Minecraft global bans
24 November 2020
The facts
Recently there has been a massive announcement involving moderation in Minecraft (Bedrock), and it is sure to make it’s way over to Minecraft Java Edition with the move from a Mojang account to a Microsoft account.
The announcement was posted on the Minecraft website 4 days ago, on November 20th, 2020.
The change allows “Minecraft moderators” to globally ban players from “[Realms] and Featured Servers.” The state of external servers is not mentioned. External servers can only be accessed from the Windows 10 and Mobile versions of Minecraft (Bedrock.)
As of November 24th, 2020, Featured Servers include
- CubeCraft
- Mineplex
- Galaxite
- Lifeboat
- Mineville
- The Hive
Additionally, 4 of the 6 Featured Servers are also available on Minecraft Java Edition.
- CubeCraft
play.cubecraft.net - Mineplex
us.mineplex.com - Mineville
play.mineville.org - The Hive
play.hivemc.com
The majority of these servers proudly advertise the fact that they are “Official Minecraft Partners.”
These are heavily moderated servers that have separate server networks for each edition of Minecraft they support.
(I have a suspicion that CubeCraft Games is using a fork of Geyser (A Minecraft Java Edition plugin allowing players from Minecraft (Bedrock) to connect.), since the server exhibits some signs of the Movement and Skin errors in the current build of Geyser, as well as sharing the same Minigames. Nevertheless, there is no cross-play.)
The wording of the article implies that a ban from a single one of the servers will either flag the user for further investigation or immediately ban the user from all online services, including Realms and possibly external servers. Either way, this puts the user at the mercy of any possibly questionable moderation practices and questionable anti-cheats (Many anti-cheats will ban the user on the first strike, however these bans will almost always have an appeal process.)
Officially, the reasons for a ban include
- hate speech
- sexual content and grooming
- real life threats
- exposing the personal information of others
- posting links to malicious software
- impersonating staff
- cheating/exploits
- general commercial spamming let The page does not mention how severe a rule-breakage must be to constitute a ban or flagging.
According to this page, the bans are non-appealable. If a ban is unjustified, what does this mean? We are yet to know…
The speculation
Warning: Opinions incoming!
This is the change that could irreversibly break multiplayer Minecraft, and I am quite certain it may, under one condition.
I was first informed of this from a xisumavoid video posted on xisumatwo.
While the video was missing detail on what Featured Servers are as well as a few other things, I share opinions with what was stated in the video.
Assuming that changes will only apply to Realms, Featured Servers, and Normal XBL multiplayer in Minecraft (Bedrock), I doubt it will have a big issue in the context of Minecraft (Bedrock) alone, since Online Play can already be restricted via other Microsoft shenanigans.
As for Minecraft Java Edition, the “core” userbase, nothing is said for certain. Based off of what little information we have, I would assume that the Global bans would only apply to Realms and Official Minecraft Partner run (Featured) servers. LAN play and other servers are likely to be unaffected.
(If they were, I am sure that the communities surrounding said other servers would collapse in an instant. Hey! There is that one condition!)
I would assume that moderators on Featured Servers would now have the ability to flag players for banning via a command or a moderation panel.
I would also assume that the partner program would expand with this change.