https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qx1cuxOubo&t
The famous Nether highway system on the oldest Anarchy server in Minecraft is in trouble. On 2b2t, griefers have begun an unorthodox campaign to shut all the roads down using an automated program, and the highway repair groups are doing their best to fight back.
Both groups are on the verge of a full-scale conflict. On many servers, Nether highways are the roads that keep people connected and are the most effective way to travel long distances. This is especially true on 2b2t, which holds the world record for the longest Nether highways ever built in survival Minecraft, going on for millions of blocks. But this massive system is in trouble, and today we’re taking a look at what’s been happening to them, why they are being griefed, how they are being griefed, and what is being done to stop it. I’ll also be logging into the server itself to take a firsthand look at the damage. Since we’re going to be in the Nether today, things are going to get heated, so I hope you’re ready.
To understand why the highways being griefed is such a big deal, you need to understand just how massive they actually are. Despite having zero grief protection, each main access highway goes all the way to 3.7 million blocks in the Nether, which brings you to the world border on the other side of the portals. Their combined length is 14.8 million blocks, or about 15,000 kilometers, almost half the circumference of planet Earth. And that’s only counting the main roads, not even the diagonals or highways to the corners, which would bring the total length even higher. To a griefer, this is very imposing, but recently a campaign has been started against the highways using an automated technique that’s never been seen before.
Let me explain. In the past, there have been griefing attempts on the Nether highways, but none of them really worked. The highway system is notoriously difficult to grief for a few reasons. The first being how durable the roads actually are. back in the day, beds and other explosives were used to destroy the tunnels, but all it took was a single bridge of blocks to make the griefing obsolete1. When obsidian became the main material used to construct roads, withers were used to try and destroy them, but withers can only take out a certain amount of blocks before falling to the Nether floor, and the obsidian can easily be replaced. Cobwebs were actually used at one point to slow players down, but because 2b2t is an Anarchy server where hacking is allowed, they can be walked through at full speed if a player is using no slow hacks. So this was a lot of work for something that would only work on vanilla players. During YouTube invasions, lava walls or other traps were made to stop people, but since God apples are so common, all it takes is one to make these traps useless.
On top of these grief methods, the Nether highway system is one of the few public works projects that has dedicated groups of players repairing them at all times. SIG, or the Spawn Infrastructure Group, is probably one of the most well-known. The group has mainly been responsible for the upkeep of the highway system the past few years. 2b2t’s Nether highway system is a tough nut to crack, but this is where today’s video truly begins.
Enter a griefer named MC Ren, who had a brand new approach to griefing the highways. Over the past year, the server has been going through its automation period, with bots being responsible for constructing massive obsidian structures near spawn. Ren saw how effective these methods were at creating massive objects that were tough to grief, and that’s when it hit him. The highway repair groups have always undone griefs by placing obsidian; they’ve never actually had to remove it. So instead of trying to destroy the highways, what if they were clogged up?
Ren got to work and created a program that automatically placed obsidian in a solid wall as he walked backwards, perfectly fitting the highway’s design. Now, even with efficiency 5 on a diamond pickaxe, it takes 2.2 seconds to mine one block of obsidian, and that’s assuming there’s no lag. Ren’s program places 10 blocks of obsidian per second, so in the time it would take to mine one block, 22 of them can be placed automatically. Block placement is set to one tick per block, with a slight delay in order to prevent the server’s anti-cheat from kicking in. This is the first time in the server’s history where griefing the obsidian highways is actually easier than repairing them. It didn’t take long for others to join Ren in his cause, and soon multiple people were working together to grief the roads. As soon as word got out that the highways were being plugged, the repair groups did what they could to prevent the griefing. One in particular, the IIS, or Independent Interstate Society, began a campaign to directly stop the griefers. Because the highways could be filled in so quickly, it took multiple people working at the same time in order to undo the damage.
This footage is taken from the Milkmaid’s YouTube channel, where we see the members of the IIS constantly racing against the clock in order to stop the griefers. The side highways that run parallel to the main highways were expanded to make travel easier. Haste beacons were set up in order to make mining obsidian even faster, but even with the beacons, it still takes one second to mine a piece of obsidian with efficiency 5, which is still far slower than Ren’s program is capable of placing them. So with a method of griefing this simple, how can they truly be stopped?
After speaking to the griefers themselves, they told me that crystal PvP is the biggest threat, as they have to stop what they are doing and deal with them as they come by. But just in the past week, the server’s admin, Housemaster, has nerfed some of the PvP hacks allowed on the server. Crystal aura is now much slower and harder to kill with, so taking out griefers with crystals will require much more effort. Another thing slowing down the griefers is that they have to occasionally stop and mine E-chests in order to obtain more obsidian, so catching a griefer off-guard while they are mining is another legitimate tactic. But despite the best efforts of the repair groups, the highways continue to be plugged.
So we are going to log in to 2b2t right now to see who is currently winning this griefing war and how the campaign has disrupted travel all across the server. Let’s do this. I’m back on my alt account, KpopBob, so we can head back to spawn to see the damage. Now, before we head there, I want to say if you’re enjoying today’s video and you enjoy 2b2t content, consider hitting that subscribe button. But no pressure, no pressure. Alright, let me organize my inventory and then we’re gonna slash kill all the way back to spawn. Spawn sweet spawn, gotta love the beauty of this destruction. But anyway, I’m gonna turn on my portal tracer hacks to see if we can find another portal. Oh, we have quite the selection to choose from right now, but we’re gonna go with the one that’s topside. So we want to get into the Nether and see the overall damage that’s been caused by this highway war. Let’s do it.
The Nether hub is looking even more destroyed than it normally is, and that’s saying something. It looks like there’s someone trapped in a portal right there, poor them. But there’s a lot of activity in the Nether right now, so we have to be extra careful as we navigate. This new player won’t stop following me. I’m good, must not crystal. I’m gonna play nice, I’m not gonna kill him. He can come along, I just hope he doesn’t get us into trouble. Alright, let’s keep moving. On the early parts of the highway here, it seems like it’s been cleared out. I mean, you can see the remnants of the blockage on the sides of the road. Hold up, oh, we’ve got a repair person up here. Will they let us pass peacefully? Yeah, don’t mind us, we’re just two brand-new players minding our own business. Yep, don’t mind us. That’s… Oh wow, he actually let us pass! That’s awesome, man, these repair people are actually pretty dope. Alright, let’s continue. Hopefully we don’t run into any more trouble farther down the road, but it seems pretty clear. And here we go, some blockage. And now the first part of another highway has been cleared pretty well, but we’ve got the blockage here around 2,000 blocks out. But it looks like they’ve been making some side highways, look at that! So those are brand new Nether highways constructed on the side of the blockage, so the repair groups like the IIS are doing a really good job right now. Alright, let’s continue.
So to explain what’s happening, the repair groups and the griefers are basically insulting each other with wither names, and I can’t even show it to you because it is just some vile, disgusting stuff. Look at all these withers, geez, I guess one was not enough, huh? The blockage is continuing to get worse here, as you can see. So the early parts of the highway were cleared very well, but these later sections are really—they need some work. But there’s a little tunnel here, which is good, but still, if you were elytra-flying, this would be a major inconvenience. Worse, much worse. And we’re still going here. Ooh man, you always gotta stay on your toes, man, they are just going at it with these withers. Man, bet—oh, oh, we got a griefer! That is one of the highway griefers. Oh, but he’s stuck in the tunnel right now. Okay, maybe
Footnotes
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