ShardMC — Getting Started: Everything You Need to Know

So, uh, what ShardMC is, exactly?

Well, ShardMC is a Minecraft server core. But some people prefer to call it server software. You see, there is one thing that differentiate ShardMC with other Minecraft server software, and it’s customization!

How is it different from Bukkit (Spigot, Paper and so on)?

Sure-ly, you can use plugins on Bukkit (Spigot, Paper and so on), but they don’t allow you and the developers of those plugins to actually add code to the server. Yep, if you’re unfamiliar with plugin development: it’s like this. All the developers of plugins get is a way to access hidden variables and attach instructions to some specific events, that are pre-defined by Bukkit (Spigot, Paper and so on).

But how is it different from Mod Loaders (Fabric, Quilt and so on)?

You see, while Mod Loaders (Fabric, Quilt and so on) has a wonderful community, but most of the mods are targeted for enhancing client-side (which means that only player has to have that mod, but it’s optional) experience, and the other ones are common-side (which means that players and server has to have these mods installed). Though Mod Loaders (Fabric, Quilt and so on) provide a wonderful support for Mixins, which allow the developers to actually modify the code on the fly!

You still haven’t answered my questions.

Let me wrap it up. While Mod Loaders (Fabric, Quilt and so on) have great support for modifying the game’s code, they lack all the plugins and cool stuff that Bukkit (Spigot, Paper and so on) have! But Bukkit (Spigot, Paper and so on) lacks the way to do all these awesome things, which limit the developers and make them to use so-called crotches: parts of code that are very, very wack, “but I mean, it works”… for the cost of server’s performance of course…

A-a-a-nd? ShardMC also has “plugins” or “mods”, they are called “modules”, right?

Yeah, but the major difference, is that modules are targeted for server-side only code (players can join with vanilla Minecraft!) and they allow the developers to modify the server code on the fly, like Mod Loaders (Fabric, Quilt and so on) do!

But… how many modules are there and how many plugins are there? Are you going to make them all modules?

Nope, we have something better! Remember, how I said that we can modify the code of the server on the fly? That means that you can, for example, use Spigot and Fabric at the same time!

Wow! But… my computer’s fan already turns into a helicopter when I start a server with just few plugins!

That’s the neat part: we optimized everything as good as we could! So everything should run almost the same as if you were running a regular Minecraft server!