The History of 2b2t

Hi everyone, this is my first blog post ever on JetPunk. When I first saw that my account had finally turned 6 months old and I could now post blogs, I was thrilled. So for my first blog I'll be writing about a video game I have played for a long time: Minecraft! But I can't really fit everything into one blog, so I have decided to make it about 2b2t since I think it would probably be the best Minecraft thing to blog about.

2b2t is an anarchy server in the video game Minecraft. An anarchy server is a server with no rules or limits, so you can kill, steal and even hack the game however much you want. With this in mind, players began to form social groups with each other, start wars, and turn the spawn area into a desolate wasteland. The map never gets reset, so it will stay in its current condition forever.

In December 2010, a Minecraft player known as Hausemaster launched the 2b2t server, not long after multiplayer mode became available on Minecraft Java Edition. 2b2t is short for "2builders2tools", which is a parody of the name of an old Team Fortress 2 server Hausemaster used to play on. He then advertised the server on several online forum sites, such as 4chan and FacePunch, bringing in several hundered frequent players. The players would go on to build their own bases, some of which became a big part of what 2b2t is known for. At the time, 2b2t would usually only get 50 to 70 players at once. But during 2011, groups of people who arrived from 4chan would band together and fight the people from FacePunch. In response to this, the FacePunch players would form the FacePunch republic, an army of players who built and griefed many notable bases. The spawn area was not safe either, and over time it would get increasingly more destroyed by players and creeper explosions.

The year 2012 had some notable events, a few of them being the End dimension and Wither mob being added. The Withers have been used as tools to grief bases and accelerate the destruction of spawn. In addition, several exploits were created this year, such as one involving pistons to duplicate items and make players rich in resources. The FacePunch Republic, which had built some famous bases like Camp FacePunch and 2k2k dissolved in June 2012.

In 2013 there was an increase in player activity from last year. Former members of the FacePunch Republic would merge with other small groups to form the group Valkyria. Valkyria was led by a player known as Sato86. The group created many bases, such as Fenrir, Asgard II and H####rwood, which contained towers, farms and pixel art. Valkryia was also responsible for the first three Spawn Incursions, where Sato86 and the group would invade and take control of Spawn, killing any intruders or new players on sight. Sato86 claimed he did this "out of boredom".

Also during 2013-2016, there was significant progress made on the highways. In Minecraft, the world is laid out in a 3-dimensional grid, with the Spawn Area being located directely in the centre at 0,0,0. Players would build roads stretching in 8 directions on the horizontal pane. The highways are typically made of obsidian, which is resistant to explosions. The Southern Highway is also a canal filled with water, which has been worked on by the Southern Canal Association over the years. Construction of the Southern Canal began in 2014.

For the first months of 2016, 2b2t's player count had been at an all time low, getting almost 0 players frequently. But in July, something would happen that would change the server forever.

On the 1st of June, 2016, a popular Minecraft Youtuber known as TheCampingRusher would upload a video of himself playing on 2b2t, as it was the oldest server in Minecraft. Immediately, his fans, as well as thousands of new players would join the server, which caused the player count to skyrocket. Rusher then ordered his fans to declare war on the more experienced older 2b2t players. The Rushers would go on to leak the coordinates of many OG bases, opening them up for griefing. FitMC, who was one of the older players, formed Team Veteran to fight back against the Rusher army. They would place lava around spawn, which would make it dangerous for new Rushers joining, discouraging them from staying in the server.

But there were still many Rushers that they weren't able to stop, so Hausemaster stepped in by adding a queue system. From them on the server could only hold a maximum of 100 players at one time. Players that joined the server before a certain date got into a priority "veteran queue", meaning that they would be able to join before everyone else, who were put into the normal queue to wait until a spot became available in the server. The veteran queue was removed next year and replaced with a priority queue, which requires paying 20 U.S dollars a month to access. The queue became hated and controversial, especially since conspiracy theories arose that content creators like Fit and Rusher were being bribed to encourage new players to join the server and buy priority queue.

Eventually, the Rusher war ended, but the player count would never go back to previous levels. The new players quickly built more bases and increased the area of spawn destruction.

During late 2016 to 2017, a player known as Byrnsy would set out on a journey from the world spawn to its border. He travelled along the X+ axis highway, which goes in the east direction, whilst constructing milestone builds along the way. He gained many followers who travelled with him and helped repair and expand the Eastern Highway. Eventually on March 26, 2017, Byrnsy reached the world border, where he built a base known as Point Nemo. He documented his journey on social media, which meant that the coordinates of Point Nemo became public. A few weeks after Point Nemo was constructed, griefers caught up with Byrnsy and griefed the base. Today it is now in ruins with a huge lava pyramid above it.

2018 was a year known for having major duplication glitches discovered, which made players rich and powerful in many items. One such was the Donkey Dupe, where by performing complex actions involving the use of multiple accounts and unloaded chunks, players were able to duplicate donkeys and the chests containing items that were attached to them. 2b2t players had developed their own economy, where players would create shops to trade valuable items with each other, with some of these chronically online players factoring real money into their deals. But since this dupe enabled items to multiply in number, the economy started to crash, with many items becoming worthless as they could be so easily obtained. Hausemaster eventually patched the dupe in September, but it left a huge gash on the market that was difficult to recover from.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread over the world, forcing people to stay in their homes. This made people spend more time on Minecraft, so many people, including popular youtubers with a loyal community like Rusher's joined the server. This increased the player count to similar levels to that of June 2016. Even MrBeast and his friends once joined the server to record a video, but he decided to cancel it after he received severe backlash from the community.

The forthcoming years would also bring some very large community builds such as extension to the highways. FitMC makes documentaries about 2b2t to upload to his youtube channel, which bring light to forgotten parts of the server. He has made videos where he travelled famous highways from start to finish, whilst documenting his journey along the way. This inspired others to travel to the ends of the highways and expand them out of passion.

Throught 2017-2020, 2b2t spawn has been "watercubed" several times, where players would fill spawn with water source blocks in a certain area. This made it hard to grief, because not only was water difficult to survive and travel quickly in, but the water also made explosions much less powerful. The physics of water has made it difficult to remove mass amounts of it, so the spawn watercube still exists to this day. In 2023, a group known as "The Ancients" saw this as an opportunity to host a fun community build event. They encouraged builders to construct aquatic builds in the water cube, which was dubbed "SpawnQuarium". The event lasted from March 10th to 28th, and most of the builds have received minimal griefing since.

Nowadays, even though most older 2b2t players have permanently left the server, it is still very chaotic. New players will still find it difficult to escape spawn, having to rely on rotten flesh and spider eyes for food. Plus, there are dangerous Withers roaming everywhere and the terrain is difficult to traverse. Not only that, but wood is also difficult to find to craft basic tools. You may also encounter players in spawn. Some of them might be friendly and give you items, but others may be on the hunt for new players, so watch out! After you overcome the challenge of escaping spawn, you can set up a base, grief other bases, or do whatever you want. There are no rules on the oldest anarchy server in Minecraft!

As I have said before, this is my first blog post on Jetpunk. I don't have a lot of experience with writing blogs, so if you guys want to give me any feedback, I'd be happy to hear it so that I could improve this blog and my future ones to come. Thanks for reading!

FitMC - YouTube - He has very good 2b2t documentary videos, you should go watch them if you're interested!

Timeline - 2b2t Wiki

2b2t - Wikipedia (images only)