, have run this Minecraft Java Edition server annually for four years every summer. We invite players looking for a peaceful experience without theft or griefing for high school and young college-age students to play on together.

   Our oldest member, 21 year old game developer from England, Antony Green, added, “Spending time playing games you enjoy is like a distraction from other things if you need it. There’s nice people on the server that you can talk to if you need to,” additionally, a junior from a neighboring school, Corwin Turner, adds, “Even people who don’t get along, they find ways to co-exist and have fun with each other.”

   Utilizing Minecraft mods, our server covers a range of interests. Some of the mods we feature can captivate those looking for strong boss fights, advanced redstone contraptions, building up working civilizations with engaging NPCs and much more, players can easily find what they are looking for in Nations.

   Players also have the option of forming a Nation, sharing a claimed territory with others and benefiting from claiming greater rewards from our server events.

   To protect the community we have, the admin team is made up of players who have stuck with Nations for years and can be trusted to uphold our standards. The team and I host events every season for our community’s members, be it individually or between Nations, while helping the community to bond on voice calls or just chatting in-game. 

   A Danish scholar from Nations, Naja Hølledig, comments, “The experience of being in Nations was really fun. I love building homes in Minecraft, and being able to collect materials while chatting with people from all around the world and getting help from others was really nice. In general, I think Nations has a very kind and fun community, which is a big part of experiencing Nations.”

   Within the game, Nations has become a modded server over the years. We run about 150 mods for 1.20.1 Java Minecraft, the majority of which are server-based, for performance or APIs (Application Programming Interface) that serve the function of letting other mods run smoothly. While a potato may not be able to handle it, many other computers can, so don’t be discouraged if that seems like a lot for you.

   Some of these mods purely contribute to a safe and friendly environment for anyone who would like to sit down and enjoy their time playing Minecraft. Nations is not a place for griefers, theft or chaos, but is an organized, survival-based server with a team of admin that looks out for the members.

   Turner comments on one of his favorite parts, “Also in later seasons, there have been more and more interactive stuff with the Pre-Nation and interactions that we hold…It’s always fun for the people.”

   What many of our returning players look forward to every year is the Pre-Nation minigame event I hand-make. Previous games have included an advanced wave defense, playing as a team against mobs, another being a maze runner and conquering a labyrinth with spells and magic. This year, if you join us, you can look forward to a survival minigame, exploring a custom map while collecting items from caves and forests to keep the signal fire burning for a chance to escape the Horde. Those who do win these semi-tournaments gain in-game rewards of their desire to contribute to their playing experience within Nations, not to mention custom roles that stick with players throughout future seasons for the folks who like collecting their victories.

   We don’t only do home-made games, though, but we also host events on popular games such as Bed Wars, having late nights in private games and hanging out with one another.

   If you’ve read this far, you must be interested, so if you want to join our community and Discord server for this year and maybe ones to follow, reach out and get your friends on board! Scan the QR code here and fill out our survey to join our sixth season of Nations Survival. Applicants are limited and not everyone is accepted since we like keeping our community smaller, around 25-35 members this year, to foster closer connections between folks while having a manageable amount of people. If you’re worried about your friends getting in while you don’t, fear not, we have a section for you to list those you would like to be accepted with, so we don’t split you up.