The goal of the UMBC Minecraft Server is to provide a friendly, long-term survival world where players can build, explore, collaborate, and enjoy Minecraft without unnecessary restrictions. Use common sense and respect other players.
1. Respect Other Players
Treat everyone with respect.
Harassment, targeted insults, threats, discrimination, hate speech, sexual harassment, or intentionally making other players uncomfortable is not allowed.
Friendly joking and competition are fine, but stop when another player clearly asks you to stop.
2. No Griefing
Do not intentionally damage, destroy, alter, or interfere with another player’s builds, farms, storage systems, redstone, animals, or property without permission.
This includes actions such as:
- Breaking or placing blocks in another player’s build
- Setting fires
- Using lava, water, TNT, creepers, or other mechanics to cause damage
- Intentionally interfering with redstone or farms
- Destroying terrain immediately around another player’s base to annoy them
Accidents happen. If you accidentally damage something, repair it or contact the owner or staff.
3. No Stealing
Do not take items from another player’s:
- Chests
- Barrels
- Shulker boxes
- Furnaces
- Farms
- Storage systems
- Dropped items
- Other containers
unless you have permission.
Items clearly marked as public or placed in designated community areas may be used according to their posted rules.
4. Respect Claims
Do not attempt to bypass another player’s land claim or claim permissions.
Finding a way around claim protection does not make taking or destroying something acceptable.
Claim protection exists to prevent problems, but the rules still apply outside of claimed areas.
5. No Cheating
Do not use modifications, clients, resource packs, exploits, or external tools that provide an unfair gameplay advantage.
Prohibited examples include:
- X-ray
- Ore highlighting or transparent-block resource packs
- KillAura or combat automation
- Fly hacks
- Speed hacks
- Reach modifications
- Movement cheats
- Automated combat
- Duplication tools not specifically permitted by server policy
- Inventory or packet manipulation intended to cheat
- Any hacked client features that provide information unavailable through normal gameplay
Performance, accessibility, building, and visual mods are generally allowed provided they do not create an unfair advantage.
Examples of generally acceptable mods include:
- Sodium and other performance mods
- Iris and shaders
- Distant Horizons
- Litematica for building assistance
- Inventory organization mods
- Minimap mods that do not reveal hidden players, caves, entities, or resources unfairly
If you are unsure whether a mod is allowed, ask staff before using it.
6. Technical Minecraft Is Welcome
Redstone, large farms, villagers, TNT systems, chunk loaders, automation, and other advanced vanilla mechanics are welcome.
We want farms and vanilla mechanics to behave as closely to normal Minecraft as reasonably possible.
However, technical mechanics may not be used primarily to:
- Intentionally lag the server
- Crash the server
- Affect other players’ ability to play
- Bypass protections
- Duplicate prohibited items
- Damage the world or server infrastructure
Staff may ask that an unusually demanding machine be temporarily disabled while a performance problem is investigated.
7. No Lag or Crash Machines
Do not intentionally create anything designed to reduce TPS, overwhelm the server, crash clients, crash the server, or consume unreasonable server resources.
This includes intentionally abusing:
- Entities
- Redstone
- Pistons
- Hoppers
- Minecarts
- Villagers
- Chunk loading
- Packet behavior
- Book/NBT data
- Explosions
- Other Minecraft mechanics
Large farms are not automatically considered lag machines.
The distinction is whether the build has a legitimate gameplay purpose and is reasonably designed versus intentionally attempting to harm server performance.
8. Exploits and Duplication
Do not abuse bugs or exploits that significantly affect the server, economy, permissions, security, or other players.
If you discover a serious exploit, duplication bug, crash method, or security issue, report it privately to staff rather than posting instructions publicly.
Some technical vanilla mechanics may be specifically permitted even if they rely on unusual Minecraft behavior.
Staff will maintain a separate list of allowed and prohibited mechanics so players do not have to guess.
9. PvP Requires Consent
Do not repeatedly attack, kill, trap, or harass players who are not participating in PvP.
Friendly fights, organized PvP, competitions, and mutually agreed combat are allowed.
Killing another player does not give you permission to keep their belongings unless the participants agreed to those rules beforehand.
10. Do Not Trap Players
Do not intentionally create traps intended to repeatedly kill unsuspecting players, prevent them from playing, or permanently trap them.
Traps used between consenting players or as part of organized events are fine.
11. Respect Community Areas
Community builds, roads, Nether infrastructure, spawn facilities, public farms, and shared projects belong to the community.
Do not:
- Destroy them
- Claim them as your own
- Block access
- Take restricted resources
- Modify them without permission
Follow any posted instructions for public farms and shared facilities.
12. Build Responsibly Near Other Players
Give other players reasonable space when establishing a major base.
Do not intentionally build extremely close to another player’s established area simply to interfere with their expansion.
If two players want nearby land, communicate and work out boundaries before beginning large projects.
13. No Spam or Advertising
Do not spam chat, commands, signs, books, or other communication systems.
Do not advertise unrelated Discord servers, Minecraft servers, businesses, or services without staff approval.
UMBC clubs, projects, and community activities may be shared in appropriate places when relevant and reasonable.
14. Keep Content Appropriate
Do not build, write, name, skin, display, or share content that violates community standards.
This includes:
- Hate symbols
- Explicit sexual content
- Targeted harassment
- Threats
- Doxxing or sharing private information
- Intentionally offensive builds or messages
15. Protect Personal Information
Do not share another person’s private information without permission.
This includes addresses, phone numbers, personal accounts, private messages, schedules, or other identifying information.
Remember that this is a university community. Respect people’s privacy both online and on campus.
16. Alternate Accounts
Alternate accounts are allowed for legitimate purposes unless staff announces otherwise.
They may not be used to:
- Evade punishment
- Bypass claims
- Circumvent limits
- Artificially manipulate systems
- Harass players
- Gain an unfair advantage
Ban evasion using another account will result in additional action.
17. Do Not Impersonate Staff
Do not pretend to be a moderator, administrator, server owner, or official UMBC representative.
Do not intentionally use names, skins, nicknames, or messages designed to deceive players about your authority.
18. Follow Staff Instructions
Staff may intervene when necessary to protect players, server performance, or the integrity of the world.
If a staff member asks you to temporarily stop an activity while an issue is investigated, cooperate.
If you believe a staff decision was wrong, use the appeal or support process rather than arguing excessively in public chat.
19. Staff Are Held to the Same Rules
Staff members may not use administrative tools for personal advantage.
Moderation abilities, teleportation, creative mode, rollback tools, spectator mode, logs, or other administrative features should only be used for legitimate server responsibilities.
Suspected staff abuse should be reported privately to an Administrator or Owner.
20. Use Common Sense
Not every possible form of disruptive behavior can be written into a rule.
Attempting to exploit technical wording or loopholes does not make harmful behavior acceptable.
A useful standard is:
If your actions intentionally make the server worse for other players, don’t do it.
Technical Mechanics Policy
The following are generally allowed unless specifically restricted due to a discovered exploit or serious performance issue:
- Redstone machines
- Automatic farms
- AFK farms
- Villager trading halls
- Iron farms
- Raid farms
- Mob farms
- TNT-based farms and machinery
- Nether roof access
- Chunk loaders
- Bedrock breaking using vanilla mechanics
- Litematica
- Distant Horizons
- Client-side performance mods
- Shaders
- Building assistance tools that do not automate gameplay unfairly
The status of mechanics such as duplication exploits, update suppression, TNT duplication, carpet duplication, freecam, and similar advanced techniques should be listed separately on the server website so players always have a current and unambiguous answer.
Enforcement
Staff will consider the severity, intent, prior history, and impact of a violation.
Possible actions include:
Warning → Temporary Restriction → Kick → Temporary Ban → Permanent Ban
Severe cheating, intentional server attacks, doxxing, major griefing, ban evasion, or other serious misconduct may result in immediate stronger action.
Whenever practical, moderation decisions should be supported by server logs, Ledger records, anti-cheat information, screenshots, or other evidence.
By playing on the UMBC Minecraft Server, you agree to follow these rules and help maintain a welcoming and enjoyable community.