You may know it: If too many players cavort together in a Minecraft world, the game turns into a slide show at some point. This is mainly due to the fact that the standard server software for Minecraft is limited to one CPU core. Most self-hosted servers therefore have problems managing more than 200 players at the same time.
Several thousand people playing together without lag, so this is hardly possible so far. A new mod should do just that soon!
That’s behind the Mammut project
The mod is called WorldQL / Mammoth and comes from a Minecraft fan named Jackson Roberts, who got bored during the Corona lockdown. Then a new project came to mind: It would be cool if several thousand players could be active on a single server at the same time.
more on the subject
Minecraft – What was left of the building boom
First try: To do this, he first tested the following method: Roberts divided a Minecraft world into several sections, each of which was hosted on its own server. The transitions were synchronized with each other so that, for example, one could ride a horse across the invisible borders. That worked to some extent, but had various weaknesses, for example in mass PvP. Therefore this method was rejected again.
This is how it works now: The world status is stored in a central database: WorldQL. This in turn supplies several servers simultaneously with information, for example about the location of all players – in real time, so that no lags occur. Blocks are also synchronized, so you can build together. This could also benefit huge Minecraft projects like recreating the whole of Middle-earth:
more on the subject
Minecraft Middle-earth after 10 years
Strictly speaking, the players are not all on the same server, but can still play together. The complete architecture of the Mammoth-Mod is a lot more complex than described here. You can do anything about it read here in Robert’s blog.
A Linux version should be released on September 7th or 8th. However, the mod is still being worked on, for example the code is currently being cleaned up.
This is what happens in Minecraft: The big update 1.18 with the second part of Caves & Cliffs is just around the corner. You can already play a first snapshot of it now.
